Dear J:

Good to read from you again, glad every time I get a post from you. Thank you for your encouragement regarding me waiting relaxed vs. waiting anxiously during this pandemic lockdown.

1. “I’ve just been feeling very unstable, like I’m on shaky ground. And I don’t know why”-

The why is in what you wrote March 6 2019: “My mother was a verbal abuser.. her presence and energy were enough to make us always walk on eggshells”, and April 11, 2020: “I’m living with my mother during this pandemic.. She likes to be angry and play the victim, even now… I was never allowed to show anything besides positive emotions.. What I’m trying to say is that here I am in my abuser’s home during covid-19, on the east coast, and I feel trapped again”-

– you were afraid of your mother as a child and you still are afraid of her. But when a person lives with the person who scares them since childhood, the child adapts and feels fine with that person as  much as possible, even forgetting being afraid of her. But the fear doesn’t go away, it goes in, causing trouble in the inside. There is a high cost to feeling as fine as possible with the person that scares us.

2. Regarding Loneliness, C and E: April 6, more than a year ago, you wrote: “One of the major feelings, in addition to depression and anxiety, has been acute loneliness. And this is sometimes lifted, but rarely”.

Yesterday you wrote: “I have been having these intense feelings of loneliness… this loneliness is causing me to think of reaching out to .. E”.

This is what I figure: your mother felt comfortable to express all her feelings (“She likes to be angry and play the victim”), but she never allowed you to show anything besides positive emotions (“I was never allowed to show anything besides positive emotions”). As a result you feel this acute loneliness, separated from all those emotions you are not allowed to show. So, “On the surface life is good”, but underneath- life is not so good.

The guy for you is the one that does or will accept and encourage you to show all your feelings, including the ones you referred to as negative feelings: anger and hurt, the feeling of being a victim (and you are your mother’s victim). The guy who is able and willing to go under the surface with you is the guy for you.

You did tell C that you are lonely. Did you share more with him, did you tell him about your mother, and if you did, what was his response?

anita