Evening (or whatever time of the day you happen to be in!), MIP. A recent post by another member opened up memories Id forgotten, but that now seem very important to look at, so heres my thoughts. This is an long post.

In the first several years of my and my ex-abfs relationship (especially then, but also later) he would be pretty much obsessed with the fact I had had many ex "boyfriends" (...the relationships usually lasted for one evening and were sexual in nature). He was obsessed, he hated it, was really jealous, and he really pestered me about that constantly. I was absolutely smitten by him at the time, though, so I also told him everything he wanted to know, including intimate details. I don't remember really how long all this went on, but it was years, I think, and I truly grew to hate myself for having been with a number of guys before, I learned to see myself as an ex-b***h really, and ex-abf cultivated that. And I WAS very, ahem, "outgoing", but in retrospect the insane amount of time and effort I spent self-punishing and figuratively beating myself to a pulp over my teenage sexual adventures was much too much. In retrospect, it was none of my business how ex-abf felt about any of my past relationships. At the time, though, my ex-abf was on such a high pedestal, sitting in god's place in my life, I could not imagine not taking on his views as my own. It did not occur to him to really take into account that when I was with those other people, I didn't even know my then abf, I didn't do any of that to hurt him in any way. I remember I did try to prove my viewpoint somehow, but I gave up at some point, and, well, I allowed my views to be ignored and ignored them myself. I let myself be convinced thoroughly that my past was wrong, wrong, wrong, like burn-in-hell wrong.

I see some things now... First I learned to hate and despise my (past) self, and I don't exaggerate, I really learned to do that very fervently - and around that time, early in our relationship, is when my depression began and which continued for around the next 7 years. Now I wonder if it wasn't directly caused by my enormous self-hate... I think, now, that this was one of the reasons I felt so terribly guilty, my ex-abf could use my "wrongdoings" to manipulate me freely, there was a long period of time where I felt I deserved whatever bad things I got. I had been bad and so I was guily and so I had to MAKE UP for my wrongdoings... After years, after finally getting out of the depression hole I began to forgive myself for my past b***iness, and he also had eased up on that...

Ive looked at the WHYs of that teenage behavior already, and Ive understood that my seeking out new relationships again and again was in large part seeking acceptance and the desire to feel wanted. When I got that, I could feel good about myself. Yeah, I suppose I was degrading myself in the process, but the past is past. I had that unfulfilled need and I sought to fulfil it the best I knew how at the time.

But today I see Im still holding on to the mindset that what I did with other guys when I was 14-15 was wrong, bad, low, b***y. That I was wrong, bad, low, b***y. That Im inherently this wrong kind of person.

Oh, seriously, this is another big awareness for me. All of that was one of the inital reasons how my ex-abf was absolutely free to manipulate and mold me almost from the beginning of our relationship. I was in some ways empty before I met him, but afterwards I allowed him to use my past against me, to punish me, but no worse than I punished myself. He was and is extremely manipulative, and I was, and still am, unable to really feel I am a worthy person without seeking out proofs of that from other people.

These past couple of days have been not exactly pleasant for me, but thats all inside me, because the outside circumstances have been pretty good. Its just me that is not OK. Im sometimes, like today, still very confused about who I even am, sometimes I just feel so empty, somewho, like Im just a shell, and do I even know what I feel, and what is real and what is only my skewed perception that is not based in reality, and how the h**k to tell the difference. Clearly, I do not trust my perception today. I used to feel something like this a lot more often and used to fear what was happening inside me a whole lot more. Im grateful this is not as bad and scary, and that theres MIP to share at, and for my sponsor as well.

I want acceptance, I want to pity myself, I want to feel good and happy, and I want it all preferably now, gift-wrapped. Im learning to accept myself, bit by bit, but today it seems like my past and the tangled, skewed attitudes I learned are so many, so different, how the deuce I can ever come even close to being OK? What comforts me is that despite how it feels now, most of my days are actually pretty good now, I can be sometimes silly, just joyful, more outgoing, more open in communication with other people, less scared, less tense and nervous than a year before when I came to Al-Anon... I cannot deny theres progress in many areas of my life, it shines through my gloom! So it works when I work it, even when I feel like a miserable, hopeless puddle. Im grateful for that, so this too shall pass, sometime.