Home→Forums→Tough Times→How to get your priorities in order while everything is falling apart~
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May 29, 2018 at 10:15 am #209929
BellaParticipantHi Anita,
Still trying to digest all that you have said. I know I didn’t ask him to do too much & he always expressed how he felt usually in the same way. He would get it out, and move on. I let him be himself. I have thought about this a lot in the last week & I feel more confused now then before. How can I stop my mind from going over this in my head because it really makes no difference as to whose fault it was, or who was more at blame. I just want the hurt to stop and begin to heal. Every time I feel I am starting to feel just a little better, all of these questions come flowing back in my mind & I get sick on my stomach and fall back into a bad state.
May 29, 2018 at 10:24 am #209933
AnonymousGuestDear Bella:
What I suggest to you is not necessarily The Truth about your life and situation. It is a suggestion for you to consider, if you choose to consider it, and to evaluate for truth if so you choose. I have limited information, of course. And I have it from one source.
For now, more important is your state, the “bad state” you just mentioned. You shared earlier that you suffer from a temporary disability, that you have little to no social interactions, that you don’t get out of your house much or hardly at all… will you tell me more about this temporary disability and life circumstances as well as that bad state otherwise?
anita
May 29, 2018 at 11:55 am #209959BellaParticipantHi Anita,
My disability is syncopy. I am alone a lot because it prevents me from driving and unable to feel comfortable when out not knowing if I will have an episode. I wish I could express myself better with details about my life because there are many & I understand you are only able to go by my posts, which are not in as detail as I would like to have written.
I will own my faults, but I feel I was always good to him and just don’t understand how I went & did so many things wrong. I am feeling very bad.
May 29, 2018 at 12:26 pm #209969AnonymousGuestDear Bella:
I need to get away from the computer for the next fifteen hours or so. When I am back, I will read your recent post and anything you would like to add to it. Will reply when I am back. Please do something nice for yourself today, treat yourself well today.
anita
May 30, 2018 at 2:10 am #209993AnonymousGuestDear Bella:
I will need to look up syncopy online so to learn a bit about it.
Here is some summary of what you shared on your various threads:
Eight years ago your mother was sick in the hospital. You referred to her as “My Rock”. After her death you became “very withdrawn & closed the world out”. About six months after her death, you became friends with this man. For years you lived with him and the two of you spent a lot of time together (“we did most everything with just one another”).
About two months ago, after an eight year relationship, this man who lived with you packed up his things and left. You are currently unable to drive due to syncopy, not expecting to be able to drive for the next four months. You are “stuck at home with nothing to do but stress myself out alone”. You wrote: “I am mostly alone & don’t speak to many people… I am a bit withdrawn and am having big trust issues with people”.
You wrote: “I desperately want a new life and wrap up all of my loose ends… move on and want desperately to be happy”.
My thoughts this early morning: I think your mother was a huge part of your life (mothers often are, not always in a good way..). I think that this relationship with your ex live in boyfriend is over, or should be over. You wrote yourself that you can no longer trust him. You believe he is mean and cruel to you, that he is playing games and you really do want to move on.
Problem is you are alone, living alone, not employed, pretty much isolated and you have “big trust issues with people”, making the prospect of meeting people (if you were able to drive) an unattractive prospect.
Believing that this relationship should stay in the past, I would like to get to know you better, to get to know Bella better. If you are interested in allowing me to know more about you, please do answer some or all of my questions. If you prefer not to answer any or some of my questions, please don’t. I respect your choice either way.
1. You “want desperately to be happy”. Can you tell me of what happy means to you, tell me about the happiest time in your life?
2. How was your mother your Rock, tell me a bit about your relationship with her over the years?
anita
May 31, 2018 at 6:53 am #210191BellaParticipantHi Anita,
Thinking about what my happiest times I can remember was with my family & feeling they cared about us. I remember going to the zoo one time when I was about 10 & so happy with my Father. He wasn’t very interactive with us as he was a Drill instructor in the Military and very strict. 3 girls…My Mother was a stay at home mom because we moved so much. My mother was over-protective as she never would let us do a lot of activities as she was afraid we might get hurt. My parents were never much on verbally saying “We Love You”…I do remember I wanted that so bad. I didn’t get along well with my older sister & we have not spoken since my mothers passing. My older sister was very hateful & was always arguing with my parents, even when my mother was sick she was hateful to her, to the point my mother asked her to stop being so mean.
When I was 13 I ran away from home not feeling I was Loved & it seems since then I have been mostly unhappy. Happiness is what my Mother told me before she passed is all she ever wanted for me. I would often tell her how unhappy I was & she would tell me I was the only one that would be able to accomplish that. She was a Preaches daughter & very quiet. She would always tell me to pray about it. I am not religious like she was, but am very spiritual. As I try to remember details of my life, it is very uncomfortable, as I don’t have a lot of good memories…
Bella
May 31, 2018 at 8:03 am #210203AnonymousGuestDear Bella:
I looked up syncopy yesterday, read a bit about it in Wikipedia. Did you faint as a child.. when did it start, I wonder. Is there a medically determined cause to it?
Going to the zoo at ten. Interesting, like you I have few good memories and one of them is sitting at a restaurant with my father, oh how special I felt.
How was your mother your Rock then, doesn’t read to me that you had a rock at all, as a child, not in your father and not in your mother or older sister.
anita
May 31, 2018 at 10:24 am #210217BellaParticipantHi Anita,
I feel that is why I ran away as a child & felt alone and like I wasn’t good enough for my parents approval. I am sure there was a lot more than I can remember at the moment as I am beginning to feel lost thinking about these things. I don’t like thinking about my childhood memories as there were not many blissfully happy ones. My father meant a lot to me & I always tried my best to make him happy & what I remember most id disappointing him. He always preached to us to do well in school. If I made a’s & b’s, that wasn’t good enough, try harder he would say. Thinking about things now, most things in my parents eye were if you try hard enough you can do it. Which was not the case for me. I never could accomplish enough to make him happy. But, like you I cherished every moment I had my fathers attention. I found an old 8mm film I had made to dvd & my father is filming me as I walk towards him in the camera & I cry terribly when I see it because I would love 1 hr. of his attention now. He passed away when I was 27 & has been dead for 30 yrs. I miss him all the time.
May 31, 2018 at 11:32 am #210237AnonymousGuestDear Bella:
We keep re-living our childhood experience because our early experience gets deeply rooted in our brain when we are children, carved into many thousands of connections between our brain nerve cells. These connections don’t get undone as we become 18 or 28 or 58.
I wish your father congratulated you for getting As and Bs. I wish he showed you his approval, what a difference that would have made in the decades of life you had before and after his death. And your mother was afraid that you will get hurt physically (post before last), not realizing you were already emotionally hurt.
The reason I think it is helpful to get insight into our childhood is because our present experience is mostly a re-activation of our childhood experience. Simply put, most of the time we feel the same as we felt then.
When we process some of those early experiences, release some of that pain, somehow, we feel a relief. Any new understanding about what happened then helps us move a bit forward toward a better present experience.
Do you like movies? This is something you can do alone at home. One movie that comes to mind is Awakening with Robert De Niro and the late Robin Williams. It has something to do with what we are discussing here, this is why it came to my mind just now.
I will be away from the computer in about ten minutes or so and be back in about 14 hours or so. Post again anytime you’d like. I will be glad to read from you more when I am back.
anita
June 1, 2018 at 5:30 am #210313AnonymousGuestDear Bella:
I re-read your posts regarding your childhood. I understand it makes you feel uncomfortable thinking and sharing about it and there would be no reason to go there except for the fact that when there was significant distress in the past, a distress not processed, not dealt with, that distress doesn’t go away on its own.
As I go into your past on this very post, of course you have the option to not read further. If you choose to read, please be as calm as you can be and remember my goal is to help you, if only a tiny bit, to have a better current experience of living.
May 16, you wrote something about your childhood/ family of origin for the first time. You wrote that eight years ago, “I would soon be losing my Mother (My Rock)”- reading this would lead most people to think that your mother was a strong person, calm and strong. Notice you wrote Mother with a capital M, and My Rock, capital letters.
Weeks after typing the above, on this thread, you shared about your mother that she was a stay at home mom, and that she “never would let us (you and your two sisters) do a lot of activities as she was afraid we might get hurt”. You also shared: “I would often tell her how unhappy I was & she would tell me I was the only one that would be able to accomplish that… She would always tell me to pray about it”.
What this suggests to me is that she was an anxious person, not a strong, calm person, therefore not the Rock you referred to her as. You told her that you were unhappy and she told you that you were the only one to accomplish happiness. Notice this though: it is impossible for a child to be happy in isolation. The child, any child, has to feel safe in their home, safe and loved in order to be happy. And so, it was not up to you to have a good childhood, it was up to your mother (and father) to make it possible for you.
Notice she told you to pray about being happy, about no longer being unhappy, pray to a god. Thing is, for a child, the parent or parents are gods. When you told your mother that you were unhappy, you were praying to her, so to speak. She sent you to .. someone else to ask for what you needed.
As a child you “felt alone and like I wasn’t good enough for my parents’ approval”. You tried your best to make your father happy with you. “He always preached to us to do well in school”, so you tried hard and got As and Bs, but “that wasn’t good enough” for him.
You looked up to your father, the strict drill instructor in the military, for that approval a child needs so desperately, the approval a child needs to feel safe and loved, the Rock. You didn’t receive it from him and following his death thirty years ago, you still “miss him all the time”. You still don’t have that Rock you needed then so badly, the Rock you still need.
You remember going to the zoo 48 years ago, feeling “so happy with my father”. At the zoo, for a little while, you felt approved of and loved and it felt wonderful. Only the feeling couldn’t continue following the zoo because he did not approve of you, unfortunately. And unfortunately, you were not loved. Whatever your parents felt for you or about you, they failed at loving you.
You wrote that your older sister “was very hateful & was always arguing with my parents, even when my mother was sick”- I suppose she too felt unloved. She expressed her anger at being unloved. I am thinking that as a younger sister, you observed her anger at your parents and decided that unlike her, you will not be angry at them. Maybe this is how you will be loved, could have been the thought.
Maybe you were the submissive daughter, the one eager to please while she was the angry, combative one. Siblings do often take on opposite roles looking for that unavailable love from parents. Maybe this is why you had such trouble dealing with your ex boyfriend’s anger, seeing any anger on his part as lashing out.
If you would like to respond to any part of my post this morning, please do.
anita
June 1, 2018 at 10:03 am #210349BellaParticipantHi Anita,
I agree this stems from my childhood & my relationships. I am beginning to feel like a very insecure person. I have secluded myself from the outside world as much as I can and am very lonely because of that. I am trying to deal with my emotions by myself alone because most people talk about you behind your back after you express your weakness and I will continue to deal with it by myself. Yes, it is so very painful knowing everyday is basically the same for me without any outside human connection.
With all of the feelings of mistrust I have and not knowing how to brake this pattern I am not sure what to do. I am really in a bad place & don’t know how to get out of this bubble.
I have gone to a few counseling sessions & feel it is worthless. It almost seems as if they are not interested and keep looking at the clock. The lady I last spoke with last looked at the clock & said, let’s wrap it up and we will continue next week, as I was crying and telling her very personal information”. I get more from these posts. All I can do it reach out to you & the post.
June 1, 2018 at 10:37 am #210361AnonymousGuestDear Bella:
I found my first (and last) competent, professional, capable, honest and hard working therapist in 2011, not before. (and I am your age). I am very familiar with the looking at the clock and “let’s wrap it up” routine, from before.
My 2011-2013 therapist was the only one who didn’t look at the clock, who extended the sessions for as long as needed, and often and gave me his time online and on the phone in between sessions, no extra charge. He was amazing. He didn’t only give me his time, he gave me all the information he had, all that he had to give, as a professional. He was exceptional. I wish there were more therapists like him.
Do you take walks outside, I wonder? That can help if you took a break or two from your day, every day for long walks outside. The walks can be part of your daily routine. You can incorporate other things into your daily routine. Structure is very important. As a matter of fact, I am about to take my walk shortly and will be back to the computer in less than two hours before I take my break for the rest of the day.
If it helps you to share, to write more what you think and feel, please do. I will read what you share with interest and… will not be looking at the clock!
anita
June 1, 2018 at 11:59 am #210369BellaParticipantHi Anita,
You are so kind & have a beautiful outlook. I am now beginning to realize different people bring out different things in us. My ex came by a few days ago & we spoke a bit…He said he loved me & would always care, but he had moved on and he kept making the remark, we are not lovers. Which I knew that and couldn’t figure why he kept saying so. He asked if the property that I had purchased last year, (where we were going to build out dream home) if I had an interest in selling to him & how much I had in it. I told him and he said he would like to have it, but at 1/3 of what I paid. He said he couldn’t afford any more & I told him I wasn’t going to sell it at a loss and if he planned to build a home with someone else I had no interest in selling to him. He said I needed to realize he was going to build a home with her & I needed to get a grip that possibility.
Only after he has been dating her for 6 weeks or so. Wow, was that painful. We had to go to the property because he needed to get the rest of his things & he kept looking at me & reaching to hold my hand and tell me everything was going to be ok. Then we get back to my house & and he tells me he is no longer my lover and hopes I can find someone as he has. Then he kisses me like he use to and said he needed to go. I didn’t say anything and have not spoken with him since. He did say before he left that he knew I would call or text him. I told him I would not. Then yesterday he forwards this spiritual reading e-mail he received saying next month has good things happening. What was that all about? I will not contact him if it is the death of me. I feel his head has swelled since I had previously told him him I would keep the door open. But I made it clear that was no longer the case when he stopped by Tuesday when he picked up the rest of his things. I hope he lets it go because I feel it has turned into a little ego boost for him. I know he is no good for me at this point & I have a soft side which is non-combative and very caring. I could not hurt anyone as he has made me feel worthless.
I want to move forward & I hate to think he could be enjoying this. I still do not understand how after an 8 yr. relationship how he can be this much in love after 6 weeks. I wish I had never found out about her, as his remarks about her have made me feel disposable to him. Yes, I am trying so hard to not think about these things, but at times they come flooding in so fast I don’t know what to do. Day by Day & baby steps. I hope I can go 24 hrs. and not think of how much he has changed. It is as if the man I once knew no longer exists. The person I knew, whether dating or not would not enjoy seeing the hurt in my eyes. He also, said he had all of my text from the last few weeks which was only 1 or 2 every few days when I was looking for something, or it was a needed conversation. I told him I wasn’t going to give him the pleasure of not responding to any texts or messages from me. And he just laughed. (That Hurt)…as I said earlier, I will not contact him. Do you think he is enjoying this?
June 1, 2018 at 1:12 pm #210383AnonymousGuestDear Bella:
I still think he may not have a girlfriend at all, in which case it fits your suspicion that “he is enjoying this”, making up the girlfriend so to distress you, having fun doing it. It is a possibility. I have nothing to go on thinking he made up the girlfriend, it is something I suspect.
He told you that he wants to buy the dream home from you, makes me think same as I thought before- that he really wanted to own a home. He may be very angry that this dream of his didn’t come true, and so he is trying to hurt you by suggesting he wants to live in that dream home with a girlfriend.
Hmmm… I think it may very well be so.
Back in about 13 hours. Take good care of yourself, I hope!
anita
June 2, 2018 at 12:30 pm #210487BellaParticipantHi Anita,
I do know he has a girlfriend. I saw pictures from his brothers birthday party & charge card bills from him going out of town the past few weeks racking up food & hotel bills for out of town stays. A few weeks ago he told me he was going out of town & I didn’t ask any questions because what we were suppose to take care of he said we could do on his day off. At that point which has only been 5 weeks ago, I wasn’t aware of a girlfriend. The charge card bill I just received & cancelled the card due to forgetting he still had the card.
Instead of being mean and evasive, he was very giddy when he came by tuesday. He was a bit touchy when I would get a little uptight. He would reach to hug me & say, he knew me better than I know myself. Then what was the kiss about. Could he have just been testing himself to prove he had no feelings. And he didn’t take his things that he came to pick up. He also told me he was taking her to his daughters graduation next month and taking her to the annual family reunion. She is very real…I just don’t know where this mystery girl came from. All I know he is not the man that left me. Can he really be so in love, or is he in love with the newness of the excited change of a new women & running the roads going out and having fun?
I still can’t believe he asked if he could have the property for them to build. That was very cruel. I want him out of my head, this whole thing is really making me sick. When I though about it last night I got physically sick. I hate that I am letting this get to me as bad as it is.
Please help!
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