Dear Robi:

“My girlfriend recently said to me – ‘You are reliving an old postcard’“- I never read/ heard this saying, reliving an old postcard. I am positively impressed by your girlfriend!

“Now.. I woke up this morning with these thoughts. Pretty interesting thoughts I’ve had for some time now“- I am looking forward to reading your thoughts submitted 5 hours ago, all the way from Spain, at 12:18 pm local time:

“1) The mask I created a long time ago… to fool others I’m not shy, afraid and anxious. I was operating from a place of  very low self esteem. I had very low self worth…”-

– very insightful, Robbi, and your ability to understand it all so accurately tells me that you currently possess enough self-worth to be able to understand it all so accurately.

“Some of the old coping mechanisms (sitting in front of the computer playing games, watching all kinds of stuff ) have been replaced by smoking weed, going out partying, getting drunk and socialising…. operating still from the level of my mask. I was again, too scared to be myself fully… The mask started dissolving quite a while ago and speeded up the moment I met my girlfriend“- this is what crossed my mind before reading this part: that your attachment to your girlfriend is and has been a positive, healing attachment, hence the increased self-esteem and dissolving of the mask.

“I met my girlfriend and moved to Poland in 2021. There I gradually found a different version of myself – a more accepting self. I finally understood I’m okay the way I am and I don’t need to impress anyone“- here it is, right here: an increased self-esteem.

“Of course at times there were battles between ‘the old and the new’,  battles I still have now“- Of course, as always, mental-emotional healing/ improvement is a back and forth process where overall, and over time, you make significant progress.

“I know I’ve changed a lot – I feel like I woke up, I found my wounds, uncovered them, addressed them as much as I was able, confronted my family about the traumas I still carry with me today… “- your significant healing/ improvement is evident in the accuracy of your chosen words. This is all a pleasure for me to read!

“NOW. I feel like Alicante has been feeding the mask. Now I feel like it doesn’t quite feed who I am today… I feel lonely, away from my girlfriend, away from my family, not having friends and not really enjoying my postcard“- I am visualizing the Alicante postcard and I see.. there in that corner, a young man wearing a polo shirt and a mask. Is that you, Robi, underneath that mask?

“2) Missing, Feeling but disconnecting after a while.  I’ve experienced this for the last 2 and a half years since I met my girlfriend. I would feel close to her when we are together…  right before her or me leaving I would feel very sad… For a few days, I would miss her, I would feel connected to her.  A few days would pass and I would start disconnecting from her. I wouldn’t even feel like I wanted to talk to her and often my first impulse would be to ignore her messages – I would be almost annoyed by her contacting me. At times I would think of other women too.. although I’ve never tried anything and never really wanted to. When we meet again, it takes me a little time to ‘adjust’. I would be a little distant at first, maybe for a few hours or a day.. but then slowly I would get back into my ‘caring and loving mode’…. What do you think about this? I don’t know what to make of it. First thing that comes to my mind would be maybe something connected to my mother? Maybe something connected to abandonment?… Why do I disconnect like this? Am I protecting myself from getting hurt? Am I trying to protect myself from missing someone?”-

-you disconnect like this so to reduce your anxiety (separation anxiety, to be exact). It is an instinctual choice made by your brain-body, an automatic choice, a dissociation choice. It is natural and understandable: when away from your girlfriend, you are anxious about the possibility that you’ll never see her again, that the physical separation from her is permanent. This anxiety alarms your brain for a few days, and your brain shakes the anxiety off of it, so to speak, by dissociating, by not caring anymore.

The not caring not loving calm mode is much preferrable (and understandably so) to the caring loving anxious mode.

Once you dissociates and adopt the not caring not loving calm mode, you don’t want to talk to her and to take her messages because you (understandably) do not want your calm disturbed. At times, you think of other women, while you feel disconnected from your girlfriend, because .. you don’t feel connected to her. Again, it’s understandable.

When you understand the logic of all this, how instinctual it is (a choice made by the species you are born as: a social mammal, a human), and not a matter of your individual personal choice, you can see that it all happens because you love her.

“My mother used to take me to kindergarten every morning…”–

health line/ separation anxiety in adults vs children: “Symptoms of anxiety disorder in children and adults are similar. For children, separation anxiety is often associated with extreme fear or anxiety about being away from parents or caregivers. That can make a child less willing to participate in events or social experiences, like spending the night at a friend’s house or going to summer sleepaway camp. For adults, the anxiety is around being away from children or spouses”

anita