Dear joanna:

There are inconsistencies in your story: the date lasted an hour, an hour or an hour and a half (you stated you watched the time of the date); the date consisted of going out for a drink or coffee. You stated you didn’t see him for a couple of years and yet you met him at the gym so that he would gather some things before going for a drink or coffee. (You added the gym element so to explain the difference between the hour and the hour and a half).

And then, following the first date he told you he had a good time, you texted him “me too”. He didn’t respond to that. Then before a second date, he tells you that he wants to be yours, that you will be going to vacations together, that you will be forever in his life, all following “me too”, without you communicating to him anything encouraging of such an infatuation.

anita

Dear joanna:

It was a bad idea to be alone with him at his place. After a few conversations in a café, or elsewhere in public, and getting to know him, you had the opportunity to learn who he is, to figure out that indeed there is something very wrong with his mental well-being, so wrong that it will not allow a healthy relationship with you even if you were “perfect, most beautiful and impeccable”.

It is extremely unlikely for a mentally healthy man to believe and to state to a woman he doesn’t know, based on a Facebook interaction and following an hour or an hour and a half of a date, that he “wanted a relationship with (you) until the end of his life”

Another point, in the short relationship with him you made assumptions and acted on your assumptions without checking the truth or lack of truth of your assumptions: you assumed he was bored with you at the café, assumed he was thinking about that football event, assumed later that he is able and willing to always put you and your feelings first, because he told you so (“He told me many times (and I believed him)- that he would always put me first”). You then reacted to your assumptions by ending the first date, and to the latter assumption you reacted by having sex with him.

Better check your assumptions for truth of or lack of before you react, so that you base your behavior on what is true, not on what is untrue.

Putting this aside for a moment, I was wondering about three things:

1. What about Tom, you didn’t mention a resolution, if there was one to that story, or if he is part of your life still.

2. You wrote that you went out dancing with friends, how is your social life? I … assumed you didn’t have much of a social life, that your overall emotional experience in life was that of misery. I am now checking my assumption: how do you feel much of the time, when not sharing here, while out and about and otherwise, are you having fun, experiencing calm at times..?

3. You shared before that you make very little money and had to borrow money from your mother for groceries. How is it that you are considering buying an apartment for yourself, I wonder. You didn’t mention getting a different job or any source of new money.

anita

Dear joanna:

What is the status on the moving plan:

-will you be moving to the property on which your grandparents are living, where your mother is a part owner?

-once you move, will you still be working in the language school or will you be looking for a different job?

It is my impression, looking back at our communication over time, that you never experienced (as far as I am aware of) a strong motivation to move out and away from your mother. It is as if, and maybe you are, okay with things. Miserable at times, yes, but almost, sort of, okay with your life as is. Not miserable or desperate enough to overcome the fear and move, get away.

anita

Dear joanna:

Do you know of the term “learned helplessness”?

Wikipedia explains it this way (I am paraphrasing some): a behavior typical of an animal that occurs when the animal endures repeatedly painful stimuli which she is unable to escape or avoid. After such experience, the animal learns to no longer try to escape or avoid such painful stimuli/ situations. The animal learns that it is helpless in painful situations, that it has no control over such and it and it gives up trying.

In your second thread, May 3 of this year, you shared the following regarding your experience as a child with the violence between your parents: “I remember asking her.. please open those door please‘ I was so terrified.. she never listened… Sometimes I tried to separate them. Sometimes I just watched my mother beating my dad… me sitting in my room watching them beating and yelling. I can’t imagine worse thing in the world, a thing that would terrify worse… There was no escape, no hope and no help”-

you tried to prevent their fights by telling your mother to not  open the door to your father coming home drunk, but she opened it anyway. You tried to separate them but they continued to fight.

You were helpless in that situation and it happened repeatedly, learned helplessness took hold. You wrote on that thread: “I feel like all my life I have been living, reliving and replaying those scenes from my childhood, sitting in this room with them, being exposed to violence, not being able to stop this (despite asking them) with no help from anyone. Sometimes I imagine myself.. leaving this room. I imagine getting up and leaving”

As an adult, now 31 or 32, you never left that room. Literally, you live with your mother. When she is not staying with you, it is because she chose to stay elsewhere (with a boyfriend). You never chose to move away from her, never took such an action. This is Learned Helplessness.

“Being able to imagine getting up and leaving countless times gives me a bit more freedom, and insight. I hope someday I will be able to do this”- this is your hope, to get up and leave, to take on action for the purpose of avoiding pain. To get up and leave your mother (and to get up and leave Tom, before).

February 3, in your first thread, you wrote: “I always seek someone to take care of me, because I feel I’m unable to take care of myself”- when you suffer from learned helplessness, you are unable to take care of yourself, you feel powerless, incapable, weak.

You keep wanting that “magical feeling (of safety) WITHOUT EVEN CHANHGING ANYTHING IN MY LIFE”, you wrote, February 4 (your capital, big letters).

You want that safe feeling when you visited your father after your parents’ divorce. You wrote about that: “He DIDN’T DO ANYTHING, everything just disappeared and it was okay” (your capital, bit letters).

This magical feeling of safety with no action to avoid and prevent pain is magic. Real safety and learned helplessness do not go together. For real safety, you have to take action.

In my last post to you I wrote: “you never experienced (as far as I am aware of) a strong motivation to move out and away from your mother. It is as if, and maybe you are, okay with things… almost, sort of, okay with your life as is”- I was correct. You did not express motivation to move out or better your life. What I understand now is that the reason you did not express such motivation is not because you are okay with your life but because you believe that you are unable to change it, and so, there is no use trying.

anita