Dear Stacy:

Good to read back from you this Monday morning. You shared that you went to your ENT (Ear, Nose and Throat) medical appointment, where the doctor concluded that the lump in your throat is an inflamed lymph node due to a skin condition on your scalp: “He thinks it’s yet another autoimmune issue that has manifested as a skin condition, basically. Very relevant to what you and I were discussing months ago“.

You recently received Medicaid (a U.S. federal program that provides health insurance for people with limited income and financial resources), you are on a waiting list for counseling, and when the ENT doctor saw that you had Medicaid, he scheduled you for an ultrasound on your neck and referred you to a dermatologist: “It’s been life-changing to have some financial assistance in just the few days I’ve had it“.

In the last few days, you ‘ve been grappling with a decision that you need to make: to accept a full time position (with no promotion and no increase in hourly salary), and lose you recently received, life-changing Medicaid, or reject the offer and keep your Medicaid-

– if I was you, Stacy, I’d reject the full time job and keep my Medicaid because your physical and mental health depends on it.

It will be your 32 birthday in five days (I will selectively add the boldface feature to this quote): “This time last year I was celebrating my birthday with him… You mentioned in your post about me being chosen over other girls and how special that made me feel, and how much losing that affected me. That’s the biggest thing I’m dealing with… I creeped on his profile the other night and he posted an Instagram Story.. (about) a place we were planning on going… I cannot shake how this summer every single person in my life relayed the same feedback to me about how I was affecting them… almost word for word the same… My best friend who admitted to having to ghost me for her mental health is still not back in the picture…  I know I have a tendency to go overboard with my processing and rumination.”-

– I think that you being on the waiting list for counseling is very good news and I hope that you receive quality counseling soon. I hope that in counseling, you will unearth your I-am-not-special core belief, examine it, challenge it and resolve it. Once resolved, your ex will no longer have the place in your mind and life that he’s had for so long. You will no longer follow his social media activity, ruminate about him and verbalizing your rumination to friends, and in doing so, negatively affect them.

From well being. com/Find out how to shift the negative core beliefs that stem from childhood (summary and quotes, I will be selectively adding the boldface feature to the quotes):

As young children, we each learn such things as a chair is something you sit on, and a bus is something that takes you to school. We also learn who we are through the direct and indirect messages we receive from our caretakers. A highly critical parent, for example, sends the child the message: you are never good enough, and as a result, just like the child learned that a chair is something you sit on, the child learns: I am something or someone that is never good enough for anyone.

“Imagine being covered by a large filter so that part of your immediate experience is completely blocked from your awareness while other parts are exaggerated or highlighted by the filter…  If a parent.. constantly criticised you, as a child you didn’t have the cognitive capacity to think, ‘Daddy is projecting his unresolved issues onto me.’ Instead, in your longing for unconditional love, you interpreted this as ‘I am not enough for Daddy to love’ or ‘Clearly, there is something wrong with me.’ This is a false distorted view of yourself, which lives on in you and filters your experience as you grow up… You may have felt ‘different’, isolated and as though you didn’t belong growing up. You have a belief you are socially undesirable“.

Your focus on your ex and rumination about him is a part of you (like it says in the boldfaced quote above) that is “exaggerated or highlighted by the filter“. In your case, your core belief (based mostly on the messages you received as a child) that you are not special, and that you are socially, physically (and sexually) undesirable/ unchosen negatively filters your adult experience of life, leading to the exaggerated and highlighted place that your ex has in your mind and life.

Back to the online source: “To remove the negative filters from your life… you first need to clearly identify them and understand where they have come from in your childhood. Recognise that these core beliefs are false assumptions you made through no fault of your own growing up. Next, try to use evidence to disprove your negative belief or, even better, process the underlying pain associated with the core belief…”.

You wrote today: “I do think me journaling here has helped me“- you are welcome to journal here, on your thread, anytime and at any length, please do.

anita

Dear Seaturtle:

I was fed up yesterday, fed up with N and his appearances/ pretenses and then The Lie that was clearly a lie. I didn’t want to hear (read) any more of his pretenses and lies and get stuck in a non-ending situation with you where you remain confused by his pretenses and lies, and me repeating myself in vain.

“It will be hard but I would love nothing more than to have your support, in a breakup plan and occasional journaling on here“- absolutely, you have my support. (I prefer communicating here because I spend the majority of my online time here and not on email, but I’m okay with you having my email address, and even my phone number… if I had a phone.. long story).

“I am ready to get rid of this poison in my life… enough of my energy has been sucked away in trying to get the rose tinted goggles off my face, for this person… I have been preparing for this end for a long time, in a way, this whole past year“-

– First, now that you intend to break up with him this evening, I want to go back to your yesterday post in effort to help you get even more clarity about things and be more prepared for this evening:

“My, the night went differently than I could have expected!“- you wrote this yesterday. Be prepared that once again, this evening, he will use his impressive gaslighting and other skills to throw you off your goal of breaking up with him. Be prepared that he will say things and employ appearances that you don’t expect. Better still, we can predict what he might say and do tonight, so that nothing is a surprise to you.

Coming to think about it, you don’t owe him to explain anything to him in-person. It will be perfectly fine if you explain things to him in-writing, an email, and avoid being exposed to gaslighting in-person.

Back to your yesterday’s post:  “So he picked me up on time, and we went to an Italian restaurant. We sat down and had a glass of wine“- no wine during a break-up meeting.. or weed, or any such drug.

“he said he was going to start taking better care of himself, his home cleanliness and eating habits, things that he said went astray when I left!…  and I appreciated this answer“- prepare for the possibility that he will flatter you and tell you very nice things about you and the positives you have had in his life (and still can have in the future), and otherwise say things that will make you feel good.

“I said ‘You encourage me to do what I love to do‘ and I had a second one ‘You are willing to try to communicate and don’t like going to sleep upset with each other‘, a few nights ago…  he wanted to come over to cuddle up and I just appreciate that he likes to hug or be loving after an argument, it makes me feel safe”-

– prepare for the possibilities that he will repeat tonight what he knows (because you told him) that you like and that which makes you feel safe.. with him: encouraging you to do what you love to do, do his best (skilled yet insincere and manipulative) communicating, and offer to hug/ cuddle with you.

“He said ‘I really like that you...’ I appreciated that he noticed this, I did not know that he did”- be prepared to.. be suspicious of anything he says following the words I really like that you... I appreciate that you... etc.,  anything he says that flatters you.

“I was proud of myself though, because I was able to speak clearly and I did not allow him to gaslight me again, which he was trying to do. However…“- However… he ended up gaslighting you.

I was impressed yesterday, reading how clearly and intelligently you expressed yourself to him. Unfortunately, you were not a match to his manipulating skills. This happened last night. You may be successfully gaslit again tonight. This is why breaking up with him via email, not being exposed to his manipulating/ gaslighting skills, may be a good idea.

“He nodded at this seeming to begin to understand or at least try”- prepare for him to nod again, just at the right moment, and to seem/ appear to understand.

“End of our night he said something that made me really have a new perspective about everything”- End of the night, he successfully gaslit you.

“He said ‘Do you think the victim is always right?‘… I did not foresee this kind of questioning”– prepare for him to ask you a question or questions that are meant for him to take the lead of the conversation, leading you away from your goal and clarity and toward confusion and another successful gaslighting event.

“I said: ‘… you were investigating me‘. He shook his head no, he did not understand… I went on to tell him the gravity of gaslighting, after understanding that he genuinely did not socially understand… he literally did not understand how I could take his reaction as if he was investigating or judging me at all”-

– he did investigate you and he did understand that he investigated you. By falsely and dishonestly claiming that he had no understanding that he investigated you, he places himself in the (false) position of an innocent child who needs an adult to explain basic things to him.

“I said ‘There’s multiple issues here, but it sounds like it is starting with you literally having a lack of awareness about how you come across’“- you bought his false claim(that he is like an innocent child who needs to be taught) and you were, at this point, proceeding the way he wanted you to proceed.

“When I went on about this example he looked completely defeated, he said something along the lines of ‘I had no idea I came across that way.’… he looked completely stunned“- the deceit continues: the lies and the insincere appearance of being defeated and stunned. Expect lies and insincere appearances tonight.

“I genuinely believed him“- bingo, he got you, gaslighting mission accomplished!

“You are over here socially unaware of how you are coming across to me“- he is aware, very aware of how he comes across to you, so aware that he successfully plans and executes coming across the way he wants to come across to you. He is very good at it too, the reason that meeting him in-person for a breakup might be a bad idea.

“At this point we both had tears in our eyes“- be prepared for tears in his eyes, or for him trying to get his tears to flow.

I said ‘There can be a solution, but it has to be you increasing your awareness of how you are treating me so that you either stop…'”-

– based on his success in manipulating you, you figured here that the solution is not to break up with the manipulative adult in front of you, but to teach an innocent child (that he is neither) the basics of human interactions (while he is very aware of and skillful at human interactions.. the dishonest kind).

“He got quiet and looked in shock and defeated and hopeless“- he is an impressive performer. He got quiet because it unsettles you that he is quiet in this context.

“I said ‘babe you can’t shut down on me now‘ and he said he wanted to leave the restaurant”- anxious about him being quiet, threatened by it (fearing separation from him), he takes his threat further, threatening to leave.. you

“I hugged him“- threatened by his quietness and his gesture of leaving you, you hugged him, wanting to be connected to him, to not separate from him.

“he hugged me more delicately than he ever has, he didn’t even fully grab me, he just had one hand through my hair and the other lightly on my back, accepting my hug”- keeping you on your toes, not fully accepting you back into his life.

He said: “I don’t understand how to read people and I definitely did not understand body language for a long time and had to learn”- he learned a whole lot. He understands how to read people and body language very well, and he uses it so to his advantage at the expense of others.

“I don’t know how to behave, and I don’t know how to read other people’s behavior. I am retarded or something I don’t know.. I was absolutely wowed, just had the biggest ‘ah ha’ moment. He LITERALLY did not know how was coming across, all those times… I felt compassion… is this something I can love about him and help him?”-

– Gaslighting Mission Accomplished: he dishonestly presented himself as an innocent, helpless child who needs an adult’s help and you feel compassion for the alleged innocent and helpless child and want to help him, to teach him.

Sincerely, Seaturtle, he is very good at what he does and .. I don’t know how you can break up with him in-person.

For whatever it’s worth, regarding what to expect for him if you meet him for the purpose of breaking up with him: he will use against you the fact that (he knows that) you are emotionally very attached to him and that a big part of you does not want to break up with him, and he will once again get quiet, and maybe he’ll appear as if he is okay with you breaking up with him, just so to make you anxious and reverse your stated intent to break up with him.

You wrote today, Dec 6: “I wanted to end it last night but the timing didn’t work, I have plans to do so at 5:30pm tonight…. If you would like to start helping me with a breakup plan it would be greatly appreciated“- better that you break up with him via email where you explain to him that the reason you are not breaking up with him in person is not that you lack respect for him, but that you have too much respect for his dishonestly manipulative skills.

* About chakras and auras, tomorrow.

anita

Dear noname:

You are very welcome and thank you for.. being you!

(I will be adding the boldface feature to all the quotes in this post). Today, Nov 30, 2023, you wrote:  “While I have made significant improvements in my mental health, shame has been the most difficult thing to work with. Being in relationships triggers my shame the worst”.

I wanted to refresh my memory about the origin and nature of your individual shame, so I read through our communication in your various threads. Your first post on tiny buddha was in March 15, 2017 . I replied to you on that same day. You were then about to turn 25 (now 31).  You shared back then that growing up, your mother was very depressed and your father had anger issues. “Trying to keep my mom happy and my dad calm was a very exhausting task“.

Fast forward to today, “Everything feels exhausting… my stress levels are unsustainable. My goal is to be internally well no matter what my external circumstances may be. I have been slacking on my self-work, I don’t meditate, exercise, self-reflect, or socialize as much as i need to. I’m not giving up though! (Nov 30, 2023).

I want to look at what has been exhausting you so much as a child and through your 20s  and what new awareness (in addition to you hopefully resuming meditating, exercising and positive socializing) can possibly help your self reflection and lead to lower stress levels/ to be internally well.

What kept your stress levels high growing up, which naturally exhausted you, was what you wrote (quote above): trying to keep your mother happy and your father calm (while there was no one there to make it possible for you to be happy or calm).

You shared over time that while you were growing up, your mother was depressed and suicidal. Lots of drama. Problem is that in your 20s- while we communicated- your mother and father kept the drama going in your adult life, keeping your stress levels high and exhausting you:

“My depression is worsening.. life is suffocating me mainly due to my parents going through a divorce… lately I can talk no sense into her (your mother) and she is in constant crisis” (Sept 17, 2017).

“When i do see my mom a couple times a month its usually all about her problems, because she is going through a lot right now ” (July 9, 2018).

“I’m seriously considering not talking to my parents at all for good, I came home for Mother’s Day… and my mom became furious... Long story short my mom was threatening to drive the van into his house, and I grabbed her and wouldn’t let her get in the car, I told her to stop thinking about herself and think of me an my sister. She was very aggressive and rude towards me for trying to Deescalate the situation…  I was having a good week and started back on my path towards good mental health by meditating and journaling and exercise, then I come home for a day and I’m depressed all over again” (May 13, 2019).

“Whenever I see or talk to my parents all of the trauma and disappointment are re ignited in my spirit” (June 10, 2019)

“I went to my sister’s yesterday to some work on my car. While I was talking to my sister my mom continually interrupts… and interrupts yet again… My mom went off and screamed ‘you’re always so F***ing disrespectful!’ I asked if she wanted to talk about it and she just went upstairs to her room and stayed there the rest of the day…” (Feb 17, 2020).

“Me and my sister were downstairs in the kitchen thanksgiving day cooking food, my mom calls my sister from upstairs on the phone, crying hysterically with no explanation saying she wouldn’t be attending thanksgiving then rudely hung up on my sister” (Nov 29, 2021).

* On July 29, 2017, you wrote to me: “I talked to my mom this morning … She cried a little bit, but admitted that she knew this was true and regretted leaving me alone so much as a kid and not hugging or showing affection towards me and my sister, she said she looks back at pictures from my childhood and it’s clear to her how sad I was… After this conversation I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off of me…  it feels like I finally have the permission to stop blaming myself, and to really begin to love myself through empathy as you said. It finally feels like it’s not all my fault…  I was just a kid after all, and that kid is still part of me. I’ve got to be kinder towards that part of me, and not be angry with it for being in need”-

– Unfortunately, her apparent regret and admission of valid, true guilt was short lived,  or it was of no real substance (see Sept 2017- Nov 2021 quotes above).

Unfortunately, your sister- who lived (and maybe she still does) with your mother- has not been on your side and discouraged you from having no-contact with your mother so that you are no longer exposed to her drama: “My sister told me she believes I have mistreated my mother over the past few years as well. She doesn’t empathize very well with me” (March 10,2020), and “My sister text me last weekend pleading to unblock my mom and talk with her” (March 26, 2020).

Next, I am adding a few quotes from what you shared over the years, also meant for your self-reflection:

“I have pretty much always struggled with perfectionism, it was the reason I was/am so hard on myself, I was a very well mannered child, excellent student, overachiever etc. I did this because I always thought if I could discipline myself it would make my parents life easier, which it ultimately did, they never had to spank me as a kid, or tell me something twice, but it caused me to be hypervigilant of any imperfection I had” (August 6, 2017)

“Feeling loved is such an abstract concept to me, that I’m not sure how to go about feeling it” (June 21, 2018).

“”It has been the hardest task in my life to have empathy for myself… Then comes the shame telling me I was never good enough with lots of evidence I’m support to this claim” (June 22, 2018).

“I still see my hopelessness as a defense mechanism because having hope leads to disappointment, so my learned baseline has become disappointed in advanced, making me pessimistic about relationships” (November 28, 2019).

“The thing I want the most I fear most” (November 22, 2021).

anita

Dear Seaturtle:

First, the journal entry from yesterday (Tuesday): … N arrived late Sunday morning…

“I told him why I was bothered, and he did this thing I absolutely hate..  He says ‘what do you mean, I can’t take a two second phone call?’ downplaying what he does, like I am crazy. I said ‘No you took a phone call within 10 minutes of us getting up from sex, I was naked in front of you.’ He said ‘you wondered about (at) the time, how am I suppose to know we are still in that space,’… He gives me the dumbest look ever like he has ABSOLUTELY no idea why I would be bothered, just kind shakes his head, squinting his eyes. And shaking his head he says ‘I don’t understand why you allow things to bother you, and you have to ruin our morning because of it,’ this makes me feel invalidated… I still don’t understand… I don’t necessarily think what he did was wrong, but it was at least insensitive”-

– If it happened before that he took a phone call 10 minutes or so after the two of you had sex, while you were still naked, and you told him that it bothered you, and then, he did it again, maybe you’d have a legitimate complaint the 2nd time it happened.

I say “maybe” because (1) a person should be given some grace for forgetting once or twice, and (2) because depending on how long the list of his behaviors that bother you, it can be too difficult or impossible to remember all on a regular basis. If the list is long.. it’s a walking on egg shells experience for him.

If this Sunday was the first time this particular incident happened, he didn’t downplay what happened.. he simply didn’t know that taking that phone call would bother you: he is not a mind reader.

“I proceed to have a fantastic play .. the audience was really into it and fed into our performance, over all just the best genuine vibe. The whole cast was in their feels, there was so much sincerity in that room, people taking selfies, making future plans, congratulating each other, thanking each other“- excellent and congratulations!

“laughing N turns to me with a sad puppy dog face saying ‘that won’t happen to you right?’ At this point with a couple drinks he shows his real reactions to things, as I wish he did regularly”- you place way, way too much weight on what he said.. reads like he was having a light moment, having some fun following a couple of drinks.. nothing rude or offensive.

It seems like what you found offensive was not the words he uttered, but the words that silently crossed your mind about what he said.

“Then, I am afraid of your disappointment here but just listen to the whole story, I smoked a vape…After I smoked it.. I called him to just say goodnight and give it one last effort to see how he was. This time his voice was more uppity, happier, lighter and real? he said ‘please don’t feel bad…’ At the time I believed him but as I am been journaling here I don’t know if I do, he was probably ‘happier’ because he smoked a ton of weed when he got home, what he often does when he is stressed. This was the end of my day, but then the night began…

“I woke up at 3:30 am from a terrible nightmare, I looked over at the vape and suddenly it clicked to me, I was being spiritually attacked, this vape lowered my vibration so low that my armor was down and exposed to the spiritual realm. I dreamt of animals sticking their claws into my skin, it was the nicotine, I was running from the animals, everything in my body was telling me that nicotine was enabling me to be attacked…  Instead of going to sleep I got up at 3:30, to confront the darkness…  I let go of my resistance to the pain and I reached a peaceful moment where I was friends with the pain, it brought me joy and I smiled, realizing that I was okay, I could do it”-

– (1) the making friends with pain was a positive emotional- spiritual experience. (2) there is a close correlation between taking drugs and having spiritual experiences: this is what the 1960s counter culture generation was about, taking LSD aka dropping acid.  Many people of the counter culture at the time had positive spiritual awakenings as a result of some drugs, but such awakenings fizzled out and left no positive, lasting mark on neither the people of the 60s nor on the world as a whole, a world that is in more trouble than it ever was.

No doubt in my mind that nicotine is bad for you. I hope that you don’t vape (or smoke) again but I understand that you might. I don’t think less of you for vaping.. it’s just that it’s not good for you, or for anyone.

“But in the morning on my 5 am alarm and on my drive to hot Pilates…  I had a revelation; Hatchling was afraid that I would allow N to hurt me and stay with him! This hit me hard. I immediately wrote in my notes: ‘Maybe I don’t trust myself to move on if I am in a situation where I am being hurt. Hatch doesn’t trust that sea turtle will remove her from the situation and instead just take the abuse. So when there is the slightest illusion of abuse hatchling is like ‘what are you gonna do about this!’ But dear hatchling we can’t control everything, N has not yet done something to sincerely harm us, dad did. He is not dad. And if N does harm us (like we were harmed by dad) we will leave, because we are great alone and I am not afraid of being single and I am not afraid of leaving one love for another. I promise hatchling.'”-

– E x C e L L e N t   !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

“so what do you think/know about this?“- I think I answered this question above in regard to the 1960s  (did I?). You had a very positive emotional- spiritual experience. Don’t seek more spiritual awakenings by vaping more.. it doesn’t work on the long-run.

Secondly, your.. 2nd post from yesterday:

“Since 2018 when I went to Argentina… I lived there for 6 months… my first time living away from my parents..  may even be 2017 when I began therapy actually after my failed harm/suicide attempt did not pan out… I grew a lot in 2020 when I lived alone during quarantine… This year (2023) however, has been the most growth in the area of discovery why I feel the way I feel… I met Nathan mid-2021 and I think my self growth and self care took a halt because spending time with him was addicting and momentarily, for about a year pretty much felt like it solved my problems… Then move to Arizona, his priority was no longer me at the front… I move out. Now I am resuming the self care and discovery that I began before…

“Here’s what I think about when I ask myself ‘who am I?’: I am deeply connected to something on this earth, I am sensitive to people’s energies and to the dark and lightness of the world. I am artistic, I can bring things from my head out through my hand onto a surface. I am funny in my own way, People enjoy my ability to laugh at myself and say what is on my mind, I saw what is on my mind. I am trusting, which makes me vulnerable to manipulation. I am a healer of sorts, I know how to change people’s moods, I speak to people how I speak to myself, I am very in tuned with my inner dialogue and this makes me relatable to people. I am a super taster, my senses are sensitive inside and out. I see art and it moves me, I smell and taste food that makes me want to dance, I hear music through my bones. As a child I wasn’t allowed to watch certain things, but I snuck what I wanted to watch, I was always okay with not watching creepy or horror movies or even images. I could not let my mind see those things because of how sensitive I have always been to what I let into me, my imagination has allowed me to fully daydream and pass hours at a time in a daze. I am an optimist, despite having negative days of course, I believe things work out if you put good out it will return to you. I am spiritual as opposed to religious because I try to see the good in something when another person tells me it is wrong, there must be something right if that many people live by it right? I am (almost naturally said my name on here haha kinda want to) I am a Hawaiian flower dipped in Italian sas (yes sas not sauce haha). I am gentle, but I am firm about certain things. I am competitive. I am an empath, seeing people in pain pains me. I am open minded, I clash with closed minded people. I am one with music, I feel it very deeply and can move to the beat very well in different ways, my mom was a dance teacher and my sisters both dance, I watched LOTS of dance growing up and I am a self taught, not by the book at all,  ballerina, and contemporary dancer in my mirrors. I am thoughtful. I am of the Sea. I chose Seaturtle because I have a premonition I was a Seaturtle in a past life. I have been told my face has the shape of a turtle more than once hahaha AND I am deathly afraid of sharks for no reason. Sharks are the animal I am most curious about, they scare me and I am addicted to the fear in a weird way.”-

– I copied and pasted ALL that you shared about who you are because it is ALL precious, all valuable. And so beautifully articulated!

Thirdly, your 3rd post from yesterday: “I have been using this visual a lot the last couple days. However, how do you tell the voices apart at times. For example right now, N is planning to bring over dinner and spend the eve with me tonight. Some part of me wants him to come, a hug sounds nice, his smile and cuddles and eating together all sound good. Another part of me wonders if him coming over is best, if I need to be alone, I feel a little anxious that he will trigger me… Does hatchling want to tell N not to come? Or is it Seaturtle who wants to protect hatchling and tell N not to come? in other words who wants him to come for a hug and comfort, Seaturtle or hatchling?”-

– Hatchling is the one who wants N to come over, wanting N to hug her, wanting to see his smile, to feel his cuddles and to eat with him and it is Hatchling who is afraid that N will trigger and upset her. Hatchling is the part of you that feels and thinks short-term, with a very close/ no-distance association with what she feels. An example would be, Hatchling feels fear of N triggering her and she thinks: I will call him and tell him to not come over and immediately calls him.

Seaturtle is the part of you who- from some distance from Hatchling, with some objectivity/ looking at the bigger picture- is thinking about what’s best for Hatchling considering hatchling’s feelings and closely associated thoughts, as well as considering past experience and overall goals in regard to healing (the bigger picture), trying to come up with a logical, sensible long-term solution to the conflict that Hatchling is experiencing. An example would be, Seaturtle thinks: Hatchling is conflicted, let me have a talk with her (similar to a parent talking to their scared child) .. And she decides what best for Hatchling based on that talk. Maybe what’s best for Hatchling in this case would be to have N come over for only an hour, a predetermined amount of time.

“Yes I feel this. Although I know who I am to an extent as I wrote above, I still freeze and forget who I am”- when we freeze, we forget. True to everyone. Try to not get alarmed by what is true to everyone.

“Exactly, hearing her is where I am now. But As I wrote earlier about who I am, can I know who I am and still struggle to hear hatchling? Or do you need to fully be in-tuned and have a good relationship with hatchling to know who you are?“-

– the more in tune you are with Hatchling, the better relationship you have with her, the more you hear her=> the more you  know who you are/ the better your mental-emotional (and spiritual) health.

Very possible.

“– my understanding: hatchling has been trying so hard to gain her father’s approval by behaving in ways that would gain his approval, ways that didn’t feel true to her, or didn’t yet feel true to her (hatchling needed time and opportunities to become her true, genuine self).  “

“When I met N, I did not want to conform for someone to like me, and I was very aware of this tendency, but what if at some point I just unknowingly fell back into this pattern and tried to be what he wanted for his approval. Hm I have to think more about this idea..”-

– our initial, awareness-based, newer intents (to not conform, in this case) fizzle out/ weaken over time while old tendencies and old patterns become stronger. This is why it is very important to .. live life mindfully on a regular basis.

I wrote to you: “Whenever she succeeded in getting F’s (temporary, conditional) approval, she said to herself something like: he didn’t approve of the true me..“, and your response (at the end of your 3rd post):  “Very accurate. As I was writing this final response I felt nervous that it was going to overwhelm you with how much I have written. Please don’t feel like you need to rush to respond or to too much at once. Thank you.. Seaturtle and hatch”-

– (1) reads to me that you were afraid of losing me/ my support here.. to the overwhelm factor..? No worries, hatchling. I like you!  You are not too much for me!  (2)You are both welcome, Seaturtle and hatch!

anita

Dear Seaturtle:

The example you gave: he tickled you=> it triggered your past trauma=> you backed away from cuddling=>he accused you of withholding affection from him=>you apologized to him for withholding affection from him and explained why (the past trauma)=> he told you that your explanation was an excuse, claiming that backing away from cuddling with him was something wrong that you did, an offense, something for which you were guilty, and that your explanation was your attempt to lessen the blame  attaching to (a fault or offense) (online definition of the word excuse).

Questions: (1) How long after the tickling session did the two of you sit down on the couch in front of the TV and him trying to cuddle with you? (2) What happened in between the ticking and his effort to cuddle: did you make it clear to him that you were upset by the tickling, was there a conversation about it? (3) When you backed away from the cuddling, did you feel angry at him, wanting to punish him for the tickling? (4) Do you always cuddle with him, whenever he feels like cuddling, no matter how you feel.. Does he always cuddle with you no matter how he feels?

“Does this involve confronting my father?“- I don’t think so, at least not at this point.

“Would journaling (more) about my experiences with my dad help to release them? Often I feel when I talk or think about them it brings me down, but maybe it is helping, because I do still have strong feelings there under the surface if I tap into them“-Best would be to do express and process theses strong feelings in the context of quality professional psychotherapy. I don’t remember if we talked about psychotherapy, but given that your father is financially well-off, it will be very appropriate for him to pay for such.

“He lets go of things quite fast“- there is an advantage to having a TM. I would like to have more Teflon in mine!

“N can go in and out of it, but majorly he is Teflon unfortunately“- I suppose TM is a spectrum thing: everyone has it, some more than others.

“OFTEN, growing up with my dad and now with N I feel this need to be more like a TF. He calls his TF behavior stoicism.’ and he does make TF behavior look more relaxing, like he often just tells me to relax, which sometimes I wonder if that is what I need to do, sometimes it is but other times I do want to talk about the why of something“- being somewhere in the middle of the TM Spectrum is probably a good idea; to apply Teflon selectively, depending on the topic and circumstances.

“Since the beginning of our relationship (because, and what keeps me with him) I felt this feeling that he would be in my life for a while, his presence was soothing and he was so kind to everyone, and a hard worker with good intentions, he gives back to the community…“-

-and yet, you’ve been doubting the relationship and thinking a lot about breaking up with him for a long time:

“Please help me, my mind hasn’t rested in 8 months… I don’t think we are soulmates…  I really have been having this entire debate in my head for a straight 6-8 months now and I don’t want to waste my time, I want to move on or commit. I don’t want to string this lovely man along, but I don’t want to make the wrong decision and make him the one that got away… I am exhausted with this decision and thought the answer would have come to me by now” (July 29)

“Have I wasted all this time of my youth in this relationship? I would hate to permanently lose him…. I can’t shake this pit in my stomach of breaking up with my partner. If he will never truly see me then I need to leave. But I can sense the pain of separating and it scares and pains me deeply. He has become by home” (Oct 19).

I was wondering earlier, before getting to the computer this morning, are you familiar with the term Relationship OCD (R-OCD) and did you ever consider that it may apply to you?

anita

I just saw this post from OP. I was wondering how he/she is doing. I had a similar experience, alot of trauma. I was born on a Good Friday into a dysfunctional Catholic home that morphed into a JW one. Studied Bible intently read it 6 times ny age 16 before I realized it was a cult. Then lost my entire family (mom/brother) by 19 yo to death and mental illness (mom-spiritual awakening?) . Due to multiple traumas, left religion, took a dark path for awhile. Then I prayed in my garden for a spiritual path back to the light. My devout Catholic husband landed smack dab on my path. Reluctantly joined the church and confirmed Easter Sunday ironically also my b-day. Had 2 kids. Severe distress again later 15 yrs later. I surrendered to the Cosmos/God, whatever, done trying to make my own happiness.  Vision at the foot of the cross with Jesus and infused with a love impossible to describe. Compelled to read Bible for 7th time. The evening I finished Book of Jude before Revelation, awoke to kundalini awakening. There were some other moving pieces too I just did based on intuition, ditching flouride, grounding gardening (now know when the moon was in my sun sign), journaling, light fasting. Never practiced Eastern spirituality or yoga. Did do 3 rounds of acupuncture at tailbone due to terrible sciatica down legs from blocked energy likely from injury as a kid there. It never ascended beyond solar region though. Just feels like a large lump pf energy in my belly that whirs and tickles at times. I have lost many previous passions, desires, even taste and smell. Life feels fairly dull, strong service to others but never any bad thoughts. The Catholic church teaches 2 dark nights, dark night of the flesh and dark night of the soul. I just want to know why the hell I am here. I’m curious about everyone else’s experiences.  I have heard both ends of the spectrum. Some say it’s demonic. Others say it is simply the vehicle to higher consciousness.

Dear Umaz:

Welcome back to the forums! I hope that it is okay with you that this will be a long reply as I will be paying attention to everything you shared. When I quote you, it is I who is adding the boldface feature to some of your words.

In this thread, you shared that there was a promotional job available at work, and while you (a woman) were considering applying for it, a male co-worker- who turned down the job himself- told you that if you wanted the job, you’d need to be “more positive” and “hide (your) feelings“. As you understood it, he was implying that you were “too emotional“, and that you should not apply for the job. You applied for it nonetheless and received it.

During meetings which you led as a team manager, he ignored you and addressed the male managers instead. The morale of the team was low, people had quit the team, and you told management that this co-worker’s behavior is “problematic and causing a retention issue in the team“. Eventually, you “blew (your) lid off and had a huge argument with him about it all… said some horrible stuff to him“. Management told you that you need training “to be better“,  and that you “need to separate (your) emotions from the job“, saying that “he doesn’t talk about others when he raises complain, implying that (you’re) the only one sh** talking“.

“I feel so gaslit by everyone – but at the same time I am wondering if I’m the problem? Am I only filtering the negative stuff?…  I feel like a failure, like I ruined my career, like a trouble maker, a liability and I feel mistreated. I feel like I’ve been treated unfairly and sometimes I wonder maybe I am the narcissist and not him. Can I please get an outsiders perspective and some advice how to move forward?”

To understand and answer your questions best I can, I will be re-reading your September 2021 thread titled “Am I a narcissist?“- the same question you asked two years later, in this thread.

In your original post back then, you shared that one reason your boyfriend did not invite you to his father’s funeral (in another country) was, as he said, that “he wanted to ‘protect (you) from the pain’“. You wrote back then: “I feel like a liability and not really a part of the family which he claims I am“. Here’s the same word: a liability. One definition of the word (online dictionary): “a person or thing whose presence or behavior is likely to cause embarrassment or put one at a disadvantage”.

I replied to you back then and we communicated for a short while. You shared that as a result of your boyfriend not inviting you, you felt “really abandoned and lonely.. betrayed.. (that) he doesn’t really see me being part of..  his life… my own family did reject me a few years ago and him not including me made me feel rejected again“.

When your boyfriend returned from the funeral, “he was talking about the funeral and told me that his ex’s mum and sister was at the funeral. This hurt me so much and I reacted poorly, I was angry, he again said I was a narcissist. He does call me that often and realised maybe he is gaslighting me. Every time I try to raise my own feelings he makes me feel so guilty about it, and calls me a narcissist“.

I wrote to you back in October 2021: “Like I suggested to you earlier, I think that it is the hurt and betrayal that you experienced when your family rejected you that keeps awakening in the context of your relationship with your boyfriend”. You replied: “Anita, yes you are right, I feel so very triggered and lately I have been thinking about my own family more. Even after 10 years, I feel such a void without a loving family, something I never had but always crave. My parents kicked me out when I was in my early twenties because I didn’t follow the religion anymore and I wanted to live an independent life. What hurts more recently is that my own siblings who I thought could understand me, have also shut me out. I feel so isolated and rejected by them too…. I’ve had a lot of therapy in the past but nothing recently as I’ve been doing relatively well. Also, I don’t find it useful to continuously relive my past. It’s emotionally exhausting and takes away from my present. Plus its expensive…  I know that having emotions is normal but sometimes my emotions are most intense than usual“.

My input today: your emotions, particularly hurt and  anger are sometimes, like you said 2 years ago, “most intense“. Originally, it’s the hurt and anger about having been unloved, kicked out, shut out, isolated, rejected (your words above), as well as really abandoned, lonely, betrayed and gaslit (your words from before) by your parents and later, by your siblings as well. It is within your family that you felt like a liability.

That’s a lot of HURT. And as often is the case, ANGER is linked to the hurt. The anger is about trying to have POWER in situations where you feel very hurt and powerless.

Because you’ve been very hurt and very angry within the context of your family, for too long, never to be resolved-  this intense hurt and anger get awakened/ triggered in adult contexts like in a romantic relationship (first thread) and a workplace relationship (2nd thread). When in these adult contexts you are uninvited (1st thread) or criticized and ignored (2nd thread), the same-old, same-old intense hurt and anger get triggered.

In this thread, some of your hurt and anger are valid: it really is hurtful to be ignored in meetings, especially when you are the team leader. Maybe your male worker has anti-women feelings, maybe he is misogynistic. In any case, it was rude of him to ignore you during meetings. Thing is that the INTENSITY of your hurt and anger were not solely about this workplace-adult circumstance. It’s like there’s a leak from the past and the massive hurt and  anger of the past spill into the present during triggering circumstances.

From what you shared and from my personal, non-professional understanding,  the term narcissist does not apply to you, or to your boyfriend at the time, or to your male co-worker. What applies to you is that when you are triggered, you feel so much hurt, that you can’t see anything or anyone but your hurt. You become self-centered in this way, and therefore, you feel justified in verbally attacking the person you believe had hurt you so much. Like I said, your co-worker was rude to you when he ignored you (not necessarily when he gave you his feedback that you were too emotional, depending on his tone and intent), not thinking about how you’d feel being ignored, and that’s being self-centered on his part.

Here is my advice: (1) next time you feel angry at someone, Notice that you feel angry, Pause (take time out so that you don’t say or do anything being driven by the anger alone/ so you don’t blow your lid off), Address the situation when calm (what really happened? How much of what I feel is valid in this present circumstance? Try to peel the past off the present, so to speak. How should I respond, or maybe I should not respond at all?) and then Respond- or not, and finally, Redirect (get busy with something else). I call this strategy NPARR: Notice, Pause, Address, Respond-or-not, Redirect.

(2) Process that massive hurt from the past bit by bit by sharing about it somehow, either by journaling (drawing and painting as well, perhaps), or in a support group (of people shunned by religious families, perhaps), and/ or in quality therapy..  or here on your thread, and/ or in replies submitted to other members.

You wrote 2 years ago: ” I don’t find it useful to continuously relive my past. It’s emotionally exhausting and takes away from my present“- if you share/ process in a certain way, it may release you from the hold that the past has on you.. fixing that leak I mentioned earlier, so to speak, bringing yourself back to the present instead of taking yourself away from the present. Share from the Hurt, more than from the Anger.

It happens that I use these forums myself to process my childhood Hurt at times, when I reply to members. I’ll do it right here, right now, so to give you an example of what works for me, and may work for you too.

(After a moment): I see my mother’s face in my mind’s eye. She is still young, younger than I am now; Her face is cold and rigid. There is no love for me in her face. Her eyes are dark, there is no glitter in them, nothing that shines, no recognition in them that I.. that I am, or that I am of any value. She looks at me, she talks at me.. as if .. she talks at a thing. Not a person that I yearn to be, but a 2-dimensional thing… MOTHER, don’t you SEE me? ME? Oh my god, I am stuck being a thing, no human 3rd dimension:  my own thoughts, my own feelings, my own preferences, my own.. being human. There is a feeling of being suffocated in this no-space 2 dimensions. MOTHER… Oh, I was going to ask her to see me, but no point in that.. She can’t, she won’t, she hasn’t FOR TOO LONG.

anita

Hi Freddie,

yeah I think I understand what you are saying about the critical voice, never really know how to access my inner child or where them wounds stem from, the way I think about and talk to myself has always been the same.

Okay, so you’ve always had this critical voice inside your head. When you hear the words used by the inner critic, do they sound familiar? Have you heard those words before? Is there an image that comes to mind of a past situation or an event (specially in your childhood or youth), where you were blamed for something you did, or something that happened?

I am asking because this is how it might get clearer how this voice came about.

Sometimes I have a high opinion of myself, like when I first left the relationship part of me was thinking I could find something better, I sometimes feel like that’s a bit narcissistic or even self sabotaging because I know the end result when things don’t work out or go wrong is how I’m feeling now and the low opinion of myself.

Yes, it’s normal that we actually have more of those internal voices. We can e.g. have a spiteful or a grandiose voice that says “I’ll show everyone how capable I am, just you wait!”. And then when we don’t succeed in whatever it was that we’ve planned, the inner critical voice shames us with an even greater vigor, saying things like “I knew it wouldn’t work, you’re such a loser, you’ll never amount to anything”. So yes, we can have more inner voices, besides the inner critic and the inner child.

I know it’s not healthy and this mindset is scaring me at the moment as this is the lowest I’ve ever felt, and I’ve never beat myself up or had negativity this powerful about myself before.

It seems your ex had a very strong impact on you, and her opinion mattered a lot to you. And when she blamed you, it didn’t feel good. I mean, you really believed her. You took on the blame. You believed that you are insensitive and that the reason for the breakup is your anxiety. That’s what she told you. And so she reinforced what you believed about yourself: that you’re not good enough.

Perhaps what further contributed to you feeling bad about yourself is that her friends blamed you too. Maybe having more people gang up against you served as a “proof” to you that indeed, it’s your fault. Even if these people didn’t know your side of story and just blindly believed whatever she told them…

I think I will try journaling maybe getting all the nonesense down on paper will help me realise it’s not the whole truth and that I have worth. I will try observing my thought patterns like you said and try and be more tuned in to how I speak about and to myself and try and start challenging the negatives.

Yes, try to keep a distance from that critical inner voice. Know that it’s not the truth about you. And yes, I think journaling would be helpful. You can start with “Right now, my critical inner voice is telling me xyz…” And then perhaps thoughts will start coming and you’ll get insights about this voice that you haven’t realized before. So yeah, put it on paper, not in order to reinforce it, but to put some space between yourself and this voice, so you can observe it/ study it.