What would you do?

Eva...A million thank you's for The White Horse story. That story has given me much to think about today.

I hope you don't mind, but I would like to email that story to my nephew, who's wife is about to give birth to thier fourth child and he has just lost his job because of downsizing at Best Buy. They've been blindsided by this and are struggling to cope with the uncertainty of life.

Re: What would you do?


Wildflower,
You have the players mixed up but the scenario is the same. I echo your sentiments that this is manipulation, intentional or not, to get him back there and tear us apart. The sad part is it seems to be working. I'm afraid for all of us as time goes on. Nobody wins this way, everybody loses, everybody winds up giving up their lives one way or the other.

Thanks for the story. It's true we always try to control things and decide what things mean and don't mean. It's part of what makes us human.
It still comes back to that trusting God and believing he has some plan piece that I struggle with.

Someone sent me this yesterday and I read it and know it's true, but at the same time, it's impossible to carry out:

Letting Go
To let go doesn't mean to stop caring,
it means I can't do it for someone else.

To let go is not to cut myself off,
it's the realization that I can't control another.

To let go is not to enable,
but to allow learning from natural consequences.

To let go is to admit powerlessness,
which means the outcome is not in my hands.

To let go is not to try to change or blame another,
I can only change myself.

To let go is not to care for,
but to care about.

To let go is not to fix,
but to be supportive.

To let go is not to judge
but to allow another to be a human being.

To let go is not to be in the middle arranging all the outcomes,
but to allow others to effect their own outcomes.

To let go is not to be protective,
it is to permit another to face reality.

To let go is not to nag, scold or argue,
but to search out my own short-comings and to correct them.

To let go is not to adjust everything to my desires,
but to take each day as it comes and to cherish the moment.

To let go is not to criticize and regulate anyone
but to try to become what I dream I can be.

To let go is not to regret the past,
but to grow and live for the future.

To let go is to fear less and love more.

These are instructions on how to let go. Perhaps it is letting go of a rebellious child or a burden of sorrow, losing a loved one or learning to live with a heartache which we cannot let go.

-author unknown-

Cast your cares on the Lord and He will sustain you. Psalm 55:22

You know what really sucks? Everybody says each day it will be a little better. Every day seems a little worse with more and more grieving.

Oh, I don't think it's a straight line, going steadily upward. I think especially at the beginning the line goes up and down and up and down and down down down and up up up. Will take a while for things to settle down, I'm sure. Which isn't to say that it won't -- just don't consider it any kind of failure if it hasn't yet. Take your time.

As long as you eat!

Soz is absolutely right as usual, Camille. Eventually the grief will bottom out, then you'll head uphill.

Here, have a chocolate...

http://www.chocolate-artistry.com/samples.php?me=2

Unlike Camille, when I'm stressed out or sad I overeat.

Chocolate and chips top the list of foods I pig out on to pacify myself. Of course, I wash those foods down with Merlo Yellowtail.

Yeah, I know what you mean, doglover. Not when I'm stressed out...but when I'm sad, I really pack on the pounds. Fortunately, I associate alcohol with celebrations, so I don't drink when I'm sad. That has probably kept me from being an alcoholic.

Camille...are you eating yet? Have another chocolate. It actually contains stuff that acts as a mood elevator. I'm not kidding.

I think chocolate contains the same enzyme/hormone/chemical...something that our body produces when we fall in love.

I know, most every month just before my Aunt Flo arrives, I really crave Cadbury chocolate...A LOT!!!

This is a well documented pattern, doglover...

though I haven't kept track of the documents.

I eat when I am anxious, but don't have an appetite when I'm depressed.
I gained a lot of weight through all of the events because I was always so insecure, so scared he would leave.

I don't know if it will ever settle out. I keep remembering the last time I saw him. He was a stranger that last day. The man I've known and loved for two decades would never treat anyone like that. He was always so sensitive about hurting people, even little things that happened at work. That was the whole gist of his struggles with his divorce, someone not approving, someone hurting. And it all just came out of nowhere. All the way up to then it was, I love you, we're going to get through this, we're going to be together. He was practically living here and seemed pretty content. Why would he say and do all those things and then suddenly change overnight? Why would he banish me completely from his life after everything we've meant to each other for so long? I didn't do anything that I can think of that deserves being banished. None of this makes any sense. I struggle with this constantly. It never leaves my thoughts.

I have been there, seen that strange face, after more than twenty years. Also saw it at eight years into the relationship.

Faces go in and out; in my case, I had seen the stranger those years earlier and we had worked through it and his real face had come back. You might take that as anecdotal evidence that is it worth staying, but I now know, a long time later, I should have left then.

Oddly, he and I are friends again, apart and somewhat sustaining of each other. Perhaps because we are a thousand miles apart, but no, it started before I moved.
I don't want to go back. (The left one is usually later in this point of view, hah.) We are at some kind of peace.

Even I wouldn't go back.

I was bereft, but as I was understanding my bereftness, I got some of myself back. Loss of self in relationships is a large topic, even for the seeming selfinvolved.

Wise words, osso.

It seems Camille is grieving over the loss of the man he was, not the man he is now.

You didn't deserve this, Camille. Nothing you did deserved it. It's hideously unfair. So stop beating yourself up. Life is often unfair, and it frequently makes no sense.

Be gentle with yourself while you're healing. Healing is a painful process, but eventually it ends. Go easy on yourself. Give yourself time.

Oh, I can relate to this! People change .... the person you loved might have totally different values, now.

You are right. I am confused! I thought it was a divorce situation with adult kids. Sorry! I completely misunderstood the problem.

Camille, hon, let it leave your thoughts. You did nothing wrong and it was a bad situation that was settled in a terrible way, but that's what happened. Continually reminding yourself, and going over it again and again is only making you feel worse. It's done. It was horrible. You did nothing wrong. All of these things are true and none of them are going to change, no matter how many different ways you approach this situation. There isn't some unexplored angle that is suddenly going to make everything clear, or make him come back, or make this all suddenly make sense.

You are holding onto this pain very tightly. Yes, the pain - not the memory of being together, but the pain. So let the pain go. Let other things crowd it out of your life. That will not happen immediately and no one expects it to happen consistently, but you can help yourself feel better by giving yourself other things to focus on.

I know how depression works - it fills up your days and nights with one awful thing that seems overwhelmingly horrible. And you obsess about it, and you have no energy to do anything else, so it runs your life. And then you beat yourself up, because you aren't accomplishing anything else, other than being sorrowful. But if you pick yourself up, and if you zig where depression wants you to zag, you find that, even if you have no energy or inclination to do something else or think of something else, you do those things anyway. And slowly, they fill the spaces and they crowd depression out. Doing embroidery is no substitute for a love; I'm not so naive as to believe that and I'm not selling you that bill of goods. But what I am saying is that, when the depression becomes everything, it will be everything, whereas if you have other things, if you pull into your life other actions, other people, other ways to spend your time, and those things are good and wholesome, depression begins to flee.

Turn it on its tail. Banish it from your life. Tell it to take a hike. This is a slow process and it's not expected that it be done overnight. All you can do is, every day, spend a little more time on other things. For a few minutes every day, send it packing. It will leave eventually, but it's like a bad houseguest that won't take a hint. You can start booting it out - and that will be easier soon, as meds begin to kick in. So go for a walk in the park. Read a book. Get your hair done. Watch a movie. Listen to music. Write poetry. Go for a bike ride. Call a friend. Or do whatever it is that you can handle, and whatever it is that can make you happy or at least make you feel different, even if that feeling is fleeting. It's like endurance. You'll build it up. It'll happen. We all have confidence in you, even if you don't have confidence in yourself.

jespah...your words to Camille articulate so well the thoughts and feelings I have for her and her situation. Thank you, you expressed them beautifully.

Perfect, jes. You're right on target.

Agree with Jespah too.

This may sound odd, as in don't you (me) get it, how much the pain is? but one of the times in my life with the most emotional pain, crushing really, was when I started Beginning Drawing classes at UC extension. Similar to the embroidery concept. Getting involved in drawing opens a lot of drawers and doors. And no, you don't have to be inately talented to draw... facility at it, that handeye coordination that some people just have, doesn't have all that much to do with actually making art. Or it does sometimes, but is not required.

Beginning drawing lessons give you practice in the ways people draw. It pulled me out of myself despite myself. But you don't have to be the new Rembrandt. Painting is even more independent of perfect hand eye coordination. Painting can express tremendous angst in so many ways... controlled caging of matters of the heart, a kind of zoning in - to effulgent expressionistic tours-de-force with paint.
And you clearly can write well. I still have some anguished writing from me to me... it is part of my self now.