sheisrelationshipanxiety

[sheisrelationshipanxiety]

If you knew how hard it was, and how long it took, to rebuild my little universe of peace and happiness then you would understand why I’m so picky about who I allow in my life.

Weird People (via onlinecounsellingcollege)

[sheisrelationshipanxiety]

He was the first to listen to me.

I’d always tell myself that this is where it all started for me. My anxiety definitely manifested largely through this experience, but this can’t be the only reason why.

I was 14, 15? Perhaps. I come from an extremely provincial town where our population is probably the size of most normal high school populations. For scale, I graduated with only 80 people in my senior class. I was the only student of asian descent in my entire school. It was hard growing up where I was from. I had friends, but I was often mentally alone. No one understood me, and thus I was outcasted for who I was. My life was very mundane, until he came into it and stirred up a storm. 

This story is a sad and silly story about an internet crush that went very south. 

I started an Instagram page around this time, it wasn’t anything special. Just awkward photos of myself that I thought were cute at the time, but in hindsight they were outright cringey as fuck. I was that asian girl that liked to take cute photos and model after that ulzzang theme, which is a Korean word meaning “best face” or “good-looking”. These ulzzang models would have contact lenses that made their iris bigger (I never actually went this far thank god), eyeliner to make their eyes appear puffy because somehow that was cute, and very minimal facial expressions that were just...well cute. It was a regular day where I continued to post these awfully adorable photos. However, this time, I received a special comment. 

“you’re so cute!”

His fake name is Roy. Damn was he handsome. Perfectly exemplifying the desired image of a male ulzzang. If you are still confused by this term and by what these models look like, simply look it up and you will catch my drift. We kept commenting in my comment section like a bunch of losers, but nevertheless, it gave me butterflies. He was so handsome, and he noticed me. My 14 year old self was enthusiastic. We exchanged kik usernames (wow this was further back than I thought) and started to chat over the app. I learned these things about him. He was kind, honest (italicized for a reason...wait for it), handsome, talented, uni student, lived internationally, and came from a family with a lot of money. He sounds perfect right? I’m not a gold digger, I don’t care for the money, but I was 14 at the time and it was just an added bonus. Plus, I was so traditionally asian when I was younger. We are always trying to look for a secure partner for the future, and that’s of course in financial terms as well. We spoke back and forth everyday. He lived in Singapore, so the time difference was quite dramatic. He fed me compliments that made my little heart soar. 

I come from a very traditional asian family where not many words of affirmation and appreciation are exchanged. It just simply isn’t a part of our culture. The children are expected to be the best, and any slip up resulted in a very harsh berating from their parents. I didn’t have the best childhood because of this. I was always walking on eggshells, waiting to be yelled at. Waiting to be told that I was worthless because I grabbed the wrong soysauce off of the shelf. This cultural habit of my parents translates into emotional abuse here in the states. It wasn’t until I was much older when I realized how much it fucked me up. I was a small, insecure, and brittle teenager. My parents pushed me to be perfect, while simultaneously uttering insults under their breath any chance they could. Their parents and family members treated them like this, so why would they raise their children any different? We couldn’t communicate about our problems because there was no way to do that. We had no form of communication. My parents were so traditional in the worst way possible that they never understood how I felt, and they always thought I was ungrateful because I had depression and major insecurities. I would tell them that I was sad because people in school didn’t understand me and my dad would say “Get over it. It doesn’t matter.” I’d tell my mother I was depressed and she would tell me “You have nothing to be depressed about. I was depressed when I lived in poverty in Asia, you are so ungrateful.” In the hierarchical sense, children weren’t allowed to speak to their parents about many things because it would be a form of “talking back”, especially if the parents disagreed.

That’s why Roy had me hooked. He was giving me these words of affirmation and constantly listened to my feelings when I struggled with my family. He had me wrapped around his finger. I felt like for once someone was there to listen to me. He was my little secret. He felt like a warm blanket freshly out of the dryer, He felt like hot chocolate on a chilly day outside. I’d message him while I was in class, when the kids were being stupid, being bullies, he was there for me. I was that one girl smiling at her phone in the back. He really made me happy. But then everything started to go downhill from here. 

He claimed that he started to feel sick, so sick that he was often passing out and was in need of medical assistance. As you can understand, this troubled me deeply. I suggested that he go and get his health checked-out. He returned from his appointment to tell me that he was diagnosed with - a brain aneurysm. “What the hell is that?” my very confused 14 year old self thought. After much research I realized how serious those conditions were. He would get major migraines everyday. They would hurt so bad that he would disappear for days because he would be in the hospital. My whole world was falling apart. What would I do without him? We have never spoken on the phone, or have we ever facetimed. It wasn’t him, I just never suggested it. We planned a lot of things for the future. We wanted to meet, eat ice cream together, talk about our lives, embrace, and just comfort one another. He didn’t have a supportive family either. They were always gone working, because his family was so focused on making money. He was raised by a nanny, and she was like his own mother. He had many insecurities in his life, despite the nice cars, nice clothes, nice haircuts. I have a soft spot for people who need someone there for them. It’s always been in my nature to nurture others. At the time, I really believed that I was in love with him. He was all I knew when it came to boys, and he was so kind to me. 

“You’re the most beautiful girl I have ever seen.” “I want to help you realize how amazing you are.” “I think all of your insecurities make you perfectly imperfect to me.”

 We go back and forth for many weeks regarding his brain aneurysm. I stayed up many nights crying and praying for things to be alright for him. I’d cry and wonder why life was so unfair. The one time I find someone who seemed to really care about me, to seem to really listen to me, life wants to take them away. His aneurysm progressively got worst and eventually he had to get surgery. Surgeries for this type of problem are extremely risky. He briefed me over what percentage of living he had, when the surgery was, how long it would take him to recover, what they would do to him. It was all so awful. I felt so alone, I was so young, I couldn’t do anything to help him, certainly not through a screen. I was invested in him. He doesn’t message me for a while after that, and when I confronted him about it he said he didn’t want to drag me into this problem. That I should “move on” so that I wouldn’t suffer. But when I was stubborn and insisted on staying put, he tells me the worst thing imaginable.

“Wait for me. If I make it, I will come back for you. I promise.”

So I did. Days turned into weeks, which turned into months, and eventually years. I never heard from him again. I was utterly heartbroken. Cold. Empty. He left me, just like that...and in the worst way possible. For the longest time I thought he died, I thought that the operation was unsuccessful. But then, I was shrouded by doubt, insecurity. What if he left me because I wasn’t enough? What if there is another girl? What if this was a scam this whole time? What is wrong with me? Why won’t he love me? Is he alive? Is he dead? Where is he? Is he okay? This became one of the darkest moments of my life. I was so vulnerable, so alone because I couldn’t talk to anyone. All I had were my thoughts, my nasty thoughts fighting me. My parents words turned into my own as I tore myself apart. My chest felt heavy, my head hurt with all of the insulting words, my heart burned like fire. 

Of course I wasn’t good enough. But what if it was real? What if he died? No, I’m just a loser. I hate myself. 

This type of thinking was chaotic and toxic. I cried every night for months, I lost all of my self confidence, the little that I had. I was a mess and I felt deep down inside there was no way to fix it. One night, I distinctly remember crying by my bed. I was bawling, all alone, frustrated at the world and at myself. I made a promise and said

“You will never be with another man. You will never trust another man. You will never be in a relationship.”

That statement still stands today. I started something completely and totally irreversible. This situation, my childhood, all of my traumas, come together to form the most confusing, painful, and frustrating case of relationship anxiety.

I found my closure in this story a few years later. Two girls reached out to me through my instagram DMs. Both at different times, and both unaffiliated with one another. They tell me that they were his ex. One girl was just as confused as I was about what happened for him. I found out that he was dating her during the time that he and I were talking. But then the other girl finally fills me in. She tells me that she was his current girlfriend and that she had answers to end my restless inquiries. She tells me that he’s known for talking to multiple girls, that she was trying to change him. She told me that he is not who he said he was, that he was a different guy disguised as whoever was in those pictures. He was a catfish. But she fell in love with the real guy. However, I am convinced they were both kind of crazy. He was awful to her, distrustful, flakey, yet she loved him and couldn’t leave him. I found an out to that situation and finally received my closure. Years later I finally know it was all bullshit, and it really fucking sucked because the damage had been done. An attitude becomes a habit, and there was no way I was breaking this habit anytime soon.

[sheisrelationshipanxiety]

What is relationship anxiety?

Relationship anxiety is characterized by feelings of anxiousness, fear, depression, anything of the like when it comes to being in a relationship. It’s slightly complicated for me to define, simply because anxiety is unique to the person experiencing it. I’ve suffered with it all of my life. I am a young woman, currently in my undergraduate studies. I am in my early twenties, and I’ve never been in a relationship. Only recently have I had my first kiss, it was actually two weeks ago rip. I’ve struggled with relationship anxiety ever since I was young. I am still trying to draw clues from my past to understand why I suffer from this form of anxiety, and that is why I decided to start this blog. It was extremely difficult for me to find blogs or articles about a person’s raw emotions when it comes to relationship anxiety and fear of commitment. I am hoping that by documenting my adventures with this anxiety, maybe someone else could stumble across my chronicles and find some sort of validation for themselves. Also, I am hoping to find validation for my emotions. I hope to grow through this blog as well as support many women alike. I will be as crude, raw, and exposed as I possibly can, which is quite unlike myself naturally. 

Why did I choose the name - “She is Relationship Anxiety”?

I have let my anxiety define who I am for many years. Whenever it comes to partners, I always tell them “I really like you, but I have relationship anxiety.” as a way out comfortably. My anxiety is like another person. She’s controlled my life in terms of how I love people and how I let them love me. I’m trying to figure her out so that I can move past this block in my life. Hopefully one day, I will no longer be relationship anxiety. She will no longer be relationship anxiety.

Welcome aboard to my complicated love life. You will get to know my fun and exciting “love” stories, and all of the sweet but also painful stories with boys in my past, present, and future. You’ll get to see how my anxiety reacted to each “love” story. I will change the names and some characteristics of these people in order to protect their identity. Let’s just have fun with this :)