Dear Gaia:

I identify with your “state of none life”, and jealousy of peers who did live life, being in a state of life. All I experienced in real life before 18 in the area of romance  was one fast kiss that a boy planted on my face quickly, one time. The rest of the time was my daydreaming of lots of boyfriend-girlfriend stuff with crushes that was never materialized.

My loneliness was extreme, time had a never-ending quality to it, a sort of eternity of loneliness. At times, in the mornings, if the day was a nice day, I had hope that … something exciting will happen on that day, something different, but then it was afternoon and nothing happened.

I was so angry, wanting to live life like others seem to be living life. I didn’t want to be stuck in an eternity of nothing-is-happening, an eternity of waiting.

You wrote, “mental musings were on such weird and abstract”- when alone, not socializing, not doing much at all, our brain does go to the abstract, and it does get “stuck in nonsensical and twisted matters”. Mine did.

You still need now what you always needed: to socialize, to interact with others, at least with one other person, in an honest, spontaneous way. Interact with another that way again and again, and you will be healthier and healthier.

Got to accept with sadness the loss of time and life so far, to grieve that loss, that waste. So that you are less angry and able to spot that honest, spontaneous socializing opportunity with a person you are yet to meet.

anita

Dear Gaia:

You say that you have a blunt side, a “very talkative and blunt” side that turns people off. Can you give me an example of you having been blunt- what did you say that was blunt, and in what circumstance?

anita

Dear Gaia:

Reads like you got cut off in the above post, as if you were going to continue, but you didn’t.

Let’s take a pause. Remember the goal I set was to get to know you, to see you/ hear you/ understand you.

If you want, read through these four pages, or any part of these four pages, and let me know the following:

1. What is it that I did understand correctly about you?

2. What is it that I misunderstood about you?

You are welcome to skip number 1, and answer only number 2.

anita

Dear Gaia:

I don’t want to fit you in a box, not at all. Lots of people want that box for themselves and for others, and they find such boxes in mental diagnoses and labels (examples: he is a narcissist,  I am an introvert, she is a victim of sexual abuse). There is some comfort for many at first, when fitting a box, and if the box does fit, it can be helpful as a starting point of making better choices and healing, but many get too attached to the box and become prisoners in it.

Often it happens that a person reads about a particular box, and lots fits with the person’s experience.. but then something doesn’t fit and the person is confused: I.. almost fit into that box! Or you know you don’t fit into a particular box but then so much of what it says about people who do fit into that box is similar or the same as what you experience.

I learn about people based on what I refer to as “the building blocks”, that is, from the beginning, no boxes. I look at the basics= what is true to all human beings and often, to  all social animals.

One more thing: people are complex creatures, not two dimensional cartoon characters. For example: I was lonely a whole lot of my childhood, dominantly lonely and alone. And I was shy and on the outside of life. But not always. Sometimes, in the company of others, I burst with such liveliness, like a volcano, and I felt good being vocal and making jokes. Also, no one is bad all the time, every cruel person is sometimes kind to someone. And no introvert is always an introvert, no extrovert is always an extrovert, no person is always passive, no one is always any particular way.

I learned that because I was so miserable so much of the time, my brain took “breaks” from misery in the form of happy fantasy, joyful, exciting daydreaming. So no one is miserable all of the time either.

Your thoughts about what I wrote here?

anita

Dear Gaia:

Thank you for expressing empathy for me, having been so alone. I appreciate it!

“They try so hard to define themselves n certain terms, certain boxes, and they act so defensive when they feel threatened” because they are anxious, fearful on an ongoing basis (with breaks, remember my point, the brain takes its breaks).

It is understandable that you feel “unable to connect” with those who insist on fitting into this or that box. I suppose you will be able to connect with someone like you, who doesn’t want to fit a box. In the context of your thread, that someone can be/ is.. me.

anita

Dear Gaia:

“not expressing my sexuality with someone else is slowly turning me into someone deviant”- I think that you mean that because you are not engaged sexually with another person, not expressing yourself sexually with another person- you overthink and over-imagine sex.

Similar to other areas- not really living, we think too much, being stuck in ongoing mental activity. And because of the sheer amount of mental activity (thinking, imagining), some of it sort of spreads into the weird, even deviant territory.  Do I understand correctly?

anita

Oh yea, also the part you shared about your mom. Seems like the enmeshment trauma there. Her over reacting , impeding on your private life , just doing too much etc … her franticness.. though it wasn’t your fault . Has made it hard for you to open up later in life because maybe deep down you fear people will respond like how she did.

and you feeling like your problems aren’t so big so you don’t want to bother people with it .. I mean those things are relative to the individual . Your experiences and challenges matter.

I had to learn this the hard way. I remember one day I visited a friend . I was shooken up because I had just left the grocery store where a homeless guy started calling me out of my name , cussing me out. It was very triggering because I feel like as a woman we have to deal with this type of gendered ignorance way too often. So I was really hurt and upset. And I get to my friends place and she was really  upset too but about something else. She was upset because the turning knob had fallen off of her kitchen counter. I thought she was overreacting and thought “‘my situation is so much worse and she’s complaining about a broken knob ?” I classified it as her over reacting then. What I didn’t see then was, how she was a single parent , how she had just gotten out of a crappy relationship, how she was balancing school, finances , work and a child. How she was dealing with depression and just trying to make it day by day. And sure a broken knob is nowhere near as messed up as being chased in a store. But, we all are going through challenging things that are relative to our individual lives. And we all deserve to be heard because those things matter .