quote:

Yet, I feel this is the story of my life. I try to make sure things don't happen, they happen anyway. This is cruel. I am not cut out for relationships because when things happen like this, I cut the person off. I tried to keep things from happening when I was little, I failed. How much effort does one have to give to prevent things from happening and yet watch helplessly as they happen? Why try when what you are working against is going to happen anyway?

I think the reason it's so hard for you when people fail you in relationships is that it brings up all the pain from being failed repeatedly in your childhood. Ordinarily, parents fail their kids in small ways (on the order of your T forgetting to bring your letter) all the time, then the kid expresses hurt and anger and the parent will apologize and soothe the child and make it up to them. So the kid learns that people will fail them sometimes but it's OK because the relationship will be repaired. But it seems like you were failed in BIG ways and that you never did get to experience repair and learn that things could still be OK. So now even when you get failed in little ways, it brings up those BIG feelings from the past and without the sense that it can be smoothed over. That is why you try so hard to make things work out so people won't fail you, so that you don't have to feel that HUGE pain. And then when they do fail you anyway, you just cut them off because the relationship feels hopeless and it getting rid of the relationship probably feels like the best way of getting rid of the pain.

So I hope you can care for yourself and realize that these are feelings of a kid who was failed too many times, and also realize that your T cares about your feelings even though he forgot your letter.