Hitting the f ground

Over 2 months ago I wrote the last post. It feels like it was a year ago.

Today, I’m without my girlfriend of 9.5 years. We parted ways quite abruptly yet calmly. At the time it felt like it was mutual like I also had enough. I didn’t. I miss everything about her. She was what I would consider love of my life and the best thing that ever happened to me. She had everything I wanted and needed. I didn’t take it. I didn’t give back. I wasn’t there. I just wish I allowed the love in. I didn’t know how. I don’t know anymore. I consider myself easy going but with her I wasn’t. Small thing might have felt like a rejection. I kept scanning for threats and I was finding them. She said to look for love. I tried. Dissociation? Maybe. My mind was playing tricks on me for sure. Too much ego? For sure. Relying on myself drove me into the ground. She’s been an inspiration to me, life companion, my future and my past. But somehow somewhere she stopped being my present.

I could analyze it over a million different ways… accumulated hurt, pleasing each other, losing ourselves in the relationship, my shame? The worst of it all is that our last week together was amazing. It felt like a potential for what it could have been all along. Pressure to perform disappeared. It felt like a cloud was lifted. I felt love, support, present moment. I wish the world stopped spinning and that period lasted forever…

When things failed she tried to make a positive spin on things asking what is there to learn?

There are a lot of lessons for me:

1. You don’t know what you have until you lose it. I recall some old management book from university where it said that in Japan after someone makes a big mistake they can actually sometimes be promoted. I’m not sure if that’s true. But now I understand. They wouldn’t make the same mistake again.
2. I don’t know who I am. I’m putting everything into question right now and starting from zero. I’m willing to rediscover who I am, what I want. .
3. Allow others in. I’m 39 and I’ve been influenced by my family, culture and male construct to be self-reliant. I took it way too far. Hype independent. Everything alone and push people away. I see it now how alienating it has been and detrimental to me, my life, my mental health.
4. Be aware of your destructive tendencies. I thought I wanted to be trading and wanted to be trading longer. I didn’t even wanted to be making money. I didn’t have a goal, really. I just enjoyed the stimulation, complexity, tension as perhaps it reminded me of home. There was something soothing about it. I didn’t realize how bad it was until I stopped. I don’t play PC games, mobile games cause I get addicted – they’ve been leaving me empty. I stopped drinking alcohol and smoking weed cause I realize I regret it later. But with stock market somehow it felt productive and I missed it… it felt like it covers my shame but looking back it was deepening it.
5. Realize what’s important. This summer I had a pleasure to experience life of families of close friends. It was a pleasure to be around that, in that, experience that. I’ve been thinking why didn’t I see that before? It just felt like this is what’s life about. It just felt so good to be around kids, families, unstructured time. I saw three generations of single family performing a song at a camping site in a ‘talent show’. There was the grandmother, her kids and grandkids and I was thinking that they don’t even know how beautiful it is and how lucky they are. There was so much joy. I’m even crying writing about this as I recall the exact moment. I don’t know what it means exactly but perhaps that deep down there that’s what I want. I can see a life that’s fulfilling if I had that. And I would feel like I missed out on life if I didn’t.
6. Seek help. I’ve been rejecting the notion that I need help. Why would I? If I can do it all by myself? Letting others in is one thing, but actively seeking help is another. Perhaps I could do it all by myself but there’s a risk I couldn’t and it would take me longer. I’m 39 and it’s time.
7. Realize grief comes in cycles. I cry over my ex, over what it could have been, over mistakes I made, over the pain I caused her and myself. And then I stop. And then it comes back and then I cry some more. It comes and it goes.

What’s next for me?

I visited a therapist yesterday specializing in CPTSD who does IFS (Internal Family Systems). He suggested I take test for ADHD. I’m pretty sure it will say that I have ADHD even though I don’t want to have it. But the therapist made sense in saying that in order to work with IFS it would be beneficial to him (and me) knowing what tendencies of mine come from trauma and which are from CPTSD. That part made sense to me (at least in theory). In addition, I could take meds if I wanted to potentially. I’ve been toying with the idea of trying it for few years now. I’m mixed about it. Some parts of me say ‘fuck that; you are who you are; don’t give money to big pharma; you’re stronger and you don’t need that’. And yet other parts that are coming up lately post break up say ‘it’s okay to feel better; it’s okay to try things; it doesn’t define you; why not?’.

So I’ll do the ADHD test and I’m doing a casting for therapist(s). I have some consultation calls, doing some research etc., and trying to find something and someone who would help me. During one of the consultation calls I was asked how would I know that I’m getting better? I don’t remember exactly what I said but that’s a good question and here are the answers:

1. Feeling positive emotions and ability to give them back. I think that’s the most important for me cause the most shattering thing in my previous relationship was that I couldn’t give receive and give love. Just writing this sentence made me go to bed and cry in my crying towel… I’m able to feel anxiety, stress, fear quite easily but positive emotions? That’s rare. But yes, my partner was trying to give so much to me and I was telling her that I probably capture 5-10% of it. That was my estimate. I saw the love in her eyes, I saw it in her, I felt some of it but it’s like I just couldn’t take it in. I couldn’t absorb it. I couldn’t open my heart? I don’t know. What I know is that I want to be able to take in 100% because I know it exists, I know what it felt like to have that 5-10% and I can’t even imagine what it feels like to have it all. And I also know that If I can’t feel positive emotions as much then I don’t really have a chance for a successful and fulfilling relationship.
2. Comfort with intense emotions. Another thing that killed my relationship is that my ex partner said she couldn’t be herself around me. God that hurts… it’s like she molded herself to accommodate me, my moods cause otherwise I’d dim her somehow. I expressed once that she was ‘too much’ or ‘too hyper’. Instead of cherishing her amazing personality, who she is and being grateful to be with her I was feeling threatened by it. It was causing me some level of stress, anxiety – perhaps cause it’s uncontrollable? Like I can’t predict where it’s going to go? Does this come from home being too tense? I don’t know why and how but it pains me deeply that in subtle ways which I wasn’t aware of until recently I was just chipping away at her and her authentic expression. And in the end, the version she was around me (more calm, accommodating, sweet) wasn’t entirely fake but it wasn’t what she was truly feeling in that moment. I remember her being excited about something and I felt like it’s too much to my system so she had to tune in down. I want to be around all emotions and not feel threatened by them and especially I don’t want others to change around me.
3. Being authentic. I feel like I’m just not authentic. I remember first day of school and how awful it felt to be sitting in that f chair, being bored, feeling restless, disconnected and not knowing what the f is happening and why. And little by little I was doing less in life and becoming a smaller version of myself. I learned how to adapt, please others, say what I think others want to hear. I just felt like I had to adapt and not be myself to be accepted and maybe loved? In that process I lost myself I feel. Some parts prevailed but joy got killed. I killed my expression (that was killed looong time ago). I want those back! Even if I’m by myself I feel contained. I don’t feel free. So wtf? What’s stopping me?

It feels now a little lighter on my chest; like this post and effort has been worthwhile. It sits just right in me.

I’ve been thinking what’s the ‘bold’ thing is in the blackboldcat. I thought it would be about making bold bets. And maybe it can be. But I think it’s as bold or even bolder to be yourself and share your feelings, doubts, fears. Lately I’ve been feeling and thinking like I missed a chance for a fulfilling life with what I consider to be my soul mate. Sometimes it feels like I fucked it all up. But for a moment now it feels peaceful and okay.