Anita, I don’t have an issue with you posting, I just felt that the tone of your latest post was a little different.

“I believe that this medium here can not be helpful enough for you, if at all, and that you need professional, quality psychotherapy as soon possible.” I mean there may be issues that I struggle with, but I am always trying to work on them and I have been to therapy in the past. I’m not ruling it out in the future, but it is expensive and inaccessible for me on my limited income at this time. I also don’t feel that it is absolutely imperative for me and that without it I will be unable to do any work on my own. Even with the guidance of a therapist, I still need to be the one to do the work, to face the hard stuff, break my habits and thoughts that no longer serve me well. Mental health and mental health discoveries I see as a journey, not a destination. None of us will ever be fully healed enough, suddenly ready for a healthy relationship. I think that as long as two people are trying to work on themselves that there can be intersections of understanding and the rest can continue to be worked on in therapy. This medium has been extremely helpful, but I tend to use it at times when I struggle, looking for reminders on how to achieve equilibrium again. I am not incapable for developing my own insight or taking in the perspectives that are presented here. They’re just all different and some resonate and some don’t. It just depends.

You also said “Your denial includes denying to yourself (and to others) your state of mind, misrepresenting yourself as calm and collected, unattached and not at all desperate, zen-like, meditative, calm and serene”. There are times where I definitely become anxious again, but it is definitely not my dominant state, and my friends who know me in real life would vouch for this. I am described as being calm, taking things as they come. No I am not always collected or unattached. At times I get downright mad and way too wrapped up in a situation, like I have been recently. Usually when I am trying too hard to strive for security which doesn’t seem to really exist. That is one of my issues, trying to secure something, and so I will push for insight into the future, to ease the anxiety. We’ve talked about this, OCD, easing anxiety etc. It’s hard when I’m facing someone who is so ambivalent, it makes me forget what I know, or feel that I know. It’s also hard when I’m taking in all of this info on here, and forgetting to check with how it is that I’m feeling. I had a breakup in the past where my boyfriend told me he didn’t love me and we were living together and he wanted to separate. I cried for two weeks and couldn’t image my life without him. That’s probably the first time that I found meditation and found some version of my centre. When I finally cleared out his voice and all of the doubt I had about my worthiness, when I started to get over the initial shock and make plans again for my future, I started to see things differently. They seemed so clear, and it had nothing to do with wishful thinking or denial, it was just a sort of voice that said he was lost and he didn’t know how to express that. That he needed to sort through some things, and then he would come back with a new perspective. My family told me I was crazy and that I needed to move on and yet I wasn’t trying to hold on. I was still planning to move out and pursue my own path. I felt very calm about everything. Eventually I might’ve said to him “okay, you do what you need to do, but I don’t fully believe your words”. He was adamant but so was my voice, that this breakup wouldn’t last. I didn’t feel he was meant to be gone from my life at that point, but I did nothing to hold onto it. A month or two later he wrote me an extremely long letter about how he’d been hurting and needing to deal with his internal wounds, etc. and that he was starting to do that now and felt that we could have a completely different relationship if we tried. He’d put all these expectations on me that were expectations he held for himself and it was unfair to do that to me. We were together for 2.5 more years until the depression really got the best of him and he wasn’t really trying to work on himself.

Sometimes people from the outside can see things that I can’t or won’t, but there is also something to be said about the connection between two people, and the feeling one might have about the outcome of it. There are so many little intricacies that just can’t be viewed from the outside. I have my own unique view and perspective about what I feel about us, and while I respect his, I feel that some of it is clouded. That may or may not end up being about me being in denial about our true fate, but I have had strong convictions in the past about relationships before, and sometimes it all defies logic and psychology etc. Just a simple voice telling me that something will transpire or that words don’t feel true. And believe me at times I wish those feelings weren’t there. I want to take what he is saying at face value. I’ve been through too many relationships that were not right, to hold onto another just to ease the fear of being alone. It’s a scary thought, but I don’t want to be with anyone who isn’t really wanting to be with me. I do always at least come back to that.

Today I saw that he’d been looking into therapy online as he left his computer open. So maybe there is hope for him to do that yet. Maybe he’s been considering it more since our discussion.

Anyways,  “I am sure that your father was at times kind in various ways, but he couldn’t have been “extremely emotionally available” to you, as in one who gave you adequate emotional validation and support, because there is no evidence of it in what you shared about your life experience so far. I believe that you magnified his moments of kindness (see Magnifications,  above), which is what children do because they need to feel safe and loved. If he was adequately emotionally resourceful and available to you, you wouldn’t have had the strong motivation to help him with his issues. Instead, he would have helped you with your issues.”

I have to say unfortunately that you are wrong here, and I have definitely not remembered my dad with any sort of tinted glasses or magnifications. I remember my dad with all of his faults, but he was very emotionally available. Travelling to visit me at school in a different city, meeting me for coffee just to talk. Him and my mom separated early and he wanted me to know he was going to be there. He was kind and loving with me. No doubt. He was not that way with my brother, but that’s a different story.  I believe the desire to help him stemmed from the fact that at some point he couldn’t help himself anymore (physical ailments) and no one else was willing to help. I also wanted to help him with the depression and ocd at an early age, because his apartment was filthy and I hated going there due to the environment. So most of our discussions revolved around that and trying to help him keep it clean. I enjoyed when we’d go out, but the apartment was so dirty that it made me uncomfortable. I truly don’t  believe my desire to help him stemmed in any way from him being emotionally unavailable. He just was not that parent. But I could see how that may fit for someone else.

As far as my cognitive distortions go. I think at times everyone suffers from some of the ones you mentioned. Cherry picking information when we’re hopeful about a relationship, magnifying and minimizing things etc. I don’t feel that that means that I make believe good things in the relationship, just so that I can feel good. The main issue that I’ve had with this relationship is that there have been so many moments of true joy and love, that it’s hard to meet the contrast of that with words of doubt and rejection. It’s not that I refuse to accept anything he’s said as true. I want to take him at face value as best I can. This is where he is at this moment in time, but I also know that people evolve and change as he has in so many ways, and it definitely does not devalue the true moments we have shared, as something I’ve constructed as a way to bolster the bad times. If I were to bet money on this relationship I’d probably bet a good amount, because my overall feeling about it has been good, my experience of it is good, but there are moments where he has doubt and this creates anxiety for me. I don’t feel that I fool myself when it comes to whether something is working or not. If he truly bowed out and wanted that, I’d respect it and I’d realize that it wouldn’t work with just me alone, but at this point he’s making statements he does not back up with action, so it makes it hard to just take him at his word without any further consideration of the experience we’ve had. Like I said other men have said they don’t feel it with me, and it just made sense. And I would say they held just as much stock in the healing emotional wounds department as this current one does. I just don’t feel that it adds up, but I truly don’t want to hold onto him just for the sake of having someone. If he’s not really in it it would show, and I wouldn’t really have him in the relationship either.

“– the guy is multi-dimensional: he suffers from OCD and perhaps from depression, and he fears commitment and he is confined by his fear and he is dishonest, self-serving and selfish.” Is it possible that he suffers from all those things, and that he is aware of some of them, feels guilty, but is not trying to be dishonest, and is selfish in that our relationship does make him feel good and it is why he continues it. That perhaps its not about just serving himself until he can decide I’m not longer needed, that perhaps he just truly does not know what the future holds and the fears he have are constantly making him question whether he will disappoint/be disappointed. I feel like he’d put in a lot less effort if he was just using me for now. I don’t think he would be having hearts to hearts with his friends about us either. It’s just not like him to do those things for someone he only truly sees as temporary. But that’s my view from the inside, based on what I know about him. Time will do the talking, years will do the walking, time will tell you baby, what you can’t hear now.