Why Do I Still Think About You (eBook)
148 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
979-8-3178-1114-3 (ISBN)
Karmen Audino is an Italian-born writer, creative strategist, and storyteller based in Dubai. With a background in film publicity and a career that has bridged Europe and the Middle East, she has spent the last decade shaping narratives for films, brands, and now, through the raw intimacy of her own words. Her writing blends memoir, introspection, and cultural commentary, capturing the emotional intricacies of love, loss, memory, and identity. 'Why Do I Still Think About You'-her debut book-is a hauntingly beautiful meditation on unfinished stories and the way some people never fully leave us. Karmen's creative voice draws inspiration from the cinematic worlds of Lana Del Rey, Cigarettes After Sex, and Terrence Malick, marrying nostalgia with atmosphere, aching with quiet revelations. Beyond the page, Karmen is the creator of 'Bonds', a forthcoming scripted series exploring the invisible threads that tie us to our past. When she's not writing or leading campaigns in the film world, Karmen immerses herself in visual arts, arthouse cinema, and the pursuit of beauty in its most haunting, broken forms. She believes in the transformative power of storytelling, not just to entertain, but to shift perspectives, to hold a mirror, and to soften the world.
"e;Why Do I Still Think About You"e; is a deeply intimate yet universally resonant exploration of the people, places, and stories we struggle to release, even when they've long stopped being part of our lives. Told through the raw lens of personal experiences, Karmen Audino blends memoir, emotional psychology, and pop culture in a voice that's cinematic, vulnerable, and unapologetically human. This is not a book about getting over "e;an ex"e;-it's about why, years later, you still think about them. And your parents. And that one betrayal in high school. And the job that made you feel disposable. It's about unresolved wounds, not just romantic, but formative. Through four evocative sections "e;Why Do I Still Think About You,"e; "e;Touched by the Past,"e; "e;Unmasking the Present,"e; and "e;Embracing the Future"e; Karmen guides readers through emotional territories like nostalgia, grief, love addiction, codependency, abandonment wounds, and the haunting grip of trauma bonds. She draws not only from personal heartbreak, including the loss of a close friend to cancer, a toxic seven-year entanglement with a narcissistic partner, and the emotional aftermath of a short-lived yet intense love story, but also from the fictional stories we turn to when our own lives fall apart. "e;Why Do I Still Think About You"e; creates space for the messy truths. It unpacks the five core wounds that fuel intense nostalgia; from the fear of abandonment to the ache of unfulfilled expectations and offers reflections on everything from social media comparison spirals to the emotional whiplash of seeing your ex "e;move on."e; Each chapter blends personal storytelling with cultural commentary moving from the betrayals of The Great Gatsby to the obsession of YOU, the unravelling in The Undoing, the haunting gaslighting of Midsommar, and the fragile intimacy of Perfect Sense. This is a book for the ones who feel "e;too much."e; For those who've stayed too long. It's for the romantics who know better but still hope, and for the emotionally intelligent who can analyze their pain and still not move on. It's not about forgetting. It's about understanding. With journaling prompts, therapeutic exercises, and cinematic references throughout, "e;Why Do I Still Think About You"e; is both a soft mirror and a sharp scalpel. It reflects, but it also cuts deep, helping you uncover the roots of your attachment and rewrite your emotional narrative. If you've ever found yourself stuck between memory and meaning, this book is your permission slip to feel it all And then finally, let go.
INTRODUCTION
“The memories of you still linger in my mind, like a gentle whisper that I can’t seem to escape.
It’s been years, but for some reason, you still hold a special place in my heart.
I often find myself lost in thoughts of the past, wondering what could have been if things had turned out differently.
And as much as I try to move on and forget,
I can’t help but wonder why I still think about
You...”
Welcome to a journey of self-discovery, healing, and empowerment!
This book is not your typical self-help guide; it’s a raw and honest exploration born from personal experiences of grief, loss, heartbreak, and codependence.
I am not a therapist, and I don’t claim to be. Instead, I am someone who believes in the transformative power of sharing our stories to heal and grow.
The past six years have been a whirlwind of ups and downs that tested me in ways I never imagined. It started in 2019 with the gut-wrenching loss of a dear friend to cancer, a blow that hit me hard and made me question everything.
He was young, healthy, clever, and incredibly talented. One of the smartest people I have ever met. He had dreams, like all of us. He was an intellectual, a writer…
He had an entire world of possibilities ahead. Except he did not. In a bunch of months, he fell ill and died tragically, knowing seemingly well that his time was getting to an end day after day.
One day we were texting, and then he was just gone forever.
We spend so much time of our lives taking it for granted.
We think we have time, and we are usually detached to our own mortality. We go through each day with the confidence that there will be another, and another, and many more. So much time to finish off what we started, or we did not in the first place. We procrastinate. We wait. We refrain.
My friend wasn’t doing any of these things. He had a whole host of dreams and plans for himself, but sadly he won’t be able to pursue any of them.
His loss left a silence in my life that I didn’t know how to fill, and just as I was beginning to process it, the world turned upside down.
Less than a year later, during the chaos of a global pandemic, I found myself trapped in an unhealthy, abusive relationship that only added to the stress and uncertainty the entire world was going through.
When I look backwards, at those days, it feels like watching a movie. It’s like some sort of “out of body” experience.
Was that woman really me?
I had known my ex-partner J for 7 long years at that point.
But we had only been dating for about two. Everything that had happened beforehand was nothing but nonsense. Years of my life chasing after someone that never really existed, but in my head.
Years spent living in a fantasy, wearing pink tinted glasses that wouldn’t let me see the reality of what I believed to be love, because I didn’t know any better.
It’s clear to me now, after so long. After going through the painful process of abuse, betrayal, disappointment, and self-discovery. It wasn’t clear at the time.
I knew he was bad for me, soul-consuming, abusive, toxic, and mean. Sometimes I couldn’t stand his presence in the room because it would make me feel tremendously anxious. And yet, I loved him. I did.
For every 100 horrible things or ordeals he would put me through, there was always just that one thing that would, somehow, feed my delusion that he could change and love me right. If only I had enough patience to save him from himself and teach him how to love me. But it didn’t work. And for a very long time I asked myself, “how so?”
How is that, no matter how much I would sacrifice, punish, and humiliate myself, to show him that “I was worth it”, he just could not see it?
Or maybe, he could, but that still would not stop him from being who he truly was.
A broken, narcissistic man, unable to love.
And yet, a human being with his own demons and traumas.
In January 2021, right when the world was making its first, timid attempt to move towards some kind of normality that followed the end of the lockdown in several countries globally, I took my first tiny steps out of that relationship.
Steps towards a new healthy routine. On my own. Away from him.
I was getting back on track but to do so, I had to leave my “previous life” behind and so I lost my apartment and most of my belongings and money.
It was a harsh lesson about how unfair and challenging the consequences of our own choices can be.
It taught me that safety is not something we should ever look for in people nor things.
Safety is a sacred space that belongs to us and us only.
For me, it began with letting go of the fear of being my true self, not the version of me shaped by someone else’s judgments, of my tattoos, my blog posts, even my way of feeling too much.
Safety meant honoring my shadows and my flaws but also embracing the essence of who I am: my art, my passion, my sensitivity. My need to feel.
It meant doing the things I love without shrinking or sacrificing my space to accommodate someone else’s selfish needs.
I finally had my cozy little home; earthy colors, incense burning, sage clearing the air, music softly playing in the background. No more yelling. No more chaos. No more insults or slamming doors. No more intruders sleeping in my bed. Touching my things behind my back.
Just peace. Just me. Finally free to exist exactly as I am.
In the winter of 2022, a new relationship came along when I met I accidentally bumped into N at a pub, and it brought hope and excitement to my life, only to end abruptly shortly after, leaving me feeling lost once again.
Just when I thought I had regained stability and a sense of safety, life threw another curveball.
He happened unexpectedly. I wasn’t looking for love but apparently love was looking for me.
It was a “meet cute” just like in the movies. We had matched on a dating App but had barely spoken because I had almost brushed off his request to go out on a date (I was too busy with my career). Then one night I went out for a beer with my girlfriend. And there he was.
He felt like a ray of light when the sun rises. It hits your face gently, through a hole in the curtains, only to expand and lit up the entire room. He made his way through my life quickly, easily and with the intensity of a firework. He made me feel like “I mattered”. Special and loved. Something I had never experienced before.
We become inseparable. For 6 months I don’t recall spending more than one day per week far from one another (except for the times when he returned to his home country to visit his little kids).
It felt just like those love stories you see in the movies. Love at first sight. Love and Lust. Lust and Love. He used to say they were equally present.
It was perfect. Except it wasn’t, but I couldn’t see it.
What made this heartbreak hit differently than the previous one is that with J, I had spent years being broken down. Right in my spirit.
But with N, I was already in the process of rebuilding. I had begun to feel safe in my skin again, safe in my space. I was just learning to trust the world, and him, and for a moment, I thought I had found someone who could love me in the way I longed for.
But the intensity that made it feel like a fairytale also made it volatile. As months passed, our past traumas began showing up. Old wounds, attachment patterns, insecurities, all of it bubbled to the surface. Neither of us had the tools to navigate that emotional landscape.
When I got scared, I clung. When he got scared, he ran.
He told me it was “too much.” That it all was too much.
And just like that, in March 2023, he ended things. No discussion. No negotiables. No “closure”.
Just silence and distance.
This breakup didn’t just hurt. It shattered the illusion that love alone could be enough. And it forced me to stop searching for safety in someone else. To go deeper. To meet myself in places I had avoided. This heartbreak wasn’t about surviving someone else’s abuse. It was about understanding my own patterns, my fear of abandonment, my need for intensity, my craving to be chosen.
Was I able to provide myself with the things he had provided me with?
Was I enough?
Did I matter anything to him, since it was obviously so easy for him to walk away and move on?
To cope with the pain of his loss, and the end of a relationship that had been charged with lots of expectations and hopes for a future together etc., I immersed myself in the thing I love the most, ever since I can remember: MOVIES.
Movies are my thing!
Since I was a baby, films have always been the bright light in every dark time I can remember. Whenever things at home were bad, or toxic. Whenever I could not rely on the people around me. Whenever the environment I was living in was getting too overwhelming or upsetting to deal with, I would find comfort in the...
| Erscheint lt. Verlag | 28.8.2025 |
|---|---|
| Sprache | englisch |
| Themenwelt | Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Gesundheit / Leben / Psychologie ► Lebenshilfe / Lebensführung |
| ISBN-13 | 979-8-3178-1114-3 / 9798317811143 |
| Informationen gemäß Produktsicherheitsverordnung (GPSR) | |
| Haben Sie eine Frage zum Produkt? |
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