Behind a one-way glass (a heart-felt plea for advice I think)

[JackHawtson]

Darliz is a girl I basically fell in love with. She's far away from me, so it was an online relationship. For a month or two, we skyped frequently and spent many nights reading eachother to sleep, leaving the connection open, listening to each other's steady slumber during the nights. We were aware that we weren't right for each other, but that wasn't enough, I wasn't honest enough with myself, to prevent my falling for her.

 

This ended, and I'm still confused on why, but here's what happened: I was having major family problems and I wanted to talk with her about them but she didn't want to talk about it. I couldn't hide it any longer that I was really hurt that she wouldn't talk about it and demanded to know at least why.

She tried to explain, but it was very shallow, like "there could be a lot of reasons people don't want to talk about certain topics and you're just gonna have to accept that even if u wouldn't do the same to them and deny them your input on a topic of their choice" she didn't help me understand what she was feeling, just tried to generalize.

I recognize that this was probably because the topic made her very a anxious, and having been prone to panic attacks in the past, she took prudent action to prevent another one. I didn't know anything about that at the time tho.

This was the beginning of the end for us, and I continued in the same vain for about a week, trying to get her to explain, but that only made it worse. She blocked me on FB, blocked my number, and stopped responding to anything I sent her. I became so desperate that I got a random number from a texting app and called her on that about a week later.

 

Pressing the call button was terrifying. I was trembling and when she picked up the phone I was unable to speak coherently. I had thought she knew who the number was cuz I had sent her a message or two indicating that it was me, but she didn't know it was me till I said so, at which point she hung up. I called again and when i confirmed that it was me, she said I was starting to get really annoying and hung up. I couldn't speak the whole time, trembling and on the verge of tears, I was inarticulate. I think I mumbled something like "Darliz, please..." Before she hung up the last time.

 

With sobs, I texted her (tho only later did I realize that it probably was already blocked and so she probably never saw the text) that I'd never contact her again and cried myself to sleep, barely holding back gallons of tears in school the next day.

 

 

For a few months, i forgot about her and met some other girls (these relationships at least didn't include fusion as with Darliz) but now, idk what's causing it exactly, but I am reminded of her more often, find myself looking at her YouTube account (feeling pathetic and like a stalker) a lot, feeling a crushing emptiness in my chest, a constriction of many muscles in my body, at the realization that she liked some video just 6 hours previous. A scene from no movie in particular comes to mind where I'm behind a one way glass watching my wife being brutally brainwashed out of love with me and all I can do is sit there in my harness and cry... Ah, 1984 comes to mind... Idk, anyway...

 

Tonight I feel the strongest urge yet to contact her through various methods. I'm not even sure why.

I feel a desire for the fusion, infatuation, fake love that we had. I won't deny that. I want to fall asleep with her again, want to hear her (abso-freaking-lutely astonishing) singing voice like a heavily accented song bird in my ear, dedicated to me. I want to write her poems and sing to her again, want to spend all nights talking about all sorts of things, and enjoy those long moments of silly, stupid, giddiness - eternities in which all we can do is look at each other and smile like fools.

Yea, I want that, but, I know, to my detriment.

 

I know that it was a doomed relationship. She is neither emotionally healthy nor virtuous, but the feelings she garnered haven't been experienced since, and I know deep in my bones that it's gonna be a long fucking time before they come again, unless I let myself fuse with another, which I'm not going to do if I can help it.

 

I also feel alone in a particular way. Normally, I'm confident, curious, and stable. This is the strongest and one of the only phenomenon which brings me to my knees as described above, and what's worse is that I don't have anyone in my life outside of contacts from this site to talk to and actually get anywhere in a conversation about this. Most conversations I have about this are short and unhelpful with people outside this community.

 

Any thoughts are appreciated, I know I can count on y'all to give me quality feedback.

[Kurtis4444]

First off I am sorry you had this experience. It is quite sad and unfortunate. I noticed that you had no delusion that the relationship was not a good one. This tells me you were actively and at least somewhat knowingly seeking out emotionally abusive or destructive relationships. I do not say this to put you down in any sort of way. I used to do this as well. For me I actively sought out women that were emotionally abusive. For me this was driven by the fact that my mother was emotionally manipulative and verbally abusive.  Threw therapy and self knowledge I have stop that behavior and no longer seek out those kind of relationships. It wasn't easy but I believe it is possible you might have a similar issue. 

 

I have felt the heart twisting pain of being accepted then rejected over and over after setting myself up for it by being with that kind of person. For me it was important to learn that this pain did not come from losing this destructive person since I realized she was bad for me, just as it seems you knew this as well. Instead the pain for me came from the learned childhood trauma of being an emotional hacky sack for my mothers similar emotional abuse. Once I understood this I could confront the trauma of my childhood with my mother and move away from seeking this kind of emotionally destructive relationship.

 

Now I am not drawn to those kind of relationships and I have since not been in one. Hope this helps feel free to ask any questions. 

 

Best of Luck and Hope you Feel better soon,

Kurt

[JackHawtson]

Edit:

More on the "basically fell in love" thing - it was fusion as stef calls it (tho I don't find much psychological literature using that term) where insecure ppl use each other to hide from the pain of their past. It manifested in the immense joy I felt when skyping with her and frequently thinking about her, idolizing her and projecting good qualities onto her. It wasn't love, just the same damn infatuation I felt for Katrina, the girl I fused and had skype sex with for a while before learning that she was only pretending to be in love with me too. For more don that, see my talk with stef, second caller on the sexual pleasure, punishment, and self protection show from I think February of this year.

 

Another thing - I knew she wasn't the right one for me cuz she wasn't able to be open about her feelings with me. It got very slightly better over time so it wasn't a complete lost cause (part of the reason I stayed so long), I injected myself with false hope that she would eventually open up to me. But I never trusted her completely, always had a sneaking suspicion that she was ignoring me (again, this doesn't happen in my other relationships) in the short time spans she wouldn't respond. Also our interests diverged greatly.

 

Kurt, my most important question to u, and probably of my entire life, is how to deal with the root causes of these relationship cycles? I know it has to do with coming to terms with ones past (you're dead on there - literally every word of your replay was like a fiber-optic connection to my feelz) but I have no idea how to actually go about doing that.

[Kurtis4444]

Have you tried any therapy? If so how has that worked for you? Also it was great for me to just talk to my parents about it. I know this is not possible for everyone but it did great things for me. Talking on here might also help I hope.

 

On a scale of 1-10 how would you say you rate your self esteem? Part of my destructive relationship seeking behavior was tied to my low self esteem or more importantly that my self esteem was almost 100% tied to the person I was currently dating. So I would think my self esteem was sky high at times cause I had the girl I wanted. But I was really just using her to fill myself with self esteem that was really not there if the pretty girl was not on my arm.

 

Sadly it was a long process to feel that I am an amazing person without a beautiful girl validating that opinion. This really just took a lot of time and personal growth. To me self knowledge helped the most in this area. If your on this forum there is a good chance you are willing to look deep into yourself and find ways of really improving yourself and the way you interact with people. Not many people do that and this alone puts you have many other people who literally would fall in "love" with the next person to bat their eye lashes in their general direction. I have been there and it sounds like you may have too, but being able to turn around and face that problem is a huge first step and it sounds like you are here doing that. So give yourself a lot of credit for that.

 

Other than that I sadly don't have a magical line that I think can do the trick. I would do a lot of self examination. Think what you really want in life and how your action with this women will most likely drive you further from that. Think how bad things in the future will be if you simple continue to take the same actions and are unable to learn from your experiences. Think of how few people really know themselves, and how that can help you find where you truly can connect with people on your terms in a way that you love. Hopefully this will help you turn what once felt like love in the past into a part of yourself you can start to understand and eventually control. This can even make you stronger and help you recognize this same part in others. To either avoid it for your safety, or to point it out to them for their safety.

 

Hope this Helps, Again ask any questions,

Kurt

[JackHawtson]

Thanks a million, Kurt.

I don't think talking with my parents will help. My situation is slightly different from yours.

 

The difference lies in the fact that my self-esteem is generally sky high - I don't feel that I'm arrogant because I usually show a fair degree of humility , for instance when debating, I'm elated to be proven wrong. Just yesterday when a friend introduced me to a line of reasoning (entrepreneurship specifically applied to my skills) that, at the time, I thought meant that my life was totally on the wrong track. I didn't hesitate at the fact that I was wrong, but instead did some more research and was able to come to an understanding of how to better achieve my goals by incorporating the methods my friend outlined with my current plans (college) to create a life plan that is now likely to make me richer as well as happier in my work. Being proven wrong didn't make me feel bad.

When I'm with my friends parkouring, when I bail on a move I'm trying to complete, I don't feel the social discomfort that I suppose others would feel.

I've had significant relationships with two other girls since Darliz and, having not fused with them, their eventual rejection didn't bother me much and either way I never feel that I am not worth a lot, even when Darliz stomped my heart out, intellectually, at least, I still know how great I am as a person generally - I'm healthy, strong, and good looking, have decent college prospects despite having not tried much in high school, I love learning, I am quite smart, with high test scores and I'm constantly impressed with my ability to make connections mentally.

I do worry a little that I may sound like I'm bragging, but I don't worry too much because what I say is true.

 

More importantly, I recognize faults in me. I have a terrible time managing my time (though some part of the blame there rests in my parents in the present), I overestimate my ability to get things done and so barely make deadlines, my room is a mess because, though I intellectually understand the concept, I have not incorporated built-in organization to my life (continuing to organize all the time just by going about your daily activities and taking a second or two to put things away as you use or see them). Also, I have this tendency to fuse, and my sexual emotional development is not where I want it - I feel an odd guilt I don't understand when I consider getting sexual with someone and I can't fathom the idea of me going down on anyone, save my future wife, and I'm not even intellectually sure why that is anymore. I used to think "I'm gonna have oral sex for the first time with my wife and only her, but now I don't really understand why I felt that way or why I should continue that abstinence in the face of a girl I'm talking to who's down to do it if I want to.

 

About my parents, they threatened me frequently, even if they were joking it doesn't matter as the message was clear - "we don't love you and will hurt u if u don't do what we want". Both are emotionally abusive - mom is unpredictable in her rule over me and a thousand other things I'll go into if you're interested, dad is also unpredictable, pays no attention to me of his own free will, like is never genuinely interested in me and such, again, more if interested.

I wasn't hit much, thank goodness.

 

Regarding falling for every girl that smiles at me, I don't think that's the case, and I'm still not sure what causes me to fall for some girls and not others - I had skype sex (sorta) with this girl from chat roulette and didn't fall for her to any significant degree. What's more is that Darliz and Katrina are very very different in character, behavior, and how they treated me. It's quite confusing.

 

I can't really talk to my folks about this cuz I can't stand talking to them generally and I never know what will set them off in a conversation, turning them passive aggressive once again and ending the conversation. Additionally, they not only know nothing of psychology, they disdain the science.

 

Kurt, could you tell me more about your journey? Also, have I helped to provide clarity to u?