I have been writing in this space for quite some time. At first, I had so much to say I had to stop myself writing here and other years I haven't written here very much at all. The stats for the blog have also varied quite a bit - when I log on, I give it a quick look - but in the past months, they have been solid.
When I checked just now it may be the case that the stats will tick over past the 1 million views later today, which is a bit of milestone. I'm always amazed really that anyone reads here at all since I think of blogger as such an antiquated site and I wouldn't know how to read a blog on blogger myself. Or maybe someone looks up a word, like 'fantasy' and I might pop up. I really have no idea.
At a school reunion last year one girl that I haven't seen for decades came over to me to tell me that although she had been bullied by a few girls at school, she always knew that she would have a pleasant exchange with me. She wanted me to know that she thought I was very 'empathic'.
It was meant to be a compliment, but there was a part of me that only heard that I was a 'soft touch'. I think what must have happened in my life is two-fold. First, I was simply born with a very empathic and soft nature. Secondly, without meaning any harm, my parents unwittingly trained me to tolerate their needs. I knew they were both a little unusual and had specific needs of their own and somewhere in that process, I learned to tolerate people and circumstances.
When my husband came along, again I understood that he was a bit different, but it wasn't that difficult to accommodate his needs either. Yes, he monologued and wanted things his way, and had freak attacks, and was impulsive and so on, but I sort of knew how to turn myself into a pretzel and so I did.
It was decades later when I began to try to explain to him that my needs were not being met. He listened but it was clear by the confused, almost naive expression on his face that if he knew how to change for me perhaps, he would, but the fact was that he didn't have a clue what I was talking about. He knew he loved me and he couldn't understand why that message wasn't getting through to me.
I did know that he loved me, but I also wanted to receive that love with the sort of behaviours that made sense to me. Alas, one brain was neurodiverse and one brain was neurotypical and I was simply asking too much.
The therapist I used for some hypnosis, I recently realized, had the exact same issue. I tried to explain to him that my texting him a question and his responding with an audio file was missing the mark because there was no opportunity to co-regulate - to experience that back and forth of emotional transference that is usually available between therapist and client.
I consulted AI on this, and he/she said that I needed to find an Emotions Focused Therapist who was neurotypical; that my mind and body had been dealing with the fall out of the mismatch of brains for 50 years or more and that this was the first step.
I studied EFT when my son was doing his Master of Counselling and was very impressed with what is available to the client - the listening to emotional material, the opportunity to have the emotion mirrored back to you and to have a corrective experience.
What is important to identify is not why I tolerate so much because we sort of know why - conditioning and survival mode - but how to stop tolerating the sort of behaviour from men that could put me back in the fire again.
When going on a first date I am meant to monitor how much time they spend telling me about themselves or their pet subject and if they ask me questions about myself; if they can meet me with an emotion - not fix it or divert onto a story of their own but sit with my emotion and possibly ask me a follow up question about, perhaps, how that made me feel.
In fact, Ron, did do that on that first date, and it's such a pity that he had no interest in intimacy because otherwise I think we had something going. I am happy to say that I rejected all suitors as unsatisfactory because my antenna was up. I want someone to hold me - physically and emotionally - and that hasn't happened yet.
In fact, I just had an exchange with a delightful man interested in buying my husband's motorbike. If you go by the exchange of words, you might hope that he was single, just delightful. It's a needle in a haystack thing, but the thought did cross my mind. I am definitely up for a beautiful relationship, and I am learning, I think, to use the right criteria.
