Dear Liz:

You are welcome “he now is honestly my home and my safe space… I also have depression, anxiety and OCD, where I struggle with a lot of intrusive thoughts on a daily basis especially about my relationship… 10 days into our relationship… (an ex) flirted, and I kind of reciprocated at the time. I also put my hand on his leg… I am deeply filled with regret... My OCD makes things feel a lot more detrimental than what they actually are“-

– Your boyfriend is now your safe place, and that is wonderful, but I am guessing that like me, you didn’t grow up in a safe place, a safe home. As a result, you’ve suffered depression, anxiety and OCD,  like me.

When you grow up scared on an ongoing basis (not all the time, but.. too often), the fear does things to the brain, it unsettles the brain, it makes it jittery. The jittery brain is looking for signs of the next danger. An example of what a child perceives as danger: parents yelling at each other, fighting.

When the child hears her parents talking, and then one of them gets a bit loud, the child’s brain hears.. not a bit loud, but a lot loud, and gets scared that a fight is about to occur. Next, the child either hides, or does something the child to prevent a fight. For example, the child will run to the louder parent and say I love you! Or something like that, so to distract and calm the louder parent and.. prevent a fight.

Fast forward, the scared, anxious child is now an adult (Liz) and has a wonderful boyfriend, but she feels that still, as always, something is wrong, and she is looking for signs of danger, signs that something bad is about to happen (a breakup, I am guessing), and the sign you found is the memory of you kind- of flirting back with a guy very early on in the relationship.

Objectively there is no danger in what happened (unless you tell your boyfriend and he responds unreasonably) and it’s a memory of nothing much, but subjectively it feels more detrimental than (it is). Just as in my example, when one parent’s voice gets a bit louder, in the anxious child’s brain, it sounds way louder than it is.

I remember that growing up, in moments when I noticed that I was feeling unusually good/ safe, I got alarmed, as in thinking: oh, oh, I forgot for a moment that something is wrong, that something bad is about to happen, and I am not prepared!

I would like to read if you relate to what I shared here and to what extent, before I continue.

anita