Dear  miyoid:

First thing, it never happened to me before, that I remember, that I dreamt of a tiny buddha member, but I did last night, and it was you! It felt so real: I flew to the country where you live, was in an apartment building, in an apartment and heard your voice, figuring: oh, this is how miyoid sounds like. It was not a gentle, quiet voice- it was a strong, solid voice. And then I saw you, your face was similar to the photo by your screen name, the hair, similar features, but different, tougher than in the photo. Your mannerism was also not that of a shy woman, but .. again, a tough woman, one who is not afraid to make noise and confront people and situations. I saw the young man you are living with, he looked handsome and well-groomed, and I was surprised, in the dream, having expected him to look unkept and visibly disturbed.

And now, to real life: the young man you are living with is and has been mentally unwell for a long, long time. He suffers from (1) obsessive thinking (in regard to you, he obsesses about your past relationships), and compulsive behaviors (checking your phone/ computer records for past communications with men, having to tell you every thought that crosses his mind), (2) emotional and behavioral instability and unpredictability, a lack of self-regulation and control: he tells you that he loves you and he repeatedly wants to break up with you, he flirted with another woman and had her in your home when you were at work; he feels guilty of harming you emotionally, and yet he continues to say and do things that hurt your feelings,  and as you stated: “a single word can change his mood enormously”! (3) suicidal feelings (“wants to be dead almost every second”, you wrote at one point) and behaviors, having repeatedly made suicidal gestures, and was hospitalized following a suicidal attempt, (4) he is not under psychiatric/ psychotherapeutic care.

On your part, you refer to this very-unwell man your support, and you feel that you “desperately need this support to stay alive”. Without what you perceive as this support/ this young man, you feel devastated, “burnt out… empty, shocked”, not having “the strength to do anything.. weak, too weak… I can only try to continue stay alive”, and you cry a lot.

Regarding other men in your past, before this one, you wrote in June 2019: “I pick whomever that I can get affection from. I crave affection, not the person… my anxiety appears when I don’t get that affection”, “Between the relationships, there was always suffering, mental breakdowns. I simply didn’t want to continue my life in those moments”.

I will close with these thoughts: what if you are tough, like the miyoid in my dream, but you don’t know it yet. What if you don’t have to remain the same scared little girl, and the tough woman takes charge?

anita