Honestly, he's STILL someone I don't really recognize. I keep thinking about the mixed messages. So sweet to me in person, as I was trying to work things out with him. But then once he was triggered seemingly out of nowhere, after that, the walls came up.
FWIW One of the things that I’ve learned -again- :facepalm: I had this down for yeeeeeears & then lost it :banghead: ...is that I have to get on with all the different sides of a person.
It doesn’t mean I have to
like them in asshole-mode, or isolating, or balls to wall triggered... but those aspects of them are every much as real as the happy, sweet, excited, intense sides of them, as well... so the
way in which they get angry, or isolate, or deal with triggers and stressors, etc.? Is just as important as the ways they’re happy and sweet, excited and intense. Ideally I’m going to feel neutral or better (on the spectrum of what I love-like-neutral-dislike-hate), but once we start getting into actively disliking or cannot abide some aspects of them we start crossing into deal breaker territory.
Exactly the same as when I’m dating. Some of them? Reeeeeeally dig that I’m fiercely strong and independent sometimes, and curled up in their arms keeping the world at bay other times. They get a full partner
and get to be a knight in shining armor. In proportions that suit them right down to the ground. Others? Only like one side or the other. And it’s painfully obvious, because they flat out tell me how wrong I am to be
that way, and need to fix it. Whether they’re disgusted at my moments of weakness and feel used/lied to/bait&switch’d (other people get the strong, happy, confident you & I get the disgusting mess); or want to be knights all the time, and feel hurt/rejected/unloved if I’m not leaning on them 24/7/365.
C’est moi? I’m the exact same person. Viewed very differently by 3 different people. And I’m
all of me. Not just one side or the other (and this is only one issue of many). All my facets are me. Just like all their facets are them. We cannot simply seperate out the parts of them we like, and disavow the parts we don’t like.
I’ve talked before about how one of the benefits of living/working with people who all had my brand of crazy was that it effectively took PTSD off the table. There was no “excuse” (oh, they’re symptomatic, it’s not really them). Everyone got mad. Everyone got triggered. Everyone isolated. Etc.
How they did those things was what was important. Not that they did them at all. It wasn’t like it didn’t count. Which, from observation, is a mistake sooo many supporters make... whether we’re double dipping with both of us having PTSD or are new to the disorder themselves... excusing bad behavior, behavior they would never tolerate in any other relationship (doesn’t even have to be bad behavior, just something they personally don’t gel with), attempting to “fix” or work through fundamental questions of personality. Like in the Friday Dates 3 Guys example above. I wasn’t not me during the times they didn’t like me.
If someone gets mean when they’re triggered? Or throws up walls? Or accusations? That’s not a mixed message. That’s still
them. That’s just another side to them.
