Dear Stacy:

You wrote sometime in late September: “I do not feel like a high value woman because it has not been proven to me by someone I value“. Yesterday, you wrote: “I see value in everyone else but myself. I know that’s my biggest problem“.

You identified your biggest problem and stated it clearly.

Now what: what is to follow this correct identification?

Here is how you followed it recently (I am adding the boldface feature to your quotes): “my ex posted a story on October 1st… I saw on the coworker’s story that they also tagged him… The next weekend, the coworker posted several stories…  I also was scrolling Instagram the other night and saw that he…”-

– back to the first quote: “I do not feel like a high value woman because it has not been proven to me by someone I value“. He, your ex, is that someone you value, and you are (still) invested in having him prove to you that you are a high value woman by coming back to you and stating something like: I was wrong, Stacy, YOU are the ONE for me!

In your mind, he is your hope for Salvation: your hope to be Saved from the devastation a person experiences when not seeing value in oneself.

When you place a person in such a position of power over you, every thing he says or does carries a great weight one way or another: if he says X- it means you have value, if he says Y- it means you have no value.

For a year, he gave you lots of X-s: “The whole year I dated him, he was so impressed and supportive and seemingly obsessed with MY jobs, MY interests, MY talents.” But every time he liked women in seductive postures on social media, that was a big Y for you.

I don’t do social media, but if I am not wrong, all it takes to like a photo is to click on it, or on the word “like“. It is effortless to do so, and for a person who is in the habit of doing it, it’s automatic-like, doesn’t involve much thought, if any.. right? And yet a click on the keyboard is a Y for you: it carries so much weight.

Here is what you asked him in regard to liking photos: “Why do you feel the need to go that extra mile and like these types of photos?”- in your mind, clicking on the word “like”= walking a mile..?

Recently, you followed him on social media and you collected Y-s= “proofs” that you were “replaced so swiftly with someone more ‘impressive’“-…  replaced with someone with value, that is.

You wrote yesterday: “I can’t figure out how to NOT take someone replacing you personally. It feels so personal.“- it feels personal because you placed him on  a pedestal. From that elevated position of Savior, he not just a guy hanging out with a friend, he is your Savior.. not saving you.

Still yesterday, you wrote: “I acknowledge that I allow him to dictate my entire worth about these things and that’s my problem“- once again, you identified the problem correctly.

I will ask again: now what: what is to follow this correct identification?

“My exes have only made me feel that I was not fair and controlling over them.“- here is a problem in regard to any ex who may have been a decent guy, or in regard to a decent guy that you might meet in the future: it is difficult to have one’s words and deeds, however small or .. objectively inconsequential, carry so much weight in a partner’s mind. It doesn’t leave a person much wiggle room, space to move freely/ to feel comfortable to just be.

Even if you go about it (giving so much weight to his every word and click on the keyboard) politely, as politely as can be.. it’s still a problem in a relationship.

“I know I put too many expectations on him. I worry he felt the pressure and I hate I did that to him. I also hate that I will never know what was real or fake with him“- knowing what was real for him and what was less real or fake wouldn’t matter much if you take him off the pedestal where he does not belong. He is.. just a guy, and like any other guy or girl, no one is always real/ authentic, or to the same extent.

Honestly/ authentically, from all that you shared about him, he is not even close to deserve being up there as Savior.

Still yesterday, you wrote:  “I’m at an all time low, partially of course from being dumped by someone who claimed to adore me and accept me fully for so long, but also because I’ve now been without my car for several weeks… All of my friends are partnered up, and I’m very tired of doing things with my sister and her kids.”-  if you remove the ex, this guy, from the elevated position of Savior, you will no longer be at the lowered position of an all time low, with or without a car.

Why is it taking so much time to fix your car… I wonder if buying a used, very inexpensive vehicle, like a motorized bike, is a better option..?

“My sister must have vented (about) me to her therapist again recently because she told me her therapist suggested I sign up for their free intern session opportunity?.. I’m worried that this may be a young crowd of interns (I’m picturing early to mid twenties), and less experienced”- not a bad suggestion on your sister’s therapist’s part: I would easily trust an educated and trained psychotherapist-  although inexperienced- way more than I’d trust your ex when it comes to your healing.

Back to my question: you identified your biggest problem as that of seeing no value in yourself. What may be a doable solution to this biggest problem?

anita

Dear Shookie, My Friend:

You are welcome. I understand your situation better, in regard to the stalking.

There is a special sentiment on my part, to refer to you as my friend in this post because you mentioned the war, and if you are indeed referring to the war in Israel, which started on Oct 7, it feels like the ending of the world to me.. and your mention of technology is something that’s been very much on my mind: the proud filming of acts  of extreme cruelty and spreading them online. It is devastating to think of the hostages and the injured and the traumatized.

Maybe tomorrow will be better.

anita

Dear Eva:

“I’ve been wondering how you dealt with the situation as a little girl“-I remember very little of my childhood. If a film was to be created by connecting the visuals that I do remember, the film would last a few minutes. I suppose this is an indication that I dealt with the situation by being as dissociated/ removed as my brain allowed me to be, my awareness was minimized. I remember feeling very scared during one night (at 5 or 6 years old, I think), and I remember often feeling very depressed and wishing to die (don’t remember when this started).

“I’ve been wondering… what kind of boundaries you had built up to protect yourself“- none. I mean, other than minimizing my awareness (which was not a thoughtful choice but a reaction determined by nature), there were no boundaries available to me when in her presence. Not any more than a thing would have in her presence, Ex., a sofa would have no say over her choice to sit on it or not, where to sit on it, who to invite to sit on it.. what kinds of pillows to place on it, etc.

“It must have been terrible to realize who she was. How old were you when you had figured it out?“- I am still figuring it out. For the longest time I thought that this entity in front of me (my mother) was good and I was bad, bad for making her angry, bad for causing her pain, bad for not rescuing her from pain.. bad for feeling angry at her. I was caught in an ongoing state of Conflict: feeling very sorry for her and wanting- more than anything in the world- to make her happy/ to compensate her for my alleged badness and defectiveness, AND, on the other hand, hating her. Another way to state my conflict would be to say: Who is good? Who is bad? Trying to be good, I failed every time (again and again, she expressed to me how bad I was).

“I probably cannot even imagine the pain somebody can have when s/he understands that s/he doesn’t exist for her/his mother. S/he is just a thing to feed. It must be terrifying“- she TOLD me that I existed as the center of her world, that everything she did, she had me in mind. So, I believed her, yet her behavior was nothing like what she said. When people were around, she treated them well and she treated me like I didn’t exist as a person, a person like the other persons. And when I was alone with me, when she was NOT angry with me, she’d talk at me, just a constant barrage of words and no matter how much I wanted her to stop talking, she wouldn’t stop. Also, it was a very, very small apartment, no place to hide.

My experience with her was like a 3-dimensional thing (a person, myself) trapped in 2 dimensions, can’t breathe in or out, detained, imprisoned, in desperate need of that 3rd dimension.

“I find it interesting that you think they manipulate out of habit. It means that they don’t even understand they hurt people. It means that we cannot even talk about it because they wouldn’t understand.  At least that’s how I feel with my friend. She’s always right, the whole world is wrong, she can explain everything. Nobody can argue with her. Her truth is universal. So I think it’s better to disappear and say nothing”- In this quote, boldfaced what’s true about my mother.

In regard to not understanding that they hurt people, my mother registered in her mind that she has hurt me, she understood. I know because as she delivered a particularly shaming message, there was a look of excited anticipation on her face, an ALIVE look, and when I blushed or looked down to the floor (and then up again), there was a smile on her face, a tiny smile… It makes me smile right this moment as I remember her smile.. it makes me happy right this moment to see her (in my mind’s eye) HAPPY. Oh, how MUCH I wanted her to be happy, MORE than anything in the whole wide world.

I am able to access the emotion right above (something that happened spontaneously and unexpectedly- but not surprisingly,  as I typed the above) because I have been in no contact with her for a decade and never will be, so I can.. breathe in and out that 3rd dimension and feel more than before, or better say, be aware of more.

As I look at what I just typed, seeing a girl (me) happy to see her mother happy while being shamed, what this means to me is that I loved her SO MUCH. Like I said earlier in this post: more than anything, I wanted her to be happy.

If only me being happy (vs me feeling ashamed) made her happy… How different my life would be.

But her Happy didn’t last long, so she had to shame me again and again, feeding or feasting on my shame. Looking back, I understand that during those shaming sessions, she projected her shame unto me, and while she observed her success, she was temporarily free from her shame, and that was exhilarating for her, a wonderful feeling. This is the story of how I did, after all, make her happy for short lengths of time, with an immense cost to myself.

anita

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