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

anita

Dear Stacy:

You are welcome. I wish your employers guaranteed that you get a significant raise in the next fiscal year (instead of trying “to reevaluate the raise/ promotion in the next fiscal year”), or better still, that they offered you that raise right away. It may be profitable for them to pay more to a specialist they know and trust than to hire new person, and then another new person, etc., given the high turnover. Is there a way for you to arrange for a significant raise for yourself as a condition for taking the full time job?

“One of my biggest desires in a relationship is just simply being seen and made to feel like I’m special. My dad never paid attention to me and I never even really talked to him. He wasn’t mean to me, just absent. When I got his attention, it made me nervous and like I really had to perform to keep it up. But the attention was fleeting”-

– like it said in the online source I quoted from yesterday, a child learns: a chair is something you sit on,  a school bus is something that takes me to school, and I am…, in your case, I am someone who does not deserve attention because I am not special. If I get any attention, I have to work hard to keep it, but no matter what, any bit of attention will disappear fast!

“That would be a dream come true for me to no longer feel so controlled by what he thinks of me. It’s such an emotional and mental cage to be in”-

-You felt special with your ex at times, for a while, a kind of special that you didn’t feel before, so your feeling of Special is tightly connected to him and what he thinks about you. It is as if he is keeping your Special in a cage, under lock and key, and he is the only one who can bring your Special back to you.

Going back to your Sept 6 original post (3 months and 6 days ago), it is easy to see that he made you feel Special right from the start: “When we met on Hinge, HE asked me what my intentions were from the get go about 2-3 days into talking as he started flirting with me. The pacing felt right and I had never had a guy actually want to go ahead and address motives, intentions with me…  He expressed on many occasions how thankful he was and lucky to have me in his life“-

– notice you typed HE in capital letters. He is The One, and Only One with a key to your Special, to your sense of worth, or esteem. But you did not bask in a euphoric warmth of Specialness day in and day out, throughout the relationship: you felt that he didn’t contact you enough in-between meetings and you were stressed about it, he told you this or that and it worried you, etc. It was more like you having a taste of Special with him, but not even close to having enough of it to satisfy your three-decades-long hunger for Special.

“This relationship made me feel seen and special“, you wrote back in September, but it was not an ongoing, trustworthy kind of feeling-seen-and-special, it was only a taste of it.

On Sept 10,  I wrote to you: “You’ve been giving him too much power over how you feel about yourself, power he didn’t earn and does not deserve: WHO is he to determine your worth? What did he do to deserve this power?… What did he DO to have this power to determine your worth..? He is just a guy you knew nothing about a year ago. It doesn’t really matter what he thinks, what he meant when he said this or that.. except that it matters to you because you give him power that he does not deserve”-

– He gave you a taste of Special, that’s what he did. And he is the only source of this taste that you know about. It is not only the words he uttered that gave you this taste, it is also his privileged and educated family background, and it is also about the way he delivered the words he uttered, something about his style, his mannerism, his way of looking into himself- to an extent- that touched your heart and gave you that taste of Special.

Back to your post of early this morning: “I can easily get men to find me intriguing or interesting to talk to at first, and then once they meet me in real life, or spend so many months together, they always start losing interest. It’s very difficult to not internalize this pattern of men repeatedly being so enthusiastic about me and so wanting to love and invest in me and then completely exiting the picture. It’s draining and makes me feel crazy. It’s what we’ve talked about here: this theme of inconsistency with the people closest to me.“-

– I am imagining that I am a man your age and I meet you, a very soon (in four days) 32-year-old woman, and she gives me a lot of positive attention (like that which you gave your ex). I imagine that I feel very good about it and want more of it. I feel important and I like it. But then I realize that I feel too important to her, that any word I say, any silence in between words, anything minor about what I say and do, is MAJOR to her, as in any word I say can make or break her.. I have too much power, I start feeling uncomfortable, so I withdraw.

Could this be an explanation to the pattern/ theme you mentioned above?

anita

Dear Stacy:

I intended but forgot to wish you a Happy Birthday five days ago, Happy Belated Birthday! I remember that when I turned 32 I thought I was old. But then, I was old when it comes to how I often felt: hopeless, aimless, guilty, tired… old.

You shared that you chose to accept the full time job, and that you can change your mind “if it ends up being a huge mistake in the future“, that the ultrasound for the lump on the right side of your neck came back negative for anything concerning, however, a few days later, you noticed an even bigger lump on the left side of my neck, you freaked out and called your doctor. You then happened to read online about a woman who had a mild heart attack because of her emotional reaction to her breakup, and you (about 7 hours ago when you typed your post, at about 2 or 3 am) were freaking out about your panic attacks resulting in a serious medical situation.

You shared that you believe that people (including your ex) have to remove themselves from you because you are “too much for people“, too “neurotic and scared.. all the time“, that people get “annoyed and frustrated” with you because you are too much, and that when you mentioned to your ex a future with him, “he cringed his face in so much discomfort“.

My input: there is a category of Cognitive Distortions called Magnification and Minimization. In the above alone, you exaggerated the magnitude of the possibility that choosing the full time job is a mistake, calling it a HUGE mistake. You exaggerated the frequency of you being neurotic and scared to the that of ALL THE TIME. And I guess that you exaggerated the extent of the discomfort that registered in your ex’s face to be that of SO MUCH.

Look at the title you chose for your thread back on Sept 6: “EXTREMELY painful breakup and confusion”.

From psychology tools. com: “Magnification and minimization is a cognitive distortion in which people exaggerate certain aspects of themselves, other people, or a situation while simultaneously downplaying others. This typically involves magnifying negative elements (e.g., the mistakes they have made) while minimizing positive aspects (e.g., successes or achievements)… It’s like looking at things through a set of binoculars. From one end, your problems seem much bigger and more terrifying. But if you look through the opposite end, your positive qualities look small and insignificant…

“Magnification and minimization is often linked to an ‘inexact labeling’ of events. For example, a client might state that they were attacked by their partner for missing an important date, but in reality, this ‘attack’ might refer to a displeased remark or expression.

“This distortion also overlaps with (the) concept of ‘awfulization‘, wherein the client believes that ‘a bad, unfortunate, or inconvenient circumstance is more than bad, it is the worst it could be – 100% rotten’…

“In other words, magnification often involves exaggerating the unpleasantness of a situation while minimizing actual or potential positive elements.

Back to your today’s post, your last sentence is: “I’m getting super concerned with myself that I’m not progressing AT ALL with this. It will be 4 months on Christmas since the breakup.”- there’s the exaggeration (boldfaced).

Overall, in the past, you negatively exaggerated yourself and you positively exaggerated your ex and his parents, for example: “I have never been chosen or wanted by a guy who I find attractive and impressive. Not until this guy… he was super impressive…this guy from this impressive upbringing and who has had a really impressive life with a ton of experiences with travel and other people, who claims to love me so much thinks I’M impressive? Then I’ve won” (Sept 11).

Personally, from what you shared about him, I am not impressed with him. On the other hand, I am impressed with your intelligence, with how well you use the English language to express yourself.. you sound very educated and kind.. You have significant Positives that you’ve been Minimizing while greatly Magnifying his positives, or alleged positives.

anita

Dear Stacy:

“I appreciate your curiosity in trying to better understand me“- I appreciate your appreciation of me, thank you!

I read your most recent post, and in this reply, I will tell you what I understand about you, and you can let me know what you think of my understanding:

You are a very intelligent, well spoken, patient, kind and gracious young woman who is absent from her own awareness.  It is as if you are not a factor in your own mind and life. As if you didn’t yet take center stage where a person belongs in one’s own life, as if you are sitting in the audience. And who is on the stage where you belong? This guy, just a guy (not a national or religious leader that lots of people focus on).

Sept 6, 2023, you started your thread with: “Hi, everyone. My boyfriend who I met on Hinge”, and you continued: “HE asked me… he… him… He..”. Fast forward 3 months and 23 days (yesterday, Dec 29) and: “He joked about… he asked me.. He had trouble… He was reluctant… then he goes into detail.. He told me… he scoffed and said”, etc.

On Sept 10, I wrote to you: “You’ve been giving him too much power over how you feel about yourself, power he didn’t earn and does not deserve: WHO is he to determine your worth?… What did he DO to have this power to determine your worth..? He is just a guy you knew nothing about a year ago. It doesn’t really matter what he thinks, what he meant when he said this or that.. except that it matters to you because you give him power that he does not deserve“.

Eight pages later, I think and feel the same as I did in the above quote.

Limerence: “the state of being infatuated or obsessed with another person, typically experienced involuntarily and characterized by a strong desire for reciprocation of one’s feelings but not primarily for a sexual relationship” (online dictionary).

“Limerence is a term that describes an infatuation or obsession with another person. It stems from romantic attraction that involuntarily develops into obsessive thoughts. You might feel unable to stop thinking about that person, spending much of your time in thoughts, fantasies, and ruminations that center around that person… Replay and rehearsal involves obsessive thinking about interactions you have had, or wish to have, with the love object… the love object is the main focus of your attention” (psych central/ ocd and obsessive thoughts about another person)

“Limerence is the desire to be desired… The experience of limerence can include… an irrationally positive evaluation of that person’s attributes… Limerence has also been tied to trauma. Early childhood abandonment or neglect may correlate to the likelihood of experiencing limerence, and it has been associated with post-traumatic stress disorder as well as obsessive-compulsive disorder (psychology today).

I don’t think we discussed limerence before (I just went through your 8-page thread and saw no mention of it), but it fits, doesn’t it?

anita

Dear Stacy:

You are welcome. “I worry about being a toxic person so much that I think I completely take myself out of the equation when it comes to what I should have or be entitled to”-

– my mother was a toxic person in my life if I define toxic people according to psychology today as people who are “self-centered, manipulative, abusive and lacking in empathy”, and people who “drain others’ energy by constantly demanding attention, sympathy, or validation”, and people who “disrespect emotional and physical boundaries”.

You, Stacy, are definitely not self-centered, manipulative, abusive, and lacking empathy, nor are you disrespectful of others’ emotional and physical boundaries. You fit only the part of the definition in regard to repeatedly asking for validation that you are physically desirable by bringing up the topic, complaining about him liking photos online, etc.,  which is energy draining on the part of the romantic partner; unpleasant, but I wouldn’t say abusive. So, as far as I understand, you do not fit the category of toxic people.

“In counseling, I learned to focus so much on what I was possibly doing to project onto others that it has since made me feel like all of my feelings are invalid“- All your feelings are valid. Some of your feelings indicate the reality of your childhood but not the reality of your adulthood. Often, a child who is really rejected by a critical parent grows up into an adult who assumes (projects) that others are also rejecting him or her when it’s not the case.

Everyone- every single person- projects. For example, when you see someone crying, you connect in your mind, crying and feeling sad, because that’s your experience, and you project this personal experience into the crying person, believing that he or she is sad. This projection would be an accurate projection in most cases because in humans, sadness and crying are instinctually connected. But, if the crying person only pretends to cry, this projection, that he/ she feels sadness, would be an inaccurate projection.

“I’ve learned that everything I’m jealous over is a chip on my shoulder, everything I’m hurt or paranoid over is an insecurity. And then exes and family and friends reinforced the idea that I was indeed just always projecting and being too sensitive and overblowing situations so now I just feel like my perspective really doesn’t even matter“-

– To have a chip on one’s shoulders means “to have an angry or unpleasant attitude or way of behaving caused by a belief that one has been treated unfairly in the past” (online dictionary). In your personal life you really were (and still) treated unfairly by some people in your family of origin, and therefore your anger is natural and understandable. When people in your family who have mistreated you accuse you of being too sensitive and overblowing situations, that’s further mistreatment on their part, mistreatment on top of mistreatment. It is sad when your perspective really doesn’t even matter in your own home.

On the other hand, when you inaccurately project being mistreated by others, for example, taking it personally that he liked bikini photos,  as if those likes indicate that he feels that you are not attractive, and expressing that he was a bad, guilty person for liking those photos, that’s having a chip on your shoulders, I suppose.

“I just don’t know at what point my expectations are warranted and at what point they are irrational and unfair to put on others. I hate my boyfriend lusting at other women. I hate it so much because it’s happened to me in every relationship. Does that mean I can set that boundary?”-

– this hate is a projection of early life VALID anger. If your view of your adult life situations was free from this projection, life would be easier for you and you would know what boundaries are appropriate to set.

“it’s interesting you mentioned this because I was reading something the other day about this and how it can happen during a relationship and after a breakup. Some people refer to the deep longing after a sudden and unexpected as dark limerence – where the memories and rumination keeps you in this dark place you can’t get out of but you hold onto it because it’s all you have left of that person“- or more accurately all you have left of his best moments in the relationship, or all that you have left of an overall fantasy of him.

“I knew this day was gonna be especially hard for me so I volunteered to work all day to try to distract myself from the pain”- how are you this New Year Eve, Stacy?

anita