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Post by unbreakable on Sept 5, 2006 7:31:28 GMT -5
HER
Oh just forget it. I don't even have a clue why I'm engaging in this exchange.
ME
Eileen, I wish I'd done things differently every day. I miss you so much. I'm sorry
I'm getting pathetic now. I wish I had the words for her, but I clearly dont. This time, words fail me. Maybe I can't properly express my regret at my behavior and what it did to the life I had.
Another From Her
No. I'm being a dick. I'm sorry. You did lavish me and that bit I valued very much. xx
And now I want to cry. She was the closest I've ever been to someone.
TRIGGERS AHEAD
There's another thread on this board at the moment about whether there's a difference between orgasm masturbatin and making love and I knew that difference. I remember being so connected with her, that corny phrases like 'two becoming one' made sense to me. Lying naked in her arms I felt like I had met my soulmate, like nothing could ever take her away from me. And there I did it. I took her for granted and I let it not occur to me how much I was cheating on that when I waited up late at nights to wwatch porn on my computer or when I objectified every woman around me, even when like she says she was on my arm next to me.
I thought I had it all and I could even take a little bit more if I wanted. My ego back then disgusts me. I was exactly the type of man I hate. And I would tell myself I was a good man, because it's not like I was sleeping with other women, but the truth is I was worse; because I knew what I had, I had tasted perfection and I still let my arrogance take over.
We were a wonderful couple, I dont know if I'll get that chance to connect so completely with someone again. I dont know if I deserve it either (please dont take that sentence as an opportunity to reassure me, I DONT WANT IT).
Maybe sometimes I do let myself forget how badly I hurt her and I shouldn't be allowed.
Now excuse me while I go and buy chocolate and crap. I was so happy last night, I didn't even get to talk about that...
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Post by unbreakable on Sept 5, 2006 9:41:46 GMT -5
It's ok, I did some things for myself.
Went ou, brought some health food for the week, some cleaning products to tidy up my home, etc.
My cats being especially nice to me as well, although I think he just wants me for my cat food.
I drank alcohol last night. A pint of lager and two glasses of red wine with a girl I went out with. I was quite merry afterwards, but I still dislike the 'next day' side to alcohol.
I'm not sure how I feel about having drunk really, I would have thought longer about it had I not had the drama that I did this morning. Maybe I wont think too hard about it for once, see how that works. I was comfortable, I had fun and nothing bad came of it really, so no big deal, right?
.......................................................................................................................
My company runs management training programmes for Doctors moving into management, to provide them with the skills they need to be an effective leader. We run a yearly subscription course wherein people are assessed at the beginning and end of the year against a set of standards we created (skills necessary to be an effective medical manager, or just manager in general I guess). After the initial assessment they are paired with a tutor and in some cases a coach whom they meet with regularly to assess the progress they're making in areas where they are trying to improve/ develop skills (things like communication, managing people, managing yourself etc...).
The tutors are more involved in the assessment procedure. They specifically assess the position each person is currently in (and the level of skill they currently have set against our standards) and the position they would like to be in (in regards to how they want to be effective and often in terms of advancing their career.
The coaches operate on a slightly more personal level. Using an assessment tool called Firo B (sort of like pyschometric testing) they assess the way in which you approach things and help you to understand better yourself. The idea is that you will be able to understand your reactions to things and why and how you a liable to respond to certain situations and then tailor that to make yourself a more effective decision maker.
Wow, that took longer than I thought. Anyway the point of that was this...I join the course on Thursday. Partly so I can monitor the services we provide, but mostly because I should get a lot out of it personally. I should be able to achieve the same results our clients do.
But, I find myself terrified of the coaching aspect. I completed the Firo B questionnaire the other day and the questions were all things like, Do you try to avoid being alone, Do you like people to invite you to do things, Do you try to control the way in which other people approach things, and you had to answer with like, Usually, Sometimes, Rarely, Never etc.
I'm scared the coach is going to take one look at my test results and say, you need to see a doctor, or something like that. Crazy, huh? Well, I'm totally freaking out about it. I've never had this kind of conversation with anyone, and I'm just scared about how intense it could get, given my penchant for self analysis.
.......................................................................................................................
And just to completely throw a curveball, a friend of mine recently sent me some information about VSO, which is kinda the UKs version of The Peace Corps.
I'm seriously considering it. It would be good to give something back.
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Post by justmehere on Sept 5, 2006 9:50:22 GMT -5
Eileen lives in the world of black and white. Life is not lived in black and white. I'm sure it's much easier on her to paint you the villian, but it's never that simple. She owned nothing in that exchange. Was she 100% whole in that relationship? Always grounded? Never mean? Never treated you wrong? Never overreacted?
You've owned your stuff with her repeatedly. Too much.
She's taken this fact and made it black and white.
Next, I'd like you to journal the dysfunctions she brought to the relationship. Ways she treated you poorly. Talk about unforgiveness, anger, resentments, unwarranted jealousy, lack of affection, care, time or intimacy. Talk it all out.
This is not to make you bitter with her, but to bring balance to your memories. And if you two do talk again... have your own boundaries with her. Do not allow a conversation like the above, where you are solely to blame for the hurt. You really need boundaries with her.
Something like, "Eileen, I believe I have truly recognized that I hurt you. I have apologized repeatedly. I have meant those apologies in the core of my being. I know I am on a journey of growth to make sure I do not wound someone else in the same ways, HOWEVER, you were not blameless in the whole mess. You have no responsibility for my dysfunctions, but I do not believe you are recognizing your own. I do not accept full responsibility for the ending of our relationship. I would appreciate it if you would begin by accepting that you do owe me money and I hope you have the integrity to realize that bitterness towards me does not mean you lose your own responsibility for your obligations."
Even send it in an email, but stop taking full responsibility. She's now the one who is using misdirection to avoid her responsibility. It's not a good place for her. If she continues, she will lose her ability to be interdependent with someone. Her bitterness will stifle her ability to be intimate in the future. Her lack of ownership for her mistakes does not bode well for her.
Of course you can't make her own her mistakes, but you can stop allowing her to make it all your fault.
jmh
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Post by unbreakable on Sept 5, 2006 10:19:11 GMT -5
I couldn't say it like that.
Thank you, that touched me very deeply.
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Post by unbreakable on Sept 5, 2006 10:36:20 GMT -5
I don't know where to start.
I've never done this, I always take the blame, it just seems easier that way. But I will, because your words kind of set me free. I suddenly felt that I didn't have to shoulder all the blame.
Ok, she was violent. On more than one occasion she hurt me badly. Usually when she was drunk I think. My previous girlfriend had been too although less often. I always said if anyone did that to me again I would walk away but Eileen convinced me I deserved it. Or I convinced myself. One time she wwas screaming so loud at me that my mother came upstairs to see what was happening, I guess she saw a lot of blood on my face and scratches. It seemed to me like that was the only thing that made Eileen ashamed of it.
Early on in our relationship she virtually accused me of molesting a baby, a friend of ours kid. I carried him around a lot when we looked after him and I took him upstairs to play on our bed. Later that day she grilled me about what I had been doing. It broke my heart when I realised what she thought.
Those were her issues from an abusive childhood, but I couldn't fathom them being projected onto me.
When she was drunk and angry she would talk about the other guys she was going to (expletive) to show me how it felt to be betrayed. Usually she would focus on friends of mine or people she knew I had some insecurity about.
When she was drunk and angry (am I saying that a lot) she would throw abuse at me focusing on things I had told her I was insecure about, my weight, my bad dress sense, my psoriasis, whatever fit for her mood.
She dragged truths out of me then used them to beat me into submission. Plus, she told everyone she felt like telling. Her secrets I kept. Mine weren't sacred, she told her friends (all hate me now), my friends (and tried to turn them against me, often) and even my father.
She often talked about the millionaire ex boyfriend she had left to be with me and the lifestyle she had become accustomed to there. She never shied from letting me know that in that sense I was unsatisfactory. On her 30th birthday I brought her diamond earrings to try to prove I could give her anything he could. Later that day she told me she was considering going back to him. So matter of factly, like it was nothing. I always took comments like that quietly and without reaction and tried to talk to her about what was upsetting her and what we could do.
Jesus, I have to stop, this stuff is pouring out. I'll come back, and read what I've said, because I should, you're right. I should remember all this too.
I dont want to blame her though. I really dont want to, it just feels so alien to me.
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Post by justmehere on Sept 5, 2006 10:54:48 GMT -5
It's just about balance. I knew there had to be more. When I saw how one-sided your last talk with her was, and other things you'd written, I knew there was more. I knew she didn't just become bitter after the breakup or because of the porn. She's got her own demons and what's sad is that she isn't aware. That's incredibly sad.
So... it really does look like it took two to tango. At times she was verbally and physically abusive and there's no way under the sun we can attribute it all to your struggels with SA. Those demons were already in her. You may have woken them up from time to time, but they are not your responsibility.
The scary thing is that when you have a relationship that vaccilates between "intimacy" and chaos, you wind up with a very intense relationship that is hard to end, and even harder to emotionally detach from. Those kinds of relationships leave you off-balance, never knowing if today is going to be a "good" day or a "bad" day. Those relationships breed trauma bonding.
Lest that sound dramatic, ponder the fact that her actions were repeated betrayals. She tried to manipulate you with fear (that she would (expletive) some other guy, or leave you). She betrayed your innermost secrets by proclaiming them to others. She betrayed your need for relational safety by being violent.
She made you think that at least some of this was your fault.
But, what makes a trauma bond even more insidious is that the betrayals and the traumas are not consistently present. This intensifies the bond.
You wonder why battered wives stay? Well, now you know. Not to take away your masculinity, because trauma bonds can happen to anyone.
There's my psychology lesson for the day. I'd really recommend "The Betrayal Bond" by Carnes. It's not about SA. It is about dysfunctional relationships, what sets us up to be vulnerable to them, what keeps us in them and how to learn to protect ourselves in the future.
Best book I've read in years.
jmh
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Post by unbreakable on Sept 5, 2006 11:15:40 GMT -5
That speaks to me.
I would often wake up scared of which Eileen I would be with that day. And the difference between the two was so intense it was scary, really.
My masculinity is safe, dont worry. I know what you're getting at and I don't think you're wrong.
I knew what I was doing though, I guess I thought I was saying, I know who she is and what her faults her and I will love them as much as I love her good points. I always told her I just wanted her to be herself and that the downsides in her moods were what made her passionate.
I dont know anything else. Clare (my other girlfriend) was the same. Perhaps less violent, more sad in her moods, but I never knew which she would be one day or the next and when she 'woke up on the wrong side of the bed' I always felt it was my job to do everything I could to make her comfortable (that's the best word I can find, I mean, I didn't try to change their moods, just to allow them to be and support their feelings in any way that I could, you can't make someone happy). That was the payoff for the wonderful passionate loving people I got to share my life with, that I would support them when they couldn't be that person and never walk away from them because they couldn't keep that up every day.
Does that make sense?
People tell me that relationships dont have to be like that, but I really dont know any different. Some times I convince myself that that's just what it's like being in a relationship with me. That I drove these girls to this.
Eileen used to accuse me of trying to make her think she was crazy. She also said that I never critisced her for drinking or smoking pot after I'd quit because I liked her subdued like that (Ha! That's a laugh, she was never subdued). Like I was drugging her to keep her under my thumb or something. Wow, she blamed me for her addicitons!?!
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Post by unbreakable on Sept 5, 2006 12:03:56 GMT -5
More texts...
from her
Feeling genuinely bad about guilt tripping you. I do feel those things at times but I dont usually dwell like that. Cos I honestly dont remember our relationship negatively. I'm just a bit stressed.
my reply
Forget it. I understand. Let me know if there's anything I can do for you. I'd like to help, even if you just need someone to listen. Anytime. x
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Post by unbreakable on Sept 5, 2006 16:20:00 GMT -5
I wanted to end a day which I think has probably been tough on both of us by doing something nice for her. So I took a picture of our cat and emailed it to her, I know she misses him.
Goodnight, today this journal came through for me in a big way.
Justmehere, thankyou, you made a difference to someone today. :-)
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Post by unbreakable on Sept 6, 2006 12:35:31 GMT -5
I have a dilemma.
There is a book I want to read, it's subject matter is very sexual and in all likelihood quite explicit.
I want to read it because it's an exploration of a medium I love. It's a graphic novel/ comic book and I've been a fan for my whole life. The writer of this particular work is well known as a true craftsman of the form and he has spent his life creating comics which could legitimately be called literature and in some cases art.
In writing this specific book his aim was to explore erotica as an art form and I hear he has created something rather special. However I also hear it is quite erotic. Is there a difference between erotic art and pornography? Is that a distinction if it's there at all that I am able to make?
I dont think reading or looking at this book will lead me back into pornography, but I wonder if it is crossing my boundaries...
Some of what I read, POSSIBLY TRIGGERING The words of the writer...
"It presents this material in a way which is every bit as sensual and beautiful and at times, startling, as the actual sexual act itself can be. I think that was probably why we did it. The sexual imagination, which is the biggest part of sexuality, is not well served in our culture, and I really don't understand why that should be. The only way that we can talk about or refer to sex -- we have two choices: we can either do it in grubby works of pornography that will be read by people who are desperately ashamed of what they are reading, or we can discuss sex in the clinical manner of sex manuals or The Joy of Sex. Neither of these things have got anything that I, or probably most other normal people actually associate with our sexuality. I doubt that many of us are clinical about our sexuality, or wish to be sleazy about our sexuality either, but these seem to be the only two options where this material can even be discussed -- where the sexual imagination can even be talked about. That startling omission in culture was probably the biggest impetus behind the book -- we felt that there ought to be something like that."
I really dont know about this. Part of me is intrigued that someone I'm a huge fan of may have broken down another wall in allowing comics to be more than just the superhero fluff that most people see it as, part of me thinks I should be saying, this isn't for you.
*shrugs* It's not a big deal, just something that's confusing me a little.
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Post by unbreakable on Sept 6, 2006 16:36:03 GMT -5
so, it seems like I get a fair few reads. I welcome any comments at all. Even if it's only a hi.
Obviously JMH don't think I don't appreciate you, because I do.
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Post by unbreakable on Sept 7, 2006 10:48:43 GMT -5
So I had my 'coaching' session today.
I couldn't sleep last night worrying about it. I don't really know what i was worrying about either, but I was worried. maybe that someone would break me open and I would jus come pouring out.
It as very much, as I suspected a therapy session (although I guess there's at least an implication, that someone of my character would make it into that kind of session). I felt very ... full, afterwards, pieced back together in a way I guess, it's hard to explain, but it was a very cathartic experience. She delved quite deep into me and she was very easy to talk to, I found myself on the verge of crying for a long time and I'm sure it was noticeable.
We talked about my childhood and when I thought I'd gone from happy to sad. Interestingly we sort of settled on around ten, before high school, when I started to put on weight and went from being one of the popular cool kids to the fat kid. She asked me something I'd never thought of before which was whether something had triggered that. What happened just before I started putting on weight, could I remember? I can't. She said it might be hormonal, but that I may have buried something that caused it (It occurred to me when I thought about writing this up on here that I may well have discovered porn around that time, I can't really remember, but it seems about right, don't know whether there's any weight to that - no pun intended).
Then she pushed back further and we got to my father leaving when I was very young. I said that it had never really bothered me and that my sister was the one who had been really upset by it all. She pushed a little more about whether I saw my father much after he left. i told her we both went up there every other weekend, but that he clearly prioritised my sister when we were there often leaving me to make my own way. She asked me again whether I had been sad that he left and questioned whether I had just told myself I wasn't and I realised how sad I had been. It knocked me down.
We focused on my work life as well, she asked about other jobs I'd had and I described the horrible two years I had spent as manager of a computer shop and it being the most stressfull period of my life I could remember. She asked me why I had stayed in the job if it was so horrible and I realised that it was the only little bit of success I had to cling to and I desperately wanted not to be a failure.
We talked about being in my sisters shadow, her alwawys being the intellectual one in our family and me being the creative one and whether I actually felt that pigeonholing was correct.
She called me a 'sensitive' person and talked about her experience of that personality and various things I should be doing to support myself. She said my experience of the world is almost certainly an often very overwhelming one and that I needed to make sure I got plenty of sleep to make up for that. She also talked to me about reaching out to people when I needed to and knowing that I needed that when I did, not remaining isolated when it's too much. She asked me the next time the world is a little crushing if I would 'count chimneys'. This way I keep my head up physically and mentally.
It's all a bit of a blur really. It was a really wonderful experience. I'd like to go back. She asked me to come back, I'll have to see what my boss says, but I think they'll let me.
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Post by unbreakable on Sept 9, 2006 12:06:04 GMT -5
I think I'm pretty close to slipping.
I'm thinking about masturbating and I guess watching porn too.
Don't know where it came from, I'm on my own, but not really lonely. It's the weekend, so part of me feels like I should be doing something or be with people, but I'm quite happy on my own really.
I'm horny though. Back, not so long ago, I would have satisfied this urge a while ago and probably be in the process of some sort of binge by now.
I dont really know what to do. I just noticed, as well, that I've brought and eaten a fair bit of junk food, I guess in a way that pushes slipping back out of my mind, but the reality is it doesn't work so well.
I wonder if it's the feeling that I should be doing something with my weekend is what leads me to want to slip. Maybe I kind of turn it into, well if you're not doing anything and you're that much of a waste of space, why not add to it by doing the thing that will really prove your a waste of space.
Right now, all I'm doing is holding on, but my reasoning is thin. I'll check back here for responses all night I wouldn't doubt.
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Post by justmehere on Sept 9, 2006 12:57:31 GMT -5
Hey, like they say, play the tape to the end. Meaning think it all the way through. All the way to the shame part, the depression, the "I'll never be able to quit" thoughts.
Sometimes when we do that we can avert disaster. It's the addict who doesn't want you to think through the consequences to yourself. Don't let him win.
Read your journal. There's some good stuff in here.
Just know I'm thinking of you.
jmh
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Post by unbreakable on Sept 9, 2006 13:50:20 GMT -5
I hear you.
Trying to find company to distract me, but the only one I can find is a very couply couple who are out with the guys Mum and Dad on their wedding anniversary (BLECH!).
I'm not sure I can bring myself to read my journal even though I kinda know I should.
Thanks for dropping in, it does help.
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