I woke up at 4:30 am – super tired, many meetings, I have a headache.
After talking with my gf I told her I was going to bed and I knew she was flying back to our city tonight.
So I came up with an adorable little thing I wanted to surprise her at the airport.
We got off the phone and I lied about going to sleep at 7:30
I went to the store and got onions to caramelize because I remember you loved them on the hot dog 🌭
Then I made eggs, ham, and pepper with avocado 🥑
Also ginger tea and pocky sticks
I got an outfit off the cart also drawing a tattoo on my neck and a mask so you wouldn’t recognize me
I thought you’d take the train back
I was tracking the flight, but you landed early and. I saw you start moving on the road
I texted you a question, turned around on trains, went home, and cried.
I was fucked up about that.
I wasn’t in a good place and I went all out to deliver this gift and it all went to shit.
This kinda destroyed me.
When I got back and my roommate asked, “oh my god, are you okay” I could hear in his voice how he could tell I was devastated.
The soft authenticity in his question really fucked me up.
I was trying to be okay, but I was hurting.
*The next morning
When you’re gone, I feel magnetism towards you.
Checking my texts, checking your location, thinking about when we’ll hang out next.
And when you’re here I feel complete peace.
Nothing else in the world matters at that moment.
When I went on my adventure last night, I experienced anguish.
And I realize that’s me doing that to me.
Anguish I feel caused by my own expectations and actions.
I don’t know why I felt so bad, but I was hurting.
I don’t want to experience that feeling.
I feel like maybe giving my heart to you was the mistake.
Putting my heart into what I do and being vulnerable.
Or maybe my own depressive experiences are the mistake.
I could start some kind of anti-depressant.
I was sitting in bed crying and going through those emotions.
Spending less time developing expectations and relying on you or my phone to make me happy is what I’ll try for now.
I had expectations that my crazy idea would work and it would be a beautiful moment traveling half way back and brining you a home-cooked meal with chocolate and your favorite tea.
I put so much of my heart and energy into putting all that together and then it didn’t work out.
I’m crushed. I don’t like feeling that crushed. It hurts really badly.
If I can get myself to check my phone maybe once or twice a day, that may fix it.
I’ll develop less of an immediate response to what you say and my day revolves less around what you say and do and more around what I choose for my day.
And I won’t be checking in on Instagram and X as much trying to find dopamine everywhere.
I think that will be hard, because I have clients who text me, so I will need to check my messages on my computer or something in order to deal with that. Or maybe those get dealt with once or twice a day when I’m on the phone.
Compartmentalizing that experience to only a couple times a day I think will help me with my mental health in situations like this.
I won’t get all anticipatory about things I can’t control and I won’t rest my feelings on the outcomes of what happens as a product of what others do or say.
I’m gonna try it out and see how it goes.
*Someone I trust with mental health advice:
“Therapy with Will
Your childhood is one fucked up proposition.
Your mother is mentally ill.
You did was is a really brave move on your part.
You learned how to create some boundaries with her.
She’s still with you in a very powerful way.
One way to unlearn her and learn more about you.
Is to stick with Ella.
Take the risk.
You see Ella and say I “dawd gonnit, I had this sandwich and everything”
I missed seeing you.
I miss seeing you.
I just wanted to see you.
She already knows your infatuated with her.
That’s not a secret.
So if you go about it the right way,
You’d say, “I really wanted to surprise you
Does that make you feel uncomfortable?”
“if you’re going to have a viable relationship with anybody, especially romantic, you’ll have to do that forever. Perhaps not as much int he beginning. You are constantly tweaking the relationship.”
It’s just a matter of learning how to talk to each other.
I would not minimize the risk that one takes to communicate like that.
All relationships are risky.
Life is risky.
I have been concerned that you’ve neglected your career.
Being besotted with her.
There’s another element here.
That’s that she has another relationship.
My suggestion is to talk to her about what happened with her at the airport.
Keep focusing on your work.
You can have a relationship with Ella as much as she wants to.
You don’t want to reach the point where your behavior with Ella is getting in your way.
That sets you up for anger and disappointment.
- Emily talking:
I think that’s what might have happened.
I had anger and disappointment about how it played out.
If I just had focused on my career by getting good rest instead of spending 6 hours planning, executing, and crying.
I wish I had something better to say, but that’s part of it.
It sucks. That’s part of liking, loving, and wanting somebody.
This is all new for you.
I do hear you catastrophizing.
It’s trial and error.
You can just say to her,
Ella, where do you want this relationship to go?
There again that’s scary.
Her expectations may not match yours.
Are you having suicidal thoughts? On a scale of 1-10
I’d say yes, and a 3.
Having low suicidal thoughts tells me that you want your pain to go away.
It says you’re not seriously thinking of harming yourself.
You are willing to do things that would wound your relationship with Ella.
Which for you is a kind of suicide.
Hurting yourself, rather than experiencing the disappointment.
Again, congratulations on your new contract.
And remember what our covenant is:
If your thoughts ever get to 7 or 8, call me.
… I can explain, I feel like it’s a very weird thing to explain over text but I can do my best.
The summary of all the discussions is that bottom line – I do anything I can to avoid emotional pain.
So when you’re gone, I subconsciously and now that I realized it consciously lose object permanence and ‘forget’ you exist in my emotional body.
That way I don’t have to feel any kind of separation or pain.
But now that I know that I can approach things differently.
I think it relate to how when my dad would leave as a kid I would feel torn apart and then I’d neglect to believe he existed or at least believe that my dad on the phone wasn’t a real person. I learned to do that so I didn’t have to be heartbroken he was gone.
That’s a pattern in my life I’d never realized until today. My object permanence issues related to neglecting to feel the pain that my dad was gone.
And now that transferred into my relationship. And it triggered me, so I dug into it with my peeps.
That’s it 🤷♀️