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Grand Magnate
Member Since Jun 2012
Location: USA
Posts: 3,515
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#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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Grand Magnate
Member Since Jun 2012
Location: USA
Posts: 3,515
11 1,429 hugs
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#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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pachyderm, Saunder
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Legendary
Member Since Jun 2007
Location: Washington DC metro area
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#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:
It really can be rewarding to find your own truth. So the prospect is not all terrible! __________________ Now if thou would'st When all have given him o'er From death to life Thou might'st him yet recover -- Michael Drayton 1562 - 1631 |
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Poohbah
Member Since May 2013
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#4
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here today, Saunder
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Saunder
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IFG
Member Since May 2012
Location: Iowa
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#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.
__________________ Last edited by IowaFarmGal; Oct 02, 2018 at 06:42 PM.. |
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here today
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*Laurie*, here today, Saunder
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Grand Magnate
Member Since Jun 2012
Location: USA
Posts: 3,515
11 1,429 hugs
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#6
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Grand Magnate
Member Since Jun 2012
Location: USA
Posts: 3,515
11 1,429 hugs
given |
#7
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*Laurie*, IowaFarmGal
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*Laurie*
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