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I just broke up with my first boyfriend, I’m 16 and he’s 17. I’m beginning to wonder if there was actually ever a real connection. It’s a very sad thought, but I talked to him every day for over 5 months (on snapchat) and I always had this feeling in my chest/in my gut that told me something was off about our convos. I can’t even put my finger on it. We had banter, we would make jokes, but it didn’t feel like we were really on the same wavelength. We met in person eight times, and while we would laugh together, and we were physically attracted to one another, I felt off then too. He told me a number of times that he feels like we really “click”, which makes it all the more confusing to me, because a click is almost always a two way thing. I thought maybe I was just worrying too much, but the feeling in the pit of my stomach wouldn’t go away. So I ended it. I know it sounds crazy that I kept it going for that long despite the off feeling, but it was the first guy who had ever liked me/wanted me, and we had things in common. I also thought he was really cute, and he had so many qualities I’d want in a partner. He was perfect to me, he was kind, and funny. He also met my family, and they really liked him. They thought we were a good match. So much that when I would tell my concerns to my family they thought I was self-sabotaging, even though I wanted it to work out so badly. He even told me he “thinks he loves me”… maybe he just loved the IDEA of me though. I just wonder how it could be so one-sided, how could he feel like we really click, while I felt off about the relationship? He even would talk about our relationship years from now… I guess what I’ve learned from this though is to listen to my gut, especially when it comes to relationships. If I’m not feeling it from now on I just won’t continue it. The whole thing really upsets me though, that I spent so much time on someone I didn’t feel much of a connection with. I thought it could get better, but it didn’t. I just feel like all of that was just a “fantasy bond”, it hurts to finally accept that instead of just ignoring it. I spent so much time talking to a person who I had little “rapport” with. I feel like a horrible person for it. He didn’t deserve that. In a way, I feel like I led him on, even though I really, really wanted it to work. I still feel guilty though, because I shouldn’t have ever agreed to the relationship in the first place. Instead, I ignored my gut feelings, and just went with it. We were together for only a month and a half.
Dear sofia:
“she just thought I obsessively worried over things”- you already knew that you obsessively worried over things before you saw the therapist. You shared about in various threads here since last year. So, that was not a revelation: something she told you that you didn’t know before.
* What did she suggest that you do about your obsessive thinking?
“I brought up some of my obsessions, and she would mostly just reassure me that I was irrational”- did she give you any Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) exercises designed to replace irrational thoughts with rational thoughts?
“It ended because I didn’t feel like I was getting much out of it”- you weren’t getting anything out of it if the only things she told you were things you already knew without bringing you to any new understandings and without giving you tools so to lessen your obsessive thinking and to replace irrational thoughts with rational thoughts.
“I feel like she wasn’t a very good therapist”- a very good therapist would make a world of difference in your mental health. I wish you were able to see a very good therapist.
* Here are a few quotes from what you shared in previous threads and my comments:
July 24, 2019: “my problem is, I have a lot of past mistakes that I feel very guilty about. I ruminate over them constantly… I have a downright terrible compulsion.. to compare what I have done to what others have done.. I will feel better for a millisecond before I feel very ashamed”-
– you obsess over mistakes that you think you made while feeling stress, and your compulsion to compare your mistakes to others’ is a way for you to feel a very temporary relief of that stress. This is what compulsions are about: temporary relief of stress. Following that temporary relief, stress increases and another compulsion is required. This is what OCD is about.
You have a variety of obsessions at one time or another: one is about mistakes you made, another was: “I basically have an OCD sexual obsession for everything you are not supposed to be attracted to”. In August 7, you mentioned another obsession: “There’s this guy… I obsess over him so much”.
One of your compulsions was asking me questions. When you received an answer you liked, you felt a temporary relief. Following the relief, your stress increased again, and you needed to ask me another question: on July 24, 1:59 pm (my time), I gave you an answer that pleased you. A few moments later, at 2:05 pm, you wrote to me: “Anita, I don’t think you know how much those word truly helped me. No one has been able to help me as much as you did. Thank you.”.
But by 3:33 pm, an hour and a half later, your stress was up, and you asked me another question: “Anita, I’m sorry to bother you again, but I had another thought cross my mind.. does that mean I should feel pain myself?”- – see for how long you were “truly helped”? Less than an hour and a half before “another thought”, that is, another obsession occurred to you, compelling you to ask me another question.
Well, sofia, as you can see (I hope) you need quality psychotherapy with a therapist who will ask you questions, lead you to new understandings, teach you tools to use and guide you in the process of correcting irrational thoughts and to manage/ regulate your emotions.
anita
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This reply was modified 3 years, 6 months ago by .
Dear sofia:
“I think my mom thinks that I might be making it up for attention, or to seem ‘special’.. When my mom gets very angry, she would yell at us, and call us names”- I am sure that you don’t feel special, in a good way, when your mother calls you names.
I understand that you want to seem special, everyone does. And I understand that you suffer from obsessive thinking that has been making you miserable a lot of the time, for years- both things are true and none contradicts the other.
Being yelled at (“she would yell at us”), being called names (“and call us names”), hearing and seeing things slammed and thrown (“he would slam and throw things.. and yell”)- these are very unpleasant experiences for anyone, especially for a young child.
Yelling, slamming, calling names are unfortunately common and happen in many, many households- this is why so many children get deeply hurt emotionally. A young child doesn’t say to herself: oh, this yelling, that happens in every home, so it doesn’t bother me-
-No, a young child doesn’t think that way. She gets very scared every time she hears/sees/feels yelling and other forms of aggression.
I am reminded of what you posted more than a year ago, September 21, 2019: “I think I was about 7 maybe, my sister (who was maybe 9 years old) and I were having a fight while we were raking leaves in the yard. I held up the rake and told my sister I was ‘going to kill her’.. I was just mad.. I told my mom about it, and she just laughed and said she thinks nothing of it”-
– she though nothing of it because she is okay with herself yelling at her daughters and calling them names when she is mad. Lots of people justify their behavior when angry, as if anger by itself is a license to hurt other people, including their own children.
Children often copy the aggression they experience at home, not necessarily in the same ways (neither one of your parents may have held up a rake perhaps), but nonetheless, they copy the aggression that they experience at home.
anita
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This reply was modified 3 years, 6 months ago by .
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This reply was modified 3 years, 6 months ago by
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