Hi Anita,

Thank you for your response again.

Well with my mother… Oii… It’s always been difficult. As far as my earliest memory, I remember my mother has always been this angry and anxious person. So I always got yelled at. As a child, this would fill me with this “I have done something wrong” sense. I am an only child, so I  always got the full force of her anger. I was terrified of her. As I grew older, the yelling continued. But with growing up, my tolerance for her screaming reduced, and I started arguing back. Now, when she yells, I yell too. Honestly, because I just can’t take it. Don’t get me wrong; she loves me and takes care of me in every way she can. But yeah, she screams a lot. I am very different than her in many many ways; different ideologies, different thought processes, different way of doing things. This doesn’t help at all, because I have kind of observed that she has this “if it’s not my way, it’s wrong” thing. Not all the time. But most of the time. So I sometimes get scolded because of that too. We’re just two of us in our family, so it’s difficult. When she yells, mostly it leads to a fight, because I simply can’t take it anymore. I try not to yell back, but sometimes I just can’t help it.  She scolds for the same thing again and again.

She… kind of… has been critical of me as well. I’d score a 95/100, but she’s say “I thought you’d get a 97”. She always expected me to be in the cream of everything I did. She comments on my body, how I am too skinny, how my hair is too thin, how my makeup is too much, and the such. I hate getting ready for parties in front of her. She kind of brings me down as well, telling me things I can’t do. Even if I do something really well, she has to comment on something I did wrong with it. It is extremely annoying.

She has always been quite controlling as well. I wasn’t even allowed to wear my hair the way I wanted until I put my put down. It seems that all she wants me to do is what she wants me to do. I have different hobbies than she does. When I pursued one of them, it literally was hell. She didn’t speak to me properly for months. She’d also give me the cold treatment: not looking at me, not answering me, behaving like I don’t even exist, if she would look at me, it would only be to look at me with absolute hatred, if she would talk to me, it would be to yell at me. I didn’t even understand what I had done wrong to be honest. It took us a while to get over that.

I also noticed that she treats me like her emotional punchbag. When she is really stressed out, she tends to start screaming at me. Say something happened at work, she’d come home and scream at me for something as silly as my bag being on the couch. After she’d scream, her mood would drastically flip onto a positive one, and then she’d tell me what happened at work, and then I’d understand why she was screaming.

She’s breached my privacy too, reading my diaries. So I stopped writing them.

So yeah… I’ve had a difficult relationship with her, made worse by my father passing away when I was in my early teens. She wants us to be friends, but I’m not really comfortable telling her things. I only tell her stuff when I’m extremely anxious. She is an ultra-introvert, has barely any friends, doesn’t speak to relatives much either. She tells me I am her only source of happiness, which, to be honest, is immense pressure. She never seems to be on board for anything I wanna do.

To answer your question, yes I live with her. Currently, we’re together all day due to lockdown. She does all the chores and work, never letting me touch anything. It makes me feel like a pampered brat, and she knows I don’t like it. But I can’t help it, she wants everything done by 8 am in the morning, and I can’t wake up that early, by 6, and do it. But it just doesn’t work with her if I do it after I wake up by 8. So then, I’ve chucked it. And then she tells her friend I do nothing. Imagine my frustration.

Hope to hear from you…

Hi Sofioula,

Thank you so very much for reaching out to me. I’m in a really bad place mentally and emotionally, and I so appreciate your words.

Yes I went through the whole self-blame period for a long long time. Still  do actually. When I was with my ex, I had obsessive thoughts too. If you read my other replies, you will know some of my thoughts. I am currently not in therapy, and might not be able to go soon due to the lockdown thanks to COVID-19. If you are comfortable, could you tell me a little about your experience?

About my ex, well, yeah I have to admit that I did get the feeling that it was all about him in that meeting. I’d have felt nice if I had been asked about my time away from him. Or how the breakup had affected me. To me, it seemed that for him this had been some sort of break. Not a breakup. It felt like he had expected me to be standing right where he left me. And then when he was ready for it, he could just open the door and let me in again. It felt like he’d not had the fear of losing me at all. I’d have liked it if he’d said he missed me. That he loved me. He’s never been good with words and expressing himself. But I’m kinda exhausted of giving him that benefit of doubt. In his defense though, he did cry in the second meeting, saying he missed me. He even asked if we could stay in touch. God, there is so much pain associated with him… I can’t even… It had been a painful time, for the month before the breakup. And it had been a harsh breakup. I feel he could have been gentler with me. I now realise that it took me months of getting over just the pain that harshness had inflicted on me. The pain of the loss of the relationship and the life I thought I was going to have seems to have just set in… I’m gonna stop… I’m getting all teary…

He isn’t a bad person. So I don’t know if he counts as manipulative or not.

I’m in such a bad frame of mind I could use a hug. Even if it’s from a stranger from the Web. That doesn’t matter as long as it’s genuine.

Thank you… I’d love to hear from you again…

Hi Anita,

Thanks for your help again. It is heart-warming that someone who doesn’t even know me is so willing to help.

About the OCD, in the session with my therapist, we didn’t discuss much about this part, probably because we had more pressing issues to talk about. I used to have these thoughts, some about things as silly as the way he sat or how his hair looked, and used to feel extremely guilty for having them. Because these thoughts were obsessive, and I was constantly analyzing everything, as a compulsion, I used to tell him stuff like, “Sit straight” and then feel guilty about that too. My mother does the same to me, my therapist said my mother is emotionally abusive, and I had started feeling I was emotionally abusing my boyfriend just like that. Once my therapist told me these were due to anxiety, I started giving a lot less importance to them and became much more conscious of myself. After the breakup, I looked it up and came across the term “Relationship OCD”, and my symptoms matched. Towards the end of our relationship though, I had become frustrated, feeling that this isn’t going further. I felt we were stagnating. But after he broke up, I was filled with so much pain I felt I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t understand why, if I really wanted it to end, did it hurt so much. I still don’t.

Coming to guilt, like I mentioned before, I feel guilty about any and everything. Before A and B, it was about my mother. We have a rocky and rough relationship, and I felt guilty I wasn’t able to be a good daughter. I’d feel guilty for going out with friends. I’d feel guilty when we’d fight, thinking that I’m a bad daughter for talking back, after all that she has done for me. I kinda have this thing where I believe everything that goes wrong is my fault. I have a list of things that make me guilty and regretful right now as well. I’d love to expand because boy is it mounting.

One of those things from the list is that I felt I had been badmouthing A till now, when I spoke to friends about him, about the breakup, things that bothered me about the relationship, even though I didn’t actively abuse him or anything. I should not have done that. I never meant to portray him as a bad guy or anything like that, and I never want anyone to think poorly of him. I felt horrible; he’s not a bad person at all. He just did what he had to do at that point, and I had no right to badmouth him. This made my guilt so bad that I actually messaged and apologized to him for it two days ago. He said I didn’t need to apologize at all and “it’s me with the apology”. He said letting me go was the biggest mistake he ever made. Boy.

He had refused therapy at the time I had suggested it; I’m guessing it was because of some sort of stigma or denial. He definitely hadn’t seen a therapist after the breakup. When I met him the first time, he was a mess of sorts. He was crying, saying he’s been through some real tough times. Talking about the breakup made him physically uncomfortable. Looking at all this, like I mentioned, I felt nothing much has changed. He’s no way even ready to talk about what happened. But when we met the second time, he told me he’d started reading (something he never ever did, and i am an ardent reader), and we discussed some of the common books we’d read. He told me hoe he’d read some self-help books, and learnt a lot. All this made me think… Is he a new person now? Will things be better and different this time around?

Waiting to read from you…

Hi Anita,

First of all, I would like to thank you for patiently reading my post, understanding and analyzing it, and reaching out. I’m immensely grateful.

I have so many thoughts in my head that I don’t even know where to start.

I met and started dating my ex when I was 16. He was understanding, patient and caring. I’m not really an easy person to be with. I really was insecure and jealous and quite quite clingy. But he never really made a fuss about it. We had our ups and downs, including my mental health issues, and he was supportive throughout. I am a short-tempered person, and he’s quite calm, so we complimented each other perfectly, or so I felt. I admired how he could be calm in stressful situations, when I could be a mess.

I have this weird thing. I dated 2 guys before him, nothing serious, just teen relationships. But I was always uncomfortable in those relationships, having a knot in my chest. But with him, I never had that discomfort or knot. I don’t know why, but I just didn’t. I found him to be a wonderful person, and I fell deeper in love with him. It would not be exaggerating if I said my world revolved around him. The only major issue I really had with him was that I had to beg for his attention and time, like I mentioned earlier. Multiple times throughout the relationship I felt I was not as important as his family and other friends were. I felt I was being taken for granted, and I wondered if I actually mattered or was loved at all. I even felt that maybe I was too needy.

In the last year of our relationship though, things had changed. I had been taking therapy. I had developed this obsessive thought process, where I concentrated only on his perceived flaws. These thoughts disturbed me immensely, and I spoke to my therapist about it. She said these were intrusive thoughts, thanks to my anxiety, and taught me how to work around them. But something was still amiss. I can’t place a finger on it, but something was just… off. I talked about this with my therapist as well, and she said many times couples grow at a different rate, and that I probably was growing wider and faster than he was, leading to this gap between us. She suggested I take a break from him. But the thought of leaving him made me weep. I knew I wanted to be with him, and so I felt we will work this out, whatever it was. We suddenly didn’t have much to talk about. He was a quiet person anyway, but here he became quieter. He was preparing for his entrance exams, and he said staying home all day and just studying, he didn’t have much to talk about. I let him be, thinking he does make sense, and things will be okay once he gets into college. But nothing changed. I knew how much pressure he was under, long days and all. I thought once his course is over and he gets a job, things will be alright. I had stopped badgering him for attention and time, mostly because I knew how busy he was, but also because I was exhausted. I felt I was the only one giving any sort of effort in the relationship. I was the only one who needed the other one. I was lonely, and felt he just wasn’t there in the relationship anymore. I felt neglected and avoided. He simply wasn’t “there”. But again, I thought everything will be fine once he gets a job.

In April 2019, after a fight, he said he needed a break from us. He said he didn’t feel what he used to feel for me. Needless to say, I was utterly baffled, scared, and confused. I tried to understand, but couldn’t. He said he doesn’t feel like talking to anyone or doing anything and just wanted to be left alone. And so, I did just that. But he went out with friends, hung out, went for a movie, and the such, making me feel the problem was only me. And so, I messaged saying that if that was the case, he should leave. But he maintained that he wanted me in his life. I asked him multiple times, if he wanted me in his life, he said yes. He said he had been feeling guilty about being with me, and did not think he was worthy of me. This guilt, added to feeling that he doesn’t feel for me and the feelings of not wanting to do anything, made me feel he was probably depressed. I suggested we see my therapist, but that scared him. His behaviour towards me changed. He kind of became cold and distant; he was trying, but it was pretty evident he didn’t want me around. He’d withdraw from my touch. We spoke less and less. It was extremely hurtful, and I cried everyday. And a month later, we had a harsh painful breakup. He told my mother he didn’t wanna be with me as well.

The pain I was in was excruciating. Which I still get in waves. All the dreams, things I thought I was gonna have with him, gone. Along with it had come the guilt. Had I been a more supportive girlfriend, he would have opened up to me. Had I been more loving and accepting rather than critical, he would have let me in. Had I given him the space he asked for when he asked for a break, he probably wouldn’t have left.

When I experienced these waves of pain, I felt extremely guilty, because I felt I was betraying B.

I am experiencing such a pain wave right now, after refusing A. It hits me like a rock in my chest when I think we won’t get married, making me anxious. That he might meet somebody else. I just go, “How the hell is all this happening? How did we get here?” Two of our common friends got married, something I thought I was gonna have with him. And it is killing me, all this pain. The reason I didn’t choose A was that I felt I don’t have it in me to carry the relationship on  my shoulders again. I don’t wanna feel neglected and taken for granted. I simply felt numb, after all this pain. But then, now, I think, what if things have changed? He says he has realized his mistakes, breaking up with me was a huge one. He says he knows I gave my all to the relationship, that he didn’t value me earlier. What if all that has changed? What if I will be happy with him? All this pain and all these thoughts make me feel I wanna go back to him.

All these thoughts also make me extremely guilty, thinking about B. I think I am a horrible person. I know I am not lying when I say I have feelings for him. But still, I must be a terrible person. I should have said no when he came. I shouldn’t have let him get involved in me. And I am really unhappy right now.

So yeah… I feel guilty about almost everything… Something as simple as sleeping in the daytime and then feeling guilty and regretting it for not doing something productive… And you are right too… It comes since childhood… I feel guilty for being a bad daughter to my mother… I multiple times have felt everything is my fault…

I again apologize for the long post…

Thanks…