Heal yourself first, relationship second

Today I received the latest phone call from a good friend who was in an overwhelming, unbearable state of fear and confusion over her relationship.

She said she was unnerved by her partner because she felt he was not responsive enough, that he replied too little, too late to her messages, and that only her repeated "reminders" could move him into action. She felt that perhaps he no longer wanted to be with her, and she was absolutely terrified he was going to leave.

My friend is very, very dear to me, so I don't mind that this is the umpteenth time I receive such a call from her. I feel very grateful that I am able to help, even if sometimes I struggle and have to work hard to stay present and compassionate. I have found that when I am in no state to engage, it is best that I don't answer the phone when she rings.

Today, however, I felt I had to be a little tough. For the first time something became clear to me, about her problems but also about my own: There are relationship issues concerning the couple that need to be figured out together, adult to adult, of course with outside help if necessary. Communication is just one of them.

However, I certainly have experienced what my friend is going through: A problem one should be able to sort out in a mature and compassionate conversation, escalates into a gigantic existential crisis that nearly sinks the whole relationship.

This is because, if you have very little self esteem (and depression, anxiety etc), then your ability to cope with the discomfort of uncertainty around a partner is severely restricted. The terror of being abandoned, the fear and pain, are just too overwhelming. It feels, literally, like drowning.

This is co-dependency, dependency, fear of abandonment, love addiction...I could go on.

So I had to spell something out to her that I have been lucky to see first-hand this year:

Until she begins to heal her core, until she seeks treatment for her depression and anxiety, until she builds up her self-esteem and learns how to self-nurture and self-love, she will always be vulnerable to this kind of intense suffering and unhappiness.

Her relationship may survive and stabilise, as my marriage did for many years. My ex and I solved many relationship problems together, and I thought I was happy for a long time -- but underneath I was trapped,  trapped by my fear of being left, and by my fear of leaving.

I still struggle -- perhaps once a week I go through a day or two where I am consumed by a burning fear or sadness to do with my relationship. I can be jealous and possessive, manipulative and oversensitive, because I suddenly feel not good enough, that my boyfriend will certainly leave me.

It usually takes me another day to unfreeze myself, to remember how to let go, to release my heart and my mind. Then I come back to what I knew all along: I cannot control whether he wants to be with me or not, and this is okay. The uncertainty, not knowing what will happen, may be uncomfortable, but it will not kill me.

I want him to be free, only then will I feel truly happy and fulfilled in this relationship. The more I cling, the more I drive him away, and I also lose my own ability to choose him.

What changed? One huge thing: I began to address my mental health, seriously. This is not because I am particularly clever or responsible: The fact is, I hit rockbottom and was forced to get help.

For me, tackling my mental health issues meant going on medication (I am still on Lithium and Venlafaxine) and embarking on intense therapy for almost three years so far, including EMDR, which I am still doing.

Other things that are helping include attending SLAA, and I also read what I could on the subjects that I felt were relevant to me: Childhood trauma, books on bipolar and borderline personality disorder, love addiction, co-dependency, sexual abuse, intimacy issues, family and romantic relationships and so on.

Luckily my friend understood what I was getting at, and hopefully she will take action and stay committed to herself and take responsibility for her own well-being. If she doesn't, I will keep trying to help her, as I will try to keep helping myself!

Happy New Year to you all!

With much love,
Rosamunde

Feeling better? Time for a bit of drama

Recovery is uncomfortable at the moment. In the absence of any obvious obstacles or struggles, I feel uneasy. I am waiting for misery to strike, perhaps so I can resume my old ways and everything can get back to "normal". After all, depression and/or anxiety have been the norm for me for most of my life. 

But now, where the turmoil and mood swings and desperation and fear used to be, I have a space to fill with actual LIFE. Books to read, friends to talk to, and a zillion other things I can just do because I want to. 

But I still find ways to torture myself. I question my relationship, my feelings. I revisit old traumas and pick at them like old scabs. My dreams are still reassuringly unpleasant, but they seem strangely out of sync with my general state of mind, which is not fearful but a little more gutsy and robust. 

Why am I doing this? I think it is a combination of habit and a longing for some security. I am, of course, in a much safer place these days, but everything feels slightly strange, unfamiliar and precarious.  Part of me thinks: Surely this level of stability is just not sustainable?  But this question misses the point. Of course I will not always be this stable, but at least now I have seen it is possible. I know what it feels and looks like, so hopefully I can return to it should I ever lose it.

I think it is also self-propelling - stability seems to breed more stability. However, there is something in me that does not want to give itself up to recovery, a part that almost doesn't want to get better, and this can only heal if I let go. Perhaps I fear losing myself if I relinquish that part of me. 

What resides there? My first instinct is to say it's the trauma of the abuse by my husband. I see his eyes and feel his anger again. Perhaps the suicidal part of me lives there too: she still makes an appearance now and again. And my punitive side is there too, although her voice is much quieter these days. 

This is all stuff to work on in therapy I think. As for how it affects the rest of me, I have come to the conclusion that seems to crop up again and again:  I must keep an open heart and an open mind, to stay connected to my core.  

If I feel overwhelmed, I live a minute, an hour, a day at a time. I ask my heart how it feels right now, and often I find that I am ok. 

I am also practising to be more patient. Sometimes I feel a dark storm is brewing in me, and the tendency is to whip up some kind of angsty drama with my boyfriend. The aim is to get him to meet my needs, for validation, reassurance. 

To pull the breaks on that is not easy. I have to put aside some pride - it's not easy to admit that deep insecurity is skewing my perception of reality. And I somehow I have to cope with the feeling that I am drowning. How do I do that? I struggled before, but it is easier now to remember that I am not drowning at all.

I am on dry land, snug as a bug. But it doesn't help if he just reminds me of that alone -- I have to know it too. 

Anyway, I have to learn to live with the strangeness of being largely fine, and stop myself from sliding back into more familiar territory of anxiety and sadness. 

  

  

 

  

Free to love

I spend a huge chunk of my time and energy on learning how to be more emotionally stable and connected, on practising mindfulness and other methods for better mental health, and on managing to stay true to myself and grounded in my relationship. Today was the first time I thought that I would quite like a break from the constant mental toil, and I wondered: Will it always be this exhausting, so consuming?

I have felt a growing pressure in me these past days, because I want to tell my boyfriend that I am in love with him. And yet I know I am not ready - I still have a lot of healing and growing to do. Our relationship is not ready either, and perhaps neither is he. 

I used to say "I love you" at the drop of a hat, but now I know that what I actually meant was: "promise me you will stay" or "are you there for me?". I am not sure I have these dysfunctional tendencies out of my system yet, and I don't want to build myself another cage. That would mean the end of this relationship, and I don't want that. 

And so, having largely held back on professing my love for him (with some glitches early on), this is the first time in my life that I have let my feelings for someone just flow and develop freely. It's been an amazing experience so far, glorious in fact. Why ruin it with an "I love you" if right now it still brings such expectation and pressures with it?

The freedom has helped me to thrive:  I have not felt such happiness, connectedness and well-being with someone before, all while knowing that it is mutual and not just in my imagination. Is it love? It may well be, but I don't know, and right now I don't want this to matter. 

I realise now how limiting "I love you" can be, how striving only for this little phrase stifles your spirit, that of the other person and of the relationship. In the past, I always, always said it far too soon, and in the most ludicrous of instances, to people I hardly knew, people I didn't really like, and so on. To those among them that I hurt, I must have seemed like a sociopath. I would tell them I loved them with all my being and pressure them to reciprocate, then disappear or betray them. I still have amends to be make. They didn't know - and neither did I - that inside I was a shipwrecked person in a storm, clutching at driftwood, discarding one float for another. I was desperate for love and affection, for security. I was also hopelessly ignorant about what love meant, and on top of that I didn't know myself and was immature to boot.

I said "I love you's" in the same way I slept with people - it was really the expression of a deep, burning need. Saying it caused me dreadful anxiety, even to the point of panic attacks, because I knew something wasn't right, I just didn't know what. Soon enough I would start to doubt my feelings and suddenly the relationship - and thus my whole existence and survival - hung in the balance.

Now I don't say it, not yet. I think I may recently have had glimpses of what true love could mean, but for now I must stay free of this notion to get to know myself and my heart. Free to like him a little less one day, or a little more the next, without such fluctuations being a matter of life and death. 

 And when I feel that familiar urge again to blurt out an "I love you", I tell myself to be patient, to dance a bit more in the sunshine, to let things flow instead of trying to influence, secure and control. It's not easy, but I think it's worth it. 

Much love because I am in a loving mood. 

Rosamunde 

Sex and love addiction - a "disease"?

One of the biggest gifts I have received from SLAA is that it has made me far more humane and understanding of people than I was before. I could be so judgmental and harsh that I shudder to think about it now. But sitting in the meetings and listening to people from all walks of lives, of all different ages and levels of income and education, talk with absolute honesty about their struggles and efforts to get better and help themselves...it is extraordinarily humbling. 

Sometimes though, it can happen that someone's share makes me uncomfortable, or it feels so removed from my own experience that it is hard to find common ground. But this is quite rare. It's usually not about differinces in how we act out - there is quite a big spectrum of sex and love addiction related behaviour found in the fellowship. For some people acting out means completely avoiding romantic or sexual relationships, while others find they cannot stop. 

But I have found that in SLAA the strength of the common experiences means that such differences rarely matter. I have found deep identification with people whose acting out takes a totally different form to mine, but I recognised myself in their descriptions of what drove them, how it made them feel and impacted their lives. 

In the instances where I feel I disagree with someone or just cannot relate, I remember one of the mottos of SLAA, which is to "take what you like and leave the rest". This works well. Everyone has a right to be in those rooms and if I don't identify with someone, then this is my problem, not theirs. 

However, I have found that I don't get as much identification as I would like on issues around relationship abuse. Of course there are women and men in the fellowship with similar experiences, and I have really been profoundly inspired and moved by some who shared. But I often feel quite alone with it at meetings. I am not sure why that is exactly. 

People also differ on how they conceive of their sex and love addiction. My views on this has changed considerably in the last year, but one take I never subscribed to was the idea that this is a "disease". For me, this term gives it too much power and also makes it something we cannot get better from. I don't totally disagree with this. 

It is often said in the rooms that even after years of recovery, much of the painful stuff doesn't go away - you just learn to cope with it better. We lead better lives, stop acting out because we apply we have so many more tools and experience to cope. 

But I just don't see myself as diseased. I feel parts of me are damaged, wounded, and that slowly, slowly, I will be able to heal them. It will take a long time and much "work" (or as little as possible?)  but I feel I can see a path ahead. 

Having said that, I understand that for some the idea of their sex and love addiction is a disease can be helpful. The term contains everything the addiction entails, bundles all the dysfunction together, perhaps making it more manageable.  I can see how it could also seem like a curse though, inescapable, a sentence. This I don't want for myself. 

Of course some also use the term in its literal meaning "dis-ease" - I think (?) to say that sex and love addiction is the main cause of their struggles. 

I have even begun to question the term addiction in this context. I certainly exhibited addictive and compulsive behaviour in the past, but that was a long time ago. I am starting to think that addiction/compulsion is a symptom of the whole, not the whole itself.  I have other symptoms too, eg being manipulative or needy. 

Anyway. I am glad I wrote about this subject, it's been bothering me for a while! 

"Jeune et Jolie" - a film about sex addiction

Last night I watched the film "Jeune et jolie" (young and beautiful) by François Ozon. I want to post about it because for me, the story was mainly about sex addiction, how it can emerge and how damaging it is. 

The protagonist is an extremely beautiful,17-year-old girl from a wealthy Parisian family. One summer, she loses her virginity on a beach to some guy that she doesn't really care about.  It is an unpleasant, mechanical and impersonal experience for her, but she seems numb. Not long after their return to Paris for the autumn, she is working as a high-end prostitute. 

Many things about the film moved me because like me, she  had such a loveless introduction to sex - it wasn't anything connected to emotion, tenderness or intimacy. For the girl sex quickly becomes a tool with which she exerts power over men, with which to make money. This is how she gets her validation and sometimes affection. 

There are a few twists I won't reveal in case you want to watch it, except that her mum finds out and goes berserk. And it becomes clear that the girl is really isolated, lonely and disconnected from those closest to her.  Her mother is not trustworthy,  her kind stepfather starts to seem unsafe, her best friend is clueless and inexperienced. She is close to her younger brother but the main topic of conversation is sex and their relationship seems unhealthy.

She doesn't confide in anyone, and nobody can get through to her. What is striking is that she seems unable to to tolerate any positive, wholesome family scenes, any feelings of togetherness or belonging.  I can identify with that - I always felt it was a lie and so uncomfortable, I just wanted to get away and blot out the feelings with booze or pot or emotional fixes. 

This discomfort/hatred is one of the forces that drives her to prostitution I think, because what she is doing is filling the void in her with something strong, destructive and dark, something "bad".  She is using sex and masturbation to change the way she feels, and end up totally cut off from her own body and her feelings. 

I could write a lot more about this but I will leave it there. I don't like the subject  much but I wanted to watch it because it's important to me. Yes the past is sad but it reminded me how lucky I am. 

Missing him triggers my childhood pain

This morning has been interesting for me, from a SLAA perspective. I mentioned before that my boyfriend is away for a few days, and although I was quite happy at first, I am now starting to become agitated as that all-too-familiar anguish over separation returns. 

I can see how it could be hard to understand why I am struggling - it must seem ridiculous.  He's only gone for a short period, and he has written to say he misses me. We are happy and will spend Christmas together. 

 

And yet, something as trivial as his absence for a few days is really painful for me. I have had some tough times in the last two years, so I find it astonishing that something like this can threaten to derail me in such a way. 

But I realise that this sits squarely at the centre of what SLAA has illuminated for me: this pain I am feeling comes from pre-existing wounds and goes very deep, back to my childhood and adolescence. I feel alone, helpless, abandoned, in danger and desperate. My unconscious quest to get rid of these feelings were what led me to my self-destructive and dysfunctional behaviour in the past. Often my actions created even more pain and chaos. 

I can feel the itch to act out, anything to make the discomfort go. I am nervous, obsessing. I keep checking my phone.

And I am still ashamed of myself and frustrated. Why am I so needy, so clingy, so insecure? I worry that if I don't keep myself in check he will no longer want to be in this relationship. And I don't really feel like this is me --- it's happening against my will, against my own values and aspirations of how I want to live and love. 

However, I have learnt some ways to cope. 

The old, pre-SLAA me would have kept contacting him, trying to extract some expression of his love or affection to prop me up and keep me going. I would have gone deeper and deeper into agonising and exaggerated emotional states and confuse these with being in love.

I would also be living a double life - one in the real world and one in my head, which would be consumed by my obsession with him. I would only be half-present in my own life. 

At worst, I would get so sad or distraught that I would become suicidal. 

The post-SLAA me tries to stay connected to myself and the present, to the people around me and whatever it is I am doing. I am more accepting of myself and compassionate. 

I also keep my goals in sight, and I accept that I have to work for them: 

- I want to be independent.

- I want to live my life and not get sucked into fantasy or into a parallel world of obsession.

- I don't want this relationship to dominate my life. I need to keep an identity. 

- Lastly, I want this relationship to thrive because it makes me really happy. 

I try to "sit" with the feelings, just let them flow freely rather than trying to block them. Sometimes they lose their intensity after a few seconds. 

Finally I have been telling myself that missing the man in my life is not exclusively a bad thing, and that it's normal. I suppose it's when I get desperate, sad, angry and suspicious that things are getting out of hand and that I need to pay attention to it. 

Have a nice day! 

Battling trust issues with light and flow

I have heard people in the rooms talk about how they struggle when their partners are away. They are tempted to act out on their addictive behaviour because they have the freedom to or because they need a fix to make up for the absence of emotional fixes. Intense longing, obsession, restlessness and pain can take over, accompanied by shame for having these feelings and not being more self-sufficient.

My boyfriend is away and out of touch for a few days, and I am thinking about him a lot. Before I went into recovery, I would have been paralysed, incapacitated during this time, desperately trying to get hold of him for some word of reassurance. Now, I am not even tempted to contact him. I don't want to upset myself by getting into a waiting-for-reply pattern, and more importantly, I dont want to infringe on his space.  This is certainly a result of recovery: I would not previously been able to be truly considerate towards someone. My needs were too overwhelming, too pressing.

But my trust in him is plummeting as the hours go by, for no other reason than him being out of sight, out of contact. I manage to put the brakes on my imagination, but the paranoid images and fantasies are bubbling away below the surface somewhere. Rather than indulge them, I want to know what is really troubling me so much. I have no reason not to trust him but I am afraid to do so. I can feel something in my body holding me back,  I tense up. To let go and embrace the flow and warmth would mean opening myself up to danger. I think it is the right thing to do and I want to try, but it feels like such a risk. What if he hurts me, betrays me? I am afraid.

If you strip everything away, including my boyfriend, then it comes down to this: I am face to face with my own vulnerability. It is not about me trusting him as much as trusting the universe, trusting a higher power. I want to control something I cannot control, and this brings me pain. My boyfriend can always let me down and vice versa, but the light and the flow that I feel when I think about the higher power will always be there. The "I" that has a boyfriend, a son, a job and so on, is just one part of me. The other part is my soul, my inner life. I think this must be my core and from there I witness everything on the outside, the events in my life, my thoughts and actions.

While he is away and the negative feelings arise, I will say to myself: "Of course you find it hard to trust after everything that has happened, and that's ok. Try to let go, to open yourself up. Yes, it is a risk, but you can handle it if things go wrong. You are strong, and you always have the light and flow at your core to back you up."