Dear OrangeHeart:

In April 25 this year, when your relationship reached its 1 year mark, you were worried that he and another woman in your friends group were arranging to meet behind your back: “Found out yesterday off someone else that they have plans for her birthday and no one has told me so far… I just cant stop thinking about this… I just cant get it out my head and its making me feel miserable… I feel like I’m going crazy“.

Fast forward 4.5 months (Sept 10), your brain is “in a bit of a muddle” from all that overthinking about all kinds of evidence, or red flags (“there’s literally so much things I’m noticing all the time.. For example him saying that a conversation has happened when I can’t remember it“), showing that your boyfriend may be “a bit toxic.. doing things intentionally“.

Back to April 25, you were also worried about him losing interest in you, but you didn’t know if he really was losing interest in you or you were just imagining it: “I also don’t know if what I think is loss of interest is actually just my brain telling me things are wrong? I’m struggling to distinguish between what’s really happening and what I think is happening, which is crazy“.

OrangeHeart, I think that what is happening is that you grew up in a home where things were often wrong and as a result, you were often distressed and alert to what next is going to turn wrong. Fast forward, you are doing the same in your relationship: being alert to what is wrong so to be prepared or plan your next move. I think that mentally, you are re-living your childhood.

Here is the wrongness you grew up with: “My parents relationship is rubbish!.. My mum is quite abusive towards my dad and brings him down to nothing at any chance she gets. She done the same with my sister and I growing up“.

A few days ago, Sept 6, you wrote about your boyfriend: “I’ve really lost trust recently, not that I think hes going to cheat on me but just overall trust, I cant rely on him and I never know what I’m going to get“- you don’t trust him just as you didn’t trust your mother, alert to her next abusive behavior toward your father or your sister.. or toward you.

“I wouldn’t say he lies to me but he only tells me half a story!“- you are suspicious of him, looking for evidence that he lies to you. But it hardly ever happens that a person tells the whole story at any one time.. people forget details for a moment, remember later.. they focus on one part of the story at one time,  and on another part of the story at another time. An incomplete story at any one time (unless a suspect is interrogated for hours by a detective who is taking notes, or by a prepared and practiced courtroom attorney) is not evidence of lying.

“It’s not lies but its not quite the whole truth“- same thing, it hardly ever happens that you will get the whole truth from a person at any one time, and even at a series of times- except in court when questioned for hours by a prepared and practiced courtroom attorney, after stating: “I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth”.

At the end of your original post here, you asked: “How am I supposed to fix this?“- quality psychotherapy where you will process your experience growing up with your abusive mother will be a great start!

anita