Dear Annie:

Will you share more about what Emotional Dependence means to you, how it feels to be emotionally dependent on a man?

And what are some of those “horrible things (you) did and said to this man”?

anita

Dear Annie:

It is my impression that you are still in a relationship with the man you are referring to, correct?

If so, first thing to do is to change your behavior no matter how you feel. When you feel anger, endure it instead of automatically reacting to it by saying things and doing things.

It is possible to feel angry and yet not express it in any way for a while, and not in destructive ways ever. It is difficult but possible. It takes practice.

Second thing is to release the old hurt, the old anger of childhood so that this old hurt and anger doesn’t feel as strong as it feels now, so that it gets weaker, and so, it will be easier to feel it and to not automatically react to it. For this purpose, quality psychotherapy will help. Did you attend any so far?

anita

Dear Annie:

Regarding you being worried about what you have done to him: he was well enough to end the relationship, and that is a good thing, good move on his part. Hopefully he will be careful and not get into a relationship with an abusive person in the future.

If you feel guilty about having been abusive to him, the way for you to feel better, I believe, is to do your best to heal from what motivated you to abuse him, so that you don’t do this again to someone else. You are on a waiting list for therapy and once you see a therapist, let the therapist know that the first thing you want to work on is to not be abusive to anyone, to be able to feel angry and not react abusively to it.

While you wait for therapy, you can maybe join a free support group, if such is available. And/ or get a book on Anger management, you can look for online sources on how to manage your anger. You can write in a journal, a journal you can title Anger Management if you want. You can post here about techniques and strategies to manage anger (I for one, will reply to you).

You can share, if you’d like, about those hurts from the past that are fueling your anger.

anita

Dear Annie:

You are very welcome. I am glad that you intend to continue to share your journey here. Looking forward to your next post.

anita

Dear Annie:

You can take a break from thinking about him by taking a fast walk for an hour, outside in the hopefully fresh air. The fast walking, the physical exertion will clear your brain from thinking, for a while.

When you think about him again too much, you can take another break, maybe do some physical work, even washing dishes, but do it while paying attention to what you are doing. That will give you another break from thinking.

anita

Annie

Although I can say that my perspective is not the same, I can understand the feelings that you have and am going through a situation with my own family where I share some of those same feelings.

The whole “getting out of my head” statement truly hit home. What I can offer is that the whole feeling of being trapped in your head is maddening, it feels all consuming, and is actually extremely unhealthy as you know.  One of the first things that I started doing when those feelings came up was to tell myself to STOP, literally saying that out loud to myself. I felt very stupid at first, but after time your brain gets the picture. I also started doing push ups when those thoughts started creeping into my head, just go until my body could not do anymore, then I would lay on my back and work my breathe back to normal.

I read somewhere, I need to find the article or Ted talk about this, it said that those thoughts are like ants walking across a picnic table. Functioning people see the ants and then continue on with life no big deal, when you get in your own head, the ants are the only thing you can focus on. You have to let your thoughts be like the ants, acknowledge them and move on. That is what I work on when I listen to my breathe. A jealous thought will pop into my head, and I will say huh look at that I hear you, and then go back to counting my breathe. It has been an interesting journey that has shown some massive flaws in my personality. It has shown me where my insecurities lie, and that my self confidence sucks. But on the positive side, it is very refreshing to know that through this hardship, I am going to come out of the otherside a more complete individual.

I look forward to hearing more

Matt