Dear Miyoid:

“he started to look into my stuff sometimes… he secretly got into my hard disk”- he shouldn’t invade your privacy, it’s wrong for him to do that to you.

“he started to live with me and we stayed together during this pandemic and we still are… I don’t want to end this in any way. Ending this relationship will harm both of us.. I don’t know what to do”-

– he has to promise you to never again invade your privacy. He has to promise you to never put you in the position again where he considers suicide while living with you. These two things are wrong for him to do, It’s not fair to you.

Because you intend to continue living with him- talk to him, tell him that the two of you should be a team, working together for the benefit of  both of you- make it a win-win relationship, not a lose- lose. The two of you suffer from depression, both needing help, so help each other.

One more thing: he shouldn’t apply any sexual pressure on you. If you don’t feel like it, he should respect that. The two of you can cuddle, or hug or just sit together holding hands, that’s good enough.

Please let me know if this is helpful. I will be back to the computer in about 11 hours from now.

anita

Hey Miyoid!

Not posting here to give advice but just to help you feel a little less alone as I feel our situations are very similar in a way. If you read my most recent posts you can see this! I too have felt that all my life I was generally unhappy since childhood. ” I was rarely happy and I didn’t know why.”

For me also this was for no reason specifically specified, but with a lot of research, this forum, and a couple therapy sessions I have come to an understanding about where my mental illness has originated from, past relationships, and or your childhood. This relates to your story because these feelings have recently been exasperated by the relationship I am currently in, despite my love and admiration for my partner. Just like you said, it is not his fault in any way shape or form, but my despite my attempts to make him see this, he seems to tend to blame all of my own mental health issues on himself, which exasperates his own depression! I am not diagnosing anyone, as I am not a doctor in any way shape or form (just a 20 year old college student) but you should put some research into codependency, on his part and yours. Many symptoms of this include always feeling guilty for our own emotions, blaming ourselves for the way others feel, and often latching onto others to determine your own inner feelings, which seems to be the trend in your romantic relationships based on the info you provided me. This is often a learned behavior from our childhood or could possibly be from the abuse you suffered in your past relationships, and is often the brains way of coping with negative experiences! It doesn’t necessarily have to relate to relationships, although it does often create patterns in our romantic endeavors later in life! If you research the symptoms of this behavior, and feel that it fits you and/or your SO, I have some great reads and workbooks to recommend for you as you wait for your financial situation to improve to afford therapy/psychiatric help. If I am wrong and you don’t relate to these symptoms, feel free to disregard this information!

You are not alone, and I admire your honesty in posting about your situation and your ability to reflect on your problems! You sound like a very strong person and a beautiful soul!

Dear miyoid:

In the summer of 2019, months before the first appearance of the virus that now holds the world hostage, you shared the following about your childhood and your relationships with your parents:

“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.. I’ve experienced being 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 that something was missing. Sometimes with anxiety attacks, sometimes not so severe”.

About relationships with men, you shared: “I pick whomever that I can get affection from. I crave the affection, not the person… my anxiety appears when I don’t get that affection. I always worry about losing that affection I guess, or that person.. Between the relationships, there was always suffering, mental breakdowns. I simply didn’t want to continue my life in those moments.. the only moments I felt joy, peace, and happiness were the moments that I was with them”.

Yesterday, you shared that even though “one thing has changed” since last year, that thing being that you have a boyfriend and you are living with him, you are hopeless “depressed more than ever”. You shared again that you indeed “had a depressed childhood.. rarely happy.. get sad about stuff, thinking that when those stuff changed I will get better… when I finally get the love I need, I’ll get better”. But your two long term relationships, total 3 years “were totally illusions.. these two men.. kind of used me”. And regarding your current boyfriend, you wrote: “we are both depressed now and I prevented him from a suicide attempt the other day”. “I want to make him happy but I can’t even make myself happy in the first place”.

You shared yesterday and last year that you don’t have access to professional mental health help. Last year you wrote: “I haven’t got a clue about what I want in life and in a person/ relationship and that is exhausting because of my fears about the future”.

I feel confident that I can point you to one issue that needs to be resolved, and that is you not feeling angry. Anger is a healthy emotion in nature: an animal perceives something wrong has happened (one’s territory invaded, one’s position in the herd threatened, one’s life is threatened) and feels angry. The purpose of the anger is to motivate the animal to act in a powerful way so to correct the situation, to make it right.

Let’s look at your anger situation, June 2019: “Firstly I feel that I have already forgiven my parents about this issue. I have never felt any resentment toward them. I can understand where these behaviours are coming from.. I  know their intentions.” July 2020: “I don’t feel hatred to anybody.. no anger towards parents as well. I know the reasons behind these mistakes”-

– you forgave your parents too soon, before being aware that you were ever angry at them.

The advantage of you not feeling any anger toward your parents is that feeling angry is uncomfortable, and it makes you feel like you are a good daughter perhaps, for forgiving your parents. The disadvantage is that not feeling any anger towards them keeps you stuck in anxiety and depression. Healing from your childhood is not possible unless you feel anger toward them, but you will need professional help to manage and understand your anger and other emotions, so to heal.

You wrote regarding your parents, June last year: “I can’t be open with them about his. I have never shown them the hurt version of me, they think that I’m a healthy, strong person. And I have no intention of doing that either, I don’t want to give them another subject to be sorry about, I want to solve my problem on my own or with other people.. with a partner”-

– you are making your parents’ lives more comfortable, but you are paying the price for it, because the mask you put on for them, the healthy, strong person mask, it keeps you stuck behind that mask.

“I want to solve my problem on my own or with other people.. with a partner”- to solve your problem/ to heal, you have to be true to yourself, to not wear a mask (other than to protect yourself from the virus), not when you are with your parents, not when you are with your boyfriend, not here and not there.. not anywhere.

Bring back to your awareness your anger, you need that anger so to get unstuck.

I don’t think that opening up to your parents will help you, and therefore I don’t think it’s a good idea. On the other hand, I think that you need to take your mask off when in their presence.. and outside their presence.

I wish you had access to quality professional help. In the context of this thread, if you want to continue the communication with me, you can post anytime, looking into what I suggested here.

anita

• This reply was modified 3 years, 9 months ago by .

Dear Miyoid:

You are welcome.

“I can have anger towards my parents.. but I won’t be understanding of their conditions.. they have much more traumatizing lives and traumas.. They have tried so much to do the right thing.. Therefore, I cannot rationalize having anger towards them and I don’t feel any. Actually I feel sorry for them, I feel compassion and mercy. I wish I could’ve make their lives better”-

– it is very, very common for a child who was neglected (“I was just neglected a lot”) to focus on the parent or parents, to feel great empathy for them. It is a shift of roles: the parents are supposed to feel empathy for the child and to focus on the well being of the child, but when that doesn’t happen, the child makes up for the lack of empathy and attention by feeling a whole lot of empathy for the parents and focusing on the well-being of the parents.( This is what I experienced in my own life).

You wrote: “I cannot rationalize having anger towards them”- anger happens by itself, it is instinctive. We don’t rationalize having anger. What we rationalize is hiding the anger, pushing it outside of our awareness, so that we “don’t feel any”.

“I won’t be understanding their conditions. They have much more traumatizing lives..”- healing is about you understanding your conditions, and your traumatized life. Healing is when your life becomes about you, and no longer about them.

“the fact that you don’t think opening up to my parents is a good idea kind of relieved me”- I thought it would. I don’t think it would be a good idea because as a child, you were very open to them, as all children are. And what happened as a result is that they hurt you badly. So, of course, it doesn’t make sense to be open to them again.. and get hurt even more.

You wrote about your mother: “she looks down on and doesn’t respect others’ misery”- so you wear the healthy-strong-person mask, not wanting to be looked down at and disrespected by her?

“So I guess I have to accept her for who she really is”- I wonder what you mean by this sentence.

anita