Forum Replies Created
-
AuthorPosts
-
MichelleParticipantHey JHK,
Heading out now for rest of the day – so quick answer for now.
If she has read your messages and not replied, there is nothing to worry about. It just means it is time to stop sending her texts, no more today, no more until she does respond. She will eventually, when she is ready. A lot of people, myself included, do not reply until much later, often days. This is why you have trust in relationships, knowing they will get back to you when they are ready to do so.
So go do something else, talk to someone else. It simply means it is time to focus on anything but her. What you do not want to do is to worry about it, do not send her more texts in the hopes that the ‘right’ one will get a response – and you most defn do not want to send a text apologising for the previous texts or in any way asking why she hasn’t responded. This is space time!
This is absolutely the time to listen to what she has said and look after yourself, focus on yourself. No more contact with her until she initiates it. And no need to worry – this is normal for a friendship, very very normal, healthy.
June 20, 2019 at 11:52 pm in reply to: Trying to deal with anxiety and loss after relationship break up #300091MichelleParticipantMorning!
Ah Kkasxo, how far you have come….wonderful to hear it. Absolutely, by giving up trying to control the future bizarrely we free ourselves from so much unhelpful worrying/anxiety. Things are still scary, sad, awesome,wonderful and we cope and enjoy as they come. Just doing our best, choosing what feels right in our hearts, what fits with our values and our aims of who we want to be. Sometimes it’ll work how we want, sometimes not. But we always know we couldn’t have done it any differently, all part of us.
Shelby m’dear. You know what, I’m actually glad to hear you are a little mad at him. I think I wrote about my similar experience ( few pages back now…! ) after my split when that was exactly my mind-set, “I’ll show you what you are missing”! It became a goal I could really focus on, all be it for all the wrong reasons. I lost almost 2 stone and suddenly got a lot more attention from men, a great confidence booster , if a little weird. All entirely wrong reasons and not a long-term help but it did enough to kick me out of the hole I was in at that point to be able to think about what I really wanted. So I entirely get where you are coming from there.
Emergency surgery sounds scary for sure, totally understand why you are forever worried about it happening again, tough fear to have to live with – do they have any idea what triggered it at all? I suppose it’s not a great answer but the obvious one is that so long as you are doing everything you know of that helps prevent the pain, then you have done all you can. You will cope if it happens, you have before. And so the worrying doesn’t do anything to help prevent it, if anything the opposite – it’s amazing how much stress impacts on the body without knowing.
Ah yes, the joy of invites to cosy couple events, especially weddings. People who can’t imagine there’s anything more important to find out about you than are you settled down and married. Never failed to amaze me that, doesn’t happen to men so much for sure. Honestly, it’ll be a bit grim but ok. Take a good friend if you want, hire a stunning +1 for fun, talk about Oz like it’s going to happen. Kidding ( mostly… ) but you know what, it only feels bad because it’s what you are worried about and you don’t need the extra social pressure on you. People are well-meaning but yeah, not helpful. Smile and ignore, best you can. Make it your target to lose the weight for, a positive thing to turn up even more stunning than usual.
Ha, yeah – I spent a lot of time yesterday researching and starting to think about our next trip back over Asia after Christmas – so many amazing places to go see…defn boggle eyes by the time I put the laptop away! Don’t worry about if you will or won’t quit work yet, just keep investigating, seeing what excites you, thinking about what you could do if you wanted to. Where were you looking at, out of blatant travel curiosity??
MichelleParticipantAnd no, I don’t think you are paranoid as such – just very over-anxious, especially about losing your friendship with this woman. By decreasing your emotional dependency on her, you will both be healthier/happier yourself as well as presenting yourself in a more positive light to her. All good.
MichelleParticipantMorning JHK,
How are you doing today – sounds like work went better yesterday?
To me, it sounds like all is going better, you aren’t having those repetitive deep, heavy conversations with her, no stagnant text conversations, just light, quick chats at work – that’s much healthier right now.
When you say “small text conversations”, what would you like to write to her? One way that might help you tell if it is too emotional/heavy for now – is it something you would write to other friends too? If yes, then it seems good, if no – then pause to think about why you want to say/send that.
That help?
MichelleParticipantMorning JHK,
Hope the rest of your day went well.
I’m not sure I understand what you are asking – it reads to me the same questions we have already discussed?
If it helps, this is where I think you are at.
You have developed a good friendship with this colleague at work, one where you became close and you helped her a lot with dealing with her last breakup. The friendship is mostly work-based with a lot of text/social media contact outside work, but not much meeting up by yourselves – correct?
At some point, about a year ago, you realised your feelings for her had developed into something more for her, something romantically inclined and not just friendship. I assume what you call a crush means you would like to start to date her, become physically intimate with her, to evolve into a relationship if it went well. However, as she was your good friend and your work colleague you felt these feelings were ‘wrong’ and tried to hide them for a while.
Then things get complicated when the two of you start discussing if you or her ‘have a crush’ on each other, by which I mean you are both trying to find out if the other likes you more than just a friend. From the conversations you have shared, I understand that you have confirmed your crush on her but she has said often she does not have a crush on you.
When your grandpa dies, you look to her for comfort, expecting her to be there for you. She is not. You have a big disagreement about this and the previous crush conversations, with your anger and disappointment in her coming out and you say some things you later regret. You both eventually have a good conversation and clear the air on this, apologising to each other and accepting the apologies as honest, true.
The friendship carries on but becomes stagnant, mainly through multiple very frequent similar conversations. It does not feel as close as it has before to you. You do not accept the air has been cleared satisfactorily. You dig more and more and the conversations go from stagnant to draining, as they repeat heavy emotional based conversations.
This is the point you reach out for help on this website, as you notice she is becoming less and less responsive to your various ways of contacting her. You also want help understanding if she is interested in you as a romantic partner and what you should do about it.
We, and others, help you explore what has happened and through examining events as you share them with us, it seems clear that at this point in time, she is not interested in you romantically but does care about you as a good friend. It is also clear that the friendship is being strained by the constant emotional contact/conversations, where you look for reassurance for your insecurities in the friendship.
She says clearly and correctly, “you do you, I’ll do me” – meaning as we have discussed a lot, you need to take care of your own emotional needs first. She is ok right now and does not need you to worry about her or your relationship. She wants you to focus on healing yourself from the loss of your grandpa and your own insecurities.
You begin to try this but find it very very difficult to not contact her with further emotion-based conversations. You are unable to accept or trust that the friendship is ok, feeling a need to continue to ask her, to reconfirm. You have a strong tendency to over-analyse, creating issues where there are none currently.
And so this last is what the space is for, for you to get strength and heal, to focus on yourself. The space is emotional space only, in that it is not that you need to stop contacting her, it is that you need to change the communications. No communications where you are repeating of the old topics that you have both agreed are done and ok. No stagnant or heavy conversations. This is why you need to do or read different things, so you can tell her about them – things that aren’t about your friendship or your hopes for a relationship.
Trust that helps for today. Take some time and think it over.
June 19, 2019 at 1:41 am in reply to: Trying to deal with anxiety and loss after relationship break up #299763MichelleParticipantMorning Shelby,
So I just spent 1/2hr writing an explanation of the whole ‘voices’ thing how I see it but you know what, it’s way too complicated for here. Mark Manson’s blog does a pretty good job on it, as when you get the time but basically it boils down for me into we have two ‘voices’, one positive and one negative, that help us choose between ‘helpful and ‘unhelpful’ ways forward/things to do. I’ve purposely not used good/bad because nothing by itself is good/bad – it’s different for everyone. Helpful things are best described as what will get you closer to achieving whatever goals/hopes/dreams/values you have for your life, unhelpful things take you further away from them. So yeah, both voices are valid, but it’s important to know which one you want in the driving seat at the end of the day.
And ha, I can hear Kkasxo now – saying, me, secure?! Like me, it’s not secure as such – it’s more you give up worrying about the future so much, about things you can’t control. It really is like another skill to learn and the more I’ve done things outside my comfort zone, the better I am at it. You become stronger and seen as more secure simply because you know you will be able to handle what life throws at you, even when it’s bad. Trust me, I went home from the TV show the first weekend in floods of tears, absolutely sure I couldn’t go back, I was so out of place, so uncomfortable, so unhappy. But one of my dreams was to do as well as I could on it, to learn from it and so whilst my fear voice screamed at me to stay home, I went back. It got better, I coped better and by the end was doing live TV interviews, the lot. Still not something I’d seek out to do but I know I can if I have to and that gives me strength to tackle other scary things. It just grows like that. So I’ll see you on the next Love Island then 😉
Anyways, back to you. I’m glad to hear your sister helped – yes, a period of calm after running around so much is always a come down. And yeah, I can totally understand how it makes you feel more lonely when your last college mate pairs up, hard not to be jealous whilst happy for them at the same time, right.
Absolutely no need to panic about the time-frame for a relationship and kids, though I get why. A friend of mine on hitting 40 and single actually froze some of her eggs, just so she still had choices ahead and took some of the pressure off the ‘must find someone now’ thing. Plus I get you want the biological experience but there’s all kinds of ways to be a mother these days with so many kids needing adoption/fostering. You don’t even have to be with a partner though again, I get that’s not how you want to do it. Just remember there’s all kinds of ways to have a happy life, not just the Disney version, and don’t let that fear panic you into something you aren’t ready for or something less than ideal.
Enjoy your day best you can – hope you get somewhere nice on your drive, got to be gorgeous up around you ( rain excepted ) I reckon.
MichelleParticipantHey JHK,
You’re doing ok, hope your day off work helped give you some breathing space, some rest.
I think it unlikely something romantic will happen, you have made your interest clear a few times now and she has not responded positively to it, has not given you any reason to take it further. I do think she cares about you and sees you as a good friend still. That is good and I think you will have to try to be happy with that for now. Even if she starts seeing someone someone else, you will still have this good friendship with her.
The space/time thing in relationships, it’s all about knowing yourself and the other person and being able to judge when it is helpful and when it isn’t. Taking space is a positive thing, it shows trust in the relationship. It allows each person to bring something new, something individual into the relationship, into the conversations. It’s a good thing, a necessary thing. But it takes judgement to know when it is helpful and when is not helpful – that takes practice and being confident in yourself, not letting fear drive you.
June 18, 2019 at 1:29 am in reply to: Trying to deal with anxiety and loss after relationship break up #299585MichelleParticipantMorning both,
Shelby, hope you got through the night ok and woke up feeling just a little better after a good wallow. Amazing timing – this story was in my Inbox this morning, thought it might make you smile a little..
https://humanparts.medium.com/me-alone-in-the-world-and-not-terrified-625db4c47544
Kkasxo, don’t get too excited, whilst I did get fan mail for a while ( a very very odd experience I tell ya ) it’s long done now. One of my slightly madder things I have said yes to for sure. But just like you say, I learnt stuff on there that I’ve used since – everything is part of us, the good and the bad and I agree, it’s a never-ending journey, hence why so important to make the most of the ride. It is also wonderful to hear the difference in you, you know. You have come a long way.
MichelleParticipantMorning JHK,
When she says you do you, I do me, is it because even though she has forgiven me but she still needs time to heal herself? No, what she is telling you is that she wants you to look after yourself, she wants you to focus on yourself – not on her. She has forgiven you already, you have no need to focus on her, that is what she is telling you. You need to work on accepting it as the truth, not seeing it as her pretending there is no problem.
What does it mean when she doesn’t need to know and doesn’t need to forgive me? What I meant here is same as above – she has already forgiven you, it is just that you do not accept that as the reality because you still feel awkward about it. She does not. This is why you do not need to apologise or explain any more to her why you have not been yourself. She already knows, accepts, has forgiven. She does not need to hear it either again or any new revelation. She simply wants you to focus on yourself, on helping yourself through your emotions and lack of confidence.
I need to adhere to it, giving space for both of us. Let her be the one that text or reaches out to me? Absolutely. Like she has this morning, checking in on you since you have taken a day off from work. I hope you managed to respond with something along the lines of “I am ok, I just needed a bit of time to myself”?
Honestly, is there even a chance for me to mend and repair all these that I have done? even though she said she is ok with it Absolutely, yes. First – she wouldn’t be texting you if she wasn’t still concerned about you as a friend, that is her showing she cares about you still. Second – you really haven’t done that much in reality – a lot of what you are concerned about is in your head and in your head alone. Any good relationship, friendship or otherwise is strong enough to survive a few misunderstandings, a few mistakes, which is all that has happened here.
The only real danger is to continue letting your over-thinking and anxiety continue to be in the driving seat and making poor decisions for you. That’s why it’s important to spend time on yourself – like she is telling you to do.
It is ok, normal to feel sad and lost after losing someone close. You do not need to magically become the cheerful happy guy again just to fit in at work, it will come back when ready. But you can help yourself in the meantime by practicing calming yourself when you feel anxious, sad, being ok with your own space.
June 17, 2019 at 11:49 am in reply to: Trying to deal with anxiety and loss after relationship break up #299495MichelleParticipantHey Shelby,
Most important things first – huge hugs on their way to you. You know you don’t have to apologise, you are not a downer or bringing anyone down – you are simply sharing your pain, your sadness with us. And that’s ok, we’re here to listen, here for you. ( Though damn it, my funny story was supposed to make you laugh not cry…… ;-0 )
Next most important thing – you will be fine, you will get through this. It’s no use trying to talk yourself out of feeling sad or saying your pain isn’t “bad” enough compared to others. Your pain is real, it needs to be felt. Ignoring it or distracting yourself from it makes it stronger. Recognising it, saying something like “yes, I am feeling incredibly sad and lonely right now but it will pass eventually” helps you remember all feelings are temporary – both good and bad.
If I can recommend something – try reading your last few posts again some time, when you are in a better place again. Honestly, you can see it’s all your fear about the future talking, that unhelpful voice ( I think it was Martha? ) telling you your worst fear, that you will end up alone and that this is all there is to life, and you should damn well be grateful for it, how dare you want more. But I tell you something – Martha is not a smart person, she’s scared. Scared you might actually do something to go after what you want, what you deserve, what you need for the real you to feel alive.
Nothing is ever gone – it is never too late. I was reading about a guy who started back-packing at 69 today, 20 years later still going strong and loving it. Honestly, your life is out there – just waiting for you to reach out and grab it. All the really good stuff is hard won. I know you can and will do it, whatever it ends up being.
But right now, just look after yourself eh. Mop those eyes, blow your nose ( I really hope you don’t look as much of a mess as when I cry, proper blotchy, red nose, impossible to hide stuff… ) and go get a real cuddle from your Dad. As k him how he does it, you may be surprised at what he has to offer.
Take care.
MichelleParticipantHey Rocco,
Glad helped, love the little cartoon guy by the way!
The gratitude approach sounds good to me, it’s an amazingly powerful way to realise all the good already in your lfe.
As to the deepest fear of being accepted, I understand that one totally and I don’t think it’s insane at all actually. You only have to read a few of these threads to realise just how hard some people will hold onto their pain, the fear of change and knowing who they are without it being greater than the desire to let it go. After all, this pain and shame – it’s all you have been for so long, all you have known. It’s pretty well known that our cave-man like brains are still instinctively (un)helpfully wired not to want change, even if it’s good for them, preferring the safety of the familiar (even if painful) to venturing out to the unknown.
So like any fear, the best way is to face it – but gradually, at a pace that both pushes you when ready and supports you when you need it. It’s why it’s so great you have that teacher to help you along, especially with identifying the right fear/emotion to tackle, as it can often be difficult to figure out the real driver.
If it helps, both personally and when I’ve helped others face their fears the thing that has always helped the most has been small, concrete actions, small steps to feeling the fear and then doing it anyway. So if I was scared of heights, start on a small step and wait through the fear instead of expecting to get into a helicopter for a parachute jump on day one. You get the idea. For someone scared of true acceptance, both by themselves and others, start with something small. Perhaps your Dad if that feels safe enough. Or are there other areas of your life you still feel you are hiding your true self and could tackle first.
Even without your tough start, it’s hard for all of us at first to expose our real selves – the rejection is so much easier to handle if you don’t put the real you out there. But ( and trust me, I learnt this one the hard way… ) it’s so amazing when you do and you are truly accepted. And when you aren’t, you just learn that actually, you know what, the world didn’t end and you are still ok, still you. It’s all ok. And that’s hugely empowering stuff.
Where do you think you could start if you wanted to?
MichelleParticipantJHK,
Back earlier than expected. My thoughts;
– Yesterday you were planning not to text her again until end of the week. Then this morning you text her, telling her again you will be giving her space, making it a second promise to her. You really definitely intend this to be your last text to her.
– Literally less than a few hours later, you have another long text conversation with her. Do you see how this breaks your promise already, both to yourself and to her.
– In that same conversation you say goodnight to end the conversation and then immediately follow up with a question about her tendon, prolonging the conversation as much as possible.
I presume because you have now been dwelling on how your grandpa’s death has affected you and thought you should share that with her. That it would help explain your behaviour to her and I am guessing you hoped it would mean she would be close to you again, forgive you.
But she does not need to know, she does not need to forgive you. She tells you this very very clearly ( four times! ) in your last conversation with her. Each time she says something like “you do you, I’ll do me” she’s saying what we discussed before – she is looking after herself emotionally and she expects you to do the same.
Can you see the pattern here – each time you think you learn something about this situation – your instinct/need is to share it with her, hoping it will fix it. You are still not respecting her space at all, one thing she has asked you for previously. You are not looking after yourself emotionally, another thing she has asked you for. If you care for her, for anyone – you listen to them and you respect their wishes. You are not listening and not caring for her – you are prioritising your own needs for her attention, to satisfy your own insecurities, above what she has actually asked you for. Do you see?
Now I’m guessing based on your pattern so far, you are now going to feel a need to think about this and then use it to communicate with her again. If you truly want this situation to improve and for you to become a confident, positive guy again – don’t do it. Sit with anxiety, go for a walk, post here, whatever. Your first step forwards is to break this habit/dependency.
Trust that makes sense – it may sound harsh but you have a habit of hearing what you want to, not what reality is.
MichelleParticipantHi Rocco,
Well done on being brave enough to share your story here, not easy to do when it’s something you feel so bad about. It’s great you have found a therapist and spiritual teacher who is helping you through these feelings, how amazing to be able to have both in the same person. Hopefully we can help you here whilst they are away, it’s a good, safe place to be able to share what you are feeling. It can also help just to get outside into nature for a long walk if you are able to when you particularly need to clear your head and have somewhere safe to let those negative thoughts free.
One thing I would say about whether to speak to your dad about the experience or not, is try to think through what you hope to get by doing so that you don’t already have. As I understand it, you feel shame about the experience and want to admit or ‘own up’ to what you have done, I am guessing with the aim of open acceptance/forgiveness. Understandable and admirable. The thing with your story though, is that actions speak louder than words and it sounds to me as though your Dad has clearly already understood and accepted it as what it was, an action of a confused child. If anything, he may feel guilt at not having known how to speak to you about it. You may feel you don’t deserve his choice to love you and accept you but I suspect that as much as anything that’s part of still learning to love and accept yourself, all of you, mistakes and all. Your Dad already does.
I assume he does know you are gay now? Perhaps instead of trying to bring up the incident, a way to discuss the topic if you still feel you need to may be simply to thank him for being so accepting of you, saying how confusing you found it growing up and how much it helped he was there for you then and now.
As you know, it takes time to heal – well done again on how you have come on your journey already. Happy to listen to what you want to share. Hope helps in the meantime.
June 17, 2019 at 6:23 am in reply to: Trying to deal with anxiety and loss after relationship break up #299443MichelleParticipantHey Kkasxo, both,
Yeah, a Friday night drink catch up would be awesome but hey – virtual will have to do it! Less calories anyway I guess 😉
Sounds like you have had a tough run of it too – good to hear you sounding so better though, having your own place has really helped settle you in, however Mr A turns out. You put it better than I can, life is always all about learning, trying & hoping it’ll work out but being gentle on yourself if it doesn’t – it’s all part of what makes us for we are. You sound like you are doing much better at just seeing how things work out. I’m not surprised your gut won’t let you have it be the “same”, it’s not and won’t be. Guts are irritatingly smart like that. But it could yet be better, depends on whether you can at some point trust him again and I suspect you won’t be sure on that till you get through your next tough spot. Just enjoy being ok now and loving that safe place, glad you have that sorted before your family goes.
It will not surprise either of you to learn that I read a lot of travel blogs and a number of the female solo travel ones have hugely inspirational stories and experiences to share. My solo female traveller friend is a bit out there to help much, she happily goes to all kinds of places on her own that I’m still thinking about even with my giant partner in tow! So really looking forwards to hearing back from your friend where she went & with who.
And so, ok, in the interests of entertaining you guys on a bright note to start the week – there’s a good reason I’m not in the Love Island/Reality show camp……..I have rather embarrassingly actually been on a reality TV show…..way back now and very weird experience – whilst everybody else on the show wanted to be famous, I spent most of the time hiding from the camera! Still came second somehow though 🙂 But the way it was set up throughout and the blatant editing of things said to create false conflict left me more than a little jaded to watch any these days! So there you go – that’s my guilty secret 🙂
The sun is shining here finally – have a good week both, take care.
MichelleParticipantSo, not such a great idea the last text – try and make sure it really is the last one this time…
Yes, it is completely understandable how shaken you will be from the loss of such a big part of your life with your grandpa’s death. Another good reason to take care of yourself both emotionally and physically.
I’ll be out rest of day, back tomorrow. Try to do something different, something you enjoy as well as read more on improving your self-esteem/confidence, it will all help.
-
AuthorPosts
Though I run this site, it is not mine. It's ours. It's not about me. It's about us. Your stories and your wisdom are just as meaningful as mine. 