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December 8, 2020 at 5:14 pm #370748KayParticipant
Hello again after a long time!
Well, I met someone online, then in person around August, lets call him N, it has not been really that long…. and in the pandemic, which sounds kind of irresponsible, but i live alone and work from home, so he does.We had like 3 dates in public places like having food or just walking in parks, in all those interactions we was really nice, but it was obvious he wanted me to take me to his apartment, so after the 4th date i went a couple of times, we kissed a little, but nothing more and he respected that, but I know he wanted more, now that i am writing it i notice how i knew it, but i mean he was nice and i had a great time with him, plus honestly i kind of wanted more too. So, finally one day we had sex, i enjoyed it, which i did not think i could do because of past experiences, but at the same time it was kind of a disaster because i was excited and acting like not my normal self (probably he got the wrong impression about me? I do not know).After that we have been meeting regularly. He mentioned indirectly things like living together, making plans like trips and things like that. But all that scared me, so i did not really reply and avoid the topic.Then like two weeks ago when mentioning things he would like to do, he corrects himself and instead of saying lets do it together he says do it by yourself. I had been trying to ask him why did he change this, but probably it was because he didn’t receive excitement from my side maybe, plus i am scared of the answer honestly.Last weekend while being together i saw in his phone he has Tinder, so probably he is seeing other people (we met in a different app). We have not talked about anything exclusive, but i feel that is what i want but at the same time i am scared about his answer. Scared of having something exclusive and also scared of something casual, because it would feel like a rejection, and i do not deal well with any of the two options.I do not really have a question to ask. But i would like to read your thoughts.KayDecember 8, 2020 at 5:54 pm #370749AnonymousGuestDear Kay:
Welcome back! We communicated first in January 2019 and next in September 2019, both times before the pandemic, it now seems a long time ago.
I am glad the two of you met in public places, having food and walking in parks three times before you spent time with him in his apartment, and I am glad you had a good sexual experience with him eventually.
“We have not talked about anything exclusive, but I feel that is what I want, but at the same time I am scared about his answer. Scared of having something exclusive and also scared of something casual, because it would feel like a rejection, and I do not deal well with any of the two options. I do not really have a question to ask. But I would like to read your thoughts “-
– My thoughts is that I wish you and him were in an exclusive relationship because this is what you feel that you want. I wish you had the courage to talk with him about what you want. I do understand how scary it is for you… maybe it will be easier for you if you wrote him a short letter and let him read it while you are with him, tell him that you wrote a letter for him to read because you are too scared to talk to him. Do you think that might work?
(I will soon be away from the computer and back in about 13 hours from now).
anita
December 8, 2020 at 9:06 pm #370756KayParticipantHi anita,
Thanks for your reply and sweet words.
I think i can write a letter, but i do not think i can give it to him. I have like extreme anxiety just thinking about it. Then i think: how i am supposed to have a relationship if i cannot even communicate about what “I want” to start with. 😭
Kay
December 9, 2020 at 1:32 pm #370787AnonymousGuestDear Kay:
You are very welcome. You wrote that you are too scared to talk to him about it being an exclusive relationship with him.
There was another time you were very scared to talk to a guy- it was September 3 this year. On that day, you sent me the short text message you were thinking of sending him: “.. the other day I saw you with a woman and I would like to know who she was..”.
I then suggested some changes to the message, and you posted back: “I asked him, and at the beginning he pretended he did not know what I was talking about, then he said he was in a complicated/ open relationship with that woman”.
And I posted back to you: “Good job asking him! I am impressed with you, that you asked him even though you were afraid. Well, you got an answer..”
Notice: you were afraid to ask him the question you wanted to ask, but you asked even though you were afraid, and you got the answer to your question.
How about repeating your Sept 3 success in December 9: I can help you put together a message, you can then send it and wait for an answer…?
anita
December 10, 2020 at 8:11 am #370837KayParticipantHi anita,
Actually i was able to kind of ask him in person if he was seeing other people. He said he is not, but honestly i do not know if i believe him.
Then i do not remember what else i asked, but he said he was not looking for a relationship like leading to getting married and things like that. Which honestly is a relieve for me because that would kind of scare me. But all this part of the conversation is blurry, i do not know why it is hard to remember what i said or what he said.
Honestly i would like to move with the flow, because it seems kind of safe. But i also realize any kind of relationship triggers anxiety on me which feels uncomfortable and i do not know if i should take a break. The good thing is that he will be out of town for a couple of weeks, which will leave me time to do not think much about it, hopefully!
Kay
December 10, 2020 at 8:36 am #370838AnonymousGuestDear Kay:
“I do not remember what else I asked.. this part of the conversation is blurry, I do not know why it is hard to remember what I said or what he said”- a person’s brain needs to be calm enough so to be able to focus and pay attention. When a person experiences intense anxiety, it means that the brain is overly-excited and is therefore, not calm enough to focus and pay attention. To a person with an overly-excited brain, much of what happens feels like a blur because the brain is not paying attention to details, such as words, and what escapes our attention, does not get stored in our memory.
Did we talk about ways for you to lessen and manage your anxiety, such as taking daily walks, listening to mindfulness guided meditations.. attending quality psychotherapy?
anita
December 10, 2020 at 10:01 pm #370885KayParticipantHi anita,
I thino that might explain what happened!
I have been in psychotherapy for a while now and i feel it has been helping me, when i had a “normal” life before the pandemic at work and started to have a better relationship with family and friends. However after the pandemic started i have been working from home and it kind of isolated me. The main interactions i have are online and work and the almost only person i talk about personal stuff is my therapist and in my head a lot. That might explain why i have so much anxiety, my head is a mess.
I also take walks, not daily but 2-3 times a week and exercise everyday. I feel like that has helping me to deal a little better. I remember the first months of the pandemic i did not walk and i was almost depressed, it was hard to get up in the morning.
My therapist has suggested mindful exercises and medication, however i feel like always is happening something else at work, family or an imaginary problem i create in my head that i delay or interrupt my try to do this. And that is bad, because it is when i need it the most.
Thanks for reading and responding 😀
Kay
December 11, 2020 at 6:56 am #370891AnonymousGuestDear Kay:
I hope our “normal” lives do resume sometime next year. I hope for a better normal than the old normal. For now, keep the daily exercise going, as well as the weekly walks. I hope you are having online therapy sessions with your therapist?
When you feel especially isolated, you can always post here, on your thread, and I will read and reply to you every time.
You wrote that your therapist suggested to you “mindful exercises and medication”- did you mean medication or meditation? And did she send you links or gave you a workbook with specific mindful exercises and guided meditations that you can use anytime you want to?
anita
December 11, 2020 at 12:39 pm #370911KayParticipantHi anita,
Yes, I am still having online sessions with my therapist. And yes, I meant meditation, not medication hehe. She did not give me a workbook, she just introduced the idea, but now that I think about it, it is like I have some resistance, like saying that I meditate sometimes and changing the subject and start talking about a new “problem” (either “real” or created by my mind), it is like I am around drama all the time and if I am not, I create it, and I just want to be listened.
But I have tried by my own getting some guided meditations online, before I was better at trying to follow without my mind getting lost, but lately I get asleep while meditating. Maybe I am just tired, because I have periods of time where I can barely sleep, then followed by a period of time of exhaustion, then some stability sometimes, then the cycle repeats again. But I know that if I can pick up the habit, just like exercise, I will be able to do it regularly.
I also expect for a better normal, I have thought about many things I want to do, that maybe I wanted to do for a while but I had not because life seemed infinite by then.
Thank you very much for taking the time 🙂
Kay
December 11, 2020 at 1:13 pm #370913AnonymousGuestDear Kay:
You are welcome. I am glad that you have online sessions with your therapist and I agree that listening to guided meditations and doing mindful exercises can become a habit for you, just like exercise. I understand your resistance to meditations- many people experience this resistance, I did too.
Here is what I suggest: when it is your bed time and you don’t feel tired, listen to a guided meditation while lying in bed, see if it helps you fall asleep.
Try listening to a guided meditation first thing in the morning, see if it helps put you in the right mood for the day.
Experiment this way and that way, and form habits that work for you.
There are books and online resources for guided meditations and mindfulness exercises, perhaps at the top of the page, point to BLOG and scroll down to “Mindfulness & Peace”.
anita
December 18, 2020 at 3:37 pm #371367KayParticipantDear anita,
I have not been very successful in my meditation tries. I think because I am in a period of exhaustion, which usually happens to me after a period of anxiety in which it is really hard to sleep. So, now I just want to sleep all time, so I fail when trying to meditate at night, and in the morning it is really hard to get up, and when I do it it is just on time for my first meeting of the morning, which is funny, because I wish I can wake up to meditate. I have meditated before, and I think the morning is the best time for me.
Starting tomorrow I will have some time off from work, so hopefully I can have a better opportunity to recover and start over.
One more thing that happened is that las weekend I was very anxious, like wanting to talk/chat with people and I went through my contact list I did chat with friends I had not been in contact for a while, which sounds good but it came from a place of anxiety in which I was really desperate, like wanting attention or something.
Last week I saw this guy N a couple of times, and I am not sure if lately my anxiety is fueled a little by him, perhaps yes…. Now he is out on “vacation”, and he is completely out of contact. Which I do not know why makes me think like I should escape, whatever that means. Which has happened to me before with the guy J from my last post, back then J traveled a lot for work, when he was out I wanted to get over him, forget about him, because I knew I was not my better self when being around him, I experienced all kind of strong feelings good and bad, which made me feel like crazy…
Thanks for reading
Kay
December 18, 2020 at 4:41 pm #371369AnonymousGuestDear Kay:
I will read your recent post and reply tomorrow morning (my time), in about 14 hours from now.
anita
December 19, 2020 at 9:16 am #371379AnonymousGuestDear Kay:
You shared that last week you saw N (a guy) a couple of times, then he went on a vacation of sorts, “completely out of contact”, which made you feel like you “should escape, whatever that means”. It is a similar to how you felt when J (another guy) traveled a lot for work, having experienced at the time “feelings good and bad, which made me feel like crazy”.
Last weekend you were very anxious, “really desperate, like wanting attention or something”, and you went through your contact list and chatted with friends.
You shared that in the past you meditated in the morning and you believe morning meditation works best for you. But recently you are exhausted because you were anxious for a while (since last week when N went “completely out of contact”). When you experience a period of anxiety, it is hard for you to sleep, and what results is exhaustion: too exhausted to meditate at night and too exhausted to meditate in the morning, “in the morning it is really hard to get up”.
My understanding today: you feel safer when you are alone, so you avoided relationships with men much of your life, having your first at 29, and you avoid what I would term being Together with people, all because when you were Together with your mother, just you and her (with no one else being there)- she hurt you terribly, so terribly that you “prayed and wished to die”.
“my mother was always angry at me and that many times I just prayed and wished to die… sometimes she got physical with her anger and maybe that is why I was so afraid to be alone with her” (January 2019)- notice, you were afraid to be Together with her when no one else was there.
Fast forward, you are not afraid to be alone. You are afraid to be Together with a person, because once you are Together with him, and then he disappears in some way- you get to experience that fear of being Together with your mother all over again.
Being Together with your mother when there was no one else there was a scary experience, so you fear it. On the other hand, as humans we are social animals who need Together for comfort.
Last week you saw N a couple of times and you experienced moments of a comforting-Together with him (the good feelings in “feelings good and bad, which made me feel like crazy”). When he then went “completely out of contact”, you experienced being scary-Together with your mother (the bad feelings in “feelings good and bad, which made me feel like crazy”).
“Now (N) is.. completely out of contact. Which I do not know why makes me think like I should escape whatever that means”- I think it means that you experienced comforting-Together with him, then he disappeared from your life in some way, and you felt the same scary-Together fear you had when you were alone with your mother. You thought you should escape.. your mother.
“Which has happened to me before with they guy J from my last post, back then J traveled a lot for work”- you experienced some comforting-Together with J, then he disappeared in some way, and you felt the same scary-Together you felt with your mother.
January this year, you wrote: “Four years ago I got a job offer to work abroad, I accepted it without hesitation, maybe I was trying to escape from everything in my home country including my mother. I wanted to be free”- you wanted to escape being scary-Together with your mother. You wanted to be free of that fear.
You wrote in September this year, I think it was: “last year, I became so anxious about wanting a relationship. I feel like before at least I was safe from everyone”- not being in a relationship felt safe, similar to not being Together with your mother/being free of that scary-Together.
What you want is a comforting-Together, a comforting relationship, but what happens is that you re-experience that scary-Together/ abuse you experienced with your mother.
Last week you experienced some comfort with N, he was then gone, you experienced fear of being Together with your mother, and during the weekend, overcome with fear and desperate for freedom from that fear, desperate for comfort- you went through your contact list and chatted with friends.
It is interesting, to make this distinction: you are not afraid to be alone, really. You are afraid to be left alone with your mother, which means that you are afraid of being Together with your mother. Even though your mother is not there physically with you, you experience her there with you mentally/ emotionally. I know this experience very well myself.
anita
December 19, 2020 at 11:06 am #371388KayParticipantDear anita,
I agree, I am not afraid to be alone… I am afraid to be left alone. I still do not see how with my mother, since technically i am alone by myself, but yes there is something different that makes me feel very anxious and scared, a different kind of loneliness.
I just saw my mother a couple of months ago, when I had to go to do some paperwork and she was really nice to me. Actually I felt guilty because I wanted to go away again, even though I like seeing my parents… Sometimes when I am there I see myself like something small and I want to be hugged like if I were a small cat and I want my mother to pet me. Other times when I am here I also want someone to hug me and take care of me, then I am afraid I would depend on someone that would eventually leave me.
Something I remember about this guy N is that a couple of months ago he mentioned things like making plans together, like traveling or living together, then recently when he mentions those things he talks like a suggestion for me to do it by myself. And that makes me wonder what did he make him change. I know I should ask… maybe i can do that when/if he is back.
Sorry this response is all over the place, I feel like I wrote whatever came to my mind.
Kay
December 19, 2020 at 11:45 am #371389AnonymousGuestDear Kay:
“I am not afraid to be alone.. I am afraid to be left alone”- when you get used to being alone, you feel safe, or safer, but when you get close to someone (feeling that comforting-Togetherness I mentioned), then you become afraid of being left alone.
“I just saw my mother a couple of months ago.. she was really nice to me. Actually, I felt guilty because I wanted to go away again”- when you saw her, she was really nice to you, but you remember the many times she was angry and abusive to you.
Think of it this way: let’s say that for ten years, you ate spoiled potato salad again and again, and every time you did, you vomited. You then stayed away from potato salad. Years later, you are offered fresh potato salad- your reaction: likely you will feel like vomiting, even though it is fresh, because you remember vomiting before.
Understanding this, I hope that you resolve the guilt you mentioned.
“Sometimes when I am there I see myself like something small and I want to be hugged like I were a small cat and I want my mother to pet me”- that’s you wanting to experience closeness/ that comforting-Togetherness I mentioned. Being touched is part of the comforting-Togetherness that we all need.
“then I am afraid I would depend on someone that would eventually leave me”- that’s the fear of relaxing into the comfort of Togetherness- and then losing that closeness/ being left alone. So, you prefer to stay on edge, not comfortable, not so close.. so that the Fall from Togetherness to Alone is not too great and too painful.
“N .. mentioned things like making plans together.. then recently.. (suggesting) for me to do it by myself”- when he made plans for the two of you to be Together- you got scared, so you kept your distance best you could, appearing disinterested. He in turn figured that you were not interested in Togetherness with him.
Did I understand correctly?
anita
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