Skip to main content

Author Topic: Resources Links/Blogs/Articles for us all to share 9

N

Nas

  • *
  • MLCer Type: Vanisher
  • Hero Member
  • Posts: 3305
Resources Links/Blogs/Articles for us all to share 9
#20: July 31, 2022, 03:42:40 PM
I’ve been mired in reawakened feelings for the past few weeks thanks to a family thing.
It’s my birthday and I went to my very favorite little bakery and got my very favorite cake and even had them write happy birthday with my name on it because for me, my name on a cake has meaning that is valid to me, so I decided to do it for myself. And damn, it’s delicious cake.

A song, just because:
https://youtu.be/05AHPFPpHIM

An article that might resonate with some:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/pieces-mind/201407/self-validation

#2 ACCURATE reflection is sometimes hard for me. Especially with family stuff, I tend fall back into “this happened because my mere existence is a nuisance and I’m not worthy of being acknowledged, or being here, or being at all…”

Self-validation is hard when you’re conditioned to believe you’re unworthy, but even for people with a fairly healthy sense of self, bring BDed can skew what previously seemed rock solid. I think the points laid out in this article could be useful for everyone, and if you’re a newbie trying to find your footing, you might find it helpful in terms of looking at your situation and examining your difficult feelings from a different angle.

Here’s another with some good basic stuff:
https://psychcentral.com/blog/imperfect/2019/11/why-its-so-important-to-validate-yourself-and-how-to-start
  • Logged
The desire to be loved is the last illusion. Give it up and you shall be free. ~ Margaret Atwood

  • *
  • Mentor
  • Hero Member
  • Posts: 12405
  • Gender: Female
Links/Blogs/Articles for us all to share 9
#21: August 03, 2022, 11:45:15 AM
“If you are willing to look at another person’s behavior toward you as a reflection of the state of their relationship with themselves rather than a statement about your value as a person, then you will, over a period of time cease to react at all.”

― Yogi Bhajan
  • Logged
"Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see" Hebrews 11:1

"You enrich my life and are a source of joy and consolation to me. But if I lose you, I will not, I must not spend the rest of my life in unhappiness."

" The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it". Flannery O'Connor

https://www.midlifecrisismarriageadvocate.com/chapter-contents.html

N

Nas

  • *
  • MLCer Type: Vanisher
  • Hero Member
  • Posts: 3305
Links/Blogs/Articles for us all to share 9
#22: August 11, 2022, 07:48:10 AM
  • Logged
« Last Edit: August 11, 2022, 07:52:08 AM by Nas »
The desire to be loved is the last illusion. Give it up and you shall be free. ~ Margaret Atwood

N

Nas

  • *
  • MLCer Type: Vanisher
  • Hero Member
  • Posts: 3305
Links/Blogs/Articles for us all to share 9
#23: August 29, 2022, 05:26:59 AM
Identity is a subject that comes up a lot. For me, it’s been central to my journey the past few years. I lost a lot in the 18 months after BD: my house, my marriage, my substantial savings, my credit score. But I was still me.

In the years since then, though, that woman disappeared. Without the material and monetary comforts I worked so hard for during my marriage, I was still Nas. Until the one thing I never thought about losing was suddenly lost.
And truly, I think that had my health issues come when I was still safely in my home, with my financial safety nets in place and my future visible, I would have been able to (or if I’m being honest, more willing to) better adhere to treatment.  I might not have faced or be facing certain issues resulting from cancer and it’s treatment.
Since the spring, I’ve been dealing with a very strange and uncommon side effect. It’s called a pseudo tumor, which basically means all of the affects of a brain tumor without the actual tumor. Which you would think is a blessing (and it is) but it’s been a real b!tc#, and some devastating (to me) side effects of the medication.
It’s just made me feel even further away from myself.

The future can never be known and I used to think nothing of that. But the reason I thought nothing of that is because the skeleton of my future was there. I may not have known exactly what would happen, but I had built myself a skeleton and that was enough to make me feel stable and safe  about the fact that the future is unknown and life is ever-changing. When that skeleton is there, life looks very different than when the future is a giant foggy void and you don’t know if behind that fog is a road to safety or a ledge you could fall right off of.

I know who I was but not how to get back to her. She’s so gone, I literally don’t recognize myself in the mirror. If I took a side-by-side picture of myself from 10 years ago and myself today, you would say those are two different women.

Anyway, all this to say that I have noticed the issue of identity and the difference between who we were then and who we are now as a theme in several threads and it’s something I’ve been grappling with, so I just wanted to share.

https://centering.org/grief-digest-articles/a-deathless-grievance-losing-ones-self-identity/

And of course a song:
https://youtu.be/zfiISFiozg8
  • Logged
« Last Edit: August 29, 2022, 05:30:42 AM by Nas »
The desire to be loved is the last illusion. Give it up and you shall be free. ~ Margaret Atwood

  • *****
  • Hero Member
  • Posts: 12747
  • Gender: Female
Links/Blogs/Articles for us all to share 9
#24: August 29, 2022, 08:50:02 AM
Thank you very much for posting this, Nas - it was very timely for me.
Interesting bit in the article about the different roles and things and people we hook our identity on. That rang a loud bell with me.
I have just started working with my own coach a couple of week’s ago on this kind of rebuilding. Bc I was stuck but knew I needed to do something very different than I would normally do. I could see Me....but couldn’t reach Me. I know you will get how frustrating and demoralising that is. I know you will get how being able to see Me felt like a big success in itself even though I had no idea how to get to her  :)
For me it wasn’t a skeleton but a sense of ground under my feet....the principle is the same though so yes I think I get just what you mean. It literally is a kind of existential crisis, isn’t it? Ha ha, a raspberry to those MLCers and their piddling blow everything up crises, I say - frigging amateurs  :)

But my word, this s$it is hard. Even with an appropriately bullish, positive and rather intuitively kind coach. A lot of up and down, found and lost, bursting out and then suddenly surprisingly up to my ears in sludge. She has had me working on a vision board and an affirmation - she calls it a living board - and it was both very good and rather exhausting to do. Round and round, up and down. It has taken me AGES, days and days....good thing that I learned to say ‘not now’ to that ‘why are you being too slow/so stupid’ voice years back  :)....but my days, this last week was hard mentally and emotionally.
Which seems silly really, not to have a grip on who you are now and what you want to do with yourself. Almost impossible to put into words for someone who has not been there, right? I have found that I sort of need to sidle up on myself bc a full frontal approach tends to freeze me into a kind of despairing blank page....
It’s a lot of trial and error tbh.
In many ways it feels like a different version of the old ‘day at a time’ just with less sobbing  :)

I am very sorry to hear about your pseudo-tumour.
The word makes it sound like a light weight, but I suspect it really isn’t.
Do feel free to PM me if you think you can use second-hand any of my v v useful, if challenging, coaching  :)
  • Logged
T: 18  M: 12 (at BD) No kids.
H diagnosed with severe depression Oct 15. BD May 16. OW since April 16, maybe earlier. Silent vanisher mostly.
Divorced April 18. XH married ow 6 weeks later.


"Option A is not available so I need to kick the s**t out of Option B" Sheryl Sandberg

N

Nas

  • *
  • MLCer Type: Vanisher
  • Hero Member
  • Posts: 3305
Links/Blogs/Articles for us all to share 9
#25: August 29, 2022, 01:40:11 PM
I'm glad but not glad the article resonated for you, T - you know what I mean by that.  ;)
I figured the idea of mourning who we were might strike a chord with folks here. From newbies to old timers, we all had to let go of at least some part of what we had known for so long.

I could see Me....but couldn’t reach Me.

I couldn't/can't even see me, let alone reach that person. I can look back and see who I was in terms of the roles and things and people I hooked my identity on, there's really nothing left of her to salvage.

I made a vision board about a year post-BD as I was preparing to move hundreds of miles away. For 7 months I was killing it and then it all completely blew up. Now I know to set much, much smaller goals. It's hard to look at an ordinary thing that seems to tiny and call it a "goal" and celebrate meeting it. It's hard not to be impatient. It's hard to look back and see that I've lost years of my life to just surviving when I was supposed to be moving forward, starting over, not just getting older and older and moving an inch at a time instead of the miles I should have, could have, would have.

That's the mourning I sometimes find myself doing, mourning the Nas who was supposed to come out on top. Yes, I could celebrate overcoming every single obstacle, but I'm too busy looking ahead at the next obstacle and trying to head off more of them. And if I'm honest, being really salty that they exist. It's a bit like living in a game of Frogger (if anyone remembers that Atari classic). I can cross the street, but unlike when I used to be able to just look both ways and then simply walk across, I have to time every single step perfectly to avoid oncoming trouble/danger/impediments, otherwise I'll end up splattered on the pavement.
The impediments don't stop coming, yet I have to keep moving. It's slower than I'd like, so slow it sometimes feels like I'm not moving at all. But the key is to keep moving - that's what I'd say to newbies. Even if it is so, so, so (sometimes) physically and (mostly) psychologically exhausting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBM9Sjp7tpk
  • Logged
The desire to be loved is the last illusion. Give it up and you shall be free. ~ Margaret Atwood

  • *****
  • Hero Member
  • Posts: 12747
  • Gender: Female
Links/Blogs/Articles for us all to share 9
#26: August 29, 2022, 10:31:54 PM
Quote
I couldn't/can't even see me, let alone reach that person. I can look back and see who I was in terms of the roles and things and people I hooked my identity on, there's really nothing left of her to salvage.
Ah yes, I couldn’t see her either. For years and years. It’s a hard thing to describe and live with, isn’t it?
I don’t want to invalidate you by saying you might not be right. In fact I assume you are right, right now.
The only thing I will say is that you might not be completely right forever.....to suggest that is a possibility even if it feels as if it is not?
Bc I was rather surprised when my Me popped up only a few months ago here. And there is nothing unique about me tbh. I think I had probably stopped hunting for her  ::) So it rather threw me when I could see her.  :) i’d had the odd glimmer in the past, moments, like snatches of an old familiar tune, but then it would drift away again. Do you get those? And of course it is true that most of the hooks are long gone, just as you say. But there may be a Nas there anyway, the Nas before the hooks, pure Nas lol. In a way it would be strange if there wasn’t something, right? Even if it feels like a tiny something too small to salvage. My coach used the word Reclaim and I jibbed against that....it doesn’t feel like a reclaiming, like you that feels not possible. Perhaps not worth doing. It feels more like, idk, a reacquaintance? A rebuilding from parts to make something else? Idk.

Quote
For 7 months I was killing it and then it all completely blew up. Now I know to set much, much smaller goals. It's hard to look at an ordinary thing that seems to tiny and call it a "goal" and celebrate meeting it. It's hard not to be impatient. It's hard to look back and see that I've lost years of my life to just surviving when I was supposed to be moving forward, starting over, not just getting older and older and moving an inch at a time instead of the miles I should have, could have, would have.......That's the mourning I sometimes find myself doing, mourning the Nas who was supposed to come out on top.

Ah yes again.
I found my frustration led me to a sort of despair tbh. Maybe I gave up trying bc it seemed undoable and it hurt to keep trying. I was very attached to those ‘supposed to be’s but I failed over and over again. Felt like a pig trying to fly  :). Or perhaps more accurately a pig who remembered being an eagle. I liked being an eagle....or my memory of how it felt anyway....I did not like being a pig with flying goals. Not one jot.

Quote
Yes, I could celebrate overcoming every single obstacle, but I'm too busy looking ahead at the next obstacle and trying to head off more of them. And if I'm honest, being really salty that they exist. It's a bit like living in a game of Frogger (if anyone remembers that Atari classic). I can cross the street, but unlike when I used to be able to just look both ways and then simply walk across, I have to time every single step perfectly to avoid oncoming trouble/danger/impediments, otherwise I'll end up splattered on the pavement.

And another yes.
I don’t remember the game but I absolutely know the feeling. It’s exhausting isn’t it? And a bit baffling while everyone else seems to skip over the street. And - at least this was my experience - I ended up getting splattered anyway more often than not.
And yes, I felt indescribably stupid and small somehow that I had become a person who only had these infinitesimally tiny nuggets to go ‘yay Me’ about. Parking in an unfamiliar car park. Emptying a box, not vomiting on a train. Getting out of bed somedays, breathing tbh.Still the reality, my reality, was that the nuggets were mountains, each and every one of them. You get that, I know, but ‘normal’ folks don’t. I would not have got it before either.
So what can one do?
I think - very slowly - I had to let go of the belief that I could salvage the old Me. Bc I was so self evidently failing lol. Perhaps that is the inherent purpose of Mourning, idk? But I didn’t want to bc that felt like a failure too. And one that would maroon me in this s$itty place of No Me. Which also felt like a failure. S$itty rock and s$itty hard place. I think I had to - even more slowly lol - find some way of approaching it that felt more real and more realistic, some way of almost embracing the s$ittiness of it enough to tidy up some pieces of s$it so I could see a few little bits of shiny. Not saying I did this very consciously and i’m sure others have found more efficient glam ways....mine was more a small bucket and a tiny tiny brush kind of way lol.
Bc it was also true that, even with the many ups and downs (and they are still here), that I did not stay in exactly the same spot that I had been in before. That I did have the odd cross the street moment even if I fell flat on my face the next day whereas at one time I couldn’t cross the street at all. Tbh in recovery from PTSD I had no choice but to go small bc that was all I had in me.....they were all still mountains to me even if they were paving cracks to others.

Hence my idea of a drystone wall, I suppose....a very tiny drystone wall made at a snails pace from pebbles rather than rocks lol. Bc the reality was/is that this small wall was all I could do but....and it was an important but for me...it was also where I saw and felt an equally tiny sense of momentum. (I was going to say progress but that felt like too grand and big a word for what it was/is). It was more like starting to fill a very big jar with very small pebbles...and then a moment when you are surprised to see an inch depth of pebbles....the pebbles proved that I was not in exactly the identical place I had been last year or month. And in the blindingly obvious truth that there was no ah-ha with a mighty bound kind of thing, that was not nothing.
But I always felt and often feel still a bit silly going ‘yay you’ over a pebble  ::)
I think I have just learned to respect the effort more than the result, the pebble over the wall perhaps.

I don’t know where I am going with this, Nas. Or even if it makes any sense at all, this wittering and ambling round metaphorical pebbles and walls  ::)
Other than to say yup, I hear you and yup, I know that feeling and yup, it’s weird and hard and yup, it’s a real thing and i’m sorry that you are feeling it too.
And perhaps there is a tiny tiny possibility, just a conceptual possibility maybe, that it is not the whole story forever. But I lay that down with a bow and backing away slowly bc I know that it felt like the whole story to me for years and years and it sometimes made me feel worse if others thought they saw something of Me that I couldn’t when they had no idea really of what it felt like to wake up in my skin.

Gracie and me send you a hug (mine) and a chirrup (hers).
  • Logged
T: 18  M: 12 (at BD) No kids.
H diagnosed with severe depression Oct 15. BD May 16. OW since April 16, maybe earlier. Silent vanisher mostly.
Divorced April 18. XH married ow 6 weeks later.


"Option A is not available so I need to kick the s**t out of Option B" Sheryl Sandberg

N

Nas

  • *
  • MLCer Type: Vanisher
  • Hero Member
  • Posts: 3305
Links/Blogs/Articles for us all to share 9
#27: August 31, 2022, 04:34:27 AM
Thanks for this exchange, T. Even though we temporarily hijacked the articles thread  ;), there’s a lot of important stuff in here for everyone to take in.
  • Logged
The desire to be loved is the last illusion. Give it up and you shall be free. ~ Margaret Atwood

N

Nas

  • *
  • MLCer Type: Vanisher
  • Hero Member
  • Posts: 3305
Links/Blogs/Articles for us all to share 9
#28: September 01, 2022, 07:21:10 AM
Continuing the theme of identity/loss of identity, this is longish so not really a glance over kind of article.
One part in particular made me actually cry, and I think at least one thing in this one will resonate. Well worth the read.

https://www.guidetopsychology.com/identity.htm

  • Logged
« Last Edit: September 01, 2022, 07:44:44 AM by Nas »
The desire to be loved is the last illusion. Give it up and you shall be free. ~ Margaret Atwood

N

Nas

  • *
  • MLCer Type: Vanisher
  • Hero Member
  • Posts: 3305
Links/Blogs/Articles for us all to share 9
#29: September 01, 2022, 09:17:25 AM
Continuing the theme of identity/loss of identity, this is longish so not really a glance over kind of article.
One part in particular made me actually cry, and I think at least one thing in this one will resonate. Well worth the read.

https://www.guidetopsychology.com/identity.htm



Not sure this will resonate with many, but in my current deep dive into an issue/new reality that I truly am fighting the urge to run away from (like literally run, hop a train cross country and disappear for a while kind of running - so I might sound like an MLCer except I know that running only means taking the issue with me) I read this great article. Sometimes the "positive mindset" advice, though well meaning, simply isn't feasible, and this article is about poverty but likely applies well to other things and may spark ideas or insights:

https://psyche.co/ideas/why-we-shouldnt-push-a-positive-mindset-on-those-in-poverty
  • Logged
The desire to be loved is the last illusion. Give it up and you shall be free. ~ Margaret Atwood

 

Legal Disclaimer

The information contained within The Hero's Spouse website family (www.midlifecrisismarriageadvocate.com, http://theherosspouse.com and associated subdomains), (collectively 'website') is provided as general information and is not intended to be a substitute for professional legal, medical or mental health advice or treatment for specific medical conditions. The Hero's Spouse cannot be held responsible for the use of the information provided. The Hero's Spouse recommends that you consult a trained medical or mental health professional before making any decision regarding treatment of yourself or others. The Hero's Spouse recommends that you consult a legal professional for specific legal advice.

Any information, stories, examples, articles, or testimonials on this website do not constitute a guarantee, or prediction regarding the outcome of an individual situation. Reading and/or posting at this website does not constitute a professional relationship between you and the website author, volunteer moderators or mentors or other community members. The moderators and mentors are peer-volunteers, and not functioning in a professional capacity and are therefore offering support and advice based solely upon their own experience and not upon legal, medical, or mental health training.