Dear Anita,

Thank you very much for your response.

the way I understand this is that as a child you received very little emotional care, hardly any.

Yes, my mom and dad had their own problems. My dad didnt really existed for me, I dont remember nothing about him. He was at home but extremely passive never cared for me. And mom was depressed and neurotic. Always yelling at me, beating me and locking me to the cold and dark bathroom.

Also, when you were a child, I imagine that you felt suffocated at home and wanted out, didn’t you?

I hated my home, wanted to leave it every day. Was not able to, so I was never leaving my bedroom. At least I was safer that way. I always wanted someone to save me, just take me by hand and get me out of here. I had daydreams about this saviour significant other every day. He never came, but I became my own saviour and left my home when I was able to.  I tried living with roomies but I get suffocated as well. So I am living by myself, I got a cat though. ( I love him and he is like a child to me, he is my everything. However sometimes he makes the suffocation feeling too)

you felt lonely at home with your family, growing up, didn’t you?

I had lots of friends, lovely grandparents and a great aunt and an uncle. But they were not living with us and their feelings are not the same as parents. I still cry when I see advertisements of “mothers’ day” and “fathers’ day” where the kids have loving families. I love socializing with people but I am extremely independent and a loner inside. I never trust anyone truly, never ask anyone for help, I only share problems if I already overcome them. Always paranoid that I am going to love/like a friend/a SO and they will just disappoint me.

limerence is the daydreaming of the lonely child, stuck in an unhappy home, daydreaming of a different kind of home: a happy, loving home.

Yep this is me. Wanted to have a different family or wished I didnt even have a family at all. Better to have none then getting disappointed.

express and process your childhood experience of living in an unhappy home with too little emotional care: this is the birthplace of the craving that drives limerence

Thank you for this, I will do some thinking on this. I tried couple of times over the past years but I was so emotional that I didnt go deep in, I will try again maybe this time is the right time.

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

Hello Anita,

Thank you for your reply I really appreciate you trying to help out.

My father was working and bringing money home yes. I would have rathered not having much stuff but have a loving father. He told me that he doesnt know how to react with kids some years ago, he still does not know how to show me love. The thing is I was never able to get angry at my father when I was little either, because he got paranoid schizophrenia when I was 6 years old. He was sick so he had a pass from me all the time. He is taking his medicines for years and he is ok.

How sad it is, that a person leaves behind nothing at all, in his daughter’s mind and heart

Well, I have some memories of him that I cant seem to forget. When he was first getting sick, he was nearly choking me. I was 6 at the time. Luckily some neighbours were with us and they took him off of me. My mum gave me a glass of water, he thought she was trying to poison me and he tried to save me. Well this is at least what they told me, I dont know if this is the truth or not, what else can you tell a 6 year old. I lived with my grandparents or uncle/aunt for some time. My dad knocked their door and yelled that he wants to see his daughter, he was holding tight to a notebook I had, never leaving it(I was writing poems or short stories to that notebook). I also remember my mum telling me that we will see my dad but I must not hug him. But these memories are the only ones I seem to remember. I had problems sleeping at night when I was living with my parents, I still do when I go for a sleepover there. I randomly wake up feeling my dad is watching me and going to do sth. (Luckily this never happened)

while father is extremely passive and doesn’t bother to stop his wife from abusing his little girl.

Yep he was seing it and hearing it but never tried to calm mum down or anything. He was just going to another room and not making any noise.

Everything got even worse when I learned my mum was cheating when I was 13. I saw her texts, saw her plane tickets, even heard her phone talks. Wanted to tell my dad but couldnt, because I felt like if I told him and it triggered his schizophrenia it would be my fault if he does sth. I hated my mum. I always hated lying, I am extremely sincere (maybe too much) and keeping a secret this big affected me extremely. My mum knew that I learned and she told me “are you gonna blackmail me with this, just go tell your father then”. I would never ever blackmailed her but she thinking of this broke my heart even more. I remember feeling extreme pain that I was not able to tell the truth but hoping that my dad was also cheating on my mum at least. So that would be at least a lil bit fair. After years of hating my mum, I no longer hate my mum either. Cant say I totally forgave but I understand that it was not easy for her as well.

health line. com in an article titled How Anxiety can Cause Shortness of Breath And What You Can Do, reads:

I dont know if I can say it as anxiety. I started to have anxiety 3-4 years ago, but that anxiety of mine only triggers when an event happens and it passes, they dont feel in a similar way either. This one never passes, it is not like a panic attack either. It never seems to ease for days, weeks, months. It only eases when I cut contact. During this time my partners actions starts hurting me and disappointing me even more. I understand that I need to break up if I get to the point of hurting my hands by pinching them too strong. ( I hated/ still hate crying, and would never want to cry in front of anyone. So when I was a kid I was looking to the ceiling and pinching my hands very hard, it helps me not cry. My hands burn and they become extremely red with nail marks. This became a habit for me though, and it happens when I am under extreme pressure. The last time this happened was 1 year ago with my last bf so I broke up in the next days)

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

Dear Anita,

I do not remember if I was having anxiety problems when I was little. I just remember I was happy when I was out of my house and angry, isolated and fed up when I was inside. For ex. I do not remember crying and yelling when I was locked in the bathroom. I was tryig to find the best coping way. I didnt want to show my bad emotions to my mum because she would feel satisfied. Since I knew It was cold I hid a blanket, and a book to not get bored. She was leaving the house after locking me as well. One time she came earlier and I wasnt able to hide back my book she saw I was reading so from that time on she was turning the lights off as well, therefore I started hiding a flashlight as well. There was nothing to do, nowhere to run so needed to find a solution for that scenario. I was not silent either, I knew I was gonna be punished more but I was still responding back to my mum. Not responding meant surrendering for me, didnt want to give her the satisfaction. She was telling me everything was my fault all the time but one time she told me she punctured a needle to my finger when I was a couple months old baby, since I was not eating my food. A baby cant be at fault so I stopped thinking I am the one at fault.

Can you tell me  your definition of the word anxiety?

I was having problems with my boss some years ago. For exapmle when he was calling I was not able to open the phone, I wanted to throw/crash the phone (I am very frugal never harm any possessions I have), wanted to cry, was having cold sweats and rapid heart beats. It was passing as soon as I finish the phone call.

shortness of breath, right?

When I was saying strangle I didnt mean it as shortness of breath. Sorry if it was understood that way, am not a native english speaker. It is more like the thoughts that never leave like I need to leave, I need to go, I need to run away kind of never ending thoughts. More like you need to get air because there is not much air at where you are. Like I can still breath but I just need to go outside type. Maybe better to say as I feel like I am in a cage, chained from my throat, must find a way out of here and run away. I can still take breaths but I feel the pressure on my throat. The differences between this and the prior one are,

• this one is consistent. Prior one it stops but this one it increases and decreases in intensity however never seems to go away if it starts.
• Prior one I dont feel like trapped.
• In prior one I have symptoms like cold sweats etc, this one I have running away thoughts that I can not seem to suppress.

After writing this I actually remembered that I was having the combination of both of these. I was having the prior one during contacting my boss, and I was having the second kind of feeling because I wanted to leave my job but I was not able to. So come to think of it, it was actually a combination of both. In my relationship I only have the latter one though.

I believed(I still do believe) I have some commitment problems. I currently work freelance btw, because I wanted to feel more free. I never liked when someone tells me/orders me stuff to do, mostly I do not listen.