Tag: emotions

An Apology To The People Who Love Me

I’ve had to accept some pretty awful truths about myself over the past couple of years. I’ve had to accept that I’m far less strong, discerning and functional and far more fragile, broken and lost  than I thought I was. I’ve had to accept that for so many years I was hiding behind a facade that provided me with the semblance of a functional life while the real me was in hiding only making an occasional appearance. 

I’ve had to accept that despite my best intentions, my dysfunction, anxiety and issues impact people who love me and who least deserve to be affected by consequences of the abuse I’ve received over the years from others.

I don’t want this to be a list of excuses or reasons why it’s not my fault that I’m so high maintenance and I’m not looking for sympathy, reassurance or explanations of how my insecurities and issues are a natural consequence of my abuse. I get that. I am very aware that I didn’t become who I am in this moment in isolation and I’m aware that failures of the two most foundational relationships in my life to this point – my parents and the 22+ year relationship with my ex-husband – have created dysfunctional emotional pathways and automatic responses that I haven’t established by choice..

I know that many of the ways I react aren’t voluntary – they’re reflexes born of a deep-seated need to protect myself and conditioned responses I developed to minimise the hurt and help maintain appearances for the first 45 years of my life.

What I want to do is apologise for the ways my dysfunction hurts those I care about who go to such lengths to reassure me over and over that I’m loved, safe, valued, and connected.

I want to say I’m so very sorry that even though you’ve given me every reason to trust you and even though I believe your words of love and encouragement, I keep a small part of myself in reserve; a small corner of my heart that I’m shielding from the disconnection I know will come when you realise that I’m so flawed and broken and unloveable. 

I’m so scared that you’ll leave me without warning that I prepare myself in advance and push you away. I’m so sorry that I send you mixed messages by telling you how important you are to me then ignore you or withdraw from your attempts to reach out.

I’m sorry that I tell you through my words and actions that I don’t trust you and don’t need you. I do need you. I want so desperately to feel connected, but it’s the desperation that makes me pull back, because I’m sure that when you realise how needy I am, you’ll retreat anyway. I’m sorry that I’ve needed your support so often, and have made it so difficult for you to provide it without getting hurt in the process.

I’m sorry for texts and messages that remain unanswered and invitations that have been turned down. I feel so inadequate and lost in social situations now that I avoid them while at the same time wishing I didn’t feel so lonely and disconnected. I am trying to find a way to reconnect with the wider world, but it’s taking me a lot longer than I could ever have expected because it’s hard to connect when I don’t have any sense of who I am.

I’m sorry that sometimes when it all just seems too much and I want to run away and hide, I run away from you as well even though you aren’t part of the problem. I’m sorry for the times my rejection has hurt you. 

I am sorry that I respond to emotional triggers you can’t predict or control, and that your attempts at conversation and support so often result in tears and emotional monologues about how awful I am. I’m sorry that I filter your words through my insecurities to hear messages that you never intend and that I am so bad at stopping the chain-reaction of negative thoughts once I start down that path. I’m sorry that so many of our conversations end up in you offering reassurance and comfort with your original words and message lost amidst the tears and anxiety. I’m sorry that I ask for your honesty, then punish you by responding so badly when you give it to me.

I’m so sorry that the battle inside my head between being myself and being who I think everyone else needs me to be results in such a mess of emotions and thoughts and that you’re so often left with no possible way of navigating a conversation without it ending in distress and tears. I hate that I’m so conditioned to focus on what other people want or need me to be, that it takes so much effort to simply be myself. 

I’m sorry that my insecurities and confusion and constant sense of overwhelm mean that so often when you need me I’m caught up in the mess inside my head and I either don’t see your needs or respond to them in a way that isn’t helpful. I feel this most keenly with my children and I hope as they grow older they’ll forgive me for the times I’ve let them down and made it so much harder for them to process the huge changes that have happened in their lives in the past couple of years. 

I am grateful that I have such wonderful, compassionate, caring children who have been so incredibly forgiving of the difficulty I’ve had navigating us all safely through our lives over the past few years. I remain constantly surprised at my good fortune having such a wonderful man in my life who loves me so much that he’s willing to walk beside me as I slowly, slowly work through the mess inside my head and heart and attempt to find myself amidst the rubble of my old life. I am thankful for the wonderful friends who have withstood my neglect and confusion and tears to continue to reach out to me in support in moments when I’m unable to stand alone and for those friends who have simply continued to be themselves and share in a way that gives me moments of normality amidst the emotional challenges.

The process of dealing with my past and my abuse has been exhausting. I have only come as far as I have because so many people have loved and cared for me and helped me in so many ways to remain connected despite my belief that I’m neither capable nor deserving of connection and love.

I am sorry that this process is so difficult, for myself and for those closest to me, and even though I can’t always show it, I am grateful that you haven’t given up on me. Thank you. x

Sadness and Fear

Right now, in this moment, my life is going well. I am happy, I am loved. I am safe. On a pragmatic level, my children are happy and healthy, my bills are paid, and I have a roof over my head, food on my plate (too much at times), and we have everything we need and lots of things we want. I have a secure job working for someone I respect, amazing friends who support and encourage me and make me laugh, and a wonderful husband who reminds me daily that I am loved and valued.

Life is good.

Despite this, today I feel anxious and sad. My chest is tight and my thoughts are chaotic. Tears aren’t far away.

When I respond to significant triggers (like something that creates a sense of connection to my ex-husband or parents), I feel weak and pathetic. It’s humiliating to feel so powerless and vulnerable when something connects me to my past, but it’s also possible to explain and rationalise those feelings. These people hurt me, and it’s not surprising that things that connect me to them are distressing.

Today’s unfocused, generalised distress is a different thing. There’s nothing to blame except my own dysfunction. I still feel weak and pathetic, but I also feel stupid and neurotic. And ungrateful – I have so many wonderful things happening in my life and so many people offering me love and support, it seems inconsiderate and selfish to still be feeling so sad and overwhelmed.

The sadness is complex. It’s a background hum of thoughts on a continuous loop in my mind telling me that I’m always responsible, but always inadequate, always a disappointment. It’s a pulsing throb sending waves of emotion that bring tears to my eyes and an ache to my chest. It’s a cloud hovering on the horizon as a reminder that if I become complacent an unexpected trigger could result in panic and tears.

That sounds like I wander around in a state of constant misery, but that’s not true. I love my life – my husband, my kids, my friends – and the future seems so much brighter now than it did during the bleak, hopeless years of my first marriage. But the sadness is always there if I stop to look for it (and often when I don’t). I’m not miserable, but I am fragile. I’m often happy, but the awareness of potential sadness keeps me on guard emotionally in a way that is exhausting, which makes me more fragile and more likely to react intensely to triggers when they occur.

Framing how I feel in that way – varying shades of sadness – somehow seems both accurate and misleading. I’ve distracted myself today trying to work out why and it came to me in one of those moments of clarity where you feel both brilliant for working out a complex puzzle and devastated by the truth.

I’m not sad, I’m afraid.

There is genuine sadness, of course, about my past and about things that are happening now, and I have ways of dealing with that, but I don’t know what to do with this fear that looks like sadness. When people try to comfort me, it often makes it feel worse and intensifies the fear that I am too damaged, too vulnerable, too inadequate to function without people propping me up.

I am afraid that I’m too much work, too ‘high maintenance’ and people will give up (reinforced by the fact that my parents and so many church friends have done just that).

I am afraid this happiness won’t last. I’m afraid that I’ll do something that will push others away, or that they’ll simply realise that I’m not worth the effort.

I am afraid that I’ll never find a way through the maze of memories and thoughts that link me to people who taught me that my value was conditional on me fulfilling their expectations.

I am afraid that I’ll never shed the beliefs about myself I’ve learned from them – that my feelings don’t matter, that my opinions don’t matter, that I don’t matter.

I am afraid that if I’m not vigilant, I’ll slip back into old habits where I prioritise everyone above myself. And I’m afraid that at the end of the day, that’s all I’m really good for anyway – facilitating the lives of others.

I am afraid that if I stop long enough to accept support and acknowledge how overwhelmed and hurt I am, that I won’t be able to get myself moving again.

I am afraid to allow myself to believe those who tell me that they love me and value who I am, because I find it so hard to see anything in myself that justifies that love and I’ve spent a lifetime with the word ‘love’ being used as a way to control and subdue who I am. I am afraid that accepting love means losing myself, again.

I am afraid. And after so many years of telling myself I am strong and confident and capable, acknowledging that fear feels like admitting that I am none of those things.

I Should Feel Happy

In less than 12 hours the divorce hearing will be over and my application for divorce will be processed and approved by the court (I hope). In one month the divorce will be finalised.

I should feel happy.

Instead I’m remembering that the feeling of being released from a cage when I made the decision to leave was counterbalanced by an incredible sadness and sense of failure that I hadn’t been able to make the marriage work.

I’m remembering what it felt like to describe my marriage to others, honestly and openly, and have them react in a way that made it obvious that what I’d accepted as normal – what had been my normal – was not normal at all. That my relationship had been twisted and dysfunctional and the effort I had made over so many years to make things work had been futile from the outset. So many wasted years.

I’m remembering the awfulness of the separation. Of having someone who professed to love me respond to my claim that he’d never really liked who I was as a person with “you’re right, but I’m okay with it now”. That he believed I only thought I wasn’t in love anymore because evil spirits were manipulating my thoughts and deceiving me. So many awful words and accusations and lies.

I’m remembering that somehow, despite all the horrible words and actions, one of the things that made me the saddest was his gift for flowers a few weeks after our separation. Flowers that were apparently supposed to make me feel valued, but instead made me feel even more invisible because after 22 years of marriage, the best he could do was a cheap bouquet from the supermarket that were predominantly flowers that I was allergic to.

I’m remembering the family and friends that in those early days I thought would be by my side at this point, who have instead made it clear that they can’t see past all the ways I’ve disappointed them to offer love and support when I need it most.

I’m remembering how having my signature witnessed on the divorce application made me feel like throwing up, right there in the foyer of the office where the JP worked. That I was almost overwhelmed by feelings of failure and, in that moment, that I struggled to believe that real love was possible.

I’m remembering all the tears of the past 16 months and the worries for the future.

I might not be happy, but I’m relieved that we’ve made it this far, that the kids and I have survived such emotional turmoil able to love each other and believe we’re heading for a better future. By this time tomorrow I will have passed another significant milestone in the process of freeing myself from the sadness of my past. That’s enough.

Accepting that I am Broken

Several events recently have forced me to accept that after decades of fighting to be strong and confident in a relationship that constantly made me feel insignificant and invisible, and another 15 months of an emotionally manipulative separation, I’m not simply emotionally battered and bruised, I’m broken.

I want to write about it – about what it feels like to not be able to trust yourself, to be vulnerable to so many emotional triggers, to be constantly debating with yourself and analysing your thoughts and emotions in an attempt to discern the reasonable from the irrational.

I want to describe what it’s like to accept that you’ve been a victim of abuse and all that means – the sense of weakness and failure and frustration and guilt. I want to share how it feels to realise that the only counselling that provides meaningful support and comfort comes from domestic violence and trauma specialists.

I want to describe what it feels like to stand on the sidelines of public debate about how evangelical churches handle abusive relationships, reading comments by those who are criticising the presentation of research, deflecting attention away from the main issue and feeling offended by the suggestion that Christian communities would condone any kind of domestic abuse. I want to share what it is like to listen to these discussions while feeling overwhelmed by the memories of my own failed attempts to seek help from leaders of the four different churches I attended during my marriage.

I want to describe what it feels like to have some of the most significant people in my life look at me in my most vulnerable moments and tell me that they think I’m self-absorbed, selfish, lacking in faith, unnecessarily emotional and inappropriately focused on my own happiness. To have my father tell me I only think of myself and my mother say that she can’t bear to be in the same room as me, while they mention that they are willing to invite my abusive ex-husband over to their home for dinner. To have Christian friends pass judgement because I’m not valuing the preservation of my marriage ahead of my own emotional wellbeing. To face a wall of silence from people I assumed would be the foundation of the network of support for myself and my children.

I want to share how terrifying it is to encounter an unexpected emotional trigger that leaves me shaking and in tears and feeling so incredibly isolated. What it feels like to be curled up on the floor having a panic attack feeling weak and fragile and hating myself for not being able to control the flood of anxiety that makes it so hard to think clearly.

I want to write about how much I hate that my brokenness impacts on those I love.

I want to talk about all of these things and more. The thoughts swirl in my mind and I want to share them, but when I sit at a keyboard suddenly the words are flat and meaningless and convey none of the intensity of what I’m feeling. It’s just another part of me that is broken.

I’m hoping that accepting that I’m broken and making the effort to get the words out more regularly – dull and lifeless as they are – will help me to reach a place where I feel less shattered and better able to pull the pieces together to redefine myself and my life.

Today I am broken, but hopefully accepting that brings me one step closer to feeling restored.

It’s All My Fault (and other things I tell myself)

It’s been a pretty upsetting few days as I’ve approached and reached the 12 month anniversary of my separation. As usually happens when I’m stressed, I’ve had a soundtrack of statements swirling about in my head that have made me feel worse:

You should have tried harder to make it work.

You should have left earlier instead of exposing the kids to so many years of emotional dysfunction and abuse.

You should have realised it was emotional abuse and left. You’re so pathetic.

You’ve failed your children by not caring for them properly. You didn’t leave and remove them from the situation, and you didn’t give them the attention they needed to compensate for all the things they were missing. You’re a terrible mother.

You’re over-reacting and hysterical. It wasn’t that bad. You’re being self-indulgent. No-one has a perfect marriage. You should have been happy with what you had.

You’re so selfish. You’re a terrible mother, daughter, sister and friend. All you care about is how you’re feeling when you should be prioritising other people instead.

Of course, I’m aware that some of these statements are contradictory and part of my brain doesn’t really believe any of them (although part of it believes them all). This isn’t as illogical as it sounds, because ultimately the exact wording of the statements doesn’t really matter. It’s all about the underlying message, which can be summarised into one sentence: You’re a failure, it’s all your fault, and you’re not good enough.

I feel like I failed at my marriage (if I could make it ‘work’ for 22 years, surely I should be able to make it work forever). I’ve failed to support my children as I should have (by staying in a terrible marriage, by being so caught up in trying to survive each day that I didn’t give them the attention they deserved, by making the decisions that have led to the past 12 months of horrible, confronting conversations with their father for them because he can’t get to me). I’ve failed to be a Good Christian Wife (which I feel bad about even though I can see how damaging trying to achieve that distorted ideal is) and I’ve failed to be a confident independent woman. I failed by creating the image of a functional, happy family so that others didn’t realise that I needed help and now don’t realise that my ex isn’t the victim he portrays himself as being.

Every time something is said to the kids by their father, his family, my family or ‘friends’ that upsets them, I feel like it’s my fault. I should have protected them better and created a safer place for them. I should have known this is how things would pan out when I left their father and either stayed, or prepared them better for the fallout. My decisions have created the emotionally fraught landscape they have had to navigate over the past 12 months. It’s my fault that I’m not qualified enough to get a well paying job to give us all financial security and independence from my ex.

The ‘you’re not good enough’ soundtrack is the worst. That’s the one where I run through all the things I’m not – not strong enough, not smart enough, not brave enough, not coping well enough, not organised enough, not available for the kids enough, not supporting them enough. I’m not a good enough mother, friend or partner (in my new relationship). I’m not good enough at prioritising the practicalities of our everyday life, so the house is messy, the clothes aren’t ironed, and dinner is a bit of a potluck affair that could be a home cooked meal, but could also be takeaway pizza. Or toasted sandwiches.

Of course this is balanced out by a list of all the things I am: selfish, needy, flawed, broken, damaged, stupid, naive, disorganised, unqualified. The list goes on.

I’ve always thought I had a reasonably solid understanding of my strengths and weaknesses, but in these moments (and there have been so many of them in the past 12 months), it’s like I’m viewing everything through a filter that assumes that I’m to blame for everything – every unhappiness, every disappointment, every misunderstanding. After so many years married to someone who never apologised or accepted responsibility and always assumed that I was somehow to blame if things didn’t work out, that viewpoint now seems to be my default setting. It’s like it doesn’t matter that I’ve left him, because I’m now wired to be emotionally abusive to myself.

I’m not posting this to invite a raft of positive affirmations. This isn’t a cry for help or attention. It’s an acknowledgement that stepping away from my marriage was just the first step in a very, very long process of reclaiming myself. Some days it’s easy to see the wonderful things that are happening in my life, and other days I’m just too emotionally exhausted to find the energy to silence the ‘you’re a failure/it’s your fault/you’re not good enough’ soundtrack.

I know I am loved. I know I am valued. But tonight I am sad, and that’s okay. Tomorrow is a new day.

The Hardest Part

When I left my marriage, I expected the decision to leave would be the hardest part emotionally. That deciding to end a 22 year marriage would be harrowing, but after that, no matter how tough the decisions were, I would still have the relief of being free after feeling trapped for so long to carry me through.

What I’ve discovered is that pivotal decision was the first of what has become countless moments that have been so emotionally overwhelming that I’ve been convinced, often, that I simply don’t have the emotional reserves to deal with anything else. And then the next challenge comes along and I drag myself up, push through, and then retreat into myself to gather my defences before the next onslaught.

There are the obvious challenges of course. All the external issues like supporting my children, dealing with family and friends, finding work, the legal and financial aspects of separation and divorce, and dealing with my ex as we redefine our relationship. I’ve cried more times than I care to remember about all of these things and I’ve found the issues I’ve dealt with heartbreaking on many occasions, but they are all predictable consequences of my original decision to leave.

What has caught me by surprise are the internal issues I’ve had to deal with. Coming to terms with how emotionally broken and damaged I am. Feeling emotionally fractured and unbearably lonely and isolated. Feeling incapable of connecting with others because the emotions I’m dealing with are so intense and overwhelming that my head often doesn’t have room for anything else. Feeling like a failure as a friend. Feeling undeserving of the new relationship I have. Feeling selfish and cruel because I couldn’t put my own emotions aside to reassure my parents and respond to this situation in a way they could accept. Feeling weak and needy and broken beyond the ability to be repaired. I feel worthless.

I doubt myself at every turn. I’ve spent the past two decades constantly suppressing myself and trying to make decisions based on what would keep my husband’s world functioning. I’ve spent so much time filtering my thoughts and feelings that I feel like I don’t even know who I am and what I want anymore. Of course I expected there would be some need to redefine myself after leaving the marriage, but I didn’t expect to find that I would have to rethink every single aspect of myself. My thoughts. My opinions. How I see the world. Every emotion I feel now goes through an exhausting process before I can work out whether it is genuine – am I over-reacting to a trigger (there are so damn many of them), am I overthinking, am I slipping back into old habits of repressing myself in order to appease someone else, and I simply wrong and misjudging the situation. Happiness, frustration, confusion, pride, love, affection, gratitude – I second guess them all. I am always ready to assume that I’m at fault.

I don’t think there is a single thing that I used to believe about who I was that still holds true. I feel like I’ve lost myself in this, or more accurately that I’ve realised that I lost myself long ago and didn’t even notice. I wonder constantly what I have to offer anyone now – why anyone would be willing to care for me when I am so incapable of caring for myself.

I am grateful beyond words for my children who have given me a point of reference through all of this. Their love and belief in me hasn’t wavered and in my most fragile moments, that belief helps me to believe that I’ll get through this somehow. They remind me constantly of one of my favourite lines of poetry, from Valediction: Forbidding Mourning by John Donne “Thy firmness makes my circle just, and makes me end where I begun.” They help me to believe that I’ll find my way back to myself, even if takes a long time.

On days like today, I hold on to that belief. Because today is a hard day.