Dear Anita,

“We see (3rd eye) when calm, not when under the influence of stress.”

• I thought this would be a good place to start, from your post on February 28th. Ever since the text exchange I feel like stress/worry was slowly encroaching on my third eye, but it took me 11 days to realize this, from the conversation on the 19th until March 1st. The realization came with the help of two people. The family I nanny for, both parents are very down to earth and kind people, during my lunch and the child’s nap I spoke with the dad and he told me he could sense I was in pain, I explained the stress of my things at my ex’s and he offered to help me go get my stuff if needed. I appreciated this but I decided if I was to do that I would have my friend P come with me. That day I concluded in my head that I needed my passport. Still unaware of where my pain was coming from I thought the solution was to show up at N’s house for my things, thinking this would bring me the conclusions I needed and relieve my anxiety about “getting my things.” I thought it was my things that was making me ache. P agreed to go with me on Sunday. (It still being Friday the 1st at this point. So first person to help me on my way to discover how to solve my pain was the dad I work for, realizing where the pain was, around that text exchange…”my things.”
• That same night, my roommate, M, became the second person to help me discover further how to solve this pain. I told her about my plan to show up at N’s, and she said something that helped my third eye to waken. She pointed out, if that text exchange made me feel that badly for over the past week, that she witnessed, then why would the solution be to see him? She said “If you go to see him you will forever remember the way he looks at you and it will just be another image you will have to work hard to get rid of.” She also said she didn’t judge me if I did go to his home but that “you are entering his territory and that seems dangerous to me.” Her pointing these things out joilted part of my third eye awake, what was I thinking? Enter N’s territory so that he could show me more contempt? The idea of not seeing him again, relieved me… that was when I decided getting my passport was not worth it, the hassle of getting a new one is less stressful to me than risking seeing him. My roommate also said “the text exchange showed his maturity, but it was also you initiating it, you entering places for him to harm you.” This hit my hard, me putting me in those situations, it was under my control to do this. I felt empowered when I realized the control I have over him harming me… Thank goodness for M.

“- what do you see when you “look” at me via the computer screen?”

• I like this question. However I will look forward to respond when my third eye is completely awake again soon, because I want to do the answer justice 

“he healthier I am, the less complex and simpler I become”

• At the moment it seems my life was much simpler before I met N, yet meeting him introduced me to more of my complexities. I am curious the difference in blissful simplicity and true simplicity. A Teflon person like N and F, they claim to be simple, proud of their lack of needs, yet this is a complexity in itself..

I wrote: “If there wasn’t better then I’d still rather be single than with him“ and you responded “- remember this realization next time you forget it.”

• This is hard for me to remember when tired…third eye must rest sometimes right? So when it rests, how do I remember this, when only the children are awake, sacral and heart. I assume over time of the repetition, the third eye repeating to the children over and over until absorbed.

I wrote I feel guilty that I couldn’t be the love he needed in his life, and you responded “I hope that this guilt is not great, and that it will shrink over time and be no more.”

• I hope it will shrink as well and believe it will. However the guilt is great, it is something that took over me the last week, triggered by his messages. Probably triggered in the relationship… he told me before that I didn’t listen. I remember when he said this how unseen I felt, because I really believe that I do listen. F told me I didn’t listen too, prior to the “house-cleaning.” It feels so far from who I am that it confuses me into thinking I don’t know myself, that I am blind and my third eye is wrong. I do listen.

I wrote “one day I wanna hear more about what it was like to do what you are doing. I thank you, because I need this, someone who cares to see me as much as they can. And you are that person right now (heart emoji, and leaf emoji because this feels very natural)“ and you responded “- it makes my day reading this!!! (a huge snow flakes emoji… it is snowing here right now, and the snowflakes are huge!)”

• This put a smile on my face  huge snow-flakes makes me wonder where! My grandma texted me the other day about lots of snow in WA, she is from Hawaii and not used to this weather there I hope she can find joy in the large snowflakes too!

I wrote “This is interesting because as mentioned above, having a parent who shamed your authenticity led us to question what our authenticity was. Creating this desire to understand ourselves“and you responded “- in all our communication, I never felt so similar to you, having so much in common.”

• This brings me joy and understanding as to why you see me so well. Clearly I am still impacted by this and still question myself, given the past week or so.

“- I didn’t share this in your thread.. how do you know I have a partner?”

• I can’t remember where I read this, I thought it was my thread but perhaps it wasn’t. Towards the beginning of this thread, as I was curious about this site and you I was waiting for your response one day and recognized on the main page your name was in quite a few different conversations. I went to one maybe two and read very little as there is so much dialogue happening and I felt I was intruding on another persons conversation. It could have been then when I saw you write that you had a partner but I don’t know anything further than that.

“- people would look like infants, the age of zero bias.”

• I thought about this further yesterday as I read “the untethered soul.” It says “Take a moment to examine the difference between your experience of the outside world and your interactions with the mental world. When you’re just thinking, you’re free to create whatever thoughts you want in your mind…This inner world is an alternate environment that is under your control. The outside world, however, marches to its own laws…The mental manipulation of the outer world experience allows you to buffer reality as it comes in…You re-create the world within your mind because you can control your mind whereas you can’t control the world.” When I read this, I thought about how when I nanny this 18 month year old, me and her parents are telling her “that is a tree” “this is yellow” “that is hot, this is cold.” From my understanding our formative years are creating this inner world… Now as an adult, I am attempting to undo some of the inner world that was created incorrectly/misleading… right? What would happen if a child grew up with no one telling them labels, I suppose they would create their own inner world anyways right because that is a human trait. Is the world too over stimulating for us if we don’t label things and instead just move from experience to experience? I imagine entering another world that is completely new, new senses. I heard once on a podcast, this girl sees her life as this; (‘paraphrasing’) ‘I was once a celestial being, and God approached me and asked how I would like to go to this place called earth for a millisecond of time (unquantifiable in our language) and have a human experience with a huge range of emotions and sensations, and I said absolutely!” I wonder what you think about this, I like philosophizing this type of thing to put my life in perspective so that I can appreciate it and not waste my time here.

– I am not the same person I was before communicating with you. I see more of me because of you.

– This is amazing, I wonder what more you see now?

 “actually, I watched a lot of standup comedy during quarantine, (YouTube videos, not TV)!”

• This is a bees knees moment!

next I will respond to your reply on March 5th, yesterday. Then with some more potential realizations, ah-ha moments I have had recently.

Seaturtle

Dear Anita,

I read your post and appreciate everything you said. However I am still exhausted after another bad sleep. I didn’t have bad dreams but I did wake up several times. This morning I started reading my book again “the untethered soul.” It talks about being a witness to the thoughts in your head. I think it has taken me this long, two weeks since the text exchange to pull myself out of my thoughts and see that they are not me. I feel myself leaving the exhaustion but I will be back here tomorrow to respond, with my waking third eye after a good sleep.

have a good night Anita, thank you

seaturtle

Dear Anita,

I feel bad for my anxiety and I feel also anxious you will be disappointed that I am doubting myself so much and not confident Seaturtle. I do think these thoughts are because of the text message exchanges and I also think my anxiety is a mixture of the thoughts and bad sleep do to these lucid dreaming nights.

Dear Anita,

I’ve had some more clarity, I know where my fear/ regret comes from. I fear that I should have  not ended things the way that I did. The day before the breakup I was hopeful of his awareness that he didn’t know how he came across, but when I shared that with you you pointed out the gaslighting technique there. As more clarity came to me and after reading your message of reasons to end the relationship with N, I don’t understand why I felt the need to end things so quickly rather than have a full conversation. I just wonder how that conversation would have gone and if him hearing me say I was considering breaking up and more clear as to why since I had more realizations after our dinner two nights before. I wonder if he would have heard what I was saying and felt the urgency to be more aware of his feelings, feelings he denied, passive aggression that he had previously denied and gaslighted me about.

I know I did try sooo many times in the relationship to work things out in my head and in conversation, that whole second year being together. But I think all that exhaustion really caught up with me when you validated my feelings of him gaslighting my feelings. I remember seeing a trail back to all the times he had.

But realizing how I went wrong in the relationship and moments I didn’t express myself the best way… ever since his text that I don’t know what love is… I interpreted that as him saying he would have stuck by me through anything but I gave up on him. And I feel a lot of guilt over that and it has made me really question myself. Question if I did try my best and make me worry that if I could go back I would have given him more of a chance to get better. I’ve had vivid dreams, bad sleep and high anxiety the past week or more over this. Recently When I see the parents I nanny for argue, I wonder “did I give up over an argument that I will just have again in another relationship?” That reminds me of his good qualities and the things I “gave up.” The good parts of him I broke up with that now I will just want in another relationship. I have been in a thought loop of this anxiety and I think the dreams are because of that.

I feel bad for having these thoughts on top of having them. I feel badly and I wonder if I should reach out to talk, but he said he doesn’t want to waste more energy on me. I can’t tell if this is my third eye being closed or if it is a new realization of it. It is very painful for me to think that if only I had given him the opportunity for a full conversation, rather than ending it so quickly out of fear that he would gaslight and confuse me, that maybe it would have worked out. I just wish I had the confidence in my strength to hold my own if he did try, but maybe the previous dinner when he excused himself from everything by saying he doesn’t know how he comes across, maybe that was him attempting to understand himself and I gave up before he was able to try and make a change. Two nights prior to the breakup was the first time I brought up the term gaslighting, and although I’d tried to explain it prior maybe that time he would have understood.

But then I think about how he didn’t put much effort into talking me out of breaking up he pretty much just left, but I think it may be unfair to expect someone to argue when you say it is what you want.

I think all of these thoughts have been stuck in my head since texting him about my things and they are just now coming out. I feel icky and afraid I made a mistake. But maybe this is all just the sacral (child) acting out because of how much I miss his physical presence. I hope I didn’t make a huge mistake and that he is the “one that got away” as I feared he would be, the fear that kept me in the relationship the last year I struggled and did my best to communicate. What if I stuck with it… this thought is eating me on the inside and I either need to reach out to him and see if he will hear me out; or I need to squash this potential regret somehow.

I apologize for the word vomit, these have been my thoughts I’ve been fighting but now that they are so clear and even convincing, I am afraid of them and don’t know what to do with them.

Anxious Seaturtle

Ps, don’t worry about the volume of your messages, when I sit to reply I am never wishing there was less on your end (:

Dear Anita,

I just read your replies and will further respond through the weekend. With my retroactive awareness I wondered if I read first and let it sit in my mind, if my third eye will have a deeper understanding, or maybe a better way to say it: my third eye and crown will have more time to communicate about it first.

“we both clearly have a similar desire to be better every day“- yes, indeed.. we’re bot the bees’ knees!

– yesterday I went to a brewery with my roommate and as I looked over the cider menu there was one called “the bees knees”!! Can you believe that haha after I told you it was losing relevance, I guess Seaturtle was floating under a rock. I ordered the cider just because of the name and so I could tell you!

happy Saturday

Seaturtle

Dear Anita,

“as the week went on you became aware of a part of your motivation a few days before”

• yes, I wonder if I can speed up this awareness. “Retroactive awareness”

“he wasn’t able to give you more, and you weren’t able to stop wanting more.”

• wow this should be the quote of our relationship

“he wasn’t able to regard the things you told him in the ways you wanted him to. He fought for your love in the ways he was able.”

• why wasn’t he able to? I guess it is just his limitations due to how he grew up.

“we’re all on the spectrum/ continuum of each and every personality disorder, even when we don’t fit a diagnosis.”

• this feels true to me, but I also think some people stay more still than others. That is that some people have a wider ranger of emotions than others, while others are stuck to one end/polar opposite. And unfortunately in our society the emotionless side of the spectrum, is more acceptable and even desired. Desired by people like F and N, they are proud of the Teflon.

“During all the years that I fit the BPD diagnosis, I very much cared about being authentic, I very much wanted to be authentic, it was very, very important to me. But I was too afraid to be authentic around others most of the time because my so effectively shamed my authenticity. I was so out of practice,  didn’t even know how. I wasn’t able.”

• I relate to it being important to me right now. You were afraid to be authentic “because my so effectively shamed my authenticity,” can you explain this sentence more, what do you mean by “so”?

“The book you mentioned recently that you want to write, must be titled USEEN.”

• wow I really like this!!

“Unseen and Alone are synonymous.”

• interesting

“N awakened your desire to be seen”

• wow this is poetic, yes.
• Why did N awaken this in me?
• Edit: I typed this whole post last night but wanted to reas it fresh in the morning to make sure it still aligned with my morning fresh third eye. I will make it known when I am adding something new this morning like right now. I woke up and went on a couple mile walk this morning, recognizing new beauty around me. I woke up feeling angry unfortunately, it went from peaceful wake up, to suddenly realizing I needed to mourn my lost snow gear. I know they are superficial things, but man was it hard to find shoes that fit just right and a snowboard I actually liked the look of, even my goggles and jacket, they all took me a few years to collect. Angry he really just isn’t giving me my things back. I knew I didn’t want my day to be that way so I went on a walk and listened to the Harvard commencement speech by Steve Jobs, and I took from it the beauty in new beginnings. I recognize that two years with N, feels like a lot of time and what was the point? One major point is this, recognizing my need to be seen by a significant other, before N I didn’t realize I wanted that, or what it even meant to me.

“it is amazing to me how much work it takes to SEE certain other people, like me trying to see you.”

• this is an interesting observation. It makes me want to try to SEE somebody else.. maybe you?
• Edit: I wonder if everyone is complex or others are more simple, I suspect this is true but wouldn’t it be a superiority complex to claim that I am more complex than some others?

“this particular seeing occurred to me a day or two ago, as in a passing thought), that it is N, in his stark Unseeing of you, who triggered your overcompensating, narcissistic like reaction.”

• wow so when I feel unseen I lean more narcissistic on the spectrum. And dating N made me recognize I was overcompensating for something, and it was that I felt unseen. That’s a lot to take in. Why did it take him to trigger that?
• Edit: “when I feel unseen I lean more narcissistic on the spectrum.” Today as I read this sentence I understand it more. Maybe (but leaving room for adjustment due to my retroactive awareness) if I feel seen, I am so driven to see the other person back. In general I want to make people feel seen, but in a relationship I feel it is a little different. In a relationship you spend so much time together you will inevitably see more than others do, well hopefully. So in a relationship if I feel they are “continuing” to see me, then I return this, energized by them seeing me, I put that energy back towards them. But, like with N, if they stop giving me their energy of trying to see me, I don’t have the spare energy to see them anymore, instead I must see myself, and this is where the narcissistic behaviors can enter. Slowly, my priority narrows down to only myself, and their feelings become less important, just as during the breakup I had to prioritize my feelings and end things “coldly” and I had to disregard his feelings. Of course I am human and can’t completely do this, can’t completely disregard his feelings but I can just enough so that mine win.

“– and I am open to having been wrong in some of my assessments of you. And of him.”

• I guess if we weren’t open to these things we’d be stunting ourselves and we both clearly have a similar desire to be better every day.

“I think, at this point (and I may be wrong), that he cared for you as much as he was ABLE to care for you.”

• that is the same sense I was getting. That he’d reached his max of how much he was able to care for me and I was very unsatisfied with that, and as hard as he was to give up, i insinctually knew that there was better out there. But at the same time accepting that if there wasn’t better then I’d still rather be single than with him.
• A major realization for me to end things was asking myself “if the world ended and you had to spend the rest of your days in a room with this person, would you choose them to be your one person there?” And my answer was no. I couldn’t see us, just two souls, vibing together. I’d rather be with my little sister than him for the rest of time, and shouldn’t the answer to that be your one lifetime partner that you are choosing?
• I’m so curious about your partner and the type of relationship you have
• Edit: this is powerful here, “I’d rather be single than with him.” Powerful and true, although the transition from relationship to single is very hard.

“I feel empathy for you for needing what you needed from N, and empathy for him for not being able to deliver.”

• I feel empathy for him not being able to deliver too. I was rooting for him. But he reached his max of how much he could care for me. As I wanted him to be my person, I also wanted to be his. Even now I find myself sad that I couldn’t be what he needed. I worry that he feels like “people always leave” and that I contributed to that fear. he’s the youngest so he watched all of his siblings leave, then his dad leaves him alone as a kid for a random amount of time, and his mom leaves him emotionally. I feel guilty that I couldn’t be the love he needed in his life.
• But I know that I could of been what he needed, but the problem is i had more to give than what he needed. I had so much love to give and I don’t think he cared much for those things I did for him.
• Edit: I hope to find someone who sees all the love that I am directing towards them, and that i can see their love as well. Which I believe I will see their love, I know I have that ability but I also think there’s some compatibility of some sort that enters the equation. By Compatibility, I am not sure if it has to do with personality or just an equal desire to be your best selves.

“no, it’s me who knew less about you than I thought I did. Sincerely, it takes so much work, and humility, and persistence, and putting aside my persona biases, experiences, etc., to get to know a person as .. complex as you”

• one day I wanna hear more about what it was like to do what you are doing. I thank you, because I need this, someone who cares to see me as much as they can. And you are that person right now (heart emoji, and leaf emoji because this feels very natural).

• “complex.” I am thinking about this word right now, how did I get this way and is everyone on the planet on a spectrum from a simple to complex?

“what I am in touch with this evening, is how difficult it is, has been for me,  to SEE you as you are.”

• You know what, at least a silver lining of being “unseen” is that I am familiar enough with the feeling that I just don’t expect people to see me. I’ve accepted there are places in my head I will always be alone, but I’ve also learned that some people see you better than others. I feel more seen by my roommate than I did by N.
• Edit: I feel more seen by you than N, to an extreme degree.

“It’s mostly the personal biases, the personal childhood experiences that create one’s vision of another.”

• so you can still see your childhood affecting who you are now?
• Edit: Its amazing how many people there are in the world with their own bias of everything. I wonder what the world reads like, or what people really look like from zero bias. Maybe it is very boring and bland, or maybe it is blissful. No pain but no joy.

“Leave the toilet seat up every day, and be late as long a… you do see me“- a real lifetime partner is possible for you to find and have a lifetime with.”

• this is a meaningful two sentences. (Feeling good and hopeful inside emoji)

“Give him time though.. the task of seeing a complex, fascinating person like you is not easy, says I.”

• haha yes I can do this (: you know what though with N, I got to a point where I couldn’t see him seeing any more of my complexities. Wanting to or seeing the value in it. I am still thinking back to that sentence you paraphrased “Leave the toilet seat up every day, and be late as long a… you do see me.” I don’t think it was the small things that pushed me away, it was pretty deep.

“most people would have disappeared from their forum after told certain things, after told certain things that were the wrong understandings, but you are back here, remarkable, I am humbled.”

• I have been called out and feel it was untrue many times in my life, hence being unseen most of it. However with you many things you notice about me feel true and are helping me understand myself faster.
• Edit: And if they don’t feel true, I still can understand how you concluded what you did, which challenges me to really ask myself if it’s true for myself. If I feel humbled it is usually true. But if I feel unseen, it sends me to more thoughts trying to figure out why.

“love takes a lot of work when it comes to a complex person such as you, a Seaturtle with an open third eye and an active crown chakra. It takes me opening mine and activating my crown chakra to understand.”

• if I 100% believe my person is out there for this lifetime then I wonder what they’re doing right now and when I will hear about it (;

“add distilled water to your tears, so that your sea turtle’s tears don’t irritate your human eyes.”

• i literally have distilled water here because I used it for my diffusers for a while so I will do this now hahaha

“In case you cry or laugh too hard.”

• you’re funny (laugh crying emoji)

-You know what, I know you said you don’t watch a lot of tv, and I still wonder how. But have you ever watched like standup comedy on Netflix? Those got me through quarantine times. I literally knew I was lacking serotonin and literally watched standup on purpose to laugh, so my brain would perk up.

Edit: I like how certain comedians, like John Mulaney and Taylor Tomlinson, to name a couple, point out real human flaws and question what is going on here on this earth. They reveal human complexities and do it in a relatable and funny way.

Seaturtle

Dear Anita,

“I am saying all this not because I think that you fit the NPD (I really don’t know), or any personality disorder, but just in case you do- just in case you get diagnosed as such by a professional sometimes in the future- I want you to be open to the possibility, for therapeutic purposes.”

• I do appreciate you bringing this up, it makes me curious, but admittedly makes me fearful that I have more issues that I am unaware of. I have wondered if I have a personality disorder before, but just believe that I feel very in control of what I do and say, and I also stand by most of what I say and do. I feel like I stay aware enough, literally with the intention of staying aligned with who I believe I am, and I wonder, are people with those disorders capable of being authentic?

“-your desire to be positively/ admiringly seen as an individual apart from others in a romantic relationship and otherwise is intense.”

It is true, I have an overcompensating impulse to be seen by others and recognized as an individual. I was so unseen growing up, by my dad, but then also in highschool. During early highschool, or even middle school I don’t remember having this intense desire to be seen for my individuality, it developed and became more intense later in highschool, my soccer team literally ignored me in highschool. I told you before, but a recap, they thought I told the principal that they hazed the new freshmen and sophomores (me). When I actually didn’t, the hazing made me nauseous so I went home but I didn’t tell anyone, it was another girl who kept it a secret, the seniors and juniors were suspended from the first 6 games of the season and blaming me, they ignored me at practice for 2 years. That bullying had a huge impact, for one I didn’t know why they were ignoring me, I didn’t find out till my senior year that they thought I did anything. I just thought they didn’t like who I was, so I made an attempt to be as small as possible. Stopped talking, since I’d only be ignored, stopped asking for the ball, stopped basically playing soccer (my first love) and overall just wanted to be like everyone else and didn’t want to be myself, since that clearly was not accepted. I left highschool early to finish my degree and begin college courses, simultaneously, almost completely isolated from highschoolers, and anyone on my soccer team outside of practice and games. Just trying to blend in. Then I went to Argentina and that whole trip made me realize how strong I was, after the impact I took there as well. That is where I had my first out of body, “who am I and why am I here?” literally asking God. Again I felt so alone there, only English speaker aside from 3 translators, I learned spanish and made good friends there but the environment and activities they made us do were very challenging. Not to mention socially, the two translator girls treated me differently then they treated the spanish speakers, spoke to me like I was stupid and also ignored my requests, saying to go with the flow, yet I didn’t know the flow because instructions were told to us in Spanish, any ounce of control I had was taken from me, I was just told what to do and out of my obedient character I just did what I was told not matter how uncomfortable it made me. Unseen.

That was the first time I ever felt I heard God’s voice. I felt so unseen, so misunderstood, and so judged. And I was, I can elaborate on several stories, crying as I called my parents, crying to the sky, that trip was intense. I had nightmares that shadows pinned me to the ground and covered my mouth, taking every possible way to express myself away from me. It was those last 4 weeks of the trip (5 months total) that I literally felt like there must be a God or else I was completely alone, so I talked to the sky and I am telling you, I went from the most afraid, lonely and misunderstood place I have ever been and when I spoke to the sky I suddenly felt hugged, I felt this overwhelming sense of light, comfort and a soundless voice in my head said “It will be ok, I am not alone.” Ever since that moment, I have believed in God, but not in a religious way. I can go on about why not as well but I would be writing a book on here soon hahaha.

All this to say, yes, my craving to be seen is very intense, and I know it is an over compensation, and potency of the craving changes/fluctuates. But In my relationship with N, I was aware that he was not responsible for making me feel THAT seen. Honestly I feel like his lack of seeing me, in a strange way, was attractive to me because of how comforting it was, felt like home.

“– Part of you suspects that these expectations are ridiculous, but this part is not sure (hence the question, right?). Objectively, yes, it is ridiculous to think that N not always putting the toilet seat down means that he doesn’t think about you at all. “

I had to decide for myself what was ridiculous and what wasn’t. The toilet seat bothered me when I would fall into the toilet at night, and even after I told him that happened he didn’t seem to put much effort there, but I got over that one realizing he just forgets like all humans do. But it really bothered me once he came to my apartment and used my roommates bathroom, came out and said “oh wait forgot something” and went and put HER toilet seat down… he was being more considerate to her than me. Also the being late, he was 45 min late to breakfast with my mom and I, when she visited me. 45 min, that is ridiculous of him, but I was so understanding, I really tried my best to stay aware of the difference between too high of expectations, and reasonable standards.

“– this is how I understand this: as a child (not only as a teenager, but before), you felt so ALONE, a stranger in your home, living with strangers, disconnected, a very distressing and reoccurring feeling. Your mother took that feeling away from you when she coddled and overprotected you (words you used someplace in your thread to describe her behavior toward you). She took that feeling away when she did whatever you wanted. Fast forward, you re-experienced the same childhood ALONE/ estranged feeling with N, and you needed him to take this feeling away from you by doing the same as your mother did: everything you want.”

• I am not saying this is not true but I don’t recall feeling that way, at home. Also that feeling of estrangement doesn’t happen with my other friends, currently I am not able to associate this disconnect with anyone else but N. My other friends, yes I have felt disconnected before, but when I bring it up like “why is it weird right now” they are aware enough to agree and be like idk it is weird tho. When I feel disconnected, my impulse is to just be super honest, to meet at some sort of baseline with the person, and I find that inauthentic people are unable to meet you there, and I don’t think N was very authentic for many reasons. He was not able to have very raw conversations, something I find only two authentic people can have together. He could when we were on vacation sometimes, or out in nature for a couple days, but otherwise he was far away from that raw place that if I tried to be real with him he just blank stared me.

“but you have turned into your father in this way. You took normal behaviors, like a guy not putting the toilet seat down,  as evidence of him not caring for you.”

This is either hard for me to face, or not accurate to me. I was aware, in the moment, that those two things don’t correlate. I could see that assumption trying to come together in my head and I reasoned it out, that is extreme, I would tell myself and move on. That is why a relationship with someone who did not care enough lasted so long, I feel like I may have disregarded too many things out of trying to avoid making correlations that weren’t true, and that is what was the cause of such a tormenting last year. As I came to you here in September, I thought it was all my fault and I was making incorrect correlations, but clearly he was being passive aggressive, so many times I told myself “no, he was probably joking, and I am making assumptions of him not caring about me when it is not true,” just as a victim of gaslighting says to herself. I am open to being wrong about this assessment, but it is just how I feel, and evidence is that I stayed with him that whole last year trying to make myself see that he cared, when I just don’t think he actually cared that much and instead knew how to act like he did.

” Fast forward, you re-experienced the same childhood ALONE/ estranged feeling with N, and you needed him to take this feeling away from you by doing the same as your mother did: everything you want.”

I just don’t think this accidentally happens, that I would think I deserve everything I want, without even knowing it, especially knowing that I did not deserve everything I wanted like a spoiled little girl. I would not want someone to do everything I wanted, that would be such a fake relationship, I witnessed my grandma doing this for my mom and I thought it was gross. I did not/ and do not want to be this way so badly that I don’t think it happened without me knowing it, and if it did I know less about myself then I thought I did.

“– You are someone ALONE (a dark room) who needs to be seen as worthy of connection/ worthy of not being alone (turning on a light). Problem is that you associate the light with everything you want being done by the one who supposedly loves you.. because that’s the kind of love you experienced as a child.”

But I don’t want the love I received as a child, my moms over coddling makes me uncomfortable and my dads lack of it also makes me uncomfortable.  I am alone in a dark room, and something I learned through speaking with you is it is Seaturtle’s job to turn on that light so hatch can see herself. I associate light with seeing that I am an authentic person, a strong and witty/creative person (as my dad said I wasn’t), seen by myself and hopefully by my one life partner, the one person in the world that admires me for me. I just feel like N did not see me very deeply, he saw a square and fell in love with the square and moved on with his life, rather than see I am actually a pantagon, he missed a whole side but he was ok with that and I wasn’t. I just believe my real lifetime partner will see those things, I don’t want them to do everything I want. Infact, if someone sees who I am, I would likely stay with them through them doing many things I don’t like, because of how hard it was to find a man who saw me. Leave the toilet seat up every day, and be late as long as when you do see me, you laugh with me and we find similar things cool and see eachothers taste and respect eacohthers perspectives and goals.

“– Your internal torment is the ALONE, disconnected emotional experience of childhood. An experience you tried to change as a teenager, when living with your father, by hyper vigilantly fulfilling his unrealistic expectations from you. You tried to connect with him in this way, it was the expression of your love for him.. to do all that he wanted.”

Exactly

“He was in a difficult situation with you, wanting to please you on one hand (this is his brand of love: people pleasing, seems to me), passive-aggressively rebelling, on the other, responding to .. your unrealistic expectations in ways that were not emotionally honest. “

Yes exactly. I am sure some of my expectations were unrealistic, but I was open to being told that, when he explained to me that him talking with his roommate after dark, while I slept alone was too much to ask for, I stopped asking for it. I spoke to you, and I took my stuffed animal and pretended it was hatch, saying everything was ok, he loves me and this was not about me at all, I loved me too and that is all that mattered, and I went to sleep. My expectations were unrealistic for him. Expecting him to express why he was passive aggressive, was my expectation but he was incapable.

“overall, did not bring out the best in each other.”

Agreed. I literally told him this two nights before the breakup, at that dinner that I almost ended things but after asking to leave the restaurant, as he typically liked to “move” when in a confrontational conversation. In the car he says he has been told by his other friends that he doesn’t know how he comes across, and my empathy kicked in, I felt bad for him and said it was ok. Next day realized he literally didn’t take ownership still.

“If only the two of you- separately- could redefine LOVE: what is love?, as the song says…?”

Exactly, I feel this way. When I texted him part of me wanted to hear from someone who was willing to do this, but that was wishful thinking. I would be. I have had the song “I wanna know what love iss…”; haha

Seaturtle