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Default Sep 27, 2018 at 11:26 AM
  #1
I spent the 20 years since my late husband passed away trying to get myself "fixed" in therapy, until the last T gave up 2 years ago and I gave up looking for therapy anymore.

I wasn't in a good place to make a life for myself before therapy, so I thought therapy was "the answer". Not sure I could have made a life for myself any other way, either. Lots of disconnected parts and feelings in me, made things kind of hard.

It now seems like most of my life I lived in a fantasy of who I was based on the image of who I was to other people, or hope of who I might become ("well", "fixed"). But living the images of who I was to other people generated not-so-good feelings in other disconnected, sometime unconscious parts of me. In recent years I've become more aware of that aspect of myself, but I'm not really open with anyone -- there's a core of me who/that cares only about myself, and I'm well aware nobody could like or care about that person.

I'm trying to clear the 30 years of clutter and accumulation out of my house so I can "move on" to a senior condo or apartment and then. . .on to whatever is after that.

It's awful, seeing the life I thought I had, based only now in the accumulation.

Both parents are deceased and I have no contact with the remaining extended family of origin. Little contact with my kids and no contact with my sister except for some family business stuff.

I've cut myself off -- rather than being the image of what people want and expect of me, I guess? But there is nothing else.

Nobody cares about me. Or, maybe, nobody knew how to show they cared and still don't. The truth is, as I look through the accumulation and feel the person I thought I was and the life I thought I had -- the truth is, I did that so that I could be a person that people would (seem to) care about.

Because nobody cared about "the real" me. That's the painful truth to be aware of now, too.

In so many ways, therapy was just a repeat of that process for me.

I didn't know all that 20-30-50 years ago.

I know now, maybe -- but what good does it do? Part of the reason I may be "knowing" it now is that I am so close to the end. I'm feeling scared and sorry for myself now, but is that the same as caring? I'm not sure.

Feels like my life has been so much of a waste. Did the best I could, but a waste. Got a little while longer, probably, until it's over. And, still trying to be "good", I'm trying to clear things out rather than leave it for somebody else. But so painful. . .
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Default Sep 27, 2018 at 02:31 PM
  #2
It came back to me -- how awful I felt a few weeks after my late husband died. How alone and rudderless my life felt. I still felt like an OK person -- I had been a decent wife and mother as I saw it and other people seemed to, too. A little rudderless and clueless as far as jobs and career went. But how to be a "good" wife and mother, I kind of knew that from images and expectations, etc.

So I still felt like an OK person on that day. . .but then over time I fell apart, didn't get anything else put together.

I was also still OK with my family -- didn't really "know" or feel how all that was done by expectations, image, and pollyanna-ism "everything is wonderful". Nevertheless, since that was the fantasy I was living in, I was still "in" it and didn't know better. Until the parents declined and there were no established expectations that everybody followed -- just different people's expectations and unbridgeable conflicts.

So despite the previous appearances and veneer, in the end we were all alone, always had been alone, since nobody knew how to really know and accept the other people.

I think this is hell. Or very close to it. Knowing it may be a start, but a start toward what?
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Default Sep 28, 2018 at 04:52 PM
  #3
Many decades ago in my first therapy, my therapist said I would have to trust somebody, so I finally decided that I would present him with the "real me" -- not the person I thought everyone wanted me to be, but the real one. I showed him (what I thought was) the real one, and for s short time there was a great transformation. But he really did not want the real one, only the "standard person" and convinced me that the real me was not a good person -- only the standard person was acceptable. It led to what I think now was a genuine psychotic breakdown, a horrible, horrible experience, which I have spent decades trying to recover from. And that, mostly against what most people seem to want.

So my experience is that trying to be the genuine thing can be extremely hard; you often have to fight against even the professionals that society promotes, if you want to finally discover and uncover what the real you looks like. Yet if you don't die in the process, it can be worth it. Many, many therapists simply do not have the education or experience or desire to accept the real in any patient. That is their problem, and is not your fault.

(But I think now after many decades I actually have found one [therapist]. )

Quote:
a start toward what?
I think something much better than what you have experienced is still possible. One thing that has been the secret for me is "mindfulness" -- people have lots of ideas as to what this should be, but for me it is simply looking inward, to examine and think about your thoughts and feelings, whatever they may be, as frightening and seemingly unacceptable and "bad" (or even good) as they may be. Try to let your mind examine whatever it presents to you, to discover what it means. It can be a very daunting process, because it leads you where most people do not want to go, do not want you to go. It can seem too uncertain a process, taking too long to produce any results. I found that the only thing that worked is to stick to it. I had no other tool that succeeded, so I had to try sticking it out. It can be rewarding, as tough as it is. You have to accept it might be tough, and go against the grain and do it anyway. Nothing else succeeded for me. I had to fail at everything else to do this.

It really can be rewarding to find your own truth. So the prospect is not all terrible!

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When all have given him o'er
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Crazy Oct 02, 2018 at 06:03 PM
  #4
Quote:
Originally Posted by here today View Post
It came back to me -- how awful I felt a few weeks after my late husband died. How alone and rudderless my life felt. I still felt like an OK person -- I had been a decent wife and mother as I saw it and other people seemed to, too. A little rudderless and clueless as far as jobs and career went. But how to be a "good" wife and mother, I kind of knew that from images and expectations, etc.

So I still felt like an OK person on that day. . .but then over time I fell apart, didn't get anything else put together.

I was also still OK with my family -- didn't really "know" or feel how all that was done by expectations, image, and pollyanna-ism "everything is wonderful". Nevertheless, since that was the fantasy I was living in, I was still "in" it and didn't know better. Until the parents declined and there were no established expectations that everybody followed -- just different people's expectations and unbridgeable conflicts.

So despite the previous appearances and veneer, in the end we were all alone, always had been alone, since nobody knew how to really know and accept the other people.

I think this is hell. Or very close to it. Knowing it may be a start, but a start toward what?
You are writing my life history. Ir is sad but it is what it is and i just wake up evety morning alone and go to sleep every night.
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Default Oct 02, 2018 at 06:29 PM
  #5
I'm so sorry. It's very hard rebuilding a life just for yourself not based on your roles to others. It's hard watching loved ones going one by one. The family bonds are so tentative anymore. Maybe it's the life stage to dwell on how I failed this time around. I wake up at night dreaming about the failures. No fix for it now.

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Default Oct 02, 2018 at 08:47 PM
  #6
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Originally Posted by dancinglady View Post
You are writing my life history. Ir is sad but it is what it is and i just wake up evety morning alone and go to sleep every night.
I hear you. I've read some of your posts in the past and know you a little bit from that. Thanks for your reply.
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Default Oct 02, 2018 at 08:55 PM
  #7
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Originally Posted by IowaFarmGal View Post
I'm so sorry. It's very hard rebuilding a life just for yourself not based on your roles to others. It's hard watching loved ones going one by one. The family bonds are so tentative anymore. Maybe it's the life stage to dwell on how I failed this time around. I wake up at night dreaming about the failures. No fix for it now.
Thanks -- this life stage is a mystery to me for sure.
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