Dear Anita,

The neurons/ neuropathways are adjusted to respond to catastrophe, not to a casual everyday living.

yes, wow this does resonate with me.  What comes to mind?

• my mother forcing me to throw my father a “surprise” 60th bday party, so she could gloat how much her daughter loves her
  • from there feeling extreme emotions (so many – anger, rage, guilt, feeling trapped) just to gloss over
• calling the police and feeling
  • like there is nothing left, either this woman is commited and I am free of her, or my life is in misery, no way out

I can think of a few more, countless more – but do you know what it’s really about?

It is about almost frying out these neurons! These experiences have caused such severe and extreme emotions that they have literally electrocuted my circuitry.  These pathways now respond only to this severe emotion – and not to casual everyday life…yes.

So then what? Over time they can readjust once we remove trauma and slowly learn to adapt to “normal”?

Dear Anita,

You ask:

Did I ever for my husband feel:

really close, a deep affection, not guilt and dry- appreciation, but a deep, close, guilt- free affection?

do you remember a month or 2 ago I asked you, if I am capable of love.  That if I myself am not capable of it, and am more like my mother.  You mentioned to me that you believe that I am looking for that softness that is lost, as I have gotten hardened.

So my answer to you is this:

Yes, I have felt a SEMBLANCE of this before when we first met – but (and it is so hard to explain) I have this strong feeling that I am not able to love truly deeply with everything.  Not because I am holding back on purpose, or that I don’t trust, or that he is not the right person for me (as I am 100 percent sure this would be with anyone) it is that like they say with depressed individuals, they are unable to have those deep feelings of love and joy.

It is like I am unable to.  So now, yes I have affection, but it isn’t the full depth of what I know I am capable of (or that a human is capable of) it is stunted if that makes sense.

Kind of like tasting an amazing cake but having half of your taste buds burnt off..

Dear Anita,

In all honesty, I can not recall exactly what scared me the most.  But if I truly think about it, I recall as being an older child (maybe after 6 vaguely) that I was fearful of loneliness.  My mother fed me all these things about being sad and lonely and how the world is so sad, and how other people get jealous of us.  So I recall feeling heavy about this – if it makes sense…?

Dear Anita,

I act this way to exert POWER over my husband.  Why do you think this is?

Sometimes it feels like I act like this because of my own internal angst, let’s even call it self hatred. What a term.  I have read a lot about how people who have gone through what I have, and dealt with such a terrible mother, we are filled with not just anger and hatred and self hatred.

I have thought about this – self hatred.  Do I hate myself? Well no, if I ask myself simply.  Of course not! I know people who hate themselves and their own lives – surely that is not me!

But I do believe it manifests in a different way – resentment.

How I felt about the WC plan, notice how all of my thoughts are external – why can’t I make it like others can (having not even tried) why do others who may not even be as capable find success? Why do I feel stuck in not being able to create something like this?

But then on the flip side feeling that I need time to heal and should not expect myself to jump start a business asap.

But that is not my first inclination.  My first inclination continues to be that I need to do more, and that I should do more, and that why am I not doing XYZ.  My first inclination tends to be anger at not being content with what I have and not having patience.  Yet, in my conscious calm mind, I know I am in a better place, I know I am healing, and I do find faith.

That brings me to my following point.  Faith – hope.  I do feel that I have lost these, in people, I notice I am hardened to the fact that people will disappoint me.  That they will not be helpful unless they need something, and that they by nature are selfish.  I do not walk around daily and thinking this about every single person – but I do notice this is quite strong in my mind.  I do not believe the world is a great place, and that overall people are good.  I do not.  I am hardened to myself, to the world, to my husband.

I notice moments of softness.  I do – and i do believe they are coming out more and more often.  But the baseline is still hard, and wound up, and perhaps full of hatred on some level.

Dear Anita,

great question.

This doctor is in a position of slight power over me. In the sense of that she is one of the owners of this center that has hired me. I is difficult to explain. It is not seniority or hierarchy per se but I am a new hire at her (many of their) center. Does this excuse her behavior. No. She is a known “diva” and I spoke to another colleague who has had a similar interaction with her. She is quick to get combative and escalate things and become aggressive.

So I didn’t stay perfectly quiet that Friday. The first half of the day I felt my frustration boiling up. She mentioned something passive agressive to me along the lines of “oh I prefer things to be like this” when I had been working perfectly fine all morning and was uncalled for her to comment. So I mentioned back “oh ok I believe I’ve been doing that all morning, but If you feel otherwise let me know.” To this she begins to show aggression – and says oh don’t take it personally.

I have met many individuals like this before. Ego oriented. Self gloating and narcissistic. There is no winning in a fight with them. I realize at that moment that she was in a position of slight power and that if I continued the conversation she would escalate it. She is someone that does not appear to have boundaries. I took the quiet route for the rest of the day not to appease her. But to not poke her dragon. Why? Because she sits on a board in which another board member (her colleague/superior who I met with last week) has a role in promoting me to another sort of position. Details about that later.

My idea to step back was out of diplomacy. Realizing her reputation and her quick combative defensive remarks at me – I see she is unreasonable and aggressive. I don’t need a conflict 2 weeks into a job that can be escalated and become a “thing” as she has a history of doing this. However – if she crosses the line professionally I will be swift in stating my “preferences.” She has them as a physician so – so do I. I am strong and capable. Just not going to right a monster unless it comes down to it.

Yes you’re right. When it comes to my husband I am not afraid of aggression. If I was to be honest this relationship would have never lasted. Someone domineering or aggressive may have walked away 2 years ago when the abuse was so had. When my parents were terrible to him and his parents. When I was a brainwashed demon. Yes you are right – fire comes out when I am not afraid of the other person’s aggression. Perhaps I’ve always been this way looking back to other boyfriend’s. Perhaps taking advantage of the ones who loved me and wouldn’t “fight” back and so using them as a punching board

Dear Anita,

Good morning, I hope you are well.  I had a relaxing and calm weekend.  No side effects from the medication, and feeling quite “normal.”

I re read your post, I do believe that in the times that I am feeling “unlike” myself I have to do a much better job of creating space.  I think that prior to tracking my cycles and gaining understanding of such, I felt all the emotions were so erratic (which of course they can be when I am triggered on any given day) but overall I have found a cyclical pattern to a few (3-5) bad days per month.  I talked to my husband extensively about this as well this weekend, he is well aware of course.  And I do believe that with realizing when I need to take a breather or simply space away whether it be physical or walking away from a conversation – it could be a saving grace.

Now the issue is having such foresight. Anger over takes, and does not see ahead of itself, it is sudden and erratic and full of rage – so that will be the difficulty, and one I am focused on in a few weeks when perhaps I begin to feel like this again.

Separating completely from one another is not an option, as yes, the moments that are bad (such as the example i showed you) are quite bad – and triggering – yet, my husband and I both believe that there is so much good – and that I am working in the right direction with my emotions and anger.

I spent a good amount of time thinking about being medicated this weekend.  Feeling at times glad that I took the step, and other times feeling that I don’t like the idea of my body becoming dependent on a substance (I even avoid daily coffee for this reason).  I realize that at the end of the day it comes down to what you said best – needing some assistance and respite so I can heal.  If I can not feel stable and normal, I can not heal.  I can not take steps forward, for myself, and even more important with my husband.

Dear Anita,

okay I will explain a recent outburst. I had come home from yoga. I opened the door and he was there and asked, “hey if you’re tired I can order some food.” (As in it’s getting late for us to make something so why don’t you shower and relax and I can order something for us to eat)

i don’t say much but am in the shower then. Feeling anger rise up in me. I feel this rage. I start thinking – “order!!!” I spent an hour yesterday cooking food so we would have leftovers!!! I feel angry. I feel annoyed. I get out of the shower.  And I start exclaiming something along the lines of. “Look in the fridge. I didn’t spend all this time yesterday cooking so we would have to order today!!” (As a background I try to eat healthy and avoid ordering out during the week – I feel really strong about that and feel guilty if I eat out too much during the week as I feeel I should be eating healthier and can make great stuff at home, totally self imposed, my husband is happy with either).

So I am exclaiming this all. He says to me “oh well when I looked in the fridge I didn’t see the leftovers, so I was just saying this to help out.” As you can see total irrational anger on my part.

I start saying how I am tired. And it’s so hard to do it all. Go to work come home try to be Active like do yoga and also eat healthy. I am pretty much having a conversation with myself. Angrily. My husband is calm and says well you don’t have to do all that. I am happy to order food. And if you want to work part time you can we have talked about it.

I say no it’s not that. And it’s not. I was just full of anger.  Not because I work too much. Not because I’m forced to cook.  Not because my husband is FORCING me to order out. No none of it is true.

So then the conversation goes downhill. I start getting angrier and somehow it leads to how I had to live in CT (where we were before this move nyc) because of him and take a bad job. I am saying terrible things. They are spewing out before my brain can grasp them. Almost expertly so like a prosecutor on the stand that expertly jabs and hits the other party below the belt.

We moved to CT because he had taken a job there. During this time is when I was at my worst when I began to speak to you. I blamed him for everything I had no idea my mother was the root. I would complain daily about moving there because my mother would brainwash me. I would complain daily about my job. I would blame him for living there and about everything.  I used to terrorize my husband when I was having issues with my.mom and blame him. Saying oh if we didn’t live here it would be different. (Entirely untrue Anita. In fact my job wasn’t bad at all. And I enjoyed my time in beautiful CT we got a dog and I loved the nature and beauty). Anyway. This was below the belt. I saw his face. After over a year of terrorizing him about this I had finally stopped and now again an old jab. Blaming him for my time in CT (which as above wasn’t bad at all). It was pushing someone’s buttons just to hurt them. Just to be mean Anita. Just to be nasty.

He gets angry (now he does after all the torture over the 2 years he gets angry, when I first met him he remained calm and Coloected always, but the interaction with my poor treatment of him and my mother has changed him). He gets angry and says he needs to go for a walk. Starts changing into warm clothes.

I IMMEDIATELY see what I have done. But see it in the sense of – “oh I screwed up” but not in the sense of why did I say that and where did it come from. Like an uncontrollable fire emitting dragon. Spitting out fire and then looking – oh the person got burnt. Oops….

so I apologize. But it’s empty. Why? Because I am saying nonsense just to be mean. I start explaining again (same thing always) that I can’t control what I said. That I didn’t mean it. It’s like I have fighting gloves on for no reason.

He starts explaining to me that all he was doing was trying to help. He knows how much I love yoga and wanted me to take a nice shower after and havedood ready (hence the ordering). But all I did was scream that I spent all this time cooking And how dare I propose that idea.

He felt quite wounded about me bringing up CT and saying. Because of you I had to live in that place and take that horrible job. Blaming him about something that I had done day in and day out for a year. He was wounded that after I saw how much that affected him I would bring it up again. And Anita – it was like fire. It just came up. An expert fighter. (If I got paid to Jab him with anger I would do well).

It’s hard to explain to you but I’ll try. This stuff really takes a lot out of him now. It’s not just a small fight. It’s like this. Someone was beaten down and tortured for so long. So now they don’t have anything left in their tank. Now there’s just nothing left.

He mentioned that. He said I just don’t have anything left. I convinced him to not go for the walk. We are some food. No one had an appetite. And he was quite defeated for the rest of the night. Interesting how I always get headaches when I get super stressed. He never does. But nowadays I see him have the effects of stress I always did. It’s like im turning him into me. Asuffering person. I am. But I cause it. And feel like I can’t control it. So here we are.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 10 months ago by Cali Chica.