Recovery notes... June 24

[JamesG3]

So.... with recovery fully underway, I felt it was time to pop the question to my partner. We've been together 5 years and she's been through a lot with me. I had to feel the hyperviglance was on the way out before I felt I could do it, separating real and imagined issues has been HARD. She's not the most subtle of people but she never really means anything in a serious way, certainly not like the people who gave me C-PTSD. So, on holiday in France, I proposed. Because I am so handsome, witty and charming with the sort of looks Colin Firth would die for, naturally the foolish woman said yes, despite my obvious self delusion.

So far so good. Her kids are happy, she's happy, I'm... well you know, mildly hypervigillant.

Then, the planning kicks in.

I wasn't really expecting it. Straight off, the gaping hole in my family and friends is horribly apparent. My brother wiped out my family. He wiped out his own family. Extended family were propagandised so much that they backed off not just from me, but from Dr Goebel's himself meaning that I wouldn't even know my in country relatives if they were standing a yard away. Friends, well there's an issue there too. Many of those were shared with my narcicistic sibling too and a source of condescension, so they are out and then there's those with wives who have made the assumption that the death of my ex was down to me, and not down to the wine and vodka that she drank herself to death with.

Maybe some I exagerate, maybe some is real... sadly too real, but all this adds up to a very small wedding. In fact, no wedding at all. My partner was a divorcee, and doesn't want a big wedding anyway, but we are now trying to negotiate a path to not having anyone at the registry office but us.

Minefield, a minefield that I find very triggering. The whole 4 dimensional chess game of appeasing people who wouldn't give a rat's behind about anything selfish they may do, but who will make a right song and dance about what WE do if it doesn't suit them. Been there before... oh boy have I been there before.

We've explained it to the kids, and they get it, but really it should be just the four of us. It will likely be just us.

I HATE these dynamics. I hate how people use duty and 'blood' as an excuse to manipulate, and to manipulate even when they are not there and don't know what is happening anyway. My own family were, and are, master manipulators, trapping all around them into complex, futile dances about power, entrapment and exploitation. A day that should be about family, can't be about family, because family = TROUBLE.

So, yeah, all that came up.

A lot of anger at the past, frustration in the present and that old feeling of overload as you try to think your way through the mire.

It's come at an odd time for me. I've been sleeping badly, maybe in part because I'm just finishing and releasing a novel. It's been very intense getting it wrapped and I've had to think myself silly for months. Payback will be great, but yeah... exhausted. Work has entered one of its occasional grinding periods with a bad mix of repetition and stats measuring of our performance. It's a lot. One of the daughters is also in perpetual ill health and that's a strain on us all. sigh... life innit?

Lastly, processing the implications of my ADHD component is another biggie. Every day it's making more sense, jigsaw pieces falling into place. From the nursery onwards it brought a lot of abuse on to me. In adulthood it supercharged my trauma responses and blunted my faculties when I most needed them... when I needed them to survive. I wish I'd understood these things way back, but those days, everything was your fault. My old friends still carry these attitudes and their ill-informed condescension has been very bruising. Almost fatal.

So, yeah, good old C-PTSD. Each solution gives you a new problem. It will settle, because nothing lasts really. But wisdom builds. Surviving C-PTSD is a master's degree, a learning curve of epic proportions. You are obliged to learn on the job, a job you didn't even apply for, let alone... want. But here we are.

So yeah.... engaged.

funny, but after all these years, I can't spell narcicist. Narcsicist, Narcocyst.... whatever. tsk

[Papa Coco]

Congratulations on your upcoming quiet wedding at the courthouse.

My wife and I did the same thing and for the same reasons. My family tried taking over my wedding, and from experience I know that they were going to work their evil magic to turn my wife and I against each other. So before they could make any important moves, we ran off to Reno and came back married. That was 41 years ago and we're still in love, and still each other's best friend. So that plan to marry without the family's psychodrama worked well for me and I hope it does for you too.

I'm glad you're not letting your family screw with YOUR decision to marry who, when and where you like.

[Little2Nothing]

45 years ago my wife and I eloped. The best decision we ever made. Her folks didn't want us to marry and stated they would not attend the wedding and I didn't want my insane family there to spoil everything.

My wife is the best thing that ever happened to me. I love her deeply.

[NarcKiddo]

I was deep in the FOG when we got married. But I knew enough to know my mother would make a wedding all about her. Plus she would want the marriage in church and that would have been awkward because my husband had been married once in church already.

We got engaged 3 months after we met. We got married pretty much as soon as possible after we got engaged - took a couple of months because we discovered my husband was not actually divorced. His lawyers had got the decree nisi but never bothered to apply for the absolute. And it was now too late for it to be a court administrative matter. The "ex" wife had to agree. Fortunately she did without reopening the financials which were already bad enough. Then we married with my husband's best friend and his wife as witnesses and went to a local restaurant for lunch. We told my parents in advance but not far enough for them to hi-jack it.

Turns out my parents were very happy with this. They insisted on throwing a party after a church blessing. They invited all the people they wanted and then let us invite our friends to fill the remaining spaces. They could tell their friends that we had all but eloped: how romantic, blah, blah.  They paid for the whole thing and we let mother dictate because, after all, they were paying plus we were already married and did not view it as our special day. And actually the party was mostly fun. We had enough friends there and because there was no pressure on us, it not being our big day, we could just enjoy what there was to be enjoyed.

We're still here over 30 years later. We have fond memories of our small, registry office wedding. I hope you have exactly the wedding you want, with as many or as few as you want in attendance.

And finally, what I should have said first of all - congratulations on your engagement and may you have a long and happy marriage.

[Hope67]

Hi James,
Congratulations on your engagement.  I wish you the very best for your future life together and hope that you enjoy a happy marriage.
Hope 

[Kizzie]

Oh wow James, that's awesome - congrats! 

A day that should be about family, can't be about family, because family = TROUBLE. So, yeah, all that came up. A lot of anger at the past, frustration in the present and that old feeling of overload as you try to think your way through the mire

I get that it's quite sad/maddening/overwhelming, but the only people that really truly matter are you two. If you can shed the rest and focus on the fact that you truly love and are loved that's quite a win when it comes to this life with CPTSD. In one very important way you have beat CPTSD so good on ya! 

[Blueberry]

 

James, I'm so happy for you at the amount of healing/recovery you've managed!