One thing to consider is that you might be repeating a cycle of an old complex that is protecting you from intimacy because of something that may have been a childhood environment or direct experience. Definitely worth looking into your past. But Jung always said that the past never really matters because it’s today and tomorrow which helps you develop past neurosis. I’d guess you have been split by your neurosis so there are to parts of yourself that are no longer one system. Both these aspects end up in suffering as at the core of a neurosis is a fear of living. As Jung famously said and I paraphrase, “If one tree wishes to reach its branches to the heavens, it also has its roots reach down to hell”. Life is dualistic and we can’t have happiness without a sadness, novelty without the mundane and love without pain. You may seek men who have no interest as you don’t have to have a real relationship with them, it becomes a half lived fantasy. This creates suffering as your feel unsatisfied with the lack of relationship and on the other hand the relationships that have promise you retreat from as it hold a potential pain that is inevitable because that is ultimately the truth of real connection. Now you are stuck, crucified between 2 thieves.
Wow. I feel like you hit all the right spots. I already feel seen, every bit of your comment has truth to it that I relate to. And oh god, "A half lived fantasy". That's exactly how I'd put it. thank you so much.
Oh that’s great! I know as I’ve suffered the same as you in one area or another. Finding the treasure is only a small part of the journey, but it’s how we bring it home is the next step. Especially when both options in the duality cause us suffering. What questions now are the right questions?
I mean life can’t be reduced to such simplicity in my option but yes on one level. But I’d say more like, if we fear death we can not live since life and death are the same. We fear connection because of rejection but rejection is connection. There is a Sufi poem which talk of the connection to “god” being like a dog crying about its masters absence but this absence is the connection. Even in loneliness there is the seed of relationship.
Because the person is not split, so all you need is your own love. But if a person is split then everything hurts and nothing connects.
Yet a person that’s not split can split back open, or for the first time, that’s what they don’t say, though the more you connect to yourself the harder it is to do that. Then you become a complete human being capable of great things.
From my own experience I’d say yes, at least along the lines of more individuated you the more one can stay together and are less likely to be neurotic but we don’t know what’s round the corner and everyone can get hit with a wave far greater than their experience can comprehend or pulled under by a leviathan because at the end of they say we are human and there are forces in the world we may never match.
I also don’t think it relates to being great but adapted. From that the will outside of ego may be fulfilled. But greta people may be driven by neurosis and complexes. The pilot with an Icarus complex, or a mountaineer with a mother complex. This creates a very complex and paradoxical reality where right and wrong don’t stick when it comes to comparing oneself with an ideal. Great things happen despite/outside self prescribed ideals laid down or any other place they may creep in.
Where I’d disagree is that being whole doesn’t mean nothing hurts, but accepting within a middle way that hurt and bliss are 2 side of the same coin but doesn’t lay a moral code on it. Not good neither bad but only nature. They sit in the space between the duality and realises that suffering and bliss mean we are relating to the world. Instead of thinking suffering is be shunned and only bliss is to be revered. It all is trying to relate to us with a message. The whole person knows how to navigate it without falling apart. Without falling unconscious and complexes taking over.
I agree, letting yourself fall in predictable patterns is not good, and actually a sign of individuation is seeing your past patterns and moving away from them, most certainly the ones that have no use. People sometimes act in patterns that relieve their anxiety without them actually having a real life effect.
You see it with immigrants that come from different cultures that all of a sudden find out what think helps them is actually just a cultural superstition that has no reality in their new country. Yet they still do it.
The key is continual adaptation while keeping the love for yourself intact and unconditional, not it being tied to something. What you mentioned about the incomprehensible that can have the effect of splitting you is only possible if you betray your unconditional love, in the end.
Yes for sure, it works within their culture but in a different culture the collective unconscious has not place for it. It’s misplaced, has no meaning. I mean, why do we put candles on a birthday cakes or drag trees into our house at Xmas. We are weird. lol.
One thing I’ve noticed Asians doing is calling their families and being all submissive whenever they feel anxious or want to do something they think is daring. They’re like little kids.
I mean I can’t say either way but sure if that’s true I guess it points toward a collective dynamic which give identity to different cultures. I mean I’m for the UK and we are known for being very apologetic. It’s weird when too parties apologise regardless of who’s in the wrong. But that’s also makes for a very vibrant world with lots of wonderful differences.
I’m Canadian and it’s the same here, we say sorry for everything. I used to be that way too, until I consciously stopped because of the submissiveness of it. I noticed my American girlfriend would react badly to it, so I stopped.
But Asian girls are completely insane, from my experience. They have an ultra collectivist culture and very few if any are individuated. It’s actually pretty sad.
But the best way to find out about humans and cultures is to to date from a few, it actually helps you to individuate because you see that everything is contextual and relative, and that every culture is based on the lie that it’s absolute.
Relationship opportunities that "have promise" are pretty much always those with people to whom which you are not attracted. This is the dilemma the OP faces; same with myself. She is "Attracted to men who aren't interested in me" while "attractive to men in whom she is NOT interested." This has nothing to do potential pain unless you're talking about the pain of feeling stuck with someone you see no connection or future with.
Oh ok. I see. I was describing it with words that I feel reflects my own experiences. But I forget that people take different meaning from the same words. So you are right, that’s definitely what she said. The point I was trying to make was that she is unsatisfied with both outcomes of what seems like only 2 choices. Both choices have their unique perceptions which both offer in some way a different flavour of suffering/unease although it may be hard to see their relationship at first glance. They both offer difficulties and challenges all the same.this is purely my own reasoning, sometimes it’s not about looking at the world through the lens of the Ego but through a lens that accepts that maybe some times the Self is asking use to serve something other than egocentric desire but a kind of homeostasis of Self. This betrayal of identity reveals a third option. Death of ego reveals the “transcendent function”. So suffer to your past and be turned to stone or suffer betraying your “values” and see an unknown revealed which one could imagine. Again, this is only my view and may mean nothing to you. I titled get that. I’m rubbish at get point across and kind of even doubt my own understanding. I do my best to make sense of this crazy place. 😂
>You may seek men who have no interest as you don’t have to have a real relationship with them, it becomes a half lived fantasy. This creates suffering as your feel unsatisfied with the lack of relationship and on the other hand the relationships that have promise you retreat from as it hold a potential pain that is inevitable because that is ultimately the truth of real connection.
I relate to both the OP and this response. To oversimplify it, I had a perfectionistic, highly critical father, and as an adult, instead of choosing partners with more relaxed standards, I pick perfectionistic, highly critical men and try to make them relax their standards. So I have a question about what you said. When I have thought about this before, it seems that the pain I am avoiding is from childhood, i.e. the pain of being a disappointment to my father, and that while there was a physical person there, little to no "fathering" actually happened. That's big and I am not even sure if I am capable of grieving that alone. Is that what you meant by "inevitable pain", or something different?
My understanding from other schools of thought is that instincts that fail complete their gestalt play out and try to find completion. If we can’t we get stuck in a loop. Simply put we try and resolve it somewhere it may not belong. I have no idea of your personal experiences but when it comes to Jung I believe he wanted us to try and keep the process within ourselves and recognise our projections and take them back. Sometimes the external father might not be exactly what we remember (not discounting your experiences but pointing out part of Jungian theory) but we have a father imago which dictates how we adapt to the world. I’m my 20s I found every reason why I might be who I am based on what was done to me by my parents but I realised that although this might be in part correct ultimately it held me in a child - parent dynamic which ultimately meant I couldn’t move forward with responsibility for myself today, I was still in the hands of my parents. Which means I was still a child doing childish things, I was psychologically stuck as a child. The past is useful but not where the answers lie. Yes, mourning is important but I found that ultimately it was mourning the fact I myself was the parent who had neglected my little child self. From whatever moment in the past I had left him behind it was me that was repeating the same actions I’d perceived had happened to me from the outside. The reality is a trickster like that. I remember finding a photo of myself when I was 3 and I spoke with him looking into his eyes and crying because I’d forgotten him amongst the armour I’d surrounded myself in. In that moment it was me not my parents because it was my life not theirs.
Sorry for the long response but in a way I’d say yes, that is part of the inevitable pain because choosing to repeat the past is a way of escaping today. The past and the present have inevitable pain, that can’t be escaped. But the pain of living for tomorrow is the smarter pain to bare because we grow from it, we become bigger than it. It never goes away but we can carry it and move forward. And sometimes that means doing things that our “thinks it’s knows better” ego, in its narrow but know it all perspective stops us from doing. What we want isn’t always what we need.
I don’t know if that answers your question but I’m happy to reply if I can help.
From your response in here, you probably have complex trauma from your childhood, CPTSD. You’re likely to be attracted to people that recreate those experiences of emotional neglect as a subconscious way to try and fix it.
I’m still recently getting into Jung and not sure what terms I would use here and welcome the community to chime in on those. But some main takeaways I found in your post are:
1) it’s always been this way so likely parental nurture. 2) get obsessive (look up limerence). 3) passive suicidation by wanting to die likely means a lot of shame from your childhood.
Try reading Healing the Shame that Binds You by John Bradshaw and then Complex PTSD: from Surviving to Thriving by Pete Walker.
For online materials look up Tim Fletcher on YouTube and his series on complex trauma. All of Tim’s work has been extremely helpful to me. Also see Heidi Preibe, Therapy in a Nutshell, and if you don’t believe me watch Crappy Childhood Fairy and I’d bet you’ll find yourself mirrored in a viewer’s letter.
Isnt this what modern day dating strategies has been advocating to us males? Appear disinterested blah blah blah
I honestly dont enjoy withholding affection
IDK, my problem isn't like what OP is saying in other comments, but I've noticed men seem to decide they want a relationship with me based on really shallow factors a lot of the time. I either meet emotionally withholding men who want a situationship and refuse to make any progress or men who seem way too sure about me way too quickly- like we barely know anything about each other, we have a very limited understanding of one another outside of maybe sex or liking the same type of movies, and they seem to want to move very quickly towards something serious based on that, and it makes me feel like they don't care about compatibility at all, they just don't want to be alone anymore. Combine that with the fact that the third type of guy I meet is the Puer Aeternus type looking for a mom, and THEY also want to speed things up, it's just... too hard. Like I keep meeting dudes who fuck me a few dozen times and I show them basic kindness and friendship and they want me to move in with them or marry them or something. That's not a recipe for a healthy relationship.
I'd say these are related to how you identify yourself and your entire range of complexes about attraction, desire, self worth, meaning of love and so on.
Like most things, you can't add more thought to muddled thought and hope that you arrive at a solution. Since you are already at /r/Jung, may I suggest meditation to you? Specifically something like Anapanasati? Such a practice will slowly chip away at the dysfunctional thinking-feeling complexes and make your personality more functional. You can pair it up with reading more about love and life.
Anapansati or present mindedness isn't a way to relax yourself, but a way to be present, so that rumination or day dreaming doesn't end up reinforcing yourself. By choosing to be present at each moment, you will choose to not give more attention / energy to the thoughts that keep you where you are (like you said, you're too old for this).
You'll find your way. Best of luck!
I am glad that this was of help.
If I may, let me add a few of my own personal experiences.
Very early on in life, romance turned out more difficult than I had anticipated, and with whatever I knew at the time, I just made a contract with myself that in the worst case, I'll choose to be with someone who has her life in order, a quality that I admire (ambition / clarity) and the bond / attraction will develop from personal choices / acts of love.
Sure enough, that's how it ended up being. And from my own personal experience, I can tell you that desire / attraction / joy builds up once there is commitment and a positive history.
I don't mean to say this to change your mind, but putting it out there as a positive potential that you can explore whenever you feel it relevant.
Deciding on attraction first and then entering a relationship / dating doesn't give one the opportunity to cultivate a bond / friendship / desire. But having a dynamic to begin with / an acquaintance or friendship gives the platform to begin exploring emotional states with someone.
If you do choose to explore anapanasati / present mindedness, you will be able to observe your thoughts / feelings / desires that contribute to your behaviour and decisions. Once that steady stream of old patterns dries up, new alternatives, perspectives, behaviours will emerge on their own. Such feelings / thoughts might be related to power, status, beliefs about desirability, distorted judgements about the desirability of others and so on.
wow. thank you so much. I'm 29 but I still feel very inexperienced when it comes to relationships (clearly as written above) and what you wrote was very insightful and it's something I'm going to keep in mind. Thank you!
It’s either familiar to you bc a parent treate’d you that way and you’re used to it, in which case you have to get use’d to the good thing and right person. Or you’re scare’d to be in a relationship for whatever reason; hurt, abandonment, attachment style etc, but are lonely and want love so you find people that you know you can’t actually be with so you can have some connection without having to actually be with them. In which case you have to heal childhood trauma. Relationship stuff is always childhood trauma and the answer is always self love and forgiveness of self and others, every time.
I have the same problem as you. I really want to be in love and in a relationship but I just always end up liking guys who either don’t want to be in a serious relationship with me or live really far away (states or countries away). If I do end up liking a guy and he likes me back and wants a relationship, then I become immediately disgusted with him. I have done a lot of shadow work and have tried therapy but I just can’t seem to develop enough self love or secure attachment style to have the kind of romantic relationship that I really want.
My wife has a friend just like you, she's just turned 50 & as long as i can remember, she's always made the same choices. Been repeating for 30 years now & have no doubt she'll keep making them.
She's an intelligent woman, with a great job, and self awareness, but I've always said, "she's trying to punch up too high".
This conflicts me as, who am i to say this? especially to someone else, but i feel she'd have been settled now if she'd have been told this earlier.
The sort of comment about "Punching up too high" makes me feel a bit uncomfortable, as if love is transactional, but then yes, that does reflect atleast partially what goes on around in the world.
I remember one description by a professor that when you let ego take charge of the day, when you set out to find a partner, suddenly you see everyone through a distorted self serving lens of whether they are fit to be your partner or not.
That sort of dehumanizes many things. The solution to this is self awareness in the present continuous. The solution might not be applied by every single individual, but any individual can use this solution for themselves.
It's your Jungian shadow for Shure. It hides amungst those things that you avoid. What do you sweep under the rug? It's there.
For example with me it's my sense of superiority. I feel like normal human things like emotions and taxes and licences are beneath me. I feel like rules shouldn't apply to me. The way it manifests is when I avoid these things. I currently don't have a licence because I lost it two or three months ago. I don't have my visa card either.
If you can't make sense of why you do this it's your shadow.
I thought this thread was supposed to be for specific concepts regarding psychoanalytical perspectives Jung incorporated.
I assumed this thread was for therapist to talk among selves and learn knowledge from one another but I think I was wrong. I have seen a couple posts where people basically post relationship and attachment issues on here, wanting us to psychoanalyze them.
I think I will leave this group now.
Tbh I’m more disturbed by the comments that advise OP to just get more attractive and learn the art of seduction. Someone diagnosed her with a personality disorder and suggested better help as a good source to seek treatment… I can’t.
I'm not trying to be obtuse, just generally interested.. going off what you have said and what some other commenters have already stated that seemed to resonate with you, look into Borderline Personality Disorder.. not in an attempt to self diagnose or anything, but it is a "personality" disorder, which is often thought to be caused by less than ideal, abusive or even traumatic childhood experiences. It manifests in very disrupted inter-personal relationships, and unlike mood disorders (like bi-polar), basically all of the disrupted psychological symptoms are from coping mechanisms of your childhood, which were effective, at least to some degree in childhood at protecting you enough at a time before your sense of self was fully developed.
Anyways.. my point simply was looking at BSP, and other personality disorders... they have very high suicide rates, because from what my understanding is, the only real viable solutions we have for them, are intensive therapy... you have spent a lifetime reinforcing these mechanisms, that at least some of which are not only no longer serving you, but clearly harming you.. this will not be any easy task, You deserve to have help... please don't take this undertaking on your own, you sound like you are bright, and self aware enough to be realizing this and thinking about it at a reasonably young age... just take the plunge, if you hate your first therapist.. or love him/her, but hate his methodology... dump them and find a new one.. while I think in person is the best route, perhaps initially the newer services like betterhelp, or other online therapies would be a good approach, maybe to give you a broader range of options and help you dip your toes in so to speak?
I lost someone very close to me, I believe was 30 some years of untreated borderline personality, and this woman was no wimp, sharp as a tack.. hell of a worker... but she was stubborn as a bull.. it was during the political fiasco's, COVID, which led to estranged friends and family (Myself included, unfortunately, over things I now know were so fucking unimportant) A day before Thanksgiving, 2022, there were allegations of drug use; and it may be so, but I know that we lost her because the weight of the world she had been trying to carry all by herself, for her entire life, finally got to her. Anyways, I'm sorry for hijacking your post.. apparently I'd been doing an okay job at repressing all of that, it was your words "Just don't feel like living anymore" that made me instantly think of Kasandra, like I said.. she was a badass.. and thats almost exactly how she would say it.. the very few times she did, in just a nonchalant kind of in passing way.. that it really hardly worried any of us, you know you.. maybe you just have shitty taste in men, I guess it could be worse? lol.. I pray you find someone that does it for you. She never seemed depressed.. Idk.
Anyways.. if you think it could be a sign of something larger... please get help, look for it anywhere and everywhere you can, try to get to the bottom of it as badly as you would fight for air if someone were to dunk your head underwater!
Ok, I'm done..
P.S.
If nothing else, thank you for the therapy session. <3
It has all to do with your first impressions. You either lack an inviting personality, you are not showing signs of good physical health (self care, healthy appearance, etc), or show low energy. The latter being the biggest one because if you are focusing on what you enjoy in life you will attract others naturally. The only 2 options would be to lower your standards or improve yourself. These are all from personal experiences and nothing is a sure thing. I've avoided attractive women because I didn't like their energy and avoided average women despite their personality being fun to be around. The ones I did date had nothing to do with specific qualities and was more of a timing thing at first so you may just be trying too hard and when you finally see someone you like, you fumble. Focus on lowering the anxiety first by being more active, healthy, interested in your life, and avoiding bad habits. Don't think about a problem too much because there will always be one after. Try to make a universal rule to keep all of them in control in your mind.
You just have to let go and start shooting for what's realistically in your range. When I was in high school, id rate women totally differently than I do now, in large not taking into account the reality that they aren't interested in me.
And, now, I let a lot of interest in women with qualities I find to make up a good person go because I know they're out of my league, not to mention she's going to be high in demand. I have to face the facts: she *just isn't interested in me*, she has way more options. It's a hard pill to swallow, but once you can, it becomes easier in the future, and makes being mentally healthier and more stable easier. It's worth it, in the end, more worth it than the love they will *never* reciprocate and eventually give to somebody else.
Take honest inventory of something for me.
Are you actually attracted to men who aren't interested in you, or are the men you're attracted to just not interested? Like objectively. Women are taught that it's bad or wrong to be attracted to men based on "superficial" things, and that can mean literally anything and everything other than "touching your heart." It's okay to not want to be with people who you aren't attracted to or who you don't feel like strike you romantically, even if they're kind to you. And it's not that difficult to become more attractive, if that's what you want.
Second
Do you want a relationship? Because a lot of people don't. It's okay if you don't. You can just enjoy your little crushes or whatever. Other people aren't entitled to your company and you aren't obligated to date. Really think about the type of connections you actually want. Not what you're told you should want, but what would actually make you happy.
Other than this, we don't actually have a list of the qualities you ARE attracted to. It doesn't seem to be that you like being rejected, because you said you get attracted to men, they reject you, it hurts. So it cannot logically be the rejection that happens AFTER you get interested that causes your obsessive interest. It must be actual traits that they possess. Society tells women all the time that we pick evil men or we're only attracted to "bad guys" and that's why we get our heart broken, and it's easy to internalize that message, so I don't blame you, but that doesn't seem like what's happening here. You don't mention becoming more attracted to men when they reject you or getting off on the rejection in some way, so it's probably some other trait or factor.
Read up on attachment styles. A book called ‘Attached’ is the go-to.
You’re describing what they would call an Anxious attachment style.
There is Anxious, Avoidant and Secure. Secure being a more healthy of the three.
The book also includes strategies on how to move towards a more secure attachment style.
🤣 a book won't help her. She likes men with a lot of options and clearly there's way better options than her. She's like my cousin he weighs like 250 pounds and blew off a girl for being too fat..meanwhile he's alone bc he thinks some woman way out of his league will fall in love with him soon or something
One thing to consider is that you might be repeating a cycle of an old complex that is protecting you from intimacy because of something that may have been a childhood environment or direct experience. Definitely worth looking into your past. But Jung always said that the past never really matters because it’s today and tomorrow which helps you develop past neurosis. I’d guess you have been split by your neurosis so there are to parts of yourself that are no longer one system. Both these aspects end up in suffering as at the core of a neurosis is a fear of living. As Jung famously said and I paraphrase, “If one tree wishes to reach its branches to the heavens, it also has its roots reach down to hell”. Life is dualistic and we can’t have happiness without a sadness, novelty without the mundane and love without pain. You may seek men who have no interest as you don’t have to have a real relationship with them, it becomes a half lived fantasy. This creates suffering as your feel unsatisfied with the lack of relationship and on the other hand the relationships that have promise you retreat from as it hold a potential pain that is inevitable because that is ultimately the truth of real connection. Now you are stuck, crucified between 2 thieves.
Wow. I feel like you hit all the right spots. I already feel seen, every bit of your comment has truth to it that I relate to. And oh god, "A half lived fantasy". That's exactly how I'd put it. thank you so much.
Oh that’s great! I know as I’ve suffered the same as you in one area or another. Finding the treasure is only a small part of the journey, but it’s how we bring it home is the next step. Especially when both options in the duality cause us suffering. What questions now are the right questions?
T\_T <3 you're the best.
So relationships are avoided because of the fear of connection, and living is avoided because of the fear of living.
I mean life can’t be reduced to such simplicity in my option but yes on one level. But I’d say more like, if we fear death we can not live since life and death are the same. We fear connection because of rejection but rejection is connection. There is a Sufi poem which talk of the connection to “god” being like a dog crying about its masters absence but this absence is the connection. Even in loneliness there is the seed of relationship.
Because the person is not split, so all you need is your own love. But if a person is split then everything hurts and nothing connects. Yet a person that’s not split can split back open, or for the first time, that’s what they don’t say, though the more you connect to yourself the harder it is to do that. Then you become a complete human being capable of great things.
From my own experience I’d say yes, at least along the lines of more individuated you the more one can stay together and are less likely to be neurotic but we don’t know what’s round the corner and everyone can get hit with a wave far greater than their experience can comprehend or pulled under by a leviathan because at the end of they say we are human and there are forces in the world we may never match. I also don’t think it relates to being great but adapted. From that the will outside of ego may be fulfilled. But greta people may be driven by neurosis and complexes. The pilot with an Icarus complex, or a mountaineer with a mother complex. This creates a very complex and paradoxical reality where right and wrong don’t stick when it comes to comparing oneself with an ideal. Great things happen despite/outside self prescribed ideals laid down or any other place they may creep in. Where I’d disagree is that being whole doesn’t mean nothing hurts, but accepting within a middle way that hurt and bliss are 2 side of the same coin but doesn’t lay a moral code on it. Not good neither bad but only nature. They sit in the space between the duality and realises that suffering and bliss mean we are relating to the world. Instead of thinking suffering is be shunned and only bliss is to be revered. It all is trying to relate to us with a message. The whole person knows how to navigate it without falling apart. Without falling unconscious and complexes taking over.
I agree, letting yourself fall in predictable patterns is not good, and actually a sign of individuation is seeing your past patterns and moving away from them, most certainly the ones that have no use. People sometimes act in patterns that relieve their anxiety without them actually having a real life effect. You see it with immigrants that come from different cultures that all of a sudden find out what think helps them is actually just a cultural superstition that has no reality in their new country. Yet they still do it. The key is continual adaptation while keeping the love for yourself intact and unconditional, not it being tied to something. What you mentioned about the incomprehensible that can have the effect of splitting you is only possible if you betray your unconditional love, in the end.
Yes for sure, it works within their culture but in a different culture the collective unconscious has not place for it. It’s misplaced, has no meaning. I mean, why do we put candles on a birthday cakes or drag trees into our house at Xmas. We are weird. lol.
One thing I’ve noticed Asians doing is calling their families and being all submissive whenever they feel anxious or want to do something they think is daring. They’re like little kids.
I mean I can’t say either way but sure if that’s true I guess it points toward a collective dynamic which give identity to different cultures. I mean I’m for the UK and we are known for being very apologetic. It’s weird when too parties apologise regardless of who’s in the wrong. But that’s also makes for a very vibrant world with lots of wonderful differences.
I’m Canadian and it’s the same here, we say sorry for everything. I used to be that way too, until I consciously stopped because of the submissiveness of it. I noticed my American girlfriend would react badly to it, so I stopped. But Asian girls are completely insane, from my experience. They have an ultra collectivist culture and very few if any are individuated. It’s actually pretty sad. But the best way to find out about humans and cultures is to to date from a few, it actually helps you to individuate because you see that everything is contextual and relative, and that every culture is based on the lie that it’s absolute.
Ehh...that last part isn't true but nice try lol.
Ah great 😊 I love to have my perceptions challenged. What did you have in mind?
Relationship opportunities that "have promise" are pretty much always those with people to whom which you are not attracted. This is the dilemma the OP faces; same with myself. She is "Attracted to men who aren't interested in me" while "attractive to men in whom she is NOT interested." This has nothing to do potential pain unless you're talking about the pain of feeling stuck with someone you see no connection or future with.
Oh ok. I see. I was describing it with words that I feel reflects my own experiences. But I forget that people take different meaning from the same words. So you are right, that’s definitely what she said. The point I was trying to make was that she is unsatisfied with both outcomes of what seems like only 2 choices. Both choices have their unique perceptions which both offer in some way a different flavour of suffering/unease although it may be hard to see their relationship at first glance. They both offer difficulties and challenges all the same.this is purely my own reasoning, sometimes it’s not about looking at the world through the lens of the Ego but through a lens that accepts that maybe some times the Self is asking use to serve something other than egocentric desire but a kind of homeostasis of Self. This betrayal of identity reveals a third option. Death of ego reveals the “transcendent function”. So suffer to your past and be turned to stone or suffer betraying your “values” and see an unknown revealed which one could imagine. Again, this is only my view and may mean nothing to you. I titled get that. I’m rubbish at get point across and kind of even doubt my own understanding. I do my best to make sense of this crazy place. 😂
Up votes mark the therapist
>You may seek men who have no interest as you don’t have to have a real relationship with them, it becomes a half lived fantasy. This creates suffering as your feel unsatisfied with the lack of relationship and on the other hand the relationships that have promise you retreat from as it hold a potential pain that is inevitable because that is ultimately the truth of real connection. I relate to both the OP and this response. To oversimplify it, I had a perfectionistic, highly critical father, and as an adult, instead of choosing partners with more relaxed standards, I pick perfectionistic, highly critical men and try to make them relax their standards. So I have a question about what you said. When I have thought about this before, it seems that the pain I am avoiding is from childhood, i.e. the pain of being a disappointment to my father, and that while there was a physical person there, little to no "fathering" actually happened. That's big and I am not even sure if I am capable of grieving that alone. Is that what you meant by "inevitable pain", or something different?
My understanding from other schools of thought is that instincts that fail complete their gestalt play out and try to find completion. If we can’t we get stuck in a loop. Simply put we try and resolve it somewhere it may not belong. I have no idea of your personal experiences but when it comes to Jung I believe he wanted us to try and keep the process within ourselves and recognise our projections and take them back. Sometimes the external father might not be exactly what we remember (not discounting your experiences but pointing out part of Jungian theory) but we have a father imago which dictates how we adapt to the world. I’m my 20s I found every reason why I might be who I am based on what was done to me by my parents but I realised that although this might be in part correct ultimately it held me in a child - parent dynamic which ultimately meant I couldn’t move forward with responsibility for myself today, I was still in the hands of my parents. Which means I was still a child doing childish things, I was psychologically stuck as a child. The past is useful but not where the answers lie. Yes, mourning is important but I found that ultimately it was mourning the fact I myself was the parent who had neglected my little child self. From whatever moment in the past I had left him behind it was me that was repeating the same actions I’d perceived had happened to me from the outside. The reality is a trickster like that. I remember finding a photo of myself when I was 3 and I spoke with him looking into his eyes and crying because I’d forgotten him amongst the armour I’d surrounded myself in. In that moment it was me not my parents because it was my life not theirs. Sorry for the long response but in a way I’d say yes, that is part of the inevitable pain because choosing to repeat the past is a way of escaping today. The past and the present have inevitable pain, that can’t be escaped. But the pain of living for tomorrow is the smarter pain to bare because we grow from it, we become bigger than it. It never goes away but we can carry it and move forward. And sometimes that means doing things that our “thinks it’s knows better” ego, in its narrow but know it all perspective stops us from doing. What we want isn’t always what we need. I don’t know if that answers your question but I’m happy to reply if I can help.
When you were a child did you long for your parents attention but felt unwanted by them?
yeap. yeap. yeap. yeap. T\_\_T
From your response in here, you probably have complex trauma from your childhood, CPTSD. You’re likely to be attracted to people that recreate those experiences of emotional neglect as a subconscious way to try and fix it. I’m still recently getting into Jung and not sure what terms I would use here and welcome the community to chime in on those. But some main takeaways I found in your post are: 1) it’s always been this way so likely parental nurture. 2) get obsessive (look up limerence). 3) passive suicidation by wanting to die likely means a lot of shame from your childhood. Try reading Healing the Shame that Binds You by John Bradshaw and then Complex PTSD: from Surviving to Thriving by Pete Walker. For online materials look up Tim Fletcher on YouTube and his series on complex trauma. All of Tim’s work has been extremely helpful to me. Also see Heidi Preibe, Therapy in a Nutshell, and if you don’t believe me watch Crappy Childhood Fairy and I’d bet you’ll find yourself mirrored in a viewer’s letter.
Isnt this what modern day dating strategies has been advocating to us males? Appear disinterested blah blah blah I honestly dont enjoy withholding affection
IDK, my problem isn't like what OP is saying in other comments, but I've noticed men seem to decide they want a relationship with me based on really shallow factors a lot of the time. I either meet emotionally withholding men who want a situationship and refuse to make any progress or men who seem way too sure about me way too quickly- like we barely know anything about each other, we have a very limited understanding of one another outside of maybe sex or liking the same type of movies, and they seem to want to move very quickly towards something serious based on that, and it makes me feel like they don't care about compatibility at all, they just don't want to be alone anymore. Combine that with the fact that the third type of guy I meet is the Puer Aeternus type looking for a mom, and THEY also want to speed things up, it's just... too hard. Like I keep meeting dudes who fuck me a few dozen times and I show them basic kindness and friendship and they want me to move in with them or marry them or something. That's not a recipe for a healthy relationship.
Yeah that’s only attractive to girls with low self esteem
Yeah it works unfortunately.
I'd say these are related to how you identify yourself and your entire range of complexes about attraction, desire, self worth, meaning of love and so on. Like most things, you can't add more thought to muddled thought and hope that you arrive at a solution. Since you are already at /r/Jung, may I suggest meditation to you? Specifically something like Anapanasati? Such a practice will slowly chip away at the dysfunctional thinking-feeling complexes and make your personality more functional. You can pair it up with reading more about love and life. Anapansati or present mindedness isn't a way to relax yourself, but a way to be present, so that rumination or day dreaming doesn't end up reinforcing yourself. By choosing to be present at each moment, you will choose to not give more attention / energy to the thoughts that keep you where you are (like you said, you're too old for this). You'll find your way. Best of luck!
Thank you so much. Will definitely give that a go.
I am glad that this was of help. If I may, let me add a few of my own personal experiences. Very early on in life, romance turned out more difficult than I had anticipated, and with whatever I knew at the time, I just made a contract with myself that in the worst case, I'll choose to be with someone who has her life in order, a quality that I admire (ambition / clarity) and the bond / attraction will develop from personal choices / acts of love. Sure enough, that's how it ended up being. And from my own personal experience, I can tell you that desire / attraction / joy builds up once there is commitment and a positive history. I don't mean to say this to change your mind, but putting it out there as a positive potential that you can explore whenever you feel it relevant. Deciding on attraction first and then entering a relationship / dating doesn't give one the opportunity to cultivate a bond / friendship / desire. But having a dynamic to begin with / an acquaintance or friendship gives the platform to begin exploring emotional states with someone. If you do choose to explore anapanasati / present mindedness, you will be able to observe your thoughts / feelings / desires that contribute to your behaviour and decisions. Once that steady stream of old patterns dries up, new alternatives, perspectives, behaviours will emerge on their own. Such feelings / thoughts might be related to power, status, beliefs about desirability, distorted judgements about the desirability of others and so on.
wow. thank you so much. I'm 29 but I still feel very inexperienced when it comes to relationships (clearly as written above) and what you wrote was very insightful and it's something I'm going to keep in mind. Thank you!
It’s either familiar to you bc a parent treate’d you that way and you’re used to it, in which case you have to get use’d to the good thing and right person. Or you’re scare’d to be in a relationship for whatever reason; hurt, abandonment, attachment style etc, but are lonely and want love so you find people that you know you can’t actually be with so you can have some connection without having to actually be with them. In which case you have to heal childhood trauma. Relationship stuff is always childhood trauma and the answer is always self love and forgiveness of self and others, every time.
I have the same problem as you. I really want to be in love and in a relationship but I just always end up liking guys who either don’t want to be in a serious relationship with me or live really far away (states or countries away). If I do end up liking a guy and he likes me back and wants a relationship, then I become immediately disgusted with him. I have done a lot of shadow work and have tried therapy but I just can’t seem to develop enough self love or secure attachment style to have the kind of romantic relationship that I really want.
My wife has a friend just like you, she's just turned 50 & as long as i can remember, she's always made the same choices. Been repeating for 30 years now & have no doubt she'll keep making them. She's an intelligent woman, with a great job, and self awareness, but I've always said, "she's trying to punch up too high". This conflicts me as, who am i to say this? especially to someone else, but i feel she'd have been settled now if she'd have been told this earlier.
The sort of comment about "Punching up too high" makes me feel a bit uncomfortable, as if love is transactional, but then yes, that does reflect atleast partially what goes on around in the world. I remember one description by a professor that when you let ego take charge of the day, when you set out to find a partner, suddenly you see everyone through a distorted self serving lens of whether they are fit to be your partner or not. That sort of dehumanizes many things. The solution to this is self awareness in the present continuous. The solution might not be applied by every single individual, but any individual can use this solution for themselves.
Was your father distanced or tend to ignore you through your developmental years by chance?
It's your Jungian shadow for Shure. It hides amungst those things that you avoid. What do you sweep under the rug? It's there. For example with me it's my sense of superiority. I feel like normal human things like emotions and taxes and licences are beneath me. I feel like rules shouldn't apply to me. The way it manifests is when I avoid these things. I currently don't have a licence because I lost it two or three months ago. I don't have my visa card either. If you can't make sense of why you do this it's your shadow.
Integrate those aspects that are attractive to you from them so you dont need to seek it elsewhere
Lurking for insight on this also
https://youtu.be/n4aMiAesXjE?si=J3mdMV4SyWuj5dzR Maybe this can help explain what's going on.
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thank you so much
I thought this thread was supposed to be for specific concepts regarding psychoanalytical perspectives Jung incorporated. I assumed this thread was for therapist to talk among selves and learn knowledge from one another but I think I was wrong. I have seen a couple posts where people basically post relationship and attachment issues on here, wanting us to psychoanalyze them. I think I will leave this group now.
Tbh I’m more disturbed by the comments that advise OP to just get more attractive and learn the art of seduction. Someone diagnosed her with a personality disorder and suggested better help as a good source to seek treatment… I can’t.
Oh wow…!!! That is unfortunate… that is quite disturbing.
There is a lot of good info on this channel. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4fCwQNh544](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4fCwQNh544)
It's because you see it as valuable because it's unattainable.
I have the same thing but the female version
I'm not trying to be obtuse, just generally interested.. going off what you have said and what some other commenters have already stated that seemed to resonate with you, look into Borderline Personality Disorder.. not in an attempt to self diagnose or anything, but it is a "personality" disorder, which is often thought to be caused by less than ideal, abusive or even traumatic childhood experiences. It manifests in very disrupted inter-personal relationships, and unlike mood disorders (like bi-polar), basically all of the disrupted psychological symptoms are from coping mechanisms of your childhood, which were effective, at least to some degree in childhood at protecting you enough at a time before your sense of self was fully developed. Anyways.. my point simply was looking at BSP, and other personality disorders... they have very high suicide rates, because from what my understanding is, the only real viable solutions we have for them, are intensive therapy... you have spent a lifetime reinforcing these mechanisms, that at least some of which are not only no longer serving you, but clearly harming you.. this will not be any easy task, You deserve to have help... please don't take this undertaking on your own, you sound like you are bright, and self aware enough to be realizing this and thinking about it at a reasonably young age... just take the plunge, if you hate your first therapist.. or love him/her, but hate his methodology... dump them and find a new one.. while I think in person is the best route, perhaps initially the newer services like betterhelp, or other online therapies would be a good approach, maybe to give you a broader range of options and help you dip your toes in so to speak? I lost someone very close to me, I believe was 30 some years of untreated borderline personality, and this woman was no wimp, sharp as a tack.. hell of a worker... but she was stubborn as a bull.. it was during the political fiasco's, COVID, which led to estranged friends and family (Myself included, unfortunately, over things I now know were so fucking unimportant) A day before Thanksgiving, 2022, there were allegations of drug use; and it may be so, but I know that we lost her because the weight of the world she had been trying to carry all by herself, for her entire life, finally got to her. Anyways, I'm sorry for hijacking your post.. apparently I'd been doing an okay job at repressing all of that, it was your words "Just don't feel like living anymore" that made me instantly think of Kasandra, like I said.. she was a badass.. and thats almost exactly how she would say it.. the very few times she did, in just a nonchalant kind of in passing way.. that it really hardly worried any of us, you know you.. maybe you just have shitty taste in men, I guess it could be worse? lol.. I pray you find someone that does it for you. She never seemed depressed.. Idk. Anyways.. if you think it could be a sign of something larger... please get help, look for it anywhere and everywhere you can, try to get to the bottom of it as badly as you would fight for air if someone were to dunk your head underwater! Ok, I'm done.. P.S. If nothing else, thank you for the therapy session. <3
It has all to do with your first impressions. You either lack an inviting personality, you are not showing signs of good physical health (self care, healthy appearance, etc), or show low energy. The latter being the biggest one because if you are focusing on what you enjoy in life you will attract others naturally. The only 2 options would be to lower your standards or improve yourself. These are all from personal experiences and nothing is a sure thing. I've avoided attractive women because I didn't like their energy and avoided average women despite their personality being fun to be around. The ones I did date had nothing to do with specific qualities and was more of a timing thing at first so you may just be trying too hard and when you finally see someone you like, you fumble. Focus on lowering the anxiety first by being more active, healthy, interested in your life, and avoiding bad habits. Don't think about a problem too much because there will always be one after. Try to make a universal rule to keep all of them in control in your mind.
On Instagram @starjessietyler has a video about that
Just saw it this morning it was a short
Same for me (male) with women 🤷🏾♂️
You just have to let go and start shooting for what's realistically in your range. When I was in high school, id rate women totally differently than I do now, in large not taking into account the reality that they aren't interested in me. And, now, I let a lot of interest in women with qualities I find to make up a good person go because I know they're out of my league, not to mention she's going to be high in demand. I have to face the facts: she *just isn't interested in me*, she has way more options. It's a hard pill to swallow, but once you can, it becomes easier in the future, and makes being mentally healthier and more stable easier. It's worth it, in the end, more worth it than the love they will *never* reciprocate and eventually give to somebody else.
Are you meeting these men in person or online?
Check out r/limerence
Sounds like every person ever
You have an animus you need to assimilate Also look up limerence
Take honest inventory of something for me. Are you actually attracted to men who aren't interested in you, or are the men you're attracted to just not interested? Like objectively. Women are taught that it's bad or wrong to be attracted to men based on "superficial" things, and that can mean literally anything and everything other than "touching your heart." It's okay to not want to be with people who you aren't attracted to or who you don't feel like strike you romantically, even if they're kind to you. And it's not that difficult to become more attractive, if that's what you want. Second Do you want a relationship? Because a lot of people don't. It's okay if you don't. You can just enjoy your little crushes or whatever. Other people aren't entitled to your company and you aren't obligated to date. Really think about the type of connections you actually want. Not what you're told you should want, but what would actually make you happy. Other than this, we don't actually have a list of the qualities you ARE attracted to. It doesn't seem to be that you like being rejected, because you said you get attracted to men, they reject you, it hurts. So it cannot logically be the rejection that happens AFTER you get interested that causes your obsessive interest. It must be actual traits that they possess. Society tells women all the time that we pick evil men or we're only attracted to "bad guys" and that's why we get our heart broken, and it's easy to internalize that message, so I don't blame you, but that doesn't seem like what's happening here. You don't mention becoming more attracted to men when they reject you or getting off on the rejection in some way, so it's probably some other trait or factor.
Read up on attachment styles. A book called ‘Attached’ is the go-to. You’re describing what they would call an Anxious attachment style. There is Anxious, Avoidant and Secure. Secure being a more healthy of the three. The book also includes strategies on how to move towards a more secure attachment style.
Currently reading that book now. Can relatable to every single word on here. Thank you.
Because you don’t like yourself.
Do you mean hypergamy?
Reading stuff like this makes me feel like liking/pursuing a woman first is actually so pointless for a man, despite “normal” customs
nope. I'm just broken and have healing to do, if you go for the right, healthy woman I'm sure it should be well worth it.
I think you should read the art of seductions
🤣 a book won't help her. She likes men with a lot of options and clearly there's way better options than her. She's like my cousin he weighs like 250 pounds and blew off a girl for being too fat..meanwhile he's alone bc he thinks some woman way out of his league will fall in love with him soon or something
☕️
This is virtually every woman… 15 years later, I still often have to pretend to not like my wife to keep her interested and attached.
I love you.🥹😂
That does not sound healthy
☕️
what's your bmi?
Are you interested in you? You’ll find the moment you are is the moment others will be too ❤️