Dear miyoid:

I read only the beginning of your recent thread, saying that you are okay, good to read that! I will read the rest of your post and reply when I am back to the computer in about 10 hours from now.

anita

Dear miyoid:

You are welcome. You shared that your boyfriend moved to another house weeks ago, and both of you adapted well to your new living situations. You sometimes appreciate living on your own, having your own space. You are still in a relationship with him, although it is not a defined relationship. Yesterday, he invited you to dinner for the next day. You figured that you cannot have dinner with him, but would like to send the night with him. You called him but he didn’t answer your call for almost 12 hours, and you figured that the reason is that “He was playing games and he probably slept, if nothing bad happened. Or maybe he is in a depressive state”. You were “not -that- anxious”, but anxious nonetheless, feeling hopeless and alone while other people around you have “some quality bonding with people they care about”. You wrote about yourself: “I am onto nothing, I am just doing what people want me to do”.

Regarding career, you get involved with this and that, but you don’t stay with anything long enough to master it, being “all over the place, not able to decide which paths to take and which fields to  invest my time in”. You shared that you suffer from “unstable blood sugar levels” that makes you tired all the time, and in your life, there is “no consistent relationship, no consistent field of work or interest. Nothing is consistent about my life besides being inconsistent. I guess the reason behind my depressiveness is that I have no goal. I cannot trick myself into wanting something bad enough to motivate me”. All your life you “wanted outcomes, not processes… too materialistic to believe in something.. too logical to invest my energy into ideology. Weird.”

My thoughts today: it’s like the life was sucked out of you at an early age, and whatever little life was left ever since flickered here and there with this and that interest before being extinguished again, light out, dark again. I think that the life/ light went out when at one point on, as a child, you spent too much time alone, for too long, day after day, year after year.

As social animals, the life we feel is in the emotional bonding we experience with others. We feel alive when we bond and connect. If you watch a dog, another social animal, when it sees another dog or a person, its tail starts wagging, and it proceeds to bond and connect with the other dog, or person- that’s the life that I am talking about.

Having had much of life extinguished in me as well, I know from personal experience that you can get that life back, and your experience of living will significantly change as a result.

anita

Dear miyoid:

Good to read from you again. A week ago, there was a break up, you thought you could handle it, but then, you lost all your will to live. After crying and being miserable, he came over to spend the night with you and you felt better. The relationship has been stable for the week since.

Like I suggested to you before, it is clear to me that you suffer from a separation anxiety disorder. When you anticipate separation, or you are experiencing a separation from a person you are emotionally attached to, you experience and display excessive fear and distress, lots of crying, etc., as if the world just collapsed and death is upon you.

Earlier, you described your anxiety about separating from your mother at a very early age: she used to put you to sleep, but the moment you realized she was no longer there with you, you went looking for her. It happened night after night after night. You still have trouble going to sleep at night.

In the first and beginning of second year of life, in any child’s mind at that age, the child and her mother are the same person, so when the mother disappears.. the child feels that she too disappeared. Fast forward twenty years, you anticipate separation from this man, or there was a breakup, he disappears from your life for a moment, and in your mind- you disappeared too, because you and him are the same person. Rationally, you know that the two of you are separate people, but emotionally, you don’t yet know that.

If you had an emotional understanding that you and him are two separate people, and he (the object of your attachment) disappeared, you would be anxious but not excessively anxious, because you’d know that .. you did not disappear, you are still alive and okay.

I am glad to read that you did yoga for a week, yoga is one of the ways to manage anxiety. You can read about more ways to manage adult separation anxiety in wikihow. com/ 4 ways to manage adult separation anxiety disorder.

anita

• This reply was modified 3 years, 6 months ago by .

Dear miyoid,

It’s weird that everybody that I’ve cared for or tried to felt safe with has this one common thing. They all triggered my fear of abandonment sooner or later with their behavior.

It’s actually not weird – you’re attracted to people who trigger the fear of abandonment in you, because they remind you of your mother, who was the first person who triggered that fear in you. We’re always attracted to people who remind us of our parents, so we can finally get from them what we didn’t get from our parents. You’re hoping to get a sense of security and commitment – something you didn’t get with your mother.

If your mother wasn’t “committed” to you, if you felt she’d leave you while you’re asleep, it could be the reason that triggers the fear of abandonment. Your boyfriend isn’t committed to you either, he might leave you at any moment, in fact it seems he would like to leave you but worries about your reaction, and that’s why he checks upon you from time to time. Do you perhaps feel that your mother would have liked to leave you, but couldn’t because you were her daughter and she had an obligation towards you? Is such notion somewhere in the back of your mind?

If so, it would explain why you also get depressed and feel unlovable. The child reasons that if our parents don’t really love us and only take care of us because it’s their duty, then we must be unlovable and worthless. It must be our fault. And we live our lives with the notion that we’re unlovable… and it makes us want to disappear.

And from what my mom has told me, I’ve got up, realized that I’ve wet myself and then I’ve got angry with myself and ranted to myself asking over and over “What you’ve done!?”. I don’t remember how my mom treated me during the toilet training. I don’t remember any harsh treatment

Has your mother scolded you for other things (not necessarily related to toilet training) with words like “What have you done?!” Because it sounds like something you would hear from an adult and then repeat it to yourself when you feel you did something wrong.

And I was left alone with my unwanted hair.

It seems you felt abandoned in that matter too by your mother, even though your mother did it because she had a bad experience with your sister and didn’t want to force you to go through the same torture. You were envious of the girls who had their mother’s help during their teen years. In this instance, your mother doesn’t seem to have treated you badly, since she didn’t want to put you through unnecessary stress (waxing the armpits and the bikini zone is much more painful than shaving!). However, you still felt abandoned by her, and that’s probably because the abandonment happened much earlier, when you were a baby.

One of the reasons could be that she didn’t spend enough quality, bonding time with you as a baby. Perhaps she was always in a rush when feeding you, she didn’t play peek-a-boo with you, she didn’t have time for a bedtime story, or was in rush to read you one… all in all, that the emotional bonding didn’t really take place as it should have, and you felt rejected and abandoned by her. Do you think this might be the case?

• This reply was modified 3 years, 6 months ago by Tee.

Dear miyoid:

Regarding the current guy/ boyfriend: you had an undefined relationship with him for some time in 2019, then he went to study abroad for six months (the two of you talked every single day during that time), then at the beginning of 2020, he returned to your country and moved in with you. He moved out about a year later, in April 2021.

On July 20, 2020, you wrote: “I (22) have a boyfriend (22), but then again, I’m depressed more than ever and I’m hopeless”- by July 2020, while living with him, you were depressed more than ever.

Today, you wrote regarding the same guy: “with him, I was able to feel safe for one year”-

What I understand about the year when you were “able to feel safe” is that (a) when away from his physical presence, you felt safe when talking to him on the phone, for as long as his words or tone of voice didn’t sound to you like the threat of him disappearing from your life. In between phone calls, you felt okay until a thought occurred to you that he didn’t call you soon enough, or some other thought about him leaving you.

(b) when in his physical presence, you felt safe for as long as his words, tone of voice, facial expressions and actions did not sound/ look to you like a threat that he will leave you. You felt safe when you were up at nights at the computer, knowing he is asleep in the next room. The moment he said something or expressed an emotion or an action that meant that he might leave you, you felt anxious.

All in all, you felt anxious most of the time of this relationship. At times, your anxiety was so high (the breakdowns you mentioned) that reuniting with him felt like a huge relief, the safest feeling ever.

It is also my understanding that your severe separation anxiety started when you were a very young child and existed ever since, no matter who your object of attachment is. This current guy just happened to be the current object of attachment.

He is not healthy emotionally, but no man who is emotionally healthy will be willing to live a life centered around your anxiety, calling you as often as you need him to, talking to you on the phone and otherwise for hours and hours, for as long as you need to, never saying anything that may worry you, never appearing distressed, etc.

It is your severe separation anxiety that has been disrupting your life in very significant ways, putting your life on hold (more than Covid has, more than the economic situation in your country)- it needs to be managed and healing needs to begin.

anita

Dear miyoid,

I’ve checked the beginning of this thread, page 1, and there was a quote Anita pasted about something you said in June 2019:

“I’ve had a childhood where I simply didn’t receive any love from my dad and mom’s love was a bit unpredictable, exists and then disappears… emotionally and physically abandoned by both of my parents several times. I was left to live with one parent and then left with another when they’ve got divorced. I always felt the need to depend on someone but I couldn’t find anyone so I have always kept my feelings to myself” (June 2019).

Your mother’s love was unpredictable, and your were emotionally and physically abandoned by your parents several times. That’s what caused your fear of abandonment. You say you don’t see the connection between your choice of boyfriends and your mother, but reading your words from June 2019, the connection is very clear.

Your mother’s love was unpredictable, exists and then disappears – same as the love of your present boyfriend. You never know when he’s going to have an episode, when he’s going to want to leave you, when he can be there for you, etc. And he’s abandoned you not just emotionally (with his inconsistent behavior), but also physically – he moved out and doesn’t live with you any more.

My mom loved us like any other mother would do. But I know that she’s seen children as something that would hold people back. Therefore, she never wanted us (me and my sister) to be mothers. And I don’t think that we would ever have children.

Your mother doesn’t want you and your sister to have children, which is because she didn’t like having children. Children are something that was holding her back. That’s one reason why you feel rejected and unwanted. You felt you were an obstacle and a nuisance to your mother. You believe you prevented her from being happy, from leaving your father earlier, from making her own decisions. That’s how the child blames themselves for their parent’s weaknesses.

In earlier threads you spoke about your mother ignoring her own problems in her marriage for a long time and enduring the harassment of your narcissistic father, who even forbid her to visit her own father. She only left him after her father died and she didn’t have the chance to say goodbye.

It’s not your fault that your mother was unhappy – she was unhappy because she couldn’t stand up for herself, and she allowed your father to harass and control her. Probably she also tolerated him not helping with the children or the household, leaving everything on her shoulders (She was working hard and trying to raise us, do all the responsibilities at home as well. Maybe that’s why she didn’t have much time.)

I believe you said earlier your mother had a full-time job. And also, that your father was rather stingy and didn’t want to spend on the family, but only on himself. I imagine your father wouldn’t allow to pay for help in the household to unburden your mother, and he wouldn’t help her himself. So your mother was left alone with all those responsibilities, which clearly made her frustrated and also made her see you, her children, as a burden. But none of that was your fault. Rather, it was the fault of your parents – your selfish and self-centered father, and your submissive, enduring mother.

You said that when you later complained about your problems, she would downplay them, she didn’t think your problems were problems at all, because she endured much harsher things. She minimized your pain, as being nothing compared to hers. She didn’t see you, didn’t understand you. And I believe it’s because she refused to deal with her own pain, that’s why she didn’t have compassion neither for herself nor for you. Now she has compassion for cats and abused animals, while probably still having no compassion for herself or you.

I just want to be understood, like the rest of the people.

You want to be understood – something  you never received either from your mother or your father. I also believe you want someone who is committed to you, who won’t abandon you, and who doesn’t see you as a burden. Your mother wasn’t really committed to you emotionally – she was physically, but she was burdened by you and your sister, and that’s why you felt unwanted and in danger of being abandoned.

Your boyfriend is the same – he cannot really commit to you and sees you as a burden. But he’s better than your mother in one thing: he’s able to see you and understand you. That’s why you’re holding on to him so badly…

Are you able to see the connection between your past and your present?