Dear Lily:

I re-read through your posts in other threads for hours today. This will be a first post of two.  I will post a second post tomorrow.

A couple of general observations: (1) I read again and again how calming and refreshing it is for you to walk in the countryside, by the river, collecting herbs, being out in nature- I wish you could do more of this, but I know that it is difficult to get out during winter time. (2) I don’t think that any person likes to be criticized, but some are more negatively affected by criticism than others, and you and I belong to the group  more easily harmed by criticism. Therefore, when I post to you, I need to keep this in mind. I have no desire to criticize you and I know that if I did, it will be most unhelpful to you. My goal is to never criticize you.

* In four days it will be Christmas 2020, and you plan to not visiting your parents. On December 25, Christmas of 2018, you posted: “I’m visiting my parents.. My sister said she always gets depressed when coming home. Now I’m feeling also a little depressed”- I hope this makes you feel better about not being there this Christmas.

On that day, you wrote about your 2019 New Year objectives: “For the new year hope that I can value myself more and not let others take advantage of me or disrespect me. I rather want to take better care of myself”- and you have made lots of progress in this regard, more to be made. I hope that even when you are anxious and feeling lonely, that you remember that you had made progress, and aim at making more progress.

* You most recently mentioned K again, thinking about him and feeling stress. My understanding, following my hours of reading today, is that you have been thinking/ obsessing about him yet again because, like you suggested, you are lonely. You are a human being and humans are social animals; we are people who need people, just like the song says. I understand that people also drain you, and lots of conflict, awkwardness and distress accompany many social interactions for you- but it doesn’t change the fact that you are human, and therefore, you need people.

I know that K was and is wrong for you, but.. there were some pleasant moments there for you, some much needed affectionate touch and a few much needed affectionate words- so you miss the touch and the words. Before him, at times,  you missed the dormitory man, because even with him, there was some touch that felt good. These two men- one clearly abusive, rude and crude, and the other inattentive and disrespected-  are the only closer experiences you had with men, therefore you missed them both at one time or another.

You grew up with hardly any affectionate touch/ affectionate verbal expressions, so you miss the little affection that you did experience with these two men.

Regarding K, I hope that you will spend less time thinking about him, miss him less, and feel calmer when you read some of what you posted before in regard to him: “he often takes phone calls and talks to the callers for a few minutes, while we meet. Or he looks at this smartphone…he is always very busy, so that I don’t know if there was room for me in his life… he doesn’t contact me often or tell me much about what is going on in his life. He is always busy with his work, studies, family and friends… I feel like I’m only getting crumbs of his attention… He doesn’t show much interest… He doesn’t really have time for me… he also leaves during a text message conversation without saying goodbye” (October 2018).

“My friend said, that it doesn’t make sense that he really doesn’t have time to call or text me. Because when he was with me, he was always on the phone, talking to someone else. One time, he even called someone, after texting with them on his smartphone while we were eating out. He didn’t ask me a lot of questions, didn’t seem to want to know more about my life. He never had much time for me.. he wanted casual sex, but he also wanted to appear like a good person. During that phone call he acted like I was unreasonable for asking more of his time. He acted like he was too busy” (January 2019).

“Just in the past months, what happened with K just stressed me a lot and weakened me… I never was part of his everyday life” (March 2019). “I want to leave the story with K behind me, finally” (May 2019).

“After this new communication with him it was more clear than ever that we don’t fit together. How he doesn’t respond, if I write a long message and all that. It was always like that, I was trying to explain myself, but no real response! It was so frustrating… I should better not try to get into a mental discourse with him. It is a waste of my time! I only get responses like ‘O.K. for your message… I can see why it did not work, I can see that he is not responding to what I am telling him at all'” (August 2020).

Second post- tomorrow.

anita

• This reply was modified 3 years, 11 months ago by .