Dear Anita,

“as the week went on you became aware of a part of your motivation a few days before”

• yes, I wonder if I can speed up this awareness. “Retroactive awareness”

“he wasn’t able to give you more, and you weren’t able to stop wanting more.”

• wow this should be the quote of our relationship

“he wasn’t able to regard the things you told him in the ways you wanted him to. He fought for your love in the ways he was able.”

• why wasn’t he able to? I guess it is just his limitations due to how he grew up.

“we’re all on the spectrum/ continuum of each and every personality disorder, even when we don’t fit a diagnosis.”

• this feels true to me, but I also think some people stay more still than others. That is that some people have a wider ranger of emotions than others, while others are stuck to one end/polar opposite. And unfortunately in our society the emotionless side of the spectrum, is more acceptable and even desired. Desired by people like F and N, they are proud of the Teflon.

“During all the years that I fit the BPD diagnosis, I very much cared about being authentic, I very much wanted to be authentic, it was very, very important to me. But I was too afraid to be authentic around others most of the time because my so effectively shamed my authenticity. I was so out of practice,  didn’t even know how. I wasn’t able.”

• I relate to it being important to me right now. You were afraid to be authentic “because my so effectively shamed my authenticity,” can you explain this sentence more, what do you mean by “so”?

“The book you mentioned recently that you want to write, must be titled USEEN.”

• wow I really like this!!

“Unseen and Alone are synonymous.”

• interesting

“N awakened your desire to be seen”

• wow this is poetic, yes.
• Why did N awaken this in me?
• Edit: I typed this whole post last night but wanted to reas it fresh in the morning to make sure it still aligned with my morning fresh third eye. I will make it known when I am adding something new this morning like right now. I woke up and went on a couple mile walk this morning, recognizing new beauty around me. I woke up feeling angry unfortunately, it went from peaceful wake up, to suddenly realizing I needed to mourn my lost snow gear. I know they are superficial things, but man was it hard to find shoes that fit just right and a snowboard I actually liked the look of, even my goggles and jacket, they all took me a few years to collect. Angry he really just isn’t giving me my things back. I knew I didn’t want my day to be that way so I went on a walk and listened to the Harvard commencement speech by Steve Jobs, and I took from it the beauty in new beginnings. I recognize that two years with N, feels like a lot of time and what was the point? One major point is this, recognizing my need to be seen by a significant other, before N I didn’t realize I wanted that, or what it even meant to me.

“it is amazing to me how much work it takes to SEE certain other people, like me trying to see you.”

• this is an interesting observation. It makes me want to try to SEE somebody else.. maybe you?
• Edit: I wonder if everyone is complex or others are more simple, I suspect this is true but wouldn’t it be a superiority complex to claim that I am more complex than some others?

“this particular seeing occurred to me a day or two ago, as in a passing thought), that it is N, in his stark Unseeing of you, who triggered your overcompensating, narcissistic like reaction.”

• wow so when I feel unseen I lean more narcissistic on the spectrum. And dating N made me recognize I was overcompensating for something, and it was that I felt unseen. That’s a lot to take in. Why did it take him to trigger that?
• Edit: “when I feel unseen I lean more narcissistic on the spectrum.” Today as I read this sentence I understand it more. Maybe (but leaving room for adjustment due to my retroactive awareness) if I feel seen, I am so driven to see the other person back. In general I want to make people feel seen, but in a relationship I feel it is a little different. In a relationship you spend so much time together you will inevitably see more than others do, well hopefully. So in a relationship if I feel they are “continuing” to see me, then I return this, energized by them seeing me, I put that energy back towards them. But, like with N, if they stop giving me their energy of trying to see me, I don’t have the spare energy to see them anymore, instead I must see myself, and this is where the narcissistic behaviors can enter. Slowly, my priority narrows down to only myself, and their feelings become less important, just as during the breakup I had to prioritize my feelings and end things “coldly” and I had to disregard his feelings. Of course I am human and can’t completely do this, can’t completely disregard his feelings but I can just enough so that mine win.

“– and I am open to having been wrong in some of my assessments of you. And of him.”

• I guess if we weren’t open to these things we’d be stunting ourselves and we both clearly have a similar desire to be better every day.

“I think, at this point (and I may be wrong), that he cared for you as much as he was ABLE to care for you.”

• that is the same sense I was getting. That he’d reached his max of how much he was able to care for me and I was very unsatisfied with that, and as hard as he was to give up, i insinctually knew that there was better out there. But at the same time accepting that if there wasn’t better then I’d still rather be single than with him.
• A major realization for me to end things was asking myself “if the world ended and you had to spend the rest of your days in a room with this person, would you choose them to be your one person there?” And my answer was no. I couldn’t see us, just two souls, vibing together. I’d rather be with my little sister than him for the rest of time, and shouldn’t the answer to that be your one lifetime partner that you are choosing?
• I’m so curious about your partner and the type of relationship you have
• Edit: this is powerful here, “I’d rather be single than with him.” Powerful and true, although the transition from relationship to single is very hard.

“I feel empathy for you for needing what you needed from N, and empathy for him for not being able to deliver.”

• I feel empathy for him not being able to deliver too. I was rooting for him. But he reached his max of how much he could care for me. As I wanted him to be my person, I also wanted to be his. Even now I find myself sad that I couldn’t be what he needed. I worry that he feels like “people always leave” and that I contributed to that fear. he’s the youngest so he watched all of his siblings leave, then his dad leaves him alone as a kid for a random amount of time, and his mom leaves him emotionally. I feel guilty that I couldn’t be the love he needed in his life.
• But I know that I could of been what he needed, but the problem is i had more to give than what he needed. I had so much love to give and I don’t think he cared much for those things I did for him.
• Edit: I hope to find someone who sees all the love that I am directing towards them, and that i can see their love as well. Which I believe I will see their love, I know I have that ability but I also think there’s some compatibility of some sort that enters the equation. By Compatibility, I am not sure if it has to do with personality or just an equal desire to be your best selves.

“no, it’s me who knew less about you than I thought I did. Sincerely, it takes so much work, and humility, and persistence, and putting aside my persona biases, experiences, etc., to get to know a person as .. complex as you”

• one day I wanna hear more about what it was like to do what you are doing. I thank you, because I need this, someone who cares to see me as much as they can. And you are that person right now (heart emoji, and leaf emoji because this feels very natural).

• “complex.” I am thinking about this word right now, how did I get this way and is everyone on the planet on a spectrum from a simple to complex?

“what I am in touch with this evening, is how difficult it is, has been for me,  to SEE you as you are.”

• You know what, at least a silver lining of being “unseen” is that I am familiar enough with the feeling that I just don’t expect people to see me. I’ve accepted there are places in my head I will always be alone, but I’ve also learned that some people see you better than others. I feel more seen by my roommate than I did by N.
• Edit: I feel more seen by you than N, to an extreme degree.

“It’s mostly the personal biases, the personal childhood experiences that create one’s vision of another.”

• so you can still see your childhood affecting who you are now?
• Edit: Its amazing how many people there are in the world with their own bias of everything. I wonder what the world reads like, or what people really look like from zero bias. Maybe it is very boring and bland, or maybe it is blissful. No pain but no joy.

“Leave the toilet seat up every day, and be late as long a… you do see me“- a real lifetime partner is possible for you to find and have a lifetime with.”

• this is a meaningful two sentences. (Feeling good and hopeful inside emoji)

“Give him time though.. the task of seeing a complex, fascinating person like you is not easy, says I.”

• haha yes I can do this (: you know what though with N, I got to a point where I couldn’t see him seeing any more of my complexities. Wanting to or seeing the value in it. I am still thinking back to that sentence you paraphrased “Leave the toilet seat up every day, and be late as long a… you do see me.” I don’t think it was the small things that pushed me away, it was pretty deep.

“most people would have disappeared from their forum after told certain things, after told certain things that were the wrong understandings, but you are back here, remarkable, I am humbled.”

• I have been called out and feel it was untrue many times in my life, hence being unseen most of it. However with you many things you notice about me feel true and are helping me understand myself faster.
• Edit: And if they don’t feel true, I still can understand how you concluded what you did, which challenges me to really ask myself if it’s true for myself. If I feel humbled it is usually true. But if I feel unseen, it sends me to more thoughts trying to figure out why.

“love takes a lot of work when it comes to a complex person such as you, a Seaturtle with an open third eye and an active crown chakra. It takes me opening mine and activating my crown chakra to understand.”

• if I 100% believe my person is out there for this lifetime then I wonder what they’re doing right now and when I will hear about it (;

“add distilled water to your tears, so that your sea turtle’s tears don’t irritate your human eyes.”

• i literally have distilled water here because I used it for my diffusers for a while so I will do this now hahaha

“In case you cry or laugh too hard.”

• you’re funny (laugh crying emoji)

-You know what, I know you said you don’t watch a lot of tv, and I still wonder how. But have you ever watched like standup comedy on Netflix? Those got me through quarantine times. I literally knew I was lacking serotonin and literally watched standup on purpose to laugh, so my brain would perk up.

Edit: I like how certain comedians, like John Mulaney and Taylor Tomlinson, to name a couple, point out real human flaws and question what is going on here on this earth. They reveal human complexities and do it in a relatable and funny way.

Seaturtle