I hope that sharing it with someone, and maybe having opinions but not too arrogant judgements, will help me to leave all this behind, as I think I am supposed to do.

I am a woman in her mid-30s who has suffered from depression since puberty, avoidant personality disorder (low self-esteem, dysmorphophobia, self-criticism and sensitivity to judgements, self-isolation, loneliness, intense affective desires and fantasies) at the basis of which there is a growth disorder, i.e. a neurosis that has taken the place of a normal life course, with anxiety regarding the past, the present and the future. I suffered a lot in my post-adolescent years because of anguish about sexual differences between men and women, with a conflict between a great desire and a great fear, with the result that I denied myself every opportunity.

When I started a treatment with an antidepressant plus an antipsychotic, I actually felt much better and more projected on the environment, I started to unblock myself and I had my first experiences with boys, only I didn't have anymore in my body my normal capacity of sexual arousal and pleasure because the AD from the first weeks razed them completely. But somehow I still had the mental desire and emotions.

Anyway I stopped the treatment because I was just waiting to have my sexuality back and have full sex. But here's the shocking "surprise": the sexuality doesn't come back at all and I find out that sometimes in fact the symptoms can be permanent after stopping. Absurd trauma, like a sadistic twist of fate, because living the passion was my biggest dream. Almost 10 years have passed and I have never recovered, clitoris defunct either with partners or alone.

Since then, I have had written contact with a doctor who was committed to this problem that was neglected by other doctors, he fought to increase its recognition, so I felt grateful right from the start, and both for this and for a work to spread awareness about the problem I have committed myself over the years to divulge his work on this issue. Considering that I go out very little and for some periods not at all, I have invested a lot of my thoughts, time and effort into it. When I saw that he was happy if I sent him links to news on the subject, I never stopped doing so. I was surprised and excited for example when he said he would like to meet me once and I felt valued.

Then it happened in recent years that by dint of messages and exchanges of ideas on the subject of sexual problems I developed a transference, which is the kind of falling in love that can occur for example with a psychotherapist, who maintains a rather neutral and professional position, doesn't really make himself known, but is available and welcoming, and the patient then begins to feel feelings and ask herself questions to which she does not know what to answer rationally, she pours into it affective elements and dynamics that come from her own psyche and her needs. It is obvious what kind of transference I had for this man more adult than me, valiant, affirmed and yet who held me in consideration... I carry within me the wounded little girl in need of love that I was and I never stopped wanting to bring her comfort...

I've been in a relationship for years with a boyfriend, but I'm not someone who can find everything she wants or appreciates in one person, for me this is normal and he knows it. So the feelings of falling in love that I feel in a transference that are intense and that hide very deep meanings and potentialities for me have nothing to do with the affection that I feel for the boy with whom I have a relationship that is very friendly, without excluding the sexual desire due to the pleasure of his closeness and confidence. What has nothing to do with him is that mix of desire mixed with tragedy, tension and brooding that characterises my passionate infatuations and comes from my neurotic baggage. There are the periods when I stay for days in his company and we live together, when I distract myself from my discomfort, have fun and feel better. Then there are the periods of isolation and loneliness when I go back to alienating myself and my mind goes back to the unresolved issues of my past and to dreaming of things that would have a great healing power on me linked to affective meanings.

So in the last few years, during quarantines and other periods of isolation when I was almost always on the computer, working on that theme and having contact with that person, I had exacerbations of the transference and through sentimental fantasies I was able to experience beautiful passionate sensations such as I hadn't felt for years, although the genital dysfunctions hadn't changed, I was happy to see that I could still physically experience things like emotions in my belly when I imagined a kiss or sex. Little by little, but more and more, I communicated these fantasies to him in writing, each time thinking that I would probably lose him in the process, so after sending them I would feel worried or hurt, until I received a calm reply from him which reassured me. However I would tell him that he didn't have to answer me anything unless he wanted to tell me to stop. But he didn't push me away, he welcomed how I felt and my fantasies, so I wondered more and more how appropriate they were to him.

He encouraged and pushed me to believe in myself more as far as activism was concerned and showed appreciation for some things, which I found not very credible, but the fact that he did it made me feel cuddled and well-liked. In addition to this he gave me some appreciation which prompted me to wonder if there was any realistic possibility of realising a fantasy. That is, being able to spend a night or two with him... which is complicated in any case by technical issues such as distance and Covid restrictions, that I am phobic and ashamed and that we speak different languages. For a while the thought of being able to meet him one day, as much as I felt myself to be a hindrance, was motivating me to prepare myself on some things, such as learning his language and taking better care of myself physically.

I was surprised at myself and also told him that I had never felt so 'borderline' before. In fact, my perception of myself and his reactions was completely unstable and could go from one opposite to the other, I was always afraid of rejection, but I posed as if I was ready to receive it. I also told him that he had like opened my head and would have the power to heal me or traumatise me. But between the fact that I felt I lacked self-esteem, that I didn't actually understand how much sense my wanting it made, and that maybe I was just a piece of crap who was daring to think I "deserved" sincere appreciation, I became despondent. I told him that I was in too much pain and that it was only appropriate to hear from him sporadically for updates and that maybe it meant for me to give up my dream for the last time (I'm getting on in age to be able to arouse a set of things in a man), so he could understand why I might feel "annoyed".

I made this decision to distance myself right when I was hurting because I would have wanted him closer. That's when I had a few weeks of withdrawal madness, in which although I had asked not to hear from him, more and more I thought he wasn't even thinking about me, while all I did was think about him. I immediately missed his kind words, his answers that always amazed me how they managed to reassure me every time, after I had been afraid that I had ruined everything and had cried. Nice words from a few days before had less and less power to hearten me, they seemed less and less valid. I knew it was my problem and that it wasn't right to always ask for confirmation.

Every day I had a different idea of what it really was. Did he love me or not, would he want to meet me or not, would he look at me the way I dreamed or in what other way, was I rubbish or could I be pleasant, had I disturbed him and he didn't know how to get rid of me without hurting me or wasn't it? I was suffering and going crazy with a thousand different hypotheses and emotions and it was all made worse by the fact that at that time I was completely alone and had no opportunity to distract myself except for a few solitary walks.

So after a few weeks I wrote to him again, although I didn't want to be heavy-handed, but at the same time I wanted to demand some kind of direction from him. I gave him a list of contradictory thoughts and emotions trying not to be as long-winded as I was inside, and then after a few days, since he didn't answer, I asked him to do it because it would have seemed sadistic to remain silent since I seemed crazy. And I wrote him again after maybe a couple of days that it was bitchy not to say two measly words. So he replied about having too many serious things to do at the moment, which were getting in the way of everything else. Which calmed me down a bit at the time, but the effect was short-lived and the explanation became less and less credible as the days went by.

I had never felt so unstable, I cried so much and started imagining killing myself to stop thinking, and because I felt like rubbish, a filthy madwoman who didn't even deserve the consideration to receive a real answer. And I had told him that it would only take a few words to tell me something real, like that he didn't have time for me anymore, or that he was wrong, or that he was fed up, and that I would make it work.. I wouldn't be happy, but at least I would suffer accordingly, in one direction, and not prolong the suffering by fighting through a thousand hopes and disappointments. It was like a fear that is realised, striving to get away from those you think love you, with the fear of losing their affection, and coming back a short time later and the affection is no longer there. A bit like going from being a loved child to being the despised little girl, which is a trauma of my growth. Suddenly the time for "caresses" is over.

The few times I distracted myself with a few long walks on a nice sunny day, thinking about him became less urgent and less dramatic, it became more understandable that there was no hurry on his part to answer me, because he had so many commitments and not like me. But what I started to believe more was that he was stalling and letting me get over my discomfort by myself without any intention of interfering, but the idea of the reason why he was doing this was always changing, from that it could be a therapeutic strategy (even), to that he did not want to intrude further, to that he was afraid of hurting me, to that he did not care at all. Did he have a conflict of emotions for me or was he an automaton for whom emotions are a waste of time? Had he encouraged me only because I supported his work? Had he accepted what I sent him because he was enjoying it, or not at all?

All in all I was suffering more because of his attitude that conveyed indifference to my pain and I started to feel angry at him and I also mentioned it to him saying that two words would be enough, to which he replied that we would both have to live with the ambiguity a little longer. This reply also heartened me for a while, but perhaps because I would have been heartened by any sign that I could still communicate with him. But then I wondered what it meant on his part, why we would have to live with it a little longer, why I would have to suffer so much a little longer... I used to imagine that if he really loved me, maybe he had something good in store for me, maybe he wanted me to get to know and go through those moods and then come back and say something like: how much have you been through, have you seen? These are all tricks of the mind, while I was left loving you as before. As if he wanted to teach me that one can safely go away without losing love and serenity. This, too, is nothing but my own projection.

He didn't give me an answer and I wrote to him that I was putting an end to that misplaced saga, that I wished he hadn't ignored how I felt, but would have given me a tip...instead he had preserved himself as much as possible and didn't care about anything, and that I didn't want to know anything anymore. He didn't reply in fact. Every fucking notification I got and still get I thought and hoped I could read his name, knowing that it would really have a huge power to change my mood, and every time I was left bitter and angrier. I wonder where the care he had for me a couple of months ago has gone... if it ever existed.

My tragic existential thoughts have increased, I feel that life never holds good surprises for me because God does not love me. I also feel like ruining everything I've done for the problem, and I've already started some works of destruction. I'm afraid that a growing sense of emptiness assails me. I'm not sure I want to respect and deserve his trust any more, because I wouldn't accept that the time of caresses ended like this. What respect has he had for my reason? I think it is as if he has kept himself in a position to turn the tables as he wishes at the most convenient time and perhaps no longer deserves my trust. I've often imagined hanging myself because of the way he let me go crazy. And I imagine telling him to go kill himself