I’d written this reply too, but left it on another tab! :

Im inclined to agree, it’s what i’ve been feeling too when I try to reflect and take myself out of the situation per se.

All the things I’m making myself worry about are so absurd at the same time as they could, “on paper” be an issue. I think previously I was content to sort of see how it goes – and I kept telling myself “focus on what’s in front of me” – but I keep slipping back into that well-trodden path of anxiety. If it’s not one thing, it’s another. I’m surprised even at myself for triggering myself so frequently.

I’m constantly creating resentments too – reminding myself of ways I could be being taken advantage of or how I could be pulling cotton wool over my eyes. I remember my current therapist said we can “reproduce” what our parents do or did, or what those we live with do as well. Me living with my parents probably doesn’t help, I write this and see a lot of it is very similar to my mother and my father – my mother constantly acting as if my father is trying to undermine her/outwit her or take advantage. Things that probably he did do a long time ago but now I don’t really see it like that – he just wants to try and enjoy his last years. My mother has a lot of baggage – she holds on to receipts from supermarket shops from years ago – he tries to encourage her to throw them out, she screams about something of hers he threw away 20 years ago – he learned his mistake and doesn’t touch her stuff, but she can’t let that injustice go.

I write that as it’s almost my experience too – I can’t let anything go and I can’t get into a situation where I might have to. Funnily enough, remembering the Catholic element – an “immaculate” conception – it’s as if my record must be immaculate. I can’t have any risks or anything like that hovering in my life. My boyfriend made mistakes, as anyone does, but I can’t seem to forgive him even as time marches on. I have to sort of deconstruct everything he does to make sure there isn’t a sign of this or that in his behaviour, so that there is no risk of betrayal or upset.