ItsmeAlice

Ever had someone make you cry?? For hours??

Ever spent the next three days trying to figure out why you were so hurt and how you could keep that hurt from happening again??

Ever got to the end of those three days and wound up completely pissed because the whole thing was avoidable from the start and the answer to not getting hurt in the first place was within you all along??

I lived it for 10+ years with my XABF, got into recovery and got royally mad at myself for a long time for not changing my behaviors sooner.

It's almost 13 months later since I started here and I feel like I've relived the experience again with a new friend. While the lifespan of the drama is shorter and the details of the issue aren't worth repeating, the raw emotions feel just as powerful now as they did back then.

I saw Susan Elliott's post on GPYP today. It opened with the quote from Eleanor Roosevelt "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent."

I did it, I gave consent and it cost me days out of my well-fought-for life, and I'm mad, mad as hell. Now I'm trying to talk myself out of taking that anger out on the other person when it is really meant for me.

This feels like tripping on my own shoelace in front of a crowd and feeling like an ass and wanting to smack the shoe salesman for it.

Why do my feelings go over to the top like this? Is it all really just an old trigger surfacing? How do I keep dusting myself off and trying again when I've lost all motivation to do anything because of it??

I've fallen in a hole....anybody got a rope or a hand they can send down?

Alice

stella27

First you have to forgive yourself. (((hugs, alice)))
It sounds like a trigger to me. And man, do I hate high-maintenance friends.

Tell me, are you a runner? I am an aspiring runner - essentially a perpetual beginner, but I do find that when I am feeling that way, running helps. Or a brisk walk if you're not the masochistic type. Like for at least 3 miles. Fast. The exercise helps me so much.

I hope you feel better soon because YOU don't deserve the beratement that you are giving to yourself.

wanting

It's hard to know just the right thing to say, because I don't know what happened. But I think it's OK to dwell and brood for a little while. Sometimes you just need to ride through that part of the process. We can't always be rational and reasonable, because we have these silly little things called emotions that come up, even in the face of reason. I think it sometimes helps to sort it out by saying to yourself, "I felt X when so-and-so said/did Y, because..." and figure out whether this is a person you need to stay away from or whether you need to do something for yourself. Sometimes for me, it's as simple as figuring out that I'm premenstrual, or that I didn't get enough sleep, or that I haven't had enough time to myself, or that I haven't been eating healthy enough. Or sometimes I need to write, or talk to a friend. Some people need to go to a meeting or see their therapist. Sometimes I really do need to talk to the person involved, especially if I value the relationship and feel as though I was triggered and that person might understand that.

I hope that you can sort this out and start feeling good again. Hugs to you.

GiveLove

It has always helped me to sit down with myself (literally, separating the judgmental Me from the injured Me in separate chairs) and ask why I am so hurt. Did someone hurt my pride? My self-esteem? Did they insult me? Did they take advantage of my kindness? Are they just a crummy person and that's the realization that hurts the most, that I didn't see it?

Why did this hurt you so much, GL? I ask my injured Little GL what made her cry so hard, and let her tell me, without word limits, without judgment, without criticism, without cheer-up-kid, with nothing but open arms and a hug.

It all starts there for me. Until I can do that, I can't get anywhere else.

I'm sorry you're hurting. Maybe we can help?

ItsmeAlice

It was such a combination of triggers that came up in one flurry of a conversation, again all the details of what brought it on are off topic but the essence is that I have a situation making it uncomfortable to live where I do.

I left a message for my friend who spends a lot time at the house and asked him for ideas on how to resolve the problem. I had a couple I wanted to run by him as well. He didn't return my call or my email, which I excused away as his being busy. When he came by the house to do some chores for my landlord/roommate, I tried to ask him about it and told him the first idea I had didn't work and why.

He outright argued with me so that set me back. He disagreed there was any problem in the first place. He then went on to say that the problem must be with me, that I've made it up, that I'm creating the whole thing to cause trouble and make work for him (??), and that if I was half as smart as I think I am I would see this. So he turns a plea for help into an opportunity to belittle and berate me.

At that point, I told him I understand he does not see things as I do, but as my friend could he still find a way to be supportive of me. He laughed at me and said "Aw poor baby. You can figure it out on your own if you think there's really a problem." I tried to appeal to him again and said that I'm happy here I'd like to stay, but I see it as a deal breaker and I'd have to move if it can't be resolved. He said he didn't know what to tell me, he gueses I'll have to move out.

I felt invalidated. I felt belittled. I felt betrayed by a friend. I felt demeaned. I felt alone. I felt... well truth be told I felt like putting my finger in his eye and when he screamed bloody murder, telling him it was all in his imagination. The jerk.

In the end, all I could do was go to my room, close the door, and cry. I cried off and on the rest of the day.

While typing this I felt all the same emotions as if it just happened. It's exhausting.

FindingPeace1

I felt invalidated. I felt belittled. I felt betrayed by a friend. I felt demeaned. I felt alone. I felt... well truth be told I felt like putting my finger in his eye and when he screamed bloody murder, telling him it was all in his imagination. The jerk.

YUCK! No one wants to be treated that way or feel that way.

I've had those kind of friends!
I finally decided to do something about it. I started asking myself for each person in my life: does this person bring me joy, support and encouragement?
Each friend that made me feel YUCK was not a friend at all.
Maybe its time to CLEAN HOUSE!

ItsmeAlice

does this person bring me joy, support and encouragement?


What could very well have prompted such a big reaction from me is that I thought this person brought me those things. It was the primary reason I went to him with the problem in the first place. I felt emotionally safe with him up to this point. I think I also felt my trust was broken since it seemed to be such a character attack. All he had to say was that he didn't see what the big fuss was. In hindsight, he didn't even have to support me or back me up in any way. BUT He didn't need to make it into a assassination of me personally.

I have spoken to others who know him and they have said he is known to act that way. I've known him now for almost 5 months. I guess that's how long it took for me to experience it. I'm willing to leave him at the curb and accept that he's not worth being close with, just an acquaintence. For now, I'll still have to see him around.

This seems an awfully high emotional price to pay to make what I see as an easy decision. Next!

FindingPeace1

OMG you make me laugh so hard!

ItsmeAlice

Your curiosity is killing you, I can tell.

I just didn't want the thread to become a how-to discussion solving my initial dilemma, which is better suited for a generic advice collumn. It's something I'm capable of fixing so I should have just kept quiet about it. One of the many reasons I'm still kicking myself for asking for his help at all.

I just haven't grasped the tools it seems to deal with my emotions and making new friends. When something like this happens, my feelings are as raw as when I dealt with them on a daily basis with my EX and all the way back to my childhood with my parents.

Maybe, I'm just not holding on to my positive self-talk when it really counts. I choak in the moment and all that comes out are tears.

FindingPeace1

I'm totally with you.
I'm still pretty lame in the moment.
I can leave a situation and think straight, later.
That's okay.
My friend calls it RRT (Rapid Recovery Time).
We can't expect perfection.
We're just working on cutting down the recovery time.

Hugs,
w

isitme

That's so great! I kept typing and deleting on this thread. But this is right on.
HUGS

GiveLove

I know this isn't going to help much, Alice, but if I could give you an injection of it (like a vaccine) it would serve you well right now.

The scenario goes like this - it happens to me often --

--I made friends with someone and thought I knew them well enough to entrust them with a meaningful conversation, cut them in on my inner world, enlist them as an ally.

--Uh-oh! Under social pressure, they turn out to be a closet jerk, incapable of this kind of intimacy and certainly undeserving of it.

--Okay...... I was wrong about them. As it turns out, they're NOT the kind of person I want to spend any of my 42 million minutes on. I'm going to allow myself one day to beat myself up for not having better judgment in the first place (as ridiculous as that is) and then I'm going to start snapping that rubber band every time I let myself go there.

I hate to see you sticking it to yourself because you are reading more into it than these three things: Made a judgment, learned more (ow!), changed your judgment. You're filling it with all of these value judgments, hanging your worth as a person on there, giving him all kinds of power that (from where WE stand) he doesn't deserve. Unless you were hoping for a different kind of relationship with him, on some subterranean level? That would be disappointing....but I'd be darned glad I learned he was a social idiot now and not later.

Truthfully, I don't even want someone like this as an acquaintance. It's like having a dog that bites you, but you never know when. I'd rather have no dog at all.

You did your best with what you knew at the time. Now that you know better, you will do better.

Let yourself off the hook, 'kay?

You deserve better. Better friends, better acquaintances, and a better living situation where you're not forced into the company of inferior beings. Oops....did I just say that?

ItsmeAlice

RRT (Rapid Recovery Time).

I like this. It puts a perspective on it that works for me. Eliminating the emotional response is not necessarily the objective but rather improving the degree and duration.

Now I need more tools to create a more productive RRT. When I consider the effects this kind of slam had in my youth and then consider the effects my XABF's verbal lashings would have...I've made considerable progress in the last year because now I'm down to days, not years and not months but days. This is good, right?

FindingPeace1

Good for you!

What is bittersweet is you ASKING if that's an improvement.
Ask yourself. You know the answer. You know it is.
Trust yourself.
Some crumbcake goes off on you -
Put his image in your open hand and blow him away like a dandelion seed.

You matter.
Your thoughts and feelings matter.
No one else can take away your KNOWING in your soul.
Trust YOU. Trust your HP. Trust God - whatever works.
As you strengthen YOU, others won't have as much of an effect on you.

I tell myself - I know what Truth is and what is real and what is right NO MATTER WHAT anyone else says.

Hugs,
w

stella27

What a moron. He has problems that you don't want to get any closer to!
Abusive, angry people are just the worst.

GiveLove

Extremely good. This experience may actually have reduced your RRT by a few ticks, just through the pain it caused you. It's those strong experiences that shape us the most. (Pardon me though if I don't say thank you to jerkface who caused it)

Progress, not perfection.

tigger11

Anvilhead, you crack me the heck up!

Alice -
You're human, right?
'Nuff said?

****{ALICE}}}

TakingCharge999

Alice I try to see everything and everyone as "exercises of self love"

Maybe its a test?????

Will you beat yourself up for "not being enough" or "not knowing better" or whatever??

OR will you pat yourself on the back and learn whatever your great gift of introspection sees in all this, then take it again One Day at a Time and back to ItsMEAlice's hopes and dreams and hobbies and friends and pampering????


I vote for... NUMBER TWO

TakingCharge999

Ah I'm sooooooooo emotional, my therapist said, to let a few days or even weeks after I'm triggered to say or act on anything.... I'm with the poster that suggests physical exercise.... I always climb stairs when triggered at work and my butt has never looked better LOL!!!!!! anger out, better sleep, compliments, free endorphins, can't lose on that one

transformyself

Ugh. triggers like this suck. I"m glad you're feeling better. Getting through them is the first gigantic step. Then taking a look at it and sorting out what caused it and how to avoid it in the future is exhaustimicating!

Have you thought about how to take your power back with this invalidating, blame placing jerk posing as a friend? How to create boundaries that'll keep you safe?