Dear Rhaenys:

I am glad you plan on going to the beach and hope you have fun. This will be a long post that includes my best understanding at this point, putting together all the communication in your thread:

“I live with my mother and brother now, and I do feel there is love and calmness now at home. I don’t feel like something is in the air, but more, like it’s in me”-

– That something, you wrote, “it was more like… sadness, emptiness was creeping in the air. Loneliness maybe”.

Earlier, on page 1, you wrote about your recent relationship: “Next year was a paradise. It was such a magic being with him, we were really in love and enjoyed each other. I admit I was scared a lot first six months.. but he was a lot into me, really good and I started feeling better”-

– interesting how you stated that year was paradise but then clarified that during half of that year, you were “scared a lot”- that’s not paradise, being scared a lot. Later in the year, you felt better. Reads to me that during that year you were anxious a lot, then felt better, and had lots of paradise moments in it.

As we look back in time, especially as we remember our childhoods, we tend to forget the fear that is associate with aggression in the family (aggression that is not necessarily violent, as in physical beatings, it can be words, tone and volume of  voice, facial expressions, etc.).

You wrote yesterday about what was in the air when you were a child: “I don’t think I would describe I felt that much aggression when I was a child.. When you say aggression was in the air, somehow I don’t feel like that’s it… My mom and dad did fight”- if they fought, then there was aggression in the air. But we tend to forget the fear and aggression that we felt as children. (Similar to you forgetting for a moment that for half a year in your recent relationship, you were scared).

The “sadness, emptiness.. creeping in the air” is what we feel when we push the fear away from our awareness best we can, disassociating- we are left with sadness. Sadness is much more tolerable than fear, it is way easier to be aware of sadness than it is to be aware of fear.

It seems to me that the reason you had boyfriends who were younger than you, particularly the most recent who was 23 when you were 31 (almost a decade age difference is very significant when one is in his early 20s, a college student living with his parents, liking to party and hang out with friends late at nights, and the other is in her early 30s), and the reason you proceeded with long term relationship with the two men who told you throughout the relationships that they are not interested in anything serious, is because a big part of you, the scared part of you,  didn’t want anything serious either.

You wrote it yourself: “I chose partners that were not emotionally mature, and were not ready for next steps in relationships (meeting parents, living together, they wanted just to go  out and hang out- especially my longer relationships. The last boyfriend was young, and he wanted to finish college and go  out until late”.

You wrote regarding the last boyfriend, the 23 year old college student: “I realized I wanted more serious relationship but he was not ready for it”- neither were you ready for it because you are scared of a serious relationship.

“After little less than 1 year after meeting him, last summer I started going cold a bit.. I didn’t understand why I fell out of love, and he was still much in love and good to me”- I think that you fell  out of love because he was still good to you and you were afraid that you will end up in a serious relationship with him.

When a boyfriend gets cold/ distant toward you, that’s when you feel safe enough to pursue him: “I tend to try more when I feel my partner is getting distant. Like it’s a trigger for me… I also started the future talk in a period when things started going bad, and he grow colder”. (I imagine if you pursue a distant boyfriend and he turns warm toward you and remain warm and close for a long time, then it would be your turn to get cold).

Here is the evidence of your fear, of the scared part of you: “I couldn’t be alone… I had a kind of panic attack… I can’t sleep much and I wake up every day at 4:30 am with a pain in my chest.. I even had sleep problems at the beginning of new relationship because of my fear of being hurt again”.

You mentioned that you suffer from elevated TSH (Thyroid Stimulating Hormone)  levels. womenshealthnetwork. com/ adrenal fatigue and stress/ is stress affecting your thyroid, reads: “Research shows that stress-related adrenal imbalance is often connected to a low thyroid problem. Here’s why: * The same parts of your brain control both your adrenal and thyroid hormones. * Your adrenal and thyroid hormone ‘feedback loops’ interact. * Cortisol- a key adrenal hormone- and thyroid hormones work together to form your stress response… You can see why it makes sense that when one set of hormones signals is disrupted, chances are higher that the other will be disrupted too, especially if constant stress is involved.

“Thyroid symptoms caused by stress: fatigue, sluggishness, cold intolerance, weight gain, memory loss, poor concentration, depression, infertility, hair loss.”

anita