The penny has just dropped with me, big time. I've realised that I don't have to be doing big, major kick ass stuff to be moving forwards.
Along with tackling the sofa situation and taking a look in to my cupboard with the view of finishing it off at some point soon, and thinking about my bathroom renovation, I've been doing some small scale sorting the past couple of days: looking through my small box of nail varnish and chucking out old ones, looking through some magazines, tearing out some recipes and chucking the rest out, those sorts of tiny things. Those really small things have given me a huge sense of satisfaction and not been too time consuming or tiring either.
I know it sounds really stupid, but it's only just dawned on me. My natural inclination is always to throw myself at something full pelt and try and do it all as completely and quickly as possible.
So there are other ways of doing something that also work for me... .
So yesterday evening I went out for my run. I decided to do my new, slightly longer length of run.
I decided not to worry about time, but to focus on not stopping at all, keeping my breathing regular, keeping my shape really good, and seeing if I could step up the pace a bit in the last k, and then again in the last 500m.
Well, I did all of those things **and** I knocked a chunk of time off that distance as well - what a high!! And I did it with the dull pains I've been getting all the time in my lower belly too (Blood test results tomorrow morning. Hopefully they'll come up with something).
A day that started with my waking up at 3.30am and feeling anxious because it's getting close to 11 October BD time again, ended with feeling pretty darn incredible.
My new sofa arrived yesterday. It's all still boxed up as I have to get rid of the old one first to make space for assembling the new one (my house is tiny and has really small rooms). But I did a ton of housework as well to make sure it all looks as nice as possible when it's set up.
This morning I feel great. I had lots of sleep, and dee sleep too.
I'm wondering if I should set myself some running goals? At the moment, I'm just going with getting comfortable with a distance - making sure my breathing is good, my pace is good, my shape is good throughout that distance. And then once I feel I've got the handle on all of that, I'm adding another k onto it and going through the same process. I might drop back down to my previous distance once or twice when I'm at the new distance, but the goal then is just to hammer my way round, as fast as I can.
I'd like to add in a super short distance occasionally (just a mile), but to go as fast as I can at it and not worry about what sort of state I'm in at the end.
And I'd like to add in some very sort of short distances up a steep hill, like a couple hundred metres, and maybe do those 5 or 10 times in succession.
I also feel like I need to do some sort of leg stretches. My hamstrings are super tight after hurting my back quite badly towards the end of all the rubbish that XH was throwing at me (December 2014). I think that would help my stride feel looser - it feels a bit tight at the moment.
Anyway, I had a crazy thought last night...I'm 50 in about a year and a half. Could I run a 10k in 50 minutes when I'm 50? I'm super competitive with myself, so motivation is never an issue once I set myself a goal.
Pros: my own competitiveness, plenty of time to train slowly and thoroughly, achievable distance, reasonable level of basic fitness as a starting point, a definite goal
Cons: no idea how to go about it (for the moment), is it totally unrealistic?
My old sofa is gone, and my new sofa is assembled and in place. My wonderful man took the old one apart, down to the bins and we assembled the new one. It was all very quick, straightforward and very easy.
I was a bit worried that I might feel a little sad in some way, as the old sofa had been a wedding present from my first step dad - who I no longer have any contact with. I think the reason my mum and him split up (when I was 8 or 9) was that he was constantly having affairs. He was married at a later date, with two children, and I think he carried on with his drinking and affairs during that marriage. I don't think he ever saw anything wrong with anything that he was doing.
Anyway, when he split up from his wife, he unburdened a fair bit on me, which I absolutely hated. I think I was in my mid-late 20s at that point, and I think he must have been in his 50s, but I didn't want to be on the receiving end of what he was saying.
Next thing I knew, he had a new girlfriend. It was super weird when I went round to his house to meet her, she opened the door, and she was pretty much the same age as I was.
Last contact I had with him, he'd moved away to Colombia to be with her, and called me up to see if he could come and stay for a few weeks in my (tiny) flat while he was back for a holiday. My flat is tiny, just two rooms, and the rooms are small (it's very bright and airy though, as faces east-west, and it's got big windows). Understand that I am very small, and pretty diminutive, softy spoken and self-contained in my movements. He's six foot four, with a very loud, bombastic voice, and larger than life in everything. He also asked if I had any 'student' friends who's floor he could sleep on. I think I was about 30 something years old by that point and hand't had any sort of contact with that sort of student life for over 10 years. That's the last I spoke to him.
Well, my new sofa looks absolutely beautiful and has transformed the entire room. It's smaller and neater than the old one. And I bought it with money I earned.
Other news, I had a nice couple of evenings freelance work. I caught up with someone in the industry I had worked with before and had known a little. She said i was looking really, really well and very happy. So we talked a little about how I was and what was going on in my life that was making me so happy. Then, the elephant in the room, she asked about XH. I just told her about the alcohol and she came back at me with a similar story about a R she'd had with someone in the industry. So I think it's probably a common issue in this industry (along with drugs). I guess it's one of this things where the industry environment encourages/enables a certain type of behaviour, and at the same time, the industry it is attracts certain personality types to become involved in it.
Do those kinds of personalities ever change? It must be difficult to change (if that's what you've decided you want to do), when you're surrounded by the thing(s) you're trying to give up. Change is hard enough anyway.
I have to admit, at times I'm scared of slipping back into who I was before. Keeping moving forwards is hard work. But maybe I feel that because I also feel that my life is more open to possibilities that I might never even have thought of before? So there's a sort of emptiness there, in the future, which isn't actually really emptiness - it's more just a space that's full of possibilities and opportunities. Like, I never would have imagined that I would be running and improving on my running as well. I couldn't even run for the bus in my past life. And yet it's something I chose to do and started since BD. So what else might there be in the future, that I had never thought of and never imagined would be a part of my life? Obviously some of those things I'm discovering together with my wonderful man. But there might be others as well.
I don't feel old, or tired, or worn down by all of this. I feel OK about it. Well, better than OK really...profoundly at peace and very calm about everything.
Lying in bed this morning, feeling absolutely exhausted and really struggling with even just the thought of trying to get up (I've felt super tired since Sunday, more than normal).
The doctor's surgery calls. Thankfully my mobile is right next to my bed so I don't have to get up to answer : o)
The results from my blood test shows that I have low iron and they're giving me iron tablets (prescription all ready to pick up).
I think it's been low for a while. I started suffering from IBS in 2008, and the very little amount I ate for at least six months after October 2015 probably exacerbated matters.
It would actually explain some of the strange things I've noticed over the past couple of years (like the ridges on my nails, and how brittle they've become, the cuts in the corners of my mouth).
Good news is that it's diagnosed. Down side is that it's going to take a while to normalise.
It's important to figure out WHY your iron got low. Typical causes include 1) heavy menses, 2) GI blood loss due to ulcers, polyps or other pathology, 3) celiac disease or gluten or dairy sensitivity. Given your history of IBS I'd suspect # 3.
Iron glycinate is the least constipating iron; time release is second best. Taking vitamin C or OJ with your iron improves absorption. Liver is the best source of dietary iron; any kind of beef is second.
Thank you kml. I've got ferrous fumarate 210. Picking it up today.
I have feeling it's been a very gradual and developed slowly over a very long time, and I've just gotten used to it and not really noticed until the past few months.
Just imagine how much better my running is gonna get : o)
Had a really nice shift last night, unexpectedly so.
One of the new friends I've made since BD is off to the States this morning to spend 3 months with his new GF. When he started working where I work freelance he was in a super bad place, just getting over what sounded like a horrendous experience with his ex. It wasn't just your normal breakup, there were a lot of circumstances around it which made it drag on for months and months, and it affected his mental health really badly (he started drinking heavily and taking drugs). This was maybe 2 or 2 and a half years ago.
I've always encouraged him to find what he loves to do and follow that, based on my own experience of this whole path. I was maybe a few months ahead of him in the whole process and a lot more driven to heal, he was a bit stuck I think. He's also a lot younger than me (early 30s I think) and the awful experience he went through was I'm guessing his first serious R. So it's good to see him transformed into the person he is now, with a new GF too.
We had a good shift, and laughed a lot too.
Then there were a lot of people there last night who were associated with my XH, some of which I hadn't seen since before BD in 2015. I was unfailingly positive and upbeat, made easier by them being on my turf and me knowing that I'm rally good at that job.
So today is 3 years since that awful day. This time 3 years ago, I was just getting ready to go to work, and looking forward to going to the wedding reception of a friend and work colleague in the evening. I had no idea of what I was about to be hit with and the pain that followed.
3 years seems like no time at all, intellectually. But in terms of the path I've travelled, it feels like a foreign planet. The weird thing is that the pain of it all feels familiar, in a deep down sort of way. It's a strange mix of feelings, for sure.
I went to look at XH's FB page, out of curiosity. He still posts some weird stuff, random links with strange comments, he's still not updated his status, the town where he lives, cover image or profile pic. Latest post was a link to a short video with commentary in my own, other native language (I'm totally bilingual).
Someone I know through the industry and am FB friends with, her H died suddenly of a heart attack a short time after my BD. I have to admit, it's been hard reading her posts these past years. She posts a lot, mostly about her ups and downs, and especially on birthdays, holidays and anniversaries. It was the anniversary of the heart attack that killed him a short while ago. She gets a lot of support back, as people feel unanimously sorry for her (which, of course, they should do).
I very rarely feel any sort of twinges of envy or jealousy for what I think other people might have. I just don't seem to be wired that way, but I have to admit to feeling like it's not fair. She can be open and public about the whole process and how she's felt, her memories aren't dirtied by his thoughts and actions and subsequent events, and she doesn't have to struggle with the emotional consequences of those things.
I know none of that is rational, and it's not a good road to go down. Everyone has their own struggles and I have no idea what else she's dealing with. Plus it's a weird state of being for me to be in. I don't recognise feeling like that as feeling like myself. I'm more of the mindset that if it's so important to you that you're feeling those sorts of feelings of envy and jealousy, then you should do something about it to make that happen fro yourself. It could be any sort of thing, material, personal, professional, personal.
OW? I don't envy her one bit. I'd much rather be me, where I am now. I have honestly never felt so good about myself and happy in myself. I feel very calm and at peace.
Wow, what a weekend! It was all work related, but the feedback I got was incredible...I was bowled over. Now, fingers crossed, it converts to sales.
I also bumped into someone who I've seen occasionally over the course of a number of years. I hadn't seen her since BD, and she said she was overwhelmed by my transformation. She said I had seemed very depressed before. I told her very briefly about what had happened, and a little about the particulars too (XH's drinking and affairs).
She said she had been married to an alcoholic for a number of years and she was very, very wary about Rs now (she's maybe in her 50s).
The previous evening, my mum also commented about how selfish and self centred XH was. It's the first time she's ever mentioned him since BD. I'm surprised she saw that, he was always on charm offensive around them.
Anyway, she also commented how nice it is that the wonderful man I'm with doesn't drink much. She's noticed how he might have one glass of wine with food and then just stop and not really want any more. She said she finds him incredibly thoughtful - the absolute opposite in that way to XH.
Focus your lengthy story again certainly is indicative of addiction and the behavior addicts exhibit. Like much of all of this however it says far more about him than it does about you. Honestly, while it felt terrible to you and felt like he was doing it TO YOU, he really was just doing what addicts do. I don't excuse his behavior but I would no more take it personally for what he did than take it personally if he had epilepsy and had a seizure with you in public. I know it's hard to understand but it's just part of the disease process. It's why many say that addiction that the person refuses to get help and treatment for is an actual deal breaker for ending a marriage - much like abuse, etc. It's a terrible disease - but many of them are - cancer, heart disease, diabetes, mental illness - and yes, addiction is a disease too!
It's very affirming to hear you say this.
One of the hardest things in all of this has been to make my version of events.
I have pretty much kept that to myself. I mean, it only needs to make sense (emotionally, intellectually) to me, right? But I'm surprised how much it's helped having outside affirmation. I've not had much of that really, because I've hardly spoken about it to anyone.
My mum happened to remark about XH's behaviour over the weekend. She was talking about the wonderful man I'm with, and just how much more thoughtful he is than my XH ever was, and how he doesn't really drink at all, unlike XH who drank 'to extinction'. I was quite surprised at her comment. He'd always been quite moderate in his drinking when he was with them. I've no idea how she got that (very correct) impression. And the truth is, it was probably worse than she guessed.
Anyway, I've been looking through the Al-Anon website and listening to some of the podcasts, both the US and UK versions. Well, some of that information has been a revelation, for sure!
I'm talking in regards my own behaviour mostly, and the part I played in all of it. Were I in the same situation now (with someone else, obvs), and with the knowledge I have now, there is no way that I would ever behave like I did again.
I don't know if you're familiar with their philosophy, but it goes along the same lines as DB philosophy: the only person's behaviour you can control is your own. So you focus very much on your own reactions, and that helps maintain a sense of who you are, of personal boundaries, of choosing what's important to you (and it gives you a sense of dignity as well).
No wonder XH said, the night he left (well, more like shouted accusingly) that I was controlling. I was. I had been trying to control his drinking (and drug use). I had hidden alcohol and drugs from him, tried to get him to come home at certain times, tried to stop him from going out...all in the hope of controlling his drinking somehow. And of course, it didn't work. I mean, he might stop for a short time (a couple of weeks, a month or so), and I mean totally stop, total abstinence. And then something, heavens knows what, would happen, and he would start drinking again. And I would start trying to stop him again. I could never understand what would make him start drinking again, there was no logic or reason to it. It was crazy making - and it drove me crazy.
Al-Anon also try to find out (or better, help you to find out for yourself), what has become/became unmanageable in your life. Well, honestly, it was like the clouds parted and the choir started singing. Seriously...when I thought about that, I realised that XH's behaviour, and how utterly unpredictable it was and how unreliable it made him as a partner, had been unmanageable for me, on top of the rubbish stuff that was happening in my own life, and the stress of it being unmanageable for me, led me to become increasingly ill. At first mentally unwell, with the stress of it all, and then increasingly physically debilitatingly ill with the stress.
It was my body telling me my life was unmanageable, my choices were unmanageable. But I didn't really get it, so I carried on, and I became more and more ill, with more and more serious stuff. Until my back gave in. But even then, I carried on.
What a martyr. And nobody likes one of those...lol!
Of course, at the time, I wouldn't have said (or known) XH was an alcoholic, or whatever you want to call him. I guess I just felt 'second best' all the time, 'second choice', to his career, or his social life, or his drinking. I was young when I met him, 27 years old. And the relationship I'd had before him was a shorter one, maybe about 6 months long, when I was 24 years old. Before that, I'd been out with someone for a couple of years when I was an undergraduate, from about 20/21 years old to 22 or 23.
I guess I didn't really have much of a sense of who I was then, or that I was important - or that I should be important to myself.
Man, I tell you, it feels really good to be able to stand this far back from it all, and see the connecting threads. Like I'm also free from it all at the same time. This truly feels like another part of my life entirely, the second part of my life. Of course, I'm still myself in lots of ways. But at the same time I've left my old self quite far behind as well.
It feels like the stuff that was weighing me down just isn't any mor
Been feeling a bit low lately, as is probably coming across. BD date (11 October) is always closely followed by the date we had got married (21 October).
So it's coming up to what would have been our anniversary.
Please don't get me wrong, there's no way I would ever, ever want to go back to the way things were, or be with anyone who had an even vaguely similar way of being, or similar personality traits. The thought of any of those things makes me feel really stressed out, sick and panicky.
But I do feel a little low.
It's funny, my iPad storage is pretty near full (I've had it for maybe 5 or 6 years), so I'm having to clear out loads of old pictures from it so that I can use it for my work. I'm not so good with technology, so it's only recently that I've discovered airdrop. I've been sending lots of pictures to my photo storage on my laptop via airdrop and then deleting them from my iPad.
Of course, I started with pictures of XH, and ones he took of me or of us.
In the pictures of XH, when I look at them now, it's hard not to think of how much he had been lying to me when I see the dates and years of the pictures. I feel a little disgusted at that. Looking back, it seems to me now that he didn't really look relaxed in many of them, he's pulling faces or literally in the middle of jumping about or running past the camera. And he looked tired in some of them as well, very tired. There were pictures of the OW in there (the last OW) too, and the job where they met.
Also, man, I look so different. I hardly recognise myself. I feel like I look so young - not that I look much older now, I still look really, really young for my age. I think I just look very naive and trusting.
And in the pictures there were of the two of us together, I think we looked very mis-matched as. He looked very confident and self assured, and I looked like I didn't really belong by his side, I was kind of hanging in there (which, of course, I was...lol!).
There are some much older pictures of us on FB that I hardly look at, maybe from around the time before we got married, or about the time we got married, and we seem to look quite evenly matched then. But the later pictures, like the ones I had on my iPad?
His little sister did some work for me a good few years ago, and there were some pictures of her in there. So I transferred those over to my laptop too and then deleted them from my iPad.
Anyway, it feels good to have those all off my iPad now. I feel a lot lighter now. A lot of the landscape pictures from when we went away for work/holidays are still there, and I might transfer those as well. There's really no need for me to have them on my iPad, I really mainly only use it for work. WM (wonderful man) has the most amazing came on his phone, so we use that for taking pictures when we're out.
Transferring and deleting pictures reminded me of how much I enjoy the whole process of clearing things I don't want or need from my life. So I want to be carrying on with that process in some way, even if it's in small ways and small steps. I maybe need to think about identifying and doing one small thing a week in this regard. It might be looking through a shelf for any books I can donate, or going through a drawer, or through a box. I can do this in my work space as well.
I've tried to make myself feel more upbeat, more positive these past couple of days to try and counter this feeling. But it didn't seem to work. I just ended up feeling a little cut off and lonely. So I'm just going to go with accepting feeling a little low for the time being and let that feeling flow through me.
