I think judging yourself against the best version of yourself is just setting yourself up for constant self criticism. You can’t be “on” 24/7, and emotional fatigue is a real thing.
When you’re feeling like you are now, you still like dogs and kids right? You are still the same person with the same innate qualities that you see in that 9/10 guy. You just don’t feel capable of doing the work involved with striking up random interactions with those strangers. Or more likely you ARE capable, but the self care you need at the moment involves not doing those things. In any case, you’re the same person, you’re just dealing with different situations day by day.
She kept describing this push-pull towards me. One day we’d be incredibly close and the next day she wouldn’t want me around. This pattern had been accelerating, recently. I saw her Monday–things were very good. Tonight when I saw her, it was obvious she didn’t really want to see me.
We both know that pattern is not healthy. It isn’t what I want in a relationship.
She asked if I wanted to remain friends. It felt like a slap. I’d have married her.
She mentioned telling the kids we have split. My god. …it’s like losing three people. Her boy is 11, her daughter 16. I’d been asking for ways to spend more time with them. Taking her youngest to guitar practice, teaching the girl to parallel park.
Holy shit, my heart is shattered. I love them.
I know this isnt anyone’s fault. I was cosistent in my feelings, and she knows this. I understand she doesn’t feel good, vascillating between connection and fear. … Yet I am just so confused. There isn’t more of me I could have offered.
Someow I feel the worst about the kids. I enojyed being around them. And they seemed to feel the same: her youngest would ask if I would be coming over, spending the night, and get disappointed if I wasn’t. I have this feeling that I failed them.
That’s all foreground. In the background, I understand it’s the right decision. Neither of us thought it was healthy. But wow. It hurts. I really adore them all.
Yes, I have. In some ways, this feels like I’m getting better at seeing things more clearly, sooner. Twice before, I’ve been in spots where I really saw the relationship wasn’t positive but I still could not seem to end it.
This, now, seems more mature: there was a lot of communication involved. The quality of our communication was one thing I really appreciated.
I didn’t really sleep last night. I’ve done some work, focused a bit on another goofy project. I’ve asked my work to try and lighten the load today. But right now my life feels so small and empty, and I’m confused by what happened. And a part of me holds out hope something will change.
I have a therapist appointment today, but I really don’t want to go. Not because I don’t want to talk with someone, but because I don’t really feel a vibe with this therapist. But … similar to struggling to end bad relationships, it seems easier to keep going.
There’s also a group meditation I could attend, either instead of or in addition to seeing the therapist. Which feels like it might be more helpful.
This is fucked up: I’m supposed to view a house today. The girl and I kept discussing real estate, since I want to upgrade from my off-grid cabin and she is losing her rental this summer. I’d cancel, but … Just being honest: A part of me feels like I’ll never find someone living as I do now.
Also, it looks like a really great house and property.
I was going to ask the doctor to prescribe valium to help me chill before surgery. Now I just want it for this, also. Which feels… off.
I’m also supposed to be at a meeting where I would see Her again (the meeting, a community group she leads, is how we met). I am torn between canceling and not canceling, but not-canceling really feels tied to that hope I mentioned above.
I’d listen to and appreciate advice on all of these appointments. I don’t know if I’d take the advice–not sure what I will do. Today seems hectic, and maybe that’s good or maybe it’s not.
I don’t see any benefit to seeing a therapist you don’t like. I’d suggest making an appointment with a new therapist, and going to group meditation. If you’re able to get those two things done today that’s pretty successful if you ask me.
Yesterday I saw a doctor. They prescribed some xanax, which helped me sleep last night. I don’t love taking it, but since I was choking back tears in front of the doctor it seems like a good short-term move.
These feelings come in waves and overwhelm. And when they pass, they seem foreign, like I can’t figure out what came over me or why.
I saw the house. For sale by owner, probably priced too high. But it sits on 6 acres, with hayfields on the sides, and has a couple of functional outbuildings including a very nice cabin (with a legit pool table, so … bonus) on a small pond. The cabin alone is nicer than how I live now. The whole thing feels like a bit of overkill (three bedrooms), but also nice.
I canceled with the therapist and went to the group meditation. Second time at this place–there is access to a stillness there, and when it finishes the quiet in me was more pronounced than ever.
Attended the community meeting, it went fine.
This morning I texted her about the possibility of remaining friends–or just getting my hair clippers back. It felt right at the moment, and then turned to a feeling of vulnerable, desperate and foolish.
I get what you mean about feeling one thing in one moment and then another in another moment and not knowing which is “real”. I get that too.
Xanax is great short term but be really fucking careful with it, it’s dangerous. For sleep, suzzer and I have both had success with very low dose tricyclic antidepressant. I use amitryptiline, suzzer uses doxepin. The starting dose for amitryptiline for depression is 70mg. I take 2.5 to 5mg for sleep. Works well and doesn’t seem to have any drawbacks.
Yeah I’ve refused to ask for Xanax with my docs, I don’t trust myself with it. I’m fine with my addictive tendencies when it comes to pot, but Xanax seems serious.
With that said my best friend benefits a lot from it. It’s a good drug, just scary.
Had a pretty big meltdown on the drive home from visiting Mom yesterday. She’s 84. Death felt very close. There have been times in my life where the only reason I didn’t kill myself is that it would devastate her if I did.
Talked to my 83yo dad today. Lives in San Diego and is fairly unconcerned. Not a hint of a reaction.
I hope you feel better soon. I am trying to be deliberate about how I manage my exposure to information right now (to varying degrees of success). I’ve been trying to ask myself “will this additional information serve me?”.
I’m definitely getting sucked into refreshing for the latest update on total infected, what the market is doing, what the Supreme Orangutan has said on twitter - but I know it just putting me in an obsessive, spiraling frame of mind. There is a lot I can’t control about all this, so getting new information every few minutes doesn’t actually change much beyond how amped up I feel. So I am trying to set some boundaries where I will only check some things a few times a day, for example. Not because it doesn’t matter to me, but because for my own state of mind its necessary.
I don’t know if cutting back on “inputs” is something that might help you, or anyone else in this thread, at the moment. But just sharing something that helps me.
Not experiencing hypochondria, thankfully, but this pandemic thing and the response to it has been pretty detrimental to my mental health. My head is just swimming at the indifference, incompetence, and outright malice on display from leaders in government and business and from normal people doing things like crowding their kids into Disney world.
Just feels crushing. Overwhelming. Like how can people function when everything around them is so beyond fucked up?