u/Connect-Teaching7629

Why? Because I do not fit their mold.

She doesn’t pause to think that she married into our family and for some reason (her husband) feels like she has the right to speak to me like this. I’m a man. My brother is a man. His wife is a woman. His wife married into our family. His wife has the audacity to define my life.

Obviously, she’s getting the ideas from my POS brother, but she doesn’t reflect on this yet.

She called me, with good conscience and insight into the topic: a ”narcissist”. Entirely because I’ve grown into basically being NC and focusing on myself and on people that aren’t them.

Her husband dresses up in three-pieces and talks trash about everyone. His younger brother was suicidal at age 12. We’ve made it this far. I’ve become independent. For some reason, she feels bad about this and now this makes me, in perfect conscience, ”a narcissist”.

The word doesn’t mean anything to me anymore.

Love is the symptom. They become our safety from the fear underneath, so we love them for it.

If you close your eyes and observe how you'd feel if you'd actually let go of them, is fear the first thing that comes to mind?

That fear is what put you in limerence.

Emotions come and go, often by the minute. Memories fade into obscurity, often over days. Logic can be forgotten with time. The only thing that never forgets is the nervous system. It takes care of survival and you don't simply forget about life-threatening threats, they linger every minute of every day, and you don't relax until you know your safe. Limerence is an attempt at acquiring that safety.

To cure it, obviously, you need to want to face the fear. To want to face it, you need to know how you face fears. If you're unable to, you rarely want to face them, and you much rather feel limerence because it feels safe.

I'm hearing conflicting takes and GPT tells me it's outdated in favor of email and phone numbers. I do not collect these things, but I do collect IP and User Agents. GPT says these things are being phased out by Google.

What do you guys do? Should one or should one not upload IP and User Agents to Google's Enhanced Conversions?

I'll keep the story short but hopefully it makes sense why I struggled. She probably had a similar problem, which is why she never asked me out outright.

1. Girl was interested in me for almost two years.
2. I didn't reciprocate because a) I didn't really know it was her, just someone and b) I wasn't interested in relationships anyway
3. One day, I end up alone with her thanks to her friends, I realize with hindsight it was a set up
4. She tried making a move but it was aggressive and sudden and up to this point, I was utterly clueless, stranger made an aggressive move on me basically
5. I flinched back aggressively and she took it as a rejection
6. Tense moment where neither had any words, she felt rejected, I felt like a loser, not sure if I should apologize, make out with her or what to do, finally she had enough and told me to gtfo, lost all interest
7. I go home and ruminate about all the times her friends made hints over the past years
8. She was looking for a husband and was serious
9. I feel increasingly pathetic and develop feelings for her, thinking about all the moments, and I develop some fantasy where we laugh all this off
10. I make 6 different (direct and indirect) attempts at reaching out to her, but she ghosts all of them. First I try seeing her in person, but she ghosts. Then I call, but she ghosts. Then I leave a message, but get nothing back. A few weeks later, I figure I'll just speak to her friend and clear my conscience, apologize and let go of the guilt, but her friend pretends like she doesn't know who I am, which absolutely confused me. 3 weeks of being unable to let it go, I make one final attempt, where I compel a yes/no rejection so I can move on, but by now she's moved on and acts like she doesn't know why I'm seeking her out.
11. I decide it's enough and to just accept the L. Two days pass, and she walks past me on the street not even looking at me. Two weeks later, she does it again, near my work. The next week, I make one final attempt at calling (for something unrelated) and I get a call back by her friend with an attitude.
12. Now I'm just upset and accept there was utterly nothing here then.
13. A few months later, I realize they've been laughing and continue to laugh at me. She had someone else ready and is scheduled to get married in a few months before a milestone age. I feel like I belong in the psychward for how I feel. I see them outside my work once every other month, talking loudly and grabbing attention, reminding me about them.

It's now been a while, and I don't know what I'm going through.

I want to say I was rejected, but I did try to demand a rejection. I just didn't get any. I was stuck in limbo, rejected indirectly and then even mocked. After years of supposed interest.

Obviously I want to say I was rejected but I just don't know how to move on from this. They can appear outside my work at any time. They are married now. I feel like the biggest loser in the planet, yet I refuse to move or change my routine because they came into my life, not the other way around. I was caught off guard each time and I chased them because of a guilty conscience. Now they are married and I feel like filth.

How do you reframe a rejection like this without becoming bitter and resentful? I've tried logic but no amount of logic seems to help. I think I've developed "limerence" and I don't know how to let it go.

2,5 years ago, before I knew what OCD was, I invested in a story I knew I would never let go of unless I got reassurance.

Well, the person chose not to give me any. I tried a few times, but they ghosted and avoided.

On month 3, I decided I was going too far and that I needed to get over it by myself. During that year, they appeared in random places, probably out of their own curiosity. These incidents only kept the story alive for longer.

For 1 year, I waited for the next time I'd bump into them, while reminding myself about how I felt about everything on month 3: I knew it had gone too far, I knew I had tried seeking reassurance, I knew they didn't give it, and I knew all of this afterwards is just games that is fucking with my head for longer.

By the end of the year, I realized I had a problem, and I finally sought help and learned about OCD.

It's now been 2,5 years. From the very first moment this started, I intuitively felt that I was at a crossroads: follow the uncertainty potentially into the abyss or perform rituals to reframe it. I chose the former and I haven't been able to let it go still.

I've developed limerence. I still imagine conversations with the person. I wonder how they are doing. I imagine living together with them. I know it all fake and in my head, and I remind myself that they aren't thinking about me, but then the what-if's begin.

No matter how mindful and accepting I am, the depression behind the thoughts keep coming back. Ultimately, it boils down to an inability to accept that I lost the person. Why I can't accept it, I haven't been able to figure out.

How do I actually move on here?

tl;dr:
Stuck in a story for 2,5 years despite being patient, mindful and accepting of the thoughts, the thoughts cause depression and they're rooted in an inability to accept having lost the person, I'm NC because their behavior was unacceptable to me at the time and they work(ed potentially) near me, how do I actually move on?

They don't even know it.

They didn't set out with this expressed goal but when you entered their life, they had already repeated this process with other people.

Once you've been used to dump others, you become a nuisance, and they look forward to dumping you too, obviously with a clean conscience.

Often, kids are viewed as a tool to draw a boundary with the previous people they wanted to dump. That is why they rarely love their kids, rather they view them as tools to prove themselves to other people.

It boils down to suppressed rejection in childhood. You can go a lifetime repeating this behavior.

Edit:

Normal questions that confuse victims existentially: "But I'm good, I'm attractive, I was a very fun person, I was amazing ..." and these things are all true but do you love good, beautiful and fun actresses? You might not. You might idealize them. You are amazing but they weren't thinking about love, they were surviving existentially. When they dump their kids, that will trigger the same existential psychology in the kids. That is how the cycle repeats.

Edit 2:

Think of it this way, by the time you met them, they were already adults. If you had met them when they were kids, you might've not been attracted to them.

I’m currently trying to sleep sitting up. I have an appointment on the 11th and hope to get the CPAP shortly after. The past week has been hell.

Can CPAP even help me? I don’t know how it would help with collapse in the back of my throat?

I was caught off guard but they were riffing, as they always are, and started talking about someone else's behavior as "narcissistic abuse". I just stared, like b**** you are the narcissist here, everything always have to be around you. But I didn't say anything, of course, and I just bottled it up. Now I'm confused.

So now they're walking around talking about narcissistic abuse and it feels like the power of that word is being stripped away.

Have they ever used that term around you? What do you feel about it?

As I've been going to therapy for this, I'm starting to notice my behavior and how people react to it. A year ago, I met a barista whom I fawned over very heavily. I slurred on words and such. After that interaction, I stopped going for four weeks but I still walked past the place. Finally, I entered one time, and she gave me an attitude like I had rejected her. This sent my fawning into overdrive.

Another instance, more recently, same thing. Barista -> Fawning -> I start resenting the place. Unlike the previous person, this person got annoyed with my behavior, so when I stopped going it was a mutual relief.

This made me wonder. I've had plenty of interactions with different reactions but this contrast was basically 1:1, two cafe workers in similar situations.

Some people seem to like fawners. Are such people generally toxic themselves?

When you have CPTSD, it's hard to make a good assessment because you are preoccupied with our own issues.

I've had issues with fawning but I've never felt the PTSD come back from something like this.

I went into a store that I'm a regular at. There is an awkward guy there whom I always have stale interactions with. This time, I was kind of happy to see him, because the last time I visited we talked briefly. He had his back turned, so I proceeded along, but when he turned we greeted, and for some reason I started fawning my ass off.

I have no idea why. I said his name out loud, like he was the President, and I just fawned. My stress increased and I was on life support during the whole interaction despite him being the awkward one before this and after the interaction concluded I was utterly destroyed. He seemed normal and I seemed like a clown.

I had a very calm day. Very calm week. Very productive month. I just entered the store as always, saw him, fawned my ass off and now I'm stressed out of my mind. I haven't fawned before someone this way in many months, maybe even half a year.

I even offered my time and energy to help the guy out with something he didn't even ask for. I have no idea why. Now I'm stressing over if he takes me up on it. His coworker just stared at me and then him like "what is going on right now".

I have no idea how to proceed from here. I have no idea what happened and my adrenaline is going through the roof now. I feel a compulsion to go back and present my "calm, normal self" and maybe address today as "I was stressed" or something. I know enough not to follow compulsions though. I don't know what to do?

What is going on with me and what should I do?

It could be resentment towards a family member, bitterness from a breakup, divorce or rejection, anything. Have you ever thought about someone obsessively and finally let it go using mindfulness?

Why do I want her to want me again, despite not wanting a relationship with her? Why do I want to ”fix it”?