Dear Anita,

I’ve read the page on wikiHow and there is a part that got me thinking. Exposure Therapy. It says that we should practise staying away from our loved ones. Right now, there is just one person that I’m afraid of losing and I’m constantly being exposed and then something happens and then we get together again. For example, he just texted me that he wants to stay alone for some time, and told me to take care of myself. That was it. So this can also be a goodbye message, but he can also text me again hours later or days later. He has never left me without any communication over 12 hours, he always wanted to know if I was doing okay or he wanted to stay in contact. He always wanted to make me feel safe and okay, no matter what happened. My point is, I am now away from the only person I can feel safe with and how am I supposed to practise this when I’m constantly being triggered? I guess I just have to learn it the hard way. In the past, I’ve never felt safe with anybody. The former relationships I’ve had never made me safe as he did, the people always behaved in a way that I would feel triggered by this fear. The first boyfriend always talked about some other behaviors from other girls he’d like, he made me insecure about lots of things and he used to break up with me a lot, so I got used to feeling triggered all the time. Then the second one was having affairs all the time and I used to feel that, but I had no proof whatsoever. But with him, I was able to feel safe for one year. But since that year was over, he started to get depressive more and he also started to trigger my fear.

I don’t know if he would leave me for good this time, but I know that I would be triggered again and again since those safe times are over now. He was depressive again, I’ve tried to make him feel good but it just doesn’t work. He feels alone, even when I’m trying to help him. I guess he wants me to connect more, understand more but I’m nowhere near empathic as him. I’ve got another online appointment with a psychiatrist during my breakdown days ago, but I’ll have to wait for 40 days.

I don’t know what will happen. I guess I’ll be doing my yoga practice with lots of crying today.

Dear TeaK,

It’s kind of a reverse of what was happening when you were a baby.

It’s interesting that you’ve noticed this, and the fact that I’ve mentioned these two reverse feelings/scenes. Maybe it’s related, I’m not sure. But I can accept that I felt safe enjoying my time on the computer when my mom was sleeping in the next room. The same thing happened with this boyfriend of mine. When we were staying together, he used to sleep in my bed or in another bed in another room, and I felt so safe knowing that he sleeps peacefully. If I knew that he sleeps right now, at his own house kind of away from me, with the info that he is still with me and he’ll be okay, I guess I would feel safe again.

It’s weird that everybody that I’ve cared for or tried to felt safe with has this one common thing. They all triggered my fear of abandonment sooner or later with their behavior. Bus terminals, roads, and airports have always made me upset. The concept of leaving someone, someplace, or even some object has always made me upset. I don’t want to be narrow-minded or I don’t want to diagnose myself ignorantly but this can also be about the Anal-retentive personality Freud talks about. I have just one story about wetting myself in the night and I guess that was years and years ago when I was a little child. And from what my mom has told me, I’ve got up, realized that I’ve wet myself and then I’ve got angry with myself and ranted to myself asking over and over “What you’ve done!?”. I don’t remember how my mom treated me during the toilet training. I don’t remember any harsh treatment but as this phenomenon explains, the treatment during the toilet training has huge effects on the psychology of the child. If it’s harsh including getting mad or not corresponding well to wetting oneself, then the child may have problems letting go of both people and their stool resulting in chronic constipation. I don’t want to find excuses for my inability to let go or feel neutral when I am alone mentally, but I guess I’m just trying to expand my comprehension.

While I was writing all these, he texted me again reproaching me about how we couldn’t understand his misery. We, as the people he’s surrounded by. Maybe that’s right. I just couldn’t understand him but I am here, trying to stay in his life cause I feel like I have no other way than this to feel neutral, good again. Maybe I’m just seeing the situation from my viewpoint, with my triggers and fears unable to understand his misery and this behavior only makes it worse for him. I just want us to endure life together, I know that life is hard and trying to endure is one thing everybody tries to do. You just try to endure the bad days, and then you try to make it better and better. But I guess he just wants to give up and he wants to do it alone. The fact that I don’t accept him giving up is the indicator of me not understanding or hearing him.