les deux femmes

August 20, 2021

Some items I want for the home: candelabras, lots of candles, Erlenmeyer flasks and chemistry equipment, rotary phones, typewriters, botanicals, taxidermy bats and butterflies, large lizard in the downstairs living room, a physical map of Laurel Manor, a collection of nightgowns

I am really fucking annoyed with La Femme. I’m to a point where I’m pretty checked out. She has a pathetic level of emotional intelligence and low levels of empathy. She seems annoyed by my emotional volatility, which makes me feel more insecure and volatile. Yesterday she essentially told me that I’m moody, and my anxiety causes her stress and frustration, and she “can’t take that on.” But most of my anxiety comes from the fact that she is emotionally unavailable. It gives me primal panic, so I desperately try and probe emotional feedback out of her.

She said she can’t be available to connect “all the time,” but I think she is pathologically in control mode—things to do and to fix—rather than connection mode. And that also affects her connectedness to Constable. I don’t need to be connected ALL THE TIME, but once a week IF she is first connected to Constable is straight up emotional neglect.

And for her to show up ready to connect only on her time and to then not acknowledge the anger and pain caused by that neglect, and to expect me to just be on board and grateful for what I can get, and then to frame my authentic response as “my emotional issues” is SUCH gaslighting bullshit.

Retreating isn’t my modus operandi, but if it comes between either not connecting as a result of retreating or feeling rejection and panic as a result of trying and then being told I’m “annoying” as a result, I’m going to choose to retreat every time.

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