still digging

[CactusFlower]

San, I get it. As someone who up and left a 20 year+ toxic relationship, it really is that the bad space, even though it's bad, is familiar and can feel more predictable. And it can happen to anyone. I'm a staunch feminist, even have a degree in Women's Studies, and I still look back and am shocked I didn't get out sooner, that I didn't see it earlier. If I hadn't made a clean break, I'd still be in a miserable place. I also took on all the burdens, mental and otherwise of that pairing. To be free of that is joyous, but can also be overwhelming at times.

[Not Alone]

San, I caught up with the last couple of pages of your journal. 

[sanmagic7]

hey, armee,

it made sense to me what you said about neurons being so used to firing in a certain way, reprogramming them to fire when appropriate, instead of to a trigger of past trauma is what takes all the time and effort.  thanks for that image. 

larry,  back atcha.  thanks.

CF, you're singing my song, feminist and all.  it's just sad to me you had to go thru a similar situation, cuz it's horrible and it sucks!   

hey notalone, thanks for all those hugs, and back atcha!   

my last 2 sessions (it took me 2 hrs. of just talking about it all) i spent relating to my T about the situation with my D1, her words, behaviors, how she used various ways and means to hurt me (probably as punishment for having another baby and taking time away from her) her belittlement, humiliation (i'm learning how many people have humiliated me during the course of my life - all the way from childhood), disrespect, and just plain meanness. 

my T, during both those sessions, basically said 'Jesus' and 'no one should have to go thru all that' and she finally told me it wasn't my fault and i did the best i could.  when i told D2, she told me 'you did more than that'.  it's been a very traumatic 2 weeks, triggered by a netflix series about a young woman who lied about everything, made her deceitful way thru society, and when a reporter visited her parents, she got the true story of her upbringing - that she had been beyond them since she was very young.  it screamed at me, basically.  this is what my D was all about. 

the mother in the show said her son had her soul, but her daughter was always different.  the mother accepted it, let her go because she knew there was nothing she could do to help remedy the situation.  she also took none of the blame, knew it wasn't her fault.  this punched me in the face, and i had to stop watching, went out on the balcony for a cig, and there was the most beautiful rainbow i'd ever seen.  i thought it was like god telling me i wasn't to blame, it wasn't my fault for how she was.  this led to me having to spill my guts in detail about what it was like being her mother. 

i was on the road to insanity when i left for mexico.  the damage done to me by her i didn't even fully realize, but i knew if i stayed i'd die.  only much later have i been able to understand the triple teaming of icky L and my ex and my D1 which was going on at the same time.  no wonder i couldn't feel anything - i had no time nor energy for anything else but to stay sane and problem solve and . . .

my T is keeping that story for me, but it's been unsettling to have dredged it all up.  i don't know quite what we'll do with it all - the whole thing is so emotionally charged.  i'm scared of processing any of it for fear of what emotional explosion might accompany it. 

another realization i've had recently is about hearing someone tell me they love me.  i had set up relationships with my D's that when i said 'i love you' they'd say it back.  same with my hubs.  i said it very often, so heard it very often.  however, i can remember an instance where (after i'd moved to mex) i was emailing back and forth with D2, and several times she did not sign it 'love, D2) and i remember getting very distressed about it, as if maybe she didn't love me anymore.  at the time i even brought it up with her, and she told me sometimes she's writing really fast or something and didn't notice.

thinking on this over the week i think i understand what was going on.  since i couldn't feel the love others were giving me, i needed constant reminders from them that it was real.  it was like, if i didn't see/hear the word in the present, i couldn't retain it from a day or so ago.  kind of like being touch deprived, where i couldn't get enough touching from others, so i threw an arm around them when we were drunk or i'd have sex with someone just for the touch.  icky L once told me i was trying to please others by doing this, but in actuality, it was quite the opposite.  i was doing these things in order to get what i needed for myself. 

so it's been with being told 'i love you' by someone.  logically, i know i'm loved, have been over the years, but not being able to feel it caused me to crave hearing it every friggin' chance possible cuz that was the only way i could feel reassured it was true.  no retention at all.  understanding this has made it easier to see the pattern over the years, and since i'm slowly breaking thru on this emotional desert thing, i'm hoping when i do hear it i'll be able to feel it more often.  i actually did feel it last week when my D said it to me, and yesterday when i told her i needed a hug.  i've missed out on so much of the good stuff cuz of this.  glad i've lived long enough to at last get to feel it sometimes now.  it helps cut the craving.

[rainydiary]

San, I resonate with the need to be told how another is feeling about to me to believe it...and I still often don't.  I appreciate you sharing this all here and wish you well as you continue to navigate.

[Hope67]

   I wanted to read what you wrote, but I haven't - I feel like my words are running dry, but I did want to give you a big hug SanMagic. 
Hope 

[Armee]

This all sounds so difficult and painful to be with, San. At the same time what is happening between you and your D2... the love, the vulnerability, the mutual support, and the hugs...it really is  beautiful, too.



I also very much relate to not being able to feel the love of someone else. In fact, to start to feel it is exceptionally painful.

[Not Alone]

went out on the balcony for a cig, and there was the most beautiful rainbow i'd ever seen.  i thought it was like god telling me i wasn't to blame, it wasn't my fault for how she was.  this led to me having to spill my guts in detail about what it was like being her mother. 

That is beautiful.

I'm glad that your T is holding some of the pain of D2. My heart hurts for the pain you have suffered. 

[sanmagic7]

rainy, so sorry you go thru the same thing.  it's just horrible what's been taken from us before we had a choice or a chance.

hope, i love those hugs.  thanks for both of them.

yeah, armee, not having feelings for so long can be difficult to orchestrate their goodness, no matter which ones they might be, they can all be painful.  ugh!  thank the heavens  for my D2 - she is my lifeline.   

thank you for your caring words, notalone.  i'm glad she is, too.  it's too much for me on my own. 

i was able to tell my D2 about why i can't speak to her about anything going on with her father or sister - told her i just can't bear it.  i realized that during session last time.  hearing about either sends me flying into a brick wall of overwhelm.  2 of the most toxic people i've ever known, and they were the ones who supposedly loved me.  cruel trick.  addicts, pimps, drug dealers i've known, even some who were still in a prison release program where i interned, were kinder, more caring toward me.  go figger.

therapy tomorrow.  my T has mostly my entire D1 story now, and i know she wants to process all that crapola out of me - she was absolutely appalled and i can tell she wants me to feel better, not be in so much pain.  i get anxiety the night before every session cuz i don't know what might come up, how it might affect me.  i just started walking again, began lifting again, and i want to continue so badly, but i can't trust anymore how long it'll take before some trauma something is gonna hit me and knock me off my feet - literally.  it's not a comforting thought to have to live with.

[Armee]

 

Thinking of you, San, and hoping therapy wasn't too triggering.

[sanmagic7]

thanks, armee, and right back atcha

the past few sessions have been all about my D1, but yesterday i moved on a bit to an issue that came up, not only with her, but with 3 other major players in my life.


**********TW************* Porn

i won't go into details, but i've got bad memories/images associated with porn and my D1, icky L, and 2 ex hubs.  we tried to flash thru that subject as a whole, but once again, my brain could not work with the entirety of it. so, i settled on a memory of porn and hub#1.

***************end TW******************

i was able to picture myself in our apt. on the floor after i'd discovered his stash.  the me in the memory couldn't move, couldn't get up, couldn't get out of there.  eventually, i was able to picture myself now, wiser and having gone thru everything with that man, as comforting her, trying to get her up and moving.  it was very difficult - she was so stuck - but eventually i was able to get her into the living room and let her know that i would help her get thru anything else that might come her way.

i realized how very naive i was about that stuff, how i'd been thrown into the world of marriage and expectations that were not at all realistic.  looking back on that scene, i saw how i was almost like a child, terribly confused, numb, clueless.  i've spoken before about being unformed as an adult, with no sense of self, no knowledge of who i really was, what i wanted, how to go about getting it, what worked for me, what didn't, etc.  truly a child in an adult body.  i'm guessing, if i look back, maybe the understanding level of a preteen, when everything's changing and having no idea what it means or how to cope.

i've discovered how much humiliation i've been covered with by several different people in my life, and one realization caused me to feel very stupid cuz it happened in front of all my friends at the time.  the idea of being humiliated (or even feeling it) didn't come into being until a few months ago.  had never thought or really felt it before that, and now, looking back, i can see it everywhere.  foo, friends, lovers, marriages, work relationships, my D1 - i just went from one to the next.  spanning decades and so many different people.  blatant to others, perhaps, but i didn't know. 

in some respects therapy is helping, but in others, it's basically turning over rocks and discovering the creepy, crawly things that have been part of my life w/o my knowing.  i didn't know enough about myself to have any critter repellant, and they simply crawled all over and inside me, eating at me from the inside out.   i've got some bad-* angles who have been looking out for me, helping me to survive it all.

[Armee]

I am so inspired by your description of helping your younger self up and out of that scene. I can feel how very huge this whole topic is and how many pieces of it are there and just really want to give you a bunch of gold star stickers (actually unicorns and rainbows are speaking to me) for being so wise to just go slow one flashed piece at a time.

Finding the icky creepy crawlies sucks. Especially as you uncover a capacity to really feel it...new things like humiliation...or even how painful it is to feel love...

I don't know if it is true for you but for me really seeing what happened and feeling what it was like has been helpful in healing and moving past things. I never felt them originally, like you, but they are still there causing problems but it doesn't make sense until you really see and feel it.

Sending you a big bear hug and a cozy soft blanket you can wrap around yourself, because you need to be taken care of, too.

[Not Alone]

I don't have helpful words, just heartfelt hugs.         

[sanmagic7]

i agree with you, armee - seeing, feeling is even bigger than just knowing.  all this should have been done 40 yrs. ago, yet that's been the power of retention within my brain that it's not been acknowledged till now.  survival.

notalone, your hugs were invaluable.  thanks.

a couple weeks ago i felt the heartbreak of being dumped by my first love (FL), and it was horrible, sat me on my butt emotionally.  since then, talking with my gal pal who knew all of it at the time (she and i have recently reconnected) gave me the chance to talk about him and the situation with my best friend the way it should have been done 50 yrs. ago.  50 years, but the feeling of it has made it seem like it only happened 2 weeks ago.  just like you noticed, armee.

since then, i've spoken with her again, and she filled me in on more behind the scenes stuff that happened around the breakup.  how he and his new girlfriend were showing up at times with our friends at different places unbeknownst to me.  how he took her someplace, then would take me someplace.  i was the only one who didn't know.  all our friends, his frat, my family, other friends - everyone not only in my circle but everyone connected as well.  when she told me this last week, the feeling of being stupid popped into my mind, but didn't linger.

today w/ my T, i talked about all this other stuff that i was told, and the feeling of being thoroughly humiliated again raised its ugly head.  with it, an even stronger feeling of stupid.  as i was relaying the details to my T, one of which was how his frat bros actually were laughing behind my back (literally) while we were together on spring break, and i suddenly went - this has now risen to the arena of trauma!  my T said, absolutely - to be laughed at is the stuff of nightmares!

i'm in pretty bad shape right now. 

[rainydiary]

What a wonderful connection to re-establish while also surfacing a ton of difficult feeling. 

[sanmagic7]

i agree, rainy.  she's helping me relive this trauma in the way it was supposed to have been felt, realized, and known and the time.  thanks.