Cold differentiation, fusion and stuff.

[fearless]

Fearless, you seem like a very differentiated and generally together person to me but I wanted to ask you something.

Mojo, I am soooo glad you wrote "seems"!!! I'd like to think I'm a generally together person but I have my moments (well days or weeks is more like it!). I guess I long ago (in my late 20s) lost my need to appear perfect to people. I think I have "always" been fairly differentiated but it's something I have definitely worked on and improved upon in adulthood. Although what's interesting is that I don't think you don't really work directly on being differentiated (I never really heard of that exact term for it until here); rather you work on yourself and becoming the person you want to be and owning your decisions - whether they are successful or not.

I believe you indicated that you were bulimic as an adult while you were married.

No, I was severely bulimic for about 9 months starting Spring quarter my freshman year. it began as a specific way to lose weight and was "successful." However it did spiral into your description of feeling shame for this horrible thing I was doing. The first step I tried was not to eat in order to not purge. The problem was that if I ate half a sandwich late in the afternoon I would feel like a failure and go right into my binge/purge cycle as a "punishment." Eventually the only way I found to get over it was to just let myself eat and gain some weight.

I guess my question is how can a person who is differentiated and happy in their primary relationship and not inclined towards shame manifest that type of behavior.


Well I was 19, I was not in a good relationship and my overeating and purging was not initially about shame or compulsion. However shame DID become of the dynamic when I realized I felt out of control to stop this behavior. Again just because I don't think I am "shame-prone" doesn't mean that I never experience shame. I just don't feel it too easily and when I do feel it, I usually can turn it to guilt. I tend MORE toward "guilt-proneness."

I think my writing here is no where near in-depth and/or clear enough. I sometimes reread my posts and wonder if it seems I insinuate that being differentiated is some sort of absolute state in which nothing ever unduly or irrationally affects you and you are always on the ball with your feelings. I more see my state of being as continual progress to a healthier relationship with myself. My relationship with myself has been one I have worked with for a long time. When my XH and I married at 27, I told him I was not ready for kids. By the time I was about 32, I felt I had gotten to the point where I felt like I had substantially matured and was a much healthier person and was ready to be a mother. And now I look at how much I have grown over the last 6 years and am amazed. And yet I still have SOOOOOO much more work to do!!!!

And again even though I feel I am differentiated, I still can feel hurt by others. I would be a complete liar if I said that Cobra's punch didn't make me flinch. He's a guy who doesn't know me at all but I did have that dual reaction of 1) does he really think I am an emasculating feminist b!tch who drove her XH away from her and 2) did I deserve to receive that kind of response?

However I did in quick time (minutes) straighten out that no I am not an emasculating b!tch whose XH was "driven" away by me and no I don't deserve to have some relative stranger take pot shots at me. What I did realize is that on some level Cobra had felt hurt by me and felt a need to lash out at me. His response to Mrs. Nop confirmed too.

So my point is that a differentiated state isn't necessarily a perfect state, it is a work in progress.

I just reread this quote from the Dalai Lama today

Someone else's action should not determine your response.

Really think about it.

I read this a few years ago and it is exactly the state of being I STRIVE toward some times more successfully than other times.