Hmm. Encouraging day at work, some hope of progress there.
Thinking about progress elsewhere:
1. Best is having given myself full permission to disengage, to any extent necessary, from anyone, when red flags are flying. Especially when folks who fly them try to keep me engaged. With detachment, it really is possible to tell when someone truly wants to resolve something, as opposed to when they just want to keep another person 'hooked'. The difference in affective tone is obvious!
2. Next best is having given myself permission to disengage without needing the other person - or anyone else in the vicinity, even - to understand what exactly I am doing and why. That simple decision snaps the 'hook' right off. People who want you enmeshed are always going to claim that they don't understand why you disengaged... that it isn't fair... that you're not giving them a chance... and it's malarkey, they just want you to stay within arm's reach so they can whap you around without having to strain anything to get to you.
When someone genuinely wants a relationship, their focus will be on you at least as much as on themselves. On what you need and feel, at least as much as on what they want. All by themselves, they'll do this.
3. Next after that is the rediscovery - because I knew this in my 30s and forgot it, somehow, for almost 20 years! -- that a lot of meanness, distortion, manipulation, provocation and vindictiveness that human beings visit on one another comes from nothing more complicated or mysterious than unacknowledged, unrecovering alcoholism or substance abuse. Major note to self: from here on out, when I see people twist, turn, distort, provoke or incite, look for booze, or 'dry' booze, before I draw any other conclusion. There may be nothing more mysterious there than a mean drunk or a mean dry drunk, who hasn't yet realized it.
4. Equally significant is the flip side: people who have been through alcohol or other chemical dependencies or survived other forms of abuse, and bottomed out, and had to break denial and come out on the other side - are often the healthiest most honest people in the room / building / block / town / state / country / planet. When your life depends on being honest with yourself and you finally, totally know it, there's precious little time or inclination for games.
5. Which means that... to disengage from people, even completely, doesn't mean to write them off forever. It means: getting yourself far enough away to be safe, until the other person becomes safer to be around. Because sooner or later they just might, if you only leave them enough room to do it.
-- I like!
