Dear Aryan:

“This time in terms of relationship, I utterly failed… failed to get free and comfortable around her and ended up being immature and unauthentic and boring“- you were too anxious to be comfortable to-be-you around her. The disquiet, unease, unrest nature of anxiety makes it difficult to impossible.

If you think of the experience of being free to-be-you as you sitting in the driver seat of your car and pressing the gas pedal,  freely moving forward, then anxiety is like someone in the passenger seat is pressing the brake pedal (at the same time that you are pressing the gas pedal): there are lots of abrupt, noisy jolts back and forth, but the car is stuck, it is not moving forward.

“Being a big time loner all my life, finding so many friends coming to college was a great experience… Even after having so many friends, I feel unsatisfied and lonely… suddenly I have no one except me. It saddening and makes me scared“- the way I understand it, is that you got used to being a big time loner. It became an emotional habit. College made a temporary difference, and now, you are back to your emotional habit of feeling lonely, sad and scared.

“So many friends coming to college was a great experience. However, now I find those same friends limiting“- at first, it was a great experience to be with your then new college friends, and then it became a limiting experience, limiting in what way?

“In fact I am trying to find new friends but haven’t been successful yet“- what are you looking for in new (unlimiting) friends?

anita