The Voice

There is a voice

It speaks inside your head when you are scared

and says:

It will be ok

It tells you in your hour of blackest pain:

You will survive this

When the fear grips you and turns your insides to jelly it says:

We will not go lightly

When you are exhausted and don’t have the strength to go on it says:

You can do this

That voice is courage, it is determination

That voice

is yours

Let it speak to the world like the roar and crash of the waves on the beach!

Not shut inside

(where no one can hear.)

It will inspire you

It will inspire others.

Become all who you are.

Let the Voice speak

Taking Back Your Power

Part of your recovery is discovering things about yourself.  One of the things that you can realize is that things have as much power over you as you give them.   If you are coming out of an abusive relationship, you realize that your abuser had power over you because you gave it to them.    As you progress, you may discover other areas of your life that you gave power to and turns out, you don’t have to!  For instance, you may find things that mattered to you a lot previously, really don’t any more.  This is because you essentially drank the coo-laid of your abuser and you took their opinions of your own.  For instance you may discover that you don’t really care about football when in the relationship it was a constant thing.

Regaining your personal power is a huge step in recovery because it forces you to make decisions for yourself.  In the case of an abusive relationship, many decisions were made for you and if you voiced your opinion, you were probably told that you were wrong.  This is the abuser’s way of maintaining control. They will overlay your thoughts and feelings with their own.

Once you are free of the situation and when you are ready (this may take some time) you may have difficulty in navigating a new relationship because you have a lot of learned responses.  So, how do you maintain your individuality in a relationship?  I would like to say it’s easy, because it’s not.  If you are like me, you have spent many years developing behaviors and patterns that are hard to break.   If you are not careful, you can wind up in the exact same situation that you were just in.   There are a few things that you can do though.

• Have boundaries- this is very important as it is your comfort zone.   You need to set rules and determine what works for you.  You also need to enforce these boundaries and make sure that the person that you are involved with also respects those boundaries.
• Don’t be afraid to speak up!- This is also hugely important. If you can’t communicate your needs, then they are never going to know.   Remember that people can’t read your mind and unless you clearly state things, you really can’t hold people responsible for things that you never said no matter how hard you implied it.
• Respect yourself- If you don’t respect yourself, no one else will.  Just treat yourself like you would like to be treated.  Surprisingly enough, other people will jump on board and treat you with respect as well.
• Don’t settle- In your old relationship, your partner knew that they could get away with anything.  If that is happening, it’s because your power and respect have left the station and you are back on the train to Abuse Town.  If the relationship is not beneficial, get out. The earlier the better and there is no harm in walking away from a bad situation.
• Keep your word- one of the fastest ways to lose someone’s respect is to be incongruous in your words and actions. If you say you are going to do something, then do it.
• It’s ok to be independent- in a relationship it’s ok to still be you!  There is nothing wrong with being self sufficient in a relationship and then you can decide on how things progress from there.

If you find yourself in a relationship where the person in your relationship does not respect your boundaries and does not seem willing to listen to you when you speak up, this is probably not the right relationship for you.   Walking away may be the best thing.

Hopefully, you will find someone that things work with.  They will have to be patient, but don’t get caught up in that “new relationship smell” so that you overlook important things.

Now is the time to participate in your life.

Anger Fail

I guess the purpose of a journal is to document our successes and our failures.  Today was a fail.  Kind of a big one.  I saw A @ B this weekend at an event and even though I didn’t interact with them, I got all those angry feelings that I felt at Pennsic months ago.  I feel like I had a huge backslide.    Seeing them together was just awful.  Not hurt awful, but angry awful.    I had to leave the event to ensure that poor choices were not made.

The big fail?  Today there was an email exchange between her and I and it really pushed my buttons.  Even out of the relationship I am still dealing with some of the things that used to drive me crazy in the relationship.  I was not  really prepared for that and I let assertiveness escape me and became aggressive.  This was my failing and I am going to work on it.

I know I am human and this is a process and as I keep being reminded that the only way to deal with things is to go through it.  I guess this is the forge, the crucible.  We all have one and we either do not survive or we come out stronger.

I am hoping for number two.

I will make good choices to the best of my ability and hopefully the daemons I have always struggled with will be kept inside or at least dealt with appropriately.

Update:

Had another exchange and there was no anger. I did say what I felt I had to say because I am still upset over how I was treated.  She is of course threatening to remove little “a” from my life because I don’t like her.  I have never said anything negative about her to him because she is his mom.  Good or bad, that is the case.  It does look like she will never change and that’s ok.  Not my circus any more.  I do still love her and that’s ok.  I no longer respect her and really don’t like her.

I would like to point out that in the emails, she was not combative or even inappropriate. That was all on my part because I am angry that I made a huge investment in her and then she threw it away.  I feel used by her.  I feel that all that love I poured into her and our relationship was tossed out because she could not get her self together.  Unfortunately this cycle with her will repeat until she deals with the underlying cause.

So, now what?

The only way past is through.

 

 

 

Why I am Angry and What I am Doing About it

So I haven’t checked in with myself for a while on this blog so I think it’s time to do that.  This blog has been a chronicle of my journey through recovery and beyond.  It has documented my emotional growth and learning process over the past months.    Between the loss of the love of my life, my job and various deaths, it’s been a rough time.   I may not know everything about loss and dealing with it but I sure as heck can recognize it.

I have noticed a major shift in my emotions in the past few weeks.  For most of this time I have been hurt by her loss.   I have missed her very much even though she really treated me horribly.  Having this blog has been very helpful and I see now why when dealing with an abusive relationship it is important to have a journal. The mind really wants to heal itself and put a nice shiny coat over everything.  It essentially tries to shield you from the trauma.  By going back and reading the things you wrote, you remember what the situation actually was.  This is hugely important so that you don’t go back into the same situation again.  The shift that I was seeing was one of shifting from being hurt to one of anger.

Anger is part of the 5 stages of grief.  It is generally listed after “Denial and Isolation” and I have to say that I would be pretty annoyed if I discovered I was only in the second stage of all of this after almost Nine months.  Fortunately, the stages of grief (Denial and Isolation, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance)  do not necessarily occur in an order.

So what am I angry about?  I am angry with three people and it’s really pretty simple.  So the next bit will be me expressing some anger.  Pease be aware that I am expressing how I feel that while it may be based on fact does not mean that they are facts.  I certainly am angry with her for putting her own needs above the relationship and when the going got tough, she ran away (See?  That’s the anger there.) I am angry at her abandoning me because she wanted to play a game more than she wanted to be with me.  I am angry at her for taking away my family and doing her best to damage that relationship.  I am angry that when I told her I was uncomfortable with her relationship with the guy she is now seeing she blew me off.  I am angry that someone else gets to have the life I wanted more than anything.

I am angry at him for pretending to be my friend when he was in fact, working against me.  I am angry that in my hobby he has shown me that the highest accolades that you can actually be worthless and is nowhere near what my measure of these things should be.  I am angry because he has shown that the system is broken and there may be no way to fix it.

I am angry at myself for letting this happen.  I am angry at myself for being taken in by others.  I am angry at myself for loving someone so much that I would forgive any behavior,  I am angry at myself for losing myself, for actually believing that I didn’t matter and only my family mattered. I am angry at discounting my own needs and only thinking of others.

There, that’s anger.  This weekend I had to deal with them and I actually had to leave the environment because I started to get angry.   This was for the best because while it is healthy to have anger and acknowledge it, it is not healthy to express it poorly.  Fortunately, I am aware enough of myself that I will remove myself from a situation before I do anything that may have negative repercussions.

It used to be that we were told that having emotional outbursts is good for you, that letting those things out is better than keeping them inside.  It turns out that studies have shown that is not the case.  The studies showed that it is ok to have these feelings and acknowledge hem, but so to “let it rip” as some people say.  It turns out that anger is a tough emption to deal with.

So here is the anger paradox:

Suppressing Anger:  This seems like the way to go because you can channel your anger into something else that can be positive.  Basically you hold it in, stop thinking about it and then do something positive.  Basically you take your negative emotion and then do something constructive.  Sounds good Right?  Well the problem is that if there is no outward expression, your anger can be directed inwards on yourself.  This can cause all sorts of issues from high blood pressure, hypertension, depression, etc.

It can also cause some other problems.  It can lead to personality changes like passive aggressive behavior or even becoming cynical and hostile all the time.  People who are constantly putting others down, criticizing everything, and making cynical comments haven’t learned how to constructively express their anger. Not surprisingly, they aren’t likely to have many successful relationships.   Is there a link between anger and low self esteem?  Probably but I need to put a pin in that for now.

Expressing your Anger- The dangers here are pretty obvious. We have all see that person who just can’t seem to control themselves and starts lashing out.   The key here is that anger needs to be expressed as assertive, NOT aggressive.   It’s when you lose so much control that you want to be aggressive that bad decisions get made.  It is best to remove yourself from the situation.

The Third way is calming- This is not just controlling your outside behavior but controlling your inside behavior.  This may mean controlling your breathing and your heart rate until the feelings subside. Meditation is a very useful tool for this.

If you are in a situation where none of these things are working, then you really need to get out of the situation.  If you don’t, someone is going to get hurt.

It’s an interesting phase and I am learning to manage my anger in a controlled environment and I am focusing on Expressing and calming.  It seems to be doing the trick, however I am aware that I have a long way to go in my journey for personal growth and recovery.

Self Esteem and Addiction

So let’s dive right in and talk about the link between self esteem and addiction. Low self esteem is one of the characteristics of the addictive personality.  When people start self medicating (whether it is with drugs, alcohol or any activity) they do it to feel better about themselves.  Where many things can become harmful is that initially they may seem positive.  For instance someone who throws themselves into something such as mountain biking it will be perceived as a positive.  They are getting in better shape, they are winning races and everyone says that they are doing well and they feel good about themselves.  This is not recognized as a problem because  of the cultural perception that it is positive.  I will use mountain biking as an example here however it can apply to any activity.  So when does it become a problem?  Well that’s easy.  Let’s look at a few warning signs:

• Repeatedly neglecting your responsibilities at home, work, or school because of your activity. Choosing your activity above all else.
• Engaging in your activity where it can be physically dangerous. This could mean continuing to engage in a physical situation against the doctor’s orders
• Continuing to engage in your activity even though it is causing in problems in your relationships. Going to a race for example even though you know that your wife or husband or wife will be upset that you went, or fighting with your family because they don’t like how you act when you are at a race.
• Engaging in your activity as a way to relax or distress. We all have these things that we do to relax  but when you use your activity as the main  way to self-sooth and relieve stress it can become an issue.  Or maybe immersing yourself in your activity whenever you have an argument with your spouse.
• Experiencing Withdrawal- When you aren’t able to go do a race, you feel tired, depressed, irritable, and maybe trouble sleeping. These are all signs that may need to be addressed.
• Trying to quit and being unable to- You realize that you are probably more engaged in your activity than maybe you want to, but you continue to do it.

These are all pretty basic things, but if you replace “activity” with “alcohol” the pattern becomes clear.  The problem is that anything can become addictive and it is particularly dangerous when you are engaging in an activity that is not perceived as detrimental at the onset.   Frequently the addictive behavior may be one of transference.  For instance if you go to an AA meeting, you will see people drinking large amounts of coffee and smoking.  It’s a way to transfer the behavior to something “less harmful”.

One of the main things that happens is that there is a lot of denial about the behavior.  The easiest way to get around this is to socialize with others where the behavior is not as noticeable.  For the alcoholic, to hang out with their friends at the bar is a great way to go because they are less noticeable.  For the mountain biker it might be part of a social group where others are interested in biking.  It helps hide the addiction.

There is a saying that “once an addict, always an addict”.  This is potentially true but not always so.  I think that this is largely because the underlying issue of self esteem does not get addressed.  If you don’t have control of yourself, you may transfer the behavior into something more “positive” but that other thing is causing the same issues.  It is simply transference.  Dealing with low self esteem is very difficult for anyone and it is only compounded by the addictive behavior.

So, how does this impact abusive relationships?  Frequently it is that low self esteem that will drive people into negative behaviors.  Often in the cases of abusive relationships, there is a need for one person to control the other.  Why?  Because they don’t feel that they can control themselves.  They may spend time controlling their environment and feel that they are in a constant battle to control their world.  If you are on the receiving end of this, it goes pretty badly.  Your own self esteem will be torn down and you may feel that you actually deserve the treatment that you are getting.  Rebuilding from that is a difficult situation and this blog has been my journey through that.  I have a long way to go still.

When you are dealing with someone with an abuser with low self esteem and an addictive personality, they may become addicted to abusing you.  It may be what they do to make them feel better about themselves.  It may start off slow and then increase as their “tolerance” increases and they need more and more to feel better.  They are dealing with issues in their own world and directing it out at you.  Frequently they will assume that others think badly of them, that they were never the smart one or the pretty one and that everyone perceives tem as that.  There is frequently a lot of jealousy in relationships and they will act out by trying to control your behavior.  Frequently they will also never feel satisfied with their achievements.  They will always want more because it is never enough.  They may also live in fear of change and uncertainty.  They may make decisions that allow them to feel “safe” so that they can maintain that bubble of security.  Their abusive behavior may increase if they don’t feel that they have that.  There is also an almost paranoid behavior that they can exhibit where they will exert their will over you to quell their feelings.  The attempts to control you socially for example.

People with low self-esteem tend to see everything in black and white. Things are either right or wrong. This type of thinking is problematic, because there are so many grey areas in life. Such a rigid way of thinking leads to ignorance, intolerance and feelings of unhappiness.  The abuser will attempt to mold your behaviors into their mode of thinking.

Frequently (in my experience) the Abuser will associate themselves with those and get involved in the lives of those that they feel are lesser than they are.  This gives them a sense of power and control. Their relationships will be one where they always feel better or more accomplished than the other person.  When faced with someone who is more accomplished than themselves, it makes them doubt themselves even more.  It makes the relationship difficult and strained.  In the case of the abuser, they may redouble their efforts to control you.  They are much happier with someone who is lesser, who they can control and always feel better than.  I have seen many friendships fall apart because the abuser no longer feels better than the friend because they friend is now achieving on their own.

Unfortunately this never addresses the underlying issue.  When dealing with the addict, or the abuser you have to take yourself out of the equation.  You have to be in a situation where they can no longer hurt you.  This is not always easy but they have to sink or swim of their own accord.  If they are not self aware, they will simply find a place where their behavior is approved of.

I also want to point out that everyone in an abusive relationship seems to have some kind of addiction.  The abuser and the abused are both involved.  So, what’s my addiction?

That will have to wait until next time.

Exploring the Theory

Self esteem is one of the more difficult things that we need to deal with in recovery from abuse.  You get told something enough and you start to believe it.  The problem is that you still believe it even though the abuser is no longer present.  I think that self esteem is probably at the heart of the matter for the situation I was in.  it was not only the end result, but the cause. Please bear in mind that this is only a theory.

When developing any theory, you need to find a solution that fits the facts.  The main issue is that sometimes you want to bend the facts to fit the theory.  When you love someone, all too frequently you want to come up with reasons why it was not their fault so that maybe you can see them the way that you want to.

Not everyone cares about the reasons why.  Some of us survivors really are never interested in the reasoning why our abuser did the things that they did, they are just glad to be out of it.  Unfortunately I am one of those people who is always looking for answers.

Say for instance that you were with someone who whenever you were with them only talked about drinking. They spent most of their time in your presence looking up recipes on the internet for different drinks, and communicated almost exclusively through facebook with like minded individuals.  All your conversations were about drinking and the bar.  Weekends were spent traveling to the local bar and frequently others where they knew their bar friends were going to be.  Your schedules for the next few months were designed around them going to the bar.  They seem to like going to the bar and drinking because they are happy there.  They get to forget about their actual life and be at that place where “everybody knows your name”. it seems harmless at first, but then you notice that the bar trips and the time spent there seems to be more important than spending time with you.  You would like to talk about things other than the bar and drinking.  You notice that going to the bar is more important than spending time with family and if the family wants to spend time with them, they have to go to the bar.  There may even be situations where you are being resented because you are not about the bar or drinking all the time, that you want to do other things but the bar and drinking feeds them, it boosts them up because as long as they are there and can buy rounds, they are loved.   It reaches a point where the bar and drinking become more important than almost anything else.  They make decisions where that becomes the most important thing.  They decide that instead of being there to help you recover from your surgery, they need to be in the bar. They decide that instead of going to a funeral with you, they need to be at the bar.

Anyone who saw this in this context would probably say “I think that person might have a drinking problem”.  It’s because the behavior of the alcoholic can be destructive to themselves and those around them.  Frequently this becomes a part of self medication.  If you have low self esteem, you tend to self medicate.  How did I do it?  I sacrificed myself repeatedly for someone else because if thought if they were happy, then I was doing a good job and I felt good about myself.  The problem was that I didn’t realize that I was dealing with someone with a worse problem.

I am going to be exploring this connection over the next few days and see where things go.  I am going to try hard to be honest with myself and try not to fit the facts to the theory.  I am still having some issues and not sleeping very well.  I notice that I have some anger and frustration towards her still.  When she said that the situation was “horrible” in us having to divide the last of our stuff, it upset me.  I felt like someone had walked up to their spouse, poured gasoline on them and then tossed on a match. As they are burning writhing in pain, they say that the situation is “just horrible”.  My anger is that I kind of feel that if your poured the gasoline and set me on fire I am really unable to focus on your feelings at that particular moment.  I refuse to feel bad about this.  I really don’t think that I can really, once you are dealing with a situation that you caused, it’s kind of on you and I really don’t think that you have the right to state that it’s “horrible”.  Just my opinion there.  Feel free to form your own.

My self esteem is getting better though because I no longer feel that they are right in their behavior. I feel that I am better than that.  I am actively participating in my live and I am actually better for it.   I do backslide occasionally and I do have my issues. I get overwhelmed occasionally and really am at a loss at times.  I am still trying though.  I am still pushing to recover from this in the healthiest way possible.  I am determined to get through this and do better. I am determined to be better.  I am determined to never let this happen again.

I am a better person.

I am still hurt,

I am still in pain

I am recovering.

I am healing.

 

More Loss

Recently I went through another loss.   My favorite uncle passed away and his passing is definitely leaving a hole.  I find myself feeling more lonely than usual.  I find myself missing A (or at least who she once was) a little bit more.  I am aware as to how this loss is affecting me as I have experienced loss before and can see and understand the signs.

So, I have been writing for about 8 months   about the process of recovering from loss as well as developing skills to overcome the mental and emotional trauma that you can go through with that type of loss.  With My uncle passing away, I think that  many of the skills that I have learned are also going to be useful.  I always admired him and I have to say that he has been a very influential person in my life.   What I need to remember is that even though this is a loss, the lessons that he taught me over the years are still there.  He will live on in me by never forgetting the good times that we shared together.

Loss is not the end.  It is just part of our lives.

And Another Thing…..

I frequently get some responses on my site about my feelings towards parenting and am told “well you aren’t a parent so you really don’t know what it’s all about.”  I understand that and sure, I know that my experience is different.  I came across a comedian who was being heckled by an audience member who took offense to him stating that it was “Harder to order a pizza than it was to make a child”.  When he was asked if he had any kids (he said no) he was told that he couldn’t possibly know anything about kids then.  His response was as follows:

“Here’s the thing- you can’t just say “well you haven’t had any kids so you don’t know anything about kids”….I’ve never flown a helicopter.  If I saw one in a tree, I could still be like …”Dude fucked up”.  Not supposed to be up there.  That’s pilot error.  I get what you are saying, but when something is fundamentally wrong, you can just tell.”

Just to make his point, he asked the heckler if they were a sports fan. They were and he asked them if they ever got upset or mad if their favorite team lost.  He followed this with

“Well, have you ever played professional football?  So what the FUCK do you know about football then?”

The comedian was Steve Hofstetter and I thank him for his succinct example.

The Last Test

So far things have been going ok. I got an email from A last week about some of the last of her stuff.  What she is asking for is very reasonable and I don’t see an issue there.  I have not been sleeping well since then and wake up every couple of hours.  Apparently I have been having bad dreams.  Though the dreams are difference, there is a theme of loss and change in them.   I realize that this is our last connection and I have to say that it is difficult.

The key to this (or so I keep telling myself) is that I need to remove this from my life so that there is room for something more.    The idea is that you do need to make room in your life so that the universe can fill it.  It’s not an easy thing at all because she was such a huge focus in my life. I did everything for her and my every action took her into account at all times.  Just so you know, it turns out that this is not really healthy.  You do need to learn to be a little selfish and not live your life for someone else.

I have spent the past months learning about myself and discovering not only what I have been through, but the extent of the damage.  It was pretty extensive.  I would also like to point out that she is not the cause of it all.  I have plenty of previous experiences that contributed to it.

The really sad thing is that what we needed to do was focus on us as a couple and individually.  She was unwilling to do that and her needs and drives always came first to her and ultimately to me.   In order to work on us, she would have to give up her fantasy life and deal with herself and me.  Dealing with yourself is not always an easy thing. It’s why I have been talking about being honest with yourself and others.  Be aware of the things that you are responsible for and the things that you are not.  I know that she was abusive, but I also let it happen.  I didn’t have to but I did.  I can guarantee that it will never happen again.

If you have been through an abusive relationship you have to be very careful in the future.  Negative situations can be comfortable for you and you can easily slip back into bad patterns.  You really need the time to heal and make yourself stronger.

I have done the work, I have come far and this is the last test.  Letting go of the past is the last step in the recovery.  A friend of mine posted that grief is that last gift that you have to give to the one that you love and that the depth of the grief shows the depth of the love.

Am I ready to let go?  I don’t know, but I do know that I am and it will simply be an act of faith.  Sometimes you just have to make the leap.

It’s terrifying, but it’s worth it.

What do We Leave Behind?

I wrote a post a while ago about kids and divorce and how it seems to be affecting them.  I have since taken those postings down because I was put into a situation where I feared for the physical safety of myself and those I cared about.    I know that I take a very hard line when it comes to kids and parent’s responsibilities.

I was adopted.  For some this seems to mean that you have a sense of loss and abandonment.  Nothing could be further from the truth in my case.  My parents went through a ton of paperwork and jumped through a lot of hoops.  The end result was me.  My parents wanted me more than anything.   I always felt that throughout all my life.

When I got married I really wanted to have kids, but I soon realized that my wife was not really mom material.  I didn’t think that she could handle it because of how abusive she was.  Over the years, it became worse and kids got further off the table. I just could not put a young child through that.  I wanted my kids to be raised with love, not terror and fear.

When I met A, her son was 5.  I was scared because I had lots of parenting theories, but never actually been a parent.   Fortunately, his dad is a fantastic father.  I was hoping that maybe my dream of having kids of my own was going to happen.  It didn’t.  I think that it’s because she had already done that and given up part of her life for that.  She was not willing to do it again.  As much as that upset me, it was ok because he was really amazing.

I guess I can never understand why you would go through all the trouble of bring a life into this world and not want to be a participant in their life.  As difficult as something is, as hard of a situation as things are, it is an amazing miracle to see them grow and become adults.  I want to be there through everything, the good times and the bad, to help them with struggles, to teach them the things I have learned and to maybe help them avoid the mistakes I made.

I can’t imagine under what circumstances I would ever abandon those brought into this world.  It happens though.  I know that some people are in a bad place.  I understand that things are not always great.  I get that sometimes that some people need to be selfish and make it all about them and are willing to leave behind the greatest gift they can ever be given.

I just could never do it.  I take commitment very seriously and for me, bringing a life into this world comes with some responsibility.  They are not a tax credit or an increase in welfare, they are our future.  Children are what we leave behind and I hope that someday they will tell stories to their children about all the adventures they had and the things that they learned growing up.  I hope I get that chance some day.  Why would I ever become a non parent?  Perhaps I decided that self importance is the number one thing.  Maybe I think that my personal goals are more important than my responsibilities.

I just can’t do that and it upsets me when I see it in others.   I know I can’t change things for all those out there with absentee fathers and mothers but maybe I can make a difference in those around me.

Those kids need us and we need them, they are our legacy.

How do you want to be remembered?