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Learning, Growing, Changing, Moving on, Moving Forward
Twoapenny:
Realised earlier today that one of my habits - which I now really want to change - is that I do things so that other people can't say something negative about me. For example - there is a person who I used to think of as my best friend. About five/six years ago now, she stopped returning my calls. She has continued to send birthday and Christmas cards, always saying how sorry she is that she hasn't called and that we must get together. I then ring again, she doesn't get back to me and so it has carried on. On receiving this year's card, which has another request in it for me to call her and arrange a date, I realised that my urge to call her isn't because I want to see her, it's because I don't want to be the one who didn't phone. And I realised I do that a lot, in a lot of situations. I think I just don't want to be the person that anyone can say anything 'bad' about. So I think I need to toughen up a bit and knock that particular habit on the head.
Hopalong:
Hi Tupp,
Kudos on your campervan! Is is instead of moving or ahead of moving?
I so understand the allure.
It was a revelation to me, also, that not everybody has to like me.
I also suffer buckets when I realize I don't like someone.
Especially someone I used to think I liked.
Hmmmm,
Hops
Twoapenny:
--- Quote from: Hopalong on December 27, 2015, 03:11:02 PM ---Hi Tupp,
Kudos on your campervan! Is is instead of moving or ahead of moving?
I so understand the allure.
It was a revelation to me, also, that not everybody has to like me.
I also suffer buckets when I realize I don't like someone.
Especially someone I used to think I liked.
Hmmmm,
Hops
--- End quote ---
Hi Hops!
The campervan is ahead of, and as well as moving. My whole life, all I ever really wanted to do was travel. For all sorts of different reason, it never really happened. I went off a few times but there was always some sort of disaster and I always ended up rolling back home with my tail between my legs. Then I had my son and of course everything that's happened since then it just hasn't been possible. It still wouldn't be possible in a backpacking kind of way, but a campervan, set up like a home from home for him, might work. So that's the plan, to start with day trips, extend to time away, I'm hoping to be able to start working at festivals over the next couple of years and I'm finding time to write more; I'd love to write about our travels and the things that we do. And eventually I'm hoping we can go travelling further afield. But in amongst all of that I really want to spend a couple of years having some fun and being away from all the bad things that have happened, so I'm still hoping/planning on moving as soon as I can, back to an area I have some friends in that has a nice, laid back vibe and lots of cool little places to go for evenings out and meet interesting people. I feel different now. All my moves in the past have been about escaping and getting away from bad things. Now I feel like I've settled the bad bits and I'm aware enough of what's still there to deal with it as and when I need to. Now I want to move for me, to be around people I like, doing things I like. Finally feels alright to say "Me, me, me!".
Yes the not liking someone you used to like is an odd one. Some people I've simply outgrown and I don't feel so bad about that; I can see that I've changed and grown and that we just don't fit anymore. What I have realised a lot of the time is my tendency to want people to like me has made me not always say what I really think to someone and spend time with people I don't really want to spend time with. I think as well, certainly in the past, I didn't trust my own instincts at all, so if my first thought about someone was negative I assumed there was something wrong with me rather than with them and that hasn't always been the case. I also think I just followed the pack a lot and quite lazily slipped into friendships because they were easy rather than seeking out people that make me feel like singing :) I'm paying a lot more attention now to how I feel if I hear from someone; if I feel all skippy and want to hug them than they go on the keeper pile, if I feel flat and feel like seeing them is an effort than I'm trying to delegate them to the 'I used to like you but I'm not keen now' pile. It's funny because in romantic relationships you have a proper breaking up, usually, heartbreaking if you're on the receiving end but it's sort of assumed that's what happens if you don't want to see someone anymore, but we don't tend to have a similar, formal thing with friends? It's an odd one.
Sending encouragement by the bucketload for your forthcoming meeting. You'll do a grand job, Hopsie, you're one in a million :) xx
sKePTiKal:
Well, in my case - the Jekyll/Hyde mom relationship - always being the "nice" one and needing to be liked was like camoflauge and protection. I needed to protect myself being from the target/dumping ground for her frustration and anger; demeaning remarks, etc.
Like you, I also assumed (not always correctly) that if things didn't go well in a relationship it was my fault. That's one reason, I'm telling people to stay away in my new transition. I end up feeling responsible for helping them grieve; for cheering them up and sending them on their way... there are only a few people who understand that I'm not prostrate on a fainting couch from crying my eyes out 24/7; that it makes sense that I'm able to let go some anger at the sheer amount of "stuff" that he left behind. That I have to "FEEL" myself, single and whole, before I do much interacting with people "out there in the world". I'm trying to "feel" my way through all of this, outside of that "mirroring" situation and it's really important to me.
Sounds like you're figuring out something similar. The camper van is an excellent idea for outings!
Twoapenny:
--- Quote from: sKePTiKal on December 28, 2015, 08:25:31 AM ---Well, in my case - the Jekyll/Hyde mom relationship - always being the "nice" one and needing to be liked was like camoflauge and protection. I needed to protect myself being from the target/dumping ground for her frustration and anger; demeaning remarks, etc.
Like you, I also assumed (not always correctly) that if things didn't go well in a relationship it was my fault. That's one reason, I'm telling people to stay away in my new transition. I end up feeling responsible for helping them grieve; for cheering them up and sending them on their way... there are only a few people who understand that I'm not prostrate on a fainting couch from crying my eyes out 24/7; that it makes sense that I'm able to let go some anger at the sheer amount of "stuff" that he left behind. That I have to "FEEL" myself, single and whole, before I do much interacting with people "out there in the world". I'm trying to "feel" my way through all of this, outside of that "mirroring" situation and it's really important to me.
Sounds like you're figuring out something similar. The camper van is an excellent idea for outings!
--- End quote ---
Yes, understand completely what you're saying, Skep, I never really developed a personality because everything went into keeping mum happy and stopping the rages from kicking off and I think that's what I've always been like; molding myself to other people, never really being a person in my own right. I think as well because my mum loved me being so compliant, not having any needs, not demanding anything and so on, so it's always really confused me - and I think made me angry as well - that when I did that for other people some just took advantage and didn't give me anything back (nothing real, anyway) and some people recoiled and didn't want to know. It's taken me a long time to work out that healthy, well balanced people don't enjoy being around people who don't have a personality of their own and just mould themselves to somebody else.
I do understand what you mean about telling people to stay away and feeling too responsible for them. Christmas has been awful, primarily because so few people have bothered to ring, despite knowing I'm on my own and can't get out much due to son's health at this time of year, but I know when I do finally speak to them my instinct will be not to make them feel bad by saying that no-one phoning is crap. And it is crap, ten minutes to pick the phone up and say hi isn't asking for a lot. So I think that will have to be my next resolution; to say it as it is and not worry about how that makes the other person feel.
Feeling your way through that situation is hard work, Skep, and absolutely the right way to go, I think. People do have certain notions about how someone 'ought' to be when they're grieving but of course everyone has to feel their own way through their own situation. A friend of mine lost her daughter and everyone thought she was fine afterwards - even to the point of being cold about it - because she redecorated the house, dug over the garden, took to washing the car every day and so on, but of course she was just working her way through that tsunami of grief that did eventually come. It always comes in the end but feeling your way towards it is the only thing any of us can do, I think. I'm glad you have some friends who get it and who know how things really are. Holding your hand here in cyberspace (or helping you shift some boxes, whichever works best :) ). xx
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