Thanks teartracks, Hops, LeahsRainbow, Ami, axa and CH for your kind replies. It's such a relief to change in ways I never knew I could change. I didn't know I had a choice about the pattern I described, you know? Didn't know I had the power, much less how to use it.
Axa, I hear you - returning to the present moment and dropping other stuff. I am reading and thinking a great deal about how to do that and other techniques of skillful use of the mind - lot of meditation and yoga books but also Tolle talks about the same things. Some things seem to take so long to sink in, for me at least. Still, there's no deadline!
Wish I could say I was better, but as soon as the stomach virus left, a hideous, streaming cold moved in and I stayed prostrate on the sofa coughing and blowing my nose all day, too listless to do more than channel surf. Actually kind of a nice change of pace from the life of a working mom. Feeling rather better this evening.
I want to say that I am so glad that I was able to change the pattern in the way I described, but also right now in other ways I see that many of my dysfunctional relation patterns are coming up, much more than they did in the past. I think this is because I am now a mom. The family responsibilities trigger me a lot more often than I was in my life before children. It's very challenging for me and I am seeing inside a lot of cognitive errors, habits of assumptions that aren't true, poor ways of relating, messed up ways of dealing with anger (P/A sometimes, sometimes petulant stuff). Lots of issues. I get so twisted up worried about being dysfunctional as a wife and mom. I'm 110% committed to learning and growing in every way to life to the fullest in the most appreciative and earnestly learning-oriented way. But a lot of times right now I am seeing lots of problems and behaviors that need to evolve - seeing a lot of work lined up for the present and future.
Just this morning I felt like work I have been doing in the marriage had been going unnoticed. Me and the H talked about it and, in all truth, this was all in my head. The situation of having so much work to do as everyone was sick this week, totally triggered me to feeling like Cinderella all over again. In truth, I really am appreciated and also I am by far not the only person who is working hard and needs to be appreciated. My perceptions can be so messed up sometimes.
CH, your post prompted me to think about what I think the negative thoughts context is. For me, I think that getting sick was a time of great self loathing and self hatred for me for years as I grew up. The sick person who needed help in our house was my dad. His MS is like a permanent state of crisis and red alert. It's hard for me to find the words to describe this. It was a terrible, selfish thing for me to be sick because my purpose was to be useful for my dad. So being sick was taking from him, like taking the focus and upsetting the order of things, but also it was being unable to give to him and so it was terrible in that way too.
I always felt as if I somehow did it (became ill) on purpose to be intransigent, and so I felt guilty and ashamed and like I had failed in my responsibility and also failed to stifle myself for the greater purpose of the more worthy person. I was always extremely sensitive to the great sacrifice my dad was making as a single father too. Of course, we clashed too and I would lose my temper/or composure (i.e. I would cry which he despises and/or feels superior to) with him - but that just boomeranged into more self-loathing and self-flagellation on my own head - how could I do that to the sainted noble martyr who is ill? Sometimes my dad actually treated me in this way - that my being sick was inconvenient, irritating, as if I did it on purpose. But other times he didn't seem to mind or care at all, which was a relief to me and felt as if I had passed a gauntlet - my sickness was 'legit.' And other times he was even kind (although I could not say nurturing) and has patted my back while I heaved with a long ago tummy virus.
Also, I had to 'prove' an illness. I had to show illness by a temperature or by actually vomiting or else it was minimized. But even when I was obviously ill, sometimes my dad hugely minimized it. One time I broke out in really monstrous hives - it was an allergic reaction to penicillin for strep. My dad was completely disinterested - not his problem. I had to solve that myself. And I was terrified - I didn't know what the hives were and was scared, getting teary and hysterical. He was like, checking his watch, rolling his eyes. So yeah I have often felt a sense of, as if I am faking it or as if even if really sick, somehow me being sick is not at all important.
He always, always, always minimized concerns of my safety and wellbeing.
