Not sure if this is the right forum for this. :/ Though a stint of it has to do with my SO, most of it has to do with me personally. I seem to always have trouble figuring out where to post things...
It's been almost four months since my partner's mother passed away, and though things have improved, I feel like I, personally, have hit a wall in my/our progress.
Over the holidays was about when my partner's moods switched from irritable and angry to an almost morbid depression. This became even more apparent when he had a great time being out with old friends (whom he hadn't seen in months) for NYE and came home to face the reality of what his situation was. As a result of this, the reassurances have waned, though he doesn't quite see it, the affection has waned a bit, though he doesn't see that either, and the closest I see of him to the man I know and fell in love with is more or less first thing in his morning. Now, this isn't to say the reassurances/affection have stopped completely. They haven't. He still tells me the sweetest things. Earlier when he was upset, I told him that I was sorry I couldn't make it okay and I have said often that I would give anything to change his situation for him, and he told me, "Knowing you're mine makes me feel okay. Because I'm not alone, and I don't mean relationship-wise. I mean in the world." He's come back when we've been talking late my time and said things like, "I didn't mean to take so long with what I was doing. I feel stupid because now you're probably asleep and I'll sit here missing you so, so much like I always do. Are you there? Please be there." He's reassured me that nothing's changed and we still talk about things such as my visits and my working holiday. He has been wonderful, and why? Because despite everything he's going through, despite all of that, he's still trying. He's still putting effort into making our relationship work and being the best that he can be. Hell, he got his passport done sooner than I expected and without any prompting even after telling me to remind him to get it done!
And I love him to pieces. I mean prior to all this, I felt like I was living my fairytale, and there are days I still do. He is a wonderful man, so much older than his age (sometimes. Sometimes he's still very much a 19-year-old boy.
), and not only someone I love, but someone I admire and respect. I have full faith in our relationship and I would guess that even with the waning reassurances, so does he. He has said so, and he has said that nothing has changed and he has told me that I am more or less fearing something irrational, because it doesn't exist.
But I struggle a lot with self-worth, and I can feel it coming into play here. I can feel it coming into play when I'm upset about something he doesn't even get, because he's not the sort to simply miss something that blatant. He does not see why I feel so insecure in our relationship when he sees it as solid, when he has faith and confidence in it, when he sees it as that's nothing changed and we're still on the same course we always were. The reason I feel so wound up and insecure is because ever since I was about 12, I have relied heavily on outside reassurance, not only in my relationships but also in my life academically and socially. It's worse with males than females and I'm guessing based on the "role models" I grew up with. But the thing is that even an A+ means nothing to me unless someone else sees it/hears about it and then praises me for it. My personal accomplishments mean little to me unless they are recognised by someone else as being an accomplishment. When it comes to me and the nagging little voice in my head, nothing is good enough. I am, through and through, a perfectionist to the point that it's detrimental. I can get an 100% on a paper or a homework sheet and still find things wrong with it; the praise from my mother or some other outside source simply drowns out the self-deprecating voices in my head for a while. :/ I worry constantly about not being good enough, not being worth it, not being deserving enough, not only of my partner but generally of everything. I blow simple mistakes out of proportion and though I have worked on it to a point I no longer burden people with excessive apologies for what they hardly noticed, I still go over it and over it and over it obsessively in my head. When faced with situations out of my control, if I have no way of seeking/gaining control of them, I also tend to hit a sort of downwards spiral.
With my partner's situation, which is the same as my mother's several years ago, I obviously had no control over his mother's death. I had no control over my grandmother's death. The situation is not anyone's fault. Life happens, and people have to deal with it. However, because I played no part in it, because I cannot rationalise it into being my fault (generally I twist even the most irrational of things into being "my" fault, simply because then I feel like I have control over it, an ability to fix the situation, and I have had people take advantage of this; luckily my SO's very big on accountability so has helped break me of this habit a bit) or something I caused, I end up feeling so completely helpless and out-of-control that, again, I internalise it and it becomes detrimental to my self-worth. My partner took a month-long break. My mother considered suicide. For some reason, I feel like if only I were good enough, if only I'd tried harder, been more, been something better than I am, then neither of these things would have happened. Both have assured me neither of these things had to do with me, and logically, I can believe it, but emotionally, it's hard to see it differently than I currently do. I realise I'm taking so much more personally than I should be and that I can't take those things personally if I'm going to make it through this situation, but it's difficult.
I will admit that a part of this might be the fact I'm due on my period any day now. I also ended up quitting a medication (been on it for three years) at the 50mg point (was on 200mg) as opposed to the 25mg point, which is what I am/was supposed to be doing. I will not lie and say I'm brilliant with my medication. I went cold turkey off a 100mg dose of an antidepressant I was on for several months and paid hell for that one. :P I am assuming that both of those might play a part in the fact I've cried at the drop of a hat lately, but I know that a lot of it boils down to issues and insecurities I deal with in all aspects of my life and on a daily basis. :/ Someone mentioned to me that I need to separate the past from the present, because I'm tying way too many feelings from what happened with my mother to what's happening with my SO, but when those emotions were numbed and repressed simply to survive the situation with my mother, when they're being re-awakened through my experience with my SO on top of the feelings caused by the situation itself, it's difficult. And I do intend on starting to see someone to help me through this, but I figured I'd see what LFAD had to say. Anyone ever struggled with similar issues? How did you handle them/work through them? How did you learn to cope, or how are you learning to cope?
It's been almost four months since my partner's mother passed away, and though things have improved, I feel like I, personally, have hit a wall in my/our progress.
Over the holidays was about when my partner's moods switched from irritable and angry to an almost morbid depression. This became even more apparent when he had a great time being out with old friends (whom he hadn't seen in months) for NYE and came home to face the reality of what his situation was. As a result of this, the reassurances have waned, though he doesn't quite see it, the affection has waned a bit, though he doesn't see that either, and the closest I see of him to the man I know and fell in love with is more or less first thing in his morning. Now, this isn't to say the reassurances/affection have stopped completely. They haven't. He still tells me the sweetest things. Earlier when he was upset, I told him that I was sorry I couldn't make it okay and I have said often that I would give anything to change his situation for him, and he told me, "Knowing you're mine makes me feel okay. Because I'm not alone, and I don't mean relationship-wise. I mean in the world." He's come back when we've been talking late my time and said things like, "I didn't mean to take so long with what I was doing. I feel stupid because now you're probably asleep and I'll sit here missing you so, so much like I always do. Are you there? Please be there." He's reassured me that nothing's changed and we still talk about things such as my visits and my working holiday. He has been wonderful, and why? Because despite everything he's going through, despite all of that, he's still trying. He's still putting effort into making our relationship work and being the best that he can be. Hell, he got his passport done sooner than I expected and without any prompting even after telling me to remind him to get it done!
And I love him to pieces. I mean prior to all this, I felt like I was living my fairytale, and there are days I still do. He is a wonderful man, so much older than his age (sometimes. Sometimes he's still very much a 19-year-old boy.
), and not only someone I love, but someone I admire and respect. I have full faith in our relationship and I would guess that even with the waning reassurances, so does he. He has said so, and he has said that nothing has changed and he has told me that I am more or less fearing something irrational, because it doesn't exist. But I struggle a lot with self-worth, and I can feel it coming into play here. I can feel it coming into play when I'm upset about something he doesn't even get, because he's not the sort to simply miss something that blatant. He does not see why I feel so insecure in our relationship when he sees it as solid, when he has faith and confidence in it, when he sees it as that's nothing changed and we're still on the same course we always were. The reason I feel so wound up and insecure is because ever since I was about 12, I have relied heavily on outside reassurance, not only in my relationships but also in my life academically and socially. It's worse with males than females and I'm guessing based on the "role models" I grew up with. But the thing is that even an A+ means nothing to me unless someone else sees it/hears about it and then praises me for it. My personal accomplishments mean little to me unless they are recognised by someone else as being an accomplishment. When it comes to me and the nagging little voice in my head, nothing is good enough. I am, through and through, a perfectionist to the point that it's detrimental. I can get an 100% on a paper or a homework sheet and still find things wrong with it; the praise from my mother or some other outside source simply drowns out the self-deprecating voices in my head for a while. :/ I worry constantly about not being good enough, not being worth it, not being deserving enough, not only of my partner but generally of everything. I blow simple mistakes out of proportion and though I have worked on it to a point I no longer burden people with excessive apologies for what they hardly noticed, I still go over it and over it and over it obsessively in my head. When faced with situations out of my control, if I have no way of seeking/gaining control of them, I also tend to hit a sort of downwards spiral.
With my partner's situation, which is the same as my mother's several years ago, I obviously had no control over his mother's death. I had no control over my grandmother's death. The situation is not anyone's fault. Life happens, and people have to deal with it. However, because I played no part in it, because I cannot rationalise it into being my fault (generally I twist even the most irrational of things into being "my" fault, simply because then I feel like I have control over it, an ability to fix the situation, and I have had people take advantage of this; luckily my SO's very big on accountability so has helped break me of this habit a bit) or something I caused, I end up feeling so completely helpless and out-of-control that, again, I internalise it and it becomes detrimental to my self-worth. My partner took a month-long break. My mother considered suicide. For some reason, I feel like if only I were good enough, if only I'd tried harder, been more, been something better than I am, then neither of these things would have happened. Both have assured me neither of these things had to do with me, and logically, I can believe it, but emotionally, it's hard to see it differently than I currently do. I realise I'm taking so much more personally than I should be and that I can't take those things personally if I'm going to make it through this situation, but it's difficult.
I will admit that a part of this might be the fact I'm due on my period any day now. I also ended up quitting a medication (been on it for three years) at the 50mg point (was on 200mg) as opposed to the 25mg point, which is what I am/was supposed to be doing. I will not lie and say I'm brilliant with my medication. I went cold turkey off a 100mg dose of an antidepressant I was on for several months and paid hell for that one. :P I am assuming that both of those might play a part in the fact I've cried at the drop of a hat lately, but I know that a lot of it boils down to issues and insecurities I deal with in all aspects of my life and on a daily basis. :/ Someone mentioned to me that I need to separate the past from the present, because I'm tying way too many feelings from what happened with my mother to what's happening with my SO, but when those emotions were numbed and repressed simply to survive the situation with my mother, when they're being re-awakened through my experience with my SO on top of the feelings caused by the situation itself, it's difficult. And I do intend on starting to see someone to help me through this, but I figured I'd see what LFAD had to say. Anyone ever struggled with similar issues? How did you handle them/work through them? How did you learn to cope, or how are you learning to cope?
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