Dating feels like I'm emotionally abusing myself. I have abandonment trauma from a strained family dynamic.
Dating just replays this trauma over and over again. People reach out. Connect. Allow me to open up. I start to get excited. Then they ghost.
It reopens this wound over and over. I relive the trauma over and over. My therapist says I shouldn't let people affect me so much and I shouldn't care when they randomly ghost, but I do. It hurts.
It feels like self-inflicted emotional abuse and it the greatest source of unhappiness in my life, but I can't stop.
Should I keep trying though it's literally destroying me? Should I stop and be alone – that will be sad too.
32F.