It hits out of no where. The HEEBIE GEEBIES (as I fondly call them) come to call at random times of day. When I am driving, or the gym, or my favorite, in the grocery store ewe. The chill that runs up your spine and your brain and body scream RUN, RUN, RUN!!! Although there are no tigers in the produce isle at the store, our subcnsious thinks there are. This used to happen a lot more to me a few years ago, the anxiety would creep in regularly, keeping even the smallest task of walking to the store or driving a few blocks a huge endeavor. It really started when I was a truck driver and my X hit another rig causing me to break my leg. Since then I haven't been the same. Parts of me are returning slowly, but I have moments of really high stress and it all returns, then come the baby steps.
My wonderful, wonderful boyfriend. He is literally everything I could ever want in a partner and mate. But the fear from the divorce and the abandonment well up and I find myself panicking once again and wanting to run out the front door. How could this wonderous creature want me long term and when is he going to go? I have a life with him, a house, his daughter loves me, it would seem quite wonderful, but alas I have fears. They creep in and sit in my subconscious waering away at me. "He will leave, how can anyone love you, how do you know if you want this long term, how do you know this guy is right for you?" well you better go and fast before you don't get any answers, where life is nice and predictable and you don't have to be vulnerable!! GOGOGO! I get so fed up sometimes, he doesn't give me the high that I want, he doesn't leave me feeling unfulfilled or unloved, or waiting for his call. He is predicatable, kind, passionate, loving....terrible I know huh?
Well for someone who has suffered at the hands of basically everyone she was close with leaving her, safefy is not a safe place. Its a scary, unknown, uncharted place that she has never gone into. Some days I feel nothing, there is no spark, no desire, the sure will of well this is over, lets go find something more exciting to do eh? But I have to tell myself no, I refuse to go. I have to go through this uncharted place if I am ever to experience pure love and devotion to not only myself but to another human soul. By tromping through this SAFE place with him, I am forced to pull up all the things I hate and have decided I am as a child and try to unravel them one idea at a time. I am forced to have to look at the pain for what it is and embrace it and love it and know that I am not the 13yr old kid anymore who was beaten and abused, the one who self abused for years avoiding the pain and anguish I had so held dear to me. By letting go of who I was or what I used to believe in, part of me feels like I am letting go of myself, thus the grieving. I go in stages, sometimes it comes in the form of anxiety, sometimes just sadness and I force myself to tap into that and feel it. But after almost 3 years I wonder sometimes if it is ever going to stop so I can be at peace. I will keep trying and I will keep trying to hold faith that this is where I need to be in my life so I can heal in the arms of this loving man and my own loving self.
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Today is just a day
Numb. That is all. I have moments with no clarity, moments where I just feel nothing, dull, lifeless, like the pain that is intruding on my psyche is to much to bear so I just don't feel. A load of unresolved pain and feelings from ghosts of my past haunting me daily. My love turned to me last night and said were practically married, that was in some ways a relief because 70% of me wants to marry him, the other 30% is trying desperately to get out.
We go through these transformations in our lives where we grieve things that we normally would think we wouldn't. Pre-wedding, becoming a parent, moving, all natural to the normal processed person. To me, it is incredibly difficult. Since I spent my life engaged in drugs, relationships, and soothers I never went through the transitions like a normal person would, it is like I am reliving my past again. My boyfriend has an 8 year old daughter whom I tried not to get attached to but eventually did and now I adore her. Through her trials and tribulations I suffer with her waging war on my subconscious mind. I am not her mother in the flesh and blood sense, but I want nothing more than to protect her and my inner kid from all that could harm her. She forces me to relive painful childhood occurrences that otherwise I would not have endured. I never had kids and I now am beginning to believe that is why, the pain is too intense and I did not want to have to feel any of it, but now here I am doing it anyway.
What do you do when there is too much pain. I expressed to my mother today that I was angry with her for not doing more. She admitted she didn't protect me and she felt bad about it, which she has done in the past. My sister and I have never had a sister relationship, its always been me feeling awkward because I am a hyper sensitive person and her being a logical mannish type woman. Basically a suck it up and get over it kind of person. I have never been able to express this to her but as the years progressed I think she is acknowledging that and being more cautious with my feelings. I am perplexed because she met a man about a year ago that she says she really loves and he is kind to her, but she has a pattern that I don't know if she is aware of, she picks the same ones (just like me) but hers are emotionally unavailable, and the relationships consist of a lot of drinking. Now, she is marrying this man, and not surprisingly he annoys me the same way she does so they must be right for one another, regardless I love my sister and all I just want her to be happy. But my father and mother will be there at the ceremony as well as my boyfriend's daughter who I really don't want to expose to my father. Not that he's a bad man, he is an abandoner, enough said. Who am I to step in and tell my sister I think she is repeating a pattern? I am not, I don't know her well enough emotionally because she has never opened up to any of us, therefore I could be totally wrong, I really don't know anymore.
I sobbed last night heavily for the pain of my childhood, the heart wrenching sadness that I kept hidden for so many years. The endless days of torment and just trying to find a place to keep me safe or someone to love me swept in and took me away for a while, I feel like I am still trying to find my way back to stable ground from that today. How much is too much when our brain unleashes the power of grief, how much can one person handle and how do you take it in small doses. My fear of rejection, being left, and finding out my worst fears that I am unlovable and not worthy take of hold of me all the time and leave a mark on my emotional state. It seems I spend more time in tears as of late than anything else, but this is important, its a journey I have to take, one of pain and of life, its just hard to see the end with the vastness of it all before me. Like part of who I am is dying off and being reborn.
We go through these transformations in our lives where we grieve things that we normally would think we wouldn't. Pre-wedding, becoming a parent, moving, all natural to the normal processed person. To me, it is incredibly difficult. Since I spent my life engaged in drugs, relationships, and soothers I never went through the transitions like a normal person would, it is like I am reliving my past again. My boyfriend has an 8 year old daughter whom I tried not to get attached to but eventually did and now I adore her. Through her trials and tribulations I suffer with her waging war on my subconscious mind. I am not her mother in the flesh and blood sense, but I want nothing more than to protect her and my inner kid from all that could harm her. She forces me to relive painful childhood occurrences that otherwise I would not have endured. I never had kids and I now am beginning to believe that is why, the pain is too intense and I did not want to have to feel any of it, but now here I am doing it anyway.
What do you do when there is too much pain. I expressed to my mother today that I was angry with her for not doing more. She admitted she didn't protect me and she felt bad about it, which she has done in the past. My sister and I have never had a sister relationship, its always been me feeling awkward because I am a hyper sensitive person and her being a logical mannish type woman. Basically a suck it up and get over it kind of person. I have never been able to express this to her but as the years progressed I think she is acknowledging that and being more cautious with my feelings. I am perplexed because she met a man about a year ago that she says she really loves and he is kind to her, but she has a pattern that I don't know if she is aware of, she picks the same ones (just like me) but hers are emotionally unavailable, and the relationships consist of a lot of drinking. Now, she is marrying this man, and not surprisingly he annoys me the same way she does so they must be right for one another, regardless I love my sister and all I just want her to be happy. But my father and mother will be there at the ceremony as well as my boyfriend's daughter who I really don't want to expose to my father. Not that he's a bad man, he is an abandoner, enough said. Who am I to step in and tell my sister I think she is repeating a pattern? I am not, I don't know her well enough emotionally because she has never opened up to any of us, therefore I could be totally wrong, I really don't know anymore.
I sobbed last night heavily for the pain of my childhood, the heart wrenching sadness that I kept hidden for so many years. The endless days of torment and just trying to find a place to keep me safe or someone to love me swept in and took me away for a while, I feel like I am still trying to find my way back to stable ground from that today. How much is too much when our brain unleashes the power of grief, how much can one person handle and how do you take it in small doses. My fear of rejection, being left, and finding out my worst fears that I am unlovable and not worthy take of hold of me all the time and leave a mark on my emotional state. It seems I spend more time in tears as of late than anything else, but this is important, its a journey I have to take, one of pain and of life, its just hard to see the end with the vastness of it all before me. Like part of who I am is dying off and being reborn.
Monday, June 24, 2013
Today: Love is pain.
I had to go to my X husbands work today, for the 3rd time in the last 2 weeks. You think you are divorced then BAM something from 2009 comes up and you have to wheel and deal to get a signature from an overgrown baby. I really did everything for that man, and by doing that I was the enabler, desperate to keep a relationship with my father through this x of mine. It is funny, we do marry our parents, even though we swear up and down we wont, it always ends up that way. I realized today I am really mad at not only my father, but my mother. I was at a clients house and I broke down sobbing in the bathroom about what a lonely and desperate exsistence I lived as a child with no one protecting me. I sobbed for the heartbreak of a mother and a father I never really had. My mom now acknowledges her mistakes and I only until now feel I can be angry at her and still embrace her as a person. I know why she did what she did and I understand it, but we have to be angry and we have to feel or we will never be free of the pain.
I never expressed myself as a child. I never said HEY THIS IS WRONG! I don't like this! How can you leave me and treat me this way, Im just a little kid? But I never did, I think now mainly because I was afraid of the rejection I was already receiving, that even more would come and either dad would not come back at all (which did happen) or mom my only soul provider and outlet would go too, I was forced to repress all the feelings that tormented me daily. (wow that brought up tears). There is a lingering pain when I think of how awful children can be. The mercelis teasing, my agonizing walk to the bus stop and even worse the hour long bus ride filled with mean spirited kids who really did know better, they just didn't care as long as I was the middle of the teasing, that meant they were in the clear. Days spent indoors instead of on the playground due to bullying and the heart wrenching knowledge that I had to repress it all, I had to hold it all in and not show how I felt, because I was not valuable enough as a person to have anyone listen. My journal was filled with painful ideas of what I thought love was based on my parents directions, abandonment and silence, really just pain. Love is pain isn't it? In one way or another. I found myself spending more and more time indoors in the solitude of my room, or looking for someone, ANYONE that would give me any attention I could find, bad or good I didn't care so I sought the refuge of men. My soul is a deep well of hurt and anguish, but it is also a well of goodness and love. More of my childhood was used up in bad relationships and just doing things to numb my pain. I smoked my first ciggarett when I was 13, I was raped when I was 14, and from there it was a downward spiral of self induced abuse and loathing. I used drugs to numb the pain and when I was down, I used relationships to numb the anxiety, anything to keep me from feeling. It was a day in and day out of repression and total disregard for my own well being wrapped in a hazy fog of clarity, that I was not good enough. I was the only person I knew how to be, as well guarded fortress of solitude that no person would ever have access too, and that is what I built.
I have internalized my pain, numbed, and when the relationship I was in started to wear off from the high, I would leave. A path of destruction and bridges burned behind me, I did not care who came into my wake. Yes I said I love you, yes I used those words because I believed when I said it, but the reality of ME is that love is about leaving. Which is kind of why I am here today, I am trying to break down this castle and spread my wings to become the beautiful creature I am. My wings are damaged yes, but they are not broken by any means. The anxiety flares, the depression comes, and I acknowledge that I am grieving....and that it is finally ok to break down.
I had to go to my X husbands work today, for the 3rd time in the last 2 weeks. You think you are divorced then BAM something from 2009 comes up and you have to wheel and deal to get a signature from an overgrown baby. I really did everything for that man, and by doing that I was the enabler, desperate to keep a relationship with my father through this x of mine. It is funny, we do marry our parents, even though we swear up and down we wont, it always ends up that way. I realized today I am really mad at not only my father, but my mother. I was at a clients house and I broke down sobbing in the bathroom about what a lonely and desperate exsistence I lived as a child with no one protecting me. I sobbed for the heartbreak of a mother and a father I never really had. My mom now acknowledges her mistakes and I only until now feel I can be angry at her and still embrace her as a person. I know why she did what she did and I understand it, but we have to be angry and we have to feel or we will never be free of the pain.
I never expressed myself as a child. I never said HEY THIS IS WRONG! I don't like this! How can you leave me and treat me this way, Im just a little kid? But I never did, I think now mainly because I was afraid of the rejection I was already receiving, that even more would come and either dad would not come back at all (which did happen) or mom my only soul provider and outlet would go too, I was forced to repress all the feelings that tormented me daily. (wow that brought up tears). There is a lingering pain when I think of how awful children can be. The mercelis teasing, my agonizing walk to the bus stop and even worse the hour long bus ride filled with mean spirited kids who really did know better, they just didn't care as long as I was the middle of the teasing, that meant they were in the clear. Days spent indoors instead of on the playground due to bullying and the heart wrenching knowledge that I had to repress it all, I had to hold it all in and not show how I felt, because I was not valuable enough as a person to have anyone listen. My journal was filled with painful ideas of what I thought love was based on my parents directions, abandonment and silence, really just pain. Love is pain isn't it? In one way or another. I found myself spending more and more time indoors in the solitude of my room, or looking for someone, ANYONE that would give me any attention I could find, bad or good I didn't care so I sought the refuge of men. My soul is a deep well of hurt and anguish, but it is also a well of goodness and love. More of my childhood was used up in bad relationships and just doing things to numb my pain. I smoked my first ciggarett when I was 13, I was raped when I was 14, and from there it was a downward spiral of self induced abuse and loathing. I used drugs to numb the pain and when I was down, I used relationships to numb the anxiety, anything to keep me from feeling. It was a day in and day out of repression and total disregard for my own well being wrapped in a hazy fog of clarity, that I was not good enough. I was the only person I knew how to be, as well guarded fortress of solitude that no person would ever have access too, and that is what I built.
I have internalized my pain, numbed, and when the relationship I was in started to wear off from the high, I would leave. A path of destruction and bridges burned behind me, I did not care who came into my wake. Yes I said I love you, yes I used those words because I believed when I said it, but the reality of ME is that love is about leaving. Which is kind of why I am here today, I am trying to break down this castle and spread my wings to become the beautiful creature I am. My wings are damaged yes, but they are not broken by any means. The anxiety flares, the depression comes, and I acknowledge that I am grieving....and that it is finally ok to break down.
Sunday, June 23, 2013
I spent my days over the last 3 years even after meeting Adam on a roller coaster of feelings. Some days are good, some are bad. I write down things that he says to me that are sweet or that stick out to feed the good feeling part of my love for him. But the doubt always creeps in, is this really what love is? Is this really what I want? Am I making the right choice because anxiety has a way of making you think what you are doing is not right, or that you feel nothing (thanks depression). Anxiety likes to spread lies and fear and keep us in a state of constant worry so that we don't get hurt or we don't go outside even. Those of us and in some cases not, who suffered abuse at the hands of someone we love know all too well the sensation of wanting to be sure, but I can tell you that nothing is. We will never have a total knowledge that our decisions are right or true, we just have to have faith that what we are doing is right for us. My wonderful fionce is kind, smart, gentle, he loves ALL of me, even the dark anxiety parts that I only show a few specific people. My X called me crazy one day while I was having a panic attack, I will never forget that. In a sense yes I was, I still am, but it is the flood of unattended emotions that are spewing from our sub-conscious screaming NOTICE ME! We have work to do!
I remember and still have my journals, countless days of spewing the same thought patterns, trying to decipher who I was and who I was becoming. This person completely lost in her own self, drowning in grief, agony, anxiety, and depression. It was like (and still is some days) like I am being bombarded with this invisible beast and the weight is so heavy on my heart and brain, like a wet, wool blanket keeping out the good in my life. We are creatures of habit, we find ourselves especially the abused ones, using things to make us feel better, using them as a distraction from the pain we cannot seem to cope with some days. I went from drugs, to relationships, to food, then to facebook and food, this endless hamster wheel of life I have been on. But I have made it this far right? I am a survivor of a horrible emotional storm that took part of my childhood, and part of my life. But do we have to become that emotion, that sadness, that world we created to protect ourselves? No we do not, but it sure is easy to stay a victim is it not? I realized this morning for one moment the glimmer that I dont have to leave my relationship with him, I can stay here and live and maybe at some point be really happy in my life. Now don't get me wrong, I do have days where I am happy, and I do love this man to the best of my ability, but I have acknolwedged that I am emotionally unavailable. I did warn him when I met him but he felt as did I that we have known and loved one another many lifetimes prior to this, so we stuck it out to see where it went, and 2 years later we are still together and buying a house.
I have removed certain people from my life simply because I am about self preservation now. I am trying to focus on gratitude and love even through the pain of grief and loss. Who am I now? What is this life I have found myself in? If my father didn't want me then who will? I am not good enough and do not deserve someone who loves me? All these things I have become over the years, and have followed and haunted me still to this day. If someone is not reliable or constant I do not allow them near my internal self at all. Part of my journey has been from mothering my inner child and that will be for tomorrow.
I remember and still have my journals, countless days of spewing the same thought patterns, trying to decipher who I was and who I was becoming. This person completely lost in her own self, drowning in grief, agony, anxiety, and depression. It was like (and still is some days) like I am being bombarded with this invisible beast and the weight is so heavy on my heart and brain, like a wet, wool blanket keeping out the good in my life. We are creatures of habit, we find ourselves especially the abused ones, using things to make us feel better, using them as a distraction from the pain we cannot seem to cope with some days. I went from drugs, to relationships, to food, then to facebook and food, this endless hamster wheel of life I have been on. But I have made it this far right? I am a survivor of a horrible emotional storm that took part of my childhood, and part of my life. But do we have to become that emotion, that sadness, that world we created to protect ourselves? No we do not, but it sure is easy to stay a victim is it not? I realized this morning for one moment the glimmer that I dont have to leave my relationship with him, I can stay here and live and maybe at some point be really happy in my life. Now don't get me wrong, I do have days where I am happy, and I do love this man to the best of my ability, but I have acknolwedged that I am emotionally unavailable. I did warn him when I met him but he felt as did I that we have known and loved one another many lifetimes prior to this, so we stuck it out to see where it went, and 2 years later we are still together and buying a house.
I have removed certain people from my life simply because I am about self preservation now. I am trying to focus on gratitude and love even through the pain of grief and loss. Who am I now? What is this life I have found myself in? If my father didn't want me then who will? I am not good enough and do not deserve someone who loves me? All these things I have become over the years, and have followed and haunted me still to this day. If someone is not reliable or constant I do not allow them near my internal self at all. Part of my journey has been from mothering my inner child and that will be for tomorrow.
Saturday, June 22, 2013
The beginning
So here goes. I am an x addict, a love addict, an abandoner, and emotionally unavailable and this is my journey to emotional release.
One more moment of my life, a transition if you will from who I used to be, to who I am confusedly becoming. Let's skip back 3 years torn in a emotionally devastating divorce, feeling flooding from a broken heart shattering a reality that I once knew as my own. From a tormented childhood full of pain, self-loathing induced by a father who was never there to concealing my pain with soothers for 25 years. I found myself lost, much like a thought on the wind, I had no safe place to land. On the verge of being aragorphobic, anxiety had struck home, and depression held its hand. The last 3 years have been an uphill battle struggling to perform what people are telling me is "normal" life. The anxiety waxes and wanes like the moon and I have good and bad days/weeks/months. I found myself at rock bottom, the abandonment pain flooding in like an unwelcome guest, and I was forced to face this invisible beast now alone as my X husband abandoned me as well, thus spurring this whirlwind of incompleteness. Envision if you will a child on the beach, a woman holding one hand, but on the other is emptiness, no other loving person holding the little hand. This is my imbalance, this is my journey, and my journal of transcendence.
When you are thrown from a world of soothers and feeling no pain, running from relationships when the anxiety gets to be too much, and just starting anew, "normal" is not a familiar friend. When you never experienced certain "normal" things as a child, trying to function as an adult in "normal" is well confusing to say the least. Your gut tells you one thing, intuition another (yes they are different), and normal is sometimes well quite boring from an addicts standpoint, it is quite hard for your skin not to crawl. I have moments where I can't even fathom leaving my house but I go anyway. The anxiety literally makes me want to run down the street screaming, and since we all know it is invisible we suffer in silence, or are called crazy, so we then convince ourselves we have a disease. Anxiety loves to make us hate ourselves, fills us with doubt, longing. and pain, but when really anxiety is your brains way of telling you something needs to be addressed. Now mind you I have spent countless hours, googling, reasearching, I have read countless books on this nasty foe, for my own ammunition and have found some solace in knowing that it really cant hurt me, it just makes me really uncomfortable and we all know how fun that is huh?!
I am one of the lucky ones, I have found a way to wrap my mind around what IT is, it is the coping I am still working on. The countless calls to my friends and my mother, not to mention my wonderous soon to be fioncee (that's a whole nother anxiety) have given me the strength to get up each day and keep going even at my worst. I am grateful for all of my support and love that is thrown at me constantly, as they understand my past, they know the struggles I have endured from my father being absent. Divorce is incredibly painful, much like a death but the person is not dead, and how do we cope, that is for another day.
One more moment of my life, a transition if you will from who I used to be, to who I am confusedly becoming. Let's skip back 3 years torn in a emotionally devastating divorce, feeling flooding from a broken heart shattering a reality that I once knew as my own. From a tormented childhood full of pain, self-loathing induced by a father who was never there to concealing my pain with soothers for 25 years. I found myself lost, much like a thought on the wind, I had no safe place to land. On the verge of being aragorphobic, anxiety had struck home, and depression held its hand. The last 3 years have been an uphill battle struggling to perform what people are telling me is "normal" life. The anxiety waxes and wanes like the moon and I have good and bad days/weeks/months. I found myself at rock bottom, the abandonment pain flooding in like an unwelcome guest, and I was forced to face this invisible beast now alone as my X husband abandoned me as well, thus spurring this whirlwind of incompleteness. Envision if you will a child on the beach, a woman holding one hand, but on the other is emptiness, no other loving person holding the little hand. This is my imbalance, this is my journey, and my journal of transcendence.
When you are thrown from a world of soothers and feeling no pain, running from relationships when the anxiety gets to be too much, and just starting anew, "normal" is not a familiar friend. When you never experienced certain "normal" things as a child, trying to function as an adult in "normal" is well confusing to say the least. Your gut tells you one thing, intuition another (yes they are different), and normal is sometimes well quite boring from an addicts standpoint, it is quite hard for your skin not to crawl. I have moments where I can't even fathom leaving my house but I go anyway. The anxiety literally makes me want to run down the street screaming, and since we all know it is invisible we suffer in silence, or are called crazy, so we then convince ourselves we have a disease. Anxiety loves to make us hate ourselves, fills us with doubt, longing. and pain, but when really anxiety is your brains way of telling you something needs to be addressed. Now mind you I have spent countless hours, googling, reasearching, I have read countless books on this nasty foe, for my own ammunition and have found some solace in knowing that it really cant hurt me, it just makes me really uncomfortable and we all know how fun that is huh?!
I am one of the lucky ones, I have found a way to wrap my mind around what IT is, it is the coping I am still working on. The countless calls to my friends and my mother, not to mention my wonderous soon to be fioncee (that's a whole nother anxiety) have given me the strength to get up each day and keep going even at my worst. I am grateful for all of my support and love that is thrown at me constantly, as they understand my past, they know the struggles I have endured from my father being absent. Divorce is incredibly painful, much like a death but the person is not dead, and how do we cope, that is for another day.
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