I recognise this stage... the OMG this is difficult and I'm getting grumpy about it stage. I remember hearing el perro se murio.... and I thought the dog had killed itself! Things are bad when the dogs start killing themselves. Sometimes I hated Spanish. But then I fell back in love with it. And then I got really frustrated with se.... which bloody se is this? I actually stopped having classes with a teacher who had set me the most miserable depressing life-sapping exercise on identifying the use of se in example sentences. Just relax and go with it and I found this one settles into place.

Los PRONOMBRES reflexivos se usan cuando expresamos acciones reflexivas como ducharse o peinarse; con acciones recíprocas como verse o amarse (Yo te veo y tú me ves, to te amo, tú me amas); con acciones que indican cambios de estado como levantarse, preocuparse, volverse. También los usamos para expresar que comimos, fumamos o bebimos algo concreto.

I understand you. If we call reflexive only a verb that fit with your definition "the subject that does the action also receives the action.", I think a way to distinguish this group of verbs from others that are used with pronouns and that are also called reflexive is to try to construct a sentence with the same subject but with another thing or person receiving the action. Examples: 1. Ayer me levanté a las 8-------- Ayer levanté a Juan a las 8 . Both sentences use the same verb with the same meaning and the only difference is that in the first the subject receives the action and in the second one another person receives the action. But, I repeat, the meaning of the verb is the same. Same thing for these examples: 2. Normalmente me visto en 10 minutos----------Normalmente visto a mi niño en 10 minutos. 3. ¿Te has quitado la chaqueta? ----------------- ¿Le has quitado la chaqueta a la niña? 4. Juan se va a poner sus gafas de sol nuevas hoy-------------- Juan le va a poner las gafas nuevas a María hoy. This doesn't work with the other verbs called reflexive but that doesn't fit with your definition of reflexive verbs. 1. No me despedí de Juan ayer------- ????? 2. ¿Te vas a quedar en la clase durante la pausa?----------????? In these cases it's not that the subject receives the action, it's that the verbal form includes the pronoun and the pronoun doesn't have meaning or syntactic function, it doesn't means "to me", "me" or "myself", it's only part of the verbal form, so you can not conjugate the verb without it.

Remember that there are some verbs in spanish that have a pronominal form and a reflexive one and the reflexive form sometimes changes the meaning of the verb. Also notice that not everything can be translated literally word by word from one language to another, so, there are some of those verbs that you'll have to learn by heart, that is the bad news, but the good one is that there are not as many as you think. Talking about the verb quedar/ quedarse both forms have different meanings in spanish and unfotunately you will have to learn that "quedarse" means stay. But is more complicated it's pronominal from since it has more meanings including to stay, to remain, sometimes it can mean "to agree, to leave, to schedule" depending on the context of what you want to convey. The verb volverse can also mean several thing such as "to become" or "to turn" and both are reflexive forms that cannot be translated into english as such because it wouldn't make sence in english. So, as I said some verbs you'll have to learn them by heart, but there aren't that many so i think you can do it! Excellent question! I hope I was helpful! Saludos!

I'm sorry that you are upset about it. We teach first reflexive verbs such as ducharse because they are easier to accept and commonly used in the present... But reflexive pronouns are used for many things. You don't have to memorize all of them, there are cathegories.