Are you kidding me right now?

So the MSU fan wasn't kidding when he said that I was going to erupt once I started to write the narratives and such. I started out with what I thought was going to be the least of the 3 issues. And really, I guess it is. And if it is - take your children and go underground cuz it's going to get worse before it gets better.

I've started out with the ex fiance. Now let's not get it twisted, I'm so over him it's not funny. But I've internalized the shit he did and allowed it to effect my relationships. So I need to delve into it one last time so I can deal with the emotions it brought up. I cried a bit writing it out. And I cried over some songs, but I'm PISSED. I'm angry as fuck and I'm ready to knock somebody out.

I snapped on my DBT friend because she said something about me being stupid for allowing California to still control me when that's not what I fucking said. I told her one of these days she needs to listen to what I said and not what she thinks she read between the lines.

It truly does rain before it shines. Last night I got a message from someone that the Canadian was talking to her at the same time. Now in all fairness, we hadn't talked in a bit cuz my phone's been off, but he hasn't tried to contact me and I've been leaving periodic messages on his facebook. We've done this before, so I just figured when I got the cell phone figured out, I'd just contact him. ESPECIALLY since I'd let him know that my phone was going to be shut off for a bit.

I was taking my sweet time getting it back on because I was getting attached WAY too quick and needed to slow things down. Despite my misgivings and my concerns, he talked a REALLY good game. I was chalking up my concerns to just being overly analytical and I was just going to have to go see him and figure things out on my own.

I have no tolerance for bullshit right now. I'm trying to keep it under wraps but I'm so highly agitated it's reminiscent of the old days. The days where I just stayed away from people because I knew that they could say the wrong thing and I'd tear into them and give them more of the anger than they deserved. The days that I was scared of myself because I didn't understand it or know what to do with it.

One day, I'll learn to trust my first instincts. To think I was feeling BAD about pushing him away because I got scared and because I hadn't dealt with other things. I feel like Boo Boo the Fool.

Ah well, he did me a favor. I've spent way too long being pissed off at that asshole already. Time to get over it and move the hell on.

Interesting revelation

This will be analyzed more later when I have time - but I have on clothes that FIT. And by that I mean I actually own something now that's not too damn big. My jeans, fit. My shirt, fits and even my fleece jacket I'm wearing over it, fits. It finally actually looks like I've lost a ton of weight and you can see the curves that are starting to form... and I'm feeling very fragile and vulnerable right now.

Don't have time to get into what that means and why - I have to finish getting ready to go to the my DBT friend's house for writing, cooking, movie watching, Wii playing (she is so getting her ass kicked in bicycling) and hair dying.

Virtual pimp slaps do a body good

So the drama with the "friend" is winding down. I went off on her yesterday and ended up checking out for about 30 seconds. Told the MSU fan about it, he says very sternly, yet with a whole lot of love, "KNOCK THAT SHIT OFF!" Well thank you for that. Why didn't I think of that?? But the disassociation was MAYBE 30 seconds and I was able to pull it back together. So in using my skills, I'm accepting my mistakes, not judging myself as good or bad and realizing that it where as it was 30 seconds too long, it was only 30 seconds versus the couple of hours it would have been in the past. And I was able to pull myself back versus the tornado tearing through a trailer park and just allowing it to wind down and deal with the aftermath later.

The sister missionaries don't know it yet, but they're always asking me if they can help and they finally can. I'm a Mormon, the people the "friend" is staying with are Mormon, so I'm going to ask them to take the vacuum over there for me and California let me know that I can call the phone company and have her number blocked so she won't be able to call me. Case closed, buh bye psycho.

I had a fantastic conversation with someone from DBT who's fast becoming one of my best friends. She gently let me know that consciously or subconsciously I was starting to fall back into old behaviors with California. That some things have changed but I'm going back to babbling all about him and she feels that I'm starting to forget about me. She's like I don't mind hearing about him, but I hear how he's doing before you tell me how Connie is today. And that there's been some decisions that I've almost made on how he feels about things instead of how I feel about them.

Now let me clarify, this is not because it's how he demands it. It makes it easier for me so I don't have to think on my own because I'm scared of screwing up and I don't feel like I know what I'm doing in my life.

Here's the significance in the conversation she and I just had: Firstly, she was becoming slightly annoyed and she said something instead of killing me lol. Secondly, I allowed her to gently call me on it and I didn't run from the wake up call. I didn't make excuses as to why I did it or justify. I listened to her concerns, took a deep breath and said "HELL, I'm doing it again!" I have a tendency to be codependent and I know it. I really appreciate the way she came to with it and it really set me straight.

Him coming back around rattled my chain a little bit but I've got things back in perspective and I stand firmly on my feet knowing where I'm going and what I will and will not go for.

What is this gray area you speak of?

So I've lost like 108 pounds. That's AMAZING right? I'm not happy. WTF you ask? A. It's taken me like 6 years AND B. it's not enough. I STILL have like 118 to go. Some cars are still too little (there was a reenactment of the clown car incident the other night). I'm still dealing with aches and pains. I still can't fit into some booths at restaurants. I'm going Cedar Point at the end of this month and A. It's a good thing I'm not going for the rides because I probably can't fit into most of them and B. My cousin is picking me up and she's thinking of letting my mother rent a van because I'll be more comfortable in it.

My mother is no longer going, which is a plus, but I'd almost rather deal with her uncontrollable psychosis than having to look into the disapproving, pathetically sympathetic eyes of the family members I sarcastically, yet with a splash of love call the "Skinny Bitch Tribe" or "Satan and her minions" (depending on the level of randiness I'm feeling at the particular moment).

And yet, after 6 months of DBT - this is still what I focus on. I don't focus on the fact that not only did a mile once take me 30 minutes but I just walked 6 miles in an hour and 45 minutes in flip flops and wasn't dying the day after. And last year, 5 miles took me an hour and 48 (with hell hill in the mix). I seem to forget that I was in a 34 and I just zipped up a size freaking 20.

I just put a friend in check - she needed it. And it's things I've been feeling for a while and I kind of unleashed on her. Not horribly and I apologized for going at her hard and she said she didn't see it as hard, but we've traveled in the same circle for years so she knows loosely how it use to be. The anger behind my words came from being highly annoyed at certain behaviors of hers for months. I should have said something sooner, but because I'd finally had enough, it came out a tad rough. I'm frustrated because I'm trying NOT to do that and it just doesn't seem to be working.

So now I sit here questioning if I'm ever going to be where I need to be. I'm better than I was but I seem to be stuck in a plateau and it's pissing me off because despite my pushing myself - I'm still seeing in black and white and not this wonderful world of gray that I hear exists. I'm TRYING and it just feels like I'm not getting anywhere. Okay, that's not true. I've gotten VERY far. I'm too hard on myself, but I'm not as far as I want to be and I'm out of the program in 6 months. *huffs*

Okay... I'm taking deep breathes and pulling myself off the wall. An act, that 6 months ago, didn't work. The MSU fan warned me at the beginning that DBT wasn't for sissies. He wasn't lying. Maybe this trauma therapy he's wanting to do with me (which btw is Pre Exposure Therapy) will help shake the rest of this loose. Here's to hoping right?

What's love got to do with it?

Feh. Just feh. I can see now today is going to be a day of distracting and trying to get my mind of the fact that my luck sucks. HOW is it, I get a PHENOMENAL man, who would build a ladder to the moon, take it down, put it in a bow and hand it to me if I wanted it, but things have to end because he's 3 million miles away and we're too poor to see each other? So in order for either of us to have a life (because let's face it, we're not getting any younger) I had to make the heart breaking decision to end it?

One could argue that we were headed towards it anyway because of the way we were drifting apart but if you ask me (and I say that because if you ask him, you might get a different answer) at least on my end, it was never seeing each other that caused my unhappiness. And I hadn't been happy for a while, which I should have said something and in all honesty, the break up should have happened sooner, but I loved him. Hell, I still do.

A friend of mine told me that we should stop screwing around and just get back together if we're going to. The thing is, as much as I care for him, I can't hold on to just a phone anymore. I have to see him and it has to be on a regular basis. I just cannot take going to another reunion, birthday party, family holiday alone, when I'm supposed to be with someone. I cannot stand having to cry into a phone and lay there feeling like hell because I'm not being held. And I know what I'm giving up. The next bitch that gets him needs to thank whoever she prays to that I'm poor cuz if we were in the same state, this wouldn't have happened. I'm never going to find anybody like him again and I know that. Most guys like him don't deal with girls like me. I know that. So I'll have to settle for a close second, and that's fine.

Yes, we had our issues and some of them were pretty serious but I feel (and again, my opinion here) that we pretty much had it to where it would work. From the last two months of our relationship you wouldn't think so, but at some point I just shut down and I think I stopped trying because the constant let down of not seeing him made me go numb. And maybe I gave up too quick. Maybe I should opened my mouth sooner, in fact, I know I should have, but at the point that I did - I think it was too little too late and the last thing I wanted was for us to end up hating each other.

When we broke up, I told him I knew what I was giving up and it killed me. He said that he understood that I did what I had to do and that it killed him too. At that moment, I wished he hated me. I wished he called me names and hoped I die because when he told me it was killing him too, I went from mildly upset to water fall city. I was glad that we were doing it over the computer, because I don't think I could have talked after that, hell I could barely breathe. I didn't mean to hurt him, I wasn't trying to - I wanted to tell him that he'd eventually see that I did him a favor.

We started checking in with each other once every other week or so and then once a week. Now we've talked 3 days in a row and I don't think I can take it. I have my best friend back and I'm starting to remember what it was like when it was great - we're back to the way it use to be. And I keep slipping and calling him baby - and he's not stopping me anymore. I feel like I need to slow it all down. I'm not ready to be with anybody. For MONTHS I felt like I needed to be alone for a while because we were getting pretty bad and with DBT I just felt like I needed to do this on my own so I didn't have to worry about keeping a relationship afloat. But I was in one and I loved him, so I was just going to push through it. I let things get too bad. I know it know and I knew it then.

Being that I'm about embark on that new program with the MSU fan, I'm not going to get back in a relationship until that's over with. It sounds pretty intense and I can't be giving a relationship my full attention while I'm exorcising the demons of Connie's past. Especially a relationship that's in need of getting patched up. And the fact of the matter is, I don't really want to discuss getting back together with him until I see him. We do have other things to work out and personally, we need to be in a room together, face to face and fight it out. He mentioned something about seeing me and I passively said something about don't tease me like that until you have the money, but I seriously mean that.

And I'm guilty too, I mentioned him coming up here in October for the Bone Thugs N Harmony concert. I got caught up in the moment and I need to quit that shit. But I'm to the point where if he wants to see me, I can't handle being told that it's going to happen and then spend the next three days in bed sobbing because it didn't happen. I got to where when we set a date for it to happen, I didn't even get excited. I never told him how bad the depression over all that got because I didn't want to hurt him. The little details I told him were enough to make him feel bad and none of this was his fault. It wasn't anybody's fault really - it was just circumstantial.

I'd rather him just call me saying "Everything's booked - here's the conformation number - I'll see you in a week."

He's made me so much better than I ever thought I could be. I know I am who I am because he believed in me when I didn't.

I ran out of steam on this so I'm just gonna go.

It's time to stand still, let the past catch up to me and knock it on it's ass one final time

So much to cover. I guess we'll take it in parts:

1. The "friend" that screwed me over? She spend the last two days sending me snarling messages and stalking my phone. I told her I wasn't going to deal with her emotionally unregulated ass until she calmed down. So today I get a text 3 minutes before I walked out the door for the day of PLEASE call me I MISS YOU! I walked into the the MSU fan's office shaking my head and laughing cuz I recognized the borderline "I hate you, don't leave me" behavior. I wasn't laughing AT her (even though me and one of my long time best friends did spend about 30 minutes being the petty bitches we are having a hearty laugh at her expense... we're girls... it happens) but more at her behavior because I've so been there. Pushing someone away and then when they finally go you freak out with WAIT DON'T GO!!! I haven't contacted her yet. I need to call her boyfriend and have him come get her stuff.She was really triggering me and I know that she's all screwed up, but she's not looking to help herself and I REFUSE to allow her to drag me back into that type of behavior.

2. The MSU fan let me know that the DBT therapists are starting a new type of therapy and he thinks that I'm a prime candidate for it. The name of it escapes me at this current moment, but it's basically desensitizing myself to trauma and facing those things in the past that still haunt me. I'll write down 12 - 15 of my top traumas. I'll rate them in importance of how much they still effect me. Then I'll pick 3 that really still screw with me. And I have to write what happened with detail and then read it again to the MSU fan. There's other things that I guess we'll do and he told me I'd be his first client that he'd be doing this with, so we'd be going through the manual point by point.This new therapy will last 16 weeks. I immediately told him yes and he's like I thought so but it's going to be hard, intense and not pleasant.

First off, if he didn't think I could handle it, he wouldn't have brought it up. So if he's got the faith in me that I can do this, even if I didn't think I could handle it - I'd do it anyway. Secondly, going into this program, there were things I knew I was going to face so I signed up for DBT knowing that this program wasn't for sissies.
Thirdly, I've been reliving some of this stuff on a regular basis for the last 32 years - what's 16 more weeks to do it one last time?

Interestingly enough, as I was telling him that I'd think about it but he could pretty much count me in, my anxiety shot up so high my voice was shaking with emotion. He smiled and he's like that shows me that you're realistic and realize that this is going to suck. I chuckled and said yeah, it might suck for the time being but if I can come out of it never having to deal with it again - it'll be worth it. I'm ready to be all that I can be. 

So I have more to talk about, but it'll have to be in tomorrow's post. I'm exhausted.

Wasn't it me that was just talking about the definition of insanity?

I think that was me. One day, I'll realize that running head first into that brick wall only results in a cracked skull, not a budged wall. I asked a "friend" for help yesterday, help that A. I was in desperate need of and B. help that I don't normally ask for. IDK WHY I bothered, cuz this "friend" is only really dependable when she needs something. When she needs something, you can set your clock by her. Anyway, SIX hours after she was supposed to be at my house, I find out she ditched me for something shiny.

I've really had it with being around people I can't depend on, especially people that I've put my needs aside for to help and things are never reciprocated. So, I delete her from Facebook, cuz really - who needs the drama? Well apparently she does because I get a message of "You're being childish, all I did was go to Wal Mart". I rolled my eyes said dude - it's so much more than that and walked away. I <3 DBT.

Now let me explain why I say that. 6 months ago, I would have sent her this long, explicative filled letter tearing her very large ego to shreds and leaving her in a heap of fake tan and hair dye in the corner, rocking and contemplating her worth. And then it would have taken me 3 days to come down.

And yesterday, even after a slight confrontation with my parental unit and the week I've had, I was pretty loud for a minute but the MSU fan (my therapist) popped in my head and I remembered my breathing and realized I looked like an idiot. LOL. I realized that I'd just get a headache because she didn't even understand why I was mad and acted like we were still all good. I know that I'm right, I know that I'm not all the things she's about to call me. (I fully expect to be called a fat bitch by the end of the day. Which - duh.)

And I mean, I'd be lying if I didn't admit my feelings are hurt, but having her out of my life will make things a bit smoother. And at least I can admit that now instead of hiding behind things. It feels pretty good to not allow my anger and my emotions to not lead me. I just didn't know what to do with them before and it feels INCREDIBLE to not be consumed with negative energy.

I wish her well. She's using horrible things to run from her demons and I pray that God gives her the strength to stand still long enough to let those things catch up to her so she can deal with them properly and be the friend, sister, daughter, aunt, girlfriend that she use to be.

There's part of me that feels guilty for walking off from her, because I have friends that should have (and had every reason to) walk off from me when I was "emotionally unregulated" and didn't. And I'd be lost with out them. However, I have lost a few friends along the way and it was that action that caused me to start waking up and then the friends that stuck around were the ones that told me to do something about it.

There was a blow up in my life earlier this week (I've been going through DBT boot camp this week, I swear) and when I walked away from that, one of them came after me, trying to mend the relationship. I realized then that I've FINALLY gotten back to being the bridge that people don't want to burn.

I realized that I'm on my way to being the friend, sister, daughter, aunt and potential girlfriend that I need to be.

I act like I'm new

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. And in a sense, I guess that's what I'm doing with the parental unit. I need help with something, but if it's not her idea to help me out, I'm not getting it. And that's what's going on here today. I need to stop whining and just realize that she is who she is and she's not Carol Brady.

I'm about to use terms that some people may not understand - so here's a definition of terms so you can follow along: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectical_behavior_therapy#The_four_modules

I am proud to say that the skills came into play today though. I tried to be gentle, interested, validated her when needed and was the easiest going that I've ever been with her. I tried to use the elusive DEAR MAN with her, but she wasn't very receptive to it. So I was Fair, Assertive, Stuck to my values and was Truthful with her when I emailed her. She's tried to call twice but with the week I've had and as hurt and angry as I am (check me out with identifying my emotions) I decided to do the opposite of what I'm feeling and not pick up.

In the last several months, I've let a lot of people go in an attempt of letting the past go and becoming a healthier person. Some it was easy, some not so easy and I'm still feeling the sting. But I've let each person go, knowing that it's time to move on. Our blow up was actually a 1 on a scale from 0 to OMFGGIVEMEAKLONOPINANDASEROQUELCHASER but I refuse to continually do this back and forth that's more like a dog chasing it's tail. It's getting us nowhere fast and I'm ready to live as productively as possible. I always said that I wasn't going to allow her and I to become the replica of her and her mother and that's exactly where we're heading.

I'm not happy with the blow ups being a 1 or 2. I want them at zeros. I have to figure out for myself how to side step things all together. People have been trying to push my buttons lately like I'm one of those baby pop up toys where they push the colored button and the disney character pops up. It's not as easy as it used to be and really it's becoming increasingly difficult, but the fact of the matter is I'm still pupping up after so much pushing. I can't stop them from searching from whatever perverse pleasure they get from watching me go off and prove that I haven't changed, but I can stop them from achieving it.

I've learned recently that my walking away from situations make some people think that I'm weak, but if they really think that, then they don't know how strong I've become.

First posts feel like personal ads

So I don't know about you, but for me, first posts are often awkward and you never know what to say. They either sound like the beginning of a 12 step meeting "Hi, I'm Connie and I have a problem with *insert any number of my issues here*" or like you're trying to find a date "I like long walks on the beach, candle light dinners and cuddling on the couch while watching movies" (all of which are true btw).

I haven't blogged in a long time and this is my first time on here (here being blogspot). I've been told that I need to because I could help people. IDK about all that, but I'm to a point where I can put my trials and tribulations back on paper. I'm a writer so it makes sense to write out my thoughts and make sense of them later.

I started a DBT program for those who deal with Borderline personality disorder about 6 months ago and it dawns on me a couple of days ago that I should have been writing down what I've been going through and how I've used my skills to deal with the things that crop up. Things started out pretty smoothly but as real life has crept up (damn it all for it having a way of doing that), I'm finding that writing it all down has been helping me keep it in perspective. In order to protect the somewhat innocent, I'll be using initials or other names just because we're talking about my life and not purposely trying to throw other people under the bus.

I don't hold back, I'm loud, I'm intelligent, I'm still learning and I make no apologies for who I am. I'm not all tear drops and thunderstorms but as a disclaimer, there will be times that this will get raw and give an honest look into the eye of the storm. And there will be other times where I'm so silly you can't help but laugh.

I'm silly, I'm serious, I'm sarcastic, I'm a basket case, I'm the sanest person you know, I'm just me. Buckle up and get ready to enjoy the ride.