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HelcatParticipantHi Clara
Yes, you are spot on there. It is common for unhealthy behaviours to come out when people are arguing.
It really is complicated and a lot to learn when you were not brought up in a healthy way. It is not your fault that it isn’t intuitive. Parents have to teach children healthy ways to communicate and manage emotions. You were simply not taught these things because your father did not know how to do them for himself.
I was abused as a child and had to learn all of this too. It is hard work, but 100% worth it.
I think that honestly reflecting and learning and growing is a pretty amazing achievement and that is 100% on you as a person. You should be proud of that. I have faith that you will continue to do this and you will reap so many benefits. As Anita said, you are a good person.
Your fears were understandable, but they aren’t entirely logical. They forgot about the situation that you were in, which was sometimes people date someone when they are ready to move on, and they will not return to a partner. For all of your pain and fears, she was never planning on leaving you and going back to her partner. She was just processing the end of the relationship. So in the end, your fears were just fears.
Love and best wishes! ❤️🙏
HelcatParticipantHi Tommy
My son managed to erase my first reply to you while we were eating toast. 😂 Take two! 🎬
Thank you for your kind words and advice! There is a lot of truth there; I am a fan of the truth.
We don’t have help from anyone. That is why he is shy. More shy than other babies. I have been away from him for a couple of hours maximum, when I go to acupuncture. That is all. He does visit friends and family, as well as go to his classes. It is good to hear that being around the same people is helpful. We have one neighbour who has offered to babysit, but it is difficult because both my husband and I were severely abused as children. It is hard to trust.
That is a good idea to watch educational shows. We have only put on not so educational ones so far. We don’t do television very much anymore because of our son. I have a learning difficulty and my husband has neurodivergence in his family too. Research shows that screen use can make these things worse, so we have been limiting it.
I used to be a language teacher, so he is doing well on that front. I read, talk and sing to him. He knows the words boob, yum, mom and dad. He is very food motivated. 😂
I’m trying to teach him to play with others at the moment because it is his next milestone. We are practicing rolling a ball to each other and the game where is…?
I couldn’t agree more about teaching morality and good decision making. We are also saving for him, for when he is older.
I’m sorry to hear that your mother and sister passed away. You really have experienced so much loss. Your memories are very precious indeed.
I enjoy your rambling. Have a good night!
Love and best wishes! ❤️🙏
HelcatParticipantHi Clara
It is good to hear that you weren’t hurt and feel supported. I say the following with love and for your desire to work on yourself. I’m not trying to criticise, but illuminate issues that you may not be aware of.
I would recommend reading online to learn more about verbal and emotional abuse. It is not just the basic things. Swearing, threats, gaslighting. There are a lot of different behaviours that are considered unhealthy. It is pretty complex. It would be helpful for you to learn about these things.
It may take working with a therapist or a couples counsellor, to work through and figure out all of the more subtle issues in the relationship.
Out of what you have just said. It is both unhealthy for your partner to refuse to talk about issues (for a prolonged period, it is perfectly healthy to delay the discussion for a short time to when it is more suitable) and also for you to ignore her feelings and to discuss them anyway.
The thing about insecurity is, it is not something that your partner can make better long term, they can only provide short term reassurance which doesn’t resolve the problem. The insecurity persists inside you. For example, what triggered this whole situation between you two? Asking your partner if she still had feelings for you. Insecurity. Feelings of insecurity are very difficult for partners to deal with. It may not have been as intense or constant, but these feelings have persisted throughout the relationship to varying degrees.
And of course, your feelings of insecurity are likely a trigger now for your partner because of the difficult first year. Every time you express insecurity, she may be reminded of those issues that occurred between you.
Overreacting when your partner comes home late from work. Insecurity and unhealthy. Working late is pretty common.
It is not a partner’s job to make you feel better about insecurity. It is your job to heal and learn to overcome these feelings.
I went through a situation where my partner was in contact with two long past exes while we started dating. I was in contact with my recent ex when we started dating. Neither of us have problems with insecurity, so neither of us made a fuss about it. We just gave each other the time to work through things. This is the difference between insecurity vs no insecurity. It is not the situation that is bad.
The intense emotions, the insecurity a problem to work on.
Love and best wishes! ❤️🙏
HelcatParticipant*can be helpful
HelcatParticipantI read that thinking about the positive changes to my identity I have experienced because of having a baby.
I understand now, that relationships are to be prioritised above ego and emotions. I am more forgiving now. It has helped my husband and I to operate as a team and genuinely improved our communication. I understand that vulnerability is important for communication. I understand more about the difficulties parents face. I am able to problem solve and help my son. I think that I take good care of my son. I’m trying my best to be a good mother. I’ve enjoyed learning about child care and developmental stages. I would like to learn about child psychology. I have processed and overcome a lot of challenges in the past couple of years. I’ve proven to myself that I’m not like my bio mum. I didn’t magically become a psycho after giving birth. Who knew? 😂 I’m learning to be a bit sillier.
HelcatParticipantChecking in with myself. How I am feeling? stressed and utterly exhausted, disconnected from my body because of the amount of pain that I’m in. I’m trying to compartmentalise and focus on each individual task. It is really all I can do to prevent myself from getting carried away by anxiety. One day at a time, one proverbial foot in front of the other. Just keep swimming…
It is hard being a parent because the responsibility never stops. It doesn’t feel real sometimes. It is easy to lose yourself in the day to day taking care of the child. It is difficult to manage things.
He is a beautiful boy, determined, loving, kind and smart as a whip. He is also shy. It is something that I am trying to work on, bringing him out of his shell around strangers.
It is hard to not have time for your own feelings and to actively hide how you are feeling. It is hard not being able to take a break. I cannot imagine how single parents manage, and with multiple children.
Everything is about my son now. I am okay with that. My hopes and dreams being for him. Everything else pales in comparison. At the same time, it is hard going through all of these changes to myself. It does feel like I am fading away. I do need to set an example. I have to matter too. He’s going to look at how I treat myself as much as how I treat him.
I legitimately thought I would be dead by now growing up. Instead, I have a husband and a son. Life is nuts.
HelcatParticipantHi Franco
That sounds like a great message! I wish you the best of luck with sending it. It is reassuring that your profile received a like 😊
Love and best wishes! ❤️🙏
HelcatParticipantHi Anonymous
It is good to hear from you again. 😊
I’m glad that you have the opportunity to let out feelings deep inside and chose to come here and speak to understanding people instead of continuing that search. I will add that we are not qualified to help people and are not a replacement for a therapist. This is why upon hearing about suicidal thoughts, I recommended seeking professional help.
I think having difficulties with identifying unhealthy behaviours and managing boundaries are common difficulties for people with trauma. Trauma itself, especially as a child primes us to accept abuse later on. It is difficult to overcome without professional support.
Never being allowed to make mistakes is rough. That is like being told that you were never allowed to be human. All children do is make mistakes and in doing so they learn and overcome them. Everyone deserves love, compassion and the freedom to make mistakes and learn from them growing up.
I’m sorry to hear that you struggle with self abuse. These things are learned behaviours. Now, you punish yourself for all of your “mistakes”. Just as when you were a child, you don’t deserve it today. Learning to love yourself is a great gift for a trauma survivor.
Love and best wishes! ❤️🙏
HelcatParticipantHi Clara
I’m not going to judge you based on a mistake that you made in the past. I don’t think your recent relationship is necessarily abusive. You said that you have been working on yourself and I do believe that to be true. For the first year your current relationship started out in an unhealthy way. There are some elements that require continued work. But many people in relationships have their own issues. The goal in a healthy relationship is for people to accept each other’s issues and to work on them. The way society is verbal abuse is completely normalised, especially for people who grew up in that type of environment. You might not be aware of some of the issues. Everyone has bad behaviours, the question is, are they frequent, are they severe, are they apologetic and do they try to overcome it.
The blaming your partner is something to work on, on both sides of the relationship. People feel hurt when they are blamed for things. It seems to me that you are both blaming each other.
Often times, people who have been abused feel triggered by other people. It is not the other person’s fault when we become triggered. It is really hard but helpful to unpick that and disentangle that past hurt from the present day.
You already know about the overreacting and are doing your best to work on it.
Often in relationships with difficulties, difficulties occur on both sides. It takes two to tango. I know that your partner has said some harsh things to you and you have been hurting for months now. This is a fact. You are a tough one hanging in there. It seems to me, that you are doing so for a reason.
You are open to logic, you are open to understanding when you have made a mistake. You might not intuitively understand it. You have been kind even when hearing things that have been hard. I don’t have a negative opinion of you. You are honestly from what I can see trying your best to figure things out, day by day. These things are not easy. I wouldn’t wish for you to beat yourself up over it, when you are already struggling.
Personally, I think that whatever you decide to do is okay with an email or letter. To send or not to send. You don’t have to make a decision right now. I would as always wait until you are feeling calm to decide what you want to do. You talked it through with a therapist, that is enough for me. And as you pointed out, you recently got in touch and clarified that you are allowed to reach out if you feel that you need to.
Love and best wishes! ❤️🙏
July 10, 2024 at 2:43 pm in reply to: Surrender, Accessing Shakti by clearing samskaras, eliminating false selves #434879HelcatParticipantHi Seaturtle
Thank you for sharing about this topic, it has been very interesting! Thank you as well for your kind words. 🙏
Haha I doubt it is your first go around either. There was a Buddha that would predict how many lifetimes it would take to achieve enlightenment. It usually measured in the hundreds.
Well the goal is for a soul to eventually achieve enlightenment and apparently the human realm is the only realm in which enlightenment can be achieved. It is very curious. For you interest, the other realms are gods, demi gods, ghosts, animal and hell.
I definitely see those things in you. You have a very special soul and are a wonderfully open person. I always liked people who are like this, it takes a lot of courage. ❤️
Hmm I don’t know about Buddhism, but there are other theories. I always liked the idea of groups of souls being around each other, growing together and the idea of important people in your life being those souls. I don’t know what your beliefs about souls are? If you have any I’d like to hear them. 😊
I love that you think of your sister as a soul sister. It sounds like you have a beautiful relationship.
Thank you for humouring my inner child soul!
Love and best wishes! ❤️🙏
HelcatParticipantHi Anonymous
Thank you for your kind words! I’m glad that you found sharing my experience helpful. It is good to hear that you are willing to try therapy once you return from your sister’s house.
You are right, the world is a challenging place. One thing that I really learned from therapy that you might find helpful is learning to identify unhealthy behaviours and manage boundaries. The way I think about it there are bad people in the world, neutral people in the world and good people in the world. There are good people I swear! The challenge is in telling the difference. Learning how to protect yourself is helpful. A difficulty is that even good people make mistakes. We are all human and make mistakes. But if someone cares apologises and genuinely tries to do better. That is worth it’s weight in gold.
I’m sorry to hear that you had a bad day, family emergencies, your friends haven’t been supportive and that you have night terrors.
It is good to hear that you find journaling and talking to your brother helpful. I would encourage you to talk to your sister too. She is asking. It is very different listening to other people’s problems than dealing with your own. You are either the kind of person who listens to others difficulties or you are not. If she has listened in the past, I’m sure that she would be happy to again. It is really nice to be able to be supportive and do that for someone.
I think that you have been brave in replying when you are shy and these things are sensitive and not the easiest to talk about. 😊 Please feel free to share whatever you wish!
Love and best wishes! ❤️🙏
HelcatParticipantHi Clara
You did amazingly well thinking about your partners needs to help you stop catastrophising. Hiding the social media, so that your feelings are not triggered was a good idea.
You are 100% right, the only thing that we can control in life is our own actions. Your mind is attached to fear of the unknown, loss of control. But the truth is that control is an illusion. It doesn’t exist. It is simply a false idea of safety that we cling to sometimes.
I found that meditation was helpful in practicing letting things go.
Catastrophising also is rooted in the belief that you need to prepare to be okay with something bad happening. But it also means that you stress and worry frequently before something bad even happens.
Hypothetically, something bad might not happen and you could have spent all of this time worrying for nothing. The alternative is that you could break up, and it is likely going to be just as painful, but you spend extra time being in pain. Learning to be open to waiting to see what will happen next is hard work, but it prevents a lot of unnecessary pain.
I’m sorry that you had a bad dream. I think you are doing a really good job of honouring your feelings as they arise. Letting them pass through. Try to take extra special care of yourself in this difficult time, especially when you are suffering. You don’t deserve to suffer.
There is a process called reparenting that might be helpful to you to help manage your feelings that occur from childhood. The idea is that you take care of yourself, how a loving parent would. It helps to remember yourself you were when you were a child. When a young Clara is upset, what does she need? You didn’t get everything you needed as a child, but you can give it to yourself now.
Love and best wishes! ❤️🙏
July 9, 2024 at 2:23 pm in reply to: Surrender, Accessing Shakti by clearing samskaras, eliminating false selves #434846HelcatParticipantI think you’re doing a wonderful job on your healing journey by the way!
July 9, 2024 at 2:10 pm in reply to: Surrender, Accessing Shakti by clearing samskaras, eliminating false selves #434845HelcatParticipantHi Seaturtle
Some parts of our personality are shaped by our environment and the people around us.
The soul creates a personality… The only thing that I can think of here is inherent personality traits. Not necessarily from our surroundings, or the people around us.
I noticed that my experience growing up was different from a lot of other people who have been abused. I could tell my mother was lying. I was severely abused and told that I was loved, but I knew that I was not loved. This trait was something that I inherently had and it helped to protect me from some issues that others struggled with. I had a bizarre level of hope for an abused child that I would escape the abuse and I finally did at 15 years old when the opportunity came along. I genuinely believed that I could find a way to change my situation.
I guess that my soul traits would be truth seeking, hope, and belief in change. Have you noticed any soul personality traits about yourself that don’t necessarily come from your family, but are uniquely yours?
In Buddhism, everyone is on a soul journey over many lifetimes to finally achieve enlightenment and end the cycle of rebirth. During this process I imagine that the soul is refined. In my mind, we are put on this earth to learn. Everything that we experience, we are to learn from.
In Tibetan Buddhism there is a belief in a process when we die, that we get to choose which realm we are reincarnated to next. All options other than the human realm are considered bad. There are practices to avoid the soul from being confused after death, to help to make a good choice of the realm that you are reborn in.
I don’t know about the process of healing the soul, but I do know the process of healing from abuse. Initially, there is backlog of all of the pain that is built up which must be processed. When that is mostly cleared and you can deal with the present more clearly. And it is more a process of deciding who you want to become and working hard to achieve that. There is a process of learning to love yourself. A process of forgiving. And learning to be happy. My therapist said that the pain doesn’t go away entirely, but it does get easier. This much is true. I have a ridiculous hope that for me one day the pain will go away entirely. Who knows?
I’m curious to hear your thoughts. 😊
Love and best wishes! ❤️🙏
HelcatParticipantHi Vee
I’m sorry to hear that your husband is cold and nasty towards you and you feel lost and hopeless. Do you want to talk about the situation?
It sounds like you are managing a lot with two young children at home, part time work, cooking and I imagine cleaning as well. Sometimes men take that for granted and do not realise how much work that is. It doesn’t sound like you have much time for yourself. And with children everything becomes about them. It is easy to lose sight of yourself.
You feel badly for your children for having a mum that is unhappy and fed up with life. If things cannot be reconciled with your husband, it is not good for them to see him treat you in this way.
Is he a good father to your children or not?
Love and best wishes! ❤️🙏
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