Dear Yuri:

You wrote: “I’ve noticed that whenever we get close, I start fearing that he would eventually leave me and I would be left in a lot of pain.”- it is my experience that we, humans, fear what we already experienced. In your case, you fear that you will be “left in a lot of pain” because you were already left in a lot of pain, most likely, as a child.

You wrote: “I read in many places that the fear of abandonment..is due to abandonment issues one faces in childhood but I’ve had no such problems. I’ve always had a loving family… that’s why I’m unable to understand my behaviour.”

It is also my experience that children and adult children are very invested, emotionally, in viewing their childhoods and families as good and loving, minimizing and even denying problems that did exist. Can this be the case with you too, that you are overlooking having been left alone, as a child, in some way that was significant to you, at the time?

anita

Dear Yuri:

You are welcome. You expressed significant realizations in your last post. Some realizations, when made, are distressing, so take your breaks and your time, let the dust created by significant realizations settle down, before you dig further. And so, attend to the rest of this post if and when you are ready, anytime.

You wrote that as a child you were an introvert, and that your parents told you that you shouldn’t be shy, meaning you acted shy, timid; afraid, basically. I wonder what scared you by that point; why you turned inward…

When your parents told you that you shouldn’t be shy, they didn’t look into what made you shy? Just told you that you shouldn’t feel shy?

* will be back to the computer in about eight hours.

anita