Projection

[Hazy111]

Does anyone "project" as in the pyschological term or aware they do it?

It started in my teenage years with a guy i had a minor altercation with at school and i developed a deep  irrational fear of him.

Fast forward about twenty years and i i get introduced to a friend of a friend and i had the same reaction. Instant fear and dislike of him. Nothing he said or did, i just got really really anxious around him , thought he really disliked me.

He looked like the guy from school.

Ive had it with other people too, but on a much lesser scale.

I understand this maybe  a form of "projection" in so far as i am projecting bad parts of my own pysche into them that i cant recognise in myself, like rage and hate??

So when i see them,  i am seeing/experiencing a mirror of myself. An angry person being reflected back, is basically me but i cant dont want to see it repressed it, as i dont want to recognise this in myself

Anyone else?

[Dee]

The only thought I had is could you be minimizing you experience in HS?  Is it possible this guy was a bully in addition to the altercation?

The reason I ask is if someone reminds me of an abuser, I get a reaction. 

[Hazy111]

Hi Dee thanks for replying,

He wasnt really a bully. At the time i was subject to some verbal bullying at school and having a tough time at home.
I was thinking to myself , how do i stop this name calling, whats wrong with me. I was getting really down.

Then this guy just said something really innocuous to me and something inside me snapped, ive got to stop this. i started to get passive aggressive with him, by blanking him not looking at him. He wasnt bullying me though.

Then a few days later as he walked past me he sort of punched me, not very hard, rather a tap. I joked it off , said what was that about, but i knew what was behind it. He sort of shrugged. (But i actually wiped this actual incident from my memory for years)

But after that i was really terrified of meeting him bumping into him.  I started to get really paranoid about him, but he wasnt verbally bullying me like the others

He looked a bit like me. I just think about this a lot. I think my internalised rage at the bullying and the bullying at home got projected all into him.

Like i said i met someone 20 years later who looked like him and it all got triggered again

[Hazy111]

The point being also, was he looked a bit like me too and this played a part in the projection???

[Dee]

I don't know.  In my unprofessional opinion I think he was a trauma.  Therefore, I think a trigger.

I also feel, again - my opinion, you are being unfair to yourself with self blame.  Anyone who "sort of" punched you is abusive.  How do you "sort of" punch anyone without it hurting them emotionally?

[sanmagic7]

hazy, i think there's something hinky about that hs guy.  the way he looked at you after the 'tap' and you know what it meant.  then, after that, you were terrified of seeing him.

terrified?  that's a pretty strong emotion for something seemingly as innocuous as a tap and a look.  i say seemingly, because my first thought is that you sensed something dangerous, which would warrant terror.  if this has come up after all these years of having forgotten about it, and then someone who looks like him triggers you, there may be more behind it than you actually remember.

projection?  perhaps.  but, what did that look say?  was it some kind of threat to you?  some subconscious knowing that you need to stay clear or you'll somehow get hurt?

from what i know of projection, yes, other people can 'mirror' our own traits, which we recognize in them, but not necessarily in ourselves.  i've never heard of projection being terrifying, tho.  i don't know for sure, however.   sorry i can't be of more help.  i've never had the experience myself, never heard of it before in this way.  i'm not disbelieving or discounting your experience, no, not at all.  i just don't know all the aspects projection might take on. 

i do hope you can figure it out in order to lay it to rest.    best to you, as always.   hugs.

[Hazy111]

Thanks for your replies.

Yes he may have been a trauma . Its along time ago, but my life just sort of changed overnight. I was outgoing enjoying school, then the verbal bullying started and then this incident. Maybe i am just playing it down? It just had such a great impact on me.

I ve had other incidences in school, worse in a way, but with this one guy i suddenly developed an almighty fear of him out of all proportion to the incident itself.

When i said he punched me , that was wrong it was really he stuck out his arm as i walked past. I sort of joked it off and so did he.

I was feeling really down at the time, with the name calling and feeling really vulnerable. I think at that split second i went into serious "fight/flight"mode and never came out. Stuck in flight. Even when i left school i was still traumatised by it all.

I just thought it may have been projection and all my suppressed rage was projected into this person. I know this is what disorded people can do . They split so as all the bad is put into someone else so they remain good.

[Babysister]

I had 50kids at my six yr old birthday party the whole neighborhood loved me. I was extremely social  and popular. My jealous eldest sibling 10 years older ritually narcissistically abused me and i became avoidant of social situations because i have been afraid ever since that i would be terrorized. But No ithink you are confused with projection of the narcissist versus projection of a situation.
It is normal to project a situation which lasted for DECADES onto others that remind me of my narcissistic abuser. Thank God I don't look  like her she looks like sjp very witchy which reflects her inner self or lack thereof. She wanted to be Me and stole my identity wearing it as a mask in public while abusing her family in private.

Yes i project the torture i went through on witchy women. Itis normal. Which is why i admit yo it to see if i am wrong. Sometimes i am, most of the time i have proven tobe right and the witch is a narcissist.

[Babysister]

Yes disordered people project their blame onto people but in private. They do not do it publicly. Publicly  they say they love the person and that they wish the best for this person. Personality disordered people are dishonest. They are not forthcoming. They would never say"please don't let me project ". Don't be manipulated by a covert narcissist.

[Kizzie]

I really like that you are looking at your own behaviour to see if you are projecting Hazy and if so, figuring out what you can do about it - seems a healthy approach and focused on recovering imo     and yay you