Friday, June 10, 2011

Toxic relationships

I have been dealing with these my entire life. I have an odd personality. I crave stability, but shun conformity and tend to fight the feelings that I know are right and good for ones that make me feel comfortable. I do not like being vulnerable and tend to shy away from affection, attention, praise, closeness etc. I usually don't let what others say about me affect me. I beat myself up enough as it is and don 't need to hear what faults others find in me. Lately I have been feeling worse than I think I have ever felt. I am taking things personally that I used to let roll off my back. I am letting cutting words really hurt my self -worth. I am letting peoples disregard for me question my importance. I can see it, which is an unfortunate part of being an intelligent and perceptive person ( sorry I have to say nice things about myself right now, or I might lose it).

How am I supposed to behave? I am feeling so unimportant to people I should be important to. I feel hurt by ugliness and flippancy (word?) I know I am imperfect, I know I say things that I shouldn't and don't do a lot of things that I should. I know I am married to a man who says things he shouldn't. I know that I am not the easiest person to get along with. I take myself out of relationships. I close myself down. Somehow I think it will be easier this way, but then I feel bad about it later. I am not talking about only one relationship here unfortunately. One I am conflicted by commandments to continue and I don't know if I can muster the will power to subject myself to the abuse much longer. The others are ones I feel I have put effort and love into, just to be spat on.

So my question is, how do I deal? Do I just cut ties and move on? Do I try to mend ( which just REALLY isn't my thing, DANG YOU PRIDE) or just accept the relationship as it is and realize that, it just is what it is?

So then I think maybe it is just me. I am busy. Really busy, maybe my relationships are falling apart because I let them. My kids and my husband are more important to me than ANYONE else and I say no to things because I would rather spend my non-school time with them. But then I think REALLY hard and say to myself ,no, I still make the effort, oh it's just me? I am the one that calls, I am the one that tries. I am SO crazy, they just don't want to be friends with me. They don't want to spend time with me. I am the one that is doing everything wrong. It's just me. It's just me.

I have been struggling to find anything about myself that I like these days. I feel stupid, useless, ugly, fat, boring, socially awkward, slow, emotional, defensive, unmotivated, unwanted. The sad part is these are feelings that I let others project onto me. When I am alone and with my husband I feel content and wish the rest of the world would just melt away. These feelings have made me pull away farther then I ever have. I don't want to talk to anyone, I don't want to be around anyone, I just feel really vulnerable.

I know I need to FIX all this, but part of me just wants to continue to live in my little bubble where the 5 of us couldn't be happier. Just keep the rest of the world out and block all the ugliness. For whatever reason I don't have the strength to deal with all the garbage.

I am sorry I am rambling on, this is cheaper than therapy. I have a million things I want to say, but will keep in for the sake of ugliness. Bottling it up too much makes me spit ugliness in other areas. I would rather just vent a little here to keep the ugly at bay.

Seriously the only thing that keeps me sane these days is singing this kids song that I like to sing with my girls:

"I'm not perfect no I'm not

I'm not perfect but I've got what I've got

I do my very best I do my very best

I do my very best each day

But I'm not perfect

And I hope you like me that way"

I think I need a hug, oh wait, I don't liked to be touched.



6 comments:

Marc and Liz Anson said...

You just put into words EXACTLY how I am feeling right now too.

I like you Ashley, I like you a lot. I love your girls and your family.

We are busy too so when we have a minute to be together I would rather be with my family too. Your not alone.

Sounds like we need a girls night for sure! I think we both need to take care of ourselves too so we can give the best to our family.

Tracy said...

There is absolutely nothing wrong with revolving your life around the people who make you happy and feel good about yourself. Jared and I just realized this again as we are going through a few things. Our family is what really matters at the end of the day, who cares about everybody else? Go read Family:A Proclamation to the World and forget the haters! (PS, I think you are awesome!)

Sharcy and Jeremiah said...

I too just spend every possible waking moment with my kids/husband. I would like to go out and "play with the girls" or even play with Jer, but I still think about and worry about the kids. You are busy, but it will all pay off. I am so impressed by your continuing through the Master's program. I love that you do tennis and still get your girls looking so cute (at least when I've seen them :) I see them and hope I can get Kaiya looking so cute when she's older. Just keep it up and so what is right for you and your family! I feel that is all that matters :)
-side note- I love when we are able to see you guys, Jer doesn't get along with many of the husbands and he sure likes Cally

Kalynne said...

I think you nailed it on how a lot of women feel about themselves too often than we'd all like. I think it is part of our nature to want to make everyone and anyone happy-at our own misfortune. We need to remember that it is okay to have a little "me time" where all you do is relax and enjoy being you. Once you're a mom-those moments are far and few between.
Know that you are loved though!!! By many wonderful people and more importantly by our Savior and Heavenly Father. I know I think quite hightly of you and think you are doing a great job with everything you juggle each day.
Whenever I am feeling angry with another person (more often than I'd like to admit) I remember a quote that was once on my aunts fridge "Holding a grudge is like drinking poison and hoping the other person will die." I know it is corny-but it helps me put my feelings and emotions back in perspective and get over it a tiny bit quicker.

RachelBQuist said...

This is pretty much how I feel most of the time. Why bother putting effort into relationships with people when it's not reciprocated? Why go out and do something with someone when I get so much joy just being with Charlie and Michael? But the reason is that even though your family are your best friends, you *really* can't survive without friends outside your family. Trust me, I've tried. Michael and I decided at the start of the New Year that we were just going to focus on maintaining our relationships with friends who we KNOW care about us and want to be with us too. Sure, that's only three or four other families but that's all we need and can really handle. Maybe you could try that?
Ps. You guys are for sure one of those families and we have been doing BAD at keeping our friendship up. So sorry on our side and I'm going to call/text you to do something asap! :)

David and Jaclyn said...

Ash you need to be more kind to yourself and know that you are loved. I have always felt good about myself around you because you have a beautiful smile and make others feel good. If there are things or people in your life that "take away" from your goal to be happy or positive, then you have to weed them out. There is a song by Kelly Clarkson that is not popular, but the words have always stuck with me when I was going through some similar feelings: "Picked all my weeds, but kept the flowers" Sometimes we have to take weed out people in our lives that are choking us or crowding our thoughts, and leave no room to grow or progress. Hang in there friend! Love ya!