Voicelessness and Emotional Survival > Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board
Winter Stuff
lighter:
--- Quote from: Hopalong on January 27, 2019, 07:40:53 AM ---
--- Quote ---
I also think perhaps my decision (which took 5 months, not 5 hours) about B. was good practice. It showed me that in my current life, maybe the decades of being without a partner were not wasted after all. I really have been thinking and learning for a very long time, from my mistakes.
xxoo
Hops
--- End quote ---
See..... that panic attack could be framed in any number of ways. It's only negative IF you're focused on the physical aspect, IMO. I think the anxiety might very well have been your intuition doing a backflip.... refusing to be dismissed, forcing you to listen.... to break the spell of becoming confused.
And you did move through this with economy of motion, compared to the 5 months learning with B.
A thought.... take it or leave it.
You might have survived the first years of your life by giving the benefit of the doubt, and assuming the best of people who didn't deserve it.
Your brain doesn't see this as bad or good. It did it's job bc you survived. Reptilian survival brain doesn't care how you survived, or if you're healthy and happy... lower brain only cares that you're breathing. That was the mission. It succeeded, and sees no reason to change.
Any attempt to alter those pathways might feel like a threat (panic attack.)
Riding it out, refusing to let the anxiety force you back into old patterns, allowed you to calm yourself, engage your frontal cortex, and utilize problem solving skills to make sense of the situation.
Lighter
--- End quote ---
Hopalong:
Thanks, Tupp and Lighter! Very wise and thoughtful reactions, I really appreciate your perspectives.
Interestingly, I got a diatribe from the writer guy. He said my decision was NOT OKAY. His reasons are that I'm operating out of fear and that's not good for me...and I "threw him under the bus" and he was "stunned" and the date was "the best first date you've ever had" (!!!!) and ... and ... and ... all about mystery and possibility and potential...and reading it I was just feeling, thank GOD I trusted myself. He was reading me the riot act, basically, making all sorts of assumptions (he does not know me) and presuming too. Whew.
I was tempted to write back and say, this accusatory email has confirmed my instinct (which it most definitely HAS) but opted for: "I understand how you feel but will not go into a defense. I'm sorry you are disappointed but one date--even such an enjoyable evening--did not obligate either of us not to reconsider if we needed to. I did. When I was in the same painful position several times, I learned the path to peace was to accept that I did not control others' choices even if I don't admire them. Best wishes."
Boy was he steamed. Basically calling me a coward. And that's a huge red flag. His long narrative of his turbulent relationships was my warning. So even if it didn't fully hit me until the middle of the night, I'm so glad I heard it.
xxoo
Hops
Hopalong:
I've re-read his email several times and feel nearly spooked. I dodged a bullet there. I don't know if he's unstable enough to pose a threat, and do doubt it (he is 75)...but his entitlement and overall attitude of how-dare-you were emotionally chilling.
There was a dark undertone and I think it was just his emotional underlying issues. But I need that like a hole in the head.
So despite his charm, my intuition functioned well. Now I have another first date coming up, with the gregarious, over-the-top perfesser. Holy something, I hope I can hold out enough under what will I'm certain be a tsunami of charm, to have discernment and continue to observe well. I am uneasy because he was SO over-the-top effusive and, again, we haven't met.
It surprises me that when I say, I'd rather not correspond much before actually meeting AND go ahead and set a date for that...that some men just keep on writing. Charmingly curious but in a way relentless.
So with the perfesser, I've got to find out whether he didn't hear me or didn't listen or didn't care what I'd said. I don't want to dismiss him without that chance to meet in person, but after the writer...I'm concerned.
Is it only US who knows boundaries matter? I think a lot of it is many of us have spent decades working to understand ourselves, basic psychology, assertiveness, boundaries, emotions. And most of the men my age whom I meet have had active lives, including wives...that have somehow not required of them the deep, deep dives that we talk about here.
It doesn't monsterize them. But it does mean in a lot of cases we don't share some basic concepts that have been so hard won.
I ain't giving up on my quest. But it does occur to me now and then to ask myself whether I should.
xo
Hops
Twoapenny:
Hops, perhaps your new job could be accompanying people on dates and telling them whether or not they should arrange a second one. Sheesh. Writer guy sounds like a very difficult chap to be around - charm really does disarm people and for you to see through that and say no thanks has obviously really bothered him. It frightens me when people like that attack because you didn't do what they wanted. And he probably isn't used to anyone seeing through him - I bet most people focus on the charm and nothing else. What you wrote back to him was beautiful, though, very polite and thoughtful. You did well not to write back and give him what for - your own charm offensive is the path to take, in this case.
I think I've missed a chunk with the professor, though (I'm not caught up on threads yet). What was it that he didn't hear? I can understand you feeling anxious about it - very natural after the writer chap. It is unsettling when people react like that. I think you will handle the situation well. Although - if you need to, perhaps you could postpone for a while to let the angry email abate a bit? Sometimes it's better to just get on with things, sometimes we need a bit of time, You'll know what to do.
As for boundaries - I think for many years (in the UK, anyway) it was very normal to raise children to do as they were told without question, not to answer back, not to have opinions and so on. It was also very normal for everything to revolve around the man, as the main breadwinner. When I look back I can't think of a single female relative, young or old, who had good boundaries. Nor can I think of a man who respected them. The situation was very much that the woman needed to be fluid and fit in around what the man wanted and, indeed, for many years, getting married was all a woman could do. There was no glittering career path or living alone, or raising children alone. It was a form of social suicide. So I think perhaps there are just generations of people who weren't raised with boundaries as part of their lives. I see it all the time in friends now; confident, intelligent, middle aged women who can't say no, who feel obligated to do what everyone else wants, who will tie themselves in knots to impress a new boyfriend because they don't want to be on their own.
So yes, I do think boundaries tend to only be a feature for those who've fought for them, worked at them and for whom they become so important. I can think of a thousand examples of times I've excused bad behaviour, ignored my instincts, put up with goodness only knows what, because I didn't think I had a right to insist on a certain level of behaviour and walk away if I didn't get it. Subservience is a word that comes to mind :)
Anyway - I think you've done well to see through writer man so quickly and I hope professor turns out to be a nice evening, if nothing else xx
Hopalong:
Me, too.
My (mild) perfesser concern was just that I'd expressed that I didn't like to correspond much before meeting, and he just kept rolling with more emails and questions (plus demands to see my writing). It didn't feel malevolent, just oblivious. He's in perfesser mode and obviously accustomed to expressing himself regardless.
Nice that he's expressing such eagerness but also, not. I do not want fantasy and correspondence before I meet someone in person. And half of them do not get it or ignore what I've said.
But I'm going to try to reserve judgement and remain open until I have a reason to push back. Jeez, he's a runaway train of poetry-praise and that's pleasant (he teaches poetry sometimes in his literature courses). But I'm sensing the contrast between being a successful scholar and having spent decades struggling in the real world as I have. He's clearly been in a bubble for a loooooooooong time.
Still. His charm just might be natural and non manipulative. Remains to be seen. And I should have faith in myself that I'll know how to assess it once we meet.
Wow. All this feels like WORK!
hugs
Hops
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