In December, I shared a post about what I referred to as my "midlife crisis." I self diagnosed myself after doing a Google search and I even found this handy visual to show the process or steps of a midlife crisis.
In December, I was feeling down... I was in the depressed stage. I got tired of it, and decided to take some action to help alleviate some of that anxiety. I have visited this blog more. I revived the blog that I left this one for, which focuses on living a happy and healthy life (and have been posting almost daily for nearly two months now). I have worked out 30 out of the last 35 days and my mood had started to lift.
As all of this was going on, I started to notice bits of anger come in and out from time to time, and they were directed at Dale. I can honestly say, that throughout everything, I never became angry. I never felt real anger towards him. I never hated or blamed God. I never hated or blamed society or the stigma on mental health or on the treatment that he finally began to take part in during his last few months. I did feel some anger towards this family. But never Dale. I was deeply sad for him.
Not all of my memories with Dale are happy ones. One of the things that Ihad have to deal with as I think back on my life with him, is that so many of my memories are tainted with his mood swings, sharp words, and the realization that I wasn't as happy as I thought I was during those moments. But I took ownership for the choices that I made and that empowered me rather than making me feel like a victim. And I had no regrets. I made, what I believed to be, the best choice at any of those given times.
So now as I am going through this "midlife crisis" I can't help but to think back on my younger years of my twenties and even into my earlier thirties and the truth of the matter is that those years were very heavy and stressful. Dale put his health and happiness into my hands. Not his, mine. And I was blamed when he fell into a bad cycle. Repeatedly, over the course of our 13+ years together. He was exhausting. I had very few friends. I was isolated from my family. Life revolved around him and his illness. I believe that there is a big part of him that wanted it that way, and I let it happen. And after all of this time, I can see the truth and the reality of our relationship and I am angry at him for not doing anything to help himself deal with his issues other than to dump and blame it on me. Those actions took pieces away of my life and I have so many empty, black hole, memories as it is.
Part of me is happy to have some of this anger inside and to be able to surface it and release it. At the same time, I feel that this anger places blame on Dale and that takes away my ownership of it. That makes me like I had less control over my life, that I let things happen, and that is leading to the beginning of feeling some amount of regret and bitterness. Which I don't want to feel.
These emotions are not shocking to me. They have a right to be there. I do hope that they will come and pass. I do not want to get stuck in any of them and I do not want to live with anger or resentment towards Dale.
As all of this was going on, I started to notice bits of anger come in and out from time to time, and they were directed at Dale. I can honestly say, that throughout everything, I never became angry. I never felt real anger towards him. I never hated or blamed God. I never hated or blamed society or the stigma on mental health or on the treatment that he finally began to take part in during his last few months. I did feel some anger towards this family. But never Dale. I was deeply sad for him.
Not all of my memories with Dale are happy ones. One of the things that I
So now as I am going through this "midlife crisis" I can't help but to think back on my younger years of my twenties and even into my earlier thirties and the truth of the matter is that those years were very heavy and stressful. Dale put his health and happiness into my hands. Not his, mine. And I was blamed when he fell into a bad cycle. Repeatedly, over the course of our 13+ years together. He was exhausting. I had very few friends. I was isolated from my family. Life revolved around him and his illness. I believe that there is a big part of him that wanted it that way, and I let it happen. And after all of this time, I can see the truth and the reality of our relationship and I am angry at him for not doing anything to help himself deal with his issues other than to dump and blame it on me. Those actions took pieces away of my life and I have so many empty, black hole, memories as it is.
Part of me is happy to have some of this anger inside and to be able to surface it and release it. At the same time, I feel that this anger places blame on Dale and that takes away my ownership of it. That makes me like I had less control over my life, that I let things happen, and that is leading to the beginning of feeling some amount of regret and bitterness. Which I don't want to feel.
These emotions are not shocking to me. They have a right to be there. I do hope that they will come and pass. I do not want to get stuck in any of them and I do not want to live with anger or resentment towards Dale.
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