Living With Yourself Part 2

        Alright then, once you’ve found some help that works in dealing with the emotional issues that keep you coming back time and time again to the you that’s psychologically crippled, mentally scrambled and socially paralyzed; for goodness sake keep at it and no matter how difficult it gets, remember how bad it can actually be.

        There are some things you can do each day and make them regular important habits until they are no more unfamiliar than brushing your teeth. They may feel very awkward and uncomfortable at first but keep at it. Each morning upon arising, look in your mirror and say to yourself, speaking aloud, “I am a good person and deserve the best that life has to offer.“ Start with this simple phrase and build upon it. Soon add other self affirmations until you are telling yourself five good things to your mirror image. Soon you this will become a habit, then just another part of your day. Remember there’s no sense telling yourself good things if you’re going to ruin each day by still putting yourself down. So THAT is a habit  you’ll have to break.                               

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

Living With Yourself Part 1

         Learning to live by yourself is both a frightening and overwhelming proposition, especially if you’ve never done it. But it is now your time to get acquainted with the most important person in your life, YOU. Think about it clearly for just one moment. If you are not healthy, happy and well adjusted how in the world will you attract a partner who is, not to mention raise children who are or have friendships based on mutual respect for one another, basic philosophies in common and a real trust between each other? The type of relationships you have with others begins squarely with you. That is why it is so vitally imperative you stay out of a relationship until you’ve had time to work on your own character defects, self esteem issues and place in this big bad beautiful world in which you exist. 

         If you do not have a professional to discuss your issues with, perhaps there is a trusted clergyman or there are always free group settings. I highly recommend any 12 step program which is NOT a religious group but is very spiritual. But it is the fellowship, sponsorship and steps that work to get you healthy. However, there are those that I can’t get to go a meeting no matter what I say or do. I was active in AA for many years due to my love affair with alcohol. I can tell you this from personal experience; you needn’t be an alcoholic to benefit from the 12 steps, any human being can learn a great deal about themselves and regain lost self esteem, worth and confidence as well as release resentments and make amends for wrongs done to others. Wonderful program. If you don’t want to commit to the meetings at least pick up a copy of the12 and 12 which explains the steps and traditions of the program. Find someone who’s been there (like me) and go through each step with your friend who has done it before you.

         Or you can open up to close and TRUSTWORTHY friend who is a good listener. Hopefully, this friend must be someone you trust implicitly and have an easy time discussing sensitive matters with. Be sure you are comfortable with this individual.          

(to be continued)                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

                                                                     

Refresher Part The End

       Now, you can choose to tell him face to face if you think you’re strong enough not to fall for any of his emotional manipulation and psychological head games, just keep in mind this person is a professional when it comes to leading you away from the real issues, placing blame and laying on guilt trips. So be careful and be strong! Keep reminding yourself you’ve taken enough bullshit from this individual and now it’s your turn to talk, to vent, to unload and to have the upper hand. You will be amazed at the response you get when this other person who has been controlling you hears you standing up for yourself. One important factor to keep in mind, if you are the LEAST bit afraid of physical harm from your soon to be ex, bring a friend or family member along when you have this final confrontation. Make it quick and clean then get your things if they’re not already packed and go to the prearranged place without looking back. Or if you’ve made up your mind that this person is the one who is leaving tell them to pack it up post haste and get out of your home. Give them a fair but not too long amount of time and leave them alone. Don’t stay and fight. Or run the risk of feeling sorry for them. Stick to your guns, this is why having a true and trusted friend by your side so important. You can turn to them in your moments of weakness to help remind why you are doing what you are you doing.

       Once the initial split is made I honestly wish I could tell it’s over, but it’s not. You will second guess your decision, blame yourself for things that never happened and talk yourself into the fantasy that now that you’ve shown your strength, things will be DIFFERENT. Friends, I beg you do not fool yourselves, forget this one, work on you and the right one will come along…trust me on this, I’ve been on both sides. I have words I swear and live by; “Never go back, only go forward.” It has served me well. For one thing, there is no going back, not really. You may choose to live in the past but while you’re there your life is passing you by. Then one day you wake up, you’ve lost control of your car, the resulting accident breaks your neck and you end up a quadriplegic. Now I try to make certain every day counts and my relationship comes second to me.

 Believe me things are still complicated and doubly so now that Eric is disabled. I feel guilty as hell for helping to cripple him. He’s not the same man since I became injured. The man I knew before never would have cheated on me and we had a wonderful, sensuous, no holds barred sex life. Now he won’t even touch me without a glove. Can you imagine how that makes me feel? Yet he stays to care for me while it cripples him more and more each day when all he would have to do to get better is put me in a home or leave me. So what kind of love is that? I’ll tell you, it’s unconditional, it’s Biblical. I will leave you with my favorite passage my dear friends and hope that you become healthy enough and learn to love yourselves enough to settle for nothing less.

⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

⁸ Love never fails.

1 Corinthians 13: 4-8   

Refresher Part 5

        But let’s get back on topic shall we. I just wanted  to  show that I’m not speaking from some high and mighty pedestal , I’ve been there too, probably in at least as bad if not worse relationships than you my friends. Now that I’ve described a little of mine, I believe it time to talk about how to end the madness and get on with a happier, healthier, more productive life  that has room for a good relationship. Until then we’ll keep ending up in same old bad relationships with the same old sick behaviors over and over again. It’s inevitable until we change the way we think about ourselves, the opposite sex and life in general.

        The first and most difficult part of the healing process is to break away from the person keeping us down, making it impossible to feel good about ourselves and making us spend every waking moment trying to think of ways to change ourselves so the other person changes and starts treating us the way we would like to be treated. Come on friends, this is no way to live and somewhere deep inside you, you know it! No matter what reason you give for living this way it will never be good enough or make enough sense for you to be wasting your love and your life this way. No matter what you do or do not do, give or give up, you CANNOT change another person. You can only change yourself and haven’t you already tried that too many times too count? Try to think about it logically no matter how much it hurts. If that person loved you the way you love them, wouldn’t they have at least at TRIED to change their behavior if for no other reason  than to make and/or see you happy once in awhile? And I’m not talking about settling for bread crumbs when you’re in a committed relationship when you should be sharing half the loaf.

        So gather your strength and make a plan. Unless things are violent and you are being physically or sexually abused then you’ve no choice but to get out NOW. If you haven’t already done so, start a savings account separate from this relationship and in private. It helps if you have a trusted same sex friend to help                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    you with this. Start putting money away fast and furiously. Begin looking for a place to live. If you have children it may make it more difficult if he fights you for custody so prepare yourself and your children for a battle with CYS.  Once you have a basic idea about where you are going to live, then it’s time to break the news to him.

(to be continued)   

                                                       

Refresher Part 4

      I found myself in intensive outpatient therapy and going to approximately 5 AA meetings a week. Happily, I connected both with my therapist and my group; the only problem was that I couldn’t or wouldn’t dedicate myself to the 12 step meetings. I supposed my justification was that I already committed myself to four days a week and four hours a day to my therapy and reasoned this was enough and no meetings were really necessary.

      So each time we made some progress I would get drunk and undo our work. It was during this time that I met Eric. So at the very least I can say was single, in therapy and on medication before I became involved in a relationship. And there was something different about Eric and me from the very start. First, I didn’t fall in love at first sight with Eric as I did with every other relationship before this one. As a matter of fact I told Eric that I would never fall in love again because my heart belonged to someone else. That would have been David, my Pittsburgh love affair with a boy nine years younger than me. A relationship that lasted all of 5 months but was so sick it’s a wonder I’m alive considering how much I drank during and after that affair ended and David would show up at my door all hours of the night and I being so weak would let him in. I still can’t believe that was me who acted in such an irresponsible manner…but it was.

(to be continued)

                                                                           

Refresher Part 3

          After living in such a sick, toxic and codependent relationship for so long, there was a lot of work that needed done on my damaged sense of self, human relationships and friend and family interaction. I mean my poor little head was shaken up. Plus I had a serious drinking problem, uncontrollable anxiety and panic attacks and was in a deep depression. So after leaving school without graduating again, I came home to my mom’s small apartment and went to a local hospital’s mental health outpatient treatment center to see what I could do. I also went back to AA meetings since I’d been in rehab once already and knew what I needed to do to stay sober.

         It isn’t an easy thing to work on one’s own character defects, try to heal an almost gone sense of self esteem and regain some kind of self worth after living the kind of life I lived while in Pittsburgh. Spending every extra cent on booze, waking up in the strangest of places not knowing who I was with or where I was at.

         But once back at mom’s the healing could begin. I had so much guilt and shame built up inside me it was incredible. I had never really dealt with my feelings about my failed marriage and now I had all that guilt, shame and self hatred to deal with because of my drinking. Can you see how a relationship just wouldn’t have a chance of being satisfying, beneficial or healthy at this point in my life?

(to be continued)

Refresher Part 2

         I threw Bill out but it took moving away to Pittsburgh for me to stop seeing him. He must have had a girl friend before I kicked him to the curb because it wasn’t but a few days before he was shacking up with some other woman. I used to get drunk and at the end of the night and after all my haunts had closed, I’d show up on his doorstep and try to recapture something that was never there to begin with. How sad and futile an action was that? Looking back now, I can see it all so clearly. But when you’re in the middle of it, things are not so brightly lit, black and white, and you find yourself flip-flopping back and forth on your decision to end the madness..

         In the end it took me four years to get over Bill. I’m not saying I played that dangerous game of drinking to excess and then having my inhibitions blown away to the point where I’d lower myself to visit him in the middle of the night. I eventually made the decision to move to the city to finish my degree and Billy Jr. made his young 10 year old mind up to stay in the school he had grown up in. Unfortunately, this also meant Billy would be living with his Dad while I went back to college.

         Anyway, as I said it took me took years to come to terms with my separation and ultimate divorce. But I can tell you this, the day I stopped hating Bill was the day I stopped loving him. That was the day I was over my ex-husband. And no, I didn’t rush out and try to replace him with any warm body I could hold at night. I realize it’s a frightening prospect to actually live alone. Especially if you’ve always had a somebody in your life. And yes, I had a few boyfriends between Bill and Eric but no one I lived with. I even had a whirlwind affair while married to Bill and certainly felt justified in having it. It was while I working for a pyramid scheme selling the intangible dream of permanent weight loss. I had to go out of state on a training trip and met a married man who fell in love with me and me with him. People say,”Oh,It couldn’t have been love, you only knew each other for a week!” However, there are many kinds of love and we kept in touch by mail and telephone for years afterward. He was ten years my senior and I was all of 23 years old. I recently looked him up on facebook and got his daughter instead who informed me that Shane had died after a battle with cancer. But his daughter had actually heard about me and I wished her well and left her alone. I’ll always have fond memories of Shane.

                             (to be continued)                                                                                                                 

                                                          

Refresher Part 1

       I think we need a refresher course in keeping a positive attitude, how that affects our self esteem and ultimately how having good, positive and steady self image affects our relationships with ourselves, friends and that special lover.

       The most important factor in keeping a positive attitude is remembering to be grateful for all the good things in your life and never forgetting how much worse they could really be. However, you can’t do this as an excuse to stay in a physically, emotionally or verbally abusive relationship. So here is our fine line. Now you must learn to recognize abuse in all its sometimes subtle forms.

       What would possess us to stay in these types of hurtful relationships? Usually it goes way back to something that was learned, endured, seen or otherwise we were forced to live with when we were only children. No matter what type of trauma or unhealthy behaviors we had to somehow get through to adulthood, without proper psychological help we are either doomed to repeat these behaviors or continue being their victims. Having little or no other examples of a healthy relationship, family dynamic or proper role models only makes a bad situation worse. So my advice for those of us that did grow up this way; get some help as soon as possible. If you’re like a lot of disadvantaged women and men with no medical insurance give a self help group an honest try. Most of these are free and can easily be found through your local hospital.

       If you just can’t bring yourself to open up in a group setting, find a trusted friend with experience with professional therapy, self help groups or any type of psychiatric counseling and ask for their help. If they are willing and able let them fill in as your “counselor” and ask if they will even do the therapeutic exercises or lessons learned in a group setting with you. This will probably have to be a very close friend to agree and you wouldn’t want any less.

       If you are in a toxic relationship you must dig down deep within yourself and find every ounce of courage to remove yourself from it as quickly and cleanly as possible. Yes, I know it’s hard, I know it’s frightening and I know it hurts; I’ve been there myself. My first husband was a drunken drug addict, who was not ashamed to hit me and cheated so much he gave me crabs three times, scabies twice and exposed me to a venereal virus that causes cervical cancer. Thank God it was caught early and able to be cured. It took ten years before my risk of cancer was gone. I stayed married to this man with our young son for 10 ½ years before he came home one day after a three day binge with needle marks on his arms and that was the final straw for me. I was NOT going to get hepatitis or AIDS from this piece of stool.

(to be continued)

                                                                              

Employees/Friends The End

            Some would say that is impossible to maintain a friendship with someone you work so closely with day in and day out and even if you did who’s to say you’d become friends anyway? I’m a very friendly, open person who usually wears my heart on my sleeve and has the tendency to be a little too blunt and free speaking with my opinions. I usually make friends quickly and easily and throw a wedge right between that bond just as fast with some brutally honest opinion given at the wrong time with less than friendly tact. However, a person can’t help what they are and I’ve accepted myself, character defects, faults and shortcomings. And if a person doesn’t like me I’ve decided that’s their issue not mine. So I suppose I’m healthier than I’ve ever been.

          I really do need to make some friends outside of work. The problem is I never get out socializing. Thank goodness for the internet, although that can be a mixed blessing. Losing oneself in the computer can be therapeutic but it can get to the point of an unhealthy addiction. I spend almost every waking hour on the computer and will take this opportunity to apologize for not posting for sooo long and realize it’s been a very long time. But I actually have a good reason this time; I’ve been working as a model again since I found a great networking website for models, photographers, agents, makeup artists and stylists. The DisabiliKeys project is also going well since we are just delivering a refurbished laptop to a needy newly injured SCI victim right to the rehab once a month.

          We did a photo shoot yesterday and both of my attendants/friends Kristi and Michelle helped out. They really are great girls, ladies, women and friends and I love them. I’ll post some of the best shots. Goodnight night dear followers and readers, I wish you love.

                                                                           

My Employees My Friends

          I can understand feeling embarrassed about personal issues and hiding the whole truth but when you’re dragging my fiancée into it you’ve made it my issue too.  All three of my employees/friends have run behind my back and tried dragging Eric in between our personal issues. They just didn’t realize that Eric would ALWAYS tell me the truth about what happened and he would ALWAYS be on my side. 

          Most times I found myself protecting my friends/employees from him. When he would say that they didn’t help him enough,  I argued in their favor even though there were times when I knew we couldn’t get to cleaning for him.  However, he IS impossible to satisfy. So usually I run around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to get down what I need and what he needs and there just isn’t enough hours in a day.

          All in all my employees/ friends are really great. I can’t think of one thing I’ve asked Sharlene, Michelle or Kristi to do for me that any one of them has refused.  I can count on two to always fill in for the third one. Sharlene is like the older sister Cathy that I lost 10 years ago, Michelle is the closest friend I have and probably why I get so easily disappointed or miffed with her and Kristi took the place of my son, she is like a daughter to me. This explains why we’re always arguing. But I really do love them all. 

(To be continued)                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

Employees - My Only Friends

          It never fails; with a sinking, nauseating, disillusioning feeling that starts in my throat and slowly but steadily makes its insidious way deep into the pit of my stomach. Sickening me and surprising every time with force that almost knocks me off my chair. What could I be referring to that could illicit such a response? The disloyalty, dishonesty or displaced trust causes me such emotional distress I cannot describe. I don’t know how much more generous, open-minded and supportive Eric and I could possibly be but we still can’t get our long time employees to be completely honest with us.

          Just this evening I thought I had made an inroad with an employee who I also consider to be my closet friend. We talked about a secret she was keeping for a long time which I already knew was untrue. I thought she told me the whole truth but later that night Eric told me some things that definitely proved my friend is still holding back. Why bother even trying if she’s just going to continue to lie. Unfortunately, it’s changed the way I feel about her. How can you completely trust someone who continues to keep secrets and cover lies?

(to be continued)