Dear me:

* I am adding this note after a few hours of putting together this post, close to being ready to submit it. This might be a post that’s too long and too complex for you to be interested in reading through it. So, please feel free to read or not to read, to respond or not to respond, to all, or any part of it. (In the past, at times I sent you long replies, and it was okay with me back then when you didn’t respond to the content of those. it will be okay with me today as well, if this is your choice)! Here’s the long, complex post:

A little walk on memory lane: your first post on tiny buddha and my first reply to you were on Sept 18, 2016: we were both EIGHT years younger!  In the first 2 days of our communication, you expressed this: “I believe I’m supposed to suffer… I feel I deserve the pain I am getting… Just a feeling I’ve always had“. I offered, but you didn’t want to look into this core-belief that you are supposed to suffer.

You shared something very meaningful, very profound about staying away from people because you didn’t feel worthy of people’s time and companionship, and about putting on a happy mask to hide the sadness inside (Dec 7, 2016): “I never think I’m worth anyone’s time. People invite me to do things with them sometimes but I normally decline. It’s not that I don’t want to, it’s just that I don’t feel worthy of being around people. I’m stuck here at my PC being miserable all the time, wishing I was someone else, but it’s a habit at this point. Girls think I’m fun to be around and I’m always making them laugh, guys always seem to like being around me, but I don’t like being around me. I can have the biggest smile, turn around and walk away only to have the biggest frown and go completely quiet… filled with nothing but hate for myself, all in the blink of an eye. So I just lock myself away in my room, it’s better this way”, Dec 7, 2016.

You mentioned growing up with little to no love, and some hate (Dec 20, 2016): “My mom never gave a sh** about me… My dad and what he’s done, plus he tells me… like I’m nothing and how I ain’t a loss“.

You shared that you experienced depression and loneliness, and, at the time of the quote that follows, a desire for closeness with people (Dec 2, 2018): “By loneliness I mean I don’t have anybody I am close to, just sit around at home all day being depressed. I had my first taste of being close to another person and now that’s all I want is to be close to people, maybe not romantically but like super close friendships. Being around people that make me feel awesome!“.

Your last post on your old 68-page thread was on Feb 5, 2024: “I’ll be retiring this thread, maybe I’ll start a new thread… Anyway big changes for me for 2024…“.

Fast forward 6 months and 23 days to Aug 28, 2024,  you started your new thread: “A month ago I found out my father has stage 4 rectal cancer and he’s terminal with 6-12 months to live. I been pretty much feeling dead inside since… my memory has taken a severe shot too… The nurses all tell me I have done an amazing job take care of him… I don’t even wanna imagine what it will look like when I see him deceased when he goes to hospice eventually“-

– you lived with your father throughout the time we communicated in your old thread. I think that you lived with him your whole life.. am I correct? No wonder you are emotionally attached to him. From getting to know you through 68- pages of your old thread, seems to me that your attachment style is the Anxious Ambivalent Attachment Style.

Notice how the following quotes from the two online sources fit you in regard to the woman we’ve been discussing a lot in your old thread (and, I think that it fits your experience in childhood and all your social connections since):

From very well mind: “Anxious ambivalent attachment is characterized by a distrust of a person with whom you are in a close relationship with, and is associated with mental health challenges, such as depression and low self-esteem… Anxious attachment results when your caregivers are not consistent in their responsiveness and availability with you, leading to feelings of confusion, distrust, anxiety, and ambivalence. People raised this way may desire closeness to their caretakers and distance themselves from them”.

From the attachment project: “The anxious ambivalent attachment style (known as anxious preoccupied attachment in adulthood) typically develops in children in the first 18 months of life. During this formative period, a child’s caregiver(s) may have acted inconsistently toward the child’s needs… caregivers may have been attentive to their child’s cues, but on the other, they may have been rejecting or punitive towards them… As a result, the child starts to feel conflicted about how their caregiver is going to respond to them. When their parent is attentive, the child is content and happy, but when they’re not the child is confused. For this reason, the child may start to develop ambivalent attachment patterns and behaviors. They might feel distrustful of their caregiver, but also desperately want affection and for them to meet their emotional needs so they cling to them”.

In regard to your 3rd, most recent post in this thread: “I’m just at home on holiday, first holiday in like 4 years“- on the computer a lot, gaming?

“How have you been?“- I’ll connect my answer to the quotes above (your words and the online sources’): mentally, emotionally and socially, I am doing way better than during my whole life. Similarly to what you shared, throughout most of my life, I too felt that I deserved to suffer. I too thought that I was not worth anyone’s time. I too wished I was someone else (and I day-dreamed about being someone else a whole lot, as a teenager). I too was miserable a lot of the time, and I too was stuck. As a child I was stuck at home alone, listening to music and daydreaming (not in front of the computer, I grew up before computers), and I was very lonely. As an adult, I was stuck in repeated dysfunctional patterns of behavior, depression.. alone and lonely most of the time. Like you, I desired closeness with people, but couldn’t trust people for long, so I couldn’t remain close to anyone for long.. there were only moments of closeness, tiny moments in a desert of loneliness.

Fast forward: I’ve experienced lots and lots of moments of closeness (online and in real-life), more than ever: this is what life is about, this is the joy of living! Life can get better! There are things that sadden me, scare me, but I no longer believe that I should suffer, so I don’t suffer unnecessarily. I no longer wish I was someone else. I am no longer alone and lonely, confused, miserable and depressed.

Connecting my answer to attachment styles: all my life I suffered from an anxious, ambivalent attachment style, and now, I am as close to a Secure Attachment Style as I have ever been!

.. And how are you today, me?

anita