Day 234: "Having a romantic interest" as an addiction

15052013

[Today I opened up a point in private writings, here's some excerpt and SF on it.]

[Here I'm speaking mostly from the perspective of childhood experiences.]

Rejection. My romantic interests have rejected me ever since the first one. There have been few mutual ones, and some that I haven't responded to. I have built up this hope and this positive experience of another, positive view of another, expectations of the other being the most wonderful person ever, and when I have been denied access to this I have blamed myself for it – I have not been good enough. And it has been like all of my foundation has been crumbled away: I have laid out myself on the image of another person, a person I have not even known, thinking of this image as the “earth beneath my feet” because the energy charge of this has been so strong that it has helped me survive my daily adversities of being bullied, isolated and self-abused. So “having a romantic interest” has been an addiction to me, a drug to keep me going, something with which to replace self-support. Romantic interests and the related fantasies have been my “rosy glasses”, my distraction, my escape from the actual issues haunting me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to get addicted to the energy I have received from having a romantic interest, as I have used this energy to fuel me in my daily living which was consuming to me because of all the adversity.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to choose one person among a selection of suitable people (usually being physically available within my daily living and being approximately in my age group has been enough) according to the energetic reaction I have had towards this person on first encounter (“first impression”) as related to others available, choosing the one towards which my reaction was most overwhelming and most positive – then placing this person in a “special position” where I would start building fantasies and scenarios around this person according to the model my world had presented me (through movies, fairytales, books, media, celebrities), building up expectations, hopes and desires that these scenarios would come true so that I could release the anticipation and experience all the energy I had been promised, thus also creating fear that this person would no longer “be available” and that he would be “stolen” from me by someone “better” than me, fearing that all the scenarios and hopes and desires and plans I had invested in would collapse, because I would then collapse as the hole within me that I ignored with all this is still there, waiting to be noticed.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to build fantasies and scenarios of “security” and “safety” around this one selected person because I did not feel safe or secure within my world and within myself and instead of looking at myself for the cause and remedy searched for a “quick fix” from outside of me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to repeat this scenario time and time again without realizing that the problem is within me, that it is not about “having the wrong person” or me being “not good enough” - it is this desire to have a romantic interest that is causing me trouble because I have been clearly unable to live without one as I have always latched myself onto another after the last attempt has “failed”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself, as I have not felt secure, safe or stable within my living, to search for security, safety and stability from other people instead of seeing, realizing and understanding that my “lack” is due to my immaturity as a human being which is the result of me growing up in a world that is immature.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to seek for the elements that I lack due to an imbalanced childhood from others, not realizing that it is not another's responsibility to give me what I lack so that I could live as a seemingly complete, yet actually incomplete being for the rest of my days.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that it is my responsibility to grow back my “missing limbs”, because when given by others it is but a “wooden leg” the giving of which consumes the other, and that me growing out of my own immaturity is the only known option that considers the best of all, not just my self-interest.

This leaves me with the question: why do I feel insecure, unstable and unsafe? Knowing the basics of developmental psychology, I'd say something in my process of growing up has been disturbed as a child – but when and how? This may have something to do with my relationship to my father. During my childhood he was “never there” because he was always working, and when he was actually present it was be uncertain whether he would be stressed and tired or really happy and cheerful – so I could never really trust him to “always be there for me” because sometimes he was obviously too tired to put up with my child-existence, and even though he tried to cover this up I of course noticed. So maybe I'm looking for that stability, that reliability that was never there from other men, trying to find the stability that I was supposed to learn from my father/parents but never did. Children learn by mimicking: I was never shown stability, safety, certainty, security in terms of a being's “inner balance”. Thus I did not learn this as a child, when all I had to mimic was unreliable emotional expression and self-abuse.

So, right. Whatever it has been, I have picked this all up as a child when I have actually been helpless about my life. What I didn't pick up when it would have been easy, I'm going to have to practice now when it's difficult, and that can only happen through consistent practicing: stopping the pattern, questioning it, not living according to it, directing myself otherwise. Moment after moment after moment. Walking myself out of this mess is not going to be easy.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not be consistent about stopping the related mind-patterns [which I opened up in private writings] as I have not realized that walking myself out of a dependency / addiction is the most difficult thing I will ever do because I resist it with all of my mind, and that it thus requires all of my effort to sort it out.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not stop these patterns every time they occur and instead allow them to run for a while and only notice and stop them until they accumulate enough fear/desire within me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be lazy about my writings as I have not been specific enough to actually assist and support me to overcome these mind-patterns.

I commit myself to map out these mind-patterns in full detail so that I can flag them and actually notice and immediately stop them when and as they occur.

I commit myself to no longer follow these mind patterns because I see, realize and understand that they will only lead to fear and/or desire and that I will end up looping in-between these polarities – neither one of which is based on reality.

I commit myself to write about the self-suppression related to this point. [Not mentioned here.]

Day 183: SF on romance, part 1

23032013

This post is a specific continuation to:
Day 182: Romantic gestures and fantasies

And a part of a longer series:
Day 177: Relationships and cross-gender support
Day 178: Separation of genders
Day 179: The attraction fallacy
Days 180-181: The "safe zone" of intimacy

 -- Daydreaming --

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to hold on to the exciting positive energy I experienced within a romantic context by extracting the original experience here in the physical into images, fantasies and scenes within my mind and by indulging in these scenes by repeating them over and over again and savouring the energy experiences they induced within me as physical sensations in the diaphragm, stomach and chest areas.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to create a belief that these experiences that induced strong energetic responses within me were such that one ought to strive for because they felt so good, intense and big.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to think that these strong energetic responses made me feel “more alive” because in comparison my ordinary life was boring, dull and uneventful.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that I created the feeling that my life was “boring, dull and uneventful” by comparing it to mind-induced energy, and that this feeling was not in fact based on reality but on an unfair comparison, as when positive mind-energy is compared to a life of limitation and suppression it is clear that one will seem “better” than the other.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not take into consideration the fact that the above-mentioned comparison is in fact not based on reality because I have not realized that the “real” life I lived was a life of limitation, suppression and self-imprisonment – and thus wasn't the best that life when actually lived can be.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe I am happier in my mind than in the physical reality based on an unfair comparison that hasn't really looked into what is actually going on.

[I've been facing the above-mentioned point in my living recently (“my life SUCKS”) and thus this SF also assists me in my everyday practical life. Awesome.]

--

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to escape my practical living into daydreams and fantasies because I found my practical living to be uncomfortable due to bullying, insecurity and simply being discontent with life and what the world was offering me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to escape my fear of being in contact with boys / to act upon the desire to be in contact with boys by indulging in mind-fantasies where I got the experience I was desiring without the “risks” of actual interaction (failure, shame, loss).

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want something but not accept what comes along with it.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want something but resent its consequences.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive the consequences of showing interest towards another (communication, interaction, revealing oneself) to be “uncomfortable”, “scary” and “difficult”.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive honestly interacting with another by facing oneself with the other to be uncomfortable, scary and difficult because it was beyond my comfort zone.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive interacting with a person of interest to be “uncomfortable” and “difficult” as I did not have a preconceived behavioral pattern for such situations, which would have required me to act based on what is HERE when/as things are communicated, which is a course of action I had not been prepared for or taught to do.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive interacting with a person of interest to be “scary” because I have held onto all of my worst-case scenarios of how things may “go wrong” and “fail” and feared that they might come true if I involved myself in a situation that included this risk.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to hold onto the worst-case scenarios where I was laughed at, ridiculed, mocked, shamed, excluded, rejected, abused and singled out when approaching a person of interest or revealing my interest towards another – not realizing that even if some of these things actually happened, it would not be anything personal towards me or an attack at my self-worth but an indicator of where the other person(s) currently stands in his/her process.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to not even try to be in contact with boys and refuse all of their attempts to approach me because I have been terrified of actually facing another (facing myself as reflected from another) and instead just kept to my inner fantasies because it was much easier and much more comfortable.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not question the fact that I enjoyed my inner reality more than the “outer” reality because I did not realize that my inner reality is not in fact real, at least not to anyone but myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that even though my fantasies weren't real and did not actually happen, they had a major influence on myself and who I was with people as they affected and created the thoughts, emotions, feelings, expectations, assumptions and images I had towards and of people and thus affected the way I interacted with actual people in actual situations.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see, realize and understand that daydreaming and fantasizing is in fact not harmless as it has a major influence on who I am and how I act in the practical physical reality.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to justify daydreaming and fantasizing by saying “none of this actually happens”, not realizing how the effects are carried over to the actual reality.

--

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create and uphold an ideal of romance through the daydreams, fantasies and scenes I played around with in my mind based on whatever induced the “right kind of energy” (strong, intense, exciting).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe unquestioned the daydreams, fantasies and scenes that induced the “right kind of energy” to be that which relationships were all about and should be like.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that the amount/intensity of energy to be an indicator of how “real” an experience is, believing energy to be “real living” because my actual physical living was less enjoyable in comparison.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to extract energy-inducing experiences that I lived through while immersed in different forms of media (movies, books, TV series, porn, music, magazines) into material in my mind of which I compiled a “romance ideal” according to what images/phrases/scenes/characters/actions were repeated often, how they were presented, how I resonated to these images and what kind of an energy these images aroused.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that what the society through media allows people to understand to be “the ideal” is created through manipulation of rhythm, colour, shape, voice, music, emotion and thought association through the understanding of the mechanisms of human consciousness (the human mind on autopilot).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that because my romance ideal is built upon energy it is not a trustworthy nor a valid basis for building a relationship or choosing a mate because relationships happen here in the concrete physical reality and not within the energetic mind reality – at least not the kind of relationships I want to participate in, as I have lived through relationships based on nothing but energy and seen them to serve no other purpose but momentary escapism and their own inevitable destruction.

Will continue tomorrow.

Day 182: Romantic gestures and fantasies

22032013

Just look at those meatballs!

This post is a continuation to:
Day 177: Relationships and cross-gender support
Day 178: Separation of genders
Day 179: The attraction fallacy
Days 180-181: The "safe zone" of intimacy

I've been dealing with romance and romantic gestures, especially artistic ones where another dedicates a piece of artistic expression to me. An excerpt from some private writings:

I have for all of my relationship history secretly wished for my partners to gift me with a song or a poem or a painting or something (anything!) because that would mean I have inspired the other to do something that is only for me – or more precisely, from me. I realized that this shit with wanting to have a special exclusive gesture like this given to you is not actually about receiving something from the other, but about using the other as an extension of you – I call this the “evil muse syndrome”, lol. When another i.e. writes a song that is specifically for me or inspired by me, it has been created by my effect – it wouldn't have come into existence without me – and so I elevate myself through the actions of another. “I made this happen.” “This is MY song.” “I'M the one who inspired this.” Usually it is not done in an aggressive manner (not very feminine, now is it) but in a sweet, petite way of saying: “aww, you did this all for me?” This phrase is very tricky indeed because it is nothing but self-elevation masked as a compliment.

So I have always wished for this “special” gesture but never mentioned it to anyone because it would not be genuine if I asked for it. This is actually very movie-like now that I think of it, lol, the gesture has to be just right for it to mean anything – to give me the perfect fulfillment – for the energy charge to be exactly the way I have imagined it to be. This expectation is in no way aligned with the practical reality – it simply does not make sense to 1) have a desire and not actively strive to fulfill it 2) have a desire based on no practical purpose, and 3) believe a relationship is “fulfilling” only when it reaches some epic proportions of love oozing from every seam as perfect images and scenes of ladidaa flowers and candlelight and deep looks in each others eyes and gentle notes from a guitar and shy hushed voices and BLAH all the shit.

I have never liked romance. I have found it repulsively sweet and sugary. I remember even as a child wondering about the purpose of all that weird mushiness. I mean, I watched Lady and the Tramp as a child for many times and the love scene with the spaghetti and the idyllic night with the candle light and the country side scenery and the couple leaning to each other – it never made any fucking sense, why would they do that, what's so great about the italian restaurant anyway, those meatballs sure look tasty – until I integrated into the relationship system and learned what it was that grown-ups get out of such scenes of romance and learned to secretly desire it myself. Even in these movies targeted to children the relationship ideal is already imposed upon the children who have no idea what it means.

So I have pretty much resented romantic gestures throughout my relationship history but also secretly craved for them. Before I began dating (age 8-15) I would have fantasies of romance all the time – and I mean all the time. As a child/teenager my most common pastime when alone or when drifting off during a boring class was daydreaming about romantic fantasies. As a younger child they had more to do with “being rescued” or other stuff that gave me a sense of security – and the older I got, the more intimacy I involved in them. The fantasies usually consisted of movie-like scenes that varied from compilations of many scenes to single moments, and they revolved around the feeling of “being special” and being loved, accepted and recognized – mostly nothing directly sexual, just emotional feelgood. These were intense energy loops that I trapped myself into for years as I craved for the pleasurable energy I got from these fantasies. Whenever I came across something in my real life that evoked an exciting romantic energy within me, I harnessed it into material for my fantasies so that the feeling would go on forever.

In my teen years I grew more cynical about relationships because of bitterness for not having any relationship experiences, and I rejected and bashed all notions of romance and love without ever stopping to realize the contrast between this behavior and my secret desire to taste all that sweetness myself. Which is what eventually happened, but even when I was experiencing all that feelgood within relationships I was unable to deal with romantic gestures – a boyfriend would bring me flowers and I would not know how to deal with it – it was as if I was expected to react a certain way and when I didn't the gesture was kinda drawn back - “if you don't give me what I was supposed to get as a counter-gift, then why did I bring you this stupid stuff at all?” (No one actually said this to me, but this is the “vibe” I got on numerous occasions.) So the gesture was not given as expression but as a bribe.

So I guess my problem dealing with these gestures was that I realized that something was expected of me but I just did not know what it was – or didn't want to validate it as I saw the dishonesty. People are somehow expected to treat each other with special gestures like this to keep each other happy and satisfied. I've been told that these gestures are to “show one's love towards the other” - to show the other that you're still committed to them – but why not live as the commitment and love in each and every moment of co-existence instead of these occasional special moments that give us the energy to tread through the rough patches? What if one were to live as love and commitment within the rough times? Would they, then, be so rough at all?

Another point is that it is common for people to base their sense of self-worth on the perception others have of you, and the validation one gets from close relationships is the most important, because finding one's self-value from within self is not really taught anywhere as we live mostly in relationships of co-dependency. So these special gestures of love within intimate relationships are “required” for one to feel like one has value, which explains a lot of the extreme reactions people go into when one's partner has not remembered to give acknowledgement in a while. The energy sustenance is required at a regular interval or otherwise one will feel like shit and believe one is not loved (or worse, blame it on the other) – never realizing all the love and acceptance one needs is HERE, constantly within ourselves.

I'll continue with the points above in specificity in the posts to come.