Still searching - added: Thu, Apr 24 08:43 PM

Ok huge life changing things that I feel relate in ways that I don’t totally understand yet, because I keep having eye opening things, these past few months that pop back to  several of them.

I believe it is very hard for me to accept loss and to get past it. Actually letting go of anything in my life to me seems to be extremely difficult, and unreachable.

Sometimes I also feel that I over analyze and emotionally tire my self to physical exhaustion. Before my mother passed, I had a very hard things in my life, but I dealt with them very well, I'm not saying I didn’t cry sometimes, but I was strong and got things done.  

 1)      Having a child at 17, realizing that I didn’t mean anything to someone I cared about, felt taken advantage of. Wasn’t able to finish school, and went into work force. 

2)      Married a man feel was my soul mate, had another child, He went to prison for 13 years. I build up walls when he went in, out communication suffered from my pain and fear of causing pain to him. I lived those years thinking and feeling I couldn’t tell him good things because he was missing it, and couldn’t tell him bad things cause there wasn’t anything he could do to help. At the time I could find any other way to function, I went extremely into Mommy mode and lived for my kids and my mom and other family. I felt I had no choice. It was also my way of holding on to hope and not dragging my kids into my pain. It was hard, visits were the worst on the kids not just the ride home but for days after. About 8 ½ years into his stay, I couldn’t get them to go anymore, they admitted it hurt to much and they didn’t like how they felt. They still talked to him on the phone just like always. After 10 of those years, he questioned me. I was already in a self doubt about myself, I had a full hysterectomy and wasn’t feeling like a woman or that I had anything left to offer to him. So when he hit me with it I felt at the time he had given up on our love,( I realize now .. it was I that gave up on myself and us). I divorced him in 1999. 

 3)      My grandmother ( very close. mom’s mom)  passed in fall 1998 and then my mother passed in summer of 1999. At this time I took on so many hats, I felt like I had to keep things up and going for my family. I basically felt that it was expected for me to take up my moms responsibilities. To me this is when the down fall started of things that I use to do and found made me feel good disappeared. Before this I use to do crafts of all sorts, cook like mad go walking and even ride a my bike. Play many types of video games. When my mom passed, she was in the hospital for a week, the dr we knew well, made comment to me that he was concerned that I hadn't broke down and cried. I cant get that out of my mind sometimes. What seems even stranger to me as I think back, is as her body was taking it's last breaths on the machines I was the one in the room holding her hand and whispering in her ear WE LOVE YOU. I dont know why I fell like my life is about everyone around me but me. It's things like this  that have helped me realize that I lost alot of myself many years ago and have been living for my family, that hit me in 2003 the depression hit hard. I dont mean to sound like a sob story, I just try to let you see my perspective. I dont understand why I have so much trouble letting go, besides the feeling of wanting to understand it better. 

4)      Depression that took me off work in 2003, couldn’t think or focus. 20 months of more pills than I can count, had so many bad side affects was always changing. Endless Dr. appointments, I felt like all I did was sleep and go to appointments. I became so shut in I became agoraphobic and this still comes out to this day at times.  I also went through some court battles with my Ex-husband. Extreme missing of my mother was getting worse, I feel mostly because she was so strongly there for me through so many hard things in my life, it’s been harder for me as time goes by then when she first passed. I think the first year or two was shock and I felt I had to hold it all together for everyone else. I also meant a long distance relationship man, someone that is a real good friend still to this day. I did go through some hard times with myself and how I felt, but was able to accept things and I have grow and learned a lot from the experience and relationship. 

5)      Lost my job of 17 years after cleared by doctors in 2005 

6)      Came back together with my Ex husband- seeing each other in fall of 04 through first of 05. I couldn’t get him to honestly communicate with me, and found that for the second time he was also seeing another person and left me to figure it out myself, even though we had a long deep talk about this before we started see each other again, because briefly when he first got out he still wanted to be with me and tried for a year, I finally started to let my wall down and try, to find out he was making me into another woman. I guess it’s hard to accept what is real sometimes when feeling get in the way. And better yet, that I allowed this pattern to happen in my life again, I think I had more anger at myself at the time. I hear that “First time shame on you, second time shame on me” play through my head. And I wonder why I allow myself to trust so much. 

7)      I dated some men, this was actually a huge step for me and was a bit hard. I went slowly with one I meant in spring of 2006, we spent endless time together for almost 2 years, we love each other deeply. We complemented each other in so many different ways, that even brought about encouragement and support for one another, that I have never felt in a relationship before. I have never felt so much happiness and contentment when I have been with some one as I have with him. It has been real difficult because he was also my best friend, the one person I let into more of my life than I have anyone else. I lost all my friends back in 2003 with the depression.  and it took a lot in 2005 to push myself to even start dating. With this man, I was able to experience things that I enjoy and love, such as the outdoors, kayaking, hiking, hunting and camping. Some of those I had never done, and my family is not into any of them. The closest I had was when my girls were young, I did girl scouts and we camped. He told me several times that he felt I wasn’t opening up enough to him. I feel that I wasn’t enough for him. I realize I valued him more than myself in many ways, that I was using a thinking pattern , of for him… and not dealing with myself and things deeper inside.. He has told me he wants someone that can verbally share what they are feeling more. I didn’t realize how shut off I was. When I meant him, I was working and a bit happier with myself, as I left that job, stress built higher and I went from there to studying for GED and stress to work need for money and insurance, back into a low paying job into an physical injury forced to quit, and the GED cycle again,  a few more low stressful jobs, it always felt like my life outside of us was a negative mess and holding me back from living and creating a life and happiness that I wanted for myself, and one that we both shared. It seemed like what free time we had turned into trying to relax and get things off my mind ( at least for me it seemed that way a lot) and I wasn’t able to have good understanding most of the time when he’d ask me what I was feeling, my mind was a blank. I also would beat myself up, and think there was something wrong with me or my mind, I felt I should have been ale to process and think. I just kept pushing myself thinking once I got the job thing out from under me, I’d feel better about myself and less stress and would be able to focus more and free up my mind. I believe he feels that it is just something I am never able to do, that I’m just not that type of person. And I don’t see that, I just feel so overwhelmed and can’t see clearly on how to balance things in my life at the present time, he’d hear me, but I’m not sure he believed in me, that I can grow and open up. We had talked about moving in together, although neither of us were financially able to at the time, mostly me being unemployed, and I want to be able to support half. I realize I should have tried to balance more. And also should have worked more at living in the moment, not so much ahead for what could be once some bad is behind me. Mentally I just wasn’t able to at the time. Not to mention my own family and pressures with the kids and daily life of taking care of everything and still trying to make time for myself. Both of my kids went through pregnancies during this time, one has an 18month old and the other is due any day now. My sister is very involved also and my nieces have issues, sometimes I feel everyone wants more out of me than I have to give and I don’t know what to do.  And I can’t get them to really hear me, or when they do it seems like they tip toe around me for a day or so and then it’s like it never was talked about or exist. And I feel I have quit a bit of built up anger from this situations, that I haven’t completely let go of…letting go doesn’t work very well for me, and I cycle the anger when I feel that I haven’t been able to. This Ex-boyfriend and I have talked several times since our break up, and are being friends. He has told me he feels that I have moved ahead more with out him. And even when we were together he told me a few times, that he felt he was distracting me. I tried to assure him that it wasn’t him, it was me and how I felt about myself and feeling stuck in those cycles, with no idea what else to try. Basically I felt my own life was too much for myself, so I can see how it pushed him away. I know I let a lot of fears hold me back and actually kept me from understanding a lot of my feeling I was going through. I had many wall trigger’s that shut parts of me down, and I wasn’t picking up on this, I think because so many of them are very old habits and the stress. To answer your question, I do feel my heart has been broken. I know that I am in love with this man, and have been for some time. Yes I have told him, even when we were together. I guess I see that he doesn’t want me and that breaks my heart. I respect him, and am glad that he going in the direction for what he wants in his life, I love him and want him to be happy. And I wouldn’t want to go many years to find out later that I wasn’t making him happy, fulfilling his life or satisfying him in a relationship. So I respect and admire that he is doing what he feels is right for himself. I still can’t help the pain that I feel, for my own loss of him in my life. And also anger with myself that I should be able to let go more and heal and move on. I just want to be happier with myself and be able to find my own happiness in life outside of a partner. I think I might have been taking the behavior and habits of my life with my family members and redirecting some of those habits onto my relationship with him and even putting expectations onto him, that I never really wanted. Ok I have boggled my mind, all that I can right now… I hope some of this can show  how I feel I have lost passion for things I use to love doing and enjoyed, and now even when I try some of them, the ones that I do alone without anyone else, I cant seem to feel like I use to the interest and hold on focus and want just isn’t there. And when I try to think of other things, I cant seem get excited about anything. Maybe I just need more time, and should back off a bit from pushing myself. I can say there is a fear driving me… the fear that I will not have the time soon, that I have to get myself straightened out soon. My youngest daughter lives at home, and her baby is coming any day. I am so scared of loosing more of myself when this happens and kind of feel that I might loose out on connecting with myself and not be able to create a life for myself, it’s hard to get into some of this cause it hurts so much to even feel some of these feelings. I feel that I need to create my own stability with in myself before I can take on more, this is also a reason I don’t feel that I am ready to date again.