Good Morning Everyone,
I love this podcast so much; when I am feeling my worst and at my most alone, Paul reminds me and convinces me that I am not. So the next logical step is to finally visit the forum.
I'm feeling alone today. I'm not feeling hopeless, actually, I'm feeling rather hopeful. But I'm scared I won't be able to "keep it up." It's fleeting. Life is scary and hard going at times and today I feel like saying "I got a raw deal." And then accepting that instead of feeling sorry for myself, looking for ways to fix it, and looking for people to fix it.
I got a raw deal. What kind of a raw deal? I am the only child of two alcoholics. I am no longer a child, but there is a scared, angry, raging child within me that I am learning to manage and soothe on a daily basis. Some days she wins. She won yesterday and today I'm having an emotional hangover.
Here comes a great big sick rant.
I am fucked up. In taking on the tone of Paul Gilmartin, I am so incredibly fucked up. It’s been hard going for me emotionally this past week. Its been almost 90 days since I moved into a city where I lived for three years as an adolescent. When I left, I was 15 and had been kicked out of my house by my parents and sent to live with my grandparents in a town 30 miles south and more rural. I came back for a host of reasons, but one of them was to get in touch with all the crap I experienced while here so that I could feel it, process it, and ultimately, let it go. Kind of like Girl, Interrupted. But now I am declaring that I hate this city, I have always hated this city, when I moved here, I was 13 and had been ripped away from all of my friends. Moving here as an adolescent was a huge mistake and I never should have come back. The solution? Move back to my old town. Because, the irony here is that I willingly moved here this time to get away from my old, boring town, to be closer to the city, the arts, the night life, to meet interesting, intelligent people and get out of the family oriented community I came from. I'm lonely here and I miss my friends and they miss me. I have friends that miss me. That in itself is amazing.
But, I signed a one year lease and I committed to give this project of facing and processing my old shit one year. But oh boy, is it hard. Did I think it would be easy?
So, the though of moving back occurred to me a few days ago and now I can’t let it go. But, of course, I know what will happen. I will eventually move back there and wish I hadn’t. I am fucked up.
While here, I am “trying,” WHITE-KNUCKLING, to S-L-O-W-LY create something with my latest love interest and failing inside miserably. I want an all you can eat buffet in which I can eat my weight in love and attention and I feel that all I am getting are a few careless crumbs tossed here and there in which I pounce on like a tiger in a cage who has been thrown a steak and hasn’t been fed all week. I looked forward all week to our date, the “promised” steak Friday, which, by the way, was only casually promised and I KNEW it wouldn’t happen. You could almost say I willed it not to happen with the power of my thoughts, but I don’t believe my thoughts have that much power. Unless I am trying to manifest something good, and that something good happens. My manifesting abilities are not working, my circuits are jammed – or are they? Is this the result of incessant fretting? He lives an hour away (I came here to meet someone and choose someone physically unavailable) and had car trouble and just retired and his retirement check hasn't come in and blah blah blah, excuses, excuses, you are just blowing me off, aren't you, I'm thinking, and so I say, well, maybe this was just a fling after all. Hope things work out for you soon.
But no, he says, he is sorry, he is bummed, he wants to get to know me more, and please don't give up on him yet.
I am emotionally starving. I am a bottomless pit when it comes to emotional need. It consumes me and then I try to consume whoever is at hand. I haven’t actually done this to New Guy yet, but it is taking every bit of restraint to keep from doing that and to keep from lashing out at him for what I feel he is not providing for me. This is supposed to be the “honeymoon” phase. There is so much conflict here. There is no honeymoon because we are not engaged. We are not engaging. Nothing is happening. And yet, he *says* “I’m so interested in you.”
“I want more than a fling.”
I want to continue to get to know you, don’t give up on me yet, please!
What the hell? I never hear from you, I want to yell. I’m doing all the things I feel I am “supposed to” – stay busy, see other guys, haha, what a conundrum that is. First of all, there are no other guys, and even if there were, I feel like it would be taking away from my focus. I'm not good at dating multiple men.
And when he does open the door a tiny crack, I am standing outside of it with all of my baggage ready to push it open, push past him, set up camp and consume him with all of my issues and expect this poor, unassuming, man to fix me! To rescue me, to entice him to step into the huge, cavernous void the size of Dante’s hell that is my soul-wound, which will suck all of the air out of him, flatten and crush him, and then ultimately leave him defeated and sorry he ever met me. And then I will look for my next victim.
I am so fucked up. I don’t know how to relate. I pray feverishly for a partner, I’m tired of going alone, I plead with God, I write it on slips of paper and leave it in my God box, I send out messages to the Universe, I “let it go” (not really, I am constantly dancing and wrestling with it) and I “turn it over” (all the while my claws and hooks are firmly embedded in it) and I beg, and I cry, and I rage, and I rejoice. I am a relationship addict. I know this. I am aware. I don’t know how to stop.
I’m jealous of everything – I don’t want to be, sometimes I can even manage it, but other times, as I “open up a little” then the scared, insecure, wanting to control little girl comes storming through – the fear gushes like water that has been dammed up for too long. I want to spew instead of process. The single shred of hope I have about this is that I am aware – the comparisons to hunger, caverns, dammed water, etc, indicates I have a processing problem. My valve is not functioning correctly. I need to meet my own desires. I KNOW THIS. I HEAR THIS AND READ THIS ON A DAILY BASIS – BUT HOW???????
How? How do I get my emotional needs met?
I wanted to fucking freak out yesterday when he finally texted me and said he wouldn’t be able to come out. I had to turn my phone off during the day because I was so obsessed with checking it every 5 seconds I was driving myself crazy. And then… oh my God, I had already come home and crawled under the covers to try to self-soothe and I cried and I prayed and then I looked at the ceiling and said, “well, now what do I do?”
I know what I have done before. Freak the fuck out. Not handle it. Feelings have not killed me yet, because I am still alive, but the feelings of dread and abandonment are so powerful that they disable and paralyze me and I can’t contain them. I feel that I WILL die, and the pain has been so unbearable that I start so idealize suicide.
I tried to remember the first time I felt unbearable fear and feelings of abandonment. I think it has always been there. So what do I do about it?
I don’t really want to kill myself. But sometimes I can’t think of any other way to stop the pain and the longing and the loneliness. I am starting to have suicidal ideations at least once a week. And the weekends are harder.
It does help when I talk to people, and I don’t mean engulfing people – just talking. About whatever. That’s a good cure for the loneliness and the isolation.
So, that's where I am today. I had planned to sit here in my little "nest" and read and journal and process but now a friend is inviting me to go out with her and her new boyfriend (who is also a mutual friend) and I guess I better shower and go out into the world.
I hope everyone here does something nice for themselves today.
I'll be back.
Gypsy Sue
My First Post Here
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katie_quixotic
- Posts: 3
- Joined: October 14th, 2013, 3:35 pm
Re: My First Post Here
Hi GypsySue,
That's awesome that you're so in tune with your inner thought processes. I like the way you write. I totally relate to your metaphor of standing there with your baggage ready to set up camp when he opens the door a crack. I tend to be very private with my struggles but yearn for close personal connections where I can safely reveal my emotions fully without judgment.
You sound very intelligent and insightful about yourself. I similarly struggle with being at war between my emotions and my logical side. I have deep self-esteem issues that I believe stem from my relationships with my dad who was emotionally neglectful due to his major clinical depression and my older sister who was emotionally abusive due to her Borderline Personality Disorder. I've come to realize that I approach every new social situation as if I'm defective, everyone hates me, and I'm an annoying burden. (Oh, don't forget boring!) So when people take too long to respond to my texts or don't respond at all, I always over-analyze, fearing they don't like me and are just too nice to tell me. But then there's this logical side of me that is self-assured and knows I'm just being insecure. It's hard for me to reconcile these conflicting attitudes. I can intellectually tell myself that I'm being irrational, but I can't feel it. And it's SO HARD to not listen to your feelings.
I heard this quote recently that I really liked: "The things that make you feel the most alone have the biggest potential to connect you." In a moment of calm, have you ever tried being up front with the person you're dating about your emotional struggles and feelings of abandonment? (Even if it's a new relationship.) In my opinion, talking candidly about your insecurities is very brave and attractive. And it's a way to conquer them. The only thing that's a turn-off is the whole "flying off the handle" behavior, not the insecurities themselves. Guys are more likely to get scared off if they think you're completely irrational and out of touch, but you're not. You see what's problematic about your thoughts and behavior, and you're motivated to improve yourself. That right there is being in control (in the good way!). If the guy is scared off, he probably isn't worth it anyway. You've been through a lot and you deserve someone who respects your struggle.
Have you ever thought of going to a local support group? It might be a source for that much needed sense of security and I think you'd have a lot of valuable insights to offer others.
Anyways, that's just my two cents! Welcome to the forum!
-Katie
That's awesome that you're so in tune with your inner thought processes. I like the way you write. I totally relate to your metaphor of standing there with your baggage ready to set up camp when he opens the door a crack. I tend to be very private with my struggles but yearn for close personal connections where I can safely reveal my emotions fully without judgment.
You sound very intelligent and insightful about yourself. I similarly struggle with being at war between my emotions and my logical side. I have deep self-esteem issues that I believe stem from my relationships with my dad who was emotionally neglectful due to his major clinical depression and my older sister who was emotionally abusive due to her Borderline Personality Disorder. I've come to realize that I approach every new social situation as if I'm defective, everyone hates me, and I'm an annoying burden. (Oh, don't forget boring!) So when people take too long to respond to my texts or don't respond at all, I always over-analyze, fearing they don't like me and are just too nice to tell me. But then there's this logical side of me that is self-assured and knows I'm just being insecure. It's hard for me to reconcile these conflicting attitudes. I can intellectually tell myself that I'm being irrational, but I can't feel it. And it's SO HARD to not listen to your feelings.
I heard this quote recently that I really liked: "The things that make you feel the most alone have the biggest potential to connect you." In a moment of calm, have you ever tried being up front with the person you're dating about your emotional struggles and feelings of abandonment? (Even if it's a new relationship.) In my opinion, talking candidly about your insecurities is very brave and attractive. And it's a way to conquer them. The only thing that's a turn-off is the whole "flying off the handle" behavior, not the insecurities themselves. Guys are more likely to get scared off if they think you're completely irrational and out of touch, but you're not. You see what's problematic about your thoughts and behavior, and you're motivated to improve yourself. That right there is being in control (in the good way!). If the guy is scared off, he probably isn't worth it anyway. You've been through a lot and you deserve someone who respects your struggle.
Have you ever thought of going to a local support group? It might be a source for that much needed sense of security and I think you'd have a lot of valuable insights to offer others.
Anyways, that's just my two cents! Welcome to the forum!
-Katie