Confidence

Yesterday ended up being not such a good day.
I felt ok all day long but I didn't get anything "productive" done.
Today I had a bad night, bad dreams, and I am not feeling so optimistic or upbeat as yesterday.

There is something abut my dreams that is starting to get me. Quite often I dream of my ex. In the dreams we are still together, but the weirdest part is that very often I am with my actual partner, but he is my ex. It is confusing, as in some parts it is really him, but then he is my ex...
I really don't like having those dreams. And the fact that this mixing of my partner and my ex is a common occurrence is starting to worry me. I guess it means something.
But the relationship is totally different, and he is really not like my ex. I feel very differently with him (needless to say better).

I do find it hard to get on with the day when I have dreams like this, thought the ones that involve my father and/or my family tend to unsettle me more.
I really feel like dragging myself around now, not much energy not much motivation. Just get through the day, that seems to be all I can aspire to days like this.
It is really not enough. Looking back I have been getting through the day for quite a while now. It seems more like surviving than living.
I am not sure I understand why I am like this, I really do not feel like I am struggling with my personal issues so much. Not as much as I used to. Even bad nights are not nearly as bad as they used to be.
I used to have real nightmares, waking up very anxious, and unable to sleep again.
However, I am lacking confidence, just the same as I used to, and there is a lack of.... I don't know. I lack purpose maybe, lack direction.
I remember reading a book about confidence and it did say at the beginning that if you don't have big dreams is most likely because you have stop yourself from dreaming. It is like being a step behind wanting something but not having the confidence to go for i; you stop yourself from wanting it.
I think I am quite probably at that place...I tell myself I just don't know what I want but the truth is probably that I am scared of recognising I want something, because the not having it, or not doing anything to achieve would be worse than how I am now.

On the other hand this seems contradictory with me not feeling as low, depressed and anxious on a daily basis as I used to... or maybe not, maybe that is precisely why I don't feel like that.

I need to think this over, something is definitely off.

Refreshing weekend

We have been away this weekend, visit a friend a my partner's family, or some of it. We also had a session with our therapist, and as I also got to see a friend I was not expecting to be in town. A very nice surprise.
Also, we managed to have a bit of time for ourselves which I though was not going to be possible either, and which I think was good for us.

It all seems to have had a very positive effect on me, I feel better today than I have for weeks.
I am worried that this new energy will disappear. That it comes from avoiding my reality.
On the other hand, maybe I should escape from this grim reality a bit more often.
I know today I am still in the same place as I was last week, but I feel more optimistic about moving things forward, so an in all I have not lost but won with this little escape.

I guess one thing I have to do is to use this new energy now, rather than let it pass, as it has happened in the past. My optimism gets defeated by inactivity.
I was going to elaborate on this, but realising that no one reads this I am feeling it is a bit pointless.
Maybe I need to do something more to reach to people out here, in the cyberspace/blogsphere.
I will look into this as soon as I have put resume/cv on track again, and maybe I shouldl tray to use this energy to start one of my personal projects as well.

Getting worse

I started this post yesterday. Actually I only set the tittle. I couldn't get around writing it.
I spent all day in the house, not doing anything. feeling very unsettled and anxious.
My head racing through conversations that I have had, and some that I just imagine I should have had, my chances of getting a job. How I can't figure out why I am not even getting invited for an interview, what is that I am not doing right.
Feeling like I am loosing my mind as my view of my partner and myself and the roles we played in the relationship constantly change... feeling like I can get a grip on reality.

Then feeling bad that I have not done anything 'productive', which is still hunting me today.
I am not entirely sure what I consider something productive though, it seems that whatever I do it is never goo enough.
However this week has been particularly bad. I have barely left the house, haven't felt like doing much. Have not really talked to anyone.

I feel as if my world is getting smaller and smaller.
Need to make changes, but not sure how, not sure if I have the energy, even less the self confidence required.
It is a vicious circle and I know it. The less you do, the less you want to do, the harder it feels to do things.
I should have seen this coming. Over the years I have noticed that probably the first sign that I am withdrawing is my attitude towards the phone. I just won't answer it. It starts not answering unknown numbers, because I don't know who is calling and that unsettles me, but then it extends to friends and family. The longer I go without talking to someone the less likely I am to take their call. It just feels harder, and I think to myself "I'll call them back tomorrow, I'll in a better mood".

This weekend we are going to see his family. Tonight we will stop at a friend's place.
Although I wasn't looking forward for it I think it will be good for me. I have to do most of the driving, which will be tiring, and the roads will be busy, so likely to be a long trip, but I have been in this house too long the last few days, so I think it will be good just to be somewhere else.

I am now thinking that next week I will start making changes. And while I think what changes I need I ask myself, why next week? why do I not start today? Isn't this the old trap that leads me to not change things, leaving it for later (tomorrow, next week...) ?

Dependency

Yesterday I didn't manage to do anything "productive".
I couldn't get into filling in an application of redesigning my resume/cv again.
Eventually I gave up trying, but I couldn't get out of the state of despair and hopelessness I was in.
Thinking about it, I realised that the job, getting a job, has come to be of vital importance to me. I am currently dependent on my partner, economically. This is something I knew would happen, temporarily at east when we moved here.
We moved to another city at the beginning of summer because he had a job here. The timing was right for me as had just finished with the position I was in. I knew that finding a job in place, with no contacts and would be harder than staying where we were but we wanted to be together, and it all seemed to make sense.
On the days leading to the move I started to become more and more unsettled about the situation I was going to find myself in.
Probably as a consequence of my past I find it difficult to depend on people, it requires a degree of trust that I do not achieve easily (and I even wonder I do at all).
When I am unsettled we tend to argue, I think things don't come out the right way, and he gets very defensive. We have a pattern here a bit more complex than that, but that will do for now.
In the midst of all of it there was talk of marriage, as a way of giving me more security, to symbolise or solidify the commitment.
I have never bee a big fan of marriage, maybe because I thought that if I can't trust the person a piece of paper won't change that. Promises are made and broken too often, doesn't matter how "official" you make it, you can still break it.
But nevertheless over time I came around and decided that I needed to find a way to that make the leap of faith that trust, real trust, requires, and that that would be the way.
I did however say, that I wanted this to be brought up again, when we were more calm, I wanted to know that it wasn't about ending a crisis. I thought that would help me, actually I thought that was necessary for me. I am always very suspicious of promises made in a tense situation that in my experience are many times just made to scape the stressful situation, or giving in to pressure. I wanted to know it was "real".
Unfortunately he didn't mention it again. Not before I decided that he hadn't meant it.
This has had a very profound effect on me.
I have this part of me, my inner child maybe, which finds it near to impossible to really trust someone; that is always vigilant, expecting to be hurt, expecting a "bill" for every nice thing, wondering what the price will be this time.
I thought we had found a way to show her that there was no price to pay, that there was a commitment to be good, to be nice and comforting just because that is what loving someone is.
But then, when this didn't come around I am left thinking that he doesn't really want to deal with that part of me. That he wants it not be there and will do anything to stop the "crisis", but that he does not think it once it is over.
He doesn't really care for that part of me (and therefore doesn't really care for me).
I am ashamed of this part of me, I hide it because i think it makes me weak, because I know it makes me vulnerable. I know that it was my wanting to have a nice comforting father that led me stay in the situation where I was being hurt. To do nothing, and even long for the attention despite the price I had to pay for it.

It is something that I thin has tainted every experience in life. The deep believe that I am utterly unlovable, that no one really cares. There is always a price, or in the best case scenario there is part of me that will just not be attended to.
It feels terrible.

Another reason I was not willing to marry before was that I needed to keep myself free enough. I couldn't make certain promises because I had promise myself that in the future I would do what I have failed to do in the past, that is someone was being hurtful, consistently hurtful, I would remove myself from that situation, I would protect myself.
When I decided I would commit it was on the basis that I had enough confidence that things were going to be ok for me, that he was going to be good to me. Now I don't know if that is the case, i don't know where I am, I am not sure whether I am being a fool staying or if I am being overly distrustful.
He has brought up the topic and I have said I can't make any promises now.
And that is pretty much it, I don't see much concern about why it has change. He seemed hurt, but didn't anything.

So, when I put myself in this position where I am dependent the personal situation was different, now I feel I have nothing to hold on to, and therefore desperately need a job. feeling secure, independent, and having some validation.
I know no job, no professional success will be enough to make me feel good about myself, I know there are more important things for me. And that is why I came, even though it would make my professional life harder.
But, that having failed, the job acquires extra importance.

Loosing hope

I want to write here more often but i am discouraged and depressed that no one reads it.
I guess it feels pointless, and futile to do write "out here" if it doesn't reach anyone.
This is very much the feeling that I have about everything these days. Everything seems pointless.
I have now been unemployed for almost 3 months. It feels like I will never find a job. I can't bring myself to carry on applying, it seems pointless.
Of course I know that if I do not apply then I really have no chance. I know what I need to do is carry on trying... but what do you do when you've lost hope?
I think I haven't totally lost it, not yet at least. It goes temporarily, then some comes back.

It is ironic how there have always been so many things I wanted to do that I didn't have time to do, and now that I have the time, I just don't feel like doing them. So much of my self esteem, and self confidence is linked to work; a lot more than I thought.
The rejections, in most cases not even hearing back from applications, is really getting to me.
I seem to be interiorising it as a message that I am not worth anything, that I am not good for anything. I feel as if I am not a "valid" person.

Many times I think I need to call people, to actually have a chat with someone in order to have a better chance with my application, but as my confidence goes, I feel less capable of calling, of having a chat.
I seem to e getting in a dangerous circle, as not succeeding with my applications is making m loose confidence, making me less capable of doing what I need to do to get a job. Less likely to apply, less likely to be positive about myself, to self myself, less likely to be proactive etc.

Sometimes, like now, I sit in front of my computer to once again change my cv for an application, and the thought comes to mind that I must be insane.
because someone said, sorry I can't put a name to the quote, that insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result.
That seems to be what I am doing.

how do my dreams link to my emotional state?

I continue to have quite unsettling dreams very often. Almost every night.
There are quite a variety of them really and I can’t tell whether they are related or what is bringing this on.
I think it might have to do with how I feel about the relationship with my partner.

We have had another “difficult” weekend. Difficult id not the right word but I don’t know how to describe it. We just had another discussion, because I am still upset/unsettled about the same things. I don’t know if this can be fixed, and that thought scares me.
I had so much hope that things were going to change, were going to be different. That I was going to really trust someone and feel warm and safe, cared for.
Things have not turned out tat way, and I am really hurt, and I do not know how to get passed it. Seems like something has changed inside. I am wondering if I still love him the same way, I am not sure.

During the weekend I realised that I am finding it hard to spend time together. Thinking about it I realised that I have been compartmentalising. I don’t want to live like that again. I know every relationship has its problems, I don’t expect things to be always perfect. But I think that nature of what doesn’t work runs so deep that I need to completely put it away. Then every so often it comes to me, and makes me wonder why am I in this relationship.
Without that trust that has been broken lots of things sort of loos their meaning.
Hugs, kisses and other signs of affection don’t really reach me.
I go from being very affectionate to being cold. I think sometimes I become affectionate because I need the affection and when I realise that I can’t really get it ( not that he will no respond, it is just that it doesn’t reach me) I turn away.

I feel hurt let down and lonely.

Just noticed that I have avoided saying what it was that I needed, and the truth is I am not very comfortable writing about it. Not sure whether this is about being worried of how anonymous this site really is.
No one has commented, and I am not sure if anyone is reading, but I still worry that maybe someone I know, or even him, will find this site. Some people I wouldn’t mind but others I would. It really feels like I should say it, put it our there, but I can’t.

Maybe that is why all this dreams, I am very unsettled in a very familiar way.
I feel that the love I get is not right for me, that is not the way I want to be loved, is not the way I want things to be.
This is the way I grew up and how most my relationships have turned out to be.
Love seemed like a very twisted thing to me. There was such a high price to pay for the good things.

Torn

The pain is still with me.
I have been to the doctors and they are going to run a series of tests, including an ultrasound… I am actually getting a bit worried.

For the past few days I have been a bit moody as well. I don’t know what it is but it seems that everything annoys me, particularly what partner does.
Things between us have not been great lately.
I am very confused about the relationship. On the one hand I think he is quite good to me. He listens and he is empathic. On the other hand he does not talk, I mean about himself, and he never asks questions. Sometimes that makes me feel…I guess makes me question whether he really cares. Why does he not follow up on things?
The issue about his habit of not talking about his feelings, is long standing. And it is not just not talking, he tends to withhold emotions. And he withdraws when asked.

So, I feel confused. I seem to have contradictory feelings about him, and us.
One minute I think he cares and is there for me, and the next I feel I don’t know where he is at all.
We had a big discussion/argument last weekend about all this. And he made an effort on Monday to bring it up and talk about himself and what is going on with him.
However we have been here before, he becomes very aware of it when I make a big fuss and he tries for a while, but soon things go back to “normal”. Until I feel alienated or stranded enough that I make a big fuss again.

I know he tries, I know where he is coming from, I know his family and can see how he worked out that it was much better to keep to himself and show as little as possible. But I do not want to have a relationship where I have to constantly overcome huge barriers to know where the other person is. I want to share , I want someone who wants to share. He says he wants, and it is true that he has worked on it a lot, he has gone to therapy, and we have gone to a counsellor together. I have seen him being pushed and being very uneasy and come through, with big efforts.

But I do not know how to cope with how things are at the moment. I appreciate the good intentions and the efforts but I still don’t have what I need to feel good about us.
It takes along time to change what he is trying to change.
And I think I have started to resent him for all that I put. For feeling 100% responsible for the communication, and making the relationship work. For being open, and saying out loud and without reservations what I need and have been “overlook” it.

It was such a hard thing for me to do, to say honestly what I think I need.
Thinking back I don’t believe I have ever done it before. Too risky.
Because what happens if you don’t get it? It hurts twice as much as if you haven’t said it and you can tell yourself the other person hasn’t noticed.
But when they know… what then? Should I leave? Part of me really wants to. There is a voice saying he doesn’t really care. He cares on his own way and that is not going to make me happy, it does not cover what I need.
There is another part of me that says that he has his own problems and limitations, and he is trying, and maybe I could cut him some slack.

I am torn.

Pain, and more bad dreams

Another bad night, this time triggered by pain.
I woke up in the middle of the night with acute pain, it felt like period pain. It took me about a minute to remember when I did last have period, it was last week!.
So, what is going on?
At the moment I am not registered with the doctors, it was, actually is, still in my to do list. But it is my experience when I have had similar problems before that the doctors have not paid much attention, so I am not very motivated to go.
However I am a bit worried…. Am I being a bit a hypochondriac here?.

I got up after a while of not sleeping in order to allow my partner to get some proper rest. Felt asleep again in the morning and have ore bad dreams.
Again, my father keeps cropping up. The dreams are not all that bad, however I wake up feeling as if they were. Hard to explain. Emotionally very unsettled, and revisiting a lot of things form the past, even though they were not explicitly on the dream.

I had thought that I was done with this, relieving the past, the bad dreams etc.
It had been a long time since this was a recurrent problem.
I kept having the occasional bad night, or even a little flashback, but it had become sporadic. I had stopped being scared that it would happen any time all the time.
Now it was been three days in a row. And what is more worrying is that it happened last week as well, and I believe the week before then a couple of days too.
I didn’t think much of it at first as I was not too upset in the morning, but it is escalating. I still feel pretty much in control, but I am getting worried, and I am not sure what to do about it.

Bad dreams -- old ghosts

I had a terrible night. It was one bad dream after another.
I tried staying awake, thinking of something different, distracting myself for a while before going back to sleep hoping that would make a difference to the dream theme but it didn’t work. I got up very early, exhausted, feeling as if I had not slept at all. But I couldn’t face going back to sleep, even though it was hard to keep my eyes open.

The dreams were all about my family, and my father was on some.
I hate when I have dreams in which my father is there, as if that was the situation now in the present (my parents divorced about fifteen years ago, though he lived with us for a year a couple of years after they divorced).

I think I am worried about my family, things are not going very well for them, there are economic worries, but more than anything is all the personal stuff that worries me.
I don’t think they are doing very well in that department either.
However I feel unable to help. I tried talking to them quite a few times in the past, and I do when there is a window of opportunity now, but that rarely happens.
They do not want to talk. If I ask any of them about themselves, they are fine, is the others that have trouble I should talk to them. And that is what they all say.
Then form time to time there are arguments that I get to hear about; I believe there are many I do not get to hear about. I mostly hear from my mother, and when she tells me why she is upset I understand and empathise, but then she tells me what she is done about it or plans to do and… it is hard to explain. I can see how it is not going to work; she approaches issues all at once, mixing her feeling towards the ‘family’ or even ‘everyone’ into a confrontation with one person. She brings everything up when the issue sparks from one particular incident. Also there is a tendency of extending comments and criticism far beyond what is reasonable.
I’ll give an example. In an argument with my brother which started with work related issues (they work together) she brings up personal issues, between them, and even issues about who she disagrees on his behaviour towards other members of the family (the way he talked to my aunt), and complains about his clothes, his eating and drinking habits etc. So everything gets mixed up, and obviously nothing really is taking away by the recipient of this outburst.

I am very familiar with this. She has always been like this. And she is not the only one; it is more or less the way the family operates.
I find it impossible to deal with, I mean I can deal with it, I can take it when the outburst is directed at me, and I have managed over the years to stop myself counter-attacking in the same fashion (it is hard work, believe me) but what I can not do is stir things in different more productive direction. When it is about me I can negotiate what would I do that would make things better, but when it comes to the others I can’t. If I say anything about restricting the conflict to one issue, or about the hostility it is being dealt with, I get accused of being on the other person side, or not seeing the whole picture, or … whatever, there is always something (they are very articulate people).

So what does all this have to do with my dreams? Lots I think.
I believe I feel guilty that I have set myself apart from my family.
It was not just because they have not supported me about the issues with my father, which was very very painful, but also because I couldn’t find a way to be myself among them. I find the family dynamics asphyxiating. Problems don’t ever get resolved, just left to rest until next time. People don’t usually say what they really have a problem with anyway, it is all hidden in a discourse aim to make the other feel bad, and set oneself as righteous.

I needed to solve my issues, At some point I was close to ending my life. I needed to move on, to process, to heal, to learn to understand myself and not be controlled by my emotions, which seemed erratic and overpowering.

I relate to people in a very different way now. I don’t think I am perfect far from it; there are still many issues I do not handle well at all (as it is clear form the precious post I guess). But I am better. I feel better, and I believe I am better to others. I listen more, I reflect before I answer, I don’t just react.

When I go back home, sometimes I get sucked into the old habits again. It happens less nowadays than it used to though. I do not loose my temper anymore, but I do feel really on edge, and uneasy most of the time.
I am convinced that to leave close to family again would be to be unhappy. I can’t change them, all I can do is change myself. But the way they are, they react and even the way the view things gets to me, hurts me. I guess it shows me why things happened the way they did, about me, about my father, about no one noticing, about no one supporting me. First they didn’t believe, then they just ignored it. When I pushed things once, the reaction in summary was: that was long ago, you have to move on, don’t get stuck in the past.

My dreams where all about my family. About me being back home, living with them, trying to work things out for them. Trying to live in that constant battle. Living with my father, as it was back then.

I feel responsible for them, and therefore I feel guilty about being away.
But deep down I know I can’t help them, and I can’t live with them.
I have to have my life, and they have theirs. That is the way things should be anyway right?

Loneliness

I feel so lonely…
We moved a few weeks ago to a new city. We know some people here, but mainly they are friends of his. And so far we haven’t seen much of them.
But that is not why I really feel this lonely.
I think this is much deeper issue, I feel lonely because I have no one to talk to. I have my partner, but no close friends. This is not new really; it has been going on for a while. It seems that most of my friendships have… disappeared?
People move and I find it hard to stay in touch, but mostly over time I have distance myself from everyone in one way or another.
I have felt hurt by people and not found a way to work through it. I withdraw.
It is not always my first choice, I have tried to talk to friends about it, but it doesn’t always work. And then with me and/or them moving….
I don’t want to go through a list of what has happened with each one of them. I have some friends that I could talk to, but none of them leave anywhere near this city right now. And it has been a while since things have been like this It is making a dent on me now.
Also for some reason as I get older and I think I am finding it harder to connect with people. I didn’t use to find it hard to make “friends” but now I do.
Writing used to be of help when I felt like this, but it is not working anymore.
I have come back to this blog after a long time. I have not been active on the blogsphere for a very long time, and I am getting dishearted to find some of the people I used to follow not around anymore. Then there is also the fact that no one seems to be reading, or least no one who has left a comment, and I think that is just reinforcing the feeling of isolation.
I am having a hard time with the jobless situation, sending applications and hearing nothing back. So obviously being rejected.
Feel rejected (or neglected) by friends too. I have texted or email some people (haven’t said anything about not feeling very upbeat, I tend to do that) and most have not got back to me at all. They might do at some point, but it has been long enough for me to feel rejected.

Feels like any attempt on my part of reaching out, putting myself out there, professionally and personally is meet with silence. Feels so futile to keep trying…

Back to square one

Looking for a job, again. Without really knowing what I want to do.
It seems to me this is where I was when I finished university, many years ago.
Then I went back to university, and after some time working got myself into another course at university. Though this was mainly a practical course, and most of the time was spent on a placement, working.
So, I guess I count at least, three major “stops” when I have tried to decide what I wanted to do and yet I seem to not know.
During the last year, and particularly during the last few weeks I have done a lot of “soul searching” trying to figure out what really makes me “tick”.
One thing that I am not setting as a priority is being happy. It might sound a bit of a strange thing to say, do I mean that I was seeking to be unhappy before? No of course not. But in a way I was not really focussed on achieving happiness.
For starters I do not think I had much of an idea of what that really meant.
I was surviving, and I think happiness was to me like colours might be for a person born blind. It is something that you imagine, you hear people talk about, but you really don’t know what it is, how it is like, and you have no framework to help you develop the concept.
I think before I was motivated by the desire of eliminating the effect of my past.
I wanted to have the life I imagine I would have had without the abuse.
So, I chose a partner (well, over time more than one) that had certain qualities I liked but not someone who was not understanding of my issues, and my needs.
I worked really hard on the relationship and tried really hard to be somewhere I was not, to be someone I was not. I tried to be and feel like someone with a different past would have (or how I thought they would).
On a professional level I did the same. When I finished high school, it was decided I would go to university. This had been decided long ago and not really by me but by my parents.
In any case I was not unhappy with it. When it came to decide what I was going to study I consider studying psychology. However, this was not a profession that my family would value. Furthermore they seem to be very dismissive of the field, and there was a theory that only people who have a problem they do not wish to tell anyone studies or trains in that field.
Now, that really hit a chord on me because it was very true in my case that I had a problem I did not want to discuss. At the time I didn’t even really know what my problem was, I was utterly confused and thought there was something wrong with me. It is also true that I had an interest in human behaviour and development, but I dismissed the idea and studied science, physics. Something I was good at and that they would value. And probably, I thought was what I would have liked to do had I not have any trouble while growing up.
So, I was determined to have a “normal” life.
Over the years I have though of training for counselling several times.
I have always decided against, or put it off.
Now I find myself thinking about it again, and again finding reasons to not do it on the basis of practical reasons, and a feeling that it is now too late, and that I have already trained enough over my life.
I can’t figure out what would make me happy, I feel blocked in so many ways.

Choices I made...

I wonder why I do not write.
I think about it very often, I write mentally, yet when I get to either the blog or my paper journal I get blank.
I very rarely make it to here, normally I try my journal first. But there are two posts half written that I never posted...

So, what brought me here today? I am feeling low. My self-esteem and self-confidence are going down to worrying levels.
I have been unemployed for a few months now. I left my job because I was very unhappy at the place. I didn't like the way my boss treated me, or managed the group, and I saw very little, or none, intention or possibility for the situation to change.
I was in a bad place personally as well, although things where getting better on that front. I felt the job was bringing me down. I thought I always put up with things that are not good for me. Relationships mainly, with friends, partners and family. I thought it would be good for me to think about my well being, short term, stop always trying to do the safest thing, save for the future. My decision was made on the present, what I wanted.
At the time I wanted out of the job, the place, and I wanted to consider a change in career, having realised that although I was interested in the subject maybe I had not thought much about other options.
I have a degree, a masters and a phd in physics. However there are other things I am interested in.
When I started my degree I was confused. Still living home, being told that I had a very analytical mind and should go for science. Well, that had been going on for a few years, and I was already doing sciences in high school.

While working as a researcher I felt like I was a fake, a fraud. The pressure from my boss to constantly prove myself didn't help. He was understanding at first about my depression. We agreed that I would not take the medical leave that I was entitled to and offer by my doctor, but that I would have flexible hours and try to work through it. Cutting a long story short, after a while I realised he was a doubled faced person and although he had encouraged me to take higher responsibility role within the group we were working with (collaborating with many other institutions) he had not confirmed this position officially (and neglected to tell me). There were other issues that went on behind my back, and what really made it was the insinuation that I had not being honest and forward coming with him. Not only that he would "say" it, but the time chosen and the way of twisting my words and manipulating facts.
All in all, he really made me feel quite inadequate. It is funny how knowing that the facts he was using were "wrong" I still feel as if he was right. I feel like I am not good enough.
I left convinced that this was the right thing for me, and that I could do whatever I wanted.
I suspected that I had not thought enough about what I wanted. Of course I did think about it many times over the years, but there were many pressures external and internal, and I wasn't sure about why I had made the choices I did. The whole situation made me think about other times when I have done something just to prove I could. To me or to others, or both (establishing that would require more analysis).

I wonder if this happens to other survivors. I seem to be intrinsically insecure. It doesn't matter who much I achieve. How many times I prove I can do what I set myself to do, I still feel that I am not good enough, that it was a fluke, i didn't really do it alone, and so on.

I think one of the issues i am having trouble with now is in a sense status. Before I could say what I did with some pride, people would react positively to hearing that I was a researcher, which meant I had a phd.
Ironically enough this would irritate me, I could see how they were forming and image of me before getting to know me at all. I think I felt a bit the same way as when I used to get attention, from men mainly, because I was attractive. Though the assumption that I was clever and someone being drawn to that was less annoying to me that going on looks, still there was something to it. I guess a part of me that said "I am not my profession!, that is not what a person is about".
However, now without a job, I find myself lost.
When I look at alternatives for my career, I hate myself as I realise that I would like to be able to say I was a researcher in physics.
I don't know if I would feel differently if I had another job, but right now, there is an overwhelming feeling of failure.
What is worse, I am convinced this was always going to be like this. That I kidded myself thinking that completing the phd would make a difference to the fact that I was always just going to be... a failure for lack of a better word.

The feeling is very very deep, and it is not only related to the job, but I am not sure I will be able to convey it.

When I took my previous job I moved. I was living with my boyfriend with whom I had a bad relationship.
Soon after I left we broke up.
Even now, after two years, and even though I am in another relationship now, I feel like I am not doing what I am supposed to. I spent many years with this boyfriend; we had broken up before and then got back together (more than once), even though the relationship never really improved much. I kept trying and putting up with things that were damaging for my self-esteem, self-respect, and in general made impossible for me to be confident.
Two years down the line I still feel like I am just pretending to scape my destiny.
I have had the same kind of feeling about leaving home. My family lives very closed together, almost all of them in the same city. I moved far away, and have been far away for a long time now. Yet I still feel, many times, this is just a break, and reality will come catch up with me soon.

Is as if I couldn't really change my life, I was supposed to be something different. Be home, not have control over my life, not be happy, not even try to be happy.
I guess it feels I was just suppose to be the invisible unimportant, "for use" person that I feel I was, and maybe I feel that I deserve to be.

ripples from the past

So, I haven't posted for such a long long time...
Many times I am tempted, no surprise when I feel bad, and mainly when it is related to the experiences that lead me to start the blog. Then I realise that the way I process most thing is in some way or another related to those experiences.
So what happened today... I find myself trapped by my past. Reacting to things in the present because of how things have been in the past. And I get annoyed and frustrated with myself because even when is happening I notice, but I can't stop myself.
Words come out of my mouth that I don't really mean, but I don't stop.
However much I try to stop myself, to think, calm down, breathe, just don't let the feeling take over me and make the situation worse... I can't, I set my own trap and I inevitably fall onto it.

I hate everything about it, but I think what I hate most is feeling so out of control.
Knowing that I am making thing harder for myself, knowing that I should just not act on these feelings as they will pass, and more importantly are a reaction to an internal trigger rather than the present situation; but yet not being able to, that is what really gets me.
Not being able to control and trust myself.

Besides the things said and done which will need mending, there is the erosion to my self confidence. I thought I was better, I though I could do better.
But some feeling still knock me down as a fast train running over me.
And then starts the anxiety about when will it happen again.
I found myself lying in bed not moving because... I am not sure, because all I wanted to do was break things, shout, hurt myself... . nothing that I felt could be let out.
So it all goes inwards, and I end up paralyzed, hoping that at least tears will come, because I need a non destructive outlet. But tears don't come.
I maned to get to some breathing exercises, and then move into drinking wine, more than I should of course, but I don't care today.
Today is all about manging to get through the day, without breaking anything,hurting myself, or creating more trouble with closed friends.
Tomorrow will be about figuring out what to do best next time.
I was going to leave for tomorrow the figuring out what feeling exactly triggered all this, and then it just hit me.
I felt trapped into this charade I feel my life has always been, when someone close to me knowing that I am having a very bad day (nightmares started it) tells me (or I think they do) that I have to behave normally, that they are not to put up with my erratic behavior. So, suck it up, and be the normal "happy" person we want to deal with, and don't you even think about taking time for yourself, you ought to be with us because we love you and want to spend time with you.
And I still fall for that, I am apparently still unable to see that I just can't do it, and that I shouldn't have to.
The ones who love me should let me do what is best for me and not ever ask me to put myself aside to satisfy their will (because it wasn't even a need).

Family visit

I had my mother visiting this past weekend, for about four days.
It has been hard in a sense. My relationship with my her, and my feelings about our relationship are complicated, even confusing.

She is not the one responsible for what happened. I know this, yet there are things I think I resent her for. Or at least I did for some time.
Some of them are related to what I see as ignoring signs that something was wrong, other have to do with reactions and things have happened after I told her.

Over time I have come to accept and understand my mother's limitations, and her difficulty in dealing with it all. It has taken her time to assimilate.
I always knew that it was going to be hard for her, I tried since the first moment I told to make clear that he always behaved very different when she was around. Yet I know she has felt responsible and in a certain way blamed herself.
I also know that a part of me feels in a sense let down by her, even if I know the responsibility lies completely on my father.

I think I don't resent her for these issues anymore, yet somehow they are part of our relationship. I don't rely on her for anything.
I realised when talking to my C prior to the visit, how stuck I am with respect to my family. Well, I already knew that, what I got to realised was that I was not ready at all to consider that anything could change in that area.
I had come to the conclusion some time ago, after years of longing for some support and understanding, that it was never going to happen. So I decided to stop waiting, and closed that door. Managed, after a long time, to accept it, and learned how to be around them without hurting too much.
They have become somehow something apart form my life in a sense.
I am trying to get myself into a life where I feel comfortable.
I have stopped relationships with people that made me feel uncomfortable, or unsafe, or somehow on edge or wary (except for them, my family).
So I am not very sure how I regard them. I haven't tried to stop contact, though it has become less frequent with time. It is not my intention to not see them again, and I do visit myself sometimes. I feel some sort of obligation to do so, that I know I have imposed to myself.

This behaviour goes apparently against everything that I am trying to change in my life, and it makes difficult what I intend to achieve.

So, in the light of all this I tried to talk to mother a bit about some of the issues.
Conversation was long and difficult, and I am not sure it was what I wanted it to be.
I kept changing my mind about whether or not I wanted to talk to her while she was here, so it finally came out without having been properly planned or thought out.

I guess time will tell if anything is to change.

On the positive side, we did not argue, and in general none if us took a defensive position, or a hostile one.

back, with a question about love

I haven't posted for almost a year now. I have thought of starting a new blog; seems like a failed to make this one work, and wanted to start fresh. Then, I realized that there are no real fresh starts in a sense. I always carry what was written here, I always carry the sense of failure of every unfinished project, and most of all, the sense of failure to get over "things".

How many times I have been told that what I have to do is just get over it.
I am very depressed now, I have been for a few months, well, don't even know how long.
More than one person, friends, have told me that I have to move on, because I am getting stuck, and it is affecting my professional life and that will just make things worse; as if I didn't know all that.

So, I failed to write this blog. I failed to express myself, and to share my story, more importantly my feelings, which is what I was seeking.
It is not surprise then how isolated and asphyxiated I feel.
I have been trying to get back in to the blog sphere for quite a while, going back to read peoples' blogs and many times wanting to comment. But I haven't been able to get over myself and get out there. It feels bad, because I wanted to be able to offer support to others. But that would have also meant doing something good for myself, and that apparently I can not do.

I don't know what is different today, I guess I still don't know if it is any different, haven't posted this yet, it is so far a draft. Haven't been able to comment on other blogs, though I tried (I hope I will if I can get this out there).
I have been having terrible thoughts lately, most survivors know about this; not wanting to carry on, I do not wish to die, but I do not wish to live either, and sometimes seems so pointless to carry on. I know the only reason I am still here is because is what happens if I do nothing.
These feelings, or lack of them, have been there for a long time.
Something has change recently. I have been finding myself angry, very angry, angry beyond reason, raging. It is such in uncomfortable sensation. But I don't know how to get out of it. Frustration, anger, hate, anxiety...all at once. I want to tear my insides out.
Trying to find out what triggers it, and why, I ended up doing an exercise that I found in a book. It didn't seem so much related but I came across it and seem interesting. The idea was to write a list of painful experiences and situations from childhood, actually all the way to adulthood, and then think about what decisions about myself others and life I made because of those experiences.

Here is what I found. (it is not really organized, I am afraid)
I am not lovable, just 'usable'. I am undeserving.
I am primarily a sexual being, not a person.
I am unimportant.
People only love you for what they can get out of you, there is not such thing as selfless, "free", care.
I am less important than everyone else, I should never expect support, I do not deserve it.
People who love you will turn on you, and use the feelings you trusted them with against you.
Being loved= being controlled.
It is not good to be good at something.
Relationships are power struggles, you have to fight to be respected and listened to, constantly. My feelings do not really matter.
It is not ok to be angry.
It is bad to point out peoples' flaws, I should overlook them.
Women are doormats, should not stand up for themselves.
No one is safe, (particularly those who love you).

So, this is my concept of love.
I am thinking this is not how it is supposed to be is it?

I thought I wanted to be loved, but I guess that is not what I need, I want to be safe, to trust someone. To be able not have guard myself, to be able to be open.

I can be open with people sometimes, but not because I trust them, but because I know I can take the pain when they turn on me, or away from me.
I see opening up as a short term relief that I will pay for later on, and as long as I can pay the price, it is ok.

It is sad, very sad, and I think there is no real comfort on it.

Might it be where my anger comes from?

IF

I found this poem, by Rudyard Kipling, when I was about 13.
It did touch me deeply then, and has been in my mind ever since.
Some days, like today, I feel drawn to it again.

If

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

---------Rudyard Kipling---------------------

About this blog

I wanted to explain what the aim of the blog is. I guess I wasn't all that clear when I started what I wanted it to be about. I thought I wanted to tell about the molestation explicitly, but as I go on I realise that what I really want to comunicate is how I felt about it.
I realise now, that what weights more for me is not the times that he did touch me, but the feeling of fear, uneassines, violation that I lived with all those years.
Those feelings where there everyday, I grew up with them and I think that is why they are such a deep part of me, I hosted them not only the days something would happen, but everyday.
I always felt unsafe, undeserving. I learnt a twisted version of love.
I never felt I could tell my mother, or anyone about it, and I think that has to do with her, and my relationship with her, which obviously also affected my deeply. Then there is also the rest of the family, my brother and other memebers that were very close to me, but that I never confided in. Why? there is a reason to it, and not only has to do with the abuse, but with the family dynamic.

I want to comunicate these feelings more than the details of the molestation. I will keep trying to do it by telling about particular events because I find very hard to explain these things otherwise.
I would like to able to show how and why I felt like a prisioner on my own skin. Why life felt as a sentence more than anything else.

I don't think the posts are going to be cronological.
I have tried, but things come to me as they come, and that is not in cronological order, I now that makes more difficult to graps things, but I don't think I can do otherwise.
For example the one thing that has been on my mind recently, is the time when I have been closet to suicide, and wil probably be my next post (maybe even today).

Inevitably growing up

I did well with my wish.
My breasts didn’t grow. Even today they are very small. Now that I have put a bit of weight on is the first time I do not have problems to find a bra that will fit me. Though of course, I still use the smallest size.
I was very skinny as kid, and I did develop late. So I had a very childish look even as a teenager.
But that didn’t help me as much as I had hoped for.

I guess this was soon after the event of the last entry.

We were going to visit my father’s family for a long weekend; Monday was holiday I can’t remember why.
They lived a 4 or 5 hours drive away. The plan was to pick up my mother from work Saturday afternoon and then just go.

The night before something strange happened to me. I woke up in the middle of the night all wet. I was sure I hadn’t pee on myself, I hadn’t done that much even as a very young kind. There was this weird fluid in my underwear, it was too dense to be pee, but I had no idea what it was. I changed and went back to bed, but in the morning I was wet again. I didn’t want to say anything to my brother or my father. I was very ashamed, and I didn’t want to bring attention to me, even less to my intimate parts.

On the drive, I asked to stop to go to the restroom a few times, I wanted to check and get clean if needed. Eventually once my other came with me, and I told her what was going on. She explained to me that it was normal, it was just discharge, and I hadn’t had it before because it happens when you develop. The conversation was still going when we got back to the car, and she continued talking about it in front of my father and brother. She started explaining how it meant that I was growing into a woman and that probably soon I would get my period and notice a few changes in my body shape in general.
I must have looked very uncomfortable about all that, and I guess that is why she continued going deeper in the topic. I was very uncomfortable because he was getting notification of what I was hoping was not obvious by my appearance. I was growing up.
I sat there in my corner at the back of the car, nodding as my mother talked, in the hope that she would stop, even if only for my brother who was bored of the topic already.
I didn’t even want to look at him, but I saw him moving the mirror of the car. He could see me now, and there was nothing I could do. I could see him looking at me as well; I could see that “smile” in his face. If I were to describe it now, I would call it lust.
Back then I didn’t have a word for it, but I had the images and feelings in my mind. I knew what it meant he was thinking. I pressed my legs together as tight as possible. I curled up in the back of the car and pretended to sleep.
I knew I would be safe at his mothers place. There was always someone with us.
Trouble mainly would be in the summer, when he had holidays and mum had to work.

A day in school

We were about 11 years old.

That day we were going out, we had an excursion. Once we had done the arranged visit, we were to make use of the fact that we were in the countryside and play sports outdoors. There were some public toilets around that we were to be used to get changed into the sport clothes, that we had been advised to carry with us.
I don’t remember the whole day very well. I remember that by the end of the afternoon, some of the girls and I had been talked into playing football with some of the boys. As we were playing the teacher called apart one of my friends and chat with her shortly. She did not come back to the game.

When we were all back to the restrooms to change back, the couple of us that were closer to her asked her happened. She looked upset.
She said the teacher had told her that her breast were starting to develop and she ought to wear a bra to school. She said the teacher seemed to be condemning the fact that her mother hadn’t taken care of that, since we were at a mixed school.
She asked us if we had noticed it, and we both said no at first, then she said to look at her carefully. By this time we were changing clothes and she was only wearing a thin T-shirt. Then we could see that her breasts were slightly developed compared to ours. But we wonder how the teacher could have noticed when she was wearing more clothes.
We had gone to a corner because she felt very self-conscious in front of all the other girls, though we weren’t that many students in the class.

I knew how she felt, she was ashamed. She had been made to feel “dirty” just for being as she was. She had been made to feel she ought to hide herself as if she was an indecency.
We had a little chat in the way to the bus; she was worried about the boys, as the teacher had made that remark about the school being mixed. My other friend soon would be in the same situation, as we realised once we examined our bodies a bit more in detail.
We convinced ourselves that the boys shouldn’t have any problems with it; didn’t all of them have mothers? And wasn’t the world just full of grown up women? But I think none of us felt very reassured.

On the way back, I had to sit in the front of the bus, as I used to get travel sickness; since all the kids liked to sit at the back, I was there by myself.
A thought assaulted me: what was going to happen when my breast started to grow? My body was already getting too much attention from him.
Of course he would know, he would have known all along the changes that were going to happen.
I used to lie in bed wishing I would not grow breast, ever.

When I was seven

I was about seven years old.

My brother and I were playing with my father in the living room. It was Saturday morning, my mother was at work. It was very nice as we he didn’t spend much time with us. He wasn’t home much during the week; in the evenings, but never had a disposition to even have a conversation with us. He was around in the weekends but he would spend most of his time in his studio. We would fix our own breakfast and play or watch TV until my mother was back from work. Then she would cook and we would all sit to have lunch. After that we would just be around the house, or do something with mum, he would be doing something else, reading mostly, is what I remember; or he would just disappear in his studio room.

That day we were playing, probably it wasn’t the only time we played with him; it was just not the usual. He was lifting us and throwing us high and catching us low on the way down. We were always amused by his strength and we enjoyed being lifted, thrown and catch, as if we were light feathers.

At some point I was being lifted by the chest, his hands were my non existent breast were. I was trying to hold my legs up to be horizontal, as if I was flying. He turned to my brother and said something like: “you have to take your chances now, because when they grow up they don’t let you touch their breasts”. Soon after, I said I was tired of the position and he put me down. I wasn’t tired, I was just uncomfortable. I didn´t even know why but I didn’t like the grabbing that was involved in the game anymore. I said I felt dizzy from all the spinning and going up and down, and I went to the room to lay down a bit. After a few minutes I took a toy and went to see what they were doing. I just sat there, in the other side of the living room, and play with my toy. Soon my dad was tired of playing and my brother came to play something with me.