The relationship is long gone, but the scars still remain

I'm in a happy relationship with an amazing guy who has never done anything to make me doubt his feelings for me. And yet I'm constantly filled with these feelings of self doubt. I have this constant nagging feeling that I'm winding him up and driving him away, or that he doesn't really like me anyway.

This is crazy. The engineering, rational part of my brain is screaming out telling me I'm being ridiculous, as he wraps his arms around me and tells me he loves me and not to worry.

The other part of my brain makes me doubt. Makes me think he's only saying these things because he's too scared that anything else will break me. That I can't cope with truth or that he's scared of me. It also makes me think I'm driving him off through all my insecurities which I'm projecting on all those close to me. 

It drives me mad that I know how crappy I make myself feel and yet I still manage to criticise others for the same things that I'm constantly criticising on myself. It isn't fair, I know how terrible it feels with the internal voice - let alone an external one.

The funny thing is that I can pretty much pinpoint this relationship doubt to one period of my life. Before that period I didn't doubt myself, or doubt the feelings of others. Sure, once in a while I would worry that I might scare them off or fall out of love, but those were fleeting. Since then I think my foundations have been shaken a little bit.

L was my first relationship post uni, and I probably jumped into it too quickly. The warning signs were all there. He would make me cry and not realise, make me hate myself, point out if I'd put on weight and criticise himself for the same thing. Now that was dangerous for me. He obsessed over food and weight gain. He would physically push me away when I hugged him, I wasn't allowed to cuddle him in bed, he would criticise me, pick at what I said and pick fights, and he made anything intimate feel like it was dirty and unclean. Add to this his complete lack of affection and empathy over 7 months and you can see where my doubts came from about myself in a relationship. But despite this I fell for him. When I told me, the crushing blow came. He said nothing, and then said he couldn't say anything and definitely couldn't say he loved me in return. 

Only when I realised that he made me more miserable than happy, made me put myself down continually and made my demons worse did I get out. But it seems that the damage has been done.

I can't win this battle against the scars he's left. When I put some weight on recently I was self conscious, hated being touched and felt like I needed to fix it. Now that I've regained some control on my nutrition and exercise I feel much better, I'm happy* with what I've got and to show it off. But it's also made me frustrated that other people aren't fixing themselves. What right do I have to make other people feel miserable, inadequate and like they need to 'fix' themselves? It's bad enough I do that to myself - I really don't want to do it to anyone else.

*happy is one word. I'm not 100% sure I mean it, but I want to. Anyone that feels they need to control an aspect of their life is never fully happy.

So. Where do I go from here? Internally I need to sort out my demons and love myself a little bit more. Externally I need to be able to actually talk about how I'm feeling rather than getting tipsy and passive aggressive. I need to remember how to communicate without just relying on saying nothing and being passive aggressive. This weekend has highlighted that actually I'm probably not ready to drink yet, I need to do more work to get my brain in a good place.

Let's see what happens.

2015 Plans

Rather than looking back at 2014 and dwelling on what went wrong, wasn't achieved and was gained my focus for 2015 is looking forwards. Buzzfeed, greatist and all the others are full of suggestions for how to make the year 'the best ever'. When you look at the details it's all about small changes- eat better, drink more water, move more. When your lifestyle captures all these elements already is it really worth shouting from the roof tops that you're going to implement them?

For 2015 I've signed up for a 10km, a half marathon and to do the 3 peaks. Unlike some people in my life I'm not going to train for these events and then sit on my arse as soon as they're done. Surely the point of these events are to give you something to aim for as you're integrating more movement in your life? I can't wait to see what I can achieve when I ramp up the running training. I have some numbers in mind, but I'm going to keep my mouth shut for now.

What else? I'm aiming to go up to Glasgow more to see mum. There's not much you can achieve in a weekend but I think it's worth it for chilling her out a little bit and helping everyone. Next trip I'm going to try to do a wardrobe cleanse on her stuff as there's so much stuff in there, most of it hasn't been worn for years! What to do with all the clothing? Some of it will be junk, others are decent suits etc. It seems like a waste to just throw it all away, at the very least it should go to charity shops, but if there's something more interesting I'd love to know. 

In 2015 I'd also like to get clear skin, or at least better skin. The media surrounds us with what we should and shouldn't be doing - drink more water, drink less booze, eat more greens, eat less dairy, have more dairy, go outside, stay out of the sun, wash your face, don't wash your face. With all of the messages we're made to feel like it's something we've done, or not done. It's frustrating and exhausting. Sometimes no matter what lifestyle changes you make they don't make a difference. So at this point I'm going to take the next step and seek some professional medical help. Hopefully that will pay off.