I need more time
Once more, I woke up and my new reality slapped me in the face. “You’re single”. No good morning messages will be exchanged, no updates throughout the day will be expected and no loving goodnights will be given. The void, the knowledge that never again I will see him.
It’s hard, though my counsellor is proud of my self-care and healthy coping mechanism. I had my counselling session today and it helped to be able to talk about my pain. She suggested excellent ways to continue on my healing journey and find like-minded peers who have an interest in psychology. Not for dating but to develop deeper more meaningful friendships where I could feel supported and heard. I have difficulties maintaining long-term bounds and I wish to work on improving my relationship resilience.
I excel at quick fast and fun connections but have very little skills to maintain my ties once the relationship has lost its beginning shine. My default expectation is that once that person gets to really know me or I get to really know them, it will break. Having been rejected on multiple occasions in many harsh ways as a child, I’m much better equipped at handling goodbyes than cultivating acceptance and forgiveness.
Being the personal growth junky that I am, of course, I’m now listening to Brené Brown’s audio teachings: “The Power of Vulnerability”. We can only love others as much as we love ourselves, and loving ourselves starts with exposing to our own awareness our shameful memories. Once in the light, the healing work of self-compassion and acceptance starts. I definitely was raised in an anti-vulnerability mentality where shame was the favoured discipline tool. Sending love to the parts of me I learned to despise is difficult; can I nurture empathy for the part of me that couldn’t manage my anger adequately which resulted in my breakup?
My layers of hurt are getting peeled off my heart like coagulated gaze being pulled off open wounds. I’m not good at handling raw pain, you can bring on all the discomfort and new as you wish but sheer agony, I don’t like it at all. Not one bit. Not turning to anything to numb me has been challenging. Of course, I’m still devouring regularly my delicious fried purple spud petals, watching random videos on YouTube and tackling house shores like nonsense. Still, when the sun sets, the loneliness kicks in and I clench my teeth till sleep takes me away from my sorrow for the night.
