I need to get this OUT...
I feel constricted by the repression of my feelings.
I eat them. I have been eating them for 4 years. I think I have had a lot of feelings.
I feel sad. I feel completely unloved. I am questioning my ability to achieve and I am alone.
I have just cried my eyes out for no conceivably good reason. I was watching a self help dvd and a visualisation technique reverted me to a slobbering mess. The visualisation required me to see myself through the eyes of someone who loved me - a partner or children. I couldn't think of someone.
Perhaps it was the incident with Shane this week making me relive all the marriage breakdown and my feelings about it.
I obviously haven't dealt with enough of this - despite it being 6 years.
I need some positive affirmations.
I am going to try this one for a few days:
"I radiate a light that attracts what I need to me. That light dissolves the dark kernel"
Lets see how it goes...
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Sunday, September 20, 2009
where to start?
Most people would espouse to the theory that I should start at the beginning. That sounds a little dull, so I thought that I would start with a story from somewhere in the middle instead...
It is a story about how the best and funniest things come from the most unexpected places.
My separation and subsequent divorce occurred over a period of about 2.5 years from 2002 through to late 2005. As with most of these things are it was a particularly traumatic life event, and mine had the added stress of massive financial problems being unearthed. In essence my ex had spent everything that we had and racked up massive debts in my name, and managed to hide it all from me in the space of less than 2 years.
[I should note here that until Britney had her disastrous first marriage to a "mate" in Vegas that lasted for 3 days, and until then I thought that I had amongst the shortest marriages of all time - 9 months to be exact. Unlike mine, Britney still maintains that hers was unconsummated...]
The result was that when the marriage broke down my Mum and I started clearing things out and discovered huge numbers of unpaid bills and even a summons' to appear in court for non payment of debts etc etc. I should note here that being very short of stature (like 5'3") and the ex being ridiculously tall (about 6'10") I never ventured into the back of the top shelf of the linen cupboard behind the boxes of unopened wedding presents, nor did I feel any need to investigate the contents of old suitcases on the top of a pile of crap in the garage that had been moved from Adelaide to Melbourne. Not until I thought that there might be something to find anyway. Boy, did I hit the motherload of secrets during that investigative episode! Mum still has nightmares about that time - particularly after I had to be sedated with valium.
After a couple of weeks of trying to establish exactly how bad things really were, I was in a particularly sad and dark place about my life. The medication was pretty good (Zoloft + self medication with alcohol and the odd valium chaser when there was no alcohol handy - top stuff for numbing everything!), so I was starting to commence some type of "life functioning" - besides which I had to get back to work as I had no more annual leave, sick leave, bereavement leave (or any other type of leave that I could think of - reverse carer's leave???).
The people at work tried so very hard to be caring, but most of them had absolutely no idea what to do. They were of course all shocked and sympathetic, but you can only keep that up for so long before you get heartily bored of listening to someone moan about their life. Poor things: in retrospect I would have been horrendous to be around for the first 6-9 months of the separation. Anyway, very early in the piece, one of the women at work - Kathy, lent me her "spare car" (who has one of those???) as I had sent the ex back to Adelaide in our car (that I was paying for) and couldn't get it back. So I was nipping around in a little soft top Capri that you couldn't see out the back of when the top was up - being winter it would have been challenging to have the top down so I was substituting dryness for road safety.
Shortly after it had been dropped off at my house by a mutual friend who had been borrowing the car - he was possibly having a bit of a mid-life crisis at the time, I drove over to Kathy's house to thank her for the yet to be determined period of borrowing, grateful for the fact that I could now buy toilet paper without having to carry said loo paper 2 kms home from the shops in the rain. It was there that I met her delightful husband Paul who wanted to understand the whole dramatic situation. He was duly shocked and sympathetic, as most people seemed to be.
I should add as an aside here that by this stage I was getting quite good a flippantly telling the story of my marriage breakdown in quite a comedic manner; at least I thought it was comedic - I was managing to get a few wry smiles from people by this stage upon recounting the story, and I had a lot of practice let me tell you. I very quickly figured out that I was going to have to recount all the sordid details fairly regularly as there is little point in trying to hide something of this dramatic magnitude in a small place like Melbourne, particularly in the even smaller energy industry here.
Thinking nothing more, I went about trying to pick up some of the pieces of my life and not have a car accident for the next 3 weeks. Having wrangled the car back from the ex I drove the Capri back to Kathy & Pauls' place to return it and to thank them profusely for putting wheels under me whilst I was struggling so badly. Over coffee Paul let me in on a secret...
After hearing my story, he thought that there might be some money in it for me by selling my tale of woe as a lesson in what not to do / being ripped off by schiesters to either Today Tonight or A Current Affair, thinking that it would be great fodder for your average tabloid TV journalist. Unbeknownst to me he had contacted the editors / purveyors of content of both programs with the summarised highlights of my sorry story.
OMG - I was secretely hoping that the floor would open up and swallow me when he said that. My raw wounds and disastrous taste in men would be laid bare for the whole of the country to see! On the other hand any money would be good about now, so could I gird my loins and pass off my comedic version of events - or would the nasty gutter-trash style journalists they have on these programs force me to cry and tear at my hair like some sort of hysterical freak????? On the upside would they / could they hunt down my ex in Adelaide and hound him in the street as a con artist and thief? AAAgh, I couldn't make this kind of decision fuelled only by Zoloft and coffee!
Paul then told me that Today Tonight had not gotten back... (mixed blessing?) and apologised to me that ACA had a backlist of similar stories, but if I was in jail or about to go into jail for non payment of debt, then they would reconsider running the story!
What the??? Jail??? Think about going to jail for the cash???? Other people (women I presume) were as stupid as me???? Paul is apologising for that crappy TV program????
I couldn't help it - I laughed out loud. The situation was so damn ridiculous.
I quickly apologised to Paul that I wasn't laughing at him. In fact I was incredibly touched that someone I barely knew had genuinely tried to find a quick solution to my problems for me out of the kindness of their heart - and this is after they had lent me wheels.
The best thing - this was the first genuine laugh I had had in almost 2 months, and for that, I will be eternally grateful to Paul and Kathy.
It is a story about how the best and funniest things come from the most unexpected places.
My separation and subsequent divorce occurred over a period of about 2.5 years from 2002 through to late 2005. As with most of these things are it was a particularly traumatic life event, and mine had the added stress of massive financial problems being unearthed. In essence my ex had spent everything that we had and racked up massive debts in my name, and managed to hide it all from me in the space of less than 2 years.
[I should note here that until Britney had her disastrous first marriage to a "mate" in Vegas that lasted for 3 days, and until then I thought that I had amongst the shortest marriages of all time - 9 months to be exact. Unlike mine, Britney still maintains that hers was unconsummated...]
The result was that when the marriage broke down my Mum and I started clearing things out and discovered huge numbers of unpaid bills and even a summons' to appear in court for non payment of debts etc etc. I should note here that being very short of stature (like 5'3") and the ex being ridiculously tall (about 6'10") I never ventured into the back of the top shelf of the linen cupboard behind the boxes of unopened wedding presents, nor did I feel any need to investigate the contents of old suitcases on the top of a pile of crap in the garage that had been moved from Adelaide to Melbourne. Not until I thought that there might be something to find anyway. Boy, did I hit the motherload of secrets during that investigative episode! Mum still has nightmares about that time - particularly after I had to be sedated with valium.
After a couple of weeks of trying to establish exactly how bad things really were, I was in a particularly sad and dark place about my life. The medication was pretty good (Zoloft + self medication with alcohol and the odd valium chaser when there was no alcohol handy - top stuff for numbing everything!), so I was starting to commence some type of "life functioning" - besides which I had to get back to work as I had no more annual leave, sick leave, bereavement leave (or any other type of leave that I could think of - reverse carer's leave???).
The people at work tried so very hard to be caring, but most of them had absolutely no idea what to do. They were of course all shocked and sympathetic, but you can only keep that up for so long before you get heartily bored of listening to someone moan about their life. Poor things: in retrospect I would have been horrendous to be around for the first 6-9 months of the separation. Anyway, very early in the piece, one of the women at work - Kathy, lent me her "spare car" (who has one of those???) as I had sent the ex back to Adelaide in our car (that I was paying for) and couldn't get it back. So I was nipping around in a little soft top Capri that you couldn't see out the back of when the top was up - being winter it would have been challenging to have the top down so I was substituting dryness for road safety.
Shortly after it had been dropped off at my house by a mutual friend who had been borrowing the car - he was possibly having a bit of a mid-life crisis at the time, I drove over to Kathy's house to thank her for the yet to be determined period of borrowing, grateful for the fact that I could now buy toilet paper without having to carry said loo paper 2 kms home from the shops in the rain. It was there that I met her delightful husband Paul who wanted to understand the whole dramatic situation. He was duly shocked and sympathetic, as most people seemed to be.
I should add as an aside here that by this stage I was getting quite good a flippantly telling the story of my marriage breakdown in quite a comedic manner; at least I thought it was comedic - I was managing to get a few wry smiles from people by this stage upon recounting the story, and I had a lot of practice let me tell you. I very quickly figured out that I was going to have to recount all the sordid details fairly regularly as there is little point in trying to hide something of this dramatic magnitude in a small place like Melbourne, particularly in the even smaller energy industry here.
Thinking nothing more, I went about trying to pick up some of the pieces of my life and not have a car accident for the next 3 weeks. Having wrangled the car back from the ex I drove the Capri back to Kathy & Pauls' place to return it and to thank them profusely for putting wheels under me whilst I was struggling so badly. Over coffee Paul let me in on a secret...
After hearing my story, he thought that there might be some money in it for me by selling my tale of woe as a lesson in what not to do / being ripped off by schiesters to either Today Tonight or A Current Affair, thinking that it would be great fodder for your average tabloid TV journalist. Unbeknownst to me he had contacted the editors / purveyors of content of both programs with the summarised highlights of my sorry story.
OMG - I was secretely hoping that the floor would open up and swallow me when he said that. My raw wounds and disastrous taste in men would be laid bare for the whole of the country to see! On the other hand any money would be good about now, so could I gird my loins and pass off my comedic version of events - or would the nasty gutter-trash style journalists they have on these programs force me to cry and tear at my hair like some sort of hysterical freak????? On the upside would they / could they hunt down my ex in Adelaide and hound him in the street as a con artist and thief? AAAgh, I couldn't make this kind of decision fuelled only by Zoloft and coffee!
Paul then told me that Today Tonight had not gotten back... (mixed blessing?) and apologised to me that ACA had a backlist of similar stories, but if I was in jail or about to go into jail for non payment of debt, then they would reconsider running the story!
What the??? Jail??? Think about going to jail for the cash???? Other people (women I presume) were as stupid as me???? Paul is apologising for that crappy TV program????
I couldn't help it - I laughed out loud. The situation was so damn ridiculous.
I quickly apologised to Paul that I wasn't laughing at him. In fact I was incredibly touched that someone I barely knew had genuinely tried to find a quick solution to my problems for me out of the kindness of their heart - and this is after they had lent me wheels.
The best thing - this was the first genuine laugh I had had in almost 2 months, and for that, I will be eternally grateful to Paul and Kathy.
The what and more importantly, the why
Having just finished reading the amazing Dawn French's book "Dear Fatty", this blog feels like it has been created on the spur of the moment, but perhaps it has really been a decade in the making.
I have no intention of trying to change the world, espouse fanatical theories involving conspiracy at the highest levels of government or sell something. Rather this is a place where I am attempting to gather together the thoughts and issues that make me human, and make me the person that I am. Sounds grandiose? In some ways I am responding to the promptings of numerous therapists and counsellors from the past 6 years who have been encouraging (hounding?) me to just write SOMETHING! In part I am also responding to the numerous of my friends who have been saying "you have something to say - just do it".
Well, this is the "it".
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