Dear Anita,

” A necessary part of healing is grieving what you never received as a child, and never will- because you are no longer a child.”

This is helpful. I will never receive what I needed before, but no need to repeat that pattern and not receive it in my future right? I understand “0% intimidation and 100% adoration” is unrealistic and I certainly do not prefer a love bombing situation over a lack of caring about how I feel, something in the middle. If there is intimidation on their part, if that is just a masculine trait then I will just need my third I with me to spot it and not let it control me.

“Part of healing, following the grieving of growing up unseen, is to lower this expectation.”

So I need to neutralize this EXTRA need to be seen, before I can actually be satisfied with the amount a healthy partner will see me. This makes alot of sense, for a long time I have felt instinctually that I would be disappointed in this way, but over time this fear has dimmed, so perhaps I have already done some healing over many years. I started to acknowledge my dads lack of genuine care when I was little, at 17 years old, so that is 7 years. Although during that time I wasn’t consciously trying to heal, it was just trying to bring awareness to my past and present feelings. I want to consciously heal, in order to fully neutralize this EXTRA desire to be seen, do I need to see myself? Or perhaps I need to “grieve” my lack of being seen, how do I grieve and lower my expectations?

“– I think that this may be true to you, and that’s why you had crushes on, and had your focus on (in middle and high school, and onward..?) guys who were not interested in you romantically, not respecting/ having crushes on guys who were interested in you…?”

Oh interesting, so I was like N in that I didn’t respect myself/ didn’t want people to see who I was on the inside? You think I would have lost interest for those guys if they gained interest?

 “Respect is too much of a human experience of cognition+ emotion, and I think of N operating like a spider: instinctually.”

This may be true. Also a thought I have had a couple time, N absolutely hated spiders hahaha.

“– in the past, when you walked away from him crying, or when you had a panic attack in the closet.. it was like a fly shaking his spider web, stimulating him into reaching out to the fly. A cold/ unmoving fly does not vibrate a spider’s web.. so he doesn’t reach out to it.”

I understand the literal meaning of this with an actual spider and fly, but how does the analogy transfer to a human relationship? Is it that he sees me about to leave he wants to stop it from happening, whereas if I move too quickly he doesn’t get a chance?

“(I did not understand the last paragraph of your most recent post of yesterday, “what it would have ACTUALLY felt like”..?)”

I just find myself falling into daydreams of if I had said something else at the breakup, what would have happened, or re-living moments to see what went wrong. And I was wondering if it was a productive thing for me to do or if I should attempt to shut those thoughts down.

Happy Monday Anita, I appreciate you being here to talk to me through and since my breakup. It is very helpful for me and a very motivating way for me to journal, process and grieve in the healthiest way I can.

Seaturtle