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Post by callisto on Oct 31, 2016 6:10:32 GMT -5
I am currently considering Baz's description of 'fighting the emotional dog' -treating emotion as a separate entity to wrestle with amidst the amalgam of issues in planning an escape from SM.
I wonder if there is another related creature- the loyal, 'best friend canine' who sticks with it's master no matter how it has been treated.. Hoping envisaging these two beasts may help me mentally extricate my way towards the door.
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Post by Caris on Oct 31, 2016 8:46:29 GMT -5
I didn't see what Baz said, but how can you separate emotion from this? After all, emotions are part of why you want to leave. Frustrated, unhappy, sad, annoyed, angry, mentally and emotionally tired from the effort. If we didn't feel anything, we wouldn't want to leave in the first place.
Then there is grief at leaving what you have invested years of your life, in something that ultimately failed that you wanted so much to succeed.
I was so emotionally devastated and depressed that I became "paralyzed" to do anything, so maybe that is what Baz means. I let things linger for the last 3-years or so, even when we both knew it was over, and there was no going back as a couple. The transformation from being an energy depleted zombie who could hardly get out of the chair to someone who (once I had to because there was no choice) was filled with physical and mental energy to pack up a large home, arrange for all one has to arrange with a major move and move across the country, and do it all by myself...well I still don't know how I did that, but I did. I was like the energizer bunny for a month, then collapsed (literally) for a few days, after it was all done. I guess I was running on adrenalin, and once it was over, I dropped like a rag doll.
I think it's a mind set of stoicism and determination once there is no other choice. You HAVE to do it, so you DO it. If the choice of leaving hadn't been taken out of my hands, I think I'd still be there...or dead...so in this sense, even though it was a very painful experience, my stronger emotions were put on hold, and that energy channeled into action to get me out of there.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 31, 2016 9:54:46 GMT -5
The cruel irony of divorce is that at this time when you need as much energy as possible to get through what may be the most difficult thing you ever go through, you feel utterly depleted because, well because it's possibly the most difficult thing you ever went through.
People handle their emotions in different ways, stuffing them down, observing them in a detached way, compartmentalizing them, numbing them, whatever, but they're there. And it's likely they are telling you you can't do this. You feel overwhelmed like you're trying to ride a canoe against a tidal wave.
Here is where you have to trust in a basic fact of human nature: there's more if you dig deeper. Everyone has their breaking point, but it's a lot farther from here than you think. If you do whatever you do to keep your emotions from lying to you, and you take one step at a time so as to feel less overwhelmed, you will indeed look back from the other side and say how the hell did I do that?
We are a resilient species. We have the ability to push ourselves farther than we think we can go. The things people survive would make you shudder. And I would guess many if not most people who have been through big events would say on the other side that they don't know how they did it. But they did.
The difference between divorce and, say, a stint in the gulag or a catastrophic illness is that you don't have you go through with it. You can't make prison doors open or get back ruined parts of your body. But you can make divorce go away. It never has to happen. You can avoid this. But thinking you can't do it would be a tragic reason to reman in painful circumstances.
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Post by GeekGoddess on Oct 31, 2016 10:46:26 GMT -5
I often feel like an oddball because my divorce wasn't the hardest thing I ever lived through. It pained me but not as much as the deaths of my siblings.
Sister died when I was too young to know what I needed or how to ask for help. Brother died when I had just surpassed that sisters age at her death. Brother dying literally made me think I might break open at the sternum & pass on from a heart attack myself. The fact that it was my new husband who told me the news OVER THE PHONE instead of driving 5 minutes to tell me in person added tremendous pain (& also clear messages of who I could rely on for emotional support - these messages proved true through the rest of the 17-year marriage).
Ending my marriage was hard. It was painful to see what pain my decision caused him. But it wasn't actually the hardest thing yet. For that, I guess I am grateful in a way. Because it doesn't seem common.
On a scale of stressors, divorce is right near the top. For me, it was really the 2nd, 3rd or maybe even 4th most difficult change in my life (getting sober is right up there for me - so that may "tie" with divorce as most difficult & most rewarding).
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Post by callisto on Oct 31, 2016 11:50:28 GMT -5
Sorry,
Didn't mean to misquote Baz's 'emotional dog' or take his phrase out of context ( I don't know where I saw it on the forum).
The point I was (probably badly making) was that one must try to wrangle emotions away in order to make 'objective' decisions..
Personally speaking I will never be able to leave my husband if I don't manage to separate my conflicting emotions from facts.-If I don't try to section my emotions I will stay in my marriage because of love, loyalty and faithfulness rather than get out due to the bald, fact that I will be celibate forever.
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Post by callisto on Oct 31, 2016 12:08:23 GMT -5
..how can you separate emotion from this? After all, emotions are part of why you want to leave. Frustrated, unhappy, sad, annoyed, angry, mentally and emotionally tired from the effort. If we didn't feel anything, we wouldn't want to leave in the first place.
Then there is grief at leaving what you have invested years of your life, in something that ultimately failed that you wanted so much to succeed.
I was so emotionally devastated and depressed that I became "paralyzed" to do anything...
Couldn't agree more with you Caris..
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Post by becca on Oct 31, 2016 13:55:06 GMT -5
The cruel irony of divorce is that at this time when you need as much energy as possible to get through what may be the most difficult thing you ever go through, you feel utterly depleted because, well because it's possibly the most difficult thing you ever went through. People handle their emotions in different ways, stuffing them down, observing them in a detached way, compartmentalizing them, numbing them, whatever, but they're there. And it's likely they are telling you you can't do this. You feel overwhelmed like you're trying to ride a canoe against a tidal wave. Here is where you have to trust in a basic fact of human nature: there's more if you dig deeper. Everyone has their breaking point, but it's a lot farther from here than you think. If you do whatever you do to keep your emotions from lying to you, and you take one step at a time so as to feel less overwhelmed, you will indeed look back from the other side and say how the hell did I do that? We are a resilient species. We have the ability to push ourselves farther than we think we can go. The things people survive would make you shudder. And I would guess many if not most people who have been through big events would say on the other side that they don't know how they did it. But they did. The difference between divorce and, say, a stint in the gulag or a catastrophic illness is that you don't have you go through with it. You can't make prison doors open or get back ruined parts of your body. But you can make divorce go away. It never has to happen. You can avoid this. But thinking you can't do it would be a tragic reason to reman in painful circumstances. Thank you for this @phinheasgage. I personally needed to hear every single word. I am struggling and all of this rings so true. I just need to put it on repeat. |
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Post by becca on Oct 31, 2016 13:59:12 GMT -5
..how can you separate emotion from this? After all, emotions are part of why you want to leave. Frustrated, unhappy, sad, annoyed, angry, mentally and emotionally tired from the effort. If we didn't feel anything, we wouldn't want to leave in the first place. Then there is grief at leaving what you have invested years of your life, in something that ultimately failed that you wanted so much to succeed. I was so emotionally devastated and depressed that I became "paralyzed" to do anything... Couldn't agree more with you Caris.. I feel your pain, callisto. I know exactly how you feel. I think it helps to find someone that is objective, like those on this forum or close friends and family. It is near impossible to remove the emotion completely from the decision making but having people that can see beyond the fog and to the other side, even if you can't, is helpful. |
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Post by callisto on Oct 31, 2016 15:31:27 GMT -5
Thanks Becca,
I've discovered friends and family are the least objective and just add to my stomach/brain-ache!
Trying a psychotherapist for first time.. will see how that goes ..
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Post by Caris on Oct 31, 2016 17:57:19 GMT -5
The cruel irony of divorce is that at this time when you need as much energy as possible to get through what may be the most difficult thing you ever go through, you feel utterly depleted because, well because it's possibly the most difficult thing you ever went through. People handle their emotions in different ways, stuffing them down, observing them in a detached way, compartmentalizing them, numbing them, whatever, but they're there. And it's likely they are telling you you can't do this. You feel overwhelmed like you're trying to ride a canoe against a tidal wave. Here is where you have to trust in a basic fact of human nature: there's more if you dig deeper. Everyone has their breaking point, but it's a lot farther from here than you think. If you do whatever you do to keep your emotions from lying to you, and you take one step at a time so as to feel less overwhelmed, you will indeed look back from the other side and say how the hell did I do that? We are a resilient species. We have the ability to push ourselves farther than we think we can go. The things people survive would make you shudder. And I would guess many if not most people who have been through big events would say on the other side that they don't know how they did it. But they did. The difference between divorce and, say, a stint in the gulag or a catastrophic illness is that you don't have you go through with it. You can't make prison doors open or get back ruined parts of your body. But you can make divorce go away. It never has to happen. You can avoid this. But thinking you can't do it would be a tragic reason to reman in painful circumstances. I relate to everything you said, Phin. This is how it was for me. I didn't know how I was going to do it because I was severely depressed and depleted of energy. I'd had a complete breakdown, so even thinking was hard. I took a pen and paper, and wrote down a list of only the first thing I had to do...call a place I knew about, to see if they would buy most of my furniture (my new place was too small to take it with me). Just like you said, I did one thing at a time because the thought of everything to be done was overwhelming, and as I accomplished one thing, I'd start on another, and I think the actual doing and accomplishing created energy and the mindset to keep going, one task at a time, which I'd write down and accomplish in baby steps. You have to draw on an inner strength you don't know is there until you absolutely must have it. |
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Post by Caris on Oct 31, 2016 18:12:28 GMT -5
Sorry, Didn't mean to misquote Baz's 'emotional dog' or take his phrase out of context ( I don't know where I saw it on the forum). The point I was (probably badly making) was that one must try to wrangle emotions away in order to make 'objective' decisions.. Personally speaking I will never be able to leave my husband if I don't manage to separate my conflicting emotions from facts.-If I don't try to section my emotions I will stay in my marriage because of love, loyalty and faithfulness rather than get out due to the bald, fact that I will be celibate forever. Callisto, I was the same way. Even today, I'm loyal to him and everyone I care about. I think it's the way we are wired in our personality. I called it the"puppy dog" syndrome. It's hard to break, but it can be done, if there is enough of an impetus to do so. |
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Post by baza on Oct 31, 2016 18:21:14 GMT -5
This might be the post that prompted Sister Callista's post.
It was in the "Advice" thread, and it said -
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Here's an example of paring things back to the facts and letting the emotional air out of the balloon.
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First, the chicks summary of the situation in her own words -
"The choice I have in front of me is this: Spend the rest of my life with the love of my life, but childless and sexless, or spend the rest of my life without the love of my life, which feels like dying (even though I know it isn’t)"
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Suggested revision
"The choice I have in front of me is this: Spend the foreseeable future with this bloke childless and sexless, or spend the foreseeable future without this bloke"
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To me, if you take the emotive words out of the statement, it all looks so much clearer.
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In our common situations, we DO have an emotional dog in the fight, and that influences us, unsurprisingly.
But, IF you can take an objective view of the facts, the picture invariably looks clearer.
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It is VERY difficult to take an unemotional and objective view of ones own situation, but it is imperative that you at least try to do so.
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The principle involved is this.
You chop out all the emotive words like "the love of my life" and insert something more realistic like "this bloke". And the "which feels like dying (even though I know it isn't)" you chop out altogether.
You chop out the absolute words like "the rest of my life" and insert something more realistic like "the foreseeable future".
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What remains, are the facts.
In the above example it boils down to a woman who has aspirations of a marital situation including sex and breeding, but a bloke who can't deliver up those things.
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Emotive words and absolute words are NOT your friends in these situations.
The more you can avoid them, the better.
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If you can base your choices on the facts, then you are some chance of making a fully informed choice.
But if you base your choices on emotions and absolute thinking, you have very little chance of making a fully informed choice.
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In our common situations the waters are usually muddy enough already.
Adding in emotive and absolute thinking serves only to make the picture murkier.
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Post by JonDoe on Oct 31, 2016 18:25:28 GMT -5
The fact that it was my new husband who told me the news OVER THE PHONE instead of driving 5 minutes to tell me in person added tremendous pain... Wow! Just wow! Rendered speechless! He definitely didn't have the right tools in the toolbox! |
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Post by callisto on Oct 31, 2016 19:04:20 GMT -5
Thanks Baz for reposting.. Extremely useful considerations of how to extract emotional hot air .. Think I could probably fuel a sky full of balloons complete with baskets and sand bags using the pathos that suffuses my brain!
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Post by baza on Oct 31, 2016 19:20:50 GMT -5
A while back, I saw this report on the news where some bloke had affixed thousands of helium balloons on to a deck chair and took off.
His proposed descent method was an air rifle where he would ping a slug or two into the balloons progressively.
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What you might take out of this, is that he shot and burst the balloons in a fairly methodical manner and thus had a sort of controlled descent.
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He did NOT take a pump action shotty up with him and blast the shit out of all the balloons at once.
Had he adopted the pump action shotty method, I am sure that as a descent strategy, it would have worked. Spectacularly and fatally I should imagine !!!!
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Best to pick off the balloons one at a time.
A much more likely strategy to produce a landing with at least some measure of control.
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