no word from my friend--will i be stalking him?

I haven't had a phonecall of an email from my friend. If I try to pursue getting some sort of explanation from him, am I stalking him?

My T says that it is time for Radical Acceptance, that he must be willingly playing a part in this, too. So Radical Acceptance would say that he is an adult, and I must accept his choices. But a part of me knows that he has been severely manipulated into this. And yet, he has a free will. He's not choosing to exercise it.

My heart is broken. I guess I can only treasure what I had from him, and leave it at that, unless sometime in the future he contacts me.

I just have such a hard time accepting that this is going to be final, when he promised it would not be. I was in an abusive relationship, and I know what it's like to be manipulated when you're under another person's psychological control. But I also know that he has got to make a stand for himself. And no one can make that except him.

Today I'm not SU or SI, just sad and distraught and anguished.

I dreamed this would happen about 6 weeks ago. I also had a dream 3 days before 9/11 of the first tower being crashed into, at the exact floor, in a building the same number of stories high, with people running up the fire escapes to the roof and not being able to go back down because of the heat, and the fact that the helicopters could not land on the roof. I told people about it ahead of time, and it freaked a lot of people out, including me and my husband, and the people he worked with. They all said that they hoped I didn't dream of them. And I dreamed that my first husband would leave me for another woman years and years (repeatedly) before it actually happened.

I don't believe in the paranormal, and I can't explain my dreams, but I know they happened. And now this.

Dare I be hopeful that he is just being cautious and will get in touch with me when he can? Or am I in denial?

My heart is broken. I want to try Radical Acceptance, except that it feels like I'm giving up on a friend in trouble. People didn't give up on me when I was in trouble. Where would I be if they had? Doesn't he deserve a faithful friend? What good is friendship if you promise not to give up on somebody, and then the worse happens? Do you give up on them? Or do you keep your promise? Is it foolish for me to hope that he gets in touch with me or at least his family? They are counting on me to not give up either. This is how all his friends have been run off. So Radical Acceptance, or keeping a promise to a good friend? Is this my karma? (I'm a Buddhist.)

Some color for my friend, who I hope I will hear from soon. 

a terrible thing is a broken heart

Following my exposure of my heart to the real but misguided love of the past, within 24 hours something dreadful has happened so that I cannot communicate with a potential love of the future, against his and my wishes.

It seems just as my heart is breaking open from a long unhealed wound, it is being broken again by a new wound.

Am having SU and SI thoughts, but mostly SU. It isn't fair. I know, I know: Life isn't fair, but why does it have to be cruel on top of that? For 13 long years I have suffered with a frozen heart. Now the concrete around it has a big crack in it, and i can see that it is still beating, but it hurts from what I thought was long ago pain, but is becoming present day pain. And in addition, I have this shocking new pain and sorrow that I'm going to have to live with. Simultaneously. And it seems that the only one who gives a shit is my T. But she isn't available on weekends.

But it is all so terrible too, because i can't share it with anybody, even my blogger friends. So I'm feeling hurt and alone. Just lots and lots of pain. And no where to turn: not my friends, not my family. Probably only my T. I guess it is good that I have a good one.

Took some pills to knock me out. By the way, I dreamed several weeks ago that this was going to happen: not being able to communicate with my friend ever again. I'm tired of having fucking predictive dreams.
Now I will go to bed (it's 2 am) with my heart fully functioning--in pain and sadness.

cracking open my heart

Last night I watched a very good movie called The Notebook. In case you haven't seen it, it is about the passionate love between a couple until they die. It is supposed to be a 3 hanky movie, but the film didn't make me cry. It was only afterward, when I started to remember the last time i was in love, that I began to sob. I have been divorced from my first husband for 13 years, and still have been angry with him because he was a terribly abusive son of a bitch. And I took it for 15 years because I kept thinking, if I just love him a little more, if I just give a little more... Well, I put myself into a pretzel for him and things only got worse. When he hit my son in the face leaving repeated handprints and a swollen face, that was my key to exit.

But the thing is, I LOVED him. And all this time I have been hiding my heart in concrete to protect it from being hurt again. Which meant that I wasn't in love with my second husband, who was a very nice man. I loved him, but wasn't IN LOVE with him, if you understand the difference. So, poor man, he got the dregs of my love. No wonder he stopped loving me at some point.

But I have been trying to write a love story in my book and have been having great difficulty. So I assigned myself the homework of watching love stories on DVD. I had no idea that what might have been blocking my ability to accesss feelings of falling in love (which I must have in order for the reader to feel it too) was my feelings for my first abusive husband. So I sobbed after the movie. I felt the feelings of loving him, despite what he did to me. And it was very, very painful. It makes me wonder if my depression has been keyed to that all these years. I hope maybe I'll be able to get off of my depression meds as I open up to that very old unhealed wound.

It was my misfortune that I fell in love with an abuser. And I haven't since wanted to admit that I fell in love with an abuser. But I did. And I loved him fiercely. It hasn't done me any favors to deny those feelings. I haven't been able to open up and truly love somebody since then.

I don't know where this is going. I just know that it is a good thing, and the breaking of the case around my heart needs to continue--in order that I may love again, that I may feel deeply again, that I may write with passion again, that maybe I'll be healed of my depression at least to some extent. And maybe it will help me take responsibility for my life and it's outcome. I was a passive doormat in my first marriage: An observer of events, but not an active part of choices in my life. Now I'm running out of money and need to realize that I am not loved, was loved by him in his own way, but at the same time abused... I need to take the reins of my life and take responsibility for the outcome, not just watch myself slide into poverty.

This has all been very painful, but as I've said, it's not over yet. I'm just beginning to crack open my heart.

How this ties into John I don't know. Maybe it is because I was starting to have feelings for him that triggered all this. I still will be his friend. But I'm asking for some support from him, too, in this thing that I am experiencing now. I don't know that he'll be able to give it or not. He has a lot on his plate. But I am asking, one friend to another.

I was madly in love with my abuser, and that is my experience of falling in love.

learning to accept the situation for what it is

Thanks for all the comments. As of now, I am treating the relationship as one of an old but good friend helping another. I am very aware of his strong bond for his children, and since I have a son with whom I'm bonded strongly with, I know that that bond will be first regardless. So IF anything happened, it would have to be so that he has regular access to his kids. I would not even try to get in the way of that relationship, and would in fact encourage it.

At any rate, I wrote trying to encourage a very depressed man. I did it out of compassion. After several months of compassion, though, the love started to grow.

But this all may be moot. I promised him I will be a supportive friend, and that comes first, over any romance. This costs me dearly, but ethically, I think I'm bound to keep my promise of friendship and support. It would be abominable to me to simply drop the support because I all of a sudden have romantic feelings and want them returned "or else." I have to live with myself. I have even talked to him about if he wants to save his marriage...

But people came out of the woodworks to be nice to me when I went through divorce and times of marriage struggle. I feel that I owe the Universe to pass on the support I received.

So I guess I'm sort of taking a Zen-like approach to this: If a romantic relationship happens between us, then great; if a friendship only happens, then this is ok too.

This relationship started when an old friend of mine contacted me for the first time in 25 years. We immediately hit it off, and started contacting old friends, and then we started planning a reunion for us (not a high school reunion, but an old friends reunion). This guy and I hit it off because we are so much alike. And when I found out that he has manic and paranoid symptoms for which he is being treated, then I shared my Dx, and we became closer. Two old friends with mental health issues. The intimacy grew from there. I was once (for 15 years) in an abusive relationship, and know what it is like to have your spouse deliberately cut off your relationships with friends and family (which happened to me and to him). I know what it is like believing that there should be only one marriage and that it should be forever (like he does). So the personal connections just grew.

However, like I said, I take my responsibility to him to be his friend to be the first priority. So I'm setting aside my romantic feelings for now. That is hard, but it would be harder to try to live with myself if I cut off all contact with him now because of my romantic feelings. So the better choice between the two is to remain a supportive old friend and to put aside my romantic feelings. This is disappointing to me to say the least. It hurts. A lot. But he truly is a nice guy, and very much worth keeping as a friend. Who would I be if, when I was in an abusive relationship, I had not had dear friends who were supportive of me looking after myself and my son? Doesn't he deserve that much?

So he is married and may stay married. I don't know if he has it in him to divorce or not. So I have to live with his choices. It's my choice to stay and take the pain. And it is very painful. But in my heart, I am happy, because ethically, I know I've made the right decision.

If something develops down the road--only AFTER he would be divorced--I'll just have to see where I am with my feelings toward him. I strongly feel that he should take some time to live by himself if he does divorce. He has issues he needs to work out and needs to learn to be able to be happy living with himself.

It will be a challenge remaining in a Buddhist attitude toward this. But maybe this will be an encouragement for me to go back to my faith.

Thank you all for your support.

Stray dogs

A friend of mine recently asked, regarding men, if I was in the habit of collecting stray dogs. My first husband was a loner, and turned out to be extremely abusive. My second husband was an outsider trying to fit in. He was nice, but we ended up simply not having anything in common. Now my heart is set on a married professor who is in a bad marriage (they don't live in the same rooms; he would move out except that it would kill him not to see his kids). He doesn't even live in the same state, but we have a lot in common. He is such a sweet guy that I don't think he has it in him to divorce his wife; she'd have to divorce him. She wants him for his money; even he admits that now, long after his friends have been telling him this. So she's waiting for him to get a high paying job other than being a professor, which can't support her $10,000 a month spending habits. I've known him since high school -- a long long time, but only recently reconnected with him. He's been my obsession, other than eBay, and I started out with writing him and talking to him on the phone as an act of compassion because I felt sorry for him.

But then the compassion somehow turned to love as we shared intimacies. Recently, I sent him a letter telling him how I feel. He responded that how could he answer that question until he had answered some of the others I had asked of him which were pertinent, like what was he going to do with his life? Was he going to stay married? Would he try to stay a professor like he loves? Or would he take a high paying job in industry? They really are fundamental questions, and he will answer them eventually, but only when he has figured out the answers to them.

Meanwhile, I am feeling like a fool, embarassed, despairing, SU, SI (although I have attempted neither of these last two), and depressed. Very depressed. And lonely. It is hard to concentrate to get anything done on my book or in my class. Yet time is just ticking away, and soon I will have to find some sort of work, and out will go either the grad degree or the book.

So do I collect stray dogs? At least it would make sense for me to fall for a guy who wasn't married. What an idiot I am.

I will try now to either work or study, but I don't have gleams of hope for success with either.

lost and forgotten--did it myself

I shouldn't expect anyone to think that this is anything other than a dead blog. But I'll write to the ethernet I suppose. Exchanged emails online with John again. This time he said that how could he comment on potential hurtful ideas (oh this is going to suck, I know it) when he hadn't even replied to basic questions I have about what he's going to do in his life, his marriage, his work, and so on. He wanted to know how he was supposed to answer my quesstions. So I wrote back that he should just choose to answer them in whatever order. He doesn't know that I'm dying inside to at least know whether it's bad news or bad news. I'm too disbelieving that something good could happen to me in a relationship.

So I turned back on the friendly act again and behaved as if I hadn't told him how much he means to me. I called him "pal" and "friend" and TOTALLY eliminated the romantic aspect of anything. I always sign my letters to friends and family "Love, X" but I nearly didn't sign it that way for fear that it would remind him of my outburst about loving him in the last 24-36 hours. But I decided to just keep everything the same as before I told him.

I mean, I feel like he led me on to a certain extent. signing rarely, Love, John or xoxoxoxoxoxo. And he has serenaded me twice with the guitar and then with the piano. We have talked intimately about things like his relationship with his wife. All the while I was resisting believing it but falling in love anyway. So serenading, starting letters "my dearest" and intimate relationship talk...it all added up to something, at least in my mind.

Now I waffle between thoughts of suicide or cutting or distracting myself or of just plain grief. He hasn't said absolutely no, which is worse than if he had made it clear one way or the other. So I don't write, I can't sleep, I have lousy concentration, and I'm not doing any school work. At times I think that if I had shotgun shells I'd just finish things off.

I took some sleeping pills so that maybe tonight I could get some sleep and maybe write tomorrow. I can't kill myself. I bought a nice fountain pen on eBay and I'd like to write with itl

My son called again, and was once more comforting. I really love that kid (man). I played my guitar a little bit, but that reminds me of John since he asked me to start picking it up and playing again. So I don't know if John goes if my guitar will hang around or not.

Maybe if I start writing regularly and "advertise" that I'm back n others' blogs that I will get responses again.

I'm feeling like such a failure in my writing because I'm not accomplishing much. I've already published one novel with a major publisher TWELVE YEARS AGO, but I am having to overcome my doubt in myself because it has been so long.

Tell everyone you know that Borderlinesavvy is back, please.

doubt if anyone is listening any more

I haven't been blogging because I've been too busy falling in love with a married man and exchanging emails with him. But now I think I've gone too far and told him that I love him. I am afraid that he will not respond at all or will respond negatively. He's married, but he and his wife live in separate bedrooms, and she doesn't love him at all. He was feeling very unattractive, and so I wrote back to him that he is a very handsome and desirable man. I'm feeling SU, and logically there's no reason to, but rejection will be very hard. And yet watching him feel alone and unloved was painful too.

I can't get in touch with anyone, even my therapist. I'm all alone. What a stupid ass I am for letting myself think that a great guy like that could love me. I don't know whether to to cut, to kill, to call into the hotline, or simply wait and suffer.

I'm having a hard time concentrating on either writing my book or doing my schoolwork. I'm afraid I went to far and will push him away. But what is done is done. And I have to live with the consequences. I just don't know if I can LIVE with the consequences.

I'm running out of money, and yet I still spend it. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I'm going to end up on the streets.

I'm impulsive with my feelings and impulsive with my money. I'm trying to remember the DBT skills that will help, but I am drawing a blank. Maybe distraction. I wish I could get in touch with my T, but all I get is her message machine.

Sorry that I haven't kept up with the blog. Lots going on, but not enough to ignore the blog.

I have come to a place where I am not so much of a perfectionist when it comes to making straight As in school. It sounds dumb, I know, but it is such a relief to just plan for making a B or C. A C in graduate school is like an F, so I am really relaxing my standards. I've never made an F. Some people think poor little goody two shoes. But I have expectations of myself, and if I don't live up to them, whatever they are, or in whatever part of life, I feel like I have to kill myself. And I'm concerned that I won't get a job even if I get my Master's. I'm feeling burned out on it, so I'm going to take an elective course that sounds fun next term. Then I'll only have 3 more classes, including the capstone course (instead of a thesis). It seems like forever, and I still won't have any experience.

I'm going to try my T again.