engineering83

So here's the long and short of it, so to speak, in quick but hopefully sufficient detail:

I knew this girl years ago back in high school. Huge crush, it was mutual, I was a chicken and didn't do anything about it. Fast forward to a few months ago; we get back in touch, start talking, and really hit it off. A couple hours on the phone every night, getting to know each other, then she visits and I visit her (we live in different states). As we keep talking to each other, we have a couple of the "skeleton in the closet" type conversations. But it turns out where I decided I wanted to do everything good as a kid, she did somewhat the opposite. I've been sensitive about things like this before, but that was years ago and I felt like I had had enough experiences, and matured enough, that I could keep my head on straight...as anything in the past is really that: in the past.

However, that's only partly true. I do know that everything in the past is in the past, but because of the way my mind works (or has worked in the past), it ruminates excessively about these now-inconsequential things, or even just differences between us, therefore causing me stress and anxiety. Little day-to-day things can spin off minutes to hours of pensive thought. This frustrates the hell out of me because I love this girl and want her; she is great and we fit very well; and although the relationship is relatively young, it just seems to have potential...minus my own meandering self-destructive thoughts that I'm not able to shut off like I want.

It has happened in the past to me before -- at some point in the relationship, I get anxious, overthink, and then feel a need to escape. In retrospect, it seems to apply to any relationships that have begun to become physically/emotionally intimate; therefore, I wonder if we didn't even have the "skeletons" conversation in this case whether I would do the same thing regardless...again, very frustrating self-realization, especially since in this case I don't think it reflects any lacking on the part of the current relationship - we really get along great. A big catharsis for me is to talk about things, but I don't know who to turn to. Her and I talked a little bit about it, but talking to her about her past and dredging up things even further seems counterproductive (done before in a past relationship and it sucked...do I really need details?), so I don't know what to talk to her about; I can't talk to my parents or friends because I respect her privacy; I've thought about a priest/relationship counselor as somebody to confide in and get things off my shoulder. So I came here as a first step, feeling guilty on one hand about bringing it up on a forum, but hoping that the anonymity and relatively vague details make it acceptable.

Basically, I just want to stop thinking about some of the things we talked about. It's not productive, they don't reflect who she is as a person, and it just causes anxiety. We just have different past experiences and growings-up. Nor do I have a desire to change her; this is a problem with me and it makes me feel insecure and weak letting anything bother me at all and I fear that it will not stop. The distance I'm sure doesn't help, and some days are better than others, but I really just want to relax and enjoy the relationship. I'm not asking anyone to solve my problem, but I am looking for advice on how people have dealt with similar issues/insecurities, and how they resolved them.