Anita-

Thank you for your kind words and encouragement. It certainly feels better to express these things and I meditated on what these issues may be today…
One thing is that I have an intense need for approval. I mentioned above that I often need the validation of others. I already know that this stems from persistent bullying and feelings of exclusion during childhood. I brought up these issues a few times with my ex, but would usually get very emotional and begin to shut down. Related to that, I also have a fear/avoidance of criticism, am extremely sensitive, and have an emotional/shut down response to arguments because of constant fighting between my parents before my father’s death at a young age. I don’t get into many relationships and developed a need for independence, but I don’t open up about these issues even to close friends. I feel frustrated with myself for my emotional/shut down responses to conflict and it intensifies my feelings of being alone, which is something I’ve felt since childhood. that despite a deep need to connect with others, I would never be able to adequately earn another person’s love, and I would have to accept that no one will accept or understand me for the person I truly am. My ex pushed me to be genuinely myself instead of filtering who I am around other people out of a need to be liked, but this is so difficult and feels even harder now. I also feel like that while I “know” I don’t have to earn love, in action I still made my ex’s life my own, made his problems my problems, and towards the end told myself my displays of love (buying gifts, lunches, surprises) would be enough to keep my relationship going. And my self esteem is rather tenuous because of this, so I avoid vulnerability to keep up the self esteem that I cultivate from my personal achievements. I feel good about myself so long as I have a path to go down and can come to feel confident in my ability to check those things off. I find myself doing this even in the midst of our breakup: finding ways to achieve ‘milestones’ of ‘recovery’. I want to be happy being on a path that can be completely internal, but I just end up feeling lost and further away from resolving these issues. I want to think that I want to live an authentic, true life but end up covering up my internal issues focusing on personal relationships/accomplishments/goals as my primary satisfaction in life because I don’t know where to begin… I only hope that the healthy behaviors and attitudes I try to cultivate can help with a natural shift toward accepting these internal issues, but I also wouldn’t know what to do with them so sometimes I feel like it’s not worth it to try and resolve my internal problems.