Dear Christina:

I just reviewed your previous thread where I communicated with you. I will ask you a question that may seem to come out of nowhere:

Do you remember doing something as a child, something you figured was a bad thing to do, a very bad thing, something you  did during the six years that the step mother and step sisters lived in your home?

anita

Dear Christina:

When you were five or six years old, you were introduced to a sexual play activity by your babysitter’s daughter, activity that you later introduced to your step sisters, and one of them participated in it with you.

This is what I think happened: at some point while playing that way with your step sister, or after you no longer did, you felt great shame over the activity. You felt an overwhelming shame and self hate, thinking something like: oh, what a bad girl I am, oh, what have I done? I must be the most horrible girl in the world to want to do this, and to do it.. I must be very careful to not do anything like this again, I must be in control!

Fast forward and years later, New Year 2018, you kiss your boyfriend’s roommate’s ear, a split second contact with his ear, and that intense shame of childhood, well recorded in your brain, was activated big time.

This is how intense that recorded shame is and has been for years: it caused you elevated anxiety and depression, led to you obsess for two months at this point, caused you to lose sleep, to lose weight, to get on anti-depressant and anti anxiety medication, to lose all motivation and all feelings of affection and love (“two months ruminating and obsession… it made me anxious/depressed. I can’t sleep at night anymore… I lost about 10 pounds… got put on an anti-depression (SSRI) and anxiety medication… I don’t enjoy life anymore.. I have no motivation… I feel disconnected from my boyfriend”).

It is time, and I hope that it will be done during therapy, maybe start here and proceed there, to revisit that sexual play in your mind, to understand what it meant and what it did not mean, come to peace with the fact that it happened and release the shame attached to those memories.

You were introduced to that sexual play, probably didn’t think much about it, then you introduced it to your step sisters, still n0t thinking it is wrong, then later you heard about sex, people saying things, that it is shameful and so on, and you retroactively felt shame over what you did- do you think this is what happened?

anita

Dear Christina:

“It makes me very sad that something so small has caused all this damage”- the peck on the ear was not what caused all this damage, the feelings you buried best you can were resurrected by that small event. These feelings were not gone, they were there all along and interfered with your life so far, only not in the overt ways of late.

“I’m hoping it will all go back to normal with time”- your eating, sleeping, yes, I hope so too, but if you attend quality therapy and heal, things in the future will be better than normal. Because, like I wrote above, that intense shame and self hate has been hurting you all along, only not in the forms of losing weight and sleep and so forth.

With adequate healing life will not be the same for you, it will be better.

You need therapy for at least a few months at this point, I am guessing, at least 30 sessions or so, hopefully less than six months of two sessions per week (again, I am guessing here). Let your boyfriend know that you believe or suspect that you identified that “something much deeper” that is causing your great distress and that you will need to work on it in therapy for a few months, maybe six months, and that you will let him know how therapy progresses.

While in therapy, during the coming few months, it is better- I believe- that you will not be in a gf-bf relationship with him, and instead be friends. It will simply be too uncomfortable for you otherwise.

anita

Dear Christina:

You are welcome.

“I have always been an anxious person”- the experience of childhood that we discussed here is one big factor of your anxiety, fueling your anxiety because it is scary to believe that you are shameful and about to be discovered at any time. This is what I meant by these feelings (shame, self hate) being “there all along and interfered with your life so far”.

I hope your therapist is capable and hard working and that you will work hard as well. Be patient and I welcome you to post here anytime.

anita

Christina,

I don’t believe one act (esp. when we are drunk) constitute and demonstrate our character.  My close, lesbian friend kissed me at her New Year’s Eve party at midnight because I expressed I did not have anyone to do that with.  Her lesbian, live-in partner was there on the premises.  Neither of us thought it was cheating or anything romantic but just an expression of celebration and caring from a close friend.

Cheating is more than the act/kiss.  It is an emotion and sexual/physical intent that would distance the other from their partner as I would define it.  If either of you or your partner think it is “cheating” then have a real heart-to-heart on how you trust each other, what are the “rules of engagement” i.e. what behaviors and acts constitute cheating and “bad” behavior.

I believe that we come from Fear or Love in how we navigate the world.  Love begets trust with each other.

Mark

Dear Christina,

It sounds like you have a somewhat antagonistic relationship with your boyfriend.

You two decided to date a half year after the cheating scandal yet it seems that whatever happened between your boyfriend and his ex, you still don’t feel secure in knowing whether your boyfriend has been able to lay down his resentment. It might be that when talking about your two past, he shows such intense emotion that you wonder if he has even moved on. Or that sometimes it seems that he might not be thinking about you, but someone else when you’re together. Or that he still remember some details about his scar.

So you discussed your pasts, wanting to know yet only coming out of it full of insecurity. What was the point of that exercise? You’ve already heard of what had happened, so hearing it from him once would have been enough, so why did you or him keep bringing it up? What was the point in going over what happened only to be sore from the sordid details? Why did you keep bringing it up to hurt him? Or was it something about his actions or words that poked a hole in your confidence that he does hold affection for you? Yet why does it make you jealous that he has not moved on from his scar? Scars scabbed over when left alone to heal so what was the point in bringing it up again and again? What was it about his past relationship or his ex that terrifies you so much? To not trust his words mean you doubt him, but for what reason? Or do you doubt yourself so much that you question his affection for you, even at the beginning? But then, when will it ever be enough for you to finally let your doubts rest?

Be careful about putting your boyfriend on a pedestal. “He” might seem to be different from other people you’ve met, but how many people have you met exactly? There are more than 7 billion people in the world, can you say that you know intimate details of even 1/1000000 of one billion? So he might seem like a decent person, but don’t put every hope into this one relationship where it’s make it or break it. There is no telling whether in the future you might meet someone else who makes your heart throb, but the timing was simply late. You simply know this person before any other person who might be compatible with you. So don’t put him on a pedestal. Don’t try to be the perfect girlfriend. Don’t hold accountable every one of your actions just because you want this relationship to work. A relationship is made of two parts, you can’t be the only one holding up the whole thing.

So the passion has died away. Then start a new one. Passion was never meant to last, it was only meant to be a spark for a fire to be lighted, but fire can’t keep going without oxygen. Now that it has snuff out, build a new fire.