I'm completely in denial. I'm not sure of what.

[Before you can make things better, you have to stop making them worse...]

I've been here a while.

Been doing the whole introspection, deep work on myself thing for 5 years or so.

I know I'm in denial.

I'm not sure of what though.

Somewhere, deep in my heart, I know Daisy will get better.  I know it.  I'm not afraid of it.  It's one of my greatest hopes in the world.  She's the first soul I've ever bonded with.  I couldn't bond with anyone else because no one else was as broken.  No one else knew what I was talking about, or how I felt. She did.  She got it.  I'm so happy for her on that level.

I'm jealous of the other men that will get to be with her.

She might be broken, but we were broken together.  We were kindred spirits.

And I'm not upset over that jealousy.  I feel that same way with all of my ex's.  I liked each and every one of them for a reason, and when our time came up, we parted ways.  I miss them from time to time. There are memories that remind me of them.  Triggers.

Is this my denial?  Is it that she will really never get better?  Am I delusional to believe there is a possibility it happens in the future?

I refuse to believe so.  I know from personal experience what it feels like to be terrified to speak a word in front of my family or friends for fear of setting them off.  It's a terrible place to be, and I crawled out of it, or am crawling out of it.

I believe in that possibility.  I'm not attached to the outcome. Instead, I'm focusing on how I want to be.  Being a strong person in myself, as I want her to be for herself.  The same thing I wish for each of you.

I guess, in a way, I'm trying to alleviate my guilt for still having feelings for her and not allowing her to contact me.  I'm afraid I might have misjudged her.  I'm afraid I'm being the bad guy for taking care of my feelings.  Bad guy or not, I'm going to keep doing it.  I'm afraid of her.  All 90 pounds sopping wet.  Terrifies me.  She gives me one look and I'd run. 

And I'm still angry with her. I've posted before.  The trauma feels over for me.  Something has shifted.  I see her as a person, and now I'm just heartbroken.  It's a normal kind of heartbroken that I've felt before, and I'll feel again, and I'm okay with it.  It's a beautiful kind of sadness with remembering the fond times we had together.

I bargain.  I get angry.  I cry.  I scream.  I curse God.

And all of it is okay.

Because she is not my mother.  She certainly cannot, by her lack of care for me, cause me to die.  I am responsible for taking care of myself now.  I'm an adult.  I have been since age 5.  I just didn't realize it. It's my greatest advantage in this world.

Sure I need some re-parenting.  It goes on 2-3 times per week.  In Therapy.  In meditation.  In my groups.  In my writing.

Slowly, I am becoming the parent to myself that I never had.

Perhaps the denial is of my own issues.  Focusing on her instead of working on myself.  I don't know how that's the case.  I focus on my own stuff so much, it gets tiring.  Sometimes I have to take weeks off, just to remind myself that I'm normal.

Just to walk outside and look around, and be like, well, I'm not the most f'd up person in the world.  There's gotta be someone worse than me.  And I know I've made progress over the past 5 years.  So hopefully I'm better than I was before.

I don't know.

I feel depression coming.  And acceptance.

I don't know what this denial is. 

Perhaps I'm just finally saying to myself, "it's over."

Maybe I had to come to a place of love for Daisy in order for me to be ok?

[PhoenixRising15]

I've been here a while.

Been doing the whole introspection, deep work on myself thing for 5 years or so.

I know I'm in denial.

I'm not sure of what though.

Somewhere, deep in my heart, I know Daisy will get better.  I know it.  I'm not afraid of it.  It's one of my greatest hopes in the world.  She's the first soul I've ever bonded with.  I couldn't bond with anyone else because no one else was as broken.  No one else knew what I was talking about, or how I felt. She did.  She got it.  I'm so happy for her on that level.

I'm jealous of the other men that will get to be with her.

She might be broken, but we were broken together.  We were kindred spirits.

And I'm not upset over that jealousy.  I feel that same way with all of my ex's.  I liked each and every one of them for a reason, and when our time came up, we parted ways.  I miss them from time to time. There are memories that remind me of them.  Triggers.

Is this my denial?  Is it that she will really never get better?  Am I delusional to believe there is a possibility it happens in the future?

I refuse to believe so.  I know from personal experience what it feels like to be terrified to speak a word in front of my family or friends for fear of setting them off.  It's a terrible place to be, and I crawled out of it, or am crawling out of it.

I believe in that possibility.  I'm not attached to the outcome. Instead, I'm focusing on how I want to be.  Being a strong person in myself, as I want her to be for herself.  The same thing I wish for each of you.

I guess, in a way, I'm trying to alleviate my guilt for still having feelings for her and not allowing her to contact me.  I'm afraid I might have misjudged her.  I'm afraid I'm being the bad guy for taking care of my feelings.  Bad guy or not, I'm going to keep doing it.  I'm afraid of her.  All 90 pounds sopping wet.  Terrifies me.  She gives me one look and I'd run. 

And I'm still angry with her. I've posted before.  The trauma feels over for me.  Something has shifted.  I see her as a person, and now I'm just heartbroken.  It's a normal kind of heartbroken that I've felt before, and I'll feel again, and I'm okay with it.  It's a beautiful kind of sadness with remembering the fond times we had together.

I bargain.  I get angry.  I cry.  I scream.  I curse God.

And all of it is okay.

Because she is not my mother.  She certainly cannot, by her lack of care for me, cause me to die.  I am responsible for taking care of myself now.  I'm an adult.  I have been since age 5.  I just didn't realize it. It's my greatest advantage in this world.

Sure I need some re-parenting.  It goes on 2-3 times per week.  In Therapy.  In meditation.  In my groups.  In my writing.

Slowly, I am becoming the parent to myself that I never had.

Perhaps the denial is of my own issues.  Focusing on her instead of working on myself.  I don't know how that's the case.  I focus on my own stuff so much, it gets tiring.  Sometimes I have to take weeks off, just to remind myself that I'm normal.

Just to walk outside and look around, and be like, well, I'm not the most f'd up person in the world.  There's gotta be someone worse than me.  And I know I've made progress over the past 5 years.  So hopefully I'm better than I was before.

I don't know.

I feel depression coming.  And acceptance.

I don't know what this denial is. 

Perhaps I'm just finally saying to myself, "it's over."

Maybe I had to come to a place of love for Daisy in order for me to be ok?

[PhoenixRising15]

I guess, in a way, I'm trying to alleviate my guilt for still having feelings for her and not allowing her to contact me.  I'm afraid I might have misjudged her.  I'm afraid I'm being the bad guy for taking care of my feelings.  Bad guy or not, I'm going to keep doing it.  I'm afraid of her.  All 90 pounds sopping wet.  Terrifies me.  She gives me one look and I'd run. 

And I'm still angry with her. I've posted before.  The trauma feels over for me.  Something has shifted.  I see her as a person, and now I'm just heartbroken.  It's a normal kind of heartbroken that I've felt before, and I'll feel again, and I'm okay with it.  It's a beautiful kind of sadness with remembering the fond times we had together.

I bargain.  I get angry.  I cry.  I scream.  I curse God.

And all of it is okay.

I sat here and wondered on this.  In my head, the story was running that no one here believes that I feel the way I feel.  That something is so wrong with me that no one here would bother responding to me.

I kept asking myself what is this denial?  What must be so wrong with me?

Then, I had a nice thought while I was out observing nature.

This is precisely the denial.

I deny my own feelings as not good enough because I was always told they were wrong.

I didn't do anything you didn't like.  You liked it.

You were raped? No, you weren't.  It couldn't have happened.

Why are you upset, you love <INSERT SOMEONE ELSE'S INTEREST HERE>.

You're not hurting.  You have no right to be hurting.  I'm hurting.

I didn't hurt you.  You're overreacting.  You hurt me.

And of course, all the dreaded Shoulds.

Over and over and over again.  Assailants, parents, friends, family.  I just never ever stood up for myself. Until now.

I had previously wanted to post, and ask, Am I crazy? Does everyone know something I don't?  Do they all hate me? Do I not even fit in amongst people who have been hurt?

No, I'm not crazy.  I'm human.  And sometimes things really hurt.  Sometimes things from my past influence my decisions in the present moment.  Sometimes they influence my emotions in the present. I can't do anything about that.

I can be aware of them.  And all the awareness in the world can't stop life from happening.

The denial was:

I don't know what I'm feeling and I don't know how to take care of myself.

Thank you all for being here for me.  Exactly as I needed.

[Ihope2]

Thank you for posting PhoenixRising15.


Your statement "I don't know what I'm feeling and I don't know how to take care of myself" resonates with me.

I experienced childhood emotional neglect in my FOO.  My mother had/has a very strong enmeshment style of being in close relationships.

So I got the feeling that I was always close to this person, my own mom, but finally at almost 45 years of age, and having been catapulted into the beginnings of totally new awareness and learnings about myself, I now realise that we were/ are not close.

It was all about her and her latest man.  She leaked and spilled issues around her codependent relationship with overbearing/narcissistic men all over me.

I  became a rescuer of note, I took on other people's emotional baggage, attitudes, thoughts, feelings.  I never really learnt the distinction between what was my own "inner life" and someone else's "inner life".  I learnt to become a sponge, I soaked up everyone's emotional spills.  My lifelong.

I sensed that I wasn't quite happy doing it, so the pattern of my close relationships into my adult life became one of alternating enmeshment with another, and then periods of years where I would live alone in a fairly isolated almost schizoid fashion!  In those times, I would fantasize about what it would be like to be in a close and loving relationship and I would crave it and develop crushes on certain men that I knew were not available to me.

So your statement about not knowing how you are feeling strikes a chord with me.  Who am I?  How do I feel?  What are my unique attitudes, values, beliefs, boundaries?  All of this I now also have to learn.  I feel like I have a great big "springcleaning" ahead of me:  I need to unpack my "inner world" and distinguish between what is my stuff versus what is other people's stuff.  I need to toss out what doesn't belong to me!

I have also had this feeling that I am in denial about something, but what the heck can it be?  It is this murky feeling when you have been carrying around "other people's stuff" in your head and heart for most of your life... .

[Cumulus]

Hi Phoenix, I think your words will feel familiar to many of us who grew up with a parent with BPD. I think of it as getting up each morning and putting on the mask of who others have told me I am. The person I needed to be in order to emotionally survive in a dysfunctional family. It's hard putting the mask away. I wore it so many years it almost feels like me. I know people tend to like me when I am wearing it and that is far too important to me. So it comes down to a choice, do I live the rest of my life as the good and accommodating person with no expressed or at times even felt needs, or do I take the responsibility of finding my life? It's my choice now that I know it's my life.

Thank you for your post, I hope you can find what you are looking for, I hope we all can. Cumulus.