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Hear...Feel...Think...
Sep. 5th, 2023 09:58 amOne of the reasons I'm so persistent about journaling regularly is that I think it's one of the best ways for me to sort out my thoughts. I can take a moment to really follow something through to its logical conclusion, and often I'll read something I've just wrote and be stunned at the crystallized idea there for the world to see. I've uncovered so many thought distortions just by writing them down, or realized a foundational idea that explains a lot of seemingly unrelated behavior.
To be completely honest, I miss the feeling of knowing myself. I've spent a lot of my last decade trying to fit myself into various situations that I'm not sure where my borders are anymore -- or why a border is there to begin with. I'd like to have a stronger idea of what I like, what I don't, what I feel I need and what I care about. I don't have space to consider that very often, except for here.
I'm beginning to notice that R. negates my thoughts and feelings a great deal of the time and it ends up having a chilling effect on my interaction in shared spaces. I'll say something about the way I feel and he'll say "No you don't" or correct a memory, pronunciation, or...whatever it is I'm saying so I'll have to stop and address that. It's hard to build your thoughts when they're constantly being dismissed, corrected, interrupted or diminished.
I know he doesn't see it that way, and I know he's not trying to silence me on purpose, but that's the effect. I've stopped thinking deeply about things because I know that if I bring them up to the people I talk most with they won't be interested or they'll pick things apart until the conversation becomes a defense of a point I'm not even sure I care about that much. It's not a good time to feel like I have to just agree with someone in order for a conversation to go well.
But at the end of the day, I made the decision on how to deal with that. I chose to pull away instead of engaging with the issue and finding a way to deal with it. So I have to deal with the situation as it stands now. That's my karma to deal with, so to speak.
The trouble is I'm not sure how to check that behavior as it happens without it becoming a bigger issue. In the moment, my frustration is likely to cause pushback to come across as more of an escalation instead of a...setting of boundaries. I want to be able to talk through things or say something contradictory or even have a conversation where I defend something, think about it later, and come to a different conclusion. I want to be able to say "I think" or "I feel" and not have "No you don't" or some form of negation be the immediate response. I want to be able to express a mutable opinion without having to die on that hill. And it just doesn't feel like I can do that right now with my present company.
I think the thing to do is take some time the next time it happens to have a brief sidebar about the behavior and how it makes me feel which means...thinking deeply about the way it makes me feel. I think there are two major issues I have with it. One, when someone rejects another person's stated intent and claims they know better it says to me that "I am incapable of hearing what you have to say because I will not consider your perspective to be different from the one I've assigned to you." Two, it points to a lack of reciprocity for what I feel is a carefully-cultivated respect for his opinion. If he tells me "I don't like 'x'", I respect that. I don't say "No you don't" or "You did at first"; I don't try to say "Maybe you haven't done this right". I accept what he tells me because I trust him to know his own mind. And it doesn't feel like I get that same level of respect in return.
And that's a larger problem in general. R. just doesn't listen to me when I say something -- even when it's important to me. If I say I have a preference on how to be touched, it's not retained. If I ask not to be touched in a specific way, he insists that it's his way of displaying affection and that he wishes I could see it that way. His actions tell me, in general, "My experience matters more than yours." And in order to deal with that, I've stopped reflecting on my experience.
But that's not...healthy. It's also not healthy to make a stink about something that I'm still not entirely sure about. I'd like to come to R. when I have a clear set of boundaries *and* the discipline to form the life I want within them. I know that he loves me in his way, but...I don't feel seen and supported. I think it's time to start asking for that.
To be completely honest, I miss the feeling of knowing myself. I've spent a lot of my last decade trying to fit myself into various situations that I'm not sure where my borders are anymore -- or why a border is there to begin with. I'd like to have a stronger idea of what I like, what I don't, what I feel I need and what I care about. I don't have space to consider that very often, except for here.
I'm beginning to notice that R. negates my thoughts and feelings a great deal of the time and it ends up having a chilling effect on my interaction in shared spaces. I'll say something about the way I feel and he'll say "No you don't" or correct a memory, pronunciation, or...whatever it is I'm saying so I'll have to stop and address that. It's hard to build your thoughts when they're constantly being dismissed, corrected, interrupted or diminished.
I know he doesn't see it that way, and I know he's not trying to silence me on purpose, but that's the effect. I've stopped thinking deeply about things because I know that if I bring them up to the people I talk most with they won't be interested or they'll pick things apart until the conversation becomes a defense of a point I'm not even sure I care about that much. It's not a good time to feel like I have to just agree with someone in order for a conversation to go well.
But at the end of the day, I made the decision on how to deal with that. I chose to pull away instead of engaging with the issue and finding a way to deal with it. So I have to deal with the situation as it stands now. That's my karma to deal with, so to speak.
The trouble is I'm not sure how to check that behavior as it happens without it becoming a bigger issue. In the moment, my frustration is likely to cause pushback to come across as more of an escalation instead of a...setting of boundaries. I want to be able to talk through things or say something contradictory or even have a conversation where I defend something, think about it later, and come to a different conclusion. I want to be able to say "I think" or "I feel" and not have "No you don't" or some form of negation be the immediate response. I want to be able to express a mutable opinion without having to die on that hill. And it just doesn't feel like I can do that right now with my present company.
I think the thing to do is take some time the next time it happens to have a brief sidebar about the behavior and how it makes me feel which means...thinking deeply about the way it makes me feel. I think there are two major issues I have with it. One, when someone rejects another person's stated intent and claims they know better it says to me that "I am incapable of hearing what you have to say because I will not consider your perspective to be different from the one I've assigned to you." Two, it points to a lack of reciprocity for what I feel is a carefully-cultivated respect for his opinion. If he tells me "I don't like 'x'", I respect that. I don't say "No you don't" or "You did at first"; I don't try to say "Maybe you haven't done this right". I accept what he tells me because I trust him to know his own mind. And it doesn't feel like I get that same level of respect in return.
And that's a larger problem in general. R. just doesn't listen to me when I say something -- even when it's important to me. If I say I have a preference on how to be touched, it's not retained. If I ask not to be touched in a specific way, he insists that it's his way of displaying affection and that he wishes I could see it that way. His actions tell me, in general, "My experience matters more than yours." And in order to deal with that, I've stopped reflecting on my experience.
But that's not...healthy. It's also not healthy to make a stink about something that I'm still not entirely sure about. I'd like to come to R. when I have a clear set of boundaries *and* the discipline to form the life I want within them. I know that he loves me in his way, but...I don't feel seen and supported. I think it's time to start asking for that.
