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Hello ninibee,
I’m a bit late to the party, but I am here to respond to the post in this thread in which you mentioned the lack of responses from others other than Anita. I came across your thread for the first time today (March 1st) and in the past 15 minutes or so, was slowly savouring and digesting the intimate feelings you shared (thank you) and Anita (and others’) responses to them. I took my time, and was not thinking about responding AT ALL, because as I read, I put myself in your shoes, and when what you said touched a nerve in me because I had experienced similar stuff, I was preoccupied with processing my own feelings.
I guess I am saying that it may appear that you were talking to a single sounding board, but what you shared is helping me process and maybe give me the skills to help others in the future.
When I had posted about issues I was struggling with, I saw unfamiliar names in response to what I would think as petty issues…and those strangers’ words were kind, and I felt as if they had truly processed my plight in their response.
Anyway, I’m switching back to receptive mode. It’s what I feel like today.
Hi Hannah,
I’m responding to an earlier post of yours, regarding how you wish you could “fight your thoughts”. Our thoughts and ways we interpret the world were formed by experience, and what ingraind most solidly in our mind through those experiences are (fortunately and unfortunately) the ones that have protected us in the past, maybe repeatedly. The workings of our brain are primarily and perhaps ultimately geared towards protecting us from harms, so patterns that have somehow helped us escape or minimise those harms in the past come naturally to us, both patterns that we have conscious and unconscious awareness of.
I’d look at your thoughts in a different way, beginning with accepting that they are what they are with the primary intent to protect you from projected future hurts and harms.
On another note, your issue sounds generic enough for me, which may be due to the fact that I’ve experienced that before. If it worries you, though, you can always generalise as much as possible without sacrificing context. You can also evaluate the likelihood that the people involved are visitors of the Tiny Buddha forums — I’ve come to observe that most who post here are introspective, sincere, and growth-minded folks. Of course we can’t speak for the lurkers; I tend to think most of them would possess some degree of spiritual and thoughtful qualities.
gia
Dear Mark, Anita, and Brandy,
Your responses overlap in some ways and differ from each other in others, as a result of which, the options I have are clarified and one in particular is highlighted in my mind. Thank you all, in the unique ways you extended a warm helping hand. As my path of growth is from a tendency to bottle up and act in, the trajectory of my growth has been to act out and I sometimes manage to pretend I’m more self-empowered than I feel, but IÂ also recgonise that what I need at this moment is to scrunch up my face, curl up in a ball, and cry.
With the issue at hand, I’d done: glaring back, cussing out in my head, making faces behind her back.
Anita, your suggestion made me chuckle. How liberating that would be. My profession is one in which we are held up to some (to me somewhat) arbitrarily high standards — maturity, poise, doing the right thing all the time, etc… I entertained the thought that the person we discussed saw that as a trump card to hold people in my position in check, knowing that I (we) cannot afford to act “inappropriately”. It’s like people cannot easily imagine that people in my profession experience bullying as well.
Brandy, your insight regarding remembering  not to allow her power-tripping behaviour to get to me is tremendously helpful. It’s simple enough to use as a snappy soundbite especially at times stress and adrenaline flying rampant when I next come into contact with her (and the next time, and the next time…)
Mark, thank you for affirming what I’d begun to counsel myself with in similar situations, that it is inevitable that we encounter people who are rude/angry/have s&*! to unload.
Hi Peria,
As I read your post, I was imagining crossing the path of a stranger who lives a life like yours, who holds those emotions and thoughts and experiences with her. Would she “act normal” — happy, well-adjusted — putting on a brave face or over-compensating (my tendency)? Or would she act out in a major way in her way of relating to other people outside of her unhealthy relationship?
I second almost everything Mark said. Your wise mind is telling you that it is an unhealthy relationship, and your some other mind (we all have that but it may be less potent in some people than in you at the moment because of temperament, practice, bad experiences, good luck, etc…could be anything) is saying, “yes, but then…”
What I would add is the observation that his behaviour seems quite reflective of “gaslighting”.
Love to your way,
Gia
Though I run this site, it is not mine. It's ours. It's not about me. It's about us. Your stories and your wisdom are just as meaningful as mine. 