Dear Pandanator:

“I do tend to be a chronic overthinker and an anxious-attachment person… getting caught up in that thought tornado as it is not a good thing“- can’t find physical stability in a tornado; can’t find cognitive stability (clarity) in a thought-tornado.

“Part of me believes that I was the toxic person…  Part of me blames myself… maybe I ended up overcommunicating and being negative… Maybe I was not assertive enough for him… I was always afraid to argue with him as he couldn’t seem to handle it and would just shut down. It felt like I had to walk on eggshells if I wanted to get a point across“-

-I am sure that you were not Perfect in the relationship, that you didn’t always say/ do the right thing at the right time, and neither did he. No one is Perfect and Everyone has issues. And so, like in every romantic relationship,  there are issues you brought to the relationship, and issues he brought to the relationship. And then, complicated further, the mix of his pre-existing issues and your pre-existing issues created new issues particular to the relationship.

Within this confusing mix of issues there are the issues you mentioned in the quote above: self-blame, lack of assertiveness, overcommunicating, walking on eggshells.

* You wrote that you were always afraid to argue with him: can you give me an example of a situation in the relationship where you felt the need to argue with him (and by argue, what do you mean)?

You mentioned thought tornado (“getting caught up in that thought tornado“). The center of a physical tornado, aka the eye of the tornado, is calm. It seems to me that in the eye of your thought-tornado, there is a girl who while growing up was innocent, loving and eager to please. But then (leaving that calm center), this innocent girl blamed herself for things she was not at all guilty of…?

anita