A
female
 ,
Clarey
writes:To all those neurotics out there like me who don’t understand what is going wrong – a message of hope from experience.My story is for all those folks out there who think they don’t quite fit in, make a mess of relationships, worry too much, take things personally and are depressed or anxious.I had such an over-excited life but rather than decide to do things, I followed others quite a lot. For some reason I let men choose me rather than the other way around. I was always eager to please and found asserting my own feelings almost impossible and very scary. I got two degrees in the arts, started showing some work in galleries, played the guitar, was and am an ace cook. I was a biker girl with a completely random sense of humour. Plus I had the best bum just at the time Olivia Newton John trousers were out (however, if I got beeped by a car I would usually go red, get all nervous and trip over).While I was at college I travelled to Beirut and met John McCarthy just before he was kidnapped. I travelled with journalists to South Africa, Jordan and Cyprus covering events of the early to mid eighties. I helped interview Yasser Araffat. There were lots about it I would not have missed! Unfortunately my partner the journalist was unfaithful and I would often get calls from women saying he was cheating with them. He travelled with a gay man who was the same except with men and he sadly contracted AIDS, which he died of soon after. This era was a traumatic one and set me on the road of great difficulty. For that and other reasons I was plagued by anxiety and depression for many years.I started to see a lot of men but could not settle. I ended up marrying someone I had known since a child, who loved me very much. He too was traumatized from events in his own life and it was as though we rescued each other. After ten years we divorced, but we are good friends now. We had a son who is now almost ten years old. I had a big breakdown at that time which lasted about a year.I dated another old friend, who once he got the object of his age-long desire (me), drifted away. I don’t regret it now but it was bad then. I saw a theme of men hankering after me and desiring me an awful lot but leaving me once they had what they wanted.I met a man on the Internet, I met his family, he had his own business and he seemed to calm and soothe the mess of my life. There was something odd about him though which I overlooked. It seemed like an Asperger-type condition, but he was pathologically evil, scary and cruel to my son, so I ran away from that but had to fight to extricate myself financially.I started dating a friendly and funny person who really cheered me up over the next 10 months and he had a lovely little girl who liked my son. Everything was fine until I realised that he too had a strange kink and was not trustworthy around the issue of sex. He confessed that during his marriage he had bought sex from prostitutes. I had never come across such a thing before, I am a good middle class girl with academic parents and we “respect” people. Whilst wrestling with this issue an amazing thing happened. My first love arrived back from abroad for a visit. We had been together when I was 15 and he was 17. Anyway I lost him then (my Mum said it was too intense and I was pressured into going out with an Italian boy who was a family friend) and I took years to get over it.We decided to be together. Despite all the damage we both carried we still are. I displayed some very destructive behaviour at the start of our relationship and I feel pity for that girl that was me, but am learning to live with it, without wanting to curl up and die. He stuck with me and I stuck with him. I really thought sometimes that I would drive him away and I seemed unable to stop myself from behaving in a way that would certainly achieve it. I was wracked with anger and anguish and pain and totally unable to function as a normal mature woman would.I will tell you how I have got through, am saving myself and how I am preserving my relationship. The steps I took are at the end of my article and if you are committed to something similar they will work for you too.First having identified that I had a problem, I got some therapy which identified the root causes. (In my case my Mum had not wanted us kids and we got in the way for her so I developed low self esteem and a need to try and please people.)My two self-harming and self-limiting beliefs developed from that and were hardened-in by my life following. These were:“I must not be betrayed” – instead of managing to accept and live with the fact that I might be at some stage, I lived my life in total anguish and fear about this and it led to that self-same thing. It also led to me being over sensitive and taking things personally all the time.“Other people are more important than me” – I put all my own value into pleasing others and could find no worth in myself. Therefore I limited my own potential. Therefore I did not feel worthy – what a cycle to get stuck in.This is what I did.1. Psychotherapy to establish the causes2. Went regularly on line to a site called Moodgymn which is Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for free. 3. Found an excellent CBT coach and had 8 sessions with him, plus homework. Through him I discovered the two negative guiding principles and started addressing them.4. Accepted free help from NHS counsellor who• Helped me find ways of overcoming communication blocks with my partner• Helped me find the language and approach to start asserting my needs, very scary but absolutely incredible• Is helping me start to gain confidence in re-training for a new career in DTPI dipped into these books which were very good: “Women who think too much” by Dr Susan Nolen-Hoeksema Phd and “Overcoming Low Self Esteem” by Melanie Fennell. Both are available on Amazon.If you find that you are failing in relationships, not reaching your own potential and not really understanding what is going wrong, let me tell you something very important. You don’t need to buy stuff about how to date men successfully. You need to focus on YOU. You are the one worth the effort and while you are doing that the rest will follow as naturally as night follows day.PLUS, not only that my partner has told me he would like me to ask me to marry him as it is a leap year! Yahhoooo!! X
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reader, anon_e_mouse +, writes (11 February 2008):
 Excellent article Clarey!
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