Appropriate Self-Concern

I sometimes have trouble finding the middle ground. I sometimes feel like the self-pity and despair are supposed to be there.

I go back and forth with it. Usually I’m ok...but I have days (like today) where I’m consumed with self pity. I am grieving not only my lost childhood, but my lost adolescence. My lost early adulthood. The family I never created. True love and intimacy I never experienced and likely never will.

I did some major grieving years ago when I first discovered my LA. But maybe I need more. Yes, I’ve grown to accept that I can be ok without a partner, but I’m still sad that it has to be this way for me. Everyone talking about their significant other at work. Friends getting divorced or breaking up, but then moving on (in time) and finding a new lover or getting remarried. Basically everyone pairing off while I’m still the wallflower. It’s been almost 8 years since I split with my husband and I had nothing but a couple of unhealthy relationships with men and a few near misses with guys that seem more worthwhile. I feel there is no one for me and it’s always been that way. I just don’t fit in when it comes to romance.

I can count my blessings, and I have many. Professionally I’m on fire. Socially, I have my pick of activities and a crowd who love me and want me around.

I even have a crush who wants to spend significant time with me in a few weeks. But inside I’m whining because I want more and I want it now.

I’m baffled because no one I know experiences this scenario of having someone flirty and interested who doesn’t want contact outside of when it comes together without having to take initiative. No. When a normal human being is interested, he reaches out. He wants more. He doesn’t leave you wondering for weeks at a time with no invitation to connect in between.

I know I’m obsessing now and I can’t stop. I’m mad. I’m full of resentment and grief. I want to stop expecting a man to relieve that for me, but dang, no one on earth, not even people who I know are way less pulled together than I am, seem to have this much difficulty having a romantic relationship or just navigating a simple crush or dealing with friendly attention from a man.

It shouldn’t be so debilitating, and yet it still is. I’ve worked on myself and will continue to do so. It’s not from lack of effort. I just feel so incapable in this regard and that makes me sad. Makes me pity myself. It will lift, I will feel better, but dang. It’s like the universe is playing a sick joke on me. That would make anyone feel pitiful. I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t want to be abused as a child and grow up neglected and turn into a person who obsesses, and pines, and can’t think straight when a guy “kind of” shows interest.

I don’t even need a boyfriend to make me feel complete, I just want to stop feeling as if I do. Because it destroys me and brings out my weirdness and my craziness, hence making me less likely to have success in that regard.

But hey, I have financial security, tons of friends and I’m healthy. I’m just a freak when it comes to dealing with romance. No biggie, it’s just what our society expects if you’re to be considered normal. It’s just what millions of years of evolution have wired us to do (pair up and procreate). I should not be sad that I lack the ability to do this most basic and instinctual thing...I should grieve my loss and move forward...alone. Independent, successful, healthy and alone.

Dang, yeah, I’m feeling some self-pity today.

Exactly what I needed to read/hear.

Triggered by winter. Happens every year. It's cold, it's dark. I just want to pair up with a guy and hibernate.

Also by listening to coworkers talk about their families and me getting jealous.

It seems to come from a juvenile place in my psyche, because I just want to wail.

I do not like the feeling of being cold and alone.

Some people believe forgiveness is important and others don’t. In his book Alcoholics Anonymous author Bill Wilson (the cofounder of AA) discusses forgiveness and says its necessary for sobriety. He calls it “letting go of resentment,” not forgiveness, and says it’s not done to please others, but in the interest of self.

“Resentment is the “number one” offender. It destroys more alcoholics than anything else. From it stem all forms of spiritual disease, for we have been not only mentally and physically ill, we have been spiritually sick. When the spirituality malady is overcome, we straighten out mentally and physically.... It is plain that a life which includes deep resentment leads only to futility and unhappiness.... [T]his business of resentment is infinitely grave. We found that it is fatal.... If we were to live, we had to be free of anger.... They [resentments] may be the dubious luxury of normal men, but for alcoholics these things are poison.”

On the other hand, there are the scientific psychologists (as opposed to the transpersonal therapists), like Susan Forward, in Toxic Parents, and Ellen Bass and Laura Davis in The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse, who proclaim that forgiveness is not necessarily a part of the process of changing, it might even be dangerous. In talking about recovering from an abusive childhood, Susan Forward says this:

“You may be asking yourself, “Isn’t the first step to forgive my parents?” My answer is no . . . [It] is not necessary to forgive your parents in order to feel better about yourself and to change your life.... Why in the world should you “Pardon” a father who terrorized and battered you, who made your childhood a living hell? ... Early in my professional career I too believed that to forgive people who had injured you, especially your parents, was an important part of the healing process.... The more I thought about it, the more I realized that this absolution was really another form of denial.... One of the most dangerous things about forgiveness is that it undercuts your ability to let go of your pent-up emotions. How can you acknowledge your anger against a parent whom you’ve already forgiven?” (pp. 187)

The question is this: Is it possible that Bill Wilson and Susan Forward are both right? Yes. Susan Forward is correct when she says that we must own our anger. Anger is honest. Anger in the right setting is therapeutic. Anger can lead to justice. Anger can free us from tyranny. And by coming out against forgiveness, Forward allows us to take our time without shame. Bill Wilson, in my opinion, is also right. If we stop resenting people, we feel better about ourselves and others. This changes us and our lives.

If you decide that forgiveness is for you, it might be helpful to realize that letting go of anger does not mean you have to like the person who hurt you or continue to let that person persecute you. Actually, you don’t even have to be around people who hurt you if you don’t want to. For years I attended a church where another member absolutely hated me. I loved to talk about my involvement in 12-step programs and she was so narrow-minded that she spoke up against me. “I am tired of hearing about those steps,” she used to say. One day she berated me at a committee meeting and I quietly left. I went home and wrote a letter to the pastor tending my resignation on the committee. I ended the letter with the lines, “You know, Christ asks us to love our neighbors and our enemies alike, but some people you just have to love from a distance.”

Furthermore, forgiveness is not a constant state. It ebbs and flows like the tide. Sometimes you feel good about those who hurt you, and other times you feel the anger all over again. But this doesn’t mean you have not progressed. I’ve found that, as long as I ask God for the strength to release my anger, or announce it in my support group that I am going to “turn it over,” or tell my therapist I am really tired of these resentments and want them to go away, the anger comes less and less often.

Please note, despite my own personal feelings about the value of forgiveness as a therapeutic and healing device, and the right moral choice for me, I feel strongly that it is a very personal choice and that no one should be told to forgive when they’re not ready. They shouldn’t be shamed by others, and they should not shame themselves. They should just push themselves gently in the right direction.

Seems like I’ve reached that level of acceptance before but maybe I was delusional about it. Same with forgiving my parents. Especially my father. From my mom, I felt love and she apologized eventually after getting her life together and working the steps. She then devoted her entire life to helping people. She took her last breath with a clean conscience and a belief she was going to heaven.

My dad never acknowledged the pain he caused. He became frail and nervous and learned to respect me, but never owned up. I took the quiet respect and decided we would have a relationship and in many ways I let him off the hook.

Even while working the 12 steps myself, I found it difficult to concentrate on him and the massive pain he caused. “I’m ok despite this” I would say, which was perhaps my biggest delusion.

He destroyed my childhood in many ways. Sure, many children have it worse. Many adults have a worse life than I do, for sure. I’m going to guess I actually have it better than most in every way, except when it comes to maintaining a romantic relationship with a significant other.

I guess I’m starting to realize how significant that has been and continues to be. I’ve been delusional about it. Pretending it’s no big deal to just not be able to initiate or maintain a healthy romantic relationship. It’s huge. It’s devastating on some levels.

Maybe it’s time I admit there is no cure. The damage is done and this is who I am. I can recover to an extent. I can take advice and change my behavior. I can continue to work at this. But it’s still here. It’s unlikely I’ll find a healthy partner who can deal with my ocd that flips on when I’m in a relationship. Healthy people don’t pair up with gals like me. So as long as my standards are high (and they have to be, for the sake of safety and dignity) I will likely be single.

This is due to having a dad who brutalized my siblings and me during his alcohol-fueled rages. I should be pretty mad about that. Mad at him. I should stop remembering him or referring to him as a good man. He was a horrible provider, horrible example and horrible father. He hated kids. He couldn’t respect me until I grew up and became more successful and stronger than he was.

Maybe there is more 4th and 5th step stuff I need to address with regards to him. I know last go-round I didn’t want to touch it, aside from a couple of resentments.