Hi Alessa,

I’m glad you find this an important conversation, and are not upset about it ❤️

Some things that I find helpful to consider are frequency and intensity of difficulties. Yes, technically some behaviours are abusive. There is even such a thing as reactive abuse where someone will act in these ways to defend themselves. The way I see things is that real abuse occurs frequently and consistently, sometimes in multiple different ways and isn’t reactive, or is severe. That is not to say that other difficulties don’t hurt because they definitely still do. I’m just not going to suggest that it means a person is inherently abusive.

You’re so right, Alessa, that multiple things should be taken into account. Yes, I’ve heard of reactive abuse: it’s when we’re being abused, and then we react with anger and say something hurtful to the person. In other words, we’re provoked and then we overreact.

I’ve once heard a good metaphor about it: one person is poking the other with a stick. The person who is being poked asks the other to stop, but they wouldn’t. They ask them multiple times, but to no avail. Eventually, the person who is being poked takes the stick, breaks it in half and throws it away. They reacted to having been persistently abused.

So we need to take into account the whole story: what is really going on, how frequent and consistent the abuse is, how severe it is, etc. The victim sometimes does overreact, and then gets accused of being abusive. Whereas the initial abuse, which they had to endure, isn’t taken into account.

That’s usually how narcissistic people operate: they provoke, they behave badly, and then when the person reacts (in an unbalanced way, maybe telling them something hurtful), the narcissist focuses on that, blaming the person of being abusive. When in reality, the narcissist is the real abuser, and the victim is trying to defend themselves, but hasn’t learned the tools to do it a balanced, healthy way.

So I agree 100%: context is super important.

As a parent I think it is really important for me to be understanding of conflict because at some point my son will be a teenager. Teenagers these days tend to be verbally abusive, some even hit their parents, siblings or others at school, but their emotional regulation skills are not fully developed yet. In short, it is something that they struggle to control and a part of their development. It is a parent’s responsibility to handle these difficulties in a healthy way and try not to be reactive which would only traumatise their children.

100%. Parents need to be able to emotionally regulate themselves and also their children as well. That’s one of the key features of a healthy parent: the ability to self-regulate, as well as to regulate their child. If the person gets offended or angry by the child having normal childish reactions – for the child being a child – they make things much worse. Instead of teaching the child how to self-soothe and regulate themselves, they’re punishing the child for expressing emotions. And that’s traumatic for the child, I agree.

You’re doing a great job, Alessa, being a very responsible mother, doing everything on your part to not cause trauma to your son. Really doing your best. Kudos to you, Alessa! ❤️

Hi Jana,

you’re welcome!

Are you interested in Buddhism?

Hmm, I’d say I’m the closest to Christian mysticism, but I think the mystical branches in all religions tend to converge to one universal truth.. perhaps. And I definitely agree with many of the Buddhist teachings. I mean, the concept of mindfulness has its roots in Buddhism, right? (forgive me for being so ignorant), and it’s a hugely important idea. To be able to sit with anything that comes up, without judging ourselves, but simply observing. That’s the basis of self-compassion. So yeah, I definitely have a great respect for Buddhist teachings ❤️

I like the concept of watering the seeds. It reminds me of the Cherokee legend of two wolves, and the question of which one we’re feeding…

Now as I’m thinking of those “bad” seeds in us (seeds of anger, fear, sadness, as you say), I believe that a lot of that has been planted during our childhood. Trauma has left us with a lot of fear, anger (sometimes expressed, sometimes suppressed), sadness, hopelessness, feeling unworthy, undeserving of love, etc.

And now, as adults, when we encounter people or situations that remind us of how we’ve felt in childhood, those seeds get watered again. Our wounds get reopened. Our false believes get reaffirmed.

And I think that working on ourselves, healing those childhood wounds, would be akin to taking care of our garden, pruning it, plucking out the weeds.

Selective watering involves mindful practice to water the seeds of love, peace, and compassion, which strengthens them and helps them bloom, while the seeds of anger or fear are safe and dormant in the soil… I take care of them, of course, but I don’t water them… otherwise my garden would be full of thorns…

I wouldn’t even say that the seeds of anger or fear should stay dormant (i.e. suppressed). I mean, we shouldn’t express anger in our communication with others, that’s for sure. We should restrain ourselves.

However, we ourselves should be aware of it and start unpacking it (the best to do it in therapy), because if some things upset us hugely, if we feel disproportional anger, then it’s most probably something from our childhood. We have most probably been somehow mistreated, and that anger and hurt is coming to the surface whenever the situation reminds us of that old wound.

Similarly with fear. For example, I know that the irrational fear I’m feeling in certain areas of my life – has to do with my childhood conditioning. The seed of fear has been planted long ago. And so I need to put conscious effort into not slipping into fear whenever I face a challenge now, in my adulthood.

Sorry if this is becoming too burdensome (it is for me, as I’m writing it 🙂 ). But I think this is what Hanh is talking about when he says that we’re partly responsible for our own suffering:

When we suffer, we have the tendency to blame other people and to see them as the source of our suffering. We don’t recognize that we are responsible to some extent for our suffering as well as for making those around us suffer.

If we have a lot of childhood wounds, e.g. lot of subconscious fear and anger, we will tend to misunderstand people, see bad intention where there is none, react with anger and escalate things, or withdraw easily and not stand up for ourselves, for example. We’ll interpret situations and events in a much more unfavorable light, and those “seeds” will get watered again, strengthening our fear and/or anger. And our suffering will continue.

And when he says:

Practice mindful breathing, mindful walking, embracing your own suffering, and using loving speech.

I think that to embrace our own suffering means to become aware of our trauma, of how we’ve been hurt in our childhood, of what emotional needs haven’t been met, etc. Because all that contributes to our present-day suffering.

If we can heal those wounds, we would lessen our suffering. I’m not saying we would eliminate it, because it’s not possible, but we wouldn’t see things in a bad light, we wouldn’t see harm when there is none, we wouldn’t get triggered so easily. And so our suffering would be greatly reduced.

When I think about it now, I feel guilty that I let myself be influenced by others, but it’s something natural and normal that people and their energies influence me… somewhere along the path of my life I got this strange message that I’m weak if I let myself be influenced… that I have to endure everything… because it’s supposed to be done like that…

Yes, that can also be a message that we’ve received from our parents or authority figures: that we shouldn’t be so upset about being bullied, for example. I don’t know if this is the message you’ve received in your childhood, but if the victim of abuse is told that it’s not a big deal, they shouldn’t make a scene about it, they should be more “grown up” about it and just take it, endure it… that kind of messaging can be very harmful.

The truth is that it’s okay to be upset and angry if we were abused. We’re not weak for that. We’re people of flesh and blood. We’ve got feelings. And it’s specially hard if we were told that as children, if our pain hasn’t been properly acknowledged, if we were told that we were weak for not taking the abuse calmly, for not enduring it.

That kind of messaging is very harmful for a child. I don’t know if you’ve experienced something like that, and I don’t want to pry if you feel uncomfortable talking about it. But it’s certainly not true that we need to endure abuse – neither as children, nor now. Only now we have the tools to protect ourselves – and to do it in a compassionate, respectful way.

I hope I haven’t burdened you too much with this… but please do let me know if something doesn’t sit well with you. As you might have noticed, I’m quite eager to talk about this topic 🙂 but let me know if this is becoming too much…

Stay well and take care! ❤️

Hi Jana,

it is okay to feel anger when there is mistreatment, but it is not okay to turn our anger into a lifestyle.

I think I know what you’re talking about: there are indeed people who are angry “just because”, i.e. anger is their lifestyle, because they tend to keep blaming others for their problems. They refuse to see how they themselves are contributing to their own problems.

And yes, it’s hard to communicate with such people, because the moment you point out something they might do differently, or that they might not be viewing the situation correctly, they lash out at you and start blaming you. Their defensiveness is so strong that it’s hard, if not impossible, to reach them.

And yeah, in such situation we run the risk of getting angry and reactive ourselves, and to further escalate the conflict. I like what Thich Nhat Hanh says that in order to communicate with those people, we need to become more mindful:

You have to train yourself first to become skillful. Practice mindful breathing, mindful walking, embracing your own suffering, and using loving speech. Then, you can approach the other person with your solid presence and your mindful speech.

I think it’s important to remain calm and non-reactive, as much as possible. It depends on what kind of relationship we have with the person, but if we’re family and we need to (or want to) communicate, I think it’s important not to try to prove our point (i.e. prove to them that we’re right and they’re wrong), because that’s only going to make them more angry and defensive.

We need to be more mindful in our speech, but also in what we can expect from them, because a lot of the times they’re not interested in a significant change. So we need to drop some of our expectations and be less emotionally attached. And stop with unproductive fights and conflicts, because those lead nowhere, they only make us feel worse.

So I think emotional self-regulation and semi-detachment (letting go of trying to change some things) are really important in trying to communicate with those people. That’s step No1: sort of cultivating our own emotional state when interacting with them. Not allowing ourselves to be provoked and react in an angry, unbalanced way.

some people will not take their full responsibility for becoming a healthy person… and my compassion is not a bottomless well…

Yeah, some people refuse to take responsibility for their own actions, their own unhealthy or even self-destructive lifestyle. And I find that in those cases, we have to partially accept that and let them go (stop trying to “save” them).

Maybe I’m wrong, but I feel like being emotionally detached is also a form of compassion, but it manifests differently, because we’re not trying to help as much, we’re not trying to change their life circumstances if they’re so resistant to change.

To me, it’s a kind of detached compassion, where we’re not exhausting ourselves in trying to help, since they’re pushing our help way. We accept, radically accept certain things (but of course, if there is significant danger that they’re causing to either themselves or others around them, we might still take some action). But again, even if we take action, it doesn’t come from this desperate place of trying to change them, to turn them into a different person, to change their character.

I don’t know if this can be called compassion, but it helped me be less emotionally attached, and as a result, more calm and balanced in the relationship with the person. And the relationship doesn’t feel so exhausting and threatening any more.

I hear you when you say that your compassion is not a bottomless pit. What I find is that when I detach myself, I can be compassionate but without hurting myself in the process, without “grasping” and trying to change the person.

Let me know what you think?

Dear Anita,

I do understand your need to feel safe. It also appears that you don’t feel safe if there’s a possibility that you might be faced with unfavorable feedback, right?

But the thing is: whenever we post in a public forum, there is a possibility that we might receive unfavorable feedback. It’s just the nature of public spaces. And that’s why, I think that we all need to be willing to accept the risk of receiving unfavorable feedback.

Of course, this doesn’t mean we should tolerate abuse. There are rules and guidelines that define the code of conduct here, and if these rules are not kept, the moderator can intervene and prevent abusive posts. So the moderator is what keeps this place safe, i.e. free from abuse.

I believe that if we start imposing extra requirements, e.g. that certain people shouldn’t post in certain threads – preemptively, so that we can feel safe – unfortunately, that’s already infringing on people’s rights to freely express themselves in a public forum.

Because we’re requiring people to refrain from posting (or we’re asking others to do that on our behalf), because we feel threatened by them and they might say something we don’t like down the line. That’s basically censorship because it’s about preemptive action: not allowing certain people to post – only because we feel threatened by them. They might have not even said anything, and yet we don’t want them to speak, lest they say something we deem hurtful.

I don’t know if you can see that this would be censorship, Anita, and not really congruent with the rules (and the spirit) of a public forum? Preemptive attempts to prevent people from posting vs. case-by-case intervention by a moderator if real abuse has taken place. The former is censorship, the latter is keeping the forum safe. Huge difference. I hope you can see it?

What I’m also noticing is that your stance on sharing in public vs. private has changed in the last day or two. Whereas right after the conflict you said you’re planning to take your time to reflect privately, and that it may take a month or two, yesterday you’ve expressed to Alessa that you would prefer to reflect publicly:

My only motivation is to honestly reflect.. and seems like it’s difficult for me to do so privately. I am used to express publicly.

Have you thought about why it’s easier for you to reflect publicly than privately? Because honestly, doing any kind of self-reflection in public is much more exposed, much more vulnerable, than doing it in private. Sharing our deepest thoughts and feelings with the entire world, so to speak, is really putting ourselves out there.

What I’m noticing is that you really want to share deeply, to “put yourself out there”, however it’s very hard for you to receive any unfavorable feedback (or what you might perceive as unfavorable). You want to be shielded from that.

But I’m afraid those are two contradictory desires, which cannot really be met simultaneously, because we’re talking about a public forum.

Please don’t take this as criticism, Anita, but simply noticing a certain dynamic, a certain struggle in you, and inviting you to take it into consideration, to reflect on it. ❤️

I hope that on this forum, we’re able to really hear each other, understand each other, and share without fearing each other. Because I think that’s what safe and brave places should be about ❤️

Dear Dafne,

sorry for the delay… there have been things that I needed to tend to, and wasn’t able to get to you sooner ❤️

How have you been doing, Dafne?

I’d like to explore something you’ve said, which I think is a very important realization:

I also understand that at this stage in life, when a man is older, he may not have prioritized this in the past. He may value it, but may not have practiced it before.

Additionally, many men don’t see the point in marrying if there is no solid intention of having children.

That’s true… you did say, Dafne, that you’re not sure about having children anymore (can’t find where you said it, but I remember you did). And the men you’re interested in (and who are interested in you) are probably closer to middle-aged, who might have been widowed or divorced, i.e. were in a relationship or even multiple relationships before.

If you combine those two conditions together: no desire (or weak desire) for children on your part, and the likely candidate is a middle-aged man with one or more significant previous relationships, possibly with children or stepchildren – I’m afraid there is a lower probability that such a guy would be interested in marriage, i.e. it wouldn’t be his priority.

I guess neither marriage nor having children would be their first priority. They wouldn’t be looking to “build a nest” with you and everything that goes with it. But rather, they would be interested in having a companion, a life partner, i.e. someone to share their life with.

In such a constellation, your priorities (marriage and premarital purity) may be in contradiction with the guy’s priority: having a life companion (which may or may not include getting married. But if it does, it usually involves living together for a period of time before getting married).

So it occurred to me, Dafne, after you made this very astute observation (about the profile of your likely candidate), that perhaps your main goal and his main goal might be very different? And this may make it difficult to actually find a partner, even if there are honest guys out there, who would make a good partner otherwise (just for the record, your ex wasn’t a honest guy, so it’s good that you called it quits).

You know what I mean? That in this constellation, it might be very difficult to find a guy who is willing to accommodate your wish for premarital purity.

Sorry for playing the devil’s advocate here, but I just felt the need to mention this, because it might be a real problem in practice.

There might be other issues too, e.g. that available men may have financial obligations to their children (and even to their ex-wives, such was the case with one of your boyfriends, if I remember well?). And so they might not be able to be the main financial provider in the relationship (something you said you expect from the man), because they may have other obligations and past arrangements to cater to.

In other words, even if they’re an honest man and don’t want to take advantage of you, they may not be able to meet some of the requirements that are very important to you.

Anyway, Dafne, this is what I’m thinking about, and it seems kind of complicated. Please let me know your thoughts and feelings on this? I don’t want this to be a downer, but still, I felt I had to mention it…

Sending you love, dear Dafne. Take care! ❤️

Dear Jana,

I’m very sorry to hear about your difficult family situation, where you feel like you cannot help much because your help is rejected, whereas the consequences are pretty dire, I assume, specially for the children involved.

I’d first like to ask: are the children (your nephews) safe? Because being parented by a schizophrenic and an alcoholic (though a functioning one) could easily lead to child abuse and/or neglect, and child protective services may need to be involved?

If something happens, something bad, I will never forgive myself.

Yes, your nephews’ safety is the most important. I think if you feel their physical safety may be at stake, you might need to make some steps, like contacting the authorities, even if it may be very uncomfortable for you, because you wouldn’t want something bad to happen down the line.

Sometimes we need to do something, whereas sometimes we need to learn to accept the situation and let go. And sometimes it’s a combination of making some steps (e.g. setting boundaries for the things that we absolutely cannot accept, i.e. which are our red lines), while accepting the rest of it because the person is not cooperative. It all depends on the situation.

This seems like a serious situation. Maybe the biggest question is whether it is the type of situation where the only thing you can do is to “radically accept” it, or whether there is something you could still do to prevent even worse things from happening?

I’d love to talk to you more about it and explore your options. Perhaps you can even start a separate thread about it, to give it the attention it deserves? Because this thread is already “overgrown” with dozens and dozens of unrelated posts, so perhaps you want to elevate it to a separate thread, so that it gets the attention it deserves? But of course, it’s up to you, I’ll be happy to talk about it anyway ❤️

A slight correction: I feel instead of a smiley after “tough and tiring”, a perplexed face would be more appropriate: tough and tiring :/ Don’t know how to bring that emoticon about, but anyway, it hasn’t been an easy-breezy experience for sure…

Hi Anita,

What I asked in my last reply to you was: do you mean that it’s okay for you, Tee, at this point and onward (being that I will no longer refer to you negatively and indirectly, and being that you are welcomed to communicate with me directly)- to discuss me negatively with other members (whether I join the conversation or not)?

Hmm… so you’re suggesting that from now on, I cannot speak about your posts to me, or my posts to you (i.e. our exchange on this thread), with anyone else but you? Even if those posts are on a public forum?

But Anita, you’ve expressed new grievances against me – accusing me of rallying people to attack you – in your post on Sept 8, 11:50 am. What if someone were to comment on that post? (like Brandy did – thank you Brandy for noticing how disturbing Anita’s new allegations were). Am I not allowed to respond to them and share my impressions?

In other words, why do you think it’s okay to ban possible negative comments about you – when you freely, and publicly, express negative comments about me?

Doesn’t it remind you of the situation with your SOCJ journal at the end of July, where you asked people not to post, while continuing to speak badly of me and Alessa (and possibly other members of the forum)? You allowed yourself to speak badly of others, but tried to prevent those same others (or anybody else who would come to their defense) to respond.

Is that your idea of a safe space: safe for you to say whatever you want, no matter how hurtful it is, and then be shielded from any negative feedback?

Tee- I’ve been reading Every Single One of your hundreds+ of posts for years. You are not a stranger to me- I feel like I got to know you over the years: your rationality and your emotionality.

And yet, you felt it’s okay to accuse me, rather harshly, and to keep accusing me, even in your recent post (Sept 8, 11:50 am), of all manner of things? In that post, you’ve apologized for speaking badly of me in your SOCJ journal in July/August, but you came up with new accusations regarding how I interact with other members. You haven’t replied to my post (Sept 9, 1:46 am), in which I’ve shared my perspective on your new accusations – but instead, you’re trying to limit whom I can speak to?

I want to resolve the conflict with you, Tee. Please give me a chance. Just you and me- for now. I am real. I am honest.

If you were honest, Anita, you wouldn’t try to silence me. You would have replied to my post and we could have kept the conversation going, perhaps. But you chose a different route: the route of trying to silence me, to convince me that I shouldn’t speak to anyone else but you.

I’m sorry, Anita, but I’m not interested in playing by those rules. It doesn’t seem like a gesture of goodwill, but of control.

You’re now speaking of love:

As I am now= hopeful, wanting connection, wanting to love and be loved, no optics, no pretenses.. just simple love, nothing weird.

But control is not love. I wonder if you can see that?