Freedomain Radio

obsession is the avoidance of legitimate suffering - bronze+, by request

http://freedomainradio.com/BOARD/media/p/208307.aspx

Very interesting conversation. Thankyou very much Stef and caller, there were certainly things in this call that I can use to look at my own life.

This one was very helpful.

I've definately had issues with obsession in "relationships" I knew were not good for me, and struggled for over a year with each of these instances. Thanks so much to the brave listener for tackling this topic and sharing... it's helped me look into and understand my own history with obsession on a deeper level.

I also want to say, from my experience, there's certainly some beautiful bright light at the end of the tunnel. In working with my own history, my mecosystem and along with those, my self-esteem, it's much less of an issue for me now. Although still really great to keep in mind when I feel myself being swept away in relation to romantic and/or sexual desires.

Excellent convo!

Hello.

Thanks to each of you for your support and feedback on this conversation I had with Stefan. It's startling to me how good it can feel to simply know someone else has listened to what you've had to say and could relate to it. So thank you from the bottom of my heart.

I'm going to provide an epilogue to this conversation, with great thanks to Stefan for helping me to see who this woman was and her behaviour from a clearer perspective. I'm going to recount the course of events that occured shortly after the conversation and how not more than thirty minutes ago I shut this woman out of my life for good. Right now I'm still shaking a little and in a state of shock from ending the "relationship" - and I can think of no better thing to do with myself at this time than to sit and share my story in the event that it could be helpful to someone.

For a couple days after the conversation I felt a considerable level of anger and resentment towards "Flo", and questioned how I could possibly continue interacting with her (private messages, poking on Facebook, sending drawings) in light of the insight I'd gained. I found it incredibly hard to stop, but I tried to hold myself back. Then last Tuesday I received a message from her telling me she was making a surprise visit to my city and wanted to stay with me. I was leveled by this message and eagerly let my guard down to enquire excitedly - in her response was the heavy allusion of us sharing my bed together... and I completely let go of the reins. I am ashamed to admit this but it's true. I reciprocated the excitement and participated in back-and-forth texting/IMing for several days afterward echoing giddy enthusiasm.

Basically I took all my inner voices, intuition, wisdom and clarity on the entire issue and shoved it under the carpet to indulge in some self-destructive, hedonistic disassociation.

She arrived last night and I did little over the entire weekend but wait for her to arrive and prepare myself and my apartment. I was conscious of how focused I was on it and it really bothered me - the only relief I obtained was from distracting myself with a movie, TV show or game. Hours before her arrival I sat and considered how inviting her into my home and continuing this nonsense was nothing short of turning a knifepoint on the both of us. But despite that...

I surprised her at the airport and seeing her I felt so ecstatic and delighted I found it hard to contain myself. We poked and prodded each other on the skytrain home giggling. I'm disgusted to consider how deep a pit my inner child had been smothered into at that time.

Today, as planned, we went on a hike in a nearby forest and soon the "dissasociative volume" faded and the desperate need for honesty bubbled up, quite naturally. I became pensive (rather than goofy) and told her I'd like to ask her some questions that I was nervous about. Clearly understanding what I meant she replied that she didn't mind as long as it was nothing "heavy." I became irritated immediately by her response but tried to hide it. I eased slowly into the topic of feelings and eventually asked her how she felt about me, if I was more than a friend. She wouldn't give me a straight answer and began telling me how she thinks it's really sad people can't just have fun together and couldn't understand people who could not remain friends when feelings ran stronger for one party more than the other. I felt even more anger now and felt panicked. I was starting to taste some of the poison in this "relationship" that I'd been dedicated to ignoring. We continued to talk about it. It became clear, as it had on other occasions, that she just did not want the same thing I did - and more importantly that she was nowhere near close to the type of person I really wanted to share a life with. Eventually, I just shut down. I think I realized what had to be done, but I was utterly terrified of doing it.

We made our way back home via bus, ran some errands, cooked some dinner - all in an awkard, rarely pierced silence. She asked me to smile at one point. I replied I couldn't. I told her I was feeling nervous (actually I was teeming with anger and trying to keep it in check) about what we'd talked about. She told me I shouldn't be... or correcting herself, that if she was me, she wouldn't be nervous. I had become sick of her.

Sitting with her at my table, mechanically eating the meal she'd prepared and unable to utter much of anything I could see no other course of action but to kick her out of my apartment immediately. I believe I was in a state of shock, and just needed her out. Part of me could not BELIEVE what I was about to do - like someone watching mouth-agape as a man sets fire to one million dollars in cash. Part of me could not BELIEVE that I'd agreed to let her stay in my apartment, and I was starting to get the sense my brain was cracking in two.

Reading my mood she asked if she should leave and I replied that it would be best. We exchanged few words afterwards as she gathered her things. Seeing this as my last opportunity to vent my anger at it's appropriate target I told her calmly that I thought she was dishonest and a liar and that this could not continue. I admitted to her I was crazy for thinking it could've gone any other way. She accusingly questioned why our relationship couldn't just remain "light" and told me I was always being too "heavy." She left.

I'll close now saying I feel relief, but empty. Sort of like, the star has just been removed from a solar system. I'll try and take things slow. Thanks for reading.

That sounds like it took alot of courage to pull off.  Trying to be honest with someone who you know will reject you for being "heavy" emotonally or philisophically is incredibly painfull.  It seems like not being around that person would be a form of withdrawal because they appeal to you so much based on your past.

yurface:

That sounds like it took alot of courage to pull off.  Trying to be honest with someone who you know will reject you for being "heavy" emotonally or philisophically is incredibly painfull.  It seems like not being around that person would be a form of withdrawal because they appeal to you so much based on your past.

Thanks for the feedback. I can't claim complete clarity on the entire event right now, but I know I did the right thing. There are several important things I did not address in that post - such as the fact that the most appropriate target for my anger is my mother. I'm also curious why I felt it necessary to be accusatory towards her, when I knew it would not resolve things any better. I also can't help but think I'm a hypocrite by calling her out as a "liar."

I'm very thankful I get to see my therapist today.

I just awoke shortly after falling asleep with a series of dreams that really struck me. I believe they're related to this situation. I'll recount them and attempt some manner of analysis...

I believe the sequence started with this dream. I am in a house. It's sort of small, not too big - it's older. It's like an old beachhouse. It's night. The house is high above the ground - looking out of the windows is a view of the earth down below lit softly by blue moonlight. I'm in a bedroom, which I leave and walk around a bit. Noone is around, but I meet someone in the living room. Or, I go there, and someone enters. It is an older woman, perhaps in her late 30's or 40's. She is strong in personality, wise and very attractive wearing glasses. She begins to talk to me. She is seducing me and I don't know it. Her words become very heavy and soft and suddenly when I realize what her intentions are (us sitting across from each in seperate chairs) she is naked before me laying across a couch. We both stand and I know I want to have sex with her. We stand close to one another, she is more than a foot taller than me, I am eye level with her breasts which I begin to kiss. There is a small noise from elsewhere in the house - I know it to be a father of some sort, or a threat to our desire to make love - she departs to deal with it. I wait in the living room.... and hearing murmurings of a conversation... begin to feel utterly terrified. I wrap my naked body in a blanket and try to hide under a table, I start to scramble... I decide to run back to the bedroom from whence I emerged... I feel great danger and pain is coming due to this woman and I trying to sleep together... I suddenly fear S**** my exgirlfriend is going to enter the bedroom at any moment and see exactly what is going on....

Next I'm leaving a house high up on the ground, like the beachhouse. Only it is winter and a massive blizzard has occured. I am with a young attractive girl who wears glasses, but I am not so much with her as following her like a dog, or a spirit. We arrive at her car parked below which is half covered in a snow drift. We begin to dig it out and I can hear her in my mind - she begins a lesson in how to dig one's car out of a snowdrift in a blizzard where I become an active participant in the digging. She enters the car on the passenger side and sits amongst the snow - she is focused on the dash. Meanwhile, in accordance with the how-to narration I hear in my head, I dig the snow out from around her - around her legs, body, around her shoes - I am digging the snow out of the car from around her body. Soon it has been sufficiently cleared and she shifts to the driver's seat and I slide in to the passenger side. I still feel I am but a spirit and she is really alone. As she throws the car into reverse I find a voice to use and ask "Hmmm, am I going to have to get out and push?".... she does not answer and we back up, and pushout through the snow without a problem. To exit the small area she was parked in we must gently push through a snowdrift wall that is "reinforced" on the outside with tall garbage containers ordered in a row that encloses the space. She gently accelerates and pushes through them into the street. We begin to drive and feel a sense of relief. I find my voice again and say "Once we start going faster all this snow will blow off us." She hears me and points to the hood in agreement, smiling, as our speed increases and the snow flies off the car and the sun has started to shine through the windshield from the horizon.

Next I am in a large bar, it is again high above the ground. The bar is packed with a large, loud inside and large outside balcony. I am alone it seems, and wandering around. I don't know what I'm doing there. I decide to approach the outdoor bar and purchase a drink. The bartender is a welldressed male in a suit. He has a serious look on his face and his preparing a tall glass of beer. I see that it is "bud light lime" which I would like. Several other males have gathered around me wanting drinks. I feel nervous about buying "bud light lime" in front of these males, thinking it will be embarassing. I finally signal to the bartender that I wish to buy the tall glass of beer he is preparing and hand him $15. He hands it to me, it is very tall and heavy. It has two massive ice cubes in it that nearly make up all of the volume in the glass. I turn around and start towards the inner bar, feeling snickers run against my back from the other men.

Another sequence occured I think... where I am texting back and forth to "Flo"... the sound of a text arriving on my phone is echoing in my brain as I awake...

So a night scene charged with sexuality that occurs in a family atmosphere, a day scene that occurs in the dead of winter where I am disembodied, followed by a night scene where I am alone and seemingly paranoid. I believe the seductress in the first dream could be a merger of a mother figure and "Flo" - part of me felt to engage in sex with this woman was wrong, but the promise of reciprocation or of being wanted was too strong to say "no." I don't understand why I became so terrified after she left... it was not that she would not return... it was fear of being exposed and spotted... of being naked and vulnerable... I wanted to smother myself and hide... disappear.

And I did in a way in the following sequence, where I was as if an invisible spirit in service of a young girl who needed to be rescued. I helped clear a path for her and rode alongside her in a direction that was not my choosing. But I felt good to be of service, and felt good when she was pleased.

Next in the bar, I am materialized again - and I'm alone amongst strangers. I feel the intense heat of judgement, and pay a lot of money for what turns out to be very little - it was like a glass of ice swimming in a few sips of beer. I'm concerned with other's opinions rather than what I want or seriously considering what I have paid for.

I've swept over the analysis very generally. I'm pretty new to dream analysis. If anyone has any feedback from reading this I welcome it.

OMG I have had this problem (OK not this one, but it's really really similar) with so many relationships... Romantic ones and even some of my "best friends" and a cousin...

For years, I strived and I strived to get them to pay attention to me, like in emails and letters and IMs and in the way I talked and appeared, the list goes on... Directing the topic of conversation to "me" always required acrobatic skill. So many times, I felt crushed when they didn't respond to my letters or return my affection. Complaints could not be resolved; I learned that they were best ignored, because either the person would redirect or just give non-response.

Some of the same people used my desire to woo them as leverage to get me to be their pet-project, so I would try on new identities and styles that they wanted from me in order to avoid their rejection. On my own, I would try to be as interesting as possible and based my whole identity around being unique. But when asked, or threatened, I let the uniqueness slip away, in deference to whatever the person thought of as important or interesting. I've been criticized and scorned as not having any depth or identity, in spite of advertising depth, brilliance and uniqueness.

Some people I've obsessed over for a good year or more, long after they dumped me. I was always obsessed with them whenever they were not there. It got to where I couldn't do my schoolwork. I spent hours at home thinking about them. I went for help, I did -- I asked adults around me for help over heartbreak. The answer was always the same in different words: ignore your feelings and move on. 

I think the worst, most grinding feeling in the world is when you're waiting and wondering and longing for the response or interaction of another person, or -- if they've left -- waiting and hoping and longing for them to return.

Bitterness has encrusted over me and left me more aloof. Bitter and aloof. I swear I don't think I can feel love for anyone as I once did for those people; perhaps it has been dried out. I'm just stiff and any tenderness I used to have, I can't feel anymore. Not since 2009. I may still have the limbs of tenderness, but they have gone numb. I don't think I try to woo people anymore. I think I gave up.

I recently talked to my parents again, and asked them things... I found out that my dad doesn't even really remember me as a young kid or even a baby ("not a clue", he says). He was always gone, at work, or riding his goddamn motorcycle. And my mom - I was always trying to run away from her. (Well I remember a lot more than that -- I remember being beaten for stuff, like being too loud in the house. Also, somewhere in here I want to put that my parents fought a lot.) Both my parents, like the caller's parents, didn't have any interest in me. I was expendable, and a liability. They only turned their attention to me when they were telling me what to do, and how much of a burden I was. Like the caller - my mom would order us kids to do chores, and herd us around through life and from babysitter to babysitter.

I've seen them change the subject and just go on and on, boringly, telling stories and advice. Evading, evading, evading. I know that if I were to pin them down, they just might "hit the eject button faster than we can see their hand move" but for now I'm getting them to pay for my therapy, so I'm not quite ready to try that hot button.

I have a problem(though I will admit to be completely biased having grown up catholic, which largely translates into licentious hedonist) accepting "legitimate suffering" as other than puritan. Though I haven't heard the podcast, I realize that this year in particular at age 24, I have quit masturbating as regularly and perhaps obsessively as a way to cope with stress/anxiety as I ever had. I have wondered about it though, whether it is directly related to having a long term ladyfriend or sexual peaking or maybe some internal subconscious growth took place and I am coming closer to the "less sexual than average" Daniel Mackler type of stage. I do notice though, I do tend to look at women more, on the street and such which strikes me as odd as i always considered that a sleazy practice and now I truly don't care.

just some observations from the inside