Emotional Obesity

[Yasjua]

I knew a woman three years ago. She was ostracized by a lot of people. but I had space and she had content and we fit together like hand and glove.

 

As we became close I noticed that she carried a deep trauma in her. A slamming door in the evening set her off on some irrational highly emotional tirade; a passerby on the street gave her "weird vibes" where there were none; and the reactions, often powerfully negative, from those around her got me thinking: I think this woman has PTSD.

 

When I moved away she was the last person I saw, and I thought about her every day. We talked on the phone and she started telling me strange stories about being abused and yelled at and attacked in streets. I try to explain the importance of attitude to her and encountered immense, insurmountable resistance. I'm called a "victim-blamer." I distrust this side of her. The stories she tells are unreasonable, and the frequency with which she encounters negativity astounds me, as my experience in s free of threat of any sort. In my heart I blame her and feel guilty for it. I know that she is the common factor in all this pain. I continue to care and love for her and miss her.

 

Nine months ago I moved back to the city she was in. I saw her and while I was visually startled by how much weight she had gained, I still knew who she was inside and how much I loved her. She was already a little bit heavy when we met, but it was attractive on her. But the additional weight started to bother me when I touched her. No matter where I put my hands or how closely I tried to hold her, I could not feel her. I just felt fat. I had never hugged somewhat carrying so much extra weight before and it took me a few hours to figure out what was wrong: I couldn't feel her vital energy. I couldn't feel the life force that her organs would normally radiate out to me. I realized I was totally repulsed by this. I recall smelling something subtle but terrible, too.

 

I feel it's a pity and a terrible shame that I let her incubate in this negativity for so long. I had an opportunity to help her 2 years ago when things seemed to get really bad.

Edited January 1, 2015 by Yasjua

[johndoe2012]

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Edited January 9, 2015 by chris d

[sillybearhappyhoneyeater]

people's craziness drives me crazy.

 

 

Stay away, stay far away.

 

If you are interested in:

- living a happy and well adjusted life

 

ah jeez, i was going to make about ten points, but I'll just leave it at that.

 

everyone has their own issues to deal with and most of the time it is better to let people deal with them alone.

 

consider:

constant poking and prodding about what is going on in her head won't help you and it will just infuriate her.

taking crazy girls to bed, while it may be fun, is totally not worth the weirdness it causes.

I don't know how old you are, but shouldn't you be thinking about getting married and having a stable life?

Do you want a nutty fruit bat crazy lady to be the mother of your kids (who i also guess you would like to be happy).

 

beautiful speech is not honest and honest speech is not beautiful.

 

you need to deal with your own issues before taking on those of other people (this is me speaking as a person who has both been in the place you are now and has also taken on his own issues and found some answers).

 

My teacher (who is a total genius) said to me "being normal and acting according to normal social rules is the best way to live a happy life."

[thewhitetiger]

Well all I can do is offer my limited views on this.

 

It truly is NOT your responsibility to be her emotional cure. Also...she may not want you to be her emotional cure.

She has deep emotional issues from what you have explained, this will translate into your life, her energy may become your energy. This is not healthy. I would recommend strong boundaries. You can be compassionate, support her in a healthy way, yet in a relationship this may end in chaos...and make this worse. She can look for methods that can help her PTSD, but she is the one that will need to want to change.

 

Now...as for sillybearhappyhoneyeater's teacher statement of "being normal and acting according to normal social rules is the best way to live a happy life.".

 

Who's normal? What is a perfect definition of Normal? Never have I met someone who is "Normal". I have met Conformists, I have met people who heavily distract themselves from being emotionally aware by watching lots of TV, or heavy drinking, or over-eating, watching lots of sports, over-socializing (having to go out constantly from fear of being alone), those infactuated with fashion, heavy gossipers, heavy shoppers or those who over-work. I have never met someone who is "Normal".

 

What are Normal Social Rules? People who are perfectly emotionally balanced? Never met them. No idea what that person looks like. We all wear masks. All of us. It depends on what you WANT to show. Or if you are even aware that you have a mask. If we tore our masks away we would see people with no boundaries, No emotional regulating. We all wear masks in some fashion or another.

[Aetherous]

The faults we see in others are only due to obscurations in our own perception.

 

They are usually issues that we need to deal with, more than things that the outside person needs to change. The outside person is just a mirror which allows us to see things we need to work on...what needs working on are various beliefs that can mess with our true desires in life, as well as emotions that get stirred up which are unnecessary. All that drama.

 

If you don't believe anything about the behavior of your friend (such as that she is being falsely positive about her fat), and if you aren't disgusted for instance when touching her fat (which is a feeling that I'm sure you don't want), then your relationship with her is more clear and open. As for now, these things close you off from her. It will be better for the both of you if you do the inner work, rather than attempting to fix her. Then she won't feel the need for padding around you, and your confrontations of her decisions and soul. You will be a better friend, by treating her with more respect for who she is.

Everyone determines their own fate...we can't intercede without being asked to. Especially when we're asked not to...that's time to let it go. We can try to intercede, but I'm pretty sure it won't work and might actually make the person worse, when it's this type of situation. But I think, by working on what we see in "the mirror", we can elicit miraculous (indirect) changes in the outer world. The microcosm affecting the macrocosm.

 

Just some ideas. Problems with friends and family usually signify the need to contemplate deeply what our problem is.

[marcus2013]

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Edited December 28, 2014 by marcus2013

[Kubba]

Trying to fix a woman is the worse thing one can do. For a woman it is something repulsive, by the way.

 

Do you feel like "at home" with her? Is she someone familiar to you, do yo feel like in a romantic love with her?

 

Remember that we always attract our recirprocal. Don't you try to control her- how she should be?

There are a lot of women on this world

[Owledge]

I try to explain the importance of attitude to her and encounter immense, insurmountable resistance. I'm called a "victim-blamer."

Especially this part sounds like you might have made the mistake of invalidation. http://eqi.org/invalid.htm

She showed how immensely cheerful she can be (even if that might have been for trauma avoidance) and then YOU tell HER about attitude when she is not cheerful.

Edited December 30, 2014 by Owledge

[Owledge]

 

Remember that we always attract our recirprocal.

Common misconception spread by people who don't make an effort to observe and ponder.

People feel drawn to what they need to attain balance. For some that is an opposite, for others it is an equal.

 

You can also bring astrology into the matter; That would ruin that claim even more. Especially Ba Zi quite underlines my statements. I didn't need it to come to that conclusion, but it's additional confirmation.

 

EDIT: Unless someone is driven/controlled/haunted by pain and seeks even more imbalance because they have given up on healing. But when people are allowing their heart to lead the way, when they sincerely wish for healing, then it is a search for balance.

Edited January 8, 2015 by Owledge

[dust]

So I'm encountering two contradictory intuitions: 1) I feel like the only person who can really help her. We've talked so much about the special connection we have, and I feel it's a pity and a terrible shame that I let her incubate in this negativity for so long. I had an opportunity to help her 2 years ago when things seemed to get really bad. Hell, I could have been saving extra money to send her, just to let her know she's cared for and has support. I had this intuition that she'd encounter no more harm or negativity if I held space around her. She could play out her inner world within the safety of my loving consciousness instead of bumping into a bunch of energetically estranged and closed off strangers in a hostile and foreign world. Am I overestimating myself? Is this a savior complex? Will I ever find out? And 2) - the contradiction: I can't let myself get close to this being because she's self-deceiving and trapped in a complex world of trauma, pain, and mistrust that she refuses to address.

 

This is absolutely not something that I feel 'qualified' to give advice on, but I'm going to anyway.

 

I know and have known a number of people who have one or more deep and troubling issues which, were they able to resolve the issue, they would be able to live a much happier life, and offer those around them more opportunity for happiness.

 

Issues like this don't go away with a good conversation and moment of 'enlightenment'. If they can be resolved at all, it takes a lot of reflection on both the self and the 'outside' world, requiring a lot of honesty, and this is not something that can be forced, and it takes a lot of time.

 

The only one who can be responsible for resolving such issues is the person who holds them, but they surely benefit enormously in the meantime if they have people around them who care and are willing to show it.

 

My question would be, do I love her enough to stick around for the next 5, 10, or 50 years supporting her in the hope that one day she will be able to resolve this stuff and allow us to both move on? And am I willing to give up an alternative, quite possibly more free and enjoyable life, in order to risk that chance?

 

Either way, you're going to wonder "What if...?"

[Yasjua]

Thank you all very much. I've received invaluable perspective from the members of this forum.

[Yasjua]

Unhealthy friend has found herself in a hospital now, feeling "seriously not healthy." I can't say I'm not at least a little upset. But at the same time, I'm angry and aware, seeing finally through my own facade of tolerance for the level of bullshit behind this catastrophic negativity and illness. Something in me has stirred today, my face is changing, the incessant pull toward helping those who have placed themselves beyond the reach of help is thinning in intensity. The draw toward subtlely unifying with and tending to the needs of others is breaking. I have seen my fault. I have seen the harm it does me to care in this way, to move in and fulfill the imagined needs that I project upon those who are struggling and unhappy - and oh there are so many. I undoubtedly have compassion, but I have bent too much, accommodated every falsehood, allowed myself to romanticize others in their utter stupidity in hopes that such "love" would break the spell and let their potential free. Today I found a part of myself. I found how to say "enough of this shit" and "not on my watch." Somehow i've realized that I don't have to tolerate incessant illness, negativity, and ignorance. I never had to banish it from anyone else's life. I'm the one who doesn't like it. Hahhahaah. And I've been trying to get others to let go... what an irony! You were all right.

[Owledge]

Unhealthy friend has found herself in a hospital now, feeling "seriously not healthy." I can't say I'm not at least a little upset. But at the same time, I'm angry and aware, seeing finally through my own facade of tolerance for the level of bullshit behind this catastrophic negativity and illness. Something in me has stirred today, my face is changing, the incessant pull toward helping those who have placed themselves beyond the reach of help is thinning in intensity. The draw toward subtlely unifying with and tending to the needs of others is breaking. I have seen my fault. I have seen the harm it does me to care in this way, to move in and fulfill the imagined needs that I project upon those who are struggling and unhappy - and oh there are so many. I undoubtedly have compassion, but I have bent too much, accommodated every falsehood, allowed myself to romanticize others in their utter stupidity in hopes that such "love" would break the spell and let their potential free. Today I found a part of myself. I found how to say "enough of this shit" and "not on my watch." Somehow i've realized that I don't have to tolerate incessant illness, negativity, and ignorance. I never had to banish it from anyone else's life. I'm the one who doesn't like it. Hahhahaah. And I've been trying to get others to let go... what an irony! You were all right.

In rare cases someone's love can overcome these things, but you have to explore whether you can afford the luxury, whether you have what it takes.

I myself am beginning to give up on those people. I very much look at what intentions people are having in order to judge whether my efforts are wasted or not. One of the most common examples would be in Youtube comments when someone indicates that they are having a discussion with the aim of winning. Since I discuss with the aim of mutual enlightenment and search for truth, I then realize it's pointless to act within verbal warfare and leave the zealot alone.

 

Also, sometimes compassion needs to be teamed with tough love.