feeling the feelings

This feeling your feelings stuff will keep you pretty busy.

The good news is that the shaking in my hands has lessened, mostly thanks to a magical Chinese herb formula prescribed by my Needle lady that I just started taking .  The magic pills that she said cause “almost everybody” to feel immediate relief didn’t do a thing for me (her theory is that my body has a hard time coming down from the anxiety), but this new stuff (it has melatonin—I take about ¼ of the nighttime-sleepy dose twice a day) seems to be doing the trick.

Which is not to say that everything is groovy, just that the wind roaring in my ears, getting hit by an emotional bus, hands shaking, oh G-d I think I’m going crazy feelings seem to have subsided.  In their wake is a lot of I would call “not fun,” but at least I know what to do with it.  Compared to the other stuff, it’s solid, it has a shape.  I recognize it when it happens, it isn’t just like getting hit by a train all day long.  Oh, this is grief.  Oh, this is pain because I know now that Mr. X and Dolores are sharing an address and a life.  Oh, this is sadness because I loved him with my whole heart (in the words of the song that is serving as the latest soundtrack to my life) and it seems I was grandly fooled.  Oh, this is what it feels like to go through a divorce.  Oh, this is lonely.

My Needle Lady and my therapist seem to agree on a number of points, one of which is that a lot of what I’m feeling is not really for things happening right now, but rather that a lot of those feelings that in the past years I gleefully stuffed away are coming up for air.  And I do see this as progress, but it’s no fun.  I do recognize that feeling all this shit is a lot better than eating my way into oblivion every chance I get, but the strength of it is helping me understand why the hell I’ve been eating so much in the first place.

And that’s finally, finally feeling like a poor substitute for giving myself what I really need.  Not to say that I only eat when I’m hungry and always stop when I’m full, but I’m stuffing myself senseless a whole lot less.  And feeling a whole lot more.  And it’s good, I know.  And it sucks, just so you know.

ETA:  P.S. My commenting has been and may continue to be a bit sparse.  I’ll get back on it as soon as I can.  See the first line of the post for the only explanation I’ve got at the moment.

untitled

It seems that the farther out I get from the “Great Escape” the few things that were easier at the beginning get harder.

Like only thinking of the bad times.

Like seeing this whole mess clearly, without any yearnings to be back in a marriage that was killing my soul bit by painful bit.

I can remember the good times now, and frankly, I’d rather not.  Remembering the good with the bad just brings up a whole new level of pain that I would rather not experience right now, thankyouverymuch.

It is so strange, thinking of X’s new girlfriend—or whatever she is to him now, I’m really not privy to that information.  I feel like someone has usurped me, someone has taken over my place, even though it’s a place I know know know that I do not want back.

So jealousy juxtaposed with that certainty is an odd feeling, indeed.

If I thought living with him was a mindfuck, living without him is more so.

I had no idea, months ago, that I would be feeling such grief on the eve of this whole thing becoming final.  I thought it would be pure relief.

One thing that is becoming apparent to me, is that there is no purity of feeling in this.  Only grief mixed with relief mixed with pain mixed with hope mixed with anger mixed with anticipation mixed with anguish.

that being hit by a bus feeling

So the mediation went better than I was expecting, but as I was driving away from that city where I spent the last three years of my marriage, I felt relief, yes, but also an intense aching in my bones and a deep, deep tiredness.

When I got to my friend, Cherry’s house, about three hours down the road, I told her that I felt like I had been hit by a bus.

Well, you have, she said.  You’ve been hit by the divorce bus.

Another thing I noticed as I was driving away from the mediation was that the feelings I was having were not just about the most recent past, about this whole mediation agony, but about my entire relationship with X.  It felt like the book was shutting on that.  Our relationship has certainly been in it’s end stage for a while now, but this truly feels like the beginning of the end.

I don’t know what it’s like to be in any other marriage.  I only know what it was like to be in mine.  And this ending, this divorce, as bad as the marriage was, as detrimental as my entire relationship with X was to my very person, this divorce feels like a ripping out of something that has grown deep within me.  Something that has grown deep within and set in roots.  And ripping it out now, like a common weed, well, it feels like a lot of me is getting ripped out, also.

As dysfunctional as we were, maybe because we were so dysfunctional, I put so much energy, so very much energy into us, into keeping us going, into making him happy, into saving us.  The me was forgotten.  And now the me is all that’s left.

vacuum

I’ve said it before, somewhere.  There’s a big part of this that is recovering from the emotional abuse aspect of it.  And there’s a part of it that is just recovering from a big ugly breakup.

I spent the last few years expending so much energy, putting so much of myself into this relationship, into this other person’s happiness, and now… it’s just gone.  There was solidity, and now there is only vapor.  There was something and now there is nothing.

But part of me still has the habit of him.

And obviously not every waking moment was torture, or I never would have stayed, nor survived, as long as I did.  (And, yes, I know how that fits into the cycle of abuse, also known as the story of our life together.)  And it has been those moments, those softer moments, that have been coming at me like grenades lately.  Because the beautiful is now forever shrouded in the vile.  And all my memories are seen through the veil of what I now know.

I learned of the death of a friend fairly recently.  He was a beautiful, beautiful person.  The world was better because of his much too short life.  I met him in the years I was with X; we met him together.  And nobody in my everyday life knows him and I wanted to turn to X to commiserate, to mourn with him.  And I was taken aback by the vacuum that was there.

Part of me still has the habit of him.

This healing stuff…

is really hard work.

So, last week…

was a really tough week.

I found out a lot of information, some old, but new to me.  There was just a lot to take in during only one week.

I think that I had lulled myself into thinking that X couldn’t hurt me anymore, that our physical distance gave me some kind of emotional armor.  And that’s not true.  That’s what last week proved to me, over and over and over again.

I won’t be specific about everything, but you remember Dolores?  Good neighbor and friend of X, who apparently has been providing much aid and comfort since my departure–remember?  Well, she’s getting a divorce, too.  I guess it’s going around.  Must be something in the water.  Oh, and apparently there were a number of people who wondered if something was going on with them well before I left.  Nice.

It looks like, through some shady dealing, X may try to harm my credit.  Not sure how badly.  It has to do with the house, and there’s probably not anything I can do about it.

Those are just two examples from last week.  And I hate that he can make me hurt.  And I hate that it is still so easy to pull that blanket of denial over my head, to bury my head in the sand, and to immerse myself in a false sense of security.  And it took me a while, but I finally figured out that THAT was what was bothering me.  That he can still get to me.

(As I’m writing this, I’m feeling something that can only be described as survivor’s guilt.  Maybe it’s about Luna–from the last post).  Maybe it’s about other bloggers I read, or other stories I’ve heard that were so much worse than my own, but some little voice in my head–it is not a kind voice–is telling me to quit my whining, because I DON’T REALLY KNOW.

And I’m trying hard not to go down that path, as I would advise anyone else to avoid it like the plague.)

This week feels better than last week, though the circumstances are basically the same.  I’m figuring out, or remembering, how to deal with the fact of my own vulnerability.  I’m not sure I can really put it into words, but if I can, you’ll hear about it.

what I remembered today

The day before yesterday was pleasant.  Yesterday was very breezy and comfortable.

And then today rose up and held me in its chokehold, and I then remembered that healing does not travel as the crow flies, but in circles, in fits and spurts.  Healing wanders in the desert for forty years or so before fighting its way into a promised land that looks very different than the one we had previously imagined.

That was what today made me remember.

stupid stupid stupid

So let it be a lesson to you that a little bit of fa.cebook stalking can soon lead to worlds of regret.

Mr. X and I are obviously no longer FB “friends,” but we have mutual “friends” in common (30 or so?), so it is inevitable that I would see his tiny profile pic next to some asinine comment about something.  And when I did, I just had to click on it and see it a little bigger, as it was a new photo, and he was WITH A PUPPY.  Yes, I know, none of my business…this is why it’s called stalking.  So I did this several times (and there is no way I would admit this if this were not an anonymous blog–the shame is too, too deep).  Then, I realized that I could see a bit more of his “profile” (so sorry for those who are not familiar with fa.cebook), and the curiosity was just too much.  Too, too much and I was way too weak.

So I saw 16 new photos that he recently uploaded, mostly of his new puppy.  The whole time I was looking I was thinking, “This is bad, I am going to feel very bad, I need to stop now.”  Of course, I didn’t stop.  I even called my friend, Cherry, so that she could tell me to stop, get off line, berate me*, whatever, but she didn’t answer.  So I looked and looked.  And later (i.e., now) I felt really bad.

And the feelings are mixed up and contradictory and I’m trying really hard to not be too self-condemning on this one (and there are many reasons I am finding to be self-condemning, it seems).  The mixed up-ness kind of goes like this:

• He has a puppy…I kind of want to be there with him and that puppy.
• Fuck him and his stupid puppy!  I’ve got Miss Famous and she’s better than any cute little puppy any day!
• I shouldn’t care what’s going on with him, anyway.  He hurt me so bad I should turn my back on him and never look back.
• Remember those pictures?  The ones with our married neighbor, D, who he was hanging out with X all the time before I left?  Wow, that one photo shows one of her big harps actually set up in our house.  I’m, um, not sure how I feel about that.
• Oh, yeah, that was jealousy.
• Jealous!  Over that bastard?!?!  What are you, crazy?  What, are you ready to go back to him or something?  Pathetic…
• How come he didn’t look sad in these pictures?  Didn’t I mean anything to him?
• He sure seems to have moved on rather quickly.
• What would he think if he saw how I was doing?
• Why do I care?
• Why did I look at those pictures?
• Why did I do this?

And on, and on, ad infinitum…

So, I am trying to get the words like “should” out of my vocabulary.  Like, “I shouldn’t care about him,” or “I should be over this,” etc.  Sometimes this feels like recovering from abuse, and sometimes it just feels like a regular breakup.  It’s kind of a mind-fuck, so I guess that part of our relationship hasn’t changed.

I’m working, working, working on the self-kindness, and waiting for the day when, if I run across a random group of photos of Mr. X’s new life, I won’t be overwhelmed by curiosity.

*Of course, she would not berate me, but she would be pretty convincing to get me to stop looking, which is why I called her.

um, I’ll take it…

My older sister has a nineteen-year-old step-son, my step-nephew (?), who has many, many problems, all of which I will not go into at this time, but I will say that he has been less than kind to his girlfriend (which has been highly upsetting to our entire family–especially his dad, my brother-in-law).  My sister and brother-in-law have offered to let her stay with them, have offered her many kinds of help, etc.  Anyway, it’s a long dramatic story.

Yesterday, while driving in the car with my sister, she told me that my step-nephew’s girlfriend is pregnant.  Our conversation of course went ’round and about many paths, but my first thought?

“I’d love to adopt that baby.”

Family drama aside…there’s not really any way I could handle taking care of another human being right now, particularly an infant (and the devil on my shoulder whispers, “But in nine months, won’t you be much better?”).

Some dreams don’t die.

an unexpected encounter in a place long thought gone

Today I got a silly song in my head and my thoughts wandered down a bunny trail, as my thoughts are likely to do, and I ended up in a place I did not expect ever to be again, which was a place of fond feelings for Mr. X.  Fond feelings and affection, which soon lead, of course, to feelings of hurt, shock, and dismay, that this person for whom I felt such love could have treated me so horribly (and for the duration of our relationship, for the record).

And this is what it comes down to really:  I really want to hate him.  I want to wish him harm.  That would be so much easier.  And today surprised me so much, because I haven’t been longing for him, I haven’t been thinking of times with him with anything at all like nostalgia–more like disbelief.  My good friend, H, put it this way:  I have been reacting much like one whose loved one has died after a long illness; it is as if my marriage died after a long, brutal illness and I have been feeling mostly relief and not mourning over it’s loss.

Until today.  Which is why it surprised me so.  And I don’t want to feel anything positive for this person who still would hurt me any way he could (just ask my divorce attorney).  Today I was right back in the middle of the questions of how this person who said he loved me could treat me like his…I can’t even think of a good analogy.

Fuck the questions.  I’d rather hate him.