Dear Seaturtle:

Your post today made my day: from you feeling much better all the way to this (in regard to N): “I feel like I should be more sad or upset, but I am not“. Referring to the title of your now 17-page thread, your gut is getting stronger and your fear is getting weaker. And I am thrilled to witness this happening!

“As an empath in a relationship with N, I must have taken on his stress for a long time… I wonder how much of my current thoughts are due to a lack of things to worry about… I wonder what the book would write about once an empath escapes someone who put a lot onto them.. thoughts?”-

– In think that once you see N for who he is (for who he has become during his 1st & 2nd decades of his life, before he ever met you), you can see that you are so much better off without him in your life. An empath is an easy prey for a gaslighter or any other kind of abuser. This is why children are so easily damaged by abusive parents: young children are empaths of the most sensitive kind.

I am not focused enough to reply further today, and I will reply (to your recent post and to anything you may add to it) tomorrow morning. I will end this post with saying: I am proud of you, Seaturtle!

anita

Dear Priyan:

You are welcome, good to read back from you although I am sad that you are feeling confused, hurt, ignored and used.

(I am adding the boldface feature to the following quotes from your post today): “We spent the time together cooking her dish for potluck, watching movies, going out and obviously having a lot of fun in the bedroom. This time I showed my affection and love for her more than usual when she was with me. We hugged, kissed and cuddled more often than usual. I should also tell you that while I was the one who initiated the hugs and cuddles, she never resisted and participated with the same enthusiasm. But she also made sure to keep reminding me that I am nothing more than a good friend with benefits. I even took her to her doctor’s appointment and when was diagnosed to be clinically depressed, I helped her look up therapists in her area”-

– she was diagnosed with clinical depression during the same week she was with you… the same week when she appeared to have a lot of much fun with you, enthusiastically hugging and kissing you?

“I asked her point blank if she was avoiding me. She replied that she has a lot going on for her (didn’t say what) and that she needs her space. She also said she wants to rethink the relationship she has with me and that she wants to cut back on how much time we spend talking/spending with each other as she is scared that might hurt both of us if/when we decide to date other people. So in essence, she went from someone who used to send me romantic texts and video call everyday to… someone who wants to take a break from me now. All this while we were having sex and she knowing that I have feelings for her. From the way she is behaving I cannot say if she has any feelings for me or is she just scared of commitment and is trying to run away from her emotions“-

-her behavior makes me think of a person on a diet, avoiding fattening foods altogether, but every once in a while, going on a binge: eating a lot of the fattening foods they otherwise avoid, then regret the binge and go back to their diet.. until the next binge. This would explain her enthusiastically hugging you, etc., spending a lot of affectionate and sexual time with you and then-  going to the other extreme of no affection and no sex. Does this comparison make sense to you?

anita

Dear Seaturtle:

How are you feeling today? Did you see a doctor/ are you getting the best medical care possible for you? I hope that you are not having fever today and that you are feeling better. Please read the following only if you are feeling well enough:

“He must of meant some of the things he said“- everyone means some of the things they say. No one lies all the time. In cartoons and in some movies, the bad character is bad all the time. In real-life, bad characters have moments of feeling and acting on genuine affection for others, and this is why real-life is more confusing than cartoons. For example, Adolf Hitler (a bad man) felt and expressed genuine affection for his (very obedient) German Shepard Blondi.

The above is an extreme example, but it applies to everyone. Notice that he felt genuine affection to a 100% obedient dog.

Four days ago (Dec 9), I wrote this to you: “Did he sometimes feel genuine affection for you? I am sure he did. Is it love? Depends how you define love: if you define it as occasional affection/ passion, then yes, he loved you…. (but) look at the BIGGER picture, and ask: is this love?… Where there is repeated abuse,  there is no love.  N didn’t beat you up, but he lied and gaslighted you repeatedly, unnecessarily hurting you repeatedly. This- I say- is not love”.

On July 29 and in early October, you wrote in regard to you and N not soulmates: “I don’t think we are soulmates. But we are very in love… my partner is a stand up man, no question… we laugh of course at times, but not as much as I would have imagined, our sense of humor isn’t as in sync as I have had with other friends… I can sadly, but confidently admit, he is not currently my soulmate. I don’t see him at the depth I have seen others and definitely don’t feel seen in as deep a way as I crave…I have had the smallest glimpses but over all I don’t think our souls are mates“-

-at first, and for a long time, I took your word for it that he is a stand up man, no question, and I thought that the problem was with you having unrealistic expectations of a 100%  match between minor factors such as the sense of humor between 2 individuals who are.. not the same individual. It took a lot of time for me to finally understand that he is NOT a stand up man, and that indeed, for the longest time, like you wrote in the quote above, you didn’t see him at the depth you have seen others: you didn’t see that the problem is not a difference in your sense of humor vs his, but in the difference between a gaslighter and a gaslightee. An emotional manipulator (the gaslighter/ perpetrator) and the emotionally manipulated (the gaslightee/victim) cannot possibly be soulmates.

* An emotional manipulator, a gaslighter, a person who repeatedly (although not always) lies to his significant other is NOT a stand up man.

Back to your yesterday’s post: “Shortly after reading this I made a comment to M that being sick makes me miss him taking care of me. And she snapped at me and said ‘girl you have to stop.'”-

– It is understandable that when you are sick, your thinking is less clear and your emotions take over. It is also understandable that after you tell a 3rd party (M, me) how you suffered in a relationship, then broke up.. and then express wanting to resume the relationship-  this is upsetting to the 3rd party. You said that M too has Covid, this may be a factor in her snapping at you.

“It’s not even been a week I just feel depressed and sad tonight and very alone. It’s my first time being tempted to text him to just feel something, I want a hug so badly right now. I also went on a hike on Sunday and fell really bad, I split my knee open and M helped me glue it back together but I am having a hard time walking. That was the first moment I missed N, I wanted to be comforted, instead my friend was laughing that I fell haha. I just feel so alone, the COVID is making my body ache, and because of my knee I haven’t been able to go to hot yoga. I have a fever now and just wish my mom… I just feel a little lost Anita.”-

– I am sorry that you are sick and that you hurt your knee, and hope that you are feeling better and that you will feel better every day. You mentioned not being able to do hot yoga because your knee hurts, but having fever and your whole body aching also makes hot yoga a bad idea at this time. Try to not place M in the bad-person-category and then reach out to N.

You will recover from Covid and your knee will heal, and you will be able to do hot yoga again. I understand your need to be hugged… Will you place your arms around yourself? I just hugged myself and rocked my self back and forth a bit, and it felt good. Can you try this?

anita

Dear Seaturtle:

I am back. I hope to read from you soon and know how you’re feeling with Covid. I wasn’t alarmed reading that you and your roommate have Covid because I keep hearing from people telling me it’s like having a cold or a light flu, people who are much older than you, so I figure it’s like a cold or a light flu for you too, is it?

“I haven’t had communication directly with N“- good, I hope it keeps being this way. No N Contact (NNC).

“but he did text my sister..  she said that she texted him asking for advice on a Christmas gift for me…and he responded ‘blah blah blah’ He then said ‘blah blah blah’ … He said: ‘Hey blah blah blah’ … ‘blah blah blah’  My sister responded religiously again with advice… I just found this out and am processing what he said. Am I correct that this is all highly emotionally manipulative?”- yes, you are correct.

Remember that he told you to not let words control you, referring at the time to the c-word that he used? Well, I say: do not let ANY of his words control you, don’t take them in and do not process them. Instead, substitute them with the above mentioned blah blah blah.

anita

Dear Seaturtle:

I thought about you a moment before you submitted today post while preparing my breakfast, and then I was so focused on reading your post that I forgot I was eating and had my lunch spill on the computer. As to your question: yes, this is all highly emotionally manipulative. It is his MO. Like a broken clock that tells the truth twice every 24 hours, I figure he tells the truth at a similar frequency. I will be away from the computer for a few hours and be back sometime in the afternoon.

anita

*Oopsie, I forgot to edit out the part at the end of my post.

anita

Dear Anonymous03:

I just re-read our communication on this thread and will now read your recent reply, reading and replying to one part before reading and replying to the next part:

“I feel I need to address what you said in your last post, for I do not agree with them and felt that what you think and said rather invalidates and dismisses my feelings and experiences. To be honest, it did infuriate me“- having re-read today the Oct 3 post you are referring to, I am not surprised that it infuriated you and I sincerely apologize: portions of my post were.. unskilled at best, accusatory.. I am embarrassed that I produced such a post.

I figure that the reasons for it are:  (1) I tend to focus on one explanation to a situation and then go back and interpret all past aspects of the situation according to that one explanation, not seeing the bigger picture and considering other explanations, (2) Interestingly, being so worried that you will get angry with me.. I was expressing anger with you. I think that I was re-experiencing anger at my mother by proxy of you, accusing you of what she- my mother- was truly guilty of: I accused you of often being angry (with your boyfriend)  because .. she was often angry with me. I accused you of often fighting with him, of being passive-aggressive and having no empathy for him when angry because.. my mother often fought, was aggressive and passive-aggressive, at different times, and she had no empathy for me the great majority of the time.

I never really confronted my mother in regard to these things, so.. I used you as a substitute for her and confronted you. I am sorry for having done this.. I didn’t know, wasn’t aware that I did this until this very morning.

“However, my intention is to let you know how your words have made me feel, not distress you, so I hope that does not happen. I want you to imagine me saying all of this calmly, with a soft tone. I am not yelling at you in any way“- this is very kind and considerate of you, and how emotionally intelligent it is for you to ask me to imagine you saying these things calmly, with a soft tone. I will do my best to imagine this.

(I will be selectively adding the boldface feature to the following quotes): “As I said earlier in this thread, I do not think I am ‘projecting’ my mother, and your repeatedly suggesting the same is invalidating my feelings and experiences”-

-On Sept 23, you wrote to me: “I appreciate your insights, but respectfully, I do not think my feelings towards my mom are affecting things in this case“. After you wrote this, I indeed repeatedly suggested that your feelings towards your mother were (greatly) affecting things with your boyfriend. That was disrespectful. I indeed invalidated your feelings expressed in that Sept 23 quote.

“While one’s relationships with one’s parents are influential, they are not all that influence one’s life and feelings. What you are saying about projection is reducing me down to a child with a difficult relationship with their parent. And by extension you are saying that the anger and hurt I felt at my boyfriend’s behaviour toward me was only a result of that difficult relationship, and I should not be feeling angry because it is misplaced anger I felt toward my mother”-

– I didn’t give you credit for being an intelligent and resourceful adult. I expressed an attitude that suggested that you are unaware… while all along, I was unaware that I projected my mother into you (and myself into your boyfriend).

“But I bet even a person who has a good relationship with their parents would be angry and hurt at their partner scolding them for an hour and personally attacking them with things they confided in their partner. I feel unsafe sharing things with my boyfriend because he used them against me, to hurt me, in a fight; feeling unsafe like that has everything to do with how he behaved with me (which has happened again since I last replied on this thread) and nothing to do with my mother”-

– having been invested in my projection of my mother into you, and my innocent, young self into your boyfriend,  I filtered out what you shared in boldface above.

“I did not feel unsafe like this with my ex. I think anybody would feel the same way. Saying my anger toward my boyfriend is a result of life-long anger towards my mother is dismissing my experience with my boyfriend. Yes, I was scolded a lot as a child, and it affects me if someone scolds me today. But wouldn’t it affect anyone, if their partner scolded them for a long time, irrespective of their mother?”-

– Yes, it would affect anyone. Maybe the fact that you were scolded a lot as a child is one reason (one of a few perhaps, keeping the bigger picture principle in mind), that you tolerated being scolded by him.

“Like I said, while relationships with parents are influential, your character and your perception of the world is based on an interaction among lots of factors. And yet, some things are objectively uncool, like your boyfriend attacking you. I feel you are reducing me down to this one part of my life and assume a lot of things about me, which is unfair to me. For example, in one of the threads, I had mentioned my mother was a single mother, and you immediately assumed that my father had left us, when the reality is that my father died a sudden death, and he actually loved my mother and me very much. Not only did you make an assumption, your choice of words was rather harsh, attacking my mother, which I really had not appreciated. I wish you would see me as a whole person, with lot many experiences you may be unaware of, instead of just a scared and angry little girl”-

– I assumed and jumped to conclusions while under the influence of a confused projection. I remember now: at first, I projected my mother into your mother. When you defended your mother, I got angry with you, feeling that.. you were defending my mother. This is when in my mind, with no awareness, I shifted my projection of my mother into yours, to => projecting my mother into you.

On Sept 11, 2023, in this thread, I wrote to you: “We communicated first in April 2021, and then in Dec 2021- Jan 2022. You were living with your mother at the time, angry at her, fighting with her and feeling guilty about it… It was/ is a very troubled relationship…  If you are still living with her,.. (are you?), I have no doubt that it affects your current relationship  negatively, and that it is a part of your anger at him. Any truth to what I am pointing to?“, and you responded two days later: “No, I do not live with my mom. I’ve moved out. And to be honest, things between us are fantastic.“-

– Looking back, this is where I got angry at you for.. siding with your mother (siding with her .. against me, according to my projection), and I shifted my projection of my mother into you. Having a fantastic relationship with her meant that you took my projection (of me into you) away from me.

“About my mother, we have a difficult relationship, and now I can see why because I see her as a whole person, not just my mother. I see all that she has done for me, all that she has given me despite some very serious difficulties she faced… I can see her understand things about me and see her actively try with me. I have chosen to let go of the bitterness I had about her, because really it was serving nobody.

“I am sorry that you had such a hard time with your mother. But I think you are projecting yourself onto me because you can relate to me in that both of us have a difficult relationship with our mothers. But my life and circumstances, and my feelings and thoughts and how I react to situations, are different than yours. I wish you keep that in mind too“-

– Thank you. I understand that your feelings, thoughts and reactions are different from mine.

“About this instance, I would like to clarify that I was not riddled with self-doubt when he talked about my becoming a therapist. I was hurt that he chose to throw it at me like that… I do not in any way disagree that I can be unempathetic and rude at times, but I was also 100% willing to work on it, which is why I told him to point it out to me when I am being like that, because I am unaware of it and would very much like not to hurt him. I hope my words are not too harsh, for I have done my best to be mindful of your feelings and be honest at the same time. Hope you’re doing well..”-

– Your clarifications noted. I am well enough, thank you. Your words were not harsh and you’ve done an excellent job being mindful of my feelings and honest at the same time. I am grateful to you for offering me this valuable learning experience. It is a gift, thank you.

I will close this post with my apology to you: I regret having directed my anger at you. You were always kind to me and did not at all deserve my anger. I will be mindful- in the future- to not reply to members while under the influence of projections-gone-wild, so to speak. I will do my best to never again confront my mother by proxy of any member in these forums.

anita

Dear anonymous03: I read a bit of your post and reads like you are giving me your honest reaction to my past input, I appreciate it and will read further and reply to you in about 12 hours from now.

anita