Night time is the worst isn't it? Sometimes I find myself staying awake and busy to the point of exhaustion so when I lay my head down I sleep instead of my brain spinning out of control. I believe those doubt voices are your self-esteem crying out to you. You are a wonderful, beautiful, worthy, and capable woman. Sure we have all made mistakes and some of these mistakes may put us behind the eight ball for a time. However, it is temporary. You must believe all of the above aspirations because they are true. When you have a thought of self doubt try to turn it around and make it a positive affirmation. For instance, "Am I ever going to find a man who will stay?" Instead say " Whew - he is out of my life. I can work on me now and be happy just where i am today. Tomorrow will be even better"

Belle, I read your post when I woke up this morning, but didn't know how to respond because like Undercover Angel said, I too have stayed awake many a night with the same thoughts..Now re-reading it a second time, I realised that was the answer. These are just thoughts and they have no power over you, or at least can only hurt you if you choose to give them power..The consciousness inside which is "you" cannot be hurt by mere thoughts..I know it is easier said than done. But the answer lies in realising that we can continue to torment ourselves with the thought that we might never be happy again or accept that we are exactly where we were meant to be in life and all that has happend to us has happend for a reason. That it was in preparation for what is to come next. No one knows what that future might be. We can only be the best we can be in this moment right now. I learned this a while ago when I blogged about these thoughts in the middle of the night and someone out in the blogging world responded by saying to bring myself to the present moment by feeling the blankets against my skin, by hearing the noises of the night, the temperature in the room...I know all of this and it has helped me in the past..Yet it is easily forgotten when you are caught up in the cyclical thought patterns of panic..

I will try to be as present as possible. I usually sleep with the tv on to drown out these thoughts. Last night I didn't. Today after work all I could think about is how much money I wasted on him. All the personal items I bought for him. All of which he either lost in all the moving we did or blew through like he was a growing child. Not one item could he maintain & keep in good shape. My goodness, just thinking of it I feel defeated & so tired. I never want to have to take care of my partner like he is my son ever again!

Your last comment made me laugh. I said to my therapist last week that I have come to realise having one special needs child was enough; that I didn't need a second one to look after. She asked to repeat it twice more so that my brain could get the message:).. I know the money thing is hard..And I can't give you any advice there except to say all we can do is let go..Last Christmas I bought him a 7 foot Pool Table so he could play at home....Then he tells me he used to enjoy playing Naked Pool at the Strip Club.. I felt like ripping my hair out.....There is no point thinking about it..I am hoping this time around I have learned my lesson...Hope you have a better night..Much love.

Belle...my therapist has helped me a lot with this. She asked me to describe how I was feeling one day. Well when I told her how bad I was feeling and why, she asked "and how does all that make you feel?" I said awful and very sad. She said that I was talking so bad to myself about myself that it was making me feel bad about myself all the time. She said that I had a severe case of the "critic." He lived on my shoulder whispering bad negative things in my ear all day long, so that at night my subconscious only knew negative things also.

So she gave me a Louis Hay 101 power thoughts to listen to. I listen to it everyday for about an hour while I am driving and it has really helped. Now I catch myself talking negative to myself quickly and can change the thought. It is just a very bad learned behavior I have that I am finding can be changed.

It is wonderful to catch myself and change the thought. When I first started listening to the CD I laughed at it. It would say "you are beautiful and everyone loves you. You have the most wonderful and loving family and everyone gets along." It was like ridiculous. But it actually has started to work. Just thinking positive thoughts about EVERYTHING has changed how I feel about things. I am much more relaxed and have stopped having nightmares.

I heard your critic in your last post. It said you did not like yourself because you WASTED lots of money on him. It made you think about other times you spent money on him. And you hit the nail on the head when you said "just thinking of it I feel defeated & so tired." It all made you feel bad. And feeling bad is not what we really want. So instead you could say " yes I spent money on him, but when I did it felt good and generous at the time. I am a loving and generous person. I do not need to spend money on people to make them love me. If I want to spend money on someone I will only spend it if I have it to spend. Then I feel responsible. I feel loving and good about myself. You see I bet that would have made you feel good.

At night I told myself repeatedly...I forgive you(my hubby) and I set you free. And I forgive myself and set myself free." This was a very peaceful mantra. I stopped having nightmares when I did this. Good luck with all this it is not easy. It takes work but just asking the questions like you did means you are well on your way.

I have been sleeping with the television on at very low volume and although I still wake up and am awake for a couple hours in the early morning it has helped tremendously with the negative thoughts-on-loop that I suffered from on Sunday night. I am not sure how or why that is but absolute silence is just not for me. I have also tried to start forgiving myself for "wasting" money on him because as Shani pointed out I did it because it felt good to be kind, generous and helpful. I love to be responsible. That feels good to me. I am happy to know that I am living responsibly right now. I am taking care of myself and my future with every little step. This week will mark the first week since I went back to work where I do not have to use a credit card to get by and there will be money left in my account until payday rolls around again. It's not where I want to be but I will celebrate the little improvements.

Hey Belle you sound SOOOOO much better. Lots of positive affirmations. That makes ME feel good. Thanks.

Thanks Shani. Sometimes we need to share our journey on here, good or bad, to know we're not alone or weird!

Sometimes I feel guys are so much better...even when there are in deep deep shit....they manage to stay sane( I am talking generic...there are exceptions of course). If we think little logically,,,and try to see their behavior patterns we see that they tend to avoid situations they don't like or not very comfortable with. They avoid discussions they don't want to get into. Is this running away good. Most certainly no. But in short term it is good too. What if we avoid a feeling or a situation for the moment and promise ourselves that we will get back to it when we are in a better frame of mind. And we do try to get that better frame of mind. Like when we are feeling very bad about something, or we are feeling worthless....instead of talking down to ourselves...or giving positive affirmations, we do something which actually makes us happy. It can be going out for a walk, watching some all time favorite movie, having a coffee...whatever makes you feel better. Focus on something else..divert yourself and do come back to the topic again later.
I was in a similar situation where I was feeling every aspect of my life is a mess. And I didn't see any of it changing anytime soon. Everything was getting too much for me. I took an off from my work for 6 months and there was no agenda. I wanted to fix it...but I told myself I will think about fixing up two months from now...till then I will just let myself be....trust me by living a life with no agenda...I could see most of the solutions and clarity coming my way. Just let yourself be for a while. And ladies if we can't sleep we should not be in beds thinking...get up...grab a coffee...and watch some interesting you tube videos...on self care....hair care...something light.

wow. thanks kuhu I totally agree that getting up and out to do something will also divert or totally change our spinning minds. Sometimes it just takes someone else to remind us what we already know works but forget.