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Sunfl0wer

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Viewing 15 posts - 1 through 15 (of 41 total)
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  • in reply to: How do you stay grounded in your existence? #94941
    Sunfl0wer
    Participant

    Thank you for bringing up the topic of staying grounded. I find myself feeling imbalanced with being focused, present, and drifting often.

    Being outdoors in nature and moving in some way works best for me. I feel as though my body needs to move, especially outdoors for my mind to feels itself and be aware of existence best. I tend to try to let my mind drift to think of all of natural existence and connection of things while outside moving and enjoy whatever thoughts I encounter.

    in reply to: Do you feel in control of your life? #90038
    Sunfl0wer
    Participant

    I hope I can answer in a way that helps the thread vs hijacking it…

    Yes, that relationship has been over since that post. I am learning to be grateful of this.

    I am not so concerned about control in terms of another and abuse atm.

    I often get sidetracked, lose focus, or direct my energies away from necessary things that need doing. This can then feel ‘out of control’ of myself as important things do not get done.

    I was thinking of control in terms of self control and balancing that. For me, the act of trying for too much self control can lead to feeling out of control as I may want to rebel from myself. Yet, when I create positive habits, the struggle for control seems to not be a struggle to rebel from or judge how I am doing.

    I am not certain I am explaining this well.

    in reply to: Do you feel in control of your life? #90016
    Sunfl0wer
    Participant

    Anita, so do you know how to get the most helpful amount of control without the burden of becoming controlling?

    Maybe it has to do with ego…I am not sure.

    in reply to: Do you feel in control of your life? #89994
    Sunfl0wer
    Participant

    It feels like things are moving, I can influence them, but not exactly control them. Maybe like trying to control a river. You can build a pile of rocks to influence the flow of things, yet the river still flows or doesn’t and rises and lowers and those aspects we do not influence so much.

    Somethings I feel I ‘should’ have more control of but struggle and find myself frustrated. I wonder if letting go of wanting to control it in the first place will allow me to have a greater influence?

    I wonder if I create some more habits, such as Anita describes, will I have a greater sense of security?

    in reply to: When Someone You Dislike Dies #81164
    Sunfl0wer
    Participant

    Do you think it is possible that self doubt and insecurities are keeping her opinions of you alive…within you?

    in reply to: how do I forgive and forget #73678
    Sunfl0wer
    Participant

    Hi Becky,

    I am sorry that you had to go through this experience.
    I agree with you, that it sounds like this is a verbal and emotionally abusive relationship.

    Abusive relationships are a lot about control. It would be consistent for an emotional abuser that has been walked out on to “change” back into showering with attention and concern. It is about control, and you took that away when you walked out expecting the relationship to be over.

    Please consider:
    Why did things begin to go downhill after you moved in? He had what he wanted, no reason to woo?
    Why did he not “change” before you broke up with him?
    What advice would you give if you were giving advice to your daughter the same age as you now?

    Take a look at this site:

    Things Abusers Say and Do to Gain Power Over You

    in reply to: We are breaking up, but both very much in love!?! #72992
    Sunfl0wer
    Participant

    Thanks Inky, I agree with you. They need their space. I have made sure that the past 7 months that visitations were just the two of them….for many reasons. I am not trying to influence anybody, I’m watching things unfold.

    My current struggle is not my interactions with him. My current struggle is coming to terms with things within myself.

    Finding acceptance for the situation.
    Finding peace within myself over this break up that is confusing.

    in reply to: We are breaking up, but both very much in love!?! #72991
    Sunfl0wer
    Participant

    Thanks again KMW, I have joined in case you want to find me there. I cannot find the JADE lessons, hard for me to navigate. So very helpful!!!!!! A million thanks!!!!!!

    in reply to: We are breaking up, but both very much in love!?! #72839
    Sunfl0wer
    Participant

    KMW, Wow! What a feeling when somebody “gets it.” Amazing!

    I wonder, Do you think your husband can ever see who you genuinely are? Does this bother you?

    I see so much truth in your post.

    I am struggling to make sense of many of the pieces of our relationship.

    Unfortunately, breaking up is not up to me. I don’t want distance from him. I just want distance from the dysfunction that he brings to me. However, I do not have BPD. I know that I cannot “split” him that way.

    I have thought that he has BPD. I have read up on it very much and have been successful in dealing with him as tho he actually has NPD or BPD. I found info on how schema therapy can be helpful, and it was indeed. I accepted the role of being the emotional caretaker of the relationship, the “adult.” Like you say, exhausting at times.

    Last year, I flat out went to our therapist and said I felt my bf had BPD. I was told that we all have traits of things and it is all on a continuum, however he did not think he had a diagnosable amount of BPD “traits.” He has never been self injurious, he does not fear friends abandoning him, it is just dynamics with people that are very close to him that he gets that way. (His mom, or partner, sees his kid as an all good extension for narcissistic supply) I agree with you. I feel so validated by your observations. I feel he has a mild type of BPD.

    Our therapist admitted that his ego identity is not fully developed and that it needed work.

    I don’t want a break up. His wife has caused us such harm. Now his daughter has taken her place and has expressed desire to kill us and I do not doubt her wish. However, she is on the golden child pedestal and he is now being coerced and controlled by his teen and he cannot see it. I have had to tell him that she cannot come to our home for visitations because of the threats she has made and I am fearful and feel his codependent behavior contributes to her trying to hurt us. He is not going to renew a lease with me. He wants a home that his daughter can come to 6x a yr for her visitations. I want a home that promotes a greater sense of security for us all….or just me and my son.

    Neither of us is budging. I guess I just need to talk it out loud some here to get it more sorted somehow. It is a hard thing.

    How do I make peace with a break up that I feel shouldn’t be?
    I have never broken up with someone where we both wanted one another. How can this be?

    Why am I still clinging onto “what should.”
    How do I find acceptance?

    I think I will do as you say and browse around the BPD forums, look at the JADE lessons. I just feel like there is something more I need to learn from reviewing our relationship. I do not think it will change the course of things, nothing for the past 7 months has indicated that, but I need it to make more sense somehow.

    Thank you so much for kindly sharing your experience. It means so much to me to hear such understanding. I really am glad for the different perspective. I feel just a bit less alone for it. Warm thoughts your way too! 🙂

    Thank you KMW!

    in reply to: We are breaking up, but both very much in love!?! #72820
    Sunfl0wer
    Participant

    Lol! Thank you Inky! I am not laughing to make light of your response but laughing because I have seriously considered moving abroad!

    You are right, they have a daughter together. We had custody of the daughter for several years raising her because mom cheated on him and left the state with her new husband she found on the internet specifically looking for men who make >100,000 per yr. Mom LEFT but accused us the whole time of kidnapping!!!! She tormented the daughter with the idea that we were bad people, kidnappers, we took her away from the “only one that loves her,” her mom. She told her girl to “be brave” whenever she left her with us as though to imply that we were “bad.” She taught her to collect evidence against us so that mom could one day “rescue her” by teaming up and placing vengeance upon us for what we deserved for all the pain we caused the two by keeping them apart. Mom clearly has BPD and ran a parental alienation campaign that was successful, even while the girl was with us full time with mom just a txt or call away!

    I have so may confusing feelings that are just spilling out.

    I am still angry for not being appreciated by him for standing by him, for helping raise and love the daughter, for sacrificing in the face of so much abuse from the ex wife.
    I was re traumatized throughout all of this and needed more counseling myself.
    I feel like I deserve better, I wanted him to protect us but his own weaknesses and lack of insight made him unintentionally open us up for more abuse at times.
    I wanted him to at least see and acknowledge my pain so he could be there for me.

    (When I say “weakness” I do not mean it in a derogatory sense, but rather we all have weakness.)

    I am clearly wanting more than his capacity.

    As much as I am angry, I see how this is not useful. I see that he, like me, is only capable of what he is capable of seeing and doing. I also have so much compassion for him in his position. I just want peace for myself, some freedom, some love that does not hurt me even if it is unintentional hurt.

    I do not think he knows what he does not know….and if he could just “see” is all I think sometimes, in a minor hopeful way for Us.

    We went on vacation and when we came back we seriously thought of moving away for a bit. I ended up wanting to be here for my family but would not hold it against him to move without me. He will not move as he feels he would be abandoning his teenage daughter. At this point, the daughter is resentful and abusing him without moms guidance….

    I am thinking distance is good advice. He cannot take the advice and put the distance he needs between him and others to be his own human being, however…I.. need distance to maintain my own being. So that means distance from him.

    As I say this in this moment, I realize that for him, to be a “being” means connection. This is why he does not set better boundaries with them. He will feel less of a person. This is why my healthy boundary setting makes him withdraw from me.

    Thank you for this, letting me explore this, listening, sharing time and thought.

    I feel like I will think on it more as I may be about to “see” something myself.

    Maybe as I desperately say I want HIM to see something, …..what really is true, ….is that I want to see something myself…..and it is close but just slightly out of my reach.

    I’ll keep thinking on this.

    Thank you for your insights, I greatly appreciate them when browsing around, and I appreciate them here as well.

    in reply to: We are breaking up, but both very much in love!?! #72819
    Sunfl0wer
    Participant

    Thank you for your care and perspective Niyata. I agree with what you say and I have stuck by him, supporting him, counseling, but he does not see it still. I have been explaining that I am not her, for years, he has such trouble making connections with his feelings. I have PTSD too so I get it, not being able to connect with your feelings and being overwhelmed by them. He cannot tell what he is even feeling most time.

    I know he is not sitting there consciously thinking of ways to hurt me but the result of him having feelings he doesn’t connect with, causes him to be reactive/over reactive and overprotective of himself and is hurtful to me just the same.

    When I was dealing with these same things years ago from my own trauma, I could at least take on another persons perspective and also have compassion for them even tho I was scared. He is more emotionally underdeveloped and sees things as a child in that they are black and white/ good or bad. So if he feels hurt, he assumes I hurt him, assumes I’m abusing him and I am not. His cause and affect are all backwards. He is not malicious, but his delusions of me being against him get stronger, not less, with each disagreement we have. I can say there is no bread to my son, and he overhears interprets it as an attack, like as if I insulted his ability to provide, he desperately came to me the next day to show me that there was bread in the freezer. Then he was disappointed when I pointed out that I could not make French toast with that type, I meant that there was no sliced sandwich bread, it was no big deal at all to me. I can only imagine the abuse he endured when he behaves that way.

    I do not want to leave him. (We still live together for now) He has broken up with me and I know it is because he is running from his PTSD. It is not what I wanted, but how things are unfolding. I have tried to influence things in the other direction.

    Thank you for sharing with me Niyata. I have been through trauma and am forever grateful for those that helped me when I could not help myself. I am glad that you have received the support and compassion that you need.

    in reply to: Feeling resentment towards my step kids #72444
    Sunfl0wer
    Participant

    Hi piper,

    Honestly, reading your post make ME feel resentment towards your step kids!

    So maybe that means I’m the last person that should be posting?

    I don’t understand why some parents think it is ok to have chore expectations of 20 year old “kids” as though they can only perform at the level of a 10 year old and then other parents have their 10 year olds doing many responsibilities. We all have our abilities, and we all may function at different levels but it sounds like your step “kids” are more capable than they are performing and expecting too little from themselves and too much of the “adults” in their life.

    My post is sounding full of judgement… I wish it didn’t. This is certainly a sore spot for me.

    It sounds like the “kids” and your husband see them still as kids and not the adults they are capable of being.

    It also sounds like you are struggling with treating them like kids vs adults and not wanting to make waves and wanting not to be in their disfavor too much.

    I think you need to listen to yourself and take care of yourself. I don’t know what that means. I don’t know if it means letting go of your expectations for your own peace. Or maybe it means being more selfish in your actions and putting yourself first.

    This is where I struggle. I struggle with feeling that I am acting compassionately but then finding myself neglected or frustrated somehow. Like I am busy taking care of others happiness and my own gets forgotten. How do we get these things in harmony? How can a ride to the mall also be loving to ourselves? If it can’t, then what is in harmony with our own nurturing?

    in reply to: Does compassion for others sometimes compete with self love? #71887
    Sunfl0wer
    Participant

    Thank you Moongal!

    I think sometimes I get focused on others and “forget” myself.

    I wonder if others deal with this.

    in reply to: Going in circles in my own head! #71886
    Sunfl0wer
    Participant

    I am not sure that I am understanding completely. You say he refuses to touch you there. Or is he just not touching you with anything other than his penis? Do you have intercourse? Are you able to find ways together that ARE pleasing to you sexually?

    I think that what we do and how we relate to another in bed is often consistent with how we relate in the relationship. For example, when I was feeling my BF was withholding of himself in our relationship, he also was less active in bed and I felt like I was doing all the work and pleasing.

    in reply to: Struggling to forgive my child's mother #71885
    Sunfl0wer
    Participant

    Have you considered the possibility that you may be more triggered to anger with visitations at her house as there may be personal effects of other people in her life there?

Viewing 15 posts - 1 through 15 (of 41 total)