Hi Anita,

It’s funny I think there are many similarities with how I felt growing up, but I was very emotionally numb as a child and have mostly successfully avoided my mother as an adult. I have never experienced this kind of outward emotional instability with crying and everything.

The biggest similarity I see is that my boyfriend, like my mother, has good intentions. He never intends to hurt me but hurts me anyways. Then it’s followed by lots of reassurance – affection, “I love yous,” talks about fun things we’ll do in the future. A very similar pattern to my mother, though of course the arguments were different (my boyfriend has not yelled at me or anything like that).