Dear Pandanator:

You are welcome!  “He does seem to come from a family that will judge others easily“-  I came from such family myself. My mother was very, very judgmental, that was her #1 trait, and so, I didn’t have the .. space to make (what was in her eyes) mistakes because she didn’t tolerate my mistakes and punished me for them. I lived in distress, fearing the next mistake, repeatedly resolving that “from now on, I will be perfect; from now on I will make no mistakes”  but I failed every time. Living like that was like holding my breath in, too scared to exhale.

“It is something that is foreign to me as I was raised the complete opposite where my mother always encouraged me to look at life through various angles“- my mother allowed only ONE angle, her own angle, no other angles allowed.

“Also do not worry about being late! We all have lives and priorities. It is very kind of you to offer advice to others during your own spare time“- this is very kind of you to add this, to.. give me space to be late/ to make a mistake. So, in communication with you.. I can be relaxed enough to exhale (unless I inaccurately project my mother into you).

“I had never known that projection was a thing. It an interesting perspective that I think can help me analyze my own life as well. I maybe had been projecting my own emotions during the entire time without knowing it“- we all project our emotions all the time, it’s healthy and normal when our projections are accurate-enough. For example: when you see someone in pain and you feel sorry for them, it’s because you felt pain before, it felt badly for you, and you assume (project) that the other person experiences pain similarly, as something that’s bad.

Problem is when our projections are not accurate at all. For example: when my mother looked at me silently (just looking at me without saying anything), I knew there was trouble coming, that she was going to punish me. Fast forward, far away from her, when I notice that someone is looking at me silently.. I feel distressed, angry, like the person is thinking negative things about me and I am about to be punished. This has always been- that I remember- an inaccurate projection.

In your original post, you wrote: “The relationship was quite toxic… I ended up just blocking him from contacting me as I don’t want to get hurt again but I do feel very guilty over that”- do you know why you feel or felt very guilty for blocking a toxic person.. or is it that part of you believes that you are the toxic person?

anita