Hello Anita,

I miss the time where we frequently talked, I feel bad that my schedule, since then has made my responses less frequent. Does this make you feel badly? When I am not on the site for a couple weeks, does it make you feel like I am selfish, using you, or cold?

Also I apologize for my horribly grammatical phone message here a couple weeks ago. I won’t use my phone again because my autocorrect changed some words and it is just a small typing platform, but you did great with it!

To your post June 12th

“Let me ask you first: did you behave coldly and selfishly with him- Sometimes? Often? Rarely? Never?”

Not never. I was cold when I felt cold. There were rare occasions where he would do something, and I would then be so bothered (like picking up the phone mid conversation). And after he did it, I found myself feeling cold, infact I disliked the feeling so much I almost wanted to just pretend not being cold, but as you know, I display my authentic feelings and in those moments I went silent and cold, while being kind and straight forward. I am glad you asked me this question so I could reflect, him calling me cold sometimes is accurate.

June 13th you wrote:

“…my true self was loving and trusting and felt ALIVE, but then, it was terribly abused by my mother, twisted into knots and generally emptied of the feeling of being ALIVE”

It is helpful for me to hear about your experiences as it helps me express mine. For me ‘my true self was warm, but then was terribly abused, twisted into knots and generally emptied of the feeling of warmth. Leading to me feeling cold. My dad was also paranoid and emotionally detached from me, angry at me.. And I also feel it created and angry, judgemental and misguided loyalty. Everyone hurt him so I hated everyone including myself. All with the purpose of his acceptance, “togetherness.”

“The danger he saw was that ‘through this false self, the infant builds up a false set of relationships, and by means of introjections even attains a show of being real’, while, in fact, merely concealing a barren emptiness behind an independent-seeming façade”. “

After reading about false selves being created by needy parents who deprive their child’s spontaneity, I am tracing back to times I remember feeling my spontaneity was shut down, and times my parents were needy. I am trying to put together how/ which experiences I went through created this “barren emptiness.” It honestly feels like I have only been out of this “show of being real,” since I was 20 years old. I certainly had people and moments I was real with, but through my childhood I remember very clearly feeling like my real self was too awkward to be, so I just behaved like what I thought would blend in, or be accepted. When I started dating in fact, at about 20, I promised myself to be my real self. But I was out of practice. There are parts of my real self that I have not been comfortable to be around certain people. In the past few years I have challenged myself to really be myself, but it is delicate and if rejected too much I put it back on the shelf.. I felt the majority of my real self was rejected and judged by N. It is making me wonder if he only appeared to accept me in the beginning, then when he got tired it started to show that he didn’t anymore.. why would this happen? There is no question I did my best to show him me, and did not receive that from him. I honestly don’t think I ever saw his truest self, either him hiding it or not even knowing it himself..  It is out of the relationship, the past 6 months that I have been able to be my real self, I am not afraid to be rejected by new people and find it so exciting to find people who are real with me. That attitude has lead me to new relationships with new people and even some family members. If you’d like to ignore the note I made connecting this to my relationship with N I would completely understand, I almost deleted it wondering if it was only redundant and shouldn’t let myself be so curious about him the relationship still.

Seaturtle