So today is not great either. I can’t focus, I feel sick. I just want everybody to go away and leave me alone. I just want to sleep. I don’t want to talk to anyone, or about anything. I keep bursting into tears.

There is a voice inside my head telling me to pull myself together and stop being so pathetic. Sometimes that works, but not today. I feel desperate. I don’t know what I am desperate for but it feels like desperation. I wish I could just take a whole load of cash and run away. I don’t want to face anything anymore. This is how I felt when I took the overdoses before, and when I cut. I am still here though, cut free and no drugs.

He just popped up on MSN asking if I was ok, and I said yeah, with a smiley face. I wonder what goes through my head sometimes. I mean, yes, I am ok. I am not dying. Things need doing and I carry on doing them (she says, scanning the state of her bedroom). So I am ok. But I’m also not ok. I don’t want to be a burden. I’m sick of whining at him. Sick of whining in general. He has deleted a girl he knows from his facebook, msn and phone because I am afraid he still fancies her. In my head, she’s the one that got away, the one he does all the “what if”ing about. So I feel guilty that he’s had to do that for me. I am thankful, but I feel bad. It’s not the “cure”, there are other girls that he is friends with that I also worry about that I am just going to have to get over, and I want to. I want to deal with my feelings, not just have the source of them removed.

He’s coming over later. I am scared because I feel so introverted. This only happens when I get ill - speaking to people becomes something to be afraid of. Letting them into my home is unheard of. And then I wonder what I’m talking about. Him being here will be fine. It’s not a big deal, we’ve done this hundreds of times before and it’s not a bad thing. It’s just irrational depression fear. I’m not sure what I am afraid of exactly. I am going to have to connect with him in some way - I can’t just ignore him, and it’s that connecting that I fear. Sounds stupid unless you’ve been there, I think.

Work is just the same. I am switched off, distracted, easily irritated and upset. I don’t want to talk to anyone there either. But again there is a flipside. I feel safe at work, I can connect easily with the people around me, they like me and we have fun. Sometimes I can even forget that I’m ill. Going there is a good thing.

I’m going back to see Kate tomorrow (my therapist). I am half looking forward to it and half dreading it. It’s only 50 minutes but it lasts for ages. I will probably cry, and I hate crying.

My head feels like a big bowl of spaghetti.

I miss him.

I know it’s just one night. I know if he came over and didn’t want me, it’d be even worse.

But I do miss him and I do I wish he was here.

It’s been ages, I know. The idea was to have all the private stuff in my private blog and keep this one just for food and fairy related posts but this one seems to have fallen by the wayside altogether. Oh well.

My appetite (physical and emotional) seems to be stuck in Nemesis mode lately. Emotionally - the responsiblities that I have right now are too much. I can’t deal with the divorce, the kids, being a single parent, working, being a fairy, money, worries over contact with Emily, my relationship with Gavin - or rather I can deal with it but (A) not effectively and (B) not without running myself into the ground stressing about it all.

Worst at the moment seems to be my relationship with Gavin. The trust thing is still causing issues, coupled with the fact that I seem to want everything more than he does, is having a major knock on my self esteem. I want us to be thinking about moving in together some time soon and he doesn’t. A year is not enough for him to have lived on his own, so I have to wait. That’s fine. Or would be fine if I could feel that there was some end in sight, but there’s not really. He doesn’t want to do it now, doesn’t know when he will and conversations about it just end in “Yes, but not now”, and my irrational, depressed mind can only hear “I don’t want to live with you”.

Any tiny amount of rejection just reinforces my fear that I am annoying, that he just tolerates me, that he could walk out at any moment.

I try not to push him away but when he rejects me my instant reaction is to push him away harder than I perceive him to be pushing me away.

As I write this I can hear the screams of so many self help book authors telling me I’m doing it all wrong, which I probably am, but if I knew how to do it right, I would. I can’t.

I’ve asked him not to come over tonight. I can’t bear any more rejection. I went to see a therapist a couple of weeks ago (next appt Weds), and we realised then I spend a lot of time just waiting. Waiting for him to talk to me, get here, kiss me, make love to me. And my life is a lot about pleasing him, and I can lose myself in doing that. I stop living for me and start living for him and his approval. I guess they do say you turn into your mother… *sigh*

If I’m honest, I’m not entirely sure what I’m going to do about the whole situation. I don’t particularly want to be in a relationship where I am not physically appreciated, but then I think that’s a petty thing to get wound up about. I love him, he loves me, and I actually really, selflessly care about him. But then the bigger things - like wanting us to live together and be more of a family, or wanting us to eventually get married - and him not wanting these things… They aren’t the petty things. I don’t seem to have a sense of how a good relationship really works - my marriage wasn’t a healthy relationship, I haven’t been close to anyone who has had a good relationship so I don’t know what a good, balanced, fair relationship looks like. So I am quite scared as to how this is going to work out, and hopefully I can keep myself out of the fridge in the process…

Talking makes it better.

It’s too hard, this relationship malarkey. I expect too much, and then when he can’t fulfil my unreasonable wishes, I push him away and then wonder why he’s more distant. I have, as I feared, become the jealous, whining girlfriend, and I don’t know how to make it stop.

The last few days I seem to have put walls up all around me. I can’t handle any more rejection, not even a tiny bit, not even if it’s because I’m being unreasonable. I don’t trust him, I don’t trust anyone. I trust myself, that’s more than I used to have. But anyone else, no way. And I am so angry, because I know it’s not really him, it’s because of what happened with Ben. How can you love someone so much for 6 years and then just walk away and switch off your emotions and start again with someone else without so much as a backward glance?

If Ben could love me as much as he did, and I know he did, and then just leave like I was nothing but some silly mistake he made when he was only 21. If I could mean that little to a man who declared in front of 70 odd people that he wanted to stay with me forever, signed a legal document to prove it, had two children with me, then why would anyone else stay?

So I pick up on the tiniest things - that he didn’t say goodnight, that he doesn’t come to bed when I do, that he doesn’t cuddle me like he used to, that I have to ask for kisses, or to be kissed in the way we used to - and turn them into proof that he’s not bothered about me. And if he’s not bothered about me then he can just leave. And then it doesn’t feel secure, and I don’t feel safe, so I run away and hide.

And I am so sick of this. :-(

I’m eating again. Standing in front of the fridge, the freezer, the cupboard. Waiting for it - the thing that will stop the hunger - to jump out at me so I can stop the restless pacing. A couple of years ago I would have been beating myself up for being “addicted” to food. Why couldn’t I just leave it alone?

I know now, and I can see, I’m trying to fill an emotional hunger with something physical, and also trying to give myself a little pleasure when I’m struggling to get it in the form that I actually want it. It doesn’t work, of course, because I’m not hungry for chocolate biscuits, and the pleasure I get from them  isn’t what I want to feel. Sure, it tastes nice. But that’s it. The pleasure doesn’t even last the whole time I’m eating the damn thing. It feels pointless.

The most frustrating thing is knowing that there is no way to get what I want right now. For a start it’s not practical, and even if it were, it’d mean him giving up freedom that he’s not ready to give up yet, which would make me feel more guilty than good. And it’s not that I want him to actually give it up, it’s that I want him to want to move in with me, propose marriage, have a baby. I’m sure it’s not quite the truth, but I seem surrounded by people moving in together, having babies, getting married and it’s hard to not compare. And I know he does want to move in with me, get married to me and have a baby with me. Just Not Yet.

Gah. I just want to let it go, just enjoy what we do have, because I love what we have. I am happy to wait. Even if it means I have to put up with the incessant impatience. I’m happy to wait because I love him and I wouldn’t want him to feel pressured into something he’s not ready to do. So it’s not that I’m sat here wondering how I can make him want it. I just want to stop wanting it. How do you stop wanting something that you want so much? I’m not even entirely sure that I do actually want it. I think I might want it because I can’t have it. I mean, I do want it, I know that, but not yet. Not marriage and babies anyway. Moving in together and engagement, possibly, but not the Big Stuff. Not yet. But because he doesn’t want to, it makes my desire for it stronger.

I hate being in this position. I hate wanting more than he wants. Women are bombarded with warnings to stay independent and never to appear needy or to make it known that we want to live with our partners, let alone marry them or have babies with them. Be needy and lose your man. Whatever you do, don’t be needy.

So instead of acknowledging that that is what I want, I stand in front of my cupboards and look for something else.

Validation…

Gav says (19:53):
*I never thought of it like that, now I think I understand why it frustrates you sometimes

Ahhhhh :-)

Two of my friends have had babies this last week. I’ve been looking longingly at their photos and trying to place what it is that I’m feeling. They have something that I want I’m not entirely sure what it is. It’s not a baby. I am broody but I get to the end of my day and I’m so glad I don’t have another child to tend to or, worse, a long night of endless feeding ahead of me. It’s not a baby. It’s not marriage. One couple isn’t married, so it can’t be that. I wonder if maybe it’s that innocence that comes with an unbroken family. The belief that no matter what, you will be a family that stays together.

I have a horrible feeling it’s just a commitment thing. I look at them and I see commitment, both given and received, in some tangible form - some way that is not just words or intentions. I miss that, and it feels like having it again is forever away.

And yet, part of me feels like I am crazy to want to do that again so soon. Part of me is desperate to just up and leave. Things here are feeling stiff and stagnant. I want to stretch out, run free, breathe.

I wonder why I can’t just sit and enjoy what I do have - seemingly the best of both worlds. Why does it always feel like it’s never enough?

I feel really miserable, and like my need for attention is insatiable. I might just give up and go to bed.
:-(

Too much?

I don’t know. It’s weird, the things we care about and how quickly we become attached. We. I. The things I care about and how quickly I become attached.

Gavin’s ex has told him Emily is too poorly to come this weekend. Somehow it produces the same ball of rage that I get when I can’t see my own boys. I’ve never met the woman and yet somehow I hate her. How dare she. How dare she stop Gavin seeing his daughter? How dare she stop her daughter seeing her father? What the hell does she think she’s doing. I don’t believe the “too poorly” line for one simple reason - Gavin said “Lets see how it is on Sunday” and she says she doesn’t think Em will be better by then so lets see how it is. I have two children and while neither of them are remotely the same, I know that the speed a child recovers from illness is not predictable. How can she know two days in advance that Emily will not be better by Sunday? ARGH. Total fricking lies.

I am concerned by the strength of my negativity. I can’t sleep. I can’t find my rescue rememdy so have taken Nytol, even though I’ve drunk a bottle of wine almost and could probably drop straight to sleep. I’ve cut my leg. Again. (I’ve pretty much figured that cutting is directly related to anger I can’t express appropriately). I want to drive round there and shake her. Punch her. And this isn’t me. I’d pretty much say I’m not a violent person. And she’d probably twat me right back.

I just want to make him feel better and I don’t know how. I can’t. That’s why I can’t make him feel better. There is absolutely nothing I can do.

I am so angry. With her. With the world. With the system that decides that mothers should come first when it comes to custody no matter what. I am thankful for that because of my position, but when it comes to him… He is such a good father, it breaks my heart to see that he can’t have her when he should be able to.