Anxious Fear

January 7, 2023

10:10 pm

It is a Saturday night, approximately 10:10 pm central time.

I have had a cold for two days now and been sleeping on and off. I went to bed about an hour ago and still not asleep, too many thoughts and feeling uncomfortable with the sinus headache and drainage.

The thoughts automatically turn to the online relationship. He called me and texted me once today, at 6:30 in the morning my time. He said he was having phone charging issues and has had them for a few weeks now. He told me he would turn the phone off to let it charge completely and call in me in a few hours. That was 16 hours ago. To say I am little irked is an understatement.

It makes me anxious. It makes me fearful. I hate feeling both of these because I have been here before.

Anxious – “experiencing worry, unease, or nervousness, typically about an imminent event or something with an uncertain outcome.”

Fear – “an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat.”

I get anxious when I do not know what is going on. The anxiety causes these unrealistic scenarios to play out in my conscience. What if something happened to him? What if he is hurt or in the hospital?

Then the fear starts moving in. This causes my anxiety filled thoughts to go into overdrive. What if he actually changed his mind about us? What if he is actually married with kids or something? Both of these are just even more made-up scenarios in my thoughts, but these always involve him leaving me in the process.

Why these thoughts? It is insecurity and not feeling like I have a say in anything, so I automatically think the worst possible outcome. It is the automatic response from years of trauma and bad relationships.

I have to take a step back and look at everything.

First, I look at the last texts he sent. He stated he was having to borrow a charger because his was not charging well. I know it has been that way for a while. He stated he was on his way out to grab some food and would get back with me. He said he loved me very much. He also called me for a few minutes to make sure I was okay. I told him I was feeling sick. He told me to get a lot of rest. Perhaps the reason for him not calling or texting is he did not want to disturb me, knowing that I am sick.

Then I look at the texts before that, he texted me three different times the day before, throughout the day, each time telling me how much he missed me and how much he loves me. This was also the same for Thursday, Wednesday, Tuesday, Monday, Sunday, and on New Year’s Eve we got to have a phone call for over 30 minutes along with the text messages.

Then why am I so fearful when there is no evidence to support the thought that he is just going to leave me? It is because of my own insecurity and how I feel as a woman.

As I was laying there, trying to sleep, all that negativity that is always there starting swirling in my thoughts. The thought that “I have never been worthy of love. You cannot be loved if you were not conceived out of love.” I know this thought goes back to the fact that my own mother would tell me, every time she was drunk, how I messed up her life. How if I had not been born then she would have been with my biological father, and he would not have left her. That is a pretty messed up thing to say to your own kid. My whole life was lie from the beginning.

It was not until I tried looking up my biological father many years ago and I found his obituary. According to the information, he was married about 5 months before I was conceived. This means they had an affair. I do not know what their relationship with each other was about. I assume she did not know but I never asked nor will I.

This means every relationship that I have had, this insecurity about myself not being worthy of love has come into play. Granted some of the relationships were bad to begin with, age gaps, differences in goals, differences in our relationship roles or expectations, and differences in how to manage money.

Those things do not play that much into my relationships anymore because I know what I want, who I am, and I have finally figured out what I bring into the relationship. I am very upfront about it at the beginning.

Even though I am upfront about these items, it still does not make me feel any more secure. The negative thoughts will still rear their ugly head every once and a while.

It is how I perceive myself as a woman that becomes the issue.

I have never believed myself to be beautiful much less pretty. I am average, I wear glasses, and I am a minority. I am a nerd when it comes to certain things, but I do not get so all-consuming about it. I like the creative side of me. I like to talk, and I can get in your face over certain topics. I have never been this quiet, demure, overly feminine woman. I have an aggressive personality.

This is who I have always been. It sometimes attracts men and sometimes it attracts the wrong men who want to break me down. They see it as some sort of challenge, to put me in my place. This is also the personality that repels women from being my friend unless they are the same way. Then it sometimes turns into some sort of competition between us. That never ends well. I do not have any close friends.

I have not figured out how to dial it back and not come off as so bold or in your face. I always had the attitude “You either accept me the way I am or not, that is not up to me.” That is not the right way to think, especially since I complain all the time about not having friends.

Yet, here I am, almost 52 years old, and still struggling to be “liked” by others.

That is where the fear of this relationship ending comes from. I know that sometimes I can be “too much” and overly aggressive with wanting attention. Yet, when I look back at our history together, there has only been a few instances where we did not talk to one another.

Those incidents turned into major arguments between us, and I called it quits. I felt like I was not being taken seriously but he remained persistent in pursuing me, and we worked it out. Even after I blocked him and got rid of my accounts, he still sent me emails to work things out.

I finally started relaxing but still remain on alert to any changes in our relationship with one another. I do not feel as anxious as I did a few months ago but I still have my moments. We continue to work it out.

I know that if he decides to end things that he will actually tell me. That much I do know from our previous attempt two years ago.

I have to remember, that he came and found me again, it was not the other way around. I am happy that he did. I really did miss talking to him. There is just something about him that keeps me wanting to be with him.

So much so, that I have started letting go of some of the pridefulness that I carry. I was always this person who refused to apologize if I believed that I was in the right. I now take a step back and look at my actions first because sometimes I started the argument over a misunderstanding. I am learning how to let go of the small things that do not matter in the big picture.

We have different ways of communicating and are still learning about each other. I know that he has said that he is still learning my language and he misinterprets things. I am sometimes too literal or too general plus I tend to use my own slang, so I am having to explain things. In the end though we tend to laugh about it.

At the beginning of this writing, I was fearful, but the feeling has passed. I know that he will get back to me in his time, which is something we are still working on as well.

I am person that likes time frames. If I say that I will contact you in “x number of minutes,” then that is what I will do. He is very laid back, when he says “I will get back to you or give me a few minutes” that could be anywhere from a few minutes to the end of the day or early the next morning.

I get irked by that the most and I have explained why, he is still trying to understand why I get upset because he did get back with me. It is all semantics, me growing up and being from the US while he grew up in a household with a European country background which has caused misunderstandings. We definitely view time differently.

I always feel rushed on everything while he takes it one day at a time and moves through it easily. Whatever is not done today will keep until tomorrow. He keeps telling me I need to slow down and not be in such a hurry. That is the same thing my family tells me.

I have tried to not worry about things and tell myself “It will keep until tomorrow” but the anxiety part of my mind does not like that, so it will pop up in my thoughts that I am now behind. I have no idea what I am “behind” on? I do not work and have no time schedule. The only things filling up my schedule right now are doctors or therapy appointments. That is still a work in progress.

All I know is that when we get to talk to one another, I am so enamored by him. I love hearing his voice and I feel calm when we do talk. I feel important to him, and I always telling him how important he is to me.

I have also realized that if things do not work out between us, we tried, more than once. That I will be okay and so will he. That sometimes you have to take those chances on another human being. That relationships are hard. Then when you have the added stress of a long-distance relationship with time differences, language barriers, cultural differences, and just trying to figure each other out, it may get difficult at times.

The best thing to do is talk to one another about the things that you feel. To open up to different ways of doing things. To always be upfront about anything that is occurring. In the end it will work out the way it is supposed to. Sometimes you have to expect the unexpected and just move with the flow of things.

Thank you for stopping by.

Have a wonderful week!

Peace, love, happiness, and good vibes, always!

Suzanne