intimacy anxiety and fantasy addiction

[laspiralis]

hello...

i've been having trouble with my love life for as long as i can remember. where do i start... i'm 25. i've never been in a real committed relationship. i've never had a boyfriend. i always want to be with people that i can't be with, and i hold onto that for a long time. i'm very addicted to fantasies and delusions. it's to the point where i don't think i can be into someone if i don't have some kind of fantasy towards them. i'm never interested in anyone who is interested in me. i've been involved with people, but it's often not what i think it is because i'm so lost in fantasies about it that i don't see...and don't WANT to see the reality of the situation. the fantasies are out of control....they get me "high". i'm also addicted to masturbation.
besides all this, i have an extremely hard time expressing my feelings. the last person i was "involved" with was a really good friend of mine, but we pushed the friendship too far and i got attached. everytime i tried to express my feelings to this person i would get either an answer of silence or he would try to change the subject. this caused extreme pain for me. i no longer speak to this person and my attachments and grudges have pretty much diminished, but i'm now experiencing a lot of anxiety when it comes to trying to get intimate with others.
recently a person i'm interested in attempted to kiss me, but i was so overwhelmed with fear that i couldn't do it and i couldn't explain why. at the time i wasn't really interested...maybe just a little bit. ever since then i started fantasizing about him and i;ve been dying to get closer to him but my anxiety is so intense that i can't make any moves at all and the closest i can get to letting him know that i;'ve changed my mind are just weird awkward hints. it's been so long since he tried to kiss me that now i'm not sure if he;s interested anymore which makes the anxiety worse. time doesn't mean anything to me when it comes to stuff like this.....i've often had guys complain to me "but that was 5 months ago!"
i feel like this whole thing is really complicated and i feel like there's no kind of support group of this kind, or anyone i can relate to. i have no idea how to fix this, how to even start...i feel that controlling my mind is incredibly difficult

[Jennifer]

Okay,
Since you have the same pattern with all of these relationships it is a pattern within yourself. Do you want to change it? What are you afraid of with a real relationship? Have you been abused? You are right that if you need games/fantanies than you have a fear of intimacy. Do you need to stay away until you can figure this out?

[laspiralis]

yes, i want to change it.
what am i afraid of? well i guess i'm afraid of having no escape, of hurting the other person, of the other person turning against me or finding something out about me that they think is weird or gross and talking about me behind my back, i'm afraid of not being able to express my feelings because the other person won't let me, which has happened many times and is the biggest cause of my fear of expressing myself, i'm afraid that being in a relationship will prevent me from being the spontanious person i normally am, and will prevent me from being able to go out and do all the things i like to do as a single person, but yet i still want to love and be loved...what else. i've had sex but not very much so i'm afraid my inexperience will turn them off, rejection, being vulnerable, feeling the same pain i've felt before again. i'm sure there's more but can't think of it right now. i've never been abused.
a part of me really wants a committed relationship and the other part wants to experiment, and so the thought of commitment is scary (i have commitment problems regarding other areas of life as well)

but i also have an extremely hard time being attracted to someone if there's no fantasy i can attach to them. how do i break this need?

[Jennifer]

You cannot fix everything at once, so we need to start somewhere. Basically the thing about relationships is that there is always a chance to get hurt in them or hurt someone. that is the matter of the heart and there is always a chance of being hurt when you talk about love. If this is something that you fear, then you need to be careful about who you date or even date at all until you figure this out.

there is someone out there for you where you can be yourself and so can they, you just haven't found that person yet.

[michena]

How long can anxiety last during and before your menstraul cycle? I've been battling anxiety the past week and a day (since last wednesday morning) and I'm even on anxiety medication for anxiety medication and have been taking it since July and it's been working since the end of July,but the past week I've been battling anxiety. Idk if it's due to my period that came on yesterday, a week after the anxiety started. It's very annoying!!!
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market samurai ~ marketsamurai ~ marketsamurai.com

[Jennifer]

You might need a medication adjustment. Hormones can change your mood. Make an appt with your doc that prescribes the meds and go from there. Just curious why your posting about axiety in the relationship section under someone elses thread?