Dear Robyn: I will be back to your thread and reply further in abut 14 hours.

anita

Dear Pandanator:

No problem at all with you replying.. whenever you reply, good to read back from you.  I will be back to your thread Sun morning, in about 14 hours and reply further.

anita

Dear Seaturtle:

I am back sooner than I anticipated but I am okay with you either not reading or not responding to this post until next week, or whenever you choose.

Before I read and reply to your last post, I want to offer you my best understanding at this time, starting with the concept of the inner child and how it applies to you: part of you does not know the difference between Past and Present; for this part what was still is. This is your inner child.. your inner hatchling (baby sea turtle), so to speak… Hatch, for short. The other part of you is the adult you for whom there is Past and Present.

Hatch needed and still (there is no distinction for her between past and present), she needs to be seen and to be treated with kindness. Unfortunately for her, she was unseen and emotionally harassed by her father. The adult part of you thinks that it is something that happened, but for Hatch, it is still happening.

When you take Hatch with you to meet your father (recently for that hour visit during his golf tournament), she doesn’t want to go because she’s scared of him and/ or she is angry with him, but you take her anyway, and you tell her to be nice and that there is nothing to worry about. So, she goes with you quietly, holding her feelings in, and makes it possible for you to have a nice visit with him.

The visit is over, you take Hatch home and- no longer instructed to be nice and hold her feelings in- she let’s them out, aka she gets triggered in the company of your boyfriend and other people. The adult part of you thinks that her fear and/ or anger and other distress is about your boyfriend and the other people, but Hatch’s fear and anger, her distress, is about your father.

The price you pay for having a nice adult relationship with your father is .. UNSEEING Hatch.

To heal as much as is possible for you, you have to SEE Hatch and to do what’s in her best interest.

* I want to submit this and then start a new post with the continuation of this theme as I re-read your past posts.

anita

Dear Stacy:

You are welcome! “I can see that I have him placed way above me in my head…  But, it still feels like a huge loss as well because I’ve never been so passionate about someone and have that same passion reciprocated for me”-

– I understand and I agree, no doubt at all, that indeed it feels to you  like a huge loss. What I am saying is that objectively, it is not a loss: you lived in  a dysfunctional home before you met him, while you dated him, and after the breakup. You worked in the same underpaying jobs before, during and after the relationship; car braking down before, during and after, etc.

If because of him being in your life, your objective circumstances changed for the better (let’s say you moved in with him to a place and an area that you couldn’t afford alone, and that made it possible for you to get adequate sleep at nights, and find a better-paying job, etc.), and then, because of the breakup, your objective circumstances deteriorated (you had to move back home with your family, couldn’t get enough sleep, lost the better paying job, etc.), then the breakup would have been a huge loss objectively.

“There were two instances early on into our relationship about possible hurdles for us and he genuinely was worried about me dumping him over them. We talked them out and I know he cared a lot, I saw it and felt it through his actions“- what actions?

“So you think he never wanted long-term commitment with anyone anyway, at least not for now?“- you shared that (1) You met him when he was 30-years-old, and that (in 12 years of being an adult/ about 15 years of dating-age), he never had a relationship, let alone a long-term committed relationship (“He has never had a real relationship… all his others were failed situationships and hookups“). This is not promising when you think about it.

(2) The 1-year only relationship with him was long-distance, you didn’t meet often, you weren’t satisfied with the frequency of the communication in between meetings.. again, not promising.

(3) All through the relationship, he lived with his parents because he couldn’t afford a place of his own (“we are both stuck living back home with family in bad financial positions“), and he spent a lot of time- not looking for a better-paying job- but on gaming and liking photos online.. again, not promising.

“As you’ve said, maybe he thought he wanted something but his actions couldn’t match his words when truly tested over time. I have to accept that he’s not doing anything about it now”-  he said wonderful-sounding things while living the same kind of life- objectively- that he lived before he met you. And those circumstances did not involve you except for approximately 5 days per month, 60 days total (“we only were able to meet about 1-2 (sometimes 3) times per month and always spent about 2 days together each time“).

“I cried tonight because I saw a video of a girl talking about how when you mourn the loss of a relationship…  you are mourning YOURSELF and who you were before it ended, and how you will never get that version of yourself back again”- good: don’t get any version of yourself back. Instead, go back to being the true, authentic person you were in the very beginning of your life.

“To feel like I had ANY part in messing up what was meant for me/us just really is hard to shake off”- meant by whom?

“I really, really hope you are right when you say that my issues alone weren’t enough for him to tip the boat and leave“- as I see it, there was no boat: he was living on his island, with his family of origin; you were living on another island with your family-of-origin, and the two of you met of a ferry 2-3 times per month for a year.

His past (no relationship experience at all at 30-years-old), his life-situation (inadequately paying job- if he had a job at all, I don’t remember now, and living with his parents) and personality/ the way he spent his time (gaming, lots of time online) were not and are not promising at all when it comes to a long-term committed relationship that would be of real, objective benefit to any romantic partner in great need for objectively better life circumstances (unless his parents were to financially support their son and his partner), and these pre-existed him ever meeting you and have NOTHING to do with you.

I am not saying that you should date a man for his or his parents’ money. I am saying that as you consider a romantic relationship, improving your objective life circumstances- and being honest and upfront about it- should be a necessary part of your consideration: the man doesn’t have to be rich; paying half the rent in a place where you can sleep t night.. would be a great improvement.

Back to becoming the true and authentic person that you were born to be: free from unnecessary constraints, shame, guilt.. that is something to look forward to, isn’t it?

anita

Dear Gavin:

You are welcome.

“I am supposed to be a fairly bright and rational man“- we are animals after all, mammals, and therefore.. we are primarily- not rational beings- but emotional beings. When strong emotions are in the way, the rational factor goes down the tubes.

This is why I suggested to you, in my last post, that you express your strong emotions with an attitude of empathy for yourself, so to lessen their intensity and control over your life.

“I miss her deeply but my stupidity and short sightedness of the future took her from me”- it is very sad, Gavin, that stupidity and short sightedness of the future is the Rule in our very troubled world, as it is now, not the Exception, and the results are devastating on a mass scale.

“Now she has a new life and I am in utter misery and will be for the foreseeable future… It hurts so much. It really hurts”-

– I am sorry that you are hurting, and that you are hurting so much. You feel no hope for the foreseeable future in context of a relationship with her, but if you discover new hope in a different context,  a new meaning, you will have a new life yourself, and you will feel better than you have in the longest time.

anita

Dear Seaturtle:

So far in your thread I focused on you, your childhood and how your past childhood experience affects your current relationship with N. You described N so positively that I didn’t think of looking at him, his childhood etc., until I read yesterday: “when I try to express to him why I reacted a certain way, what the trauma behind it was, he will call these excuses which just lead to feeling further unseen and invalidated” (Oct 18).

And so, I went back to your first thread and read through your posts on both threads. In your 4th sentence, original post, July 29, 2023, you wrote: “he was late for the first date, but I didn’t mind.. since it’s not like he knew who he was being late for, lol, my logic anyway”.

Fast forward in the relationship.. it’s still not like he knows who he was- and still is- late for.

Back to your original post: “our third date he accidentally stood me up”- you excused him being late as an accident, but it was not an accident: “Him being late to dates is a common argument we have… he is late which.. at least once every two weeks or so, if not more“.

“To him he is on time 80% of the time and I should accept that, but that’s way easier said than done, I cant just turn off the trigger or I would. But he thinks I should just be mentally stronger, like he seems to be“-

– his version of mental strength is what I call the Teflon Mind (TM) : Teflon causes nothing to STICK to cookware. The Teflon Mind doesn’t allow anything to stick to it, anything that may be distressing to consider, that is.

This is the difference between the two of you: you let things in, you let them stick enough to analyze them, so to understand better.

“My partner is supportive of me seeking therapy but does not believe in it… I have tried many times to tell him the benefits of therapy… so you can understand yourself. But he will not go to couples therapy with me”- the TM does not want to understand itself; any opportunity to understand (himself or you)- if it feels distressing to him- will slide off him like oil slides off Teflon.

“I am not sure he sees what makes me special as opposed to another girl who’s pretty, good awareness, and fun… He doesn’t tell me how he feels about me, and when I ask him he says superficial things…  I want him to tell me he loves things about me that make me ME… I want to explode and just be like “DO YOU SEE ME like do you actually see my spirit and soul over here exposed to you and walking in the world”-

– your father didn’t see you and (not or) your boyfriend doesn’t see you, not beyond the superficial, like you suspect. Your feeling UNSEEN has its roots in childhood (as is true to many people) but it is also happening presently in your relationship. I don’t think that it’s anything personal:  the TM does not allow seeing beyond the surface when it comes to emotions and mental health.

“When I try to talk about trauma with him I am not always comfortable to do so, because he doesn’t relate“- he doesn’t relate to what slides off him like oil off  Teflon.

“.. and if it follows an argument and I am explaining why something is a trigger, he calls my response ‘excuses’ and that is the most invalidating thing, but also makes me wonder if they are just excuses“-

– an excuse means an “attempt to lessen the blame attaching to (a fault or offense)” (online dictionary): so he is saying that you telling him about what triggers you is an offense against him, or a fault in who you are.

“after me sharing my trigger response after the ticking he asked me ‘why don’t I have triggers like you do, do I have no trauma?’“- he is blaming you for having triggers, stating that he has trauma too, but he has no triggers (being that they slide off, I say), so there is something wrong (faulty, blameworthy) about you, is the message, isn’t it?

“I get this feeling of unfamiliarity often, when alcohol or marijuana is involved it does prolong the feeling and make me feel more trapped but I have the same feeling completely sober as well. This feeling of disconnect that feels like an awkward unfamiliarity and I am the only one who notices it.”- this IS the experience of living with a TM.. unless you are equally a TM yourself. and therefore comfortable with unfamiliarity.. having adjusted well to being UNSEEN

“There were several times while I lived with him that I would be having a trigger response that lead to a panic attack and I would go into our big closet with the lights off and sit on the ground, this helps me to calm down. He would come in and sit next to me. He also has pulled me out of a panic attack by whispering in my ear ‘be nice to my girl,’ directly communicating with the voice in my head telling me I was unseen and uncared for”- this is nice on his part, he can be supportive at times… as long as your distress does not distress him.

“But lately he doesn’t grab me or hug me as much like that, and has said he feels he is always consoling me and sometimes does not have the patience to do so and instead feels falsely blamed for my pain”- in your shoes, hearing this, I would feel guilty about sharing with him anything that would make him feel badly.

“He told me his mom would do this and that she made him feel like a bad kid morally as he grew up”- I suppose he Teflon-ed her message that he was a bad kid, adjusting to her by developing a TM. It is not his fault to have adjusted to her this way, as well as to his father.

The title of this thread is: “Telling the difference between gut and fear in relationships”- you fear being unseen and you really are unseen

The title of your first thread: “Please help me, my mind hasn’t rested in 8 months“. You ended the original post on that thread with: “thanks for reading and please anything can help me especially advice or someone in a similar boat” (July 29).

More than 2 months later, I am responding today: first, seems to me that everyone is traumatized to one extent of another, evident in our very troubled world. Second, we adjust differently to childhood emotional trauma: I was always into looking deeply into things, wanting to shed light into the darkness and SEE. I experienced positive excitement when I saw/ understood something that I didn’t see before. Therefore, I was motivated to do it again and again, to shed more and more light into the darkness and feel positively excited yet again. Other people growing up, when light was shed on a situation, they felt more distress than before.. they were negatively excited, so they turned off the lights, hence the Teflon Mind.

Some people want to talk about emotions and understand better; others don’t.. or can’t, it’s not something that they are able to endure. So, when growing up with a TM, or being in a relationship with one, you get to feel alone and disconnected in their presence.. you become inhibited and controlled around them, your mind can’t rest. You hold your breath.. and you get the chance to exhale and rest.. when they are not around.

anita

Dear Sarika:

“I fear that if I were to walk away and lose my job with no income source, I’d end up in a precarious situation“- can you plan first and then walk away, with a reasonable financial plan in hand, with enough cash and with a job ready elsewhere?

“And endure – I can live alone and stay emotionally stable“- then you can move far, far away from where you are now..?

anita