Dear arguseyed:

I believe when people tell you that you are better off than so many, they do not see the truth. Let’s say a person loves cake and can’t afford cake. Then they see you eating cake every day. And they hear you complain about something. The cake- less person then thinks something like this: if I had cake right now, I would be so happy. If I had cake every day, I would be ecstatic. Arguseyed cannot possibly be suffering because cake makes me happy.” Absurd, and yet such thinking is so often practiced.

Your suffering is valid, understandable, real.

It is painful to suffer and then on top of suffering, to be alone with it, no one to see you suffering, no one to believe you are, no one to understand that you are and that you have valid reasons. It is painful to be repeatedly invalidated, negated.

For a person to BE, to be able to make good choices, a person has to be SEEN first by someone else. And it seems to me that you haven’t been seen yet. ?

anita

Dear arguseyed:

I will reply to you tomorrow morning (my time, USA). Please do take good care of yourself until then.

I was wondering, if you are online before I am back, can you write to me a description of what a good enough friend would be for you, can you describe a hypothetical relationship you could have with the kind of friend you need?

anita

Dear arguseyed:

I have been in the process of learning about you through these very posts on this thread. I am not only learning from what you wrote but from what you didn’t write and most importantly, how you interact with me.

Would you like to read what I learned even though some of it will probably not feel good to you? Do you have a trust in me, here in this context, to be interested in your well being only (I am!), not wanting to hurt you or damage you in any way; do you have such trust in me?

anita

Dear argusyed:

In the post before last, you wrote: “My hypothetical relationship would be warm, affectionate, empathetic, someone I won’t have to keep explaining why I didn’t like or like something, someone who is emotionally intimate and shares their stuff with me.”

Well, I have been sharing some of my stuff with you, personal stuff on this very thread, but you didn’t respond to it, didn’t mention it.

I was empathetic to you, I believe.

I paid attention to what you wrote. For example, you wrote that you don’t like when people give you advice as: why don’t you do this, or that. So I made sure I didn’t and I think I delivered on that.

I started each post to you with your (user) name: “Dear arguseyed:” But you never mentioned my name, not at the start of any of your posts or otherwise.

And you didn’t express any empathy for me, or gentleness of any kind that I could detect.

So, I am thinking, if this is your communication to people in- person, this does not promote, on your side, the kind of friendship you desire. I am all for being selective in choosing others as many people will not promote your well being. But here, my intent is to do the little I can do to promote your well being, but my efforts go unacknowledged and un- reciprocated.

Do you find my input here helpful?

anita

Dear argyseyed:

Please take my word: I have no desire or need to make you feel bad. Not at all. My motivation is not other than to try and help a fellow sufferer. By pointing the above, which occurred to me only a short time before that message, I was and am hoping to help you learn what you can do to make your life better. We can’t control other people, as you know.

I am responsible for my participation in every interaction, and so, you are responsible for your participation in every interaction. You have no control over the other person’s participation: he/ she is responsible for that. All we can do, is choose wisely who we interact with AND improve our individual participation in every interaction so to be more effective in getting what we need in a reasonable way.

So, if you see – is my reasoning- that throughout our interaction, you didn’t express empathy or acknowledgment of personal sharing, maybe you will become aware of similar pattern (if there is such) and improve your functioning.

It touched me, positively, that you expressed appreciation for me and gave me the above feedback. I felt warmth as I read it. And so, in my mind, you became a warm, empathetic person, different than the matter-of-fact cold, impersonal person I viewed you as before.

If my affect on you is to … make you feel bad, then I have failed. If I trigger in you some new understanding via my feedback, insight that will help you function better, then I am pleased.

Let’s keep communicating, for as long as you would like.

And thank you for your acknowledgment and empathy.

anita

Dear arguseyed:

Self judging in itself is tiring. I experienced it yesterday and it exhausted me, physically. I felt foggy -brained, sort of separated from the outside and from myself. I walked in sort of a daze, as in a thick cloud. It all followed nothing but self judgment.

Till your next post, take good care of yourself.

anita