Dear honey:

You are currently 17 or 18, a senior in high school, living with your parents. In your threads since January this year, you mentioned having suffered from overthinking, disassociation, identity issues, self-hate, self-destructive behaviours, suicidal thoughts, “social anxiety and anxiety in general”, depression, “a lot of pain and misery”; “severe mental illnesses”. You shared that you suffered from depression since the 7th grade, 5 years at this point, a depression that “has only gotten worse throughout the years”.

You shared that your parents have had high expectations of you, expecting you to do well in your studies, and that you failed a few classes. “in our culture we were only taught to be kind to others and focus on studies to get a good job in the future. We were never taught anything else… I think the love my parents showed me was in a different way, not through words but through actions. I think my father has a difficult time expressing his love for his children, so I think that may have caused the hole in my heart… As for my father, I love him so much.. But he would always expect so much from me, all he wanted was for me to excel in my studies and unfortunately, I could not. I disappointed him. I tried so hard to make him proud but I feel like I never can… that left a hole in my heart.. My depression stemmed from the high expectations of my father”.

You shared that back in middle school you got bullied, “anxiety rose from the bullying”, that you are a people pleaser who “did not care about myself instead, I would try my best to help others”, and “I always assume people hate me, and I am not worthy of love”.

You shared about your boyfriend: “he taught me to love myself, he taught me to be bold”, but this teaching didn’t last, “in December, everything went downhill. My negative thoughts came back and I was hurting myself and very suicidal.. had to go to the ER.. There was a lot going on in  my life”, “In my relationship, I experienced a lot of anxiety thinking that my partner did not love me”.

Six months later, October 30, you shared that after the breakup from your boyfriend in April, the two of you remained friends for 4 months, April- August. During that friendship phase, you talked to him “about the breakup and how upsetting it was for me… constantly talked about my feelings about the breakup”, not giving him space. As a result, he resented you, no longer replied to you, or replied in “a rude tone”. The two of you did not talk since some time in August. A few days ago, he messaged you, asking you “to delete all our past messages”, “It seems that he has been deleting past messages between us and removing me from his contacts recently”.

My input at this point: seems like your ex-boyfriend wants to delete his past with you, a past that became painful for him, a past that you talked about so often to him, after the breakup.

When we experience enough pain, we want to erase that past and the pain that goes with it. In April, you wanted to do something similar, to be done with your own past: “After all these years of being hurt and hurting others, including myself, I’m done. I have two options, either I don’t try and things are the same, or I try and things could be different. I want to cultivate good habits and have a healthy mindset. I want to be the best person I can be, because the truth is, I’m sick of my mental illnesses taking away every good thing in my life and hurting me. I’m sick! I need treatment and recovery.. even though I love him so much.. I need to focus on myself first so I can find peace within myself”.

You wanted to heal and recover without addressing your past. When a person experiences a significantly painful childhood for years, that past and the pain that goes with it cannot be erased. The painful past will maintain itself unless we thoroughly address it and go through the long process of emotional healing.

From what you have shared, you did not receive adequate love as a child, and therefore you did not thrive, instead- you got sick. You looked for love from your father but what he gave you instead was a condition: if you succeed academically then he will love you. You tried very hard academically, but did not satisfy your father’s condition (“I tried so hard to make him proud but I feel like I never can.. that left a hole in my heart”).

Feeling like you can never could earn his love- you felt hopeless and unworthy of his love, or of anyone’s love (“I always assume people hate me, and I am not worthy of love”). When you are actually loved, you can’t experience being loved for long, you can’t trust that indeed you are loved (“In my relationship, I experienced a lot of anxiety thinking that my partner did not love me”).

Back to what you shared today: “I wrote all my feelings down into a letter that is dedicated to my ex. The letter contains personal information about my experience with the breakup, the unconditional love I have for him.. I simply wrote everything from my heart. I want him to know my true feelings for him (my unconditional love for him).. I’m simply sending this letter because I think it would be beneficial for him to know about my true feelings for him. I don’t know why but I don’t like hiding my feelings, I am always honest with everyone and tell them what I am thinking or feeling”-

– As a young child, I imagine that you were very honest with your father, clearly expressing your love for him and your need that he loves you back. Over time, living with that hole in your heart, unloved by him, you gave up on sharing your feelings with him.

Currently, seems to me, you are focused on sharing your feelings with your ex-boyfriend as a substitute to your father who did not and will not listen to how you feel, even if you told him again (using a more mature, educated vocabulary than what you used as a young child).

It is your hurt in the context of your early childhood with your father (and your mother) that you need to address and heal from, a past (and ongoing present experience) that hurt you so badly. The breakup from your boyfriend was a far-off secondary hurt, one that was not separate from your earlier childhood hurt.

You mentioned your unconditional love for your ex-boyfriend. I think that your unconditional love was always for your father. You still love your father so much even though he hasn’t loved you back, not adequately.

Your ex-boyfriend already expressed his anger about you telling him how hurt you were about the breakup and most recently he wants you to delete your messages to him- therefore I don’t think it is a good idea to send him yet another message, be it an online message or a letter expressing yet again what he doesn’t want to hear/ read.

“Before I send the letter I am going to make sure if he is okay with reading it.. I just want him to read it”- he already clearly expressed that he is not okay with it. And again, I think that you .. really want your father to read about how you feel. It may be a good idea for you to write a letter to your father, even if you don’t deliver the letter to him. You are welcome, if you feel comfortable doing so, to compose a letter to your father right here, on your thread.

anita

Hi Honey,

I’m afraid I agree with the others, don’t send the letters. From his point of view it’ll just make you look that much more batty.

You’ve been offered a lot to think about here already, and I’d like to add something else. Why do you want him to read that stuff anyway? Validation. You want him to acknowledge how strongly you feel/felt, and since you love him (and likely always will to some extent), and you want him to say he felt the same way. We can’t make people feel things, or do things or understand things just because we want them to. We can only control those things in ourselves. So when where faced with brick walls, people who won’t listen, or, once in my case a person who died before I could tell them, we write the letters. Its the only way to get it out of us.

I’ve written four letters like yours over the years, and yours are anything like mine, its a living document. A testament to our inner selves. The person you wrote it for has proven he isn’t even your friend anymore, and thats not the person I’d share my innermost thoughts and feelings with.

In the end I write my letters for closure. To recap all that I went through, all that I felt, and in my more recent letters I always add a bit about all the positive ways my life changed and how I grew as an individual because of my relationship with them. So for me it doesn’t matter if they read the letter or not, I wrote it to them, but I wrote it for me.

Be well, Honey, I hope the very best for you.

BB

Honey,

I wasn’t trying to seem like I knew anything about your relationship, other than the information you had on your forum and the responses that followed. So I apologize, I’m not trying to make it seem that way.

I think you have misunderstood me as well. Yes you may never be “cured” and I’m not at all saying that you need to be completely cured and “have everything sorted out” before entering a relationship, because you are correct, you will never have “everything sorted out.” What I’m saying is, based off what you have typed out here on this website: you should not enter another relationship until you know more about your mental illness and how it effects you.

I suffer from anxiety and depression, and have since I was 16. I am 21 almost 22, now. I know what it’s like to be in a relationship at a young age while also battling mental illness. I ignored it for years. I knew something was wrong mentally, but I just kept trying to find someone who “understood me.” Well I couldn’t find someone who understood me, until I was able to understand myself, and that is what I’m getting at. You’re aware you suffer from some sort of mental illness, but you don’t know why. My advice the first time I replied wasn’t to make you feel down about having a mental illness, it was to motivate you to speak to someone. So you know how to help yourself instead of hoping someone will know what to say to make you feel better. Again, I’m not trying to insinuate that you relied on your ex or expected him to be your therapist. But obviously the reason you two broke up, was because of your mental illness and the fact you didn’t know how to help yourself.

Until you talk to a professional, who really knows how to speak to someone with mental illness, you will continue the same routine. There will not be a prince charming that will come along and take your pain away. He may dim the pain for a while, but until you learn how to help yourself, how can you expect others to help you?

Also, I was not trying to make it seem like there was no love in that relationship. You could very well of had a deep love with im. Like you said earlier, I don’t know all of the details of your relationship. I was just speaking from my heart and my experience. From my experience, I dated 3 boys in high school, and at that time I thought I loved all of them. It wasn’t until I had been in a relationship outside of high school that I realized, I had only truly been in love with 1/3. It could be different or the same for you. Your life is different from mine and anyone else’s. I was only speaking from experience because a lot of times, women experience a lot of the same things around that age. I was just offering my perspective.

Once again, I am not trying to seem rude or anything. I know what this situation feels like and that is why I’m not trying to sugar coat anything. Things I say don’t translate very well over text or written word at times. But I hope you get the jist of what I was trying to say and that is: You will never be able to truly love or care about anyone, until you can do it for yourself.