Dear Anita,
I apologize for the late reply to your thorough and thoughtful response.
“he said please and thank you and all other social-butterfly expressions, but didn’t mean any of them, forming a superficial persona, saying all the right things but not meaning them, remaining on the surface, avoiding depth.”
“I think that his elated, optimistic, excited expressions are not genuine. They lack depth. He is doing his social lubrication/ public relations kind of communication with you.”
My whole life, and perhaps a personality of my soul is that I am, sensitive to people being fake. When someone is fake with me, it makes me feel cold inside, and void of my desire to connect, in fact I would rather leave. But I learned this “superficial persona,” and I learned it well enough to get through highschool, somewhat ok. Outside of my experience being bullied on my school soccer team. I think my mom had a superficial persona as well, but my dad’s is/was a lot more successful in social situations. My mom has an “extroverted persona” but when she is not in public it goes away. I learned this as well. I learned both of my parents superficial personas, making me appear socially equipped. But I learned this persona wasn’t attracting authentic people, so I have been learning to undo it, and in fact stop caring how I come across to every single person. I have gotten much better, but still have moments with the people closer to me, where I wonder what they are thinking of me. But I do my best to consciously refuse to act a certain way to get some perceived approval from them. I am proud of this 🙂
“your father and my mother have this in common: growing up invisible and angrily, demanded excessive visibility from their daughters, your father, during his “house cleaning” sessions; my mother, during her poor-me, histrionic sessions.
In my mother’s excessive demands that I see her caused me to set my eyes on her, to not see me or anyone, but her. “
As I read this I realized more about myself. My mom also has/had these poor-me sessions, demanding I see her, and I am now realizing, consequently not seeing myself. Until I was in 8th grade, 13 and becoming a woman, I didn’t receive too much attention from my dad. Pre-13 my dad played with us like kids, but was emotionally and at times physically absent. He would play with us but not be present. It was in this time I believe my mom used me as an emotional venting place. I would escape her by playing with my siblings. After 13 my dad became more strict on places I could go, things I would wear and all this. Then 16 when I moved in with him, is when he began to demand this excessive visibility from me.
“a fighting sea turtle (sea turtles chase, bite, hit with their shells, butt heads, literally.. so I read).”
hahaha, made me laugh out loud in this cafe!
“patience, young grasshopper.. I mean, young sea turtle, lol. (and patience, anita). The voice does get weaker. It’s not loud, and it doesn’t take center stage like it used to.”
🙂
“But his core emotional unseen experience was cemented within him before you were born. It was not, and is not in your power to dissolve his cement.
Interesting, how by demanding that you see him, he created your core emotional unseen experience, about which we talked in the past, an experience that’s in the process of being dissolved, good job, Seaturtle!”
I’d never thought of my dad as feeling unseen, until reading this. But you are so right. When I was home, just recently I had lunch with him where he randomly started to defend himself, about things that I had never said. He was defending himself from a politically correct sort of stand, as if he was being judged by others, and that his (very real) hard work was not understood or appreciated. It was in this moment I realized his defensiveness had nothing to do with me, I had just gotten home! It was not mine to solve, but I still tried, and his facial expression made me believe he could see what I was saying was true. I told him what those people thought, as far as how hard he worked, simply did not matter. I was afraid he would just vent more to me, but instead he silenced and we began a new topic of conversation. 🙂 It was a moment I feel like he could see me. These moments have been occurring in the past year, since I moved states away from home. He didn’t see me for most of my life, but as I heal from this core experience, I believe he also wants to heal and I think we may be able to help eachother!
“Your father created this sensitivity in you (of being selfish) and I’m guessing that your sisters became aware of this sensitivity over the years, willing to use it against you..?”
Yes, especially one of my sisters who has a talent for poking peoples buttons and insecurities.
I say to the sea turtle: sea turtle, when you are close enough to a shark, and you look into the shark’s eyes, you will not see your authentic self. You will see a predator approaching his/ her meal.
I will close my imagery with a dolphin-anita swimming side by side with a sea turtle in a blue-purple deep sea.
Dear wise dolphin-anita, I appreciate and understand the imagery
thank you and please stay swimming close <3
I truly feel bad about your thoughtful message getting left without a response, please forgive me.
Seaturtle
seaturtle
Though I run this site, it is not mine. It's ours. It's not about me. It's about us. Your stories and your wisdom are just as meaningful as mine. 