Dear Seaturtle:

Jan 30, 2024 (page 26): ” I would love to venture further on caring for my inner child, seeing myself so that in my next relationship my expectations/needs are not too high for one person. I want to discover more about myself, what my childhood has caused me to need in adulthood“.

Oct 11, 2023 (page 1): ” I mentioned a fear of being/becoming a narcissist. I believe both my parents are on this spectrum…   Every 3 months, not an exaggeration, we (your father & yourself)  would have what he began to call ‘house cleaning’ where we would sit down and he would list all the ways I had exemplified being ‘ungrateful’ at his house.  I left a dish in his sink at his house, or left my backpack downstairs, basically left any trace of myself in ‘his’ house, he would get upset…. This all has followed me, I worry my partner doesn’t think of me, when he doesn’t put the toilet seat down my head tells me he doesn’t think about me at all. My dad would accuse me of planning my showers around avoiding talking to him, or if I was upstairs when he got home I was expected to come had conversation with him… If my boyfriend is showering by the time I come over I think, ‘wait why couldn’t he plan his shower so he would be out when I got here, he must not care very much about our time together‘…  all these are ways my mind just was exhausted living with him and I needed to get away from”-

– If you left any trace of yourself at your father’s house, he would get upset. He demanded to be The Only One in his house. This excessive, narcissistic need on his part to be attended to and prioritized at the expense of you, led to your excessive need to be thoroughly seen and prioritized. It’s a 180 degree response: from zero (no trace of you allowed to be, none prioritized) to 180 (LOTS of you must be seen, allowed to be expressed, and prioritized.. and it could never be enough. It’s about trying to over compensate for not having been seen and prioritized.

Did we talk about this topic thoroughly?… I don’t think that we did.

anita