Lived Experience Forum

[Former-Member]

So much of what is being described here resonates with me @Wanderer, @Faith-and-Hope and @frog have described situations all with similarities to what I went through for years as well. 

So much emotion, time, effort, energy, hopes, dreams, actions, plans and finances invested in keeping everyone and everything together. In the end, it was all wasted when things slipped sideways anyway. Interference by others whose ways of life are different from your own can be disastrous to the stability of a family in crisis.

Most days I'm still not sorry I put in the amount of effort I did and put my life on hold to keep theirs together. Some days the pain and loss of every dream that fell kicking and screaming to the floor, and the isolation that followed because of the need to keep kiddies and self safe overwhelms me. 

I'm building a new life though, different from anything previously imagined, so all is not lost, just transformed into something different. 

I hope you can find a way to meander that path between being true to your well considered commitments and true to your own self so your future isn't something that smacks you upside the head when the foundations fail like it did with me. 

A really nice lady once told me that I could only do the best I could with the knowledge and ability I had at the time. I liked that, because I always researched potential courses of action so I could make better and more informed decisions. It made me feel less of a failure.

You sound like a person who knows how to reach out, how to research alternatives and who is not afraid to try different approaches, so you have a great deal going for you even amidst the myriad difficulties you are all experiencing. 

You can do this, even if it doesn't seem like it now, you can do this! 

[Faith-and-Hope]

❤️ @Former-Member ......

[Wanderer]

X

[soul]

@Wanderer and others who are feeling or who have felt that way. It's so hard when you are rejected by the people who are important to you and you thought had your back. I hope things improve for you. It can be a very lonely and empty existence.

Do try to keep the lines of communication open. When they fail, it's really hard to make progress.

[Faith-and-Hope]

The “just friends” viewpoint seems to be helping @soul ..... 

The eating disorder is like a third person in our relationship, s9 this has kinda turned it into a house-sharing situation ..... we are co-existing with the e.d. as a family because we can’t “out” it and mr. f&h has no insight into it ..... so it is a way of dealing with the limbo while we await a change of trajectory.

Keeping him as settled as possible has reduced the distorted thinking that was making things a bit scary, and if we can quietly get on with making our own lives work, it is reducing his need to control us.  That in turn is reducing animosity and acronimity.

There is also no pressure to try to hold up empty and unrealistic notions of romance .... but it does keep the path open to reinstating a marriage relationship if / when he gets diagnosed and treated, and we can be supported to recover as a family.

[Faith-and-Hope]

Very familiar @Wanderer ......

So glad you have got to talking at this level with each other.  It sounds like real progress.

Someimes people have to realise that they are losing everything on the trajectory they are one before they understand they need to relinquish something to be able to hold onto something else .....

Its a very hard road.  You are clearly highly empathetic, and the rules of nature appear to be that empathy tend to attract their opposite, or perhaps it’s actually the other way around .... those without much empathy recognise in us someone who will naturally provide a high level of care towards them, but they are unable to reciprocate easily .... although it can be taught if they recognise on an intellectuallevel what is happening and what they need to do to help balance things out, because the relationships are dysfunctional otherwise.

Good for you ❣️

[Faith-and-Hope]

Yep, a rollercoaster it is .....

Safe travels @Wanderer

[Faith-and-Hope]

Things are sounding more positive @Wanderer ..... 👍

Morning ..... 👋☕️💕

[Appleblossom]

Glad things are looking up. @Wanderer Thought you might see the humour in this painting of broken      down skeletons sharing the hearth.  (by Ensor)

 

[Faith-and-Hope]

Enjoy your day @Wanderer .....