Dear Ishita,

we can start a new topic if you’d like, but I’d like to address the situation with X:

yes , i kind of dont want to admit that, also , its just gonna end up being a gossip , if we go around talking to common friends about it, I wouldnt want that,I dont want them to resolve it for us or even attempt to it as well.

I totally understand that you don’t want to admit this to your pals and become a subject of gossip. What I believe would help you is to admit it to yourself, and to stop blaming yourself for falling in love with someone who behaved lovingly towards you (at least in the beginning). It’s not your fault. It’s completely normal. You have the right to fall in love with anyone you want, and specially with someone you thought so highly of and who treated you well at first. So try to have compassion for yourself.

You said you want him to “understand you and let you go and allow you to heal”. But actually, his understanding is not what you need right now. What you really need is to understand yourself – have compassion for yourself – and let yourself off the hook. Forgive yourself for whatever you feel you did wrong in this relationship. Forgive yourself for falling in love, for hoping, for having expectations from him, for allowing sexting, for accusing him for not calling you, for being vulnerable with him.

Your blaming yourself now is almost certainly related to that experience before entering college, when you were under stress, you were blamed by your batch mates, and even by your teachers. Instead of trying to understand why you have problems and helping you, your teachers blamed you. Since we tend to trust authorities (teachers, trainers and coaches) almost as much as our parents – you started believing them and accepted that something’s wrong with you, that you’re not good enough. And the pressure of entering amongst fierce competition just added to your insecurity and anxiety.

I wish I could go back and tell the 17 year old self ,how it was ok to let go, because there are bigger things waiting, and I will get it anyways( because now, when I am in college , I see an entirely different picture , to what I used to imagine then, and its so much better)

Actually, you can  go back, in a meditation, and tell exactly that to your 17-yr old self. This is what she needs to hear – and it is you who can release her.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 7 months ago by Tee.

Hello Ishita,

I’ve been following your story, all I wanna say is that you become what you believe.

If you believe you are BROKEN by this incident, then nothing in this world could heal you or fix you. Yes, feelings and emotions do matter, but they should never dominate LIFE.

Consider this a lesson, a reminder which reminds you to FOCUS on YOU. Frankly speaking, get over this, nothing should bother you now. Don’t have any regrets of unspoken words or feelings. Don’t even think of the guy now, focus on your career and believe in yourself. Every time you think about this, it pulls you down.

I’m sorry if I’m being blunt, but thats how LIFE is.

I would like to end on one note- What dosen’t kill you, makes you STRONGER!

regards

leo

Dear Ishita:

I am glad you posted again. What I understand is, that your experience with this young man opened a deep wound within you, that of not feeling special enough to be loved in return.

This feeling of not being special enough to be loved back feels like a void. You feel betrayed because your love was not returned, unlovable because he didn’t love you back the way you loved him (the italicized are your chosen words). You experience these things with him for the first time in the context of a romantic/ adult relationship, but it seems to me that you experienced this before, in a different context, and meeting him brought your earlier- life experiences back to your awareness, and it hurts.

It is amazing, isn’t it, how terrible it feels, to feel unloved and unlovable. I am sorry, Ishita. I know the feeling and I know the void. I hope you feel it for way shorter time than I felt it. I know it is possible for you to be loved, even though it doesn’t feel possible at this time. Please do post again, I do want to read more from you.

anita

Dear Ishita,

I am sorry you’re still feeling sad and betrayed about him not reciprocating your love. What stands out for me when reading your latest posts is that partially you’re still believing he’d “return” someday. Which means that he’d fall in love with you the same as you did with him, and love you the way you love(d) him. As a boyfriend, not as a friend.

Somewhere i had this strong belief (still do) that he will return on his own someday, because he kept chasing me for a month until I called off the no contact and even since them, he keeps trying to have me around and being there for me. ( I might be wrong to assume this, but it just felt this way strongly).

You’re conflicted because on one hand you believe he’s a narcissist who tries to exploit you for his own purposes:

I still wanted to be around him, but I knew this was just the initial chase that narcissist pull, to get the victim to fall for them again.

I didnt want all this, so, everytime he used to discuss any personal issue or try to act overly caring , I used to ask him to cut the crap (in a politer way).

But on the other hand, you believe that he – even though a narcissist – would change for you. That he would finally see how special you are and choose You before anybody else.

Even though you rationally know it’s highly unlikely that he’d give you what you want, the hope and the craving is still there. It seems to me like a child’s craving for love – to be seen and acknowledged as special in her parent’s eyes. To be worthy for a parent to change for her sake, and to finally love her… Is this feeling familiar to you? (It could also be that I am making a baseless assumption here. If so, I apologize)

But i guess one cant control the process of healing so I guess all I can do is just give myself the love and care I think I deserve.

I believe we can only heal if we understand what caused the wound… if you want to talk about it some more, you’re very welcome. If not, that’s fine too, I totally understand it.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 6 months ago by Tee.
• This reply was modified 3 years, 6 months ago by Tee.

Dear Ishita,

I am fine, thanks.

I have always been an emotionally sensitive person, so it might have something to do with my relations with everybody around me in my childhood

Would you like to expand on that? As emotionally sensitive, did you feel different than your sisters and in need of special attention or special treatment?

Dear Ishita:

When I posted to you last, I read the first post you submitted on May 17, but not the second. Combining what you shared in your original post April 3 with what you shared in your second of 2 posts yesterday, this is what I get: “I AM STILL HOPING HE WILL COME BACK TO ME… I had this strong belief (still do) that he will return on his own someday”-

– You need him to come back to you, to return to you: You have been experiencing a separation from this young man to whom you are emotionally attached. You are waiting for the separation from him to be over.

When you were a child and a teenager, living at home, you were the “smartest kid in the class, being really fast”, but at 17, studying for exams, living away from home, you felt that you were losing your identity (“I was losing my identity.. losing it”), not able to concentrate, and doing poorly on tests (“my poor test performance”). You wrote this about your experience of living away from home: “when I look back, I feel really bad, for that self of me, how much she suffered everyday, there used to be so many days, I didn’t even feel like getting up in the morning… my sister used to often sit with me on video calls, to help me concentrate while she was working. My mom used to stay up at night until I would stop crying and fall asleep”.

At 17, separated from the people to whom you felt a strong emotional attachment (parents, siblings, maybe grandparents), you felt so anxious that you were unable to concentrate, unable to study, unable to sleep, you cried and suffered a lot, and you needed to be calmed down by your mother and sister on video calls so that you could concentrate and study or be able to stop crying and fall asleep. Clearly, you suffered from separation anxiety before the young man your thread is about (X) entered your life.

You wrote about X: “he is someone who is emotionally not very expressive”. But with you, he expressed a lot of affection, he sort of..  made an exception to his non-expressive nature for you: “he was trying to be much more emotionally expressive, and trying to get to know me, supporting me, and always being there for me”. On your part, you made an exception for him: “I used to generally have my guard on around even my good friends until I am pretty sure I would want to be close to them”, but with him, you let your guard down, and you trusted him: “I have trusted him throughout… I thought he understood me, but maybe he never did… I want to let him know that he just hurt me so bad”-

-In your most recent post, you wrote: “my parents have always made me feel supported and cared for”- reads like you have good parents, parents who often supported you and cared for you. I say “often”, not “always” because it is not possible for anyone to always be supportive and caring. Maybe some of the times when your parents were not able to be supportive and caring were very difficult times for you (?)

anita