That is very true.

So thought patterns must be learned or at least associated with past experiences.

I do wonder why they come up though, about attraction that is, but I guess that I am so so self critical he is like my mirror image.

Weirdly I feel like I am opening up. Like I have an excited feeling that he is coming to collect me and that we are going to the beach, but I guess my mother is there nagging away so it rains on my parade.

for example, I am worried I will flinch when I see him when he picks me up. But I guess flinching is just another way of fear showing up rather than a catastrophic hidden meaning to break up. I also remembered today how my Father was supposed to pick us up every Saturday or Sunday depending and he was almost always late, or didn’t show, never called in advance and wasn’t allowed in the house. Can’t help but wonder if I associated being picked up by a loved one as painful, and now I have real pure love that my brain is still wired in that way.

Hi Anita,

Thanks for your message. The weekend went better. I started trying to tell myself that ‘that’s just a thought’. I also started to realise that maybe I associate anxiety etc with my relationship, and the fear causes me to stick to things like intelligence, attraction, future, as a way to try to protect myself. What I mean is, that maybe on the surface the relationship helps me see that on a deeper level there is much more to be resolved. Two things have helped me understand:

1) Yesterday I had a dream that my partner left me on a bus. I had to buy a ticket and the bus left before I could make it and he was on it and I was screaming in fear.

Later I dreamt that I fell asleep on a train, and when I woke up I was at Gatwick Airport in London and couldn’t find him.

2) On Sunday the family all came for lunch. I had a photo taken with our niece. When I saw the photo I couldn’t look at it because I felt I looked ugly, fat, just ‘not right’.

Today I received more photos of the meal and a photo of my partner with his niece was there. At first glance I thought it looked good, then I zoomed in, criticised, was unsure I found him attractive etc. much like I had done to myself. So what I think is that I am in projection mode. It happened during lunch too, I was looking thinking he didn’t dress up well enough, was too skinny etc. But there was also positive thoughts like ‘Wow look at this meal he has prepared for his family and me, he was quite nervous and it has been a complete success I am so happy.’

Or ‘Wow this is the kind of partner I thought I could only dream of: kind, caring, loving, family oriented’.

And when I reflected I realised that both Friday and Saturday I was remembering old family members, freindships, events etc. All of which had some level of pain linked.

Now I can’t help but wonder: maybe just maybe this relationship is a safe space for me to finally be able to access old memories I had repressed…because I feel save, love and trusted. Maybe now I am learning that this is a healthy relationship and this is how it can be. Afterall, on Saturday evening, looking at him through my loving eyes, and not my ego fear based eyes, I told him how handsome he was, because he is. So maybe all of this combined frightens me so much because I am vulnerable and there is a lot at stake. So I fear and attribute the fear to superficial surface level feelings, all of which is helping me to avoid feeling the true feelings of a very damaged and low self-esteem, that just needs a little bit of tenderness and compassion.

Thoughts?