Dear Anita,

Thank you for you kind comment and encouragement.

I don’t know if interacting is the right word, more connecting, which might be a totally different thing, but that aside.

I feel a bit guilty about posting here mainly about myself and not replying much to others.
But on the other side, I’m trying to get back in touch in my own life, because I was getting very out of balance. I’m trying to focus my energy on healing for myself, which is good, and only then, can I be of help for others. (not that that should be my main motivation)

I’m looking with my therapist about where I can go to help me to heal, we were talking about a certain place and hopefully it will work out to go there – it will cost me a lot of money, and I need to get visums etc, but it seems like a good place that could help me to connect with myself and others again.

I have huge trust problems. With my host as well. Yesterday I heard him saying something on the phone, about somebody else, quite negative and judgmental. While I have no idea who he was talking about, of course, because it was so negative, I was sure that it was about me. So now I wonder whether I can believe him or if he is just playing a big comedy, and I feel very at unease around him. So, yes, making a big deal about what he says about scones or jam, while my trust issues are on a much bigger level.
I don’t know if I should stay here, but at the moment I don’t think that leaving is the solution, because there is something to learn form me here. Even if it is only to be less concerned with what other people think of me, and to know myself, regardless of what others are saying. I don’t know if this is good, because I’m still in some state at the moment, and the trust issue is so huge. I’m curious to see how it goes further.
So yeah, at this moment I don’t feel like interacting much with people here anymore, because once I go towards being suspicious/paranoid, it all becomes blurry and hard to keep control of it. To my own protection, I might choose to not trust people here and keep it very distant. I have no idea..

Dear Anita and Nina Sakura,

Thank you so much for your kind replies, that feels very warming.

Anita, yes I think living in this place is working for me, it is a good place with good energy, a lot of meditation and yoga and other things, he had a lot of crystals and does a lot of other spiritual practises, which probably influence the energy of the place in a positive way. I have always been sceptical when people talk about the energy of a place because I usually don’t feel that, but here I notice that I am starting to have a bit more clarity of mind and manage to relax a little bit.
However I still find it difficult with trusting and believing, which are probably mainly my issues. I tend to overadapt and trying to please, and than to completely lose touch with the way I’m feeling or what I think and then it all gets very messy. It is difficult but I guess that I can expect to get rid of such a strong and deeply rooted patterns in a few weeks. They are being brought to light more here, because it is such a relaxed place here. Facing these things are the first step, but they can be hard and often drive me crazy.

Nina Sakura, thank you for your encouragement and to put it so nicely 🙂 Haha it is a lot easier to let these demons overpower us, but not very helpful.
I realise now that the isolated way in which I was living in the past years, has been very unhealthy and damaging for me.
I will stay with this host for a few more weeks, and next month I will move on to I don’t know where.
At some point in the next months I need to settle again, and find a place to live and a job and all that. I will need to pay more attention to making connections within the community, meeting more people and finding people that I can trust and relate with. Last week I saw a flyer for a group where people meet about mental health, and I think that might be very good for me, to have a safe place where I can talk about these things and support each other. I even think I might consider the availability of something like that, when I choose the town to live.
In the meantime, while still travelling and volunteering, I will also have to look after this. Making connections with people and daring to trust them and to express something of myself, in an appropriate way, so that I can get different opinions and inputs that help me to keep a more healthy way of thinking. That is what happened here with writing in Tinybuddha, and I find it easier to be open for what others say on the internet, but I will need to learn to let it happen in real life as well.

Thank you, I am so grateful for this community of caring people.

Hi all,
Thank you so much for your replies and support here.
Sorry for my late reply, I found it hard to come back here and reply, because I felt embarrased, like I did make a drama out of nothing.
I think it might have been a too ‘mistrusting’ attitude from my side. The idea that people lie to me and fool me around.
I think it might be good to let go of it more. Accept that he means well and that I will never be able to know somebody else’s thoughts a 100%. Some other people had given me some feedback about the jam, and indeed they found that it wasn’t the best. But, he is a man and he isn’t too much into this kind of cooking, so he is less critical anyway. Even if he says he likes it and then doesn’t eat it, and maybe didn’t really mean it, I think that I might do myself more service by not obsessing so much if somebody is totally honest to me all of the time, which is probably not very realistic.

@Anita, I think that I did say something like that I appreciate that he is honest so that I can learn. He knows that, and he often says it. He still usually says that he likes my food, and I notice that I tend not to believe him. My experience has also told me, that as long as I’m in this state of mind (not believing somebody if they say something positive), it is no use to ask them what they really think, because I won’t believe the answer anyway.

@LakshmiPC, I also used to be more honest when I was younger, probably more bluntly, and indeed that doesn’t get appreciated. I actually think that it might not be worth it, only with people that I’m close to or really like, is it maybe good to be honest.
My host is probably honest about big things indeed. Yes it is interesting how people often ask for honest opinion and then get defensive if you do say so. It seems to be so hard, or we haven’t learned how to communicate properly..?

@Nina Sakura, thank you for sharing how you go about it. And, thank you for helping me to see things a bit in perspective, in a very nice way 🙂
I think that I was begin petty, and indeed overly conscious. I tend to over-analyse things, and this was probably a good example of that.

(and to be honest, I find it difficult to answer my own question. I am curious about others’ views on this. I will try later, in a few days when i have time, to write some of my own ways, because it seems harder than i thought to put it down in written words.)

Dear Anita,

Thank you so much for your kind words.
I was actually already thinking how emberassed I am to write all my stuff here on the internet, and that i wanted to try to delete the whole thing. And your words encourage me to keep writing here.
I was just writing a long reply to you, but i don’t know if i feel very comfortable with writing such a personal things on the internet. At the same time, i would like to keep writing with you, because I find it very interesting and helpful. And I don’t know if anybody else beside me or you is reading this. So i was wondering if you would like to communicate further in an other way. I don’t think there is an option here to exchange personal messages, so i don’t know what you think about that?

I keep my reply for now in an offline document, and i think i might need some time to reflect on your question about the last part anyway.

Dear Anita,

Ok, thank you, so I will write in my thread without re-reading if something you said needs a reply 🙂

About the tent: well, some people tell me that i need a house to live in. And I think: i should just tidy it a bit and then it will be much nicer. But, the way I feel it at the moment: the tent makes that i don’t really have a space to live in comfortable, and not a space to hide myself in. And i am so upset these days, so exhausted and emotionally desperate. It might be good this way because it makes it a bit easier to seek or accept support from other people. Because I am crying so much and can’t hide it. Today a nice girl came to me and gave me a hug, and i sat down with her and talked with her for a few moments. That might be much more valuable then having a nice appartment for myself. Ok, if i had an appartment, maybe i had more space to take care of myself more, practise more self-compassion and do things for myself, but now i am actually showing myself in the state that i feel so broken and lost, and accepting their support. That is something new, and might be good. Because i feel most desperate about the huge distance between me and other people.

Today i felt awful, i find it difficult to be with them. I wonder if i am too demanding, if i expect too much from my father. As if the world revolves around me and all the attention needs to go to me. But maybe it is the opposite, i feel that it is so distant and cold, and i find it hard to deal with. I find it hard to get some attention, to be heard and i don’t know if that is normal.
This noon, after having a coffee, i said that i was tired and wanted to go home and rest for an hour. Because i felt so drained from being with them. So that was a good reaction, to take some time for myself and give myself a little bit of space. And this evening, in the restaurant, after we’d finished eating and were just sitting there, nobody saying anything, looking around in silence, i had already gone outside a few times. I said that i wasn’t feeling well and wanted to go home. I don’t think it was nice to do, because they still went to the bar without me, but, ok, i found it so hard to deal with the atmosphere there, that i took care of myself. Instead of them.

And to come back to the reason why i started this topic.
Haha, i caught a glimpse of him today, when we were sitting on a terrace and he was walking in our direction (and then crossed the street). And i wished i could just go to him, smile and hug him, and talk with him.
I wonder, what do i feel for him, do i really like him or is it a need, is it an attachment. Or is it projection, because i saw some signals that i interpreted als interest towards me, and because he was so nice towards me, that i started to like him. But that’s not entirely true, he is a very sensitive person, and i can’t remember ever feeling so light and so calm around somebody. That is maybe more valuable than not having had many conversations with him – i have to respect that connection and not playing him down.
I have tried something – maybe clumsy and different than i would have wanted it – to make some contact, without really reply. If i was a different person, with more self-regard, i might do more effort, insisting more. But, i guess i have to respect the huge insecurity about myself, and that i am afraid to impose myself, the feeling that i don’t have anything to offer (even thought it might be untrue, this is how i feel), so i stop making contact. My head is still too busy looking for explanations about what he things about me, that i have messed it up, that he always acted towards me. That is not healthy.

I feel that it is only the past few days that i am a little bit calmer about him. Seeing that missing him and longing for him so much is not going to help at all. That i have to let it go – nice expressiong but how do you do that?
I have asked the universe that i still hope to have some contact, to have the chance to talk about some things with him, or give him a hug like i have wanted for so long. To see him again. But, myself, i will have to focus again on the person that matters the most in my life: myself. I have neglected myself quite a bit, and that is why i am so low now.

My collegue gave me some things, a way of contact, a feeling together, a feeling of being seen, a feeling that i mattered and i can be grateful for that.
And i learned some things from it. I learned, that i need to change the pattern of pushing people away. I am already doing effort to work on it, here with people in the hostel. NOw with the visit of my father, i can see that i reacted towards this guy, in a very similar way as my father does towards me. That is very painful.
And frustrating as well, because i don’t and didn’t want to react like that. I feel i messed it up with him. So i guess, if i try to see it positive, this was a good lesson, to what i want to change in myself. This pushing people away is not only with him of course, but him it was the most painful. I do it also with other people, and that is why i don’t have friends. And now with the visit of my father, it shows me quite clearly why i am so stuck with other people.
So it is probably a good experience, it gives me the opportunity to work on something, something that i really want to change, and the pain is hopefully a good motivation to really do some effort.
And that i need to stop thinking so much, and to feel in the moment. Because that is also what blocked our contact.
Missing him.. Ok that will take some time and i will need to learn to feel those feeling, with the mindfulness practice.
It might be more an image that i was putting about him, than really missing who he is, since i don’t know him.
No, i want to give myself the right to miss somebody instead of downgrading it by analyzing.

I just want to remind myself, that there are more nice people. That it will be possible to meet other men where i feel good with, that he is not the only one. How much that i would have liked to become i bit closer with him (as friends or more), i hope that i will meet other men where i feel good around. To be around him and just being able to relax completely, and being able to think a bit more easily, that was very nice to experience. But it can’t be that he is the only man in the world, where i will feel like that. It will probably be good for me to meet more different people. Now i feel too exhausted to feel anything anymore, expect despair.

But, just like i need to stop longing to get emotional support from my father (which is easier to know mentally than emotionally), i need to stop longing for my ex-colleague (the same between brackets, easy to know with my mind than with my feeling, will come with time). And stop wishing that i was still working there, and being around him. This emotional crisis is probably good, because now i have the chance again, to confront and heal some things inside of myself.

I think i just need a bit of rest, from all these emotions. It’s been a bit too much, the past weeks.