Memorex recovery jounral

[sanmagic7]

i hope you are able to enjoy this gig, and also that you'll be able to settle somewhat when  it's over, give yourself some of the time and focus you need.  hope it goes well.   love and hugs to you, sweetie.

[memorex]

Thanks Sanmagic

Been trying to rest up after gig. Its really taken it out of me. There were moments of it I enjoyed but thanks to typical train network rubbishness, the journey back has left me in a bad way.

[memorex]

Entry for Monday.

Feel very low and angry today. Debilitated by various things. More unwanted intrusive answerphone messages from FOO had cut off.
And Im really angry and furious at the lack of male help out there. I've been searching desperately and endlessly for something, but theres literally no funding or money. There are countless, COUNTLESS groups for women of every single kind.

And yes, there is some help for men who conform to the stereotype of 'what a man SHOULD be'. Lots of extremes. Help for men who are gay. Or help for men who are macho stereotypical people who want to 'man up'.

But if you are anywhere in between those two extremes, if you feel a mix of things, and dont really identify with either, theres just nothing. Nothing at all. And Im sick and angry about it. It hurts me, and its going to hurt future generations of men who are today young, who we already see feeling alienated because they dont identify with the old macho male thing, but also cant be simply labelled as anything else so neatly.

It seems like men get labelled as macho or gay, and thats it. Those are your options as a male. Society and therapy doesnt seem to have a clue how to be sympathetic to, or understand, men who feel they are a complex mix of things, not a simple black or white.

Men and women perpetuate this myth. So many female and male therapeutic approaches are based on men needing to either 'toughen up', or that if they cant, its because theyre 'in the closet' and need to accept theyre 'gay'.

No wonder todays youth feel so alienated. So many young men are more able to be in touch with their emotions and creative and sensitive, and need nurturing and encouragement, not 'steering', or 'fixing', or 'outing'. No wonder there's so many male suicides. Its not enough to only have resources for people once theyre suicidal-the whole point should be to help them BEFORE they reach that point. But as I say, there's NO help for men over 25 who are also this way. I only hope there is for the younger and future ones. 

[sanmagic7]

memorex, not being a man i can't really relate on that level.  i do know, however, from my days working with battered women that there were a lot of battered men out there who had no where to turn to for help.  even the batterers who wanted to stop, who wanted to look at their issues and get support were turned away.  they were looked on in only one way - bad people - and no one was willing to see them as wounded in their own right.

andyman, here on the forum, has brought this subject up as well.  i know only that men are the ones who will have to find a way to get these groups started for themselves.  women cannot do this for them.  perhaps there is a way to reach out via social media to get an online support group started.  the only ones i've known of that were quite successful were for single dads, or dads without custody of their kids.

i know there is a men's movement about being gentle warriors, that tries to put that macho thing away, and just learn how to be men - mainly because most men are raised and educated by women and haven't had a lot of actual male essence around them in their formative years.  i'm sorry i don't remember the actual name of it, but perhaps with some online searching you might find something about it.

this is not the same movement that trashes women.  that has its own following, and is not, to my mind, very positive.

my best to you with this.  maybe you and andy can form some sort of support group of two here.  it might be a start.  it's a shame that men have been overlooked in this area because they've mostly been painted with the same brush.  i hope you can find what you need, memorex.  you deserve it.   love and hugs, sweetie.

[memorex]

thanks for the ideas, will look into them. Regarding other stuff, I just find it disgusting how gender has become so politicized lately, how it feels like its being used by politicians to turn us against each other in society and create infighting, when we should all be helping each other. In the meantime, most local and government monies go disproportionately to women's groups. Shelters, public awareness campaigns, medical research. Even though the vast number of suicides are male, homeless are male, workplace deaths are male, cancer fatalities are male. And there's clearly a lack of cultural understanding of men in any depth other than as out of date cliches, and our media portrays them as thugs or idiots, with few role models for future generations.

I am sure one day things will change, but wonder how many will die before they do. Women also have a responsibility to change things in society to help men, as men had a responsibility to help things change for women. We're all human and should all be helping each other. Sadly, it seems our societies are instead turning to infighting instead.

Interesting point you made about boys not having much exposure to men when young. hadnt considered that.

[memorex]

tuesday

another night of nightmares and waking feeling hopeless. proceeding with decorating today as best as can. hard frustrating work. just cant see a light at the moment. helped a bit when called Samaritans yesterday. Let off some steam and chatted too. Had reply from Mens group had contacted but the more I hear about them the more suspect they sound to me.

They advertised themselves as being professionally organised and run by qualified trained people. Yet when I talked with them I found they had no recognised qualifications and im wary about the real intent of the group generally. Talk of going camping together in a town that has a large subsection of the  gay community that does some pretty questionable extreme stuff (4 day drug fueled mass bondage orgies, (unprotected) according to the inside scoop from a couple of female social workers) means I have to be aware and sure this isnt something to do with that. Im not to happy that im meant to meet at the home address of the two men running it for an 'interview' first either. Ok, I may be worrying too much, but then again, as I say, there is a lot of other stuff in this town and it is known. For the record, no Im not homophobic and have had gay mates. But this is about openness and honesty and making sure a group is what it says it is. Especially if im to discuss my painful past safely. And so far theyve already fallen down there in terms of self professed 'professionalism'.

So we'll see. Its this Friday, so I have a few days. But im just fed up with hoping for help, getting my hopes raised, then coming away disappointed, and being shocked at how bad things are. Maybe it could be a helpful group in a different way, I dont know. We'll see.

I just feel so lost at the moment and have done for so long. You always hear as a man how 'men just need to ask for help more',but thats simply not true. A lot of men fear doing it because they know how theres just no appropriate help available to men. And im sure a lot of women have felt similar things too. Asking for help is just apart of it. There needs to be better and more help for all of us, and there really isnt enough.

[sanmagic7]

memorex, please forgive me if i sounded like women shouldn't be supporting men.  i truly believe we do need to do that on all fronts.  i totally agree with you that the entire gender kaleidoscope needs to be helping each other, supporting each other, and advocating for each other.  we are all human beings first and foremost, and that needs to be our priority.

i know it's taken a long time for women to be believed and validated - hopefully, it won't take as long for men.  dv, sa, r, - all those things that were once believed to be exclusive to women are now beginning to come to light for men.  it's a gender bias, again.   i'm really glad you're able to speak up about it here.

best to you with that gathering on fri.  i hope it's what you're looking for rather than what you might fear.  i think caution is wise in such a situation.  there are plenty of angry people out there, plenty of rebellious people who simply want to make a statement without focusing on a pos. goal of healing, support, and kinship.  love and hugs to you.

[memorex]

Thanks. I hope I didnt sound too soapbox-y. I admit I may have at first misunderstood your post-I appreciate you explaining what you meant, and I really thank you for your encouragement. I was very afraid to post about my feelings regarding men and women before I did it. I always have such a hard time expressing my feelings and worrying people will hate me for them. Guess i still gotta lot of work to do in that area, but I agree its a good start posting here. Its definitely a first for me!

I feel glad to see people here, such as yourself, who are open minded and realise the importance of people helping each other as human beings first and foremost. Such a strange time we live in where so many seem to have forgotten that. A friend once told me that its common for people to turn on each other in times of great economic hardship, such as global austerity. I can see that-I guess its like how people in prison who get treated badly by guards turn on each other and form gangs-instead of thinking to unite to help each other. Maybe thats a clunky example, I dont know.

Anyway. thanks for your thoughts again.Hope you are doing well. Apparantly I got my dates wrong a bit, so the group interview thing is tomorrow. Going to try to get it postponed until next week as I dont think I can handle it right now. Im sure I'll be posting about it here anyway.

[memorex]

Weds

Possible Trigger warning(?)


Yesterday was one of the worst evenings I've had. The whole day (and maybe the past week?) I've had more and more fears about suddenly dying. An old fear of mine of suddenly having a heart attack or something. I had pains that were more likely due to other explainable things, but it just kept popping up in my mind "what if..?", "what if...?"

I dont really know how to deal with that when it comes along. Sometimes I can at least see it as a warning bell sounding, a sign that something is wrong somehow and that I need to take it easy and be kinder to myself until it passes or until I can take a look at whats going on in my life and usually an explanation will make itself apparant. I had a bda one on the train last week, and later realised it was due partly to seeing a small boy in deep distress with his mother not long before, and that it had touched old painful memories and fears for me of my own childhood.

I've never really understood if thats the sort of thing that would be called an 'Emotional Flashback', or a 'Panic Attack', or both, or something else. Its all a bit confusing to me sometimes.

Anyway. As for yesterday, unfortunately, I felt I had to continue with decorating as my bedroom was half done and in quite a state, and with a week long heatwave due, I knew it wouldnt be possible to do any later. And I wanted to do something I felt I could see results from as I was feeling stuck and hopeless.

Maybe it led to pushing myself too much in terms of neglecting my emotional state. But I was quickly sweating, which then turned my mind to more 'known precursor symptoms of a heart attack'.... You can see where Im going with this...(!)

So of course it was only when I stopped that all the fears then had a chance to air themselves with a vengeance. And boy did they.

Full blown panic attack/EF/whatever-its-called, awful fears about to die and nobody would find me, and other horrible things.

I managed to remember some grounding methods and used those to get me to the next level, where I was able to do more stuff, to calm me down and get perspective more, and so on. Eventually it lessened, though even posting about it now I feel its there to a degree. Unlike other times, I still dont know what exactly brought this on. Maybe it falls under the heading of 'generally too much emotional stress'. I fear it coming back today, and aim to take things easier, though unfortunately I still have to do a couple of things I'd much rather not today. I have decided to try to postpone the mens group interview thing or whatever it is, until at least next week, or a time I feel able to cope with it. I can only imagine it'll either involve difficult questions about the past, and/or disappointment about what is available there. Sadly, I fear it cant be rescheduled, so I feel stressed by that.

I find it SO hard to do things like colouring, or just watching tv-things that dont have a specific 'doing' purpose. Thats part of my problem. A part of me does enjoy colouring and so on, but the old "parent" part thinks I should be 'doing', 'achieving', 'progressing' with things. And the child part of me feels a deep sense of unease and fear as a result. Almost like at any second a parent might walk in the room and discover me not doing anything, and shaming and making me feel terrible, useless and guilty for it. As they regularly did, for anything. Come to think of it, so did my sisters, so I got humiliated for doing anything I liked, and told off for it my parents.

Hmmm, I *wonder* why I have problems...? 

[sanmagic7]

wow, sounds like a lot of processing going on, memorex.  i don't blame you for wanting to wait a week for the men's group thing-y.  sounds like a wise decision.

i've been troubled by the idea of not doing something constructive meant i was lazy.  it haunted me far into my adulthood, and was exacerbated by my oldest d calling me that.  it was a horrible thing to think i might be perceived as such, so i went out of my way to do the work of 3 people all the time.

of course, i eventually broke down.  as one person told me i was a pony who'd continually been pulling the wagon suited to a draft horse.  boy, when she said that, i burst into tears.  it's exactly what it had been feeling like.  it's taken years of work, and being so sick i was pretty much house-bound, to get over that.  it was a toughie, tho.

best to you will all this.  i hope you find the root of your fear of dying.  it seems to me that that's an awfully large load to be carrying on your shoulders all the time.  sending love and a hug full of clarity for you.

[memorex]

So after getting back from town and being fed up with all the phone calls and such, I felt I had little option but to return one of them to my uncle. I knew the calls wouldnt stop otherwise. So I call and say hello and ask how he is and am polite and so on and mention the football because I know he is a fan, and the World Cup is a handy distractionary topic. He doesnt sound at all surprised/happy or anything to hear from me, and despite my warmth (even if feigned), I get little back. About 40 seconds in, and I think its going ok, all things considered, when he cuts in with "the doorbell just rang, I'll have to go, alright, bye".

And of course, stupidly, I had just begun to think maybe I had been harsh in my interpretation of him, and had made the mistake of letting myself briefly enjoy the call and some kind of familiarity. No mention of 'I'll call you back', or even 'it was good to hear from you'. Or even 'how about we meet'.

I know I hadnt wanted much contact, but it still hurts, is confusing, and suggests he was maybe only doing it on orders from my immediate FOO to begin with as I strongly suspected.

Now Im again feeling hurt, somewhat unlovable (my default thought is its always something wrong with me somehow), confused, and maybe even a bit angry.

It just amazes me the depth and breadth of the dysfunction within my childhood environment. It was never just my dad that was cold or horrible or controlling to me. It was my mother, my siblings, my uncles and aunt, my one grandparent, and the few 'friends' of the family. They all treated me with coldness and like I was dirt. Growing up I even sent those family 'friends' Christmas and birthday cards to them-Never got a single one back in return. Even after going to the funeral of one of them. I was nothing but polite and courteous to them as a kid.

Really makes me think Im somehow just repellant or weird or freak people out or something. I've never understood it. I guess when you're a kid and all you've ever known is your FOO being horrible to you, and your shy so you know few people except a few limited friends of the family or relatives who are cold to you too, its going to make you feel bad about yourself and think its you.

But that fear still lingers, especially at times like this. Why do I keep getting my hopes raised? Why didnt I just ignore the calls and block the number? How is it I still always hope maybe things will be different? Habit, desperation, pain? I just dont know. I do know I deserve better than that though. They always wanted to control me and keep me exactly where they wanted me. At arms length. No further away, and no closer. Any movement from me or derivation from their demands and I get slapped down.

[sanmagic7]

i think you answered your question, memorex.  as kids, our world revolves around us, and we instinctively think that when something goes awry with the adults it's our fault.  how many kids have blamed themselves for their parents divorcing!

i also think that when we're not taught differently, we get stuck in that child mindset.  we were never taught how to proceed thru whatever happened and come out whole and feeling ok about ourselves on the other side.  so, we carry it with us into adulthood along with all the hurt, confusion, hoping it'll be different, etc.  until we're able to re-parent ourselves, our child within us, and teach them what we needed to be taught at the time, it lingers on.

just my opinion, one that makes sense to me.    it's such a horrible place to be stuck.  are you in therapy?  if so, maybe this would be something that your t could help you with.  sending love, and a hug filled with knowledge and clarity - this was done to you by them, not the other way around.

[memorex]

Yeah you're right. Im just struggling so much with the re-parenting thing. I have no real support network and although Im making progress in terms of self soothing, acceptance and so on, I do have that behaviour pattern of thinking its me.

Its just been hard lately with them intruding again, its pushed some painful buttons. Irony is, just before I wrote this, the self same uncle I wrote about walked right past my home.

As for therapy, I've been working hard to find something suitable and qualified, but I've had an awful time and not managed to find anything right.

Going to spend today trying to collate what resources I have, sort out the online bookmarks I have of online resources into something more easily accessible so I can hopefully make good use of whats available there.


Todays entry;

One word.

Ouch.

[memorex]

some past friends went out yesterday though I'd said I couldnt make it (I wasnt up to it). I was disappointed they'd all gone ahead though I'd said I could make it weeks later (it was arranged about three weeks back.

What stung though was a social media picture that one of the people commented on who was there, stating they were missing someone else who hadnt been free, and not mentioning me at all. I had thought of this person as something of a friend, someone I felt a kinship with, but had often wondered maybe didnt feel the same back.

Oh I hope this doesnt sound whiny. Im not good at explaining things sometimes, Anyway, I felt rubbish seperately and now feel worse. The next talk is of a meal which unfortunately is hard for me due to food issues. And these friends arent the kind to understand such issues, and some are quite gossipy and spread private stuff.

I know I've got problems, but surely mates are partly there to understand and accept.

As a random sidenote, something else bothering me is my hair seems to have gone crazy lately and just looks rubbish whatever I do. And I've always felt if my hair looks alright then I look just about ok. For some reason it seems to be have mutated into my sister's hair lately and gone all weird. I know my self esteem is pretty rubbish lately anyway, but it doesnt help.

[memorex]

last week was a lot of hassle to reschedule the meeting for the mens group. the guy kept saying the only time both of them were free to meet me was on thursday. I pointed out I had been trying to arrange something for ages, had had few replies or contact from them, was free most days, and that they said the next group doesnt start until September, which gives 9 weeks to arrange a short meeting.

And again I got no reply.

So again, I contacted them. Tuesday, (today) was arranged for 6pm.

Now Ive just seen a late email from them saying they want me to switch it to 5pm, which I cant do. I said it was too last minute and to let me know if they were cancelling 6pm. We'll see if he replies....

Meantime, I had enquired weeks back how they make sure of healthy boundaries being respected in the group since it is in an area with a high level of gay underground groups, involves camping and 'retreats', and obviously theres quite a few vulnerable and confused men.

Got no reply....

We'll see if todays meet goes ahead. Its at the guys home address. Im just getting more and more wary of this.