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anitaParticipantDear CutieJ:
You are welcome. Your 9-days visit with her has ended, I am glad you made it home safely.
Beginning of visit: “I came to her place today. She picked me up at the airport” (Oct 2),
Ending of visit: “I worked late at the company to distract myself, and got on the bus to go back home. It was long and scary rides, as I’ve never been on a bus in this city or at this time. After I got off the bus, I ran between cars and bushes to walk back home” (Oct 11).
You arrived to her place, her city by plane and returned to your place, your city by bus? Was it a very long bus ride?
Did the two of you break up, or are you still in a relationship?
anita
anitaParticipantDear Helcat:
I re-read my post of just over a day ago, and I want to correct a mistake I made. I wrote: “Normalize wrongdoing as part of being human, while doing all one can do to correct, to not repeat and to minimize mistakes and wrongdoings. Do No Harm (the Buddhist principle) best you can while accepting that to some extent, be it the least: to be Human is to Harm“-
– English being not my first language, and I sometimes use words incorrectly. I didn’t mean to suggest that wrongdoing and harming others is okay- these ar not okay!
What I meant is that reality is that we all make mistakes and we all harm others at times, in one way or another, to one extent or another, be it by being thoughtless here and there, saying something that’s hurtful because we said something impulsively (or by unintentionally using a word incorrectly). No one can be perfect. Have to accept it in regard to myself, and in regard to everyone else, while doing my best, and encouraging others to do their very best to Help and to do No Harm.
anita
anitaParticipantDear Helcat:
“I’m sorry to hear that your mother was so abusive and unreasonable. You didn’t deserve to be treat like that. You deserved to be treat with love and care“- thank you. Seems like I lived a whole life believing that I deserved the treatment I got because she said so, wouldn’t call it abusive but.. fair treatment considering the wrongness of the child.
Now I say it was abusive, and at one point on, after reading about abuse, I suspected it was abuse, but I wasn’t sure. A big part of me still thought, believed that, as she said, she was the abused (by me, by others), and I was her abuser (one of her abusers, and a major abuser).
There was this incident I remember: she was hitting me with her hand, hitting my face, and after a while of hitting me on the right side of the face, then on the left, then right again, and again, she stopped hitting, looked at her hands and said: “Look what you did to me, my hands are hurting!”
Everything was my fault, and she.. only reacted to this faulty thing in front of her, a faulty thing that was hurting her.
“I feel like my mother was more direct with her concerns. But she kind of used them as excuses… There were a lot of rules that she had for us. We were not even allowed to eat without her permission. We were not allowed to use the TV without permission. With all of these rules it was easy for her to find an infraction and make up a ‘reason’ to beat us“- Excuses-to-beat. Just now as I quoted you right here, in this paragraph, and decided to not quote all (using “…”), a concern appeared to me (brace yourself, it’s crazy): what if Helcat gets angry at me because in the first paragraph of my reply, I quoted all that Helcat wrote about my experience, and here, in this paragraph, I shortchanged her and quoted only part of what she wrote about herself..?
I feared this because that’s what my mother did: anything, everything was ground for accusations. In the case right here, the accusation would’ve been: anita, you only care about yourself, or, you tried to hurt my feelings by not quoting all that I said.
Accusations came from everywhere, could come from anywhere and as you can see, I still hear her (projected into others) accusing me and I get anxious.
“I responded to this with perfectionism. Growing up I would review the mistakes made each day and try to get everything right the next day. I had magical thinking because I was a child. I hoped that if I got everything right, she wouldn’t beat us“- I used to say every now and again: From now on, I will be perfect. From now on, I will make no mistakes, and I was optimistic following those declarations, but of course, I failed every time. The next accusation was just around the corner.
“I feel like you experienced, my husband’s family didn’t make sense with their complaints. He would do things that weren’t wrong and be beaten for them… My husband’s home country is very dangerous. They wanted to toughen him up and protect him and had a level of control over him. He grew up being told that everyone will try to hurt him and he cannot trust anyone“- this is what my mother told me too, that everyone will or did try to hurt me and I can’t trust anyone. She didn’t include herself in the message. She too punished me for things that weren’t wrong (things equivalent to not quoting all that you said, right above). But she didn’t try to toughen me up and protect me. She tried to.. protect herself from me. She kept presenting me as a wrong or evil-doer who was hurting her.
I am sorry for all the abused children in our world, past and present, including you and your husband. I wish healing for all. Love and best wishes for you, your son, your husband and your dog.
anita
anitaParticipantGood night, Helcat ❤️
anita
anitaParticipantDear CutieJ:
You are welcome.
“I do want to say that the picture frame I broke was Styrofoam, and I couldn’t even punch the TV that well, but I really understand that’s not what it matters”- you mentioned what I boldfaced because it does matter to you. You wouldn’t have mentioned these if it didn’t matter to you.
“Maybe my dad thought the same way too, that it wasn’t that serious, when he broke things – when all those moments I felt scared, sad, and helpless“- maybe he broke things, material things, not as badly as other people break things, but he broke his daughter’s heart badly, didn’t he?
When you broke the picture frame, it didn’t hurt the feelings of the frame, Styrofoam or not; it hurt the feelings of the person watching you breaking the frame. It hurt the person you wanted to hurt.
“One thing that hurt me the night we fought, I once again mentioned that she promised me to go to therapy after her first lie (about her ex) and she didn’t, and she said, ‘Yeah? And how many times did you go to therapy? Like 100 times? Did that fix you?’“- well, she had a point. Maybe you need a different therapist, one who will help you fix certain behaviors?
“My mind was constantly in a chaos, a minefield, and I blamed her for creating this situation“- you haven’t yet taken responsibility for your behaviors (misbehaviors, that is).
“Today she is going to play pickleball with her colleagues, and I just want to get through the day without any problem“- if there are problems today, please don’t be the one creating them.
“Tomorrow is the day I leave. I am scared. still. I work out regularly, I meditate, I write my journals all the time, talk to close people, take a walk, try to grow hobbies, but honestly, I always feel like I’m broken, both physically and mentally. I want to give up. I am not suicidal, I just want to give up. Sometimes I wish I wasn’t this hot mess, and I can just live a happy and normal life. Thank you for reading.“- you are welcome. Time to heal your broken heart. Time to no longer continue your father’s legacy of Rage and Abuse.
Did you ever express, in therapy, anger at your father? Are you in contact with your father, numb to your anger at him.. while re-directing your anger to her, to your current or former (?) girlfriend?
anita
anitaParticipantDear Helcat:
Starting this post with ❤️!
“Yes, he is sensitive to criticism I think. More so than me. It has taken me a long time to understand how sensitive he is to it. I think that it is hard for him that I am sensitive and feel hurt sometimes by things that he does. He feels hurt that I feel hurt when he didn’t mean to hurt me. If that makes sense?“- yes: your hurt hurts him because upon hearing/ seeing your hurt, he immediately feels responsible for your hurt. Your Hurt turns into his Guilt and his guilt hurts him.
If my understanding above is correct, then I relate to him very much. Growing up with Guilt (with a capital G for emphasis) made me not want to be close to people. Motivated to avoid Guilt, I avoided people, I avoided relationships. When I experienced closeness, I got scared and ended the maybe-beginning relationship.
Guilt is such a yucky, greasy kind of mental disgust (words that come to mind). Guilt was inserted into my brain by my mother who went on and on with guilt-inflicting tirades, repeating the same message, over and over again in each tirade and over the years: my feelings are hurt, and you hurt me!
She would go in great detail about what I did wrong, or what I didn’t do that I should have done, or the expression on my face was wrong, etc., and express how my alleged wrongs hurt her a lot. But the wrongs she claimed I did, there was no intent on my part to do wrong. I think that I was always caught by surprise.
I remember one time, I was in primary school, playing with a cousin in the apartment. We saw the school cleaning lady walking on the street below and I called her “cleaning lady!” so to get her attention and then hide so she couldn’t see who was calling her. For some reason, I/ my cousin and I, thought it’d be funny. Now, it was wrong to call her and hide, but this is not what got my mother going. Next thing I know, a neighbor and aunt were holding my mother’s arms on both sides, restraining her, as she struggled to free herself from their hold so to kill me, or “murder” me was a word she used, and other threats of violence.
She was upset that I called the woman “cleaning lady” because my mother was also a cleaning lady (not in the school) and she, my mother, claimed that I intentionally tried to hurt her feelings by calling the school employee a cleaning-lady, an occupation that my mother felt was shameful. But her accusation was not even close to being true: I didn’t know the school employee’s name, the word “janitor” was not a word back then. To get the woman’s attention, there was only one term available for me to use. And I did not use the words cleaning lady to humiliate anyone for their occupation: the thought did not even cross my mind.
Now, if I had a sane mother back then, she would take the 7, or 8 or 9-year old me to another room and kindly explain to me that it is not nice to call someone and hide, and later, on a school day, she’d walk me to the cleaning lady, introduce ourselves, respectfully talk with her, ask for her name, and teach me that people should be addressed by their names and talked to respectfully.
But this is not what I learned. What I learned was that at any time I might say and do something wrong, without meaning to, and=> game over with disaster for me, no correction.
In many of her tirades, she would go on and on about her hurt, not only following a recent event, but she brought back past hurts by me, and by other people, and express how terrible I was for hurting a person already so terribly hurt. She cried and yelled and threatened suicide (and homicide, at different times).. on and on and on.
Thinking about it this morning, I can see that I did not have the opportunity to understand hurt and correction, as in: anita did X wrong=> anita can do Y to correct the wrong and fix/ maintain a good relationship.
Instead, it was: anita did X wrong=> game over: a tirade by her, threats of violence and Guilt-infliction, and me drowning in greasy, yucky Guilt, a Mental Torture.
To avoid Torture, I had to avoid the opportunity to do wrong, which meant social/ personal isolation.
I know another person who grew up many thousands of miles away from me, different story, different circumstances, but same message: there is no such thing as a small mistake, all mistakes are huge, unbearably heavy to carry for any amount of time, all unacceptable, all mean that you’re a bad, shame-worthy, guilty.. forever guilty person!
Back to you and your husband: if in his experience growing up, there was no such thing as a small mistake, a fixable wrong, then any wrong, or suggestion of wrong done by him (what you may bring up during disagreements) looms big, too heavy to carry, overwhelming..?
“Aside from my therapists, he was the first person to show me unconditional love. His love taught me to love myself“- loving oneself has to include enduring the reality that we all do wrongs/ mistakes and that we need to correct those whenever possible, to learn to not repeat the same wrongs, to minimize future mistakes. Does he love himself in this way?
“Can you tell me more about the emotional chart idea? What do you mean by that? Flashcards with emotions?“- if the above carries some truth in regard to your husband and the dynamic during (respectful, non-abusive) disagreements, then an emotional chart can start with identifying a suggested or alleged Wrongdoing, or Mistake on either side: yours or his, because this may be the core of the problem. He needs to see (if I am correct in my understanding) that you too make mistakes/ wrongdoings and while correcting such best you can, you are okay with making mistakes, you accept this part of the human condition with serenity.
An emotional chart can start with a flashcard or the like asking “What’s the wrongdoing here?” Another question: “Who is/ who are the wrongdoers here?”
Normalize wrongdoing as part of being human, while doing all one can do to correct, to not repeat and to minimize mistakes and wrongdoings. Do No Harm (the Buddhist principle) best you can while accepting that to some extent, be it the least: to be Human is to Harm.
The H&H Dictionary can provide concrete definitions of wrongdoing, mistake, guilt, love, forgiveness, etc.
You are very welcome and thank you for this valuable conversation! Closing this post with ❤️-
anita
anitaParticipantDear Lauren:
(I will be boldfacing some of your words): “So last week I had this random thought that what if my bf isn’t the one for me. Which I remember at the time made me tummy DROP and I felt sick”- a random thought scared you so much. This is what OCD, as I know it from my personal experience, is about: being scared of.. of thoughts.
“the thought of losing him was so so scary”- again, it’s a thought that scares you so very much. There is no danger in a thought, a thought does not present danger to a person.
“I have identified it as hocd… I’m a proper Overthinker about everything…I’m just absolutely obsessed with him”- this is the problem: Overthinking (with a capital O, as you chose to put it), about everything.
“sooo yeh this thought happened and then my mind started wondering, what could break us up and the thought what if I don’t like men and I secretly fancy women… and ever since then my mind has been crazy spiral!!!”-
– thoughts happen to everyone, and lots of them happen much of the time, because it’s easy to think, and thoughts happens fast. Thinking that you secretly fancy women doesn’t make you of any particular sexual orientation, it simply makes you a person who thinks, and can think anything.
The thought I secretly fancy women doesn’t make you of any particular sexual orientation any more than the thought I am an elephant makes you an elephant.
“I got through that time and I was so happy the intrusive thoughts had stopped. But now I’m getting all the same scary thoughts whilst being with my bf which is so so scary“- the thoughts feel dangerous (the danger in your mind is losing your boyfriend), but they are not dangerous, similarly to the non-danger in this thought: what if I am attracted to another man?
“I think it’s part of OCD called false memory”- were you diagnosed with OCD, Lauren? If you were or you will be diagnosed by a doctor, there are treatments for OCD that may be available to you.
“I’m getting awful intrusive thoughts and images of girls being naked and I now don’t feel comfortable around girls and I absolutely hate hate hate the thoughts… I’m so scared of ruining the relationship when it’s all I’ve wanted. I just feel like I need someone to tell me doing stupid stuff like that as a kid is normal and other girls did it!”- if I told you what you want someone (anyone) to tell you, it will at best calm you for just a moment.
What you need is a different relationship with your thoughts: not to hate them, not to love them, not to get scared by them, but to see them as they truly are: temporary, fast, effortless, invisible, tiny mental activity that keeps happening in every human brain that works.
You are scared to ruin your 5-year relationship, afraid to lose the relationship.. or are you afraid to not lose it, that is, as in, to be stuck in it forevermore? Maybe the HOCD thoughts are about resolving the fear of staying in the relationship.
Fear Not Your Thoughts, Lauren.
anita
anitaParticipantDear Helcat: 10 minutes since you last posted and I am not in a focused state of mind (red wine and all), but I want to tell you: I LOVE the way our communication has changed, so much for the better, I am thrilled about this positive change. It gives me hope for a better world!
It’s Wed night here, will reply further Thurs morning.
anita
anitaParticipantDear Lauren:
Welcome to this thread, almost two years since my last reply here (Oct 17, 2022). Did you read through the 17 pages of this thread, or did you read only the original post here, Sept 28, 2018?
anita
anitaParticipantDear Helcat:
You are very welcome and ❤️ back to you!
I just realized, right after I typed the above line, that this is how disagreement sessions between the two of you should start: with a ❤️declaration.
“During disagreements, because of my PTSD when I shut down and get defensive I am not that positive… it is just hard being vulnerable during a disagreement. I cope by numbing my feelings a lot“- Start disagreements with Love and Redirect back to Love during disagreements.
Three days ago, you quoted Nelson Mandel for me: “Courage is not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it“- may Love Triumph over Fear in your relationship with your husband. May love dissolve fear and resistance.
“He is handsome, outgoing, intelligent and kind. He had quite the following but he had no interest in that type of thing at the time“- this is your husband, handsome, intelligent and kind, and how special it is that uninterested in others before, he is and has been interested in you!
“I had never really considered the communication difficulties that both of our neurodivergence causes before. Language is often complicated because of multiple definitions of words and the personal interpretations“-what if you and your husband create Helcat & Husband Dictionary, (H&H Dictionary) including words, terms, and agreed-upon definitions..?
“He guesses how I feel and is often incorrect. About this situation he assumed that I felt fear. But actually I felt anger at the disrespect. I trust that he has no intentions towards her. I was not afraid of that“- you can add an Emotional Chart to the H&H Dictionary. You can call the addition The Neurodivergent Emotional-Aid Chart.
“I think that when things are difficult between us it really matters to me that I am treat with respect“- there is no such thing as respectless love.
“I think that he is so hard on himself that it is painful for him and it is easier for him to blame me for his actions“- help him in the places where it’s painful for him. And may he help you in the places where it’s painful for you. (Painful Places can be part of The Neurodivergent Emotional-Aid Chart)
“I shut down a lot during disagreements and he has trauma with stonewalling in previous relationships. He confuses a short break to calm down with being ignored for long periods of time“- a Neurodivergent- Accommodating Watch can come handy (one to be designed by H&H).
“I know that he wants us to be a happy family and to communicate well, just like I do. I think that he feels bad for the mistakes he makes. Since we are already working on rebuilding intimacy, I will work on showing extra appreciation and praising him for the things that he does well“- extra appreciation and lack of criticism can go a long way in dissolving the painful places, bit by bit, one day at a time.
I am ending this post the same way I started it, with ❤️.
anita
anitaParticipantDear CutieJ:
Your father used to come back home late and abuse you physically and verbally: “My father physically abused us and yelled profanities when he came back home late after drinking or when he got extremely angry. I was always so afraid at night when he was coming home late, and we could never expect when he was going to (get) pissed off“.
A few days ago, someone else came back home late and you abused her physically and verbally: “she said that she was still at a restaurant and she will be back at maybe 9:30PM… I told her some nasty things… I threw the things she gave to me as gifts. I broke the picture frame… she started picking things up and putting them in the plastic bag to throw away. I stopped her, and she went into the closet to lock herself in. I was so angry, and I punched the TV. I tried to make her say anything, but she looked away to not make any eye contact and froze and shut down. I kept shaking her to get her response. At one point, she put a scissors up to defend herself“-
– to defend herself: she used scissors, you wrote, not to attack you, but to defend herself from your abuse.
Your abuse of her (above quote) included things you could be arrested for, if police were called: (1) when you broke her picture frame and destroyed, or tried to destroy other property (ex., punching her TV), you could have been arrested and charged with Malicious destruction of property (or the like) a crime which a person willfully and maliciously destroys, damages, or defaces someone else’s property.
When she was picking up the pieces of her property (which you broke and/ or threw around in her home), and you stopped her, that’s another crime: Unlawful restraint which happens when one person knowingly and intentionally restrains another person without that person’s consent and without legal justification.
When you were physically shaking her body, that’s the crime of Battery: the intentional, unlawful touching of another person, with the intent to harm, annoy, injure or offend, and Assault: intentionally placing someone in fear that they will be physically harmed or experience offensive contact.
I understand that you often feel anxious, hurt, betrayed, and terrified to breakup (title of your thread), and I hope that you heal and feel better soon. But while you feel anxious, hurt, terrified, etc., please do not abuse her anymore: Feeling Badly is No Excuse to Abuse.
My mother felt hurt by me even though I didn’t hurt her. It’s called Emotional Reasoning when you believe something is true simply because you feel that it’s true. Feeling hurt, she felt justified to hurt me in return. I was terrified of her.
You shared that you yelled at her (R), said nasty things to her, restrained her, shook her, broke and tried to break her property, but you didn’t mention any such abuses by her against you. Did she do any such things to you?
You shared about her: “She told me that she felt like she was emotionally threatened all the time that I cried and yelled…She said these things are what her parents told her to control her when she was growing up“- her parents cried and yelled and threatened her a lot, her parents controlled her.
You shared that she lied to you 3 times. Do you think that she lied to you because at times she’s afraid, maybe terrified of you, and feeling controlled by you, while at other times, she shuts down, and yet, at other times she rebels against your control by spending time with her colleagues, lying about it, and having refused to acknowledge you as her partner on social media?
anita
anitaParticipantDear CutieJ:
I am so sorry she lied to you again, I wish she didn’t. It was wrong for her to do so. There are wrongdoing on her part, no doubt. And the relationship is toxic and needs to end as soon as possible.
“I threw the things she gave to me as gifts. I broke the picture frame (it was Styrofoam) in front of her… she went into the closet to lock herself in. I was so angry, and I punched the TV… I kept shaking her to get her response. At one point, she put a scissors up to defend herself… After this, we just had a good time. We went to eat, went to arcade that we used to go a lot, laughed a lot… Yesterday, when we were taking a shower together, she asked me if she can go play tennis with her colleagues on Thursday night. I leave on Friday…She will still pick me up today after work, eat with me, and go to sleep together“-
– this reminds me of a movie titled Sleeping with the Enemy.
Playing at the arcade, laughing, taking a shower and sleeping together after breaking, punching, shaking and pointing scissors at the other? Does the fighting, the breaking, punching, scissors etc., serve as foreplay for her.. for you?
I am asking because I am trying to understand. I can see now that part of your pain is indeed her doing, and that this relationship is sick. I wish this relationship ends sooner than later, and that you’d be on your journey of personal healing.
Please, no more breaking, no more violence of any kind! Keep yourself and her safe, and be strong!
anita
anitaParticipant* I figure that his lack of understanding indicates his difficulty, it does not indicate that your feelings are not valid.
anitaParticipantDear Zenith:
I feel good to read from you! “I hate this never ending saga“- I understand. I wish this saga will be one of the Passing clouds you referred to in the title of your thread.
“My friend texted me asking why I stopped talking to her… I told her she is not putting in the efforts to meet us… She told me that the other group preplans everything as they keep meeting very often and we always call them in last minute… and told me even I said no to her“- hmm, she made two good points. What if you preplan too..?
I know that this pain of being excluded or not being included is deep within you, and it’s a real pain that has its valid reasons in your childhood/ growing up. It makes you very sensitive to current situations, aka this (should be ended, I hope) painful saga.
I don’t want you to suffer like you do, Zenith. I wish you wouldn’t suffer at all.
anita
anitaParticipantDear Helcat:
I don’t think that you mentioned him being neurodivergent, but you may have. I remember you using the adjective stoic to describe him, and you shared that he is a Buddhist.
“I think that she also idolizes my husband a bit. He has helped her out a lot over the years“- I assume this makes him feel good, that he’s been very helpful to her and that she thinks highly of him, and therefore, he may be emotionally invested in continuing to help her and be thought of highly by her.
“She has been considering an affair for a long time… it is a mix of impulsive and not impulsive. I don’t think she is thinking clearly and is having some kind of breakdown… I don’t trust her that much because of the way she has been acting and I don’t know her very well. Obviously her morals and judgment are in question at the moment“- as I understand it (from what you shared and, like I said, I trust the accuracy of what you shared), her intent (an impulsive intent, one that she may not admit to in a calm moment, or after her breakdown), I am sorry to say, is to have an affair with him. I mean, it’s not a far-fetched idea. Being neurodivergent, he may not pick up on her intent. I think that he wants to help her and that he is somewhat attached to how she views him (idolizing him). I don’t think that he wants to have an affair with her. I am guessing that it didn’t even cross his mind.
“Yes, I think he was unmoved by the details. But I still find it disrespectful“- her sharing of sexual details with the man married to you is absolutely disrespectful of you.
“You are spot on. It hurts that he doesn’t understand, even when I explain my feelings to him. It makes me feel dismissed and invalidated. Thank you for your kindness and empathy! I hope that things change too“- you are welcome. I suppose that being neurodivergent, it’s not his fault that he doesn’t understand. I figure that his lack of understanding indicates his difficulty, it does not that your feelings are not valid.
A Buddhist man is still.. a man who needs to be thought of highly by the woman in his life. Like a boy who needs to be thought of highly by his mother (in every man there is boy). Maybe it will help if you express to him at length or repeatedly how highly you think of him (or have you already done so, consistently)?
anita
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