Dear Seaturtle:

It takes 40-56 days for ALL of your skin cells to be replaces. You can calculate then, on what date, none of your skin cells was touched by him, not a single one, being N-Touch-Free (NTF). Maybe it will help with the ick feeling, and maybe this is my wishful thinking with a scientific touch.

As I read your 2nd post, I felt a relief that you are no longer with him. I understand that you are lonely, yet… he’s so wrong for you because you are so much MORE than what he can satisfy.. he just can’t! I’ll reply further tomorrow morning, good night soon to be NTF Seaturtle!

anita

Dear Chloe:

First, congratulations for all your amazing healing mindset and continuous work through the years: “I am a really growth centered individual… I went through a good bout of therapy a while ago… generally feel a whole lot healthier as a person…I continue to work hard on healing myself as a person.  I’ve noticed a lot of positive change… I am assessing for appropriateness for what I keep internal and what I share, and I’m communicating fairly compassionately and clearly…I am proud of the internal work I’ve done“-

– I am proud of you too, if I may say so!

I re-read what you shared here and in your previous thread like a detective of sorts, looking for the answer of your question, which partly paraphrased is: with all he healing work I’ve done, why is it that none of my friendship last and “if I had a really sad day I’d have nobody to call“?

I’ll be quoting you, then typing as I think, thinking as I type: “My family of origin is not close with me… there is no closeness or belonging there… I’ve grown up with this experience of love and belonging as only a factor of what I can give/provide/achieve/ reflect, and I’m still and likely always seeking a different, more whole kind of love”-

– there is no closeness or belonging now with your parents/ family-of-origin (you’re at around 40 years-old), but growing up you felt some closeness and belonging, only it was dependent on you GIVING and NOT RECEIVING, and on being invisible because the attention you received, when you received it, was negative: “in my youth invisibility was better. Attention meant you were in trouble, you did something wrong, or someone was mad at you”, Dec 2016)

Fast forward, in friendships you GIVE, but when you try to receive, the friendships end (I am stating this in a simplified way). This reminds me of a scripture from the bible: “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” (Matthew 7:7). At first, a moment ago, I thought to myself that maybe you don’t do the asking right, but then, there was nothing in your posts that indicate that there is something wrong with the way you ask.

Next, I am thinking that the problem may not  be with you asking for what you need, or with the ways you ask for what you need, but with the receiving part: “ask, and it shall be given to you”-

– being given attention when you were growing up was a negative experience (“Attention meant you were in trouble..”). Fast forward, let’s say you ask a friend for what you need, but when you receive it, the attention to what you requested scares you, and you reject the attention, the help…  and the friend for having her well-meaning attention being rejected.

Or maybe before you ask, a friend has been trying to give you what she imagines that you need, but you rejected it over and over again.. before ever asking. The consequence: the friend rejects you back and the friendship ends.

“A good friend just ended our friendship in the fall.  I had asked for more consistent communication…  and she determined I was passively aggressively saying she wasn’t ever going to be good enough and she stopped talking to me altogether”- was she saying that her efforts to help you were never going to be good enough…?

It is a human need to feel useful and helpful. When a person is deprived from being able to help/ when a person’s efforts to help are rejected again and again, the person himself- or herself- feel rejected.  It may be that the problem is not that people end friendships with you because they are not willing to give, but because you are not willing to receive.

“One thing I’ve noticed is that if I have a time of need or if I ask for something in the relationship, like more consistent communication, that’s damaging to the relationship”- it may be that after many times that you rejected a friend’s efforts to help (offered without you asking for it), then when you ask for something, the friend gives up on trying yet again to give you something that you will receive.

It may be that you don’t even register a friend’s efforts to help, and reject those without being aware of doing so.

“People identify me as fun, so supportive, a good communicator, a good friend.   A good friend often says one thing she loves about me is that I’m ‘low maintenance‘ and I don’t put obligations on people”-

– so supportive ..but not willing to be supported? Low maintenance to the extreme, as in refusing any support vs moderation?

I’ll stop here. Is it possible that my theory is true to you and your experience?

anita

In regard to this paragraph of the above post “I just asked myself, would I have been in the closet, anxious, if I had an authentic and open third eye chakra, in the first place?“- this is AMAZING, I had the same thought- in a vague form- just a moment ago but I didn’t develop it. I will now: a twist on the spider imagery- the spider wants to feast on a living/ fresh fly, so he feeds the fly with just enough dung to keep it alive, but not strong enough to escape the web”-

– there was a cross over in my brain as I first read the boldfaced part, a thought from earlier invaded the boldfaced, so I didn’t really register the boldfaced. As far as the boldfaced: no, you wouldn’t have been in the closet, anxious if you had an open, highly vibrating 3rd eye chakra (in balance with the other chakras).

anita

Dear Seaturtle:

I wrote to you about people like N: “they have TOO MUCH FEAR that their authentic self is unacceptable. No matter how much you love them, they figure that if you knew them, you’d hate them. So, they hide and deceive.”, and you replied: “Again this has N written all of it, and he will use me leaving as proof that I didn’t accept his authentic self, when really he hadn’t even showed that to me“- brilliantly said.

So, to get along with a person who hides and deceives, you have to be part of the FEAR and the hiding and deceiving, aka unbalanced and blocked chakras.  I wrote fear with capital letters because it’s the kind of fear that annihilates the gut (referring to the title of your thread). And by getting along, I mean on a very superficial level because the depths are not allowed to be known.

“Rejecting the gift of light.. a gift I want to be given“- creatures of the light should shine their light into the darkness, but not get mixed in with the darkness because then.. your light is gone.

“He may not of wanted light shed on him on a conscious level, but some level of him chose someone who’s nature is to do this, bring light… If he thought he was so hate-able, so unlovable, then why did he allow himself to choose someone with a huge heart”- I don’t think that he chose you because you bring the self-examination/ introspection kind of light. A cheery light, joking around, being fun.. yes, light around him, not light into him.

“I feel like he knew on some level, that I could help him“- this may be wishful thinking/ feeling on your part.

“He cared for me in his own ways, for example my car. He always check on it before I drove off, checking the oil, steering fluid, coolant (my car was overheating)… He cared for me, this I believe was him loving me, in the small doses he was able to. He once paid for me to go to my improv class… A spider does not want the fly to have any strength to leave, or knowledge (like the car) to leave or live without him. When I was sad, he put his head on my shoulder, not knowing what to say, but when I felt panicked I would sit in the closet with the lights off and he would come in, shut the door, and sit with me. Ugh this is making me miss him a little, darn ha. He loved me, I believe”-

– You make a good point: he is not always a spider, only sometimes, only when you shed light on what he doesn’t want to see, or when you dare open your throat chakra and say what you see through your 3rd eye.

“But, to remind myself now, in this moment I need to open my third eye to other aspects of the relationship” – I wrote the above before reading this part!

“He wasn’t willing to take responsibility for his lies, even after giving him so many opportunities… he rejected my gift of light on hidden places… Ugh this back and forth is exhausting and I am calling on my third eye right now to remain open and strong today“- later on I will drink for an open and strong Seaturtle’s 3rd eye!

“I just asked myself, would I have been in the closet, anxious, if I had an authentic and open third eye chakra, in the first place?“- this is AMAZING, I had the same thought- in a vague form- just a moment ago but I didn’t develop it. I will now: a twist on the spider imagery- the spider wants to feast on a living/ fresh fly, so he feeds the fly with just enough dung to keep it alive, but not strong enough to escape the web.

You wrote in regard to sending him good wishes: “I wonder how this will bring me some peace“- if you tried it, and it didn’t bring you peace, then don’t try it again. I learned about the sending of good wishes from listening to loving-kindness of meditations, “an ancient Buddhist practice that cultivates goodwill and universal friendliness toward oneself and others” (online). It works at times, in this or that context.

anita

Dear Stacy:

“I’ve been stressed with work and trying to keep up with my new responsibilities there, I apologize for my absence here”- no reason to apologize: being here on your thread is not one of your responsibilities. You can be here when it suits you and only when it suits you. And you are always welcome here.

“Yes, we’ve discussed this at the beginning of my thread because you mentioned that my ex and I both have inner toxic shame in common. That the theme of his life seems to be shame, as does mine. Your explanation about toxic shame makes sense to me. I can see how much I’m beating myself up about this all…  it’s what I do in every area of my life. Hence why I don’t trust myself. I see that it’s not serving me; it’s not productive. I can’t hate myself into loving myself“-

– I never read this last sentence written by anyone.. what an interesting way of saying things. I suppose the two things: hating yourself and beating yourself up are synonymous. Question is how to stop and change this into loving and trusting yourself.

“but I can’t get over the fact that I pushed him away so hard to the point to where he even lied to me about wanting to stay friends after the breakup”- I sense this strong need within you to condemn, prosecute and persecute yourself. No forgiveness for Stacy… no putting down that whip.

“I’ve been in No Contact with him since the last time we talked after he ghosted me back in September… and yes I’m embarrassed of myself“- here’s that shame. Shame here, shame there, shame everywhere within the self.

“I think I don’t see the red flags you can see in him as clearly because for him to not have a clear aim in career in life, living at home still, or to be playing video games doesn’t sound so bad to me… ultimately, all of these typically undesirable traits in him didn’t bother me about him because of our connection“-it was  an emotional connection of the kind that is rare in your life, maybe a first. Maybe it is that with him, at times, you experienced a much needed break from toxic shame.. moments of no shame. What a difference no-shame can make: a highly elevated quality of life, isn’t it?

“I would love to believe if he were a suitable partner that the night of our breakup could have gone differently. Perhaps my blowup on him could have ended in him caring too much about hurting me to leave me, and instead trying to understand me better and work through it together?… It’s always been hard to understand whether my desires for a different outcome are due to my delusional expectations or if they were perfectly reasonable with someone ready for that level of commitment”-

– (1) It seems clear to me that he was not a suitable partner for you, but I understand now, more than before, that the nature of your emotional connection to  him was, at times, exhilarating, unique and very intense. You experienced with him a kind of acceptance and approval that you didn’t experience before him. But notice that you were far from being, always or even often content and exhilarated within the relationship. You were often worried and concerned, just as you were at the time of the blowup.

(2) Considering the intensity and longevity of your toxic shame, I don’t think that there was anything he could have done to make your shame go away, even if he was able and willing to work it through with you. Shame would be just around the corner and there’d be something new to worry about… My eyes just drifted to the title of your thread. Would it be appropriate to title your thread.. Extremely painful toxic shame and confusion?

anita

Dear Blazkowich:

I’d say: keep busy with studying, add some daily physical exercise, and when you need it, give yourself a grief-break and sketch your love and longings for her; move your grieving emotions from your heart and mind => the paper in front of you (assuming you sketch on paper..)?

anita

Dear Kiersten:

Congratulations for blocking a toxic person from contacting you!

I would like to answer your question in regard to returning green tea to your mother, but I need to understand the following before I am able to answer:

When you say: “I accidentally took the green tea from her home”- (1) what do you mean by green tea: bags of green tea? Or a tea set of a teapot, tea cups, saucers, a sugar bowl and such? (2) what do you mean by accidently?

anita

Dear Seaturtle:

“What I take from this is, I wonder where my vibrations were dulled, to point me to undoing this. Clearly my throat chakra, and third eye, the most“-

– “He (F) made fun of things I liked/ liked to do” (Jan 12)- you talked about things you liked to do, he heard and made fun of the things you liked to do based on what you expressed vocally. When he did that, he sent a block into your throat chakra, partially blocking it.

“He treated me like I was a bad kid when I wasn’t. Just accused me of things I didn’t do, and judged my intentions behind pretty much everything“- behind everything, includes behind what you said/what you vocally expressed. When he accused your words of bad intents, he sent another block into your throat chakra.

“he made approaching him so difficult, he was manipulative and held things over my head that shouldn’t be held over a child…” (Jan 12)- F’s behavior was ugly and it made him look ugly (to the 3rd eye). But a girl does not want to see an ugly father, so she closes that 3rd eye. When F behaved in ugly ways, he sent a block into your 3rd eye.

I will need my 3rd eye open and crown chakra vibrating to reply further, so Mon morning it is. Good evening and night Seaturtle!

anita