Hi dear Anita,

I feel like I don’t post here quite often for the last 2-3 months. This is both because I am a bit busy, and also when I have the time, I sometimes pretend myself from coming here since it requires lots of thinking. In my every post, I try to keep it deep since we have a deep conversation here. This happened a few times in the past months, I was feeling okay and coming here would mean that I would read my posts again and feel a bit worse. Maybe I should learn how to keep it simple sometimes, without looking into it pessimistic. I’ll try to keep myself optimistic this time.

I’m sorry about the conditions you had over the Christmas. I hope that you wouldn’t have those conditions again, I am not used to cold weather at all, I’ve grown up in a relatively hot climate and I’m still living in that region. Therefore, in the weathers I feel frozen to the narrow, you wouldn’t feel a thing. Even after those hard conditions, you’re posting here, which means a lot. How can you do that? Maybe we’ve developed a connection, and you are actually answering and helping lots of people which I find amazing and also hard, devoted.

“I wouldn’t say that I’m shy, or insecure to share“

I was thinking what do I do and what I don’t do over these months, actually this was something I should’ve gotten into thinking way before. However, I was distracted with my other stuff so I guess I’ve always postponed this. I am not a shy person, I don’t feel shy. But writing this actually reminds me of my childhood. I was a shy child, growing up, I was not extrovert at all. I’ve got my education till high school at a school where my father was a teacher. This affected me a lot in terms of expressing myself. Not everyone liked me and I was holding the burden of ‘representing my father’ and something I did had the possibility to embarrass him. I don’t know how did this thought had a place in my mind, though. My father might not be responsible from this. After I started high school at a different school, my environment wasn’t THAT successful, since it was a different school full with slightly less successful student which made me sparkle there. I was more confident, even though I felt ugly then. Slowly I started to be myself, act like myself. I was a slightly weird person, and I also started to embrace that in those days. The people liked me because they had fun around me, I was ignoring lots of things at school and focusing on what was funny. However, I still see that shy-affect from my childhood sometimes. Especially when somebody speaks shamelessly about something they don’t know much about. And that makes me think that I don’t feed my ego much, however, I sometimes think that I might have a toxic ego just like my father and sister. I sometimes feel superior to my peers, and that actually creates some kind of a suffering. Since I feel superior intellectually or ethically, I can feel like I deserved better than somebody who is not as intellectual or as ethic regarding behaviors or even thoughts. And when that person has more than I do, then the suffering I mentioned plays role. I actually don’t suffer if we have the same amount of happiness or success, but when that person has more, I feel worthless.

This makes me think that we should keep this thing in balance. If I feed my ego enough, then that example person is feeding his or her ego more than they should be. But if they’re doing it in balance, then I’m not feeding myself enough. But rationally, I think that most of the people I seem to be bothered by feed themselves and their ego more than they should be. Would you agree to that?

Thank you for your nice words, I hope that this new year would bring you more happiness than you’ve ever experienced, I hope that you would have an amazing year and also more and more to come!

I didn’t realize I referred to him as “My guy”, I actually opened up my previous post and checked, that was true. I don’t know if it was a mistake but it’s not a usual thing for me to say about a new person. I’m very surprised.

“I consider myself as someone who cannot choose… I can choose… I’m learning to choose for me“

Dear Anita, I’ve missed a huge thing in my post yesterday. These quotes made me realize it. I’m actually trying to choose in time, that’s very correct. I felt more like myself when I was able to persuade my ex-boyfriend into the fact that we could try. Before we have started our relationship, he actually had a mental breakdown as well. And after that day, I kind of persuaded him that we could try it, try to be happy together. And then we have started the relationship. I remember how hard that day was and also I felt like I was the decisive person, I chose him. Even though persuading someone into something like this was a big mistake, I felt like I was slowly learning to choose. Two years passed, I’ve rejected some people, learned to choose more, but something bigger happened last month. We were seeing each other with this boy and acting like girlfriend and boyfriend. But I’ve got some measureless criticize from some people, which was annoying a lot. Someone who I just met and saw me like a sister actually made a comment about him saying that he was just interested in superficial things and he was just using me. He made that comment without knowing him at all, just out of 2 mins of introduction. Then someone from my circle also said to me to stay hesitant since this will be the things I’ve experienced in the past, it’ll take my time, it’ll take lots of effort but he’ll be gone. I could see how subjective these comments were, but I was affected. All in all, I tend to think of the worst-case scenario. I stopped telling details about my own business to these people, started to set boundaries. However, I got upset, since I also started to think that he might actually be using me, or he might be superficial even though he was acting very emotional.

I couldn’t hold these emotions in for long, after a few days, I started to reveal my insecurities to this boy. It wasn’t very obvious, very small revealings, a few times. He tried to handle it in a good way, and my insecurities didn’t stop. And maybe after 1-2 weeks, when he wanted to meet again, I said that this invitation looked a bit superficial suddenly. I said that I tend to be emotional and I was feeling emotionally involved. Then I asked if we can make this thing a relationship or not. It was one hell of a hard communication for me, I waited anxiously but was very excited, I have never experienced that kind of a burst before. He wanted to meet, we sat at a park, didn’t speak for like 20 mins, and then he said that he loved me. And then that was it, I had expressed what I wanted, I took the risk of losing it, and then it happened. Such power, I didn’t know how good it could make me feel before. So, since we were talking about choosing, there you go. A huge thing for me, I can say that I’m proud of myself since I behave in the effect of abandonment issues a lot, maybe with the excitement and ignorance, I was able to take this risk. Although I was lucky, I don’t know how I would be if I was rejected.

He told me that he was very scared since he also experienced some bad toxic relationships and he actually told everyone that he wouldn’t be in a relationship again. But then he thought about it and made up his mind, maybe hesitantly, I don’t know. Sometimes, I still get scared of the possibility of him thinking about this again and changing his mind.

As for the mental breakdown you’ve experienced, I felt lots of sympathy towards you reading it. It wasn’t possible for me to read it without crying. Although I’m surprised how sharp your memory is, it feels very detailed, the emotions especially. Maybe I will remember more as I explore.

I don’t mind at all, your words always show me more stuff that I’d like to explore. In fact, I’ll be mentioning a thought thanks to this?

Many people also develop an increased sensitivity to pain and discomfort, and others experience a positive touch in a negative way, such as when you hold hands with someone…

Not with the physical touch, but I have an increased sensitivity to an emotional touch such as compassion. And this actually makes it harder for me to open up to people, especially when it comes to face-to-face communication. Whenever I open up a feeling that I feel vulnerable with, and whenever someone looks or behaves compassionately towards me since they try to understand or they sympathize with me, I burst into tears. This thing existed since I was a child and because of it, I couldn’t open up to people, especially elders. I’m guessing I should think about this habit of mine more and some stuff would come out of it. Feels similar to the increased sensitivity you’ve mentioned.

As for the owning, flattering to be able to own others, I see that it can be highly related to narcissist tendencies. Because of my father and sister, I have been reading about these a lot and I’ll be reading more and more. Because I feel like I should understand more, and understanding will also help me get rid of those tendencies for myself as well. Even though I know I’m not narcissistic, at least I don’t feel like it, I realize some behaviors of mine that can be interpreted as tendencies towards there, so I’m also trying to understand those at the moment. But I’m guessing this is not a major issue at all, at least for now. Maybe you would be able to relate to this subject as well. The more I read and watch, the more I can relate and it feels better. I realize that I’m not the person they try to make me see since they’re always bringing up the worst in the people that they own, which is also me.

Thank you for your amazing communication, it feeds me a lot.

My last post was from 24th July. It feels like more time has passed in these two months, I guess. I went back to my hometown to visit my dad, had a mental breakdown there, then stayed at my stepdad’s empty house and I had fun for three days. I even accidentally had a fling with an old friend whom I lost interest in very quickly. And then somebody else wanted to flirt and I wasn’t interested again. When I’m able to reject, when I can understand whether or not I’m interested, this gives me a bit of power since normally I consider myself as someone who cannot choose. I realized again, that I can choose. I’m not proud of this story but this continues with another flirtation. An old friend whom I recently started to have conversations with opened up to me, saying he was into me. And since it made me feel nice and I liked talking with him, I started seeing him. I’m just realizing that it all happened so fast, and it has been two months since we first met after he opened up.

So, again, no empty space for myself alone. I won’t be blaming myself for this, but I have to admit that this might be a problem for me. However, when I’m interested in someone, should I ignore that? I don’t think so. I’ll have more answers on this as I grow up. In these two months, I’ve had my sessions with my psychiatrist as well. Slow sessions, she is slowly getting to know me. She is way way behind you guys. And the reason why I let this flirt happen is that this boy actually started to give me some reasons to trust. However, it’s hard to believe someone. My guy is telling me that he’s very sincere. But after the things I’ve been through, and after my childhood, it’s very hard to believe something. I’ve even had some friends comment on this and I don’t think you would approve.

Someone from my circle said, “You’ll just have another relationship for one year and he’s gonna leave you at the end and you’ll suffer all over again. Don’t do this.” He said this without even knowing him or listening to me about what happened. It was a quick response to the fact that I was seeing somebody. I didn’t make the conversation longer and I just left it like that. Even though I know that I shouldn’t, it got to me. But I’m learning. I’m learning to choose for me, not for them.

For the first time in a while, I’ve experienced something. After fruitful conversations, there was silence and suddenly, there were no distractions for me. It wasn’t unfamiliar, I’ve had this a lot in my childhood. When my parents split up, I used to stay either in my hometown with my dad or in another city where my mom went to stay for a while with her brothers. In those months, or in that year, it’s a bit vague for me, I cried a lot. But it happened weirdly. When I have a distraction that would interest me, like a computer, for example, I was okay. When I was with a friend that can keep me interested, I was okay. But right when I lost my interest, right when I’m not focused on something that can distract me, I felt a deep longing I couldn’t stand but cry. When I was with my mother, she tried to comfort me by talking, as long as she could. I remember her feeling regretful. She was the one responsible for the splitting up, and I was there, crying. I have never had a deep connection with my dad but I used to miss him. It wasn’t even missing him, sometimes I did feel sorry for him. Because he made me feel that way. He manipulated us like this for years. I felt like we’ve left dad at home, alone, miserable even though he was the reason why this was all happening.

And when I’m back with my dad, since I cry mom had to send me back a couple of times, I felt even more miserable. I didn’t have anybody to talk. He used to find some people that have a child my age, and he used to make me meet him and then drop me on the way to his hobbies. I used to spend my day at other people’s houses and I tried to endure that. However, almost always, after some distraction hours with other people, I accidentally found a moment to feel like myself again and I started crying, first secretly and then resulting in them/parents finding me and trying to understand why I was like that. I’m guessing they would blame it on the splitting up and feel grateful since their child wouldn’t be like that. Then probably the parents used to call my dad and my dad would come and get me. He couldn’t make me meet with the same people again since it would’ve been rude. Since I did cry the last time, so maybe they would ask “why are you bringing this child to us”, right?

So, after those fruitful conversations with him, at that silence, I felt so miserable. I suddenly got back to those years. I wasn’t safe. I was feeling that weird, ugly feeling deep down. I don’t know if it was anxiety, I am not sure. But in those moments, I cannot help but cry and the most memorable feeling would be feeling unsafe. Since I did admit I was feeling unsafe and bad, he tried to support me and tried to understand. But I couldn’t tell him more. It was really hard. I know that I can tell more, in time, if he wants to listen. But these mental breakdowns make me feel so vulnerable that I miss the last person I was able to be comfortable crying in front of. It was my ex-boyfriend. Sometimes I just want to call him and ugly cry, and I know that he would try his best in terms of understanding and helping. I guess I was able to express how confused I am.

We haven’t been in contact for a week I guess, I’m doing my job, meeting with some friends, watching some stuff, and trying to feel okay. I’m trying to connect with more people, more friends. I’ve been expressing my vulnerability to friends a lot lately, maybe because I had to. Since I really need to learn to be content on my own, I’m just testing it. I don’t know how it’ll go. A friend of mine suggested that I was trying to let go of responsibilities during these “cannot let go”, “cannot break up” mindsets. Maybe I really try to let go of my responsibilities.

I was observing my two moods, too vulnerable and less vulnerable. I was trying to keep myself busy, stuff like that. Right when I was procrastinating and watching Gilmore Girls besides doing some work, I’ve realized how the girl acts after breaking up with someone. And I’ve seen how she is able to enjoy her time without that person. I don’t want to be like this, I cannot be like this.

It’s very unfamiliar and hard for me to choose logic when I can see that vulnerability. He contacted me asking for a road trip, possibly a trip which would take a week, like a holiday. I couldn’t understand it, I asked him why. I asked him if he really asks, cause I was ready to accept it and schedule my everything according to that. I was very regretful that we haven’t had the opportunity to have this kind of a thing, a holiday. Then he reacted to me, I guess I was asking rather in a cold tone. I asked what he thought would happen, I wanted a sincere answer. His answer was that probably I would see something like that message from that day.

 It was like that 2 weeks ago as well, but it was really quick. I’ve bought a surprise cake and then we spent his birthday with a bunch of friends. It was nice, we were nice, but not together. We were basically nice to each other. But then when I saw him replying to another girl when we were together, I reacted. Not like a reaction, I was simply uncomfortable, jealous. Then I guess he thought about the whole situation and came to a conclusion.

This is from my earlier post, so he thought this would happen again and I would make it hell for him by being jealous. Then I told him that I’ve expressed what I felt, it was not my fault that it hurt me.

He made me believe that we could have a nice time again, but then everything collapsed again. He told that he wanted this for a moment but it took 3 seconds till my reaction. I’ve been miserable since and it has been an hour.

I cannot understand, cannot perceive what’s happening. I feel like I’m not used to this and I deserve appropriate face-to-face conservation rather than a vague reaction and it hurts me that we’re having these conversations on phone or by texting. Maybe I’ll ask for one last favor from him to clear things out for the last time.

I know that this is not healthy at all, I know I’m not healthy and I know he’s not either. I know that we shouldn’t be in contact at least till both of us gets healthier. But I cannot hold on to anything. I feel like I need something, I feel like I need just one solid rock to hold on to. Anything.