Dear Prash,

Thank you for your thoughtful response.

To be honest, yes I do think it is interfering with my life. He often intrudes into my thoughts, in an endless loop, particularly when I am stressed and wishing I could skip the years of struggle until I get closer to where he is in his career. A part of it is avoiding the difficulties of my own reality and the work that is required of me, indulging in the distant memory of a past self where I felt the happiest and most confident and purposeful I’d ever been in my life, under his guidance. I thought of my life as a tangled mess of threads that for a brief period were straight and it was like I could see everything clearly for the first time. I knew from the beginning that it would last only a couple of months. I know that I’m desperately clinging onto a fantasy self, which perhaps could be a reality if I really put in the same effort as I did last year, but I find my motivation lacking.

I am not particularly looking for a relationship currently, however I have found that I am often deeply attracted to older men who are unavailable because they are in a committed relationship or in a position of authority. I know I am capable of real love and intimacy, but I also have social anxiety and I am prone to anxious attachments. I think the prospect of finding an appropriate real relationship with all the uncertainty that entails is a little terrifying, particularly as I’ve been out of practice for so long. However, I tell myself that I would rather work on myself so I can become the best clinician I can be, rather than use a relationship to fix a problem.

I find myself feeling isolated at times, being introverted and socially anxious, preferring to avoid the difficulty of dealing with people socially. I have good friends I know I could talk to if I wanted to, but actually reaching out to them is difficult. My mentor is someone whom I felt strangely comfortable sharing many of my insecurities and anxieties with, because he understood my own perspective and mindset but with the benefit of two decades more experience, and his guidance and advice were on point. I have seen a few different therapists in my life, one towards the end of last year, yet no one has ever come close to the level of understanding that he has. He is the only person in my life whom I have been entirely determined to stay in touch with.

In terms of the advice I would give to someone who would come to me in a similar situation… I think I know that a real relationship is not possible, yet in some ways I still act as though it is. I treat the emotional validation I receive from our interactions as a substitute for that of a real relationship. I need to find other avenues of meeting my emotional needs, because I will not and nor I have never been satisfied enough with what I have from him – hence my deep overwhelming obsession. I also cannot be the fantasy self I daydream about without dedicated hard work. The qualities I admire in him are qualities that I know I am capable of developing in myself, and perhaps his role in my life is showing me a guiding path forward that I desperately needed. He is valuable to me in this way, but I do not need him to be the sole source of emotional validation.

In terms of getting rid of my romantic feelings, I hope that will continue to subside the less dependent I am on him and the more confidence I gain in myself. Although I don’t really know how to stop being in love with someone.

Prash,

Thank you for your kind words and your very astute questions. You have definitely given me a new perspective. Do you have experience in this field yourself?

I believe you are right. I think he is highly aware of the role he plays as a substitute parental figure in my own life and part of his guidance was in fact allowing me to heal emotionally. There was one conversation very early on in which really broke the ice, where I confessed the transference I felt towards a patient who reminded me of myself and my own relationship with my parents. I discussed the empathy I felt for a patient with social anxiety who described never feeling good enough or being able to live up to the perceived expectations of her domineering and emotionally distant parents who had very set expectations, and felt that she was overshadowed by her high achieving younger sister. I was entirely distracted as I was nearly brought to tears, as the only major difference I felt in our journeys was that the patient had dealt with her distress by harming herself. I said this all with a smile, making light of my observations. He suggested that these feelings were still quite raw in me, but I denied it, saying that I only felt deep empathy.

I realise that I was wrong. I played out family relationships. The other student in our team became a substitute annoying older brother, and I became genuinely fond of him yet unnecessarily competitive, wanting to be seen as the best and favourite. I desperately wanted the validation of my mentor, but I was also on some level aware and embarrassed about it, which I think he found amusing. The times when I felt strong sudden feelings of love towards him were also times when I thought “wow, no adult has ever validated me emotionally like this before”, such as when he confided in me a work-related problem and asked for my advice, or when after telling him some dream plans he actually accepted them and added his own insights… instead of projecting his own fears and anxieties and bringing up all the potential dangers and possibility of failure and reasons why I shouldn’t do it and wouldn’t be capable of doing it and that I should live an easy, risk free life – which I could always expect from my parents and ex boyfriend.

With him, I felt free to be my uninhibited true self. I felt a sense of wholeness. For the first time in my life, these disparate parts of my personality and identity that would be hidden or emphasised to different people, felt integrated into a cohesive whole. I felt safe to be so vulnerable, because I knew he understood, coming from a place so similar to mine. It felt so healing to be so deeply understood. It gave me the courage to stay strong and pursue my own path, to not be swayed by the fears and insecurities projected onto me by the numerous anxious people in my life.

I think my attraction to older unavailable men stems stems from two different things. It’s an attraction to authority and stability, which for a long time I needed, being so unsure of myself and hungry for the wisdom and experience that I lacked. I believe it is also due to fear, as I will emotionally distance myself from perfectly appropriate people if I know there’s a chance of anything happening. I am afraid of being not understood, of having parts of my identity rejected, going back to feeling fractured and losing the sense of self I have gained.

Thanks for your help

Olivia

Mark,

I think your earlier suggestion of practising mindfulness and meditation will help me here. I live my life in my own head, dreaming about my future fantasy self, thinking about how great life would be if I could just jump ahead. In order to get there though, I have to work on living my life in the present. My mind often feels so disconnected from my body, but when I am mindful and feeling closer to reality, I am really much happier. It’s when I am being creative, looking at art, or out in nature, running, cycling, paddling on the river. It’s also when I am able to connect with people, and I use that connection to make a positive difference in some way. Perhaps I will try to do more of the above. Ironically, the future self I daydream about is mindfully present.

I think part of my admiration of him is how he is a mirror of my ideal self. He still struggles with issues that I can relate to, but he has learnt to manage all these insecurities and problems in an impressively mature way that I am yet to master. I’m a very impatient person. There were times when I expressed how I want to be like him, or asked how I could improve myself, or lamented my lack of self-confidence and various other flaws. All he has ever done in response is smile and say I will work it out and get there eventually, and the best way is to put myself in many varied situations to gain experience and learn. And although this is something I also wholeheartedly believe in, I found this mildly infuriating. I wanted him to use his wisdom to tell me exactly what to do. But I soon realised the lesson he was teaching me: to gain my confidence, I need to focus on the present, make my own decisions, and pave my own way in life.

The way he deftly handled my moments of emotional vulnerability made me admire him more, not least because my parents have often responded to me with anxiety, defensiveness, impatience or plain misunderstanding. To have someone in my life who for once understands me, understands what I want to achieve, and pushes me further than I could ever hope for, without projecting all his insecurities, is incredible. I mean, yes, this is technically what he does for a living, and he offers this support freely, but he doesn’t have to do all of this for me. In offering me regular opportunities, he is guiding me consistently in the way that I have always needed, where I am making my own decisions and putting myself in varied situations to learn and grow. For the first time, I am paving my own way, I am 100% certain of myself and I am totally disregarding my parents’ unsolicited projection of all their anxieties and fears. I think as Prash said, his guidance has been emotionally healing.

I think that the issues I have now will get better with time, experience and maturity. As well as mindfulness and living in the present, to make the best future possible. I have faith that I will get there.

Olivia