Relationship Growth Spurt

We had a 3 hour session with her therapist on Friday, and my partner has been fully present since then. It was really hard and really good. She told me later that her intention in inviting me was to have her therapist fix me by telling me to go on an antidepressant. What happened instead was that the therapist really helped us explore core issues and to really hear each other.

We talked alot about her dissociation and how it affects each of us. She was really able to own how much she goes away. She even told me that when I cry, she dissociates. It makes sense to me that emotionally charged situations would be really hard for her and that she would protect herself by going inside of herself. It also makes sense to me (and finally to her, too!) that I don't feel seen because of it.

We talked about her unwillingness to use intentional dialogues. She said that they're really hard for her because she can't remember what I said and then it's hard when she has to give it back to me. We both got that this, too, has to do with her dissociation. When she goes inside herself, it must be incredibly hard for her to validate and empathise with my experience. It's also incredibly hard for me when I'm pouring out empathy and validation and getting little back. I end up feeling frustrated and unimportant and out of balance. She ends up feeling frustrated and worthless and hopeless. I think maybe my sender responsibility is to pay attention to when she goes away and stop talking until she can resource herself and come back. Another sender responsibility that I have is to try to speak my truth, but in a way that she can hear, either by giving less information at a time, by containing my emotions to the best of my ability(by resourcing myself) and sharing with her honestly, but in ways that she's more likely to hear. I want to say what her receiver responsibility is, but that would be taking her inventory. My therapist tells me that I've been overcompensating, though. It makes sense to me that when I feel like I'm working harder and harder and harder and not getting much back, I end up with big resentments that are NOT healthy for the relationship.

We also talked about her experience that I can't hear her no. She says that when she tells me no, I harass her until she gives in. She gave some examples, and I validated her experience. It's true that in each of the instances she shared, I suggested more and more alternatives until she agreed to one of them. I can see how she's feeling like she doesn't have a vote, because in each of the instances, we eventually did one of the things I suggested. Given all that, I imagine she feels trapped and powerless. I even get that boundaries are really new for her, and she needs to build fortresses right now in order to protect herself. It's just how I operate with my mother. It bothers me that the person that she's protecting herself from is me, but even that makes sense. It's that Imago thing we're learning about, where we recreate trauma experiences until we work through them. I am NOT any of the people in her life who traumatized her and did not respect her boundaries, but she's projecting that shit on me because she hasn't worked through it yet and I'm the person she's closest to today. I am understanding all of this stuff to the best of my ability without being her.

But I really need her to be able to see my side. It's really lonely to be a partner to someone who's busy building fortresses to keep me out. It triggers the hell out of my abandonment issues. Those issues weren't installed by her, any more than her victimization issues were installed by me. But her behavior affects me. As much as I can understand it, it doesn't mean that it doesn't hurt! What she sees as me not hearing no, I see as her not being able, yet, to enforce her own boundaries. That makes sense to me, too, because I have a hard time enforcing mine. I'm learning, through watching her struggle with this, that it's my job to enforce my boundaries and it's her job to enforce hers. It feels to me like she's blaming me for her failure to enforce her own boundaries. And, while she's busy building fortresses, she's not very negotiable. I see the same thing that she sees as me badgering her as her unwillingness to negotiate. Again, I get it. Boundaries and negotiation are new and hard for her. But it leaves me in a no-win place. She's not throwing out any alternatives. And then she's blaming me when I continue to come up with alternatives and then SHE finally agrees to one. Maybe this is my part here, and what I can try to do differently in negotiation. Again, I can slow down. I can pay attention to whether she's with me. I can ask her to come up with another alternative instead of continuing to put more and more options on the table.

Here's the good news. After our 3 hour therapy session, she's being fully present with me. She understood what I need in terms of validation and empathy, and she's really working on giving it to me. I'm not feeling abandoned right now, because she's not going away inside of herself right now. She's taking more risks and telling me her truth. As she's sharing her truth with me, I can be more compassionate and I can own my part and figure out what I need to change. We're being able to process things all the way through until we both feel heard and validated and we're being able to come to resolution together. For now, it feels like we're BOTH really working on the relationship. I don't feel so out of balance. And that feels really good.

Secret Message Decoder Ring

My step group is starting Step 11, where we pray for knowledge of God's will for us and the power to carry that out. I'm finding that I'm receiving a new gift of clarity. I've taken to calling it my secret message decoder ring. I'm asking for God's will for me, and I seem to be getting better at using my decoder ring to understand the answers.

I love the Promises from the AA Big Book, and I'm finding that with my new secret message decoder ring, this one's coming true:

-We will intuitively know how to handle situations that used to baffle us.

It's a really cool gift! And speaking of that cool gift, this is my 100'th post. According to my secret message decoder ring, God wants me to keep speaking my truth here. And to know that this gift is a bigun. Thanks, God!!!!

PLEASE SEE ME!!!!!!!!!!!

I had a huge blow-out tantrum last week. I felt like I'd been asking and asking and asking and asking to be seen, validated, and empathized with. But my partner was too absorbed in her own stuff, and she couldn't see me. Finally, last Wednesday, I had a complete melt-down where I was a sobbing mess, begging her to see me.

I get that her stuff really isn't about me. But it does affect me. And I was completely done being invisible.

The scary hard thing is how effective tantrumming is. I don't like it. It feels way out of control and scary. But I have to admit that it is the one thing that gets attention when I'm feeling invisible. I see why 2 year olds use it.

Tonight, I did some work in therapy around it. We identified some of my really old family of origin wounds that created this overwhelming need in me to be seen. My therapist told me about some work she'd done around the same issue where she took pictures of herself as a kid and really saw that little girl and nurtured her. She reminded me that the only person who can really abandon me today is me. She helped me to really see my own little person and to nurture her.

I came home and told my partner about the work I did. I told her that I was working through feelings around last Wednesday. Her response: "Refresh my memory." ARGH!!!

Adding God to my amends list

I recently completed step 8 with my online step group and am now starting 9. Meanwhile, a situation came up at work. I've been having difficulty with a person and a situation. It has been becoming more and more unmanageable for me, but I've been unwilling to deal with it directly. On Wednesday, the situation came to a head, and I ended up reacting out. I cried an ugly cry, as Oprah would call it, and poured out all of my feelings to one of my supervisors. She, in turn, wanted to bring it to the top boss. I told her that I was afraid, in part because the top boss is close friends with the person that I'm struggling with.

On my way to work the next morning, I prayed for the right words when it's time to talk to the top boss. I made an amend (in my head) saying that I was sorry for not trusting her when she had given me every reason to trust her. I rehearsed and rehearsed, trying to come up with just the right words.

Suddenly, it occured to me that this was another occasion where I was trying to control out of fear, and the solution to my fear is faith. I then realized that it's God that I owe that particular amend to- I haven't trusted God to give me what I need when I need it. So, I'm heading back to step 8 to add God to my amends list.

Heart Troubles

My partner spent the night in the hospital on the Chest Pain Unit Tuesday night. She started having this pain during therapy (surprise!) A few hours later, after successfully completing a CPR class, she told the instructor about her pain, and he recommended that she go to the hospital.

This is not the first time we've gone through this. Each time, they run her through a series of tests, and each time they clear her to go home. I thought I handled things pretty well during the time. I wasn't overly anxious and I didn't completely detach to the point of ignoring the symptoms which may have been life threatening, although they have never been before. Our therapist strongly encouraged her to call her doctor when she started having symptoms during our session. She refused, and I left it alone. When we completed the CPR class, I suggested that she tell her symptoms to the instructor. When he suggested we go to the ER, I took her. When she decided that she didn't like the smell of the first ER and wanted to go somewhere else, I did what she asked. (Even though by that point it had been more than 4 hours since she'd first started having symptoms. If it WAS a heart attack, she probably would have been dead by then.)

Afterwards, I asked for permission to give her feedback, and when she gave it to me, I suggested that she give her doctor and therapist permission to communicate with each other. I also suggested that she might want to ask her therapist to help her with some body work to maybe work through whatever it is that keeps bringing her back to this place. I even told her the next day how I was feeling- unappreciated and unimportant. She acknowledged that she hadn't thanked me for being there for her through the ordeal and that she did just expect me to do something for her rather than saying please. She said that she was being self-centered, but that if she ever were really dying, she wasn't going to say please and thank you.

The following day I was hovering on tears. I don't know if it was just exhaustion or if I had some unprocessed feelings left. I'm kind of beating myself up for being frustrated with the time and money involved in these hospital stays that never find anything. It's also scary though to think that there could ever come a time when I'd ignore the whole thing and it might actually BE a heart attack and I'd be responsible for her death. A friend in recovery reminded me that I came by these feelings rightly, and that my partner could actually call 911 if she ever really thought she was having a heart attack and I wasn't responding.

I sure wish she'd sort this stuff out though. I'm getting tired!

White Chip

My partner told me yesterday that she'd be picking up a white chip in the evening.

She told me that over the past couple of weeks she's been taking various medications, from a common over-the-counter cold medicine that has a lot of alcohol in it to some leftover muscle relaxants that belonged to someone who used to live in our house and some other things. She said that her therapist, who's a recovering alcoholic had told her weeks ago that she couldn't have the cold medicine, but she'd chosen to keep using it anyway and to use more than prescribed.

She has a new sponsor, who apparently told her that she didn't think that she needed to pick up a white chip. But my partner didn't feel comfortable with that, and kept asking others in recovery, and decided that she did need to pick up the chip.

I'm proud of her for putting it out there and for pursuing it when she was first given a pass by her sponsor. I'm glad that she's taking this stuff seriously and that it seems that for today, she's not sliding further down that slippery slope. I'm glad that she came to me and told me. I understand why I was the last to know, but that part is painful. The other part that's hard is the reality distortion. Just last weekend, we were at a recovery conference together and she was celebrating 6 months clean. Stupid me talked about how cool it is that they honor 18 months and that she'll be able to stand up for that next year. I was also starting to look forward to her finally having a year clean and being able to speak to my naranon group. What I now know is that she really didn't have 6 months when she was standing up dancing and cheering. I do struggle with that reality distortion thing. Oh well. I have tools. So does she. For today, she's taking her recovery seriously. I can't really ask for more than that.

Hung up on my mother

Hmmm. It's interesting that my title can be taken two ways, and while I meant it literally, the other way is also true. I AM hung up on my mother. She still has a lot of power over me. She's very invested in trying to control me and I'm just as invested in not letting her.

Today, she shared a very reasonable concern for my safety. The problem is that she has shared this concern before and had my sister in law share it too. Today she reminded me that she and my sister-in-law shared this concern and told me that she had found a newspaper article that she wants to send me about the concern. She told me all about the dire consequences that will happen if I don't take the action she wants me to take and that I have to take that action to protect all the members of my family.

Every time she took a breath, I told her "thank you for your input." She asked me why I was thanking her for her input and why I wasn't doing what she was telling me to do. I told her that I understand how frustrating it is when you want someone to do what you believe is good for them. (GOD, DO I UNDERSTAND!!!!) She told me that she wasn't frustrated, she was panicked. Actually, I totally get that too. Finally, I told her that I understood what she wants me to do, and if she continues to discuss it that I'd hang up. She continued. I told her I love her and hung up. Later, I called back and left her a message saying that I love her and that she is welcome to suggest that I do something but she is NOT welcome to insist.

You know, the truth is that she is absolutely right about what she's saying. And I really do get that controlling comes from fear. It was a good reminder of what I look like when I'm trying to get my partner to do things the way I want her to, and that the more controlling I am, the less likely that she, or anyone else, is going to do things the way I want them to, no matter how right I might be.

Thanks mom! That wasn't the lesson you intended for me, but it's the one I got. Just for today.