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Post by seeking on Feb 9, 2022 23:09:18 GMT
Okay, and I'll post my update here. I'm gutted. That's an extreme word and it's not all to do with this guy but stuff going on with yet another friend right now (not really about our personal relationship, but a venture we are both involved in and don't see eye-to-eye on and it's now affecting our friendship). I'm feeling a bit raw and fragile and all day felt pretty fatigued.
But I planned to talk to the divorced guy longer today. I figured I'd know within 15 minutes, as I usually do, whether this is someone I'd be interested in. I'm coming at this from years of just no one really can get through *basic* filters - not like FA filters. But like - be a reasonable human. It's sad.
So we spent an hour and a half on the phone and I felt we could have kept talking, though (I'm super energy sensitive) toward the end it was either my energy or his - something went a little south, but it could have simply been the duration of a highly energetic conversation (he's super smart, talks really fast, and I was trying to keep up and having fun). I also had kids baking in my kitchen, and a dog wandering and kids looking at me with a hand raised, lol, so I might have gotten a little distracted, but I felt like he was going to close the convo and I did.
And then I thanked him for his time. I said "Let's talk again," and I think I said "soon," but can't remember now. And he was like "yeah, yeah." (I actually thought he'd be more forthright or say something first - but I was the one who did).
We'd just been talking about how things in the news change from month to month, etc, and he was like, 'Yeah, we can talk in a month and see what's going on in the world then" (or something like that).
??
My heart sank. I got a "friend vibe" which means sense because we are long distance.
But.... ugh. I actually cried after. I am really trying to practice just feeling my emotions these days and I cried the other day after my daughter had that trauma with her dad. And today I jut felt "flat" all day about the thing happening with my friend and this venture. And so I just felt raw and sad, and cried.
Anyway, not much more to report than that.
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Post by cherrycola on Feb 10, 2022 2:51:34 GMT
I'm sorry for all you are having to go through right now. It sounds like a lot. I also know that feeling when you allow yourself a small amount of hope and then all your existing beliefs are just reinforced. Feeling your feelings is good! Give yourself a hug or bath or whatever other self care you like to do and know you took a baby step.
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Post by seeking on Feb 10, 2022 3:02:20 GMT
when you allow yourself a small amount of hope and then all your existing beliefs are just reinforced. Thank you for naming that. That's exactly what it felt like. I don't try or not try to have hope. It just sort of arises naturally (or doesn't) but when it does, and it feels smooshed again, it's harder and harder each time. I used to be pretty tough and just keep rolling with it. But that's not the case anymore. I don't want to get to where my heart just has to be closed. But it is pretty darn painful and feels like I'm somehow hurting myself by doing this.
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Post by seeking on Feb 10, 2022 3:28:19 GMT
In thinking about it more, the hard part is really that I just didn't see it coming. He felt safe - not threatening at all. At the very least, I wasn't sure I was interested and was so pleasantly surprised. It just didn't feel like a situation at all where I had my guard up or thought I could get hurt somehow? At last not even right now. Who says let's talk next month?
Yeah, I guess the idea it reinforces is that even "a guy like that" somehow who I saw as totally dorky - who went and liked all my photos on FB - and I thought, geez, I guess I'll give this guy a chance - not even he is interested - I know there are a million reasons. The distance, etc. But that's the heart-hurting part. Like it's hard enough for me to trust someone with my heart, but not an issue since no one out there really seems interested in it!
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Post by alexandra on Feb 10, 2022 4:36:48 GMT
seeking, I know you're in a low time right now in general and looking for something to go "right" to help you feel better. But you don't actually know this guy, and even if he's not interested, there's no reason for you to beat yourself up and tell yourself the most negative story about it. There's nothing helpful about reprimanding yourself that not even an undesirable guy like him wants you. Part of dating is giving yourself compassion, grace, and acceptance when things don't work out instead of allowing them to reinforce distrust. Even though they're understandably frustrating and disappointing, it's not a reflection on you, your heart, or the rest of your life. Those are the insecure attachment layers speaking, and mine used to scream the same things all the time. Those thought patterns are really harmful, though.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 10, 2022 4:55:58 GMT
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Post by seeking on Feb 10, 2022 15:16:25 GMT
I appreciate all this, but at what point is it just allowed to hurt?
After 6 years of being single?
On a week with another crush from a narc whose all tucked away with his family.
When the loneliness after 2 years of a pandemic - even despite the crazy amounts of efforts I've made to start anew with schooling, and community, and friends?
I don't feel this was a mental choice on my part. That is what I was tryin to convey - my body just felt numb, and my heart hurt.
I personally believe humans are meant to be in tribes/groups, with others. I don't think this is an AP-style hurting. I don't feel AP-style triggered. I feel more mystified. And losing perspective.
If I'm honest, this is still stemming back from the loss of my crazy friendship. She was filling something it feels like I don't have in my life. Not saying that it was healthy - at all, actually. But it left me pretty raw, and its been that way for months now. It's as though having her as my friend was a kind of buffer to these other hurts. And I just don't feel like I have much cushioning anymore.
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Post by seeking on Feb 10, 2022 15:19:45 GMT
And this really isn't about Divorced Dude.
But I will mention that Divorced Dude wrote me this morning to say it was "great chatting" and he "loved all the topics" we explored. And said "In a couple weeks we can catch up." And "best wishes"
And then later liked a post of mine on FB.
And then after that, sent me "follow up" stuff on something we talked about.
That feels hard. I like him. But if I like him, like him, then I don't think it's a good idea to be friends.
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Post by seeking on Feb 10, 2022 15:27:54 GMT
From the article
but also whether you have the resilience to cope with the potential for disappointment.
-- I do not have that resilience right now.
but also whether much of your self-esteem is tied up in the success of these dates, which would make it conditional, which would make it rocky.
-- my self-esteem isn't. I actually think I'm great. I know I'm not *for everyone* that's taken me some time, but I totally accept that. It's just the people who seem to make sense, I'm not even for them. This is where the mystification starts. Like is there some glaring off-putting something that's keeping anyone from wanting to pursue things further?
I'm still reading it, but the comments are interesting.
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Post by seeking on Feb 10, 2022 16:29:37 GMT
So.... my only teeny tiny hunch -- and I am someone who has crazy strong intuition (thank you, trauma) - is that he *may* (really have no idea, but in the realm of possibility) have sensed my needing to get off the phone and kind of distanced a little. I do this. I have *no idea* if he did, and he doesn't seem particularly sensitive/anxious. Time will tell.
But after I wrote him a succinct kind of friendly reply to his messages this morning - with enthusiasm but not like creepy enthusiasm, he wrote that we can talk next week, lol. So far we've gone from 1 month, to 2 weeks, to next week. I was wondering if this might happen. He's a little odd. Lol.
So now he's making time for next week.
I don't know.
All I know is that I have a heart-break issue. I just witnessed it in myself. My body was in freeze (even before our call yesterday, so not entirely him) the conversation with him and subsequent "talk to ya in a month" did not help - like at all - brought me deeper into freeze, to the point where I was driving my kid's friend home last night and heard myself talking (like that awful de-personalization thing that sometimes happens). I kept intermittently crying last night, and feel awful right now like I can't focus or get anything done.
That's not something I feel like I have total control over - it doesn't feel like a story or a mental choice. It feels like my body/my heart. And while I start with a new therapist next week - about something *totally different* (that's actually pretty urgent), I feel like I deeply need to work on this trauma - betrayal or whatever it is, my heart.
I'm online working on a doc, and my new laptop gives me notifications (I am trying to find a way to turn them off because it's distracting and I got two from him in a row, and I felt myself brace. Like I can't keep doing this. I don't want to hear "Okay, sounds good!" Like we are colleagues. I also don't want to be in that sensitive of a state, but the truth is, I am. My heart is letting me know that. It's hurting - it doesn't want more hurt. (I took all dating profiles down last night).
But then I read his emails with his attempt to make plans to talk next week, and I felt myself come out of freeze.
I don't need feedback. Just sharing because it helps me process a bit. I am open to feedback - but I think the point of all of this is to say that I don't feel like I have a lot of "choice" in this right now. It's like getting a gash in your arm and it bleeding - you don't get to say "well, I will change my story." You have to attend to the wound. And clearly my heart has a wound. And it's not the most convenient thing right now. But at least it's "talking to me," I suppose --- I've had body workers in the past number of years tell me to "check in with my heart space" or give me things to "open my heart space" and I really haven't felt much of anything there. So I guess this is progress?
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Post by seeking on Feb 10, 2022 18:09:38 GMT
Oh, and I didn't finish reading his email. I had to jump on a meeting. I just finished reading it and he said, as the weather gets nicer, we can coordinate coffee (we live 3+ hours apart).
So....
All it does is make the world make sense and not throw me back into PTSD.
Like you get on the phone, have a super energetic fun lively convo with a lot of warmth and they end it with "talk to you in a month," it triggers my relational bewilderment. I know I'm HSP and neurodivergent and all that, but when that happens it's this "world doesn't make sense" feeling.
And I have navigated *plenty* of the world not making sense. I have self-regulated up the wazoo. But after a while, living as an alien in the Twilight Zone becomes too much. And I think with so much relational - retraumatization happening all in one week (with friends, with my ex, witnessing my daughter, now this) - freeze makes sense. But man is it unpleasant.
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Post by alexandra on Feb 10, 2022 19:37:12 GMT
It is absolutely allowed to just hurt! There's lots of reasons you are hurting right now. But because "there's something so wrong with you that no one will ever want you" is not one of them. That's a common talk track for AP, so I imagine it also extends to anxious leaning FA and also to HSP and ADHD for those that have the incredibly sensitive to rejection piece. And that's what I was trying to point out. The reason it feels like you're not in control of it and it is a body response is because it most likely is. You're going on a subconscious pattern autopilot. Which means you're not processing feeling sad fully or in a healthy way to move beyond it, you're storing it in your body where it's getting stuck and staying with you. That's where you probably need to find exercises that work for you to manage it (like anne12 sometimes shares) or is a point to discuss with your therapist to perhaps figure out how to free up some of that trauma so you have more tools available to process what you're going through so you don't get bogged down.
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Post by seeking on Feb 10, 2022 22:43:58 GMT
It is absolutely allowed to just hurt! There's lots of reasons you are hurting right now. But because "there's something so wrong with you that no one will ever want you" is not one of them. That's a common talk track for AP, so I imagine it also extends to anxious leaning FA and also to HSP and ADHD for those that have the incredibly sensitive to rejection piece. And that's what I was trying to point out. The reason it feels like you're not in control of it and it is a body response is because it most likely is. You're going on a subconscious pattern autopilot. Which means you're not processing feeling sad fully or in a healthy way to move beyond it, you're storing it in your body where it's getting stuck and staying with you. That's where you probably need to find exercises that work for you to manage it (like anne12 sometimes shares) or is a point to discuss with your therapist to perhaps figure out how to free up some of that trauma so you have more tools available to process what you're going through so you don't get bogged down. Yes, this makes sense.
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Post by seeking on Feb 23, 2022 1:04:33 GMT
I can't remember now if I mentioned it here. the guy I'm talking to offered to drive up to me once the weather got nicer. I felt a growing attachment.
It took me a day to write him back, but when I did it was longer. Not excessive, just a thoughtful response.
I shared a sense of longing for the time I lived in maine when I could read long novels.
He wrote back thanks for your thougthful response and we can talk for an hour about each thing you wrote - then he sent a couple quick replies. But they were "dad-like" like "Well, this just isn't the right time for that." Or "nows the time for this." And whatever. I was just expressing something. He could have just heard me. No biggeie.
Then he said he had to go to meetings. But the energy I got from it was a kind of "closing down" feeling rather than more of that momentum we'd been picking up -
It sucked.
I wrote him commenting on something - nice - a nice comment. And said "have a good weekend."
I haven't heard back - that was Thursday or Friday last week. It's felt like forever since he was writing me a couple times a day and we'd talked. And he was talking about driving up. He's liked my FB posts. But no email.
I can't believe it's only been a week since we talked but has felt like an eternity.
So while I'm sure I can write him again and say something. I'm just observing.
I'm also trying to stay in my "female" energy and not pursue. Kind of just receive.
That's all for now.
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Post by alexandra on Feb 23, 2022 3:32:46 GMT
I wouldn't assume the worst quite yet, but his interest (or lack thereof) will be apparent by the end of the week.
Was it a holiday for him? I forget if you're still in the states, but it was a long weekend so he might have been busy. Don't discount your instincts that he didn't mirror your longer message and you didn't feel totally heard, though! Take note of what he does and if it works for you or not.
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