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Arden

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Viewing 15 posts - 106 through 120 (of 150 total)
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  • Arden
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    He tried to support me every time, even when I didnā€™t need it. He is still trying to do so while he is under influence. Iā€™m not sure how will I be able to let go of this. I desperately need this support to stay alive.

    Arden
    Participant

    Well he cheated on me, he flirted with that girl and that girl came into our house knowing that I exist. I was at the office every single day so he managed to do this. He says that he was only trying to ā€˜feel somethingā€™. It didnā€™t work and I just tried to get some attention. He says that he was not sincere at all. Although he is on another medication and he was asleep the whole time. I sneaked into his phone after he slept just to send myself the number of the old psychologist of his, and then I snapped. I read everything and then woke him up. He couldnā€™t do anything much and tried to make me sleep as well, trying to delay the talk for later when he is not under influence of some medications.

     

    I honestly donā€™t know what to do, I feel sad about him and me. If I want him to move out, then Iā€™ll be feeling upset about him living in someplace worse, crashing at a sofa somewhere or smt like that. I will be missing him too much, I sometimes saw him like a caregiver to me, he behaved like this. But other than that, Iā€™ll be a complete wreck tomorrow at my shift since itā€™s way past my bedtime and he sleeps very well, I guess. Itā€™s because of the medications, though.

    I donā€™t know, I cannot even tell this to my friends. I donā€™t know what to do. I feel like I must look for some self-respect. My fears, abandonment issues are all freaking out and fighting with the self-respect. I even got a box Valentineā€™s Day gift for him today and planned this dinner thing in my head. I feel, Idk, burnt out. I feel empty, shocked, Iā€™ve been cheated on before. Several several times, but the thing is, I feel bad because he was able to care for her. I guess he just played her, so that might not be a real intimacy at all. I have absolutely no idea what to do at this point, I would chose to just stay in bed and sleep for days and not decide for a while. But I have to get up in 3 hours and try to make my eyes look better because of all the swelling crying will cause.

    Arden
    Participant

    Dear Anita,

    I’ve bought a CBT book with my boyfriend’s recommendation months ago. He didn’t read it as well but he knows about the author and he also knows CBT. However, since he didn’t read it, i didn’t read it as well. I read like 100 pages and then let it go. And the reason is that the book says simple things, so simple that one would stop and think ‘Is that the thing that would make me better? I doubt it.’. Since it’s really basic, i didn’t continue reading it. But even though it’s basic, I have hard time doing that basic stuff. So I will be start reading it again. Not just the book, though. I will be reading stuff about CBT as well.

    Thank you again. Usually what makes me feel worse is the first reaction to an event. When something happens and triggers my fear, the first reaction I can give is some kind of shock and anxiety within me. It’s like the anxiety starts from the center of my chest and then it expands. And I keep feeding it, expands more and more. I have to learn not to feed it. And also I have to learn how to handle it and prevent it.

    Arden
    Participant

    Yet another perspective you’ve made me see, dissociating. Thank you anita, I am not sure what I need to work on as a step now. I might try to read more, observe more and I can try to understand how I won’t die if I would get abandoned again. Thank you for the wise answers.

    Arden
    Participant

    Also, I have to say I’m surprised by your conclusions. It’s mesmerizing.

    Arden
    Participant

    That makes sense.

    However, ‘for fear that something will happen to them’ does not apply to me. I feel like this is a very selfish fear. I don’t think something bad will happen to them. I only care about if they will abandon me or not. That’s what this kinds of situations makes me think.

    I’ve posted about this but separation actually makes me depressed. I guess that’s the word for it. I just don’t want to do anything at all and get upset about why and how I was abandoned. I get so dramatic in my head that I cry for hours and hours. I remember spending some days just crying. I don’t know if all of those were sincere. Maybe I like to victimize myself in my head. I’m not sure.

    Arden
    Participant

    I don’t know what I’ll do. I don’t feel the strength to do anything. I don’t want to come here and complain about stuff and don’t do the things you suggest me to do. He feels guilty, he doesn’t know what to do. He just wants to support me and do whatever I want. All I can want is to finish work today, go home, lay in bed and cry. He waited till I was asleep yesterday. It cost him a lot of time, but I realized something. I recall not being able to sleep in the past. My mom used to try to put me to sleep, wait till I seem asleep and then go mind her business, either smoking and thinking at the balcony or doing whatever she was doing. And this was a never ending cycle. Her thinking that Iā€™m finally asleep, going to the kitchen to smoke cigarettes and then I suddenly wake up and realize sheā€™s not there. So I immediately think that sheā€™s left again. After I find her at the kitchen, I try to express my worries and she tries to put me to sleep again. And this repeats n repeats. I knew I had some sort of problem about being abandoned by it’s more clear now. And in every relationship I had, both romantic or not, I have never felt safe. After the tiniest amount of emptiness, I’ve always thought ‘there you go’. People tend to need that break in the kitchen or balcony, but I couldn’t understand that.

    Although, with him, I was able to feel safe. He achieved that, I don’t know why. He is very sincere about his communication, that’s why he expresses every thought. Even the flirting stuff he wanted, he told me and wanted to be honest. Maybe I would be better if he lied. But he has seen somebody yesterday. I told him (before) that ‘I cannot say you not to do something, but this is how I feel about it, and it makes me feel bad.’ So he thought he needed to do that, try that. And gave me chances to say ‘don’t do it’. But I didn’t. So he tried, talked her like a friend. But the flirting part was insincere, he says. He pushed himself to do one thing that contradicted with me and didn’t want to feel like he was not doing anything for himself. He wanted to feel selfish, I guess. But now, he regrets. And I regret that I didn’t say ‘don’t do it’. He says that even I were to forgive him, he won’t be able to do that. But he wants to try, try to be happy with me again. It has been one of the hardest days of 2020. It has been a really hard year. I feel weak, too weak to plan something. I can only try to continue stay alive.

    Arden
    Participant

    I will think about this for a day at least. Thank you Anita, for your wise words.

    Arden
    Participant

    He is now considering having an affair or flirting with another person just to stay alive. I cannot say anything since I have not much to offer. But I feel like, we were in this together. I was in pain with him as well. I have tried while he was trying. So this feels unfair. He wants to be by my side but he also needs stuff to try to feel alive. He is sure that he still loves me. But considers all the stuff I did with my exboyfriends (such as camping, going to different cities, smoking, drinking) as ‘living’. And he thinks that he didn’t do any of those in the past, so he feels left-alone. Although I know that’s totally an illusion, because we’ve spent our first ‘together’ week abroad, having more fun than any other ex. But then again, months after being home, I studied for masters’ exams and applied for lots of jobs and had online meetings while he was waiting for his next semester at school. So besides trying to understand my situation, since I’ve got reasons to feel stressed, he also wanted to go camping, travel, holidays etc. But I couldn’t make plans either because of the pandemic and because I wanted to find a job or draw a path to a masters or any future plans for that matter. So he got annoyed and upset about that. And now, I’m in a full-time job, therefore, I can only offer him late-night plans and my Sundays.

    When I say that knowing him seeing other people would hurt me, he doesn’t want to hurt me. Although, he doesn’t want to lie to me either. So, I don’t know what’s going to happen. I realize now that I am still really dependant. Nothing has changed.

     

    Arden
    Participant

    It all makes sense, you make excellent observations. I’m appalled. I will try to learn how I can create empathy towards myself. But I have to tell you about a recent thing we’ve experienced. You know I get scared of losing this boyfriend and he is scared as well. But the other day, he wanted to end things. He wanted that because he realized what he started to become and didn’t like it. He doesn’t like the fact that he’s harming me, himself, physical objects as well. He doesn’t want the blame that comes with those behaviors. So he wanted to make it stop. Although, he wanted to still be by my side to help me, in order not to abandon me. Then I cried a lot, I was starting to feel that we could be separate for a while and that might feel good for a change. But that hit hard. I basically felt like a little kid. Even if he says that he won’t abandon, stay as a good friend, that’s not enough for me to stay calm/okay. I was abandoned before, several times, both by parents and partners. I thought I would get used to be alone or be stronger by time. But I don’t feel like it. So, after work, he made that talk and I cried a lot. He couldn’t help himself so he was there with me. However, he changed his mind on that night. The other day, was like any other day. I’m starting to feel like he’s only changing his mind because he doesn’t want me to feel bad. He might be postponing or he could have changed his mind, really. I’ve asked that a lot by the way, I’ve told him this doubt of me. He doesn’t agree. That’s all.

    I remember a post that I shared here, saying that I don’t ever feel like doing anything if I don’t feel loved. I don’t remember focusing on school ever, during middle school. I feel like that was the reason why. I remember just one day that I felt okay to actually listen and focus on classes. Other than that, I was distracted, didn’t feel like doing anything. That was the case everytime I was abandoned again. And I don’t feel like I would be able to handle that state if that happens again. Maybe a delusion, but feels right to me. Never seen the opposite.

    • This reply was modified 3 years, 11 months ago by Arden.
    Arden
    Participant

    My thoughts: I think that you and him share #1, 3 and 5: you both fear abandonment, you both feel empty, and you both donā€™t have a strong sense of identity. Also, neither one of you has a history of healthy intimate relationships.

    Yes, I agree with that. I am only a bit more succesfull than him to make myself distract with work and social media, so I seem to be in a better condition than him. But you’re totally right.

    1. Regarding BPD you/ he can look up Emotional Regulation Skillsā€“ there are online resources as well as books, maybe workbooks as well. Key for a person who cannot regulate his emotions is to learn and practice these skills over a long period of time. It can be done successfully.

    I’ll read about it and I’ll try to send him notes, quotes and effect him in general. We have two different books about depression in general, but since he read too much in the past, he doesn’t believe that they would work. So he doesn’t read them. Although, I’ve started but didn’t keep going so we’re both to blame. I learned that this only gets better when one practice every day and every moment. There is going to be some relapses of course, but we have to resist them and keep practising. Your observations sound so true to me.

    Arden
    Participant

    ā€“ I didnā€™t understand what you meant by ā€œcannot take it anymoreā€ and ā€œbroke it offā€. Can you explain these to me?

    So my mother got a divorce after a 15 years of marriage. I meant that divorce actually, and before they got divorced, my mom was really distant. My father is a very narcissistic person, so he was treating her in a way that would prevent her from seeing her family and after losing her dad (my mom), she got depressed for like a year. She says that, I’ve stopped being in that relationship years ago when I understood that nothing is going to change. And when she had the chance, she got divorced and lost her mother as well. I can understand her but the things I’m living are nothing to her, when compared. But then again, it’s not easy, I know. All in all, this is my kind of hard.

    One more thing, you wrote that your friend sent you a link to Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), suggesting that your boyfriend suffers from this disorder. Can you tell me about his most disturbing behaviors that fit the BPD diagnosis?

    Actually, we’ve had a conversation about this. And he mentioned ‘Borderline’, then I’ve asked if he was diagnosed or since when he was thinking about this specific personality disorder. He replied, ‘for a while.’, turns out, as I guessed, doctors didn’t mention this but he was able to read and make connections between the symptoms and all. Sorry for the recent post, it was not accepted in the first place, so I didn’t have the chance to delete all those HTML codes that makes the reading a lot harder.

    I am now going to read the last message you’ve posted carefully.

     

    Arden
    Participant

    So if you have the time, I would like to share the things look like him in the Borderline Personality Disorder.

    • You feel very worried about people abandoning you, and would do anything to stop that happening.
    • You have very intense emotions that last from a few hours to a few days and can change quickly (for example, from feeling very happy and confident to suddenly feeling low and sad).

    Even though I don’t see him going from sad to happy often, I can observe how a single word can change his mood enormously.

    • You don’t have a strong sense of who you are, and it can change significantly depending on who you’re with.

    He has complained about this in the past. He doesn’t know what he wants, then he questions that so much that he decides he just doesn’t want to be exist. I mean, I don’t know what I want as well. But dwelling on that indecisiveness can make you suffer. Maybe he is suffering because he questions that so much. I am not sure.

    • You find it very hard to make and keep stable relationships.

    This is questionable though. It is not stable at all but it is long-term. His former relationships are mostly long-term as well. 3 relationships, 2 of them lasting between 1.5-5 years.

    • You feel empty a lot of the time.
    • You act impulsively and do things that could harm you (such as binge eating, using drugs or driving dangerously).

    Very much, indeed.

    Very much, indeed.

    • You have very intense feelings of anger, which are really difficult to control.
    • When very stressed, you may also experience paranoia or dissociation.

    However, these got stronger or happened after a doctor prescribed him tranquilizers and SSRI. I feel resentment towards that doctor because she decided she cannot work with him after giving all those medications for 2-3 months. She just told them that and let him alone with those meds.

    Arden
    Participant

    I don’t know if there is any OCD diagnosis for him in the past but for now, I guess the doctors didn’t said anything about that. I don’t really question him on diagnoses or medications.Ā  I feel like he don’t want to talk about them so much, so I just don’t ask very much. This can also be about my apathy as well. I don’t consider myself as that apathic but sometimes, I can be. I can behave like my mother. She used to/still gets away from the problems, she did that in the past. She stopped trying when she understood that somethings cannot be solved. So she ignored them to the point where she cannot take it anymore and then broke it off. Maybe I’m like that.

    He uses SSRI, Efexor, Ritalin, Ativan though. I don’t intervene his medication use, I don’t want him to feel like a person who cannot be trusted to take his meds. Although, even if I did, I wouldn’t be someone more trustworthy than him. I’m a confused person generally, I would forget. Also, a friend of ours sent me a link to Borderline Personality Disorder and suggested that it looked like him. After reading the Wikipedia page, I had to agree with him. However, I read the page secretly, and didn’t mention my boyfriend about it. He would feel very bad if I did, I’m sure if it looks like it, and if it’s something related, he knows it. So there’s that.

    • This reply was modified 3 years, 12 months ago by Arden.
    Arden
    Participant

    Merry Christmas to you as well! I hope you have a very happy new year. So I see your point and I’m no longer focused on the ego thing. About the sleep issue, because of work schedule, I had to sleep everyday. Therefore, I had to maintain a sleep schedule and it’s not bad. I sometimes have issues falling asleep but I’m trying to find my ways. I guess I need that 8 hours everyday. It seems a lot, but I have to perform my best at this trial period. So I’m willing to make that sacrifice to be able to be my best self during the work hours. And it’s almost the same with my boyfriend. He is still looking for new ways to get therapy, I’m trying to help him. But he doesn’t have me at the home during the day. I’m only there during a couple hours in the evening and then we sleep. I feel like he doesn’t like this idea but he respects my wishes and my work. He knew that I liked working and he also liked this side of me as well. So he is trying to adjust. Also, I can see clearly that I have a limited power towards him, I cannot do more. I’m trying so we’ll see. He is talking about visiting his parents maybe a month later, so that distance might make us feel better. For now, he distracts himself sometimes and gets better. But in a few days, he starts thinking about the same things, like what I have done with my exes and not with him, and this thought loops makes him angry, broken-hearted.

Viewing 15 posts - 106 through 120 (of 150 total)