NikkiB #17

[NikB]

ST and Dave - thanks for checking in!

ST
On the praise - most of the time he reacts well, but if he's in that really dark/down mood that seems to come over him at times, he responds totally different. 90% of the time when I praise him, thank him, tell him he did a good job on XYZ he says thanks, gives me a hug, etc. It's that other 10% when he turns it around and gets really down on himself. Dunno..

Yeah, H is BIG on friends, that's for sure. It's something we've never really come together on exactly - I like quality alone time w/him, he likes to have a lot of people around him all the time. We talked about that in MC actually, and H said one big problem is he always felt I was jealous of time spent with friends. I was sometimes, not most of the time, but I guess it came across that way. Something to work on if we get there... not yet though. For now I'll just work on developing my own friendships.

I did think it was good he said she could come to the movies with us.

Dave
Agreed - I think it's good. The "negative voice" in me keeps whispering that he's doing this to help me develop a support system before he drops the next bomb on me... but I keep telling it it to shut up.

I think one other thing I really need to work on is rewriting the "scripts" that run in my head. I think I've heard it referred to as "self talk" in the psych world? I just notice that I keep having these negative things run through my head - like what I mentioned about the friends, blaming myself for the distance that's come back into our R, wondering if cleaning out the garage and selling stuff is related to another impending bomb.. those kinds of things. I KNOW better, I KNOW these thoughts aren't logical and that I need to turn things into positives. But knowing it and making it happen are two different things, as we all know. So.. working on that, along with getting back into the meetup things again.