I feel that my life is covered in dust. Why? I have forgotten about myself, I have forgotten about who I am and what makes me feel happy as a person, would you please help me? I am not going to complain because I know that each person is responsible to find their best way of living, but now it seems I have crashed straight a wall that led me into a dark lonely room. I know many of you know all about my story – if you don’t please read my posts from the past – from having an abusive family who discouraged me to embrace who I am, to run away with my boyfriend who I met from a long distance and encounter a new life full of challenges and suffering. The result now is that even though I have the chances and possibility to be happy and free by my own – FOR MY OWN FEARS – I am avoiding it. I completely lost track of who I am, I don’t know what to do anymore, I leave situations and behaviors from other persons get on top of me, literally I hide from myself – I am not able to see myself in the mirror without closing my eyes or bend too much in front of the sink – this is hurtful and hard to say but it’s the honest truth and somehow writing it down gives a little relief. Everything I was, I gave it to other people expecting in return love, comprehension and most of all FREEDOM, but it seems that I was a bird who left a cage to enter another one. I have a great job and many opportunities in my work life – which I am not taking enough advantage of because I listen to comments that doing that is too selfish or too much thinking of me. But lately Ive been skipping work because of being with my boyfriend listening to him saying – he wants to be with me and that all I care about is my work and my traveling ( business traveling which I only did three times in the past year) and believe me I love it and I want to go back. – my boyfriend has done everything to get me quit my job, while I was on travel he made up a fake friend and told me he was with him at my house, he called me cursing and demanding I needed to go back- all of that stuff hurt me in the past and now It seems I cannot get over it, and be happy with him. My boyfriend told me to quit my job and to understand that I have put him into first place in my life, but I did not fall for that, I argued and told him that I gave him everything I had in life and that If I gave him something else, I would lose who I am and that would be falling to the ground. I have abandoned my body, while forgotten about my problems I have done awful things to my body, I started over eating and I gained weight – I hate my body now – I got stretch marks and I have pains in my back, stomach and arms. I have dreams every night of people chasing me, doing bad things to my integrity and I can’t even scream, in those dreams such as real life my voice is missing , it seems someone ripped my throat away and the feeling of anxiety of not be able to scream or even move sometimes wakes me up at night. Horrible things. My boyfriend, he keeps living with me but we live in a situation that is also taking over me, I am not being able to tell him how much I love him without me recalling all the things in the past. I feel angry at him because I need to pay off for his school and to live with me – And I feel guilty about it, because I was not like that, I was a nice kind guy who all he ever wanted was someone to love – and when he realized about its own potential it was ripped apart from him using mean behaviors and abusive words-. I have a problem in life and I recognize it – I put all my happiness hope in something that has not happened yet – and when I reach that and I achieve it, it seems I need something else to become happier because somehow I left that misery and terrible thoughts get over me I thank many of you guys have gave me advice, dump your boyfriend – but somehow It seems my problem goes beyond him – he is good sometimes and I feel that because of my behavior I treat him bad and I can’t even gave him a kiss without feeling hurt. When I come home after work and he wants to hang out with me I feel tired, I feel smashed! Why? I am afraid of leaving my boyfriend, I will be left alone in this city with people that I don’t know and without anyone to count on- except my friends from work. I found this English club of American foreigners here in the city where I live and I was welling to volunteer, that idea got me exited but when I told my boyfriend it instantly turned off because he said I don’t needed to add more things In my life because I got him and my job- he cut my inspiration from doing that- I definitely want to do some volunteer work related to what I do because I love it. I want to meet other people and become friends, Like I’ve done in my current job even with people of different backgrounds, countries and personalities. I am really good at what I do, It is something that always have feed me and made me feel right and I enjoy but with my boyfriend telling me those things, it seems now it something I am guilty of. I have found more side jobs from my work – like freelance- which I made promises to the people who asked me for doing that – and I have turned off because my boyfriend says is a waste of time and that I need time with him instead of brining more work load into my life. I try to conform myself doing things I used to love, like wearing earphones in the middle of the night, dancing off, but somehow things that I used to enjoy are not satisfactory to me anymore because that hurt and that pain comes back to mi mind like chasing me. I am only 23 years old and I look and feel like 80. I hate it, I hate this life and I hate what my life is tuning into. I have only one hope – I have talked with my managers and they believe in me – they want me to get transferred to the United States – which has always been my dream. And I am really really looking forward to, but I am scared since it’s not sure yet and could cause me a lot of drama and trouble with my current partner. I know I have to be brave and embrace things for myself but this gray cloud on top of me makes me grow so many questions and doubts about my future, it even makes me feel guilty of running away from my house and believe I made a wrong decision- and to not feel proud of what I have achieved ad my short age. And like my boyfriend says – who would want to be with me? A 23 year old with a 50 year old mind who only thinks about work. I think I have refuge in work because everything else has failed In my life, how can I restore my self-confidence and be happy again? How can I look myself into the mirror without bending? How can I eat something without gaining weight because I am depressed? When would I stop think about others and think of myself? Isn’t this selfish? Is it true that I am a 50 old man in an ached forgotten and lonely 23 year old boy?
This thread is tough for me, and probably for others, to reply to. I know that many folks have read your post, but the answers to your questions are probably beyond just the people of EC. Anyway. Where to start... Your boyfriend. You said you've been told to dump him, but you don't want to. At the very least, I think you should talk to him about all of this. Talk to him about how you feel he limits you by wanting you to put him first. Talk about how much you want to excel at work, and how you want to volunteer, but that you can't do those things with him breathing down your neck. These are things that YOU WANT to do to make yourself happy. If he doesn't want you to do what makes you happy, then he doesn't deserve you. Talking to him is something that you NEED to do if you want to have any chance at a successful relationship. You need to feel comfortable talking to him about these difficult things, and he needs to be mature enough to realize what he is doing and respond. If he's not mature enough and freaks out on you when you talk to him about this, then he is not someone that you should be spending your life with, especially when you have such high ambitions for yourself. Physical health: Physical health is tough to maintain when your mental health is not at a good level. I'm not saying you're crazy; please don't think that. But you're obviously very stressed, very confused, and you want help dealing with it. I suggest that you straighten out things with your boyfriend first. When that's done, you can start doing the things you want to - excelling more at work, volunteering. Hopefully you'll start feeling satisfaction when you do these things, and you'll be in a better position to start exercising. Running, swimming. Things to relieve stress. I'm not saying you shouldn't start running and exercising now - by all means, please try. It's great stress relief. But don't try to do all of these things at once. It's easy to overwhelm yourself. Last thing I'll say: You are not being selfish. If what you say is true, and I'm sure it is, then you are in a very tough situation. You have a boyfriend that you want to be with, but who is limiting your ambitions. You said it in your thread, and you are right - you need to think about yourself. If you aren't happy with your own life, how can you expect to help other people with their lives? I hope my messages aren't too hard to understand, but you have my support man. I'm sorry that you're in such a tough position, but you do want help. You made a thread here, which is great. You're on the right path to getting your life back to where you want it. If I didn't address something that you really were looking for someone to address, just post and I'll take another look at it. <3 (*hug*)
