WAW - Very confused and devestated - pt 5

[confusedinpa]

Confused,

Way to go man! I need some of what your having because I am heading that way but just getting on board. Keep it up and I hope to be there with ya soon.

LonelyRzr

You can easily have some of what I've been having. It's all the support and advice that has been in my threads/posts.

What it has really come down to is finding it within yourself to decide when you are done feeling sorry for yourself. Dig yourself out of the muck. The only person that could possible be happy about being in the muck is the person who put you there.

It's similar to what happened to me when I was younger. When I was growing up in the projects in Brooklyn, I had a very hard time as I was the clear minority. I was also over weight and wore "welfare" glasses. It was a common occurence where I had been beaten up/mugged/shot at/taunted so I cried almost everyday.

When I started 6th grade, my mom had finally bought me a football. We didn't have any money but it was something I had really wanted so it was a big deal. The first day I went outside with it, I got mugged and beat up and it was taken from me. At that point I decided I was done crying and feeling sorry for myself. It's hard to fight back when you're crying.

Unfortunately, the childhood coping mechanism that I put into place was I shut down all my emotions and kept myself just mad/angry. That was the last day I was beat up or felt sad, but didn't realize that was also the last day I had felt anything.

That's how I went through life to survive all the hardships . I was homeless for a period of time, ran out of money for college and had to quit to save money (I did return to finish), friends getting shot/killed - all before I finished college. I used to drink a lot - particularly through college and the first few years of working. That was the only time I was able to "feel" anything. I actually started drinking at 12.

I would just go out with "frat rat" girls and "club/party" girls through out the years. My wife was the first girl I had dated that was not one that would jump on top of a bar and start to strip (like from the movie Coyote Ugly). I allowed myself to be vulnerable to her, but I let my childhood coping mechanisms take over when shortly after we were married we thought she had less than a year to live. Fortunately it worked out to be a false alarm but it shocked me back to the mode of not feeling anything because I was afraid of the loss/pain.

That was the start of the the emotionaly neglect for my wife and kids. Her bomb shocked me back to reality.

I understand now that living involves feeling emotions and only you can control how you want to live your life. I can easily decide that this is too much to handle and shut everything down again but that is not how I want to live my life. I want to enjoy life. I realized I missed so much, myself as well as with my wife and kids. I'm not going to miss anymore of life.

That realization has come to me over the several weeks of my therapy and rereading all the advice/input that is in my threads. I've also been reading the books that have been suggested to me.

What it comes down to is that life is a choice. Only you can chose how you want to live. I made the wrong choice in the past. I would be a fool to make the wrong choice for the now and the future.

What it comes ultimately down to is me.