Morning, Inf...

My apologies that I'm behind...I am on vacation all next week and it is like cramming for a final today.

I could use a vacation. :O) and some warm weather.

Will you be here at all, or will I have to fend for myself? :O)

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Would you consider something? What if what I say to you, is being blunted by you getting in your own way?

I don't think I even need to. I can believe that w/out even giving it thought.

"I'm so tired, stressed out, cluttered that I forget many of the things we talk about the minute I walk away from here. I need to learn to relax and take life as it comes, choose to supress some of my larger fears and remember to be more accepting of things. When I'm here is when it's easiest for me to live in the now. When I walk away I'm every-which-when but now. "

Our brains are amazing things...only they have no autonomy, are pure pleasing organs, and cannot discern time, reality from fantasy, and listen to each word we tell ourselves intently. Each "I can't" becomes our truths because it only knows what we tell it...doesn't know it isn't being helpful or giving you what you desire. Each time you say, "I'm tired and stressed, I don't want this" then your brain will take that as a request to distract, ease, comfort and like a hurt two-year-old, look over your shoulder and blame everything for MAKING you tired, stressed.

Can't discern time? I do a pretty good job of that. A small talent if you will. I can pretty much guess the time of day and be fairly accurate all the time. It's like I can keep track of it in my head. I'm good at looking at large numbers and memorizing them too. I can take one look at a Social Security number, memorize it and keep it in my head for as long as I want. A day, a week. Can do it w/ all kinds of numbers. I memorize them in patterns or by repetition.

What if our own brains give us fatigue and stress? What if we have said "This really stresses me out" for each emotion...when we are angry, frightened, uncomfortable, judgmental? Wouldn't that be a lot of fatigue and stress being handed to ourselves by ourselves? Yet the brain will see input from outside of itself...because everything is outside of itself...

I wear myself out all the time...

I don't think our brains see even the rest of our bodies as part of it...but separate.

I can believe that to an extent.

Anyway...consider that for awhile, will you? Why you get it and it leaves your head...because you told your brain to stop obsessing on feeling attacked and wrong, it diverts...and at hand, is the image of your attacker, and it gladly hands you enough thoughts and data, through your filters, to obsess on her.

That's just it. WW is in my head constantly. I'm obseesing on her, and everything I think is linked to her in some way. It's that whole trying to see the solution deal I think? I don't know. All of this is pretty complex. I've got a headache today. Been getting those alot lately.

A kinetic mindset, maybe? One leads to another to another into those 20k things. Want to try some mind exercises?

Possibly. It's that whole feeling detached from the rest of the world deal. Focusing on myself is easy. Actually focusing on others and seeing things from their perspective doesn't come natural to me.

I think the tinitus may be part of my problem. I never hear quiet. Constant noise, constant distraction. Even when I don't notice it. I get small headaches alot more often since it first started. I could be wrong.

Writing my thoughts down would be easier than trying to keep them all sorted in my head, unless that's the point of the excercise.

Sit in a quiet room, or before you fall asleep, make a broad yellow line, like a starting line in your head. That will lead you to your next thought and your next one, after the third one, stop. Think of what led you to your last thought, then the thought before that, and back one more and remember the broad yellow line.

When you successfully remember three thoughts backwards, go forward again...make another yellow line...or, if it felt too easy, have your fourth thought, 5th, 6th...stop when you want. Then go backwards, thinking the last thought, and how it was led from the previous one, all the way back to the beginning.

What, you think you only exercise your choice and muscles?

I'm good at puzzles... putting things together. I like LEGO's. Taking pieces of things and working step by step toward an outcome. To be honest, I don't even want to think about this anymore. I don't remember the last time I got a good nights sleep.

Sometimes it feels like I've got this "block". Something in my head that is like a weight... messes w/ my thinking. Small headaches I supoose. Stress maybe. It's like taking everything WW has told me so far and trying to piece it all together... Not happening because it's all over the place and full of inaccuracies.

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I did this a lot as a little kid, bad insomnia, and along with holding my breath, studying numbers on the clock and playing with marbles, it came in handing in listening, following people's logic, listening well enough to hear where one of their thoughts lead to the next one and then regrouping them to get back to the tangent marker.

I'm terrible at listening. Terrible. Horrendous.It's because I am so good at tuning out the outside world and doit so often that I sometimes don't even notice that it's happening.

Video games cure my insomnia. If I can't sleep, I play an RPG and it usually puts me right to sleep.

I'll have to try this... maybe tonight. We'll see how it goes. I hate yellow though. I'd rather orange. Seems like drawing a line in my head would serve as a distraction.

You seem to be a bit more intellectual than myself. Able to process more information at any given moment than I am capable of. ?

Anyway, it is helpful. Does not stop obsessive thinking, but it sure teaches your brain that you will, at any juncture, call upon it for a rewind...I think it makes it record differently, I dunno.

Gave me a bit of self-worth in the process. Not out of control...and if the broad yellow line lays in your mind limp, because you're secondary visual, then make it vibrate or wave.

that would definitely be a distraction.

I'm primarily an orderly person w/ a strong attraction to chaos.

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You can do this...I have no doubt. Until you get where "I accept the way I am" out of the way...because you're not; you're accepting what you can't control within yourself, within your control...then you will not stop your belief you control others better.

This would be so much easier if I weren't around WW. She is a huge distraction for me. I keep choosing to focus on her more than anything else. I'm a problem solver. Puzzles, etc... this is a huge problem for me. A big puzzle. Making this work is the solution to this puzzle of mine. The pieces are spinning around in my head. I keep trying to see the solution rather than starting to piece them together. This is a way to look at it for me that might work. Look at it as a puzzle. One that I have to build up in order to get a solution, rather than seeing the solution and building from that image.

"Biting my nails, spinning my wedding ring, pulling my beard. Walking. Playing w/ things in my pocket. Stress balls have the opposite effect on me." Biting your nails is removing something from your body...perfecting and fixing and a touch of emtoional cutting involved. Spinning your wedding ring is just a fidget, circular, trapped. Tugging your beard goes with the nails...alignment, feeling for errors, mistakes, strays out of control. Stress balls are pushing down, building up, clinching and unclenching, and I think, like spinning your wedding ring.

You will automatically discount what I say in all ways, Inf, because you fear. A tumbled stone, smooth and glassy, a rubbing motion, is not circular and does not remove or align. It requires nothing from you...can't smooth smooth more, can you? It becomes, if you CHOOSE, a symbol of something there for YOU, not the other way around. Pocket perfection...and if you find yourself smoothing out a tiny chink or cut...then use that as awareness you are fixing in your thoughts, perfecting, protecting...something which requires none of those things from you. Ever. At all. It is just there, as is, for you; will take your pressure, your fidgets, your worry, stress, convolutions and it will stay smooth. All of you will not warp or change it; shine no more brightly or crack or break down, from you, your attention, touch or influence.

Rubbing for me is a symbol of comfort. Maybe a stone is the wrong thing to use. Maybe something fuzzy would work better for me. I don't like smooth, hard and cold. Metal, stone, etc... uncomfortable.

So, it's all about perception? Is that what you're saying? That rubbing is a release only if I choose it to be?

I need to relax. Stop and enjoy life. Take the time to think about it once in a while. I hate this job sometimes. never ending workload, little sense of accomplishment, constant stress, constant challenge. I need a job I enjoy. Gotta get my butt back to school.

It is.

More work...will sneak in when I can.

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I may have a difficult time w/ the whole mind excericse deal. I'm extremely visual. It's easier for me to think when I can see things in front of me, rather than take information in my head and process it. I have a hard time w/ doing Math in my head for example. Even simple problems. I'll give it a go.

LA

Vacation was wonderful...first time to Lake Tahoe and it is worth the trip. Back at work...tons to do.

Good to hear. Cayuga Lak is my personal fave.

Great idea on the gum chewing...I know you can find your own way.

I thought so. It's simple enough and something I never really thought about. I start chewing every time I think I'm going to have a "moment". I've gone through 2 packs since Saturday, but it's been worth it. Taking the last week off from this place has actually been a benefit oddly enough. I've had time to digest things, work on that letter, the journal and concentrate on work. I think I can do this. I still make mistakes here and there, but I'm cool w/ it as long as I get something out of it when I do it.

I noticed that in neither post was anything about WW's mindset, her thoughts...more focus on you and what you're doing.

I've been doing alot of thinking. Instead of freaking out about every little thing she's doing, I'm focusing more on myself. The gum chewing is helping. She had some things to say over the weekend that I could take as disheartening, but I'm taking one day at a time and waiting to see where things go. This is one of the only major steps I've taken, but I've got to start somewhere.

DD's attitude is greatly fluctuating. She knows soemthing is going on, and every time WW and I go to a seperate room to talk (regardless of the topic of discussion) DD starts getting angry, slamming her door, throwing toys and/or saying things like we hate her. I've tried talking to her several times to little avail. She and I still spend a considerable amount of time together. Something I don't intend to change.

That's progress.

Thanx. I thought so. I still find myself occasionally "anticipating the inevitable", but it only lasts for a short time.

Was the argument with your Mom over not going to counseling? I forget why you weren't going to call the Harleys for counseling...I think you mentioned something and I didn't respond to that...just calling them for counseling might help.

No. My Mom and i got into it because she believes in alot of the things you and i have discussed here, but is po'ed at WW to the 10,000 degree and thinks I should say screw WW, move back home, get a life, get custody and move on.
My response was that I'm doing what I'm doing for me, that I need to change some things and am doing my best to make those changes even it's only one step at a time. We both said what we needed to say, left it at that and had a good holiday weekend.


LA

Why are you measuring her love for you? I forgot why you do that. You've been worried and LB'd...now you're worried and not Lbing...is that correct?

I don't always do it. It's been rare lately. Seems I do it when I'm trying to predict the future. Using how I think she feels about me now as a gauge to determine an outcome that may not come to pass. Most times I stop myself before even thinking about what could happen, not all the time though. Other times I gauge it to get my hopes up now and again too.

I was writing from feeling yesterday. I noticed that even though my actions have changed, my writing hasn't? Maybe I should start gum chewing while I'm writing... Odd.

Yeah, I'm worrying and rarely LB'ing. Feeling my through it seems to give me a sense of futility. Thank Heaven for gum chewing. Thinking comes so much easier.

I've been doing the whole physical/;mental excercise thing still. Neither seems to really benefit me so much as the gum chewing has. I'm going to keep them up for another couple weeks, and if they don't start having some sort of effect I might say enough is enough. I'm going to keep Wrigley's in business for years to come. :O) I still can't sleep. It's starting to not bother me as much. I'm a little cranky now and again, but not noticably so.

Got to sleep at 2am last night. Had a dream that WW got angry at a family gathering, took off and slept w/ OM just to spite me. I woke up at about 4am from the thought of it and have been up since. This morning was slightly crappy after the fact, but I stopped dwelling on it.

My 10 year class reunion is coming up in June. I'm not sure I'm going to go. It'll depend on a few things...

WW is thinking about applying for an opening at a bank, which means more discussions on my moving out and possibly coming to that conclusion sooner than later. I don't know.


How is your DD doing?

She is ok. I've been spending alot of quality time w/ her lately. Despite that, DD made a comment to WW yesterday about noone wanting to spend time w/ her anymore. It was after i took 10 minutes to relax when I came home from work last night. The three of us sat down and played UNO until dinner last night. WW fell asleep on the couch aftetr that and I got DD in the shower and to bed.

WW made a comment the other day that blew my mind. She said that she knows she could be a better mother to DD by not being miserable all the time if I were to move out and give her space.

Wow.

I didn't even know where to begin, that statement was so messed up. So I didn't. I left it right alone.

I'm going to try and take DD out for a ride on her new bike tonight after work.

LA

I had a funny thought...funny to me (that's a warning)...about Wrigley's, stock and a new slogan...

Chewing rubber...like putting a condom on your words. There's protection and you get a great jaw.

<:O) It works...

Where's the hopper for your head when your WW DJs to you? Instead of leaving it, repeat it..."I hear you saying that you believe I am in the way of your choice to be a better mother?"

I ususally don't reply at all if I'm not sure how to repeat things back to her. I've actually started doing repeating things when I remember to or know what to say and have it come out right. It helps sometimes, others it makes her mad and then we get back to normal discussion.

"Good to know."

That's leaving it, but not ignoring it. Important difference. Also note...this was an intimate thought she shared...twisted, convoluted and a sign how she is still thinking nowadays. Do your part. You can't cure her, but you can clarify.

I'm not looking to the future. The way things are gojn though it just seems like it's getting worse w/ no sign of hope. I'll worry about it when it gets here though.

Yeah, DD is having a hard time...truth is what she wants...but she'll take time instead, because that's the only thing she knows how to ask for.

Things is she and I both are kind of wondering how much time we really have. My Mom took the liberty of telling her that WW is moving me out of the house so she can move OM in. I need to have a serious talk w/ my Mom.

How's her own picture journal coming? Need magazines?

We haven't been doing the picture journal idea, but we sit and look at photograph albums and/or talk about life in general as of recent.

WW blew up at me in the car this morning. Said that noone that loves someone does the things I did and said that she is tired of doing things to please people and is starting to not care about my feelings. She said she's going to do whatever w/ whomever and has just as much right to be happy as everyone else around her that is telling her what she is doing is wrong. She said that I should have wound up w/ OW and her two kids and that is what I would have desreved. I told her the other day that I found out that OW had been seeing someone while we were talking and was w/ child during that time. I made it a point to let her know that I had no feelings for OW other than friendship and a need to talk to someone outside the situation. She still doesn't and may never understand, accept, or forgive what I did. W/out that, I'm not sure she'll ever love me the same? A thought. I don't know.

LA

Why you won't win the war...

And will keep repeating your patterns:

"She said that I should have wound up w/ OW and her two kids and that is what I would have desreved." Then, instead of validating her pain and fear...stated in her wish to be missed, your best friend and feeling replaced...

you, instead, chose to validate yourself.

Your both are textbook...I read you everywhere. Shame is, only you can stop this dance.

When you said you only wanted friendship...you are saying you threw her away for a friend...and you would for someone outside the relationship, even a cheater, and call her better than your wife.

That's all she heard...and you won't look how devastating those words feel like in resentment filled ears. She's as desperate as you are to be with someone safe, accepting, separate, equal and respectful.

You could be that person...you were that person a long time ago. Before you two merged.

I shudder at the idea of you both loving each other the same again. Having to go through all this time and time again.


Just a thought.

I'm so mixed up anymore. Seems the more progress I make, the worse I feel. I think you've done all you can for me for now. I'm either going to do this or I'm not. After tomorrow I'm probably not going to come back here for a while, if at all unless something changes.


Thanx for everything. I would have made things worse than they are now if you hadn't helped me out. You don't know how much it means to me. I hope everything goes well for you in the meantime. Thanx again.

I'm happy w/ the real me, and know I'll be ok no matter what. I'm scared and and can't understand why I refuse to do anything about it, even though it's tearing me apart not to. It's going to cost me dearly before this is done.

Pray for me.




LA

I'm praying for you, will keep you in my thoughts in your absence, and urge you again, to find IC and stick with it.

You fear your own power...and it's a false fear, Inf...you are as capable, amazingly made, beloved and whole as I am. You have been since your creation and you will be long after death.

I pray you'll really know that someday.

Thanx. :O)

This may sound like I'm fooling myself, or that I don't know what I'm talking about, but in the back of my mind I know you're right. 100%. Yet, I continue to drive myself nuts out of fear. Fear of losing the two loves of my life. I don't understand why I continue to do this, as the answers are so simple and are there right in front of me. I really don't get it. I'm sick of torturing myself like this and dying to stop, yet I press onward as though my life depends on it. It's insanity. It's misery. I really don't understand it.

I may be back here sooner than I expect to be. I don't know. I think I need to sort some things out in my head before I try to take this any further. If you've got any last minute advice for me, give it to me before 5pm. I'm all ears. :O)



LA