Recovering Gently

[NarcKiddo]

You have done so well to send that email and receive the reply with grace, taking what helps you and resisting the impulse to respond to things you don't need to.

I think it's good that you are taking this online class and actually the requirement to interact and be 'nice' is a huge learning experience and will help your writing no end. I did something similar a while ago and was amazed by how helpful it was. I also think that the requirement to be nice to others can gently nudge us to consider our own feelings around things. To look at something that we think is bad or annoying, to work out if that is a them or an us problem, and to respond accordingly. Or not say anything at all, which is always an option. But I found the feedback so helpful that I wanted to give feedback where it was humanly possible and that meant more internal work than I had expected.

[Gently]

You have done so well to send that email and receive the reply with grace, taking what helps you and resisting the impulse to respond to things you don't need to.

I think it's good that you are taking this online class and actually the requirement to interact and be 'nice' is a huge learning experience and will help your writing no end. I did something similar a while ago and was amazed by how helpful it was. I also think that the requirement to be nice to others can gently nudge us to consider our own feelings around things. To look at something that we think is bad or annoying, to work out if that is a them or an us problem, and to respond accordingly. Or not say anything at all, which is always an option. But I found the feedback so helpful that I wanted to give feedback where it was humanly possible and that meant more internal work than I had expected.

Thanks

Yeah, it feels like human relating kindergarten haha

[Gently]

I just did another thing!!

So many things I am doing....

So, I was adopted at birth, and my birth mother searched for me when I was in my early twenties. We reunited and had a decent enough not perfect relationship until she passed a couple of years ago.

I had no contact information for my birth father, but I had a name. This year, I used DNA and a DNA angels service to try to locate him. They did find him, and I wrote him a letter early summer this year with my phone number. The letter was vague enough that he would be able to slowly decide how to tell his wife and family. I was pretty sure he had not ever told anyone.

He actually called (I missed the call) and then texted that he really had nothing to tell me, and after my "take your time" response, he asked me not to contact him again.

All this time I've kind of thought "I don't need to try to force people to want to talk to me if they don't want to". Why would I put myself through that?

But lately, I've felt the request coming up in me, a demand, really.

I think asking the instructor in my writing course for help emboldened me to believe that I am allowed to ask for things that are important to me, because I just texted him, just now!

I just did it. I told him what I want, that I want him to talk to me, I'm asking for my sake, because it matters to ME.

Wow, my heart was racing once I hit send and here I am madly writing about it to release some of that energy.

It feels good (and scary) to just say what I want like that. It's kind of like, I want this, now it's your job to decide what you're going to do with that request. I will allow the pressure of my request to reside inside of you instead of absorbing your discomfort and making my request vague or dull or acting like I should not really be making the request in the first place.

It reminds me of a part in the Lord of the Rings, the movies, where the king of Rohan has been saying he would not come to the aid of Minas Tirith when the battle inevitably arrived at its walls because Rohan was not helped in the past. And then the beacon fires are lit anyway when the time comes, the signal for aide.

I always wondered why they did that since they were already told they would not get help. And then Aragorn is in the hall with the King of Rohan when he sees the beacon fire closest to Rohan alight and yells "The fire, the signal has been lit, Gondor calls for aid!" I always wondered why Aragorn would bother, since the King had already said he would not help previously. But when the time came, the King did rise to the call, he did send aid, and with a whole heart.

So, just because someone said no to a gentle or somewhat theoretical request (because the time is not imminent, or the request is soft) in the past, does not mean they may not find themselves with a will and a heart to rise to that request when the time is ripe, in the fullness of time, when a clear and imminent call comes.

(Sorry if you're not familiar with LOTR, it's kind of like the Bible in my family)

I have no idea what will happen, but I have good vibes inside of me because I advocated for my own needs and made a clear request.

[Blueberry]

 

I feel so energised while reading your whole post! So happy for you that you are advocating for yourself and not being gentle towards somebody at this moment. Saying clearly what you really want. You can't force it or demand it, but just standing your ground might make him sit up and take note!

  
I'm rooting for you.

(I have read LOTR a few times, but a while back. Once you explained the passage, I remembered.)

[NarcKiddo]

It feels good (and scary) to just say what I want like that. It's kind of like, I want this, now it's your job to decide what you're going to do with that request. I will allow the pressure of my request to reside inside of you instead of absorbing your discomfort and making my request vague or dull or acting like I should not really be making the request in the first place.

I think this is great and I think you have indeed put the pressure of the request where it belongs. Good for you.

[Gently]

A lot of pressure building up in me this week. I guess a lot of emotions and stress, and then I habitually try to suppress them, resulting in a feeling of pressure.

Who can I talk to? My first instinct. Who can help me? Help!

Then I turn inward to help myself, console myself, comfort myself. It's good, but not quite good enough. I need people.

I can write in my journal on OOTS. Yes. Yes. I can do that.

I have a lot of sensitivities, no surprise. Asthma, allergies. The air quality around our home has not been good the last few years while a new bridge has been built very close by. I found out that a gas range is proven to worsen asthma. We have a gas range. It's been really hot the last few summers, and the air is not good, so it's hard to cool the house down when I need to keep the windows closed. I love fresh air, I long for fresh air, not having access to fresh air is distressing. We need to install air conditioning so we can keep the house cool in summer.

All of these things, and the ordeals they represent in accomplishing them, has created the question of whether we should instead move to a place where these needs are met. I don't want to move, I love my home. We are going to look at a listing this evening, but my heart is not in it. I don't want to move. If we stay, we have to endure a lot of reno's, and I'm allergic to dust. Stress.

This weekend is my grandson's first birthday. Yay! I have been delightedly looking forward to our smallish immediate family celebration together with his other grandparents this weekend. Now I am overwhelmed by the emotions and the pressure inside of me. I feel sad to have lost the light, happy feeling I had before.

The same day as my grandson's birthday is the birthday of a person who I no longer see, who was my best friend in high school, and who married the brother of my first husband, the abusive one, and who is quietly loyal to that family in the face of my fairly recent disclosures of the abuse that was rained on me during the years we were together, staying quiet, not speaking out, not even "siding" with me in private against abusive dynamics in the family. Passive, self-protecting, image preserving, boat-not-rocking, minimizing, pretending we can or should all be able to look sad about it for a few minutes and then move on, instead of being appropriately outraged.

I think that's the big part of the emotional load I am carrying this week. Although it hasn't been in my conscious mind this week, it came to me this morning and it felt big. The stuff with the house is difficult, but not traumatic. This relationship, this betrayal by someone I hoped for so many years was actually still a friend in spite of mounting evidence and then finally accepting that true friendship and trust is not part of the equation, this is the deeper thing. This is the disrupting thing, the thing that makes everything feel unmanageable.

My son and his wife are in touch with his father's family, I am not. My son and his wife are planning a big first birthday party the week after at a restaurant where family will be in attendance along with many other people. I will not be there. My husband (the good one) and I are going on a short trip next week and will be gone for that party. It happens that our wedding anniversary is the day before my grandson's birthday, and so we are taking a trip later in the week for that. Not that we need an excuse, but it is more elegant.

I want my happy feelings about my grandson's birthday party back. I want my simple present day delight back. The little gathering, my sweet and sensitive grandchild, with his favourite familiars, being happy and properly fawned over. Yes, that's it. That's what I am excited about. That's what makes my heart feel full and light. Let me keep that. I want to hold on to that.

Also, I'm getting a hair cut tomorrow. I have been cutting my own hair for years, and it's been a long time since I've let someone else do it. That will be exciting and special, but also a bit terrifying. I'm also going to try to buy jeans this morning. That is also exciting and terrifying.

Yeah, lots going on. No wonder I feel activated.