Dear blkhwkdwn1:

I feel that I woke up and found a treasure, reading your long, valuable post from yesterday. There is so much in it. It is as if you intentionally reciprocated the hours it took me to put together my recent post to you. I didn’t expect this return, and it makes me feel affection for you.

First I will give you what I understand at this point, based on your recent post (and everything before), I’ll state it as simply as possible:

A child needs his parent or parents (whomever is in the home where the child grows up) to communicate to the child something like the following, with a warm smile, with affection, a gentle touch: I am so happy you are here! So happy you are in my life;  You make my life better; I like you and I want you to be happy too. I want you to be free to explore and look elsewhere for interesting things.

You didn’t receive this kind of communication when you were a child. The words you heard from your father weren’t positive and affectionate words. Instead of affection, there was yelling and a hateful facial expression, wasn’t there? And what he said to you was something like this:  I am so unhappy you are here! I don’t like you! You are not good enough; you are worthless, I wish you were not here!

It is impossible for a child in the second scenario (your real-life experience) to be a happy child and to  grow into a happy adult. The parent’s words stick, and the yelling and facial expressions make the words stick harder. The child automatically have his parent’s voice in his brain, repeating the same messages throughout childhood and adulthood, over and over and over again.

Here is how it feels to have a parent’s words replay in the brain for over three decades (as negative experiences are added throughout adult life, the results of poor choices and dysfunction based on those negative messages of childhood): “I am tired of feeling this feeling all throughout my body. I am tired of sleeping but always feeling like I have not slept, I am tired of always crying, I am tired of my life and all of my failures too that I am not good enough, that I feel worthless and the world is better place without me in it” (from your recent post).

Now, please pay attention, this woman whom you got closer to at 32,  what messages did she give you:

1. After spending a day with you summer 2016, “she said it was a good day on her FB.. Then she messages me she NEVER posts personal stuff on her wall (even now), so obviously she was really into that day with me”- unlike any of your parents, her message was: you made me happy (that day), I like you, I am glad you are in my life! You looked for her sincerity and you found it in the fact that she really doesn’t post personal stuff on her wall. You figure: she really did like me, she really did enjoy her time with me!

This is a very different message than what you received as a child, the opposite message.

2. During a phone conversation with her, “Her voice went low and told me nobody tells her that and that I am such a great guy (and she doesn’t like males that much)”. Again, she gave you the opposite message that you received as a child: I like you! I value you! And you figure, she really values me because even though she doesn’t like males that much, and I am a male, she likes me!

Remember how I wrote that your father’s yelling and hateful facial expressions made his words stick hard to your young brain? Her voice going low was her emotion that made her words stick hard. Her words and emotion excited your brain, which is not used to such a message.

3. When you told her that you want her to be free, “she was like ‘You want me to be free?’ in a choked up way”- again, the choked up way she said it is her emotion that made her message stick, and that message was that she valued what you told her (that you want her to be free), and that means, she valued you.

4. Still, in a phone conversation, “then I said ‘goodbye’ after like a 10 second silence (we had a moment, clearly)”- you felt that she had a positive emotion for you, affection, appreciation, something of the kind, during that silence.

In summary: her message to you via her words and emotions was very different from the message you received as a child. Unlike any of your parents, she liked you, expressed that she liked and valued you through words and emotion, was never rude or cruel to you.. and her hugs helped too…  understandably,  you got hooked.

Her messages were intoxicating, naturally you wanted more of it, and you were very sensitive early on to losing her and her messages, hyper aware of changes in her texting to you, in what and how she said what, so aware of anything and everything about the communication between the two of you, that you were aware of the few seconds between “goodbye” and the clicking of the phone: “now when it’s time to say goodbye that’s it.. no waiting, no staying on longer. It’s just ‘click'”.

What she communicated to you, you communicated back to her: “I still tell her straight up how I feel like when I say ‘I am proud of you’, or ‘All I want is you to be happy’.. I want her to be ‘free'”- you gave her all the messages you wish you got as a child, but did not.

“when I feel close my ‘feelings’ went away and it was like we were just great friends, no crazy feelings that only happen when I don’t feel close and start chasing although I still went crazy in here”-

– what you experienced with this woman is the exciting I-can’t-believe-it feelings of finally receiving the positive messages you so desperately needed as a child. But because the messages you did receive as a child were the opposite, you .. couldn’t believe her messages and you were very anxious you were about to lose them at any time, looking for signs that you already lost them, or that you are just about to, and that anxiety and obsession is that “crazy feelings” you mentioned.

Please take your time before you respond to this post because there is a lot in it. It is not too late for you to experience a better life than the one. We can- if you wish- communicate further about how to make it happen.

anita