Can't stop crying. No idea why.

[TheCakeDiet]

Hello

I'm. It sure relationships is the right place for this, but I didn't know where else to post.

This is probably going to be really long and it will sound mad. And It is more than a bit mad but I am truly losing my mind over it, so have come here for help/advice. I am so ashamed.

I am linking to a thread I posted a week ago. It gives you some context of where my head was just seven days ago - only 21 posts to read, so hopefully not too long to get through. You will see that I was a bit upset/worried about DDs BF, for reasons that are clear within the linked thread.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/3361138-Worried-about-DDs-BF

Update since my last post....

Since then I have found myself falling into a very strange place - I kind of alluded to it in my last post in the previous thread, but I am not quite sure what has happened to me. I am posting here in the hope someone will recognise my thinking/behaviour and can help me crawl out of this black hole.

In a nutshell, I have become obsessive and bereft over this ridiculous non-relationship between two kids. For the first time in my life, I can't sleep at night, have cried at least five times a day, every day, I am treating my DD appallingly because she won't even see him to give him some closure or 'try again' and am being selfish, ridiculous and quite mad. I have no idea what this is really about. It surely can't really be this straight forward? I feel like I am losing my mind because the rational part of me recognises that i can't be this upset about a teenage breakup (I have honestly never been over-involved in anything like this before) so I am wondering if it has triggered something in me but I don't know what, and I can't make this stop. I literally can't eat and I haven't been able to concentrate on anything for a week. I feel on the brink of tears the whole time and completely preoccupied with a need to 'fix' everything so DD can enjoy the feeling of someone loving her so much and being giddy with love herself.

I have no history of depression or mental illness, and this is despite spending the last ten years in a toxic relationship with a functioning but volatile alcoholic. (Last five sexless). Despite losing my beloved dad three years ago and my mum last year following two years of being sole career through dementia, thus making my DH now the only adult in my life (I am an only child, no other family). I have lost a job, struggled with money issues, spent nearly every night listening to the drunken, spiteful ranting of my husband, struggled with weight gain and love loss, yet have still managed to get real joy out of my DC and life in general, but this 'non-event' has floored me.

All I keep thinking about is how much this boy loves DD and how much happiness he could bring her - just for a while until it naturally fizzled out - and she him - and she is throwing it away without a backward glance. I know she is too young and I don't even recognise these thoughts as anything like my own. If you'd asked me four weeks ago, I would have said that I wasn't interested in teenage drama and DD is far too young to have a BF.

I have never checked her messages or anything like that before, but because I was worried about him being bullied but also slightly struggling with DDs sudden and rather cold change of heart, I had a quick scan to make sure this wasn't about something else - him pressuring her into something she wasn't ready for and her not wanting to tell me or similar. Now I wish I hadn't seen them because it's only made me feel worse. He is lovely, kind, a bit cheeky but respectful and completely head over heels, she had reciprocated in the same way and had told him she loves him. Messages are sweet and loving and then suddenly, she becomes distant and ends it. He is bereft. She won't give him any explanation. I stepped away at that point (hating myself for being waaaaaaay too involved) but now I feel even more heartbroken for him and even less sympathetic to my own DD who I love with all my heart, but feel inexplicably angry with.

DD doesn't know I've read her messages and I will never tell her. She has played down what they were about, saying she never liked him that much (I know this is a lie) and it's not her fault she has moved on. This is 100% true but it crushes me every time she says it.

I don't need anyone to tell me I am being over-invested, ridiculous, unkind to DD, a bad Mother or anything else like that. I KNOW. I feel quite deranged by it all and cannot believe how I feel and how I am behaving. I spent all of today in my room alternating between crying and staring into space. I cooked the family meal and went through the motions of that, sat with DS whilst he his homework but honestly felt 'removed' as though I wasn't really there. I know that there must be something else at play here, but I don't know what. Or how to let it go.

It's not as simple as 'get a grip'. If I could, I would have. I am the most sensible, level headed, relaxed parent usually, but right now, if I could make DD go back to him, I would. Which is MAD. And I am thoroughly ashamed to feel this way.

So what's going on? Why have I fallen apart? Why am I so upset? How do I make these thoughts stop? Am I finally revealed as a hideous over-involved nightmare parent or is this a trigger for something else? My poor DD.

Ah, got you - yes, that’s quite a different story

Please please contact WA - they’re brilliant and might just be able to suggest something that hasn’t already been suggested. Even if it’s just someone to listen, can it do any harm?

You can’t go on like this, you sound in so much pain

They can offer advice, and help you to make a plan that keeps you safe. Do contact them when you have the chance.

I feel 100% sure, that you wouldn't be feeling like this, if your relationship with your husband was good.

Your daughter is young. Untarnished. Has her whole life ahead of her. Has the world at her feet. She doesn't want this boy, and, in her young "never been through heartache" state of mind, it means nothing for her to move on.

You however, are 46. You've had much heartache over the last few years, and you know how hard life can be. You realise that chances to be happy, might only come along once in a lifetime. Your life is no longer sprawling out ahead of you, full of promise and fresh adventures, you won't meet a lovely boy next week, and be head over heals and giddy with teenage excitement. That has all passed for you, and you see the world through older and tarnished eyes. You are married to an alcoholic who abuses you every night, and you probably gave him most of your younger years.

Okay....this sounds awful, I know. But , I think that's what is manifesting inside you : you want to shake your daughter, because she has it all there for the taking, and you just want her to see this!

I totally, totally get it. I'm a similar age to you (48), and had similar (much less severe), pangs like this, when I watched my kids trot off to Uni....all fresh faced, lithe bodied and full of life. It's a hankering for our youth back. A youth that's gone far too quickly.

Your situation though is massively heightened because of your DH. If he was lovely, supportive, a soul mate...if you were still having sex and all things lovely, you wouldn't be feeling so bereft.

It's time to leave him, don't you think? You are only 46, and could indeed find something wonderful for YOU again.

In a nutshell, you are MASSIVELY projecting. You need to leave your abusive marriage and hopefully find a new person to share your life with. Someone who loves you, cherishes you, supports you, doesn't abuse you etc.

Imagine how differently this would have all panned out, if when you felt bad for your DD's boyfriend, you'd had a heart to heart with a lovely DH, who had chatted to you and supported you?

I actually think it's nothing to do with your daughter, but rather that there was some quality in the boy that very deeply reminded you of yourself. A sensitivity? The bullying? Something else?

Whatever it is, its unresolved issues.

@Huskylover1 Your post has made me cry (not actually unusual at the moment) but it just made me go again. It’s so accurate and exactly how I feel. Everything in it resonates and I want to scream with frustration at it all.

I know I’m projecting massively and I know there are deeper issues at stake, but in the interests of honestly, I DO still believe that DD is missing out on a chance to experience something with the kind of person that does only come around once and n a blue moon. And I DO still feel that she has discarded something special - because she’s young, un-tarnished and blissfully ignorant to the kind of shit you have to wade through as you get older. And projecting or joy, I do still feel as heartbroken and desperate today as I did the first day I started this thread.

But at least I have better understanding now.

These wise insights really do help if not cure.

Op your DD doesn't feel the same as you do about exBF...she likes him but that is all.....she is happy as she is.

I hope you can work through this complicated situation and find some happiness.

Not sure I agree that the DD will be/is untarnished. Growing up in an alcoholic/enabling household does tarnish us as children.

Would you honestly want your daughter to settle down with someone she met at 13?? Honestly? What about the years of adventure and experience ahead of her, travel, career, new friends, new boyfriends - so much ahead of her?
Yes, she will probably have her heart broken in the future, yes she will experience pain - because that is called LIVING. You can't lock her up in a gilded cage and throw away the key, triumphantly thinking YES! She'll be safe and happy now because she has a boy who loves her! She's THIRTEEN.
I really wouldn't want any of my children to settle with someone they met so young. She'll be a different person at 18, 21, 25, 30 - wanting different things. She probably won't even remember this boy then!
Seriously, concentrate on the real issue here - and that's you and your marriage. Leave her out of it.

@Honeypickle Hello and No, of course that's not what I want in reality. I want her to experience everything - love, travel, work, culture, more love - all of it. But it is not my rational brain leading me at the moment I don't think?

Because right now, if DD said to me "I love him and i want to spend forever with him" I'd be like, brilliant. That's sorted then.

And I promise you that in all my forty-six years on earth, there was never another time where I have thought like this. Never.

How are you doing today Cake?

Cake, you are clearly intelligent and the rational side of you can see that your reaction isn’t normal or right. But I honestly don’t believe that if they did get back together, you’d think “sorted”. You might - for a short while, but then I think you’d start obsessing about their relationship, focusing on how they were treating each other, whether your DD was responding quickly enough to his messages and so on and so on.

I think you’d do this because you have - as a previous poster pointed out - finally allowed yourself to have feelings and to emotionally react to what is going on in your life. Your daughter and her BF have been an outlet for those feelings. Now you have started to experience these strong emotions and reactions- the first time in 46 years you say - they are not going to go away. You will continually seek for something else to react to - until you finally address what all these feelings actually are - a reaction to your own life, your upbringing and background and your current marriage.

I wish you well and hope you can start to take baby steps in helping yourself. For you sake and for the sake of your children. Thinking of you.

@ohfourfoxache - thank you for checking in. I'm basically trying to fill every waking moment so that I don't have any space to let my brain run. Driving is hard - not enough distraction and I am on the brink of tears the whole time. I've left a message for WA and am thinking about calling my GP again. Home is the hardest. I can't even look at H - we are now only communicating in the most minimal of terms and only regarding logistics/kids. I know though, that he can't sustain this and is going to lose his temper over it any minute now. I think he is addicted to anger and fighting and as he doesn't have any outlets for anything, he won't be able to sustain this for much longer. In the past, this would have been killing me as I would want to fix it and make everything ok, but I just don't feel anything about him at all right now.

Being around DD is almost worse. I am trying to be perky and interested in the minutiae of school life, sport and friendships and have made a supreme effort not to mention BF for the last week, but honestly I still just want to shake her. Poor poor DD.

DS is like a little ray of sunshine and just gives me the odd cuddle when I'm not expecting it, but that's a pretty shit role for a boy of eleven, so I really need to make this stop. I'm just at a bit of a dead end and hoping the GP can think of something else.

@honeypickle. Yes again to everything you say. I am, at least, in a place that's so non-sensical to me, that I have to address it now. Something has to give. I feel like i have a lot of stuff to unpack and I am hoping that if I find somewhere to do that, I will start to feel normal. I just can't seem to find anywhere to go. But I will eventually, because I have to. Thank you.

Jesus Cake, you sound so lost

Would listening to music help? It might keep your brain engaged enough to stop the tears, even temporarily.

Re your arsehole of a “H”, are you safe? If the anger starts is he likely to be violent? If so then please, please stay safe. Keep your phone charged and on you at all times. Can you notify your neighbours and ask them to call the police for you if needed?

You have received some great advice so far and it sounds like you really are in a position to try and start making some changes and getting some help. I came on mainly to recommend looking at IAPT (improving access to psychological therapy) which is an NHS initiative that you can self refer on to for talking therapies. I think a previous poster added a link. I can't quite believe the other referral you made only recommended couples counselling which in your situation, with an abusive alcoholic H is not at all what you need. Your thread has been heartbreaking to read and I truly hope that you can get some help. I hope that WA can provide some advice and support around your relationship and what things could look like if you did get to a point where you consider leaving. Xx

www.nhs.uk/Service-Search/Psychological-therapies-(IAPT)/LocationSearch/10008

Can you listen to podcasts in the car, via your phone? That's what I do (on trains, I can't drive) whenever being alone with my thoughts would be painful. Try James O'Brien's Mystery Hour for light entertainment that won't skate too close to uncomfortable feelings.

Thanks again everyone. I do podcasts when i am walking the dog, they definitely help to keep my brain occupied. Music is hard at the moment because I am a big music person but everything feels evocative at the moment. Honestly, even shit rap makes me cry because we listened to it over the summer....

I'll admit to feeling frustrated as well as a bit loopy. It does seem like everything is pointing to hitting a wall and I think I can accept that it's time to deal with emotions or feelings that this may have been a trigger for (sticking with that theory for now), but I can't seem to find an outlet for doing it. The thing is, and this might sound ungrateful, I don't think just talking about it will be enough - I have been so frank here on MN and had more advice and compassion than I ever expected - I feel like I need someone to give me tangible things to do, I guess a pro-active therapist rather than a good samaritan or listening counsellor, but i can't afford that and feel like I keep running into dead ends.

I have bought something nice for DD today - something I know she has wanted for ages - I know it doesn't make up for only having half a mummy at the moment but I want her to know that she is my priority. And yet, despite this, in the interests of honesty (which is broadly what I have been using this thread for - to air my most ridiculous, selfish and inexplicable thoughts and feelings) the sadness of her and BF is still occupying my every waking thought and I KNOW it's affecting how i am being with her. I want to drive the 20 odd miles to his house and bring him here.

This is fucking awful.

Right, you are NOT just “half a mummy”. You are 100% a Mummy, you’re just not yourself at the moment. Stop being so bloody hard on yourself - I suspect that’s what got you here in the first place, needing to be strong. You’re human and I think you need to learn to accept that, just like everyone else, you don’t have superpowers.

Please, for the love of all that’s holy, will you please be a bit kinder to yourself?

It sounds to me like you are doing two things.

• You are empathizing abnormally with that boy because at some unconscious level, this suffering, kind, sensitive little boy is YOU.

• And you are also envying your daughter for what you see as the cure : you yourself have glimpsed during your kitchen talk how the fact of cherishing and mothering that suffering boy would bring you his love. If only she knew how to care for him, and all the love and happiness would be unlocked for her and they would live on in an eternal bliss of shared love.

The fact that your daughter is not you, that you cannot turn back time and become her in this situation, is depriving you of the possibility of accessing that fantasized "true love" with that boy (who is also you).

I think it shows two things: on a deeper level it shows that a little girl in you is suffering from many things and would like to be listened to and cherished exactly as you know you could have cherished and understood that boy.

On a less primal level, it shows that you have developed a "warped" (not in a bad way) understanding of love. The way you access love seems to be by giving love to a person whose receiving it you identify as yourself receiving the love. If this makes any sense.
You experience love only by proxy, in the love you give to others. A part of you mistakenly believes that if you were in your daughter's shoes and could give that boy love, then you would be the one receiving it (by identification).

From this I infer that most of your relationships must work like this. You seem to access love by the love you give others and then identify with, rather than actually being the receiver, and claiming love for yourself. Claiming love is being the "selfish child" if you want. This is not what you do. You give it to "the selfish child" (possibly your husband and kids) and bask in the love you give. But this is not really receiving love.

Counselling would enable you to access and embrace that inner "selfish" child (who is not selfish, but a normal and healthy individual with natural needs). If possible you should try and turn round the relationships you already have, by learning how to ask for, demand love, as much as you give it.
It's a slow process but it can be done, even with your alcoholic husband (and possibly with your children too).

I hope this doesn't sound too strange and there is no judgement of course. I really think you need a fundamental paradigm shift to learn how to identify your OWN needs, and ask for love properly rather than overly identify with the ones who are asking for it.

That boy sure sounds sweet but you are the one who needs to be loved and cared for now - without feeling the need to "give" love first.

Did you manage to get any sleep at all @TheCakeDiet ?

Hello cake just checking in to see how you are today. Did you manage to get through to WA?

@TheCakeDiet you don’t know how to be kind to yourself, do you sweetheart? It’s been so long since someone was kind to you that you just don’t know how to do it

When is the last time anyone even did something nice for you? When is the last time you did something nice for yourself?

Do you even recognise your good points?

Look back at your posts. I wonder if you see what the rest of us see?

You’re extremely caring. Not only for your family, but for others. Just look at how much you care about the BF.

You’re approachable. And I am willing to bet a substantial sum that you give great hugs. Evidence? The BF opened up to you.

You’re practical. Even amongst all you’re going through, you’re trying to find help. That takes guts.

You have amazing insight. Even in your darkest moments, you know that this isn’t a normal response.

You’re a fantastic mum. You know you’re snippy with dd (what Mum isn’t snippy with her kids sometimes? I am and I’m not going through anything like what you are at the moment). But ultimately all you want is for her to be happy. And you probably subconsciously want her back with the BF as he’s not an alcoholic, abusive arsehole.

You’re hurting. You haven’t had a chance to grieve for your Mum, have you? You’ve been so busy supporting others that you’re at the bottom of the list.

You’re kind and loyal. And I know that, probably like everyone else on here, if I knew you in RL I’d cherish you as a friend.

I can guarantee that you’ve just read this and you can’t recognise this at all, can you? Well, trust a stranger on the internet, because it’s all there in black and white in your posts. It’s all there, you just can’t see it x