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How Are You Feeling Right Now?
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I would have left, too, if that’s any help. I’m very big on separation of church and state, meaning that I don’t want my politicians dictating religion to me, nor do I want religious leaders telling me how to vote. These are both personal, private decisions that need to happen in separate domains. IMHO, Jesus Christ taught us to love our neighbors and our enemies. I don’t see anywhere that supplies an exception for people who don’t look, talk, or think like we do. This would imply that debate is unnecessary, because we can have different opinions and still care for each other with respect and compassion.
I feel really heavy today, like weighed down and walking through an atmosphere of dark sludge. Hopefully coffee will help. I had a thought last night that I have gotten occasional glimpses of the preciousness of being alive at all and the potential for a joyful existence. It would be nice if I could get those glimpses often enough that I could remember them when they are obscured. It’s like going through so many dreary, cloudy days in a row that I forget that the sun is still up there.
Thanks @LumberJack. Here are some thoughts. Sorry it is going to get long.
As an artist I tend to be highly critical. It's important to understand there is a distinct difference between types of criticism. Working criticsm is in its intent constructive; it helps hone talent and work processes towards producing whatever it is a person is working on. The other kind of criticism can be destructive and even weaponised. We have all heard, for just one example, those "I'm just saying..." comments.
Perhaps - I am wondering - my self-censure is one of the effects of having been in a long term relationship with a person who was obsessed with control. Up until a couple of years ago I looked at this characteristic as only having an impact on him (often, people would pick up on his vibe, and be put off).
More and more I'm realising I wasn't in fact at all safe.
Separate from his temper flare-ups, another pattern emerged: he'd disparage people I was friends with, activities and sometimes even the way I worked. Then he'd defend himself, saying he was just kidding around. So it was my fault and he'd be hurt that I couldn't laugh &/or agree with his opinion. He'd go quiet for days. Parts of my self were strangled and silenced in order to not upset the equilibrium. My optimism, confidence and joy at who I was: no longer in service.
As an artist I tend to be highly critical. It's important to understand there is a distinct difference between types of criticism. Working criticsm is in its intent constructive; it helps hone talent and work processes towards producing whatever it is a person is working on. The other kind of criticism can be destructive and even weaponised. We have all heard, for just one example, those "I'm just saying..." comments.
Perhaps - I am wondering - my self-censure is one of the effects of having been in a long term relationship with a person who was obsessed with control. Up until a couple of years ago I looked at this characteristic as only having an impact on him (often, people would pick up on his vibe, and be put off).
More and more I'm realising I wasn't in fact at all safe.
Separate from his temper flare-ups, another pattern emerged: he'd disparage people I was friends with, activities and sometimes even the way I worked. Then he'd defend himself, saying he was just kidding around. So it was my fault and he'd be hurt that I couldn't laugh &/or agree with his opinion. He'd go quiet for days. Parts of my self were strangled and silenced in order to not upset the equilibrium. My optimism, confidence and joy at who I was: no longer in service.
That’s not long at all, IMHO, I mean, look at my average word count… The below essay, this is the long from, lol!
BTW I am going to throw around a bunch of ideas I have gotten through therapy and some of my life experiences. I want to be conscious of the dangers of practicing therapy without a license, so please don’t take this as advice or my trying to tell you what to think or feel, or even what is healthy! The real intention I have is that what you wrote brought a lot of feelings up for me and I wanted to relate to that.
In other words, as per always, take what you can use and leave the rest.
I also want to respond to your mention of having absorbed his harsh treatment towards you into how you see or treat yourself, but I am out of time just now. I will say that how you ended up with a level of trauma to deal with upon your escape is totally understandable! It’s actually more worrying if you weren’t, after that experience. We’re not helping ourselves to expect that we don’t have a perfectly reasonable response to a very difficult (as in f-ed up) situation.
BTW I am going to throw around a bunch of ideas I have gotten through therapy and some of my life experiences. I want to be conscious of the dangers of practicing therapy without a license, so please don’t take this as advice or my trying to tell you what to think or feel, or even what is healthy! The real intention I have is that what you wrote brought a lot of feelings up for me and I wanted to relate to that.
In other words, as per always, take what you can use and leave the rest.
My reaction to a romantic partner who says he was “just joking,” is that this behavior is always, always a form of emotional abuse. This goes for whether or not the statement is genuine.
When someone responds to a message that their partner was hurt by his words, the “only joking” response is invalidating your feelings and trying to dictate to you how you should feel, instead of expressing remorse for having hurt you and opening to a vulnerable conversation, even if that’s difficult. He’s making it 100% about him and the unspoken message is that your feelings don’t matter if they are different from his expectations. As I’ve learned in therapy, sometimes the unspoken messages get internalized more than the spoken message, which explains at least a few things with me.
Now, even worse is the silent treatment! He’s punishing you for disagreeing instead of being curious about how you prefer to be treated, and on top of that he’s intentionally putting you into distress. I know that from doing the silent treatment to my partner exactly once. It was horribly aggressive and I could even tell it was hurting him at the time. I was really so upset that I was not thinking clearly at all.
The next morning I felt like a ridiculous a-hole and I apologized. We then had a conversation about why I was upset and then discussed some ground rules for handling our inevitable conflicts going forward.
That’s an example of the “tear and repair” theory of intimate relationship building. Actually it goes for any close relationship including friends and relatives.
When someone responds to a message that their partner was hurt by his words, the “only joking” response is invalidating your feelings and trying to dictate to you how you should feel, instead of expressing remorse for having hurt you and opening to a vulnerable conversation, even if that’s difficult. He’s making it 100% about him and the unspoken message is that your feelings don’t matter if they are different from his expectations. As I’ve learned in therapy, sometimes the unspoken messages get internalized more than the spoken message, which explains at least a few things with me.
Now, even worse is the silent treatment! He’s punishing you for disagreeing instead of being curious about how you prefer to be treated, and on top of that he’s intentionally putting you into distress. I know that from doing the silent treatment to my partner exactly once. It was horribly aggressive and I could even tell it was hurting him at the time. I was really so upset that I was not thinking clearly at all.
The next morning I felt like a ridiculous a-hole and I apologized. We then had a conversation about why I was upset and then discussed some ground rules for handling our inevitable conflicts going forward.
That’s an example of the “tear and repair” theory of intimate relationship building. Actually it goes for any close relationship including friends and relatives.
I also want to respond to your mention of having absorbed his harsh treatment towards you into how you see or treat yourself, but I am out of time just now. I will say that how you ended up with a level of trauma to deal with upon your escape is totally understandable! It’s actually more worrying if you weren’t, after that experience. We’re not helping ourselves to expect that we don’t have a perfectly reasonable response to a very difficult (as in f-ed up) situation.
That's more helpful than I can describe at the moment @LumberJack thank you again. I hope you get back out of the heavy dark stuff and feel happier and lighter very soon.
(h) if you want.
(h) if you want.
So I’m also not surprised that you absorbed the critical views of yourself that were imposed upon you. I would guess that your ex learned it from somewhere, but unfortunately when an adult fails to notice unhealthy behaviors that they picked up earlier in life, they end up treating others the same way and the cycle continues.
So what does that mean for you now? I can only offer my own ideas, which are necessarily uninformed because we don’t know each other in 3-d land. I can say I have dealt with similar introjection reactions, both from childhood and from the inpatient detention where I shut down. The struggle is to challenge the tacit assumptions behind self-criticism. The standard tactic is to ask ourselves how we would speak to a close friend in the same situation.
Aside from that, I have also gotten help from Kristen Neff’s book, Self Compassion.
I can’t say I have had any success with the latter, and I am re-listening to the audio book now that I’ve gained awareness that knowing theory is pretty useless if I don’t pick up the tools and use them when things get uncomfortable.
However, I think that based on what you’ve mentioned about his controlling behavior and keeping you more or less isolated, it would be very easy to start thinking that you actually are what you’re being told you are.
It’s insidious because it happens so slowly that we don’t notice our self-image deteriorating. I also think that social conditioning by gender roles makes it even harder for women.
It’s like boys get told not to have emotions, and girls are told to be responsible for the emotions and needs of everyone around them, except for themselves! So, even as an adult that piece might make it harder to resist the human tendency towards introjection, especially when you felt dependent upon him emotionally, and I am guessing financially as well.
It’s insidious because it happens so slowly that we don’t notice our self-image deteriorating. I also think that social conditioning by gender roles makes it even harder for women.
It’s like boys get told not to have emotions, and girls are told to be responsible for the emotions and needs of everyone around them, except for themselves! So, even as an adult that piece might make it harder to resist the human tendency towards introjection, especially when you felt dependent upon him emotionally, and I am guessing financially as well.
So what does that mean for you now? I can only offer my own ideas, which are necessarily uninformed because we don’t know each other in 3-d land. I can say I have dealt with similar introjection reactions, both from childhood and from the inpatient detention where I shut down. The struggle is to challenge the tacit assumptions behind self-criticism. The standard tactic is to ask ourselves how we would speak to a close friend in the same situation.
Aside from that, I have also gotten help from Kristen Neff’s book, Self Compassion.
In this book, she presents evidence from cross cultural sociological studies that find that a cultural tendency toward self criticism is correlated with a higher rate of depression and anxiety. Suicide also is rarer in cultures that teach self compassion. So armed with this and other empirical evidence, she presents several exercises to help us get familiar with the very concept of self compassion, and then practices to make it real in how we treat ourselves….