On Unfinished Relationships, Existential Terror, and Dreams

I realize I have not written as much this month. I find myself in an ‘absorbing phase’ rather than a generative one, where I am focusing on taking in rather than putting out. But I still want to touch base with you all!

While my own writing has been quieter, I have had a few podcast conversations that I would love to share with you.

I spoke with Chris Wells about intensity and giftedness. We went deep into Dabrowski’s Theory of Positive Disintegration, discussed how not everyone with high IQ has overexcitabilities. Chris also shares their personal journey with ADHD, autism, and non-binary identity.

Dr. Leslie Ellis joined me to discuss dream therapy and how we can work with our dreams. Many of you have expressed curiosity about this topic, and Leslie brought such wisdom about the symbolic language of our unconscious and practical ways to engage with dream material.

I also want to share a teaser for an upcoming episode with Professor Lilie Chouliaraki from the LSE. Her groundbreaking work examines how media shapes our understanding of suffering, inequality, and victimhood.

Finally, I do have two pieces of random reflections to share with you. One on learning to live with unfinished stories when people leave without closure, and another on why we feel such disproportionate rage when those we trust disappoint us.

Thank you for your patience with my quieter rhythm!

With warmth, Imi

 

UNFINISHED

Closure may be a luxury.
Real life does not always wrap things up with a bow.
Some people disappear mid-conversation. Some love ends with a shrug. Some friends drift away, get outgrown, leave without a word.

From a young age, we are groomed with the narrative that says when there is a beginning, there should be an ending.
Beginning, middle, end.
But the moment we outgrow Disney, we realize reality paints a less pretty picture.
When our high school bff chooses a life radically different to ours; children or no children, career or no career, moving abroad versus staying where we were… the friendship quietly breaks.
Love, however intoxicating it once was, sometimes ends with
an unreturned text.
Later in life, we attend funerals where the important things never got said.
Many of us hold on. At the back of our closet are boxes we cannot throw away because throwing them away means it is really over.

But what truly kills are those questions that eat us alive. What did we do wrong? Were we so unlikable, unlovable? Why were we not enough? Why did they not fight for us? Were we supposed to fight harder?

Perhaps it is built into our mammalian design that we crave answers. We want certainty, a formula, a solid explanation for perplexity. And sometimes, in our attempt to reach the conclusion we so crave, we resort to the most convenient option: we blame ourselves.
Our brain fills the silence with our worst fears about ourselves. It writes stories where we are always the bad one, the one who did not try hard enough, was not good enough to be loved. Where we are too much or not enough.

When someone leaves without explanation, our brain cannot tolerate the void. Self-blame becomes the quickest cognitive shortcut. It is as though if we had caused the painful end, it means we somehow have more control. Or maybe, it’s just a familiar narrative we resort to when reality gives us pain but makes no sense.

Our so called answers usually come from narratives that are either never true or should have expired years ago. They come from the young one in us who learned early that when people leave, it must be our fault. That inner child still believes if we had just been better, quieter, easier to love, everyone would have stayed.

Stop. Our inner vulnerable one’s feelings are real but do not point to the truth.
When we make up stories like that, we are trying to solve an equation where half the variables were never ours to hold.

People’s leaving says nothing about your worth. Sometimes people leave because they are drowning in their own unhealed wounds. Sometimes they project their fears onto you. Sometimes they run from intimacy because closeness reminds them of old pain. Sometimes you see through them a bit too much, so they disappear because staying would mean facing themselves.

Have compassion. For them, yes; but mostly for yourself.
Here is what I have learned:
Some stories end mid-sentence. Some people leave without teaching you how to stop loving them.
So you learn to live with not knowing. You carry your unfinished stories; they weigh heavily some days, drift into the background on others.

Let grief come and go in waves.
Maybe that is the only closure we get: We grow into an adult who understands that is how life works. Accepting that some chapters end mid-sentence. That some people were meant to be question marks, not periods.

It is not peaceful, but it is the only version of reality we have.
Moving forward starts with coming to terms with the sorrow of incompleteness. But know also that you are more than this ending.
You do not need their permission to heal.
You do not need their explanation to move on.
You do not need to understand what happened to know you are going to be okay.

 

ANGER, OR EXISTENTIAL TERROR?

Someone you trust forgets something important to you. Someone whose opinion matters dismisses your feelings. Someone you look up to acts in a way that feels careless or inconsistent. Someone you love does the exact thing that pushes your buttons. You send a text or email to someone important and they leave you hanging.

These are people you have come to place real trust in. People whose opinions shape your sense of self, whose decisions affect your future, whose presence you’ve come to rely on.

And suddenly you are not just irritated or disappointed. You’re furious.
Irrationally, disproportionately furious. You find yourself raging when from the outside they are just being human.

You may then blame yourself after for feeling such rage and think you are being irrational or “too much.” When in fact, there is a very human reason for it.
I think it is because somewhere deep down, we still have in us that baby who needed someone to be completely reliable or we would literally be dropped on the floor and get severely hurt. Back then, if the caregiver forgot to feed us or hold us, we could have literally died. That was a real existential threat.

We grow up, but that terror stays buried in our nervous system. So we unconsciously choose some people in our current reality to be our psychological caregivers. That is human and extremely understandable. The authority figures who guide us, the friends who validate our worth, the lover who keeps us feeling safe in an uncertain world. We hand them the job of being our existential security blanket without even realizing we’re doing it.

But when, occasionally, their human limitations fail us, our ancient alarm system screams that it is a life or death matter.
Sure, the rational, grown-up part of our brain knows that it is not always about us, that people have their own problems, that it is normal for people to forget things. Our adult side can be incredibly calm, empathic and understanding.
But then in all of us there is always this primitive part that screams “if they are unreliable, sloppy; if they are capable of dropping things, I will not survive.” That part is trembling in fear when things do not go according to plan.
Rage feels more powerful than terror. When we feel everything is collapsing, that we cannot hold onto anything, anger gives us the illusion that we can fight our way back to solid ground.

The illusion is that we can demand consistency from other humans, from the world. The fantasy is that if we make our rage big enough, clear enough, something will change.

In psychoanalysis, this is called the illusion of omnipotence. As infants, we experienced a fantasy that our desires alone could make things happen – when we cried, we were fed; when we needed comfort, arms appeared. We couldn’t distinguish between self and other, so it seemed like our will alone controlled the world.

Except that is not how cold hard reality works, not how grown-up life functions. We are essentially unconsciously hoping for other humans to be more than human for our inner child.

That might be why a little lapse or saying the wrong thing often feels like such a betrayal, a personal attack almost.

But perhaps their forgetfulness, their inconsistency, their very human limitations are actually waking us up to gaps in our spiritual and personal growth?
Truth is, we suffer not because people are unreliable, but because we demand that they be reliable for us. We want our authorities to transcend their humanity so we can feel less vulnerable. We are hoping for something in the world that will give us the medicine for our existential terror, something that would make us feel we are in control again.

I hope one day I can relinquish my unconscious desire for other people to be perfect so I can feel safe. I want to be able to reach a point where I can just be at peace, graciously receive their love and care for me and relinquish my neurotic need for them to be anything but who they are.

I want to be in a grown up place where I can appreciate their love and attention for me without making them responsible for my ontological safety.

We find freedom not by finding perfect human around us, or magically turning them into what we want. We want to be internally unshakeable regardless of how scattered, imperfect, unintentionally hurtful everyone else is.

When our authority figures act inconsistently and carelessly, when our partners irritate us again by pushing the very button we need them to not push, when anyone we have put on a pedestal disappoints us with their humanity, I am learning to ask: where am I trying to make them responsible for something that should actually be pointing to gaps in my own spiritual growth?

It is a lifelong practice and most days it takes me hours to get to the point where I let them be nothing other than the beautifully imperfect humans they actually are. But I hope that time span gets shorter and shorter as I practice.

We can hold ourselves in the spaces where others inevitably fall short. We can become our own reliable caregiver. We can free both ourselves and them from an impossible burden neither of us signed up for.

Notice. Breathe, and gently, take that job back.
The ontological security you seek has always been yours to create.