What am I doing?

[Wanjiee]

Hello, this is going to be a long one.
It's been 1month post breakup (the one i told y'all about here) and I'm honestly so mad at myself, because do I have a thing for people who are broken, or rather, liars, people who don't know what they want.
Take for instance my most recent breakup, i talked with the guy post breakup because I had way too many questions and thoughts. He just kept telling me that his unresolved anger is from his ex of 3yrs ago (insane to me idk) and that he saw that he'd self sabotage and end up being mean to me and he didn't want that. Told me how much he likes me and so on and so forth. And i kept telling myself that this is the lamest thing a guy has told me is the reason for a breakup. Why? Because this is something we could talk out. You see it coming, you name it, we pause, reassess, reassure, state our fears and whatnot. But no, the guy's first instinct was to leave. It pisses me tf off because i find it hard to believe that he likes me. He's doing the complete opposite of liking me. Now i happen to have had the privilege to read his articles. And in previous posts most he wrote last year but one he digs deep into how he liked some girl, but once he started loving her, he pulled away because he was scared. I realized it's the exact script with me, yeah. And i have questioned myself, why whyyy why did he actively pursue me if he knew he didn't hsve the emotional range to hold me. This is a guy who asked me to be his girlfriend, introduced me to his friends and what not.
Is it a vibe i give. Is it my aura, is it something i do. I have never been so confused and what scares me the most 8s that they're all like this, all those I've talked to you about. They have something. And well, it breaks my heart. Because I always go back to thinking and assessing where I may have gone wrong, why i keep choosing those who choose to bail, it breaks my heary because I've been wondering what's the point. Is this a loop I'm addicted to? What do I do.
My friend recently told me that I light up rooms, make people laugh, raise their spirits and he asked me again, "who lights you up? Who makes you laugh, smile and raise your spirits? When was the last time you did something for you. Something you like. And i kept asking myself, what is it that i like even. Do i know what i like, am i just going with the flow, why aren't my boundaries as strong as they're supposed to be ? Why am I selfless when other people choose to be selfish. Do i still want to remain the sweetheart I am. I'm honestly scared because this breakup has got me thinking about things i never thought i could. I am so devastated, I'm mad at myself, I'm mad at him, mad at everybody. Oh God

[Heather]

Hey there, Wanjiee. I'm always glad to see you, but I'm always so disappointed for you when it's because of crummy relationships.

I don't see any reason for you to be mad at yourself. You are a very young person, and to the best of my knowledge, save help from us and feedback from friends, you have been trying to do that on your own. Identifying our patterns takes time, often far more than you'd have in a mere 22 years of life. Then, figuring out how to change those patterns takes not only more time, but work, and is often really, really hard to do without the help of at least some professionals: a therapist is often the ideal person to help with this. I don't recall if I have asked this before, but it therapy something you might have access to?

Regardless, you don't deserve anger for thinking the best of people or for wanting to love and be loved. I totally understand (boy, do I!) feeling frustrated with yourself when it feels like you keep falling into the same kinds of bullshit or bad relationships again and again. But this isn't about doing anything wrong, and instead tends to come from things like feeling really lonely, like not feeling as loved in life as we'd like, as having trauma or dysfunctional parenting/family systems in our history, as having ideas about love and sex and partnership that we learn from the world around us but aren't good ideas, and by all means, it also often tends to come from interacting with people who are dishonest, manipulative, or who otherwise misrepresent themselves or what they want to us. All of these things are outside your control, and that last one can be really hard to see sometimes because, unfortunately, some people are Olympic-gold-winning bullshitters. This is why I'm not telling you not to be mad at this guy: I think you can be mad all you want.

But I do also think, as I have mentioned before, that you'd serve yourself well -- and certainly better protect your wonderful heart -- by going much slower with people you have interest in, and trying not to go into relationships with them just because they ask or let you in. I do think, based on what I know from the time you have been here and what you have shared, that going way slower (like that year of dating first I suggested last time we talked) before getting attached or committing, and really raising your bar when it comes to who you choose AND really leading more with what you actually want and if they are actually, clearly, able to offer it will serve you well. Again, if you can access it, I also find that the kinds of questions you're asking are the kind where you're most likely to land on the answers by working with a therapist.

I'm happy to talk with you more about this if you like, and can ask some more questions that might help you get started, too, but we can't do what a therapist can here, both due to our lack of that particular set of qualifications, and because the environment of therapy is just really different than ther environment of a message board. <3

[Wanjiee]

I do have access to therapy. I do think it's the loneliness, also idleness. I've had way too much free time for a while now, with me graduating and what not, I had the time to be landing in relationships or whatever it is that was. Hobbies are sort of expensive where i am and it's a tough time to be outside considering the weather. I do write though, i write stories to pass time. That's more annoying because i have a piece I've written with him (way before we even liked each other) and all i want to do is erase it. There's a post i wrote about how likung him feels like, (was a work of art that one) i feel like deleting it too. I feel like he's everywhere, yet i find it hard to yk block all access to him. Why? I have no idea.
I've done a lot of digging about my childhood and i think my attachment patterns stem from that. Because i was always worried about whether my parent will leave us for good, or whether our family is okay. And my first relationship happened to be with a person who had too many problems and that's the kind I've been attracting. I don't want that for me anymore. I'd rather spend this time advancing my career, doing fun stuff, going to therapy and whatnot.
That being said I'm sorry for the guy coz he missed out on one heck of a person

[Heather]

I agree! My sense of you as a person has always been that you're fantastic, and I think anyone opting out of you is missing out. That said, I'm much more concerned about *you* finding people and creating relationships that are healthy, happy, emotionally rich and benefit you than I am about these dudes.

You know, I can't speak for you, but as someone who has been a writer my whole life, when I look back at writing I did about lovers or love interests, something I notice is that a lot of that work is more about my ideas about the possibilities of those relationships or connections than the actuality of them, and a lot of that work happened in the earlier parts of them. Part of that is no doubt that it's easier to be creative with something that isn't constrained by reality; with something that is more projection, idea, or new and intense feelings in the moment than anything else. My work in relationships that are whole, have real history, is very different. Either it's almost nonexistent, because I got too busy and full actually being fully engaged in what it is rather than wanting to write about it, or it just was a lot harder to do and a lot more complex because...well, the real stuff is much more complex. Not sure if that's useful to you, but just offering it up in case.

I support you in doing whatever you want to do with that existing work. Maybe you destroy it (maybe you even print it out and burn it: some ritual can go a long way sometimes!). Maybe you rewrite it: changing something that turned out to be fiction or based on it to the reality of nonfiction, or annotating, can also be powerful. Or maybe you lock it up somewhere to look at a decade from now when you're hopefully looking back from a much different place.

I can understand how the way you grew up would play a part in some of this, for sure. Not feeing secure in our primary relationships as children can make it a lot harder to know what that looks like in our relationships as adults.

Do you need any help seeing out a therapist? You're so good at reflection and at telling the truth about yourself, I really do think the right therapist and you could do a lot of good.

[Wanjiee]

I love the idea kf printing it out and burning them. I'm definitely doing that. Concerning therapy, I have done one time therapy sessions, I've not tried out consistent ones. I have no idea even where to begin, how to know they're the right one??

[Heather]

So, you really can't get much out of a one-time session, and I'm surprised anyone even offers them, honestly. In order to really serve someone in therapy, the first session need to be an intake session, and sometimes there need to be a couple more of those after that, even, depending on the person, their history, and what they want help with. There's just very little a therapist can do in one session with someone they have just met. The work of therapy is more something we do together with a therapist over time, and by time, with the kind of stuff you're dealign with, that usually looks like a year or so to many years.

We have a piece that helps folks know how to seek out therapy, including how to screen therapists to find the right one: Process This: Getting the Most Out of Therapy. Generally screening is about asking a lot of questions and then just trusting your gut. In your case, I think one important question to ask would be something like, "I have noticed some patterns in my intimate relationships that keep doing me harm and seem to result in me continually picking partners who are not right for me or who don't even want to be partners at all. How would you generally help someone like me?" That way, you can see if their typical approach to something like this feels like a fit for you, your life, and what you think might work for you or not.

I have generally found that you don't usually need to have more than a few sessions with a therapist to get a pretty good sense of if they are or are not going to be right for you. For sure, sometimes that takes longer, or you might find as you go through therapy that a therapist is good for one things and not another, but honestly, the person doing most of the work in therapy is you, not the therapist, so I'd say the biggest indicator of if therapy with something like this is going to work for you is actually you, and your willingness to work and stick with it than the therapist.

Happy bonfire to you! <3