I don't want to be this person with "issues" but the reality is that I am. It's not always easy but in the realm of life there are many, many others who are fighting greater battles. So I had to post again for fear that my other post was not easy to write and it's the dim and dreary of my life but it is not ALL that my life is.
Today, here in the northeast, the trees are really really pretty. I do have a camera and if I can get out to take a picture, I will and I will even try to post it. I'm training to do an 8K...don't be too impressed...it's a walking one. I have tried for almost three years now to be a runner but I just don't seem to have the stamina. I already walk 3-4 miles so the 8K (4.96 mi) should be do able. It gives me a goal and that combined with my revisiting WW again will help me feel better. For me my physical health has a great impact on my mental health. They go hand in hand. When one is good the other is and one is in the toilet the other is, too.
I, too, probably against my therapists wishes am in a relationship with a SO. Not sure how to refer to him for now so we'll just go with SO. What's funny about this, or maybe not so funny, is that at first I really wasn't drawn to him. For some reason he hung in there and I got to a point where I was ready to meet him. I've been able to share myself with him and he hasn't taken off yet. He is really quite wonderful. Tis better to have loved and known love that not loved at all. Not sure who said that but it works for me.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
My Shattering
Nine months ago when the man I loved for 3.5 years literally tossed me out of his house, finally fed up with my behavior, and ended our relationship I first felt the pain of Shattering. All I felt in those days and weeks following that end was pain. I ate, I slept, I worked and got up the next day and did the same. The entire time I was sad and angry, alone and embarrassed. I continued to long for him. I could hardly give up on the hope that he couldn't just walk away from our love, no matter what I had done or said. The truth is he could and he did. The truth is that I haven't completely but I'm dam close. My head knows and believes that he is finished with me but my heart holds out that in some far corner of his heart he, too, still feels the love.
That end was such a shatter that it tore open all my wounds. It was that experience that first marked my journey towards understanding myself and my wounds of abandonment. The woulds were there, happening again and again. I didn't know what they were and I didn't know why they were and I had no idea how to live this way.
While I was not abandoned in the sense that I was left on a doorstep...I know this is what I initially always thought was abandonment...my issues with abandonment began long ago. They have become real to me many times. There is an old family movie of myself, my siblings, my parents and my aunts and uncles. At first viewing it was heart warming to see my mother and the many relatives that have long departed from our lives. It was initially funny to see my brothers and sisters in our late fifties and early sixties garb. The movie has no sound and it is black and white. The more I see this movie, the sader it is for me. It is in that early movie that I see this little girl who I want to hug and hold. She doesn't sit still. She is up and down and acting up and out to gain the attention of at least one adult in that room. Finally a gift bow stuck on top of my head gets an "Oh {my name}" from my aunt. While you can't hear it you can see it on her lips. The movie makes me cry.
I came from a large family with many siblings. My father was an alcoholic. My mother spent many of her years as my mother also battling cancer to stay alive. There are things I want to say happened and things I want to say I remember, but I don't. I don't remember my parents reading to me, hugging me, holding me or saying I love you. And this is where my pain begins. My parents were fighting their own battles and trying to care for a lot of people and somehow those things that I longed for and needed, I didn't get.
I love my parents and I miss them. It's hard to look realistically at how I was raised and to note this pain. Perhaps I'm not getting it all right but the general feelings are there and I have no doubt of their existence.
So from that little girl fighting for attention to that little girl at 50 who got put out, I have had years and years of struggling to know how to be in relationships, struggling to know how to trust.
That end was such a shatter that it tore open all my wounds. It was that experience that first marked my journey towards understanding myself and my wounds of abandonment. The woulds were there, happening again and again. I didn't know what they were and I didn't know why they were and I had no idea how to live this way.
While I was not abandoned in the sense that I was left on a doorstep...I know this is what I initially always thought was abandonment...my issues with abandonment began long ago. They have become real to me many times. There is an old family movie of myself, my siblings, my parents and my aunts and uncles. At first viewing it was heart warming to see my mother and the many relatives that have long departed from our lives. It was initially funny to see my brothers and sisters in our late fifties and early sixties garb. The movie has no sound and it is black and white. The more I see this movie, the sader it is for me. It is in that early movie that I see this little girl who I want to hug and hold. She doesn't sit still. She is up and down and acting up and out to gain the attention of at least one adult in that room. Finally a gift bow stuck on top of my head gets an "Oh {my name}" from my aunt. While you can't hear it you can see it on her lips. The movie makes me cry.
I came from a large family with many siblings. My father was an alcoholic. My mother spent many of her years as my mother also battling cancer to stay alive. There are things I want to say happened and things I want to say I remember, but I don't. I don't remember my parents reading to me, hugging me, holding me or saying I love you. And this is where my pain begins. My parents were fighting their own battles and trying to care for a lot of people and somehow those things that I longed for and needed, I didn't get.
I love my parents and I miss them. It's hard to look realistically at how I was raised and to note this pain. Perhaps I'm not getting it all right but the general feelings are there and I have no doubt of their existence.
So from that little girl fighting for attention to that little girl at 50 who got put out, I have had years and years of struggling to know how to be in relationships, struggling to know how to trust.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
and I'm waiting by the phone, Why?
Why at the ripe old age of over 50 am I waiting for a call from a guy? I am so angry at myself for this. I turn off my phone so I can escape the waiting. When it's on, I'm waiting. When it's off I'm free to not know that he is not calling me. How is it that I ended up here?
In January I started a very long journey to understand. I have come to learn about myself that I "suffer" from characteristics that have been identified as abandonment. I had no clue for all these years. I never even imagined that I would be anywhere remotely related to this type of struggle. But the truth of the matter is that I am. I very much am.
I have never in my life read a self help book before now. The first book I read about abandonment by Susan Anderson was all about me. So in some sense, while I hate admitting that I have this issue, I made progress this year in that I learned this is my struggle.
I want very much for it to be over because I know for sure that it has contributed to the end of two relationships and it is contributing right now to the very possible end of another. I don't want this to end.
What does abandonment look like on me? Well simply there are just times when parting from someone is more than I can bare. I begin to feel pain and panic. Mostly this has revealed itself in relationships with significant others but I have seen some traits in my other relationships. For some reason it is stronger with my relationships with the opposite sex. I know this contributed to the early demise of my marriage, that and other issues. I see it, I feel it, I know what it is now but I haven't yet been able to manage or control it. It can grip me in fear and paralyze me from doing anything productive. I hate it. I want to be free of it.
I am starting the second half of my life with this brand new empty road map that I have to carve out for myself. I'd like to not take this issue with me.
I'd like to really focus more on my writing. I love to write. I don't think that I have any unique talent for writing although humanly one likes to think that yes, I do. Still it is a great release for me, a sign of growth, a glimpse back at a moment that touched my heart or caused it pain. I have been writing for a very long time. I know I wrote poems for my mother when I was a little girl. Perhaps this writing too was a way for me to deal with my abandonment. It gave me the one avenue to release everything inside of me with no one judging or criticizing or more importantly, no one ignoring. Writing is solitary so when I'm writing it doesn't matter to me that I am alone. I am giving voice to the pain that is inside me. This is very healing to me. When I am writing there is nothing stopping me and nothing in the way. Everything can just flow. I move away from it but I always come back to it.
In January I started a very long journey to understand. I have come to learn about myself that I "suffer" from characteristics that have been identified as abandonment. I had no clue for all these years. I never even imagined that I would be anywhere remotely related to this type of struggle. But the truth of the matter is that I am. I very much am.
I have never in my life read a self help book before now. The first book I read about abandonment by Susan Anderson was all about me. So in some sense, while I hate admitting that I have this issue, I made progress this year in that I learned this is my struggle.
I want very much for it to be over because I know for sure that it has contributed to the end of two relationships and it is contributing right now to the very possible end of another. I don't want this to end.
What does abandonment look like on me? Well simply there are just times when parting from someone is more than I can bare. I begin to feel pain and panic. Mostly this has revealed itself in relationships with significant others but I have seen some traits in my other relationships. For some reason it is stronger with my relationships with the opposite sex. I know this contributed to the early demise of my marriage, that and other issues. I see it, I feel it, I know what it is now but I haven't yet been able to manage or control it. It can grip me in fear and paralyze me from doing anything productive. I hate it. I want to be free of it.
I am starting the second half of my life with this brand new empty road map that I have to carve out for myself. I'd like to not take this issue with me.
I'd like to really focus more on my writing. I love to write. I don't think that I have any unique talent for writing although humanly one likes to think that yes, I do. Still it is a great release for me, a sign of growth, a glimpse back at a moment that touched my heart or caused it pain. I have been writing for a very long time. I know I wrote poems for my mother when I was a little girl. Perhaps this writing too was a way for me to deal with my abandonment. It gave me the one avenue to release everything inside of me with no one judging or criticizing or more importantly, no one ignoring. Writing is solitary so when I'm writing it doesn't matter to me that I am alone. I am giving voice to the pain that is inside me. This is very healing to me. When I am writing there is nothing stopping me and nothing in the way. Everything can just flow. I move away from it but I always come back to it.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
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