Voicelessness and Emotional Survival > Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board
Having Trouble Being Ordinary
Hopalong:
I understand, (((((((((((Tupp)))))))))).
Your imagination was your truest friend, but in the living itself, it was much harder.
Don't give up. You can weather this.
You will come through with a perspective that sustains you.
I feel so confident about that.
love to you
Hops
Twoapenny:
Hops and TT, thank you both so much. I can't tell you how much support and comfort I get from the words of people who I know truly understand, you know?
I am starting to pick up again, I think the depths of darkness that still come up from time to time suprise me - so intense and sometimes such huge revelations and realisations. So much pain, and yet we carry it with us for so long, don't we, and still manage to raise our kids and go to work and do the 'normal' stuff. Amazing, really.
But yes, things are starting to level out again. My car broke down yesterday. A friend came to collect my son while I waited for the breakdown lorry, my sister happened to be driving past and stopped to see if I was okay and then a friend's husband came to look at the car for me today, it's not worth repairing but he knows of a cheap one and is going to see if he can get it for me, I have experienced a lot of kindness from ordinary people! It is not a bad thing to be, I think I just haven't done it before! So it's new, and therefore scary, I suppose.
I am trying to pluck up the courage to ask out a man I know a little. He has done some work on the house a few times and is very sweet and kind. I can't quite get myself to do it yet.
Thank you both for your words and your kindness xx
Twoapenny:
--- Quote from: teartracks on September 09, 2014, 12:03:17 AM ---
--- Quote ---Hops and TT, thank you both so much. I can't tell you how much support and comfort I get from the words of people who I know truly understand, you know?
I am starting to pick up again, I think the depths of darkness that still come up from time to time suprise me - so intense and sometimes such huge revelations and realisations. So much pain, and yet we carry it with us for so long, don't we, and still manage to raise our kids and go to work and do the 'normal' stuff. Amazing, really.
But yes, things are starting to level out again. My car broke down yesterday. A friend came to collect my son while I waited for the breakdown lorry, my sister happened to be driving past and stopped to see if I was okay and then a friend's husband came to look at the car for me today, it's not worth repairing but he knows of a cheap one and is going to see if he can get it for me, I have experienced a lot of kindness from ordinary people! It is not a bad thing to be, I think I just haven't done it before! So it's new, and therefore scary, I suppose.
I am trying to pluck up the courage to ask out a man I know a little. He has done some work on the house a few times and is very sweet and kind. I can't quite get myself to do it yet.
Thank you both for your words and your kindness xx
--- End quote ---
So how are things with the car and that sweet guy? Or am I butting in?
tt
--- End quote ---
Ha ha, no, not butting in at all, TT, thanks for asking :) Mr Maintenance Man isn't due back until the end of the month. That will be the last of the work that needs doing so if he says no there won't be an embarrassing meeting at a later date when he comes back to finish some jobs off! I'm not brave enough to ask him directly and don't want to do it that way because you can bet your life something will happen with my son at just that moment and I won't get the chance to anyway! So I'm going to write him a thank you note and just add that if he'd like a drink one evening here's my number, and hand it to him as he leaves. The idea of it really scares me. I am really bad with rejection and, of course, he might be married/have a girlfriend/gay/not interested. But I do need to do something to get myself out of this rut I am in so I'm hoping a little note isn't too pathetic??!!
The car was irreparable so I've got a new one, again organised by someone else who knew someone else - more kindness and people doing good things for me. I know I wrote on a thread here ages ago about something that a therapist did with me once. It was a situation I had to imagine, something along the lines of I went to a party, met ten people, seven liked me, three didn't, how did I feel? It hit me like a train, the thought of three people not liking me was soooooooooo completely unacceptable I honestly had trouble breathing and it was clearly a big issue for me (the seven people that liked me didn't register at all, it was the three that didn't that consumed me).
And I think I still have a problem with that. I focus a huge amount on people who don't phone, don't text, don't visit, don't want to get together - yet I meet with and chit chat to people all the time who are kind, sweet, caring - imperfect and ordinary, but definitely the sort of people I should be focusing on more. Yet for some reason I crave the ones who don't want me the most. I think perhaps I've been so sensitive? scared? of 'the sort of people who cause me problems' that I've focused on that and not enough on the ordinary people who are a perfectly good mixture of good, bad and indifferent, as we all are. So I think I need to really work on changing my focus. And aside from all of that, the new car was very cheap and it's great (it has cup holders, which my son thinks are 'awesome') :)
Hopalong:
Aha. Deep-thinking Tupp is back in gear...good for you!
And thank you so much for repeating that exercise from
your T -- that is a big help to me.
I relate and understand the fixating and yearning about
the unavailable people (or those available so strictly on their
own terms that the relationship feels kind of 90-10...). I
go there too sometimes.
For me, I realize that definitely some Mother-things are
triggered when I feel less than embraced by someone.
Especially someone who feels "desirable" because they're,
I dunno, seemingly so much more satisfied with themselves
than I am with me.
I project a lot that doesn't belong there.
One of my favorite UU principles is "The inherent worth
and dignity of every person." If I believe that, then it applies
to me too, eh? So, when I yearn around or obsess over rejection,
what I'm saying is -- I have less inherent worth and dignity than
the object of my yearning.
And that is not true. If I have just as much, then it only makes
sense for me to remind myself to gravitate instead to those
who DO respond.
It's working for me, too, to look around the party and see
at least seven smiles.
love to you,
Hops
Twoapenny:
--- Quote from: Hopalong on September 15, 2014, 02:05:11 PM ---Aha. Deep-thinking Tupp is back in gear...good for you!
And thank you so much for repeating that exercise from
your T -- that is a big help to me.
I relate and understand the fixating and yearning about
the unavailable people (or those available so strictly on their
own terms that the relationship feels kind of 90-10...). I
go there too sometimes.
For me, I realize that definitely some Mother-things are
triggered when I feel less than embraced by someone.
Especially someone who feels "desirable" because they're,
I dunno, seemingly so much more satisfied with themselves
than I am with me.
I project a lot that doesn't belong there.
One of my favorite UU principles is "The inherent worth
and dignity of every person." If I believe that, then it applies
to me too, eh? So, when I yearn around or obsess over rejection,
what I'm saying is -- I have less inherent worth and dignity than
the object of my yearning.
And that is not true. If I have just as much, then it only makes
sense for me to remind myself to gravitate instead to those
who DO respond.
It's working for me, too, to look around the party and see
at least seven smiles.
love to you,
Hops
--- End quote ---
Thanks, Hops :)
It's definitely some mother-things at times, isn't it?! I feel I ought to work harder with people who aren't interested and then I pass by on people who are! Crazy.
I've started keeping a kindness diary and I'm writing down any nice thing or contact with anyone during the course of my day. I have a massive focus on what didn't happen, rather than on what did, I've realised. So I thought if I wrote down all the good things that did it might help re-train my brain to notice things more and not fret about the other stuff so much.
I also realise I have a thing in my head of what friendships ought to be like, and it's so rigid it's no wonder hardly anyone fits the bill! And I'm like it on myself as well, I feel like I have to be a certain way for some people and I can't just have a bit of time where I don't fancy hanging out with them or don't want to talk about x, y or z. If I'm in a bad mood I blame it on someone else's behaviour - I think it's as if I can't just be in a bad mood, there has to be a reason and it has to be someone else's fault? I can't just be moody sometimes and accept that I am, at times, a moody cow. It's hard to get my head around that I could have friends who don't mind me being a moody cow sometimes. I've always felt so strongly that I have to be permanently switched to nice.
And yes, other people being desirable is a big thing with me - the right people, the right crowd, the right life style. I really need to think about that and move away from it.
In other news - I've tried to step up the amount of exercise I do. It does help with my self-confidence, I find, and I want to find something I can aim for, like a charity sports event or something. Don't know what yet, I'm keeping my eyes open, but I've started going out when my son's at club, walking for now but I'm building up to running, would like to do more of that.
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