You can be Janice, if you can laugh like her. I'm warning ya though, I can do this pretty well. Heck, you can be Rachel, as I have already maintained that I do NOT have the hair for it. Or Brad Pitt for that matter...
Anyway, I'll try to answer your crazymaker question since I was once in your spot and needed to hear this.
For me, crazymaking is creating a whole lot of drama for the excitement of it. I think that I am easily bored by things, and I like them exciting. The biggest part of it though, is that I like A LOT of reassurances, and instead of going about getting them in a nice way, I tried to get them through scare tactics. You know, like when my H wasn't paying attention to me, instead of going to him and explaining how I felt, I would pull a
"I don't think we should be married"
right out of the blue. The poor guy never knew up from down.
It was horrifying to me when I realized what I was doing all of that time. In a nutshell, when I was crazymaking, I was doing the most unlovable things in order to try to feel loved.
Yeah, sounds dumb now, but manipulation was a way of life for me.
The payoff was that I got my non-communicative H to talk. If by "talk" I mean "argue!" The real payoff was that he hates to fight, so I got a lot of closeness after the big blow-up and drama. In my head, I was getting what I wanted. I didn't realize I was hurting him in the process.
Ending it? One of the big ones for me was when my youngest son yelled in anger, "I HATE YOU!" (As most kids will do from time to time). He came later to apologize, and I heard myself saying, "You can't go around saying whatever you want and think that an apology will make it all better."
Lightbulb moment.
Words can be damaging. Sorries only go so far.
I didn't like myself when I was mean and hurtful. Oh, at the time my thought was, "No one can get anything over on me!"
Now, I don't care.
I can't change people, I can only change myself. They have to live with themselves, I don't. So, I surround myself with things I love, and I left the drama behind.
Life is much easier on this side of the fence, Karen!
O.k., now I will go think over my list, in keeping with the thread.
Before I go- I wanted to say that I loved your list Briget! You make me smile. And, JoAnne, it was good to hear from you again!!!!
Later, Friends! (sorry, Briget...stole that from you!)
