So far, everything is ok. I rarely see or talk to NM, and I'm happy this way. I wonder how long I can go on like this before the sh*tstorm comes. Anyway, I'm calmer, happier and more content in general. It feels good. I'm still constantly looking over my shoulders in anticipation of something coming from my FOO's direction.
I'm starting to realize, that my life has never been calm at all. I had always lived with trying to survive turbulent emotions, either on one extreme or the other: Heaven or Hell. It was a constant mixture of yearning for the unreachable, waiting for another thrill-dose of a few hours spent with an unavailable love interest, then forcing myself to show no emotions at all when I got home to my FOO. Then withstanding another hell-on-earth session with NM while forcing myself not to show any emotions. Then spending the rest of the night doing anything that helped me avoiding killing myself. Either drinking, smoking, music, reading, computer. Then waking up crying from horrible nightmares, and realizing that they were still better than my life.
I don't know what to do with calm. I have my tools for surviving the extremes. I know how to survive hatred, unacceptance, accusations, gaslighting, emotional blackmail, threats. I know how to survive being unloved, rejected, tossed aside. I know how to survive being engulfed. I know how to survive being the third one in a relationship; being in a relationship where I am constantly cheated on; living with a full-blown narc spouse; falling madly in love with people whom I not in a relationship with, while having someone waiting for me at home.
Normal. Ordinary. Calm. What the hell am I supposed to do with this?
I have never done drugs thanks God, but I feel like as if I was constantly in need of my daily fix. That is, the emotional rollercoaster. I constantly feel the urge to do something insane, to wreak havoc on my own life, to keep others falling in love with me, to deal with my art projects until dawn, to stay out until dawn, to party, to talk to people and change the world, to be bad.
And if I don't keep myself constantly on very strong and conflicting emotions, I feel like I'm exploding, or falling apart.
For so long, I wanted nothing else but to have a calm, ordinary, normal life, with someone who loves me and whom I love, to go home and cook lunch, to do happy things together, to get married, have children, and live happily ever after.
Now, I don't have a freaking clue.
The only time I really feel alive is when I'm extremely energetic, full with life, madly in love with DB, while also madly in love with at least one someone else, severely depressed, feel completely alone, and extremely tired. All at the same time.
Scatha - I left the following comment on Jessie's blog - and it maybe applies to you too:
ReplyDelete"Sometimes I think it's the empty spaces left after you remove the narcs. After you remove ALL of them, when you find out just how many there really are - there are SO MANY holes of emptiness left. We never learned how to fill those spots with good, positive productive things - we only knew to be the servants of the narcs. How to fill our lives and our time with panic and disorder and self doubt.
Now what? indeed.
There isn't any easy answer. The only way is to be still. To wait until the emptiness eventually fills up with your regular, wonderful, mundane life. Those spots will fill up with new GOOD people, with soccer practice or gardens or bike rides in the sun. They fill slowly, but the DO FILL UP.
The impulse to go back, to have drama because it's all we've ever known, that is such a STRONG impulse, isn't it? To sit with peace is odd. It's an unfamiliar shape. It's a new pair of jeans instead of sweat pants. We have to get used to the SHAPE and FEEL of peace. The lack of noise, the lack of EMERGENCY! URGENT! RUSH! that was always there.
Be still. Pet yourself. Explore that weird empty shape, like you would do with your tongue when you would lose a tooth - remember? Remember the weird feeling, the wonder, the not being able to leave it alone? And then, one day, meh. What hole?
It will happen. It WILL happen. I promise."
The urge to create noise for the sake of feeling SOMETHING - wasn't there a song "I bleed just to know I'm alive" - it really IS hard to live with the quiet. It's SO LOUD.
I'm on the downhill run from that. I just wrote about it too - it must be the moon, we are all feeling the lack of drama right now...
P.S - also - a 'quiet life' is BORING compared to the drama of what you're used to. It can seem overwhelmingly dull and dreary and BORING after all of that STORM! OF! FEELINGS! I spent a lifetime dating unavailable men because dating a normal everyday guy just seemed so passionless... dating married men *GASP* was fun and exciting and they NEEDED me and I was everything they didn't have at home! But, they always went home...?
ReplyDeleteI can also tell you that a quiet life stops seeming boring once you get used to the quiet. It gives you a lot of space to hear yourself. A quiet love is as vast as the Kansas prairie - it just took me a while to appreciate the quiet breeze of it, rather than the roaring hurricane of the other. I have learned to love my quiet life.
But that's just the thing - I had to learn. It's a process, that's for sure.
Sometimes I think that too. Like, here I've been wanting this normal life and I want to enjoy it and my kids and all of it. But it can be so boring.
DeleteI suppose that every soldiers find everyday life boring too after living in a war zone. Like them, we just need to adjust.
I'm right there with you Scatha!
I remember how often I would think, "Don't be nice to me. I don't know how to handle nice." Gradually, with a lot of practice, I'm learning to handle nice. I frequently have to remind myself what I really want and that it takes practice.
ReplyDeleteWhen the calm finally happened I discovered that I have more energy to explore the world around me. I not scrambling to stay alive, I am learning to live. By the way, I really like it.
ReplyDelete