This week's counselling was hard. Came away with two tales.
Firstly my Mam injured her wrist and is wearing one of those rigid supports that you can take off. She's supposed to wear it all the time apart from when showering. She went on holiday yesterday and was joking at the weekend that she's going to remove it when she's sunbathing or she'll end up with different coloured arms!
That triggered off memories of an incident in my past. I can't remember what I was in trouble for, but he was raging and yelling at me. That time he didn't hit me and tried to punch a hole in the wall. Unfortunately he didn't know that a previous owner had boarded up an internal door. Instead of his fist going through plasterboard as he expected, his fist hit hard wood and he fractured his hand. That was shortly before going on holiday abroad. We had a shit time as he was in a foul mood as he couldn't go in the pool and stuff like that. This was all my fault and I got blamed for ruining the holiday.
Weird how something minor like my Mam's injury can make that memory surface again. That's the trouble with triggers. You never know when they are going to strike.
Second tale: we did some reliving past stuff that happened to me. I always thought I was weak. However things we talked about included:
Wasn't allowed to breastfeed, but ignored him and breastfed her anyway partly because I believe it's best and partly because I loved the bond when I was doing it. I was called selfish and accused of alienating him from the baby, even though I said he could do any of the other baby stuff, just not feeding.
Daughter used to love playing hairdressers. I had to pretend I was going to a party or a wedding or something and she'd faff on brushing my hair and putting clips in it and stuff, while chatting about the party/wedding/etc. He didn't like that. He bought one of those toy styling heads but she refused to play with it as she liked the human connection with me, just as much as playing hairdressers. I didn't encourage her to play with the toy and let her continue playing hairdressers with me. He didn't like that.
I take the bairns out loads on various excursions. He was always welcome to come but he never wanted to. He didn't want us going out either. I'd plan something and there would be a minor incident and one child would get grounded so we all had to stay in. That's a lose lose situation as I'd either get into trouble for taking them out anyway, or I'd get into trouble as they'd be climbing the walls and acting themselves due to being cooped up in the house all day. One incident was we'd planned to go to the Farne Islands for the day. I'd already bought picnic food and booked boat tickets. The evening before, one son knocked a glass of juice over by accident, so he was grounded the next day and we couldn't go to the Farnes. I went anyway and I took the flack for that.
Son used to play football and I went to all the matches and built friendships with the other lads and their parents. The team did well and managed to win the league and get promoted. There was a presentation ceremony where they all got medals and a trophy. A couple of nights before, son was caught playing on his phone under the duvet when he should have been asleep. He was grounded and banned from attending the presentation. I took him anyway as I thought that was unfair on him, unfair on me as I wanted to see the other lads get their medals and unfair on the team as my son would be missing from the photos and stuff. Both me and son got into trouble for that. Seeing my son get punched in the face was the final straw and I finally found the courage to get help and get away for good.
Counsellor flipped all of that around and said I'm not weak. When it comes to my bairns, I managed to stand up and do what I thought was best for them. I'd never thought of it in that way before so it was kind of a lightbulb moment. Still need to work on standing up for myself when it's not about the bairns though. I still struggle with that.
All of this is raw and still going round and round in my head. I just wanted to write it all down and try to get some kind of release from it.
This sounds not too dissimilar to my lady friend. I know she took counselling too, which she found heavy duty, and I've the feeling she'll have to go back as there's a serious trauma there she never fully discussed.
My mistake was simply a bad choice of words meant to support her. "Make the most of your few days, let your X do his bit". She flipped when I mentioned relative X, even though it was not by name and to her, it was a betrayal of her trust and wham. It was the only mistake I made in 11 years of social media friendship and four months of meeting her.
In her case, there's a clear pattern of her not trusting men full stop including people close to her with the exception of her dad. I commented to my counsellor that when she first met up with me, she might have thought I was gay and thus a safe person to have as a friend. We kept seeing each other even when it was immediately clear I wasn't and things did start to evolve.
The way she cut me off and made clear she wanted nothing to do with me is almost as though I had perpetrated the abuse she's suffered. It feels I came to represent a sort of psychological punchbag for her. What she's been through before she met up with me appears to have been pretty bad. I know she moved back to the north east after a split with a previous long-term partner who went onto be with someone else.
The thing is the more recent event I suffered is why I empathise with her as I have trouble trusting certain types of alpha male personalities.
While I say in the intervening three months it is beginning to fade to grey, if she did reappear and reach out then I would offer to begin to rebuild what we had if she'd let me. I came out of it caring about her and those feelings are still there. And at a time that was right for me I'd be willing to be there for her. The feelings didn't develop straight away as initally, neither of us were looking to be in a relationship.
If that moment ever came where we were back in touch, there would be a need for an honest, adult conversation so we both know where we stand. We would need to commmunicate properly without her feeding me partial stories (noting I have figured out the main events from the partial stories and comments she made ages ago on social media she seems to have forgotten about - I think she's been through hell TBH) and her repeating how she hates every man in her life. We would then hopefuly understand each other's issues and consequent boundaries properly. Just returning to a situation where another faux pas by either side could lead to a repeat split is no good to me at all. But I'm not saying never as I know there's a good side to her in there.
But I'm no longer reaching out to her having tried to fix things immediately after and briefly reaching out after two months break - she hadn't calmed down. As said, we've no social media connections anymore though she knows where I am. I'm not holding my breath over a reconnection though and do need to move on. I'm still working on coping with my ASD diagnosis and related issues, and I need to concentrate on myself as a result to put myself on a fully even keel. The counselling is going well with some difficult days and I won't risk it becoming undone.
. Sending love and positivity to you all this morning.
