Despair...

Tomorrow my daughters go back to their father's house for their week with him...

:'(

Tomorrow, I am, once more, alone with my thoughts...

That used to be a good thing; the relief (from having to be unfailingly functional), the respite, the peace, the silence... Only now, I do not want to see or be what is in those silences...

I do not want to be in a relationship right now... (or perhaps, there is just no-one currently in my life that I want to be in a relationship with; I can't be 100% sure on this one but either way, it results in no desire for a relationship, at least, at this point in time)

But I do want someone to tell 'I love you' to... And who will tell me 'I love you', too...

I am deeply grateful that I know the difference between the two... I am grateful that being able to and actually applying this understanding means I am not finding myself in wrong relationship after wrong relationship, desperately searching for something I will never find...

I am open to the right relationship... Just as I am open to the right friendships... should they come along... I just don't see anything like that in my life right now... I want to... but I don't

This afternoon, I braved facing a situation head on... The message has been registered as having been seen and this person has been registered as having been active hours later... and still no response... There is always a chance that this person is simply unsure of how to respond or of even if they want to respond, as yet... I honestly don't know... I am open to this being the case but I am suspecting that getting my message has, instead, just given them the wordless 'out' of our friendship that they had been seeking all of this time...

I feel sad about this... but I do not want something that does not truly belong to me... I never have... And so if this is goodbye, then I guess I will have to find a way to be okay with that...

I don't know whether or not I will bother sending a message to the other mutual friend she and I had... I think that certain circumstances have made where things stand between that person and I quite clear... It is now just a matter of whether or not I seek to be heard... or whether I allow it to simply disappear into the abyss with so many other unaddressed hurts...

The jury is still out on a person I had previously believed had walked out of my life, albeit unofficially... I don't know what to think there as I am still getting mixed messages...

There was a reconciliation of sorts with one person in particular... but I really don't know whether or not that is going to hold; we have a lot of talking to do and I don't know where we will find ourselves at the end of it all... I don't hate her... I just don't know whether or not our time has come and gone...

I have a feeling that this internal restlessness and a wish to move on, while intensely painful right now, is actually a sign of progress...

I am becoming increasingly dis-satisfied with the people and things in my life that fall short of what I want and what I deserve...

As with any major changes, I am aware that to a certain extent, there is a pendulum effect in play here; it is incredibly difficult to make major changes without wiping the whole slate clean... People are used to who you already are... they don't usually deal so well with change... I feel really, really threatened by that... And having fought so very hard to get to this point, I don't want to risk not being able to hear my own voice... or getting so confused that I begin to wonder if maybe I'm just crazy and things should go back to the way they were... when I was so deeply unhappy but not creating waves in anyone's life... including my own :(

The more I think about it... the more I want to walk away from everyone and everything and simply not look back...

I want to start again...

New Life... new partner... new friends... new everything

I think it has been coming for a while now...

My family and I have been becoming closer and closer for quite some time... and although there is still deep pain with regard to some issues I have with my siblings, overall, I actually have a family for the first time since I left home at 17... possibly even for the first time... ever

The end of my relationship with Darren was not only the end of that relationship... but also the end of the very last of the lessons I needed to learn in order to have everything I require to be able to make 'normal people' decisions regarding my own life... Now all I need is the confidence to hear my own voice above all other voices no matter what... and the courage to implement these changes... without apology

Something standing in the way of true reconciliation with any of these women, is a complete lack of trust...

I have reason to believe that they are all talking about me behind my back... and in one or two cases, I have evidence...

I honestly just don't know that I even want to have friends like that in my life...

I don't want to always have that nagging feeling that I may or may not be getting all of the story... And that I may be being judged by what others have said, as opposed to being judged upon my own merits...

These women all spend quite a bit of time bonding... together

No... the more I think about it... the more I know that these things are not what I want...

All of us have online journals... and access to one another's journals (although it is impossible to really know whether or not any of us actually utilise that access)... There is only one of us who has not disclosed the location of her own journal... and she is the one who is supposed to be the closest to me... She also happens to be the only one of us that I know for a fact, religiously keeps up with all of our journals...

I have no problem whatsoever with someone keeping a private journal... It is not the privacy of the journal I have an issue with, but the gut feeling I have that there is a massive double standard at play here...

In our conversations, I am called to account and expected to justify each and every thought and feeling I have (that she has access to)... and although there is a careful acceptance, on her part, if I actively shut a line of enquiry (which often feels more like a confrontation or an interrogation) down, I feel compelled to defend myself by sharing more than I otherwise would have; not that I had anything to hide, but whatever else it is that I have ended up sharing, results in me feeling over-exposed and emotionally raw... so perhaps it is not the wish to with-hold information, but the wish to protect myself from unnecessarily touching upon the emotionally volatile... and to put down boundaries?

Naturally, I take responsibility for my part in this... I haven't said 'No' when I should have... I haven't stood up for myself when I have felt interrogated and confronted... I haven't defined or enforced boundaries...

And at first... at the beginning of our friendship... I didn't have to

There was mutual respect... There was gentleness... There was trust

I fully understand that her issues with abandonment in just about every area of her life have been off the charts for quite some time now (and I totally get that me having taken some steps back from our friendship - even though I was clear it was because of my own mental health deterioration and not her, and that it would be for a limited time - has certainly made that worse)... Just as I understand that the 'fight or flight' instinct that that kind of issue can trigger is strong... I even get that the almost 10 year age gap we share accounts, at times, albeit rarely, for the huge differences in the stages of our emotional development (which is easy to forget at times because, to her credit, she is incredibly mature for her age, in most ways)...

But if what that results in is an emotional aggressiveness (by which I mean confrontation and demand as opposed to abuse - which is certainly not what I am talking about here)... and if what me facing that emotional aggressiveness and demand results in is me dissembling, repeating old patterns and getting sicker and sicker... then what am I to do? How do I continue a friendship where her dysfunction and my own dysfunction are sending us both on a downward spiral where one is triggering off the other and feeding the cycle? The more she fears being abandoned, the more emotionally aggressive and demanding she becomes in order to try to gain a sense of control over her own fear of being abandoned... The more she becomes emotionally aggressive and demanding, the faster and further I want and need to run... And the more I brave it and stay regardless, the sicker I become...

I don't see a way out :'(

She is a lovely girl...

I have nothing left...

I want to say 'I'm done'

:'(