Conflicting feelings

[gettingtired]

I’m not really if what I’m feeling is normal, if anyone else gets like this or might understand why.. 

Myself and my partner have been together for over a decade, I got together with him literally after I left school (first and only relationship). 
We didn’t properly move in together though until a couple of years ago. Ever since we moved in together I began to feel like deep down I just wanted to be back home and that that’s what always felt like ‘home’ compared to the home with my partner. I didn’t really understand why at first and used to blame myself thinking maybe I just couldn’t handle the reality of growing up and maybe was just not capable of being a proper adult. I can kind of understand more now though that it’s probably because of the abuse from my partner. 

However, I also notice that when I’m at home with my parent and step-parent I start to miss my partner and feel like I just want to be back at home with him. Although I love this parent more than anyone else in my life we can clash a bit and bicker. I also can be argumentative with them and negative. I then go back home to my partner and feel awful and really guilty for being snappy with my parent. I then really miss them and long for home again. 
So wherever I am, I’m just missing the other place/person so it just all feels impossible. 

On top of that I get these worries that what if something happened to my parent/step parent, I would never be able to live with myself knowing I didn’t just leave my abusive partner and move home to spend time with them. Covid doesn’t help because I can’t really see them at all at the moment and although they’re in good health for their age, they’re only getting older and time is ticking on. I’m potentially wasting time with my partner and they could just die and then that time is lost forever. I have a lot of anxiety and dread about them dying and feel like I wouldn’t want to live if they did (sorry if that sounds dramatic). At the same time though, the thought of leaving my partner is unbearable. I don’t think these thoughts/feelings are normal but I can’t stop them. 

I’m not sure if anyone else ever feels this way or if I’ve just carried it on from childhood. My parents separated when I was very young and I always had that feeling of missing the other one I wasn’t with. My Dad in particular (who I didn’t live with but went to stay with) I would always feel incredibly guilty about leaving him and going home, I used to go to my room and weep and feel irritated by my other parent and step parent even though they hadn’t done anything. It didn’t help that my Dad used to sometimes go and withdraw cash for me just before he dropped me home so I felt guilty about that for some reason (even though I knew he had more money than my Mother). 

Looking back I think I was always an anxious child. I developed OCD as a child and have carried it straight through into adulthood although it was never diagnosed and my Father just told me to ‘not do it’, I guess maybe he didn’t understand saying that was just not going to help me although I know he suffers from it too but doesn’t say he does. 
I’m not sure if this counts as sexual abuse but I was inappropriately touched in a one off incident by an adult man who was a trusted family friend/professional as a child.
I also suffered from terrible homesickness growing up until I was a teenager. 

I don’t know… maybe I’m dragging up the past too much but I’m just trying to figure out why wherever I am, I just miss the other person/feel guilty. It just means I’m stuck in this constant guilt trip of always feeling bad for someone. 

Does anyone else ever feel like this/has felt like this or am I really losing the plot now? 

Thank you for reading if you got this far x 

[Anonymous]

I also developed OCD as a child and was incredibly anxious. The OCD manifested in me with obsessive cleaning around my home. I would clean the home secretly as a child. My family were so emotionally unavailable they didn’t even notice half the time or assumed the other adult must have done it because no-one liked to communicate properly or intimately in my house growing up. I carried on with this obsessive cleaning into adulthood. Every time I felt unhappy or stressed or anxious, out came the frenetic energy to clean the home. It was my way of dealing with emotional discomfort. OCD is a coping mechanism for unresolved trauma and shame. For me, it was a way to manage the shame I felt, although I didn’t know that then. I was also sexually assaulted when I was a child and i’d say that was when my interest in keeping the home clean became a compulsion. For me, shame was already a close frenemy before the incident. It was how my family coped or rather how they didn’t cope with the incident against me that did more damage than the attempted assault itself. I say attempted because I was able to flee him before he was able to fully carry out everything he wanted.

[Hawthorn]

Hi GT,

I have certainly felt like you describe. Anxious and worried, feeling guilty all the time. These ways of thinking are laid down in childhood so you are not dragging up the past but rather you are being very insightful in recognizing where these patterns have started.

It is difficult to navigate these difficult things alone, would you speak to your GP? Seeing a counsellor with experience of dealing with trauma would be really helpful and they should be able to refer you. The catastrophising about the future can crippling. I know it well. I was an anxious child too but the hyperarousal I experienced when I was living with my abuser was next level. Aside from the emotional distress(which is bad enough) it is really bad for our physical health to be dealing with that level of stress all the time. Even when things were good I had a constant sense of foreboding that something bad would happen. The fact that it inevitably did just reinforced the pattern, I’m still unlearning the shame, guilt and self-blame I internalised as a child and was hammered in by my abusive husband.

Meantime mindfulness can be helpful in helping us to observe, rather than fight our thoughts though honestly when I was in the abuse I couldn’t ever calm myself enough to do it so dont beat yourself up. Ross Rosenberg has some great stuff on youtube exploring the origins of our early attachments and how they can lead towards people pleasing and abusive relationships as adults. Might be worth checking out.

Take care, try to make some time for a bath, a face mask, some wind down pampering time. You deserve it xx

[gettingtired]

Thank you for your advice, I will definitely check out those videos.
It is not helpling at all that things are back ‘in the calm’ pretty much now, he’s happy because I’m at home with him all the time as my work finished. Now I’m back to feeling like I’d be the worst person in the world by leaving him. Especially now with covid as he really would be alone.
I say in the calm.. he still moans that I’m not affectionate (which I’m not anymore), that I just treat him like a flatmate. I’m also not allowed to get annoyed with him as that means I’m ‘always in a mood’ or ‘angry all the time’. Then when I was in a ‘good’ mood (trying to stay positive for myself by making jokes, singing etc) he was irritated and said I’m happy but not ‘with him’.
I’m just struggling daily now with these thoughts that my parents are only getting older and I might be losing out on time with them. Although I know it would feel like hell to leave him.
I’ve literally just stayed inside on the sofa all day today and still feel tired.
Sorry another rant!

I hope you’re doing well x

[diymum@1]

You sound exactly the same as me. I’ve had these feelings of never being settled always feeling guilt and shame I never matched up. I recently had CBT and the counsellor said this was my inner child talking to me and raising these feelings. There are lots of videos about healing your inner child. She asked me how o felt at the peak of this and I told her I felt completely lost and desolate. I felt vulnerable and very frightened. She explained to me that there is part of our brain that still remains in a child like state. Even although we juggle all sorts of responsibilities there still that little girl lost. I totally get you xx you can make this better tho by seeking out a good therapist xx

[gettingtired]

I’m sorry to hear you’ve felt the same way @diymum.
Thank you for your comment. It makes sense about the inner child. I will have a search on youtube.
I’m stuck kind of stuck on what kind of therapy I would need as people have suggested a few different options. Xx

[Hawthorn]

I’m not surprised you’re tired, living with that stress all the time is exhausting. I’m sure he’s “happy” enough that you’re home all the time under his thumb. The constant criticism is so wearing though. He doesnt need to be screaming at you to keep chip chip chipping away at you. Making you feel that everything you do is wrong. That you are wrong, and bad and deserve this treatment. You don’t.

He deserves to be alone. If he had treated you with love and respect you would never even have considered leaving him. You cant fix him and changing yourself wont make him happy or change this situation. He doesnt want to be happy, you wants you to feel miserable and small so he can feel like the big man. I know you are well aware of all this but it’s worth repeating.

I know you’re worried it will feel like hell to leave him, but can you believe me when I tell you it will be no worse than the hell you’re going through now?

Move back with your parents, these swirling thoughts about them are telling you it’s the right thing to do. Listen to what your gut is telling you xx

[gettingtired]

Thank you @Hawthorn. You’re right that he doesn’t need to be screaming at me to be chipping away.
I think he almost hasn’t screamed and blown up for a while as he senses that change in me and maybe knows that would be the last straw x

[KIP.]

Nothing you can do will ever be enough for him. He doesn’t want it to be enough. He enjoys moving the goal posts and watching you struggle. I suffered from something labelled as General Anxiety Disorder. Some people are just generally anxious but mine was because I was hiding the abuse and this is how if manifested. When I was out I wanted to be home. When I was home I wanted to be out. Nothing seemed to make me feel settled and safe apart from the times my mind tricked me into believing my ex was my protector. Mind blowing dysfunctional thoughts that are caused by the abuse. Once the abuse is removed from your life, it will all make sense.

[gettingtired]

Thanks kip. This is why NHS talking therapies said it wouldn’t be appropriate treatment because whilst being in an abusive relationship the anxiety won’t improve x

[Scapegoat]

I can resonate with much of what you say getting-tired. I too constantly question is it me? My parents divorced when I was young, my mum remarried and my stepdad tried to touch me inappropriately, used to watch me (detail removed by moderator) when I got there he would be naked masturbating. It took me a long time to pluck the courage up to tell my mum. When I told her, her response was I’d left it so long that she couldn’t really do anything now  (detail removed by moderator) and that’s what blokes are like? Because I don’t give on with him or my dads gf I sometimes wonder is it me.

Anyway I met my oh who I was convinced was utterly in love with me and (detail removed by moderator) later I, still in this toxic hellhole of a marriage as I just can’t take that step.

I don’t go anywhere other than to work ( not now as (detail removed by moderator) from home) and to my (detail removed by moderator), who’s v old and lives on own. I have 20 questions all the time and have to text when I arrive and text when I’m leaving ( because he worries about me😂) I feel a sense of relief when I’m out but then panic sets in and I need to get home to prove I’m not doing anything wrong. It’s pathetic, I know. No matter what I try and read hard, pay the bills, clean the house, cook, sort everything out it is never enough and I am sick of being slagged off and had sarcastic remarks made about me all the time.
Getting to the point now where he actually makes my skin crawl, despite us having great sexual chemistry ( although he will always try to manipulate)
I feel like I’m married to a 3 year old and in all honesty I just cant do it anymore and he knows. But I don’t know how to resolve it and get out.

[gettingtired]

Hello Scapegoat, no it really isn’t you at all! But then I understand why you question that because I do the same. Yet we are able to see other people’s situations clearly and recognise they are abusive.
From what I have been told on this forum we become so programmed and brainwashed in these relationships.
I’m so sorry about what happened to you. A really unhelpful response from your Mother too. I’ve never got on with my Dad’s wife really either.
He sounds extremely controlling. You’re not pathetic whatsoever. We just become so trapped in these relationships.
Please reach out to womens aid or the NDA helpline to start looking at your options. I’ve seen other women on here saying they were given a support worker in some cases. At least if you can see your options you can start to think things through more clearly. I know you’re very busy at work but perhaps on a day off?
I just know how much happier you’d be without him draining the life out of you and treating you so badly!
I wish I would take my own advice (hopefully I will eventually) but I really hope you can reach out for some support as you really deserve it 💞

[Camel]

I was an incredibly anxious child too. I believed I was responsible for my parents’ happiness. I was a good girl. Thoughtful, helpful, didn’t cause trouble or break the rules. Everyone thought I was sensible, strong, older than my years. But inside I was empty. It took many years to accept I had emotionally neglectful parents, my mother in particular. What this means is believing you are only loved for what you do. Love is conditional. You become a shell of a person, a mirror. I had no idea of what I liked or who I was. I didn’t make friends easily. I didn’t think I was likeable. Life was a perpetual search for validation and love, earned only by doing things for others, being the person you think other people want you to be. You spend so much time worrying about soothing others you forget you have needs too. I’m sure this is what pegged me out as a victim for abuse. My needs always came last.

[gettingtired]

Yes I guess it makes us a perfect target to be abused in adulthood.
I have very strong memories from a young age viewing myself as inferior compared to my peers and being very embarrassed/ashamed about everything about me or my home life that made me different.
Yes I can relate to the conditional love and only being loved for what you do as it was hammered in by my Father. I’ll never forget one nasty episode where he aggresively shouted, swore and ranted at me asking me how I was ever going to succeed or go to university because I hadn’t done something he had wanted me to. I’ll never, ever forgive him for it. Even when people point out that these parents usually had the same type of parenting growing up I’m just not really interested. What part of shouting like a madman at your young daughter is ok. I argued back to him but my heart was racing and I was so upset. Maybe I should be more forgiving to let go of the anger I have for him but who knows.
One thing is for sure I don’t think I could ever trust a man who I don’t know fully and personally ever again. I even avoid smiling at men anymore if I walk past them in the street just to be friendly in case they’re wife b*aters at home or nasty abusers. 👀 Not healthy of me I know but look at how many abusers are nice as pie in public and seem like the perfect citizen. I’m afraid they just can’t be trusted x

[Camel]

It’s hard to let go of anger we feel towards our parents. The reality is, though, they’re not aware of how we feel or even that they failed us. The anger only hurts us. Best, if possible, to let it go. Accept they were rubbish and congratulate ourselves on surviving regardless.

I think it’s a shame to tar all men with the same brush. The majority aren’t abusers. And you already know your abuser ‘fully and personally.’ It’s definitely healthy to treat everyone with caution though! 🙂

[Author]

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