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March 1, 2020 at 10:00 pm #340858giaParticipant
Hello ninibee,
I’m a bit late to the party, but I am here to respond to the post in this thread in which you mentioned the lack of responses from others other than Anita. I came across your thread for the first time today (March 1st) and in the past 15 minutes or so, was slowly savouring and digesting the intimate feelings you shared (thank you) and Anita (and others’) responses to them. I took my time, and was not thinking about responding AT ALL, because as I read, I put myself in your shoes, and when what you said touched a nerve in me because I had experienced similar stuff, I was preoccupied with processing my own feelings.
I guess I am saying that it may appear that you were talking to a single sounding board, but what you shared is helping me process and maybe give me the skills to help others in the future.
When I had posted about issues I was struggling with, I saw unfamiliar names in response to what I would think as petty issues…and those strangers’ words were kind, and I felt as if they had truly processed my plight in their response.
Anyway, I’m switching back to receptive mode. It’s what I feel like today.
- This reply was modified 4 years, 7 months ago by gia.
February 17, 2020 at 11:11 pm #338792giaParticipant- List of things to be grateful for that I have written in any times
- my “old” but spiffy and perky iPhone 6
- i live in a safe place
- Cat’s weight on me because it also means that he is with me
- my tiny side business that gives me some money and engagement
February 17, 2020 at 10:21 pm #338790giaParticipantReading this post made me want to read the original post (I began reading this forum before 2014, but you are bound to miss some posts I suppose!). Thank goodness Patricia (the original poster) also posted on the original post, so it was right there on the front page.
Patricia, thank you for sharing your sadness at its most intense. Your description of the perception we have at the moment of boundless awareness is beautiful and makes me remember the blessed time a number of years ago, when I felt the most lost and irocnically (looking back), the most primed to share that connection with life and energy.
The memory of reading your posts will no doubt in my mind be boggled by new experiences and memories. I have however bookmarked that thread (and will do the same with this thread) and am playfully wondering the circumstance during which I will read them again.
Love to all involved in your messages’ journey,
Gia.
February 17, 2020 at 9:51 pm #338786giaParticipantHi Nicole,
It breaks my heart reading your post (and I just read it today — a few months after your post, and I don’t know how long since your dog ran away). I wish Krishna and you peace. I have a kitty cat, and he had been the reason I kept going for as long as I did.
Gia
September 17, 2019 at 9:08 pm #312859giaParticipantWow, not how this post was resurrected, but I sure was glad! Its reemergence is a first kick in the bum to take care of my inner child. I had an intense period of inner work when I made the first post. Hope you all are well.
April 10, 2019 at 11:08 pm #288653giaParticipantHi Hannah,
I’m responding to an earlier post of yours, regarding how you wish you could “fight your thoughts”. Our thoughts and ways we interpret the world were formed by experience, and what ingraind most solidly in our mind through those experiences are (fortunately and unfortunately) the ones that have protected us in the past, maybe repeatedly. The workings of our brain are primarily and perhaps ultimately geared towards protecting us from harms, so patterns that have somehow helped us escape or minimise those harms in the past come naturally to us, both patterns that we have conscious and unconscious awareness of.
I’d look at your thoughts in a different way, beginning with accepting that they are what they are with the primary intent to protect you from projected future hurts and harms.
On another note, your issue sounds generic enough for me, which may be due to the fact that I’ve experienced that before. If it worries you, though, you can always generalise as much as possible without sacrificing context. You can also evaluate the likelihood that the people involved are visitors of the Tiny Buddha forums — I’ve come to observe that most who post here are introspective, sincere, and growth-minded folks. Of course we can’t speak for the lurkers; I tend to think most of them would possess some degree of spiritual and thoughtful qualities.
gia
- This reply was modified 5 years, 6 months ago by gia.
April 8, 2019 at 5:33 pm #288145giaParticipantHi TJ,
I apologise for the delay in my becoming aware of your response. I have maintained my distance (emotional — harder to do compared to physical and professional distance) from the person involved. A bit surprisingly, she’s “let up” and noticeably easier around me. Of course, lots of minuscule things transpired — she saw me beginning to develop amicable relationships with people at the workplace; seeing that I know people at a community centre we both attend (it sounds awful to me that someone would only let up their mean ways due to social pressure that I cringe as I acknowledged that as a reason for the improvement), seeing that I give s*^& back to her as she does to me…
I also noted a temptation to observe her interaction with others in my situation, but decided that not only is it not natural for me, I do not want to know. I have a tendency to do that — distance myself from people, from events…I am yet to explore how that is working out for me. I don’t think it’s … good.
Thank you for pointing out ongoing issues surrounding substance abuse. It is interpreted with gratitude for the honesty and sensitivity on your part to note that it is an issue.
Thanks,
gia
March 10, 2019 at 4:10 pm #283979giaParticipantDear Mark, Anita, and Brandy,
Your responses overlap in some ways and differ from each other in others, as a result of which, the options I have are clarified and one in particular is highlighted in my mind. Thank you all, in the unique ways you extended a warm helping hand. As my path of growth is from a tendency to bottle up and act in, the trajectory of my growth has been to act out and I sometimes manage to pretend I’m more self-empowered than I feel, but I also recgonise that what I need at this moment is to scrunch up my face, curl up in a ball, and cry.
With the issue at hand, I’d done: glaring back, cussing out in my head, making faces behind her back.
Anita, your suggestion made me chuckle. How liberating that would be. My profession is one in which we are held up to some (to me somewhat) arbitrarily high standards — maturity, poise, doing the right thing all the time, etc… I entertained the thought that the person we discussed saw that as a trump card to hold people in my position in check, knowing that I (we) cannot afford to act “inappropriately”. It’s like people cannot easily imagine that people in my profession experience bullying as well.
Brandy, your insight regarding remembering not to allow her power-tripping behaviour to get to me is tremendously helpful. It’s simple enough to use as a snappy soundbite especially at times stress and adrenaline flying rampant when I next come into contact with her (and the next time, and the next time…)
Mark, thank you for affirming what I’d begun to counsel myself with in similar situations, that it is inevitable that we encounter people who are rude/angry/have s&*! to unload.
- This reply was modified 5 years, 7 months ago by gia.
November 20, 2018 at 9:47 pm #239979giaParticipantHi Peria,
As I read your post, I was imagining crossing the path of a stranger who lives a life like yours, who holds those emotions and thoughts and experiences with her. Would she “act normal” — happy, well-adjusted — putting on a brave face or over-compensating (my tendency)? Or would she act out in a major way in her way of relating to other people outside of her unhealthy relationship?
I second almost everything Mark said. Your wise mind is telling you that it is an unhealthy relationship, and your some other mind (we all have that but it may be less potent in some people than in you at the moment because of temperament, practice, bad experiences, good luck, etc…could be anything) is saying, “yes, but then…”
What I would add is the observation that his behaviour seems quite reflective of “gaslighting”.
Love to your way,
Gia
- This reply was modified 5 years, 10 months ago by gia.
November 14, 2018 at 11:03 pm #236917giaParticipantHi Tanya,
When I read your first latest post date November 13, I also entertained the idea that it was a response — to his change or perceived change — driven at least partly in fear. And then that idea was confirmed by your later post, that “I have learnt something. A lot of my behavior initially in the relationship was driven by fear.”
I have lived a long, long time devaluing myself, because fear would disguise as gut feeling and when my gut feeling “turned out to be wrong”, trust in the self was eroded and etc. etc. My therapist pointed out the difference between intuition and fear, was when I became aware of the difference and more discerning about the two when one popped up looking like the other.
I agree with the suggestion that you continue to get to know him, ESPECIALLY after he returns and you two get to do so in person as much as time and opportunities allow! I am also pleased to hear of your report of experimenting with a healthy detachment. We are in a similar stage of growth.
Gia
November 1, 2018 at 3:30 pm #235039giaParticipantCongratulations on a happy ending!
November 1, 2018 at 12:50 pm #235003giaParticipantHi Tanya,
I said to trust yourself, and upon seeing your reply to Anita “I don’t know” to her suggestion that maybe he did not block you, makes me say it with more conviction: you are conflicted when entertaining that possibility, that makes me think that you know it is probably not possible (that he didn’t wilfully block you etc.)
If you want to — but it may prolong your anguish — you can verify whether he blocked you. Maybe by bringing the conversation when it is flowing, without his expecting it, over to Whatsapp. If he didn’t reply (didn’t get your message), then there’s some setting on his end resulting in his not getting your message. But I’m concerned that it involved a lot of mind games, and I for one would not be sure if I wanted to play a game that I might not win, especially since he *adamantly* denies and if the fact appeared to be contradictory.
I would probably not say “So I will leave things etc.” as it negates any other possibility of how it seemed he HAD blocked you. It’s kind of a sticky situation… what with he doesn’t come back till February. It’s giving me a headache.
October 29, 2018 at 7:36 pm #234427giaParticipantHey Tanya,
I would trust your intuition, trust yourself, in a confusing set of signals someone gives you such as this (“This whole thing doesn’t make sense to me.”) I have had to learn that, and girl, trust your guts.
What you hoped was based on the way he was with you, which it seems to be not entirely true with his lying to you and being suspiciously up to no good. I wouldn’t continue to lean on that hope that was based on an aspect of him that you made up, which he has proven to you to be not the truth about who he is.
I wish you will evolve to miss the friendship, not the person, so the days ahead wouldn’t be hard on you as you recover from the loss of him. The same kind of friendship can be recreated, with other people, male or female, yourself, a pet, etc… Miss the positive things about the relationships and build them elsewhere with others, to alleviate the fixation of one person who once provided them.
What do you think?
October 29, 2018 at 1:34 pm #234381giaParticipantHi Tanya,
I want to make sure I respond to the aspects I wanted to so I am block quoting and responding below the quote.
“So the next day I wanted to message him and I noticed I couldn’t see his picture on WhatsApp. So I used a friends phone to see if he was available on WhatsApp and sure enough he was.”
– A smart move to verify the fact, using your friend’s phone to double-check, Tanya. I have “muted” people on Whatsapp before, and I don’t know how it had appear on their end: no changes, no double check marks when they message me, or no profile picture and/or status and/or status update (my setting for all the above are for “people on my contact list only”). Maybe he did one of the above, or he could have blocked you. It’s anyone’s guess as to why…
“He didn’t block me on FB or IG.”
– This makes me hesitant about thinking he wanted to break up with you straight up.
“I was annoyed that he insulted my intelligence. WhatsApp is tied to your phone number and not your device!”
– I agree with you, girl. Why did he lie? Or was he clueless?
“He knows I’ve blocked him on FB and IG. He can unblock me on WhatsApp if he wants to contact me.”
– Note, if he were not to unblock you, it could equally be indication of 1) he did try to take the coward’s way out instead of breaking up with you or 2) an angry, retaliatory type response to your message to him on FB.
What do you think about any of the above?
Gia
October 18, 2018 at 10:54 pm #231809giaParticipantHi RoseQ,
I read Norwood’s book recently and also looked into codependency and codependent relationships. Unlike you, my tendency to engage in codependency has an identifiable cause in my childhood. I was wondering what you thought about the resonance you find with Norwood’s ideas stemming probably from the wider societal standards and/or your expectations about a woman’s role? (I also have that to consider in my behaviour).
Best,
Gia
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