Dear miyoid:

I re-read a lot of our communication on this thread this morning, and I don’t want to repeat what I already wrote in many essay-like posts. I want to write more simply to you today, and I will try:

Two days ago, July 4, you wrote: “I.. want to get free from this jail”. I then suggested to you, by mistake, that you and your boyfriend are in a jail cell. You corrected me, saying: “he’s not even with me in the jail. I’m here all alone”-

I think that what’s keeping you alone in this jail cell is fear, and fear is the reason behind your arrested development, meaning, behind you being a 23 year old woman stuck/ imprisoned in the emotional brain of a 3 year old.

When you really were a 3-year old girl, and onward, you suffered from a severe lack of consistent loving attention, for too long.

For a child, a consistent-enough loving attention is like a solid ground that makes it possible for the child to stand up and walk around. A severely inconsistent loving attention is like a very shaky ground, making it too scary for the child to stand up and walk around for fear of falling down.

When you were a child, to avoid falling down, you stayed down most of the time (if one doesn’t stand up- one doesn’t fall). Mostly, you did not go out and about, socializing with children your age, which would have required you to stand up, walk and run. Instead you spend many, many hours sitting in front of the computer.

As a very young adult, in your relationships with men- you stayed down as well by enduring any and all of their misbehaviors, including your current boyfriend’s misbehaviors, never standing up and walking out (“they kinda did everything they wanted and let me go when they got bored”, June 2019).

In Oct 2020, you wrote about your childhood: “there were rare moments like the ones I’ve mention that I can call peaceful and happy. But other than that, my childhood was 90% depressed..  I thought I would be loved someday”- 90% of the time you were down/ depressed, but you hoped that some day, the ground underneath you will stop shaking, and you will be able to stand up, walk around.. maybe even run.

About that childhood hope and what happened to that hope, you wrote back then: “Even though I was depressed, I could motivate myself from time to time to hold on, study, and get better. Because I thought it can get better once I get to a good university, then.. I’ll find someone to be companions with each other and I’ll feel safe, eventually. All of these happened, the university has come to an end as well. But that mental abyss kept growing”-

– Notice, you wrote that when you were a child, you were able to motivate yourself to hold  on, as in trying to stand on shaky ground, or a ground that may start shaking at any time, by holding on to a wall, or holding on to a heavy piece of furniture and use it to stand up and do what you needed to do: study, hoping that if you study well, you will finally be able to stand on solid ground.

But.. it didn’t work out and your hope has lessened and lessened- that’s the mental abyss you mentioned, seems to me: the lack of hope.

In April 2o21, you wrote: “I realized that all this stuff I thought I loved, I just love the outcome. For example, I thought I loved drawing, designing, handling business, communication, interpreting, video-editing, reading, languages. But I’ve realized, I don’t like the process of doing those… I just wanted outcomes, not processes”-

– The process requires standing up and walking around for too long, which is too dangerous when the ground is shaky, and you are in danger of falling at any time. The outcome you wanted has always been a solid ground.

“There is no consistent relationship, no consistent field of work or interest. Nothing is consistent about my life besides being inconsistent”- a shaky ground is indeed inconsistent.

I think I developed my shaky ground concept long enough.

Question is, what can you do now: how can you overcome the fear of standing up, how can you motivate yourself to stand up and walk out of that jail cell when the fear is too strong and the hope is too weak?

Earlier this year, you wrote, as if answering my question above: “I don’t know… I don’t know what to do. I feel, Idk, burnt out. I feel empty.. I have absolutely no idea what to do at this point, I would choose to just stay in bed and sleep for days… crying and being miserable”-

– is this still your answer still?

anita

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