Merry go round

[Prototypian]

I have a self-fulfilling cycle I go through.    I will get very frustrated and hopeless with my PD spouse (uOCPDw), have some depression and get very down, make resolutions and have brief glimpses of success and managing things then go back to realizing how hopeless things feel.   Technically the situation is not even close to hopeless; I have a career, extended family, normal friend, kids who are all successful in college or beyond and I have no physical health problems or financial problems.   

I decide to take care of myself, my space, my life and my health and things with my spouse always have a way of neutralizing that progress.   It's like there is a nullifying effect my spouse has that overcomes any way I try to approach positive change for myself and I wind up right back where I started.   

[square]

If you were a plant, you would be growing in rich, fertile soil with good drainage. You'd have a good mix of sunlight and rain. But you'd also have a bit of strangleweed bound to you.

The strangleweed saps what you glean from the sun, and strains your structure so you are carrying twice the weight. Sometimes you might manage to start a new, unencumbered branch, but the strangleweed will wrap around it immediately.

Anyway, it's not any weakness of your character. Sometimes you make progress but that progress requires intense, ongoing effort, and it's exhausting.

When you buy a coffee, it should be a simple matter of wanting the coffee, buying the coffee, and enjoying the coffee.

But for you it carries an incredibly heavy burden. Dread. Fear. Weighing whether it's worth it or not. Trying to think if workarounds. Then the actual assault of having to justify and explain yourself. The adrenaline and cortisol surge that comes with someone screaming or throwing things - or even the slightly higher strung voice of someone you know is capable of screaming and throwing things.

All that isn't normal. It's a huge burden. And you're not weak for struggling to carry a load of that size, day after day, where lessening the load even a little means cutting off pieces of yourself.

[Rebel13]

I decide to take care of myself, my space, my life and my health and things with my spouse always have a way of neutralizing that progress.   It's like there is a nullifying effect my spouse has that overcomes any way I try to approach positive change for myself and I wind up right back where I started.   

This seems like a very important awareness right here.

[Breadroll]

The cycle is familiar to many of us - the rise and fall of hope.
The FOG is very real. 

It took me twenty years to finally get enough momentum to leave-so much hope.

It's a massive relief.