Shane Roach said:
Hiya!
Yeah most of us here I think are here precisely because we have had times in our life when we wish we had someone to talk to as well.
It's rought that discussing it with your hubby sometimes results in arguments. On the other hand, good to hear he is generally supportive. All the more reason, though, to perhaps use the resource you have here to bounce things off of people. Maybe take a little of the stress off of trying to work it out with the husband, give him a little respite, then maybe bounce back and forth between him and here, that sort of thing -- share the burden!
Are you saying your head and heart are disconnected on some level, or what do you mean by connecting your mind to your body, if I can ask? Is it mostly just not being able to allow yourself to feel or be emotional? All bottled up? The explanation seemed a little hard to understand to me.
Can you go out and scream at the top of your lungs somewhere?
Hrm, well... if it did seem to actually help you connect to some part of your problem, then I am glad ya came! Take care okay? And feel free to come back of course! I am now quite interested what you will discover about yourself as you delve into all this.
it helps that i can toggle between my hubby and the folks here at cf. a giant blessing. i found a christian counselor and she has a ministry for counseling women so i'm scheduling an appoinment for next week....i'm determined to get this stuff worked out.
the connection thing. rrr. it's so hard to describe. <<deep breath>> let's see....i said i used to do si, right, and that in addition to forcing myself to supress emotion when relating to my family resulted in me being just really unemotional. well, unemotional on the outside. lots always went on in my head. in fact, until last summer when god helped me get out of si i never allowed myself to cry. everything was just always bottled up and kept in my head.
um, so just imagine not expressing any feeling. any feeling regarding anything. my brother ran away and i stared blankly. my mom is chronically ill and i silently watch her struggle. my grandma died and i didn't shed a tear. i got my book published and i smirked. these are real things that i've experienced and the true reactions i had to them. in my head i'm screaming, wailing, jumping up and down but outside i'm stoic....blank. silent. what i experienced in body i did not connect to with my head. say, um, lemme think. okay, say you have tried and tried for this really great job, right? it's something you totally want and have gone to incredible lengths to become qualified for yet when the manager finally tells you you're hired, you don't connect the fact that in body you are shaking his hand and the elation you feel emotionally. make sense? or....another example. say you are a coal miner and you suddenly get trapped when the ceiling collapses on you. emotionally you are freaking out and inside you are filled with fear but outside, you lie there under the rock and coal, motionless, not fighting for air or freedom. dying. what you are feeling or thinking in your head is disconnected from your body and what you are doing with it. I suppose it could be compared to self control to some degree, like you feel like screaming at your in-law but you're biting your tongue....but i guess my prob of disconnection is self control to an insanely distorted degree. Maybe it started out as self control back when i was a child and then over years and years it has developed into what it currently is. i am not sure.
until i left my parents' i did the disconnection stuff to survive, because everytime i *did* express something, it was the wrong thing. i laughed and my sis told me i should have cried. i cried and my sis told me to toughen up. i growled and my mom told me to suck it up. i was contemplative and i was told to say something. i said something and it was the wrong thing. nothing i did was correct, no emotion i felt was on target so to save myself the trouble of getting a lecture or feeling like i failed, i just stopped expressing. i went through the motions of life and became a pushover .... peace at all cost no matter what it required me to supress. all that mattered was keeping everyone else happy with me and not making waves. do whatever they tell me. have no objecting opinion. pose no alternative ideas. just go with the flow and be a puppet in their palm. that was the objective of my life, the reason i existed, my goal to reach. it was a trap be all definition but that didn't matter because i had no other choice.
the only freedom i knew was that which i lived in my head. i lived in ecstacy in my head because in my head i daydreamed about living my own life according to my own wishes and ambitions. i lived a life in my head where i was servant to no-one and no-one was my god; i lived a full and satisfying life where i could do what i wanted without anyone telling me i was wrong to want it; i was free, there were open doors all around me, i could succeed at whatever i wanted to pursue. but to me, living there at my parents, they were dreams.
unattainable dreams. dreams because i thought i would never get out of there to experience them and unnattainable because....because why? i dunno, honestly. i just know that's what i thought of them.
now they are real. they are right in front of me. doors are open wherever i look. i have very little restraints. i'm out of my parents' house and on my own. i'm sharing life with a man who adores me for who i am. he loves to hear my thoughts and emotions. he longs to be a part of what i feel and desire and wants nothing more than to see me fly and reach my potential. but this darn
reflexive wall keeps popping up. i don't even realize i'm holding back a thought or feeling much of the time unless i sit and think hard about it or unless he probes. i had such a hard time finding a job because i was a pushover 90% of the time.
everything my life right now is demanding of me, or offering me, is the total and complete opposite of what i have lived for the last twenty-three years. i used to be bound, now i'm free. i used to be surrounded by harsh critics, now i'm surrounded by loving support. i used to be scared to feel, now i am free to express whatever is inside.
<<wow. this is weird. i just started feeling better when i was listin those comparrisons. wow. amazing.>>
k, sorry for the interruption. what was i saying? oh, just that i'm living a life that's totally opposite what it used to be. that's awesome, really awesome, but frustrating when it feels out of reach due to the difficulty i'm having in letting myself relax and live. i still feel accountable, i guess, to my past. like if i deviate from that other lifestyle i'm goin to hear about it. but from who? that's just it. there's no one that's going to get after me. hmm. this post is really helping me sort this out. i think i'm starting to get it! sometimes i feel like if my parents find out about this or that, such as my school or my jobs or whatever, that they'll get upset but hey, they aren't my god and i'm not their servant. i'm free. i'm a free girl.
woooopppppoooopopopopopopop!!! i think i'm getting it!!!!!!! omw, this is so cool!!!!!!!!