Well it's been an up and down few days.
In one way I am feeling very positive; I am looking people in the eye when I am out, I can feel myself smiling at people and see them responding with a return smile, I'm getting all chores done etc. I am organised for xmas (compared to previous ones of chaos). I've been coping reasonably well with being snowed in and how that has knocked me off my routine (which is important for managing my depression). In many ways I feel like a completely different person to that woman of 6 months ago who felt sad, lonely, isolated, disconnected, hopeless and overwhelmed by the tiniest tasks.
But on Sunday driving home from my CDC I found myself having what felt like an "out of body" experience. I found myself in the shop buying chocolate and although I knew I was doing it I felt quite disconnected from myself in a way. So after eating that I discovered that my cats had broken into the bag of goodies I got for my brother and broken into one of the slabs of fruit cake. And for some reason rather than throw it out I found myself cutting chunks off it and eating it over the next few hours.
So there seems to be something about the weigh-in that seems to trigger this eating as it only happens around then. I need to work out what that is but I haven't been able to see my therapist because of the snow for 2 weeks now and need his help. What am I so afraid of? Is it that as I become closer to the potential I have been suppressing that I get freaked out and back off? Is it that I have been using my weight for so long as an excuse not to engage in life that I am afraid of losing that excuse?
One of my major issues (I have discovered) is that I am classed as an emotionally unavailable female aka EUF. My last boyfriend was an emotionally unavailable male (apparently this is common... like seeks like) and we had 2 tortuous years of trying to get something healthy and functional working between us before I finally acknowledged the insanity of trying the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome! I had been no contact with him since July but that feeling of wanting to feel "connected" has been creeping up on me and I found myself texting him the other night ... what for I do not know... well actually I do... I wanted the ego stroke, I wanted to see if he still had feelings for me, I wanted to see if the door was still open, I wanted to see if I was being missed because that would make me feel worthy, like I counted, like I am something.... in other words validated. Luckily enough he had the sense to just ignore me once he realised it was me (he feels very angry at me because as far as he is concerned on the last "try" he really put himself forward but I looked for an excuse to pull away).
Anyway I have been dipping in and out of a book that was recommended to me by my CDC and this explains it so well; the book is called Adult Children of Alcoholics but is now considered by therapists and experts to be largely applicable to any adults who grew up in emotionally dysfunctional family situations.
"Adult children of..... want very much to have healthy intimate relationships, and it is extraordinarily difficult for a number of reasons.
The first and most obvious is that they have no frame of reference for a healthy intimate relationship, because they have never seen one. The only model they have is their parents, which was not healthy.
They also carry with them the experience of come close, go away - the inconsistency of a loving parent-child relationship. They feel loved one day and rejected the next. The fear of being abandoned is a terrible fear they grow up with. Even if the fear isn't overwhelming, it certainly gets in the way. Not knowing what it is like to have a consistent, day-to-day, healthy intimate relationship with another person makes building one very painful and complicated.
The push-pull, approach-avoidance, the "I want you - go away", the colossal terror of being close, yet the desire and need for it is beautifully shown in the following poem by John Gould
WHY DO YOU COME?
I don't want you.
I don't need you.
I don't want to see you.
Yet you keep coming back.
I can't figure you out.
A pretty girl like you
Should be able to find
Someone else.
I reject you and
Yet you keep
Returning.
Everywhere I turn,
You're there.
You're just taking
Up too much of
My time.
Why do you come?
Why don't you leave?
You are?
Good!
What did you want
With a guy like me?
Love.
Please come back.
She's gone.
[Unfortunately my ex and I were both experiencing this and we put each other through the mill trying to love each other. I keep telling myself I don't miss him, I miss the potential of him, I miss what I was hoping we'd be...... I keep trying to live in reality.]
Thus, the fear of abandonment gets in the way of development of a relationship. The development of a healthy relationship requires a lot of give and take, and problem solving; there is always some disagreement and anger which a couple resolve. A minor disagreement gets very big, very quickly for adult children of..... because the issue of being abandoned takes precedence over the original issue.
[ I have realised that I take everything very seriously in a relationship. If I don't feel I am being treated in the right way, I react with anger and panic. I'll get really uptight and I'll say something and react with anger, but I know that they are not going to want to stay with me. Somehow I'm not worth it and even if I have moments of feeling worth it they'll leave anyway and there's nothing I can do to make them stay. In fact it's easy to make them leave somehow. I'm always panicking and turning myself inside out questioning my reactions, flaring up if I feel wronged and then doing an about turn and apologising and back tracking and suppressing/silencing that inner voice (aka me). I'm always having to do things to make them stay, make them want to be with me... so I become the siren in the bedroom, the one who blows their mind, the one who gives them pleasure like they've never had before. But while I am being that person I am disconnecting from myself, I am wearing a disguise, and "making love" becomes instead a way of me hiding myself and from myself.. I put all the focus on them and their pleasure. When I do allow them to pleasure me I am worried that I am not enough, that I am not reacting in the right way. Because I am hiding me there is no way I can just let go. It just doesn't happen... it's impossible.]
These overwhelming fears of being abandoned or rejected prevent any ease in the process of developing a relationship. Coupled with a sense of urgency, "This is the only time I have; if I don't do it now, it will never happen" tend to put pressure on the relationship. It makes it much more difficult to evolve slowly, to let two people get to know each other better, and to explore each other's feelings and attitudes in a variety of ways.
This sense of urgency makes the other person feel smothered, even though that is not the intent. Constant reassurance is needed during arguments that the other person is not going to leave, that they are still loved. Needless to say this makes the issue at hand more difficult to resolve than if it were only the issue itself needing to be confronted.
These feelngs of being insecure, of having difficulty in trusting, and questions about whether or not you're going to get hurt are not exclusive to adult children of xxxx. These are problems most people have. Few people enter a relationship fully confident that things are going to work out the way they hope they will. They enter a relationship hopeful, but with a variety of fears. The difference is in the severity of these fears.... in that ordinary difficulties become more severe."
Phew.....this is a long one.
The good thing is that I am learning these things about myself. I am no longer flailing around knowing something is wrong but not knowing what it is or how to express it to myself or others.
Thanks for reading xxx
