After I left my ex-husband, I went into therapy to help me cope with the divorce. I felt like a failure. Through this process, I learned why I pushed myself to such extremes. I was extremely unhappy in my marriage and I became a workaholic and led an extremely busy life to avoid the unhappiness, and to avoid going home. Even when I was home, I would always have plans to either clean, redecorate, refurbish, whatever I could do to keep my mind occupied. I also took on an additional job of cleaning my boss’ house on my ONLY DAY OFF, EVERY OTHER WEDNESDAY! My ex-husband was not a bad person, he just had no dreams, no goals, had no desire to do anything fun, and expected me to be the same way. His idea of a good time was to buy a case of beer on Friday night and set around all weekend drinking it. He was not a nice drunk. I had bigger plans for my life and I finally got up the courage to leave because I knew that I deserved better than that.
I also learned through therapy that I continually pushed myself because of being insecure. By working all the long hours, being in a management position, it gave me a feeling of worth because I never felt good about myself. I can even remember going back to my childhood and teenage years trying to out do others and wanting that attention and feeling of superiority. I also grew up overweight and by at the age of 19, I lost almost 80 pounds. But unfortunately, I did not lose the weight the right way and I restricted my daily calorie count to extremely low amounts. So to top off the fact that I had CFIDS, I pushed my body to unbearable limits and was under nourished, and I was a smoker (I quit 9 years ago!). I know those reading this probably think, “It’s no wonder you are ill!” You are right – I look back now on the years that have passed and it is no wonder. But slowly I have learned, and I am still learning, from my mistakes and I want to share with others WHAT NOT TO DO, as well as what to do.
My next post on My Journey Continues I will be talking about how I met my current husband and more relapses of CFS. Stay tuned!
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