Posts filed under 'self discovery'
Why do painful memories get stuck in our heads? Do they remain unresolved? Are we trying to punish ourselves? Is there an unlearned lesson that needs to be learned?
My mil sends me urban legends in emails all the time. I have a sort of sixth sense for them and check them out, usually at snopes. I will usually report back to her. She now prefaces her emails with, “I don’t know if this is true or not.” Or, “Let me know if this is true.” Even better. I respect and appreciate her for this.
So when someone in a not psychcentral forum warned us of dire consequences that we should read this, my not-true detector went off. I found the story and the truth at snopes and posted the url.
I thought I had done this in a respectful manner, but the original poster lashed out at me, including mocking me with the choice of words I had carefully chosen. I was surprised, hurt, mistified, and scared. I defended myself without, I might add, a personal attack on her. I thought, I’ll leave this community for a while, even though I’d just recently discovered it and clicked with it.
The fear persisted. I decided to get out and do something to distract myself. I also asked for hugs here and got them. That really soothed my soul. And still I return in my mind to the scene of the crime, like picking at a scab on a wound.
I don’t consciously want to do this. I want the memory to retreat and peace to replace it. But it persists.
I have a belief that I can feel when someone is thinking about me. Example: I rarely talk to my sister. Yesterday I thought of her. Then the phone rang. It was her. So maybe the lady I offended is still trying to resolve her feelings and still hates me.
I wondered, why fear? What scares me? This is the penultimate anonymous confrontation. How can she hurt me? The answer is that she’s been in that forum much longer than I. The crones are likely to defend her and attack me. That’s fear of the stranger, even tho the stranger had minded her manners and acted with decorum.
So now, what is the fear? Maybe it’s mixed with the hurt. I thought these were my people. They sounded like me. They were smart and funny and kind. I thought. Disappointment? If so, that is a feeling I knew well in my childhood.
So now, what is the fear? I was lonely, then not alone. I was part of a community and I felt loved and accepted for myself. I could let my whole self out. But no. Yet again I was an outcast. No one wants me. Yep. That’s it.
Now, just the facts, ma’m. First, I’m the one who banned myself from that forum. I thought I was giving people room to recover, but I was also punishing myself. Second, I maintained my manners. I defended myself. However, that was something I was punished for by my mother. Never argue with mother or she will withdraw her love. The facts? The lady was probably embarassed and lashed out. Can I punish myself for this? Well, I can be sad that I didn’t forsee this and find a better way to “out” the truth. I am sad that in my enthusiasm in revealing “the truth,” I hurt someones feelings who I’d hoped to make a friend.
A haunting memory: My sister angry with me for being overly enthusiastic and getting her caught up in the fun, then something falls through for her and she is disappointed. Ok, I know this is crazy. Why should I feel bad because of her reaction to something?
Hmmm. I know that my sister will always be in my life, but it’s too easy for strangers to disconnect. “Lady, I wanted to be your friend. I’m sorry you preferred to live in darkness.” That would show her. These ladies are all Christiany and soo good. She would get the reference in a big way.
Ok. So I want to hurt her for hurting me. But I don’t want to be punished and I don’t want to make enemies. So, I’ll give up the revenge. I’ll go back to the forum and face the music. I’ll give her another chance to take a swipe at me and in return, I’ll offer acceptance and ask for forgiveness.
Now this is different. I usually run away when someone yells at me. So today, I’ll act like an adult. I’ll let you know what happens. (I’m scared again.)
June 28th, 2008
I’m surprised that happiness disappeared, seemingly without provocation. I’m not exactly unhappy, more not quite awake or something. Let’s see. I went out to the store. Everything was ok. But when I was trying to back out of my parking space, some lady stopped right behind me. I had to wait for her to decide to proceed. I immediately thought she knew what I was trying to do and she was trying to foil me passive-aggressively. I felt anger. I suppose she just may have not seen me and was waiting for another car to pass before proceeding.
I was going to stop by the grocery store, but the heat scared me. I saw myself unloading bags from the trunk and still having to put on the car cover to keep the Jacaranda blooms from messing up my paint job. I’d practically expired when I first came outside and took it off.
So I nixed the idea of grocery shopping. I decided to grab some fast food and hightail it home. Got home, did car cover, ate lunch. Then sat looking at a catalog and the cats started misbehaving.
I guess I’m just not awake enough to deal with.
June 19th, 2008
I try to make note of this when it happens. The podcasts are keeping me company. We had a relaxing weekend. Today I ran errands and felt good the whole time. I don’t know what to post. I’m excited that I’m learning things that I love to learn about: how to live a happier, more fulfilling life. I heard someone say he wanted to be a source of light, both wisdom and lightheartedness. My purpose is to learn and share what I’ve learned. And I think I’ll add the thing about light.
I was behind someone in the checkout line. She needed a price on an umbrella she wanted to buy. She said she thought it was supposed to be five dollars, but acted like she knew she’d have to prove it. The clerk told her he’d charge her three dollars. She was so surprised and so was I. That just made my day and I haven’t stopped smiling.
June 16th, 2008
I had a Caesar salad for lunch. I decided to have a scoop of Starbuck’s Java Chip. I pick up the dish to go to the kitchen afterwards. I imagine taking the carton of ice cream and eating out of it with a spoon, in front of the tv. I think, “Why would I do that?”
Then it occurs to me that my family used to eat big bowls of ice cream in front of the tv.
Ice cream + tv = secure feeling from childhood, i.e., love.
Maybe the reprogramming cd is working. I hope it’s working.
May 21st, 2008
What makes someone rebel against a perfectly good plan that works and promises a rewarding outcome? I’m embracing the four golden rules; they’re working. I don’t go near a scale; I know myself. But others have and are pleasantly surprised. Granted, I feel great…better than before. This alone is worth the effort. But at my doctor’s appointment, I hadn’t lost what I felt I had lost. That undid all the belief and positive thinking I had gained and I spiraled downward.
Part of the problem is that I don’t know what my weight was when I began. So I probably did lose, but I can’t prove it. I must have been punishing myself for not losing more by going on a binge. That meant eating when I wasn’t hungry, eating in front of the tv, and not stopping to feel if I was full.
Okay, I’ve rationalized that one week out of the rest of my entire life isn’t a disaster, but I haven’t been able to get back the belief that this will eventually work. Before I didn’t think it mattered to me how much and how fast I was losing, but evidently it does.
I’m out of sorts. I want to listen to my positive programming cd as I drift off to sleep, but my husband insists on his routine, which is to have the tv on while he falls asleep, then wake up when I try to turn it off and insist he isn’t sleepy. When I tried to listen out on the sofa, I was well into the cd and very relaxed when the cat jumped right on my stomach.
I wonder if I’ve crossed over some kind of frustration threshold. My husband recently told me that he knows when he’s “busting my chops,” but he does it anyway because it’s fun. In other words, he intentionally frustrates me. For fun. Double binds me for fun. I’m an adult. I should be able to find some way to rescue myself, shouldn’t I? A direct approach makes him mad. My mother knows how to respond to his kidding; she’s passive-aggressive herself.
“You’ve crossed a boundary” doesn’t work. It’s only a challenge. A gauntlet. A dare to up the ante.
I listened to my guru telling me to imagine my slim self, to see what that looked like, to feel what that felt like. I could almost see it, but I tried to feel it and it feels the same as now. It will probably add the jealousy factor to his teasing. As my energy increases, so will his.
He sounds like an enemy, but he isn’t really. He says I am his world. I hate that. That’s how ….. I can’t go on like this. This is the loop of despair with no answer and no hope. Maybe I’ll try to modify his behavior with the squirt gun like I do with the cats.
May 15th, 2008
Last weekend I called my sister. She was stuttering and said she’d been sent to the ER by her pdoc. They ran tests, but didn’t keep her. She was outraged that they suggested she was suffering from anxiety. The idea that she was doing this to herself. I tried to explain that anxiety is a real thing, but it didn’t help.
I want to say this, but I’m judging myself, so it’s hard. I’m tired of rescuing her. I don’t invite her to my home because she comes here and then has anxiety attacks. I tried to help, but it seemed that she wasn’t willing to help herself. I have a strong feeling that she’s being passive aggressive, hoping someone will “save” her. But I’m no Savior.
Then there’s my mother. She called me to say my sister was sounding odd. She was stuttering. I acted like that was news to me. My mother decided there must not be anything wrong with my sister. She called a couple days later and said my sister must be doing ok. Even though she hadn’t talked to her again.
This may sound crazy, and it is. I feel that I’ve put my time in already - with my father. I was the only one there when he needed to be hospitalized. And he’d been in and out of the hospital since I was fifteen years old. I spent most of my life visiting him in the hospital until he died. I’m not willing to do that again with my sister. I think one of her sons went back to the middle east so he didn’t have to deal with her problems.
March 24th, 2008
My feelings are so hurt that I’m having trouble talking about it. I’m so devastated that my self esteem is in the toilet. I’m judging myself and assuming everyone else will too. I fear I will be found lacking in character.
There’s so much history that one would have to know to understand. But to put it short, I had an issue with my husband and when I told him, he wouldn’t believe that the issue was one, not many. He didn’t believe me. He said there had to be more for me to be that upset. But there wasn’t.
I suggested he was the one with many issues and after denying it, he began a long list. You’d have thought it was Festivus. He resents that he has to get up at 5:30 a.m. He thinks because he’s such a martyr, he should be able to do anything he wants to do without having to consider my feelings. I’m paraphrasing, but that’s the gist.
I felt like I’d been assaulted. It felt like the marriage is in serious trouble. It felt like he no longer wanted to be married.
I felt physically ill for the first day. Then I felt resentment and thought about revenge in the form of buying something expensive for myself. That would be the emotional equivalent of what he did.
Today I began to feel free. If there’s no marriage, I can do what I want without answering to anyone. It felt good. I fantasized about having my own home. I felt free to resume my life, the life I’ve wanted to end for a very long time. The fear I’ve always felt when contemplating leaving the marriage wasn’t there, only excitement.
I went shopping, but I didn’t spend a huge amount of money, just a little. On practical stuff. I realize that I don’t need to act out.
Also, I’ve lost my appetite. Maybe I’ll go on a diet. I feel like anything is possible now that I’m single.
March 3rd, 2008
I was driving home yesterday afternoon, wondering why I was feeling blue, almost depressed, when I realized I hadn’t visited the psychcentral forums yet. Was that the reason? Was I lonely?
But I’m feeling It again this morning. Unssettled. Troubled. Blue.
Physically, my knees hurt. My ankles hurt. My teeth hurt. Yesterday I had an allergy attack, sneezing even after I took meds.
I’m dehydrated. It’s gray and rainy. Like yesterday. And cold.
The cat isn’t letting me write. He lays on my notebook; he brings me his ball. A gift? A game? I throw it; he retrieves it. Again. Again.
Yesterday I was supposed to see my sister. I cancelled. I couldn’t bear her negativity. I had nothing to give. I can barely throw the ball to the cat.
The other kitty jumps onto the table. She sniffs my coffee and winces.
Am I feeling guilty about my sister? Probably. I’ve cancelled on her before. It makes her crazy angry. That’s part of the reason I don’t want to see her.
I’d called. I’d felt I should. I genuinely wanted to know how she was. I cared.
She wanted more. “Let’s do lunch.” She was even willing to make the long drive. So we made plans.
Then she told me about seeing Mom. Blow by blow. The story was fraught with frustration and misery. That’s the special bond they share.
Once, my sister surprised Mom by bringing me on one of her visits. Mom could barely speak. She was too confused. She’s two people. One way with my sister, and with me she’s happy and optomistic. The one she’s closest to gets the complaining. The other gets to be the hero.
Day before yesterday, my husband lost a coworker and friend. He’s been greiving and I’ve been here for him. He came home and broke into tears in my arms. I have magical arms. So does he, for me.
It’s drizzly, but I love the rain. I adore the rain. I grew up in this arid land. I’m amazed when tv news thinks we need to be cheered up by reports of when the rain will be over. Where do these people come from? The rest of the time they complain about the drought.
I wiggle my pen and the kitty attacks. She doesn’t like to be pet unless you play with her first.
We went to the zoo on Sunday. Spontaneously. It’s a small zoo in a big park.
Do you know that blinking at a cat tells them you are safe?
I think I’ve bled off most of my blues. Thanks for listening. Was it a fair trade?
February 22nd, 2008
I’m not feeling clever. This is me, but it isn’t. I just don’t care. Being me is caring, but I just don’t care. My gift/curse is empathy, but I just don’t care. Other people’s problems sound petty and simple and they irritate me. This isn’t the me I usually know. And now I feel like crying. What’s wrong with me? Where did I go?
January 28th, 2008
I’m not suicidal, I’m just ready to die. How could I explain to my doctor what I had never put into words before? Then it hit me. I’m approaching the age of my dad when he died. Some time in the last ten years I went to be afraid of dying to accepting the inevitable. I’ve heard it happens; I just didn’t recognize it in me.
All of my life, I made decisions about who I want to be based on not being like my mom. I couldn’t have put it into words, but I cringed whenever her words didn’t ring true. Once a neighbor had trimmed her tree and left all the branches that pointed up. The arborist she later hired complemented her on a great job. Then I heard my mother saying, “Hmmm…if I were going to trim up this tree, I would trim all the branches except for the ones that are pointing up.” I couldn’t put into words what bothered me about this except it felt false. It wouldn’t be until I was an adult and in therapy for years that I would find the words that had so eluded me in my youth.
If you can’t put it into words, you can’t make anyone believe you. Or so I believed.
Mom is eighty-four years old and afraid to die. I know that I don’t want to live as long as her. Look at her life; she’s miserable. But she won’t let go. And so it goes. Once again I’m making decisions in opposition to her.
So, I’m telling my doctor that I don’t want to be too healthy, because I don’t want to live to be eighty-four. I thought it was because I couldn’t seem to make my dreams come true. I quit trying, because I got thwarted at every turn. I thought I was tired of trying. But I wonder if I’d feel the same way if mother wasn’t around. Am I just pruning my tree of all but the branches pointing down?
January 11th, 2008
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