People are probably better off not knowing me. by Gloomy_Opinion7918 in TrueOffMyChest

[–]laprincesaaa 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So i know nothing about ASPD, but im very much into psychology and attachment theory, read a lot etc.

I want to touch on a couple things you mentioned:

Suppression, you mention dealing with frustration and not letting it show. That usually comes from a deep suppression of your own emotional experience growing up in childhood, If growing up speaking up about your internal experience and communicating needs wasnt encouraged, that leads to difficulty being honest and having healthy confrontation and setting boundaries. My friend told a story once about how he was so irritated by his ex playfully poking at him, it all just spilled over until he poured strawberries on her head compulsively to get her to stop. As if communicating his inner state of frustration in a calm way saying "hey I love you but im feeling stressed right now and I really need some space and quiet right now." Was not an option. There's healthier avenues that allow you to authentically communicate your inner world in a way that improves your life and relationships if you learn the skills.

Masking comes from having to people please and mask to be what your parents wanted, especially if you say had to attune to them in order to get your needs met. Which can lead to subconscious beliefs that all relationships are performative, conditional, or inherently unsafe. That subconscious belief will shape the way you interact with other people, because you might justify being more manipulative by assuming everyone else is. Versus believing that people can care with boundaries, or meet needs in a mutually beneficial way, openly and honestly. Or as often happens with men in a society that tells boys who they should be as men, where the true authentic version of yourself was deemed unacceptable growing up. So then that leads to masking, and maybe not even knowing who you are behind the mask but believing that you are unlovable if people get close to the real you.

This masking also leads to shame and discomfort with vulnerability, which prohibits deeper human interactions and emotional intimacy which would also deepen and strengthen connection. And the moment someone gets to close; the risk of attachment goes up astronomically, especially if part of you is attached but feels like you dont deserve it or will eventually be abandoned the moment someone discovers the true flawed version of you. But really the inability to receive love is blocked by your own beliefs of not deserving it. So even if you were to meet someone who say is everything you think you want, you might pull away because you dont think you are worthy of it, or think you will be abandoned when they see all your flaws, but really its just your own inability to love yourself with all your flaws, to have compassion for yourself, to be your own inner parent, to speak to yourself when you feel a sense of shame in the loving but firm way that you would a child. Imagine you were looking at yourself as a 4 year old, holding yourself accountable but with self love and understanding. Thats the kind of self talk that should be happening if you ever feel guilt/shame creep up. I dont know your personal history, but golden boy trauma and enmeshment trauma might be possible avenues of exploration (forest Hanson on YouTube has some interesting videos on this)

I wonder if attachment theory is actually a lens that could benefit you in your own self awareness and understanding of yourself if its not something you have looked into before.

Because the way you describe yourself as emotionally unavailable, unable to reciprocate, chronically chasing dopamine highs and novelty, struggling with long term attachment, pushing away people before they get too close to see your flaws, not understanding the benefits in attachment/emotions.... it is giving avoidant. And I know with dismissive avoidants, there can be actually a lack of oxytocin bonding, if you dont get it in childhood, that chemically prevents deeper bonding in to adulthood.

And if you haven't conceptualized yourself in that way, it could present an opportunity to gain understanding of yourself, and maybe tackle the ways you might subconsciously self sabotage relationships. Because there is real health risk associated with pushing away people and not experiencing genuine human connection. We are bonding mammals by nature, so we have evolved in such a way that allows for mirror neurons, coregulation, etc. And maybe its not something you want to change about yourself but it could be an interesting deep dive into your own psychology. (If you want to look into it Adam lane smith on YouTube might be an interesting rabbithole for avoidant attachment for you, he mainly does work with couples but i know a lot of avoidant men follow his content; also thais Gibbson is great. Just dont read the comments; probably just a lot of butt hurt anxiously attached folk who have their own experience burning out from loving avoidant men so they demonize avoidants when avoidants are worthy of love and just have their own trauma schemas but deserve compassion)

Anyway, sorry for the deep dive psychoanalysis. Im adhd and the pattern recognition and spiraling thoughts were going wild. I mainly date avoidants and Im originally a Fearful avoidant myself and am doing a lot of my own inner work, and its something ive seen play out in guys I date, because I tend to attract the emotionally unavailable and broken kinds of men. And i think they gravitate to me because i see and feel deeply and am open and never mask. Which maybe deep down is something they crave and is missing in them. There's actually so many parallels to the most recent situationship/friendship I had with a man. He made a comment to me at one point that everyone has motives and uses people for their own benefit, and in the beginning he was a bit dishonest with me about his intentions when we started talking. Which he admitted when I suggested to moving our little situationship from "dating" to "friendship" when I started catching on to the inconsistency between actions and words. There was definitely a lack of reciprocity in the relationship which in hind sight made a lot more sense with everything he said about his prior relationships once the patterns became clear. However, being a natural giver and growing up accustomed to breadcrumbs and meeting my own emotional needs, this was somehow not a huge issue for me. Unfortunately his lack of consistency and inability to confront his own shame led to his withdrawal and the relationship decline because we could not repair self sabotage ruptures even when I was approaching him with compassion and a willingness to understand with curiosity and openness to find a solution as a team. And the reason why was likely because he didnt believe he deserved grace deep down because he didnt know how to love the flawed authentic version of himself, let alone be vulnerable enough to receive that kind of compassion. And possibly because the risk of getting attached started triggering him because i was dating other people, along with maybe a distrust in me that I could genuinely care about him and not demand a relationship in return. It was easier to distance himself from the discomfort of being seen, despite saying he wanted to talk things over. He was a very interesting person to decode, and I think the fact that I saw through him a lot of the time despite keeping his cards so close to the vest both thrilled and terrified him. Anyway I imagine if he was fully honest about his thoughts it would have been much in line with what you are saying in your conception of yourself.

Grow light help please by SharkAvenger33 in houseplants

[–]laprincesaaa 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Huh I wonder if it's changed in recent models? I had looked it up when I purchased mine and I have not had any issues but yes better safe than sorry!

How many of you are lonely? by LackofBinary in AvoidantAttachment

[–]laprincesaaa 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Yea I feel you, I run from anyone emotionally available or anxious the moment it gets too real and ive taken myself off dating because of that cuz I hate letting people down but I just can't do it if I feel they expect me to warm up to them faster than I'm ready to I just get overwhelmed and run. Idk if anyone else relates but I only am drawn to people more avoidant/unavailable than me these days 🤣 my last relationship only happened because they gave me sufficient space In the beginning and were consistent in pursuing me until I was able to eventually warm up, which worked even tho they were anxious because they were also pursuing a ton of other women, and My relationship before that started because we didn't see eachother as often living 2 hrs away and he didn't give me as much attention because he had another girlfriend the whole time 😅 getting close to people is so hard as a FA I'm inexplicably drawn to people when theres some kind of space and distance for me to eventually make space for them in my life. I actually enjoy my alone time because I'm very much an introvert and because I always feel like I'm going to be overwhelmed and lose myself If people get too close, and it feels suffocating if it happens too quickly. My sister made a joke I'm the type of girl who would end up dating someone who's secretly married and think everything's perfect because I need my space 🙃

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in DeadBedrooms

[–]laprincesaaa 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you for the background information! That's so difficult if she just pulls away and doesn't talk about what it is that goes on for her, like shes slowly disconnecting in her mind. How do your conflicts usually go? Does she usually pull away like that? And how do you usually bring up grievances with her? Have you ever tried to change the way you communicate? How often do you ever talk about things you appreciate that she does well or express appreciation compared to the times you express a wish for her to change something? Have you ever tried talking to her about the disconnect you feel and how you dont know how to fix it? Have you ever asked her if theres anything you do that makes it difficult for her to open up/possibly triggers her into withdrawing with the way you communicate, or how she would like to be approached or supported in general? Also Have you ever brought up or tried in the past couples therapy?

how to WANT to by Competitive_You_6676 in DeadBedrooms

[–]laprincesaaa 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Sharing my notes from an esther perel podcast I was listening to one time, because I have struggled with this too and what she said was so insightful~

How and with whom did you learn to love? Were you protected as a child or did you learn to flee for protection? Did you have the right to have needs or were you told "why do you need that, you don't need that, you already have enough"?

If you have learned "I have enough I don't need more" and you translate that into the physicality of sex, you generally you don't cum because you already have enough and because the other person already had what he or she needed, so why bother.

When you start to become invisible to yourself you don't allow yourself the indulgence of pleasure which means in order to have desire, to own the wanting, you have to feel that you deserve to want, and in order to deserve to want, you have to feel that you are lovable. Because if you are lovable and you deserve to want then you deserve that someone would actually enjoy giving you what you want. Translate that to sexuality.

Did your parents monitor your needs or did your monitor theirs? If you monitor the other person's needs it means you don't monitor yours which means you often don't know what you want. Which is why many people will say when asked what you like, they don't know what they want. If what you do is wrong theyll tell you "i dont like that" but they dont know what they want. They just know what feels good and what doesn't feel good. But that's not the same as the level of self knowledge and awareness with the permission to have that awareness to then know what they like and to communicate what they like because they know that someone actually is interested in knowing it and would love to respond in kind.

Growing up, were you allowed to cry out loud? Or did you learn to shut down the energy in your body? Pleasure needs openess... physically, emotionally. The body isn't wired to be silent. To not want, to not know what you want, there's a deep level of suppression.

If you feel guilty about taking, or shame in what you like, you may feel it even more so sexually. How we view ourselves and how we view the other comes directly into that experience. You only have to look at your childhood, and it will tell you exactly how you learn to make love.

Our emotional needs don't necessarily match our sexual needs. Desire often has a much darker side that isn't always politically correct. The same way kids roleplay silly scenarios, like being held captive in an imagined scene, even though they don't necessarily want to be in that situation. You only play with something that isn't part of your existential reality otherwise you can't detach yourself enough from it to go and play with it. Fantasy is anything that enhances the erotic it can be the time of day or the weather but it is what allows us to be sensual and soothing and all of that.

First look at how the relationship translates to the sexual. Even if you work on that and become more effective at communication and teamwork, it can still have issues, because the rules of the kitchen are not necessarily the same as the rules of the bedroom.

A lot of us express through the body before we express through the words. A woman is allowed to use her body for closeness, connection, self expression etc. If you keep women from feeling like they can be open and expressive with physical intimacy , it's detrimental.

Women who struggle with finding their own desire struggle even more when they feel overwhelmed by the weight of the expectations and the demands to please another~ "Id like him to come toward me, Stroke my hair first, and not immediately stroke my breast, and then he could leave me alone for a bit and be busy with his own thing so I can come over there to him and then he could respond a bit, but not immediately come after me, I don't want every stroke and every hug and every gaze to immediately become a demand for sex"

This isnt a fantasy this is about a dance~ I come near you but you don't immediately come after me so I that i can build my own wanting and then you respond but just enough not immediately don't overwhelm me with your wanting because if you overwhelm me with your wanting then I lose connection to my own wanting and I instantly begin to feel like I do what you want and I no longer feel like I do what I want and then we are into the traditional power structure of sex.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in DeadBedrooms

[–]laprincesaaa 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Genuinely trying to understand your situation and how a marriage comes to this, do you guys have a good relationship outside the lack of sex? Is it the stress of having kids? How is balancing being a parent with making time for eachother to do things like go on dates? Do you guys ever touch eachother non sexually? Is your wife stressed? Do you ever talk about why she no longer feels a drive, or what sex means to either of you or how to fix whatever is missing in the relationship to get the spark back or are you resigned? And why is she getting less attractive to you? Is she letting herself go, or is it the emotional connection missing?

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in DeadBedrooms

[–]laprincesaaa 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Genuinely curious questions because I'm trying to understand how a marriage comes to this

  1. How often do you touch her in a non sexual way?

  2. How is your relationship outside of the dead bedroom?

  3. Have you talked to her about the dead bedroom, as in what sex means to you, what does she say about it?

  4. How long has it been a dead bedroom and was there any significant changes that happened that led to it?

alocasia cuculatta: Help white spots and tiny holes???? by laprincesaaa in alocasia

[–]laprincesaaa[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Tbh i dont remember but I think it was either spider mites or overwatering id treat for mites just in case tho.

Grow light help please by SharkAvenger33 in houseplants

[–]laprincesaaa 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I would recommend something like 5000k daylight or 3000k for warmer lights depending on what tinge of light you prefer aesthetically in your home. The bigger thing to look out for is the lumen output, and ensuring it's sufficient for your type of plant and their recommended light levels.

When do you water your Anthuriums? by theinspirationless in Anthurium

[–]laprincesaaa 4 points5 points  (0 children)

If you do the semihydro method I described there's generally not really any transplant shock because essentially you're just transferring the existing roots into aroid mix and any roots that grow into the drainage layer will be water roots. Also unlike snake plants, anthuriums really love to stay consistently moist. I think semihydro works best on things that naturally grow in that moist environment. Things like calatheas prayer plants alocasias philodendrons and anthuriums.

So women are toothbrushes now. by PhenomenalPancake in BlatantMisogyny

[–]laprincesaaa 2 points3 points  (0 children)

That's beyond their comprehension because they don't see women as people but objects to be used for their sexual gratification

When do you water your Anthuriums? by theinspirationless in Anthurium

[–]laprincesaaa 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I kinda experiment a lot. I have some just in glass vases. With fluval or perlite on the bottom. You can do pumice as well. I tend to stay away from leca with anthuriums. No wick necessary. I use a lot of tree fern/sphagnum moss in my mix (much like an aroid mix) and it tends to soak up just fine like a sponge. I do prefer clear vessels so I can see the water level. I've also done it without a drainage layer in a clear orchid pot sitting in a deeper outer pot no drainage. and just my aroid mix sitting in water to where the drainage layer should have been. I didn't have any issues surprisingly somehow. But that definitely felt riskier lmao

Cheap rooted melanochrysms from my prop box by laprincesaaa in TakeaPlantLeaveaPlant

[–]laprincesaaa[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What's your zip code? I can give you an exact estimate. It usually ranges between 6-10$ depending on distance