What is wrong with me? The final solution

I haven't written here since my birthday and thought I would see if I have anything to say. First I am great probably the best I have ever been. My life as you know has been a search to figure out how to do better and most of all to feel better.

I give recent credit for healing to my therapist and to EMDR. I have handled life by bracing my self for something awful or swimming through treacherous waters, I have felt like an alien visiting here watching other people just move through life not thinking too much and not worrying too much.

I took a trip to see my family earlier this month and is actually felt good. Everyone older and wiser including me. On the way I listen to a book "What happened to you?". It summed up where I have been and where I am now.

The author is a trauma specialist and said something that spoke to me. She said instead of saying "whats wrong with me?" say "what happened to me?".  I have said the first for as long as I remember even now if I feel sad or just not interested in life I say "whats wrong with you?"

My work with EMDR has brought forward some significant events to the surface. Things that I have known about intellectually for a long time. What happened to me early in my life and the guilt I have for even thinking about it after so many years.  

I have written about those here hoping I could just let them go by putting them on the page. I have let those painful experiences go so many times but not really. The book talks about trauma in the body mostly early trauma and how it stays with children forever. 

The EMDR has helped me experience these painful times as an adult. Going back to the moment in mind as an adult and walking through my feelings until they dissipate. When I have my next session I can hardly remember what was addressed before. 

There isn't anything wrong with me I just had some things happen to me that made me think I was a problem and a real burden to everyone around me. I was regularly punished for being who I was and asking too many questions all in the name of love.

 I lost my family after my mother died and I found the best way to be loved is to earn it by doing things people wanted done and doing them perfectly. I learned to anticipate their every need.  As an adult when I had a crisis and couldn't fulfill my previous roll I was left.

I thought this was my fault that I was flawed in some way and didn't deserve love. I am free from that thought now and have moved through the events that created this belief. I have forgiven the child that I have been trying to solve the problem of me. 

This blog saved me and gave me a place to tell my story with honesty and freedom. I want to let you know to never give up on finding a way to feel better. Finding a way to knowing there is nothing wrong with you.  Finding peace with the past and loving yourself when it feels impossible. 

Summer starts right now - Making the best of this moment

I have been busy the weather here doesn't seem to know that we have a pandemic.  I can hear my next door neighbors kids jumping on there newly installed trampoline.  It is nice to hear them laughing and playing a distraction from the grown up world.  The three of them have been home schooled and are use to be all together all the time.  Something I am sure other parents and kids are having a hard time with.

My neighbor on the other side hung off her porch yesterday while I was finishing up cleaning my porch and replacing one of my steps that was rotten.  It just so happened that I found an extra step in my basement that was exactly the right size. A few years ago I have some rotten wood replaced before I had my house painted.  I think they meant to change out this step but missed it.

I like being handy it has served me well all my life. I didn't really tackle serious projects until I was divorced at thirty.  I didn't have any money and I had a house to take care of so I started learning from books how to fix things. That was before YouTube.  I found I really liked doing most of the stuff. The secret to fixing things is really patience and hopefully the right tools. Back then I never had the right tools and this made me crazy.

When I am working on a project I always think of my daddy he could fix anything and he was the most patient man on the planet. When I was little I would hand him tools while he laid under the our car. I remember he loved car manuals and would spend hours locked in the bathroom reading them.  My mother would beat on the door demanding that he come out. I think he loved the process of figuring out how things are done more than actually do them.  I am actually like that too.  Once I solve the problem I lose interest pretty quickly this is why my job is perfect for me.

Being analytical can trip you up when you are dealing with the real world and other people. People are not logical and life is pretty random and can't be explained. I have spent most of my life trying to fix the unfix-able.  First it was the other person and then it was myself.  I finally realized that this is not possible. All I could do is practice acceptance of what is and find ways everyday to be peaceful and happy. 

This seems impossible especially right now when we are dealing with being told to do nothing but stay home. Our minds are built to keep searching for a solution that doesn't exist unless you are a scientist creating a vaccine.

There is no simple answer except to just pretend that you have been given a vacation from your normal routine and anything is possible. Your mind listens to your thoughts and if you think you are suffering than your body will act accordingly.  This is bad for you physically and of course emotionally.  Saying "I hate this" just adds fuel to the fire.

If you were a kid and your mother said "summer starts right now" you would be thrilled beyond reason even if she said you couldn't go outside.  Your mind would be wild with ideas.  You wouldn't think it was punishment to abandon your routine and be free.

If you aren't sick life is good. If you have a home filled with things and people you love life is good. It is hard to just put the fear aside and move on but not impossible.  It starts with limiting the amount of news being consumed everyday.  I watch it once a day and that is all I need.  It was funny yesterday I saw a 15 minute segment that had pictures and clips from stories aired over the last few weeks. No real new news.  I do check the numbers and as testing goes up the more cases are reported.

I can't let my mind lose it'self in fear.  I have to have the discipline to stop the negative banter in my head. Just like the serenity prayer says "accept the things I cannot change and the courage to change the things I can"  I can't do anything about the pandemic but I can control the negative thoughts in my mind. 

I watch movies to distract my mind from trying to solve this unsolvable puzzle. Again your mind doesn't know the difference between fantasy and reality so it is better to keep the selection light.
Starz has "The Holiday" which I really love a total fantasy for sure but fun.  Giving my mind a break even for only a couple of hours is healthy right now.

We can't control the future so we have to work with what is right in front of us and make the best of it. Fear paralyzes us in to thinking "it will always be this way" but it won't.  Life will go on and we will adapt to whatever comes our way.

Be safe and know that you have control over your own thoughts and most of us have everything we need in this moment.

Changes - Do I make them or let life do that for me?

Through out my life I have let life make decisions for me.  My fear of change stalled me out until what I feared the most came upon me. I spent a lot of time paralysed not wanting to make a move for fear that things would change and I would lose the stability I cherished. In the end the __it hit the fan I was left behind to rebuild my life.

Every time I was shocked and bewildered and each time I had less and less energy to start again.  I think it was because I thought it was possible to keep change from happening. In the old days I thought my expert ability to control every situation would give me the upper hand and at the very least I would be prepared when change came a knocking.

I also thought I was alone in cycle (self absorption).  I can see now that this has been a real problem. I thought there was something wrong with me that caused these things to happen to me and therefore I could just make the necessary changes and that would guarantee it wouldn't happen again.

When it happen again and again I ran out of ways to improve myself and believed at the core of me that I was flawed in some big way. I had adhered to every self-help program or idea and it was still happening. I was the best person I could be and that was not enough for the people that left me.

I used these relationships to prove that I was lovable and when they ended it proved that I wasn't.

I believe now that the reason for experiencing the loss over and over was to show me that the love I have for myself is reflected by the people in this world. When your in a relationship and it isn't working the person that loves themselves more gets out first. We call them selfish and we get to play the victim.  I love that part.

How brutal is that? Wow that really hurts to even write that. I am not saying that you can't have two people equally vested in a relationship that can work out their differences long term. I think in my case looking back they were both terrible communicators  looking for a quick solutions that required little or no work or communication.  I was also a terrible communicator.

If  I could have been honest with myself and admitted just how miserable I was then I might have been the one to address the problems but instead I stayed really busy.  This kept me from admitting I felt trapped and bored but too afraid to lose the stability that being in  relationship gave me.

I think I have gotten off track here.  I really wanted to focus on accepting change not closing your eyes to what is staring you in the face and being proactive.  Deciding how things can be different and making changes that you want instead of waiting for life to force you to make the change.

Right now I am looking at my life with some objectivity.  I am seeing that in loving myself I want to make some changes. What do I really want for my future and how am I going to get there?  I don't want it to feel too forced I just want to make every decision based on that picture of the future and I know what that looks like now.  All will be revealed in future post.

Unlikely ally - Reasoning things out

Things are moving forward in a strange way at work. The owner seems to have washed his hands of the day to day managing responsibilities. He decided to teach me today how to deposit checks or rather his way to deposit checks. He offered to go with me to introduce me the tellers. I said I could manage on my own.

I sat in the parking lot at the bank and thought about the position I have suddenly found myself in and felt a little put upon. Nothing is in writing and I think he is just seeing freedom from responsibility. Denial is the name of the game so I am not sure what to do at this point so I am in the wait and see mode.

I feel like I don't really know where to go for support or advice. My soon to be partner is not looking at this except from a purely business perspective and I get that but it is a little more complicated. We need to make money now. So I called my sister, she is a lawyer in another state.

We have had a kind of casual distant relationship over the years. She left for college when my Dad remarried and didn't really go through the same stuff I went through. She was four years older and we had a different experience. She didn't really want to believe the stuff I told her was happening. Denial is the name of the game here too.

She wanted to be close to my dad after her kids were born and I understood that but I felt left out. I chose to stay away and avoid any further damage to my self esteem. I wasn't part of the family. It is all old news now and over the past few years we have both made amends to each other in our own way. We are now getting to know each other again now that my her kids are grown and my dad is gone.

She called me tonight and we talked through a couple of solutions and I actually feel much better. We are so much a like it is really weird our thought processes are the same and our views on the personality dynamics. We have the same work ethic and the same weaknesses. We both try to do too much and think of the other person first. We want to do what is fair for everyone. We can thank my mom for that my sister and I would have to divide everything equally or we were in big trouble.

It is nice to finally have an adult relationship with my sister. I have grown up and don't see things with my inner child's eyes any more and I have stopped trying to get someone to do take responsibility for my pain. I understand now that everyone is trying to survive and to do that you sometimes hurt the people you love.

It is good to have someone in my corner that I can trust even if it is a lawyer. It has been a long day and I am glad it is over. I am happy to have more information and the side benefit of a deeper relationship with my sister.

Men on the Roof - Pay now or pay later

It is noisy today I am getting a new chimney because I have a leak. I hate spending money, I don't have, on something I will never see. I could ignore the a problem but it will catch up with me in the end.

I have done a lot of that in the past and this very thing came up in my writing yesterday. I was home doing chores and decided to do a little writing while having lunch on the porch. I am analytical to the bone and my writing strayed to why my relationships ended after so many years together, more 4th step work.

I was thinking that when a relationship last long enough that eventually something significant will happen that shakes the foundation of the relationship. The assigned roles change and it is whether both partners are committed enough and can adapt to the change that the relationship can survive.

In the case the first relationship it did not survive me losing my job. It was before the program and my identity was tied up in my job first and then my relationship. I went in to deep depression and ended up losing both. We were young and my husband couldn't cope without me not controlling every part of our lives. He retreated to alcohol and ultimately to another woman. I was too wrapped up in my own pain to see what was happening.

By the time I got into the next relationship I had 3 years of Al-Anon under my belt and felt more balanced and then I lost my job (I now work for myself). I decided to change careers and went back to school. We had worked together and this was a big part of our relationship with my career change I was no longer a part of the corporate world. We drifted and when my in-laws moved to town we spent less and less time alone together. In the end we were strangers on my worse days I blame myself sometimes for not seeing this until it was too late.

I say all this because it helped me to see what was missing in those relationships and why not facing a situation head on is a pattern for me. I realize first that you can't be both sides of a relationship and you can't know what will happen to change the course of a relationship. So I am looking for a communicator that is committed to at least talking about problems. It is easier to just pretend it is not happening but in the end it is no less painful.

So just like the leaky chimney I could have waited and had it patched, but sooner or later I would have to address the problem and it would only get worse. So I opted to take care of it now so I can stay dry.