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Hypervigilance To Limerence; Echoes Of The Past

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JupiterTaco
Posts: 5666
Joined: Sun Jun 28, 2015 6:12 pm
United States of America

Hypervigilance To Limerence; Echoes Of The Past

Post by JupiterTaco »

PART 1

So things have improved quite a bit for me all of a sudden. Hell froze over and not only did I finally get a job, but it’s a good one. I’m a dispatcher for a major mountain shuttle in my hometown and even though I don’t know if I want to do it for the rest of my life, I don’t hate it either. I really like it actually. I’m really quite relieved that not only did I get a job that could afford me to live here if I decide to stay, but I also have the nice perk of snowboarding and rafting for free with their affiliates at one resort if I so choose and I work for a company that seems to value their workers.

Sure, they have more than their share of problems; the office is new and the technology is temperamental on the best of days; there isn’t nearly enough help to do everything that needs to be done on dispatching or really anywhere else. And like every company, there are people I’ve discovered I have to be careful around.

But I feel comfortable saying that so far, it’s a good company. I don’t say this too loud nor do I get too attached to this job for two reasons; one is that I know from many experiences how fast things can change and that it often takes awhile to see people take off their masks while they’re trying to impress somebody.

The other reason is that despite that it’s a good job and I may or may not do it for the rest of my career, I’m not going to do just that. I’m going to invest in real estate, I’m going to learn to trade stocks and crypto and I’m going to find a way to teach others the same things for free, particularly the disadvantaged because I feel it’s a long-overdue public service that certain people have been getting rich off of charging to teach, and I’m going to get hard at work helping the disadvantaged turn their lives around.

Nevertheless between the constant negativity from my mother and the fact that my full-time job and the sucky commute takes so much of my time, I have noticed a tendency to find myself slipping back into old patterns at times; dissociating out of nowhere; giving in to compulsive thoughts of various kinds and letting what others do get to me; not nearly as bad as before and I can see it for what it is and stop it but it still happens; but the worst I would think is that I’ve apparently developed a mild crush on a coworker.

A driver who started in orientation with me, who is probably easily ten or more years younger than me and a real sweetheart, well it’s not hard to see why someone would be attracted to that. So even though I tried to keep it to myself that he was affecting me a bit one night while we were talking about the alarm system and laughing (I’ll talk about it all later), it’s possible it might’ve gotten through, but rather than kick myself about it,

I just tell myself, it’s not how I feel that matters. It’s whether or not I act on it and how. Which I don’t plan to. However I fear that may not be enough if past experiences are any indication regardless of my personal growth. Aside from that I don’t know this kid (and to me he’s a kid) I have no intention of dating a coworker and especially not one that kind of, sort of answers to me at times in some form. I don’t even want to think about it, or the sort of power imbalance this implies. And really even if things were to go that way, I’d never be able to get past that, having been on the wrong side of predatory people many, many times at this point. There’s a certain awkwardness and fear that comes from being hit on by someone in a position of power over you, even if you may like the person, and even if they may mean no actual harm which I kind of went through with my former favorite manager at one job who was involved with someone else, who hid it for a long time, acted as if he were single and who helped me with my bullying situation at work. Months later I’d met his wife, whom he’d never mentioned. He never did anything to make me truly uncomfortable, it was just awkward because I felt I did become sort of a work-spouse toward him and the icky feeling it gave me at times because I knew and liked his wife also. So I understand.

I do not want that kind of liability in my life and I couldn’t live with myself if I did something to hurt someone like that. I would want him and everybody else to know that they can trust me to be fair, equal, helpful and work my best to not get carried away with any emotions I might feel.
Did I mention he’s practically a kid? Yeah, that’s important. So no, I just try to think of how he would feel if he really weren’t interested and he couldn’t ignore that some older woman is attracted to him and trying to hide it. I’ve thought that he could do these things he does with everybody, I have no idea and really don’t care.

He could be trying to butter up a dispatcher but he’s a good worker so I don’t think that’s the case; or he could be trying to distract himself but again I don’t think that’s the case. And whether or not he is really doesn’t matter. Because I know that for myself, being attracted to him doesn’t mean anything.

With all of the self-exploration I’ve had over the years, I’ve found that aside from everything else I learned from this forum about how limerence develops, I know that for me, there are many more aspects to it. That I still have a pretty sizeable fear of intimacy and I understand now that past limerence was a part of me that unconsciously thought somebody was supposed to make me feel comfortable enough to be intimate with them after much of my many types of trauma. I know now that nobody is responsible for that but me. Nobody healthy would want to coerce somebody into an intimacy they’re not comfortable with, and a healthy person would back off and leave you to it and that’s how it should be. People want to know that people find them attractive. How would it make someone feel to stay with someone until they’re comfortable being with them?

I also know that my closeted bisexual, non-binary self needed to be seen as straight for so many years likely because I was aware inside that my potential sexual orientation was a subject of some debate for quite some time even to those who supposedly loved me and it was inner shame. I was certain that I would never be involved with men again once I realized that much of my attraction to them in the past was based on unconscious wounds from my father and stepfather and even my mother; and to tell my family that there was somebody of societal expectation who loves me for me and proved everybody wrong and almost nothing else. It was so strange when I could look at that years later and realize I really don’t know what I need men for and living in the city where I lived for four years, it was easy to at least notice out and queer people and my interest in straight men pretty much waned in a queer-friendly city.

What happened then was that I started finding the same people in the bodies of the same gender, and even a trans person, my former neighbor whom I’ve talked about but I digress. I may or may not have talked about this, but while the people I tend to become limerent over are generally shy, quiet types, I in turn seem to attract really outgoing types precisely like this young man M and my former neighbor J and a few exes. People I’m not compatible with. I’m never sure if I could become limerent for these types but for whatever reason I treat them like I could and take special care to put distance between me and people like this because of the memory of my first best friend who was much the same way and discarded me so brutally in a way that affected much of my early school years, which I’ve touched on in past posts.

So this is a pattern that I’ve already noticed. I’ve been unable as of yet to figure out exactly why outgoing types seem so attracted to me when we’re so fundamentally different, except possibly the whole shadow yin-yang thing or possibly just boredom, but then like I said, I’d have to question the intensity that’s come from some of these people over years.

I know that as a child, I was very outgoing and happy despite my often-grim circumstances. This child was basically beaten out of me by bigger people figuratively and literally who had a serious interest in ensuring that I wasn’t happy if they weren’t happy and that I didn’t get too big for my britches and ever establish a support system that could’ve helped me see my “family” and toxic “friends” for who they really were, but I digress.

That child is buried deep inside of me and even if I’d had a chance to bring her back, it’s overrun by a general mistrust of people that I try my best to hide but is still there and I don’t know how anybody would not be able to tell. I have no idea how I could get past that after all I’ve been through over years.

But I know that I’m not emotionally compatible with people like this. It doesn’t make anybody a bad person, it’s just reality. Which is why I was so mystified when my former neighbor J who was very much like that, who seemed not to struggle at all finding new supply, couldn’t seem to just let me be. It got really, really bad. I’m already seeing mild echoes of that in this new young man coworker and I would have to explain.

But I don’t want to start off thinking someone else who shares a mild characteristic with my former neighbor is just like her or that anything is going to turn out like that. How would that be fair? So I’ll just stick with that we’re coworkers, far apart in age and incompatible as the main reasons I just don’t want to go there. But I know it’s a fear that it could happen, either on my side or on his, and I lost a lot because of the J situation that I can say I handled the best that I could with my knowledge at the time. I don’t want a repeat of that but I was forced to really look at how I came across to people after that situation. In this case, I’m 100 percent sure that I’ve done nothing to attract this or give this guy any idea that I’m interested in him as I didn’t notice or take him seriously in orientation. He’s the one seeking me out, touching me, complimenting me, among other things, etc. and it’s been that way since we both started around a month ago.

Just to get it out there, I really just don’t want to have to worry about pregnancy, with any man. I really just want to get the hell to menopause and be done with this summer chicken bullshit and periods and all that crap I don’t want to think about and that my mild gender dysphoria had trouble with over years but which I never acknowledged. So that part was easy when I had decided in my mind to just be done with men quite some time ago.

I can say that as of right now, I don’t consider myself transgender; that I’ve accepted that there are two genders of energy inside of me wrapped in a female body and that’s fine. Having accepted that, I’ve begun to embrace feminity much better than I used to but I understand that growth can happen pretty suddenly for me and that could change at some point. I just don’t think it will, as I would think I would’ve felt that way for my whole life or at least a long time if that were the case, but it’s something I do keep in mind with a potential straight male partner or a potential lesbian partner who hypothetically likes me as they see me.

But back to the story, I can’t guarantee that I can give somebody else the intimacy that they may want, so why would I imply that I can? Aside from that, just like my C-PTSD wounds, I have to remind myself that nothing is permanent, no matter how permanent it feels in the moment. I’m going to do great things in this world. I need to focus on that.

Once I remind myself of this and force myself to do what I can to put it all into action, it is so much easier not to even think about this guy who I probably have nothing in common with. So all the things that were definite red flags in my life regarding potential limerence; that I have some power over this young man; that my job requires me to keep track of him while we’re both working; and that we often end up alone together at night before leaving; are not deal-breakers one might have thought they are. I just have to keep everything in perspective.

And while we’re on the subject of coercion, I have another situation in my life. This other guy who lives in the city and apartment building I left, is a good friend and I care about him a lot. He wants more, and at one point I considered us a couple because he was there for me when I was living in my car. He was the only one who knew I was in that situation and I was very honest with him about everything I’d been through before he moved into that building before I moved out.

So when I first came back to Colorado last spring and he was such a source of emotional support for so long, I didn’t hesitate to call him my boyfriend. Until after my mother broke her foot. Then that situation conflicted with our time together, and then we ended up getting into it because he freaked out when I told him I get cold sores occasionally after freaking out that I couldn’t give him as much of my time because of being thrust suddenly into the role of caregiver but moving on.

My mom’s cousin gave my brother and I herpes simplex as young children by kissing our faces. Nobody knew what it was back then, and though I can remember being a lot less accepting of being touched by people I don’t know, and getting shamed for it as a young child, it saved me in that unlike my brother, who for years almost always had a cold sore, I get one at most every two or so years, maybe even less anymore. Well that and that in this case I was a girl but obviously it still happened. Which is one of my many inner sources of shame and one more reason I know I preferred to avoid getting to the safe sex talk with another person for years.

My brief ex/friend D, who’d literally just told me the day before that conversation that it would probably be until November or later of that year until we could see each other, he acted like we’d almost fallen into bed together the way he freaked out after I told him. I got weirded out and probably triggered and blocked him. Then he started calling from spam numbers and probably phones he borrowed for a literal week, until finally I relented and let him back in my life. We agreed to be friends but he said he wanted more and endlessly continues to try to go back to where we left off but I can’t seem to find the feelings and I know a big issue is after what happened last summer. Plus I know that the same issue will rearise and I just have to remember that.

And really I felt bad, because I’d meant to tell him. It was just that we were still getting to know each other and I figured I had a lot of time. I’ve never told anybody I have that, but to be fair I’d never gotten that far in a relationship anyway.
We met right before I moved out of that building I lived in, and he kept in touch with me and I was honest about what I’d been through with my other former neighbors and the landlord before he’d moved in there. My neighbor J and my other stalker neighbor C both moved out the month before this guy moved in. When one of J’s flying monkeys, the newest manager caused me to decide to break my lease and I moved into my car, we still barely knew each other but another memory of this friend of mine was of him spending all day on Christmas Day that year banging on my door, leaving notes under my door and otherwise freaking me out as I tried to enjoy my own holiday alone with my new Christmas playlist.

When he kept texting me when I was living in my car and asking me how I was doing, I relaxed a little with him but I know that memory stayed with me. When I came back we kept texting and talking on the phone. Since then, I’ve literally lost track of how many times I’ve tried to explain that a phone relationship does not make a relationship. I have nothing against long-distance relationships but I can admit that for them to work, somebody has to have the means to be able to encourage visits.

I went to visit him once. It wasn’t the only reason, I did need some stuff out of my storage unit but I did make the trip and visited him. He was more upset that I wouldn’t have sex with him than he was when I tried to explain to him that he still had bedbugs and needed to tell his slumlord yesterday. He tried to tell me they were just probably baby cockroaches! Trying to visit me last summer didn’t materialize, trying to move to a better apartment and get another job hasn’t materialized for him yet.

Now when he talks about coming to visit me, he talks about how he doesn’t have the money, he needs a ride from one of his cousins (some of whom actually live here), or he needs my help. And his grand plans for our future are for me to go back and “help him out” paying for his shitty apartment, after I “talk” with his aunt about how we’re going to get him out here to visit as if I’m going to pay for it. This is a grown man, I’m telling you! My age!

He has bad knees so he has no interest in the outdoorsy activities I’ve always enjoyed. He has no interest in learning other languages with me, asking me about my hobbies, learning about real estate, or really doing anything else except monopolizing whatever of my time that he can to ask me how I feel about him over and over and making sexual innuendos over and over; treating my hobbies and everything I love as an obstacle to my time; and attempting to force an intimacy between us that doesn’t exist.

And I’m not trying to make fun of this guy, I really do care about him, but quite frankly it’s not my job or anybody’s to save him. We have a lot of the same inner wounds, and I figure that’s part of what attracted him to me (other than that I’m the only woman who gave him a chance and didn’t just want money from him, which are other things that he’s actually told me that he liked about me. How special).

When I walked around for years dissociating and insisting that some guy somewhere was responsible for fixing my life, nobody helped me. Nobody came out and said, I’ll take care of you! No, I found the limerence forum and changed my own mindset. Then I read Rich Dad, Poor Dad and figured out how I can change my life! And that’s how it should be! There’s a difference between helping somebody who needs a little help and helping somebody who won’t help themselves. He may have plenty of reason for that being the case but none of it is my responsibility.

And in the meantime every time I talk to him, I’m forced to relive seeing and hearing about the place that caused me quite a bit of trauma and literally disrupted my life and almost killed my dreams; and the people I was so happy to leave behind; J’s flying monkeys who somehow still occasionally manage to give this guy something to question me about regarding J, which leave me wondering, who is he talking to and why after what little I’ve told him? After hearing my mother tell me that he probably wasn’t listening to other people about me when I told her it was a valid concern in the first place. Those people are utmost stage 5 sneaky. Which just triggers me and makes it worse that I can’t just put this place behind me and move on with my life and in turn is a source of frustration with him.

He’s never told me, he’s trying in his life. He could do that. I don’t think that’s asking a lot. But he won’t. He keeps thinking his life is going to change without doing anything to make it change. Coming from somebody who experienced daily nagging and accusations while I was genuinely struggling looking for work when I had to quit the job I had because my mother broke her foot doing yardwork while drunk, I really don’t think just a little initiative is asking too much. So I’m not about to do these things for somebody who really hasn’t made much of an effort to meet me halfway in seeing me, in moving out of the infested building and finding something else that interests him rather than just attempting to monopolize all of my time and treating me like I’m supposed to be his source of entertainment.

Perhaps my crush on this coworker was just my simple reminder that it’s not asking too much to want a partner with the same level of motivation that I have in life. This young guy is very motivated. His reasons are his reasons whatever they are. But he works very hard. I hear all about how he covers endless shifts, he’s very helpful to other coworkers including me and did a bang-up job cleaning his van one night, which is a huge complaint many drivers have amongst each other. So I know it’s a reminder that I deserve better.

Well that and the fact that I regularly get visitation dreams from a guy on the other side, my former classmate; on all major holidays and anytime I need support; who sends me number signs and other signs all day long that he’s with me and watching over me and who’s literally saved my ass so many times in two years, so I’m not about to settle for less than I would give to someone else. I know that I deserve better. But I don’t ask the world of a partner because I plan to get it for myself.
Last edited by JupiterTaco on Fri Apr 08, 2022 2:53 am, edited 1 time in total.
"You know for a big black guy Cleveland's got a cute little white ass!" Peter, Family Guy
"Um...that wasn't Cleveland," Brian
JupiterTaco
Posts: 5666
Joined: Sun Jun 28, 2015 6:12 pm
United States of America

Re: Hypervigilance To Limerence; Echoes Of The Past

Post by JupiterTaco »

HYPERVIGILANCE TO LIMERENCE PART 2; SIGNS, SIGNS, EVERYWHERE A SIGN

So I didn’t really go into the “signs” from my coworker in the last post, because that wasn’t the point. And I really only want to talk about one thing in this post. I’m really not interested in deciphering whether or not he might be interested in me, since I know I don’t want to go there.
But I have a tendency to register things in my mind, partially because of a long history of limerence and partially because of a long history of trauma. Even in workplaces, I’ve been very ruined by things I didn’t think were important to acknowledge, such as what other people might think of me. Which were things I grew up being told weren’t important despite what I know now was my mother’s constant inner obsession about what other people thought of us, and so I never paid attention.

But I know from many experiences that they were important, I should have been paying attention and they are important now and I should pay attention. Because if somebody is waging a smear campaign behind your back that you have no knowledge of, it’s very damaging. But if you’re like me, who has always been outside of any social connection, you’re a perfect target, and I know I was and still am. Rather than fighting without a weapon, you don’t even know you should be fighting as someone stabs you in the back with a million minor cuts that they’re hoping you won’t feel until it’s too late.

So I know that I went into my new job more or less hypervigilant. Hypervigilant to potential red flags including bullying and now limerence. And now since I’ve had an experience already where the people in the mountain office inexplicably attempted to foist all of their work on me one night and got mad at me for not doing it all, which I gave two weeks notice to my boss and then relented when my local boss asked me to stay and told me he wanted me there.

So even though I say I thought about it very well before deciding to stay, that situation alone makes me uneasy and I’ve been even more hypervigilant to others’ behavior towards and around me than usual. I would’ve preferred to just move on to another job and new start in that sort of situation but I struggled just to get this job and I really do like the company and the money I make and my local bosses and a select few coworkers have been very helpful and encouraging including this guy.

But I didn’t always notice this new guy coworker who started when I did. It was more or less his behavior that made me notice him out of others at some point in orientation. With eight other people, I began to really notice this guy when he’d inexplicably focus on me and compliment my hair, which at that time was when I felt it still looked like crap because I hadn’t dyed it in awhile.

His compliments never stopped and I haven’t had a chance to see how he is with others in this regard, but like I said, it’s not really an interest of mine. My focus is on myself and on my goals and once I actually redirected my thoughts that way after one night when his behavior towards me really started affecting me, when he broke the touch barrier with me, it was really quite easy to put him out of my mind. Nevertheless he continues his behavior at random times and now I’ve heard he’s switching his days off to the same as mine. So rather than three nights alone with him, there could now be potentially five that I may have to fend off.

But I’m trying to remind myself that no matter what signs I see; the complimenting, touching and somehow inexplicably recognizing my voice on the radio and seeming shy and giggly as he says my name over it (and again haven’t seen his behavior with others in this regard) it doesn’t necessarily mean anything and I may be wrong about things so I try not to jump to conclusions. At this point, it’s the hypervigilance in me that is making note of these things and filing them away as I feel I may always be at risk of falling down the limerent rabbit hole again for one thing.

A little over a year ago when I was still living a life I’d built for myself, I didn’t feel I was at risk for limerence again. Even being hard-core stalked and trauma-bonded in some way to my former neighbor J and regularly struggling to make ends meet self-employed, I was aware that I’d spent so much time alone at that point, literally alone, that I didn’t think I could be at risk of ending up dependent on another person for validation again.
Now that I’m still coming to terms with how overall my life has unravelled and how much back in my healing I’ve been taken being back in the house with my mother in a situation that made me sick in the first place, I understand that no matter how much I try to remember who I am, where I’ve been and where I’m going, I could easily slip back into codependent patterns sharing space with someone who is endlessly determined to merge our very essence again and who has never acknowledged my newfound boundaries and in a workplace with a dude who seems determined to force me to be dependent on him in many ways.

Aside from that, I know that I’m living a lifestyle that, though it’s not necessarily bad, it takes a lot of my time; my job and commute and my mother’s arguably legitimate reasons for now foisting much of “her stuff” onto me all add up a lot. Trying to set boundaries that give me at least a little time to have peace in my life and just be, has been a constant struggle.

This is time that I used to spend validating and exploring myself and doing exactly what I wanted when I wanted. I am now back after relying for months on someone else economically and being affected by other people’s varied types of behavior, positive or negative. But I pay attention to the negative because even though I can say with absolute certainty that nobody can affect my emotions anymore, I still argue inside that it's bad for my growth to be around too much negativity and others’ projections of me as a person and/or the company I work for.
So I’m quite at risk for slipping back into old patterns and possibly growing dependent on somebody else’s opinion of me. So far I don’t feel that aside from general vigilance, that it’s working that much but it’s something I’ll have to keep an eye on.

Aside from that, something else happened at work last night. There’s one other coworker who is occasionally alone with me, an older woman who has a daughter who drops her off at work. She also compliments my work and tells me how great I’m doing, etc. I’ve found myself opening up to her on occasion about things I never had any interest in telling a coworker. For just one example, she’d told me I was lucky to live with and have my mom. She said it once during chaos when I could’ve possibly (and planned on) ignoring it. When she brought it up again, I just flat-out told her that my mother and I don’t have the best relationship and just brief details about why.

I did this not because I needed her validation. I’m way past the age where I need somebody to verify that what I’ve been through is not my fault or a faulty perception. I can say that if nothing else, I do trust my instincts until I’m given a valid reason not to. I know most of the world would see what I’ve been through with my mother as my fault somehow because that’s the society we live in.

Nevertheless I’m plain sick of people who won’t acknowledge that not all mother-child relationships are good, not all mothers are unequivocally loving and perfect, and not all life stories are the same. That’s why I finally said that. I didn’t go into a bunch of detail about how my mother told me never to call her again after a fight that she started after I moved away and sent a relentless campaign of two flying monkeys after me; called a welfare check on me that I never knew about two years later that started before being stalked by my neighbor, and calling the company I worked for before that fishing for information and potentially ruining my reputation in the meantime, or that she used my childhood best friend’s dying brother to hoover me when I was living in my car and then went out of her way to convince me that the only way out of the situation I was in was her help which she’s held endlessly over my head, big shocker. That’s nobody’s business but mine.

Otherwise I prefer to keep my personal life to myself. For one thing, I prefer a certain professionalism that keeps people feeling safe and things running as smoothly as possible. Sharing things people don’t understand and can’t understand is a sure way to ruin that. Nevertheless she brought it up and I set her straight on the basics of my personal situation and that was what I needed. She never brought it up again.
The other way this factors in is with my “touchy” coworker. Whereas for most people, somebody who doesn’t hesitate to show their friendliness physically might be a breath of fresh air just like a coworker who compliments and focuses positively like this guy might also be, for me it brings me back to a feeling I remember all too well that I briefly touched on in my previous post regarding family. People don’t understand that what appears isn’t always.

I think this is also something that drove former limerence in some cases also, because if I came to enjoy attention from somebody I didn’t have the guts to set boundaries with, it wouldn’t be such a bad thing and I didn’t have to worry about having the strength to set boundaries; and with people who turned out to be breadcrumbers, it could’ve be seen to work as a sort of reverse-psychology. If the person eventually got bored, they’d go away. Only once you’re limerent it’s you that’s stuck missing what once was and completely denying how you felt in the first place if you genuinely felt that person was crossing lines you’d rather them not have crossed in the first place.

The situation with my former neighbor J made me realize just how many times I was shamed over years in various ways for wanting control over my own body and who and how and when other people touched it. Having grown up listening to a gaslighter who told me how she was so vigilant about potential sexual abuse when really she wasn’t, it’s not even just that which matters.

The many ways I was raised to submit first to my family and then to classmates, teachers, coworkers, friends, partners and bosses left me prime target for having trouble with boundaries and therefore have attracted predators and users of many types. One of the things I’m still worried about regarding the touching from this coworker is the memory of my former coworker whom I dated at another job, who’d sexually assaulted me; who knew that I was isolated at work and that was likely why he targeted me and I understand the pattern could be attempting to repeat with this other guy who also happens to share a first name with him, just different spelling.
Aside from that I know I struggle with emotional incest wounds which I’ve touched on, but were a huge factor in not only my gender-role confusion and dysphoria but also I’ve read, makes me suffer exactly the same wounds that somebody who experienced incest from a bigger family member might’ve felt.

So last night I did get somewhat of an answer that my touchy coworker might treat everybody the same way, as the older woman whom I’d been chatting with, walked up and hugged this guy, and proceeded to tell me that “this guy is the best”. Cue lingering side-hug while both staring at me and then a little bit of chit-chat on the opposite side of the room before the guy telling the woman he had something to tell her and she suggested they go out to the garage where he was about to wash his van and they left. The woman told him to tell me I needed to travel and he said “oh yeah” and I just kind of said, I would give for a Florida vacation and she kind of said “yeah I guess you could start small” or whatever she said and they left.

That was just such a weird situation I didn’t know what to think so I just tried to avoid thinking about it. It was just so cringey and odd. The thing is, my spidey senses are telling me that something weird is going on, almost like that was all a show or something. But again, I can’t prove it and frankly don’t care. I just found it odd.

Aside from what I’ve already talked about, this is but one example of this woman assuming things about me without knowing me. Another example is when she assumed I was single, telling me to travel. And quite frankly I have done my share of travelling to date. I touched on most of the west and Midwest growing up, like many other people I’ve ever known, and I have lived in five other places now, and if we’re being honest, starting small for me could’ve meant travelling through Nebraska, Utah, Wyoming or Kansas which are all things I’d done. LOL! But yes she seems to have a tendency to assume things about me that aren’t true.

Also this is how the situation with my former neighbor J first escalated. When she attempted to triangulate me with other people after drawing me in and I refused to take the bait and cut her off, and she got more desperate and creepy trying to get me to outwardly react to her behavior which turned me off even more but nevertheless did affect me inside over months mostly because I couldn’t get away from it.
I’m trying to just tell myself that this is one more reason to avoid getting too close to my coworkers and why I don’t fit into a workplace, but I have to say it’s one of many reasons why I didn’t actually miss having coworkers when I did gig work. Well that and that I could decide what weather I wanted to work in…
Last edited by JupiterTaco on Fri Apr 08, 2022 2:54 am, edited 2 times in total.
"You know for a big black guy Cleveland's got a cute little white ass!" Peter, Family Guy
"Um...that wasn't Cleveland," Brian
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Re: Hypervigilance To Limerence; Echoes Of The Past

Post by JupiterTaco »

ECHOES OF LIMERENCE PART 3; WHEN BODIES DON’T LIE

Something happened last night that was really bittersweet in certain ways but really has me smacking my damn head. My coworker showed me how to lock the side door that is often kept unlocked. I asked him to watch me lock it as I struggled like many people to lock it until then. I was finally able to lock it last night, and I stood there for a second, like it was that easy??? Because he explained exactly how to do it unlike someone else who just said you had to jiggle it and nothing else so no surprise that it hadn’t worked.

So my mouth dropped open and I turned to him and finally laughed and said “well I locked the door,” really happily. He raised his hands up and I slapped them high five, and he clasped and gripped my fingers and leaned toward me smiling. It was kind of at that moment where I snapped out of the moment and wondered if we looked like a couple. But it seemed so natural and it happened and I just got myself back together, silently hoped he wouldn’t tell anybody else about that, or that nobody else we both knew saw it, and we went and locked the key back up, and parted ways.
When I first started there, I was trained on how to do it, but my attempts to do it went nowhere and I got frustrated and just asked, why didn’t they replace the lock? It’s something that could easily take two minutes and would save a lot of headache. This is but one example of hardships on this job that could be avoided, which fades into why I hate working for other people but back to the subject…

And initially I was told that most nights I work, Wednesday through Sunday, there are drivers and dispatchers in and out throughout the night, and they have a security patrol, so it wasn’t a huge deal if I couldn’t do it, and often there are drivers there washing vans and whatnot so it’d obviously be bad to set the security system on them. So I just hadn’t done it. But I always worried about Sunday night because even if there was a driver still there when I got off, I knew it was often a long lull between the time I and another dispatcher were there and the driver leaving and another driver coming in. Everybody knew the code to get the key and lock the door and the general rule is last out, last locks the door.

So when I was leaving last night, I knew this guy had a good hour before he had to go start his first trip so I didn’t hesitate to leave it open for him. He was in his van and when I got into my car and started it, he kind of approached my car and asked if I locked everything and I said no because he was still here, did he want me to? And he said he was going to leave pretty quick so I told him I’d do it. He asked me if I knew how to lock the door and I just asked if he’d show me and he agreed. On the way out I asked if I could do it and he could watch me and he said he would.
He inexplicably accidentally stepped on my foot trying to get in the door after me but the hand thing was all that happened and I came back to reality and just hoped he wouldn’t make a big deal out of it and I left.

Since then I’ve been kind of kicking myself about it though. I’ve tried to imagine how other people might see it if it got around, which I know guys. I grew up with boys. I know all about what they get up to and talk about. So it is something I’m admittedly worried about with this situation.
Nevertheless I’m trying my best to remain cordial and treat this guy no differently than anybody else but admittedly have sort of failed because he always approaches me about random stuff and other drivers don’t but it could be that they don’t have time, I don’t know. In the meantime any camera in the place would have proof that it is always him approaching me, touching me, trying to take up my time with mostly work-related things and more frequently since he’s gone to overnights, coming up with random things to talk to me about as I’m heading out the door, often after spending other time yacking with random other drivers including the older woman on the nights she works instead of waiting for a time I’m free to tell me before I leave.

I suppose any of these things could be explained, and believe me there’s much more to talk about which I won’t bother, but I’ll just say that since he apparently realized it wasn’t working to be syrupy sweet to me and constantly hovering over me and trying to distract me and flirt with me as a way to get my attention he’s now gone to these methods which as coworkers it would seem like normal business relations and I’m happy to help but I’m pretty sure I know what’s going on here. He’s doing this because that’s the only way to really get my attention.

The door thing was important and I’m so grateful to him for that and trying not to wonder what I would’ve done without him in this job. Interestingly that happened after I started wondering if maybe staying here was a bad idea. That calmed my incessant flight response, until a minute later when I realized we were pretty much holding hands and then standing too close facing each other.

This was after he uncharacteristicly ignored me around two other drivers, and the night before when he was rude to me in front of the older woman, and I was again on my way out the door. When he went into the office, I left so he ignored me the next night it might seem. It’s just so strange. I can’t wrap my head around it.

This is all in addition to many other problems in this workplace, such as having been mostly thrust in there with minimal training on much of the aspects of my job. And then on the occasion that my mother who only ever asks about that and about nothing else hears about anything, she does what she can to make me feel like I just have to stay and put up with it, not realizing that really, she’s the one stuck in her life, not me. I could easily choose to at any time reject everything, get another car and leave if this situation starts to affect my health or mental health in a noticeable way. In the meantime I’ve been fantasizing yet again about buying another car and just getting what I brought back with me and leaving. And I know if I got another car which I’d like to do anyway, I’d be a constant temptation.

But I do like the job overall. My two local bosses are really great, they help me when they can but work different hours, I’m on the mid-shift, they tell me frequently I’m doing a good job. As many complaints as I already have about at least two of the mountain staff and the morning dispatcher, I can just imagine that they among others have been doing quite a bit more than their share for some time, I have no idea so I’m trying to remain neutral with them also. All of this could really be a separate post but anyway.

I thought seriously about setting touching boundaries with the young guy, but after I saw him and the older woman hug I decided against it. I have no proof that he’s actually singling me out for this, which my potentially-limerent and potentially-hypervigilant brain might suggest. All I can do is just remember that I’m doing my best and doing what I can to learn more, and that eventually this dude’s going to run out of excuses to keep pulling his crap if indeed that’s what he’s doing.

In the meantime I’m going to leave that place when it’s time to go and during the week, I’m going to remember that these things are just little nods from the universe to remember that God has bigger plans for me that I have to stick with, and that’s why I don’t fit into a workplace, and that this is not going to be my life and not to get too comfortable. I don’t need anybody’s validation, I just need to remember my truths and who I am and where I’ve been and where I’m going.

I’m going to follow my self-instituted daily schedule centered around learning, healing, growing, researching my forward path and still getting things done at home to help my mother out. On weekends, I’m going to work on my stories and not think about this crap anymore.
Last edited by JupiterTaco on Fri Apr 08, 2022 2:55 am, edited 1 time in total.
"You know for a big black guy Cleveland's got a cute little white ass!" Peter, Family Guy
"Um...that wasn't Cleveland," Brian
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Re: Hypervigilance To Limerence; Echoes Of The Past

Post by JupiterTaco »

ECHOES OF LIMERENCE PART 4; TAKING CONTROL OF MY TRIGGERS

I sit here on what is to me my Friday which to me is Sunday, so glad to have some time to myself. But of course I’ve spent good chunks of my past two weekends journaling about this situation at work, so I don’t exactly feel like I get time off. But by the same token, this is stuff that needs to come out and I need to figure out what it all means, so here we are.

I spent an extra fifteen minutes trying to open the stupid lock box to get the key to lock the door, but I finally did it. Then I locked the door myself, put it back and left. This was after I had to approach this guy, waiting in his van for his time for his pickups, because I had no idea where the trailer that initially held the lock was. They moved it next to the building. Duh…

So when opening the stupid lock box wasn’t working, all I could think was, I am not approaching this guy again. I. Am. Just. Not. I will figure this shit out myself if it takes all damn night. So thankfully I did and quickly before my hands froze off.
Then I left but I did notice that he was a little less helpful and again my hypervigilant brain noticed it. I think where he would’ve jumped out to help me before, he didn’t and that could be for any reason or just no reason. All I know is he used to show up completely helpful when I never expected or thought of him. This is what is so annoying about people who come on really strong and then kind of back off. Some people may do it without noticing but it is a noticeable manipulation tactic.

But if I flash back to the things that had happened earlier tonight; when he was rubbing my shoulder and seemed to know I was uncomfortable and he kind of laughed and just said he means it in a professional way, and I laughed and said, I know. Why, are people bothered by you touching them? Or however I phrased it just kind of laughing. He didn’t really say anything and I just helped him with what he needed and I’m already brain-foggy at this point about him explaining a few routing things to me and me suddenly realizing he has a woman’s name tattooed barely noticeable on one of his hands and got an unpleasant flashback to my fourth LO who had a woman’s name tattooed on his neck and who went completely crazy following me around the store where we worked and interspersing it with acting distant. Back to this situation the conversation turned to us suddenly complimenting each other’s work ethic, as he’s sitting really close next to me staring at me and smiling, and I just kind of looked forward and maybe he just got the hint, I don’t know.

The truth is, he does make me uncomfortable. At first I think I was attracted to him partially because of the attention he incessantly gave me and it was cute and partially because he’s truly adorable, and I think that may be part of it, but there’s more to it.
I was sure there was no way I could become limerent over him because I know who I am and what I want. And the life I’m living is not what I want and I know that living this life happily ever after with him would never satisfy me. I’m meant for more in life, and I’m pretty sure I’d be hard-pressed to find a partner who would ever understand it let alone someone in a workplace. More on that in a minute, but yeah, so I don’t see this guy as the be-all, end-all answer to anything. He’s helped me out at work, I give him that.

And I think that’s part of the fear of standing up to him. Because quite frankly I am afraid of him. That doesn’t mean he actually wants to hurt me, but I am. I’m more disappointed I think in myself and my inability to just state my boundaries. And the feeling that if he’s a more touchy type, that’s just who he is and I’d be asking him not to be that way. But damn it, don’t I get to be who I am too? Someone who never liked being touched by people who I’m unsure of and especially now with such a good excuse as the never-ending Covid crap and especially being prone to limerence?

But I really fear setting boundaries with him, not only because of how unsure I am at work right now and that he’s been such a huge source of help and information to me, and I have wondered if I can just keep it hush until I learn what I need to learn at work and then start distancing myself. But it can take up to three months to learn a new job, and where would I be then? Even if he runs out of excuses to keep pulling his crap?
And knowing that last time he started getting more in my face when I would just kind of silently put him off and be nothing more than polite when he was being really sweet and trying to draw me to pay attention to him for weeks before that. And how I just kind of became this silent version of some past self of mine who was being touched against my will and feeling pathetic inside. And it’s nothing crazy, you know, it’s almost constant pats on the arm, the shoulders, tonight a rub on my shoulder, which I felt might’ve been escalating in some form and which caused a freeze response in me but wouldn’t necessarily raise red flags but he could tell it made me uncomfortable.

Until then, having been mostly thrust into an environment where I was given minimal training I’ve had to rely on him quite a bit and I almost let that get to my head. But it is a fear that I could lose his support and therefore the support of the two older ladies who have also been a help. But even now I worry about what he might be telling people about me, and it’s just awkward with everything else going on.

At the end of the day, I know that I’d be fine without this job. God has taken care of me to this point, so I know He will still because I know my heart is in the right place. I just would prefer for this to work out. It’s a good job, I’m gaining quite a few skills here, and I could help my mother out earnestly while getting a foot forward in my other financial endeavors and it’s a learning experience for me. But that’s it. I’m not kidding myself that it’s going to be my life story or that it should.

In the meantime I’m really afraid that almost ten years of growth could come undone at the seams and the idea is devastating to me. I just keep thinking that if I could stay focused on what I need and keep everything in perspective that I could triumph and take control over my emotions. That’s the goal, right? And really, all the things I want to do, like helping the homeless, helping former inmates, etc. How am I going to work with these people without being triggered when I’m being triggered by this petty crap? So yeah, I have work to do at the least.
Last edited by JupiterTaco on Fri Apr 08, 2022 2:55 am, edited 1 time in total.
"You know for a big black guy Cleveland's got a cute little white ass!" Peter, Family Guy
"Um...that wasn't Cleveland," Brian
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Re: Hypervigilance To Limerence; Echoes Of The Past

Post by JupiterTaco »

ECHOES OF LIMERENCE PART 5; HE JUST DOESN’T COMPARE

He just doesn’t compare. My coworker just doesn’t compare to my love of rust belt cities. He doesn’t compare to where I’ve been and where I want to go with what I know now. As worried as I was in the last post about potentially becoming limerent over him, and the roller coaster of emotions and thoughts of various kinds that I’ve had about him since then, I realize that he just doesn’t hold the power that past LOs have held over a less-evolved me, or the power that rust belt cities hold.

I got a taste of freedom for four years, living my life way more in line with the way I want regardless of the problems. Aside from that, I loved living in Saint Louis. Hot summer afternoons swimming in the Meramec River. Winter days trudging through the snow on a walk or enjoying a random nice day; sultry spring days looking at flowers; colorful fall days walking in the park. Not spending nine months shoveling snow and then wondering when it was finally going to stop.

I had a life for myself somewhere else. I was building a relationship somewhere else after four years of being alone without family. I met this guy I was seeing before I got back in contact with my family. One of the problems between us like I mentioned was his lack of drive and motivation. He’s not motivated to get out of the building that caused me so much trauma and really just do it for himself. And I have no interest in being the nagging girlfriend or the girlfriend who’s going to turn his life around. I’m not even going to be the nagging girlfriend who wants him to be motivated to do what he needs to visit me. And I know that’s part of the reason that the situation with my coworker hurts so much. I’ve tried to ask myself whether I would feel differently about the guy I was seeing if I didn’t have my mother back in my life looking over my shoulders and telling me what I should want from a guy.

But it’s true. I don’t really care what a guy does unless he is getting by and is happy with himself. Neither of these things the guy I was seeing does. He expects me to entertain him, etc. And I just can’t do that. Effectively the guy I was seeing also doesn’t compare though he may still live in that city. Neither of these guys compares to how I still picture Saint Louis when I close my eyes and have random memories of all of my time there, even of working there.

Since I started my job I’ve been on a heavy daily schedule during the week where I work hard to fit everything I’m trying to do; learning languages, learning about and analyzing real estate and other investment-related education; and trying to get the past three years up to date. This helped me I suppose in many ways. It kept me in the present, which was something I struggled with for years and I’ve kind of talked about. It helped me plan for a brighter future and that’s good.

But I decided to take some time this week and really sit with myself and see how I’m feeling with various things going on. And I can admit that I don’t like where my life has gone and that hasn’t changed just because I got a decent-paying job. I don’t like that I no longer have the power to work when I want to work, where I want to work, that I have to ask for permission to go to lunch, etc. I don’t like sharing living space with someone who doesn’t respect my basic boundaries let alone anything else.
Last edited by JupiterTaco on Fri Apr 08, 2022 2:55 am, edited 1 time in total.
"You know for a big black guy Cleveland's got a cute little white ass!" Peter, Family Guy
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Re: Hypervigilance To Limerence; Echoes Of The Past

Post by JupiterTaco »

ECHOES OF LIMERENCE PART 6; ISOLATION ONCE AGAIN

Last night I left work and I won’t be returning. I’ll talk about that more in a workplace bullying post but I finally realized that nothing that was wrong there was going to change, and rather than finding more help, this company I was working for seems determined to force one person every shift to do the work of three people across three different offices. So after attempting unsuccessfully to get help for a workplace issue, and being accused by the distant office of basically trying to get out of doing my job, I clocked out and left.

My potential LO wasn’t there, he was off on a trip, and I hadn’t seen him that day, and normally he’d come through my area looking at me before leaving, if not several times at least once when he takes an afternoon trip. It could’ve been that I just wasn’t paying attention and didn’t see him, but yeah and I wasn’t really thinking about it.

The events leading up to this are sort of interesting in the way that this guy, who started in orientation with me, was always very helpful. He just seemed to randomly turn up whenever I needed help and though I vaguely remembered him from orientation I was really thankful. Because one would hope that’s what coworkers would do. I thought nothing of it though that was where he’d started his touching; constant pats on the arm, the upper back, shoulder, sometimes holding it for a second. I thought nothing of it because I remembered he was very outgoing and after I saw him hug another coworker I just assumed that was who he was and didn’t set a boundary that I thought about setting.

Otherwise my memory of this guy is of him seeming under-dressed in orientation, who seemed to focus his attention on me even in there, complimenting me in front of a group of people which I didn’t really pay attention to, and otherwise thinking to myself that he was a kid, I have no idea how old he actually is, but like I said is easily probably ten or more years younger than me so I wouldn’t have taken him seriously if I’d thought he were interested in me or something.

The compliments, helpfulness, etc. have continued and I’ve noticed his keeping up on his appearance more, and there were times I’ve wondered, particularly after the door incident, what I would do without him, what I would’ve done without him. To which I started instantly telling myself that was crazy.

Up until I left, he was my biggest source of information at work. The older woman was my second biggest but I didn’t see her as much as him. At first working an all-over-the-place schedule, at the time I left, he was working the same days I was, just different times.

This guy was a huge help learning routing, as I never did get the ride-along that is part of training to actually see how long a driver might take at many given stops and he insisted that rounding up to the nearest number wasn’t always enough time as I was trained in training to do. No matter what, he spent some time talking to me and trying to get my attention every day. He’d follow me and another guy out to the garage to check a van, he was always doing things for me, etc.

I guess it could be seen that combined with the touching, that the routing thing was potentially an excuse to sit close to me and talk to me and help me, but I really didn’t think anything of it even when it had inexplicably shifted to all of that after literal weeks of me gently putting him off in my own way and trying to keep things professional as he seemed to be trying to distract me with pointless stuff that had nothing to do with work, regardless of other people being around. But it made me laugh and feel like I had a friend in the place.

I tried to keep my thoughts in perspective throughout all of this, and for the most part I think I did fine, but as I said I made a few blunders and it was something I worried about getting around work. In the meantime I treated him no different than anybody else at work and tried not to panic inside at the reminder that while we worked together, part of my job was keeping an eye on him.

The feelings of isolation were almost immediately after starting. I saw how certain people were given more attention and training than I was, namely a younger girl that now works early mornings. Me, another older woman who had started, and a married man, got way less training. The one man had quit after they scheduled him outside of his requested availability and the woman stopped showing up after our trainer was rude to her and behind her back to the rest of us. That was honestly the first time I remember feeling uncomfortable.

My local bosses who started out very helpful, but still not training me on everything I needed to learn, complimented my work. I had actually given my notice soon after starting after one of the women from the mountains started going off on me over the radio one night for not being on Slack, which I’d explained that I couldn’t access at the time.

Now having finally been on slack with no problems at least with that for the past week, I’d noticed that where the women in the mountains emojied each other’s communications, they mostly ignored me when I posted, which all I could do was laugh at inside. The thing is I just don’t care that I don’t fit into workplaces.

For years, something that could kind of bother me made me finally realize that my individualism was actually a hidden gem and would help me in my entrepreneurial and philanthropist ventures at some time in the future. But I’m not kidding myself that not fitting in at work is a likely target on your back. And one more reason that I guess I resent my mother, because if she weren’t in my life, I’d not be trying to do what she expects of me since she doesn’t support anything that doesn’t imply tireless, pointless work for the rest of my life like hers.

Over the next couple of weeks, the two other female drivers made comments that they were always telling management how good I was doing, insinuating that perhaps this was a topic of discussion. I had one dispatching coworker who snapped one day, went off,0 and walked out of work and then went back the next day. So when people started asking me about my mental health without me having given them much of a reason to do so, I did start getting suspicious. And I can say that on top of having given my notice to leave, and which they’d talked me into staying, affected me as I knew they probably didn’t see me the same way. It made me wonder who was talking about me and what they may be saying. After all, I had no interest in being promoted. I wanted my time outside of work to be focused on other ventures, which was also part of the reason I tried not to think about this guy and his potential motives with me.

Nevertheless I was so afraid of the idea of being love-bombed by another garden-variety cluster b-oriented person that it was something I worried about. So when I left work, I realized at some point later that this was all over. I felt bad for the drivers. I would’ve preferred to work two weeks and then go but I literally couldn't stomach another day in that place. And I will not allow myself to be held responsible and blamed for what is quite frankly a really faulty, dysfunctional place.

I also wasn’t sure how much longer I could deal with this guy and not end up going off the deep end. Because even though I’m sure I wouldn’t have become limerent over him, I just don’t know for sure. And I think I may have been close to the edge no matter what I did. Plus I’ve thought things about past LEs that ended up being wrong so I don’t know that I can trust my judgment with these things. And he did affect me emotionally. I started to care about this kid.

He'd been driving the same vehicle with the check-engine light on which I’ve tried to notify management about for three days until I left with no response and nobody taking it out of commission to be looked at. He brought up another problem in the vans that are a safety hazard to the manager in front of me one night. I made note of it. The night before I left, I was in the office picking up the dispatch phone after a break when my boss had a verbal warning for this guy on his screen because apparently he’d flipped somebody off in a company vehicle and the other driver complained.

I’m not aware of their system but I know what it said and it threatened termination. For the first warning! This, after three other drivers just walked off the job because of the arguably terrible working conditions! And that just fried my ass. I mean I understand that a standard of professionalism must be maintained and I may not know the whole story, but based on what was written on it and that it wasn’t actually a traffic violation, when the managers sit there and complain that we can’t set up transfers for max-packed trips because of a lack of drivers! And that the ratings are going down because of it during the continuing pandemic.

So yes, I’ve been way too affected by this crap. I do know that last night when I hit my last straw at work, my body said go and I left. Now the whole thing is over. I will miss a few people including that guy, and it’s now a conscious effort not to think about him ending up calling me as our numbers are all in the system and could be easily seen. It’s one thing that’s keeping me grounded tonight, is to check my phone and ensure that he nor anybody else has called, which they haven’t so my feelings as of yet have been unsubstantiated.

My boss called once last night but I didn’t answer it, and he didn’t leave a message. I was Doordashing and never in my life would’ve thought that was a vacation. LOL! But the stress literally left my body after I left that place. And though I was ashamed that I actually wondered if this guy was going to at the least call me and give me a piece of his mind, it hasn’t happened. And I don’t want it to. And I know that as time goes on and I get busy with looking for the next step and continuing with my goals, all of this will soon be a memory. But I’m very glad that I got out before it was too late in many ways.

I just feel like I never had a chance. You know, when I got this job, I felt like the skies parted and I had a miracle and it turned out to be anything but. And this happened. I can only hope that if there was any chance that he could’ve been limerent over me, that it’s over and I did the best thing. If not for both of us, then myself. I guess it’s one of those things that have to remind me that this isn’t it. Don’t relax yet.
Last edited by JupiterTaco on Fri Apr 08, 2022 2:56 am, edited 1 time in total.
"You know for a big black guy Cleveland's got a cute little white ass!" Peter, Family Guy
"Um...that wasn't Cleveland," Brian
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Re: Hypervigilance To Limerence; Echoes Of The Past

Post by JupiterTaco »

ECHOES OF LIMERENCE PART 7; FIGHTING THE BEAST

It’s been almost five days since I walked out of work and decided not to go back. Whereas I thought I may have escaped the limerent beast aside from the insecurity beast which is a whole other topic after what I experienced there, I’ve had a hard time keeping my former coworker off my mind. I’m feeling the old feelings of rejection at the idea that this guy still has a job and I don’t.

Aside from that I’ve thought about him a lot. Whether they finally fixed his check-engine light. How he may have reacted. I know that it’s likely that he may hate me, that a lot of people may hate me, I’ll never know. Nevertheless I’ve been silently bombarded with various memories of this guy, most notably the hand incident and the silent smile on his face as we stared at each other, but a lot of other things also. Hesitating at the door watching me at my desk before leaving on a trip. Sliding his sunglasses down his face while staring at me waiting for me to look at him. Hanging around my desk when other guys were around. Sneaking a smile at me while standing between me and other guys who were waiting for their trips.
I have to admit I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole and indulged a little bit. Even on a fantasy that I go back to Saint Louis and this guy shows up and finds me in front of other people I hoped to see again. Talk about an ego fantasy…

Nevertheless to try to keep perspective, the biggest thing I can do aside from trying to pretend I’m still who I am before all of this happened and stay busy on the many things I want to do that have nothing to do with falling in love; is that I check my phone fairly regulary (it’s on do not disturb). He hasn’t called. And I know he probably won’t and quite frankly I don’t think I really want him to. What would I say?

Aside from the ability to apologize that I just couldn’t stick it out until they found a replacement, which I might like under normal circumstances, there’s nothing to say to this guy I barely know. I know that. I also know that it’s likely that even if he wanted to keep in touch with me, he wouldn’t have. For some reason, a random guy who couldn’t stop touching me couldn’t find it in himself to ask me out or really make a concerted effort to get to know me. And even though it wasn’t what I wanted it says a lot.

And though the idea of a little fun with him might’ve sounded enticing in a certain way, it always came with the glaring larger red sign of danger, that we worked together, that we really had nothing in common, that we didn’t know each other, that I didn’t know the depths of his feelings or mine. That I don’t know for sure if I can actually have sex with someone else and not be bogged down with trauma and shame. That this simple thing was such a driving force of past limerence for me.

And that it’s just a stupid decision for someone prone to limerence to do. It doesn’t matter how much I’m actually not monogamous and would be okay with a casual relationship under certain circumstances. This guy triggered me. And like it or not, I’m very likely going to have this beast of limerence inside of me fo the rest of my life and that’s the way it is. I have to live with that and plan around avoiding it whenever possible.
I know I’ll be fine. I know that as time passes, I’ll forget all about this and move on to what I was trying to do in the first place. I’ll get back to that. In the meantime I just have to hit myself with reality if I feel I might be indulging in fantasy too much. He hasn’t called. He probably won’t call if not because the extent of his actual interest may have been in question, and that he may be mad at me.

But also because he’s an employee-minded person. He will do whatever it takes to keep his paycheck. That’s how most people are socialized to think. I can’t see him really trying to step up and show he's with me and proud of me even if he’d wanted to. It’s a tough thing to do for someone who sees the loss of their paycheck as a huge disaster. It has nothing to do with him, it’s just reality.

I remind myself of all of this, not because I’m not worth it. Yes, my ability to deal with conflict is certainly in question but that’s because of other people’s abuse of me which I didn’t in any way ask for. I have minimal trust in people and feel mostly safe alone. I know this guy can’t cut it and it’s okay.

That has nothing to do with my worth. Nor does not putting up with a toxic work environment in a job that on top of being a bad fit for me personally and was seriously misrepresented, was just not feasible, define my worth. My worth is in my humanity and I put myself first even if nobody else does. I know this chapter had to end so I’m trying to focus on what’s next.
Last edited by JupiterTaco on Fri Apr 08, 2022 2:56 am, edited 1 time in total.
"You know for a big black guy Cleveland's got a cute little white ass!" Peter, Family Guy
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Re: Hypervigilance To Limerence; Echoes Of The Past

Post by JupiterTaco »

ECHOES OF LIMERENCE PART 8; WHEN THE UNIVERSE SPEAKS

I just left the library where I’ve been spending time every day that my mother thinks I’m working, in which for a few hours apparently there was some kind of active shooter situation nearby. There was a shelter-in-place order for much of the afternoon that was lifted about fifteen minutes before the library closed in which time one of the employees came by to tell me, who was wearing my headphones all afternoon, that the situation
was probably resolving itself as they’d taken the man to the hospital and the library was closing at its scheduled time. I thanked her completely confused about what was going on, but I got my stuff together, went to the bathroom and left.

It turns out there was still a heavy police presence both ways up the street and I had to drive through one such intersection on my way to the store where I’ve been spending the rest of my evening in my car hanging out. I have been hoping to get right back into job-hunting and analyzing real estate or even just write, but have been unable to concentrate on these things.

Not too long before that, I’d talked to D, my friend in Saint Louis and just kind of updated him on my situation. I came really close to telling him about what I went through with the guy at work but I didn’t think he’d understand. He knows about everything else.

I just found myself going back and forth today thinking off and on about the good memories of this other guy and then remembering the nagging feeling that he might’ve been the one telling people I wasn’t plugging the various phones in since that was something he mentioned to me at first, and after he did that, I had started going through all the phones and making sure they were plugged in and charging and if there weren’t enough cords (there never were) then I charged the ones that needed them most and left the rest off. But really these things are the drivers’ responsibility but it’d be bad if they don’t have charged phones. Then the morning dispatcher, the young girl who got all the training, apparently left me a note telling me to plug in the dispatch phone, which I use plugged in all day.

I had a thought that here I’ve been out of work almost a week and this guy hasn’t called me (an unfamiliar number did call me earlier but I’m not kidding myself of the rare possibility it was him and they didn’t leave a message. Nevertheless I realize I still have to check myself). But my friend in Saint Louis still calls all the time. I mean he’s codependent but yeah…

Tonight I just realized how crazy it’d be if I spent my last day on earth thinking about these people and my mother might’ve not known that I was there when I was supposed to be at work if something had happened to me. I mean, my mother has long earned her place as someone who knows little of what’s actually going on in my life but still…she keeps trying to force her control, trying to get me together with my childhood best friend who stood me up twice in a ten-year period but stayed in touch with my mother; and bringing up my taxes every other day despite me telling her she won’t be doing them. She doesn’t handle healthy distance very well. This is why she doesn’t know about what happened at work and probably won’t.

I know she’d play the part of the grieving mother who had no idea why her daughter never talked to her. She’d soak up all the sympathy in the world, probably even if I’d killed myself, but she’s never been the kind of person I can trust with anything in my life, nor is she someone that I can actually turn to for support. When she brought me back here, it was for her own need. Hoping to have her codependent, quiet, dissociated little enabler back. To make me responsible for funding her lifestyle she can’t afford and her hefty alcohol addiction. Which she almost did. She tried very hard to make me feel guilty when I struggled looking for work and especially after the electricity in the room addition that she didn’t vet properly went out. She did all she could to make me feel lazy and unworthy and bad with money, when in reality she’s the one who can’t afford her house alone. She might’ve if she’d not refinanced it so many times for a slightly-lower house payment. But between that and her drinking, she needs somebody, anybody. She’s the one who needs me. Not the other way around.

She had a rent-paying roommate from one of her workplaces whom she constantly raised the rent on, threatened with eviction and finally locked him out before I came back. So it just astounds me that she can’t seem to see that if she hates other people so much, she can’t find a way to not have to rely on them? But she needs a scapegoat even more than she needs someone to supplement her underwater lifestyle so in one way I guess that hits two birds with one stone.

I keep thinking of how much I’ve gone backwards in such a short time. It’s like reliving six years ago all over again not just because of the job situation but because of the potential limerence situation. I had planned on having this job forever because it was so hard to get. When I got it, I thought the heavens opened up and a rainbow appeared and Lucky Charms and Skittles fell out of the sky and a pot of gold was near my ass. I thought this was such a good thing and it turned out to be anything but…

It wasn’t aligned whatsoever long-term with my goals and I think I knew that and I was still dangerously close to just forgetting about all of that because I really want a job and investment income. I really think these things happened to make me realize what will happen if I go back down the wrong path which I almost did. If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten.
Last edited by JupiterTaco on Fri Apr 08, 2022 2:56 am, edited 1 time in total.
"You know for a big black guy Cleveland's got a cute little white ass!" Peter, Family Guy
"Um...that wasn't Cleveland," Brian
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Re: Hypervigilance To Limerence; Echoes Of The Past

Post by JupiterTaco »

ECHOES OF LIMERENCE PART 9; WHEN THE WORLD DOESN’T GET IT

Now if I’ve been uneasy about the idea of telling most people, let alone my mother, my reasons for leaving, most of which aren’t really considered valid reasons for leaving my job in the manner that I did in the first place there are certainly reasons. I mean, I see no end to articles beating into employees that they have to always act professionally no matter how they’re being treated so that someone else will hire them.
Nobody ever wants to talk about the years of exploitation of the working class which employers have enjoyed pre-pandemic and how shockingly they still haven’t come around to the idea that people don’t want to work in toxic, demoralizing environments no matter how much money you throw at them. I don’t know why, but they just won’t understand that at least for right now, this is an employee’s market. And I promise I’m a capitalist. I believe in supply and demand.

So you can imagine the idea of trying to explain the other crap at work, most of which I’ve never talked about with anyone. The constant touching and attention from my coworker. Like I said, I’m certain I did nothing to instigate any of that. This guy focused on me, came out of nowhere and started messing with me.

So imagine my surprise when I’m listening to a podcast about limerence from someone whom I consider very knowledgeable generally on the subject of C-PTSD but maybe not so much the subject of limerence. The episode was centered around the story of a woman who’d recently cut off a long bout with limerence for a former boss whom she’d been in and out of contact with, who had instigated contact over and over and then never told her about his girlfriend. As the woman was going down the letter

I could relate to many of the things she said in my brief coworker experience, so much so that if it weren’t for his age, I’d have asked, were we talking about the same person?

The podcast host, the Crappy Childhood Fairy focused, probably not entirely understandably, on how the woman was telling her story. She told her at times that she described this woman’s story as coming across like she’d been writing a fairy tale and was mostly in fantasyland rather than at work. Which could’ve been the case, and it was an interesting point but I left that alone.

I had more problems myself with the fact that she pretty much glossed over the fact that this boss, according to the woman, spent a lot of time hanging around her and even at work events, interfering with her attempts to engage with any other male colleagues. It was like she either didn’t listen to that or didn’t think it important as she focused on the one thing that I can certainly understand, which was a glaring red sign through all of this.

At no time in this story did this woman ever know this man enough to assume him a safe partner, an engaged partner (despite his actions), etc. That’s what she seemed to focus on, and otherwise seemed to insist that this writer had blown simple colleague-related actions out of proportion and people seemed to agree.

I wrote a response that said not only did I have a similar coworker, but I don’t think, without more details, that this woman misconstrued anything. If this man had liked her work, as the Crappy Childhood Fairy presumed, he would’ve treated her the same as every other coworker. And I highly doubt he was hanging all over men the way he was doing to her, but big shocker that apparently even therapists don’t see the myriad ways that women are subtly devalued at work and this is all apparently okay. If he liked her work, or hell if he were helping her, he could’ve easily done that without constantly hanging around and distracting her, the same things my coworker did to me. I had a male boss who sat next to me while training me and not once did he touch me or get into my personal space and I learned what I needed to just fine.

But now this guy in the letter gets to walk away looking like the good guy to a therapist who presumes to be educated in all matters narcisstistc abuse and C-PTSD, as if those of us suffering from these conditions don’t have enough reason to fear trying to actually ask for mental help already.
I’m sure I’ve misconstrued people’s actions over years. Hell people have misconstrued my actions over years. But men and women at work shouldn’t be hovering over each other in a way that presumes there could be something more. If one or the other doesn’t eventually get the wrong message (and they will because our bodies are light-years ahead of us on trying their darndest to trick us into reproduction so we really don’t stand a chance against that, limerents maybe even less) then other people will. And I can’t count how many times I’ve seen a man and woman talking to one another and hearing somebody blowing it completely out of proportion. Yeah, there are limits.

But a guy who is interested in you is more likely to hang around and keep other men from talking to you rather than a boss who has more important things to do and numerous connections to uphold.

Nevertheless I could see myself trying to explain the mental health grenade I just avoided by leaving this job and avoiding becoming limerent over my relentless coworker. Aside from the self-esteem dip I’ve taken being back in the house with an alcoholic borderline/narcissist/OCD who is the cause of most of my triggers in the first place, and having to go back into the workplace which I feared doing after what I’ve been through, and two more abusive workplaces, if there was one thing I didn’t think could happen to me again, I didn’t think I could become limerent.

And yet after almost two weeks now of no-contact I’m still battling intrusive thoughts about this guy, our past interactions, and though less, the fantasies of what could happen. Not to mention the fact that his face is still constantly in my head which I promise is rare to me. I used to wish past LOs’ faces stayed in my head.

I want to be clear that I know where I stand with this guy at this point and where he stands with me. If he contacted me at this point, there’s no way I would answer or respond. But I know part of the problem is that I have been getting calls from an unrecognized number, and since I didn’t get a look at his number before I left, I have no idea if it could be him but we all know that voice in our heads that tells us it could be him! The other obvious option is someone at work who either wants to know what happened or just wants to heap more abuse on me and is waiting for me to answer the phone to do it instead of leaving a message, and I’m not going to give them the time of day for that.

So yes, I’m moving on. I have been in a new position, actually it was a position I’d started before I got this job and everything went wrong with me and the technology the first time around and I'd gotten lost in the shuffle, unable to complete my training or pick up shifts. It was a real, almost supernatural stroke of bad luck. So I had to be reinstated but I had gotten the other job and I just kind of put it off until this happened. They got me right back in there after that. So things could certainly be worse considering what trouble I had even getting a job before the other job. And I know it could happen again but I'm trying to stay positive and get through my first few training days.

So I’m back to training at my new job, which was a job I would’ve preferred to work out in the first place as I could pick my own shifts and it was right on the train line so that I wouldn’t have had to drive to work (my last commute was awful and I hate the car I’m relying on).
So I should be glad that I’m back in the situation that long-term I think will be better for me, as it’ll give me more time for my entrepreneurial endeavors but I did have serious hopes for this other job and I really gave them my all. And I was very prepared to do what I could to make time for everything else. I am grieving the opportunity I thought I had and I need to get through that.

I’m also grieving the relationships and sense of community I thought I had, and I have to deal with that also. It’s pretty sad to say that I’m not used to coworkers who help me like a few of my former coworkers did but I’m feeling that. But I’m not kidding myself that I misconstrued anything that happened to me regarding his actions. Or that ending up more reliant on a guy who couldn’t keep his hands off me for the basics of information I needed to even do my job because nobody else told me anything, was good for me or a situation I should’ve wanted to stay in. Not to mention, I have to remember that the job itself was misrepresented to me so I had every right to leave.

I do feel I’m handling it the best I can. The limerent-y yearnings for this one guy can just come out of nowhere. Like today I was waiting for the train to take me home and I was really feeling it. Which soon led into the realization that as a very young woman who used to rely on public transportation, much of my rides included fantasizing about past LOs, crushes and the like. Literal hours of my past life years ago. I didn’t really remember that but today I was realizing on the train that this was the case, and maybe that was a potential trigger.

I also try to redirect my thoughts. Has he called? No. Did he ever do anything to actually get to know me while I was there? No. Well there you go. Of course a few minutes later, we were going under the highway and it just so happened that a black sprinter van that looked like one from my former workplace was in view on the highway and my breath caught in my throat as I wondered if it was one of theirs. I didn’t see it, and anyway it was unlikely to have been my former coworker anyway but still.

I think what’s most annoying is that my mother, whom I tried to explain this briefly to, insisted in her mind that this guy was just being a coworker with me even if she agreed that touching me was a bit out of line. And it stirred up this need to make her understand that I am not making this shit up, and why does she feel the need to endlessly invalidate me in every way possible?

But like I said she has her own agenda, not just around her many addictions but also on the fact that she can’t accept any little bit of positive notice that I ever get in my life. I’ve seen it when my uncle or great aunt compliments my writing. I saw it when my uncle suggested I should run for office. Simple things like that. It’s just a reminder that only I can love myself and make the life that I want for myself and that life is not what I really wanted.
Last edited by JupiterTaco on Fri Apr 08, 2022 2:57 am, edited 1 time in total.
"You know for a big black guy Cleveland's got a cute little white ass!" Peter, Family Guy
"Um...that wasn't Cleveland," Brian
L-F
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Re: HYPERVIGILANCE TO LIMERENCE; ECHOES OF THE PAST

Post by L-F »

Life is a continous grieving process and learning to manage it. Also a continous lesson of learning to let go.
JupiterTaco wrote: Fri Mar 11, 2022 4:18 am And yet after almost two weeks now of no-contact I’m still battling intrusive thoughts about this guy, our past interactions, and though less, the fantasies of what could happen.
As you know, 2 weeks of NC is not long. Are you focusing on internal or external sources for your limerence? I'm intrigued by your updates, well written and thoughtfully insightful. I know there's nothing I can offer you that you don't already know, but still, I can't help question your focus.

JupiterTaco wrote: Fri Mar 11, 2022 4:18 am I want to be clear that I know where I stand with this guy at this point and where he stands with me. If he contacted me at this point, there’s no way I would answer or respond. But I know part of the problem is that I have been getting calls from an unrecognized number, and since I didn’t get a look at his number before I left, I have no idea if it could be him but we all know that voice in our heads that tells us it could be him! The other obvious option is someone at work who either wants to know what happened or just wants to heap more abuse on me and is waiting for me to answer the phone to do it instead of leaving a message, and I’m not going to give them the time of day for that.
Is there something that you're avoiding? Something that perhaps is not clear from the above? I can't help but wonder if there's something else that's lurking beneath the surface. Obviously not that I'm entitled to know, and obviously not something you need to share, it's just that, I'm sensing something else.

As for not giving the person the time of day so they don't hurl abuse at you, have you considered what it would be like to stand up for that inner child? To stand up and voice your right not to be subjected to abuse, or at least inform said person that you perceive their monologue as abusive and not dialogically conducive to a healthy discussion?

It sounds like 'work' or working with certain types of people have been bothersome your entire working life. Has there ever been a time you've enjoyed working and been free from harassment? You know you're entitled to that. You're entitled to a life where you are happy and settled, respected, financially secure, honored and cherished. You deserve all that and more.

Here's hoping you can rise above the ugliness of bullies to claim your spot and gain a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction.
"And in the end, we were all just humans…Drunk on the idea that love, only love, could heal our brokenness." ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald
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