Thanks, job and may. job, your reminders to dig deep for patience are always so helpful.
Originally Posted by may22
My brain has been swiss cheese since the start of all of this.
Thank you for saying this, may! This is such a good way to describe it. I'm glad you're feeling like you're getting back in the game. Lockdown is coming again (here it's already started), and I wonder how you're feeling about that. I guess since you and H are already working from home, maybe it won't change much. I've been reading your thread still even if I don't post, and I'll pop back over there.
And you're right to remind me to look how far I've come in reacting to something like this. The morning after my encounter with H, I woke up and had to post here. (I am so, so grateful for this place always--that it exists, that you all get what it's like to live through this , that you again and again offer up your wisdom and hugs and perspectives.) I had a full work day and a check-in/review with my supervisor that went really well. She confirmed that she was impressed with my work, which made me feel good—like I must be managing to do okay even with swiss cheese brain. By the time I talked to my IC a day and a half later, I could tell I've come a long way, because I was able to work through a lot of my feelings before I even talked with her.
I've also been reflecting more about things H said, not in a stressed-out kind of way, but in a putting-the-pieces-together kind of way. First there was sadness, because it was weird to get even a brief glimpse of the H I knew and hear that he had to kill part of himself to get out of the place he was in. I believe that. I've also been able to have some distance from this whole thing in a way I haven't been able to before. I've been re-reading some of the sticky links, going back to basics: MLC, depression, Amy C's words. Last year, I'd read these threads looking for confirmation. Was H in MLC? Part of me didn't believe it. Earlier this year, I wondered whether it might be a personality disorder. Why does it all suddenly make so much sense? As H talked more and more the other night, and as I reflected on his words after, it seemed as if he'd hit all the points of MLC, though at a slant. Where before I might have been too busy being confused by his projections, I was instead able to listen to what he was saying and what he wasn't saying, and it was a lightbulb moment, like everything, finally, made a kind of sense.
H feels fundamentally unworthy, unloveable, and every time he overextends himself for a friend or for me, every time he gives and gives and gives, it's an attempt to convince himself he is worthy of love. If I do X, even though I don't want to do it, they will love me and I will deserve their love. He expects something in return and doesn't get it, and he begins to resent those he loves. He begins to feel his gestures are under-appreciated, he is unappreciated. What does he expect? What does he want but never get? I think he wants someone to make him believe, finally, that he deserves love no matter what. That he is worthy of love no matter what. But no one can ever give this to him; he has to find it and believe it himself.
He's gained a little self-awareness since last year, at least momentarily--he apologized to me three times over the course of the hour. He can see that he was desperate to get himself out of the dark place he was in (which sounds to me a lot like depression), though he still thinks he has mostly left that place. I can see he is still there, and not ready for someone like IC to help him understand it and find his way out of it.
I can see his pain didn't originate in our R, though it was there the whole time, at first under the surface. It's been with H since childhood. H viewed our M through this lens, and his friendships through this lens. It's also there in his R with his mom, and I'm guessing in a more painful way with his dad, who he doesn't have much of a relationship with. I don't think he's connected any of this to them yet, and maybe that's a place he wasn't ready to go with IC.
I mean, this is like MLC 101, right? It's like it's been right in front of me the whole time, but I'm only now able to get it. I do believe there is hope he'll keep progressing along his path, though it may take a long time. I don't know where I'll be, but I wish somehow I could save him some pain now and later. I do think he will eventually understand that so much of this is internal and not external, but there is no way for me to help him see what I see. Self-awareness is hard--getting that distance from yourself is hard, especially, I imagine, when you are in the middle of an emotional storm.
H doesn't believe that I've put any effort into "saving the M" over the year and a half, but I think I must have learned some DB lessons if he somehow felt I was a safe place to let this all out, and if I was able to hear more than just the blame. I don't know where we go from here, may. He said he's not happy with the way this is playing out, and I know it is in his power to change it. It's possible he'll drop the annulment BS. And it's possible that he'll remember none of our conversation, that he'll start right up yelling about my L again next time I see him. I suppose I should get back to sanding my trailer--all that ongoing work toward detaching and strengthening my values and beliefs.
