Dear Anita,

I am sitting at my computer ready to write a journal entry from the weekend. Although fun, it was exhausting for many reasons. I am feeling fatigued and may wait another day to respond like I want to. I love to journal here and want to continue to grow and learn about myself. I just feel like the muscles I use, to dive deep, and re-live moments to write about them, are tired. Like my mind is a little asleep, and I could wake it up if I wanted to, but it has been a while since it has been quiet so I kind of want to let her (hatchling/ my mind) rest until she wakes up on her own.

I am looking forward to getting home and watching a show and getting to sleep early. I will keep you updated on the status of my energy, I am excited for when it is back because I look forward to coming to this forum and I know the excitement will return once rested.

with Thanks,

Seaturtle

P.S. Happy time of Giving back! ❤️

Dear Anita, this is a Journal entry about my weekend 🙂

I am feeling rejuvenated today. My rejuvenation began Sunday night. My mom stayed from Friday noon until 4pm Saturday, she saw my Friday night performance. Saturday night was nice and short. I will elaborate on Friday and Saturday after I talk about Sunday, as it was when I had some major self reflection and want to talk about first 🙂 So Sunday was a heavy day. I hadn’t seen N yet, other than a breakfast with my mom on Saturday morning, so we planned to spend Sunday together and he come to my last performance of this play at about 2pm.

I woke up on Sunday, alone and fresh, I started to decorate for Christmas with a Hallmark movie, it was peaceful. I thought back on Saturday night and how I felt a little abandoned by Molly and Paris, a failed girls night I personally wanted. I knew it was out of my control but the disappointment lingered. I continued to have a morning to myself, I made breakfast for N and I and he arrived late morning. He asked about my night, I expressed my disappointment in my friends, but didn’t linger there, and moved on to how bitter sweet the day was, as it was my last with a lot of friends I made, friends who saw me, and were there for me (whole thing I locked my keys in my car and like 8 people stayed to help me, everyone asked each other how they were feeling with genuineness, a very great group that got better every time I saw them). N and I laid on the couch together, it was very serene. He began things that lead to s*x. It was all very nice, but I wasn’t quite in the mood for all of it, but it also was still enjoyable so it wasn’t hard to just stay in it, although most of the action was on his end. At the end, we laid together for a minute, then we both wondered about the time, because we had to leave soon for the play. I got up to look at the time and grab my cup of coffee, with the intention of returning to him. I turned around, still undressed to him on a work phone call. This stirred up so much anxiety for me. Why would he do that, we were still in a very intimate bubble, I am still naked! I felt so disturbed and suddenly was aware of being naked, I went straight to my room to get dressed, then started to clean my room and just be alone in my pain, as he was on the phone. I knew that he would not understand, I thought “uh, again he is oblivious to intimacy, to my feelings and insensitive to sex time/intimacy.” I dreaded having a conversation that I would need to bring up because I don’t want to be inauthentic, I want to be my true self and I don’t want to ignore my feelings all day, especially since it was suppose to be a sentimental day I wanted to feel present and real for. He got off the phone and I continued to finish getting ready. I could feel him looking at me but I didn’t know how to look at him. I did not want to fake a smile, we made eye contact and I gave a very half hearted smile, authentic to my feelings. He acted like nothing was wrong at all, but I know it was ‘acting’ because he was being jollier than his normal temperament. Drives me crazy when people think they can make up for behavior through ingenuine happiness (probably because this is how my mom was when she drank wine, or even soberly actually, it’s like just say how you feel). I sat next to him, procrastinating being yet again the one to begin building the communication bridge between us. He started kissing me all over and I was repulsed, I could not receive his love because it was not genuine…in my eyes anyways. I told him why I was bothered, and he did this thing I absolutely hate, and may be the proof actually of invalidating my trigger, something I mentioned to you before but at the time didn’t have an example for you. He says “what do you mean, I can’t take a two second phone call?” downplaying what he does, like I am crazy. I said “No you took a phone call within 10 minutes of us getting up from sex, I was naked infront of you.” He said “you wondered about the time how am I suppose to know we are still in that space,” my response is like he should feel that. He gives me the dumbest look ever like he has ABSOLUTELY no idea why I would be bothered, just kind shakes his head, squinting his eyes. And shaking his head he says “I don’t understand why you allow things to bother you, and you have to ruin our morning because of it,” this makes me feel invalidated. I understand it is a trigger and that in the grand scheme, maybe he saw me go look at the time, took that as our intimacy was over and answered a phone call, but all in the span of about 10 minutes?? and I was still naked!, nevermind I still don’t understand. I said I wasn’t sure if I wanted him to come with me because I wanted to enjoy this last day of my play and he just didn’t understand me, he didn’t respond. Then when it was time to go he asked if he was still coming and I said yes, “you not coming isn’t going to feel any better.” We never solved the issue, we just moved on and began talking in the car like nothing happened, something I do not typically do, I talk until we resolve it but this time I didn’t have it in me, and if I don’t do it, no one does, so we haven’t come back to it since, which I don’t know would be productive anyways, honestly I feel he needs to come to me, not to apologize, I don’t necessarily think what he did was wrong, but it was at least insensitive. He said the words “sorry,” but it was the same energy that he usually says that word to stop the conflict. It’s infuriating. On the drive I asked excitedly and trying to bring some lightness, “Sooo how do you feel about seeing this play a third time? haha” then he responded very obviously sarcastically, “oh so excited.” This hurt my feelings again and I honestly just lost my ability to be genuine with him at this moment, it no longer was about him it was about me and my play, something he was absolutely not going to take any joy away from me. When we parked actually I gave it one more shot, as his energy and mine were so off, I asked him “How do you feel?” I asked genuinely and he responded “what? I am fine” as if NOTHING HAPPENED. This kind of inauthentic shallow ridiculously ignorant response boils my blood, but whatever at this point I have to go, I am doing this for me anyways. Attempting to put it out of my mind I found myself checking my phone for any sort of text from him in the hour I was getting ready, nothing, but it’s ok I shouldn’t have expectations anymore anyways, haven’t I learned my lesson? I proceed to have a fantastic play 🙂 the audience was really into it and fed into our performance, over all just the best genuine vibe. The whole cast was in their feels, there was so much sincerity in that room, people taking selfies, making future plans, congratulating each other, thanking each other.

After the play I went outside to say hi to N and my friend P, who came Sunday instead of Saturday night. We talked for a while, I was excited and so were they, I did it! then P left and we had to go back in to help clean up the stage. N came with me, we helped a little, then went out to the car thinking it was time to go to the after party with the cast, but then I saw more cast go in to help and I felt like I should help out more, I told N, but he stayed in the car and watched football while I went back in for 40 minutes or so. When I came out to the car, obvious to me, the energy between us was off. After talking about the play and getting to the after party, I asked him how he felt about the play, I play a barmaid, my part is to flirt in the background of the scene and serve beer, so I asked him overall how that made him feel and he was just like “fine? I am happy you are getting to act,” I just don’t believe him. My feeling was proven true later when a girl at the party made a comment saying “somehow I always get the mistress and barmaid parts in plays” laughing N turns to me with a sad puppy dog face saying “that won’t happen to you right?” At this point with a couple drinks he shows his real reactions to things, as I wish he did regularly. In the car before we went in, I wanted to get right before going in public as a couple and I asked him how he felt about this morning he claimed he was fine, acting stupid like nothing happened again. He admitted to not wanting to be there, he just wanted to hangout with me at home, not at this party, that I was so excited for. I accepted that, but once we got inside and got some food and a beer, he turns to me and says he just needed food and he actually liked the group. We enjoyed the party. He wanted to leave a couple times, looking at me tilting his head to the door literally while I was bonding with people I would maybe never see again, that I told him meant alot to me. When we are ready to leave he says he might not stay the night and I was completely fine with it I was wanting to go home and relax and he was not someone I felt I could relax with in that moment. He left and this is where my night started to get introspective. So more aware now than I was then, I walked into my apartment after saying goodbye and I was drained to say the least, and sad about the play being over. I got out a beer from the fridge to try and keep from feeling what I felt (at the time I didn’t know that I thought I was just having fun) Then, I am afraid of your disappointment here but just listen to the whole story, I smoked a vape. When we spoke about it last, I logically agreed with what you were saying, not to go near it, it was bad for me. But I still felt deep down that I could control it and only smoke socially, so I kept it for a rainy day. All weekend my roommate had one on her and I never was even tempted. After I smoked it I felt so badly about how I said goodbye to N, we were so off all day and then he left before we could connect again, I called him to just say goodnight and give it one last effort to see how he was. This time his voice was more upidy, happier, lighter and real? he said “please don’t feel bad, my family sacrificed to come see my football games all the time I should have a better attitude, I am happy to support you” then we said I love you and goodnight. At the time I believed him but as I am been journaling here I don’t know if I do, he was probably “happier” because he smoked a ton of weed when he got home, what he often does when he is stressed. This was the end of my day, but then the night began and was a big moment for me and lead to where I am now, feeling rejuvenated and clear minded.

I woke up at 3:30 am from a terrible nightmare, I looked over at the vape and suddenly it clicked to me, I was being spiritually attacked, this vape lowered my vibration so low that my armor was down and exposed to the spiritual realm. I dreamt of animals sticking their claws into my skin, it was the nicotine, I was running from the animals, everything in my body was telling me that nicotine was enabling me to be attacked. Vulnerable, I decided to label the demons I felt were with me in my room. I called out intimidation, fear, and confusion and I told them they were dismissed, I felt released. I decided not to go back to sleep (like I did last weekend when this happened Sunday night). Because I felt I wasn’t strong enough asleep to protect myself from this darkness. In that moment I saw what the vape truly was doing, last weekend there were so many factors leading to my nightmares and following bad days so the vape fell amongst them and I still believed that controlled it was ok, but it is not, I am allowing my spirit to be attacked, which when put like that I am not willing to do to myself. I want to be clear and wise not blurred and confused. Instead of going to sleep I got up at 3:30, to confront the darkness, and then I wondered about what my yoga teacher meant once by “surrender yourself,” it stuck with me and re-occurred to me in this moment so I read a very interesting article and it was alot of information but I held onto “…If we’re lucky, our yoga or meditation practice will break down the illusion that we’re in control.” In the moment this is what I needed to hear, last week when she said “surrender yourself” I did, I let go of my resistance to the pain and I reached a peaceful moment where I was friends with the pain, it brought me joy and I smiled, realizing that I was okay, I could do it. I then signed up and went to a hot yoga class at 6 am. I needed to take care of myself, and show myself and hatchling that I will care for myself, not destruct it. I went to another class this morning at 6 that I signed up for yesterday. Last night I had a vivid dream of N cheating on me and blaming me for being unavailable to him when he needed it, he had been texting another girl flirtatiously so that he could… ya know what guys do sometimes lol. but the odd thing is N has never been that type of guy, I have way more sexual energy than him, and he also doesn’t even flirty text me.

But in the morning on my 5 am alarm and on my drive to hot Pilates this time, it came to me. First of all N wouldn’t do that, it was about my fear that he would, but not only this, I had a revelation; Hatchling was afraid that I would allow N to hurt me and stay with him! This hit me hard. I immediately wrote in my notes:

“Maybe I don’t trust myself to move on if I am in a situation where I am being hurt. Hatch doesn’t trust that sea turtle will remove her from the situation and instead just take the abuse. So when there is the slightest illusion of abuse hatchling is like ‘what are you gonna do about this!’ But dear hatchling we can’t control everything, N has not yet done something to sincerely harm us, dad did. He is not dad. And if N does harm us (like we were harmed by dad) we will leave, because we are great alone and I am not afraid of being single and I am not afraid of leaving one love for another. I promise hatchling.”

It was very hard to get out of bed at 5am today. Interesting thing though, is I have been recently waking up in the 3-4am time and I don’t know why, then falling back asleep I get the bad dreams. I wonder if there is more to this pattern, once I read on pinterest in a quote that 3am is when the spiritual realm is the most active. I know it was only pinterest, and I hope I am not one to believe folklore/pop-psychology, so what do you think/know about this? Just a thought. Anyways, today was hard to wake up, but my reasoning was I wanted to surrender myself to pain (healthy pain, I wouldn’t push through more at the class than I needed) I wanted to show hatchling that we can do hard things and even though she doesn’t want to and wants to do the destructive thing and sleep in until right before work, i wanted to show her I was going to make us healthy and give us some alone time before work. I did and I feel clear today. Although N and I are suppose to spend the eve together and as of the last 2 hours I actually would rather be alone and am debating on canceling, but I don’t know if that makes me running from our issues..

With love,

Seaturtle

(I shall take a breathe now, and then get back to reflecting my weekend and responding to you soon 🙂 )

Dear Anita,

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

Something similar did happen the weekend before, right after sex he looked at his phone at the time and clicked out of intimacy mode and began speaking as if we were talking business and said he actually wanted to leave earlier than planned as to get more things done with his day. It made me feel transactional and abandoned. It initiated emotions that I exposed to him, I told him I knew he loved me and did not mean that but that I was feeling very sad. After about 30 minutes I came around to him leaving earlier, realizing it was what he wanted and I understood, but I still felt raw from the interaction. So the fact it happened again the very next time we had sex I think played into my response of his phone call within 10 minutes after.

“(2) because depending on how long the list of his behaviors that bother you, it can be too difficult or impossible to remember all on a regular basis. If the list is long.. it’s a walking on egg shells experience for him.”

I certainly do not want to make N feel this way, how F made me feel.

“- you place way, way too much weight on what he said.. reads like he was having a light moment, having some fun following a couple of drinks.. nothing rude or offensive.”

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

Yes I can see how it was not offensive or rude, it just made me feel suspicious, he went from feeling disconnected into the car to suddenly sweet puppy dog eyes and admitting that he didn’t enjoy seeing me in a role that was sexualized, something he struggled to admit soberly. Yes the offensive part was what crossed my mind here, that he was being inauthentic before saying he was “fine” with everything and didn’t think much of it, when I asked him soberly he seemed surprised as if it was casual.

I could certainly be reading to far into things, but a part of who I think I am is that I can read people and whether it is authentic or not. This scenario felt that way to me. I am afraid of being told that I read the situation wrong because for some reason it feels like it confuses me on who I am if I cannot correctly read when someone is being inauthentic..

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

-Okay so all the conflict is hatchling, I see, and this aligns with a previous post about Seaturtle being the observer of this conflict between hatch and hatch. My temptation was to cancel on N, but I decided in the end to have him come over for a certain amount of time and not stay the night, which is what you suggested as well and was best. However, when he got there I was in a good mood, we set up the food and cuddled for a minute first, all was well, then something happened and I journaled about it this morning:

“Last night N made me feel like F did when I would feel like I was being manipulated but didn’t have the memory to relay to them exactly what they had done to lead me to feel mistreated. We were eating at the table and he spilled a glass of wine and it went on the table cloth, a Christmas cloth I put out thinking it was mine, but it was actually the one his mom made him. Both startled I wasn’t upset because it was an accident, although sad about the cloth. He then looks at me and says “why is that there!” “Why is my Moms cloth here” I said I didn’t know that was your moms and then he proceeded to tell me how to clean it… he was like “ok so you have to soak it………” this rubbed me the wrong way I said “you assume I will just clean your mess and you don’t even ask me?” He then says “fine I’ll do it I just didn’t  think you would let me” (he is referring to when we are together and I don’t like when he works or gets distracted with things that are outside of our intimate space( I felt this was very manipulative and also putting this stupid wine spill on me and maybe I am thinking too much into it but when he said I wouldn’t let him, was referring to the other day when he took that phone call 10 minutes after sex, proving that he still feels a way about that. He refuses that anything is wrong. After the whole wine spill I let it sit for a minute then it was brought up again and I said I felt there was some passive aggression in his response and also just trying to blame me for something? He refused and said “you’re just sensitive and I love that you’re sensitive” this was so incredibly patronizing and felt the same when he was trying to kiss me on Sunday when clearly there was something in the air. My dad would do this, make me feel like I am just too sensitive and feel things that aren’t necessary. 

N wasn’t always like this, although he has always definitely had a refusal of responsibility response to confrontation, perhaps that is because his mom blamed his dad instead of him when he got in trouble young so he actually doesn’t think things are really his fault?

The passive aggression has been something I have ignored countless times when he says he was joking, but now saying I am just so sensitive and reading into something that is not there…no no that felt patronizing and like he was putting me in a cage I did not like that at all. I can sense energy shifts and he makes me feel crazy for it and that makes me want to run for the hills.

Did I push him to be this way? To patronize my sensitivity and just try to give me kisses and smiles to make me feel like “oh just a cute little girl you are being silly” that is what the undertone of what he said felt to me. Do you think I am reading this wrong? Because if nothing is wrong and it is all actually just me, that is the familiar feeling F left me with very often, it was always my fault but it was ok and he’d give me a hug. 

I feel he gaslit me just like F did when I tried to express to F how I felt about housecleaning. I have not often felt like that with N but last night and the drive to my play on Sunday I did, like he tried to make me feel crazy and over-reading into things but I really don’t think I am. “

” (2) there is a close correlation between taking drugs and having spiritual experiences: this is what the 1960s counter culture generation was about”

Interesting, I would like to learn more about this. The next morning when I googled nicotine and spiritual attacks, I ran into an article about native Americans practicing something similar.

“Don’t seek more spiritual awakenings by vaping more.. it doesn’t work on the long-run.”

I think it would be helpful for me to do some research here so to avoid a temptation of seeking a spiritual experience through it again. However this time for the second time having such terrible dreams, feeling spiritually attacked I feel that is enough to keep me from it. My only concern would be that I get to a point of wanted to feel spiritually connected again, but that has never been my reasoning for wanting it the other times it was always to just relax, now I know that is not it’s true purpose. But I don’t want to get addicted to the most addictive drug, so perhaps I need other ways to feel spiritually connected so I do not crave it for that reason.

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

thank you for saying this, I was feeling afraid to lose you. This made me smile 🙂 thank you ❤️ (I just look up ‘heart to copy and paste’ on google haha)

Seaturtle and hatch