Hi anita,

Totally. I come from a very nice family, we are very close but my dad has been the source of a very large amount of stress for me and everyone in the family. He is very controlling, judgmental and has repressed us a lot, tho of course he is also very loving in his own way. I have reflected a lot on how my family life has affected the way I am now and I can see the correlation. I am a people pleaser because of it, I pretend everything is always okay and have trouble showing my flaws unless I feel very down.

We also moved a lot, about every 3 years, so apart from my family I never had much stability.

What I am going through now is quite a lot of anxiety. I am trying not to care about this guy not giving me the attention I want, and I try to take my mind of it by eating (I am an emotional eater) and drinking quite a lot of alcohol (which I always brush off as I am young etc.) but I see how these patterns might not be helping me deal with things. If I do not have a guy interested in me, I wake up without much interest in the day and I do not feel like I have much to look forward to…I know its stupid but it is just a feeling I cannot avoid. I recently deleted a dating app that I was using because it felt a little dangerous to have a constant stream of interested guys talking to me, it was disensitizing me a little bit and also felt a little like a drug. I feel fine as long as I have at least one guy interested in me, and when I don’t, I feel a little empty.