Bang on, Anita.

When we first met he said “Oh my god, I’ve met myself.”

Sometimes it was like looking into a mirror.

It was therapeutic in many ways, which I welcomed as I want to confront my struggles.

-Still feathering. 🙁

Hello Anita,

Thank you for your time, dedication and bare attention. I can feel my anger lifting and a place of acceptance and compassion is making itself known. I’ve seen you post to many on this site and marvel at your astute insights. Thank you for being so generous with your time to everyone here. I marvel.

“It is a powerful experience to meet oneself, to see oneself vividly in another person. When this happens, a casual relationship is not possible. ”

This is true. Sometimes he said things that I had thought and felt privately for years, but never told anyone beyond my therapist. Once he told me he felt like he’d spent his whole life grieving and not knowing what, I was shocked as I have felt this way also.

Sometimes, this experience of meeting myself felt very uncomfortable. Although I do often try to sit with discomfort – to ask and not to assume- as an integral part of my personal self-development. (Don’t always manage it, but I try!)

“Maybe you believe that you are a good person, at least underneath. Maybe he believes he is a bad person and he doesn’t want to see more of that. Did he express to you a belief that he is a bad person?”

He expressed a deep self-criticism, he’s a bit anti-social and he hasn’t fully accepted this part of himself. Continually second-guessing himself and living in a labyrinth in his head. In actual fact I strongly suspect he’s Asperger’s and hasn’t come to terms with this aspect of himself.

I am un-diagnosed but Asperger’s runs in my family and I have a history of boyfriends and close friends with AS – since understanding myself in this framework, self-acceptance came much more easily. (Now I can reap its gifts and mitigate its shortcomings.)

That and, I nearly killed myself in a bike accident in early 2016. Does wonders for speeding up the process of making one older/wiser. I have faults and limitations but I like myself a lot more these days. It was pretty heartbreaking to think I might die, I realized I’d wasted a lot of time hating myself. This sense of grieving something unknown has lifted since that accident.

I will add that this guy came up topps when I was assaulted in a pub. I was the victim of an unprovoked assault from a total stranger. He totally fought my corner for me when nobody else really believed or listened to me. He supported my actions with the police and provided a formal witness statement.

Anyway I was, and still am, touched by his actions. He really had my back in exactly the way I needed at that time. (Nobody else seemed to take me seriously.)

I’ve only seen him once since this incident, I wonder if this situation was part of what scared him.

• This reply was modified 6 years ago by Feathering my nest.

I can’t say for sure; all I know is that we both spent much of our lives feeling as though we were grieving and not knowing why.

I wonder if it was a sense of loneliness and isolation that caused the unidentified grieving.

For me, this sense of grief lifted slowly after that accident. It like the existential crisis that we all go through suddenly became irrelevant.

• This reply was modified 6 years ago by Feathering my nest.

Dear Anita,

You asked me of my previous self-hate and I avoided the question.

That is because, when I ask myself that question, my mind goes blank. I had to really sit and think about this one.

Here is my reply:

I would say, my early years were haunted by a deep sense of being misunderstood, in the wrong place and therefore inadequate. A sense of inadequacy is the feeling that predominates. My father is a critical man and unaware of how intense his anger is, I was frightened of him growing up. We moved around a lot so I never felt settled or like I belonged anywhere- I still don’t know how to answer when people ask where I am from.

I was always an outsider, and so bullied for it. That I am probably Aspergers and therefore think and relate to people in a different way to most did not help. I have intensely pale eyes and naturally dark hair, its a striking combination but another source of ‘otherness’. Strangers frequently ask if I wear contact lenses, some have said they find it deeply unsettling “as if I am looking into their soul.” I was painfully aware of this and ashamed to look people in the eye for a long time – I thought it would be too intense.

So I shunned most others and retreated into my own world. While I often had a group of friends, I did not associate with them often outside of school – preferring my own company or to make friends with strangers, with whom I’d befriend for the day and not speak with again. I flitted on the outskirts of groups, never fully integrated.

I have 1 friend who I keep in touch with from my childhood, none from my teens, it was only in my early 20s did I start to form new friendships that I still keep today. I have continued to move around a lot, motivated by educational or career reasons.

I was deeply self critical and always wanted to be ‘the best’ at academic or artistic achievements. I struggled to see my own strengths and weaknesses. I struggled to put myself fully in the shoes of others and often had arguments that I struggled to reconcile – with myself or with them. I could not discuss my feelings and was often overwhelmed by them.

I felt stupid for having the problems that I did.

… I’ve wasted a lot of time on men who neither love nor appreciate me.

Heya,

Processing this, I’ll get back to you soon.

XXX

Heya Anita,

I had a lot of complicated emotional responses to this and wanted to respond instead of reacting, as we are crossing sensitive territory here. Roughly it was a combination of laughing and a deep stinging.

Last night I was laughing about this, the ridiculousness of it all. I’ve got issues, he’s got issues. Of course it was going to be a mess. A dry sense of humour is one of my coping mechanisms. I’m still sad it didn’t work out and there is still a part of me that wonders if things would be different once I deal with my issues. (That could be a friendship, for example.) However at the moment he’s too much of a trigger and I need to keep away. Despite that there is a gratitude towards him, for he brought my issues to the surface, for me to see clearly.

My best friend was wonderful and said “If people with issues didn’t have relationships, there wouldn’t be relationships.” She had my back but since I’ve never discussed deeply with her, I am not sure she fully sees that anxious, angry side that comes out when I experience an intimate relationship.

With this man, the topic of your thread, you unintentionally experienced that unwanted integration. You unexpectedly found yourself not on the outskirts but in the center of the two- persons group.

In that center, you saw in him the troubled soul you are, you realized that you “judged him too harshly”, and got a glimpse into the concept of not judging yourself harshly anymore, saw that as possible. You saw in him “a decent guy at heart”, just as you are a decent girl/ woman at heart.

That is one positive to draw from this situation- that this sense of integration is possible and this sense of judging myself is lifting.

There in the center, you got overwhelmed with the hurt and anger of long ago, the hurt and anger that kept you on the outskirts, the reason you remained on the outskirts. And there, in the center, there had to be trouble even if he was a perfectly emotionally healthy man (and if there was such a thing).

I would say the anger was repressed and experienced as anxiety. It was a very familiar feeling and also very overwhelming. Its that same anxiety that has been ticking over and motivated me to start this thread. (It is easing off gradually.)

There in the center, you suddenly want to be more than someone who is “only good for casual relationships”. There, you care a whole lot about not being rejected or shunned. You got angry, argued. I imagine that the “friendship wasn’t very friendly” indeed, too much anger on your part.

Thats a shame. I recall at the time battling with my anxiety (which was crushing) and a need to behave in a manner that was appropriate for the situation. I imagine at best I came off as highly strained.

I did buy him a gift of lavender balm that you can rub into your muscles to help you relax, I thought he’d enjoy using it as part of his taking alone time/self care routines. I was conscious that he had said he felt I didn’t understand his need for alone time and I wanted to show him I respected it. He said it was a thoughtful gift, but we’d already argued by the time I presented the gift to him so it was probably too little too late.

You wrote about him that he has “issues with getting close to people”- you do too, maybe more than he does. I think this is what you may be grieving, not living in the center, not being integrated. I think that this is what you want but afraid of.

Yep, no arguments there. It is painful to have this issue dragged out yet again.

Problem is, it is very difficult to now adjust to being an insider, which is what you … still need, to be an insider, integrated. “I could not discuss my feelings and was often overwhelmed by them”- the good news it is possible for you to process those feelings so that they weaken in intensity.

I cannot tell you how tired I am of being so unsatisfied in my romantic relationships. It goes on and on and has fulled my worst fears of being inadequate and forever alone. There are a lot of details that I will go over with my therapist in a bid to unpick this tornado. I don’t think I will every fully get over these issues, they form the backbone of who I am.

Thanks once more for all your support, its proving to be instrumental.

Still Feathering.

XX

“In that center, you saw in him the troubled soul you are, you realized that you “judged him too harshly”, and got a glimpse into the concept of not judging yourself harshly anymore, saw that as possible. You saw in him “a decent guy at heart”, just as you are a decent girl/ woman at heart.

There in the center, you got overwhelmed with the hurt and anger of long ago, the hurt and anger that kept you on the outskirts, the reason you remained on the outskirts. And there, in the center, there had to be trouble even if he was a perfectly emotionally healthy man (and if there was such a thing).

There in the center, you suddenly want to be more than someone who is “only good for casual relationships”. There, you care a whole lot about not being rejected or shunned. You got angry, argued. I imagine that the “friendship wasn’t very friendly” indeed, too much anger on your part.”

Why does this anger manifest as anxiety? Why do I repress this and turn it inwards?

When I am in that moment, I am convinced the anxiety stems from the fact that I am picking up on the ‘fact’ that I am more invested in the relationship then they are – which for me is always a sign to get out. I’ve been aware of this for some time and tried to approach it rationally, yet the results are always the same.

My thought/feelings generally write me off as being damaged in some way. “People don’t fall in love because you do nice things, or cook or do X Y Z…you can do all the nice things but it won’t make them love you.” its down to some mysterious force that otherwise eludes me.

I then consistently feel unloved and unappreciated. And as soon as those feelings kick in it triggers a cycle of thoughts, feelings and behaviors that are extremely difficult to stop. I don’t feel I can even talk to whomever I’m dating about what is going on because I’m worried it will scare them off. (Because I will reveal my both ’emotional unavailability’ and simultaneously my neediness and insecurity- and who wants to date someone like that?)

The go-to pop psychology says that I am picking people who are ’emotionally unavailable’ and incapable of giving me what I want or need. However, deep down they need the same things too. I have my issues with the term ’emotionally unavailable’:  to pathologise it only ostracizes the individual further. (Certainly, in my case, I find the term demeaning.) Makes it sound done-for and like that person is a hopeless case. Indeed these self-proclaimed gurus of self-help often seem to give with one hand while taking with the other. (Their industry thrives upon the troubles of others.)

I am not convinced I would be able to relate to someone who did not have a similar ‘lone wolf’ mentality to some degree. Nor they to I. My space is important to me. It seems that the thing that keeps us apart is also that which binds us in the first place.

Plus I don’t understand how I can face my fears of getting close to people, without getting close to people and challenging those fears head-on. So basically: I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t.