Dear Robbi1992:

You started your this thread in early Dec 2018, when you were about to turn 26. In your original post back then, you shared: “The thing is, I am shy. It really depends on the situation, sometimes I can be quite confident and extroverted… sometimes even tending to dominate the conversations.. and it makes me feel good and strong”.

You started an earlier thread in early June of 2018 (age 25). In it you shared that you have a bachelor and a master degree in the field of photography, but you were not doing anything with these degrees. When you discovered photography back in high-school, you weren’t necessarily interested in the subject, but having taken photos of girls in school, you became popular with girls and being popular with girls was something that you were very interested in. You wrote about that time in high-school: “I was still a shy and insecure guy but this time I was able to put on a different kind of ‘mask’“.

In regard to your relationship with your parents, you wrote: “It felt like I was never been able to be myself around them and I didn’t really develop… I still feel uncomfortable around them and I still don’t feel connection to them… I never felt very close to my parents.. Most of the times it felt like I hate them.. About one thing I am sure. They never gave me privacy or the feeling of freedom“.

As a child, you grew up in a room with a glass door: “It had a door basically made of glass.. U couldn’t see clearly through it.. But it didn’t give me a feeling of privacy. They (parents) used to also come in whenever they needed something from there… They kept stuff they used daily there. I never had my own space. I never had a room full of posters on the walls and personal things around. I also hated them for that.. I used to minimize whatever was happening on my computer every time they we’re entering the room. I don’t know why.. Maybe I was trying to keep something for myself…There was also the lake house. In summers we lived there… Again I was trapped there waiting for people to come and give me some attention. I guess.. I was very lonely. Well.. Not. My parents where there every second of my childhood“.

Looking back today on what you shared above, back in June 2018, the words the boy behind the glass door come to my mind, a boy living in a storage room with a glass door. You minimized the computer screen so that they don’t see what you had on the computer screen. You also minimized you because there was no safe, private space for you to be and to become (to develop, using your word). You were literally seen, but figuratively, you were not seen at all: if you were figuratively seen, your parents would not have gone into the storage room at any time; they would knock first and wait for your permission to enter, and they would have covered the glass door with some dark material.

Fast forward 4.5 years, to January 28, 2023, you are now 30, living in Poland to where you moved so to be with your girlfriend: “I’ve been thinking about moving or not moving for some time now… I’ve become very unsure about my relationship and my feelings and I often feel like I’m with the wrong person. Could it be that we are not right for each other ? Or maybe I’m not ready for it / not capable of a healthy relationship… Often missing my past couple of years where I was single and having a good time in Spain. A lot has been going on and I often feel like I’m about to explode”-

-I imagine that every person is the wrong person for a boy living behind a glass door. Better say, a boy who feels like he is living behind a glass door: no privacy, no space of his own. Like I expressed to you before, when we have difficult childhoods, as adults, we keep re-living the same emotional experience of childhood. We live in different adult contexts (Spain, Poland, elsewhere; having a job or not) but we feel the same. Just like you felt trapped as a child, you feel trapped as an adult, currently, trapped in a relationship.

“I hope you too are doing alright! I never asked you anything about yourself but wish I knew more about you“- I am still in the process of healing from growing up trapped with my mother. I left her and the country (at age 24), crossed oceans and continents.. felt intense, exciting freedom for a while.. but then, the trapped-feeling returned and I had to leave once again, and go elsewhere. I was mostly depressed with breaks of euphoria, from time to time. Fast forward to now, I feel more relaxed being and becoming (developing) myself.

Like you, I was literally seen growing up, but not figuratively; like you, I wore a mask, like you, I was very shy but at times, I behaved extrovertedly.. but now, I am becoming more and more just one person, no mask, and I always feel much better that how I often felt before (very depressed, hopeless, helpless). I am much stronger now: I don’t have to run away anymore.

anita