GeniesLoki

https://twitter.com/nosilverv/status/1313953186160545793 … sure makes it sound like it yeah.

The tattoo thing is weird af don't get me wrong, but the root cause sounds like she was (probably incorrectly) afraid of your reaction, trust broke down, and you couldn't talk about the underlying issues to resolve it.

Yea. Incorrectly afraid -> hid and tried to paper over -> I noticed hiding -> felt safety disappeared -> no one figured out why -> things went downhill from there

I've definitely done this. hard to undo incorrectly afraid tho... do I need to develop tolerance for minor hiding?

I think it depends on what you mean by this? 1. "hiding" because they just intrinsically want privacy about something is something you should just accept as a valid need. 2. hiding because they're afraid of your reactions is something to "tolerate" by being non-judgemental.

But in scenario (2) it usually indicates an underlying need/fear that it's worth talking about? The goal is to not have those, but responding to them badly will make them worse and it's better to just say "I'm sorry you felt you had to hide that" and work on the underlying fear.

Fear of being seen is the easiest way to derail a relationship, because being seen as we are is terrifying but also desire to be seen as we are is a key feature of love.

This is like the story of my life lol, this tension. But at the same time it does feel that what I fear will be burned by turning the Other eye of sauron onto me isn’t really *me*?