Dear Helcat,

So tell me if you think I am interpreting this wrong. But after reading your description of schemas, mine in being unnoticed and overlook, so that is comfortable to me. I remember learning this concept in psychology, and thought I was conscious of my schemas. I used to think they were being controlled and told what to do. But now as I get to know my parents more and reflect on my childhood I am realizing it was much more. It was emotional neglect, soul-less, cold, arguing, laughter, tv, vacations and games with my siblings, the best part.

” Once you have lived together and they have experienced hardship. That is when you have a good understanding of someone’s character as people are at their worst during times of hardship.”

I appreciate this observation.

Wise words “Intuition is calmer.”

I imagine that dynamic during disagreements would be because of your father. I am imagining that as a child when your father was angry you just wanted it to stop and you were scared and wanted a hug. But he was also unstable and not safe for you during those times. Would you agree with this?

Yes. Interesting though, to get to the safe place, a hug, I did different things with my dad than with N. With my dad I would say something to make him feel empathy for me, in those moments I would bring up what I was dealing with in life at that time. For example he got upset with me for being too messy (as he did often) after leaving a very small thing out of order, or leaving my homework on the counter. He would confront me and I would feel so bad, apologize, then would bring up something bad that had happened between me and my mom that was affecting me emotionally. He would empathize with me then the space would feel much safer to me. With N, first of all he would never be the one to confront me. I was always initiating the conversations about how we felt. He would be passive aggressive so I would tell him his behavior was making me sad, and ask him why he was behaving that way, if it was something I had done, to which he rarely had an answer for. Usually gaslighting me telling me my intuition about his passive aggression was wrong. This was that emotional discomfort with him, the moment I wanted to erase what I had said to begin with and skip to a hug, so I usually would. How long before I caved would vary, but usually I would just drop it to feel emotional safety again. He rewarded me for dropping it.. rewarded with warmth and closeness.

So then my solution is to learn to be calm during confrontation and not feel emotionally unsafe. Why do I feel emotionally unsafe, how do I self regulate my emotions in those moments.. ?

I think the difficulty is to stay present when triggered during a disagreement. It takes a lot of practice and willingness to be vulnerable, being open to be hurt, but at the same time trust that the other person doesn’t want to hurt you.

I read this after I wrote the above. Staying present sounds painful. I am calm now though and still feel like N wanted to hurt me. Like he was punishing me for not being a certain way. How he handled the breakup certainly supports that. Do you think people act out of character when in pain of a breakup, or that it in fact reveals some of their personality? I am wondering because I wonder if my not trusting him was about me or about him. Same with my dad, if not trusting him was about me or him. Do I have trust issues with everyone or just those who are actually untrustworthy.

I celebrated fourth of July by spending time with friends outside, watching other people’s fireworks!

Ditto, I enjoy talking to you as well! I am doing good, I am trying to juggle my internal healing while still taking care of things in the outside world. I wish cars, money, housing and food weren’t necessities haha. How have you been? and your baby, doing much better now?

Seaturtle