"Sometimes not seeing something is not a failure of attention; it is the last move left after seeing changed nothing."
If this resonates with you, what follows may help you see something about yourself.
Seeker
My flatmate borrows my stuff without asking. Food, my charger, whatever. It happened again yesterday and I just said nothing. Again. I don’t get why I keep letting it slide. It’s such a small thing to make a fuss about.
Guide
What did you do when you noticed the charger was gone?
Seeker
Honestly? Kind of nothing. I sort of registered it and then just moved on, like I’d already decided it wasn’t worth it before I even thought about it.
Guide
Before you even thought about it. That’s a fast decision.
Seeker
Yeah. That’s the thing, I’m not even mad in the moment. I go blank. And then later I feel like an idiot for not saying something. I’m the problem here, right, I just let people walk all over me.
Guide
I notice how quickly you got to “I’m the problem.” Like that’s the safe place to land.
Seeker
Well it’s still true. Nobody’s forcing me to stay quiet. I could speak up any time and I don’t. So what else is it?
Guide
Have you ever spoken up? With someone. Not this flatmate, anyone?
Seeker
Sure. Years of it. My exes, my mum. You say the thing, you explain why it bothers you, and it just… nothing changes. Or they get weird and then you’re the difficult one. So you learn to.
Guide
You learn to what? Say it out loud.
Seeker
To not bother. To just kind of go numb about it. Like if I don’t clock it as a big deal then it isn’t one.
Guide
So the not-seeing isn’t stupidity. You trained it.
Seeker
I mean… I don’t know if I’d call it trained.
Guide
Fair. But something in you decided ahead of time that clocking it wouldn’t help. That’s not the same as being a doormat who doesn’t notice.
Seeker
No, I notice. I always notice! That’s what’s messing me up now, I’ve started actually seeing all of it and it’s like, oh. This has been happening the whole time and I just, I made myself not care.
Guide
Made yourself. That’s a strange thing to be able to do to yourself.
Seeker
It felt easier. If you don’t let it land then you can’t be disappointed when nothing happens. And it feels safer. I don’t know. It sounds pathetic saying it.
Guide
It doesn’t sound pathetic to me. It sounds like something you did when nothing else worked.
Seeker
Maybe. I half get that. But it doesn’t fix that I still just stood there yesterday.
Guide
No. It doesn’t.
Seeker
God. It’s such a small thing though. A charger. Why am I even.. It’s just, it’s not the charger, is it. It’s that I taught myself not to want the charger back so I wouldn’t have to feel how much I wanted it and couldn’t get it. That’s what’s making me want to throw something right now and I don’t even know who at.
Guide
Anger is healthy here I think.
Seeker
I am afraid of anger.
If you let yourself notice the next small crossing instead of going blank, what would you have to feel that you have been protecting yourself from?
If you read back the conversation: notice where the guide quietly became the one who knows — naming things, settling them. That feels normal because it happens so often. It's also where your own sense of direction can go quiet. SelfChatter adds a second voice that just makes those moments visible, so the direction stays yours.