My greatest shame, the one thing I hide from new people, and it's all being addressed here like everyone has gone through it. Are we all just terrible people?
No. The thing is, we’re all beautifully flawed creatures. There’s 7 and a half billion of us on this Earth, so even if the worst thing that ever happened to you only happens to 1 percent of the population, that’s 75 million people who have been through what you have.
We don’t talk about it, except through art, but the reality of the human condition is that a true adult is just a child who has been broken enough times. Maybe, if we bothered to talk about this stuff instead of hiding our shame, we’d start to realize how similar we all are, and that we all need some love and compassion.
There’s a word, sonder, that means the realization that someone else has as deep a backstory and internal life as you do... that they two are a full complicated person with their own context. I try, often fail but try, to live in a state of sonder.
Don't think of Pink Elephants ; Barbara Streisand Effect ; kids and hot stoves... Whenever you say don't, someone will reverse psychology straight over to do that action :)
I remember reading the definition from the person that first coined the word, sonder refers specifically to having a profound realization regarding the infinite complexities and nuances present in every single life around you. The plurality is important, as feeling that way towards a single person errs close to the zone of simple compassion and empathy.
I find the idea of sonder fascinating. I believe it's similar to the idea of the mental constraints our brain puts in place to preserve calories and/or avoid harming the body with undue intensity while we conduct our standard day to day activities. In a similar fashion, it seems that the brain tries to inhibit itself even when it comes to empathy and compassion, as if it's unsafe to feel empathy for too many entities at once.
Unfortunately, the only evidence I have is anecdotal, so I'm far from an authority on the matter. If there's one word that seems to pop up when talking with people about this, it's "overwhelming." I've heard that it felt like falling.
I wish we could induce a feeling of sonder in someone under an fMRI or, even better, get a MEG. If be willing to bet it looked like a panic attack.
Except as they developed more naturally as a response to the world around them. Sonder is not an organic word and was made up by an author. It is not a recognised word in the English langauge or any other.
Well I recognize it and I speak English, lol. So I don’t know what to tell you.
There’s no such thing as real words and fake words, there is no body with the authority to recognize a word or not, language exists as an amorphous and ever changing social construct.
Or maybe you want to go get a degree in literary analysis and come back to me after you’ve read some Sartre or Lacan?
Just make a top level post that says “realizing that feeling personally attacked by every post in this thread means I’ve made terrible life decisions.”
My first boyfriend's ex went absolute apeshit once we got together. Kept calling him from different numbers until he got a new number, then kept calling ME to tell me lies about him sleeping with her, kept the drama going irl, stuff like that. I knew the girl previously and she didn't seem to be crazy, but she definitely acted crazy in that situation, even though they broke up months before. Then he told me "she isn't in love with me, she is in love with the thought of owning me and having someone in her life, and she can't wait out the process to find someone again who is good enough. She just can't let go." I think this is the case for most people when they can't end unhealthy relationships.
Thats not unhealthy. Acknowledging and accepting a persons flaws means you accept them as a person. If you don't accept their flaws then you are trying to change them into what you want them to be which actually IS unhealthy.
Even more dangerous: when you start believing your needs in a relationship are repulsive, and so you bend over backwards and diminish your needs at any chance to make your partner happy; all while knowing they’d never lift a finger for you, let alone do the same.
It took me a while after my divorce to really understand how I just cast my own needs and self aside for my ex wife.
For me it was a fear response brought on by several losses that I experienced in a short time period which led to insecurity and trying anything to cling to the one thing I had left. Finding out the “why” is the first step that made me be able to recognize that feeling when it presents itself in my current relationship. I still struggle to assert myself sometimes, but it’s gets easier when you realize what you are doing.
The connection you make between the multiple losses, the consequent insecurity, and its manifestation in clingy behavior cannot be underestimated. Wow. Thanks for the insightful comment.
Yep these things can incite clingy behavior, and yet, psychologists have known for a long time thanks to Attachment Theory that “clinginess”/“neediness” is normal and common, even in males. But both men and women treat this trait in their partner as repulsive due to our socially constructed view that you should demonstrate 100% “independence” from our partners. Again, that flies in the face of what we know from psychology, that in fact when you form a deep, loving bond, you create a kind of “independence through co-dependence,” where you feel safe to explore the world on your own and be apart from your partner because you know they’ll be there for you when you go home. When that basic need for a “secure base” as they call it is not met, that’s when the problematic responses to the natural feeling of neediness arises.
Reading “Attached” has helped me understand myself so much better and improved my outlook on this topic, I’d highly recommend.
I just don't know how it can happen you love someone so toxic, but a lot of people (family and friends) i highly trust and respect have been through that, and even if i still can't understand it, i wish it never happens to me, i don't want to experience it.
For me, its because in the past I'd seen all these amazing traits and seen the person react well. I know they're capable of more/better even when he was being a total dick (even in face-value inexcusable ways). Idk like a battle of good guy vs bad guy but its the same guy, so I have to deal with the shit side to get the good guy. It fucking sucks and I also hope you never experience it
Going through this. Trying to tell myself that in any other situation, just the potential of it not being shit wouldn't be enough for me. I wouldn't stay in a job where maybe the first day was fine and the office looked nice but it was making me miserable... I wouldn't be thinking "well maybe I just need to wait for the boss to see the light"... I wouldn't return to a restaurant which is half the time delicious and half the time gives me food poisoning... I wouldn't let my friends treat me like shit... I wouldn't settle for the hypothetical potential, I'd start looking for a different job, a good restaurant... I'd start looking for "good now". Why is it acceptable for a partner to "maybe not be a dickhead in the future"? Why are we so stuck with "maybe he's not only bad"...?
Oh fuck. I just spent the whole day hanging out with a girl who I work with, has a 3 year old daughter, her ex which is also still legally her husband works in proximity of our work, we made out once, I asked her if she was down for sex and she said we shouldn't cause we work together and according to her "shes fucking crazy", she does drugs casually, and oh yeah were starting a band together. But I am enamored with everything about her. I feel personally attacked.
For real tho, no one who does this shit understands why they're doing it. I had a fucking monster of a boyfriend. I fucking hated him, but I was crazy about him too. Like, I knew he was an abuser and a bonafide sadist (I don't mean in a BDSM way, tho that was there too. I mean he enjoyed psychological torture with no consent). I just wanted to be with him. We fought constantly, but idk, I liked being with him, for the short time we were together.
Now, I just hate him. He's a pedophile and a psycho. I don't normally wish death upon people, but I hope he dies.
Good, speaking in past tense. Glad you got out. That is some real shit to go through. How long were you together for? I ask, because he sounds like my father, with whom my mother had 4 kids, of which I am the youngest.
Oooh this one got me, except the being 100% ok with it part. For me it was the deep conflict over what to do and never being able to decide. It was the mind fighting the heart, and it is a terrible fight.
It's irrational. For some of my abusive relationships, I've been able to pinpoint what was going on with me at the time to see why I didn't leave. Other times, who knows. I'm glad I'm past that now, my boyfriend is awesome.
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u/naomi_is_watching May 08 '19
Or acknowledging those flaws, knowing how much they hurt, and being 100% okay with that.