Two weeks away from a year of NC

[chalkfarm]

I havn't posted since last October although I read regularly. I quit posting when I felt some posters were too aggressive, some expected to slap me with "reality" which I wasn't ready for, some were simply mean (those posts were removed).

 

So what has happened within this year?

 

Havn't slept a single night without "assistance". This started with all of dad's cancer pain meds and has dwindled down to prescription sleeping pills. Terrified about these running out in a month.

 

Didn't eat for 3 months. Prompting a near 10 pound weight loss - not good when I weighed only about 103....

 

At 3 months, I couldn't stop crying. I started one day and it simply wouldn't stop. Gut wrenching , heaving, sobbing, sick-to-my stomach crying.

 

This prompted a now weekly visit with a shrink.

 

 

On Oct 2nd, I saw a missed call on cell from xMM. Did not return call but I felt uplifted. When Nov 1st rolled by and I didn't find another missed call, another round of extreme sadness and a new relationship with anti-depressants was born. No, I have not changed my number....... perhaps that would guarantee that I won't look for missed/blocked calls anymore. Yes, one year later and I still wonder if he will call.

 

My art classes started up again in the Fall but I couldn't and can't produce. HUGE fear of failure.... just another heart breaking thing.....

 

Spring classes. Same story.

 

Now, its 2 weeks away from 1 year of NC. Today I feel like dying. It was all supposed to get better but here I am - a middle age loser, no friends, no lovers, alone. He's out there rebuilding his marriage, using what he learned with me on her, and my shrink thinks we should "terminate" because I don't know what to talk about with him that isn't the same-old, same-old.

 

I don't really know what to do anymore. I hate to admit this but XMM was the first guy who was interested in me in 8 years. That's a LONG time. He was the first and ONLY man who thought I was sexy and fun and smart and interesting. Maybe he didn't really think it but he said it.

 

Before xMM, I looked at the years of being alone and I thought I was sort-of "brewing". Brewing and getting close to be being "perfect enough" for a guy to love me. When I was with xMM I was the "perfect" me. I really liked who I was! And I wasn't a stranger to myself. I was the "me" I am with the people I love who I know will not reject me when I am silly or kooky or lusty. But I still wasn't good enough. All the great stuff I had been brewing was completely NOT GOOD ENOUGH.

 

So I guess after a year I've learned that I don't deserve a relationship. Which isn't that big a deal since I never had one to begin with. I can't live my life like this. Ten years? Fifteen? Pointless.

[whichwayisup]

Find another therapist ASAP. This one is not helping you at all. Fact that after this much time you have such low self confidence and feel undeserving of love and another (BETTER) relationship, just shows how incompetent your currrent therpist is! FIRE HER/HIM and please, go look for someone new to help you cope better.

 

If you want to get over him, you will. With a lot of hard work, tears and all, you WILL work through this and come out a stronger woman who won't ever settle for table scraps!

[Crazy chick1]

I havn't posted since last October although I read regularly. I quit posting when I felt some posters were too aggressive, some expected to slap me with "reality" which I wasn't ready for, some were simply mean (those posts were removed).

 

So what has happened within this year?

 

Havn't slept a single night without "assistance". This started with all of dad's cancer pain meds and has dwindled down to prescription sleeping pills. Terrified about these running out in a month.

 

Didn't eat for 3 months. Prompting a near 10 pound weight loss - not good when I weighed only about 103....

 

At 3 months, I couldn't stop crying. I started one day and it simply wouldn't stop. Gut wrenching , heaving, sobbing, sick-to-my stomach crying.

 

This prompted a now weekly visit with a shrink.

 

 

On Oct 2nd, I saw a missed call on cell from xMM. Did not return call but I felt uplifted. When Nov 1st rolled by and I didn't find another missed call, another round of extreme sadness and a new relationship with anti-depressants was born. No, I have not changed my number....... perhaps that would guarantee that I won't look for missed/blocked calls anymore. Yes, one year later and I still wonder if he will call.

 

My art classes started up again in the Fall but I couldn't and can't produce. HUGE fear of failure.... just another heart breaking thing.....

 

Spring classes. Same story.

 

Now, its 2 weeks away from 1 year of NC. Today I feel like dying. It was all supposed to get better but here I am - a middle age loser, no friends, no lovers, alone. He's out there rebuilding his marriage, using what he learned with me on her, and my shrink thinks we should "terminate" because I don't know what to talk about with him that isn't the same-old, same-old.

 

I don't really know what to do anymore. I hate to admit this but XMM was the first guy who was interested in me in 8 years. That's a LONG time. He was the first and ONLY man who thought I was sexy and fun and smart and interesting. Maybe he didn't really think it but he said it.

 

Before xMM, I looked at the years of being alone and I thought I was sort-of "brewing". Brewing and getting close to be being "perfect enough" for a guy to love me. When I was with xMM I was the "perfect" me. I really liked who I was! And I wasn't a stranger to myself. I was the "me" I am with the people I love who I know will not reject me when I am silly or kooky or lusty. But I still wasn't good enough. All the great stuff I had been brewing was completely NOT GOOD ENOUGH.

 

So I guess after a year I've learned that I don't deserve a relationship. Which isn't that big a deal since I never had one to begin with. I can't live my life like this. Ten years? Fifteen? Pointless.

 

Your story is heartbreaking but you should realise how strong you are to have resisted the temptation to return the missed call. To maintain NC for a whole year is brilliant, never underestimate it & take heart from it. Well done, I wish I had your inner strength.

[Gentlegirl]

YOu have done amazingly well with one year NC,

 

I agree that some people here can get a bit didactic and others can judge, thinking they "know" your particular circumstances.

 

Even so, the majoirty of posters here are very kind .

 

It seems that your therapist has not managed to get you past the feelings of worthlessness that you have. It never hurts to seek a second opinion if you can.

 

Weel done,

 

Gentlegirl

[chalkfarm]

The year of NC is nothing to pat me on the back for. During the A I didn't call, text or email so I didn't have to break a habit. Not hard work on my part.

 

After a year I do understand why people want to slap another with "reality". But I get that after a year! At the beginning, I would have defended xMM to my dying breath. The meanies out there could not have forced me to see anything any more than than they can force anyone else. It is all discovery or dawning realizations or anger.

 

As for self-worth, obviously there has never really been any or I would have had relationships before xMM. The A was validation for worthlessness. I get it.

[Crazy chick1]

The year of NC is nothing to pat me on the back for. During the A I didn't call, text or email so I didn't have to break a habit. Not hard work on my part.

 

After a year I do understand why people want to slap another with "reality". But I get that after a year! At the beginning, I would have defended xMM to my dying breath. The meanies out there could not have forced me to see anything any more than than they can force anyone else. It is all discovery or dawning realizations or anger.

 

As for self-worth, obviously there has never really been any or I would have had relationships before xMM. The A was validation for worthlessness. I get it.

 

How did you contact him then if you never called, texted or emailed?

[chalkfarm]

I didn't. He called.

[MissBee]

Find another therapist ASAP. This one is not helping you at all. Fact that after this much time you have such low self confidence and feel undeserving of love and another (BETTER) relationship, just shows how incompetent your currrent therpist is! FIRE HER/HIM and please, go look for someone new to help you cope better.

 

If you want to get over him, you will. With a lot of hard work, tears and all, you WILL work through this and come out a stronger woman who won't ever settle for table scraps!

 

I agree....

 

You have a lot of stuff that you need to work out and if you have not improved then something is wrong and this therapist is wasting your money. Also, therapists aren't God, you have to have a true desire to move forward and have a happy life. Once there is life there is hope and SO many people go through tragic things and albeit hard, they recover and have full lives. You are no exception and can definitely be a "success story" as well.

 

My heart goes out to you and I think maybe you should even seek spiritual assistance and a therapist who in corporates that type of healing work into his/her practice...it works WONDERS! You're a valuable human being and your feelings of worthlessness are SO FLAWED! I don't know what happened in your life for you to feel this way, but you're not alone and you are wrong.

 

I think you should do something nice for yourself (makeover, massage, nice restaurant) and then set about the business of finding another therapist and jumpstarting your new life. Join a group, join some activity and start getting out there and seeing the beauty in yourself and life that has nothing to do with men and other people validating you. Then one day when you're at a better place I am sure all other things you want, like a relationship, will come to you.

[chalkfarm]

Although, as part of the GF that I always wanted to be I would send him short but sweet snail mail love letters...... I know that is so teenager-ish but....

[TurboGirl]

Find another therapist ASAP. This one is not helping you at all. Fact that after this much time you have such low self confidence and feel undeserving of love and another (BETTER) relationship, just shows how incompetent your currrent therpist is! FIRE HER/HIM and please, go look for someone new to help you cope better.

 

If you want to get over him, you will. With a lot of hard work, tears and all, you WILL work through this and come out a stronger woman who won't ever settle for table scraps!

 

Agreed... and yes please please fire that therapist and find another one ASAP. As far as healing - it takes what it TAKES to help you feel better, and a competent therapist will help guide you through it and not want to "terminate" when you are stuck.

 

You are not worthless! NO NO NO! There will be better times ahead, you have been so amazing and so strong this year, and with the help of a good therapist you will realize that.

 

Please hang in there. It will get better.

[chalkfarm]

Things are better than they were a year ago. No doubt. I don't cry all the time. I can actually read pages in a book instead of holding it up, eyes scanning the page, but thinking of xMM. I can watch a movie that isn't just about killing men. That is better.

 

I think the 1 year date is making the days hard right now. Also, I am trying to wean off of the anti-depressants as I fear I won't really deal with life as I should with the pills in my system. Also the meds put a complete stop on all orgasms. That's just a great feeling when you're suffering from the break-up feelings (female emasculation - is there a word for it?).

[chalkfarm]

I agree....

Then one day when you're at a better place I am sure all other things you want, like a relationship, will come to you.

 

This is a fallacy that I bought into - don't want it and it will come. I spent the years before xMM not really wanting it, fine with myself, but with a single drop of hope that I could be "perfect enough" for that great relationship. XMM comes along, crushes my spirit, and whisks that hope away. Life goes back to normal, back to baseline but without that drop of hope. So now what? That's where the vision of life extending out in a potentially long stretch seems impossible.

[MissBee]

This is a fallacy that I bought into - don't want it and it will come. I spent the years before xMM not really wanting it, fine with myself, but with a single drop of hope that I could be "perfect enough" for that great relationship. XMM comes along, crushes my spirit, and whisks that hope away. Life goes back to normal, back to baseline but without that drop of hope. So now what? That's where the vision of life extending out in a potentially long stretch seems impossible.

 

"Don't want it and it will come" is indeed a fallacy...what is true and what I think such statements are trying to convey is that being desperate for things 1. Stem from a place of need that has NOTHING to do with the thing itself and 2. Allow them to not happen or to happen in such a way that they are destructive.

 

Which to me is what indeed played out.

 

Many women and people in general suffer from varying degrees of lack: lack of love, lack of self love, lack of direction, lack of models for healthy relationships and self esteem, feeling that someone else can love them more than they can themselves, believing some person or thing "out there" is what they need to be complete and they are a bottomless pit of need....going from pillow to post trying to fill a void that no external thing can fill. All that "want" is futile as it doesn't address the root of the problem. As what they truly want or think they want is not something that anyone else can give, that's like putting a pencil on your head and crossing all the continents searching in caves, seas, rocks and mountains for it. All that hard work, won't help as it is on your head!

 

When one gets to a place of fullness within the self and true joy and happiness in the life they've created and TRULY love themselves and feel they deserve the best. They TRULY do not sit around wishing for love and they radiate joy, happiness and abundance attracting more of that to themselves. They believe that they deserve love and are actually expectant that it will come and even if it doesn't come in the form of someone else they feel so great that it doesn't matter...THAT is what usually allows for it to happen and that person can take it or leave it. They're not grabbing for it like a drowning man grabbing at straws.

 

When one acts from a place of need and when one views life so negatively, one is essentially a bucket with a hole; all the water in the world won't fill it and conversely one attracts more negative situations that reflect their mental and emotional state and their beliefs about themselves.

 

This is very true and I have seen it and your negative beliefs and feelings and the negative things that result are also empirical evidence of such.

 

One cannot just "think and so it is", one has to truly believe and transform their inner landscape. When that happens external things change as well! Simply saying or pretending you don't want something of course does nothing....it's not about not wanting, it is about not being desperate and acting and living life from a place of lack.

 

It's like the idea of the rich getting richer...those who are rich ALREADY know how to make and keep money. They therefore are not desperate and constantly worried about money (generally) and therefore their beliefs and actions make it that much easier for more money to continue to roll in. Those on the other hand trying to win the lotto all their life, who worry about finances constantly and hope and pray to "get lucky" almost always still remain poor as they are coming from a place of lack, desperation and dire need. They don't hold positive attitudes and have ingrained beliefs about money that are negative. Even when by luck some do end up winning, they lose ALL the money and end up at square one or worst because their negative attitudes, beliefs and actions about money didn't change.

Edited June 5, 2011 by MissBee

[butterflycardinal]

I could so feel your pain and, as you can see from other posts, want you to know that people do understand and have felt the kind of pain you are going through. I agree with the advice of others regarding your therapist. Obviously, s/he hasn't found the thing that works for you and giving up because it is becoming repetitive just shows a lack of creativity and compassion on the part of the therapist. You do deserve a tremendous pat on the back. Simply because he typically contacted you doesn't mean you could not have called him or followed him or whatever out of desparation as others have done. You stood your ground. You accepted it and you have made progress as you yourself admit in subsequent posts. I am sure the anniversary is making it all the more difficult. I am still in mine even though I moved across the country to try to end it. I wonder when I will get the courage to make it on my own as you have done for a whole year now. I cry every holiday. I mourn the passing of time (or what I feel is wasting my time). I agree with the previous post about how we operate from a place of lacking. We look at ourselves as have nots instead of haves. You have great strength and courage. And artistic?? (whether you feel it now or not) I am so jealous. I wish I had just one artistic bone in my body. You have the power within you, sweetie, to create something beautiful. I believe with your depth of emotion, you also have that same depth in artistic expression. It will come to you -- just you wait. I hope you always find a compassionate ear when you need one.

[chalkfarm]

When one gets to a place of fullness within the self and true joy and happiness in the life they've created and TRULY love themselves and feel they deserve the best. They TRULY do not sit around wishing for love and they radiate joy, happiness and abundance attracting more of that to themselves. They believe that they deserve love and are actually expectant that it will come and even if it doesn't come in the form of someone else they feel so great that it doesn't matter...THAT is what usually allows for it to happen and that person can take it or leave it. They're not grabbing for it like a drowning man grabbing at straws.

 

 

One cannot just "think and so it is", one has to truly believe and transform their inner landscape. When that happens external things change as well! Simply saying or pretending you don't want something of course does nothing....it's not about not wanting, it is about not being desperate and acting and living life from a place of lack.

 

 

I don't know how to address this post. It looks a lot that "perfection" I can't achieve.

 

I don't know how I could ever be this person. One can tell me it takes "a lot of hard work" but what does that mean? What? What do I work at? I understand that I don't get into any more "bad" relationships. Not a problem! I don't take crap from anyone? I don't ever see anyone else to take crap from. I make an effort to take care of myself? I eat, I sleep, I work for a great boss (me)....

 

 

How do you simply "believe"?

 

As for desperation, I have never felt desperate for anything until xMM hit the road. Then I was left floundering and furious.

 

My answer then and now is simply to retreat and return to my isolation.

[MissBee]

I don't know how to address this post. It looks a lot that "perfection" I can't achieve.

 

I don't know how I could ever be this person. One can tell me it takes "a lot of hard work" but what does that mean? What? What do I work at? I understand that I don't get into any more "bad" relationships. Not a problem! I don't take crap from anyone? I don't ever see anyone else to take crap from. I make an effort to take care of myself? I eat, I sleep, I work for a great boss (me)....

 

 

How do you simply "believe"?

 

As for desperation, I have never felt desperate for anything until xMM hit the road. Then I was left floundering and furious.

 

My answer then and now is simply to retreat and return to my isolation.

 

It's not about being perfect, I am not perfect but I understand some fundamental concepts and have come a long way in understanding myself and why things happen to me and realize underlying beliefs and motivations that result in them and that understanding helps me to change my mentality.

 

It's always a work in progress and you don't get up and charge to the finish line in one spurt...in fact, there is no finish line.

 

You have so much that you still need to tease out of your psyche and in understanding yourself...I can tell...and I would suggest you continue in that pursuit.

 

For me: I am a spiritual person and that is what has helped. I ask for Divine/Universal assistance and set the intention that I want to become a person who is happy and healthy emotionally, psychologically, physically etc. It started with 1 string of negative events that lead to me asking WHY? and not wanting that anymore, instead of feeling sorry for myself and deciding "Ohh well....life sucks...I suck...let me throw the towel in" I decided, if a wonderful life is to be had, well I am going to have it! As a natural researcher it lead me on a journey of self discovery....I did lots of reading, self-help, forums, and just opening my mind to new ways of seeing myself and seeing how much CHOICE I actually had and not that I was some victim being blown about by the currents of life.

 

My spiritual beliefs and experience show me that everything happens for a reason and that we have unlimited power available for us to change. It's not some overnight change but once I expressed that desire...things slowly changed and it's been 2 years and counting since I have become transformed and self-aware and in the past couple months I've had ANOTHER epiphany that further pushed me along! I can compare my thoughts, beliefs and actions from even a few months ago to now and know I am growing because I deal with things so much better, I bounce back quickly and my life is overall one of CONTENTMENT even though I have my troubles, as everyone does. I meditate, I pray, I have daily goals and long term goals, I surround myself with people who I admire and who I feel can TEACH me.

 

 

All you listed about working for yourself and treating yourself "well" are fine and dandy but not enough.,..evidently. You don't treat yourself well in fact by the views you hold about yourself and just your negative attitude. I see a cloud over you and a torrential downpour of negativity, I see you laying in a tub in that torrential downpour, forlorn and with the tub filling and the water overflowing and you could care less. That's the feelings and image that comes to me when I read your posts....I feel like you want to get up out of the tub but your body is so heavy and you can't be bothered. I don't feel like all hope is lost though, I feel like a vivacious woman is beneath it all who can emerge.

 

 

That's what I can tell you. I'm not going to say things are easy or "just believe" but I can tell you that transforming one's life is not impossible and also you have to have that desire. If you're resigned no therapist or anyone can help. I really think that you aren't a lost cause or else you probably wouldn't even be reaching out here and I REALLY suggest you at least try a therapist with a spiritual focus and see how that works for you.

Edited June 5, 2011 by MissBee