Hi Friend! Oy I just came off two insane weeks of state/federal testing for my kids so please know if I don't show up immediately, I will show up eventually! Story of my life these days. I have a lot of physical challenges with weekly low dose chemo so I live a 7 day life in 5 or 6 days if I'm lucky. I feel like I'm always running behind.
I am really proud of you for standing up to the therapist and hope you are having some good fortune finding a better one. So many people stay with someone thinking it's all their problem and wind up not getting a truly therapeutic process going. Boy do I understand feeling invisible. I'm a caretaker type and my husband is the strong, silent type and also self-centered. I actually got angry last night because my husband had left for church again. I'm not against church but it's become an "acceptable" way for him to feed his self entered, addictive personality. And the kids were talking over me while I was trying to tell them something and I stopped and shouted "I'm so tired of being invisible!" So my point with all that pathetic, traditional, suburban word vomit was that even in a fairly happy and functional family surrounded by people that love you, you can still feel invisible so I get it.
I hope today has some sunshine in it.
Hugs, Andy
Discouraged, anxious, and out of chocolate
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AndyLand
- Posts: 32
- Joined: February 23rd, 2015, 10:41 am
- Gender: Female
- Issues: PTSD, OCD, Bipolar Borderline Mother, How much time you got?
- preferred pronoun: She
Re: Discouraged, anxious, and out of chocolate
AndyLand ~ It's a nice place to visit, but you won't always want to live there.
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tentickles
- Posts: 17
- Joined: January 16th, 2015, 8:40 am
- Gender: Female
- Issues: Depression/Trauma/PTSD/Anxiety/Learned Helplessness/Alcoholism
- preferred pronoun: She
Re: Discouraged, anxious, and out of chocolate
Well, AndyLand, at least we are not invisible to each other. That's a crumb of hope for me, and it's an even bigger crumb if it does you some good, too.
Yep: I'm caretaker-y and nurture-y to a fault, putting other peoples' needs before my own so consistently that I have accidentally trained them not to care about my needs. My husband does a lot of justifiable avoidance, too. He stays late at work or goes out running the second he gets home, because of COURSE he has to work and exercise, so I have no "right" to tell him it hurts my feelings that spending time with me obviously isn't a priority for him. He could also be described as strong/silent, though he's a better communicator than most men for sure... but when he feels threatened, criticized, or attacked he shuts down and sort of takes a giant emotional step backward. There's been a lot of that lately, because we're trying to navigate our way back to a functional and enjoyable sex life, so we both are uncomfortable a lot as we look at things we've been avoiding. Nobody's at their best when they're scared, and we are both filled with fear right now. The ways I want to communicate frustrate him, and the ways he wants to communicate frustrate me just as much. For example: He wants things to be "easy", I want to do whatever's necessary even if it's "hard". For another example: He wants me to get to the point, I want to think out loud and feel like he's present and caring.
Please don't call your thoughts and feelings "pathetic, traditional, suburban word vomit". Please don't train your mind to think of yourself that way. Please don't assume that's how you appear to me. We are a lot alike, I think.
What happened when you yelled "I'm so tired of being invisible!"? Did anything change? Did it make you feel better to finally get that out? Did it seem like anyone heard or cared?
Rooting for you.
Yep: I'm caretaker-y and nurture-y to a fault, putting other peoples' needs before my own so consistently that I have accidentally trained them not to care about my needs. My husband does a lot of justifiable avoidance, too. He stays late at work or goes out running the second he gets home, because of COURSE he has to work and exercise, so I have no "right" to tell him it hurts my feelings that spending time with me obviously isn't a priority for him. He could also be described as strong/silent, though he's a better communicator than most men for sure... but when he feels threatened, criticized, or attacked he shuts down and sort of takes a giant emotional step backward. There's been a lot of that lately, because we're trying to navigate our way back to a functional and enjoyable sex life, so we both are uncomfortable a lot as we look at things we've been avoiding. Nobody's at their best when they're scared, and we are both filled with fear right now. The ways I want to communicate frustrate him, and the ways he wants to communicate frustrate me just as much. For example: He wants things to be "easy", I want to do whatever's necessary even if it's "hard". For another example: He wants me to get to the point, I want to think out loud and feel like he's present and caring.
Please don't call your thoughts and feelings "pathetic, traditional, suburban word vomit". Please don't train your mind to think of yourself that way. Please don't assume that's how you appear to me. We are a lot alike, I think.
What happened when you yelled "I'm so tired of being invisible!"? Did anything change? Did it make you feel better to finally get that out? Did it seem like anyone heard or cared?
Rooting for you.
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AndyLand
- Posts: 32
- Joined: February 23rd, 2015, 10:41 am
- Gender: Female
- Issues: PTSD, OCD, Bipolar Borderline Mother, How much time you got?
- preferred pronoun: She
Re: Discouraged, anxious, and out of chocolate
Thanks for all of what you said. It's my chemo hangover day but I will reply properly when I bounce back. I do it weekly so I'm used to it but I've learned to be quiet since it wipese out! You are right, I need to respect my own feelings, more tomorrow!
We can root for each other!
We can root for each other!
AndyLand ~ It's a nice place to visit, but you won't always want to live there.
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tentickles
- Posts: 17
- Joined: January 16th, 2015, 8:40 am
- Gender: Female
- Issues: Depression/Trauma/PTSD/Anxiety/Learned Helplessness/Alcoholism
- preferred pronoun: She
Re: Discouraged, anxious, and out of chocolate
I'm ready whenever you are. No pressure. I admire you for knowing and respecting your own limits, and look forward to whatever you are willing to share.
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AndyLand
- Posts: 32
- Joined: February 23rd, 2015, 10:41 am
- Gender: Female
- Issues: PTSD, OCD, Bipolar Borderline Mother, How much time you got?
- preferred pronoun: She
Re: Discouraged, anxious, and out of chocolate
I'm going to send you a private message too but man the difference between Fridays and Saturdays for me is crazy. The medicine I take gives you a hangover similar to an alcohol binge I guess (from what I remember, it's been decades) and then when you come out of it you feel SO much better because it suppresses all of the immune system symptoms. I'm raring to go today!
Everything you said about your relationship struggles resonates with me and sounds very familiar. Maybe we can help each other by communicating via message about our struggles with it. It's very hard to try to "talk it out" with men who for the most part avoid talking about anything at all costs. The more I listen to the podcasts (fairly new fan) the more I hear about how/why we choose certain people as partners. My mom I think I mentioned, is bipolar, possibly borderline and has a lot of difficulty being stable. So it makes perfect sense to me I picked someone who was somewhat of a loner because he is the farthest thing from needy you could get. I needed to not be needed.
But now that I've slayed the dragons, battled the windmills, have more of a healed mind, body and soul, I don't need distance anymore. I do have hope that we will figure this out as it's not our first rough patch, more than 15 years together, but we have a complication with some philosophical differences that are a result of his religious awakening. Not knocking religion at all but anything, even a good thing, can be used as an avoidance mechanism.
I hope you are getting some time to yourself today. I made another post about my frustration at managing my kids social lives. I'm taking today OFF as much as possible. You need a day off to sister martyr!
Hugs, Andy
Everything you said about your relationship struggles resonates with me and sounds very familiar. Maybe we can help each other by communicating via message about our struggles with it. It's very hard to try to "talk it out" with men who for the most part avoid talking about anything at all costs. The more I listen to the podcasts (fairly new fan) the more I hear about how/why we choose certain people as partners. My mom I think I mentioned, is bipolar, possibly borderline and has a lot of difficulty being stable. So it makes perfect sense to me I picked someone who was somewhat of a loner because he is the farthest thing from needy you could get. I needed to not be needed.
But now that I've slayed the dragons, battled the windmills, have more of a healed mind, body and soul, I don't need distance anymore. I do have hope that we will figure this out as it's not our first rough patch, more than 15 years together, but we have a complication with some philosophical differences that are a result of his religious awakening. Not knocking religion at all but anything, even a good thing, can be used as an avoidance mechanism.
I hope you are getting some time to yourself today. I made another post about my frustration at managing my kids social lives. I'm taking today OFF as much as possible. You need a day off to sister martyr!
Hugs, Andy
AndyLand ~ It's a nice place to visit, but you won't always want to live there.