Dear Anna:

You wrote that when you were a child your mother caused you to feel that “no matter how good I am, I am never good enough. I would get A’s and she wouldn’t be satisfied and would give me an example of someone else who did something better”-

–  that someone else who “did something better” is the girlfriend that your boyfriend chose to replace you with. When your mother criticized you and compared you so someone better than you, she instilled  in you a great hurt for not being good enough, and a terrible jealousy for whomever it was that she thought was better than you.

Fast forward, you are now focused and obsessed with that current someone who is “everything he wanted, while I was a work in progress.. She practices yoga, is slimmer and more elastic than me, funnier..”.

You wrote regarding your parents: “I never felt like they were giving the attention to someone else, because they didn’t”- when your mother compared you to other girls your age, pointing to you that you are not being good enough, but the other girl is good enough, in those comments, she gave you negative attention/ disapproval and she gave her positive attention/ approval.

“I also never felt jealous at other girls for getting attention from their parents or having something I didn’t”- you felt jealous at other girls for getting, not their mother’s attention, but your mother’s attention (her approval of the other girls vs her disapproval of you). The other girls had something you didn’t have: your mother’s approval as being good enough.

You wrote more, but I want to pause here and get your reaction to what I wrote so far.

anita