Here we can all be heard for a little while. Part 2

whitewing

*mumbles* I am awesome, I am awesome.

Nope, not feeling it.

However, I am out of the house and facing the way. Written one difficult letter and another situation that is really bothering me has put itself on hold for a few days (which it wouldn't have done if I had avoided being here).

Calley, can't you uncancel your cancelled tea party? Make the most of the sunshine. Have a cake for me, goodness knows I want to stuff my face right now. In fact, have the cuppa for me and conversation. (And see if you can get I am not a turtle into the conversation to your mum's bemusement)

elsien

whitewing wrote: »

*mumbles* I am awesome, I am awesome.

Nope, not feeling it.

Would a slightly more British and reserved self affirmation help?

I'd feel a pillock telling myself I'm awesome, but I could probably manage an "I'm alright." Ok, maybe not the brightest or most sociable person I know, but overall, taking everything into account, yep, I really am an alright ok sort of a person. And I like me as I am.

Waves_and_Smiles

Yes, we have man here! Our lovely Onomatopoeia!

Hello again, Dom! Lovely to see you!

Whitewing, MU and code, you are all so much more than awesome to me.

Here is a penguin just for me that isn't triggery. It's something I am very embarrassed about relating to what we have talked about Calley, and I don't want to be able to read again it accidentally myself, at a later date. I prefer to try to forget these things that make me want to bury myself in a hole. Hopefully it might make you feel less alone with how you feel and show you that I really do understand-

When my teacher friend started helping me when I was 14 I became obsessed with him. By the time I was 16 I was calling him and putting the phone down when he answered multiple times a week, standing outside of his house and staring at it weekly and following him around school. I would sit outside of his office in hopes he would say hello to me despite the fact he gave me a lift to school every morning and spent an hour with me a day. He knew I was doing it, as did my therapist and social worker but they decided to let it go and work on teaching me to form boundaries. To have outright said no to me at that point could have pushed my already very fragile mental health into something far worse. My teacher friend was incredibly, incredibly patient.

In my first relationship if my boyfriend was so much as 5 minutes late to see me I would freak out and burst into tears, decide that he hated me and become very, very angry with him. I would stand outside his work place to check what he was doing at lunch times without him knowing, we often had screaming rows if he wanted to go out without me usually ending in me wailing why don't you like me? What have I done wrong? Often on my knees, clutching his legs. He only stayed with me for a year because he was even more messed up than I was.

I was similar with friendships, I would cling to friends and expect them to be there for me all of the time, if they weren't I would turn up at their houses uninvited at all hours of the day or night. Everytime someone wasn't there immediately for me I presumed that that I wasn't good enough and that they had found better friends which I didn't think was hard as I didn't like myself at all. My friendships never lasted long.

It took a lot to therapy to make me realise that I was emulating my mother's behaviour. I was doing exactly what she did to the people in her life. I had never been taught boundaries, my dad had died and my mother wasn't capable of forming boundaries of her own. In fact with sexual abuse and my being my mothers carer while she was similar to a child boundaries were totally mixed up.

So, I had to learn them as an adult. As I mentioned before I did this by watching how other people behave when socialising and copying it, plus asking my therapist frequently if my response to situations was correct. It wasn't easy at all because my go-to thought was always that I was hated and rejected but gradually I learnt far later than anyone else how to do it. Honestly, when I was 20 and having 3 psychotherapy sessions a week every session would mention boundaries, my therapist really worked hard to teach me how to form them, from the basics you would teach a child and up to adult relationships. But it DID work and she taught me techniques to question myself before I acted and not immediately jump to thinking the world hated me.

Now I have little tricks for myself. For example, when I email or text people I will often put "No rush to reply". Then the control is mine, if they don't reply right away it is fine because I have told them not to. I don't have to panic. I still sometimes get it wrong but often in the other direction! I am so horrified at how I used to behave that now I have turned into one of these people who don't reply straight away in case it means I am messing up! With my teacher friend for example, I will only send one email a day unless its an emergency and will not send another until he has replied to that even if it's days. Numerous times he has emailed me wondering if I am alright because he hasn't heard from me! He knows why I do it because I apologise at least twice yearly for stalking him in the past but he has let it go now and tells me I can email anytime I want. I am too scared of messing up again to do so! I now don't rush to reply to emails and texts unless it's urgent, not because I don't want to but because I know for me that it is a slippery path and it is healthy for me for me to learn to wait.

End penguin

You have made a big step, Calley because now you realise why you have done what you have. That realisation for me was halfway to stopping it. Neither of us mean to be annoying or hurt people, we have difficulties with boundaries and don't like ourselves. This can be resolved, I have very little (visible to others) problem with it now. The old tapes still sometimes play in my head that I am being rejected and then I want to return to previous behaviours but I don't because I have learnt to rationalise my response.

I still have no idea how people seem to naturally know when to respond to things and when to stop, I have no instinct for it at all because I wasn't taught it as a child when my personality was developing. But I can fake it pretty well! Now when say, email conversations come to a natural end I look back at why people have stopped talking there, and it is almost always because the topic has ended rather than that they have suddenly decided that they hate me. To others it's a natural end, one that I have no instinctual concept of. It is a constant learning curve for me even now and one that I need to keep on top of. You will manage to do that too, and being aware of the why's is the first step.

codemonkey

Hello again Dom. I love the name Dominique, so I have name envy now. Mine is boring.

In the absence of Pyxis, I shall do the honours. So, for Whitewing and everyone else:

mellymoo74

WaS is wise

Calley your caring *look at the husband*
Your clever *look at how you have identified a need to change and your work g towards it*
Your kind *look at how you wanted to make sure tea and mu were ok*

Sorry I am awol learning new industry up at 5.30 tired.
Neighbours are still expletives

calleyw

WaS,

Thank you so much for that.

I should know boundaries at 43. But I guess with all that happened with my husband and being his carer I just lost everything and felt as feminine and sex as a sack of spuds.

And then someone showed some interest in me. I have never been like this before and have no idea why I am like this now.

I have had low self esteem/confidence for a long time probably all my life. But with my husband and other boyfriends I knew how they felt about me and they would keep in contact and would see them on a regular basis and know what we doing.

Its hard to swallow what I have done and the possibility that I did mess up a chance with him. Because of this. I can do if for a few weeks and then it just blows up. Just seems like excuses all over again.

Yours

Calley

calleyw

mellymoo74 wrote: »

WaS is wise

Calley your caring *look at the husband*
Your clever *look at how you have identified a need to change and your work g towards it*
Your kind *look at how you wanted to make sure tea and mu were ok*

Sorry I am awol learning new industry up at 5.30 tired.
Neighbours are still expletives

Thank you so much melly I am very touched by that.

I am sorry you are still having neighbour problems. Next door wont even talk to me any more. Oh well hardly a loss LOL!!!!!

You get a decent nights sleep.

Yours

Calley

Waves_and_Smiles

Aw, what a gorgeous pic, code!

Melly! I was wondering where you had got to! So glad that you are relatively ok, don't work too hard!

You will mistakes Calley, it is a learning process and you won't always get it right. As far as this relationship goes it may not have worked anyway, because is something is right couples tend to work through issues together and it doesn't seem like that was happening.

Low self-esteem is horrid and can make one act very out of character at times out of fear and desperation. I really do believe that you can change it around for yourself though, and a major part of that is forgiving yourself and learning to like yourself a little more. I still don't like myself but I do like aspects of myself which is a big step for me. It can feel like an impossible task to suddenly start liking yourself fully so it can be easier to break it down into smaller steps. For example, I like the fact that I am kind, and I am sure that I am. I also like the fact that I have a very good sense of humour. Now, I have a list as long as your arm of things I don't like about me to counteract that but I cling onto those positive things and remind myself of them a lot. I find it much easier to look at individual traits that I like about me than try to encompass loving myself all at once. Try looking at little things about yourself that you like and go from there.

mellymoo74

Eeep
hse director (reason I'm there) wants a chat on Friday

mellymoo74

An Calley good glad it perked you up it has the benefit of being true.

This week I have been mainly investigating a serious near miss with a crane and 30 tonne dies x 2