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Husband’s interactions with online female friend

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  • #407921
    Sadlyconfused
    Participant

    Hi Anita, thanks again for your insight.

    He probably did have a crush on this woman… but at the same time I acknowledge that I wasn’t emotionally available“- men, including married men, get crushes even when their wives are emotionally available. The crushes often have to do with the man’s emotional experience as a boy, way before he met the woman he married.

    That does make a lot of sense. I think there would be a lot there for him to unpack if he ever chose to. For me, it’s probably enough now to acknowledge that when something like this happens it isn’t automatically my fault or a reflection of my worth.

    .. which I feel was a massive communication error on my part, as my poor behaviour had no explanation. I have such a bad habit of just trying to deal with things alone“- how indeed you judge yourself harshly (see your words in the quote with which I opened this post): a massive error,poor behaviour, bad habit…?

    Here is an empathetic reframing of this sentence: looking back, I can see that I made an error not telling my husband because if I told him, he would have become aware of the withdrawal symptoms that I suffered. I have this habit of dealing with things alone because I was so alone for too long,  as a child and onward.

    Oof, yeah, I do judge myself harshly don’t I? It’s so automatic and I don’t realise I’m doing it! Thank you for reframing the sentence for me, I wouldn’t have otherwise recognised that I was being overly judgemental of myself. It helps give me an idea of the healthier kind of self-talk I could be aiming for. Looking back too, it wasn’t like I was always behaving poorly, so I think this was an example of me thinking in black and white terms.

    “(Walking on eggshells is) a very difficult habit to break! .. I’ve let little things fester into resentment and they’ve then turned into bigger issues in my head“- how about forming a new daily habit: every day, locate a tiny resentment and appropriately voice it?

    It’s hard to balance (old trauma) with things that are genuinely a present day problem though and which might require an assertive response“- when confused about a current problem or situation, you are welcome to share about it here and get my take on whether it requires an assertive response.

    Voicing small resentments daily is a good idea, perhaps I’ll aim to do this via journalling. Then if anything does continue to bother me I’ll have been approaching it rationally and from a balanced perspective rather than reacting emotionally. Plus sharing here about things I’m unsure about would be really helpful in the future. It’s very easy to get wrapped up in your own storylines and end up not being able to see the wood for the trees.

    Dear Sadlyconfused:

    In no way do I think that you are a bad woman wearing a mask of a good woman, or pretending to be a good woman.  Being an extreme people pleaser does not mean deceit. It means being afraid to displease.. being afraid, that’s all. I hope that you are feeling and doing better, and I hope to read from you again sometime.

    anita

    Thank you for clarifying that, I think fear does motivate a lot of my reactions to uncertain situations. It did help keep me ‘safe’ for quite a long time while I was growing up in a dysfunctional household, so for a long time I didn’t know any differently. It was only when I entered the workplace and was working around other people full-time that I recognised that they didn’t behave the same way, and I started to see see how much it was limiting me.

    I have been doing much better over the last few days thanks and things seem to be feeling more natural with my husband again (spending time together, being affectionate, laughing, etc.) Hopefully this is something that we’ll both learn and grow from.

    #407922
    Sadlyconfused
    Participant

    Hi Tee, thank you for your comments. I’ve spent some time answering your questions below.

    I would imagine that as a people pleaser, you weren’t actually easy-going, but that you pretended that you were happy to accommodate them and do whatever they asked of you, even if it went against your wishes. So you might have worn a mask of “kindness”, saying things like “sure, no problem, I’ll do it”, but underneath you felt miserable and probably resentful too?

    Yeah, it was the way my mother acted around everyone and I learned from a young age that this was how you got people to love you and treat you well. I think I believed that kindness from other people had to be earned and that it wasn’t something that I was just automatically worthy of. It was only when I entered the workplace and was working full-time that I recognised that other people didn’t behave the same way, and I started to see see how much it was limiting me. It was a shock to find that people actually respected me less for being a doormat. I don’t think I’d ever fully allowed myself to even feel anger until I was in my late twenties. I had been miserable and resentful for many years but I’d suppressed these emotions so much that I had never even known it until I started to stand up to my father as an adult.

    If I am counting right, you started taking anti-depressants about 14 years ago (one year into your relationship with your husband), and you have been taking them for 12 years. In the last couple of years you have been weening off anti-depressants. This has caused problems in your marriage, since you couldn’t feel anything for anyone, including your husband. You also had heightened anxiety. You now can feel again and the communication with your husband has improved in the last 3-4 months.

    You haven’t told your husband that you were weening off anti-depressants, which you now see as a big mistake because it would have explained your poor behavior. Does your husband now know that you’re no longer taking anti-depressants? Does he support you in that decision?

    I think that timeline is about right, yes. The lack of feeling was chronic and such an odd thing, because logically I knew that I loved him and couldn’t imagine wanting to be with anyone else, but my emotions were so flat. I never really made a big thing about taking anti-depressants in the first place, so I don’t think he’s aware that I no longer take them. I think generally he trusts me to do what’s right for me and would be supportive of it. I think I didn’t tell him a couple of years ago that I was weaning off them because I knew that it was potentially going to be a bumpy ride for a while in terms of side-effects but I’d hoped that it wouldn’t last as long as it did.

    You still cry when thinking about your mother, even if she died 20 years ago. This tells me that the wound is still raw. I think it’s because a part of you (the child and teenager that you were) still feels helpless and horrified at the thought of living without your mother’s protection, alone with your father, in an environment full of hatred and cruelty. A part of you is still stuck in the past, and this is probably the part that needs healing the most.

    It’s great that in the last couple of years, you are learning about trauma and getting better at self-care. And that you’ve made more progress in those 2 years than in the 12 years of being on anti-depressants. Are you attending therapy? Because I would assume that if one wants to ween off anti-depressants, one would need therapy to support that process…

    It’s very raw still, yes. As a teenager I didn’t have a safe place to express my emotions after she passed and for years after I suppressed a lot of emotion, so there’s a lot there to process. I made sure that I was confident enough in my coping skills before I stopped taking anti-depressants (yoga, meditation, journalling, etc.) but I hadn’t been prepared for how intense the emotions would be. Therapy is something I’m aware that I’m very much in need of, but unfortunately it’s too expensive for me right now. I think the relational aspect of it would be really healing for me and it’s definitely something I’m working towards doing, hopefully next year if I can get together a more stable income.

    You said that once you started weening off, you’ve experienced loss of emotions – you couldn’t feel anything for anyone. Maybe this was a protective mechanism – to cut off all emotions, so they wouldn’t overwhelm you?

    Since you’ve started this thread due to an issue with your husband, I am wondering about the dynamic between the two of you. From what you’ve shared so far, he is a decent man who has behaved “out of character” recently. You are thinking that it was because he had a crush on some girl online, since you weren’t emotionally available. May I ask – is he in general a good husband? Does he respect you? How was your relationship while you were on anti-depressants? Please answer only if you feel comfortable talking about it.

    This would make sense as the emotions were intense. It was only after getting comfortable with little acts of self-care that I started to feel able to express any emotion other than irritability.

    I think in general he’s a good husband and recently I’ve started to feel more confident that he does respect me. For a while I didn’t feel that he did. When he was frequently playing his online game it felt like it dominated both our lives as when he wasn’t playing it he was using Discord on his mobile, chatting about it and socialising with the other gamers, which I wouldn’t have minded now and again but it seemed to be every spare moment. I have the app too so could see that he was logging in regularly, even at work, plus he would take his phone to the bathroom and be chatting in there. It’s this kind of thing which made me paranoid and it was what triggered our last discussion about it. I found myself getting frustrated often because it seemed like he was more interested in the game/his Discord social life than he was with spending time with me. I also felt like I was taking too much responsibility for household chores and being taken for granted in that respect.

    Our relationship was fine while I was on anti-depressants, but I wasn’t feeling fully and was going through the motions with day to day life. I didn’t think I had any resentments at the time because I was largely so tired and work focused that it didn’t seem to matter. I just wanted to sleep! I think all the things which did matter to me and needed to be addressed became more apparent when I stopped taking anti-depressants.

    Something has just occurred to me – you asked who you are (since you are not and shouldn’t be a people pleaser!) Well, your true self is a compassionate self, having the voice of a gentle, kind and loving parent. If you can find such a voice within yourself, this is the voice of your True Self. If you get anchored in self-compassion, the pieces of the puzzle will start coming together, and you’ll be discovering more and more of your authentic self.

    Thank you, that’s reassuring! I’m doing the work but the concept of self-compassion is still so new to me and not easy. I do have faith that I can get better at it though.

    #407923
    Anonymous
    Guest

    *I just noticed that you submitted two posts today, Oct 4. This post that I am about to submit,  is what I typed before noticing your new posts, thinking that you may not post again. I will submit a 2nd post following this one.

    Dear Sadlyconfused:

    * Soon to be Contentedly clear, I hope!

    “I had a father who(se)…  cruelty and criticism towards/of me really amped up when she died and could no longer protect me from it. I grew up in a very misogynistic environment and walked on eggshells…. I do carry a lot of shame and fear in me…  I’ve harshly judged myself all my life…I became a massive people pleaser to get through it, which has been really difficult to emerge from as it’s pretty much been my identity my whole life. Without it, who actually am I? What do I stand for?… people naturally assumed that my easy-going, people pleasing habit was my core personality, rather than the trauma response that it really was… I didn’t tell my husband that I was weaning off anti-depressants which I feel was a massive communication error on my part, as my poor behaviour had no explanation. I have such a bad habit of just trying to deal with things alone, as though it’s something shameful“-

    As an adult, you rightfully, I am sure, labeled your father a misogynist, which suggests that you know that many of his opinions about girls and women were wrong. But as a child, your father was a superior being, a god (to the child that you were),  and what he said about you was the word of god. He told you in so many ways that there is something terribly wrong with you,  you naturally believed him, and shame (the belief that there is something terribly wrong with you) took hold, a core belief was formed.

    The hallmark of shame is a constant, vigilant, painful awareness of  mistakes made/ wrongdoings committed: often imagined mistakes and wrongdoings, and in regard to real mistakes and wrongdoings: they always appear, to the shame based individual, much bigger than they are.

    Your last post, Sept 29, after submitting a post with lots of extra print, was: “Oh my word, what did I do to the formatting in that last post?! Sorry“- the excess print happens in my posts when I copy from an online source and paste it on tiny buddha, so I am sure that the excess print was not your fault, not a result of a mistake you made. But see how you reacted: seeing a mistake where there was none, seeing it as a huge mistake, automatically taking responsibility for it and apologizing. That was your last post: maybe that imagined (wrongly perceived) mistake was too much to bear…?

    Believing that you are (as I believed about myself) a … sort of Mistake Monster, you walk on eggshells, being very cautious, careful, alert, not wanting the monster to do what it does: huge, terrible mistakes that will hurt people and bring you punishment. Any word you say can be a mistake… so you stay quiet, any deed that you do can be a mistake, so you watch everything you do, careful.

    anita

     

     

    #407927
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Sadlyconfused:

    This is in response to the first of your two posts, the one you addressed to me:

    You are welcome and good to read from you again! “For me, it’s probably enough now to acknowledge that when something like this happens it isn’t automatically my fault“- it will take this kind of acknowledging, over and over again, over many months, to uproot the core belief that when something bad (or something that you perceive to be bad) happens, it is automatically your fault.

    Oof, yeah, I do judge myself harshly don’t I? It’s so automatic and I don’t realise I’m doing it!“- there will be  lots of oofs as you make a habit of acknowledging when you automatically assume that something is your fault and harshly judge yourself for it.

    Thank you for reframing the sentence for me, I wouldn’t have otherwise recognised that I was being overly judgmental of myself. It helps give me an idea of the healthier kind of self-talk I could be aiming for“-  you are welcome, and please make a habit out of recognizing when you are judgmental of yourself and asking yourself: did I really make a mistake, or do  I only feel that I made a mistake? Did I really do something wrong, or does it only feel this way?

    A CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) practice will help in this regard. I got my introduction to CBT 12 years ago by reading the book  Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Dummies and doing the exercises in the workbook, same title.  One key exercise is filling in a form when you notice that you feel distressed: (1) you label the feeling best you can, (2) you write down the thought or thoughts behind your distress, (3) you evaluate each thought as to its truth or lack of. Ex.,  you submit a post on tiny buddha and it comes out with lots of excess print, you feel distressed, you fill in the form: I feel anxious (feeling), I made a terrible mistake (thought), then you evaluate the thought: did I make a mistake.. what was my mistake?

    If anything does continue to bother me I’ll have been approaching it rationally and from a balanced perspective rather than reacting emotionally“- this is what CBT is about, and particularly the CBT exercise I mentioned right above: you challenge your emotionally based (often distorted) thoughts, use your rational to correct the thoughts… and as a result your distress lessens, you feel calmer.

    I wrote to you: “In no way do I think that you are a bad woman wearing a mask of a good woman, or pretending to be a good woman.  Being an extreme people pleaser does not mean deceit…“, your response: “Thank you for clarifying that, I think fear does motivate a lot of my reactions to uncertain situations..“.

    The reason I made the comment above (the italicized) is that as a shame-based person that I was, I  know how quick I’ve been to see wrongdoing and wrong being on my part anywhere and everywhere possible. Sometimes, when I felt criticized and judged, I really was, but at other times, I assumed that I was… when I wasn’t.

    I know that as I respond to members, particularly to shame-based members, I need to be reasonably careful to not word things in ways that can easily be perceived as criticism. More so, I need to be careful to not really criticize and judge members- something I did when I wrongly projected my mother into original posters’ stories, wrongly assuming that what is true about my mother is also true about the OP or the OP’s mother!

    I have been doing much better over the last few day“- good to read this!

    anita

    #407928
    Christiandad
    Participant

    I would imagine that as a people pleaser, you weren’t actually easy– going, but that you pretended that you were happy to accommodate them and do whatever they asked of you, indeed if it went against your wishesSo you might have worn a mask of “ kindness ”, saying effects like “ sure, no problem, I ’ll do it ”, but underneath you felt miserable and presumably resentful too?

    still, you started taking anti-depressants about 14 times alone ( one time into your relationship with your hubby), and you have been taking them for 12 times, If I’m counting right. In the last couple of times you have been weening off anti-depressants. This has caused problems in your marriage, since you could n’t feel anything for anyone, including your hubby. You also had heightened anxiety. You now can feel again and the communication with your hubby has bettered in the last 3- 4 months.
    You have n’t told your hubby that you were weening offanti-depressants, which you now see as a big mistake because it would have explained your poor geste . Does your hubby now know that you ’re no longer takinganti-depressants? Does he support you in that decision?

    You still cry when allowing about your mama indeed if she failed 20 times alone . This tells me that the crack is still raw. I suppose it’s because a part of you( the child and teenager that you were) still feels helpless and affrighted at the study of living without your mama ’s protectionalone with your father, in an terrain full of abomination and atrocity. A part of you is still stuck in the history, and this is presumably the part that needs healing the most.
    It’s great that in the last couple of times, you’re learning about trauma and getting better at tone– care. And that you ’ve made further progress in those 2 times than in the 12 times of being onanti-depressants. Are you attending remedy? Because I would assume that if one wants to ween off anti-depressants, one would need remedy to support that process

    You said that once you started weening off, you ’ve educated loss of feelings – you couldn’t feel anything for anyone. perhaps this was a defensive medium – to cut off all feelingsso they wouldn’t overwhelm you?
    Since you ’ve started this thread due to an issue with your hubby, I’m wondering about the dynamic between the two of you. From what you ’ve participated so far, he’s a decent man who has conducted “ out of character ” lately. You’re allowing that it was because he’d a crush on some girl online, since you weren’t emotionally available.

    #407962
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Sadlyconfused: I am reposting my two posts of earlier today, so to move them past the very long, illegible post right above, for your convenience.

    Oct 4, post 1:

    *I just noticed that you submitted two posts today, Oct 4. This post that I am about to submit,  is what I typed before noticing your new posts, thinking that you may not post again. I will submit a 2nd post following this one.

    Dear Sadlyconfused:

    * Soon to be Contentedly clear, I hope!

    “I had a father who(se)…  cruelty and criticism towards/of me really amped up when she died and could no longer protect me from it. I grew up in a very misogynistic environment and walked on eggshells…. I do carry a lot of shame and fear in me…  I’ve harshly judged myself all my life…I became a massive people pleaser to get through it, which has been really difficult to emerge from as it’s pretty much been my identity my whole life. Without it, who actually am I? What do I stand for?… people naturally assumed that my easy-going, people pleasing habit was my core personality, rather than the trauma response that it really was… I didn’t tell my husband that I was weaning off anti-depressants which I feel was a massive communication error on my part, as my poor behaviour had no explanation. I have such a bad habit of just trying to deal with things alone, as though it’s something shameful“-

    As an adult, you rightfully, I am sure, labeled your father a misogynist, which suggests that you know that many of his opinions about girls and women were wrong. But as a child, your father was a superior being, a god (to the child that you were),  and what he said about you was the word of god. He told you in so many ways that there is something terribly wrong with you,  you naturally believed him, and shame (the belief that there is something terribly wrong with you) took hold, a core belief was formed.

    The hallmark of shame is a constant, vigilant, painful awareness of  mistakes made/ wrongdoings committed: often imagined mistakes and wrongdoings, and in regard to real mistakes and wrongdoings: they always appear, to the shame based individual, much bigger than they are.

    Your last post, Sept 29, after submitting a post with lots of extra print, was: “Oh my word, what did I do to the formatting in that last post?! Sorry“- the excess print happens in my posts when I copy from an online source and paste it on tiny buddha, so I am sure that the excess print was not your fault, not a result of a mistake you made. But see how you reacted: seeing a mistake where there was none, seeing it as a huge mistake, automatically taking responsibility for it and apologizing. That was your last post: maybe that imagined (wrongly perceived) mistake was too much to bear…?

    Believing that you are (as I believed about myself) a … sort of Mistake Monster, you walk on eggshells, being very cautious, careful, alert, not wanting the monster to do what it does: huge, terrible mistakes that will hurt people and bring you punishment. Any word you say can be a mistake… so you stay quiet, any deed that you do can be a mistake, so you watch everything you do, careful.

    Oct 4, post 2:

    Dear Sadlyconfused:

    This is in response to the first of your two posts, the one you addressed to me:

    You are welcome and good to read from you again! “For me, it’s probably enough now to acknowledge that when something like this happens it isn’t automatically my fault“- it will take this kind of acknowledging, over and over again, over many months, to uproot the core belief that when something bad (or something that you perceive to be bad) happens, it is automatically your fault.

    Oof, yeah, I do judge myself harshly don’t I? It’s so automatic and I don’t realise I’m doing it!“- there will be  lots of oofs as you make a habit of acknowledging when you automatically assume that something is your fault and harshly judge yourself for it.

    Thank you for reframing the sentence for me, I wouldn’t have otherwise recognised that I was being overly judgmental of myself. It helps give me an idea of the healthier kind of self-talk I could be aiming for“-  you are welcome, and please make a habit out of recognizing when you are judgmental of yourself and asking yourself: did I really make a mistake, or do  I only feel that I made a mistake? Did I really do something wrong, or does it only feel this way?

    A CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) practice will help in this regard. I got my introduction to CBT 12 years ago by reading the book  Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Dummies and doing the exercises in the workbook, same title.  One key exercise is filling in a form when you notice that you feel distressed: (1) you label the feeling best you can, (2) you write down the thought or thoughts behind your distress, (3) you evaluate each thought as to its truth or lack of. Ex.,  you submit a post on tiny buddha and it comes out with lots of excess print, you feel distressed, you fill in the form: I feel anxious (feeling), I made a terrible mistake (thought), then you evaluate the thought: did I make a mistake.. what was my mistake?

    If anything does continue to bother me I’ll have been approaching it rationally and from a balanced perspective rather than reacting emotionally“- this is what CBT is about, and particularly the CBT exercise I mentioned right above: you challenge your emotionally based (often distorted) thoughts, use your rational to correct the thoughts… and as a result your distress lessens, you feel calmer.

    I wrote to you: “In no way do I think that you are a bad woman wearing a mask of a good woman, or pretending to be a good woman.  Being an extreme people pleaser does not mean deceit…“, your response: “Thank you for clarifying that, I think fear does motivate a lot of my reactions to uncertain situations..“.

    The reason I made the comment above (the italicized) is that as a shame-based person that I was, I  know how quick I’ve been to see wrongdoing and wrong being on my part anywhere and everywhere possible. Sometimes, when I felt criticized and judged, I really was, but at other times, I assumed that I was… when I wasn’t.

    I know that as I respond to members, particularly to shame-based members, I need to be reasonably careful to not word things in ways that can easily be perceived as criticism. More so, I need to be careful to not really criticize and judge members- something I did when I wrongly projected my mother into original posters’ stories, wrongly assuming that what is true about my mother is also true about the OP or the OP’s mother!

    I have been doing much better over the last few day“- good to read this!

    anita

    #408018
    Tee
    Participant

    Dear Sadlyconfused,

    you are welcome and sorry for a delay in responding. I will try to give you my input, in hope that it will help you see things more clearly (and be less confused). Please know that my intention is not to criticize or judge you, but to help you.

    Yeah, it [people pleasing] was the way my mother acted around everyone and I learned from a young age that this was how you got people to love you and treat you well. I think I believed that kindness from other people had to be earned and that it wasn’t something that I was just automatically worthy of.

    I had a father who treated my mother like dirt and his cruelty and criticism towards/of me really amped up when she died and could no longer protect me from it. I grew up in a very misogynistic environment and walked on eggshells.

    It seems to me that your mother protected you by taking the brunt of your father’s wrath on herself, not by standing up to him? She sort of took the blow, but didn’t teach you how to protect yourself from it? If so, she unfortunately showed you a bad example of how to behave around abusive people – to appease them instead of stand up to them. You saw a different example only later, when you started working and saw that other people don’t take the abuse so readily.

    It was a shock to find that people actually respected me less for being a doormat. I don’t think I’d ever fully allowed myself to even feel anger until I was in my late twenties. I had been miserable and resentful for many years but I’d suppressed these emotions so much that I had never even known it until I started to stand up to my father as an adult.

    No wonder you didn’t allow yourself to feel anger – because had you felt it, your father would have probably punished you. Aggressive, misogyinist men don’t take well when a woman opposes them. He might have even become physically violent if you hadn’t done as he told you?

    That’s great btw that you finally managed to stand up to your father, even if later in your life!

     

    I never really made a big thing about taking anti-depressants in the first place, so I don’t think he’s aware that I no longer take them. I think generally he trusts me to do what’s right for me and would be supportive of it. I think I didn’t tell him a couple of years ago that I was weaning off them because I knew that it was potentially going to be a bumpy ride for a while in terms of side-effects but I’d hoped that it wouldn’t last as long as it did.

    It seems to be that you were afraid of being completely honest with your husband – maybe projecting some of your father’s criticism into him – and so you didn’t really tell him when you started taking anti-depressants (you were still dating at that time). And you didn’t tell him later either that you were weening off. Do you think that the reason could be the fear of judgment?

    Please don’t think that I am judging you or anything, I am just trying to understand the dynamic in your relationship. You said you had communication problems. It could be that a part of it was your fear of being judged by your husband? Even though he might not have been judgmental, or at least not as judgmental as your father (you said he would probably support you in doing what you believe is right for you)?

    Our relationship was fine while I was on anti-depressants, but I wasn’t feeling fully and was going through the motions with day to day life. I didn’t think I had any resentments at the time because I was largely so tired and work focused that it didn’t seem to matter. I just wanted to sleep! I think all the things which did matter to me and needed to be addressed became more apparent when I stopped taking anti-depressants.

    Right. So for the majority of your marriage, until about 2 years ago, you couldn’t feel fully because you were on anti-depressants and you were only going through the motions, a little bit like being on an auto-pilot, right? You worked a lot, felt exhausted most of the time and in your spare time you just wanted to sleep. You didn’t feel resentment towards your husband, mostly because you didn’t feel much anyway, you didn’t pay attention to your feelings, nor to his feelings too much, I guess?

    Your marriage survived this “auto-pilot” phase, and only started shaking when you started weening off anti-depressants. I might have an idea why is that, but I don’t want to jump into conclusions. If you feel it’s relevant, and want to share some more about that phase of your marriage, please do so.

    What is important is that now, after a rough patch, you started opening up towards your husband and that he reciprocates, and that you can laugh together and talk more sincerely with each other. If your emotional intimacy is growing, that’s fantastic!

    Has he reduced his Discord dependence? Because based on what you’ve shared, it did become an addiction already, with him spending every single moment using the app…

     

    #408306
    Sadlyconfused
    Participant

    Hi Anita, thank you very much for both of your responses and for taking the time to re-post following that odd spam post!

    As an adult, you rightfully, I am sure, labeled your father a misogynist, which suggests that you know that many of his opinions about girls and women were wrong. But as a child, your father was a superior being, a god (to the child that you were),  and what he said about you was the word of god. He told you in so many ways that there is something terribly wrong with you,  you naturally believed him, and shame (the belief that there is something terribly wrong with you) took hold, a core belief was formed.

    The hallmark of shame is a constant, vigilant, painful awareness of  mistakes made/ wrongdoings committed: often imagined mistakes and wrongdoings, and in regard to real mistakes and wrongdoings: they always appear, to the shame based individual, much bigger than they are.

    Yes, I agree with this. I’m full of shame as a result of my dad’s treatment of me. I sometimes even hear my mind telling myself “I’m bad” or “I’m disgusting” and it’s sad and scary how ingrained these beliefs are. I’m trying to grieve for my childhood when emotion comes up and attempting to talk to myself kindly. In the present day I genuinely don’t feel like I have any reason to feel that way towards myself and I know that it’s not true, yet my nervous system is wired around these messages.

    For me, it’s probably enough now to acknowledge that when something like this happens it isn’t automatically my fault“- it will take this kind of acknowledging, over and over again, over many months, to uproot the core belief that when something bad (or something that you perceive to be bad) happens, it is automatically your fault.

    Thank you, I’m guessing persistence and repetition is key, plus identifying when a thought isn’t helpful in the first place. I think I’ve over-identified with them a lot in the past because when coupled with feeling anxious and upset they’ve seemed logical. I didn’t understand the importance of emotional regulation and how much being out of your nervous system’s window of tolerance can skew your perception of things.

    A CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) practice will help in this regard. I got my introduction to CBT 12 years ago by reading the book  Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Dummies and doing the exercises in the workbook, same title.  One key exercise is filling in a form when you notice that you feel distressed: (1) you label the feeling best you can, (2) you write down the thought or thoughts behind your distress, (3) you evaluate each thought as to its truth or lack of. Ex.,  you submit a post on tiny buddha and it comes out with lots of excess print, you feel distressed, you fill in the form: I feel anxious (feeling), I made a terrible mistake (thought), then you evaluate the thought: did I make a mistake.. what was my mistake?

    Aha, I have this book! I bought it about 7 years ago and read it all the way through but didn’t commit to doing the exercises. It’s a great book but I got stuck in the act of constant researching and reading about mental health in other areas, which I think was a form of self-soothing and running away from doing the actual work.

    Flicking through it again now, yes, I think re-visiting this book and working through it properly would be so helpful for me. It’s really encouraging to know that it helped you and I feel so ready to commit to it now. Would you mind sharing how you incorporated CBT into your day to day life? For instance, would you sit down for an allotted time each day to work through the exercises?

    The reason I made the comment above (the italicized) is that as a shame-based person that I was, I  know how quick I’ve been to seewrongdoing and wrong being on my part anywhere and everywhere possible. Sometimes, when I felt criticized and judged, I really was, but at other times, I assumed that I was… when I wasn’t.

    I know that as I respond to members, particularly to shame-based members, I need to be reasonably careful to not word things in ways that can easily be perceived as criticism. More so, I need to be careful to not really criticize and judge members- something I did when I wrongly projected my mother into original posters’ stories, wrongly assuming that what is true about my mother is also true about the OP or the OP’s mother!

    That makes a lot of sense and I thank you for being so considerate because it’s not always easy to get these things across online. In person we have tone of voice and body language to help us! Projection when you’ve experienced a difficult/abusive parent is so easily done and human, I’ve experienced this tendency myself in the past when it comes to my father.

    #408308
    Sadlyconfused
    Participant

    Hi Tee, thanks very much for your reply. There’s no need to apologise about any delay in responding, I tend to take a while myself as I prefer replying when I have quiet stretches to do so without interruption.

    No wonder you didn’t allow yourself to feel anger – because had you felt it, your father would have probably punished you. Aggressive, misogyinist men don’t take well when a woman opposes them. He might have even become physically violent if you hadn’t done as he told you?

    That’s great btw that you finally managed to stand up to your father, even if later in your life!

    Oh definitely. My father wasn’t heavy on physical violence, but the threat of being slapped or prodded really hard in the ribs was enough. Bad enough to really hurt, but not bad enough to leave a mark and incriminate him. He would use psychological punishment too, recording some perceived slight against him in his memory and finding a way to punish me via humiliation months down the line. Not a nice man. Thank you, distancing myself from him was the hardest thing I ever had to do as an adult but to allow the psychological assaults to continue would have been just as bad.

    I agree that my mother set a bad example in not showing me how to protect myself. I have a lot of compassion for her and know that she was in an extremely difficult situation, but if only she had known how much damage it would all cause years down the line.

    It seems to be that you were afraid of being completely honest with your husband – maybe projecting some of your father’s criticism into him – and so you didn’t really tell him when you started taking anti-depressants (you were still dating at that time). And you didn’t tell him later either that you were weening off. Do you think that the reason could be the fear of judgment?

    Please don’t think that I am judging you or anything, I am just trying to understand the dynamic in your relationship. You said you had communication problems. It could be that a part of it was your fear of being judged by your husband? Even though he might not have been judgmental, or at least not as judgmental as your father (you said he would probably support you in doing what you believe is right for you)?

    Yes, I think I’ve been projecting my father’s actions on to my husband a lot! It makes me feel a bit sick because as people they’re nothing alike. I was fearful of being judged, that makes a lot of sense. I think I was worried that I would come across as being hysterical and off the rails if weaning off anti-depressants didn’t work out.

    And hmm, I’ve just realised that being “off the rails” was the image my father tried to portray of me to other people when I was a teenager. He would play the victim and pretend that I was uncontrollable and rebellious, when the reality was that I was a quiet, well-meaning girl who liked reading and walking her dog. I think it probably harks back to experiencing that kind of treatment. There was the whole element of being stuck in the house for months over the pandemic too, which mirrored my experiences as a teenager where I was unable to leave. It all seems trauma related.

    Right. So for the majority of your marriage, until about 2 years ago, you couldn’t feel fully because you were on anti-depressants and you were only going through the motions, a little bit like being on an auto-pilot, right? You worked a lot, felt exhausted most of the time and in your spare time you just wanted to sleep. You didn’t feel resentment towards your husband, mostly because you didn’t feel much anyway, you didn’t pay attention to your feelings, nor to his feelings too much, I guess?

    Your marriage survived this “auto-pilot” phase, and only started shaking when you started weening off anti-depressants. I might have an idea why is that, but I don’t want to jump into conclusions. If you feel it’s relevant, and want to share some more about that phase of your marriage, please do so.

    Yes, this is exactly how it was. There were good times in there too of course and I’ve always loved him and enjoyed his company. I’d never had any practice in setting boundaries or expressing problems though and I think they all culminated into a bigger issue. Also, fear of my father was always the biggest issue in my life and I spent many years being afraid of him showing up on my doorstep or workplace and creating a scene, so anything else seemed insignificant in comparison. The first time I had truly felt safe in years was when the pandemic happened and we were forced to stay home for months as it meant that my father couldn’t turn up out of the blue and harass me. With that, the seemingly more insignificant issues in my life which I hadn’t paid much attention to came into my awareness a lot more. I think it was only with feeling safe that I could really reflect on how my life looked in the present moment rather than being in fight or flight constantly.

    What is important is that now, after a rough patch, you started opening up towards your husband and that he reciprocates, and that you can laugh together and talk more sincerely with each other. If your emotional intimacy is growing, that’s fantastic!

    Has he reduced his Discord dependence? Because based on what you’ve shared, it did become an addiction already, with him spending every single moment using the app…

    Absolutely, we seem to be reaching a far better place. I think we needed to endure the discomfort of conflict in order to develop more emotional intimacy. I certainly couldn’t keep quiet about the things that were bothering me anymore, regardless of how silly they might or might not have been. I was feeling so insecure about it.

    Yes, his online game actually no longer exists as of a couple of weeks ago, but even prior to that he had greatly reduced the time he was spending on there and was spending far less time on Discord. I think it was an addiction and that some of the habits I was witnessing daily were similar to those that you might see if someone were having an online affair, so I’m giving myself some compassion for jumping to that conclusion. Living and breathing a computer game and the related online social scene just didn’t make sense to me, so that’s how my brain rationalised it. He did confide recently that he misses his friends and I think as an extrovert he missed going out and seeing people over the pandemic, so without many other distractions I can see why it took such a hold. I’m aiming to forgive both of us for any dysfunctional behaviour over the last couple of years, it was such a stressful time for everyone.

    #408310
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Sadlyconfused:

    You are very welcome! “Would you mind sharing how you incorporated CBT into your day to day life? For instance, would you sit down for an allotted time each day to work through the exercises?“- I don’t sit down with the CBT workbook or CBT forms and do the exercises. I do the exercises mentally. I will give you an example  of my most recent CBT mental exercise. It happened when I read the first sentence of your second recent post: “Hi Tee, thanks very much for your reply”. A thought occurred to me: Sadlyconfused didn’t thank me very much did she?  There was hurt and anger accompanying the thought. Next, I thought to myself: oh, this is just me afraid that I am less valued than others, hurt and angry about being treated as LESS THAN. Next, I went back to the post you addressed to me and was pleased that you thanked me “very much” as well. I am aware of my tendency to feel or believe that I am treated as less-than others, aware of my intense and prolonged anger over it growing up… and onward, and so, I no longer assume without checking: I look for the objective reality. *if you didn’t thank me VERY much as well, it wouldn’t have necessarily meant that you value me less: most people are not that careful with their language.

    Another thing about this example: a voice in my head says: someone will take advantage of me sharing this and make fun of me for it, saying to me something like: how petty of you, anita! how stupid.. – which gives me the opportunity to do my next CBT mental exercise: I pause and become aware of the fear, fear of being ridiculed, made fun of, shamed, and how much I suffered from this and for so long.. Next, I feel empathy for myself as I think: there is no shame in being hypervigilant to being treated as less-than, when this was my experience growing up and for so long! If anyone ridicules me for this.. they don’t have much of a heart, do they?  Following this latest thought, I no longer feel (for the moment) fear of being ridiculed. I mean, it may happen that I will be ridiculed, but the shame in such a possibility is gone because… I will not be valuing someone who will ridicule me over this, and perhaps.. over any other thing.

    This latest exercise made me aware that the fear was not about being ridiculed but about feeling shame, it is the very painful feeling of shame that I fear.

    * I was impressed by the similarities between your father and my mother: (1) my mother too hit me “not bad enough to leave a mark and incriminate (her)“. She even told me that one time that I remember, when she hit me: “do you think that I am that stupid as to leave a mark on you?”, (2) my mother too did the following: “recording some perceived slight against (her). and finding a way to punish me via humiliation months down the line“- there were many, many perceived, untrue slights that she accused me of. Each humiliation session was very long and very elaborate, (3) my mother too repeatedly “would play the victim and pretend that I was uncontrollable and rebellious, when the reality was that I was a quiet, well-meaning girl“- she accused me of meaning to hurt her by saying this and doing that, when it was not at all the truth, I was not evil-meaning and of course, I had no intention of inviting her abuse, (4) I too was afraid of my mother “creating a scene“- she created lots of scenes, very dramatic, scary scenes.

    The first time I had truly felt safe in years was when the pandemic happened and we were forced to stay home for months as it meant that my father couldn’t turn up out of the blue and harass me… I think it was only with feeling safe that I could really reflect on how my life looked in the present moment rather than being in fight or flight constantly“- I’ve been living continents and oceans away from my mother and yet, I am not quite sure that I am safe from her. It is strange.. how the fear never really goes away, not altogether.

    anita

    #408350
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Sadlyconfused:

    I wanted to add to your question (“Would you mind sharing how you incorporated CBT into your day to day life?..)“, that at the time(2008-9) I filled in all of the pages of the CBT workbook I mentioned, and because of that book and workbook,  I specifically looked for a CBT therapist. During therapy (2.5 years, 2011-13), I filled in lots of the CBT forms he handed to me,  during sessions and as homework.

    anita

    #408444
    Tee
    Participant

    Dear Sadlyconfused,

    I am really happy that you and in a much better place with your husband and that he is, to use your own words, “nothing alike” your father! That’s fantastic because that means he is not a judgmental, criticizing type, who makes your life miserable, but is an understanding and loving person, whom you can talk to. There was a glitch in his behavior during the pandemic, but as you said, circumstances contributed to that as well. It’s good that you are now seeking to forgive both him and yourself for “any dysfunctional behaviour over the last couple of years”.

    If you keep your communication open and honest, knowing that he is not your father and won’t judge you – I think that will be the base for a healthy and emotionally intimate relationship.

    That’s fascinating that the pandemic actually enabled you to feel safer because your father couldn’t just pop at your door at any time to harass you. Maybe this feeling of safety encouraged you to stop taking anti-depressants too? (you said you’ve been weening off for the last couple of years, which coincides with the pandemic). Which also means that the reason you were taking anti-depressants all this time was your father and your inability to say No to him, to protect yourself from his harassment, I imagine? But eventually you succeeded:

    distancing myself from him was the hardest thing I ever had to do as an adult but to allow the psychological assaults to continue would have been just as bad.

    Congratulations on distancing yourself! How is your relationship with your father now?

    It also seems that unlike with your father, you felt safe with your husband – safe enough to start reducing the anti-depressants and discovering and expressing your authentic feelings, and showing more and more of your authentic self. I am happy for you!

    You were right to react to your husband’s excessive use of Discord:

    I certainly couldn’t keep quiet about the things that were bothering me anymore, regardless of how silly they might or might not have been. I was feeling so insecure about it.

    It wasn’t silly. He was having an emotional affair with people in the cyber space, and was neglecting you… so you were totally right to make an issue of it. And I am glad that this game doesn’t exist any more, but also that he had already reduced the time he was spending on it, even prior to that. It seems it lost its emotional grip on him, which is good news.

    I would like to return to your father briefly:

    I sometimes even hear my mind telling myself “I’m bad” or “I’m disgusting” and it’s sad and scary how ingrained these beliefs are. I’m trying to grieve for my childhood when emotion comes up and attempting to talk to myself kindly. In the present day I genuinely don’t feel like I have any reason to feel that way towards myself and I know that it’s not true, yet my nervous system is wired around these messages.

    It’s great that you don’t trust the inner critic any more, and when you hear those deprecating words, you try to talk to yourself kindly. That is the way to counter the harsh voice of the inner critic: to talk to yourself with warmth and compassion, like a good, loving parent. You are doing a great job, and all I can say is: Keep up the good work!

    It will take some time to stop the automatic thoughts from popping up, but it’s important that you notice them and sort of observe them, but not identify with them.

    Apparently it was Martin Luther who said “You cannot keep birds from flying over your head, but you can keep them from building a nest in your hair“. So you notice the deprecating, harsh thought, but you know it’s your Inner Critic, and you counter it with the voice of the Inner Good Parent, or the Inner Coach, as some call it. Someone who loves you and cheers you on, rather than someone who judges you and puts you down.

    #408652
    Sadlyconfused
    Participant

    Hi Anita, thank you so much for your posts and sorry for not responding sooner. It’s much easier to reply when I have a good solid block of quiet time to gather my thoughts and am able to write in complete privacy, which I haven’t had the opportunity to do until now.

    You are very welcome! “Would you mind sharing how you incorporated CBT into your day to day life? For instance, would you sit down for an allotted time each day to work through the exercises?“- I don’t sit down with the CBT workbook or CBT forms and do the exercises. I do the exercises mentally. I will give you an example  of my most recent CBT mental exercise. It happened when I read the first sentence of your second recent post: “Hi Tee, thanks very much for your reply”. A thought occurred to me: Sadlyconfused didn’t thank me very much did she?  There was hurt and anger accompanying the thought. Next, I thought to myself: oh, this is just me afraid that I am less valued than others, hurt and angry about being treated as LESS THAN. Next, I went back to the post you addressed to me and was pleased that you thanked me “very much” as well. I am aware of my tendency to feel or believe that I am treated as less-than others, aware of my intense and prolonged anger over it growing up… and onward, and so, I no longer assume without checking: I look for the objective reality. *if you didn’t thank me VERY much as well, it wouldn’t have necessarily meant that you value me less: most people are not that careful with their language.

    This type of thought process resonates with me so much, thank you for sharing how you respond healthily to it. Interestingly, I’m self-conscious of coming across to others as ingratiating and potentially insincere in my gratitude, so sometimes when I’m particularly aware of this I try to tone my ‘wordiness’ (if that makes sense!) down a bit! It links back to criticism I’ve received in work environments or at school where I was essentially picked on for being “too nice”. It’s really helpful to see how hyper vigilance attunes us to stuff like this. As you say: “most people are not that careful with their language”.

    Another thing about this example: a voice in my head says: someone will take advantage of me sharing this and make fun of me for it, saying to me something like: how petty of you, anita! how stupid.. – which gives me the opportunity to do my next CBT mental exercise: I pause and become aware of the fear, fear of being ridiculed, made fun of, shamed, and how much I suffered from this and for so long.. Next, I feel empathy for myself as I think: there is no shame in being hypervigilant to being treated as less-than, when this was my experience growing up and for so long! If anyone ridicules me for this.. they don’t have much of a heart, do they?  Following this latest thought, I no longer feel (for the moment) fear of being ridiculed. I mean, it may happen that I will be ridiculed, but the shame in such a possibility is gone because… I will not be valuing someone who will ridicule me over this, and perhaps.. over any other thing.

    This latest exercise made me aware that the fear was not about being ridiculed but about feeling shame, it is the very painful feeling of shame that I fear.

    This is the message that I’ve been receiving recently when working on my anxiety, it’s the fear of the unpleasant sensations of anxiety and shame that I fear more than the actual situation. One thing I’ve struggled with ever since I was a child is the feeling of unworthiness when I fear something innocuous, like a conversation with what I perceive to be an authority figure (for example, a GP), and the panic symptoms start to arise. I’ve only recently started to understand that there are probably little nuances to tone of voice or the setting that my brain links back to previous trauma (probably involving either my father or old school teachers), then when the physical sensations happen (flushed face, trembling voice) it turns into panic and shame over having such an ‘over the top’ reaction. It’s hard because I think people genuinely are confused by it, or take it personally, and I end up feeling ashamed of it.

    The kind self talk you’ve given as an example is extremely helpful, thank you. I think this is how I would like to aim to talk to myself when these moments happen. It seems that the goal is to be the kind, assertive, emotionally mature adult for ourselves in the present day, which our caregivers failed to be.

    * I was impressed by the similarities between your father and my mother: (1) my mother too hit me “not bad enough to leave a mark and incriminate (her)“. She even told me that one time that I remember, when she hit me: “do you think that I am that stupid as to leave a mark on you?”, (2) my mother too did the following: “recording some perceived slight against (her). and finding a way to punish me via humiliation months down the line“- there were many, many perceived, untrue slights that she accused me of. Each humiliation session was very long and very elaborate, (3) my mother too repeatedly “would play the victim and pretend that I was uncontrollable and rebellious, when the reality was that I was a quiet, well-meaning girl“- she accused me of meaning to hurt her by saying this and doing that, when it was not at all the truth, I was not evil-meaning and of course, I had no intention of inviting her abuse, (4) I too was afraid of my mother “creating a scene“- she created lots of scenes, very dramatic, scary scenes.

    I read this with wide eyes and huge empathy for you as it all sounds so familiar and I know how deeply it hurts. I’m so sorry that you had to endure this kind of insidious abuse too. Thank you so much for sharing and relating because in doing so it helps me to have more empathy for what I myself went through. I think ultimately we’ve had very understandable human reactions to very unfortunate circumstances; our brains had to wire themselves in the way they did for survival.

    The first time I had truly felt safe in years was when the pandemic happened and we were forced to stay home for months as it meant that my father couldn’t turn up out of the blue and harass me… I think it was only with feeling safe that I could really reflect on how my life looked in the present moment rather than being in fight or flight constantly“- I’ve been living continents and oceans away from my mother and yet, I am not quite sure that I am safe from her. It is strange.. how the fear never really goes away, not altogether.

    Yes, it’s so hard. My father lived only 25 minutes away by car and I think even if I had more physical distance I would have still felt like he could drive round the corner at any minute. Although I wouldn’t wish death on anyone, a big weight did drop from my shoulders a few days after I learned that he had passed away.

    I wanted to add to your question (“Would you mind sharing how you incorporated CBT into your day to day life?..)“, that at the time(2008-9) I filled in all of the pages of the CBT workbook I mentioned, and because of that book and workbook,  I specifically looked for a CBT therapist. During therapy (2.5 years, 2011-13), I filled in lots of the CBT forms he handed to me,  during sessions and as homework.

    Thank you for sharing this, maybe I’ll look into person to person CBT therapy at some point as it would be good to receive some direction on any sticking points!

     

    #408653
    Sadlyconfused
    Participant

    Hi Tee, thank you very much for your response.

    That’s fascinating that the pandemic actually enabled you to feel safer because your father couldn’t just pop at your door at any time to harass you. Maybe this feeling of safety encouraged you to stop taking anti-depressants too? (you said you’ve been weening off for the last couple of years, which coincides with the pandemic). Which also means that the reason you were taking anti-depressants all this time was your father and your inability to say No to him, to protect yourself from his harassment, I imagine? But eventually you succeeded:

    I’m trying to remember the circumstances but yes, I think I’d been wanting to come off the antidepressants for a while and mainly felt that with such a solid block of time at home it was a good opportunity to ride out the symptoms. Although it was very hard and obviously the pandemic was an awful thing, it was really helpful to have that opportunity to learn to sit with my new and difficult feelings in relative safety. I never quite felt able to do that at work, where he could turn up whenever he liked if he really wanted to.

    Congratulations on distancing yourself! How is your relationship with your father now?

    It also seems that unlike with your father, you felt safe with your husband – safe enough to start reducing the anti-depressants and discovering and expressing your authentic feelings, and showing more and more of your authentic self. I am happy for you!

    Thank you! Yeah, my husband is kind, affectionate and dependable so I do feel safe with him. I know it is generally said that daughters of abusive fathers will often pick spouses who have the same traits. I think I turned it on its head a little bit in that I didn’t follow this pattern, however subconsciously I kind of expected more of the same.

    My father passed away back in August and we hadn’t spoken for years. He wouldn’t take ownership of his behaviour or try to change it for the better, so sadly there was no way of having any meaningful relationship with him. When I learned he was ill I was considering the possibility of reconnecting with him in a way that would have been surface level and required lots of boundaries, but he passed away very suddenly. Honestly, now he’s gone it’s been easier to grieve for the lack of relationship fully and to be kinder to myself about how everything went down. For years I felt a lot of shame and blamed myself for it all but I now see that I was between a rock and hard place when it came to him.

    It wasn’t silly. He was having an emotional affair with people in the cyber space, and was neglecting you… so you were totally right to make an issue of it. And I am glad that this game doesn’t exist any more, but also that he had already reduced the time he was spending on it, even prior to that. It seems it lost its emotional grip on him, which is good news.

    Yeah, you’re right. For many months this game and these people seemed to be his world and he was always looking for opportunities to hang out with them…the comment he made to that woman was only a small part of the bigger picture. I’m relieved that the game no longer exists in all honesty because it means a clean break as far as I’m concerned. I now have a better idea of where my boundaries with gaming and the associated social scene lie and if something like this ever comes up again the future I hope that we can both approach it in better ways.

    It’s great that you don’t trust the inner critic any more, and when you hear those deprecating words, you try to talk to yourself kindly. That is the way to counter the harsh voice of the inner critic: to talk to yourself with warmth and compassion, like a good, loving parent. You are doing a great job, and all I can say is: Keep up the good work!

    It will take some time to stop the automatic thoughts from popping up, but it’s important that you notice them and sort of observe them, but not identify with them.

    Apparently it was Martin Luther who said “You cannot keep birds from flying over your head, but you can keep them from building a nest in your hair“. So you notice the deprecating, harsh thought, but you know it’s your Inner Critic, and you counter it with the voice of the Inner Good Parent, or the Inner Coach, as some call it. Someone who loves you and cheers you on, rather than someone who judges you and puts you down.

    Thanks for the encouragement, I’m currently keeping a log of my daily negative judgements as part of my DBT workbook and it’s eye opening how negative my thoughts are on the whole and how willing I’ve been to just go along with them. Meditation is helping with this a lot as the emphasis has been on just allowing thoughts to come and go. That Martin Luther quote is a great one, I’ll have to write it down somewhere and keep it! I think just identifying in the first place that my inner critic is behind these thoughts has been quite profound for me as for a long time I just didn’t see it and took everything I thought as being significant.

    #408662
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Sadlyconfused:

    You are very welcome. I understand your need for a good solid block of quiet time to respond. Thank you for being concerned that I would take it personally that you don’t respond as quickly as I do (taking things personally is indeed my tendency).

    “Interestingly, I’m self-conscious of coming across to others as ingratiating and potentially insincere in my gratitude… being ‘too nice’…  As you say: ‘most people are not that careful with their language’“- something for me to remind myself whenever I take a person’s wording personally. Also, I need to pay attention in regard to a person’s writing: how is the person trying to appear (nice but not too nice, in your case), and in response to what earlier-life criticism (‘you’re too nice! ).

    It’s the fear of the unpleasant sensations of anxiety and shame that I fear more than the actual situation“- in regard to many actual situations, different people feel differently (fitting different interpretations)  about the same actual situation.

    One thing I’ve struggled with ever since I was a child is the feeling of unworthiness when I fear something innocuous, like a conversation with what I perceive to be an authority figure… when the physical sensations happen (flushed face, trembling voice) it turns into panic and shame over having such an ‘over the top’ reaction… It seems that the goal is to be the kind, assertive, emotionally mature adult for ourselves in the present day, which our caregivers failed to be“- imagine that you have a child whose face is flushed and voice trembles.. you wouldn’t shame the child for these things, saying something like: what is wrong with you?! Why is your face flushed?! etc. Instead, you’d express empathy for the anxious child (and the child will calm down as a result). Next time your face flushes etc., try to peel off the shame about the symptoms from the fear that caused the symptoms, so that what remains is the fear itself. You can deal with the fear better without the shame getting stuck to it like hair on soap!

    I read this with wide eyes and huge empathy for you as it all sounds so familiar and I know how deeply it hurts. I’m so sorry that you had to endure this kind of insidious abuse too. Thank you so much for sharing and relating because in doing so it helps me to have more empathy for what I myself went through“- empathy for yourself is key! And thank you for your empathy for me.

    I think ultimately we’ve had very understandable human reactions to very unfortunate circumstances; our brains had to wire themselves in the way they did for survival“- it is interesting how we take personal responsibility for nature-determined reactions that have nothing to do with personal choice. Ex: we are not personally responsible for our voice trembling when we feel fear any more than a dog is responsible for whimpering when afraid.

    My father lived only 25 minutes away by car and I think even if I had more physical distance I would have still felt like he could drive round the corner at any minute“- what scares us about our childhood’s tormentor is the images of their face, the sound of their voice, their words.. these all “live” in the short distance in between our ears.

    A big weight did drop from my shoulders a few days after I learned that he had passed away“- Understandably. The images in-between the ears are not so scary when we really, really know that these are only memories.

    anita

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