You are correct, it’s wild what will affect one’s confidence during these situations. Believe me, the shifting between confident and questioning is perfectly normal, and temporary. Such shifting, and the emotional being dragged around, fades and confident normality does return.
Originally Posted by bkerchik
And what do I do if a question about our anniversary comes up. Tell them nope didn’t do a damn thing, while my BIL is probably planning something for their 25th in Sept. Do I cry in the bathroom and act as if? Very lost on this one.
Tell them, “I remained home this year” or “H and I remained home this year”. No need to go into further details. Just a simple factual answer.
It’s ok to cry. Some advice. Schedule it. You scheduling a time, and place, a when and where to allow yourself to feel and explore helps with your emotions not building to the point of bubbling out during inopportune times. A scheduled periodic “forced” reflection also fosters uncoupling and detaching from triggering stimuli; as well as fosters healing, after all you have to work through your emotions, nice to do so on your choosing.
Scheduling has a start time and an end time. Perhaps getting up ten minutes earlier. There is that fleeting moment when you awake, while you still do not realize, are not aware, of the situation. Then it all comes back.
So, after that reality return, set a timer for five minutes, and sit on the side of the bed. Cry, think, whatever. Just let your thoughts and feelings kind of go. Once the timer goes off, the five minutes are up, wipe your eyes and go about your day.
At the beginning, several scheduled times are likely required. Morning, coffee break(s), and an evening one. Slowly you’ll “need” less, and you’ll remove a scheduled time, and/or shorten the time. Eventually getting to just one five minutes a day, to three minutes a day, to one minute, to none.
That’s scheduled times. You will get to when you can go about your day without any scheduled times. Sure, there will still be the odd moment or event that brings up something, yet it will be far less debilitating. A lot less having to finding a place to cry and let it out.
In the interim, schedule a safe convenient time and place to feel what you have to feel. It’s emptying your emotional bucket before it overfills. Eventually that stream will become but a trickle or drip, and filling takes a lot longer.
Get a nice card for BIL’s 25th. I suspect you’ll likely be involved or present in their celebrating. A hug and congratulations.
Hang in there bk.
D
Feelings are fleeting. Be better, not bitter. Love the person, forgive the sin.
