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anitaParticipantDear ManagoFandango:
It just occurred to me that like me, you too can learn more about human behavior from reading threads in these forums. There are 15 threads listed on each page under “Topics”, and there are 833 pages at this point. I personally participate or participated in thousands of topics through the years. I know more about human behavior now than I knew ten years ago, a year ago… more than I knew a day ago.
You are also welcome to post any time in this thread, or in a new thread about various topics, various situations, and I’ll be glad to reply to you.
anita
anitaParticipantDear Zenith:
You are an equally good friend of mine, thank you for being my friend!
“I feel like I am behaving just like my father. He is a very short tempered person“- it’s not that short-temperedness passes on genetically. A whole lot of people who are genetically unrelated, are short-tempered, and that’s because they were never taught (primarily by their parents), and they never otherwise learned emotion regulation.
“Yeah I do experience intense amount of anger and frustration like no one understands or prioritizes me“- the first thing to learn/ the first step of the emotion regulation process, is to Notice when you feel an intense amount of anger, and second step to do is to Pause (that is, to say nothing to anyone, and do nothing/ no response). At the Pause phase, you are not trying to analyze what was said and what happened to cause your intense anger. At this point your focus is on saying/ doing nothing.
While you Pause, take time out of the situation as soon as it is possible for you, and go to another room/ someplace where you are alone, so to do the third step of the emotion regulation practice.
I need to stop here and soon go on my daily walk (a part of my personal emotion regulation practice). I will be back to the computer in about two hours.
anita
anitaParticipantDear Zenith:
(I am still excited about you being back here, there are a few tears in my eyes right now!)
I see excellent insight in your post right above. Also, I see a good person, a good mother who wants to do what it takes to address and regulate her emotions, particularly anger.
There are ways to do this, I did, and I keep doing it. I will pass on to you what I learned in-practice (!) best I can. It will take persistent effort over time. But you’ll be amazed with your progress within a few months, if you persistently do the work.
Right before you shut down or lash out, you feel intense anger, an overwhelming amount of frustration and anger, don’t you?
anita
anitaParticipantI just finished a post for you before I read your 2nd post above, so here it is:
Dear Zenith:
Also, I think I know of what you shared yesterday made you anxious, so I will not bring it up in this thread. I will not bring up anything from what you shared in the past, so to keep this thread a safe place for you. Share only what you feel comfortable sharing.
One of the things we can talk more about is the topic of emotion regulation, it is a crucial part of mental health.”
As to your 2nd post, right above, thank you very much for your empathy and prayers, greatly appreciated!
anita
anitaParticipantDear Zenith:
First, I am THRILLED that you are back! I suppose you read my message to you earlier today (in my own thread). I did remember that you mentioned some time ago that you might delete your thread, and we talked about it, but I didn’t know if yesterday was different. Anyway, you are back, yeah !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
anita
anitaParticipantDear ManagoFandango:
I haven’t read any books in over 10 years. I learn a lot about human behavior by reading posts in these forums (have done so every day since May 2015). I learn here.. so, no, I don’t know of any books on human behavior. I guess you can google it and easily you will get titles of books on the topic.
anita
anitaParticipant* This is a note not related to the topic of this thread. It’s a note to a member with whom I communicated for years, a member who had her thread deleted yesterday. Because the thread has been deleted, I have no way to message her. Therefore, in case you are reading this, z., here is my message:
I was out and about yesterday, so I wasn’t able to read your emotional messages. If I did, I would have answered immediately. When I was finally back to the computer, your messages were still there (at that point, you deactivated your account, and appeared as anonymous). Having read your messages, I prepared a reply to you. When I clicked “submit”, it didn’t go through because your thread was deleted while I was typing my reply.
z, if you are reading this, please know that I did not ignore you, or your distress. I wasn’t here, at the computer, couldn’t have known about it, and did not anticipate it. If you would like to return to the forums (using a different account than the one you deactivated), please do. I will be delighted to read from you again.
anita
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anitaParticipantDear antarkala:
“From the moment my mom said he might not be good enough for me, I have been overanalyzing and overthinking about my relationship and my boyfriend which did not help the relationship in any positive way. You are right, I have to explore the relationship with my mother with the help of a psychotherapist to get better clarity and I am on it now“-
– the relationship between mother and daughter (childhood and on) can be very powerful, in negative ways, when it comes to the quality and dynamics of the adult daughter’s romantic relationships. This has been true in my case.
As I share about it here (just a bit in this post, and maybe in future posts), please know.. that I know that although there are similarities between our mothers, our mothers are not identical. There are many differences between them. Yet, there are a few significant similarities between our mothers (and therefore between you and I) that make it so that we can learn from each other’s experience.
I am saying this so to avoid/ prevent inaccurate projections on my end and on yours. If you read something that I share that is strange/ unfamiliar to you, please do not dismiss the totality of what I share as irrelevant to you:
My mother not only negatively affected my romantic relationships, she has emptied them from any measure of romance, killed the romance before I ever had a relationship. I do not have a single memory of feeling romantic outside my past day-dreaming (I used to daydream A LOT about being in a love story, way back when I was a teenager).
Growing up and onward, she gave me two messages: (1) that I am not good enough, that I was an inferior specimen, and (2) no man is good enough for me. See the bind my poor brain was in? I felt too inferior to be with a quality man, and too superior to be with any man who was not close enough to being perfect (my mother had very high and superficial expectations of what constitutes perfect: the man had to be movie star handsome and rich). So, no man could be right for me. Result: no man was right for me all the years of my 20s and 30s. The great majority of the time, I was alone and lonely.
Also, my relationship with my mother was so troubled, so difficult, so full of distress, on my part, for years and years, that it turned me off to the idea of being in any long-term relationship of any kind. I was stuck with my mother, I didn’t want to get stuck with anyone else. When living with her, I wanted to leave; that desire to leave did not leave me for decades of adulthood.
Back to your post: “I have been trying to find a good therapist and it’s taking a while. If you have any recommendations, I would be happy to hear from you“- I would choose a therapist who exercises great empathy for his clients and one who does CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy), nothing like cognitive clarity to help with confusion (Confused about relationship- Need help” is the title of your thread).
“Apart from that, I want to update that I had a great time with my boyfriend, he is a wonderful and genuine person who cares for me and loves me. Our relationship has grown so much over the past one year…”- reads like a high quality man and a high quality relationship.
“But the feeling of missing the attraction and spark is still there“- I wonder about your relationship spark history (RSH, if you will.. lol). Did you feel the spark with other men, for how long and what happened to that spark (answer this or any other question only if you are comfortable answering).
“My mind says everything is going well but my heart keeps saying something is missing – my heart doesn’t say yes!“- I wonder to whom your heart say yes! in the past, and for how long.
“At the same time, when I am with my boyfriend, I feel my social life and spiritual life are not thriving and it bothers me“- a person cannot thrive in a situation (a relationship) when the person wants out of. It’s like this: if you live in an apartment but want to vacate it and live elsewhere, you are not going to thrive in that apartment (painting it, re-arranging the furniture in it, relaxing and enjoying it), you’d be getting ready to leave it.
“Like I mentioned before, I keep getting thoughts like ‘Am I settling for something less?’…“- something less than your mother thinks you should settle for?
“It is Monday night here as well…. I am unable to stop overthinking. I feel this is unfair to my boyfriend, why should he go through this?“- no, it is not fair to him. I understand that he loves you, but why is he going through this otherwise… does he love himself?
“He has told me today morning… that I am overthinking which hurts me. This has never happened to me“- again, I wonder about your relationship history, never doubted a man/ relationship before?
anita
anitaParticipantDear antarkala:
It’s almost like your mother interjecting, calling him by a different name, so to cause a separation. Better not call him by any name, so to not get it wrong. Back to you in the morning.
anita
anitaParticipantDear antarkala:
You are very welcome, and thank you for expressing your appreciation of my input! I will re-read and reply to you Tues morning (it is Mon evening here).
anita
anitaParticipantHow are you, gresshoppe?
anita
anitaParticipantHow are you, YOR? Arctic07?
anita
anitaParticipantContinued:
I remember very well that person‘s (formerly referred to as my mother) tirades about other people. I heard them when she was talking to me, or when she was talking to others, a lot of it done on the phone. I hated the almost constant, ongoing negative judgements of people. I hated hearing her talk and talk and talk.
Her tirades against others cemented, within me, a deep distrust in people.
I tried at times, to get that person‘s approval by siding with her and talking negatively about the people she complained and gossiped about, but alas, she rejected even these efforts. She denied me any sense of togetherness with her. There was just no way that she allowed for me to be with her.
I can’t say that I ever felt like I meant something to her, other than someone (some thing, more precisely) to vent to, some thing to direct her rage at, and some thing to brag about- in regard to just one thing- me being an excellent student in elementary school, only she greatly exaggerated my supposed success, I was only a C+ student, even though I worked very hard to get (better grades).
I am not trying to let go of my old, unmet need to have a mother’s love, but of the need to have that person‘s love.
anita
anitaParticipantYou are welcome, ManagoFandango, and thank you!
anita
anitaParticipantDear ManagoFandango:
“The only thing that upsets me is that I see that I’ve upset her, and as a person that likes everyone to be happy I don’t want to fall in that trap again. Because if I’m nice to her she will start with the requests again“- she is familiar with your discomfort about people being displeased with you (a discomfort that motivates you to be a people pleaser), and she is taking advantage of your discomfort.
“I realised that if stating my boundaries upsets someone I just have to let it be“- let it be and endure the discomfort I mentioned above.
“And what is this with the fact that she never asks guys to do things? I mean she even does sometimes part of their work, is not upset/angry when her subordinate is late, never asking him to buy her or bring her anything, is always asking people to help him?… I’m just trying to understand“- maybe she is a people pleaser when it comes to men, a men-pleaser, if you will, but not a women-pleaser.
I believe that she associates you with weakness because of your discomfort about displeasing her. She has taken advantage of you in the past and got away with it. Maybe her male coworkers do not exhibit such discomfort, so she doesn’t feel that she can get away with taking advantage of them.
It may be that she takes advantage of the people who let her take advantage, and she doesn’t with the people who won’t let her take advantage of them. Maybe she goes belly up (submits to, people-pleasing) with people she perceives to be stronger than her, and she becomes the aggressor with people she perceives to be weaker than her.
anita
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Though I run this site, it is not mine. It's ours. It's not about me. It's about us. Your stories and your wisdom are just as meaningful as mine.