Forum Replies Created
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anitaParticipantDear SadSoul (a poem):
Sad Soul, Mortal Soul, Beautiful Sad Soul,
Funny Soul, Sad Soul, a poet, yet you don’t know it,
Sad Soul waking up early in the morning, as early as the Sparrows,
Brekkie with Sad Soul and Sparrows,
Funny, Sad, happy Soul;
I am running out of S’s, Sad’s, Soul’s. Sparrows,
Sad Soul, Beautiful Soul, Special, Super Special Soul;
My mother-monster would have found so many “proofs” in this poem, so far, to condemn me as a bad, bad person, Always Bad,
Nothing exiting me was anything but Bad, in her judgment,
I want to be good, SadSoul, so desperate to be good, to be good (tears in my eyes),
Always wanted to be good, a good person, Why did she INSIST that I was bad?
Why did she condemn me to be bad?
I don’t want to be bad..! Don’t want to be bad;
Sad Soul, Beautiful Soul, you cared enough to try,
Special Soul, Sad Soul, Early up with Sparrows,
Tell me I am good, this is all I ever wanted to be, to be good.
anita
anitaParticipant* Scuse my neglect to delete this sentence (a quote from my post before last): “there was no reason to her behavior, no rules, no structure to the madness“, and to boldface this sentence (a quote from your last post) “…Actually, both sides of me are gutless!“.
anitaParticipantDear SadSoul:
“It made me wonder about the abusive people I know, I wonder if they’ve got anything to back it up when confronted by someone on their level?“- most don’t. They target their children because their children are theirs (they have nowhere to go, no other home, other parents), they are smaller and weaker and dependent, and highly invested is seeing the best in their parents, taking on the guilt for the parent’s abuse.
“Don’t feel guilty!… I get up with the sparrows to get as much done as possible“- thank you. Sparrows are going to be part of my next poem to you.
there was no reason to her behavior, no rules, no structure to the madness
“my stomach churned reading this, understanding in, and now a quiet pause, no thoughts, as the sick feeling of understanding flows through my body“- you write so well.. You are a poet and you don’t know it. Thank you. No one ever said anything like this to me.
“Me too. I sometimes wonder if it’s necessary for me to come up with intelligent words in these situations… Or is it okay for me to make a mental note that the person involved is a dick and to be avoided if possible?“- avoid the d*** whenever possible. It’s when you can’t, or they keep coming back to haunt you, that you (I) have to speak up, and I will..!!!!!
I will.
“My mother is very confrontational – with those weaker than herself“- like most abusers.
“If I confronted her on anything, she swiftly put me in my place with words of scathing judgement, however she turned that scathing judgement onto me if I didn’t confront other people / situations in my life“- she weakened you and then complained that you were weak. It’s like a person stabbing another and then complaining that their victim is bleeding.
“She made me feel so weak“- I wrote the above, about her weakening you before I read this part.
“…Actually, both sides of me are gutless!”- funny, funny SadSoul.
“Me too. Oh how the progeny have no idea. Blissfully, they have no idea..“- good Mother SadSoul
“RR sprang to mind: righteous rage“- Righteous Ethical Rage: RERAGE. Perfect!
“Occasionally I use words when I’m in a tricky situation. Once, very quietly and calmly, asked someone if they existed just to piss people off“- if you are interviewing for the position of my SUPER, the interview is progressing well.
“I’m going to sit with this idea that reacting in a tangible way might not be essential… Scuse typos, etc., hope this all makes some kind of sense. Ciao for now.“- I am looking forward to your thoughts on the matter some time later, Your typos are scused, good reading from you this late afternoon (here), Good night (I assume it’s there).
anita
anitaParticipantDear SadSoul:
I am impressed that you took the time, considering your very busy schedule, to write to me at such length, with the goal of helping me (please don’t do it again, or I’d feel guilty..)
“You feel powerless because if you had raged as a child you would have been punished“- I am not aware of this being a consideration of mine, as a child. I was punished for so many things, for all kinds of random things (a word I said, a word I failed to say, an expression on my face, something I did, something I didn’t do, something I allegedly felt, something I didn’t feel, there was no reason to her behavior, no rules, no structure to the madness. I mean, if I knew there was a rule: that if I didn’t express anger, then I will not be punished.. why, that would have been a relief, some structure to the madness.
I found out at 21 or so, that her reaction to my anger was to submit, to withdraw: she ran towards me to hit me, I grabbed her hands in mine, pushing just enough to keep her from advancing, and her response: her hands lost all their strength and became flaccid in my hands. And she never again tried to hit me. I was so ANGRY that that’s ALL it took for me to stop her from hitting me years before.. I didn’t know. I felt very stupid.
“If anger and rage are just emotions you are feeling then you are the only person suffering from them. There is something wrong with suffering from them because they hurt you“- I thought about it the other day and felt stupid about that too, suffering unnecessarily like I did.
“but there’s nothing morally wrong with feeling them – yup, I’m reading my own advice with one eyebrow raised because I’m no good at being comfortable with anger. It frightens me when others express it and it makes me feel guilty and worthless“- it makes you feel guilty and worthless for receiving others’ anger, and/ or for feeling angry at others?
I fear others’ anger and I get confused with mine, easily overwhelmed in real-life situations, cognitively and otherwise paralyzed, unable to evaluate situations and figure out what I need to do.. As a rule: no here-and-now problem solving skills/ assertion to be practiced.
“I would suggest that rather than it making it to the rage stage, try telling the person you do not agree with them… Be proud you spoke up because you would be standing up for yourself by doing so. Standing up for yourself is the cure to anger, it’s the protective action that is appropriate to take. It doesn’t have to be a big showdown, just acknowledging that you disagree to them is enough“- I intend to do this next time I see him do what he did the other day (I will visualize it happening so to prepare myself and respond in spite of the expected Paralysis and Overwhelm Factor (POF), and I will let you know when it happens, thank you!
“I feel guilty about everything so I understand how feeling angry makes you feel guilty“- ditto. A general Guilt about everything and everyone robs me from.. accurate, objective evaluation of specific people and situations in the here-and-now. Got to change this!
“No, it doesn’t indicate you are a bad person, but as a child you would have been treated like you were bad if you got angry“- I was treated like I was a bad person no matter what.
“You learned to be your judge and executioner as a child in order to keep the peace as much as was possible, in order to survive“- I learned to be quiet, to be hypervigilant about anything that may cause her to get angry at me, which was.. anything and everything.
“Anger is a protective emotion, it motivates us to do what’s necessary to stay alive, but it also helps us do what is necessary to have boundaries with those around us. The emotion is fine, but the action must be reasonable. It’s people’s actions that give anger a bad name“- very well said. I came up with a term today (in another thread), Ethical Anger (any ideas for an acronym?)
“Not only did I turn myself inside out to keep safe in the home I lived in, but I was constantly trying to be a good girl so Jesus would love me, maybe even save me. But also save my mortal soul“- Sad Soul, Mortal Soul.. (this is the beginning of a new poem for you). I too tried to be a good girl so that my personal devil will love me.
“This is reinforcing of feelings of guilt because you know firsthand that angry people hurt others“- feeling guilty for having the emotion behind the abusive anger that I witnessed. If I observed ethical anger growing up, I wouldn’t feel guilty for feeling angry.
“I think we’ve both had our wings clipped and can’t express anger… Sometime last year I got a new neighbour took to parking on my lawn. One day I got really mad because I couldn’t get out of my driveway, so I went and knocked on their door and said, ‘Can you not park on my lawn, please.’ I was quite furious. Afterwards I felt so guilty and mean…guilty and ashamed…“- mistaking Ethical Anger for Abusive Anger.
“It’s liberating being able to quietly put it out there when your whole life you’ve been too afraid to speak up. Practise makes perfect so it isn’t a powerful solution but it is one small step for mankind!“- one small step for anita-kind. Intent to practice, or in your part of the world.. practise.
“you’ve been too afraid to speak up… I said, ‘Well, there’s two adults sitting on this lounge, and then there’s you, was how I took that,’ while I laughed“- anita-kind wants to hire you as my speak up person!
Thank you for your second post and for the time you took, for your insight, your wisdom and intent and effort to help me, greatly appreciated. Now, please rest and take care of my SUPER (Speak Up PERson) friend.
anita
May 15, 2024 at 10:00 am in reply to: growing up – becoming adul / procrastination – in connection to childhood trauma #432693anitaParticipantDear Robi:
“It’s soo hot already.. the only reasonable time to train is either early morning or evening“- the high today in Alicante was 28 degrees Celsius; tomorrow: 27. Humidity: 57%. (Temperature in Warsaw: 20 degrees Celsius, humidity: 28%)
“There are some news however! On Saturday the manager of that beach bar told me we won’t cooperate anymore… I will be left without the school job as well, next month“- no reason to stay in Alicante!
“On Monday.. my body felt like it’s been hit by a train – horrible headache and very dense mental fog… I was still in a pretty bad state when a friend called me and told him about wanting to leave Alicante, and how I really felt here.. Next thing you know, I felt like I just woke up in the morning full of energy“- your bod says: get me out of Alicante!
“I’m thinking maybe my body is showing me this job isn’t for me. Now.. finding out yesterday that I’ll be left without classes soon, I decided to buy myself a cheap ticket to Warsaw – for the beginning of June. I decided not to wait and get a very good price by buying one early. It’s funny because my girlfriend will be here for 8 days and she’ll be going back to Warsaw the same day I will – but we’ll have different flights“- enjoy Alicante together with your girlfriend. Average Mediterranean water temperature in June is 22.7 degrees Celsius, so if it’s too hot on the beach, go into the water. (You know this already, I know).
“These days I kept applying to all sorts of jobs there (in Warsaw), every day. Let’s see… if I don’t yet have any work maybe go to Transylvania and spend some time ‘home ‘. Well that’s where I’m from and where my parents live“- it’s definitely a good idea to look for work in Warsaw. And, by the way, my father was from Bucharest, Romania, 5 hours and 25 minutes drive south east of Transylvania. I am.. half Romanian.
“but not sure it feels like home. Sometimes it does. I don’t know.. there’s something in me that wants to go there for a bit – couple of weeks will be okay. Maybe It’ll be good.. maybe there are still things that need to be addressed. Maybe not. We’ll see. Still.. feels better than living here, paying rent out of my parent’s pocket and not really liking it“- better not stay in Alicante, of course. Going “home”.. better get more clarity about your purpose there: what would it be? Better not be motivated by nostalgia alone (selective memory, remembering the good; forgetting the bad). Looking at the title of your thread: better you don’t procrastinate- or press the Pause feature on- becoming an adult, by going back “home”.
“Up until buying the ticket, I was looking forward to leave.. to go both to Poland and Romania.. but after buying it.. I started feeling some resistance. Is this a good thing? Maybe I could’ve thought about it more. It’s always like that!“- from psychology today, regret is “feeling a sense of loss or sorrow at what might have been”. I think that your regret is about the difference between how you wish things to be (nostalgia is part of it), and how things turn out to be. Fantasy/ wishful thinking/ remembering only the good and forgetting the bad, aka nostalgia, all go hand in hand with regret because.. Fantasy is always better than how Reality turns out.
This is why a lot of people spend the majority of their time Gaming instead of .. well, Adulting.
“Thank you… I hope you are having a good day and I’d like you to know that whenever you’d like to share anything, I would be very happy to respond with my best insights“- you are very welcome. You’ve already helped me with your amazing insights into your life, your mind, it teaches me about my life, and my mind, so, thank you!
“Now, I won’t be working out. I’ll take a nap instead. I’ll have to do those 3 hours later on“- 7 pm in Alicante. I hope you are rested by now.
anita
anitaParticipantDear nycartist:
You are welcome and thank you for popping on here from time to time, good to read from you anytime. I am as well as I was on the first day I replied to you, March 9, 2019. It was a Saturday (I just checked).
“Overall I feel good in my skin. I always compliment her when we meet up, tell her that her outfit is great, or her hair looks nice, etc… I give my compliments genuinely“- you are a genuine friend to her.
“She also makes little remarks about my appearance… comments about my hair saying it looks so crazy and unbrushed… my hips are so narrow and hers are definitely wider… we both have ‘unique faces that not every man would appreciate’… I realize there are some insecurities on her part– she is indeed a frenemy, just as you stated in the title of your thread, inside quotation marks. One of her comments, paraphrased: you have an unattractive face. But the criticism is hidden (not really) under we, as if her saying that she too has an unattractive face, neutralizes her saying that you do.
As far as her comments about your hair looking so crazy and unbrushed and your hips being narrow. By themselves, maybe she pointed to these as positives because she likes crazy and unbrushed hair, as well as narrow hips. But you probably know that she doesn’t because of her comments about other people’s hair and hips.
“… many very minor snarks, and it all cumulates in my mind, and sometimes I do get rubbed the wrong way and have a bit of a reaction. Then she tells me I am overly sensitive, because the individual thing I am reacting to is minor, but it’s been built up by many little remarks“- sometimes following her criticisms, you react, and her response: to criticize you further, not for your physical appearance this time, but for your personality (overly sensitive).
Why is she doing this, I ask myself: to unload/ express her anger, her aggression, bit by bit, a little here, a little there. It makes me think of a dog growling instead of barking; sometimes you react and say: you are growling at me! And she responds: you are oversensitive, I didn’t bark at you!
This is making me think about my first ever reply to you back on 3/9/2019. It was about another aggressor in your life, the barking kind. I wrote to you back then: “When a big bad wolf huffs and puffs and threatens to blow your house down… you don’t open the door to the wolf. You don’t try to talk sense to the wolf. You don’t wait for his apology”.
Well, she is not a big bad wolf threatening to blow your house down. She is.. only chipping away at it.
“Anita, have you ever read ‘The Four Agreements’? I am going back to it, because it has great tips about being impeccable with your word… I feel like I can maybe apply this to my situation with my friend… My question to myself is, do I want to stay close to someone who seems to see me as a competitor, and inferior to her?“- is the price you have to pay for the friendship part of her frenemy: to accept her .. little aggressions..?
I wonder if The Four Agreements has the answer (quotes): “If someone is not treating you with love and respect, it is a gift if they walk away from you. If that person doesn’t walk away, you will surely endure many years of suffering with him or her. Walking away may hurt for a while, but your heart will eventually heal.“,
“I will no longer allow anyone to manipulate my mind and control my life in the name of love.”,
Here’s a quote that’s almost meant for you personally, nyc-artist: “Every human is an artist. The dream of your life is to make beautiful art.“- ethical anger (non-abusive anger) is part of us humans being beautiful (I am learning this these very days, for the first time in my life). Abusive anger is ugly. Anger that points to another as inferior for their physical looks (skin color, facial features, height, weight, body shape, hair color and texture, etc.) is abusive and ugly.
“I have learned over the years what is useful to share and what isn’t. The world is so ugly, I try to share the positive, because there’s enough ugly to go around…(only speaking with integrity and not speaking ill of others or of ourselves), and not taking things personally“- not speaking ill of others or of ourselves. I’ll do my best to keep this in mind, thank you, nycartist!
anita
anitaParticipantDear Laven:
It’s long overdue that you will no longer be a caregiver, a maid, abused and misused, unwanted other than being a caregiver, an orphan. It’s time for you to be a valuable part of a group of people, a group of people into which you can truly belong, so that you are no longer alone, and no longer misused.
Please tell me if I understand..?
anita
anitaParticipantDear SadSoul:
“LLolll. Your stalker talents aren’t as up there as they need to be“- no. Just curious, Curious me.
“PDE works for me. Excellent acronym“- thank you, I like coming up with acronyms.
“I’m struggling with default emotions, ones that I learnt to have as a child. Instead of having the confidence to say, ‘no, you’re wrong,’ I’m speechless and can’t find anything to say. I’m back in survival mode.. I feel guilty, I feel scared. Why can’t I just stand up for myself? Instead I prepare for the beating… Two errors in six months, that were genuinely errors when you deal with that much data, occasionally two letters can get swapped around in your brain… errors where 502 and 505 got muddled up. And they get very upset about errors, so two was quite astounding!… I didn’t fall apart, only felt a bit stressed. PDE didn’t get to rule the situation“- Powerless Default Emotion didn’t get to rule the situation, well done, SadSoul! What you shared here helps me with developing my thoughts ahead.
“I’ll wait to read about your events surrounding this.“- I witnessed someone do something wrong, Again, and Against my interests, Unethical, being a pushy, passive aggressive person who clearly cannot be trusted. I felt a Rising Rage (RR) that overwhelmed me. And I said nothing to him.
This is the point that’s becoming increasingly clear to me yesterday and today: the part of the anger that goes to rage, is the part that feels powerless to do anything to fix/ change the situation for the better, it’s the part that feels stuck in a wrong/ unjust situation.
Let’s say you find yourself locked in a .. cold storage room, but you know how to pick locks, so you have hope to get out before you freeze. You put your skills into practice, and if all goes well.. voila, you are out of the cold storage room.
But what if you are locked in there and you don’t have any possible way to get yourself out of there.. you PANIC, fear goes to panic. Same with anger, when you feel powerless to correct a situation, anger goes to rage: I am stuck here and I can’t do anything about it, a double whammy!
And with anger, there is, for me, for others, a feeling of guilt associated with feeling angry, as in, I am bad for feeling angry, and this guilt leads to (or adds to) powerlessness.
I felt angry at this person, paralyzed in the feeling that there is something wrong with me for feeling angry, so I said nothing to the person who really did something clearly, undeniably wrong. Not having said or done anything to correct the situation, I felt angrier, enraged, and overwhelmed by the intensity of emotion, it was too much for me to endure.
I have to fix my understanding of anger. It does not indicate that I am a bad person, it is not something I am guilty of. Anger has a valid purpose, to protect, to stand up for what is right and against what is wrong. Anger by itself, the emotion, is not abusive. It is necessary for survival of all species who get angry, not just humans.
And then, to add to the complexity, there is the fear of other people’s anger: what will they do to me?
I would like to come back to this later, and to read your thoughts about how my thoughts are connected to your experience with the two errors at work?
anita
anitaParticipant* Please ignore the paragraph below my name (I always copy a member’s post, paste it into my reply post, respond to it and then delete it. I forgot to do the latter. Good night, Kshitij!
anita
anitaParticipantDear Kshitij:
You are welcome. “What can I do?“- tonight, just for tonight, don’t try to solve any problems, aim at taking a break from thinking. I will be away for a few hours, when I am back, hopefully you will be sleeping restfully.
anita
Dear Anita, I am preparing my dinner right now, kind of helps. But I am talking in a larger perspective, the intrusive thoughts have become frequent from the past few days and now I feel tired and hopeless about them. What can I do? Thanks Kshitij
anitaParticipantDear Kshitij:
It’s 8pm where you are at.. too late to go out for a walk. If you belonged to a gym, maybe you could have a swim in an indoor pool, to calm you down. At home, maybe you can take a hot shower or bath and listen to calming music.
anita
anitaParticipantDear SadSoul:
“I’m struggling with default emotions, ones that I learnt to have as a child. Instead of having the confidence to say, ‘no, you’re wrong,’ I’m speechless and can’t find anything to say… I’m hurt because I’ve been told I did something I didn’t do, I feel guilty, I feel scared. Why can’t I just stand up for myself? Instead I prepare for the beating“- this is what my experience yesterday was about, the Powerless Default Emotion (PDE, just made it up). I am going to elaborate on it later, in hours from now, or tomorrow.
“Sorry I’m not replying to anything just now. I’m in a bit of a bad place on my head and heart just now…“- that’s okay, you not replying to me at this time. I hope that now, more than 10 hours after you posted, that you are in a better place, hopefully restfully asleep).
anita
anitaParticipantDear Kshitij:
You are welcome, thank you for your note, and yes, please do take your time and get back to me later. And please do your best to lower your anxiety level (less anxiety= fewer intrusive/ obsessive thoughts).
anita
anitaParticipantDear nycartist:
Welcome back New York City Artist!
“We recently went out and I was having a great time, only the next day to be told I was being flirty with everyone we had come across… for a ‘confidence boost’. It feels hurtful and like she is not just out having a good time with me, but watching my every move and judging me. She knows my marriage is great but sometimes you just want to go out and have a fun time. She on the other hand is single and I am thinking perhaps there is some kind of jealousy there.. if I bring anything up, I am ‘over reacting’… I want that kind of friendship where you root for each other and it’s all love. Is that just unrealistic?“-
– There are too many people out there who are overly judgmental and who express their judgments when it is uncalled for. Therefore, statistically, it is unrealistic to not come across judgmental people. I have been overly judgmental myself, still feel judgmental when I shouldn’t, but I am working on correcting my distorted judgmental thinking, and on not expressing such to people who need and deserve acceptance, not rejection.
The fact that she tells you that you are overreacting is concerning beyond her judgment itself.
Maybe she flirts with men unsuccessfully, she then observes you being social, with better results (men responding to you more positively than they respond to her), and she feels jealous, and lashes at you angrily with a piece of uncalled for judgment.
anita
May 14, 2024 at 10:26 am in reply to: Telling the difference between gut and fear in relationships #432659anitaParticipantRe-submitted:
Dear Seaturtle:
I feel (and I may be wrong) that this post may be the most useful/ potentially most helpful post that I ever submitted to you. Again, this is my feeling, it may not be your feeling. Please have patience with this (one more) long post. Some of it may be distressing for you to read. As always, read if you choose to read, at your chosen pace, allowing yourself to accept or reject.
Your very first post, July 29, 2023 (I am adding the boldface feature): “He is supportive, he encourages me to do what I LOVE.. He is truly a stand up man, he is so kind and deeply cares for those around him… But… all he ever says is… blah blah blah all these super un-original things… I don’t feel seen… N doesn’t really laugh at my jokes…I don’t think we are soulmates… 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 want to move on or commit… I don’t want to make the wrong decision and make him the one that got away. I also don’t want to be ungrateful and expect that there’s something better out there for me, that feels like dangerous territory of having too high of standards that I’m single forever… I am exhausted with this decision and thought the answer would have come to me by now“.
Oct 13, 2023: “My dad felt unseen and would internally accuse me of not seeing his pain and empathizing with him… My dad to this day still very often misinterprets what I do and who I am and it hurts every time, he thinks I am selfish and is probably why I have fears of being selfish or narcissistic. It is scary when someone tells you that you are coming across a certain way that is unbeknownst to you, it makes me self conscious about how I do come across, which if I let myself overthink this I become awkward in social situations… I find myself wanting to criticize my partner for similar things my dad criticized me for, like ‘not seeing me.’ A mentality like, if I have to be hyper aware of what I am doing, like responding to messages, cleaning up after myself hyper-vigilantly, making sure YOU are seen, then why shouldn’t you have to be too.. Like he will leave a mess at my apartment, something I would be way too self conscious to do at his house and I have to actively stop myself from resenting that he feels the freedom to do those things and I cannot live with it. As if I wish he had the same anxieties as me… I just wish he could at least empathize my internal torment“.
Oct 16, 2023: “He feels he is always consoling me and sometimes does not have the patience to do so… So far the only things that makes me feel better are talking about it and feeling he understands why it bothers me, otherwise I also get an impulse to pull away… it has ruined dates before, where I feel unsettled/triggered the whole time and struggle to move on, and become irritated how quickly he moves on… I feel I am falling out of love with him because of how worn out I feel from being triggered at a faster rate than I can heal… so much of our relationship in the last year has been about me and my triggers… we rarely go a whole day without him triggering me in some way… I recently find myself breaking up with him in my head and how I would explain myself, but I do not want to lose him”.
May 13, 2024 (you are the one adding the boldface feature here): “Despite my best efforts to want to just let go completely, it seems it’s like a boomerang, just as I think it is the farthest it has ever been, it comes shooting back… I fear that he will improve for someone else, and it was me who wasn’t worth it, that I didn’t do enough in the relationship. My desire is to just fully let go! And I feel like I have.. but then this boomerang came back to me the past 3 days or so… I am afraid it is right and that my path won’t ever lead me to another partner… these emotions are uncomfortable and I find myself wanting to escape them with alcohol, weed, tv, even contacting him”.
Very well health. com: “Relationship OCD (ROCD) is a form of obsessive-compulsive disorder that involves obsessions, preoccupations, doubts, and compulsive behaviors related to a relationship with another person… This article focuses on ROCD in romantic relationships, exploring the causes, symptoms, and ways of managing ROCD.
“Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is a mental health disorder characterized by intrusive and distressing thoughts, impulses (obsessions), and repetitive behaviors (compulsions). ROCD is a form of OCD that is explicitly focused on relationships.
“Having some degree of worry or doubt in a relationship is typical. Still, for people with relationship OCD, these preoccupations significantly disrupt the relationship and the person’s ability to function as an individual. They constantly analyze themselves, their partner, or their relationship, obsessing over even minor perceived flaws…
“Obsessive symptoms in ROCD can include: * Extreme fear of making the wrong relationship-related decision (alternating between anxiety over the thought of leaving the relationship and anxiety over being ‘trapped’ in the wrong relationship) * Overwhelming doubts and fears relating to how they feel toward their partner, how they believe their partner feels about them, and whether or not the relationship is ‘right’. * Hyper-focusing on perceived flaws they see in their partner * Fear that they aren’t ‘good enough’ for their partner …
”People with ROCD may perceive innocuous thoughts and behaviors as ‘signs’ that they don’t really love their partner or that their relationship isn’t viable. These can include:* Not thinking about their partner all day long * Not completely enjoying a kiss or act of intimacy * Noticing that another person is attractive * Enjoying having time to themselves on occasion * Not always being in the mood for sexual intimacy…
“Compulsive Behaviors: People with ROCD engage in compulsive behaviors in an attempt to relieve the anxiety caused by their obsessions. Compulsive behaviors common in ROCD include: * Monitoring/checking their feelings * Comparing, such as comparing their partner’s attributes to other potential partners or comparing their relationship to those around them, past relationships, relationships on TV, etc. * Neutralizing, such as picturing themselves and their partner happy together or trying to recall good experiences with their partner * Reassurance-seeking about their partner or relationship by consulting with friends, family, therapists, or even psychic… * Being constantly on a quest for ‘perfect’ love * Creating rules for their partner and questioning the relationship if their partner does not uphold them… Compulsive behaviors may provide temporary relief from obsessive thoughts, but the obsessions always return.
“The age of onset of ROCD is not known. Still, clinical evidence has shown symptoms often begin to present in early adulthood or when a person is first faced with commitment-related romantic decisions… ROCD symptoms often persist from one relationship to another and can occur when a person is not actively in a relationship (such as having obsessions about past or future relationships)…
“Summary: ROCD is a form of obsessive-compulsive disorder in which a person experiences obsessions and compulsions related to their relationships. It can involve symptoms such as constantly questioning if they really want to be with their partner, being hyper-focused on perceived flaws they see in their partner, and seeking reassurance or proof that their relationship is “right.” ROCD can cause distress to the individual experiencing it and strain their relationship. ROCD is typically treated with therapy, particularly CBT or ERP, but medication may be prescribed if necessary to help with symptom relief.”
I suggested ROCD to you before, but you didn’t consider it back then. Today, I am amazed by how fitting the description of ROCD is with what you shared throughout your many posts (many, many more and longer than what I quoted above), the fit is huge. Psychotherapy that aims to treat ROCD can be a huge help for you.
Notice this quote from very well health: “ROCD symptoms often persist from one relationship to another and can occur when a person is not actively in a relationship (such as having obsessions about past or future relationships)“- you are not actively in a relationship with N- at least not when you posted last- but ROCD symptoms persist in regard to N while not in a relationship with him. In a future relationship with a different man, symptoms are likely to persist. The way I see it: no man can be perfect enough to make you feel seen and content when it is still your father’s unseeing and disapproving eyes that you see.
Fear is a very powerful emotion, a very powerful energy in-motion. I no longer have these dreams, but I used to: my mother looking at me, saying nothing, just staring at me with undeniable disapproval and condemnation. That’s all. Interpreting this dream using chakra language: her staring at me with condemnation blinded my third eye, created an earthquake in my crown chakra and hit my heart chakra with a dagger, making me bleed to (almost) death.
Remember you shared that you were watched like a hawk, and I responded with: you were watched, but you were not seen? This is true to my experience and my dream above: she watched me; she didn’t see me. If she saw me, she would have approved of me, which would have made it possible for her to love me (for how can you love someone you disapprove of?)
A parent’s disapproving/ condemning look hits a child’s heart like a dagger, an emotional dagger. I don’t have that dream anymore, but when I notice someone sigh, I automatically think it’s a disapproving (of me) sigh. When I notice an unhappy look, I still think it’s a disapproving look. I still see her in other people. (And so, I don’t really see other people when I see her in them).
You are not a beginner, Seaturtle, you have insight (3rd eye) and a lot more. I learn from you. And/ but.. when a parent’s legacy is a condemning look/ message, it is very difficult to recover from.
anita
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