looking for relief

[sanmagic7]

completely overwhelmed, doc appt. this morning. thank you all for your support - someday i'll be able to be there for you again

[Armee]

 

You don't ever have to be here for us. Be here for you, when and if it feels helpful again.

Lots of love and support, San. You deserve to be cared for. I hope the doc appointment is ok.

[Blueberry]

We're here for you as you've been here many times for us    Now it's your turn to be supported 

[Armee]

 

[Hope67]

 

[sanmagic7]

armee, blueberry, hope - those hugs were so wonderful to see.  thank you all so much for being in my corner for me.  you know, even as long as i've been here, which is 7 years, i still get sideswiped by the support given to me.  it's so appreciated.  much love, many hugs back

thought i'd get this down  while i can.  the dr. appt. went well - i did some emdr the day before, just wanting my fingers to not be so cold (i was hoping the veins in my hands would relax and allow the blood to flow thru more easily).  after i began, my mind didn't know quite what to do, so my heart stepped in and said it would pump harder.  i told my T i had to stop cuz i felt like this was going in the wrong direction (the last time i had my BP checked, it was very high and i was very anxious).

what happened then at the doc was miraculous to me. my BP was back down in the normal range for the first time in years and years, my oxygen intake was the highest it's been, and my lungs were clear.   it seems my brain did what it could to get me more relaxed so i would have more 'normal' readings.  i also got my referrals for a sleep study to see if i have sleep apnea, (i'm quite sure i've had it for a long, long time) and to a dermatologist to check out all my concerns riding rampant over my skin.

all in all, it was more than i could've hoped for.  yes, a  is absolutely appropriate here. 

now that that anxiety is off the table, i've been plagued by intrusive thoughts each morning after i wake up that include my D1 and my ex.  i've gotten to doubting myself again about my parenting -  i made the mistake of reading one of her final emails where she accused me of all kinds of abuse towards her (no examples, tho), and how can i live w/ myself?  too awful, but it ripped the wound wide open again. i even put her back on my contact list in case  . . .  all the what if's come into play here.  what if she finally gets help? wants to start over? wants her mom back in her life?

ahhh, too much.  i yelled at my mind this morning 'STOP IT!' and got out of bed in order to distract myself.  it seemed like a good idea to write it here, maybe get it out of me.  hope so.  otherwise, i'm just scraping at that scab once again.  this is *.

[Armee]

Wow amazing communication with your body!!!! 

those intrusive thoughts sound awful. Maybe they are happening now for a reason and perhaps you are getting closer to ready to face them head on - slowly - and put them to rest? Perhaps adding your D1 to your contacts was a way of putting it to rest, leaving your hands open and giving it to the universe. Rereading the email maybe seeing if there's anything left to be done...double checking one last time? I think in some ways perhaps these are signs of new strength?

[Papa Coco]

San,

I feel the pain with your D1. Our oldest son, S1, has done the same thing with us. We have a lot of friends, and I'd say that more than half of the people we know have one son or daughter who has estranged without explanation. It's like an epidemic, and it's happening to a huge number of people.

My wife has finally stopped asking me if I've heard from S1. She's finally feeling ready to move on without him. She's not stuck in the trap of believing she needs to wait eternally by the door for his return.

The largest number of people who's children have done what your D1 and our S1 have done, did nothing to deserve it. My wife was the person who loved my son the most. My wife trusted him, listened to every word he said, respected him more than anyone else did. And she was the first person he estranged from. I stayed in his life for a while, but he eventually turned on me too. Each time I asked him why he hated his mom, he'd give me a completely different response. In most of the cases from our group of friends, the child's accusations are completely false--or greatly exaggerated. We do have a few friends who definitely deserved to lose the love of their kids, but those are rare. In most cases, our friends' kids are dealing badly with their own personal dramas. And BTW, as their social media contacts do the same with their own parents, it just makes estrangement "the thing to do" in their lives...everyone else is doing it. Right?

For us, we've decided to never respond to anyone's bridge-burner "letter of (fake) truth." We feel like if we respond, then we are making it worse. When someone launches a hate campaign against us, we like to let them own all the hate, all the anger, all the accusations. If we fight back, we end up getting sucked into being seen as the aggressors. In our own personal lives, Coco and I feel like if we don't respond to those accusations, then we allow the aggressors to live with what they wrote. No response means we didn't fight back, and maybe we aren't the problem here. It gives us a hope that if S1, or anyone else who writes those letters of accusation, will feel like they have the power to undo what they've done someday. And if not, if they're gone forever, then at least we don't have to worry that it was what we wrote in response.  That's just me. I don't pretend to know how to handle children who send these bridge-burners to us. I'm just saying it's happened to us and to a bunch of our friends and this is just how we found peace with it. Maybe it comes from an extremely popular meme from the 1970s when we were teens. People used to say this all the time: "If you love something, let it go. If it returns to you it is yours. If it flies away, it never was yours."  I guess, that's the sentiment I have. My S1 made a decision to burn the bridges. We made the decision to not burn back, but to keep the door open in case he ever decides to return.

I hope you find peace with your D1's bridge-burner. I'm very, very sorry she did that to you. I know how painful it is. I've seen my wife wallow in unresolved hope and self-torment for 8 years now. And she's just now finally done believing he's ever coming back. She'll never be okay with it, but she's finally not letting it hold her down anymore.

Here are two hugs: One from me and one from my wife (who doesn't know anything about me being on this forum, I just know that if she knew what you were dealing with, she'd want to send a hug too). This forum is my personal guilty pleasure. She will never know about it.

[Kizzie]

San I too am so very sorry about the situation with your D and not knowing what you did to deserve the bridge burner. Utterly devastating and painful I know so sending many hugs your way.    

We didn't get a message from our S but he did stop communicating with us for quite a while and would not respond when we asked what was going on.  It was horrible.  In the end we let him be, but reassured him that we loved him to leave the door open.  He is starting to communicate again.  In his case I think he just needed space and to make his own way in life.  We had been very involved parents because of the lack of love and care from our parents and I think it was just too much.  I don't know if your D will ever choose to re-engage but maybe in time if she knows you love her and the door is open. 

[sanmagic7]

armee, PC, kizzie, thank you all for the support and thoughts.   


******************TW- sexual innuendos re: my daughters and their father***************************


another round of working on my ex - part of my intrusive thoughts - and today i was able to pin the word 'pervert' on him, which made me both sick feeling and disgusted.  i asked my T if that was the appropriate word for him, she said 'absolutely'.  getting into it, i went into a spiral of self-blame, shame, and failure to protect my daughters from such a man.  too many instances to get into, but they and the 'could have happened's' washed over me in such huge waves. my T locked him up again in his cage w/ icky L, cuz she's intertwined in this.

when i brought the first instance to her in couples therapy, she said 'that's inappropriate', and that was it.  didn't even meet his eyes, never looked further into it, never dug any deeper, even tho my D1 was only 7.  he'd made a lustful sound toward her one night, i smacked him and told him to cut it out, and next week at our session i brought it up.  'that's inappropriate' was all the help i was given.  since i was a newbie to the therapy game and she seemed like she had all the answers, i thought that would be it.

it wasn't, but today i realized that every time he pulled some stunt of his, whether it was lusting after my sis, girlfriends, rages, grossness, he was testing me, wearing me down.  several things i would call him on, like his road rage, and he'd stop the behavior when i was around.  but my D's would tell me how he'd resort to it when i wasn't around.

i couldn't protect my D's from this man.  i did what i could, but he'd go behind my back time and time again.  i didn't know this was going on until the girls were into high school and we'd been married over 10 yrs.  but there were so many subtle things he'd do, so nefarious and insidious and i was running around like a chicken w/o a head trying to put out the fires, make our family a happy one, and i kept failing over and over.

and even when i went to someone who was supposed to be a helper, she still didn't have my back.  there were other times she tried to blame me for his * proclivities - this was a therapist who claimed to be an addictions expert!  it wasn't until many years later, after i reported her to the state board, that i realized she was a sexually addicted misogynist herself!

i'm just typing, trying to rid myself of this filth that continually punctuates my thoughts. by the time he did something else inappropriate re: D1, i was already too worn down and exhausted to even get the word 'no' out of my mouth.  i see it as test after test, seeing how much i could take until i broke, and when i did, he played like he was confused that i didn't think our marriage was happy, and my D1 got so mad at me.  so i went to Mex.  i couldn't live around them anymore, even tho i continued a relationship business-wise w/ him until 7 yrs. ago. 


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

all that time i think i couldn't really believe what might be happening.  finally piecing it all together i can see what a sick man he is, how he not only abandoned me but created a partnership w/ D1 against me.  he didn't just let it happen, he encouraged it, adding his own crapola to hers. 

like my T says, she doesn't know how i've survived all this.  i have no happy memories of him after more than 40 yrs. of being part of his life. anything i think of concerning him is tainted in some way.  it's so deflating, so discouraging, so heart numbing.  i'm in a very dark place right now, just trying to stay sane.

[Not Alone]

San, I didn't read your TW, but still want you to know that I care and support you.

[Blueberry]

san, I read it rather cursorily so as not to get triggered. Recently you wrote unfortunately, we can't always catch everything every time in my Journal. I'd like to remind you of that here when you go into your spiral of self-blame. It was on your ex not on you.

Standing with you.

[rainydiary]

San, I read your post and feel the heaviness of that time and those experiences. 

[Armee]

Sending love and gentle but firm hugs. You are NOT responsible for how he behaved. HE is responsible. You tried. You tired you tried you tried. Yes he wore you down. It's part of the process they use. I'm sorry you suffered so much with him. It is abuse what you went through, dear San and I am so sorry for that.  and 

[Papa Coco]

San,

Thank you for sharing this difficult stuff with us. I can feel the frustration in it. Pervert is a good name for that x of yours. I stand with everyone else in support for you. You did nothing wrong. You were a wife and mother who tried to make it work. That shows that you are a person of stamina and love. The fact that he was a monster is all on him.