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lighter:
--- Quote from: Twoapenny on May 18, 2024, 12:21:57 AM ---It is lovely, Hops :) I was up very early this morning and sat in the garden drinking my tea and watching the bats flying around :)
Two interesting things this week; my compulsion to step in and manage other people's feelings for them seems to have left me, and so to has my need to endlessly manage what I say so I don't inadvertently offend anyone. Someone local to us, an older disabled man we've got to know, had a bit of a situation going on. I didn't really have any way I could help out, realistically, and for the first time I didn't put myself in a ridiculous situation of over promising or planning some miraculous rescue. I see it like this... It's not so much new feelings or a new way of being. It's more....things falling off. Falling away. Paring you down to who you truly are, IME. I just said I was sorry it was tough for him (which I am) but that I didn't have anything useful to offer (which was true) and I hoped someone else would be more useful. I should add he wasn't asking for help, simply telling me what was going on but usually that makes me put my rescue hat on. Just didn't happen and I only thought about it afterwards because I think it's the first time the feeling that I needed to manage that for someone else didn't come up.
I believe helping and being helpful is an honorable way to live. When there's no choice ... that's the glitch, IME. The helpful hat you wore was sewn to your head by broken people. Now it sits gently in your kind lap. Available and willing, but now with discernment and choice. Resting.
Two situations this week where usually I would be very careful about what I said, but I wasn't. I wasn't rude and it wasn't an outburst, but again there just wasn't any emotion attached. I just said what I thought, standing up for myself in both cases, and left it there. Haven't spent endless amounts of time mithering over whether I did or said the right thing, or justifying it to myself in my head either. It just was, and that was that. I suspect you've acquired enough distance and perspective to feel what's real, what's threat, what's not....to feel it in your Nervous System and bones. I also suspect you're sure you'll handle whatever comes your way, bc you always have. You always will. That's your truth and there comes a point where the doubt and fear, installed by others, pass away, IME.
And on the back of that, an old friend turned up unexpectedly, I got a call early yesterday to say he'd be driving through later in the day and were we home. Said yes, genuinely pleased to see him, but too many memories of old life. Weed smoke (you can smell it on him), drinking (the smell and the talking about oneself - I hadn't realised before the reason I've spent so much time listening to others wang on is because drunk people just talk with no regard for who else is there) and a realisation that we don't actually have much in common and two hours was more than enough time to catch up. Didn't feel bad about telling him I was wanting to go to bed, told him he was welcome to use the house as he wanted to and then I went off and left him to it. Woke up this morning not feeling at all bad about being a less than gracious host and wanting to get on with the day. I'm glad feeling bad for not perfectly meeting the needs of all others fell away too, Tupp. It leaves room to remember joy, confidence, clarity and, mostly, choice.
Amazing. Keep wondering if this is how some people feel throughout their lives and if that's why it seems so much easier for them. I think there's truth in that thought, Tupp. Hoping it continues. Believe it's permanent. Changes like this are, IME.
Hope pup is doing well! xx
--- End quote ---
Twoapenny:
The pup sounds really lovely, Hops :) They are crazy but I love the way they rush around and then just fall asleep, it's so cute. Fingers crossed your deranged cheerleading tactic is working lol. There's worse things to be in life :)
Thanks, Lighter, I am nodding :) Yes, things falling away. They're all defences of some kind, aren't they, built up around us to keep parts of ourselves safe and then we've had them for so long we don't realise they aren't really part of who we are, they're part of who we had to become. It's like seeing a lot of things for the first time and, yes, just being more realistic about what we can do for others without neglecting ourselves or those closest to us.
I think with regard to potential threats now - I kind of feel well what else can anyone throw at us? We've got through friends and family members leaving/abandoning/ending relationships over simple boundary requests or the word 'no'. We've survived years of lies and falsehood. We've got through two decades of 24 hour care without enough outside help for it to be any real use. We've managed years on a low income, multiple house moves, abusive neighbours and general bigotry. And we're still here. What else can anyone do? I am like a cockroach lol. And with regard to the old friend turning up, my only lesson there, I think, is that I was too casual in my boundaries by allowing him to visit. I should have just said no straight away but didn't really think about it. That's a lesson for next time, but an easy one to remember. All is good :) Hope all is well with you, Lighter xx
lighter:
I'm ok, Tupp. Spending Memorial Day weekend at the lake....doing projects. Waiting for original contractor to show, but mostly not show. He stood me up today, in fact. Again.
It's a challenging pleasure to make meals out of what's on hand....frozen white chicken chili this evening. Just me to feed, so zero pressure. My oldest niece is approaching food this way in her new self care regime. Gratitude in honoring ingredients. Nothing processed or wasted.
The weather's nice. It's peaceful, but my ears interpret silence as unpleasant pressure. I don't like it.
Last night I noticed an easy dialogue between me and my younger self. Short, but I recognized it at once.
"Let's brush and floss."
"Ok."
Such a calm moment of ease, safety....trust.
Like... release from a strong current I didn't realize I was swimming in.
If I'm judging, at all, it's more difficult to see what's there. If I'm in fight or flight.... I'm back on the pebble and it's not a question of escaping the pebble completely. Nope. It happens. Happened today, in fact and I let it carry me a good ways into the current, scraping along the pebbles..... understanding it, but leaning in. In that moment, I registered being reactive. I didn't register choice. It's a difficult thing.
There are strategies for escaping rip tides, same as escaping pebbles. Do it enough......
one day....
knowing/responsiveness replaces fear and fight or flight more often than not. But there's still gonna be sticky pebbles, IME.
Escape or things falling away?
Both and neither. Like a stupid trap....we believe we're trapped without understanding the trap never existed anywhere but in our mind, bc we believe.
::uncrossing eyes::.
Sometimes this journey feels like the movie Inception.
What's real?
What's belief?
What's someone else's belief, about us, stuck inside our unconscious beliefs about someone we believe is us, but never was?
Or something we pretended in order to be safe, then forgot it was just pretend.
Anyhoo, trust yourself and stand in your boundaries, ((Tupp.)) Next time you won't need to think about saying No, me'thinks.
Lighter
Twoapenny:
I think what's real and what's belief always crosses back and forth. It's picking out when it's helpful and when it isn't that's more difficult, I think.
Boundaries, boundaries, boundaries. Do you know, I didn't even consider saying no, we've not had any kind of social visit for over four years now. We see 'professionals' or we see people we go to. No-one comes to us. So it didn't occur to me it might not go well, I'd forgotten how ridiculous some people can be and I realised how comfortable I am with our routine and the way we do things. The mess he left in the bathroom, bits of tobacco on the kitchen table, coffee cup and beer cans left by the sofa, I don't do things like that, my son doesn't do things like that, to my mind no fully grown adult behaves like that. It's left me raging all week, that lack of respect for another person's home, lifestyle, comfort, security. I don't have people like that in my life any more and I'd forgotten that there was a time when everyone I knew was like that. He was an unpleasant reminder. He messaged yesterday, wanting to stay again. I said no, without explanation, he asked why and I ignored him. If he pesters I will use the block function :) No desire to fix, communicate, be nice or interact in any way. I'm just done with all of it xx
Twoapenny:
Do you know, after I'd written that I kept thinking about things and I started to wonder if some part of me keeps certain people around in some way because I feel superior to them? if they're inconsiderate, selfish, lazy etc, I can feel better about myself because I'm not those things. Is there something in those connections that I benefit from in an unhealthy way. I kept wondering why I said yes to him coming over the first time and initially I thought it was because it would be nice to have company instead of being on my own. But I like my own company, I don't really enjoy having others around for too long and he'd have had to have had a lobotomy to have undergone any drastic personality changes since I last saw him many years ago. I know enough from other people he's the same now as he always was. So I do wonder if a part of me sees an opportunity to show how much better I am than some of these people. My mum's patterns have made me very vigilent of my own. She creates drama, she can't do nice, normal, easy. Am I the same? Manifests in a different way but are the underlying themes there? Hmmm. From now on people need to be either useful, interesting or funny. Dysfunction needs to be gone, my dysfunction needs to be gone. Other people need to show they are one of those things before the drawbridge goes down. Maybe I should get a pet dragon? Honestly don't know at the moment if I'm having a lot of revelations/insights/understandings, or a breakdown. Perhaps it's the same thing? xx
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