Voicelessness and Emotional Survival > Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board
mental health
sKePTiKal:
It's jelly bean season Hops!!!!!!!!!
I'm the famous bean hoarder this time of year. They are extremely hard to find any other time of year. So my cover story (if anyone cares to ask) is that I make lots of easter baskets.
:silly:
But since I can't find cadbury eggs..... :rolleyes: at self.
lighter:
Hops:
I'm definitely stronger with my T guiding me through tough times, redirecting me back to calmer waters..... going over everything with a calm mind and my whole brain when I can't manage it myself and sometimes I just can't and that's OK too.
Like my T says.... when I can't reach my center... it's usually bc I'm resisting acceptance in some way.
Lighter
Hopalong:
I'm tuning into my CoD traits a lot lately. It's cropping up mainly in how INTENSELY I react to Poet friend's toxic relationship. Here's the pattern (it's been helpful to figure it out):
She shares or describes some incredibly callous, mean, cruel, nasty, put-downs or even threats ("I want to leave") he emits. When she's hurt this way, it reverberates in me and I am just stricken. I react with powerful empathy but if this makes sense, too much. (Her inner narrative which she once said aloud: "I cannot be alone.")
Then...two days later I get a chirpy message saying again, for the umpteenth time,
"I've explained it to him. He sees it now. We're having a nice time now. He understands that now. Now he knows....etc". She has a kind of delusion (professor parents) that if she just INSTRUCTS him sufficiently about why what he's doing or thinking wrongly, he'll stop doing it. But from the outside, I see the pattern as a pernicious cycle that she (abused in toddlerhood and beaten by first spouse) repeats over and over and over. He always reverts to verbal cruelty, she always responds with lectures, there's a short honeymoon, and the moment he's frustrated or stressed, he does it again. She explains it again; he does it again. Repeat.
Then. I start to feel desperate to help her SEE. To free herself. To not commit the precious remaining years of her life entrapped with a mean, bullying, contemptuous man who's burned through three wives and I don't know how many other women. For a reason. So I try and try and try. And then it hits me:
What about MY pattern? What about ME is dysfunctional in being so intensely upset about her own choices for her own situation? Maybe what's stressing me about it is my desperation, more than her pattern? Why can't I insulate myself better against the suffering of someone I love? I'm not helping when I'm caught up in my own feelings about it. (I think I'm doing the same with Tupp sometimes.) More grist for the T.
So it's finally more clear that this is also about ME, not just others. How many times in my own life have I repeated the same old kinds of attractions and reactions that haven't freed me, strengthened me, or turned me in a healthier direction?
Got an abacus handy?
I'm owning it. Feel free to remind me.
hugs
Hops
lighter:
I find myself working on responding instead of reacting all the time .. ...and accepting what is, now, Hops.
All the time....being kind to myself under stress, while relaxing, while supporting others....so very kind to me. It's a new language and takes consistent practice.
I notice I'm super sturdy and less reactive when I m tending to my own Business first... when my world is in balance.
Wouldn't it be nice if your poet friend left her bully and spent time healing with or nearby you? I think it might be.
Lighter
Hopalong:
--- Quote ---responding instead of reacting
--- End quote ---
Yes yes, Lighter! Exactly the goal.
Interesting thing you posit -- I'm don't hink it'd be good for me at all to have her right by me, because I think she brings things to her struggle with him that might get turned against me were I pretending I could be that refuge. She has a temper too.
I think as long as she's caught up in what feels (from my perspective) like a delusion (she'll lecture and then he'll change) ... I actually wouldn't want that responsibility.
I'm not one to be "partner" (despite my intense opinions about it) to her healing. I think, honestly, that the most likely outcome is they're going to be locked in a terminal miserable pas de deux, and she'll wail in pain over it part of the time, and the rest of the time want to talk about butterflies. If she wants to do something different, she'll have to come to that choice on her own. (I know anybody close to a person in a toxic relationship yearns for them to "wake up." It's common, and commonly futile, ime. Almost like being close to an alcoholic. They have to find their own rock bottom or push-off point. You can't hand it to them.)
I think spilling all this out has helped me hear myself. I was getting unhealthy the more CoD I got about it, so I don't think having her right under my nose would improve anything. Better to send blessings and good hopes for her. She hasn't found a T and is full of la-la-la because she's just not ready. And might never be. Her agenda is hers, and she has a right to extricate herself or choose not to. I'm working at letting that all go...focusing on learning how to say "umm, hmmm, whatdoyouwanttodo?" instead of "RUN!"
I've said my piece often enough. I want to maintain my serenity while she vents but NOT keep repeating my piece. I've helped her to the degree I can, she is proceeding in her own life and choices, and I want to back off some for both our sakes.
I want serenity. I'm not the linchpin of her life. Love her dearly, but don't want to be that.
hugs
Hops
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