The challenge of insecurity in a relationship

That insecurity can harm relationships is not news by any means. And yet it is such a tough nut to crack because even if there is awareness, it is not easily dealt with by either party.

Why am I so insecure? Certainly my past has a large role to play, my parents not being very loving and then various bad experiences in relationships which scarred me and made me afraid of being hurt again. Being unwell with anxiety and mood swings, plus the various effects of trauma, don't help either. I worry about being a burden and that my boyfriend will get fed up with the struggle and leave.
All these problems and difficulties of mine make me doubt my judgement on whether there are things my boyfriend should change, if any. I do take issue with the lack of expression of his feelings towards me. I know that sounds like a terribly needy thing to say, and I am ashamed of it, but I just feel I need more reassurance than I am currently getting, especially (as he points out) when I don't see him for a while. I start sinking, I get resentful, paranoid that he does not care for me or value me as I am, and I have to battle away until I see him, when all of the dark thoughts usually evaporate and are replaced by feelings of happiness, peace and love.

I think it is true that it's largely out of insecurity that I want my boyfriend to tell me more often that he loves me, that I make him happy and enrich his life the way he enriches mine, but the healthy part of me also believes that it's an important part of any relationship to show and say how much you value the other person. Not all of this need has something to do with being insecure or unstable. I (like my boyfriend) grew up in a household where the words "I love you" were never spoken, and I really believe my parents missed a trick. It's like a huge chunk of warmth and care is missing from my childhood. Today I tell my little son all the time that I love him and that he is important and precious to me. I want him never to doubt it, and to be comfortable expressing his own feelings for people.

Luckily my boyfriend is not judgemental when it comes to the insecurity and doesn't ridicule me or shame me more for being like this. And I feel that ultimatly we will manage and perhaps even overcome this issue. I can see he is willing to make an effort for this relationship and we both want the same things, which is to have a nice and joyful life together.

Effects from EMDR therapy

I want to write a little about the effects that EMDR is having on me -- at least what I think they are. It's quite difficult to know because they are not very obvious or clear. 

I have my weekly therapy session in the late morning on my day off, so I usually go home, have some lunch and go straight to sleep for about three hours. The tiredness lasts right through into the next day at least. Someone had warned me about EMDR being exhausting, and my therapist also told me to take it easy for the rest of the day. My tiredness could be due to other things as my sleep and overall health are not that great at the moment. 

I don't feel emotionally raw or upset after EMDR. Sometimes I feel relieved, or elated, indifferent, puzzled. When we tackled what is to me one of the most difficult topics  - being molested - I was completely fine. I was surprised by how lightly I was able to engage with it, because previously I have experienced terrible distress when discussing or recalling those events, and here I was stepping right back into those moments. Being able to handle it was an awesome feeling.

Since my last session I have felt as if I am in a bit of a bubble -- tired, slightly indifferent to things. That feeling is exacerbated by memories of dreams coming back to me at odd moments, dreams from the past year or two. It's strange, like a funny quirk in my brain. This could also be related to my medication, as I have been having intense dreams ever since going on lithium in October 2013. 

Anyway, I realise none of this is very detailed or specific, but it helps me to write it down and keep track of it a bit.  

Doing the hard yards with EMDR

 Today I had my weekly therapy session and it wore me out. I slept all afternoon and even though it's not even 9 pm I am ready to go to bed. It's not that I was in distress like I would have been 10 months ago. It's more that I am tired out by the concentration required and the depths of feeling that we are tapping into now that I am no longer so highly reactive and frightened. 

Lots of disturbing things have already been defused in the past year and my life has improved a lot but now we seem to be going one level deeper, revisiting the same issues but in a calmer, more direct way. We are working our way through a list of difficult or traumatic events, using EMDR. Lots of tapping and breathing. 

I am bewildered by the list, which seems strangely exaggerated or distorted to me, even though I know it isn't. I seem unable to take myself seriously enough or to be compassionate enough to really grasp those aspects to my life in its entirety. I suppose it's also a form of denial, of coping. I still consider myself unbelievably lucky and privileged. Of course it would have been better to have a better environment growing up, but doesn't everyone wish for that? Apparently not. I went through a few months where I was accepting and compassionate, and I believe that is when I made the biggest advances in my recovery. 

I have run out of sympathy for myself, perhaps. But I know I need to fix this stuff in order to sustain a decent quality of mental health, so I will get on with it. 

Learning to trust, learning to distrust

The anxiety and feelings of instability I have suffered from in recent weeks have eased, but not disappeared. Every day is a struggle, a battle to stay calm, to reason with and soothe myself. It's knackering. How I long for quieter times! But I have to accept that this turmoil is another stage in my recovery, and an important one at that.   

Most of my current difficulties are to do with trust. I am in my first serious relationship since I entered recovery after my husband and I separated and I suffered some serious abuse, had a breakdown, was hospitalised and entered SLAA. 

I am having to do what feels like a very adult job of working out how to trust someone in a relationship without completely surrendering myself, without losing touch with the reality of what human beings are - changeable and free. 

I can easily accept that my trust in my friends and family comes with limits. I set these intuitively or through experience, which is painful sometimes. But I never expect to be able to trust them no matter what - it is not intolerable to me to think that some day they might dislike or disagree with something I do, or betray me in one way or another. So why do I expect this guaranteed safety from a partner? Why can I not accept him as an ordinary, multi-faceted human being, and not as a rigid statue?   

Basically, I don't feel safe. I feel afraid. I suppose this is to be expected, given the abuse I suffered in the past. But knowing this doesn't help.

I can see now that the conflict with my boyfriend over his ex visiting was really just a hook for this problem, that it was there before. I have written before about how in the past I suppressed my true feelings about men because I thought they could offer me safety. My craving to be protected trumped my values and aspirations for a relationship.  

I broke this cycle by attending SLAA and undergoing therapy but I now actually have to learn to trust wisely, like an adult...and this seems almost impossible at the moment. How does anyone trust anyone? I am terrified. 

I remind myself that my boyfriend deserves to be trusted but it doesn't help for long. I begin to question everything, including him and myself and my whole perception of reality. I have been there before, and it's not pretty.  

Last night we talked for a long time. We talked about the ex, about her disappointment that he has moved on. Their story is a messy one and it wasn't helped by him mismanaging her visit, not being open about his new relationship with her or about her visit with me. Christ, it really doesn't look good on paper, does it! But I am satisfied with what he has said about it all - it was a mistake, and he apologised to both of us. 

If in my situation, my ex would have interrogated me endlessly, demanded to see all communication, worn me down with questions and accusations until he felt satisfied.  It was terrifying, but a part of me is tempted to behave like that because it feels like knowledge will somehow soothe the pain. 

But then there is always more you could know...it's never enough. Worse still, my boyfriend has a habit of contradicting himself on minor details, which totally freaks me out. Last night I found myself looking at him as if he was a complete stranger and thinking: What am I doing here? Is he just some liar? Even if he lies without malice but just for convenience - can I handle that? 

I told him I was terrified he would hurt me, and he said that while we were together, he would give me no reason to be hurt. Is this really a promise people make? I guess such a statement says more on his intentions, on the strength of his feelings towards me, rather than being a real promise to hold him to, and I appreciate it for that/ 

But the slippery element to all this, the inconsistencies...they worry me, truly. But I also know that he does have a shifting interior world, just like me, and so his views change relatively quickly. When will I be able to just relax with him again? I know I must not rush myself, that my heart will catch up with my head when it's ready. 

Overcoming black and white thinking

The good, the bad and the ugly

One if the characteristics of borderline personality disorder is black and white thinking, and this is something I am very aware of in myself at the moment. When I first saw black and white thinking described in a book about BPD some time ago -- just like the other things on the list -- I was stunned. It was a revelation because it applied to so many of my feelings and actions, and grouped them in a clear pattern. I felt my self-knowledge deepened vastly that day and since them I have made a lot of progress in my recovery and how I interact with people.

But the challenges keep coming and on some days I have moments where I think that I ham running out of energy. It's tiring to keep toiling, to keep fighting against the turmoil that constantly wants to creep in and dominate my mind. I no longer have big, threatening worries like last year and the year before, and I am very grateful for that. This current anxiety is low-level but almost constant, bubbling away and ready to flare up when I am triggered, hungry or tired. 

If I look at myself with compassion for a moment, then I can see it is not surprising I still have all this anxiety and vulnerability. I have been struggling with anxiety, depression and mood instability most of my life, at least for as long as I can remember. This is so far just who I am, and meds can only control it up to a certain point. I have already made huge changes to improve my mental health, and I fully expect there will be more to come. 

This is a long-term project, I am fixing a whole person or at least making it easier for that person to live a fulfilled and happy life. 

It is also not surprising that I always feel this pull to seek answers or solace from my boyfriend. I don't want to burden him, and I know from ample past experience that it's not good for me to use my partner as a crutch. Also I don't feel quite present in the relationship at the moment. We had a crisis a couple of weeks ago, which is all resolved now to positive effect, but I haven't yet found the same space again that I shared with him before, that same sense of intimacy and joy and comfort I had in his presence before. Writing that it seems obvious that I will not find this same space again - things have changed, I have changed because that incident made me realise I had been thinking of him in that binary, idealising way again. The only way that makes me feel truly safe. 

But after our disagreement (outlined in a previous post), I have a more realistic image of him now. A whole person, who lives his own life, and who doesn't need or want to share every single thing with me. That is a good thing -but I am struggling to get used to it. I was always very black and white in my approach to people - good or bad, with nothing in between. In my friendships this meant I cut people off when I for some reason became angry or afraid of them. In relationships it made me blind to signals that someone was unsuitable, I idealised them, and we broke up I blamed them for everything and believed they were bad.

There is nothing about my boyfriend that makes him blatantly unsuitable, and it's good to know I like him for who he is. But at the same time, he is like everyone in this world in that he is a mix of good and bad. I have to be able to tolerate this, and not get scared or paranoid. Of course he can always hurt me, betray me, lie to me, but I am not a helpless child, not a victim at his mercy. 

After all, it's not like I am pure myself -  I am just like that too, capable of good but also bad, of being selfish and untruthful. Intellectually this was something I of course grasped before, but to feel it, to apply it, is another story. 

Wishing you good health and peace of mind, 

Rosamer 

Split inside: Needy child versus strong, sexy woman

I had something of a wake-up call in the last couple of weeks, a landing back on Planet Earth with a painful thud that shook me to my core.

It came in the framework of my relationship, as these things often do, and even though it wasn't THAT serious by general standards, it certainly felt like it was to me.

This was largely because I was badly triggered and reminded of traumatic events from the past, and for several days I struggled to reconnect with myself and the present. The pain was just so overwhelming.

My boyfriend, who I assure you is a lovely chap, revealed he was getting a visit from his ex that very weekend, and that this visit had been arranged several months previously. He had also seriously disappointed her by not telling her he was in a new relationship until two weeks before the visit - which is still more notice that I got about the whole mess.  

Anyway, I assumed the worst: I thought he had lied to both of us, kept his options open for as long as possible and had pretty much deceived me throughout our relationship. I always liked that he is still friends with most, if not all of his exes - it reflects well on all parties in my opinion, and I wish I could say the same about myself.

But in this instance, I could not help but think he had betrayed me and lied to me. I had trusted him, which had been tough -- he is my first serious relationship after I separated from my husband -- and after everything that happened to me in the past, the abuse and humiliation, I was in shock that I could let myself be fooled again. I was so upset I became physically ill and started taking sedatives for the first time in several months.

However, with much effort and some degree of good faith, I still managed to keep open my heart and my ears to listen to him, and I began to see his side. He had agreed to her visit when our relationship looked uncertain, then felt unable to tell me and unable to cancel on her. He said it was a mistake he would not repeat, and he apologised. He said for the first time that he loved me, and that he had no interest in rekindling a relationship with her, that he was no longer attracted to her and felt we were much more compatible.

It all made sense and I could tell he was being honest - at least when he was right in front of me. My paranoia, fear and sadness was just through the roof, especially when we were not together. But I quickly got the sense I had to work through this, that at the end everything would be fine.

We had some moments where our communication was bad -- he was freaked out by my pretty hysterical reaction, and I was angry at his attempts to shut me down.

But he ended up opening his heart too, and we really talked. I told him all my fears and resentments, and he listened. He was kind and accepting. I began to trust him again but I still hurt, and it wouldn't go away. I began to see that my expectations, my needs are not realistic.

Of course he messed up, there is no question of that --  but I also expected him NEVER to betray my trust or hurt me, never to keep secrets, as if he was not a changing, living and breathing human being, but a stone. This is what it was like in my marriage. We were so rigid inside, safety was the priority at all times. I could see now that I had just projected a similarly "safe" construct onto this relationship. But he had never agreed to this --  in fact it wasn't even real.

I was not as safe as I thought, and what is more this safety is an illusion. Because it is achievable only at considerable cost, and actually this endangers your very core as a human being.  With my husband I felt "safe" but I had to close down parts of myself, my sexuality, my imagination, my own darkness. I had to limit my interaction with the world, with men, but also with my friends: I could no longer be honest with them, I could not betray the man who kept me safe, who kept my reality together.

This is an important discovery. My whole recovery has been to do with becoming free, and letting others be free, and yet here, blindly, I had repeated my old pattern.

It hurts to have to let it go, it is depressing. I want to be a little girl who can seek refuge in a strong man's lap, someone who will protect and nurture me.  But I also want to be a grown up, a sexy, strong woman, who doesn't need anyone but who chooses her partners and is in control of herself and her life.

Why am I so profoundly split? To some extent I have bridged this gap since I left my husband, which has been very healing. But I still have to work on it, and not let either side take over, either in the open or stealthily. I guess what happened here is that the little girl managed to assert herself, and impose her needs on my reality.

I am grateful to be with a good man who I can talk to, who doesn't judge me for all this weird stuff.

 Happy Sunday.
Rosamunde

Will my codependency trap me again?

I am co-dependent and too often I have chosen and stayed in relationships that were not for me. When I disliked something about my partner, I suppressed it, be it about their physical appearance, their personality or something else that just wasn't compatible.

I went out with people I wasn't really attracted to, who held views I abhorred, whose sexual preferences were questionable, whose education/jobs/life prospects were a world apart, and so on and so forth. Disastrous. Painful to remember. I even married someone with whom I was ultimately mismatched.

Now I am dating someone who I really like a lot and to whom I am definitely physically attracted. Phew. However, there are issues, as there are in any relationship. When these flare up,  I become afraid: Am I compromising because I fear being alone again? Where is the line between accommodating and just yielding? 

Some aspects to our communication irk me. He rarely expresses his feelings, and even though he is loving in other ways, I am discovering that I am someone who needs a certain amount of WORDS to feel connected, loved. This does not mean a grand "I love you" every five minutes - little expressions of affection and appreciation here and there would do fine, but he employs these incredibly sparingly. So far I have coped because I can tell he likes me by other means, and he has improved a little after we discussed it a few times. I don't want to be on his case about it too much as it defeats the purpose and he becomes quite defensive and shuts down.

Why is he so mute? Does he not feel as much as me in general or is he just not that into me? He did not get much affection as a child, I know that much, but then neither did I. I guess I went to the other extreme of being overly expressive. I probably badger him far too much about this and it blows up when we have a problem or I am not doing so well. 

 Is this one of the instances where it is worth me accommodating? Am I selling myself short again? I know it is in my co-dependent nature to put up with shit I don't actually want to have to deal with - like feeling unloved - but I have started to look out for myself, and here is an attempt to that effect. 

The first, most important question is whether or not I am being abused again. Well, so far nothing has happened that contravenes my values. He is not interested in controlling me and he is not withholding affection to manipulate me, I am fairly certain of that. 

Now, what about me, Rosamunde? Do I want a relationship with someone like that? Well, if I saw a profile on a dating website that said: struggles to be affectionate or to express his feelings, does not like talking about the relationship he is in more than a few minutes at a time, can't handle displays of strong negative emotions in his partner - I would be completely put off. 

But it would also say: is kind-hearted, friendly, caring. Likes laughing and silly humour, animals and children. Is gorgeous. Hot in bed, very attentive, experimental and passionate. Needs looking after sometimes. Very practically talented, generally undaunted by physical tasks. Has strong passions and interests.

See? It's not as simple as it seems. I guess all I can do is to keep asking myself these questions, to ask myself what I want and try to be honest and then act with integrity towards myself. But when do I know I have reached a limit? What is a limit? 

I suppose if our differences lead to more unhappiness and dischord, and my mental health and ability to function becomes affected, then I will have to end it. The trouble is that when down or in distress, I am least likely to end a relationship. That requires strength. I suppose I have to trust in those moments that I will get through it, but I am so afraid of the pain that follows, it feels like being burnt alive. I know I can survive it, I have learnt that, but I still cannot tolerate it any better. 

Anyway, it's late. A good and tranquil night to everyone.

Rosamunde