It Just Is.

I’ve reached a point where I just can’t fight anymore. With anyone in my head or against anything. I don’t have the strength for that anymore. It’s also just a waste of time.

Decided that I need to let go of a friend who keeps hurting me and did something behind my back that felt like a huge slap in the face. I held on to that relationship because I’m so damn desperate for connection that I was willing to put up with her behaviour toward me and some other people in my life. I can’t do that anymore. I won’t.

I seem to have regressed to my childhood and adolescent ways of coping. Daydreaming and being content in my own world. I can control everything that happens there. And I’m actually okay with that. It feels like a good thing. It’s comfortable and warm being there. Familiar. It got me through rough times, so while some might think it’s not healthy, to me it is. I’ve realized that I’m better off by myself, and will just keep doing what I need to. Let the world go on around me. That’s how life works after all. We go with the flow. If someone wants to meet up for coffee or whatever, I’ll obviously go along with it. But no more reaching out myself. It’s been pointless 99% of the time after all.

Not sure when I’ll see my therapist again because of the maternity leave. But I’m okay with that now. I’ve also decided to not see the interim therapist again. Need a therapy break anyway. Managed fine without it for most of my life, so at the moment therapy feels kind of pointless. Don’t want to run the risk of forming an attachment with the interim therapist as well. Attachment is too complicated and painful.

Probably going to start packing today for yet another move on Thursday. Will be moving into a much cheaper place. I’m usually super anxious with moving, but been numb since yesterday afternoon when it seems I finally settled into this state of not really caring. It’s a comfortable numbness.

So I’m okay.

Thanks to all of you who read and comment on my posts. 🙂

It Didn’t Work: Attachment Styles

Over the past couple of years of learning about boundaries, I’ve learned that I can choose who and what I allow in my life. It’s been a liberating lesson, but also a difficult and sometimes heartbreaking one.

Since Elizabeth and I broke up a few months ago, I’ve often wondered whether a friendship would work between us. I tried to make it work. But two weeks ago, I realized that I just didn’t want to try anymore. It wasn’t working for me, and was only causing me frustration, anger, and pain. It’s been a learning curve, but I now know better what I just won’t stand for in any type of relationship anymore. I’m done letting people walk all over me, treat me like trash and a problem, and not respecting my boundaries. I unfortunately still have to put up with it in my home life until I can move out, but outside that environment I have more control.

I started reading a book a while ago “Attached: The Science of Adult Attachment“. I have an anxious attachment style (anxious/ambivalent more specifically), and almost instantly recognized Elizabeth in the Avoidant attachment style. Looking back, and armed with this new information, the signs had been there from the beginning, but they became far more obvious as our relationship progressed. When I realized all this, I felt a sense of relief. I’d been believing that the relationship not working out was almost entirely my fault, and due to my own issues. And Elizabeth seemed convinced that was the case as well. Being made out to be the “guilty” one was one of the reasons I decided I just can’t have her in my life anymore. I take responsibility for my part in the relationship not working, and I refuse to put up with someone unable to see her own faults and constantly pointing fingers at others. The point is, our attachment styles aren’t compatible. It just doesn’t work out well. I’ve now let go of all the guilt and self-criticism regarding the relationship. It doesn’t serve me and just keeps me stuck in a negative loop.

I learned a lot from this relationship, and now it’s time to let it go. To let her go. I have to do what’s best for me. Even if it hurts initially. And it hurts.

 

It’s Enough

I’m done reaching out. There’s really no point, and I see that clearly now. I’m done being certain people’s emotional punching bag. I’m done putting myself out there. At the end of the day, I’m alone. And that’s okay.

Protected: Not Going To Happen This Year Either

This content is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

Feeling The Grief

I’ve never liked that word. Grief. Even as I’m typing it out, I’m cringing inside.

But as a friend recently told me, words are just that. Words.

The morning after having written my post ‘Basking in the Sun‘, I woke up with this feeling of intense sadness. It’s followed me through the entire week, and I’m still feeling it.

Random spurts of crying accompanied it. Even at work, while focused on what I was doing, I was acutely aware of the aching inside me. And sometimes I couldn’t contain it any longer and the tears would just spill out. Obviously not wanting anyone else to see, I would go the bathroom, and let it just come. But only for a minute or two, and then I’d compose myself and walk out smiling, as though nothing had happened. I’m grateful that it’s not easy for people to tell that I’d been crying. It only becomes noticeable if I’d been crying for a long time.

Even while out with a good friend yesterday, I couldn’t get rid of this sadness. I was spending the day with her, her new boyfriend and his family. At one point I pulled her aside and told her that I was struggling emotionally. She gave me a big hug and told me that it’s okay to feel the way I am. That it’s normal. She was so caring and and supportive. I felt safe. I don’t usually tell friends or family that I’m struggling with something, but I’m slowly learning that it’s okay to be vulnerable with people closest to me. I’m glad I told her, because she helped me realize that it’s okay to feel these emotions and to deal with them.

The reason for my sadness is I’m missing someone that was a constant part of my life for years. I’m grieving for the life I had. It wasn’t the good life, but it’s familiar. I miss the place, the people, the person… Just everything. Now I’m in a new place, new environment, and nothing is familiar. I know I’m starting to build the life I want, that I’m slowly starting to find my feet, but I’m overwhelmed. I feel as though I shouldn’t hope too much, or allow myself to feel happy, because it will just come crashing down around me anyway. I feel like I don’t deserve to be happy and to have a happy life. That it’s just not meant for me. The day after having written the above mentioned post, I felt guilty. What right did I have to feel that good? What right do I have to feel good, when so many other people are suffering and in pain?

I haven’t really allowed myself to fully experience the loss of all I left behind. I thought I had. I thought I had let it go. But I haven’t really. Because most of the time I would just push it away or play it down when the thoughts and feelings would surface. I would tell myself that I’m fine. But I’m not fine.

I’m allowing myself to really sit with, and experience these emotions today. To sit with the sadness and grief. With the unbearable pain. With the thought that I made the biggest mistake of my life. That what if all we needed was this break? I’m sitting with the longing to go back to my old life. To the person who’s love was conditional, admitting that she took it away sometimes in order to punish me, but at least I had that love sometimes. I never felt safe when I was living that life. But that life feels safe now. Safer than where I am at this moment. But I know it’s just the grief talking. That if I go back, nothing would have changed. Maybe it would be different for a little while, better, but then what? So many ‘what if’s’ consume my mind, and I’m allowing myself to ask and answer those difficult questions.

It’s so hard and painful. And I’m so unsure about my future.

The Last Song I’m Wasting On You

I’ll always love you.

But right now I need to hate you.

The power I allowed you to have over me, I’ve taken it back.

No longer will you be able to tell me how to act. How to be. No longer will I be anxious when going out with people and have your disapproving looks tell me when I’m ‘out of place’. I may not be a social butterfly, but those who know me, love me the way I am and enjoy my company.

No longer will you be able tell me how to dress, buy me new clothes that you want me to wear, pick out my outfits and get upset if I don’t wear what you want. I may not have the best style, but it’s my own.

No longer will you be able to tell me how to spend my time, what to do with my life. What movies to watch. What music to listen to. I don’t have to like everything you like. I am my own person.

No longer will you be able to tell me how to feel. Or tell me that I don’t feel enough. That I bury my feelings. Yes, I did. I learned you can’t handle them. I may not be the most emotionally stable person, but I’m allowed to have my own feelings.

No longer will you be able to blame everything on me. Make me your scapegoat. I always stood up for you with my family, my friends, but you loved throwing me under the bus with your own family. I’m no angel, but I take responsibility for my part, for my own mistakes.

No longer will you be able to throw hurtful words, full of hatred, at me. Twist my words, make me believe I’m insane. I don’t have to accept or believe them anymore.

No longer will I need to tip toe around you, feeling the ice cold chill of your silent treatment. I deserve to have my voice heard and not be ashamed of it.

No longer will you be able to throw a tantrum in order to stop me from visiting my family and friends, making me “understand” that they don’t want to see me. That when they say they miss me, they’re just being nice. That only you love and care about me. Well, guess what honey? They warned me about you. They knew all along that it was you pulling me away from them. I may not have the perfect family or friends, but they’re still here.

You always said I was an extension of you… That that’s the way it works in a relationship. No. I’m me. I’m not an extension of anyone. I’m not an object to be controlled.

Thank you for showing me what I don’t want.

Yes… I’ll always love you. But now I need to learn to love myself.

This is the last letter I’ll ever write to you. There are too many other things on my mind… There’s no more space for you.

Goodbye.