Yesterday, I reflected on being in a relationship where I am changing, but it is not being recognized. The other person is frozen in their image of me. In doing so, I came up with a process of self-assessment, and several things came up that I believe I need to reflect on. First, I need to do a behavior audit, which asks what do I do when I feel threatened, misunderstood, or dismissed? Here I know that I over-explain. What does that mean about myself?
If I feel dismissed, I shut down entirely. How can I re-engage and turn this into something meaningful? Should I? What is the point?
What patterns appear under stress? I disengage, need to sleep, and feel a sense of overwhelm that literally overwhelms me so that I cannot think of anything else, so I am not present or grounded. How do I stop this?
Obviously, I withdraw, but I need to stay curious as this is the work. How do I do this?
I also need to do a power asymmetry check. In this I ask if I have more emotional, intellectual, or positional power than the other person? Do I decide when the conversation ends, pauses, or resumes? I would say yes to all of this, but it certainly does not feel like I have power. It feels like the person works to break me down. Is this their reaction to the power dynamic? Do I really have power? If so, how do I use it appropriately and with the good in mind? If I don’t, how do I figure out I don’t have power and how do I communicate that?
This is real work that is not relationship strategy, nor is it about winning an argument. It is the harder, quieter work of looking at myself without collapsing into shame or retreating into righteousness. Let me breakdown each reflection on its own:
Over-explaining: This is not necessarily a communication flaw, rather it is a survival strategy. A strategy that says if I am understood I will be safe. If I am clear the threat will stop. The origin of this is being misunderstood, punished, or my inner reality was dismissed unless justified perfectly.
Over-explaining is an attempt to regain agency when I feel my identity is being overwritten. It does not come from a place of arrogance, rather a fear of erasure. In this way, the problem is not the explaining, rather who I am explaining to and why. When explanation is offered to someone who is not curious, it becomes self-betrayal. In this I am not communicating… I am pleading for recognition and validation. The work is asking if the person I am explaining to is actually trying to understand me or if I am trying to rescue myself through dismissal. If the latter, then stop explaining and start grounding.
I shut down when I feel dismissed. Shutting down is my nervous system saying connection is not safe. The real question is not how do I re-engage, rather what conditions would make re-engagement meaningful and not self-abandoning? Re-engagement has three prerequisites: (1) Capacity: Am I regulated enough to speak without pleading or collapsing?; (2) Reciprocity: Is the other person willing to listen, not just rebut?; and (3) Purpose: Is the goal understanding or just relief? If any of these are missing then the point is not connection. It is appeasement, and appeasement corrodes the self.
A healthier response would be to communicate that I shut down when I feel dismissed and that I am ready to continue when we can slow this down. Silence can be helpful as it allows me to assess if the other person values connection or control.
In dealing with overwhelm, this is something I cannot stop by force, rather by intervening earlier. What I describe earlier is a collapse response with overload, flooding, and numbness. What signals here did I ignore before the collapse became necessary? Once I can identify the signals I need to name them, reduce the input, and ground the body without narrative or debate. I cannot think my way out of overwhelm, as presence returns first through the body and then the mind.
In staying curious when curiosity is weaponized, I must remember that curiosity is sacred, but not infinite. If my vulnerability is used to cross-examine me, redefine my intent, and accumulate evidence against me, then curiosity becomes a tool of self-harm. Curiosity, as with all things, has boundaries. I can be open to reflecting, but not open to being interrogated or berated. Curiosity without self-protection becomes submission. Self-dignity is key here.
I am facing a power asymmetry paradox. I have power, sure, but I also feel powerless. I recognize that I have structural power in emotional regulation, intellectual articulation, and control over the conversational withdrawal, but power does not feel like power when it is used defensively instead of intentionally. In this instance it is framed as harm by the other person, so I am punished for having it. The person works to break me down is, perhaps, a signal that they feel chronically inferior or unsafe, but then attempts to regain balance through erosion rather than dialogue. This does not make the person malicious, but it does make the dynamic dangerous. I do have power, but it is latent and not integrated. To use power I must choose clarity over control, boundaries over explanations, and consistency over persuasion. Power in the service of good is predictable, transparent, and boundaried.
In the end, a person with a frozen image of me is both painful and destabilizing. It feels as though my growth threatens their narrative. I cannot grow and remain intelligible to someone committed to an old version of me unless they are willing to grieve that version and move on. My work is not to be understood perfectly, but to remain integrated and in progress toward “becoming.”