Dear Stacy:

You are welcome. I wish your employers guaranteed that you get a significant raise in the next fiscal year (instead of trying “to reevaluate the raise/ promotion in the next fiscal year”), or better still, that they offered you that raise right away. It may be profitable for them to pay more to a specialist they know and trust than to hire new person, and then another new person, etc., given the high turnover. Is there a way for you to arrange for a significant raise for yourself as a condition for taking the full time job?

“One of my biggest desires in a relationship is just simply being seen and made to feel like I’m special. My dad never paid attention to me and I never even really talked to him. He wasn’t mean to me, just absent. When I got his attention, it made me nervous and like I really had to perform to keep it up. But the attention was fleeting”-

– like it said in the online source I quoted from yesterday, a child learns: a chair is something you sit on,  a school bus is something that takes me to school, and I am…, in your case, I am someone who does not deserve attention because I am not special. If I get any attention, I have to work hard to keep it, but no matter what, any bit of attention will disappear fast!

“That would be a dream come true for me to no longer feel so controlled by what he thinks of me. It’s such an emotional and mental cage to be in”-

-You felt special with your ex at times, for a while, a kind of special that you didn’t feel before, so your feeling of Special is tightly connected to him and what he thinks about you. It is as if he is keeping your Special in a cage, under lock and key, and he is the only one who can bring your Special back to you.

Going back to your Sept 6 original post (3 months and 6 days ago), it is easy to see that he made you feel Special right from the start: “When we met on Hinge, HE asked me what my intentions were from the get go about 2-3 days into talking as he started flirting with me. The pacing felt right and I had never had a guy actually want to go ahead and address motives, intentions with me…  He expressed on many occasions how thankful he was and lucky to have me in his life“-

– notice you typed HE in capital letters. He is The One, and Only One with a key to your Special, to your sense of worth, or esteem. But you did not bask in a euphoric warmth of Specialness day in and day out, throughout the relationship: you felt that he didn’t contact you enough in-between meetings and you were stressed about it, he told you this or that and it worried you, etc. It was more like you having a taste of Special with him, but not even close to having enough of it to satisfy your three-decades-long hunger for Special.

“This relationship made me feel seen and special“, you wrote back in September, but it was not an ongoing, trustworthy kind of feeling-seen-and-special, it was only a taste of it.

On Sept 10,  I wrote to you: “You’ve been giving him too much power over how you feel about yourself, power he didn’t earn and does not deserve: WHO is he to determine your worth? What did he do to deserve this power?… What did he DO to have this power to determine your worth..? He is just a guy you knew nothing about a year ago. It doesn’t really matter what he thinks, what he meant when he said this or that.. except that it matters to you because you give him power that he does not deserve”-

– He gave you a taste of Special, that’s what he did. And he is the only source of this taste that you know about. It is not only the words he uttered that gave you this taste, it is also his privileged and educated family background, and it is also about the way he delivered the words he uttered, something about his style, his mannerism, his way of looking into himself- to an extent- that touched your heart and gave you that taste of Special.

Back to your post of early this morning: “I can easily get men to find me intriguing or interesting to talk to at first, and then once they meet me in real life, or spend so many months together, they always start losing interest. It’s very difficult to not internalize this pattern of men repeatedly being so enthusiastic about me and so wanting to love and invest in me and then completely exiting the picture. It’s draining and makes me feel crazy. It’s what we’ve talked about here: this theme of inconsistency with the people closest to me.“-

– I am imagining that I am a man your age and I meet you, a very soon (in four days) 32-year-old woman, and she gives me a lot of positive attention (like that which you gave your ex). I imagine that I feel very good about it and want more of it. I feel important and I like it. But then I realize that I feel too important to her, that any word I say, any silence in between words, anything minor about what I say and do, is MAJOR to her, as in any word I say can make or break her.. I have too much power, I start feeling uncomfortable, so I withdraw.

Could this be an explanation to the pattern/ theme you mentioned above?

anita

Dear Stacy:

I suggest that (unless you already did this) that you find out when the work health insurance kicks in: immediately or after a number of months that you work full time (?), as well what services offered (ex., how many no-cost of hospitalization days each offers) and the costs of each service, and very importantly: how many counseling sessions each offers, how frequently (once a week, once  month..?) and at what cost, if any.

Also, is there any security offered to you if you take the full time job, or is it possible or likely that you will be fired at any time? It will be a shame to give up Medicaid, start the new insurance only for it to be terminated if and when fired.

anita

Hi Anita I can’t thoroughly respond as I’m at work right now on my phone, but in reference to your suggestion I stay part time and keep my Medicaid: if I get full time at this job, I will be eligible for their health insurance plan. So I will still receive some help, but it won’t be as good as what I have now. Also, I’ll be making twice as much in a month since I’ll be working more hours and I thought this may help me to start actually saving to move out of this house. I think you definitely have a good point though and it’s why the decision is so tough…

Dear Stacy:

Good to read back from you this Monday morning. You shared that you went to your ENT (Ear, Nose and Throat) medical appointment, where the doctor concluded that the lump in your throat is an inflamed lymph node due to a skin condition on your scalp: “He thinks it’s yet another autoimmune issue that has manifested as a skin condition, basically. Very relevant to what you and I were discussing months ago“.

You recently received Medicaid (a U.S. federal program that provides health insurance for people with limited income and financial resources), you are on a waiting list for counseling, and when the ENT doctor saw that you had Medicaid, he scheduled you for an ultrasound on your neck and referred you to a dermatologist: “It’s been life-changing to have some financial assistance in just the few days I’ve had it“.

In the last few days, you ‘ve been grappling with a decision that you need to make: to accept a full time position (with no promotion and no increase in hourly salary), and lose you recently received, life-changing Medicaid, or reject the offer and keep your Medicaid-

– if I was you, Stacy, I’d reject the full time job and keep my Medicaid because your physical and mental health depends on it.

It will be your 32 birthday in five days (I will selectively add the boldface feature to this quote): “This time last year I was celebrating my birthday with him… You mentioned in your post about me being chosen over other girls and how special that made me feel, and how much losing that affected me. That’s the biggest thing I’m dealing with… I creeped on his profile the other night and he posted an Instagram Story.. (about) a place we were planning on going… I cannot shake how this summer every single person in my life relayed the same feedback to me about how I was affecting them… almost word for word the same… My best friend who admitted to having to ghost me for her mental health is still not back in the picture…  I know I have a tendency to go overboard with my processing and rumination.”-

– I think that you being on the waiting list for counseling is very good news and I hope that you receive quality counseling soon. I hope that in counseling, you will unearth your I-am-not-special core belief, examine it, challenge it and resolve it. Once resolved, your ex will no longer have the place in your mind and life that he’s had for so long. You will no longer follow his social media activity, ruminate about him and verbalizing your rumination to friends, and in doing so, negatively affect them.

From well being. com/Find out how to shift the negative core beliefs that stem from childhood (summary and quotes, I will be selectively adding the boldface feature to the quotes):

As young children, we each learn such things as a chair is something you sit on, and a bus is something that takes you to school. We also learn who we are through the direct and indirect messages we receive from our caretakers. A highly critical parent, for example, sends the child the message: you are never good enough, and as a result, just like the child learned that a chair is something you sit on, the child learns: I am something or someone that is never good enough for anyone.

“Imagine being covered by a large filter so that part of your immediate experience is completely blocked from your awareness while other parts are exaggerated or highlighted by the filter…  If a parent.. constantly criticised you, as a child you didn’t have the cognitive capacity to think, ‘Daddy is projecting his unresolved issues onto me.’ Instead, in your longing for unconditional love, you interpreted this as ‘I am not enough for Daddy to love’ or ‘Clearly, there is something wrong with me.’ This is a false distorted view of yourself, which lives on in you and filters your experience as you grow up… You may have felt ‘different’, isolated and as though you didn’t belong growing up. You have a belief you are socially undesirable“.

Your focus on your ex and rumination about him is a part of you (like it says in the boldfaced quote above) that is “exaggerated or highlighted by the filter“. In your case, your core belief (based mostly on the messages you received as a child) that you are not special, and that you are socially, physically (and sexually) undesirable/ unchosen negatively filters your adult experience of life, leading to the exaggerated and highlighted place that your ex has in your mind and life.

Back to the online source: “To remove the negative filters from your life… you first need to clearly identify them and understand where they have come from in your childhood. Recognise that these core beliefs are false assumptions you made through no fault of your own growing up. Next, try to use evidence to disprove your negative belief or, even better, process the underlying pain associated with the core belief…”.

You wrote today: “I do think me journaling here has helped me“- you are welcome to journal here, on your thread, anytime and at any length, please do.

anita

Dear Arden:

I hope that you will find a new job in a different department as soon as the department you are working for shuts down, or soon after. Maybe it wasn’t a racist thing, as you suspect, that the department is shut down even though you’re doing a perfect job there. Maybe there are other considerations that you don’t know about, a reorganization of the company for overall better profit… I don’t know of course.

Understandably, you reacted emotionally to the news of the shut down, and I am impressed (!) with your positivity, optimism and emotional resourcefulness! And I am impressed by how much of a positive difference a good, supportive relationship can make, the relationship you have with your boyfriend. I hope he will soon join you where you are!

You asked about when the sun rises.. amazingly (!) – it just did! When I started this reply, it was still dark; now, at 7:45, it’s light, so I’d say the sun rose at 7:30 m. And I agree, it feels good to do simple aerobic exercises in the gym (or elsewhere), it is a mood elevator (as well as a good, supportive boyfriend).

I hope to read from you anytime you feel like posting!

anita

Dear Arden:

I will be able to read and reply in 1-2 days, by Mon, Dec 11.

anita

Dear Maria:

You are very welcome. I thought that you were from India, and in the last post I asked if moving from one location to another within India could help you. What you say then, is that you could have maintained your work advantages if you worked and lived in India, only that visa restrictions would make it difficult, being that the two countries are in conflict (and have had a “complex and largely hostile relationship” ever since 1947, when the British India Empire was partitioned into India and Pakistan, Wikipedia)

“I think about moving to South America sometimes, or Spain/Italy because I like warm and vibrant places, and I would love to explore the arts and cultures there. Maybe at a different point in my life I will do it, when the pressure to succeed is less“-

– could you tell me more, if you’d like to, about your pressure to succeed?

anita

Dear Anita,

“How was I so badly tricked? There was real love in the relationship right?“- most abusers (and gaslighting is abuse) are not people who plan to abuse and then carry out the plan cold heartedly over days and longer, every so often, assessing their progress in tearing down the abused, and knowingly, with full awareness continue to .. improve their evil mission to methodically abuse.

I don’t think that N had a mission to trick you and then methodically abused you. As a child, he adjusted to his childhood difficulties in certain ways, and he got used to those ways. Those ways became part of his modus operandi/ method of operation (MO), and he will continue his MO for the rest of his life (unless something motivates him to change it, a change that will take a lot of introspection and hard work over months and years).

Gaslighting (without him knowing the term) worked for him as a child, so he keeps working it.

When you tried to make him operate differently, as in being honest and upfront about his feelings and motivations, you had no chance of success because his MO is habitual and heavily ingrained in him.

Did he sometimes feel genuine affection for you? I am sure he did. Is it love? Depends how you define love: if you define it as occasional affection/  passion, then yes, he loved you. I don’t define love by occasional emotions and behaviors. I look at the BIGGER picture, and ask: is this love?

Imagine this scene: a man surprises his wife one evening with a fancy dinner with candles. He smiles at her, tells her he loves her in the most genuine way you can imagine, and he indeed feels genuine affection and appreciation for her. Now, imagine this bigger picture: the day before the surprise dinner, he beat and bruised her, and the day after the fancy dinner, he beat her so badly that she ended up in the hospital.

I’d say, in this example, although the husband felt genuine affection and appreciation for his wife on that one night, overall, he doesn’t love her based on the bigger picture.

Where there is repeated abuse,  there is no love.  N didn’t beat you up, but he lied and gaslighted you repeatedly, unnecessarily hurting you repeatedly. This- I say- is not love.

“Ever since your very first bringing up the words ‘controlling’ and ‘gaslighting’ I have seen him as if he is another person, when away from him…. now when I see him in my head it is a person with a mask on, false and trying so hard to portray things that he did not actually feel…  I tried so hard to help him see me“- a mask that’s covering his eyes, so he can’t see you. You can’t remove his mask. He has to acknowledge first that he has a mask on, and then intend to remove it.. and then do the hard work that it’d take to remove it.

As a pattern, he is too busy appearing, pretending and calculating his moves to have the time and state of mind to.. genuinely and spontaneously be.

“His reaction to the wallet was immediate tears…he cried when he read the poem on the wallet and the love letter, but the weird part is later he said ‘I don’t know why I cried‘ this was weird to me… it scares me that he was this out of touch”-

– imagine that normally (according to his MO), he cries in front of someone only when there is a reason, a manipulative intent to it.. but on that occasion he cried without an intent and it confused him.

“Although I have a lot of emotions over the breakup I also feel relieved still, waking up lighter“- it’s a good thing when you remove abuse from your life, it’s like removing what was weighing you down for too long.

“It is just such a weird, uncomfortable, icky, confusing, saddening, scary feeling that I did not know who I was really with“- you will get used to the reality that you didn’t know who you were really with, and you will continue to learn from the experience and get way better at evaluating people in the future.

“Coming to the realization of N’s gaslighting and emotional manipulation has made me see (F) in a totally new light… My dad even just texted me ‘so excited to hang’ with two kissing emojis. He has learned how to talk to me in order to make me feel comfortable, I assume similar to N’s tactics in making me feel loved. It feels false suddenly and I am having a hard time because I don’t want to be inauthentic, but I also don’t want to put hatch in her cage .. I need some tips how to deal with my dad in a kind but way that protects me. We have only a few hours together, then I will see my mom and sister who I feel safer with”-

– Your father will not be the only inauthentic person you still need to deal with, there will be more, in the workplace and elsewhere. Coming to think of it, when you go to the supermarket, for example, and you interact with the employee behind the cash register, you don’t know if he or she is authentic or not.. but it doesn’t matter to you: you are there for a reason and the cashier’s authenticity, or lack of, is a matter of no consequence to you.  So, you smile politely (not necessarily authentically) and say thank you.  Do the same when you spend that bit of time with your father: smile and say thank you.

Accept that F is the way he is. Don’t internally resist fully accepting who he is. It doesn’t mean that you approve of who he is, it means that you fully understand that he is who he is independently of you (not your fault, not your doing). You were never able to change him, and never will, not any more than you’d be able to change the cashier as you pass by the cash register.

The child only imagines that her father’s misbehavior or abuse is about herself (the child). She imagines that because this man is far from being a stranger, in the child’s mind. She feels too connected to him because she needs to be connected to him. I suggest that you learn to see F as your biological and legal father, but not closer than that.

Safe travels and hope to read from you soon!

anita