Rachelle

I grew up with a family (my dad's side) where the males would "joke" and make fun of other people, not just males. It was a game of who could make the most cruel joke without actually stepping over an invisible line where the person would verbally say that they were offended and push back. Like when having a family over for dinner my father says to their little kid "Oh, don't touch those curtains, they'll get your hands dirty" while laughing and ignoring the fact that my mother has social anxieties and tried her best to make the dinner go well. Or my grandpa will say to my brother "Not that we know of anyway" in reference to whether or not he has kids. In the case with my grandpa, its usually what he truly thinks under the guise of a joke. So you're less likely to call him out on it because he'd just say "I was just joking" when everyone knows he's not. At one point in my life I used to call my brother putzy and he called me fatty. I thought little of it and didn't take personal offense, because like what has been suggested, I saw it as a sign of closeness. Reflecting back, none of the behavior of my father, grandpa, uncles, or myself and my brother made me feel closer to them. I called him putzy because I was afraid of telling him directly that I cared for him because to show attachment to something in that family invites people to use it against you in the form of "jokes". I was afraid of being ridiculed. So to me that's how I understand it when I see others do it, especially common in a work place. I think it's a fear of being direct and honest because it invites attack due to vulnerability. This makes sense to me knowing how society expects men to keep their emotions inside and not show any vulnerability. I don't think this is ideal for family or anyone who you consider close, I think it's an obstacle to honesty and intimacy.

Danske, I think that you're incredibly brave to share this in such a public way knowing how you were raised to be put in the spotlight and forced to drink the venom of others, especially that of your mother. It broke my heart to read what you've been through. How degrading and what a cruel betrayal by both of your parents. Your existence sounded suffocating and any attempts to breathe would then be met with literal hands that made you incapable of breathing. As if your a creature so low that you don't even deserve to breathe. That's truly sadistic. Your true self is strong to have survived everything that you've gone through. It suffered many injustices in order to keep you alive, there's no shame in what it or you had to do, the shame belongs to the ones who kept you in such a hellish world for the purpose of torture. Those people are the ones who are lowly, weak, pathetic, miserable, and undeserving of respect or any kind of sanction. I'm sorry that you struggle with believing this of yourself, it was necessary before but not anymore, it's okay for you to breathe. It's impressive you can see the pattern so clearly. You get enraged (defend yourself) your mother cries victim (attempts to cast you as the sadistic one, lowering your defenses because you know what it's like to be sadistically attacked) and then lethargy, a feeling of lifelessness (your dad choking the life out of you, leaving you helpless). I'm so sorry you've suffered so deeply and so for long. You have my respect for surviving. You deserved better. I hope you can convince the voice in you head that it's no longer necessary to live that way or for it to take on the role of your mother. I also hope that you have or will have the support from others, so that they can help remind you that you deserve respect, compassion, and kindness, instead of ridicule.Take care.

Thank you, Jessica. Indeed I find it very helpful to write and I enjoy it immensely. I also keep a journal of sorts, but it's disorganized because I go between using pen and paper and digital. It's not uncomfortable for me to write, but it is for me to share. I was conflicted about posting something so personal on a public forum. I was concerned it might be inappropriate or irrelevant or simply "not the place" to do it. However, I recognize that for me this is a form of self attack because I'm afraid of expressing the negative experiences I've had in my life to others due to being attacked in the past. In my experience it's usually viewed as weak and I'm written off as pathetic. As you say some people are uncomfortable with writing/facing their own experiences like this which I think can lead them to being dismissive or avoidant. I felt anxious after posting until I shared this with my mother, after which we discussed it together and she expressed admiration. It was a great experience. I think there's a decent argument to be made that this indeed very personal and perhaps best shared privately among those who are close. However, I wanted to share it for the reasons previously stated, and also to help solidify in my mind that negative experiences inflicted upon me are not for me to be ashamed of. I've also personally benefited from people sharing their stories or simply expressing themselves in this way. I appreciate your hopes for me to have safe connections. I'm happy to report I've already made one with someone I met on this forum. He's been a great support with an impressive amount of honesty and empathy. Knowing he'd be there to talk with if this post ended up being some horrible mistake helped me have the courage to post what I had written. Unrelated to this thread, I wanted to say welcome to the forum! I enjoyed your post in the thread about Mood swings, and inability to make new friends. I thought what you said was very insightful.

For a while now I've been trying to understand and connect with my fear of not having support from others while taking risks. So today I focused on my experience of isolation in the past and how this contributed to believing myself inferior. I tried to connect with this emotionally by writing to myself. I still want more connections in my life and to become more secure in reaching out to others and I believe this is a big reason behind why I want to share this with this community. This is what I wrote: Born and lacking protection. Exposed to many who mock and hurt me. Isolated and disconnected from those who were supposed to be there for me. I shy away from people and remain silent for fear of attack but this does not keep me safe. My silence is seen as weakness, and to most people I am around I now appear as a weak animal expected to be eaten by it's own kind. Often I am left unprotected by the ones who gave me life until they return at an unknown time. I don't want to live in this savage dark prison any longer. Beasts come every time I seek a way out. They mock me, they look at me with disdain, and worst of all they tell me I will always be alone. They tell me it is hopeless that there is no end to this prison. They say that everyone that claims to have left this place and found one better are liars, people who are more wicked and cruel than they. I'm afraid but I don't want to stay. I can feel myself slowly dying. I don't know where to go. People have come for me. I believe they're strong and kind. They show interest in me and best of all they're telling me that they know how to get out. With pride and bitterness they explain to me how far along they are compared to others and that while I am also far behind I have the potential to catch up. I am excited that people believe in me and that I now know the way out, but I am filled with shame for being lesser than they. I soon realize it's not safe for me to show that I am wounded because I'm afraid I'll be abandoned as I was before. They treat the wounded as inferior and do not equally share their lives with me as I do with them. They show little respect for the cautious behavior of one who has been betrayed by their own and left to suffer. They expect immediate vulnerability and trust, and I fear to offer it. I am punished for resistance with implicit threats of what scares me the most, isolation. So I offer my vulnerability, again and again, in hopes that this will bring me closer to them, until the day I'm told that I offered too much. that I need too much, and that I'm just too damaged. Now I realize I'm alone again and that they cannot help me further. The beasts laugh at me and how foolish I was to believe that I might belong with them. I believe what they say is true and can no longer move. The pain is unbearable. The beasts appear more alive and vicious then ever. Over and over one of them repeats how disgusting I am to have clung onto others. This is what they've waited for...they're going to devour me. I do not know if I can keep going or if I should just give up but...I don't want to die. This lack of internal unity eats away at my will, my energy drains and I become starved for anything that will give me energy to move again. Eventually I find what I need, but only crumbs, little bits of strength that I savor. For a moment I can think of nothing else but how sweet the taste. The beasts notice my movement and I see their faces twist into a mix of fear and rage as they realize their job is not done and that they must remain alert. I'm too exhausted to fear any possible attacks. I start to wonder who has left these crumbs behind and why, if they have had so much to eat to have only left so little behind, do they not come not for me. Perhaps they mistake me for one who is already dead and cannot see me among the bodies. I think of the beasts near me and remember the fear I saw in their faces when I began to move. What are they afraid of? What will happen to them if I keep looking for a way out? I look harder at the beasts and notice for the first time that they appear as ghostly figures. I realize that these beasts have never physically attacked me, unlike the ones long ago. Do these beasts even exist? Who do they serve and what is their purpose? Are they creations of my mind? Are they me? Am I no longer stuck in a physical prison but now a mental one? I must answer these questions. If they are me then I want to understand them. To attack them is to attack myself, and to do that is to never be free. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shame on those who mistreat the wounded out of fear of being reminded that they themselves are not free of injury. Praise the brave heroes who get out and are able to face that it was done not without a price. Thanks to all who see strength and not weakness when looking at those who work towards a better life filled with integrity and emotional honesty.

AccuTron, thank you for your understanding and kind words. I've read and heard a lot of men give up on finding a quality women after seeing so many low quality ones and having many bad experiences. It seems to be a rare thing and much like how it used to be in the video game world a woman could take advantage of the lack of females around to pretend to be that rare find and manipulate and use the men who are blinded by the possibility that they finally found that rare one. I just wanted to let you know that I am aware of this and because I'm not well known I could be seen as such a threat to people on the forum, so I very much appreciate the compliment given to me. I'd say it's smart to be cautious around women. I haven't written/posted much in the forums yet but you're right it is a good place to go for advice and has given me good experiences. Sometimes after quite a long break and feeling a bit defeated or exhausted I'll pop on here and read a few threads or posts and find myself inspired with energy to keep moving forward.

Thanks for the invitation Nick, I'll consider it. I'm just hesitant because of my history with people bullying me into speaking and having a lot of pressure in groups of intelligent people to be "interesting", and therefore secure and not abandoned. These are some things I'm currently still working through so I have some anxiety but might be willing to take a chance once I think on it more. AccuTron, I'll do my best to elaborate. I grew up very isolated, some physically and very much so emotionally. I was home schooled and my parents weren't that active in finding quality people for me to engage with. So in my younger years I was mostly exposed to other families in the area who were also homeschooling their children, all of which were extremely dysfunctional and damaging to myself. Everyone I met I thought was much shallower than myself and couldn't be trusted with my inner life. I grew bitter in loneliness and isolation and when given the chance to go to public high school my brother chose to go and I chose not to. I thought to myself that it would be a terrible environment and people are shallow and stupid but really I was afraid because I was constantly being hurt by the people in my life and being alone felt safer to me. I became very self absorbed. The reason I'm saying all this is to explain that I haven't really been around a lot of people, male or female, I've just had better experiences with males than I have with females and we've had more similar interests, which for a while was basically just video games, until I met a man who introduced me to philosophy and helped me out of a dark place, but that relationship was very dysfunctional as well. I was trying to force the relationship into something it wasn't and thanks to being emotionally neglected as a child I was trying to create and live in the fantasy that we had a deep connection while love and security that we didn't actually have and the end result of our relationship was the scariest and most painful thing I've experienced in my life. It ended about a year ago and I've been doing more self work since and have made a lot of progress but I didn't feel like I was in a place to reach out to others to form connections and I'm just now starting to feel like I'm ready to. So to be fair, I haven't met a lot of females due to isolation that turned into self isolation. In my experiences males were usually safer because although both being dysfunctional, females were usually the more emotionally manipulative ones that would act "helpless" triggering the part of me who was always trying to protect my emotionally manipulative abused as a child mother as an attempt to gain some sense of control and security in my life. I was also not interested in make up and fashion and thought it was shallow and fake but I didn't really understand it when I was younger and also had/have insecurities about being feminine myself so I think it was just a lashing out more than it was a judgment made with knowledge, but even with more knowledge and processing I still don't find it that interesting, and by itself I find it shallow. I know it's messy and not as concise as I'd like it to be but hopefully that gives some clarity or understanding to what I said earlier. If not, feel free to question me further but I don't want to derail the thread too much.

Hello, Nick. I won't have a lot of insight to give because I lack experience in dating and I've never had a virtuous female friend, but I would like to offer my thoughts and personal opinions. You seem to have made a lot of progress with your self knowledge and growth. I'm in a similar situation with my parents and can appreciate the position you're taking and the hope you may have. I can understand your concern when asking if it's necessary to be 100% finished with the processing of one's childhood as I've also had that concern. My opinion would be is that if you're upfront and honest with where you're at in that processing (as you seem to be) then it's just up to the other person to decide if it's something they're willing to accept or work with. If you find that it's an obstacle while dating or while being in a relationship then take that as useful information, but don't be too disheartened because (I assume) you would still be working to fully process whatever necessary so you would eventually get where you need to be to have a healthy relationship. Addressing your reasons as to why you're hesitant to put yourself out there I would say that lacking dating or sexual experience are not inherently negatives. Speaking for myself I find men who have had sex with multiple women who have varying quality less attractive than men who have had sex with a lower number or none. Without knowing much more I would assume the man who has slept with less women is more stable and looking for a serious long-term relationship. I personally think it would be disgusting for a woman to overlook your qualities and think that you're not worth dating because you haven't slept with enough other women. I can't offer any advice on how to find a virtuous woman. I agree with Graham and mellomama, that she should be able to judge your potential as a mate and be willing to take chances. I would not consider the kind of women who would scoff at you after listening to your passion and plan for your life to be virtuous or a quality mate. I don't see dropping out of a college as a problem especially if your reason for doing so is because you're passionately pursuing something you care about. You say some women greatly prefer a man who has high income potential and speak of status, but from your post I don't think you're looking for those status seeking women and so I wouldn't worry about that being a blemish and instead hope that that keeps lower quality women away. I personally would look for qualities of a good father and therefore a good husband/mate over a man who just has a high income, which can still be considered impressive but it would not be enough. I'm sorry to hear about your relationship history with women. I hope your friends will help you stay clear from dangerous women (there's a lot) in the future. I've found out how important it is to have a supportive group of people willing to get involved and help you in your romantic relationships. I've been a bit depressed and in a self isolating state recently and it was encouraging to see you write and put yourself out there. It made me think I want to step up some more and work harder to get out of the state I'm in. It was a kind of friendly reminder, not a self-punishing one. So thanks for that, and I hope your search goes well if you end up deciding to put yourself out there more.

It's disheartening to know you're in so isolated, from my personal experience I find it can be very dangerous to be so alone. I'm sorry to hear about your friend passing and that it wasn't your husband you grew closer to in this difficult time, I'm sure that must've been difficult. I don't know you're husband or this other guy but I can give you my thoughts on what you shared. When and how did you become friends with this other man? I don't know the details of the situation but it's suspicious to me that you grew closer to this man during a very emotionally and vulnerable time in your life when your friend passed. Did he ask you if you were sharing this difficultly with your husband and if not, why? I'm not against friends supporting each other or growing closer by sharing vulnerablities and challenges in life but I would question the man's motive especially after knowing he claims to love you and wants you to divorce your husband. Why does he think your husband is dishonest and fake? From what you said about him saying he wants you to divorce for your own future happiness and well-being and that him loving you doesn't have an effect on his motive makes me think he himself isn't being honest. Has he told you that he wants to be with you? I'm not sure what being loyal means in this context. Do you feel as if your somehow betraying your friend? This one issue you speak of seems to lead into more than one, and what one issue are you refering to? The one where he claims to love you and isn't being honest with you about his motive for wanting you to divorce or the fact that he doesn't want you to have children with your husband? Have you told the man that when he tells you not to have a baby with your husband or he'll leave that you experience this as an ultimatum, and if so, how has he responded? Is he considering your well-being and happiness when threatening to leave if you have children with your husband? What's his reasoning or evidence for claiming that you'll be immoral if your have children with your husband? Is he concerned that the children will be harmed having a dishonest father and therefore your husband is unfit? Does he see himself as being an unfit father because he himself is being dishonest (based on what little I see)? Would this man be okay if you wanted to have children with your husband but never acted on it partially out of fear of losing his friendship? Would he be okay with that kind of self-erasure and fear within your relationship? It sounds like he's okay to be friends with you unless you have children not because he's worried about children growing up with a dishonest father but because if you don't have children he can hold out hope or keep encouraging you to get a divorce and not have to deal with the children you would have had with your husband. If you tell him that you love your husband, despite his flaws, and want to put in effort to fix your relationship what does he say? Is he understanding and supportive of your desires and by support I don't mean withholding his opinion or blindly follow your desires but rather showing interest and curiousity in you and what you want with your husband? If he thinks your husband is a horrible person then why would he want to be friends with a women (you) who wants to stay in a relationship with a horrible person? Perhaps it'd also be helpful to not get trapped in thinking that the most important choice to make is choosing between your husband or this other guy but rather choosing between being honest or dishonest with yourself and both of these men. Being honest with both your husband and this other guy I would say is the best thing to do. Which includes being honest about your experience of this man's dishonesty and concern for what appears to be a hidden motive and how you experience him telling you not to have children with the man you married and what and you think and feel about your husband's lack of concern for your experience of the relationship you have with him. I personally question the quality of this man and his friendship and hope you take care not to be guilted or manipulated into making decisions that go against what you desire and wish to work for. Again, you have my sympathies for being so isolated, I know how dangerous it is to attempt to navigate relationships alone and how the fear of being alone can tempt you to ignore the warning signs seen in the people you have relationships with. Take care.

I agree with what dsayers has already stated about having to process the experiences honestly and understand what you did and why you did it. I've also made mistakes in a relationship which ultimately ended. It's been 8 months since then and after a lot of effort put into figuring out what the relationship was and if it was deeply dysfunctional or not, what I did wrong, and in what ways it was connected to my historical relationship with my parents, I still have moments (although far less often) when I think of the relationship and feel pain or confusion. I used to feel overwhelmed by my feelings and not want to feel so strongly or I thought something was wrong with me. However I don't think that anymore. I found that by thinking and acting as if my feelings were inconvenient, destroying my life, that something was wrong with me and I shouldn't feel the way I do, or it shouldn't take this long to heal that I was in a sense causing myself to become overwhelmed or non-functioning because just as my parents had done in the past I was now invalidating my feelings and experiences which made me feel worse and intensify my feelings of abandonment, invisibility, and helplessness. I was basically telling myself that I won't be there for myself, that I won't be caring or loving, or curious or open to discussing how I feel or what happened. I've learned that being patient with myself and respectful and curious about my feelings and historical experiences/relationships makes it possible for me to achieve greater self-knowledge and self-love. The strong feelings I had was an indicator of how important it was for me to understand the relationship, what happened, and what was happening after the end of it. At times what I'm experiencing in the present can remind me of that person or an aspect of the relationship, or when I'm facing a problem I realize that it's a problem that's connected to that relationship and that it can be used as an example or to differentiate. I think one's feelings can be a great warning and motivator to learn more about yourself or the world, if they're treated as allies instead of enemies. I'd say that there's definitely reasons why you're being pulled back to certain memories because there's probably something you need to understand or learn before you feel safe in moving on and I don't think forgetting the past in how you move forward in a healthy way, but rather understanding it and yourself. If you think and feel like moving on is difficult then my suggestion is to just accept that it's difficult. I don't think there's anything wrong with it being difficult and if you want to understand why it's difficult then I think the first step that makes achieving that easier is to just accept that it is before exploring why. I don't know if you're being patient with yourself or not, I just got the sense that you weren't and I may be wrong and none of this may be helpful. Doing IFS self-therapy has helped me change how I approach myself and my feelings, and my friend also shared this article with me that made me think more seriously about feelings and how I was treated in the past and it helped me understand some aspects of myself. http://eqi.org/invalid.htm#Introduction Take care.

Hey, I enjoyed watching your video it brought a smile to my face. For two mains reasons, one it was nice to watch someone be so enthusiastic about fighting evil, and two I appreciate someone taking action and opening themselves up to others, I thought it was brave to talk a little bit about your personal life. I don't think your first response to her question was bad at all, sounded honest to me, except maybe it would have been even more honest to say that you had questions about hobbies, or you're curious what she considers a hobby to give you a better idea of what she was asking. I don't think your response to her question was boring, and even if she considered it boring it's not like asking "What are your hobbies?" is super exciting or interesting, but if you failed at achieving a standard you had set for yourself, like somehow being more exciting in your responses, then I can understand if you're being critical of yourself. So yeah, moving on to the second response... I don't see how you're being weird because you're passionate about fighting evil and being a good person. Those are admirable goals and values, it's not cool to see you mock that part of yourself, instead I agree with the part of you that seems to take enjoyment out of your own passion and joy for these values you have and wish to achieve and that if people don't appreciate that, are disinterested or call you weird or crazy, then yeah don't need those people in your life. I don't know what happened with the girl but it sounds like she missed out on a good opportunity to have an interesting conversation about hobbies and fighting evil. As for the topic of hobbies, I've personally always had a hard time understanding what one can consider a hobby, and I guess it's always sounded like something not to be taking seriously in one's life so I never liked using the word to describe what I enjoy doing in my life because what I enjoy is serious and precious to me. However, I do think part of the reason why I have such a dislike towards the word is because of my history and how people in my life have treated my personal interest as a joke or not to be taking seriously. Since I've realized this I don't take offense when other people use the word, and it's funny I happened to see your video because I just started using the word recently myself when speaking of my drawing. Kind of like testing out the word and taking it back for myself, while I examine how it makes me feel when I use it in conversations or when writing. Haha, I would've considered more seriously of making a video in response but I don't have the stuff to do that at the moment, nor do I think myself brave enough yet. Thanks again, watching your video was a good way to end my night.

Without putting much thought into it, yes I'd say the relationship with some of Stefan's listeners have a teacher student model. You say I described a model but I don't think I described much of a model in my post, I only stated that my relationship became one where I was more of a student and he a teacher, before it changed into a patient & therapist one. I don't have a problem with a student teacher relationship, I think they can be very healthy and productive. Why did you ask this question? It's unclear to me. My goal wasn't to express my raw emotion in my previous post and besides that I'm not even sure how I'd be able to successfully convey my raw emotion over text or how that would be helpful for me or anyone. I'm curious, what would expressing raw emotion look like to you in text? You're right it is compressed because that's what I was trying to do. I don't think it would be helpful for me or anyone if I wrote out my entire history and emotions that I felt (or in some instances still feel) on a forum without having more of a focus or goal. No one would know what specific problem I'd like help with and the only thing I'd convey is the fact that I am emotionally raw and would like help. I wanted to be as concise as possible while giving people some context on my situation and relationship so that they would be better able to help me or give me information on it, or on what I specifically asked about, which is transference and how it may or may not relate to my relationship. I can understand your frustration if you believe I was minimizing my emotional experience or trying to censor them in some way, but I certainly didn't feel that way when I was writing my previous post, and even after reflecting on your words I still don't feel like I was neglecting my emotions. However, I am still working on expressing my emotions and being emotionally connected to others without "blarping" or being overwhelmed, so it's possible that I'm missing something so I'll explore it more. I do think I'm able to speak about this relationship the way I am now because I've done a lot of processing and I'm not as emotionally raw as I was or have been in the past due to unprocessed pain and confusion. I don't believe I'm ignoring my needs by trying to keep my post short, I was satisfied with the length even while knowing it might be too long for others to be interested in reading. I don't think being aware of other people's possible needs or preferences necessarily means that I'm sacrificing my own. I agree with some people's criticisms that long posts can be difficult to follow or understand and I was aware of that while writing. I don't think it's fair to say that I'm more focused on making the show enjoyable for others. I said enjoyable and helpful for myself AND others. It was my intention to show my consideration towards others knowing that the show wouldn't be just for me and to express my own personal desire I have and pleasure I would receive if I am able to help others like others on the show have helped me. I am aware that the way I talk is careful, because I am being careful, I'm trying to keep as many bad habits as I can out of my conversations.

I have a relationship which I considered a friendship in it's early stages, but very soon turned into something more in my mind as I treated him more as a role model, parent, and therapist. We were both focused on my psychology and history rather than it being more of a two-way mutually beneficial relationship. I knew him when I was in my mid-teens but didn't start to have a more serious and consuming relationship until I was in my 20s when we reconnected online. I encouraged him to take a more authoritarian position in our relationship, which he felt uncomfortable with doing at first, but eventually complied and more and more it became a teacher and student relationship, which turned into a patient and therapist relationship. As we explored my childhood and subjects like attachment theory and parentification I had deep emotional experiences where I would go from having intense feelings of adoration to violent anger and jealousy for this man. We recognized that a lot of this have to do with my childhood and that I wasn't really angry at him because he hadn't done anything to harm me (certainly not proportionate to what I was feeling/experiencing). We decided to explore this further by doing a type of pseudo therapy, where I was encouraged to explore my childhood experiences and try to reconnect emotionally while being in a safe place provided by him. I would try to re-experience what I had in the past and then have him take me out once it became overwhelming for me and I would have him act as my parent giving me what I desired or needed as a child while I acted like a child. I went to a very dark place and started experiencing extreme anxiety and fear of abandonment, which neither of us knew how to handle and eventually it became too much for him (understandably) and our relationship broke. I was a mess when this happened and I experienced this break with terrifying despair and confusion. I had no other friends or family I was really in contact with at the time because I had moved to a different state to take a break from my family and the toxicity. And as a side note I am starting to think I had a hidden motivation for moving which I think is that it was easier for me to attach myself to this man and move to a different state (never having moved before) than it was for me to confront my father and have a conversation with him about my insecurities and how his emotional unavailability and neglect affected my life. The violent anger and terror (of making him uncomfortable to the point of abandoning me) I projected onto the man I attached myself to, I now realize belongs to my father and that throughout our relationship (3 years not counting teen years) I have consistently assigned emotions to this man as their source when they fundamentally had nothing to do with him. After speaking with my friend about this he linked me an article on transference. Which seems relevant to my experience and so I am interested in further exploring this idea and would like more information on it. So I'm requesting that if anyone has further information on this or anything like this, I would very much appreciate it if you would be willing to share. I'd also like to caution anyone who might be in a similar situation and is considering exploring this kind of pseudo therapy with someone who isn't a professional or has had experience dealing with such things. From my experience I put myself in a very dangerous situation by choosing to have this kind of relationship and exploring what I did with someone when we didn't know what we were doing and I suffered a lot as a consequence and so did the man in this relationship. I added onto his suffering by showing little to no empathy for him during our 3 year relationship which is partly his fault and partly mine. Mine because I didn't acknowledge that I wasn't considering his feelings whenever I was only concerned with alleviating my anxiety and using him to do so. As a secondary thought (I apologize for the long post), I've been considering calling in to the show to talk about my relationship in which I have experienced this but I haven't figured out what to ask or what specifically I'd like to focus on to make the show enjoyable and helpful for myself and others. Any suggestions or thoughts would be welcome. And yes I plan on getting therapy.

Hello, my name is Rachelle. I currently live in Idaho after moving out of my parent's home in MI. I don't know anyone here in ID and I have very few people I keep in contact with, so like for many others, it can get quite lonely. I've just recently become a bit more active in searching for people I can converse with. Due to my history with people in the past I have been very guarded and tend to view people as a negative, instead of as neutral or good when meeting them. While In Idaho I've been focusing on self-knowledge and healing. So far this has been a very long and difficult process. I have been doing most of this alone or with my close friend. I've done quite a bit of journaling, some psuedo-therapy with my friend, some reading on psychology and philosophy. Listening to Stefan's podcasts have also been helpful for me, especially with communication and being in touch with my emotions. I have yet to go to a professional therapist. Some of my interests include: Philosophy, self-knowledge, psychology, art (especially visual), anime (pyscho-pass, death note, code geass) and horses. I thought this forum might be a good place to start looking for some interesting conversations and people. I'm looking forward to the opportunity.