[beeza]

Hi Benjamin

First of all I want to say thank you for writing such a great book. I have really connected with it, I'm getting some interesting results from the exercises and it has opened my eyes to a lot of deeper emotional undercurrents in past relationships. It's helped to understand that the chaos and drama in some of them was understandable because our unconscious need to revisit our traumatic experiences.

As much as I connect with your concepts I feel that I'm stuck and can't progress because of the terrible situation I have (or should I say my unconscious has) got myself into. I have created a situation where every path left open to me is unbearable.

I had only been with Matt 7 months when I found out I was pregnant. I was 24. I did the test at a friends house and was shocked but I knew I was going to keep the baby as I could not go through another abortion. ( I had one when I was 16 and I can't put into words the damage that it did). I left my friend's and went home where it started to sink in and it dawned on me that there was a possibility that it might not be Matt's. I had cheated on him once, the guy was a musician that I had met in college a few years earlier and had bumped into in town. We swapped numbers and arranged to meet up for a jam. I didn't intend to cheat but somewhere along the line and a large bottle of vodka later, I woke up naked in his bed. I wasn't sure of exactly what had happened, I was so drunk all I had were flashbacks of heated sexual moments.

So here I was panicking, checking the dates, it was just this one time, but it was possible and I was scared. I rushed back to my friend in tears and told her about this chance. She gave me what I now know is the worst piece of advice I've ever been given. She said "even if it doesn't turn out to be Matty's, I would just lie. People won't know".
I'm not trying to absolve myself of blame here though, the choices I made were mine, I thought the baby was 90% certain to be Matts, I told myself it would be ok to go ahead and tell Matt we were going to start a family instead of having the courage to tell him the truth.

Everyone was happy about the pregnancy. We moved in together. He loved me, looked after me, stressed out about getting everything right for the woman who was carrying his child. I was happy, the thought of 'the posssibility' had all but left my mind. Matt was there when our son was born. It was an amazing feeling to be a mum, the love and protection I felt towards him was unbelievable, he was and is beautiful.

His parents have always been very involved, not overbearing, but doting and caring. Their bond with the baby has grown naturally and changed their lives. My son spends two days a week with his Nan while I go to uni. We have a lovely rented house, brilliant extended family, and Matt is a very caring family orientated man who works hard and is very good to me.
The point is that it would break their hearts if they were to discover that my son is not theirs, but my intuition tells me that the baby is not Matt's.

I really don't know what to do and I feel stuck, trapped in my own lie. All this is made worse by me often feeling trapped in a relationship which isn't deeply satisfying to me, we make each other laugh, we look after each other but there is no longer any sexual chemistry. He is happy to work, watch telly and have a few beers on the weekend. He's happy with what he's got and what he knows, he doesn't like meeting new people or going out. I'm not happy with what I've got, I want to meet new people, discover myself, experience life and be open to change, and in these respects I feel we are poles apart.

So this is where I find myself trapped by the circumstances I have created. I sometimes think of running away, just me and the baby, and starting somewhere new. When I see him with Matt or his family I think that it is inconceivable to even think of doing anything other than keeping quiet and carrying on as is.

I have thought about having another baby with Matt so that the connection between our families will stay regardless of what happens. At least my son would have a brother or sister then too, but I am unsure whether my long term future lies with him, would this be fair. At least then if we did break up his family wouldn't be left with nothing and they would have a reason to be involved with my son.

The truth honestly feels so dangerous, but I'm facing either the emmense anger and hurt of all these people or the possible immense anger and hurt of my son if he were ever to find out that he had been lied to all his life, and the trauma he might suffer from finding out his mind has been permeated with false information.

I just don't know which way to turn. I've been through the exercises in the book and there are some issues from my past. Most probably fear of abandonment/being unwanted from my dad leaving when I was 6, losing my Nan who I was very close to when I was 13, being dumped by the boy I loved at 16 after the abortion. The abortion I feel is key to my low self esteem and feelings of worthlessness. After it happened I totally isolated myself and never really recovered, I've lived with regret ever since.

I should also mention that the exercises in the book have also highlighted the role of sex in my life, I can remember sexual experiences from a quite young age at least 8-10, I'm not exactly sure but too young anyway. I think that this has been a source of shame for me growing up and has caused me some conscious-unconscious turmoil along the way. At the moment I'm not even sure about my sexuality, I've had intense sexual relationships with men before but I've also been attracted to women and have had some same sex experiences. Whenever I fantasise it is about women but I feel that this side of my sexuality is somewhat hidden/repressed.

I'm sorry that this has taken so long to explain and I hope you wont tell me that this post would be better left to an agony aunt! It's just that all I can see is this mess I'm stuck in. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

B

[CJ.]

Hi Beeza,

I know you're waiting to hear Benjamin's advice on your problems, but if you don't mind I thought I'd just chip in with something in the mean time.

Something struck me when reading your message that I thought you may want to consider. From what you've said it sounds as if your doubts about the baby being Matt's have arisen at a time when you are starting to feel dissatisfied with the relationship. My question is: is that more than a coincidence?

In other words, is it possible that you are subconciously using this issue over who the father is as a possible justification for you to leave Matt and take the baby with you. I noticed that you refered to the baby as 'mine' rather than 'ours' (i.e. yours and Matt's), but you did also say that the odds must be in favour of the baby being Matt's. If that is in fact the case then obviously it would be more difficult for you to leave and take the baby.

Please don't be offended by that though, it was just an observation.

Probably best I leave the actual advice to Benjamin.

Best Wishes
CJ

[beeza]

Hi CJ,

Thanks for your reply I'm not offended at all, I'm glad you took the time to let me know you're thoughts. I have thought about the possibility that all of this fear about the baby is a trick of my mind. That me thinking that my son looks like the other guy instead of Matt is just a projection because of my guilt, and possibly on some level my desire to leave the relationship. When I was pregnant I thought that the chances were that the baby was Matt's because the other possibility seemed so small, I had cheated once and didn't even remember exactly what had happened, although the the dates checked out so I knew there was a chance. The older my son is getting the more convinced I am that he has the other guy's genes, he does things that remind me of him, he looks like him, he doesn't resemble Matt, his expressions, his eyes, I just don't think he's his. I wish he was, I wish that I knew that he was Matts and then I could sleep at night.

I should also say that I'm not completely desperate to get out of this relationship, sometimes I think that I should be grateful to have such a lovely boyfriend, that does make me laugh, and wants to look after his family and treat me right, and I think about us buying a house and having more kids. Sometimes though I long for a deeper connection and feel that there's something missing, something more I should be seeking, because you only get one life and you shouldn't just follow the script if you're still looking for something more. I'm stuck in the middle, I'm not sure if I love him truly. I've certainly never been in love with him the way I was with my first love, or is that just the way it goes? Some days I see us together forever somedays I am sure that that is not what I want. Maybe I'm just selfish to think that way and I should work at the relationship I've got, or maybe I'm a coward not to be true to myself, I care so much about him and love him but I dont know if he is the one.

I just don't know, I think my mind is very clouded and I struggle to make decisions about how I feel. My life is carrying on before me, I'm having success in uni and I'm involved in other things that are going well, but inside I'm in turoil and I'm not sure about anything.

thanks for your feedback CJ

B

[beeza]

Just thought I should mention this as this post is in the how does the book apply to me section.

Reading the book has lead me to think of some recurring themes and patterns going on for me, one is my feelings of regret. I look at the way my life has gone and I see a series of bad decisions, I never seem to make the right one, and this goes from the major things like choosing to keep quiet about cheating when I found out I was pregnant to the little things like which things to buy, I'm very indecisive and I always regret my decisions. I think it stems from the feeling that I made the wrong chioce when I had the abortion, that when I looked back in retrospect it wouldn't have been that bad if I'd have just had the courage to tell my family that I was pregnant, at the time that felt impossible. I just needed to get myself out of 'trouble' at the time but I just wish I had been able to see that it wasn't so bad, my family would have been shocked but they would have coped, and so would I. Now I wish that I had just told matt the truth, that I had cheated, as soon as I was pregnant, and I wouldn't have made such a big mess of things again.

B

[Benjamin Fry]

beeza, on May 11 2007, 02:49 PM, said:

Reading the book has lead me to think of some recurring themes and patterns going on for me, one is my feelings of regret. I look at the way my life has gone and I see a series of bad decisions, I never seem to make the right one... I think it stems from the feeling that I made the wrong chioce when I had the abortion, that when I looked back in retrospect it wouldn't have been that bad if I'd have just had the courage to tell my family... at the time that felt impossible... I just wish I had been able to see that it wasn't so bad, my family would have been shocked but they would have coped, and so would I.

Not wishing to belittle your dilemma, you seem to have answered your own question (with some editing). The real question is how did you arrive at the age of 16 with such a psychological architecture that made you indecisive and regretful? You need to treat the source of this structure so that you can build a new foundation on action and truth.

On a practical note I think that you can now do mail order DNA tests in America and you probably should know the facts before you act. After all this might just be a giant projection helping you to rehearse the trauma of your abortion, and if it is, then it would be kinder to get some direct help for that rather than alarm your family with this news. Please let me know how you get on and what you decide to do. If you do need to break the news to them there might be some helpful ways to prepare for that.

[beeza]

Hi Benjamin

Thanks for your reply. I thought about it for a few days then I made a step forward by telling my mum. Had to have a few glasses of wine to build up the courage but she was very understanding and is going to help me try to find out about confirming the truth before I do anything else. She also thinks that I must tell Matt and his family the truth if my suspicions are confirmed. It is all very scary stuff, my son is loved so much by his Dad and his family, it would break their hearts.

Action and truth. I would love to build my life on these foundations. Are these the forces I need to become a better communicator, to find purpose in my work-life, to not feel burdened by my past, to be confident.

I'm going to go through the exercises in the book again to look for some answers to why I always come back to being unhappy with myself, whats wrong with me?? will post any revelations.

Thanks

B

[Benjamin Fry]

Well done and good luck.

[beeza]

Hi Benjamin

As yet the previous issue is still unresolved because of financial circumstances but hopefully it wont be long. It is still overshadowing everything for me so I know its a priority, its just a bit tricky.
I haven't been able to use the internet for about a week but have written to you in my notebook so i'm going to put down what I wrote in it last week and then how I felt yesterday.

Last week:

Tonight I have been lying in bed thinking negative thoughts about my interactions through the day, and the way I look, which leads me to remembering other negative past events and ultimately the feeling that I'm not a proper person who will find happiness and success. That I'm not really able to conduct my life like a real person and that I will always end up outcast. I feel really ugly and like a freak. I think that inevitably my friends will stop seeing the person that they like or I will stop being that person and that they will see me as socially undesirable. I cant seem to connect properly with people that I find interesting, I am just not who I want to be.
If I'm undertanding things correctly then I think that these feelings are the result of my unconscious mind leading me to circumstances that will make me re-experience past emotions. That therefore I should look to my past to find the root of these feelings so that my conscious mind can understand the connection between my present emotions and my past trauma, so that the trauma can be released instead of further repressed. I just dont know where the root of these feelings lies. I have for a long time focused on the abortion as the event which switched the balance for me, and I still believe that it threw me into a depression which overwhelmed my life, but surely if I had strong enough foundations I could have come to terms with it more easily.

B


Yesterday:

I'm feeling worse than ever. The world is a very scary intimidating place at the moment. I feel sort of like in my core there is nothing there. Its hard to describe the feelings that I'm having but it sort of feels like I'm there for the taking that someone could destroy me very easily. I feel like I'm not a normal person and people can see it. I'm functioning as a mother and as a partner but I'm barely holding it together inside. I feel very threatened by the world and what might happen to me
My life is such a mess and my self esteem is so low, I can't fix it. I know that I need to change things from the inside out, I need to repair my foundations but I don't even know where they are.

B

Sorry for posting all this as one huge post but I thought maybe it all needed to be said. It is helpful just to write about it. Do you think what I wrote yesterday means that I'm 'in trauma' at the moment? Is the key finding the first time I felt these feelings? Do I just need to resolve the current trauma?

Thanks

B

[beeza]

Hi Benjamin,

Its been a little while since my last post, and thankfully I'm feeling a lot better now. I'm not in such a dark place, in fact I'm quite calm, I know there is a lot of difficult stuff ahead of me but I also know that I'm going to be in a better place at the end of it.
I have found that certain psychology books including yours have helped me to open my eyes to where I want to be as a person, that is free of repressed feelings/trauma and in touch with and able to act on my real feelings. I also know this is going to take some work, at some point or maybe at gradual points along the way I have become somewhat separated from my real self, I understand that this has happened either through continually repressing trauma or through gradually taking on others feelings as my own so that I didn't really know or trust my own feelings anymore. It is probably some combination of the two, either way I realise that I need to go through the tangled knot of my past emotions in order to unravel it. The next step for me is to find some kind of therapist that I can do this with. Someone who I feel comfortable opening up to, not exactly sure where to look and on a limited budget, but that is the first practical hurdle I have to overcome.
I still don't know what I'm going to do about my son, and our situation. I'm honestly not sure what would be the best thing to do. The scale of the hurt and devastation that I could and might have to cause is horrible, and understandably this is causing me major dissonance. I think the best thing that I can do is to get on with getting to a therapist and go through this situation within that setting so that at least I will be ready for the consequences of my actions and the effect on myself, my son and my family. I am determined to do the right thing but I'm not convinced as to what the right thing is yet or how to go about doing it.
I am remembering that I'm on a spiritual journey, I would gratefully welcome any insight, feedback, help or guidance.

B

[Benjamin Fry]

I think what's really interesting about your last two posts is that you can see that it is always darkest before the dawn, but if you stick with it (yourself) things get better and then you are free of at least that much trauma. As you free yourself up from pain, you can open up to your spirit. You just have to keep going...