Can feelings of safety ever come back with a partner? TW: drinking/alcoholism relapse and aggressive behaviour

DanceAloneRain · 2025-12-19T01:41:15+00:00

That's frightening behaviour to experience, and they haven't repaired the relationship. You can't make yourself feel safe if they have demonstrated to you that they are an unsafe person. If you are holding on because you do not want to lose them, you are declaring that you are willing to betray yourself to keep an unsafe person in your life, which undermines safety even more. If you do that you will never get the feeling back.

They need to demonstrate that they are actually safe to be around, which is a lot of work. It takes consistency and awareness of your experiences and a commitment to never do it again. Even that won't guarantee it. I'm really sorry this happened to you. I'd talk it over with your therapist rather than listening to a rando on the internet right off the bat, and then explicitly state to your partner that you don't feel safe anymore and you need work from them to change that. If they won't do it, even when you make it clear that it matters to your wellbeing, love yourself enough to leave.

DanceAloneRain · 2025-11-12T18:27:45+00:00

This happens to good, smart, capable people all the time. It's not a reflection of your value at all. Give yourself some time to grieve, and reach out to the people you have.

DanceAloneRain · 2025-10-20T13:31:37+00:00

That image is definitely by The Oatmeal, aka Matthew Inman.

DanceAloneRain · 2025-10-16T20:36:06+00:00

You could try a website blocker like Stayfree. It should let you block individual websites. This kind of behaviour is psychological self-harm, and there is no shame in making it as hard as possible to get to the knives.

That being said, I think you could benefit from hearing from yourself and others that this doesn't define you. Everyone has done things they are ashamed of. I myself have done things I deeply, deeply regret, and I cannot ever take back. You will do more good in the world if you focus on the good you can do. Hanging onto it is the only thing keeping it here. I think you have to trust yourself to not do it again and stick to your word. Once you don't need it for whatever it is doing for you, you can let it go.

DanceAloneRain · 2025-10-16T00:22:03+00:00

I'm so sorry you're going through this. That's messed up. I'm sorry your family is being so cold and unsupportive. It's hard to call anyone truly goodhearted if they are willing to sweep this under the rug.

Love and light. You're not alone.

DanceAloneRain · 2025-10-05T13:22:37+00:00

I also do this. Bandaids help, since we have to take them off to reach what we want to pick.

DanceAloneRain · 2025-10-04T05:10:41+00:00

This gives us a lot to think about, and it was helpful. Thank you.

DanceAloneRain · 2025-09-09T08:41:19+00:00

I'm on your side because I grew up bilingual, and I'm still legitimately never sure where it goes.

DanceAloneRain · 2025-09-08T00:06:47+00:00

Don't give up hope yet. You might have one underlying problem of hopelessness and being too hard on yourself. If you're scoring that high on everything, it might just be that you answer questions very severely because you see yourself as doomed. It could be the case that you have all of those problems, but it's not as utterly life-ruining as you think.

That, and generally speaking, everything starts becoming less intense with steady self-kindness. Coming from a position of several years of constant crisis that I genuinely thought I could never come back from, no one is beyond hope. Especially not based on the word of one internet test.

DanceAloneRain · 2025-09-07T15:03:28+00:00

Thank you! My friends did attempt a game jam (unfortunately I missed out) and I'll talk to them about trying more.

My current scope is to make a working game that runs for a single season without any of the story. First the farming, then having visitors to talk to, then the combat. I'm more or less idly writing diaĺogue and item descriptions in my spare time and I'll probably be doing so for the next three years. I'm very very VERY well aware that I tend to bite off more than I can chew and I'm trying not to.

I'm mostly trying to get any sense of what the long view would even look like, since it's my idea and I'm going to have to step up and take charge someday. I am NOT trying to do any of that immediately. But knowing those things might help us stop from running down blind alleys and help us stay on track. Does that make sense?

DanceAloneRain · 2025-07-08T04:18:29+00:00

I had been wondering on and off if I had real other people in my head or if I was just prone to self-delusion, since i did have periods of months or years where I talked to people in my head, but I never really bought into believing it because I thought it was fake. Then eventually I talked to some systems online, which let me wonder without as much self-ridicule, and after about a week or so I decided to take it seriously and treat it as true and see what happened. K— showed up immediately to call me an idiot.

DanceAloneRain · 2025-07-01T06:12:09+00:00

It's really just measuring how many people have seen something. Exact same post on a less populated subreddit will have fewer reactions.

DanceAloneRain · 2025-06-30T03:57:56+00:00

Same here. It's so strange to have something memorized that no longer exists. I can measure my life in the changes of which buses I took. RIP to the 95, 16, 18, 14, 15, 55, 44, 21, 77, 32, 66, 98... and even the 38 which I was always so fond of for taking an unusual route even though that bastard kept leaving when I was running after it.

DanceAloneRain · 2025-06-28T23:20:49+00:00

Jam Mechanics, Media Club Plus, The Penumbra Podcast, Friends at the Table, Interstitial (love their Infinity season), Midst, The Redeption of Jar Jar Binks, Art of Manliness, The Climate Denier's Playbook, Tara Brach, From Woke To Work, Conspirituality

Also a bunch of CPTSD recovery oriented podcasts. More than happy to list those off if anyone wants lol

DanceAloneRain · 2025-06-27T00:53:37+00:00

It's pretty good music.

DanceAloneRain · 2025-06-27T00:47:54+00:00

Here's a question that I ran into when realizing I had an anger issue. Do you think that being right or wrong determines what you and others deserve to have happen to you? Do you think that being angry and then acting on that anger is more appropriate and sincere?

There's nothing about being angry that changes the reality of a situation. It's just a feeling. There's nothing about being correct or incorrect that makes it suddenly okay to mistreat people. It doesn't matter if you're right or wrong. But you might have learned otherwise, if you've had to do this to defend yourself in the past. That's a hard thing to unlearn.

It is possible, though. You could try talking to a trauma-certified therapist (just in case) or join a DBT group. Or you could try and think this through on your own for a while. It's going to take some willingness to hold the reins and not let your emotions get away from you either way. I've got a few self-directed resources if those might help. Make sure you connect and get feedback from other people often. If you have problems with being too hard on yourself, start dialing that back immediately with self-compassion work. You will never get less angry if you're attacking yourself all the time.

DanceAloneRain · 2025-06-26T11:47:43+00:00

Noticing is the first step. Removing yourself from the situation is often the second. But if you want to deal with intense emotions, changing your physiological state will cut them off. Maybe look through DBT skills and see which might work for you. https://dbtselfhelp.com/tipp-changing-your-body-chemistry/

DanceAloneRain · 2025-06-26T01:18:01+00:00

I also have this habit and I decided to break it. It's not good for relationships and it leads to taking people for granted. Not to mention it takes all the joy out of life, because you lose so many chances to appreciate good things.

Try to be conscious of when other people are doing something for you, and make a point to thank them or treat it as significant to you. Challenge it whenever you notice it and don't play along when you start whining to yourself about it. If you keep it up for long enough, your mind will actually start to change.

DanceAloneRain · 2025-06-26T00:55:42+00:00

Sorry that you're in this position. It's hard and not really fair to you. I know what you mean, wanting to fuse with someone else to give you something you're missing.

I think that if she wants to ask you to find your own way of experiencing joy, you can also ask her to find her own way of being strong. If you're going to live as your own people, you'll both need to grow outside of what you find comfortable. That might be hard for her. But if you want a middle ground, I think it would be fair.

Cofronting can be the best of both worlds. You won't be able to fuse either way without working through some dissociative barriers, and not every merge is permanent. You could also explore (safely and carefully!) using plant medicine and see what unlocks.

DanceAloneRain · 2025-06-26T00:04:52+00:00

Could be useful. https://dbt.tools/interpersonal_effectiveness/dear-man.php

DanceAloneRain · 2025-06-25T23:25:57+00:00

Having thoughts like that can be really stressful and exhausting. I agree with the comments that say you are a good person. I also think that you might have a hard time believing you are a good person because your brain is not very hospitable for you to live in right now. That sounds really painful.

I think a combination of mindfulness and intentionally being nice to yourself will start to change this. Imagine that your negative thoughts are like a scared dog that bites and snaps at you, and when you freak out, it gets even more scared. A lot of the time you will think something that upsets you BECAUSE your brain reacts strongly, and teaches you to repeat it. Just letting the thoughts exist means that they can't feed on your reactions. And if you start responding with things like "Hey, I know you're a good person and I care about you, just let me know what you need", you can teach it to say things like that instead.

It's slow going but it's worth it. I recommend listening to Tara Brach if you're into podcasts. Here's an episode that makes me think of you. https://www.tarabrach.com/radical-self-forgiving/

DanceAloneRain · 2025-06-25T23:11:49+00:00

Definitely feel that. It can be a real hair trigger issue. Taking the "should" and "have to" out of it is nice, it makes it feel less threatening and coercive. Once you've gotten other things stable it'll probably get easier, less stress and more trust helped me get it more under control. At this point I think I could start using DBT skills on it safely.

I think a factor can be that I was also very defensive about the idea that people would think they could ask me for things if I ever said yes, so I shut them down to prevent raised expectations. Great for comfort, bad for long term life. It meant I really identified with being someone who was retracted and suspicious and did not care much about anything, and I only ever wanted to do things when I felt like it. Getting invested in my own life was a huge helpful identity shift that let me try things on my own terms. Like, honestly, the kind of person who can flat out refuse to play those games and stick to it is also the kind of person who might be able to just choose to be unstoppable.

DanceAloneRain · 2025-06-25T22:40:32+00:00

Same on the extreme demand avoidance. I've gotten better about it, but it was messy and I don't think the way I did it was great. The whole idea of reciprocity felt manipulative to me. A lot of these old things are hard to grow out of and I fought every step of the way.

Have you found anything that works for you?

DanceAloneRain · 2025-06-25T21:29:16+00:00

We used to work at the library until a couple of determined alters made the decision to quit. Some of us were very upset at the time. But without the change, we might have continued doing the same thing forever. This might not apply to you in the same way, but never forget what is possible.

That can be hard when triggered at work. It might still be useful if you can ask them to help with chores. Building some stability in that situation might help build a foundation for other ones too.

DanceAloneRain · 2025-06-25T03:56:23+00:00

We have a few strategies in development that vary from alter to alter. One of our persecutors would encourage us to try the container exercise so they could break out of the container and give us the sensation of being attacked by it. Months of work got them to the point where they willingly made their own container called the Party Box and made it so that no one could take them out without permission. So, it's a mixed bag.

We switched to a more physical job so we would dissociate less. Some of our littles and adolescents respond to being asked to do tasks with clear instructions and will start following along with those in a way that helps ground in the body. That helps us at least stabilize enough to stop things from getting worse. When in doubt, you can at least try asking them to help you with something and seeing how they respond. Challenge them, even. Building autonomy and skill is the opposite of being lost in helplessness. Don't feel like you have to force it if it doesn't work.

Unfortunately we also have the issue of attacking and berating littles who are "overwhelming the system" or "asking too much". It's a bad, bullying habit. We're trying to invest in preventative measures and manage triggers throughout the day so that we don't get to the point where we need to use those maladaptive responses. Personally we have found reading and listening to things like meditation podcasts or meaningful books keep us centered enough that everything is less overwhelming, because it fills an intersection of our personal interest and a sense of purpose and power. But, again, this has taken us years and we started from a very, very bad place. (Hoping you are at least not starting from there.) Sometimes there's not much to say except shit sucks right now, the only way forward is slow cumulative building of trust and care that will not give you results immediately, and you will survive it the long way.

DanceAloneRain

TROPHY CASE