Dear Shookie: I feel sad to read that your day hasn’t been a pleasant one. I read only a part of your post (I am just about to go to bed, and still listening to disturbing news about our troubled world), but will read and reply further Tues morning.

anita

Your short note and emoji brought the first smile to my face, first in two days, thank you, Eva!

anita

Dear Caroline:

I think that there are two issues/ problems here: (1) the nature of the relationship with your female coworker and (2) obsessing about it. These two different issues require different sets of management/ solutions. I wish you attend to the second issue in the next few days and “chill a bit” just like you wrote 40 minutes ago. Redirect your attention elsewhere: a mindfulness meditation online, physical exercise, a hot bath.. a movie..?

anita

Dear Shookie:

Thank you for your empathy, My Friend. I extend the same to you: empathy for the pain you suffer every day about your parents not being alive. And for your fear of losing Stash, particularly if it happens when he is not in your arms, or not at peace. I know that you are the best pet mom there is, so Stash, all your fur babies are fortunate.

The weather here has been quite hot and sunny,  after being colder and grey for a while. Humid or not, I wear my hair in a ponytail and keep it orderly using hair gel.

“I went out today running some errands & people are getting so mean.  I was in the grocery store & 2 women fighting over a can of fruit“- I think that the world overall is getting meaner. There is a recent study done somewhere, finding (what I suspected before) that there is a connection between the weather and how mean people are: the hotter the world, the meaner/ more violent people become.

“I am so torn about a situation & maybe you can share your wisdom on the subject.  Here goes,  My girlfriend which I would give my life for  if needed & both of us mirror one another with the exception of religion.  She keeps telling me if I don’t start going to Church & believing in God I will go to hell. I believe in a higher power except not the same beliefs as her…”-

– my input: there’s nothing you can do about it: she believes that it is her job/ her calling as a Christian to help you end up in heaven with her, in her Christian brand of heaven. She will not be satisfied with your belief or brand of a higher power unless it is equal to hers. She’ll keep hoping that you become a Christian like her, and you can’t make her stop hoping. She means well.

“We have already made plans on spending Thanksgiving together…When she comes to my home she tells me I need to remove all my Buddhas… I am not going to put them away for anyone.  My house“- it is of course, your house= your choice how to decorate it. I was thinking that if I was in your shoes, and let’s say she was my guest for Thanksgiving, I would take the Buddha decorations down just for that one evening, out of respect for her. But I imagine that doing this would encourage her to try even harder to turn you into a Christian…?

anita

Dear EvFran:

Thank you! “Yes, she probably loved her mother, although she says no“- I got caught up in so much anger at my mother that I .. forgot that I ever loved her. I remembered only recently, after years of no-contact with her when I felt relatively safe from her.

When in contact with her all those years, I was in a war-mode state of mind in which anger was a needed emotion, serving to protect myself from her, to  fight back, to survive the war. Love was dangerous because it is a motivator for the prey (me) to get closer to the predator (my mother). And so, love was pushed down, buried under my awareness while anger filled my awareness.  After years of no-contact, after being sure (I promised myself this)  that I will never be in contact with her again, no matter what, the anger dissipated just enough for some of the  early-life, buried (immense) love for her to partly seep back to my awareness.

“It’s just difficult to understand that someone tells you she loves and trusts you and when you are not around she forgets about you, you don’t exist anymore“- imagine that you didn’t exist (in her mind) while you were around her. For years, I thought that I very much existed for my mother, that I was the center of her world. I believed that because she told me so (that everything she does, she does for me, etc.) But in her mind, there was no sight of me other than a thing to feed, clothe, treat when sick, etc.

“I am  wondering whether she does it on purpose. Is she able to calculate how to use people ahead for months? Or is it spontaneous, she cannot help it“- I find that most often, outside the context of planned and executed financial schemes and such, people dishonestly manipulate others not in a calculated way, with a clear intent, and a laid out plan, carefully executed. Most often, people dishonestly manipulate others out of habit. Similarly to you tying your shoes out of habit.

anita

Dear Caroline:

I will be able to read and reply to your recent post, and any that you may add to it, in two days from now (it is now Sat, 12:03 pm here)

anita

Dear Eva:

You are welcome! “My Swiss friend…  was downloading all her frustration on me, telling me all kind of negative things about him and about all her friends. But later she went back to him and acted very friendly with her friends. Go  figure out..“- my mother did the same thing in regard to the people in her life: she would download her frustrations with them, on me, and then relieved, it was easier for her to go back to acting nice with them, extra nice, extremely nice.

She used me as a pressure relief valve (PRV), a device used to control or limit pressure in a system.

“You are right about my French friend as well. It’s all about her. You cannot finish a sentence, she interrupts you… Nobody else exists“- she is stuck in the narcissistic childhood development stage when a child (about 2-4 years old): will not listen to other children, will interrupt, will not share her toys, and will forcibly take from others what she wants.

Only that unlike a young child, she has learned to dishonestly manipulating people: she doesn’t use her physical force to make you do what she wants you to do, she uses instead the force/  power of words (“I love you”, “I trust you”).

“You are right about the lack of love in her life. She said her mother disliked her, she doesn’t have one single positive memory of their relationship. She is 67 now. She was apparently not loved by her first husband and she never loved him either… She doesn’t love her actual husband and she knows he does not love her either… she goes after money because her actual husband is extremely rich and she had made him change bank..“-

– No doubt that she loved her mother and couldn’t get her mother to love her back. Her mother expressed no empathy/love for her=> she experiences no empathy/ love for the people in her life.

Her mother disliked/ didn’t love her=> she believed (for sixty plus years) that she is unlovable and that people don’t love her (even when they do)=> she doesn’t love them.

She uses people not as sources of love and emotional support, but as sources of financial support, either by adding money to her accounts (ex., her first husband), or by making it possible for her to not subtract money from her accounts (free labor and services).

“All in all, I feel light and relieved to be out of her dramas. I am maybe naive and first I always believe what people tell me“- me too. I also believe what people tell me (in real-life). Even when it is clear to others that they’re joking, I automatically take their words literally, and as true. A young child- when lied to by her mother, or when witnessing her mother pretending to be very nice to others but very angry at them behind their backs-  is too young to process this disturbing dichotomy, so she becomes blind and deaf to it. Fast forward, the now adult (like me) understands that her mother lied and pretended, but when hearing a person talk in real-life (vs reading a person’s writing on a computer screen and having all the time to read and re-read), I cannot detect the dichotomy, I cannot hold in my awareness these two parts: what a person said and (if different) what a person meant

Good to be communicating with you again, Eva!

anita