inside a train wreck, swirled up in a tornado.

All of the lessons that I needed to learn over the years

have showed up in the form of my lovers.

Like, oh yeah, I dated my family dynamic,

my fear of commitment, my bad boundaries,

my fear of commitment, my low sense of self worth,

my fear of commitment, my fear of commitment,

my fear of commitment.

Which all things considered is a little ironic.

I never saw myself as someone

who was actually afraid of commitment.

I've always deeply yearned to be a wife and a mother.

And I joke that cats are really great birth control

until I find my person.

But then sometimes I realize

just how much I prefer cats to humans.

- Hey Anna, I have to rehome

my cat because my baby's allergic.

- Well, you've known that cat for 11 years.

- I know, I'm so torn up about it.

But I was hoping you'd take her.

- You've known that baby, what, like three weeks?

It seems pretty easy, just rehome the baby.

- I'm not gonna give away my baby.

- That cat has been with you

through every major adult moment of your entire life.

Your marriage, your divorce, your second marriage.

That cat is the longest standing relationship

you have ever had.

Just rehome the baby and then make another one.

It's easy, it's fun.

- Okay.

- But I have finally accepted on a conscious level

that subconsciously I have sought out people

who are also afraid of commitment,

ensuring that our relationship will never go anywhere,

but that I can feel superior

like I'm trying to find what I want.

And there's one event I remember in particular

that solidified this belief.

I was maybe seven or eight,

and my mom had recently shaved her head when she was drunk.

It was very Brittany Spears.

She looked very fierce bald.

And she was crying on the stairs,

because she was raising three children alone

while my dad was overseas fighting a war or whatever,

which I'm sure we can agree

is the easier of the two situations.

And she said to me.

- Anna, don't have children.

Have a career.

Don't make the mistake I made, be ambitious.

- And you know, when I was a kid,

hearing these words from my distraught mom.

(laughing) You are such a loser mom (laughing).

I laughed in her face and then ran outside

to play basketball because kids are assholes.

I was also the only girl on Juniper Berry Street.

Clearly physically inferior when it came to sports ball.

So I'd try to throw off the neighborhood kids

by gaining a psychological advantage.

(thumping beat)

I like your butts.

- [Girls Together] What?

- Ha, psych, swish, swish bish.

- [Girls Together] Hey, that's cheating!

- I don't play the game, I play the players.

Also, your butts are ugly.

- Is it?

- That's so mean.

- But I digress.

For a lot of us, relationships are the way

that we grow and gain insight

into some of the most powerful lessons

that are integral to our development.

And we fall into the trap of dating those lessons.

And sometimes the lessons are so obvious

that everyone we love wants to eye roll into oblivion.

(phone dinging)

- Girl, put your phone down.

Stop texting him.

He didn't respond the last four times.

Is he not going to respond now?

Delete his number!

- And look, our issues are never going away.

(laughing) Mine certainly aren't.

But that's the nature of having

this terrible disease called humanity.

We are always gonna have something

that we're working through.

But we can choose to work on our issues

outside of any healthy, romantic relationships

that we're in.

And I say this from 15 years of experience

of doing the exact opposite.

- No, no. - Give me the phone.

- No. - Give me the phone.

- No Michelle, he's gonna respond.

No, he's gonna respond!

So if you feel attacked by this video

and you wanna know, well, what the hell

do I do to stop dating my issues?

The good news is there's several things you can do.

Can you guess what the first one is?

Therapy, yes, you can work on your issues in therapy.

Another thing you can do is become highly aware

of your dating patterns and integrate lessons

that you've been learning in those relationships

as you move forward in your romantic life,

which is easier said than done.

I definitely have not been doing that.

And finally, you can listen to trusted friends.

- (yelling) Michelle, no!

- No. (screaming)

Give me the phone. - No (screaming).

- So often my friends would call out

my destructive choices in partners, but I'd say,

you just don't know him like I do.

- I don't like the way he talks about women.

- He's really misunderstood.

- I don't like how dismissive he is of your friends.

- Okay, he has social anxiety.

He's really better one-on-one.

- I know you don't want to hear this,

but from my experience, I just wanna say

this seems like the beginning of something abusive.

(dramatic music) - But I love him.

No honey, ya don't.

You're addicted to emotional chaos and your subconscious

is trying to right the wrongs of your past

by seeking out similar dynamics and rewriting history.

You're like a time traveler trying to fix the timeline,

but you can't because the very nature of you time-traveling

means that you caused the future to happen.

I've been watching "Dark" on Netflix.

It's a great show, making me think a lot.

It's hard work thinking.

You know, it's way easier to go through life

unaware of why we think the things we think

that influence the things we do.

It's easier to go through life

not trying to pinpoint patterns or things in the past

that are no longer serving us,

and then attempting to change them

to create a life of joy and happiness.

It's hard work to reparent your inner child

and be the adult observer all the time.

It's mentally exhausting.

And look, all of this may sound incredibly cheesy,

but I'm a philosophy major dropout

dressed as a fucking clown.

So cheesy is the least of my problems.

I'm Anna Akana, and thank you to the patrons

who supported this video.

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