Forum Replies Created
-
AuthorPosts
-
March 6, 2024 at 2:11 pm in reply to: Telling the difference between gut and fear in relationships #428442
anitaParticipantDear Seaturtle:
“Ever since the text exchange I feel like stress/worry was slowly encroaching on my third eye“- there is no doubt that during the exchange, his purpose was to hurt you, and he succeeded.
“What was I thinking? Enter N’s territory so that he could show me more contempt?“- the spider/ fly analogy definitely fits the situation since the breakup, if not before.
“The idea of not seeing him again, relieved me“- yes, it’d be sticky and stressful to get caught in a spider-web of contempt.
“My roommate also said ‘the text exchange showed his maturity, but it was also you initiating it, you entering places for him to harm you.’ This hit my hard, me putting me in those situations, it was under my control to do this. I felt empowered when I realized the control I have over him harming me.. Thank goodness for M“-
– I am impressed with M’s input. True, it’d be unwise for the fly to knowingly, while in control of itself, enter a spider’s web. As far as N’s maturity, M is correct: he acts immaturely, at least post-breakup.
“A Teflon person like N and F, they claim to be simple, proud of their lack of needs, yet this is a complexity in itself..“- “lack of needs”? I am at a loss here.
“Third eye must rest sometimes right? So when it rests, how do I remember this, when only the children are awake, sacral and heart. I assume over time of the repetition, the third eye repeating to the children over and over until absorbed“- all chakras need rest, and nothing remains static when a person lives with an expanding crown chakra.. the children (heart and sacral chakras) don’t remain the same.. they mature some, over time.
“The guilt is great, it is something that took over me the last week, triggered by his messages. Probably triggered in the relationship.. he told me before that I didn’t listen“- this has been N’s MO all along, hasn’t it? You’d tell him (as kindly and well-intentioned as can be): you are X (X being something requiring improvement), and his response: you are X!.. not mature (pre-breakup)
“This brings me joy and understanding as to why you see me so well“- I have the motivation to see you well, and you were patient and didn’t withdraw (from our communication) when I didn’t see you well, giving me the opportunity to correct and see you better.
“When I read this, I thought about how when I nanny this 18 month year old, me and her parents are telling her ‘that is a tree’ ‘this is yellow’ ‘that is hot, this is cold.’ From my understanding our formative years are creating this inner world.. Now as an adult, I am attempting to undo some of the inner world that was created incorrectly/misleading… right?“- yes, learning and relearning (expanding crown chakra).
“What would happen if a child grew up with no one telling them labels“- it will be chaos. Children need guidance, and there’s no guidance without labels. key is to give correct labels that make sense!
“This is amazing, I wonder what more you see now?“- because of you, my third eye sees better and my crown chakra is expanded.. because you were patient (and not aggressive or passive-aggressive) when I was wrong, and that gave me the opportunity to open my 3rd eye wider. You made me a wiser person, wiser than I was, that is.
“This is a bees knees moment!“- reading this, it so happens, made me notice a smile on my face, the first today, and it’s already afternoon.
2nd post: “I have always been a ‘coachable’ person… following instructions well… When told I wasn’t loving right, by my dad, I think I just looked at it the same as a sport, he’s right and I can be taught…”– this fits with what you shared earlier, that you were an obedient child/ daughter.
“I do know how to love – My affirmation.“- yes you do.
“I don’t owe him loyalty. Although he does have a way of making me feel like I do. Even his words, he told me and my siblings all our successes are due to him, what we earn in life is because of where he started us. He loves the baseball analogy ‘you can’t say you hit a home run if you were born on third.‘”- his housecleaning sessions were about him being self centered and selfish, not about you being these things.
“Although I know this I still feel it engrained in my ‘inner world’… Getting rid of these road bumps/these untrue messages, is the hard part that I am trying to do now…. how do I get rid of these bumps, now that they are spotted“- there are excellent exercises in doing just that, part of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). There are worksheets on the topic available online (I just checked).
“Having an ah-ha moment here; this is exactly what I mean when I say I wanted N to see me. When I said “my mom sees me, why can’t he?” this is the seeing I was talking about, or at least a major part of it, that I am loving. I am.“- yes, you are! (second smile of the day is on my face).
“This brings me to an ah-ha moment I had last night. I am watching a show called ‘the bachelor’ with my roommate M… M made a comment to me, she said ‘maybe this is why you go for men that are not available to you, you like it’…………. (wide eyes emoji). I am now asking myself why do I find an attraction to the type of relationship where one person tries to get the other to be vulnerable… I wonder what I witnessed as a child that I don’t remember“- my understanding: living with F, you tried to reach into F’s closed heart chakra, soften the rough interior there and remove the Teflon (maybe you forgot those efforts on your part). Fast forward, Teflon-minded N (with heart chakra difficulties) reminded you of F, awakening your motivation (hence the attraction) to reach out into N’s heart chakra, and remove his Teflon.
“Another ah-ha moment I had with M… the ah-ha moment was that (N) began to create those experiences, by putting us in risky situations… he wanted the thrill… he put (his nephew) in the shopping cart then ran in the store with the cart as he stood on the rim and I was terrified it would tip. Somehow N’s Teflon is different than F’s in that sometimes N craves feeling, but maybe to feel past his Teflon he must enter into risky scenarios, whereas F is fine staying in a comfortable resort for all of his trips“- I think that N was/ is emotionally numb chronically, and his way of taking breaks from his chronic numbness is to put himself and others in situations that are physically risky.
This takes me back to your very first post on July 29, 2023: “I’ve tried to communicate about how I want him to compliment me, or be flirtatious. He tries, but it almost gives me an ick the way he does it“- it’s hard for an emotionally numb person to compliment and flirt in any way that comes across as natural. When he tried, it came across icky.
“My flirtation is lost on him“- again, numb.
“He often says ‘love is a choice’“- because for him, being chronically numb… love is not a feeling…???
* I did not respond to everything you brought up. Anything important to you that I missed?
anita
March 6, 2024 at 12:26 pm in reply to: Telling the difference between gut and fear in relationships #428432anitaParticipant* Working on my replies…
anitaParticipantDear Sandy:
“Being given the silent treatment… I find myself going over a series of events multiple times and wanting to speak out and fixating on what to say and what the best ways to say it“-
– it gets very noisy inside you when you get angry silence from the outside.
“I’ve forgotten how to express my feelings because he hasn’t allowed me… I do not want to be quiet, I want to have a healthy, balanced conversation… I’m just stuck“-
– the loudest part of your internal noise is feeling at fault (“I cannot help but constantly feel at fault”), is it? If so, would you like to elaborate on your history of feeling-at-fault, past and present, give it a voice here, so that it will not be so loud on the inside, so loud that it keeps you stuck?
anita
March 6, 2024 at 11:07 am in reply to: Telling the difference between gut and fear in relationships #428428anitaParticipantDear more awake Seaturtle: thank you for the note!
anita
anitaParticipantContinued:
I noticed an improvement (not the disappearance of, of course) in my level of daily anxiety since I started this thread, and last night I had the best night sleep I had in the longest time, what an improved feeling this morning!
The improvement I am experiencing makes me hopeful as to the process of (partial) Healing the dis-ease of Anxiety. I am crediting this improvement to first, my hope that there can be long-term Healing of Anxiety, that it is possible, and second to my most recent realization, an understanding I didn’t have before: that in Anxiety, there is an instinctual belief that Fear helps one survive, or be better equipped to effectively manage life.
Fear, as I experienced it when I faced the coyote, my first 1-to-1 experience of a natural predator/prey kind was not a distressing experience, there was no lack of ease (a dis-ease). It felt good! Now I understand why many people enjoy scary movies (I used to). If scary movies caused people anxiety (dis-ease), people wouldn’t keep watching them. I suppose this is why many people seek scary sports and activities like rock climbing and jumping off a plane: if those activities caused the people who did them Anxiety, they wouldn’t do them again! Fear feels good.
Fear is part of Anxiety, but there is more to anxiety than Fear, and that more makes anxiety a bad-feeling experience. Anxiety never feels good. Fear led me to focus on the coyote and the world around me; I was one with nature/ the world around, I felt elated, capable, powerful. Anxiety leads me to focus on the inside of me, in a negative way, being turned inward, separated from nature/ the world around, feeling depressed, incapable, powerless.
Because Fear is an ingredient in the mix that makes Anxiety, our instinctual belief that Fear HELPS is carried into the Anxiety experience, and we support and maintain that which we believe is helpful, or will help. But this belief is a false belief: anxiety is never helpful.
What’s more to Fear in the experience of Anxiety?
My answer (to my question): damage that was accumulated over years and longer.
To explain the Damage, I will go back to my experience with a predator, but a different kind of predator than the coyote of 2021: my mother, my personal emotional predator. Looking back at the 2021 predator-prey moments, I didn’t and don’t feel anger at the coyote: for one, I did not suffer any injury, no negative consequences, second: the natural job of a predator is to prey on species smaller or weaker than itself (and if very hungry, considers preying on a bigger/ stronger species). it wasn’t personal. My experience with the coyote did not interfere with me continuing the same daily walk after the 2- days confrontations.
But with my emotional predator it was very personal. And very unnatural. A mother is not designed or supposed to attack her own child. It is not in her instinctual job description. I bet it never happens in nature unless the mother is deranged, and is in very abnormal circumstances.
* It happens in human society, it happens a lot, that people, including mothers, are deranged and life circumstances are indeed too often abnormal.
Back to my emotional predatory childhood experience: unlike the short-term (a few moments) of my experience with the coyote, two days of a few moments of encounter on each day, my experience with my mother lasted days, months, years.. an eternity (with breaks, of course). At first, I am sure there was Fear, but that Fear- over such a long, long time- metastasized into something else: Anxiety.
Facing the coyote, I knew the danger, and when he ran away, I knew the danger was gone. With my mother, I didn’t want her to run away, I needed her to.. (change and be what a mother is supposed to be), and I had nowhere to run, too needy to run, no way to fight, too guilty to fight because I believed (falsely) that I deserved her attacks.
And so, what happened, over time, to the instinctual need within me to run or fight my personal predator?
The running and fighting turned inward: “running” inside of me, creating that sickening rush that characterizes anxiety; “fighting” inside me, creating this disquiet/ distress/ dis-ease that characterizes anxiety. The natural, helpful Fight-Flight Response to Fear turned inward, repeatedly, over a period of years, unnatural and harmful, creating damage: TS, OCD, ADD, cognitive and emotional dysfunction, in my case.
To be continued.
anita
anitaParticipant* Dear Timothy: thank you for the note and the sentiment. It is not all my memory though, you too can get information on a member’s past threads and posts by clicking on a member’s screen name. I just clicked on your name and I see that the above is the first post you submitted on the forums, and that you never started your own thread (or if you did, you had it deleted).
Would you like to start your own thread on a topic of your choosing?
anita
anitaParticipantDear bella ciao:
I want to put all that you shared together so to see your story as clearly as I can: you are a Christian woman who had a 2.5 years relationship with a younger, Muslim man. From the very beginning of the relationship, he told you that he could not marry you (at any time in the future) because of his culture. Sometime along the relationship, his family arranged a marriage for him, and the two of you decided to part ways so that it will not be so hurtful for you to be with in a relationship with a man who is about to get married.
The two of you parted ways and he got married. After he got married, he contacted you and told you that he married the other woman (now his wife) so to make his family happy, and now, that he “has given that happiness” to them, it is time for him to “follow his heart” and be with “the one for him” (you). He wants to marry you via an Islamic religious ceremony, and live in one household with two wives: with the one for him and with.. the one who is not for him.
Your current state of mind: “My mind has been messed up because he is confusing me a lot… I am trying to understand too what is going on… I am not used to it, sharing with other people. I love him so much and he loves me too. I know this is sound crazy and stupid. I’m losing my mind. Please help me (figure out) what I need to do“-
My current understanding based only on what you shared: he is not a bad person, he told you right from the start what he believed was true: that he couldn’t marry you because of the arranged marriage culture he was born into, (and you not fitting what his parents would choose for him, I figure, being that you are not Muslim, and perhaps that you are older than him). He was honest with you, straightforward.
I don’t fault him for agreeing to marry a woman of his parents’ choosing because there is a huge pressure in this culture to obey the parents and marry whom they choose. Many parents in this culture go to great lengths to pressure an disobedient/ rebellious son, including threatening to commit suicide if the son refuses the arranged marriage.
Seems to me that he sincerely loves you and he came up with a solution: be the obedient son (remain married to the woman they chose for him) and marry the woman he chooses for himself. He plans to live with the two women in the same household, and I assume, have children with her, and maybe with you as well (?). I figure that he asked and got his parents’ permission to put his solution into practice.
First question is: is his solution a solution for you as well, or is it a problem? For his solution to be yours as well, you’d have to be okay with sharing your man with another woman, with seeing him enter her bedroom some of the nights while you remain alone in your bedroom, knowing what is happening in the other bedroom. You’d have to be okay with not asking him questions about how he feels about her.. and does he still love you and not her, if there are changes in how he feels for you, and for her.
You’d have to be okay with seeing his other wife the mornings after she spends the night with him (and she’d have to be okay with seeing you the morning after you spend the night with him), and be nice to her. The two women you will need to cooperate well and be an effective team in one household in regard to house chores, child caretaking.. as well as taking care of his parents at one point on (if he is their oldest/ only son, or only capable son), because this too is part of the culture.
Your place in the household would be based on him following his heart while her place in the household is (already) based on following the centuries old practice of arranged marriages. Whose basis- and power- in the household is stronger: yours or hers? Depending on her nature, she might abuse her power in the household and demand obedience from you. If his parents join the household, they are likely to ignore such power-difference (after all, she is their choice), or join her in taking on the position of power and dominance over you.
What do you think about my understanding at this point?
anita
March 5, 2024 at 5:55 pm in reply to: Telling the difference between gut and fear in relationships #428407anitaParticipantDear Seaturtle: Thank you for the note, exhausted Seaturtle and good night to you may peace envelope you tonight.
anita
anitaParticipantContinued, this is my new understanding:
Fear is helpful and necessary when facing real-and-present danger. There is a real positive association between fear and survival. Fear makes a person strong and capable. When a person is Anxious, he/ she is suffering from fear-gone-haywire, a diseased-fear, if you will. Anxiety makes a person weak and incapable.
The anxious person believes- without necessarily being aware of the belief- that anxiety (like fear) is helpful, that there is a real, positive association between anxiety and survival. Therefore, the anxious person worries and ruminates on and on and on.. sort of, extending the anxiety, thinking that the extended anxiety will pay off.
Fear promotes survival, fear is helpful; anxiety is never helpful, it never promotes survival. While anxious, the person is less likely to do what needs to be done to survive/ improve his or her situation. It is very important for the anxious person to distinguish between fear and diseased-fear, aka anxiety, and to remove the deep, false belief that anxiety is helpful.
anita
March 5, 2024 at 11:23 am in reply to: growing up – becoming adul / procrastination – in connection to childhood trauma #428402anitaParticipantDear Robi:
You are welcome, and congrats on having started your new job!
“Saturday and Sunday I felt quite anxious.. I would very often start crying. On Sunday I cried for a long, long time, talked to my girlfriend and went to sleep early… I think crying helped me a lot… So on Monday I woke up a lot more relaxed, almost ‘careless’… but I feel ashamed to talk to her when I’m in a very low mood.. especially if I feel like crying. I don’t know.. maybe it’s the way we’ve been told masculinity is supposed to be like“-
– It is sad and unfair to boys and men to grow up with this message that “big boys don’t cry” (as the song says) because statistically, men end up dying at younger ages than women because of unreleased stress/ anxiety. So, please, do cry.
“The head teacher seems to trust me a lot giving me responsibilities I have no idea about so I feel like I’m impersonating someone who knows what he’s doing“- keep impersonating someone who knows what he’s doing until such time that you know what you’re doing..
“I don’t feel like teaching English is necessarily my kind of job.. but then again.. nothing seems to be“- some day you will find yourself feeling, on a regular, consistent basis, that you belong somewhere, that you are a real part of something (a place, a job, a relationship).
“I have to make sure I don’t procrastinate and put in the effort needed to plan my lessons. I think, If I do that, things might work quite well. I have the habit of walking in the classroom with no plan at all ( because I procrastinate ), then panic because I have no plan at all and don’t know what to do“- it is difficult to change habits. Procrastinating has served a valid need for you, which is, seems to me, to lower your anxiety level. To change something that serves you takes a strong motivation and a plan.
“Today and tomorrow I want to focus on planning my Wednesday classes – this time I hope I’ll have the structure and make everything work better“- planning and having structure in your day are very important when it comes to changing a habit.
“As for the anxiety, I don’t know what to do. I’d like to deal with it and heal that wounded child in me. But what if I cry.. for a little bit, whenever I feel like it? Isn’t that a way of releasing some of the stress?“- crying is fine! And so is planning and structure in your day, these three things will help lower your anxiety and form a new habit.
“Have a good day Anita, take good care!“- thank you, and you too!
anita
anitaParticipantDear bella ciao:
You shared that your Muslim ex-boyfriend of 2.5 years got married to another woman, an arranged marriage. Following his marriage to the other woman, he offered to marry you (“he is asking me to do this relationship halal. and he wants to marry me“)-
– I am trying to understand, therefore I ask: do you mean that he wants to marry you legally after he divorces the other woman, or does he want to “marry” you via a religious ceremony only, while living with his wife part-time and with you part-time as well?
anita
March 5, 2024 at 10:16 am in reply to: Telling the difference between gut and fear in relationships #428400anitaParticipantDear Seaturtle:
“These doubts come to my head. They aren’t gone… which tells me my third eye is tired? I wonder why I have these doubts so intensely the past couple weeks, so you (think) that text exchange just really impacted me more than I can still even give it credit?“- yes, the text exchange about 2 weeks ago impacted you a lot. Looking back (again) at the exchange, he blamed you for making him feel badly (“Words can’t describe how you’ve made me feel”), and he.. proceeded with his attempts to make you feel badly (“I have no desire to waste any more energy with you.. You have no clue what love is.. I don’t know where any of your stuff “). The result: his efforts to make you feel badly have succeeded, and for 2 weeks you felt doubtful, guilty and exhausted (“exhausted Seaturtle”), 3rd eye closing due to exhaustion.
“What is this fantasy fulfilling in me to keep? I once learned in therapy that ‘you’re struggling to make the change because the old behavior is still meeting a need.’ So I wonder what is this need, why am I having a painful fantasy that he could have evolved for me. Why am I doing this to myself“- back to the exchange: “Him: ‘you have no clue what love is’ Me: ‘yea I realize that. Him: (Thumbs up emoji)'”-
-N repeated F’s message that you don’t know how to love, that you have no clue what love is. Going back to your post on Oct 11 last year, about F: “Every 3 months, not an exaggeration, we would have what he began to call ‘house cleaning’ where we would sit down and he would list all the ways I had exemplified being ‘ungrateful’ at his house”- ungrateful, as in unloving, having no clue what love is .
F’s “evidence” that you have no clue what love is: “The shoes by the door, dishes in the sink, backpack/clothes downstairs, my messy bedroom, messy car, how I didn’t think about him and cook him dinner…”. Your reaction to F’s (untrue) message: “While I lived with him I went through a lot of suicidal thoughts and running away attempts”.
Fast forward, N repeats F’s message and the message “really impacted (you)”.
I think that the fantasy that pulls you toward trying to change N is the same fantasy involving F: the fantasy of hearing F/N say something like: I was wrong about you, Seaturtale, you do know how to love!
I now understand why you agreed with N when he said that you have no clue what love is: F said the same thing in his ways (those housecleaning sessions) and you believed him (F.. and N).
“Fantasizing him seeing me is still fulfilling a need.. as it did in the relationship. My need to be seen. So all of this is because I still don’t feel seen, even by me?“- you still don’t see that you have plenty of clue what love is. It was only 2 weeks ago, that you agreed with N that you have no clue.
“I feel seen my you, by my roommate“- my goodness, I am having a bee’s knee moment (an aha moment) right this moment: I now understand why you presented yourself as a self-centered, selfish (Narcissistic, your word) person in your original posts on both threads (right from the start of each thread): not because you are these things but because F told you that you are these things and you believed him. And maybe it is your child-like loyalty to F that motivates you to repeat his message to other people (here… and in-real-life?).
But you are not that person.. if you were, you wouldn’t be so negatively impacted by that message. It was a false/ untrue message all along.
“I feel I have worked so hard to see me that it seems impossible that I don’t at least see more than before“- this very morning (expressed right above), I saw something huge that I didn’t see before.
“So why do I need this, because of childhood lack… so the real question is how do I fill it“- see yourself as a loving person who has been a loving person from your very beginning. This is what I see.
anita
anitaParticipantDear Peace: seems like you did address your earlier post to me correctly (referring to my Jan 25 congratulating post, previous page). I am adding this post because you submitted your last post only 3 minutes after I submitted mine, and maybe you wouldn’t notice my last post.. so, it’s there!
anita
anitaParticipantDear Peace:
The person who submitted the last post to you (Feb 20), congratulating you for getting married, and for your healing and growth is Tee, not me.
“I’ve just finished my exams, but unfortunately, they didn’t go well despite all the effort I put into preparing for them. It’s disappointing, but I’m not giving up. I’ll try again“- this is the right attitude!
“Lately, I’ve been feeling like my siblings are mad at me or hate me. One of my sisters, who lives in Europe, has been pretty rude. She asks me for help and money, but she never says thank you. I feel like She blames me for her visa problems and that she is not getting job in Europe, even though I have nothing to do with it…“- I wrote above that trying again is the right attitude, and it is, as far as exams are concerned, but trying again with your sisters, trying to get them to like you and treat you well is .. not the right attitude and a waste of your emotional energy, energy that you need for trying again to pass the exams!
“Before my wedding, another sister accused me of being selfish. She said I could have helped more siblings move to Europe but chose not to because I dint want anyone to be prosper and have better life .It really hurt, especially right before my big day. Later, I found out it was my older sister spreading these rumors and badmouthing me to everyone. It feels like they made a group and I am the villain of everyone’s story..“-
– here is a quote from bustle. com/ signs your siblings are toxic: “Just because someone is related to you doesn’t automatically make them a positive part of your life. Everyone wants a good relationship with their family, but if you feel like crap after every interaction, you might want to look out for some signs you have toxic siblings… A toxic sibling might borrow money to resolve crisis after crisis and make you feel bad if you say no…
“Constructive criticism coming from a place of love is one thing, but a sign your sister is jealous of you could be that she intentionally makes you feel bad about yourself, instead of dealing with her own feelings… You may often feel as though you can’t do anything right because your sibling will nitpick and find ‘flaws’ in you… you don’t have to take it just because it’s coming from a family member… With toxic siblings, your brother or sister is never wrong… (blaming) others for their own mistakes or faults… They often have the mentality that nothing is their fault, and everyone else is wrong…
“A toxic sibling never apologizes, no matter what they did or how much it hurt you… A healthy relationship with a sibling… comes with an ‘open line of communication,’ meaning that if you tell your sibling that they hurt your feelings, ‘they should be receptive to that, and be willing to meet your needs [for an apology].’…
“Toxic siblings will do anything they can to take advantage of you… if they know you’re a people pleaser who has a hard time saying no, they will keep badgering you until you finally cave. They might even tell other family members about your weaknesses so that they can take advantage of you, too… and will guilt-trip you into getting what they want…
“You can do no right, while they can do no wrong… There’s always an excuse or a reason why your situations are different or why they’re not in the wrong — even if you both took the same action or made the same mistake. ‘They minimize your feelings but give themselves the space to process theirs, or expect you to show empathy for what they’re going through but don’t acknowledge your feelings'”-
– the above reads like a description of your sisters, doesn’t it?
anita
anitaParticipantDear Caroline:
It makes my day reading your post first thing this Tuesday morning. Thank you for caring to submit this message for me, for telling me the truth about how you feel about our communication (that it was a mix of helpful and unhelpful), for telling me that you appreciate my apology, and for asking me to not feel bad. You are amazing, Caroline!
“I think I will come back but I will take a break for now“- I promise you that if and when you are back, when I respond to you, I will pay close attention to submit posts that are always gentle and kind.
“I think I am better and my girlfriend also made some changes“- good thing.. We all need to make some changes. Experiencing your kindness during our latest exchange gives me a new appreciation of you, and it motivates me to pay closer attention to all my communications with people; to consider how I may come across before expressing myself.
“but not only – I AM more active and responsive to avoid situations when I agree to things I don’t want to do.“-this is an excellent resolve! Because habits (such as agreeing to things) are hard to break, next time, when you feel that you are about to agree to something, you can tell the person that you’ll get back to them later (take a time out, out of the pressure of the moment).
Thank you again for making my day!
anita
-
AuthorPosts
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. 