Feeling vulnerable : no woman is an island (!?)

I’ve never before felt quiet as vulnerable as I feel today.  I have been crying a lot but its a good kind of crying though it contains a lot of pain too, as I am realising things about my nature and my past, painful things, but true things and these realisations are making me realise how much I hid of myself before and of the defences and anger I used to keep this pain at bay before as well.

It was prompted by really opening myself up in my relationship and not getting what I needed.  It hurt but I realised I could survive it.   The situation we are in is very difficult and its no one’s fault but I felt really like blaming Scott in the early hours of this morning.  There are so few times we can talk and with training now extended he isn’t available until I need to sleep and so I am not sleeping as well.   He got upset and I took that badly anyway I wont go into the ins and outs of it and thought I try to tell him its bad to hurt so much in a way a more mature part of me knows its actually good because he has shown me what it means to truly make yourself vulnerable in a relationship.   Its going to really hurt sometimes and then I am tempted to just shut myself up like  Vesuvius Fly Trap flower but I know that doesn’t help but just leaves me more alone.  I read a quote once that said its easier to be angry with people than to express the fact you are hurting, its always a risk if they don’t really care you might get a serve, but feelings will be hurt in relationships due to the way life rolls on at times.

I am also reading in the Stan Tankin book on attachment and relationships about the three ‘styles’ and the one that really bought me to tears is the one Stand calls “the island”, this is the person who was never allowed to need or want anything as a child and so learned to become very self contained and inner resourceful in later life.  These can be great attributes for sure (especially for creatives) but there is also a human need to be related and often islands just avoid contact or don’t realise others great need for it.  Luckily lately this is changing for me but I see how being like this at times made it so hard on partners who wanted and needed me to interact more and today a well of grief opened up about it.

I am thankful now I can contain this grief.  I think a lot of us who become alcoholics or addicts are islands, we feel set apart, like we don’t belong, are misfits or strange and maybe we are gifted in some way, trauma makes us more empathic and sensitive for sure, we may even become observers due to being on the outside of family, groups or collectives.  We see deeply and we suffer a great deal.  The healing comes in knowing who we are, how we got this way and why and in deciding if it really is part of our full True Self.  For me as I have shared before I am realising there is nothing sweeter than a connection or relationship in which both parties are free to be fully themselves and can be seen and heard and received fully.  I am sure so many of us became islands as we never experienced this kind of warmth.  It leaves scars that can be covered over with rationalisations and defences at times though if the truth is we really at heart do have to suppress very valid and understandable needs for connection.   I just have to be mindful that the pain I carry isn’t the fault of the person I am in a relationship with.  I said this to Scott in a text last night.   A lot of the time its my responsibility to find ways to give love to that needy part of me its just it would be nice to have someone physically present here not miles and miles and miles away to share time with.   I am finding it really hard today and all I can do to feel better is shift my focus, so later my sis and I are going to the movies.  Being kind to myself is probably the best way through feeling this way today.