What did you wish, what did you need?

[pennyplant]

I used to think, "at what price" but it seems that i am the one who paid the price.

Boy oh boy, GS, your whole post describes exactly what I have been caught up in all my life.  The things that matter so much to us seem not to matter to others, seem not to even matter in the grand scheme of things.  I don't want to turn into some kind of amoral, selfish, greedy, aggressive person.  But what am I doing obsessing over what was said, what did it mean, oh no! I made a mistake (a big one sometimes).  Why do I do this when very few others do?  It's the FOO thing operating in us of course.  Thinking we have to be good all the time and then they will love us.  Then we will exist.

I don't want to be "bad".  But I am sick of the perfectionism that I always fall back on.  I am sick of the self-judgment that always results from it.  I really don't see others judging themselves so harshly.  If they are, they certainly hide it well.  They certainly go on their merry way without much looking back.  They don't change, in other words.  I change myself constantly.  I shouldn't have to change all the time.  Not unless it is in the manner of growth.  I shouldn't be giving away parts of who I am all the time.

Who I am has value.

Pennyplant

[Hops guest]

What an amazing thread. PP, you are steaming with insights and I know they're going to pay off hugely for you. Because you sound as though you're genuinely testing and stretching not only your analytical thoughts about the work situation, but your accompanying reactions. That's big!

And re:

The things that matter so much to us seem not to matter to others

I think, for me, part of the perfectionism, is a MORAL perfectionism. That is literally impossible to uphold in the real world without being perfect, or without being a perfect pill.

IOW, sometimes I think of Ns, they just don't care. But I realize there are layers to it:
Perhaps Ns are not really saying to themselves, I will choose to live like a dishonest, amoral person, because I don't CARE that I'm flaunting codes of kindness and fairness.

I wonder if maybe the codes of kindness and fairness that so many N-victims vibrate to so profoundly actually are not even understood, except as you might understand the meaning of a story in English class only once the teacher has walked you through the explanation in detail...by Ns.

Maybe we FEEL an empathetic reflex about kindness and fairness, and Ns simply don't FEEL it. Or even imagine it, in the way that a basically kind or fair person would have it rear up in front of them internally, when faced with a decision about how to treat another person.

Hops

[isittoolate]

Well I needed new blouses and bought 3 on Saturday.

I wished they had fit but they didn't so I took them back today and

bought 4 other blouses. I hope they will fit me.

Izzy

[pennyplant]

Hopsy, I also don't think the Ns are necessarily deciding, well, I'll be immoral today.  I think they perhaps understand morality and right and wrong.  But the actions they take, I think they feel that they need to do what they do, regardless of our feelings, and they do some kind of justification to themselves.

I always think of my x N-boss as a "junkyard dog".  I always have this picture of her in my mind, barking and snarling in such a menacing way in order to protect her little pile of whatever.  Barking and snarling and jumping up on the chain link fence of her junky little domain.  (Well, in reality, she was quite OCD and has a very perfect and beautiful home and possessions).  But here I'm focusing on the ferocious dog aspect of my mental picture of her.  It is that need to constantly defend.  I think that is a need in them that ranks right up there with breathing and eating and sleeping.  They are starved emotionally and spiritually.  They are afraid all the time somewhere in their childlike brainstem.  And whatever their childlike brainstems have determined will feed that starvation and keep them going, surviving, that is what they must have, no matter what.  Even if we seem to be getting in the way.  Sometimes especially if we seem to be getting in the way.

Our feelings rank very low compared to their very survival.  Surely we can understand that and not take it personally......

Pennyplant

[Hopalong]

Yoicks, good description, PP...

Ironically, I think you're right.
Once we LEARN (sheer luck for a lot of us) about Nism, then we CAN not take it personally.

Who takes a pit bull personally? They are pit bulls.

But with people...we have such different expectations.

I don't take it personally now with Ns, but god, I first learned about Nism at age 52, then still had several N relationships more before I really got it (nearly at the cost of my psyche)...and only after that, could I stop taking it personally.

What do we expect of children, or of people who don't know?

Great description of the defensiveness, pure attention hunger, etc. It is animalistic, and sometimes it's glossed over by humann attributes that get them by so well.

Pit bulls are not adoptable. But we can't do that with human beings.

Hops

[axa]

When I could detach I did not take it personally.  I recall saying to XN "I don't believe it is me you hate, you just hate"  When XN would tell me he loved me he would then proceed to do something particularily nasty.  His rage is in himself and projected at the world.  Sometimes it is difficult not to take it personaly but I learned to do this.  I came to realise that the only way he could relate to others was by punishing and then love bombing.  It reminded me of some sort of cult process. 

The turning point for me was when I realised that by being with him I was colluding in the abuse.  I may as well have said to him... keep doing it, its what I want and that was the big Ah moment for me.

axa

[pennyplant]

Hops, axa, yes to both of your posts.  Yes, yes, yes.

I think I'm finally starting to make "sense" of some of N co-workers weirdnesses.  I suspect he was feeling a lot of shame and guilt for having "feelings" for me.  Like he had been a very, very bad boy.  While I have also felt guilt for having feelings for others that a married woman "shouldn't" have, I have taken out my guilt or shame on myself.  Ns take it out on us.  It makes sense in some ways.  He must think I am the one who "made" him have those naughty feelings for me.  He can put all his bad on me.

Now my husband, when I told him how I was feeling, was very very hurt.  But he believes that it is not reasonable that a person will love only one other person in the entire world in their entire life.  What I was doing or feeling was very hurtful to him.  But it seemed like a real part of a real life to him.  So, he has been able to forgive me and recognize the humanity in me and in himself should he also have a similar situation in his life someday.

The Ns are little boys and girls.  How could they possibly understand something so deep and complex?  They will just strike out and hope to make their difficult feelings go away.

Pennyplant

[CB123]

I have taken out my guilt or shame on myself.  Ns take it out on us.

Penny,

I think that's what makes us the "perfect" partners! 

You know how we wonder if we are N magnets?  I think an N can sniff out that tendency in us and it makes us the perfect scapegoat.  We can take all their garbage on, and then they can shine!

CB