Dear Kay:

You shared that last week you saw N (a guy) a couple of times, then he went on a vacation of sorts, “completely out of contact”, which made you feel like you “should escape, whatever that means”. It is a similar to how you felt when J (another guy) traveled a lot for work, having experienced at the time “feelings good and bad, which made me feel like crazy”.

Last weekend you were very anxious, “really desperate, like wanting attention or something”, and you went through your contact list and chatted with friends.

You shared that in the past you meditated in the morning and you believe morning meditation works best for you. But recently you are exhausted because you were anxious for a while (since last week when N went “completely out of contact”). When you experience a period of anxiety, it is hard for you to sleep, and what results is exhaustion: too exhausted to meditate at night and too exhausted to meditate in the morning, “in the morning it is really hard to get  up”.

My understanding today: you feel safer when you are alone, so you avoided relationships with men much of your life, having your first at 29, and you avoid what I would term being Together with people, all because when you were Together with your mother, just you and her (with no one else being there)- she hurt you terribly, so terribly that you “prayed and wished to die”.

“my mother was always angry at me and that many times I just prayed and wished to die… sometimes she got physical with her anger and maybe that is why I was so afraid to be alone with her” (January 2019)- notice, you were afraid to be Together with her when no one else was there.

Fast forward, you are not afraid to be alone. You are afraid to be Together with a person, because once you are Together with him, and then he disappears in some way- you get to experience that fear of being Together with your mother all over again.

Being Together with your mother when there was no one else there was a scary experience, so you fear it. On the other hand, as humans we are social animals who need Together for comfort.

Last week you saw N a couple of times and you experienced moments of a comforting-Together with him (the good feelings in “feelings good and bad, which made me feel like crazy”).  When he then went “completely out of contact”, you experienced being scary-Together with your mother (the bad feelings in “feelings good and bad, which made me feel like crazy”).

“Now (N) is.. completely out of contact. Which I do not know why makes me think like I should escape whatever that means”- I think it means that you experienced comforting-Together with him, then he disappeared from your life in some way, and you felt the same scary-Together fear you had when you were alone with your mother. You thought you should escape.. your mother.

“Which has happened to me before with they guy J from my last post, back then J traveled a lot for work”- you experienced some comforting-Together with J, then he disappeared in some way, and you felt the same scary-Together you felt with your mother.

January this year, you wrote: “Four years ago I got a job offer to work abroad, I accepted it without hesitation, maybe I was trying to escape from everything in my home country including my mother. I wanted to be free”- you wanted to escape being scary-Together with your mother. You wanted to be free of that fear.

You wrote in September this year, I think it was: “last year, I became so anxious about wanting a relationship. I feel like before at least I was safe from everyone”- not being in a relationship felt safe, similar to not being Together with your mother/being free of that scary-Together.

What you want is a comforting-Together, a comforting relationship, but what happens is that you re-experience that scary-Together/ abuse you experienced with your mother.

Last week you experienced some comfort with N, he was then gone, you experienced fear of being Together with your mother, and during the weekend, overcome with fear and desperate for freedom from that fear, desperate for comfort- you went through your contact list and chatted with friends.

It is interesting, to make this distinction: you are not afraid to be alone, really. You are afraid to be left alone with your mother, which means that you are afraid of being Together with your mother. Even though your mother is not there physically with you, you experience her there with you mentally/ emotionally. I know this experience very well myself.

anita

Dear Kay:

“I am not afraid to be alone.. I am afraid to be left alone”- when you get used to being alone, you feel safe, or safer, but when you get close to someone (feeling that comforting-Togetherness I mentioned), then you become afraid of being left alone.

“I just saw my mother a couple of months ago.. she was really nice to me. Actually, I felt guilty because I wanted to go away again”- when you saw her, she was really nice to you, but you remember the many times she was angry and abusive to you.

Think of it this way: let’s say that for ten years, you ate spoiled potato salad again and again, and every time you did, you vomited. You then stayed away from potato salad. Years later, you are offered fresh potato salad- your reaction: likely you will feel like vomiting, even though it is fresh, because you remember vomiting before.

Understanding this, I hope that you resolve the guilt you mentioned.

“Sometimes when I am there I see myself like something small and I want to be hugged like I were a small cat and I want my mother to pet me”- that’s you wanting to experience closeness/ that comforting-Togetherness I mentioned. Being touched is part of the comforting-Togetherness that we all need.

“then I am afraid I would depend on someone that would eventually leave me”- that’s the fear of relaxing into the comfort of Togetherness- and then losing that closeness/ being left alone. So, you prefer to stay on edge, not comfortable, not so close.. so that the Fall from Togetherness to Alone is not too great and too painful.

“N .. mentioned things like making plans together.. then recently.. (suggesting) for me to do it by myself”- when he made plans for the two of you to be Together- you got scared, so you kept your distance best you could, appearing disinterested. He in turn figured that you were not interested in Togetherness with him.

Did I understand correctly?

anita