Dear Anita,

(This is the rest of my response to your reply on November 10th)

“It crossed my mind, that if it was possible, a great solution would have been to put Earth on Pause, leave to another planet, have quality psychotherapy there for 6 months-a year (where you’d talk and process all that we talked about here on your thread), then return to earth (with your therapist to guide you), and Un-pause life on earth. Take it from there.”

I wish this were possible as well, because like I said before, I feel like there are two battles I am fighting at the same time. One being the majority of what has been on this forum, projecting F into N and all those consequences, then battle two of even if I am totally healed is N the right person for me then, cause if so I want to power through, if not then I think battle one would be easier to work through alone.

“Back to what you shared 3 days ago about your father: “he would promote outfits that made me look like a box. I am a curvy girl... The story: I was 11 years old, my friends were playing outside, my friend S was allowed to wear whatever she wanted… my dad stopped me and said the shorts were inappropriate and I needed to change to longer ones… This is my first memory of having suicidal thoughts”. Less than an hour later, on the same day, you wrote: “N brings out my tom-boy behaviors… I miss my femininity. I sort of feel like I want a man that brings the parts of me I love, out to the surface“- “

See this portion is what I feel is part of battle two. When I label the battles one and two, I mean them to be sequential, one needs to happen before two can. I am not sure if my feeling that N doesn’t understand me outside of my cage is me projecting F into him or if it is what is really happening, or both! At this moment in time, I would like to focus on battle one, as we have been doing. I want to heal my relationship with hatchling, gain her trust, even if that means losing N. I just really want to be clear on what hatchling needs before I make that drastic decision though because he means a lot to Seaturtle.

(The following is my more thorough response to your reply on November 11th)

“Seaturtle= thoughts and emotional reactions/ emotional experiences that did not take hold in childhood. This includes what you learned from books and online, including what you are learning here, in your thread, and including becoming aware of hatchling and how she operates within you as an observer, observing her from some distance.”

Have you read the book the Untethered Soul? When you phrase it this way, that hatchling is operating in me as an observer. Although hatchling does more than observe, would it be correct to say that both hatchling and Seaturtle observe each other then and also both act? Anyways the reason I bring up the book is it speaks about an “inner roommate,” I wonder if this is a metaphor for hatchling, it also speaks about you, I assume the adult self Seaturtle in control, can be an observer of your own thoughts, or “hatchling.”

“- a real-life child throwing a temper tantrum in the supermarket, insisting that her mother buys her ice-cream right there and then, is driving the ship only if her mother rushes to buy her the ice cream so to quiet her down.”

Are drug addicts/alcoholics run by their inner child? I find that when I have wine with my friends it happens and ends naturally, but sometimes after what has felt like a long day I crave a couple glasses of wine, I wonder if giving in to this want is in response to hatchling having a sort of tantrum? Or even actual food/ice cream cravings, are all non essential cravings hatchling?

“The real-life child throwing a temper tantrum in the supermarket probably needs help in a different context: she probably needs positive attention at home.”

If what I said above is true, and unproductive or even destructive cravings are giving in to your inner child’s tantrum, then all of this could be solved with proper self care/”positive attention at home” ? Is proper self care the answer to unhealthy cravings in general? and maybe even addiction?

“only she doesn’t make herself known in the right context (home) where she remains unknown.”

Why does hatchling make herself known outside of the home, how is she more known outside of the right context (home)?

“It feels like hatchling is uncaged because she makes herself very known when N does something that resembles our father’s past behaviors“- Like the child throwing a temper tantrum in the supermarket, hatchling needs your positive attention at home, home with you, Seaturtle, outside the context of your relationship with N.”

“hatchling needs your positive attention at home, home with you, Seaturtle” – I want to learn how to do this. It sounds sad, but unsurprising as hatchling has been having tantrums, but I don’t think I fully know what this is. Is the positive attention that she/I need personal to hatchling? Or is it just typical self care like spa days, keeping your home and body clean in general? Is it simply doing what makes me happy, such as art and acting? I am trying to imagine as if she were a child out of my body, how to make her feel cared for and to trust me. I want to be there for myself. I want to be here for me.

“Coming to think about it, you did say that your father is doing financially very well at his work and that N has .. you called it something like a millionaire attitude (like your father). Similar values and priorities.”

Yes they are similar in the way of being money driven in their careers. Whereas I am taking a different route, I am trying to follow what I love and I am narrowing in on it but it makes it to where I am changing up what I do alot. So to someone with their mindset they say stick with it, because that is when profit starts to happen, but this does not resonate with me I move on a more abstract path and to me “profit” does not equal actual dollars. They are similar in how much they work, and I believe a similar motivation is because working is easier than sitting with their thoughts and feelings, something they both don’t think is productive, so they obviously don’t understand why I do it. However N is more accepting of me in that way, versus F who makes fun of it and just does not understand at all, which is odd cause he does see a therapist… I have felt before like N doubts my method to find what I want in this world, he has told me he doesn’t trust me financially, which I understand because I do not have savings and I barely make more than my rent every month at this art gallery right now. It gives me stress too but I want to act in a play rather than demean myself and go work nights for tips like he would encourage if I brought up. Tips for serving food and drinks, no more haha just to be clear he would not be ok with that and neither would I, no judgement to others I just didn’t want you to think he would encourage me to go that far. Anyways, his doubt in my methods make me doubt myself, wonder if I am playing it too risky and need to be more dollar oriented. But I just have this belief that if I keep following what inspires me it will guide me and the financial means will follow with hard work in that direction. N has said I live in a fantasy world believing things will work out, but I also think he believes in me, it’s just he is wary. One more note on F and N’s millionaire attitude, yes they both follow the money, but what they want the money for is very different. My dad buys luxury gifts for himself and his girlfriend and spends a week a month at a 5 star resort drinking by the pool and playing pickle ball. Which does sound like a fun lifestyle I do admit. However, N’s style feels better to me. He wants to travel the world, stay in nice places but that is not the focus, he talks about all the things he wants to see, he wants a boat to travel for months at a time, he wants to retire young so he can do all this. It sounds wonderful to me as well, but I don’t quite know yet how my lifestyle will meld with his, because I don’t know if I will be retiring early, I having a feeling one of my arts (painting, drawing, acting) will start to take off and I will want to keep doing them. Maybe I just trust the process though?

“I feel like he could just as easily fall in love with M as he did me“- for M, being a tomboy may very well be who she genuinely is, it’s her.. out of the box version, while the same is your in the box (not genuine) version. I suppose that you think that a genuine tomboy version can easily win over a non-genuine tomboy version?

-“I suppose that you think that a genuine tomboy version can easily win over a non-genuine tomboy version?” In the eyes of a guy (maybe N) who wants a tomboy, yes. I wonder if he wants a tomboy, I don’t know if he appreciates or particularly likes my more girlie/feminine side that I only want to dive further into. Saturday morning N and I went to breakfast. We had a nice night together after my play, and I love going out to breakfast in the morning, this spot we found has deliciously made fresh food that makes me feel good. We were talking on a real level, which we don’t always get to do because we see each other mostly after work when he is too tired to talk about deeper things (it energizes me so I am always up for it). But anyways, we were in a ‘real talk’ space and I began to ask him reflection questions on our year living together. It has been a bit over a month of me at this apartment and it felt like a good enough distance away now to reflect. He said it was good and hard but that we were stronger, but I wanted more of an answer than that. I asked him what he meant by “hard parts,” and he said there were times he didn’t know which of us was right (often during my trigger responses, I knew it was not all his fault I felt the way I did but my inability to explain irrational reactions to specific things, was confusing for him) and he felt very alone. I asked him, “through all the parts of living together that were tough, from my triggers confusing you to times I blamed you, through all the bad parts, why did you decide to stay with me?” and he said “Because we always came to a compromise, you listened to my perspective and understood in the end, you are really good at that.” I appreciated hearing this, even though I asked for it. Although I need help as to why this was one of my following thoughts: Does he just want to be with me because I am a good communicator? How low is his bar for a relationship? Do I want this relationship if he only loves me because I am fun, pretty, and above average at communicating?. These thoughts are not new, but it was unpleasant to feel them when we are having a good morning, we are spending the day together. I didn’t fester on these thoughts, instead I decided to have a peaceful day with someone I love to be around and overlook the feeling of meeting his low standards. This is why I even worry about him having feelings for M, because if his bar is low, where I am, then there are a lot of things that may seem better to him than me. Something positive I thought about to keep my mind optimistic was how I would love for him to be the father of my children. He will be an amazing dad, is that reason enough to stay with someone? I have doubt that he loves all of me, instead just a portion of me, which only short changes both of us in the end.

(I also read and respond as I go, before reading the entirety)

(I don’t want to change this part of your response into the bold, like I usually do, because it will take away from what you bolded, so the next to portions are you, Anita and the third is Seaturtle’s reply)

“he calls love a choice and rationally like I get it but it also is not what I want to hear, he could just choose to love anyone? I don’t want to just be anyone and I feel like that with him and it makes me feel undervalued, not special, and not loved for who I AM.“-

– hatchling needs to get out of the box, to leave her father’s expectations of who or what she should be. She needs to stop trying to please her father.. to stop the habit (an automatic habit by now) of trying to please him. Hatchling wants to be someone, someone who is valued and special, and that someone is who she gets to be and become outside the box.

So this feeling I have, that he does not “love all of me” and that I feel I am “undervalued” and “not special.” Are you saying that these thoughts/feelings have nothing to do with N? Because that would mean that, going back to my two battles analogy, that winning battle one (getting out of the cage fully), would make battle two (Is he right for me, do I love him, are we the right love for eachother) irrelevant or just answered simultaneously? Let me know if this two battles analogy is making sense to you or if I should explain more, because it makes sense in my head but I am not sure how it is fully translating.

“To check my understanding, I ask: can you give me examples of N’s words and behaviors that indicate that he supports your in-the-box version and discourages your out-of-the-box version? For the examples to help me, they have to include a description of the objective circumstances, what words were said, and what actions took place (ex., in a restaurant, the waiter said XYZ, N said ABC, then N got up and left the restaurant, etc.), and not include what you thought or felt, how you perceived or interpreted the situation.”

Okay so I think he does do things that me think he supports my in-the-box version, however it is not necessarily that he discourages my out of box version. I think he is more comfortable with my in-box version. I describe this as my behaviors that made my dad happy, when I was (trying to be) money driven, athletic outdoors, sporty, a left-brained thinker, believing that feelings are mostly not real, working hard, no breaks! Evening taking out the trash, I say this one because it gives me a similar energy feeling as this whole category, living in my apartment with a girl roommate, we just split the chore it doesn’t bother me too much, but while I lived with N I didn’t want to do the “dirty” chores, I felt the guy should and I will make the house homey, which was unappreciated. I felt he thought that making it clean and cozy was a lesser chore but he did not like when I expected him to do things like that. I get into this trash chore because in general, the box required me to live in a more masculine energy, and that is not who I am, nothing wrong with women who are. I feel there are different ways I contribute that allow me to be in my feminine, which feeds me as opposed to the masculine where I am more drained. Sometimes I took out the trash and was fine with it with N, maybe he had a long day at work and I had energy, but there was something about him asking me to do it, or if I asked him he would say why cant you…and I just wanted to be like cause I’m a girl lol I don’t know if this is just stupid but I wanted to sort of journal and elaborate here on that feeling. Now here are examples of him encouraging my in-the-box version (aka what my dad would also say):

-M asked me if I wanted to join an indoor soccer team with her and I told N and he said “you should do that!” in an excited tone

-I don’t like movies with gross boy humor, and he said “you lack some sense of humor”

-Pulls up movie in comedy,drama section about black people growing up in a tough town. Said I hadn’t watched it, (my rommate was here) and M says ” you haven’t seen that? hahaha uncultured swine! haha just kidding” N was in approval. N said “you wouldn’t like this movie.

-When we went to palm springs with his parents I packed a bathing suit I liked and he said “you are going to wear that infront of my family?

-I bring up what I think is a small conversation that is energizing for me and he responds “all you want to do it talk about feelings”

I am having a hard time coming up with specifics, by I feel he supports me in the box because I know that he would be “impressed” with me if I did things as that boxed girl. If I wanted to go dirt biking with him, or aim my career to be money driven, or like gross boy humor, that he would like me to be all those things. Like we get along best when I am doing something in those categories with him, like I be his bro/pal/buddy. He loves when I get bro-ish with him, play video games with him, that kind of stuff. I mean I also like when he joins my art stuff which he occasionally does. I feel like I am losing my point in this response to you question, let me know if it shed any light or perhaps changed your mind in some way? I will think more about this question of how he encourages the in-the-box girl.

With love and appreciation,

Seaturtle and hatchling