But what happens when you're with someone who either beats you down emotionally (or physically as in some cases) for feeling, expressing or sharing those feelings? After a time one of two things will happen: Either you will suppress your feelings to a self-damaging degree, or you will become very reactive as the bruises are poked and prodded on a regular basis. And that's putting it mildly.
Long ago, as a child, I learned to not express anger. Kids are taught, as we all know, that losing your temper or expressing anger isn't a good thing. Well, for the most part this is true. We have to learn to express our feelings in a controlled manner when possible. Some situations do warrant not holding everything back. However, when people teach children to NOT express anger there is a very real possibility, a very strong one, that the child will grow up suppressing anger, and many go on to suppressing most, if not all, emotions/feelings. This is a disaster in the making.
I learned quickly that expressing anger AND sadness was a punishable "crime." Whether the punishment was shaming, guilting, being sent to my room, grounded, scolded, etc... it didn't matter, because the outcome was always the same---negative feedback. This did a lot of damage and I'm still trying to get past that damage, to heal and feel whole again. It's not easy, I'll tell you, and I wish my mom would've had the foresight and intuition to teach me to FEEL while learning healthy ways to EXPRESS those feelings.
With each relationship I got into I became a huge sponge that absorbed everything that was thrown at me. Every unkind and hateful word, every mean-spirited criticism, every joke about me in which I was always the punch line (a treasured abuse by narcissists, btw), even the stonewalling became something I took on as a part of myself. No wonder I'm broken.
My relationships became an extension of my experiences with my mom, with almost ALL of them carrying on the hurtful legacy I would carry and eventually be crushed by later in my life. My choices in men weren't the smartest, and I'm willing to admit that I didn't SEE or recognize what I was doing until just a few years ago.
The relationship I'm in now is more than trying, to put it mildly. T isn't an 'abuser,' but he's simply, more often than not, just not here. The blatant absence, even in his presence, is a perfect reflection of yet another favored 'punishment' met out by my mother, the indifference and tuning-out being the most painful of things, damaging in their deliverance and painful as a well-delivered punch, maybe even more so.
My days are brought with not being heard, not listened to, with even the smallest gesture of respect something I rarely receive from this guy who claims to 'love' me. Communication is a nightmare in which I can never wake it seems. At nearly batting 100 at this point, T literally hears perhaps the last couple of words in a sentence or phrase, often not even acknowledging that I had spoken. Repeating myself constantly has become a stress I no longer want to have, so I rarely initiate conversation with him for this reason.
My past is laden with such things, though of a darker and more abusive nature. While I didn't recognize it at the time my entire being was being eroded in such a way that I would only see the situation for what it was only after my spirit was broken. Even into this relationship the insidious nature of that erosion of self continues to make itself known and without any hint of what can heal what is still an open wound. That's okay for now, though, because if I can recognize what's happening I can eventually find a way out, to allow healing even if it's in small, minuscule measures.
I have a confession to make. This whole 'not being heard' thing has worn me to the bone, leaving my capacity for patience wanting, to say the least. Yes, Prednisone in my system, and even in its exit from my system brings with it moodiness as it doesn't allow anymore for the cortisol (the anti-stress hormone) to swoop in and save the day. There is only what is in my system artificially until my adrenal glands wake up and being doing their job at full capacity; the waiting totally sucks, I promise you.
Being within 2 feet of T and not being heard is something I'm not okay with anymore. I don't have the desire to repeat every sentence or word every day of my life. I just have no desire or energy for such a thing, and it makes communication enormous work and a frustrating endeavor that I've lost almost all interest in. I find myself in tears as T is the only person I'm around these days, and the realization that I'm so at his mercy while he HAS no mercy is staggering in its significance when it comes to my life and my health.
This is not a situation all that unfamiliar to me.
I've been down this road before, only the terrain looks a little different. Being sick, having major health issues arise (such as a TIA, which I had in 2013) and having someone in my life who was indifferent, 'put-out' by my being sick, having my emotions, self-esteem and body pushed beyond any reasonable limit damaged my health--both physical and emotional. This was on a far, far greater scale than anything I'd ever experienced in my life and mostly due to my not understanding what it was I was dealign with. I know now, of course, but it's not of any help at the moment. I'm at T's mercy, totally, so when I try to talk about anything, especially the most important things and am tuned-out to the point where I'm literally talking to myself... I admit... it's brought me to tears over the last week or so. I'm too weak, to tired, and way too sick to be able to handle this in any healthy fashion.
Yesterday was so incredibly hard. I spent most of the day in bed, covered up, dealing with a tuned-out T to freezing one moment and overheating the next. It was just too much at one time, and I didn't handle it well. I fight to get out of bed every day, to try yet one more time while embracing the hope that today will be the day I feel better and more like myself. It's all I have. Yet my day was spent in bed yesterday for the most part because I was unable to find any motivation to even so much as sit upright and watch tv. There's a lot of details I'm not adding, but I honestly don't have the energy to type much more than I have.
All I know is that history is somewhat repeating itself, and the damage from the past is fusing with the damage from the present, leaving me spent, depressed, and defeated.
It's really all I know right now...
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