Back Pain - this time...

Sweetheart, go gently. What you are feeling is the inner conflict that is the root of TMS. It is enough to sit on the edge of these feelings. There is no need to go deeply and certainly not to the point where you feel unsafe. You are out in the world so the not now, later maxim must prevail but so too can the most tentative of self-soothing and self-love.

I have passed through intense phases like this and they do pass. They usually leave me feeling lighter.

I'm heading out to the baths now but will check in later. Sending you much love and strength x

 

Thank you so much, Plum.

I had a real realisation driving back home; no-one cares about me to the point that I'm anyone's priority. And maybe we all need to be our own best 'parents' but that realisation really made the tears come. I'm surrounded by people who 'should' care, or who say they do but don't really, or can't really, and I just swallow their crap and let them indulge their self-serving fantasy that I'm a priority.

The biggest parallel I can draw with this back pain striking and events in my life, and it doesn't have to be an exact date match, I guess, is that it hit when my mum got into a new relationship. And we have fought cat and dog over this; her new man telling me that he 'loves her more than you do,' for example, and me feeding that information back to her only to be told I'm a liar, that I shouldn't be proud I'm my father's daughter, that I'm a drama queen trying to break them up. She sided with him wholesale, over her flesh, her daughter, her baby. I also resent her ageing, and steer clear of her because that frightens and irritates me. I think this is a fear of being abandoned and rejected.

The men in my life - one of them, with whom I'm having an affair, says he cares about me and is very offended when I suggest that he doesn't, not really. And so I concede that, okay, you do, after your sick partner, your son, your sister, your ageing mother, your clients, the pretense of social normality and any pressing work things which crop up. THEN, yes, you care about me. He, incidentally, is a classic TMS personality who suffers from a blood clotting disease and terrible migraines.

The other man tells me he loves me, that the above man is awful, that only HE can love me like I need to be but if I don't want him, then he shall abandon our 20 year friendship wholesale, and leave me to be loved insufficiently; basically, he tells me that I should be his gold standard and if he's not, then that's my huge mistake. So, if I pick ANYONE else over him (not likely in current emotional state, but still), he will, effectively, abandon and reject me. He also raped me when I was in a relationship with him when I was 19. Oh yes, and I rent a room to him so we effectively live together.

And then the dog who I own and love beyond measure, I probably resent in a way because he won't live forever and I really don't know how I'd manage without him. I throw all my love into him because it feels safe, but one day, it will be so very, very painful.

So, there are threats of abandonment, rejection - actual and feared.

Maybe not such a mystery as to why my back hurts, sacro-ilial or otherwise.

I've just booked to see a psychotherapist

 

Sarah,

I'm so sorry for going AWOL. My partner has been going through a rough patch and we hit an acute impasse in taking him off some of his Parkinson's meds. Suffice to say I've had my hands full.

I can imagine that explanation may sting given your words about being someone's priority and it saddens me that you may have misread my silence. I do care about you and I think, and dearly hope that seeing a psychotherapist will help you to transform your relationships and your life. Having achieved this myself I know it can be done, that it is not easy but that it is worth it.

There is so much going on for you. I remember living through similar but different webs of turmoil. Some days I have to pinch myself to make sure this new and beautiful way of being is real...it is and it endures. I entertain a lot less chaos in my life these days. I'll probably always relish the creative edge it brings but too much chaos is not healthy. For me at least.

I just watched a programme on 'the wonderful world of puppies' and it reminded me of someone who vowed to never let anyone or anything get close to them lest they be hurt in the end. What a tragic denial of the experience of love and belonging.

Keep loving beyond measure. It is the way we finally make our way home.

Oodles of love sweetheart,

Plum x