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stuck

Started by stilltrying2010, April 15, 2013, 05:49:18 AM

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stilltrying2010

In another post shiny wrote about refusing to give brain space to someone when I am not even on their radar (at least that was the just of it).  That struck me as I AM doing this with the ILs and I need to stop but am jot sure how to get there.  I have actually considered wearing a rubber and around my wrist and snapping it whenever I begin to focus there, which is frankly more often than I want to admit.  I may not be outright obsessing about them but I feel caught up in the negativity of our situation, almost like a record player skipping again and again. I want to get to indifference and need a kick in that direction.  I still feel slighted by the lol but not directly angry, more annoyed.  The FIl and his gr I don't even think about.  The gsil has me spun up after distributing pictures of our kids she printed off my fb account to my dhs relatives.  I am being ugly to her in.my thoughts and don't like the person I am being.  But I haven't been able to leave it all behind.  Any suggestions?

stilltrying2010

wow, sorry for the typos!  My sausage fingers are typing on my phone :D
Should say:
gist of it not just of it
Not sure instead of jot
slighted my mil not lol
Fil's gf not gr
yikes, I promise to proofread next time!

confusedbyinlaws

Hi stilltrying,  I have done the same as you as far as giving too much headspace to my inlaws.  Someone pointed out to me awhile back that I was ruminating too much and advised me to look it up.  I found out that that is what I was doing and it actually impaired my thinking about the situation and keeping me from forgiving and moving on.  The advice I have been given is to continually divert my thoughts whenever I start replaying all the hurts and retrain myself not to keep going there in my mind.  It had become a habit or obsession for me too.  I've never had this much conflict with anyone, so I obsessed about it, hoping to figure out a solution but in reality this kind of thinking was prolonging and intensifying my anger toward them and as a result making in less likely I would reach a resolution.  I still think about my inlaws and would still like to reach a resolution with them, but I am trying hard not to continually replay the hurts and try to shift my thoughts to the future.  I have also had to accept that I may not be able to resolve things in the way I had hoped for. 
Incidentally my counselor has suggested doing this with many of my ways of thinking.  I tend to be pretty hard and critical of myself and this has a huge impact on how I feel and I have been working on being aware of these thoughts when they pop up and replacing them with more positive thoughts about myself and retrain myself to think differently about myself.  You can do this when any persistant thoughts you have that are not good for you.

Pen

I've done the same w/DIL and her FOO. It got boring after awhile and I didn't like who I'd become so I stopped. It occasionally rears its ugly head but I'm better able to redirect before descending into the pit. I realize now that it was an excuse to keep me from working on my own part in the drama and my own issues.
Respect ... is appreciation of the separateness of the other person, of the ways in which he or she is unique.
-- Annie Gottlieb

luise.volta

I think that's what brought many of us here...looking at the amount of space and time and yes, energy it takes from us to not want the people and situations in our lives to be the way they are. I had to revert to opening a journal and dumping it all there...usually complete with caps and four letter words, until it just drained out of me. I got so I had nothing new to write and was repeating myself and I finally was able to become...are your ready?...bored with it or, better said, with my reaction to it. I wasn't able to think of other things until I drained the poison. It didn't happen overnight but I got there and have never gone back. I had friends in similar situations that let it run of their back like ducks. That was them, not me. I'm sensitive and idealistic and easily hurt. So, my way was the "Vent-Highway." And since no one else wanted to hear about it...I dumped it into my PC and/or the ether, take your pick. What I couldn't do was contain it and stay healthy...it was eating me up. When I look back, I wish, of course, that I had started the process much sooner but I didn't know I was in control. I thought "they" were and that they had to change for me to survive. Not so. Nope...
Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible. Dalai Lama

stilltrying2010

Just wanted to thanks you all for your candor and honesty.  I feel as though I can lay claim to all of the sentiments you responded.  At times I feel I have overcome this but then will find myself back in the belly of the beast...   Glad to have somewhere I can reflect back on it, knowing its a process and about daily choices.  One step forward, two steps back sometimes. 

Lillycache

That's the way I was with my DIL and her FOO... The HATRED I felt was white hot... and in reality..only hurting me.  I also had to let it burn out.. until it bored me.. Then total indifference set in and she and her family are a non-issue to me.   I don't hate them... I NOTHING them...    There is an old saying..  "Holding a grudge is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die"   

Pooh

Stilltrying, I wish I could tell you how to do it.  I echo all the sentiments that everyone here wrote.  I don't know exactly when and how I was able to let go, it just kind of happened.  I had to go through a couple of years of all the emotions, anger-guilt-depression-why-etc. in order to come out the other side.

I think each person has to do what works for them.  If the rubber band works for you, do it.  I know that I reached a point where I didn't have to think about it and realized that know matter what I did, relationships take both sides wanting it.  Until DS wants it, I was wasting so much of my time, thought and energy on him.

Now, when something makes me think about it, I have learned to just kind of shrug and in my head say to myself, "He made a choice.  I don't have to like it or deal with it, I just have to accept it was his decision."  I allow myself to have five minutes of whatever emotion it evokes, which at this point is mostly anger because it's all so stupid, and then I tell myself that's all I get and I go do something else.

It's a conscious decision you have to make and it takes time to get there.
We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us. -
Joseph Campbell