Pre-A Behavior

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-20-2009
Pre-A Behavior
15
Tue, 08-03-2010 - 12:36pm

My personal thoughts and experience with this are timely since we've had a few pre-A Havers on the board lately. Here is my back story:
Tomorrow will mark the third anniversary of the murder of my nephew. I logged onto my now rarely used myspace account and went back three years to read the emails he wrote to me and to read the blogs I wrote about his death and the responses and support I received from my friends and his immediately after his death. While there, three years ago in my emails, I came across emails from men (not just one) that I was inappropriately flirting with. I began to think back to that time in my life, and the year or two before then, and see the pattern of self-destruction and the manifestation of really f'd up thinking right in front of me in those emails. How stunning and outrageously painful to see how I set myself up! How painful to see now, with my clearer perspective, how I was beaten down by life and sabotaged by my poor coping skills. How I turned away from my H and my M WAY too soon, before I even gave it a good shot -- and trying to figure out what was so damaged in me that I would do that. I see now that my A with my X was just the 'perfect storm' that sank me, but that I was adrift WAY before he came along. I thought I'd been addressing those issues since my A ended, but, honestly, I don't think I really confronted how deep-seated and insidious my bad behavior was this far before my A because I was too focused on the the actual A and getting over it and X.

This was my pre-A behavior in a nutshell:
I was very active blogging and posting photos on myspace, and now I realize I was desperately trying to connect to someone/anyone and was writing not for myself, but to impress a future A-partner (yet to be determined.) I see that now; I didn't see it then.

I flirted back with the kid in IT, even though I didn't really even like him - just because it stroked my ego.

I allowed emails and IMs to go south with men just so that I could feel some sort of intimate connection, have some "deeper" conversation about feelings and such. (gag!!!)

I began to develop a very well-fed fantasy life that was complete BS escapism that eventually became something I desired in real life -- the over romanticizing would make a Julia Roberts movie look flat by comparison.

I drank too much. Smoked pot. Did anything and everything that would help me symbolically run away from home and myself. I absolutely wanted to destroy myself, turn off my head, disappear...

In retrospect, the A was just a continuation of the road I had been on for a long time; it was not what got me to my goal of self-destruction, it was merely a shortcut along the way.

I was wondering if y'all would like to add some of your own experiences about who you were/what you were thinking pre-A.

Dee

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iVillage Member
Registered: 06-12-2009
In reply to: deeulta
Wed, 08-04-2010 - 12:37am

I've always been the shy, reserved type around men until I get to know them.

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-25-2010
In reply to: deeulta
Wed, 08-04-2010 - 3:37am

This thread made me think, so

New Choices, New Chapter,


New Challenges,

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-02-2010
In reply to: deeulta
Wed, 08-04-2010 - 6:02pm

Aha- -good one Dee. After my A, I too went back to look at some emails and discovered some inappropriate ones between myself and a few men. I couldn't believe it. The only difference, I think, between those instances and my A, was that the men never pushed it farther than friendship- and I recall a few times becoming uncomfortable with some males friends and backing off... but this behavior stems ways back... way back to high school when I now recall making out with a friend's boyfriend while I too had a boyfriend. And not just once. So this is something in me- this need to be desirable and to be validated. This will take a lot of work. I've put in some good groundwork the past 6 months, but I have a long way to go.

Hugs,

Jane
NC/LC since January 28, 2010
http://secretlifeofjane.wordpress.com/
Jane
NC/LC since January 28, 2010
http://secretlifeofjane.wordpress.com/
iVillage Member
Registered: 07-21-2010
In reply to: deeulta
Thu, 08-05-2010 - 2:38pm

I've wrestled with self-esteem issues for as long as I can remember, and with body dysmorphic disorder since my teens. I've never believed that I'm attractive or worthy of a man's love, and have always felt like I had to settle for whatever crumbs of attention came my way. Despite many years of talk therapy, I've never been able to shake my self-loathing.


The end of this affair,

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-20-2009
In reply to: deeulta
Fri, 08-06-2010 - 2:30pm

Another great post Dee!

BE the change that you want to see in the world! Life loves me and I love life! <3

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