Quote Originally Posted by Aramas View Post
Assuming that duals and conflictors both have issues with each other that need to be worked through due to their different strengths, duals and conflictors will both cause each other pain. What is the difference between pain inflicted by a dual and pain that comes from a conflictor? How does the pain experienced in duality, rather than cause destruction of the psyche, result in an increase in psychological health? What is it about the pain invoked by a conflictor that destroys?

Just some questions to consider and to promote discussion.
I would say that a dual is able to cause me more pain as compared to my conflictor.

I'm close friends with my dual, and I'm also secretly in love with him. We have always been very close, but lately my dual got depressed and has been expressing suicidal thoughts, and his depression has caused him to withdraw from people and his withdrawal has in turn affected our friendship, causing us to drift apart. This distance in our friendship is causing me to sink into major depression, I've been feeling really down all the time and I've been having crying spells multiple times a day and having no energy and no mood to do anything. I keep worrying about my dual all the time, and I also keep getting depressed over how we have drifted apart. I feel like I'm going through a break-up now. Yes, this is how it feels like when you drift apart from your dual. It actually feels a lot like a relationship breakup, and I have to go through the entire grieving process: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance.

A conflictor wouldn't be able to affect my emotions on such a deep level. I can see my conflictor as someone who annoy me on a consistent basis, but they wouldn't be able to make me go into grieving mode the way my dual is able to.