Hi Jerry,

First and foremost I want to apologize for the extreme delay in my response. I've had exams, and have more exams approaching rapidly, and overall this month has been horrible in terms of my anxiety. I am so incredibly sorry for the delay.

After reading your latest interpretation, I can agree that previous relationships certainly had a hand in shaping my current insecurities. However, I'm having a lot of trouble classing my interactions with my father as abusive; I've never before associated that word with him before, and despite recognizing hurts in the relationship I still wouldn't class it as such. While my brother and I do both have issues in our relationship with him, his leaving was due much more to his own poor decisions than to conflict with our dad. A large part of me balks at calling any of our interactions, even the negative ones, abusive. I haven't had many other dreams that I recall lately, and certainly none that I remember so vividly as the topic of this post. To be honest I still think about it from time to time.

It's somewhat disheartening but not terribly surprising that my particular personality might make it difficult to find a meaningful relationship. In tandem with other fairly recent discoveries about myself, there seem to be plenty of reasons that a relationship may be out of reach, no matter how much I may want one.

Professional therapy, unfortunately, isn't an option. I'm not prepared to open up to my family about my deeper problems and can't afford any kind of treatment on my own.

I'd like to apologize again for the extreme delay in my response! I hope you're doing well.

Best,
Ashley

Age & Gender & Location {Required}: 20, female, CA

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