Dear Anita,

“The fear of expecting something from someone and then getting disappointed- there is anger involved in imagining this. Emotional  attachment is troublesome.”

I appreciate your honesty and transparency on this. I agree strongly… Emotional attachment is troublesome, it is why I avoided it so much! These feelings you are experiencing there, of anger and fear, expectations and disappointment, were a big part of the reason why I do not seek help… Why I feared the idea of talking with you first.

Because, I feel really bad about myself when people start to care about me and then… notice their care won’t save me. It is reliving what I felt about my parents, but seeing others going through this instead (or suffering by project, except for you, you have that exact wound so it isn’t just projection…)

Then in my mind, came the idea I am like my parents, unsavable, unlovable (expect by their dependant children), and not worthy of the attention of anyone unless I am able to save myself first, because the alternative is hurting those who care for me, forever. What an unpleasant thought, what a disappointment. I don’t like this idea.

Either way, it was very lonely for me, it made me hate dysfunctionality. Generally speaking, not at the moment. I am coming at peace with the fact I can’t heal too easily. But that still means loneliness if I want to not hurt anyone and not be hurt…

I was very withdrawn because of that. Now, in order to feel less dead, I cope by expressing my affection to the people I care about but… It makes them care too, so I have to be twice as strong. That’s why I am working so hard to be okay, despite my situation.

A part of me thinks I was selfish to open up enough, in a way that ended up… making you care. I wonder if you would have preferred if I have done things differently but… It couldn’t have been helped unless I just, didn’t open up and talk with you at all. I am sad to have triggered such distress in you, but it comes with the territory. Do you have rathered me to stay away?

I can’t undo what we shared, but I think I should offer you a way out if it gets too much for you. It’s only fair.

“Your stress in “so real” means to me that your shedding a lot of you, remaining your minimal self, was indeed the right solution at the time, made by Life itself. ‘’

This interpretation, and all the things you wrote regarding the overwhelming fear of death we were too young to process, makes sense to me. I liked the tree metaphor, I have a lot of affection for trees, I liked to imagine them as people when I was a child. I find them fascinating and beautiful.

“this is exciting, I am smiling with anticipation, now at 8:08 as I am about to read what  is next.

Ooops, I didn’t notice but I read the rest of your post all together, having arrived to the end of it before I noticed that I did not read and respond to it part by part. It is now 8:27. And, by the way, I am okay that I forgot to read and answer part by part, it is not really a mistake, just a spontaneous change (the “ooops above was a very weak ooops).’’

I like your description of your morning during your message, it feels like hanging with you. And your spontaneity makes me smile.

‘’I know better now and am more humble.. I like myself way better this way! It sure feels better to .. feel Equal vs Inferior or Superior. Yet, I have to remind myself of this principle once in a while. ‘’

I think everyone gets through this ignorance and arrogance stage at some point, and it is definitely a principle that is easy to forget. This kind of reminder is good.

“The reason why I did not post a request for help here in these forums is that I didn’t come across any member whose help I would like to get. I knew that if I posted a request for help I would get a mix of some good input (nothing new, as I read plenty of self help books and resources before I started to post on this website, plus had over two years of quality psychotherapy) and some bad input that would infuriate me. “

I laughed when I first read that part. I think because I related to this.

‘’As crazy as it sounds, what if I posted on the forums and someone insisted on .. violating me this way, or some other way. When help becomes synonymous with violation, you don’t want it.’’

I entirely agree.

‘’ because being helped on an unequal ground, like a child being helped by her mother, brings more harm that good, so you needed to be strong enough to sustain the harm that comes with help (?) ‘’

I think you are right. Despite there was a fear to harm/disappoint others, there was a fear of being harmed. Maybe, in the case of help with my adult self right now (on this forum or in psychotherapy), it would take the shape of ‘’You don’t really want to heal, if you wanted to heal you would leave your mother.’’ ‘’You seem to prefer abuse over being a responsible/function adult in the real world’’ ‘’If you tried harder you could get out of this’’… or I don’t know. Things that would make me feel powerless and broken, like trying my own way isn’t enough… Like I am weird and alien for having other priorities than not getting abused at all cost. Like I am not human anymore and will never get understood and never get connections.

Of course, that is the most extreme risk. People wouldn’t say it so harshly, but overall there is a feeling of “you are beyond help”, unless I help myself first and make it clear I got it all together… but then if it’s like this, there’s no point looking for help anymore.

“Emotional turmoil as expressed by our histrionic mothers, minor things blown out of proportion,  means that any emotional movement within us or around us/ any emotional exchange feels dangerous, doesn’t it.. So, we stay away from emotional exchanges with others, best we can, fearing an escalation into histrionics, being attacked, violated (?) “

Exactly… the haunting is going on.

“It is now 9:18 am, my coffee is cold, it’s very smoky outside, all the windows are closed, I will be walking on the treadmill indoors today, so to not breathe the outside air.  I am not editing anything I typed above as I submit this post next.”

I do understand better why global warming is causing you such distress, you’re going through the concrete evidence of it. I hope your day will go alright despite the current heatwave and the smoke.

I wasn’t able to get as spontaneous as you in my message. Since I live with my family (3 members at home at the moment), I got interrupted quite often, and had to adapt around that for this one. But I really appreciated your spontaneity in this message.

Linarra