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October 25, 2017 at 7:49 am #174749MichaelParticipant
For a long time I’ve felt lost, sad, confused and lonely …
My memory of childhood is one filled with adventure, mischief and happiness for the majority. Like any kid I got into trouble … stealing sweets from the local store, or breaking into old Army barracks. My step Dad was in the Army, and he and my Mum got married when I was six or seven. Previous to that I was raised by my Gran as my Mum was out working, and my Gran is a good Woman … she is very principled and would give you her last if it helped you. She always made traditional Scottish meals like ‘mince and tatties’ (brown mine and mash potato) or homemade scotch broth soup. I loved school at that time, I was very popular … this part of my childhood I had no complaints with. As my Step Dad was in the Army it meant that I had to leave my Grans house and move away … I can still remember that day, I told my Mum I didn’t want to go … and that I was leaving so I took my favourite teddy and probably a few other things and decided I wasn’t going back. It was upsetting to leave, but it was my Mums decision and reflecting back on it … I gained a lot from moving around from place to place, and school to school.
Fast forward seven years, and I was living in Cyprus at the time, this was the third location my Step Dad had been sent to as part of his time in the Army. I have my fondest memories from my time spent here, I was very athletic. I captained the school football team, I played in the local football league and got to the all island finals, also I took part in the school basketball team and ran cross country for the school. I loved it. Everyday it was sunshine and adventure, the school I attended was a military funded school so it had so many activities to get involved in.Even though I was outgoing when it came to athletics, and I thrive on meeting people and being part of a team I’ve always had that voice of doubt in my mind, and I’ve always been shy around girls. I’ve never felt that someone might be attracted to me. I don’t know where that stems from, i’m quite a humble person in many ways. I guess the point i’m trying to make through all of this is that … things were broadly pretty good, I enjoyed life, but was shy when it came to girls.
After a few years in Cyprus, it was Christmas day … my Mum and my step dad were at dinner, and there was a lady also there … I can’t remember her name but she was from my step dads regiment and my mum invited her over to join us as she felt sorry for her … and the day from what I remember had no issues. Then in January I was told that my step dad was going away for a month to Trudos mountain to be stationed, and I thought nothing of it … but it was shortly after this that I remember coming home from School and I found my Mum crying on the floor in the livingroom … my step dad was leaving her! I eventually found out many years later that the Woman who was over at Christmas was his lover, and that she was pregnant with his child. This meant me and my Mum had about two weeks to get our stuff and leave Cyprus and return to Scotland. I don’t remember much of what happened emotionally … I guess it was probably damage limitation survival mode and I buried it. Even to this day, no one in my family ever talked about it.I remember shortly after returning to Scotland having to go to another new school … given what had happened over the previous few months I just felt terrified, and I didn’t go for the first few days … then eventually my Gran had to drag me there. Like anything, after a while you wonder why you got so up tight about it. It was during this time I got a letter from my step dad trying to give me some encouragement as my Mum have told him I wasn’t going to School, but that was the last communication I would have from him for a long time.
Time past and I eventually became settled and life went on whilst I stayed at my Grans house with my Mum. Then one Sunday morning, I woke up … walked downstairs and I asked my Gran where my Mum was – my gran is a horrible liar – but she said that my Mum was away somewhere and that she would be back later on. I thought ok, I didn’t really feel like I had to question it. Later on that day, my Mum still wasn’t back, I kept asking my Gran where she was, and then the phone went … my Gran took the call and then must have decided to tell me the truth of where my Mum was. She was in the hospital – she took an overdose. Again … I wasn’t really sure what to think, when you’re 13 you don’t really process things like that … well I didn’t anyway. We went up to the hospital, saw my Mum … she was ok. The overdose was emotional stuff to do with my step dad and their marriage which I can understand, like most things … it was never talked about again.
Eventually my Mum started to date people and she met a guy called Stuart (Hes a d*ck, no bias there), they got on and it meant that I wouldn’t see my Mum that often as she would stay with him. Maybe once a week I might see my Mum, the rest of the time I just spent it living with my Gran. I remember this one time I got really upset as I felt like my Mum didn’t love me, to me … she was away living this life with another Man and I was no where to be seen in that picture. The relationship they had lasted, they got their own flat and I was told that my Mum was pregnant. At the time I just remember being crazy angry … like f*ck you. You don’t even bother with me … but you will have another child. As I have grown up and matured (hopefully), that anger dissipated and I realised it had nothing to do with my lil Sister … she was innocent in all of this.
As my Mum went off and lived her new life, I stayed at my Grans, went to School and just kept myself to myself to be honest. I didn’t really feel any emotional connection to my Mum anymore. I was angry by her behaviour. Life goes on …
Time past and I got older, I got more pi$$ed off with the World in general and by 17, I was smoking dope, drinking and not paying much attention at School. I had a couple of classes I always enjoyed but apart from that I never studied or done homework. I was never forced to. My Mum didn’t pay any attention to my education from what I can recall. Anyways … my use of recreational drugs and taking ecstasy continued for about three years heavily. I guess it was my way of dealing with things … or not dealing with things …There came a point shortly after being 17/18 that I decided I had to forgive my Mum and start from a clean slate. I was sitting in my bedroom when my Aunt came up to talk to me, she was a Doctor, and she told me that my Mum had breast cancer. I was like right ok … I didn’t really know the extent of it, but I was just told what would be happening with my Mum. Then my Mum came up to my room and spoke to me, I just remember crying so bad … and it was at that point all my angry left me, I couldn’t carry it around anymore, I had to be there for my Mum.
A good few years past and I grew up a lil more, had various lame jobs and studied … things were ok during this period, I don’t remember having any melt downs or events that could have caused them except for the usual exam stress. I finished University and that was a huge milestone for me as I never thought it was possible … I left school with nothing in terms of solid grades, and ended up working in a supermarket fulltime as I tried to find myself. It felt like a long road had been travelled but I managed to ride it … and then on my Graduation day my Mum didn’t attend, she was away on holiday with her partner – stuart. He never really tried to get to know me, and i’m not sure if he saw me as threat or something like that … but he always tried to keep my Mum in his lil World, where he had some control. Outside of that World he was just a small little Man – that’s my view.
After Graduating … I moved down to London to work in finance, I spent 4 and a half years in the city working, the first couple of years I spent in London were good fun, lots of cool interesting people to meet and speak to, and various cultures to engage with. I always really looked forward to travelling back to Scotland to see my family, I spent all my holiday allowance on travelling home really. Unfortunately my entire time in London none of my family came to visit me … I don’t know why, but it only bothered me retrospectively looking back at events, at the time I wasn’t too bothered. Then there was a period went I went home to visit the family that I saw my Mum, her stomach was incredibly bloated, she still had cancer at this time as it returned 4 years after her initial operation … we all knew what the end result was going to be as it had returned. Controlling the tumour and the spread of the disease. We all genuinely just thought it was water retention. Christmas came and went and I travelled back to London for work.It was Monday evening and I received a phone call just after work, it was my Gran … “you’re mum is dying, you need to get home”. You can never prepare for those words … even though I knew the Cancer would eventually win I had no idea things were that bad, clearly the bloating wasn’t due to water retention but something else. I just remember getting back to the flat that I shared and just crying my eyes out. I was like what do I say to work, how do I get home? I just ended up booking the first flight the next morning and went straight to the hospital, so I arrived on Tuesday morning and by Thursday night she had passed away. For a long time after losing my Mum I was lost, the darkness swallowed me whole. Living in London I felt very isolated which only gave volume to the negative emotions and thoughts. I done the only thing I knew I could do and that was to throw myself into work, I studied in the morning, worked then studied at night then spend weekends out partying. That continued for a few years until I got to breaking point and the sadness of being away from family and feeling like I didn’t have any support just ground me down and I just wanted to move back home. I just felt so lonely in London … and I was comfort eating in a big way and using online dating apps to try and meet people. Those two actions felt like emotional reaction to being sad and lonely and it was on a vicious loop.
From a relationship point of view … ive had 4 girlfriends since I was 17, the longest relationship was just over 5 years , and out of the 4, I cheated on 3 of them. I’m not sure where this behaviour evolved from. When the entire time I stayed in London I was single … I got used to my own company and found it hard to meet people on a deeper level in the city.The online dating, drinking, watching porn and emotional binge eating were all their supporting me at the time. As I mentioned before it was a vicious loop that took over me for many years … the whole porn thing started much earlier in life from when I was probably 17, but it became such a strong addiction during this bit of my life. I didn’t really question any of the behaviour as it made me feel better, it took the pain away.Now being 34, living back home in Scotland, and finding myself out of a 1 year relationship i’ve realised that my ability to hold down a relationship is lacking … my old habits come back during times of pain. This brings drama, unfaithfulness and cheating to a relationship. Last year in June 2016 I lost another relative to cancer, she was like a Mum to me also, and she was a huge part of my life and who I am today. Again, I got a phone call telling me that this person was dying, it was the day after my 8 hour finance exam … my Aunt didn’t want me to know about the situation as she wanted me to focus on the exam. That is the kind of person that she was. I had only started seeing my new GF in February of that year. When I found out about my Aunt, it brought everything back about my Mum, and obviously I knew what was coming … I feared that so much. My Aunt went through various proceedures to try and gain some time, but she was placed in a Hospice as there was no way to help her anymore but just provide support to manage the pain levels. Each day I would go to the Hospice and it was just heartbreaking. It really really got to me … I couldnt believe it was all happening again. My GF was really supportive, and did ask me if I wanted to continue the relationship as with everything happening the relationship might be too much for me. I did love her, and I didnt want to lose her either … I thought we should work through it and hopefully we could come out the other end stronger.
As time past, and the situation with my Aunt came to its final moments, I became more and more isolated from the relationship, and I blamed the relationship for how I felt. Looking back now, that is my view of it. The only way I knew how to make myself happy was from those old addictions … if it was talking to a stranger online, talking dirty by text/ flirting, or watching porn … they made me feel good, and because they did … I always felt as though the problem was with the relationship. When it wasn’t it was with me. I ended the relationship with my ex GF, and she loved me very much … and I realise that I loved her. We have been apart since May 2017, and she has moved on and I have remained single and went to therapy to deal with my grief. I’m so tired of losing the things that mean the most in life, and some of that is down to my poor choices I have made from habitual programes that have been running in my head, which developed over years of loneliness and pain. I even started to use Escorts. I’ve never told anyone this … its so deeply buried in my ego, and I feel complete shame for doing so… It was never about feelings, but just trying to run away from pain inside. I forgot the most important thing, and that was my actions were causing pain to someone who truly loved me. I’ve been working on myself now since February this year, grief therapy finished, and i’m trying to get more help to talk about my own emotions when it comes to relationships as not sure if a sense of abandonment comes in … all I know is that i’m making a stand for a better life for myself and that I need to love who I am. The medication has helped as it gave me some breathing space, and I practice meditation daily, train twice a day … I still have my ups and downs, I have an awareness of my feelings and I know how to stop some of the behaviours before I actually move to action.
I realise this is a lot to read, I started typing as a way for me to talk about how I feel … and it got a lil out of control. Time for me to be my own best friend and let go of past mistakes. I find the past mistakes that I’ve made haunt me, especially with my ex GF, she was such an amazing person. I’m happy that shes doing well … and that she is happy. She deserves that. If we didn’t break up I wouldn’t even have reflected on things. In my head my EGO was telling me its ok … youre feeling pain. Make yourself feel better about things. BUT what your EGO doesn’t tell you is that its at the expense of who you really are. I used to walk away after meeting Escorts with tears in my eyes, just with complete shame … inner voice saying why did you do that.I just want to move forward and forgive myself, but I find it incredibly difficult. I want to find love. I need to get my $hit together and be happy with who I am first. I don’t want these past patterns to come back. I want to take a risk and commit myself to a loving relationship and experience the beauty of being with someone and building a life with them.
thank you. M
October 25, 2017 at 9:42 am #174809AnonymousGuestDear Michael:
I read your post attentively. Toward the end you wrote this: “In my head… was telling me its ok … youre feeling pain. Make yourself feel better about things. BUT…its at the expense of who you really are”.
I think that what you mean by “who you really are” (and let me know if you agree) is what you value. And your addictions, your efforts to not feel pain are incongruent with your values.
When we escape pain at the expense of what we value, there is conflict, and shame. And so, the escaping of pain is followed by… pain.
I think your mother, when she was alive, operated with a similar goal in mind: to escape pain. She found that escape with men, your step father and then Stuart, and dating before and in between. She did so at the expense of you, of her mothering responsibility. She overdosed to escape her pain as well.
If she only valued and was true to the value of being a loving, present mother to you, much of your pain wouldn’t be there.
Do focus on what you value. When inclined to escape your pain, a natural inclination, think, if you will: is this escape congruent with what I value?
What you shared about your ex girlfriend leads me to think that you value true love, the way your ex girlfriend did care about your well-being. I hope you post again.
anita
October 25, 2017 at 11:11 am #174851MichaelParticipantThank you so much Anita.
You’re correct with what you say … efforts to not feel pain are incongruent with my values.
I was reading your reply and your take on my Mum, I never ever thought about it like that … it feels so accurate.
Even for me to face porn addiction was huge, like any addiction its not something that you tend to talk about openly … taboo subject. Looking at females as sexual objects, and using sex as a way to avoid pain is vicious.
I’ve got a lot to offer someone, i’m a Cat Dad too 🙂 … I was determined that after breaking up with my ex GF that I wasn’t going to let this ruin my life anymore. I was going to face the pain head on, and even when I meditate using guided meditations I can sit with my feelings and just allow them to wash over me. Society just expects you to deal with grief and get on with things, especially when working in London, you can’t show any weakness. The only person I could really talk to about my feelings was my Aunt who died last year as she was a psychiatrist … so she could pull me out of my head.
I have good days and bad days, but more good now. I try to choose love over fear each day … but I find that if I drink or do drugs on a weekend I fall back a little emotionally. I only tend to have a wild night once every few months, but it does set me back even at that … i’m trying to say yes to more things to get new experiences, where as before I had crazy anxiety levels. Self worth was so low, and I felt like I was the ugliest person in the World … trying to be kinder to who I am. As long as I stay true to my values I will be ok. trying to deal with the shame of past mistakes … I can’t let them govern how my life will be moving forward.
You meet someone who thinks you don’t care for them at all, but you actually loved them more than anything but you are so wrapped up in yourself and just trying to survive on an emotional level. fight or flight mode.
October 25, 2017 at 11:44 am #174875AnonymousGuestDear Michael:
You make a lot of sense in your post, lots of understanding, motivation and promise.
The addictions, though, these habits, the attachment to them is strong, isn’t it. There is the bad feelings you don’t want to feel and the automatic ways you react, the automatic reaching out to the solutions of past, now habits. These habits bypass the Values neuropathways of the brain.
They are about Pain-> withdraw from pain. The earliest instinct in the evolution of animals.
How are you going to deal with those heavy-duty habits, aka addictions?
anita
October 25, 2017 at 2:43 pm #174899PeterParticipantI think your right. The place to start to move forwarded may be with forgiveness and doing so perhaps refrain your story
Forgiveness is an Art – especially when it comes to forgiving ourselves, which is always entangled with our ability to forgive others. We forgive others as we forgive ourselves.
Very much recommend the book ‘The Art of Forgiving’ by Lewis B. Smedes
Also Clarissa Pinkola Estes tells a story ‘the Crescent Moon Bear’ which is about forgiveness and can be found in her book, ‘Women Who Run with the Wolves’ Or in audio CD “Theater of the Imagination”. (Yes, the book intended target is women but men can learn a great deal from it as well. Especially when one embraces symbolic language and doing so realize that the symbolic words masculine and feminine are not about gender. The symbols are informed by gender but do not represent a gender)
According to Clarissa there are Four Stages to Forgiveness:
to forgo – move forward, don’t let what happened stop you from living your truth
to forbear – to abstain from punishing – holding yourself and others accountable but as punishment.
to forget – and in do not dwell – We don’t forget what happened to us instead we do not dwell
to forgive – finding a place of being able to say yes to the experience As It Was without attachment.
October 26, 2017 at 3:36 am #174943MichaelParticipantThank you both for taking the time to reply … i’m very grateful.
I’ve never really spoke about all of this before, but touched on the porn addiction to my therapist and a couple of friends.
I think in order to deal with these, I need to just keep whats important to me at the forefront of my mind. i’m 34,not a child anymore … and that its ok to sit with the pain. I don’t have to hide anymore. More importantly, I need to forgive and let go of the past … and just enjoy each day.
Before the start of my ‘spiritual awakening’ this year, I lived my life in a state where I would have been quite happy to watch the World burn down around me. Just a cycle of anger, hatred and blame … I was never good enough. I would walk around most days on the verge of tears. Those habits were the only thing that helped to ease the pain.
I still have days where I will watch Porn, but then I say to myself is this what I want and I say no and stop, i’ve relapsed twice going to see Escorts since I broke up with my ex … Which is a significant improvement from where I was, it got out of control. Anytime I felt lonely or sad … I felt like I needed that company. Now I have the strength to tell myself no … you’ve come to far.
A very good friend of mine at work said something wonderful to me … I was talking about past events, as recently my Grandmother was unwell, and she is the last person who I hold closely to me as she raised me … I talked about being alone. My friend said, Michael … you’re not alone. It was such a powerful moment for me. I’ve felt alone for so long, and i’m not.
I need to love who I am, and be more present. I’m going to write those stages of forgiveness down in my journal. I like to keep pow wow statements in there to help me on bad days.
I need to forgive. I think thats a good thing as it shows i’m a good person.
October 26, 2017 at 5:27 am #174953ElianaParticipantHi Michael,
My story is very similar to yours,different in my early childhood, but the same as far as moving from country to country, state to state. I had six siblings. Our mother was an Alcoholic. We had a very traumatic, abusive, and severely neglectful early childhood. She would go on drinking binges, leaving us alone for days. We had a nanny who my Father hired, who we loved very much, and we loved in return. My earliest experience of loss began with my mother who was unable to give us the love, nurturing and care we needed. All she cared about was getting her next drink. My father would put her in rehab and hospitals but back in the 60’s not much was done with the help of Alcololism and awareness. She would just run away and to the nearest bar.
My Dad was a Harvard Graduate, a very succesful man, but he had to travel extensively for business as he was CEO for a huge paper company. I was born in Miami, Florida, two years later, moved to Boston, one year later, moved to Alicante, Spain. At this time..my Dad came home very upset to see that my Mother had fired the nanny, and we were all left alone. No food, nothing. We were taken away from the courts.
My father’s sister and her husband came to love me, and became my foster parents. But I missed Annabelle terribly. (The nanny). We then moved to Kingston, Jamaica where I had to learn to speak English to get into first grade. My older brother lived with us, whom I was very close to, my Aunt and Uncle loved him very much too, but one day, my mother flew to Jamaica drunk, accusing them of kidnapping right before the adoption of him went through and she lied and said she met a rich man with a huge house and he would be taken care of. She told them she did not want me. They became my Foster parents. That was my other loss, I did not speak to anyone for months after David left. My other siblings went to live with their real fathers. David had it not so good. He got put in a foster home. There was no “rich man” no “big house” the foster home asked if he knew my Aunt and Uncle’s address and phone number in Jamaica and he did not. I never saw him again until I was 16. My great Aunt finally found him at the age of 13 at the foster home and raised him. We were transfered around after Jamaica and by the time I was 16, lived in 8 more States and 2 more countries. I had no roots, no real friends.
I became very troubled as a teen, and my Aunt and Uncle had enough and put me in a boarding school in Florida. I sat there alone on my suitcase crying. I had no one. My real father came and got me at the age of 17, and I I lived with him, but we fought, mostly because I was very troubled and unhappy.
I too have never been able to maintain a long term relationship. Do you think it is because of all the loss you had, no roots, and moving around so much? I know mine is that problem. I am in therapy for that now. I feel I have some invisible sign on me saying “I’m alone, no family, few friends, no roots”. Maybe men pick up on that, I don’t know the answer. I wish I did. I just wanted to share you are not alone. I also miss my beloved cats. I can’t have them where I live now. They were my only family.
October 26, 2017 at 6:38 am #174973AnonymousGuestDear Michael:
The key sentence in your last share, to me, is “its ok to sit with the pain”. This is what it takes to break the habit of withdrawing from pain, distracting yourself from pain by engaging in those or that activity that is harmful to you.
Sitting with the pain means to endure it, to believe that you can endure it, not collapsing, not losing control, not dying. The pain may be great sadness.
Once you sit with it, and do so repeatedly, the pain, the great sadness if it is what it is, gets the attention it demands. That calms it down, like a child throwing tantrums, screaming louder and louder. If the child is really listened to, empathetically, attentively, reliablythe tantrums will cease.
anita
October 26, 2017 at 7:59 am #174995MichaelParticipantHi Eliana … thank you so much for sharing your background with me.
How are things with you now?
The moving around was a huge problem, even when I recently bought my first home, I noticed that in 5 years I had stayed at 8 different addresses, across London and Glasgow. Especially when I stayed in London, I was able to put all my stuff in a box.
That along with my history of moving as a kid meant staying in one place and being present in the moment was not the NORM. I felt like I was dying if I stayed anywhere longer than a few years, even with jobs. In my head it was just saying Runnnn! My Aunt helped me with the deposit to my property and she kept telling me I needed a safe base. I knew myself I couldnt keep running.
Secondly, I never believed in marriage for a long time as I saw how unhappy my Mum was in various relationships. I promised myself I would never end up like that. It wasn’t until I saw two of my close friends get married where I was like that was beautiful. I’ve come to accept to relationships aren’t perfect, they constantly need looked after, much like a delicate flower … and they will only grow if and flourish if you give it the right love and attention. Even up to the start of this year, I was so unhappy … I struggled to eat properly, wash myself and even look after my home … the small things. It was always easier to blame the relationship with my ex as she was closest to me, or to blame my job for how I felt. Just taking time to take stock and see where the thoughts come from and having that awareness of the triggers helps me. I’ve got a little ragdoll kitten called Ivor Lebowski who I love dearly, he always needs cared for so I know I owe it to him to get my $hit together so to speak.
Its hard, and not everyone understands … just realizing you’re not broken is a big help too. I was at the buddhist centre here … and the speaker mentioned something that really hit home with me, she said where has worrying ever benefited you, you are worth the World as you are right now. I could feel light in my heart, for the very first time in many many years I felt whole. I felt happy.
I’m trying to stretch that feeling out so it gets longer and longer, day by day. It takes practice. I need to let go of my past mistakes and decisions. It hurts me how not only have I treated others but how I treated myself.
October 26, 2017 at 6:18 pm #175103ElianaParticipantHi Michael,
I am doing okay, thanks for asking. Have a great therapist. Sometimes, I wish I had roots, a place to call “home”. When people ask me where “I am from” I never know what to say, lol. I guess I’m just used to it by now. I hope you keep posting and letting us know how you are doing.
October 27, 2017 at 5:18 am #175143HParticipant@michael: i read your whole story. I’m sorry to hear what happened. do you mind keeping us updated about your life?
October 27, 2017 at 7:46 am #175171MichaelParticipantI guess home is just a place where you feel safe, it doesnt have to be a set memory from childhood. I used to get really jealous of friends who had the whole stable to parent upbringing, but to be honest everyones got issues … you just dont see them. I’ve met people who seem to have everything, but infact have nothing as they arent happy. Its how we frame it all … what advice would you give to the 10 year old you? I sometimes use this as a way to be kinder to myself.
I will keep posting and let you know how I get on. I usually post a lot of book quotes and self help pieces on instagram – just_mike.
Its nice just to talk to people about things. Knowing you’re not alone is such a powerful force.
Mike
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