Conversation

Zoe
@CurziRose
Strong but unintegrated internal protectors *can* be a saving grace (that is if we've been burned badly enough before that they exist already). They’re like big warning bells in our minds-- "GET THE FUCK AWAY. NO MATTER WHAT YOU THINK HE'S OFFERING, YOU'LL GET IT ELSEWHERE."
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Zoe
@CurziRose
This has mostly been my response to whenever I felt swallowed by someone else’s charisma over the last 2 years; reactive anger/terror, paranoia, & an animal panic to get as far as humanly possible from the bad actor. Mostly, I did just this. I got the fuck away. (Good on me.)
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QC (in Berlin 7/29-???)
@QiaochuYuan
so i sort of object to the claim that anyone doing this is automatically a bad actor. i was on the other side of this dynamic a bit and when it became clearer what was going on i felt so guilty about hurting her i wanted to die
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QC (in Berlin 7/29-???)
@QiaochuYuan
you could say that an unintegrated shadow part in me was behaving in a seductive way to an unintegrated shadow part in her, *and vice versa*. this was extremely confusing for both of us and when we understood it neither of us wanted it
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QC (in Berlin 7/29-???)
@QiaochuYuan
it all felt like the sort of thing that could happen in an ordinary romantic relationship, where two people go crazy about each other and it makes them do crazy things they don't normally do, just magnified a bit and confusingly with no romantic love on her side
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Zoe
@CurziRose
Yeah I 100% agree with all of this. I don't think degree of consciousness of one's behavior determines if someone is a "bad actor", though, as my model is that in all or most cases, the person himself is unaware or only half-aware of the effect they're having.
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Zoe
@CurziRose
Intuitively, I think a combo of a) surface area for feedback/change and b) consequences makes it feel more or less nefarious. But that's kind of my gut read, lots of gray area.
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Zoe
@CurziRose
I'll have to think about this more, but....on instinct, I think a romantic entanglements w/ reality distortion will tend on average to be a bit less dangerous than some of the more extreme cases with gurus/hot shots etc, partly because of power imbalances and social context.
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Zoe
@CurziRose
Replying to
@QiaochuYuan
For sure, yeah, good to own. And, still....you guys worked it out. If you both genuinely feel like it is not happening anymore and you owned your shit, then to me that says a lot.
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