New Journal, New Journey

We had a bit of a rough morning today, I got home from work and had a shower, then I crawled into bed and spooned Lovebug, I guess after I fell asleep I rolled onto my back and wasn't touching her anymore. When she woke up she was really sad that I wasn't cuddling her and it made her feel really crappy. I tried to say I was sorry that I laid down when I fell asleep, but with the emotional damage I've caused I completely understand why she was upset, and I wish I had kept myself awake for that hour and held her tight. We had some sad talks after she got home from work, but when I got home from walking the dogs she was feeling a little better and we snuggled some more.

I have to get to work, I'll write a more detailed journal tomorrow

 

I feel really awful for the things I've put my SO through. After this last time I lied to her, it's brought up all of the bad things I've done to the forefront of her mind and it's really been bothering her. I will keep working hard to change the way I am and how my mind works, I will be open and honest with her about everything and learn to get past my selfish tendancy to keep things from her.

I wish I could go back and explain to myself how damaging everything I was doing is to the world, and myself, and my relationship. I feel like such a fool for all of it

 

I sometimes feel like there is absolutely nothing in life that I can get right. I go through all of these troubles with my SO, and then these things keep happening that just set us back over and over.

I guess my EA report must have come out today, and I wasn't doing anything questionable, wasn't looking at anything I should not have been. What it showed was that I'd watched a few YouTube videos before going to bed, no P-subs or anything, just some random Videos. Back a year or so ago, and before that, I used to spend a hell of a lot of time watching stuff on YouTube, it was a definite problem for me, I spent far too much time on the internet and I know it. When we set our boundaries I said I would distance myself from the internet, we both have up all social media and I stopped using YouTube as a source of constant diatraction.

This revelation of my recent video viewing, combined with my lying and hiding things from her and ruining any trust I had built back up has caused it to seem like I have no integrity at all, that I will just always go back on my word and that I'm not able to follow through with something.

There have been a couple of websites that Lovebug has pointed out to me that she is uncomfortable with me seeing things from, as they have P-related content of some sort that I was unaware of and have not gone looking for. One of the sites happened to be a common news source on my Google news feed (watchmojo) and I have not been able to figure out how to block it so that it dows not ever come up. This has come up a couple of times with Lovebug asking me why I was looking at stuff from this site, I have not been aware of it happening at the times that it's come up. But her having to ask me more than once is not at all alright, so I've gotten rid of Google news so that this risky source does not come up again.

I don't want to always be a problem in my relationship, I want her to be able to just be happy and for us both to live together peacefully. I'm the only one who can change the way I operate, which is why I am doing so daily. I feel awful for making my Lovebug feel the way she does, I just want to go upstairs and hold her right now but she's very upset with me and does not want me to bother her while she tries to sleep.

 

Last week I had an apooiappoint with a new therapist, and the night before on the way to work Lovebug asked me if I thought she was good looking if I'd stop going to see this therapist, I said that yes I would. That night on my lunch break I looked up the website of the therapy office I was going to the next day, and they had photos of the therapists on the site. I saw a picture of the person I was scheduled with and thought she was a conventionally good looking person, so I thought I should cancel. The next morning while Lovebug was at work and we were already texting about another stupid thing I'd done (watching YouTube when I said I wouldn't) I told her that I don't think I should go see this new therapist because I thought she was good looking. She asked me what I found good looking about her, she asked if I found her hair and makeup appealing. This line of questioning threw me into an hour long tangent about how I felt about Lovebug and how I love the way she looks more that anything else, which is the absolute truth she is absolutely the most amazing and beautiful woman alive to me. This tangent just served to cause more tension and I drug out the conversation for much longer than what was necessary. Truthfully, I didn't know how to answer her question, and I did not think that would be a good answer. So I made things worse by just rambling for an hour. Lovebug kept asking me about whether it was the hair and makeup that I liked, and I kept rambling. Eventually she had asked me again what it was I found good looking about her, and in my frustrations created by my own decisions to not just say one simple thing, I said the hair and the makeup, somehow thinking that it was what she wanted to hear and it would end the conversation. This to my partner meant that everything else I'd been saying to her about how amazing I think she is was all lies, and this really completely hurt her.

For the next couple of days we fought a lot and she was very mad at me and my lack of communication skills. I thought I was being open and that me seeing this person would make us both feel uncomfortable but I didn't need to approach the subject in the way I did. Long story short, I made my love feel like shit again, this was a horrible month of me being a dioshit, and we almost split because of my lack of communication.

I've always blamed my lack of ability to communicate on my shitty childhood, and it partially is that. But I need to move on and move forward. I've been reading about borderline personality disorder and I believe I may be this. I've found a therapist a town away and set up an appointment with them for next tuesday, this therapist specializes in DBT, which I don't fully understand yet, I need to read more about. But it's supposed to be extremely useful for this type of personality disorder and I'm hoping it will be helpful, and that she can make a diagnosis.

I've been reading a new book called "Radical honesty" it's very informative, I'm about 3 or 4 chapters in I think. I listened to a book called "Unfuck yourself" it was interesting and informative also.

 

My mother invited me to Thanksgiving dinner (it's in October in Canada) and I can't go because we have another trip planned for the weekend after that we've been saving for since we moved. Just to go visit family for the one day means a 12 hour drive one way to get there, and it's only for one night, I'd love to go visit family but it's just not logistically possible. I told my mother this, and she tried to guilt me in to coming anyway, and has my brother messaging me to try and convince me. It's just so frustrating that mom can't treat me like an adult and just act like "oh no, that sucks but I hope you have a good time on your trip"

Lovebug and I had a talk about it as we walked the dogs today, and these games that my mother plays are so upsetting to me, on one hand she is partially to blame for my adulthood psychological issues, leaving me at home alone with an abusive "step-person" so it really bothers me how she tries to guilt trip and nonchalantly talk about the human that abused me as a child.

I feel empathy for her balecause I know how awful her childhood was, and the things she went through to get to where she's at, but I really think she should find a therapist to talk to instead of drinking red wine and farting around with tarot cards.

Just a frustrating weekend talking to my mother.

 

Today while I was trying to reset a forgotten password, Google brought me to the remembered passwords it had saved from the last forever. One of the sites on the list was adult friend finder, this is something I have not used in years and I no longer have an account on the site, but Google had my old password saved. Seeing that site name spooked me and I quickly backed out of that list. The first thought that passed my mind about it was to just go about life and say nothing, Hopi g nothing would happen. I stopped myself and reminded that lower function of my brain that tells me that confrontation is scary and talking about things will just hurt me that I am an open man with my partner and I need to talk to her, no matter how small it is.

I told her what happened, and we had a good conversation about why it scared me to talk about it. The trauma from my childhood, always being taught I'm wrong and bad just amps me up for thinking that I'm in trouble, even when i know I'm not.

I promised her that I will not be afraid of confrontation, I understand that I don't need to be scared, sometimes we will argue because something sucks, but we will grow from it and be stronger together.

 

Had my first appointment with my new therapist. She has concluded that I suffer from a great deal of anxiety, and that anxiety is partially derived from genetics (both of my parents are anxious in their own rights) and taught anxiety (from always being afraid as a child). There is hope though, I told her about my previous therapist's theory that I suffer from borderline personality disorder, and that I think I would benefit from DBT therapy. Wherein she did not specify whether or not she thinks I am borderline, she does agree that DBT would be a helpful resource for me. She does a DBT group twice a year, and will let me know when the next group gets going and I will attend it.

 

We had a good discissdisabout feelings this evening. We got home from our dog walk, and Lovebug was feeling grouchy, while she was feeding the dogs I started to clean up the kitchen a little bit, as I hadn't done that from dinner the night before yet. She was frustrated with theess I had made and how things looked and she bluntly told me how she felt. The way she spoke to me bothered me and made me feel anxious and upset with myself. I initially had the reflex to just go on with cleaning up and to just internalize how I felt and move on, but in order to be truthful and build trust between us, it is important to fully communicate. So I sat down in front of her on the couch and I told her "I'm sorry for the mess I made in the kitchen, I will try to be more tidy tidy I cook, but the way you spoke to me hurt my feelings." She apologized and said she didn't mean to sound mean, she was just feeling grouchy and was upset by how I had made such a big mess after she's just cleaned up the previous evening. Then I told her that it scared me to talk to her about my feelings like this, as I get these preconceived notions that confrontation will be problematic and she will be mad at me for the way I feel (which she never once has, this is damaged thought on my part). She said to me that every time I've come to her and communicated my feelings like this, things have been alright afterward.

It feels good to actually come forward and make the confrontation, to have the real conversation. I feel like for once in my recovery, I'm actually starting to understand things better and I'm slowly seeing real growth.

This is one small conversation, but I feel proud of myself for it. I see the true benefit of communication, and I'm trying to break the wall I've put up.

 

I've been feeling anxious a lot more lately, just getting mild anxiety attacks day to day, I think it may be based on the changes I'm making, feeling a real difference in my mind and the way I decide to conduct my life. I dont know.

I feel a baseline anxiety right now, the thoughts in my head are "what if I'm not doing enough" "I don't know how to fix things". I know I need to focus my mind on the present, stay in this moment and be mindful, and work out what is causing these negative mindsets.

I have a dr appt tomorrow to see if I can get some anxiety meds to help ease the tension in my mind.

But anyway, back to work for me.

 

I sit here and try to write out a journal entry, and my mind is blank. So I'm writing this little pre-amble in hopes it will fire my brain.

We had an alright weekend together, I picked up an overtime shift at work on Saturday to make a couple extra $$. I'm feeling completely drained from work. Night shift and the fucked up sleep schedule have me on a weird internal clock and I don't like it. I feel sad not being able to sleep next to my Lovebug every night, we had some excellent snuggles last night and I miss those so desperately. I'm going to go talk to my boss in the morning to try and see what I can do to get onto a day shift instead, I want to end this night shift madness.

 

I felt alright today, I slept most of the day, but in my waking hours I felt pretty good. We took our dogs for a walk and one of them hurt her ankle, she's old, like 11 years old, and is a retired sled dog with some arthritis issues, so she just hurts sometimes. Lovebug slept downstairs on the couch to help make the pupper more comfy. She told me when she dropped me off that seeing the dogs sick or hurt really scares her because they are so old and it's just terrible to think about.

 

I really need to be much stronger with communication with Lovebug, she will see me sitting and reading a comic book, or we will relax and watch Netflix together and it sometimes makes her feel that I've started slacking off and I'm not putting any work forth with fixing things. I've been reading from this book called "Radical Honesty" on my lunch breaks at work. I've been putting a hard effort forward of being open about my feelings with her, and I've really been trying to put her first and make sure I do my best to make her feel loved and cared for. I just sometimes don't talk about the things I'm doing for a few days and she will feel like I've gotten lazy and I'm not trying, but I will never not be trying to improve.

 

I feel stressed, the union guys at the place I work may be going on strike, I am one of them, and that means little to no income during the time of the strike, and i may have to go find cash work for the time being. It is entirely possible that a deal could be struck in the next couple of days, but that remains to be seen. I want work to just continue on like normal, but the deal that had been presented is legitimately awful.

Recovery wise, things have been going well, I feel like I'm moving forward, still talking openly about things and trying to improve our day to day life.

 

We had one rather stressful night this weekend. A new friend from work asked if we wanted to come and have dinner at his house with his girlfriend and himself, I asked Lovebug what she thought and she explained that she was nervous that his girlfriend would be all done up andade up and make her feel self conscious. I did not respond is a logical way to this statement with something like "Baby it doesn't matter what any other girls look like, you're beautiful always" I think I was just silent or said I was sorry or something, the moral of the story is that I did not put her feelings up front and consider fully what was bothering her, I was unthoughtful and inconsiderate. This is so unfair of me after all the pain I've put her through. I've made my girl feel so down on herself, and sometimes she feels like there is nothing I can do to pick her back up. I try to give her constant positive affirmations, as that is her love language, I do truely and completely see my Love as the most gorgeous living being and I want her to feel that admiration. We talked about how I hurt her and made up. We laid in bed and watched stand up comedy until we both fell asleep.

Work is super stressful right now with the looming threat of an opening strike action from the union I work under. It's super stressful not knowing if I'll have work to go to next week or not. I know with the logical portion of my brain that it is extremely financially irresponsible for the company to allow that union to go on strike right now, being they will lose upwards of $100k approx. per day if we do, so a mutually beneficial bargain deal is absolutely in everyone's best interest at this point. That doesn't make the current situation any less stressful though. We just bought a new house and I can't afford to be on strike right now, I'll have to go change tires for cash in the mean time, which I suppose you do what you have to do to get by.

 

Do you ever find silence uncomfortable? I work in a very loud environment, usually alone and I always have headphones in with either a podcast or some music going. Partially out of the enjoyment of whatever it is I'm listening to, and partially that I find silence, being left to my own thoughts, to be uncomfortable.

 

We flew away for the weekend, down to the city to visit people and do a little shopping. Things between us have been good through the trip, but there were a couple timing problems that made Lovebug upset. We got tgrouthit together though.

It's been bittersweet for both of us, we travelled down to where we used to live before our big move and it's emotionally taxing to see the place we love to be and know we have to leave right away and go back up north again. We don't love the town we live in, and we are really far away from our families and friends, so it's hard to leave this place. I keep reminding Lovebug that we can always come back and visit again, plus we always have the option to move back down here someday if and when we can get transfers down closer.

 

We had a hard day today, we were getting ready to leave the city to fly back home. We met up with a friend of Lovebug's and went for a little walk, and then we were supposed to go to a store so Lovebug could do a little shopping and I could get her some things, but I missed an exit and ended up going completely the wrong way on the highway. She was already feeling upset and depressed from leaving the city and this really upset her, I don't have the best sense of direction in the city and am not a super confident big city driver and this also stressed her out when we're on the freeway. The time crunch we were in to make our flight combined with my missed exit and her pre existing upset-ness really made her angry with me and we had a fight in the car, she gets really fed up with my mistakes and it really makes her mad, I really feel like a pile of shit when I make her feel this way, it breaks my heart to see and hear her upset like that.

We got home safely on the plane and now I'm at work all night after a long day of driving around and traveling. Tonight very well will suck.