Never enough

[axa]

There is something in me where I never know when enough is enough.  I keep giving and giving even though all the evidence points to the fact that nothing is going to change and I keep giving in the hope that it will be enough.  I really need to learn something about this.  When do you walk away, cut your losses and get on with things.  Its as if I am missing something that healthier people seem to know intuitively.  Any thoughts

axa

[seastorm]

Hi Axa,

It is good to have you back. I missed you.

I think that having boundaries and really trusting your intuition is so important. Someone I trust told me that you know your boundaries have been violated when your feelings are hurt. At that point you need to say or do something or walk away.
So at the core of it all is honouring your feelings and perceptions.

Now that you are aware of your tendency to give people another chance or to try to make them happy and fix everythng, you can pay attention to how you feel. I notice that when I do that, something in me feels better. It is scarey to set a boundary but it is life-giving.  Not having boundaries is like living in a house with no windows or doors. It is ok and very generous and trusting until a sociopath comes along.  Graduating to having doors is a good step forward but if the doors don't have locks then the really bad people can still get in.

I obviously have poor boundaries and that is how I ended up in such a mess and feeling so used and abused.  The good side of that is that I am working on having boundaries now.  I am eliminating people who are bossy and pushy from my life. I dont engage with them and I don't stick around.  I thought I might be lonely if I did this but I find that I am enjoying my own company more. Interesting.
This is a very important point you bring up.  I mean how can we trust ourselves if we let people hurt us. It has to be a very adult decision to not let people who hurt us in. Even if it feels weird to set a boundary. Just do it. Like no contact. Sometimes I want to phone but I don't do it because I have set that boundary.

I think it goes back to childhood and having to accept a lot of cruel behaviour from our careproviders in order to get a crumb of nurturing. It sets a person up for a lifetime of accepting abuse and thinking that it is still love even if it hurts.

Love,
Sea storm

[dandylife]

Since our voice was "taken away" long ago, we never developed the skills necessary to know these things. I think you'll find after contemplation, that it is no longer anyone else taking your voice away, it is you bowing to your past abusers even now in the present and if you dig deep inside, you will find your voice and along with it, what is important to you - your values, wants, needs, desires and boundaries. When you pause and let them surface, you see that they are already there. You just need to voice them.
Writing them down on paper can be very very helpful. The side manual to the book Stop Walking on Eggshells has a wonderful follow along guide to growing your strong voice.
Dandylife

[Sela]

Hi Axa:

Everyone has their limit.  Sooner or later, yours will be apparent.  Would it help to write down all the stuff that you have given....in black and white......so you can really take a long look at it?  Maybe that would help you to decide what your limit is?

I think that's really what it comes down to......making a decision about when to cut losses, walk away, get on with things.  You will choose, one way or another.

Its as if I am missing something that healthier people seem to know intuitively.

Some have learned the hard way too, Axa.   Staying waaaaaaay too long.  Taking waaaaaaay too much.  Giving and hoping and trying and trying.....all futile attempts to avoid the inevitable.   It takes time to accept the loss too, I think.  To come to terms with the idea that what one is doing just isn't working and isn't going to work.

It's a matter of self-preservation eh?   People will put up with so much.....and then......finally decide not to any more.  Enough is enough.  When will it be enough?  You get to decide that Axa.  Not easy or fun but it will happen. 

((((((((Axa)))))))))

Sela 

[Hopalong]

Hi Axa,
I ditto wise Sea, Dandy and Sela. Salaaam, oh wise ones.

My 2 cents:

1) learn to meditate. Don't worry about the squirmy inner Axa, she'll get used to it.

2) don't make "learn" a big deal. Just read a simple article on it and start doing it first thing in the morning for 10 minutes. Over 2 weeks build up to 20.

3) Search "boundaries in relationships" on the net for that wonderful list of "I have a right to this and that..." about boundaries. Print it out. Post it in these places:
      --in your bathroom where you will read it every time you're on the throne
      --beside every telephone in your house/apt.

I love writing Programs to Follow, steps 1-10, for other people. I am avoiding my paperwork so consider the source. But I'm feeling happy today.

love and support and encouragement and don't you dare give up on Axa whose intuition is IN THERE, just hasn't been respected in a while....

Hops

[spyralle]

Hey Axa...  This is one of my biggest problems but I am currently trying to put boundaries in place...  For me it is about not feeling good enough so whatever the N does to me it must be justified somehow and if I could only love them more...  they would change..  Of course the minute you think that first thought you are stuffed..

That I believe now is when I should walk away..  So I am practising..  I am learning that the more self respect you have...  the more a person will persevere..  If they don't then the hardest thing for me is to walk away but I now just delete all means of getting in contact..  Maybe a bit extreme but it's the best way..  I work with addicts and I have now realised that some of my behaviours are very similar..  so I am trying to employ some of the same mechanisms as I teach them..

Spyralle xxx

[Margo]

There is something in me where I never know when enough is enough.  I keep giving and giving even though all the evidence points to the fact that nothing is going to change and I keep giving in the hope that it will be enough.  I really need to learn something about this.  When do you walk away, cut your losses and get on with things.  Its as if I am missing something that healthier people seem to know intuitively.  Any thoughts

axa

Margo/Tremusan writes:  "When we aren't comfortable where we are..... we aren't where we belong."  That leads to the other empty saying...... "we are where we want to be"  which leads to another... "we stay till the pain of staying is worse than the pain of going."  I don't mean to be flip but.... having done and felt all these things several times in my life already.... I'm finally starting to catch on and they're all true, lol.  The catch is to start learning from our mistakes and not repeat them.  Go out and make new mistakes. 

Enforcing boundaries can happen only after you identify what they are and put them in place.  That's awfully hard to do if you're walking on eggshells trying to please someone who's bent on keeping you so confused you can't think straight....  much less identify the fact that you're MISSING boundaries.  ACH!  Now I'm dizzy from re reading that, lol.  Sorry.... I hope it made just a bit of sense, lol. 

[axa]

Wow,

Thank you all for your responses

Margo, yes it does make sense.  I think this is why the no c ontact rule really helps with Ns.  It is only when you get away from the confusion you can see what was going on.  I had to suffer to the extent I did to understand that it was not ok.  My fear was that being alone was worse than being with XN.  It is not but I did not know t hat.  Well, intelectually I did but the little axa who was in control at the time thought anything was worse than being alone.  One of the great insight I have received from being on this board is my own lack of boundaries.  I talk the talk but walking the walk is a different matter.  REcently XN contacted me and for the first time in my life I set a boundary which was no contact and adheared to it.  I looked after myself.  It felt strange and uncomfortable, t here was part of me hungry to get back into the fray but I did not react.  Feeling like a very good girl as I write this.

Spyralle,

There is something in your post that i identify with.  It is as if the Ns rationisation becomes contagous.  I have found myself making sense of complete nonsense that he fed me.

Another thing I learned on this board is that I am an addiict, addictive to destructive N relationships.  I have been reading a book recommended by Hops, I think, about addictive relationships and it about me.  I am struggling with this but acknowledge it daily.  Interesting that I come from a long line of addicts and always congradulated myself on not being one...........ROSE tinted glasses gone.  I am.

Hops,

Thanks for the 2 cents worth.  I KNOW you are right.  I struggle with meditating and being with myself so much.  I want IT fixed.  I am lazy, like the addict, looking for the quick fix.  At the moment I am aware of my distracting myself all the time, keeping so busy with some underlying hope that I will get through this time and be rescued.  It is a recurring theme for me.  Today I will meditate, can you check in on me.  Little axa is here kicking and struggling avoiding the bloody paperwork also.  I make lists about lists.  Growing pains here.  I think it is the fundamental difficulty many of us struggle with here: not wanting to take care of our selves, putting others before us with the hopeful pay off that somehow someone else will make it ok.  I apologise if I have offended anyone by this statement maybe I should just own it for myself.  It is my truth.

Sela,

Avoiding the inevitable..........what truth you write.  Why do we have to stay and suffer so much before the inevitable happens.  I knew things were never going to get better.  I think I have some sort of machocistic streak in me where I want the suffering......... thoughts... may start a thread on this.

Dandy,

I am sure you are right.  Will look up the book...thanks

Sea,

Very interesting points.  I think the bottom line is that I trusted XN who i knew to be crazy rather than I trusted myself.  I suppose a sign of some of my growth is that I have distanced myself from some "friends" who I have felt were bullying.  The loss is that I do not have fun with them anymore but the gain is that I feel a sense of freedom.  Somehow I feel that I am the one who is spoiling the fun by withdrawing from them.  But I now realise that I felt like a child around one particular friend and there was never equality in the relationship.  I met her recently, she is a real fancy dresser, I am not, had an old shirt on with the collar askew before she said one word to me she started to fix my shirt.  I am a middle aged woman.......... keep your hands off me. AHHHHHHHHH

Thanks everyone,

xxxxxxxxxx

axa

[Hopalong]

Hi Axa,
I can dish it out but I can't take it (advice, half the time).
I'm a TERRIBLE meditator. Squirrely and lazy.

What's helped me when I need it is to go to a sort of Vespers-meditation service midweek, and there I sit in silence with other people. It's peaceful and calming and helps me be with myself and find more quietness, but without being alone.

Friends Meetings (Quaker) services have the same effect.

hugs,
Hops

[Sela]

Hey again Axa:

Why do we have to stay and suffer so much before the inevitable happens

??

Maybe it's because we want so desperately to succeed and if we give up and walk away, we will have to face the fact that we failed?

It takes time to understand that the failure was inevitable because no one can win with some people  (Win/succeed meaning .....in this case.....form a loving, respectful and reciprocal relationship with).

We suffer trying.    We suffer losing.   We suffer accepting the inevitable but then........

.................................

.........life gets better, once we take the bull by the horns (face our fears, allow failure and accept the inevitable) and move on.

Note:  Life gets better after moving on.  It does! 

((((((Axa))))))

Sela