In My Thoughts

ISOLATION Keeping you away from friends, family, or other people. Examples can be when your partner makes you choose between them and your friends, insisting you spend all your time with them, making you question your own judgement of friends and family, and making you feel dependent on them for money, love or acceptance. At some point in your life, you've been isolated, for one reason or another.  It could have been self-imposed, you were forced into it, or it was a malice act by your significant other.  In any case, you need to understand, that isolation of any kind is not a good thing.  It's not healthy for the mind, or self esteem. When your significant other isolates you from your family and friends, it's their way of saying, "I'm insecure with myself, and I'm afraid that you'll realize that I'm useless and leave me someday, so I'm going to do all I can to isolate you from those who can see through me like a jelly fish, so th...

MANIPULATION When a partner tries to influence your decisions, actions or emotions. Manipulation is not always easy to spot, but some examples are convincing you to do things you wouldn’t normally feel comfortable with, ignoring you until they get their way, and using gifts and apologies to influence your decisions or get back in your good graces. What? "ignoring you until they get their way"? "Using gifts to influence your decisions"?  Wow, some girls just have all the luck! All I wanted was to be left alone.  I didn't even want to go home after work.  So clearly, some abusers are capable to giving you your space, in the form of "ignoring you" .  I never got peace in my environment.  Having someone in your face all the time, because they're not satisfied with your answers to their questions is exhausting, causes anxiety (which I was diagnosed with years ago) due to the environment I was living in, and it's just plain bullying. T...

SABOTAGE Purposely ruining your reputation, achievements or success. Examples can be making you miss work, school or practice, keeping you from getting school work done, talking about you behind your back or starting rumors, and threatening to share private information about you. Do you think I experienced this while I was married?  If you guessed "yes", you're right.  It was very embarrassing.  The sabotage was always sent in an email, to my bosses, which would cause me to lose my job, and I could never understand what the heck I did to get fired. But it all came to light after I left.  I saw the emails to my bosses, my friends that were no longer my friends because they'd been alienated from me, my co-workers, etc.  He hacked into my phone or phone book depending on which era it was, for this had been going on for at least a decade. Private discussions that husband and wife usually engage in at the end of the day, while in bed.  My com...

"JEALOUSY An emotion that everyone experiences, jealousy becomes unhealthy when someone lashes out or tries to control you because of it. Examples can be getting upset when you text or hang out with people your partner feels threatened by, accusing you of flirting or cheating , being possessive over you or even going so far as to stalk you ." ----Behind the Post, (n.d.) retrieved 7/29/18 Jealousy is not something that should exist in a marriage or relationship.  But, guess what? It does exist in relationships/marriages, and I experienced every one of those words above in my "relationship/marriage". As a couple, you should embrace and encourage your partner's accomplishments, not be resentful and sabotage their every effort to improve themselves; after all, aren't you benefiting from that same accomplishments?  I believe so. So instead of biting off the hand that feeds you, why not help those hands feed you? As a victim, you may feel that as lo...

The hardest thing as a mother, is to feel like you've abandoned your children, that you chose your sanity over their happiness.  That you chose to save yourself and not them. One thing that I learned in therapy is that, I have to believe that my children understand what I did, they will appreciate and respect me for having the courage to get out of a situation that was not healthy for me, a situation that was making them unhappy, a situation that made the household environment unbearable.  As a mother of both genders, it was important to let my sons know that this is not how women are supposed to be treated, that if you mistreat your woman she will leave, they have to understand that it's wrong to mistreat a woman, just as it's wrong for a woman to mistreat a man.  It was also important that my daughter not see me endure such pain, that women are treasures that must be protected and cherished. She needs to know that she has a right to be in a happy relationship...

Mmmmm, that looks good. So, yesterday I was feeling some kind of way and I could not concentrate, or even get out and do things like go to the beach, as I wanted to do.  Instead I finished a book . I accomplished 3 big things yesterday: I took my car to Auto Zone for a reading, engine gauge goes in the red, but it cools itself as I'm driving.  They found nothing; finished reading the above book; and I did a load of laundry. Anyway, as the day went on, I started getting very emotional, unable to concentrate or complete a single thought.  Years ago, I criticized someone for not being able to live inside their own heads.  This person had just ended a relationship, and they were doing everything to keep themselves busy just so they wouldn't think about the situation they were in.  The hurt, the loss, the fear, the uncertainty...the list can go on forever.  Now that I'm in the same situation, I have an understanding of what this person was going throu...

Good Morning you wonderful souls! I can't stress enough how important it is to continue moving forward even when your legs refuse to hold you and support you up. It's those times when the unexpected happens.  The unexpected happens when you decide to not worry about it anymore, instead, focus on something else.  On your journey to self discovery and self healing, there will be bumps, don't let those bumps slow you down longer that a fraction of a second, if you do, you will continue to slow down, eventually to a stop.  You absolutely do not want this to happen. Lately, I've been in the dumps a bit, not too much.  Worrying about bills, fighting to get back in the classroom and start teaching again, worrying about the kids and their well being, just the usual stuff.  Realizing that I wasn't doing anyone any good, I decided to let go of those worries and take care of my mental health.  I reached out to a professional to help me cope, to help me c...