Dear Ashmitha,

you’re welcome, and thank you for sharing some more. You did well to become strong and resilient while growing up, to fight rather than flee, to work hard and excel in your studies, rather than become disillusioned and self-destructive. Your self-preservation instincts were excellent and you got out of your precarious childhood as a strong, independent woman. Congratulations for that! The only thing that suffered as a collateral damage is your emotional side – your ability to be emotionally open and vulnerable with another person.

Perhaps what could help a little bit is to tell yourself that you don’t have to be in the survival mode any more, that you’re safe and there’s no one pointing a knife at you or your mother (have your parents divorced in the meanwhile? has your father stopped threatening your mother?).

If you know you’re physically and existentially safe, you could relax a little, which could be as simple as laying down on a carpet, or lean against the wall, and allow the ground, or the wall, to take your weight. You don’t need to hold so much any more – you can allow yourself to be held (put a cushion if you lean against the wall to make it more comfy 🙂 ). And just breathe and relax.

You can also make a habit of getting on the call each evening with your boyfriend and asking him how was his day, and also share about your day. That’s the chance to talk about any dilemmas, or worries you might have, or simply “to talk about feelings and experiences and just understanding people” – which you said you’d love to do.

So I believe if you make the space for mutual sharing, every day at a convenient time, you’ll start building that intimacy, that emotional bond between you. Do you think it’s something you could try?