If
you get the feeling you're a surrogate place-holder for someone else in
your relationship/friendship (someone's parent, an ex, a sibling) you're probably
right. Do they treat you like you're YOU, or do they keep treating you
as if you're a completely different person than who you are? Do they
treat you with respect and reciprocal friendship and companionship, or
do they seem to keep trying to get you to do
certain things or be a certain way that may or may not have anything to
do with who YOU are? Did they take any time or make any effort to get
to know you, to KNOW YOU, or did they seem to assume they already knew
all about you, who you are, what you are, what and where you've been,
what you think, what your motives are, what your emotions are? Do they
show any interest in SHOWING YOU that they care, or do they just keep
expecting YOU to show THEM? Do they keep accusing YOU of doing all kinds
of things "wrong" that don't even cross your mind, that aren't even a
part of your personality? Do they say and do things that are mean or
inconsiderate, or dismissive or judgmental, and then accuse YOU of doing
those things? Or accuse you of being uncaring because you backed away
from them due to their behavior? (Like it's a set up? Like they're
TRYING to make you back off JUST SO they can accuse you of abandonment?)
When this seems to be a pattern, it's often because you ARE a place-holder for someone else, someone who they have been carrying around resentment for for a long time, sometimes all the way back to early childhood.
When this seems to be a pattern, it's often because you ARE a place-holder for someone else, someone who they have been carrying around resentment for for a long time, sometimes all the way back to early childhood.
