Dear Seaturtle:

“This makes a lot of sense. Are these demands that are distressing to me, made up in my mind as part of the trauma response?“- yes, I think so.

“I had another thought/question, Since my partners dad emotionally dumped on him and he felt like his therapist, is this how my partner sees me when I am trying to communicate so that he can understand me? Cause it is how I feel sometimes when I try to express to him why I reacted a certain way, what the trauma behind it was, he will call these excuses which just lead to feeling further unseen and invalidated”-

– he may be taking on the role of a therapist with you, as he has dome with his father (based on his words in regard t his father), but he is a bad “therapist” if he refers to your sincere reasoning as excuses. Can you give me 1-2 examples of what you said that he referred to as an excuses?

“Does bringing awareness to these things initiate ending the cycle? It is very interesting because this holds very true, I don’t have these intense feelings directed at my dad anymore and now they are aimed at my partner. Since this distress was instilled in me for so long, can I fully heal from it? I wish I could just stop this now”-

– the dissociated/ removed-from-awareness feelings in regard to your father need to be brought back to awareness, to one extent or another, so to undo the grasp these feelings have on your boyfriend, so to speak.

Love back to you and thank you!

* I will probably not be able to reply further until tomorrow, so please take your time replying to this post.

anita