Hi everyone,
Well, I'll try a little posting. But first let me thank PR and Carolyn for the menopausal thing. I'm not sure I'm getting it, but I could be. I've felt particularly lucky at least in this, in that I've had absolutely no symptoms. I had one, maybe two hot flashes last year, that's it. (Please don't throw stones at me!)
As for what's been bugging me in addition to the N experience ... they're "global" issues. I'll be 54 in August, and I just feel like I "should" be further along in so many areas of life. I have worked so hard for so long in therapy and yet I feel like I'm back to square 1. Sort of a parallel to Ns' juvenile behavior, I feel like I'm developmentally arrested somewhere. I never act like it, you'd never see it in outward behavior, but I feel that way inside. I feel stuck at some young age, and I have really wanted to break through that and I just can't. It seems very unusual to me that you can be aware of this (as Ns are not), want to fix it, and be unable to
So often I feel like a little helpless child.
My therapist confirms this in a way. He's never said I'm developmentally arrested, but he talks about the little child inside of me waiting for someone to come and take care of me, because my parents did not. (Can I refer you to other posts to make this briefer? In essence, my parents physically neglected me a great deal, as well as emotionally, and in addition to my dad's outright abuse.) I struggle and struggle with this. My head seems to know it but my gut just will not get it, and I don't know how to make it "get it." Again, therapist emphasized this yesterday.
I just don't know how to get beyond it. He talked about being a good parent to myself, which I guess is the way ... but of course that puts me up against all sorts of anxiety and feeling undeserving and all that.
He told me that in many ways my parents were bad parents. Yesterday he said it in a way and with a sharpness (not directed at me) that I have never heard him say in 20 years. It was quite acute. Then he said that I refused to accept that they were bad (I thought I had). I think this plays off our session last week, in which I talked about the loss of parents I felt I could love and idealize.
Last week amidst everything else he said that my parents should have seen that I had heat in my room, that I wasn't cold, and that I had enough blankets. (My mom would take them from me. She always made sure I didn't have any, or only minimal at best. We live in the cold northeast.) (My sister and brother were always dressed fine, had heat, blankets, etc. In addition, they got to do scores of things, such as go to camp, spend summers at my grandparents' farm, etc., that I was never allowed to do. My mom wanted to keep me close to home.)
I realized afterward that I still feel it's not their fault; that they are not to blame. It's what I deserve(d).
When I explained this yesterday, we talked about the depth to which I've internalized this. I didn't walk away with any great a-ha's or anything; we just talked about it.
So I guess maybe I need to get in touch with their being bad. (They weren't all bad. They really did do good things as well.)
It's hard for me to understand some of this -- that parents are supposed to care for their kids, and how they're supposed to care for them -- because I didn't have it. Hard to explain, but I don't have that conceptual reference. Probably if I'd had kids of my own it would be more understandable.
A good friend on another message board tried to explain to me (in the context of the N) that I am "enough" and I have always been "enough." She doesn't know about my home life; she was talking about the N and being good enough for him. It was her observation, not prompted by any comment from me.
My first reaction was, well, okay ... but as I've thought about it, particularly since yesterday's session, I've begun to realize how true it is as an issue and that I need to chew on this one awhile. Part of my feeling about the "no heat" deal is that i wasn't enough. Of course they weren't wrong to do it because I didn't deserve it. (That's the internalization.)
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Then there is the saga of my job losses between 5 and 7 years ago. I've never gotten over them. They caused tremendous financial issues in my life and I'm still not over them. I'm still paying for it.
And I'm still paying for it emotionally. I had a decent career; I was talented at what I did, and it's gone. The field has shrunk during my entire career span. Business hates creatives, and after every recession I saw my field shrink more and more until the last one all but knocked it out. At the same time, it (marketing/copywriting) was moving over to the internet. I lost that valuable e-experience just when I needed to be building it. I've been trying to build it here, but not getting very far. Long story, not going to say it here.
A few years into this, and I just broke. Too many things had hit me and gone wrong -- I was essentially evicted from my apartment, my car was repossessed ... every time I at least got to my knees, it seemed, something else hit me back down. I couldn't even get to my knees, much less standing up straight. It was just one thing after another, hard, for 5 years or more. I really have only felt mildly stable since the last few months. I really broke, and I haven't been able to get "it" back.
It's time to make some kind of move, but I am still so paralyzed and fearful from the job losses that I am in great conflict. My brain, my energy want to be doing something else, finally (be used, that is), but my emotional components are tremendously afraid of leaving this place, this job. It's about as stable as they come these days, and it's a good company. I have wanted to make my career here but it's not happening. I can't do what I've done in the past without moving to another office and giving up what roots I have.
Also, the very fall that the episode with the N started, right before then I was pretty sure I knew what I wanted to do. I had read an article in the NY Times magazine two years previously, which discussed sexual slavery. It was/is right next door. (In fact, that was the name of the article: The Girls Next Door.) It was very powerful.
I felt an instant connection. I wanted to work in this field. I had concluded that corporate america was trying to tell me something -- get out! which makes sense because I never started out to be in business. It's really not me. About the time all this was happening, I realized that I am really a social activist at heart.
So, I read this article, I was investigating working in the nonprofit field to work against human trafficking (of any kind) ... when bam! I had this vision. No one is addressing the root of sexual slavery problem, which is the people who do it. Yes, the law at al tries to find them and prosecute them, but this was different. I realized that those who held the captives were in fact captives themselves. And so I got this vision of starting a mission to reach out to them. Maybe not so much to help them, but to appeal to them to at least let the girls go.
I still don't know the exact details of how this would be done, but I envision it as basically a media campaign (how else would you reach them?) supported by support/professional resources of various kinds, first for the women and then for their captors.
I know they are scum. I know they are the lowest of the low. I know that they are the most hardened, bleak, dark, awful individuals on the face of the earth. I can't believe I'm thinking of even looking at them ...
...but I swear, God told me that if I do this, He will make it happen. It might only be 1 or 2 people, but God spoke to me and said that He would be there in this impossible mission. He would take care of the hard part.
So, yes, that sounds pretty impossible. But it's something I want to pursue. I've been holding off because I know I have to get my life stable before I can think of doing it.
...this job might be a good stable ground beneath my feet as I begin that. It's been one of my reasons, but not all, for staying here. I've been here to have roots, to feel secure, to take time to find out what it is i want to do. That's been fine.
But I've been getting tremendously bored. I have a high IQ and various talents (I'm not boasting, just trying to explain) and here I sit. Aside from being a receptionist, do you know what I do all day? I match ads from our magazines with their invoices. (Called tearsheeting.) It is the fastest road to insanity I can imagine. (I have other responsibilities as well.)
And I really like the people here. Which again, plays into the taking-care-of-me issues. My therapist explained yesterday, as he has before, that I look for people to take care of me in the workplace just like I do everywhere else. That most people when they look for a job talk about the job, but when I came back from interviews I would talk about how nice (or not) the people are, and the atmostphere and whether I'd like working there.
Convicted.
It's true. I know it's true. It's been hard for me to see over the years, but since the N thing I've been able to see it.
He said this same issue is why I got manipulated by the N. I think it's part, but not all. I don't think my therapist has ever believed me that this guy was really acting infatuated. I admit, I was all too eager to think it, but N was really doing all sorts of stuff and behaving in all sorts of ways he never had before. He truly seemed like someone very much in love. The circumstances helped the whole episode along: I knew that as pastor he couldn't say anything, and also probably because of his impending divorce. He could say negative things -- no, you're wrong or you're misinterpretingi things -- but nothing on the positive side, because of his position.
He never, ever said or did anything "negative." Instead, he was always doing nonverbal positive things. He was acting like a man crazy in love who couldn't actually act on his feelings. (That is, to act on them would have been wrong.) He constantly responded in positive ways to my emails.
Now, this undoubtedly was all for the Ns needs for supply, but still, it looked like he had very strong feelings for me, which is how I got pulled in. I don't think my therapist believes that. He totally understands the manipulation, he gets every single part of this except how the guy actually looked/behaved.
...back to the work issue ... so here I sit, and as I sit here, I am very aware that I am making myself voiceless. No one here knows me for the professional I used to be. I sit here and shrink and act like a youngish, sweet person. No wonder I don't get the consideration I should -- I don't act like a manager.
But then, I don't, because I'm not. Nonetheless, I know that there are receptionists who are much more "professional" than I am. They give off this total administrative air that I do not. (Although I get continual high marks for cordiality and greeting our visitors. My boss sent me a very nice email last week.)
I can't stand this person I am while I'm sitting behind this desk. "She" is a nice person, and friendly, but it sure as heck isn't the me I can be. The brainy talented one I used to be. Where did she go?
...and then there's the whole issue of dating. Oh lord,this is so hard to admit; my group mates know and maybe 1-2 other people know -- I did tell the N -- but not only have I never been" with someone -- which is awful enough, although it really hasn't/doesn't bother me -- I've never really even been kissed. I've had enough men corner me and try to grab me and make passes at me, etc., and so a few have managed to stick their tongues down my throat - but in my entire life, no one has ever just seen me and said gee, I'd like to go out with her. In other words, I've never been kissed because someone emotionally wanted to -- "saw" me and wanted to.
Except honest to god, I think the N did the day he kissed me after church. I really do. He didn't know this at the time; I didn't tell him until later. He seemed very mesmerized when he did it. Believe me, if it hadn't been in public at church I defintely wouldn't have moved it into a half-kiss. (There were people around. I was trying to protect him.)
So, there's a lot of it. I just feel like I'm 54, my life is a mess, I don't have anything that most people have at this age -- experiences, much less financial position or a home and kids, etc. -- despite my honestly having worked at the emotional issues for so long. I just can't get past them.
I really want to be able to go back, as Alice Miller says, and relive the feelings and move on. I have been trying and trying and trying to do this, and I just can't get there.
...another detour ... my therapist was talking yesterday about people who peak in high school, and how you never want to do that. I tried to explain that i used to feel I was working toward something, that I would overcome all my issues and then have something. When he started talking about peaking (at whatever age), I tried to explain to him that I never had a "best." I never had that period in life that you can look back on and think, gee, that was fun, or wasn't I something then, or whatever. I've never had a "best." I've never had anything.
Also, it's the whole voicelessness thing. It's that I have such a hard time representing myself verbally. It's all I can do to call my landlord and tell him the toilet is leaking or something, and he's just great. He's wonderful, and very easy to talk to.
I can't represent myself to anyone. I see why people here are so successful -- they can talk. They feel an appropriate level of power and they use it, appropriately and generally quite well. (It's a nice place to work.) they can talk.
I can be chatty, but I nonetheless have trouble talking.I hate small talk. It's very hard for me to stand around and talk to people because the small stuff is very hard for me. I'm much better when someone is pouring out their soul or talking about something major, divine, intellectual, artsy, conceptual, whatever.
And there's the whole "voicelessness" of being. Of my being. As I said elsewhere, to me voicelessness is not just verbal, it's part of being human. Of who you are and being that and putting it out there. Making it happen for yourself. I'm just so frustrated with all of that.
I'm so frustrated with being that person who is asked a question and can only come up with blankness. Someone asks me a question, particularly my therapist, especially what I want, and I just come up blank. I can't come up with any answers. I do think that if I could, I could make it happen. But I just can't find what I want, no matter what the area of life.
...all this makes me believe it would be very hard for a man to be interested in me.
Also, I have such trouble getting in touch with "external" things. I'm a very internally driven person. I look to the inside, not to the outside, for example, activities or hobbies. I'm just always imploding, always thinking. It's very hard for me to turn that off.
And, I realized I have enormous difficulty feeling love from people. I intellectually know people care for me, but I have great difficulty feeling "incoming" love. It stops somewhere; people care for me much more than I understand, I'm sure; I have a lot of trouble letting that in. I know it's there, but I can't feel it very well.
I'm tired of being adaptable and trying to behave the way people want me to behave. In a way I'm like a narcissist -- I rely on other people to define me; I look to bounce my behavior off them, their expectations, instead of being myself ... if I only had a clue as to who that is.
Well, there's most of it, or at least as much as I can write now. If you've got this far, thank you so much. I really appreciate your staying with me. What an earful, huh?
Oh, yes -- and I've really been missing the N. Part of that problem is that I never actually saw him mean to me in person. For the most part I only saw his good self; even when he turned on me, I never saw him; I just experienced the process of the harassment charges. What I'm trying to say is that he was never nasty or mean to me face-to-face. He was always wonderful.
