Dear Seaturtle:

This is going to be a long post, put together with a wide open 3rd eye, wider than it ever been in context of your thread. I hope that you read it patiently and attentively. It may feel intense, so trigger warning.

All the following quotes are from what you posted. I will be adding the boldface feature to the quotes.

Oct 11, 2023:  “I completely feel the same way about there being different soulmates in our lives in different forms. I have found this in a friend, my sisters and my mom. But something interesting I’ve noticed is that these soulmates can sometimes be distracted with other things and lead me to not feeling that connection at times. My best friend is dating someone who I would not put up with…  I don’t feel that soulmate connection with her at the moment, which hurts my heart. Same with my sisters and mom, it comes and goes“-

– there is an old, strong core emotional experience within you: feeling alone and disconnected, as in I am alone, there’s no one with me/ for me, no love for me. This core experience makes you intolerant of normal fluctuations in the level of emotional connection with the people in your life. It is as if you expect the same level of connection at al times, an unrealistic expectation born out of the core experience I mentioned in this paragraph. You emotionally overreact to normal disconnections by feeling acutely alone/ disconnected (lonely).

July 29-30, 2023: “N doesn’t really laugh at my jokes, and sometimes he doesn’t even hear or get them at all. And in those moments I feel so so lonely… why do I crave to have the same sense of humor and be on the same spiritual journey. Is it just my own issues you think?”-

– You craved N to have the same sense of humor as yours, the same spiritual journey, because otherwise you feel acutely lonely. We talked plenty about how N is too far removed from what you need in a partner, which is still true, but it is also true that your expectation to be 100% connected with another person at al times in all ways is very unrealistic, and no boyfriend/ no person can fit the bill.

This craving for 100% alignment/ connection at all times is born out of that core experience of acute loneliness.

Oct 6, 2023:  “I feel so alone“.

Five months and 34 pages later, March 10, 2024: “I notice sometimes when I’m having a good time I worry the good time will end or that I will make it awkward and ruin it… last night I met some new people… we ended up just dancing all night with and it was so much fun to dance like that… There were moments I was dancing just carefree then suddenly I’d have thoughts of wondering what I looked like and not wanting to ruin the moment by losing my ability to dance… like losing the groove and then ruining the connection with the person. I wonder what this is all about, where those thoughts are coming from”-

– I believe that these thoughts are coming from the core experience I mentioned above, that of acute and prolonged childhood/ adolescent lack of needed connection aka loneliness. Dancing you felt connected to those you danced with, then suddenly, you were afraid to lose the connection.

Connected, you have a good time; disconnected, you have a (very) bad time.

Within your core experience of loneliness there is a belief that you are responsible to connections coming to an end (“I will .. ruin it“, above).

Back to July 29, 2023: “Please help me, my mind hasn’t rested in 8 months... N doesn’t really laugh at my jokes… And in those moments I feel so so lonely…  I have been dealing with these small disconnects for a long time but they keep coming back to me. OR is this all just me running away from the most genuine and loving/caring/kind/PATIENT/ would-do-anything-for-me man ?????????????? I really have been having this entire debate in my head for a straight 6-8 months now and I don’t want to waste my time… I also don’t want to be ungrateful and expect that there’s something better out there for me…why do I crave to have the same sense of humor… ?”-

-those small disconnects were objectively small (ex., not laughing at your jokes as much as some other people do, at times), but subjectively, these disconnects feel huge because they trigger/ activate your core experience I mentioned above, that of acute and prolonged childhood/ adolescent lack of needed connection aka loneliness.

No, N is not the most genuine, loving, caring man (we’ve discussed it and you agreed: he’s chronically numb, partly or to a large extent because of his chronic consumption of weed.. which makes him numbly-patient), and no man can be what you need him to be, so this entire debate is likely to reoccur in future relationships.

Let’s look closer at the core experience:

Oct 10, 2023: “My dad is a success oriented man and if I wasn’t doing things to his standards I received a very cold version of him…My partner consoles me when I have panic attacks and I have always been alone in those“- (1) A very cold version of your father (F)= a harsh disconnect. (2) You have experienced panic attacks following past disconnects, and you were alone in those.

Oct 11, 2023: “while I lived with (F) I went through a lot of suicidal thoughts and running away attempts, never known to him because of this criticism that… I didn’t think about him and cook him dinner… My dad would accuse me of planning my showers around avoiding talking to him, or if I was upstairs when he got home I was expected to come had conversation with him (all things I felt were a wife’s place not mine as a 17 year old girl”.

Nov 8, 2023: “His misplaced trust or expectations of me were those that he expected and never received from my mother… My mom broke his trust in many ways, and it was as if he treated my teenage years of sneaking out to parties I wasn’t allowed to go to, as if I had cheated on him in marriage… he didn’t want me around boys without parents at age 16… He also treated me like I was a (very bluntly put) like I was a slut like my mom… Before leaving to school from ages 13-18, my outfits would get checked… My dad would edit any outfit…  he told me I wasn’t allowed to wear jeans without a shirt that covered my butt… that is when I started changing at school…  At age 13 taking away the innocence of my clothing.. sexualizing me and telling me how boys would think…

“I was 11 years old, my friends were playing outside… Before I made it outside to play, my dad stopped me and said the shorts were inappropriate and I needed to change to longer ones that reached my knees! I was so embarrassed… I was so embarrassed I decided not to go out and play anymore. This is my first memory of having suicidal thoughts... I went to the kitchen, got a knife from the drawer and went back to my room and held it to my bare chest, I remember wanting to end it right there”-

– early on, your empathy was with F for having been repeatedly cheated on by your mother. You definitely didn’t want to be like your mother in the way she had hurt your father. But what happened was that about the time you started to physically develop into a woman (still a girl), he projected your cheating mother into you and treated you accordingly. By projecting a cheating woman into his 13 year-old daughter, he created a huge disconnect within you, a disconnect from your own self. For how can you be you when he placed the image of another person (your mother) into the mental space that you need to occupy.. so to be you?

Your painful high school experience of being shunned and isolated added to your core experience of acute and prolonged childhood/ adolescent lack of needed connection aka loneliness.

There’s a lot more healing that can take place in regard to this core experience, and it’s an exciting prospect, in my mind. How do you feel about it?

anita