Dear Veronica:

I want to understand you well. This is why I ask you questions and I pay attention to your answers.

Congratulations for uninstalling Tinder four years ago and for turning off the romantic movie once you realized that you felt depressed as a result.

You wrote: “I planned to eliminate everything for six months, not to entertain any potential lover or watched a movie that can trigger my longingness”.

I am suggesting these adjustments to your plan. Let me know what you think of my suggestions as they may be good suggestions for you or not:

Plan to eliminate online and actual dating for one month instead of six. Then at the end of the month evaluate how your plan worked for you.

Regarding a movie, plan to watch one if you feel like it, but plan to do what you already did successfully: to turn it off once you feel sad or depressed.

What do you think?

anita

Dear Veronica:

As you follow your plan, if you want, you can post here every day something about how the plan is going and I will reply every time I am on the computer (which has been daily for a long, long time).

About your depression- you are probably experiencing now and ever since the same depression, the same kind of feeling you experienced when your mother left and you were holding her clothes close to you. We people keep experiencing the same as we did as children. When attending quality therapy (and not all therapy is quality, effective, that is), then we get in touch with the experience of then-and-there, process it in such a way that over time, we free ourselves somewhat of that experience and are able to experience something different.

When you got into online dating, for example, you got temporary relief from that depression, that high that the addiction is about. That was a very temporary relief that was followed by the depression, again and again. To experience well-being on an ongoing basis, without a fall back into depression, that takes the processing of the past experiences.

I believe you wrote that you don’t have access to psychotherapy. Maybe it will help you (try it and let me know if it helps some) to share more about those early experiences of your childhood. When you are calm, sitting comfortably with your computer, remember the child that you were and type away, what you saw and heard and how it felt inside, was your heart beating fast, what were the thoughts of the little girl that you were?

If you become too distressed during such a suggested exercise, stop the exercise, the sharing.

Also, a part of your plan should be some daily exercise, maybe a long walk once a day. What is your daily routine at this point?

anita

Dear Veronica:

That’s a lot of working, about sixty hours a week! I am impressed that you do go to the gym every other day. I don’t remember if you shared about it, if you have any friends, at work or outside work?

Tell me more about your pain, your suffering when you “don’t have big problems at hand”. What are the thoughts going on and the feelings, what are they?

anita

Dear Veronica:

You shared earlier that when you were home, as a child, and you found out your mother was gone, holding her worn clothes, and your father, yelling at you, is that the experience you have when you currently get home after work, “dull and cold”?

anita

Dear Veronica:

Did I understand correctly, you are currently living with your parents. I suppose you feel very lonely in their company, just like you did as a child. I think this is that “dull and cold” feeling, the depression you experience. When you communicate with a guy online, you get a break from that dull and cold feeling. You feel engaged, not dull; warm, not cold. It also happens often when you watch a romantic movie.

Key then is, how can you get that engaged and warm feeling while not doing the activities you are trying to abstain from.

anita

Dear Veronica:

You can’t get cured from your need to feel engaged and warm inside, to feel connected to another person, to feel good in such a connection. You can’t get cured from this need because this need is not a disease. We are born with the need to connect. All social animals are born with that need.

Question is how you can satisfy this natural need without hurting yourself. Are there such a thing as support groups where you live, people coming together for the purpose of talking and listening to each other…?

anita