Ready to tell everyone to get LOST!
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Ready to tell everyone to get LOST!
This week the universe has tested me in a way that has made hiding from this sickness anymore completely impossible.
I have had almost every corner of my life bombarded by takers and I'm sick and tired of it. Truly just SICK and TIRED. I feel I am completely unraveling by all the demands that I want to just sink into the ground and let it swallow me whole.
Today I am taking a stand amongst the constant asks of my siblings and Abf. I took an inventory this week of all the calls and texts I received this and almost ALL of them were asking me to do things. ("Can you give me money? I drank mine away."..."Can you watch my kids? Oh and during this time I will ask you to show up at 8am only to have my lazy husband answer the door in his underwear and let you know he doesn't go to work for two more hours, AND I will also call you when I'm due home because I want to have a glass of wine with a colleague". ..."Can you give me your car tonight??"
JUST FULL STOP. I am ready to cut everyone out of my life, even my loved ones because I just can't take it anymore. And the insane thing is that I don't even know if I am being the crazy one here. IOW, sometimes my thoughts tell me I should say yes because I'm not using my car...or say yes because I'm not working and can lighten the load for my family. But inside I feel like I'm falling apart. Not having work has added to it because I really feel I have no identity or value but to be this thing to save others from their own responsibilities.
Please know I take full responsibility for this and I KNOW people will only treat me as I let them and it is on me to stop the madness!. I am just venting here because there is this part of me that I guess feels almost betrayed in some weird way because I would expect loved ones to want to be more loving and not treat me like I am just there to use. I guess because I would never treat them that way it kind of hurts.
Ugh sorry being a big baby today. Just feeling very beat up. I am waiting on this call for a job and it's been longer than I expected. I just feel I am floating around lately. Like I don't really know who I am and where I fit. I even volunteered to help ppl who I know need it and even they aren't calling me back. Whew! Just one of those moments when you want to book a one way ticket and leave your phone at home :-)
I have had almost every corner of my life bombarded by takers and I'm sick and tired of it. Truly just SICK and TIRED. I feel I am completely unraveling by all the demands that I want to just sink into the ground and let it swallow me whole.
Today I am taking a stand amongst the constant asks of my siblings and Abf. I took an inventory this week of all the calls and texts I received this and almost ALL of them were asking me to do things. ("Can you give me money? I drank mine away."..."Can you watch my kids? Oh and during this time I will ask you to show up at 8am only to have my lazy husband answer the door in his underwear and let you know he doesn't go to work for two more hours, AND I will also call you when I'm due home because I want to have a glass of wine with a colleague". ..."Can you give me your car tonight??"
JUST FULL STOP. I am ready to cut everyone out of my life, even my loved ones because I just can't take it anymore. And the insane thing is that I don't even know if I am being the crazy one here. IOW, sometimes my thoughts tell me I should say yes because I'm not using my car...or say yes because I'm not working and can lighten the load for my family. But inside I feel like I'm falling apart. Not having work has added to it because I really feel I have no identity or value but to be this thing to save others from their own responsibilities.
Please know I take full responsibility for this and I KNOW people will only treat me as I let them and it is on me to stop the madness!. I am just venting here because there is this part of me that I guess feels almost betrayed in some weird way because I would expect loved ones to want to be more loving and not treat me like I am just there to use. I guess because I would never treat them that way it kind of hurts.
Ugh sorry being a big baby today. Just feeling very beat up. I am waiting on this call for a job and it's been longer than I expected. I just feel I am floating around lately. Like I don't really know who I am and where I fit. I even volunteered to help ppl who I know need it and even they aren't calling me back. Whew! Just one of those moments when you want to book a one way ticket and leave your phone at home :-)
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Join Date: Jan 2016
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You're hardly being a baby by being annoyed by being exploited. People treat you the way you teach them to. If you teach them that you'll always give them what they want, they'll just keep asking. And taking.
As for that one-way ticket to anywhere...in this case, that might be just the thing.
P.S. "Can you give me money? I drank mine away." I'm going to assume this was that parasitic tumor of a "boyfriend" you have...tell me, TELL ME you did NOT give him more money.
As for that one-way ticket to anywhere...in this case, that might be just the thing.
P.S. "Can you give me money? I drank mine away." I'm going to assume this was that parasitic tumor of a "boyfriend" you have...tell me, TELL ME you did NOT give him more money.
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Join Date: Jan 2016
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I googled "assertiveness training online" and there are bunch of classes out there, many of them short and free. Try one. Try several. It might really help you stop saying yes when your entire soul is screaming NO.
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Thank you Aries! I'm going to take a look at that. I've bought some books but clearly I need more than a book.
Abf went off the rails again and called me from hospital yesterday to stay with me because he can't go back to sober living house until he goes to detox, which according to him he cannot go to until "tomorrow" due to insurance. He had the balls to ask me then for $200, mind you I am unemployed atm, to get a hotel for the night yesterday after I told him no way in hell he can stay with me.
He had me talk to the nurse who explained the hold at detox until the next day. Because I'm still not fully "cured", I didnt let him stay with me but did agree to get him a very dirt cheap room at a motel for the evening. I met him at hospital and he just wanted me to give him cash for the room.
I said no and he begged for cash then at least to get food and toiletry. I still said no. Instead I took him to a drugstore and bought him a toothbrush (he asked for mouthwash, said no..). doderant, a sandwich and water. Then drove him to a dumpy motel and paid $60 cash for the room.
He was pouty of course because he wanted the cash (so he could blow on booze) but I did the best I could. The motel was pretty gross but better than the street. And this is a guy who sleeps in his own junk when he's on a bender.
This morning he called again that detox won't be ready for another day and could I pay for one more night. I said no and to call his family, then blocked him.
Yes I could have handled all of the above better by blocking the first time, but I still care for his well being and while I learned not to put him up in my house or just hand over cash, this was what I chose to do instead. My hope is never having to do anymore of this again. It's become just too mentally dangerous for me. Especially with all the other things going on. Don't have much left in the tank anymore.
Abf went off the rails again and called me from hospital yesterday to stay with me because he can't go back to sober living house until he goes to detox, which according to him he cannot go to until "tomorrow" due to insurance. He had the balls to ask me then for $200, mind you I am unemployed atm, to get a hotel for the night yesterday after I told him no way in hell he can stay with me.
He had me talk to the nurse who explained the hold at detox until the next day. Because I'm still not fully "cured", I didnt let him stay with me but did agree to get him a very dirt cheap room at a motel for the evening. I met him at hospital and he just wanted me to give him cash for the room.
I said no and he begged for cash then at least to get food and toiletry. I still said no. Instead I took him to a drugstore and bought him a toothbrush (he asked for mouthwash, said no..). doderant, a sandwich and water. Then drove him to a dumpy motel and paid $60 cash for the room.
He was pouty of course because he wanted the cash (so he could blow on booze) but I did the best I could. The motel was pretty gross but better than the street. And this is a guy who sleeps in his own junk when he's on a bender.
This morning he called again that detox won't be ready for another day and could I pay for one more night. I said no and to call his family, then blocked him.
Yes I could have handled all of the above better by blocking the first time, but I still care for his well being and while I learned not to put him up in my house or just hand over cash, this was what I chose to do instead. My hope is never having to do anymore of this again. It's become just too mentally dangerous for me. Especially with all the other things going on. Don't have much left in the tank anymore.
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Join Date: Jan 2016
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"My hope is never having to do anymore of this again."
It's not a hope. It's your choice, yes?
There isn't a place in the US right now where spending the night outside would have been fatal. It's not like it's -10 and snowing. He would have been JUST FINE.
Have you considered applying for jobs in another state? Another country? Another continent?
Generally it's not recommended to do the "geographic" solution, because it's not a solution unless you address the root cause of the savior addiction. But sometimes distance can do what we can't...at least not right away.
It's not a hope. It's your choice, yes?
There isn't a place in the US right now where spending the night outside would have been fatal. It's not like it's -10 and snowing. He would have been JUST FINE.
Have you considered applying for jobs in another state? Another country? Another continent?
Generally it's not recommended to do the "geographic" solution, because it's not a solution unless you address the root cause of the savior addiction. But sometimes distance can do what we can't...at least not right away.
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Join Date: Aug 2011
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Smarie...did you like my idea of taking a sabattical? (see the post I left you about that).....
Now would be the perfect time....since you don't have a job to leave behind.....
I don't see what you have to lose?
Now would be the perfect time....since you don't have a job to leave behind.....
I don't see what you have to lose?
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Join Date: Aug 2012
Location: Chicago
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One of the harder things for me to grasp was that there was a Gray area between the Black of doing and giving everything everyone ever asked of me and the White of driving everyone away forever. I had to first accept that I had trained others to treat me the way they did, and it was on me to break that cycle of expectations.
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Posts: 821
It's been one month and the hardest part of maintaining "no contact" from my ABF for me is all of the new silence and space. I'm confronted with myself constantly where thoughts of my ABF and all of those problems used to be. What do I think about, what do I do with all of this time and space now that concerns, problems and the cavalcade of emotion is gone? It's been a month and my therapist reminded me yesterday that this is prime time for a relapse - reaching back and responding to one of his many efforts to engage me.
As I recall, you had two months of no-contact, then relapsed back into regular contact with your BF. Exactly as with alcoholics, we need a clear PLAN and a full team of support in our early days of recovery/no-contact. You are extraordinarily focused on all of the problematic people in your life, smarie, but I don't see any mention of your PLAN, nor of the people you have in place specifically to support your recovery. This PLAN and these people are vital, for they serve to not only keep you away from BF, but to give you structure and specific things to think about when confronted with all of the new space and time - they fill the vacuum left by the absence of your mental machinations over your BF and his shenanigans. You need a PLAN and people who support this PLAN in order to immediately have positive and different ways to think, different than the norm you're used to.
As Rudy Giuliani famously said, "Hope is not a plan."
The more you focus on your plan, the better all of your relationships will be because relationships pretty much reflect what we've got going on inside ourselves. You don't need to go around and fix all of these relationships, you only need to get right with yourself and you'll see the internal change reflected in how others respond to you.
Call it a recovery plan, call it a wellness plan. You need a PLAN. What is your PLAN?
As I recall, you had two months of no-contact, then relapsed back into regular contact with your BF. Exactly as with alcoholics, we need a clear PLAN and a full team of support in our early days of recovery/no-contact. You are extraordinarily focused on all of the problematic people in your life, smarie, but I don't see any mention of your PLAN, nor of the people you have in place specifically to support your recovery. This PLAN and these people are vital, for they serve to not only keep you away from BF, but to give you structure and specific things to think about when confronted with all of the new space and time - they fill the vacuum left by the absence of your mental machinations over your BF and his shenanigans. You need a PLAN and people who support this PLAN in order to immediately have positive and different ways to think, different than the norm you're used to.
As Rudy Giuliani famously said, "Hope is not a plan."
The more you focus on your plan, the better all of your relationships will be because relationships pretty much reflect what we've got going on inside ourselves. You don't need to go around and fix all of these relationships, you only need to get right with yourself and you'll see the internal change reflected in how others respond to you.
Call it a recovery plan, call it a wellness plan. You need a PLAN. What is your PLAN?
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Join Date: Nov 2010
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Repeat this word one hundred times-- "NO"
When somebody, ANYBODY, asks you to do or say something you do not want to do or say, simply say "No." Then absolutely don't explain, don't argue, and if necessary walk away, hang up, or delete whatever it is. Don't engage.
It will feel weird at first, and people will talk a lot of **** who are used to using you, but they will all adjust over time and YOU will be much happier person. Somebody smarter than me once said, "People are not pleased when people-pleasers stop people-pleasing. "
As you stop people-pleasing and begin to get stronger, you may lose some so-called friends, other relationships may transition to something different, but you will be much, much happier. And, of course, those relationships that change or end will do so because that's what they really were the whole time-- you were being used. Your real friends, and family that cares, will accept the changes in you. Over time as you say no when you mean no, and yes only when you mean yes, the people in your life will reveal who they really are and, when they do, believe them!
Say no, and let the changes begin!
Kindly,
Cyranoak
When somebody, ANYBODY, asks you to do or say something you do not want to do or say, simply say "No." Then absolutely don't explain, don't argue, and if necessary walk away, hang up, or delete whatever it is. Don't engage.
It will feel weird at first, and people will talk a lot of **** who are used to using you, but they will all adjust over time and YOU will be much happier person. Somebody smarter than me once said, "People are not pleased when people-pleasers stop people-pleasing. "
As you stop people-pleasing and begin to get stronger, you may lose some so-called friends, other relationships may transition to something different, but you will be much, much happier. And, of course, those relationships that change or end will do so because that's what they really were the whole time-- you were being used. Your real friends, and family that cares, will accept the changes in you. Over time as you say no when you mean no, and yes only when you mean yes, the people in your life will reveal who they really are and, when they do, believe them!
Say no, and let the changes begin!
Kindly,
Cyranoak
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I must say that I agree...agree...agree with Cryanoak. It is shocking to some of them, at first...they may actually react with confusion...lol.....
What so you have to lose by trying it?.....except to remain in the people-pleasing prison....
Remember, you are not under obligation to JADE....you don't have to J--justify A-argue D-defend E-explain......
What so you have to lose by trying it?.....except to remain in the people-pleasing prison....
Remember, you are not under obligation to JADE....you don't have to J--justify A-argue D-defend E-explain......
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Thank you for all the kind words of support.
Dandy - I love that idea, but I'm afraid I don't have the income right now to feel I can take a break. Unfortunately I probably could have when I left my job, but now 5 months into unemployment I am realizing how much money I think I may have wasted thinking a job was around the corner. I am however, waiting on pins and needles to hear from a prospect that I really want that I have interviewed with twice now. I have a good feeling only because I got rejected from the position the first time for someone else, but then they called me back a couple weeks later that another one came up they want me to come in for. I promised myself that if I get it, I am going to try and negotiate a start date at least a few weeks out if possible, so that I can take a trip somewhere alone.
Eventhough my parents are not bothering me to do things like others are, they still call an awful lot and always want me to come over. If I take a little trip I want to set some rules up so that we have designated times only to talk....not all day check ins (which I too am guilty of sometimes)...and heck, maybe no talking from ANYONE at all....smarie cannot be reached at this time
If this is an emergency please dial 911
Dandy - I love that idea, but I'm afraid I don't have the income right now to feel I can take a break. Unfortunately I probably could have when I left my job, but now 5 months into unemployment I am realizing how much money I think I may have wasted thinking a job was around the corner. I am however, waiting on pins and needles to hear from a prospect that I really want that I have interviewed with twice now. I have a good feeling only because I got rejected from the position the first time for someone else, but then they called me back a couple weeks later that another one came up they want me to come in for. I promised myself that if I get it, I am going to try and negotiate a start date at least a few weeks out if possible, so that I can take a trip somewhere alone.
Eventhough my parents are not bothering me to do things like others are, they still call an awful lot and always want me to come over. If I take a little trip I want to set some rules up so that we have designated times only to talk....not all day check ins (which I too am guilty of sometimes)...and heck, maybe no talking from ANYONE at all....smarie cannot be reached at this time
If this is an emergency please dial 911 Member
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Join Date: Sep 2016
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Originally Posted by dandylion 
I must say that I agree...agree...agree with Cryanoak. It is shocking to some of them, at first...they may actually react with confusion...lol.....
What so you have to lose by trying it?.....except to remain in the people-pleasing prison....
Remember, you are not under obligation to JADE....you don't have to J--justify A-argue D-defend E-explain......
What so you have to lose by trying it?.....except to remain in the people-pleasing prison....
Remember, you are not under obligation to JADE....you don't have to J--justify A-argue D-defend E-explain......
I was like......what kind of dimension am I living in?? only I can stop it.
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YES Cyran - the toxic dance can only continue if everyone is playing....if I stop, they can't pull me into it anymore. I am also at a point where I not only no longer care about losing my relationships, I think they would actually get stronger. my sister has acknowledged that she feels guilt in the part she plays and she doesn't blame me for being so angry. It's funny because she likes to talk about my brother who is a taker and kind of put it all on him...but it's her too and it isn't all her fault, it's mine for allowing it.
I know the one or two rare times I said no they respected it and still loved me anyway.
I know the one or two rare times I said no they respected it and still loved me anyway.
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Originally Posted by SparkleKitty
You can turn your phone off any time you like and not have to worry about other people respecting your "rules for communication"! Works wonders -- 100% effective!
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Join Date: Jul 2017
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Yes I could have handled all of the above better by blocking the first time, but I still care for his well being and while I learned not to put him up in my house or just hand over cash, this was what I chose to do instead
It's not your responsibility to care about his well being. It's his. You're not his wife, sister, mother or daughter. You owe this man nothing. Plain and simple. Cut him loose and let him find his own way. It's the only chance he's got to pick his sorry butt up and do something for himself. Hugs and prayers to you.
It's not your responsibility to care about his well being. It's his. You're not his wife, sister, mother or daughter. You owe this man nothing. Plain and simple. Cut him loose and let him find his own way. It's the only chance he's got to pick his sorry butt up and do something for himself. Hugs and prayers to you.
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