Dear Caroline:

You are welcome, and no, it doesn’t seem silly, not since I understood what it’s about: it is not silly to feel hurt for being someone’s 2nd best, it’s a kind of hurt that I can very much relate to.

Having just read that she suggested that the three of you,  a married man with a pregnant wife at home, and two women he is not related to (Ex., daughters, mother, aunts) will be going on a sleepover in the mountains.. this is making me think.. What? I mean, it seems bizarre to suggest this.. unless she is clueless or she is/ has been so overcome with feelings of infatuations that she lost her reasoning abilities.

“I did not want to ever ask her: ‘Are you in love with him?'”- instead of asking her this Yes/ No Question, a question that confines her, you could ask, if you wanted to, an open-ended question that allows her wiggle room:  what are you feeling about him?

“Yesterday I asked her: Are you sorry that things turned out the way they did? (meaning he does not have time to meet anymore.. ). She said she knows he ‘has changed’ but she thinks it’s because he is different department and is more busy with work than we are. I don’t think she understands that it may be the fact that he is married”- seems like she prefers to not think about him being married with kids. She may be in denial about it, as in putting this “little” information aside, as it is an inconvenient truth: truth that doesn’t fit her feelings. There is a term for such lack or rational reasoning, it’s called Emotional Reasoning.

“I think that may be the reason he does not have time anymore”- good for him, he chose wisely.

“I figured I would ask her, in a funny way perhaps, or say something like ‘I know it will be only two of us’ (because 100% sure He won’t make it this time either) ‘but I hope you don’t mind and I would be enough company for you'”- I wouldn’t say that. Instead, I would do is ask her an open ended question, or a couple of open ended questions.

anita

Dear Caroline:

I asked if you want to “help her..? Warn him?”, and you said “none of these things”, so you don’t want  to help her although you are “worried about her”?

Reads like you are concerned for her emotional well being. Why not bring up your concern to her in a way that is gentle, as gentle as can be and see how she responds?

(I will be back to the computer in about 7 hours).

anita

You are welcome, Caroline. What I am reading in your last 2 of 3 sentences is courage. Think of preparing for the difficulties you expect to have, practically prepare, best you can.

anita

Dear Cat:

Good to read back from you!

“last week I got a new job. I will be a senior carer on nights, working in a dementia unit. The place where I am going to be working pays really well and it looks like Hogwarts! It actually blew me away when I went for the interview and the manager really liked me so I am looking forward to stepping into this new chapter!“-

C o N g R a T u L a T i O n S  !!! I can see you- in my mind’s eye- working in a place that looks like Hogwarts! An exciting new chapter!

“Do you live with people or alone? I am trying to visualise the environment where these messages are being received!!“- Let’s see what I can share comfortably on this public forum, at this point: I do not live alone, but not in a commune type setting either. I live on the hills, outside the city limits, about 5 miles from the nearest town, so it’s quite a forest type scenery up here, not many neighbors. Does this help at all, for your visualization?

“Thank you for soothing me on the Ed situation… I can’t explain how painful it all was, just wanting something to be fixed, and not being able to fix it“- you are welcome. You have a big heart, this is why you care so much.

“I do not want to date for a while now. I don’t do dating apps and I think these things should happen naturally. I am still strengthening my world and focusing on my goals – job, NVQ, gym, writing. I have a lot to work on“- excellent attitude, if I may say so.

“I am 30, and I do feel young!! Each day I remind myself that I am only 30, and work on grounding myself, my health and then focusing on my goals. How old are you?“- I would tell you how old I am but my fingers are refusing to type my age. (haha). I will tell you that I am old enough to feel that 30 is as young as 20 (when I turned 30, on the other hand, I perceived myself to be old).

“If I can ask: what made you feel like a bad person?“- my mother telling me how miserable she was and that it was my fault that she was miserable, detailing my alleged efforts to make her feel bad… Only a  BAD person would form the intent to make her mother suffer and then go through elaborated plans to make it happen (which is what she claimed I did, and no matter how much I tried to tell her it wasn’t true, she insisted otherwise).

“I know how that feels. There have been things that I’ve done or been through (when I used to do a lot of drugs) that sometimes I feel horrific about. But, I remind myself that the past is the past, and that making mistakes and having guilt is a human thing and there’s people in the world who have done a lot worse than I have!!“- I am sorry that you know how it feels,  but good to read that you forgive yourself for past mistakes. I wouldn’t want you to feel horrible about those mistakes or about anything: that would be unnecessary pain that will be of no benefit to you or to anyone else. It took a lot for me to forgive myself for mistakes and harms I caused other people as an older child and an adult. I am committed to becoming healthier and healthier and in so becoming  more and more willing and able to do-no-harm to others. And to myself.

“I remember at the time of writing, it felt like it needed to all come out and Tiny buddha felt like the space to do this and I released it. I would never write this stuff online now! But then, I have matured a lot over the years.. I have come to terms with everything from my childhood and in day life I am not affected by it“- good to read that you matured a lot. Indeed, your impressive maturity is evident in your writing. (Notice: Everything is the title of your thread).

“With the suffering quote – I realise now that my parents and also my sister are all older than me and all responsible adults too. I realise that they could’ve taken responsibility and reached out to me, and been concerned about me and my wellbeing. But they haven’t. and they have continued their lives as if I don’t exist, and so I have put the responsibility back onto them (especially my parents) and I have focused on myself and tried to make my life as happy as it can be“- it feels so good to read this. It inspires me to think similarly.

“In terms of you ‘losing’ being a right person for me, that isn’t the case at all. I guess life happened, I continued to grow daily and try and better myself. Started becoming someone who I would like to be friends with, and in turn attracting better people into my life (and still am). I understand that our connection is solely Tiny buddha forums based, and so I considered myself to be another person in your sea of people that you are helping! Did you feel as though you ‘lost’ me?”-

– (1) you were never another person in a sea of people, not in my mind. You are more like a beautiful, tree and life-filled island in the sea, full of life! (2) Yes, I thought that you lost respect for me. (3) Thank you so much for explaining that you were busy bettering yourself during your absence from these forums, it makes me feel good.

“It makes me happy that you are starting to believe in the numbers!! Mostly, I think the Universe does it to us, to remind us that it is there and is conscious and aware of what we are going through. At different points I have taken different paths in my life and the Universe has changed the angel number! At the moment mine are 23, 37 and still the classic 11:11. What numbers are you seeing?“- (1) I want to watch the YouTube video you mentioned, I think that it will give me some understanding of what we’re talking about here. (2) I keep seeing 11:11 and 1:11.

“Ed was – something different. It was impossible for me to have a true authentic connection with him because he is SO guarded, you can feel the defensive energy coming off him and he was so irrational due to the alcohol and drugs and was illogical, not making sense and also delusional. Sadly. I tried to help him, and even just trying to sit him down and calm him down, I wasn’t able to do. It was insane. But I really tried to highlight the problem and I appealed to his family members to help him. I just really really hope that he chooses to grow and change and face himself and his addiction.”-

– this is what I mean by saying that you have a big heart. You really, really tried to help him. You tried to reach him through his defenses, and when you weren’t able, you tried to enlist his family members to help him:  You did your Best!

anita

Yes, Simon, I am still active on this site and I will read and reply to your recent post in about 12 hours from now.

anita

Dear Luna:

“I don’t know what in what I said gave the impression that I don’t ‘feel’ the need for a relationship“-

You said:  “I would say I tend to have a rational take when it comes to emotions. I’ve looked so much into that too haha it is interesting that you brought it up because I feel like I wanna step away from that too; feel the emotion instead of thinking it.” (Sept 25).

“I don’t know what in what I said gave the impression that I don’t ‘feel’ the need for a relationship“-

I didn’t say that you don’t feel the need for a relationship, or that you don’t feel emotions otherwise. Put in a new way this Sat morning, my understanding is that you find refuge in thinking, refuge from feeling; that overthinking provides you with a welcomed distraction from old emotional pain.

You mentioned a phrase in a reply to a member just over nine months ago: “What you feel, you attract, and where focus goes, energy follows“- your focus is thinking, and that’s where your energy flows, into overthinking. In regard to the first part of this phrase: what you suppress feeling (yet still feel), is what you attract.

What you feel in regard to your powerful of childhood, you chose to not share in your thread, beyond the very general and vague sentence that I boldfaced in the following (Sept 24): “I can see how you’re drawing the link between the parent-child bond and my inquiry and I expected this to be brought up given they’re the most common models in terms of a healthy (or not) couple partnership. So to get back to your question, like any other child, I have received powerful messages from my environment on how to act and be in a couple“- no mention of what those powerful messages were and what you felt about those messages..  not as any other child, but as Luna the child.

Back to your yesterday’s post (Sept 29): “To make that clearer, I feel and think that need. I have both an emotional and an intellectual perspective on the matter”-you are a thinking and a feeling person, absolutely, I  have no doubt.

“That being said, I agree with the idea that relationships are never trouble-free; Life as a single person in itself is full of ups and downs let alone in relationships. Hence, feel free to share more insights on the subject if you’d like. This is what this space is for. Best, Luna“-

– My main insight in regard to romantic relationships is that when we grow up distressed and conflicted, and the Conflict is not resolved in childhood, it carries on into adult romantic relationships. Personally (and expressed here in a child-like, emotional manner vs the intellectual): my mother was very angry at me, a whole lot of angry. It makes me sad and it makes me scared. Please don’t be angry with me, mother! PLEASE??!!! Please, pretty please… don’t be angry with me.

I tried to disappear best I could, as a child, to feel as little as possible so to hurt as little as possible. Fast forward, as an adult, in what could have been romantic relationships, maybe, I was.. no where to be found, dissociated.. gone. Men who approached me- I automatically rejected, looking away, walking away, but if they persisted in pursuing me physically, as in sexually, after physically fighting them off me, if they persisted (those men were predators).. I disappeared while they did what they wanted to do.

I NEEDED a hug. I was so lonely and my mother’s touch was far from feeling like anything positive, even when she meant it to be affectionate. There was no one to touch me kindly, so that was what I needed from humans who sought my company, and those humans were men looking for sex. I welcomed the hug; unfortunately for me, they exacted a price for the hugs.

What I shared above is very personal, yet I shared it in a public forum. If my mother read it, she would venomously shame me for what I shared here. Part of me is afraid that you will do the same, or that someone reading this will.

” I’m asking about getting mentally ready for being in a relationship through self-development. For more context, I’m very passionate about self-development and I’m very future-oriented when it comes to matters of the heart” (Sept 24)-  I don’t expect you to share anything as personal as what I shared, or anything at all about your childhood, or about sex. It doesn’t feel good, really, for me, to have shared it, and it will be scary for me to click the submit feature.. It’s risky, but talking about self development, which is your passion, it takes taking risks.

Best to you too,

anita

Dear Umaz:

Welcome back to the forums! I hope that it is okay with you that this will be a long reply as I will be paying attention to everything you shared. When I quote you, it is I who is adding the boldface feature to some of your words.

In this thread, you shared that there was a promotional job available at work, and while you (a woman) were considering applying for it, a male co-worker- who turned down the job himself- told you that if you wanted the job, you’d need to be “more positive” and “hide (your) feelings“. As you understood it, he was implying that you were “too emotional“, and that you should not apply for the job. You applied for it nonetheless and received it.

During meetings which you led as a team manager, he ignored you and addressed the male managers instead. The morale of the team was low, people had quit the team, and you told management that this co-worker’s behavior is “problematic and causing a retention issue in the team“. Eventually, you “blew (your) lid off and had a huge argument with him about it all… said some horrible stuff to him“. Management told you that you need training “to be better“,  and that you “need to separate (your) emotions from the job“, saying that “he doesn’t talk about others when he raises complain, implying that (you’re) the only one sh** talking“.

“I feel so gaslit by everyone – but at the same time I am wondering if I’m the problem? Am I only filtering the negative stuff?…  I feel like a failure, like I ruined my career, like a trouble maker, a liability and I feel mistreated. I feel like I’ve been treated unfairly and sometimes I wonder maybe I am the narcissist and not him. Can I please get an outsiders perspective and some advice how to move forward?”

To understand and answer your questions best I can, I will be re-reading your September 2021 thread titled “Am I a narcissist?“- the same question you asked two years later, in this thread.

In your original post back then, you shared that one reason your boyfriend did not invite you to his father’s funeral (in another country) was, as he said, that “he wanted to ‘protect (you) from the pain’“. You wrote back then: “I feel like a liability and not really a part of the family which he claims I am“. Here’s the same word: a liability. One definition of the word (online dictionary): “a person or thing whose presence or behavior is likely to cause embarrassment or put one at a disadvantage”.

I replied to you back then and we communicated for a short while. You shared that as a result of your boyfriend not inviting you, you felt “really abandoned and lonely.. betrayed.. (that) he doesn’t really see me being part of..  his life… my own family did reject me a few years ago and him not including me made me feel rejected again“.

When your boyfriend returned from the funeral, “he was talking about the funeral and told me that his ex’s mum and sister was at the funeral. This hurt me so much and I reacted poorly, I was angry, he again said I was a narcissist. He does call me that often and realised maybe he is gaslighting me. Every time I try to raise my own feelings he makes me feel so guilty about it, and calls me a narcissist“.

I wrote to you back in October 2021: “Like I suggested to you earlier, I think that it is the hurt and betrayal that you experienced when your family rejected you that keeps awakening in the context of your relationship with your boyfriend”. You replied: “Anita, yes you are right, I feel so very triggered and lately I have been thinking about my own family more. Even after 10 years, I feel such a void without a loving family, something I never had but always crave. My parents kicked me out when I was in my early twenties because I didn’t follow the religion anymore and I wanted to live an independent life. What hurts more recently is that my own siblings who I thought could understand me, have also shut me out. I feel so isolated and rejected by them too…. I’ve had a lot of therapy in the past but nothing recently as I’ve been doing relatively well. Also, I don’t find it useful to continuously relive my past. It’s emotionally exhausting and takes away from my present. Plus its expensive…  I know that having emotions is normal but sometimes my emotions are most intense than usual“.

My input today: your emotions, particularly hurt and  anger are sometimes, like you said 2 years ago, “most intense“. Originally, it’s the hurt and anger about having been unloved, kicked out, shut out, isolated, rejected (your words above), as well as really abandoned, lonely, betrayed and gaslit (your words from before) by your parents and later, by your siblings as well. It is within your family that you felt like a liability.

That’s a lot of HURT. And as often is the case, ANGER is linked to the hurt. The anger is about trying to have POWER in situations where you feel very hurt and powerless.

Because you’ve been very hurt and very angry within the context of your family, for too long, never to be resolved-  this intense hurt and anger get awakened/ triggered in adult contexts like in a romantic relationship (first thread) and a workplace relationship (2nd thread). When in these adult contexts you are uninvited (1st thread) or criticized and ignored (2nd thread), the same-old, same-old intense hurt and anger get triggered.

In this thread, some of your hurt and anger are valid: it really is hurtful to be ignored in meetings, especially when you are the team leader. Maybe your male worker has anti-women feelings, maybe he is misogynistic. In any case, it was rude of him to ignore you during meetings. Thing is that the INTENSITY of your hurt and anger were not solely about this workplace-adult circumstance. It’s like there’s a leak from the past and the massive hurt and  anger of the past spill into the present during triggering circumstances.

From what you shared and from my personal, non-professional understanding,  the term narcissist does not apply to you, or to your boyfriend at the time, or to your male co-worker. What applies to you is that when you are triggered, you feel so much hurt, that you can’t see anything or anyone but your hurt. You become self-centered in this way, and therefore, you feel justified in verbally attacking the person you believe had hurt you so much. Like I said, your co-worker was rude to you when he ignored you (not necessarily when he gave you his feedback that you were too emotional, depending on his tone and intent), not thinking about how you’d feel being ignored, and that’s being self-centered on his part.

Here is my advice: (1) next time you feel angry at someone, Notice that you feel angry, Pause (take time out so that you don’t say or do anything being driven by the anger alone/ so you don’t blow your lid off), Address the situation when calm (what really happened? How much of what I feel is valid in this present circumstance? Try to peel the past off the present, so to speak. How should I respond, or maybe I should not respond at all?) and then Respond- or not, and finally, Redirect (get busy with something else). I call this strategy NPARR: Notice, Pause, Address, Respond-or-not, Redirect.

(2) Process that massive hurt from the past bit by bit by sharing about it somehow, either by journaling (drawing and painting as well, perhaps), or in a support group (of people shunned by religious families, perhaps), and/ or in quality therapy..  or here on your thread, and/ or in replies submitted to other members.

You wrote 2 years ago: ” I don’t find it useful to continuously relive my past. It’s emotionally exhausting and takes away from my present“- if you share/ process in a certain way, it may release you from the hold that the past has on you.. fixing that leak I mentioned earlier, so to speak, bringing yourself back to the present instead of taking yourself away from the present. Share from the Hurt, more than from the Anger.

It happens that I use these forums myself to process my childhood Hurt at times, when I reply to members. I’ll do it right here, right now, so to give you an example of what works for me, and may work for you too.

(After a moment): I see my mother’s face in my mind’s eye. She is still young, younger than I am now; Her face is cold and rigid. There is no love for me in her face. Her eyes are dark, there is no glitter in them, nothing that shines, no recognition in them that I.. that I am, or that I am of any value. She looks at me, she talks at me.. as if .. she talks at a thing. Not a person that I yearn to be, but a 2-dimensional thing… MOTHER, don’t you SEE me? ME? Oh my god, I am stuck being a thing, no human 3rd dimension:  my own thoughts, my own feelings, my own preferences, my own.. being human. There is a feeling of being suffocated in this no-space 2 dimensions. MOTHER… Oh, I was going to ask her to see me, but no point in that.. She can’t, she won’t, she hasn’t FOR TOO LONG.

anita