How close is close enough?

[mibae]

So this is really difficult for me and I have no one to actually talk to about this in earnest, especially not someone who might understand this.

Its about this person I really want to be friends with. Its all online in chats and not even that often. From the very first moment I felt that magnetic pull like some friend crush and time given it only intensivied into some form of love that did not make that much sense to me initially.

What I understood reading Walker is, that what I was actually having with him was mutual commiseration. Its about verbal ventilation and intimacy, that one which Walker said was more profound than being intimate with a partner.

I told him everything. Not every detail but every thought without holding back anything. Things and thoughts I never told anyone before. I even went so far as telling him about some of the traumas in a way that made me feel safe enough to actually recall one of the memories I shut off and cant recall.

While I was having that with him, he was stating facts. He told me some about what he has had happening to him and said he understands me but while I was forming that emotional bond with him, he was feeling nothing.

We sometimes chat a bit but its nowhere near as I wish the connection to be. What I am doing is giving him space. I told him to only talk to me, when he really wants to. And it hurts, the kind of hurt when you love someone who doesnt love you back.

I understand that he has his own life and that he cant force himself to feel anything for me even just platonic which is really all I want.

Before I read Walker, when I had that mad emotional flashback, I even told him exactly how I felt at that time. I painted a picture in words about feeling like a boy sitting in the corner of a dark unknown room silently crying for his dad. Its not how I feel for him but it was in that emotional flashback that was triggered by trying to fit the spot with him and being someone who he would need.

I had more pictures in my head in which I tried to overexplain to him how I felt later on. The next was about feeling like a boy in a vast lake. Ten meters of water surrounding me on all sides. I could not breathe but I did not feel the need to either way because i was there alone and dad was not coming, what should I want to breathe for. 

The initial picture was about being that boy sitting in the car with his dad holding his hand. Driving a car while holding a childs hand is difficult so i knew I had to let go, be a big boy, so I did. I let go of dads hand. This image was about when I tried to let go of my friend and while I tried letting go, he said he knows that people are different but if he were in my place, he would be very sad. it was actually the first picture and it was what triggered the emotional flashback in the first place because I tried to be grown up, let go of the connection to be able to be a friend he likes. Him saying he would be sad sitting in my spot created that picture in my mind with the car. After letting go, the boy would cry without a sound, for his dad to finally be able to steer the damn car while all he wants to do is call out for him, because I am sad, im just trying to not be a nuisance anymore. 

He said he doesnt need me to be anyone, being me is enough. And when he scolded me a bit about overexplaining, he said he understands all of it but not why and how this emotional bond even exists  while he made sure I know that he does not question my feelings, just why. And he said if it hurts that much, maybe I should give up on him.

Initially I said I wanted to give up because feelings are worth nothing if they only serve the purpose of making it hard to breathe. But what I wanted to give up was not him but this one sided almost obsessive way of loving him. I told him I wont give up on him as long as he does not want me to but I know he is feeling none of it. Still he is very kind in his own way and wont abandon me.

Something more that happened was, when he scolded me a bit, he wrote that i am picturing him as his dad and him having to care for me but he cant care for me and even if he wanted to give me everything, he feels like he couldnt. What I read tho was "I dont care for you" and I felt nothing by it, i accepted it as the truth I always knew, that he doesnt care for me, it didnt even hurt or anything. I went all into short phrased "yes you are right, all you say is right" mode. Like a kid nodding his head saying yes to everything and I felt like that.

Has anyone had this kind of trouble? I dont feel like I want to or could be as close to anyone else but him. This feels like some kind of stupid joke because I know damn well and I even told him that he never said or did anything to lead me on and that me feeling like that is not his fault. I was making him feel guilt about me being lonely and not being able to help it, which hurt much worse than keeping a bit of a distance now. He is the sole reason I want to get better because everything else just feels so meaningless. He never gave me any false hope, he said from the very beginning he cant be that person for me, that platonic soulmate I dreamt of. But its just me desperately trying to want to be alive.

What I told him too, which was the first for him but the last picture I talk about here is, him saying I can tell him anything and that I am not too much feels like brewing tea for him. He takes it, sips on it, burns his mouth and drinks it either way because I made it for him, saying he likes it while he cant even taste it. Makes me want to let it cool down first and add some sugar before giving it to him. I dont feel like I still can be all of me with him anymore. Just like with everyone else. Cooled down and sweetened it is then. But I grieve it, the connection I wanted to have with him but Im good at being lonely, I am used to it.

[Kizzie]

Mibae, I'm so sorry you are struggling with this relationship. It is something most survivors have difficulty with (relationships), so you are definitely not alone.

There is something called "limerence" which I only learned about when a fellow survivor told me they had it on two occasions. It's like an extreme attraction or as you say obsession with someone which sounds like what you are feeling.  Perhaps Google it and it may help you to know more about what's going on. 

I suspect that never having been safe or loved, we as survivors are desperate to find someone with whom we can feel those things. Why wouldn't we be? Every human being needs that so whatever you choose to in this relationship please do be kind and compassionate with yourself.

[mibae]

Limerence fits it very well within that emotional flashback. It was not about him at all while it felt like that.

I also called it toxic because thats all it felt like to me. The article I read about it even said that it possibly stems from anxious attachment, which I never felt with him until I decided I needed to let go.

Thank you Kizzie for that insight, it  helps me understand what happended there and I will be aware of it welling up if it decides to.

When I am ok, I love him more quietly, it's making me smile thinking about him ocasionaly. I am not jealous of his relationships at all, him talking about his boyfriend makes me smile because its cute. He got me into looking at my surroundings because he said he likes photography. I said I'd take pictures for him of everything I see worth taken a photo of. I found out its a lot of colorful skies, landscapes, clouds, trees, the stars and the moon every so often. I missed out on those before.

If it was just limerence I would have given up on him no matter how much it hurt. But when I feel grown up, I actually do love him for who he is as a person.

I wont let the cptsd make me leave him. I want to learn how to love him in a healthy way all the time. It's a nice tea, I want him to enjoy it. 

[Kizzie]

Okay Mibae, glad it helped. My only other suggestion after reading your post would be to make sure the relationship is a two way street, that you receive caring and love even not just give it. 

[Dante]

My reaction on reading this was it reminded me of similar situations in my past.  In my family, my M was a toxic narcissist and my F was absent.  With time, I now realize he couldn't take her, but it left me alone to fend for myself.  In many ways, that was the harder relationship for me.  I spent many years bonding in a limerent way (thanks Kizzie, I'd forgotten that word!) to older men looking for a father figure.  It happened with several bosses, and ultimately cost me the job when they didn't (couldn't) live up to my expectations and things went south.  There have been others, like professors in college, and even online friends.  I get hurt when I don't get back what I feel like I need.  These days, I am aware enough of it that  I am less susceptible - but I still fall into those traps.

Ultimately, what I've never learned how to do is love myself.  I understand now that no one else can love me if I don't love myself.  And no one else can be the F that I needed but never got.  But, if I don't trash the relationship, I can get something else - friendship.