Shedding friends and anger

[VIDEO: "What is parental alienation?"]

Hi Whatwasthat  

Thanks for this- I still don't know where i sit with the CFS stuff really. I am exhausted but I have a life with too many parts which can only be partly treated by fixing the emotional stuff (which I do agree with doing and I am going for).

I work full time in a demanding job. No family to help with child care and my kids are young, were young when I split from their father. He is a functioning alcoholic and his partner is a too. She works at my children's school as the person who leads on emotional welfare. She is pretty disordered.

My children have fun with their dad and they need him in their life. It isn't easy for me because I am the one that washes them, makes sure their homework is done and tries to validate their emotions dealing with me (!) and their dad and their (sort of) stepmum. They have fun with him but I do the lion's share of the actual parenting, even though we share care 50/50. It's exhausting to be the one who needs to model healthy and needs to get it right for them. Plus I have my own father who is unable to talk following a stroke. He lives in residential care but he gets no other visitors apart from me- if I don't see him he sits in front of a TV dribbling. I've cut back from visiting but I struggle with the guilt of that. For a codependent to have somebody who depends on me is a bit of a head****.

I don't mean to play the victim here. I am well aware that I'm lucky compared with many. I have a good job, a nice house and I have supportive friends and healthy children. life could be much, much worse. My children's father isn't easy but he isn't BPD.

But I'm exhausted because I have a lot on my plate and a lot to do. I am trying to slowly work some practical solutions but there isn't a lot of wiggle room.

I'm taking time off work and I'm resting, I'm going easy on myself. I'm baking bread. Step by step.

And, funnily enough what you describe as an approach to CFS does seem to be what I'm doing! I have also made efforts to reconnect with a couple of other people I like but don't see. I don't want to throw the baby out with the bath water and drop everybody! It feels positive.

I'm still knackered mind you!  

[maria1]

Hi Whatwasthat  

Thanks for this- I still don't know where i sit with the CFS stuff really. I am exhausted but I have a life with too many parts which can only be partly treated by fixing the emotional stuff (which I do agree with doing and I am going for).

I work full time in a demanding job. No family to help with child care and my kids are young, were young when I split from their father. He is a functioning alcoholic and his partner is a too. She works at my children's school as the person who leads on emotional welfare. She is pretty disordered.

My children have fun with their dad and they need him in their life. It isn't easy for me because I am the one that washes them, makes sure their homework is done and tries to validate their emotions dealing with me (!) and their dad and their (sort of) stepmum. They have fun with him but I do the lion's share of the actual parenting, even though we share care 50/50. It's exhausting to be the one who needs to model healthy and needs to get it right for them. Plus I have my own father who is unable to talk following a stroke. He lives in residential care but he gets no other visitors apart from me- if I don't see him he sits in front of a TV dribbling. I've cut back from visiting but I struggle with the guilt of that. For a codependent to have somebody who depends on me is a bit of a head****.

I don't mean to play the victim here. I am well aware that I'm lucky compared with many. I have a good job, a nice house and I have supportive friends and healthy children. life could be much, much worse. My children's father isn't easy but he isn't BPD.

But I'm exhausted because I have a lot on my plate and a lot to do. I am trying to slowly work some practical solutions but there isn't a lot of wiggle room.

I'm taking time off work and I'm resting, I'm going easy on myself. I'm baking bread. Step by step.

And, funnily enough what you describe as an approach to CFS does seem to be what I'm doing! I have also made efforts to reconnect with a couple of other people I like but don't see. I don't want to throw the baby out with the bath water and drop everybody! It feels positive.

I'm still knackered mind you!  

[maria1]

Hi Phoenix

I feel angry over the loss, but underneath is deep sadness.  It is the sadness that is most difficult for me.  Anger is much easier for me than sadness.  Crying releases a lot of the pain, though.  I am sad that I am letting go of a part of my life that has served me to some extent, but is no longer healthy or necessary.

I seem to have been sad for the longest time recently, months and months where I was close to tears often. I think I find the sadness much easier than the anger, or did anyway. The sadness is still bubbling through here and there but the anger too. It's sadness for a lot of things in my life. Toward BPDex I feel a bit of both. I also worry at times how he might be. He is, of course, on the dating site I'm on and I see him on there daily. I find it kind of reassuring that he's crashing on; it reminds me he has spent zero time NOT looking for someone in all the time since he and I split!

And it reminds me to go slow with myself there too and I like that. 90% of the people are bonkers!

All this takes time. Baking bread is where it's at for me right now- back to basics. And NOT posting pics of my bread on Facebook!

[Whatwasthat]

Hi Maria. Your approach sounds like a very good one to me.

Yes - the woman I was talking about had loads of commitments too - heavy duty shift work and kids. And clearly she couldn't just drop all that and suddenly spend her life doing precisely what she wanted in any given moment. But I think the theory  with the approach that she followed is that your body shuts down when it ceases to trust your brain to make the right choices for you - it's noticed that you're not looking after yourself very well and  thinks you will run it into the ground if it lets you - so it goes on strike. And to get over this it needs ongoing positive reassurance that this isn't the case so that it can safely start functioning again. That means that you have to get thoroughly in tune with your own needs - keep checking - Am I thirsty? Do I need to get out of the house to take a walk? Am I tired of talking to this friend and do I need to make my excuses now and leave? - you may have to delay the walk a little because it doesn't fit with your kids schedule or wait for a few minutes for an appropriate gap in the conversation so you can say goodbye to your friend politely - but if you follow through on these simple and small urges - and keep doing it day after day for a couple of months -  it will reassure your whole system that you are prioritising your own needs in a good way.

Also this woman had no actual intent to offend any friends - it just kind of happened as an unavoidable result of her shifting her approach to life. People found it a bit uncomfortable and hard to adapt to. She has made up with just about everyone now I think - but I suspect that's because they have also learnt to accept the 'new' her. And the 'new' her has very clear boundaries.

Anyway it sounds like I'm preaching to the converted here - you seem to be doing all the right stuff   . I'm just going on about it because a lot of what you were talking about seemed to fit this approach and I was impressed by what this woman had achieved. Also I'm a bit of an evangelist for the idea that there really is no separation between physical, mental, spiritual and emotional health and I'm on a mission to try to promote that idea and to persuade people not to waste time worrying about where one ends and the next begins - because as far as I can see there are no 'joins'! 

WWT. 

[maria1]

Whatwasthat- yes, it's very interesting what you say about the body switching off because it just wasn't getting its need met. I was talking to a friend yesterday and she said she thought of CFS as the body just blowing a fuse.

Since having children and going back to work full time I have managed to achieve almost superhuman stuff with my body. I don't sit down, I just keep going. BUT I have always lay down for an afternoon nap whenever I could- it's like I had to. But I was always amazed with what I could achieve if I put my mind to it. I didn't have much choice I felt as if I had to in order to get through the day. However, little changes may make all the difference to me. There's something about taking time for myself that feels alien to me. Unless it's 'good' for me (parental voice in my head).

Sitting down to drink a cup of tea when there's washing to be done is bad. Get all the washing done then sit down and relax.

This week I'm swinging the other way though and doing nothing! Need to find a balance. I'm hoping exercise will fix it and I'm off for a walk.

You're not preaching to the quite converted Whatwasthat and it's very helpful- I'm somewhere in the middle and still not where I think I need to be with it all. Thank you x

[Whatwasthat]

I'm pleased that it's helpful. But I am quite capable of getting obsessive about this stuff so will try not to go on about it too much.

Exercise is great. But according to this Reverse Therapy theory (the approach I was talking about) it too should be done incredibly mindfully - and with no goals at all. So along the lines of - OK - do I fancy going swimming today? -  I'll just check in with myself about that - OK - yes that feels good (but also heed the voice that might say 'no! It's too cold! I'd rather go for a short walk and a visit to a cafe instead!' . And then when you're in the pool don't fall into the trap of setting targets - but just enjoy the sensation of floating and the warm water etc - and make sure it feels more like 'play' than 'work'.

Alright - I'll shut up about this now! 

WWT.

[maria1]

You mean we are actually suppose to do exactly what we feel like?  How alien would that feel? !

Well, today I thought I should force myself into going for a swim, but the sun was shining so I went for a walk instead. The thing is that achieving some goals is a good thing- I do like to feel achieved. I feel bad if I don't achieve something in the day, even if it's just a little thing.

I'm not a massive over achiever. Career wise I have been quite lucky to get good jobs, I know how to impress, know how to ask questions and do an OK job. People like me, and I deliver OK, but I'm not the one that gets the top targets. I like to change things for the better and the jobs I choose reflect that. Currently I work in social care in a particular area that's quite hard to get into as we don't do the front end stuff. Most people working in my team have  pretty strong codependent traits! In the last 2 years two women apart from me have been involved with PDs. One of these relationships ended with a RO and a prison sentence after she was thrown from a car, the other found out the guy she was planning to set up home with was actually still married.

So, as well as beating myself up about what I do and don't do in my life I have a team of people who all have an opinion on what we all should/ shouldn't do in our lives. Now that's exhausting!

I like the sound of Reverse Therapy. It seems to be instinctively what I'm doing!

[Whatwasthat]

You mean we are actually suppose to do exactly what we feel like?  How alien would that feel? !

I know - who thought that crazy idea up?