I guess I'm overreacting, but how to stop?

I guess when things start getting me down I want to run away. When life gets hard I push the good away. I'm starting to do it now. I don't want to I care about him. But how can you not answer your phone? He's having dinner at his grandmothers, he can pick up the phone or call me. Especially when I was under the impression that he was stopping by my work 15 minutes ago to take a cigarette break with me and he never showed. How can you not answer your phone?

He never seems to answer. Always has an excuse "I was working" " I was sleeping" "I was in the shower" He doesn't ignore me and we have a relatively good relationship other than my jealousy and such but OH MY GOSH I WANT TO RIP MY HAIR OUT WHEN HE DOESN'T ANSWER THE PHONE. Am I just looking for a reason to be mad at him because I'm mad at other things? How do I not let it carry over? I always want to run away in this relationship when things in other areas of my life go wrong. It's ruining my relationship enough as it is, eventually it will break from this. But I don't know what else to do...

Sorry for over posting.. I'm having a really weak day today...

And he still hasn't called me back even.

No answer again... I feel like I'm going to explode with frustration right now, and really he's not a bad guy at all. Why can't he answer his dang phone?! Ugh!!!

(((((Purple)))))

Relax, now how often do you do this with him? Do you call him a lot, need him a lot?
Okay, you have to be honest with yourself on this. You have a lot of doubts going on, as you said, your having a bad week. You have to be careful not to down load on this guy, it will wear on him, not that your not worthy, but he will start to feel smothered, anyone would feel that way. Your going to have to find a way to fill your time with you. You have not found that yet have you? You need to find some you in you and not you in others completely.

You have had something bad happen to you, so your balance is off. You have to gain your personal balance back and try really hard not to feed into your anxious thoughts.
Oh, sweetheart, I know its hard, I can see that your struggling. And that is normal from what you have experienced. But you have to find you yet. Your not allowing yourself to enjoy something yet, something on your own.

Ok, I know it is hard but put the phone down, do not call him again and don't allow yourself to stress. If he doesn't call, let it go, I know its hard but make yourself let it go. What is happening is your trying to find something to control, you lost control over something so you stress every time you lose control. At some point your just going to have to work towards learning what you can control and accepting what you cant. Just because you can't control something doesn't always mean your failing, only that is what your seeing now. Make a pact with yourself that you will truely work on not feeding into stress. Hey, I have to do that too and I know it isn't easy. But you have to start somewhere, sometime and you will learn slowly how to overcome it better.

(((((Hugs)))))
Open Eyes

Thank you openeyes! I took your advice and thankfully avoided making a huge mistake. I asked him if I could borrow his phone for work since my daughter was going to call (she's spending Christmas with her dad) and although I didn't have the phone because I forgot to grab it, I dropped it under the car seat. So it was in the car under the seat the whole time I was calling him. It took him about 20 minutes to find it. He came to my work after dinner with his family (bringing me something to eat) and I calmly asked where his phone was and why he wasn't answering. It took a minute for me to cool off but I fought it and succeeded and didn't screw things up.

I am having a rather difficult time right now trying to manage without a t. Last night I heard a little girl ask me for help after watching a really triggering movie. I've been having trouble figuring it out and dealing with the triggers and I guess I needed to angle it somewhere and didn't want to deal with it myself. You're right I need to stop leaning on him so much.

I am always going to him with all of my troubles and I need to stop. He knows my history he knows the things I've been through. He has trouble remembering from time to time. He will say or do something that triggers me and wont understand why for a little while then he gets it and says he forgets I had that childhood because I seem so "normal" to him.

I tell him everything though, I tell him how far from normal I am but he seems to be in denial over it. But maybe that's what works for him. This is my problem, this is something I need to fix not him. He didn't mess me up and him just being with me makes me so much better than I ever was, I really can't ask him to do any more.

I'm so dependant on him. I don't have a car or a license but when we met he didn't have a car or license. Now he has both and I have nothing. His family helps with so much financially and so does he. He's there to comfort me every time I cry about my past. He's there holding my hand and kissing my forehead and hugging me and saying how sorry he is it ever happened. But I don't need to make him feel like he isn't making me happy because really I'm not making me happy. I'm not doing enough to make myself happy and am doing too much to make myself miserable.

I know when I freak out that I need to stop, it just gets overwhelming and I can't control it. I don't know where these fears come from but it seems like they change me and I have no control. But I do, I did tonight so I will again. Thank you again for your reply openeyes you saved me from making a huge mistake and messing up the relationship more than I already have with this. You're such a wonderful person! Thank you!!!!! (((((((((openeyes))))))))

((((PurpleFlyingMonkeys)))))

I understand what your saying, I have those difficult times as well. So, let's think about what you experienced. One of the symptoms of PTSD is "catastrophizing". Now I had to really think about that because that symtom is not really explained and it really should be. I find that what happens to me is that I don't imagine things or make them up, but when I experience something like you did yesterday with the strange man and your boyfriend not answering, it is very easy for that to become a trigger, a feed trigger. Think of these triggers that way "Feed Triggers" and what that means is when something happens where we don't have a sense of control like what your describing, it can become more to us than just frustrating. With what we have, it can, if we allow it, become overwhelming and we can begin to panic and flood ourselves with emotions of anger, fear, frustration etc. The trigger and the experience is real, and we don't make it up, and the fear becomes real too. But what happens is it can hit a nerve and become more emotional than it should and it can present a feeling of catastrophie. And after everything is settled we can regret the way we somehow allowed ourselves to get over emotional.

Purple, the difficult part of PTSD is because something bad did happen in our past, our brain has a new alert system. And we can become so much more sensitive. Our brains are really set up to survive and so when something upsetting happens, it is designed to send us warning signs and we truely do become more sensitive. It is not that we are bad or failures, but because we ARE more sensitive we do feel that somehow we are over acting and not really in control.

These feelings you have, the great sense of need and the fear of abandonment and especially the feeling of being a burden or that others can never understand the depth of the need and personal struggle are all part of the PTSD. Purple, I hear you, I have these same experiences and feelings. It is difficult not having a therapist to work with, someone who can say, "You have this and I understand it and you can tell me, and I will understand, explain and help you". When we do finally find that person who can truely validate what we experience, someone we can truely sit with and let out our fears and troubles to who wont reject or deny us, finally we can feel a sense of safety. Because with that person, we can find the personal courage to learn how to address something that we cant seem to control and are deeply disturbed by and even ashamed of. It is hard to understand, hard to explain and very real and confusing.

Purple, your going to learn to get through this, your not a bad person, you can learn to have a good relationship and you will learn to feel safer. However, it does take time to slowly address this high alert that is coming forward in your brain so you can finally, slowly, learn how to put it all in the proper setting in your brain. What I did with you in my post was I gave you reason and helped you NOT "feed" that alarm that asked, "Is this a catastrophie?" PTSD is a question Purple, a big question about how do we respond to a warning signal, what we now call a "Trigger". But because we dont truely recognize what that disturbing question means, the question itself becomes a kind of pit we can easily fall into where we just somehow say, "Oh, yes, I think this is a castastrophie". So what I did for you, is, quietly say, calm down, don't feed into this, it is not a castrophy and lets work through it.

Purple, it take time to learn what these troubling signals mean that include troubling emotions. In time, you will slowly gain control over these triggers, and tell your brain to calm down and it is not a castrophy and you can work through that troubling question. It does take "Time" Purple, so when you feel the invitation to allow yourself to say, "Oh, my, this is a catastropy, you will begin to say, no, it is not, and you don't have to allow yourself to be overcome with a sense of "catastrophy".

(((((Hugs)))))

Open Eyes

Thank you open eyes for your reply again! You're a wonderful writer and very well spoken. Your words have helped me more than you can realize. I do go into a panic when I get triggered, I just wish I could realize that I am being triggered when it happens. I always feel like I have to run or fight. The flight or flight response, I'm sure you know how that goes. It happens all the time, when something small goes wrong I all of a sudden get an overwhelming feeling that things are the absolute worst they can be and I decide I'm going to leave or I'm going to fight my heart out. I guess maybe I have to remind myself that I've been triggered when these things happen.

I can tell if something ruins my relationship it will be this. Every time I get the slightest hint that he's not happy with me I'm ready to pack up and move across the country. But I've been fighting that urge until things calm down and have been very thankful that I haven't acted on it yet. I have to make sure I don't in the future I can tell it's already put a dent in the relationship.

I figured once I was out of the chaotic environment that I've been around my entire life (going from abusive father to abusive step fathers to abusive teachers abusive family members abusive misc men all the way until I was 18 then I got married to escape the abuse and ran into an abusive marriage. Once I packed my things and moved 1/2 way across the country I thought "Now that I'm finally safe for the first time in my life I can relax, work on myself and be happy finally!" Well I am happy, I'm a lot less tense than I was and I do work on myself but these are only fractions of how I thought I would feel. I didn't realize so much piled up chaos would effect me even after it was all said and done. So now it's sorting through all the trauma to find out how and why it's effecting my life I guess... But there's so much drama and so much I don't even know about yet... It's gonna be a long road, I only hope I don't make things worse for myself in response to what has happened in the past...