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Cali Chica.
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January 21, 2019 at 1:32 pm #276011
AnonymousGuestDear Cai Chica:
That bossy woman you worked side by side for ten hours, you were angry but remained silent, you didn’t say anything to her, anything as mild as F*&^ you when she was rude to you. Correct?
Is it because you are afraid of her responding to you aggressively?
And is it that you say whatever you say to your husband when you are angry because you are not afraid of him, because you know he will not respond aggressively to you, and so you are safe to emit that dragon fire?
( “He said I just don’t have anything left.. he was quite defeated for the rest of the night”- a passive response).
* I will soon be away from the computer for about fifteen hours.
anita
January 21, 2019 at 8:58 pm #276049
Cali ChicaParticipantDear Anita,
great question.
This doctor is in a position of slight power over me. In the sense of that she is one of the owners of this center that has hired me. I is difficult to explain. It is not seniority or hierarchy per se but I am a new hire at her (many of their) center. Does this excuse her behavior. No. She is a known “diva” and I spoke to another colleague who has had a similar interaction with her. She is quick to get combative and escalate things and become aggressive.
So I didn’t stay perfectly quiet that Friday. The first half of the day I felt my frustration boiling up. She mentioned something passive agressive to me along the lines of “oh I prefer things to be like this” when I had been working perfectly fine all morning and was uncalled for her to comment. So I mentioned back “oh ok I believe I’ve been doing that all morning, but If you feel otherwise let me know.” To this she begins to show aggression – and says oh don’t take it personally.
I have met many individuals like this before. Ego oriented. Self gloating and narcissistic. There is no winning in a fight with them. I realize at that moment that she was in a position of slight power and that if I continued the conversation she would escalate it. She is someone that does not appear to have boundaries. I took the quiet route for the rest of the day not to appease her. But to not poke her dragon. Why? Because she sits on a board in which another board member (her colleague/superior who I met with last week) has a role in promoting me to another sort of position. Details about that later.
My idea to step back was out of diplomacy. Realizing her reputation and her quick combative defensive remarks at me – I see she is unreasonable and aggressive. I don’t need a conflict 2 weeks into a job that can be escalated and become a “thing” as she has a history of doing this. However – if she crosses the line professionally I will be swift in stating my “preferences.” She has them as a physician so – so do I. I am strong and capable. Just not going to right a monster unless it comes down to it.
Yes you’re right. When it comes to my husband I am not afraid of aggression. If I was to be honest this relationship would have never lasted. Someone domineering or aggressive may have walked away 2 years ago when the abuse was so had. When my parents were terrible to him and his parents. When I was a brainwashed demon. Yes you are right – fire comes out when I am not afraid of the other person’s aggression. Perhaps I’ve always been this way looking back to other boyfriend’s. Perhaps taking advantage of the ones who loved me and wouldn’t “fight” back and so using them as a punching board
January 22, 2019 at 6:20 am #276067AnonymousGuestDear Cali Chica:
I understand about this doctor, one of the owners of the center where you work, as well as other centers. In her experience, her aggression works for her, at least in the context of work (I don’t know if she is aggressive let’s say to her father, or husband), so she will continue the same behavior, basically demanding that others submit to her, making sure every once in a while that this is still the case (by making that comment to you), so to… feel safe in a way, that she is still, and always in power, on top.
I would expect this to continue, her checking once in a while that she is on top and that you submit, out of nowhere saying something just to check. If another doctor let’s say is eager to please her, keeps giving her the message: I submit to you, she may check less on that individual.
Regarding anger here and otherwise, you wrote yesterday: “Anger over takes, and does not see ahead of itself, it is sudden and erratic and full of rage”- except perhaps during psychotic episodes, I don’t think it ever happens this way-
The part owner of the center, she lets just a bit of rage here and there, a tiny amount, just enough to keep things as are, that is, she being on top, others submit.
Same with you and your husband: you didn’t kill him, you just said things.
Looking a bit closer at your reaction to the center owner vs your husband:
-You see her, you see Power-over-you, a woman who historically exercises Power over others, she says a little something aggressive, you feel angry, you say a little something, she says a little something aggressive, you again see her Power and you retreat.
-You come home after yoga, YOU ARE POWER; you see the man who historically submits to your power, you then exercise your Power, verbally assaulting him.
So you see, anger doesn’t “over takes” and it does “see ahead of itself”, it sees Power, it determines who has the power. It calculates and only when it is you who is Power, in that context, it expresses itself but it contains itself.
Sometimes anger is “erratic and full of rage”, which lands lots of people in prisons, people who do go all the way and kill their victims. But even then, those people attack those weaker than themselves.
More rare than anything, hardly ever happens, is the person “erratic and full of rage” attacking one who is in Power. We call that heroism.
anita
January 22, 2019 at 7:12 am #276081Cali ChicaParticipantDear Anita,
I understand your post about power. I understand it well. You said very well how this doctor will continue to “check in” and assure she is in power. Especially when she works with another female that is capable (myself) that could be seen as someone she wants to ensure she is “better” than. I spent a great deal of time thinking about her actions, her way of treating others over the weekend.
I used to get very hung up on this sort of thing, in the sense of I would ask – why do people like her get away with acting this way? you’ve heard me say this before.
Nowadays I am (trying) to see that they are simply another species. Instead of focusing outward to see why she is successful in acting like a b**** and “getting away with it” I should/and try to look where? simply away.
dedicating energy to her and the way she is and how she lives her life this way does not change my life, or change her interaction with others. there is no answer as to why she is this way, and why people succumb (some may not) it truly does not matter.
if this person was say my mother – well then that is a different story and much more personal.
But where should my energy go?
Well, to the second half of your post – how i MYSELF act like a powerful demon often. So forget her monstrosities, what about my own? Why do I act this way?
This never occurred to me before Anita. My entire life, I have been SO caught up in why OTHER people act the way they do and how it is so “sad” and bad etc, that I have NEVER spent that energy thinking about why I act the way Ido.
I know now, being on the path – that energy is fine. It is not infinite as it once seemed. I am not superhuman, I am not a robot.
Thus if I spend 8/10 of my mental energy on thinking of someone such as say this doctor, what do I have left – to think about what I am doing, what I am feeling, how my husband is feeling – what the heck my OWN LIFE is. There is 2/10 left. And after spending that going to say a yoga class, attending to emails, and normal life stuff – then what is left? zero
zero is left to tend to what I am going through, what I am feeling, and what I am coming off as.
It is so true Anita. I know this may not be the exact way you were going with your post – but I realize something.
I am not controlled by what others do – it just seems that way. IT sure does.
It feels that I have no control on being obsessed with what others day and ruminating on it. And so this is exactly why it also feels that I have NO CONTROL over how I act. I extend ZERO energy to it.
For someone who has the capacity to think so deeply and really analyze – I seldom do this for my own self! wow.
I shall begin today. With you. not 2/10 – no more.
January 22, 2019 at 7:31 am #276083Cali ChicaParticipantDear Anita,
I act this way to exert POWER over my husband. Why do you think this is?
Sometimes it feels like I act like this because of my own internal angst, let’s even call it self hatred. What a term. I have read a lot about how people who have gone through what I have, and dealt with such a terrible mother, we are filled with not just anger and hatred and self hatred.
I have thought about this – self hatred. Do I hate myself? Well no, if I ask myself simply. Of course not! I know people who hate themselves and their own lives – surely that is not me!
But I do believe it manifests in a different way – resentment.
How I felt about the WC plan, notice how all of my thoughts are external – why can’t I make it like others can (having not even tried) why do others who may not even be as capable find success? Why do I feel stuck in not being able to create something like this?
But then on the flip side feeling that I need time to heal and should not expect myself to jump start a business asap.
But that is not my first inclination. My first inclination continues to be that I need to do more, and that I should do more, and that why am I not doing XYZ. My first inclination tends to be anger at not being content with what I have and not having patience. Yet, in my conscious calm mind, I know I am in a better place, I know I am healing, and I do find faith.
That brings me to my following point. Faith – hope. I do feel that I have lost these, in people, I notice I am hardened to the fact that people will disappoint me. That they will not be helpful unless they need something, and that they by nature are selfish. I do not walk around daily and thinking this about every single person – but I do notice this is quite strong in my mind. I do not believe the world is a great place, and that overall people are good. I do not. I am hardened to myself, to the world, to my husband.
I notice moments of softness. I do – and i do believe they are coming out more and more often. But the baseline is still hard, and wound up, and perhaps full of hatred on some level.
January 22, 2019 at 8:10 am #276101AnonymousGuestDear Cali Chica:
But the world really is not “a great place”, and it is not true that “overall people are good”. We are all born good, eager to please our parents, to be considered good in their eyes. But then things go wrong. For example to please your mother, to be good in her eyes, you had to be a bad wife, that pleased her.
Overall people’s interactions are not peaceful win-win exchanges, but aggressive win-lose. This is why the world is in the shape that it is, natural resources being wasted, all resources being wasted, people’s youths, lives, their very lives wasted because of aggressive win-lose interactions. Often the one who submits to another is too eager to get into power and then have others submit to him/ her.
It is about being advanced on the path of healing and learning that a person, in their personal lives, create those peaceful win-win interactions and relationships wherever possible, with whomever is willing.
We humans are still animals, like a pack of dogs, staying together (in a social group/ society) for as long as we get something out of the group, be it, for humans, electricity. We need others because we need electricity and an online connection to be provided to us. And within the pack of dogs/ the center where you work, there is a hierarchy of power, a top dog, dogs who submit, lying on their backs, bellies exposed, and there are those who walk around the periphery of the group.
You operate in the context of being an animal, as we all are. First an animal, same emotions, same motivations, same (although somewhat toned down) behaviors.
Rational thinking, logic, technology, police, courts, government agencies, all these are powerful, but these don’t change the fact that we are animals.
anita
January 22, 2019 at 8:25 am #276107Cali ChicaParticipantDear Anita,
It is about being advanced on the path of healing and learning that a person, in their personal lives, create those peaceful win-win interactions and relationships wherever possible, with whomever is willing.
How well said, this is what I seek to attain. The ability to be me, a person, in my OWN personal life creating these interactions. For, if they are not outside of me, externally, it does not dictate whether or not they are in my OWN life.
I have done a good job with only interacting with those individuals that bring positive to my life, and not with those who don’t (example N, and other people) – but the missing link is believing, and practicing. Knowing.
It is knowing that I, Cali Chica, can create peace. I can do it. I have the POWER. I do have win-win interactions Anita. I have it with you. With my husband. With my handful of amazing friends I choose to keep in my life. But this is not my focus. No it remains on “over there” on what is missing.
January 22, 2019 at 8:49 am #276119AnonymousGuestDear Cali Chica:
Talking about animals, having deer and elk in this area, lots of them, the moment they sense danger, they stop eating, head up, looking at the direction of the noise/ movement they heard. Their focus is “over there”, for a long, long time. It is quite eerie to see so many huge animals, elk, all frozen in place, looking at you as you walk by.
What is it as a child that scared you the most, if you put it in a sentence or two, as clearly as you can?
anita
January 22, 2019 at 8:58 am #276123Cali ChicaParticipantDear Anita,
In all honesty, I can not recall exactly what scared me the most. But if I truly think about it, I recall as being an older child (maybe after 6 vaguely) that I was fearful of loneliness. My mother fed me all these things about being sad and lonely and how the world is so sad, and how other people get jealous of us. So I recall feeling heavy about this – if it makes sense…?
January 22, 2019 at 9:15 am #276127AnonymousGuestDear Cali Chica:
She told you how scary it is to be lonely and at the same time she kept you alone, she herself gave you that lonely experience. And you were alone as a child and onward, all the while being in contact with her.
As a young adult, when you had a breakup in medical school and you were at home, right there with her, what did she say to you, can you remind me what she told you then?
anita
January 22, 2019 at 9:50 am #276143Cali ChicaParticipantDear Anita,
You’re right she did herself give me the lonely experience. It wasn’t that it just was this way. Or that’s how life is. Bad life.
Nope, like you said – she herself did this. She MADE me feel this way, because as a mother she had this power over me as her child. Mother’s dictate how their children feel. So no, I didn’t just happen to feel this way Anita – it wasn’t how my life was. It was enforced.
In medical school when I had the breakdown, she said something along the lines of – oh you – you’ve been crying since you’re born, always crying about something – I just can’t deal with this anymore – after all these years, same old, cry baby.
January 22, 2019 at 10:10 am #276151AnonymousGuestDear Cali Chica:
In your one-to-one relationship with your mother, you were alone.
“you’ve been crying since you were born, always crying about something… after all these years, same old, cry baby”- if I put aside the cruelty in her words and my anger at her saying those things to you-
what is there, in the experience of the child and young adult Cali Chica, but a vacuum of sorts, a nothingness all around her, empty desert or a rough terrain, uninviting, unpleasant.
There is you, and all around you, a hostile world, not primarily because she told you the world is hostile but because she herself was hostile toward you.
This loneliness, this feeling of being surrounded by a hostile world (which it is in many ways but not completely as she made it for you), do you ever feel a close connection to your husband, I mean really close, a deep affection, not guilt and dry- appreciation, but a deep, close, guilt- free affection?
anita
January 22, 2019 at 10:15 am #276155Cali ChicaParticipantDear Anita,
You ask:
Did I ever for my husband feel:
really close, a deep affection, not guilt and dry- appreciation, but a deep, close, guilt- free affection?
do you remember a month or 2 ago I asked you, if I am capable of love. That if I myself am not capable of it, and am more like my mother. You mentioned to me that you believe that I am looking for that softness that is lost, as I have gotten hardened.
So my answer to you is this:
Yes, I have felt a SEMBLANCE of this before when we first met – but (and it is so hard to explain) I have this strong feeling that I am not able to love truly deeply with everything. Not because I am holding back on purpose, or that I don’t trust, or that he is not the right person for me (as I am 100 percent sure this would be with anyone) it is that like they say with depressed individuals, they are unable to have those deep feelings of love and joy.
It is like I am unable to. So now, yes I have affection, but it isn’t the full depth of what I know I am capable of (or that a human is capable of) it is stunted if that makes sense.
Kind of like tasting an amazing cake but having half of your taste buds burnt off..
January 22, 2019 at 10:27 am #276165AnonymousGuestDear Cali Chica:
You adjusted to the real loneliness of your childhood, to the real hostility of the world (the home) where you lived.
You were not born with any less ability to love than any human (or social animal, really).
You adjusted well to where you lived all those Formative Years.
Those taste buds you mentioned, they are still there, the ability to love. Problem is if these taste buds recover their function, it is going to hurt. It is going to hurt to taste again. We don’t want to hurt.
anita
January 22, 2019 at 10:36 am #276175Cali ChicaParticipantDear Anita,
Really – so do you believe I am shielding myself from feeling these feelings. Also, I am not sure if I believe these taste buds can recover – as I never recall them being there in the first place (although I know in my brain they are present)
We have talked in the past about how recurrent terrible trauma leads to numbness and “stuck sensation” as that is the body/mind’s defense mechanism to protect…
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This reply was modified 5 years, 10 months ago by Cali Chica.
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This reply was modified 5 years, 10 months ago by
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