I dont know how to edit posts on here – but I wanted to also mention how I feel so emotionally attatched to things he does every now and then. For instance, because this past week we have been posting each other very often, to all of a sudden have him not be online – obviously just over a friend’s house or what ever – it just makes my stomach go all funny. And when I see that he has friended another woman that I know isnt what I think it is – just a friend – yet I get all jealous. Its like these feelings I used to get from my trauma with an abusive guy many years ago. I was living with that guy, sleeping with him in the same bed- yet he refused to be in a relationship with me- even though he was – I would get very jealous as he would let me know I wasnt good enough and go out with other women. That was when I was in my early 20s. But I guess its those same feelings I feel. Im not in a relationship with this guy. And people need space. I like my space. I just have to be mindful.

I guess, what I hate is that before 2 weeks ago ( before I had constant sleep overs at his place) I was just getting into the mindset of letting go and not feeling like I wanted to control anyone and how they felt about me. I was starting to feel okay with myself a little and my own company and then its funny that the minute I let go, I started getting invites by him out of nowhere. And then I just perked up and got in a funny laughable mood and continued to go over there, I enjoyed it. Yet..

Thank you.
It all comes back to our upbringing then doesn’t it? It makes alot of sense. Myself and mum has been a co-denpendence for awhile, only recently I cut that- and I guess I try it with this guy.

But he has all this sexist stuff on his facebook page. Even his profile photo is photoshopped with a blonde girl by his side that he doesnt even know. Its nothing to do with me, but it would be nice to be appreciated in a way that lets me know that I am valued as a female I guess. But even that he probably cannot do.

But I need to stay away from him and get some really good self worth in me to be able to make better choices in my life. I do have a therapist, she is good but I always feel like I am the one compensating or people pleasing out of fear that she cannot help me, as that has happened quite a few times.

Thankyou for caring. Ive seen her for over 10 years now. When I was in my early 20s I had issues with bed wetting and agoraphobia, yet after a few sessions with her, I found out the cause was sexual abuse at 14. I didnt even recognise that until I saw her and everything started to change after that, I didnt wet the bed anymore and I felt supported a little to be able to venture out more. Ive come a very long way from those days, but I would say that I use her as a reflection of what is in my mind of how to help myself rather than someone who can help me. I use her as someone to listen to me, rather than give advice most of the time. Though she can give me advice, she is more of a open therapist than a clinical one. Recently she asked me to start yoga, which I have thought about, but not acted on.

She has told me that I have never gotten any good feedback within my life really, not within my family either. That I have had shame on me as a teenager and that I have had to basically rely on myself for feedback and comfort and all of that. So I can be very sensitive to other people’s communication with me, as because I have been unsocial for all of my 20s- except for the time I flew over to meet a guy from online who raped and emotionally abused me and I stayed with for 4 months and more.(that was 9 years ago) I havent really had any other relationships to go on. So my social identity is very scarce – and so Im sensitive to how I feel others see me. I have my values and I basically have 2 social events in my life to go on- my highschool days- when I was happy for most of them and my abusive days. Im lucky that I am where I am right now, I have people around me for the first time and the thing is with this guy, my relationship with men has never been any good- since I was a young child -its basically been limited in exposure to boys. I always thought that they fancied me if they were nice to me for some reason. Ive never really hung out with boys unless I was a girlfriend in highschool days or in an abusive relationship.
So even though he may not know, but he is the only guy that I have hung out with and gotten close to in a very long time of avoiding men. And I am so sensitive to it.

Yes, thankyou for opening up my mind with your insights. I will talk to about this with my therapist in detail next time I see her.

But I jsut wanted to mention that I havent talked to this guy since last Friday now. And it did get make me go through this big emotional hump. He said he would talk to me later, he said we would hang out on the weekend, and when we saw each other at this get together with older people he basically ignored me, and insulted my cooking and walked off from me to go home without ever acknowledging further contact for the weekend or what ever. He didnt tell me that he had other plans etc. So I get very upset with that- it feels intentional, it feels hurtful to not be acknowledged, it hurt because I thought that I was in this ‘friendship’ and my expectations of that meant that I would at least have respect and acknowledgement. But I guess I realise now what I already knew, and that is that he just cannot do that. He has a serious mental illness of schizophrenia that actually causes him to severely glorify himself and be in his own world. He has said he thinks the sun comes up for him and that his facebook page is better than everyone else’s etc. Its very magnet to meet someone who can be so comfortable with themselves and have such unusually high self esteem like that. I come to realise that for his own reasons that have probably nothing to do with me, he has decided to not contact me at all, but at the same time compliments & likes some of my facebook posts. Its quite confusing trying to even have a friendship with someone like that. But Im glad of my distance these last few days.

I know I am writing alot, I just feel it flowing. Ive been basically indulging in being depressed and bed ridden for 4-5 days. I know I have depression and I have body dysmorphia and an identity crisis. I like to indulge and move into my ill feelings rather than bottle them up like I used to.

Part of the depression has been about constantly remembering things that have recently happened that have made me feel bad about myself, that have insulted or unacknowledged me, have made me see myself in a negative light for how I feel others see me. I have been basically a social hermit for 15 years. I havent been in society around people much at all until now. And so what people do around me, how they act and see me- reflects how I see myself- and its made me want to go crawling back to loneliness again rather than be seen again.

For instance on friday whilst I was sitting at this table and I was dealing with ‘him’ insulting my food and not valuing me, one of the ladies was talking about some woman they knew and to describe her they mentioned that she had a very pretty face…(and this lady has nearly everytime Ive seen her, talks about how gorgeous certain women are that she has seen as though I am nothing to even be considered like that) , and that hit my inner bruises.. because Ive been doing alot of self care and had nothing nice said to me- not even my mother had said anything to me – loosing 30kg over 10 months last year and then wearing things I hadnt worn since I was a child like singlets as I felt they were too revealing for me most of my life.I mean only 8 years ago I was in an emotionally abusive relationship with a man that didnt even acknowledge we were in a relationship because I wasnt good enough-yet we were living and sleeping in the same bed- I was told things in that bed about how I wasnt this and that and it really made me go into a ptsd after it was all over.

And then I go and remember this new guy now – on a day, last year when I was looking my best- and felt happy within myself -actually loving myself for once and he comes up to me for some reason and starts telling me to think of the most handsome person you can think of.. relating to how he thinks his ex (which I dont even think actually happened) was- that she was so pretty but not nice to him (he ended up being detained in a mental hospital with psychosis) that no-one compares- and he was saying this to my face and he knew I liked him. It hurt. Then I remember at work a lady I work with – coming out to help this woman with her purchases and she says ‘well we are not here for our looks’.. All these things reflect to me, especially this guy- for over 6 months when he worked were I work I tried to make myself love myself outside. I pushed myself outside of my boundaries in self care and started to really like myself, but he just was up and down and would eventually ignore me often like I wasnt important.

I have this belief in me that – say on friday when one of these older ladies husbands was showing me his antique collection- first time Ive met this man- I guess because I have avoided men for some time that I expect some sort of acknowledgement that I am a young female perhaps. I am never acknowledge as a young beautiful woman. And I just don’t get that at all. All these people that I have been around shape my reality of myself and Im not liking it. I want to go live in a cave. Even this new old guy mentioned the other day as we were talking about ocd, that his sister is a very pretty lady.. like why do people feel the need to always tell me how pretty other people are? Dont they realise that when they do that, that it actually is saying that you are not.. its saying that your not that. Idk.

It just seems that my values- what is important to me is to feel valued as a woman and to feel beautiful and pretty and be around people that can help me feel that way about myself. But instead Im just getting negative messages. Like last week, sitting on the couch with this guy at his place, sharing a blanket and thinking it is a bit romantic.. and he jumps up and says ‘OOh that woman is soo pretty..’ and Im sitting there thinking.. here we go again- my fears and how I feel about myself (I feel very very ugly) are presented to me once again. And even in times when I do feel okay with how I look- its ban I believe in other people’s versions of how they see me through these things- I feel very, very devalued in that department and others. That is why I am choosing of late to not be around those people much if at all.

Part of body dysmorphia is that you dont know where you are in terms of how you look. It constantly changes and you can get hung up on seeing your reflection like in those weird mirrors. You want to keep going back to that mirror to see if its changed to something reasonable – or you want to avoid it all together. You dont know how others see you and how they are to you gives you clues to how they see you. Like this mentally handicapped woman who hadnt seen me in while and got a shock to how thin I looked to when she last saw me- and my reaction was a little off because I think people think Im anorexic or something and he words was ‘that I still looked the same but just thinner’ and I took that as meaning I still looked the same… like Im nothing special to look at .. like I dont deserve something nice said about my appearance. I lied when I said my mum doesnt say nice things- she says I have really nice skin- and that to me is like saying that Im ugly – Im not beautiful or pretty because she so easily gives out those compliments about those people when she sees them.
I feel like people are wary of even saying anything nice to me- like there is something wrong with me. Like in Easter, when the whole family came over- hadnt seen them in a year- and last time I was very overweight and stuff- this time I was slim and wearing trendy clothing for once in my life.. yet nobody said a thing and its though they looked at me like I had a disease or something. That lead me to think of myself as looking sickly and too thin and stuff. ( I am healthy with my food, I am not anorexic). This is something that this abusie ex used to tell me constantly back in the day.

When I was a teenager I remember being very popular and esp popular with the boys. I would get alot of attention and gifts and declarations of love thrown at me. I remember having girls admire how I looked and some would get jealous. I didnt do much to provoke any of that at all. But that is really what I have to go on in terms of my ‘positive’ social history. I guess I somehow expect every man to act how the boys acted around me then. And I guess I was labelled with having a pretty face and stuff in my teens and so and to now in my early thirties (tho people think Im much younger) to be labled not important like that. My identity is confused.