Dear noname:

You are welcome. The walk was good, thank you, it is nice to have the snow almost gone, for now.

The group therapy experience that you had for six months at 24 was a rare, one-time experience in your life, an experience of “connecting with self and others“. It transformed you at the time: you got into great physical shape, raced your bicycle, read and meditated every day, significantly reduced your cannabis use; you started your own group, decided to go to graduate school, and you saw yourself as “a person with value“… all because you connected with self and others.

Because we are born to be highly social animals, connecting with self and with others are two sides of the same coin, can’t do one without the other. This is making me think of the Chronic Emptiness I mentioned in my previous post as A chronic lack of connecting.

Emotionally and practically, Connecting is thriving; a chronic Lack of connecting is stagnating, withering and dying.

“Close relationships have been the hardest to manifest. It makes me feel worthless… When I have my weekly emotional breakdown, I’ll scroll through my phone looking for someone to talk to and don’t feel comfortable calling anyone, so I don’t. I suffer alone, every time. It has to stop because it’s starting to get scary for me in those moments as I spiral into hopeless self-destruction” –

-isn’t it amazing, that we are that highly social by nature, that without connection with others we feel worthless and so very empty, that our natural tendency then, is to break down and self-destruct?

When you scroll down your phone, and you don’t feel like calling anyone- I think that it’s because you can’t imagine connecting with anyone on your list, on that one day, evening or night, because in the past, you called this or that person, and failed to feel connected. This is the thing when it comes to chronic emptiness: one no longer anticipates connecting.

“I will be attending a men’s group this Saturday with my old therapist, I’m hoping this can be an opportunity for a new start. I’m also thinking about trying to start a support group for therapist” – these read like great ideas. Give these two experiences all that you have because… well, because your life depends on connecting, really.

anita