Is it normal, someone must feel relationship anxiety like me
Hi everyone, I am hoping that by giving you a brief look at my background and current feelings there will be someone out there that will reach out and tell me that they have similar feelings or even someone who can help me to start to sort out mine. I am very closed about my past, but i feel that it is a contributing factor to my feelings so i will share. As a young kid, my dad as i was growing up was completely inconsistent in my life, he is a drug addict and alcoholic/bipolar.. he has had a lot of threatening behaviour and so throughtout my childhood has inconsistently been there (for bouts of years and months) but we have also shared good times together which i remember clearly and his inconsistency at the time didnt seem to damage my childhood too much. My granddad died of cancer when i was five which triggered serious OCD behavior when i was young - Hand washing, intrusive thoughts severe worries about my health and mum that consumed me everyday. As i grew up these slowly disappeared, and then I was bullied in school around my younger teens. I became very lonely, but was okay in my own company, and i used to try to fit in so desperately but failing that i focused on all of my creativity and school work. Then something completely significant happened in my life. A close family friend much older than me (30 years) whom i spent every weekend with groomed and sexually abused me over the course of two years. He understood my past, and lack of a fatherly figure and took me under his wing and built me up to feel as though i wasnt lonely and as i fell in love with him around the age of 14-15 he took that to his advantage and began to sexually abuse me. We spoke every single day for hours on end, in secret, and saw each other every weekend it is the only time in my life i remember feeling excitement love and comfort from a male. As wrong as i knew it was i couldnt resist the comfort and connection that we had and the way he put me infront of everything in his life. As time went on and things got more intense he began to withdraw and become inconsistent with me, obviously realising that what he was doing was wrong, and I became more and more desperate to maintain the relationship we had messaging constantly and trying to keep him in my life as close as we had been. Signing on and seeing that he wasnt there to talk to and how he began to drop me made me cry myself to sleep at night and left me feeling consumed by the situtation like i had been with my OCD bouts as a child. I couldnt keep it in any longer and on new years eve I burst and told my mum everything that had happened, he was put on the sex offenders register and i was unable to talk to him until I turned 18 (3 years). I was told by the police that he had said i was a cheap thrill and I had no councilling and had to accept that I was again fooled to think i was loved. A year passed And i met my ex-boyfriend. In the first year of our relationship he made me feel very special and loved and i felt completely confident and we had a great time, as i moved away to university i became more dependent on him and became homesick and he started up a new life which i wasnt part of - his personality suddenly changed and I couldnt accept it, the panick set in as i desperately tried to gain his love and reasurance every day, i pushed him away more and more and one night as we argued, he pinned me down on the bed and told me he was going to hurt me, and then pushed me into the wall and hit me a couple of times. I ran home on a train and instantly forgave him as I felt i had no self worth or self esteem and instantly wanted our relationship to be okay - we finally broke up and I met my current partner soon after.
I am with someone who i have an amazing time with, and we are both attracted to each other and he is a very kind and caring person. This is the most in love I have been able to feel since what happened with my mums family friend. however, I am left with serious, serious relationship anxiety. I feel consumed daily by worrying about my partner abandoning me and sensing slight changes and changes to routine that can be rationalised and normal. I spend my time analysing messages and waiting for replies and seriously worrying that he doesnt want to be with me. He is starting to notice my need for reassurance and desperation and i suppose that soon that will take its toll in itself. I havent been creative or focused on myself in such a long time as the fear has consumed me in the best way i can describe as my OCD bout s as a child. I know it is so unnatractive and not nice for someone to be with someone so insecure at all. Its got to the stage where i message multiple times and we fall out a lot because i overthink so much and build up and almost feel the heartbreak before anything has even happened. He could be eating his dinner and ive already decided that hes talking to someone else and im not good enough anymore. I have no self esteem and confidence that i am desirable and loved by him. It is actually relief for me when he goes away or cant speak to me because its blissful time where i feel no worry. I even leave my phone on silent so i dont have to worry if he isnt speaking to me. I know i am pushing him away and that concerns me so much and i dont know how to stop it. When hes in a bad mood or upset about something I make it worse because i irrationaly think its something to do with me or our relationship. This is constant and taking over my life and i need some help!