Dear Anita,

well said. I shall attend to myself and marriage. Especially given his need for comfort, and his need for MY comfort. I agree a break is a good idea – a pause before proceeding to the next step/chapter.

In fact, our 2 year wedding anniversary is this weekend. How about that! Perfect timing. I will take this long weekend to sink and savor- and beyond that, whatever it is – as long as it feels right.

We can of course communicate anytime via email easily if either us would like to say hello and be in touch as we usually are. 🙂

That makes me smile a big smile. A pause from proceeding on the path, to sink in this part of the path – take in the sounds and surroundings, and to truly love and appreciate them.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 4 months ago by Cali Chica.

Dear Anita,

I had a great acupuncture session I’m feeling nice and relaxed after just as I expected. I am glad to find something that has been working for me. Yoga, massage, and now acupuncture. I see the importance of keeping these things as a routine, for twofold reasons, their therapeutic benefit, as well as having something to look forward to that provides relief, that is very psychologically important as well. Well I forgot to mention of course the most important of all, our ongoing conversations! I’m curious to see what you have wrote, and thought about when we reading my posts. In regards to your last post, how interesting that you wrote that. I thought about it today, the concept of overwhelming guilt and grief for my mother, and now for my husband.  The concept of abuse passing on. But it’s untrue. It’s not that exactly. Now that I actually feel things or at least starting to, I see things with more clarity. Yes I feel sadness and remorse for putting my husband through everything  terrible, but I also forgive myself knowing that this was not a true indication of who I am or that I have a bad heart. I am not overwhelmed by this per se perhaps, but empowered to lift up and continue my own healing. I know that the most important thing in the world for my husband to heal, is for me to heal. For me to continue with kindness and softness, that is most important for all. My ability to feel good and continue to be grounded will be life-changing for perhaps my husband even more than me. That is how sensitive he is to my emotions. I have gotten so used to feeling and being a certain way, yet it would continue to affect the outside person, a spouse. I see that as well. I see how looking back over the last few weeks my husband’s nature, how so many aspects of his now current personality/responses are not necessarily him, it comes from a place of burn out. I recognize that and I recognize how important it is to remind a loved one that what they feel now is not indicative of who they are, it is a rough phase. It is an injury. It requires healing.

I will be going to acupuncture went to two times per week now, I look forward to it, and the fact that I have easy accessibility to the place with my job. Sometimes is does all work out to conspire for healing

To read second,

after i I posted to you – I listed to a song that makes me emotional, recently it has allowed me to have flashbacks or feel certain sad feelings. I appreciate this.

When I listened to the song – I saw my husband’s boyish face and said out loud in my head. Dear universe. Help us heal. We are good and kind. Help us feel safe and happy one day. He is the kindest spirit I know, please help him.  He deserves joy again.

It wasn’t a cry for help. It was a prayer of sorts. Please please help him heal. Please help us heal and begin a life together with some happiness.

—-

Want to know what’s ironic? This immediately brings me back to so many times in my life that I would be crying on the floor asking the universe or God to please help my mother, to please help my sweet mother who deserves so much happiness and why is she so sad and struggling.

ironic.

I see the people who are actually harmed, and the people who actually need help love and support.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 4 months ago by Cali Chica.
• This reply was modified 5 years, 4 months ago by Cali Chica.

Dear Anita,

i am in tears. Tears of gratefulness for you. Tears of empathy and sadness for him. Tears of wonder for the human spirit. Especially of those who are Incredibly special, strong, and loving – like yourself and my husband.

Thank you for writing this out clearly and with numbers. I am going to reread and share with my husband today. He is getting home early luckily and so good timing to let this sink in and savor for us both. I know I have the tools – we both do. I have hope. And I know enough for us both.

When I didn’t believe I could feel – you knew I could deep down, it was stuck down there covered with that gooey Gunk. But you knew it was there- and look months later : it is true. Yes. I must keep at my own healing. It is new and fresh and ongoing. At any given moment I can feel different, as it is so recent that I’ve felt grounded. It is still fragile. But I am grateful that at least I can be grounded enough to see my husband’s cry for help clearly – and to jump in.

I will write again to you tomorrow morning. I’ll let you know how the rest of my day goes with my husband. We both will be home earlier than usual with a perfect 70 degree breezy day. We will sink in.

Good morning Anita,

I hope you had a good and relaxing weekend. I was hoping that you were able to keep on feeling that joy and relief that you felt at the end of last week as you surely deserve it.

the wedding weekend was fun. It was low-key relaxed, and a good time all around.

It’s morning I am writing to you feeling different. I feel different because I feel 100 times more mature and grounded. Yes I said it I feel grounded I have been waiting for this moment a long time.

This weekend I realized and my husband realized, the true depth of his suffering. I have brought this up many times, mostly in the contacts of the fact that I have a Bewes my husband and therefore caused him,. My mother and the way that she treated him and his family during that wedding time as well, and much more.  I’ve also referenced his job, and how it is not an ideal environment, A set up for burn out.  Given that, brought up the idea of us moving to a location that is far less competitive, with an easier daily life, somewhere out west perhaps so that we can actually make her life easier for once. You know all this. I know all of this.

It’s so much more than that. It’s hard for me to figure out where to begin this morning, I’m usually someone who has no difficulty with words. However this time around I would truly am having trouble with it. So perhaps bear with me as over the course of this week I really want to talk this through, and I know that whatever Input you have Will be very special to me.

Anita, I realize now how severely depressed my husband is. He is truly in the trenches of despair and hopelessness. It does not seem like that on the outside if you see a picture or hang out with him at dinner or over the weekend. In fact even if you spent a whole month with us you wouldn’t be able to tell. But that’s because he is so good at pushing through. Of course so much of this has to do with the aforementioned, but there are roots that are deeper as well. He went through an extremely rigorous surgical residency program, which often involves a lot of bullying and hazing. It’s  how much of that old-school mentality in which the hierarchy is still there and in order to teach the residents in certain fields there is a lot of abusive tactics used. This is a known thing, however it does not make it OK.  I meant to tell you, and as above I’m not doing so great with my words this morning Is this: Has been through so much accumulated, and the cherry on top as his own wife, or girlfriend back then being extremely abusive to him, that he truly is in a bad place.

Today after the wedding, some of this came up. He told me how sometimes when he sees his patients needing an extended stay, in the hospital he almost envies them their ability to be in a hospital and heal without having any external stimuli or torture. So when my husband is on call it is quite terrible, he gets called up all hours of the night with things that are hardly important or reasonable. I’ve mentioned this to you in the past, there is such a terrible infrastructure and his job at the location he is at currently that He is treated poorly and is expected to do anything and everything. For example if there are certain patients coming in our late let’s say, and he mentions to an administrator that perhaps after a patient has had three no-shows or late arrivals they should perhaps not be put as a priority for the next visit, he is berated. When he is on call he’ll get random phone calls that aren’t even about his patients because the answering service did not properly filter them through, causing him to wake up in the middle the night for no reason often. All of this in and of itself is fine, sure it might happen, but given the context of what he’s feeling already – it’s like what I used to say – a feeling of not being able to go on. Moreover, he’s truly doubting himself these days. He says he’s lost his confidence, he doesn’t even know anymore if he is a smart talented surgeon or if he deserves to be in such a terrible type of job, because that’s the best that he can do, perhaps there is no good job out there and this is what his lot in life is.   He said a lot of the reason he has lost his confidence is because of the way I treated him starting pretty early on, I would make fun of him for being short, and I never truly was the supportive spouse looking back. I absolutely agree. Actually because now that I have healed to this point in my own journey I am able to see with clarity how abusive I truly was. It’s not about hitting someone once, it’s the constant emotional abuse it’s the putting them down, it’s the trying to power over. Sound familiar just like what my mother did to me.

Can go on about some of the other things he said, but in short, he is feeling quite hopeless, he does not believe that he could feel any better or that his life could get any better.  I on the other hand feel much better, I feel strong and grounded. I feel almost like a parent this morning Anita, having to put on my thinking cap and say what can I do to help heal this person. So much of what he is going through, almost a majority to be honest it’s because of my doing. If I made him this bad, I could also make better.

There are other variables, trauma he has suffered that has nothing to do with me, and this current job. But as they say- love can cure anything. I feel so sad about this. I am not worried to the point that I think he is suicidal, but he has made many comments about how he doesn’t feel like there is any hope for him in this life. He wonders what the point of all of this is, and he doesn’t feel at all like he can see a future him. He doesn’t see himself in the future at all -he feels stuck in now and doesn’t know how to climb out of the hole. I know what he means to a point are used to have so much trouble being able to visualize an older me, having no hope for the future if life at the current was so terrible. Not To say that I’m entirely healed, but that lowest lowest point of life, I recall very clearly. Someone loses hope that is when you know things are really bad. He has no hope, his optimism and that spark he has always had – have disappeared. If he was a patient of mine then my next step would be to directly send him to a psychiatrist. We talked about this yesterday, and the possibility that perhaps medication may be important for him at least in the short term. We also talked about how hard it is to get mental health providers that truly care and don’t want to just train your wallet. The concept of how hard it is to make time to find someone like a therapist, but it is a German the rafter find one that actually cares and has the knowledge and depth to be able to truly help someone like himself or me.  As you said, dishing out time and money and being frustrated is actually sometimes even more detrimental – and frustrating. I’m not sure, he said that he may be open to something like medication if he needs it for the short term.  But him and I know deep down inside that there is something else.

The other thing that something else is exactly what has helped heal me. Getting on the true healing path. This right here. What you and I do. This stuff we do – that is life changing. Not to say that I want to be his full-time therapist by any means. But I have gained enough where is Devon grounding thus far to know that I can truly help him, not to mention as a bug that half the reason he is in so much despair is because of me.  I believe I have the power to help him heal and come out on the other side. I know it. I Also know it will involve some other life changes, likely moving away from New York City and this job of his.  Says to me that sometimes he feels like he would be better off dead, not that he is suicidal but feeling like what’s the point of this, he’s only 35 and he can’t imagine how things can get better, and the world continues to throw him abuse. I look at him and say – he is right. He is not thinking with a foggy brain. It’s absolutely true. Just like when I felt down and my story was true, the continual abuse from my mother.  All real. Look how much I have been able to climb out of the hole. He can do it too. It’s his turn now Anita, it’s about time that he now has a chance to heal. It is now his turn.

Dear Anita,

Glad you are happy and smiling!

I can write here for the next 2 hours or so, so I will.

This therapist had a very rudimentary way of understanding situations I could tell.  In fact she said this:

“wow I never have heard a story like this – about your mother”

I wanted to say – you’re a therapist?!

Anyway – I am glad I tried for the sake of trying, but not for me- at this exact moment – and that is okay!

I know I am doing other things to help my healing path – most of which includes non rushing.

Today we have an after work event, as well as a pre wedding event for the wedding.  I declined the work event without thought.  No CC will not multi task and handle 2 social events at the same time.  That CC is no longer with us, let her RIP.

Yes, I will talk to you next week in private email about that topic – I am glad you brought it to my attention.  It is not that it is not important to me – it is that I am not bothered by it so much anymore as I have accepted that my trauma does effect that part of my life (of course).

To your previous post, the dynamic of abuse.  I thought about this a lot on the train ride here.  Seeing how often it is portrayed on TV, cycle of abuse in bullying teens, with children of divorced parents acting out, etc.  Some of it cliche, some of it realistic.  Never realizing prior to now that this cycle is in fact a CYCLE! Dating back generations before me.

Yet those generations propagated it forward.  When it comes to me – the buck stops here.  The cycle will end here.

Dear Anita,

No problem (the private conversation).

I recall a long time ago you telling me you hitting your sister.  You know, I’ve taken a few days away from deep conversation (the type we have) and interesting that you bring this up.

I am reading this statement from afar, as someone reading it for the first time – but having known you for a while.

The first thing that comes to my mind is this: “oh you must have been under so much stress/distress that you acted this way.”

Isn’t that interesting? Just a few years ago I would have thought, wow – I don’t believe you did that.

But I see that so much of how we act is from our internal turmoil.  Sure it does not mean it is not wrong (it is wrong to hit another individual) but there is so much more…

I told you that I hit my husband, in front of his cousin (that cousin) while we were on a vacation.

I recall feeling extremely defiant about it, defensive, angry, entitled.  I was enraged.  We were going through a lot of distress and looking back I think of so many things –

I had zero outlet and understanding of what I was going through – in fact this was way before any semblance of awareness of what the beast that my mother is – or what that means in the context of my identity and life.

My husband and I had just finished our medical training and embarked on a long trip – which of course involved many other people.  If it was me today, the much more mature and wise CC, I would say- I am going through a lot – I need us to have alone time, or perhaps down time before a trip.  But then – I had no idea.

I don’t know the context of why you hit your sister.  But I can guarantee it had to do with your mother pouring her hate and poison unto you, and then you pushing it onto someone else.

I notice that I until recently attacked and snapped at my husband so naturally, so knee-jerk.  It was my language.

A language I learned from my mother: attack, and roar.

A language of hate, a language of frenzy and distress.

But this is not my innate language, your innate language.

It is nice to see that.  And it is important to forgive myself, to forgive yourself.

There is no one that works harder on healing everyday than you and I  – I think.  Yes, I do believe so.