Strain is my exercise, Hops. I could've acknowledged that something was coming up sooner - but I didn't. Hol and I had a really good session talking through the possibilities (since I couldn't exactly NAME what was bugging me; just that it had to do with how long this is taking for us to come together). She and I spitball things like this pretty well.
Then it was B's turn. And - I was as impressed by what he didn't do, as much as what he said that helped.
Big clue came up while Hol & I were talking. I got on the topic of the garden - and how I always started with enthusiasm, but especially when working up the dirt - I kept hearing Mike, saying - why don't you do this THIS way (while he sat & watched - or complained that he was lonely, or Ex#2 insisting that his way was "correct" and telling me I was doing it wrong. And of course, that inner critic voice started when my mom was teaching me to sew - most of those lessons being that she was so impatient she took it out of my hands while criticizing me & my attempt, saying she'd do it herself.
There are a couple things that inner critic likes to harp on - especially during "downtime" if I've DARED to attempt to "do" anything on my own, my way. Abandonment issues, for one. Being involved with an emotionally unavailable person... never knowing my own worth - in my own eyes - since I was criticized, put down, and my accomplishments dismissed as insignificant/ugly/or my favorite one - that's not how I would do it. But to name a "category" for all of these things - it comes down to: what I want doesn't matter - ergo, I don't matter.
It is the same old same old issue rearing it's head again. And in a context, where my mind knows how false that picture is - I DO matter to Buck and there is no subterfuge, illusion, or game going on here. My mind KNOWS this; yet the feelings are there. I explained to him, that apparently those old wounds still hurt for some reason. Even though I was no longer dealing with those people or experiencing the same things in the present. (I realize now I was perhaps over-sensitive in the moments those things occurred; they hurt; the repetition was even more damaging to me.)
He didn't take any of what I had to say personally; didn't feel that he failed me or needed to fix anything - he let me get it out as clunky, chunky, and bassackwards as it came out. Then, commisserated - saying his first experiences of that were when he was young, and for some reason, he was able to take the lessons out of the experience with him and let the emotions go. Then, the miliary environment didn't leave room for attaching much emotion to experiences.
So, that's what I'm looking at now. How vulnerable, sensitive, or whatever adjective fits, was I during those experiences that I attached enough emotion to it to give it energy enough to sustain my sensitivity to it this long? When Hol first moved in - we had to navigate this same issue. She would say - why don't you do this this way? and I'd react (protecting my "self"; and that it mattered to me to do things my way)... and then we yelled at each for a while, till we giggled at ourselves... and then talked it out. The great vacumn cleaner argument is memorialized as a shared experience of this sensitivity.
Each of the incidents are all touchy & still feel as much of a "self" wound as they did originally - altho the anger has dissipated over them. Instead - I just internalized this crap and do it to myself. Or it comes up as an "echo" in new situations - B's delays - if I have enough time to do any navelgazing.
So, for awhile, I'm going to figure out how I can release those things - in those specific circumstances. Seed starting begins today. I mentioned the concept of "reclaiming" - like after a divorce or loss, reclaiming certain songs as "mine" instead of "his" or "ours". And Hol suggested it was like cosmetic tattoing - with a dry needle, the artist has to break up the scar tissue and then the skin needs to heal again before the tattoo to cover is applied. And the similarity between that and CBT isn't lost on me.
I could go on some more on self issues and probably will later; better to start with something well-defined and specific first. The self-wounds, I feel, are what makes some people susceptible to co-dependency and choosing the same kinds of incompatible partners over & over.
But whatever cloud I was under is lifting - and it's sorting out.
