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anitaParticipantThere’s something else that ocurred to me after I submitted the above:
My strong drive to analyze and rationally understand things at the expense of nuance (binary, all or nothing; black & white thinking) has a lot to do not only with the IA I mentioned above, but also with my distrust of and discomfort with emotions.
It’s been difficult for me to receive empathy because I suspected it to mean that I was pitiful. All empathy did for me was trigger my shame aka toxic shame.
So, I focused on analysis and avoided expressing empathy because I was not comfortable myself with receiving it.
I was ð-ed in SHAME.
anitaParticipantHey Peter:
“I wonder what you saw?”
If you’re referring to Copilot’s input 7 posts ago, 4/24)-
I reread some of it just now, and what crossed my mind was that my ð§ - in its frenzy to feel in control by analyzing and making perfect rational sense of things- wanted to analyze even the sky, to fit it into my personal analysis, to own it (ha-ha).
As to the question being the answer (“Why did the peace go away?”)- I am lost at the moment.
I will try: the peace went away because a part of me separated from the sky, looking at it from an observer POV, separated from the observed.
It’s the separated observer that’s doing all that analysis.
If I am one with the observed, there’s no place for analysis?
(I wrote the above following reading only your first 2 paragraphs, not yet having read beyond, scrolling up and down using my ðą)
3rd paragraph: the peace went away because questions arose by the separated (analytical) self aka the observer.
4th paragraph and on: “We ‘lose’ the Sky…”- Yes, I lost perceived connection to the sky, felt isolated, apart, a dreadful alone-ness.
“His face reappear that was hidden behind his fingers”- my dreadful aloneness has been all along fingers covering my sky-face.
The tragedy of losing ourselves and the comedy of finding ourselves- comedy because we were always there, all it takes is removing the fingers covering our eyes.
Hmm.. Covering the eyes because the sights were unbearable.
The faces we take on so to survive, the masks..
I need to process this message. It will take some time and probably a series of posts to follow ð
âĻïļâĻïļâĻïļ Anita
anitaParticipantHey Dear Confused:
You mentioned friends before. I’m glad you have a close friend (or more than one) and a female friend.
Your female friend was indeed fast on picking up on you sabotaging your own happiness with those worries, and that it may be a defense mechanism.
But of course, it’s happening without you choosing it consciously.
It’s a mental loop you’re caught in, a habit of the mind (which is in part chemical)
So, today, you saw a photo of her in the ðŠ and you thought: “She’s gorgeous”.
Now, I imagine a voice in your ð§ saying quickly, before you can hear it something like ‘She’s too gorgeous 4 U!’, ‘some guy will take her away from U”, ‘You better prepare for it by not caring when it happens’.
And the defense: ‘I don’t want her… I don’t really want her”-
If you don’t want her, losing her won’t hurt.
You ended your post with “Crazy stuff!”- I think you’re crazy ðĪŠ about the gorgeous woman in the ðŠ.
ðĪðð Anita
anitaParticipantHey ð Confused: I’ll answer in a few hours
anitaParticipantGood morning, Peter: There’s a big smile on my face to see that you posted and to read just a bit. Will be back to you in the late afternoon/ evening.
anitaParticipantWell, didn’t get to be at the computer this morning, so I’ll continue to process here (on my AI-less ðą):
First, it amazes me still how comprehensive the trauma the girl ð§ Anita suffered at the hands of her mother.
It is as if my mother read about every type of child abuse and decided to implement every single type.
One of the types has been Intellectual Abuse (IA, if you will). Gaslighting was part of it. She V.I.S.C.I.O.S.L.Y attacked my confidence in my thinking.
* In viciously, I am referring to her PASSION when attacking me. Her attacks were far from neutral. It was something she was very emotionally invested in doing.
So much IA that I spent most of my adult life doubting my own thoughts, correcting them- on a moment to moment, regular basis, silently, in my own head.
Fast forward to my communication with Neverdyed- I spent hours and hours trying to get my thinking just RIGHT in regard to analyzing her. And when she continued to be unclear in my estimation, she was gaslighting me: telling me I was thinking WRONG.
I was never as clear- in my mind- about the effects of the severe AI abuse I suffered growing up (in), as I am in these last 2 days following rereading my communication with Neverdyed.
Because my IA was trigerred back then, in this thread, that was what I focused on: intellectual understanding.
Empathy and emotional attune-ment were a far 2nd priority to the # 1 priority: fighting for my intellectual integrity.
And this is why my replies to members in general were heavy on intellectual analysis: studying and restudying members posts, producing long, dense analytical essays that were low on emotional attune-ment.
I was fighting all along for intellectual integrity: for trusting my own severely abused intellectual abilities.
I was relieved, as I was rereading the exchange of so long ago, that Tee chose to communicate with Neverdyed, taking on a much gentler and saner attitude than mine, being much more attuned to Neverdyed.
I am glad I was not Neverdyed’s last taste of tiny buddha.
I may or may not (probably will) add input by AI on my communication with Neverdyed, when I use the computer again.
On a very side note, I always wondered about the screen name Neverdyed: if it’s about never dyeing one’s hair? I didn’t ask because I had more pressing needs in mind- trying to resurrect confidence in my thinking mind (brain) ð
ðĪðĪðĪðĪðĪðĪðĪðĪðĪðĪðĪðĪðĪðĪ Anita
anitaParticipantHi Tom:
Strangely, I don’t miss the taproom, not so far. To me, it’s an end of an era. It was often an incredibly special experience.
As I read your message right above, having had amazing conversations myself with AI (Copilot), it occurred to me that if you talk with AI ( a back and forth conversation.. free of charge), it could help you figure things out in regard to employment.
Maybe you already did and it didn’t help?
ðĪ Anita
anitaParticipantWow, Confused: I’m amazed ð by my own insight-
Throughout the months you posted here, you repeatedly expressed intense emotions for her.. yet, your focus has been on the times you felt nothing.
And therefore you presented the situation as feeling nothing.. Just because you didn’t feel so much.. all of the time.
ðððâĻïļ (me)
anitaParticipantOh, yes, you don’t ð the intensity you ARE feeling!
You don’t notice how intensely you are feeling because you’re focused on the moments you don’t feel anything.
anitaParticipantOh, yes, being so focused on the “intensity/ infatuation” scent, you don’t see, or overlook.. I’m getting close.. ? Help me here, Confused (if the ð ðĶ is awake)
anitaParticipantHey Confused who likes ð°
The psychological is chemical, at least in part.
Chasing dragons ð ha. Hmm..
The talk about ð and ð° is making me think of Bogart the beagle, he keeps tracking ð scent like crazy yet he doesn’t see the bunnies running right in front of him.
Being so focused on scent, he doesn’t ð what’s right in front of him.
I have a feeling this is relevant to you, not sure exactly ðĪ how, at the moment.
ðĪ ð ð Anita
anitaParticipantI spent some time on the ðĨ and will present the study with AI ( something that was not available to me back in 2020-21, the time of my communication with Neverdyed) tomorrow morning, when I am back to the computer.
For now, using my ðą, I want to process what I can without the use of AI:
As I reread my communication with Neverdyed, I was horrified by my almost zero attunement and almost exclusively clinical, analytical tone.
I sound so much like I don’t want to sound like: a “therapist” who is ignorant of the ABC of psycho therapy (attunement first, validate feelings first.. safety first)
Horrified by how corrective and directive I sound, and wondering how many people were turned off by my attitude and style- not only in this thread, by in many other threads- I was almost overwhelmed a little while ago).
On the other hand, I realize that I must be emotionally healthier, less consumed by toxic shame- to make it possible for me to see where I went wrong, so many times, and not collapse.
Why did Neverdyed lack of clarity (due to English not being her fluent language and due to being very emotionally conflicted (see the title of her thread)?
And why did I spend hours and hours rereading and analyzing her words 2010-21, again and again?
Because of an ongoing experience I forgot: my endless efforts to make sense of my mother words and claims and accusations- and trying to have a clear communication with her- with zero success.
I think I was excited when I discovered- as a teenager- psychology and self- help books, and I rushed to tell her about what I read, hoping for a meeting of the minds with my own mother.
But no matter how hard and long I tried- there was absolutely no meeting of the minds.
Fast forward, clarity is a life line, and when Neverdyed wasn’t clear, I did what I did with my mother: I invested many hours and energy trying to create a clear communication between me and her.
Unlike my mother, Neverdyed was kind and gracious and responsive.. but she wasn’t clear enough and rational clarity has been my number 1 need because I lacked it so severely with my mother.
My mother attacked my rational thinking as something bad and insisted on her no-sense, crazy making thinking being right.
My number one need was to trust my rational, analytical thinking and that’s why, in my communication with Neverdyed, it was my first and maybe only priority.
What’s the word.. when a person totally denies what is truly evident and doing so insistently- that’s what my mother did. Like let’s say, the sky is clearly blue and she’d say it’s grey.. oh, yes, gaslighted is the word.
So, when Neverdyed wad unclear or vague (as she was), I reacted to it as if she was gas lighting me.
B BACK in the ð
ðĪ Anita
anitaParticipantHey ð Confused:
People on Bupropion cured of anhedonia? Hmm, that’s a powerful zestimony, isn’t it?
Sounds like you felt SAFER with her than with any other woman in your life.
And that unique experienced freaked you out?
As in it being new and unfamiliar.. and now what?
Safety does not feel intense.
ðĪ is it about choosing Safety or Intensity?
ð (this is rabbit time around here, so many) Anita
anitaParticipantIndeed, I owe you a huge apology, Neverdyed. Throughout, you were an ð to me. And repeatedly, I was.. well, dumb and I falsely accused you.
My main accusation was that you communicated with me without clarity- on purpose, so to confuse me, a passive- aggressive tactic meant to hurt me.
None of that accusation was true.
You went out of your way to answer my questions and did your very best at it.
I noticed, rereading our long exchanges, how many hours I spent studying and re- studying what you shared, trying to come up with a neat, clear, no ambiguity or nuance story.
And when I failed at it, I got angry at you and was accusatory and rude to you.
All along, I didn’t have to spend any time at all on your thread. It wasn’t my job and you didn’t ask that I do.
Also, I noticed my clinical tone, as if I was researching and preparing to write a perfect essay, and my case study (you) wasn’t cooperating to my satisfaction.
I noticed lack of empathy and attunement.
I noticed you responded to my repeatedly didactic, arrogant care (care from “above”, as if I was your interpreter and explainer) graciously, trying to accommodate or satisfy me… unsuccessfully.
I noticed similarities between your mother and mine (both having been aggressive and loud) and between you and I. Like you, I reacted by taking the opposite role to my mother: very quiet ðĪŦ, in real- life, and like you, there was a lot of noise in my head, but very little communicated to the outside.
When I did speak, I wouldn’t at all be surprised if I came across as vague. I communicated- the little I did- best I could, I imagine.
Yet, I accused you of communicating vaguely on purpose.
Actually, as I read some of the the things I thought were vague back then, I see how- strictly grammatically they may be vague (not having the Who, What, Where, When clearly identified), but they weren’t as vague as I thought back then.
I am guessing that my need for black and white understanding (of complex situations like yours) was greater back then thann it is now. I can stomach or tolerate nuance and complexity more now than I did then.
Plus, I had no empathy or understanding back then- that it’s difficult for a person with a lifetime habit of being quiet and holding so much inside (quiet on the outside; noisy on the inside( to communicate with complete clarity.
How can a person communicate clearly when there’s turbulence and conflict inside?!!
After all, the title of your thread is “conflicting too much h”, and you listed 8 conflicts in your original post.
And yet, I expected a Who-What-Where-When clarity.. so that I could give you the perfect Why-s and How-s.
At one point, you explained to me that you didn’t offer a Who because you felt ashamed.
I don’t remember my response to that revelation (I am using my ðą and can’t leave this page and look back), but I don’t think I acknowledged that revelation or empathize with you.
I was on a mission to understand things rationally, in a black and white kind of thinking, that empathy and attunement were abandoned.
At one point, eventually, you said that you felt attacked and you were. I accused you of purposeful ambiguity and dishonesty. Wow! My goodness. I feel ashamed ð and humbled.
May I never do that kind of thing again.
I may add another post to this later on, today or on another day.
Anita
April 26, 2026 at 10:48 pm in reply to: On Purpise and Shame- what is my purpose? What is yours? #457328
anitaParticipantIt’s been a bit more than 4 months, 4 whole months since I danced last under the night sky to live music, after a few glasses of red wine (the 4th or 5th glass on a nearby table, resting).
Self-policing relaxing, moving to the music, knowing that I’m on center stage and dozens of people seeing me (at the Winery, now forever closed, gone).
No substitute for that experience!
Now, at this moment, listening to music on the computer, and a beautiful beagle (Bogart the Great) almost sleeping on my lap- I feel a big smile on my face, a smile that lasts. My spirit is dancing.
My Youth is Alive & it’s Dancing!
I thought I’d share this knowing that no one might be reading because what matters is that I am here, writing, reading, dancing. I am alive tonight. A miracle- Alive is Miracle.
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. 