Topic : Coping with Stress

I'm new here... please bare with me and I appologize in advance if this isthe wrong place for this...

I'm in my final year of high school and I have been so unbelievably stressed...  Not fromschool though...  School has been a breeze in comparison to the other matters.

I have had to attend 3 court hearings to try and rid myself of a stalking exboyfriend. 

I had dated him for three months,and he became far too controlling.  He tried to talk me into running away from home, sell my car, give up my hopes for attending college and university, and on a few occasions he tried to force me to use drugs with him and tried to prostitue me out to some of his co-workers.  Everytime I would refuse and he would either throw a hissy fit and get mad, or he would start crying and have a two-year-old tantrum.  Iput up with this trainwreck from three months before I decided that I was sick of it and needed out.

So I broke up with him,and that made things worse...  He followed me around the school, to work, and one time half way home from school.  Thegroup of friend I had at the time weren't helpful... their comments would be "Just take him back!  Doesn't this showyouthat he's so in love with you?"  I'm sorry, but threatening to kill yourself and your family if someone doesn't do as you say is not love.  Those friends abandoned me andI was forced to hide at lunch and break times. 

I made some new friends who were very supportive, though once the people who were at one time my friends saw me with them, theystarted pressuring my new group to turn on me.  One good friend told me that she was approached by one of these people and he attempted to convince her that what I was doing was wrongand that what my ex was doing couldn't be called harrassment, as he was threatening to kill himself and his family, not mine. 

When it got to the point that he wouldn't let me leave his sight and physically blocked me from leaving the school, my family and myself knew something had to be done. 

We went to the police station where the lady at the front desktold usthat it wasn't the polices' problem and directed us to courthouse. 

From the time the stalking had begunI was speaking to a school cousiller who told me that her hands were tied and that she couldn't even tell him to leave me alone. 

I had to miss school for court 3 times.  The order didn't go through, though now at least he leavesmealone.  But the whole ordeal has left a rather large impression on me and has caused so much unessicary stress in my life.  I just need to find away to get passed it all, but unless I can leave my city and start over I don't feel like it will be possible...

 

I just hope that I can get through my last semester, go away to college and never have to deal with him again...  but thestress fromall ofthis isso overwhelming... I still have nightmares about it all...  I just want to get on with my life...  No seventeen year-old, or anyone for that matter, should have to deal with this kind of stress... 

He leaves me alone now because his lawyer and the judge told him to, but I worry to how long this effect may last...  He and his friends still approach my friends from time to time and I feel horrible that I've dragged these wonderfully support and good friends into this...

try positive thinking, I know it's hard but that should help you through it, it did for me. Here's a littles story, my life:

 

I was born to a drug using mom and dad, my youger brother died in his crib, at his funeral my mom left with another man, kept me, a couple of months passed and my mom called my dad saying come get you daughter or I put her up for adoption, my dad,21 at the time had no idea what to do, he called his mom, Dear grandma decided to get my dad to live with them and helped raised me, wich was good, even if my grand pa was an alcoolic and so was my dad, I had a pretty good childhood, My dad met a good women, they got an appartement. When I was 8 I was raped by the next door guy, a couple of times, I visited my mom once in a while, she was a heavy drinker and drug user and a prostitute, I seen her snort up coke, inject herself, my dad used to send me with money to make sure I would eat, well, being the good daughter, I gave my mom all the money, not really knowing what she did with it, (now I do) I would come back and had lost 10 pounds in 2 weeks, I think she even tried to protitute me, but fortunatly the guy was nice and did absolutly nothing,( thank god)!!

 

I have alway's told myself that if I were to have kids I would do the absolute opposite of what happend to me, and I did, I now have a wonderfull man, wich I have been with for 10 years, 2 wonderful children, and a house, all of this by the time I turner 21(my second child I was 25)

 

I could have easly turned out like the rest of my familly, but I, I, decided not to, I kept a positive attitude, Yes I had a very hard time doing all of this it was not easy, we struggled but we made it, so can YOU!!!!

 

Keep positive and it will happen!! good luck

i dont re-call ever feeling yhis stuck in my life and so lost & confused,  i have always been a seeker of meaningful ways etc. to live, i feel i have lost who i really am at this time. i want to wake up. need to connect  with some others, anybody ouy there>>>>???????????

hang in there,

i am new to this but amhoping i can learn how to handle it better.  i have been in thearpy for years and they nstill haven't really tought me real straighties to coping with strees.  except give me more meds.  later

I have been trying to save my marriage since last June.. my husband of 4 yrs told me last June that he expected a child as soon as we got married and I was suppose to get out my magic 8 ball and figure that out. (We have been together total for 10yrs,  married for 4)

Now his retaliation is spending time with my sisters now ex-best friend...which is a female. He has racked up hundreds of dollars of cell phone bills calling & texting her, I recently found out in one of our heated arguments that last summer she wanted to go to one of his softball games so he picked her and her kid up and took them to a game where OUR friends were at. I had no idea this happened until he got drunk and threw it in my face a few weeks back. He has also slept over there, supposedly on the couch, when we have had fights. Now last night he starts fighting with me again, says this is all my fault because I lied to him and never gave him a kid when he wanted one. I told him we need to go to counseling and work on the marriage first, he is not having it, he says I am the one that needs a mental evaluation, not him. Then he grabs a  bag of clothes and says he is leaving and will be back tomorrow (which is now today) to get my answer....kid or divorce.......... I REFUSE to base my relationship on an ultimatum and him thinking he has all the power. I've put up with alot the past 10 months, ended up on Xanax for panic attacks.....of which I had one at 7am this morning and took a personal day from work. I'm fed up and done.............. I dont feel I did anything wrong and I feel he is wrong for using this girl against me because he didnt get a baby in his timeframe. He is only 33 and I am 34, I feel we still have a few years left before we would need get a family going before I got into the high risk bracket. But I am so pissed off, fed up and angry.........I wish I could get his sorry ass on Dr Phil and let the whole world and Dr Phil see what he is really about. If anyone needs a mental evaluation, its him!   Well.......thanks all for letting me vent.........sorry for the curse words........ its either be angry or cry...........and I'm sick of crying.

                              Hello, this is my first time doing this.  But here it goes.............. I have been married to my secound husband for 4yrs. I'm his third marriage. He is 17 yrs older than me, I'm 37. Prior to meeting him, I was a single mother of at the time a 14yr and 5yr, both girls. He was older, secure and a loving father of one son who is married to a terrific woman. Not to mention extremely handsome, looks 15yr younger than what he is. We fell in love immediately and got married 1yr to the date we met. It was the man of my dreams was put in my life for myself and my children. The bad news is........... I come from a very dysfunctional family, with a controlling Italian mother. My mother always controlled me and my older daughter, (I had her when I was 18yr, her father was my 1st boyfriend who was17yr.at the time. not to mention, he was in and out of her life). My mother became pretty much like her mother and me as the secound mother, this is all my fault for allowing it , yet I needed to rely on her when I went to college and to help raise my daughter, then I married my 1st husband which I had my secound daughter with..... for the wrong reasons, to get away from my mothers control. Needless to say, we divorced and once again my mother controlled me as I tried being a single parent of 2 kids. My husband seeing how controlling my mother is and even after we got married, wanted to protect me and for us to be a married couple raising my children without my mother coming over my home and be -littleing  me as a parent, the things she did would shock you, I finally stuck by my husbands side and demanded my mother to but out...However for over the next 3 yrs she kept a relationship with my teenage daughter. My teenage daughter had acted as though she was brainwashed by her grandmother and gave me and my husband such a hard time and much grief. We did everything from counseling, spending $$$ for therapy, and nothing helped. My husband felt like he was "the bad guy" in our marriage. I felt confident in our marriage, but we fought alot over my daughter and my mother.         The PROBLEM??  7mos ago, my husband was invited to go to Costa Rica with 2 of his friends (his only friends, and childhood friends), 1 of which has cancer which was in remission then came back and his friends live out of state so he hasn't seen them for years. He told them he couldn't go, plus money was tight and if he had the money, he wanted for just me and him to go away. His friend has money and offered to pay for his share of the trip. I thought my husband needed this vacation, plus I felt that I needed a week alone with my children which were at this time 9 and 18yr old. I told him to go and that we have the rest of our lives to go on vacation. I love and trust him and everything he has gone through with my kids and family, I felt like this would be relaxing and good for him.                 Well, he went and to skip through all the BS, after a few weeks of his return and after much questioning and suspicion, he confessed that he had sex with a prostitute at one of the casino's his one friend took him to. Why I had suspicion? I had a personal female problem.......... and I told him I was going to see my gyn and find out what it was, so he confessed, yet swore he wore a condom. Obviously we seperated and he stayed at a family members. Thankfully, I was checked and it turned out to be nothing. Of course I demanded the same from him, and likewise he was fine. I was humiliated, embarrassed and my thoughts of him as being the "perfect " husband died. We went to counseling briefly and he was sooo sorry for everything he did and put me through. I know he's sincere and loves me. Unfortunately my teen daughter was getting in alot of trouble while we were seperated and my husband moved back in upon my request to help me with her. My daughter now lives with her father, is in college f/t and working. She is being very responsible and alot of my stress is relivied. However, its been 7mos, and I'm still very angry and hurt over what my husband did. Will I ever get over it??? I constantly bring it up when we argue, or when anything reminds me of it. He hears it from me constantly and will do whatever it takes for me to get over it. I'm a very attractive female and I even thought of getting even with him.......... but I know deep inside thats not the way to handle it. I do love him, but I feel so betrayed by the one and only person I thought would never ever hurt me............. yet I feel he hurt  me more than anyone ever has.     Can our marriage be saved? Should I divorce him because it will destroy us? Will I ever look at him the way I used to prior to that incident? Why do somedays I feel fine and feel strong in my marriage and forgive him and other days don't want to look at him and feel hate towards him? Any advice?????????                                         

Wow, I cannot believe your husband did that to you. I know the anger and pain that you feel. My husband and I have been together for 10 yrs (married for 4yrs now) he now tells me 4 yrs later that he wanted a kid immediately after we married, I did not know this is how he felt, until now and now he throws it in my face by hanging out with this girl that used to be my sisters best friend....EX best friend now. He says over and over again that they are just friends.. but he stops at her house on the way home from work and has a few drinks with her, he has admitted to that, he has taken clothes and stayed over there when we fight and he doesnt want to be here. She has made his several "mix CDs" some with love songs on them,  which he defends himself by saying "There is nothing wrong with those songs, we are friends, I enjoy talking to her, there is nothing going on" I also found out...by getting a woman's vibe and searching his car...that he bought her a Christmas gift, when I confronted him, he admitted to it but called me pyscho for looking through his car. He also admitted to taking her and her kid to one of his softball games last year while I was at the gym, talk about humiliation, some people I know were there and never said a word to me. He is still demanding a child but I told him unless he cuts this girl off completely and goes to counseling, there is no way in hell he is getting a kid out of me. He has told me basically "Baby or Divorce" So I am probably going to be divorced. Unlike you, I have no closure on this, he stands by his word saying he has done nothing with her, but I dont believe him and if anything, they have an emotional intimacy if it is not physical. Everytime we fight, I bring her up too, just like you do. When I get angry, thats the first thing out of my mouth. I feel horrible that this happened to you...and it seemed like it happened out of the blue, you werent having problems before the trip. I will say, the only good thing about your husband versus mine, is that yours was man enought to face up to what he did, he admitted it you....that had to take alot for him to do, mine just plays dumb, which pisses me off MORE!!!! I would say maybe get into counseling with him, especially since he says he wants to make the marriage work and feels bad for what he did....I would say to give him ONE chance... thats it...and make him earn your trust back. I would also tell him no more hanging out with the childhood friend that condoned he cheat on you. Yes, it takes two to tango, but that guy sounds like a bad influence. My husband knows that I know what has happened over the past 10 months, he wont admit to anything, he refuses to go to counseling (only because I got him there once back in June 06 and the counselor basically told him everything was his fault) so he refuses to go back because in his mind, he is NEVER wrong. And my husband is not even TRYING to earn my trust back, I would give him the benefit of the doubt, it sounds like you love him alot and it seems like he is trying to make things better again...thats the first step....and always remember what my dad tells me.... "time heals all wounds" its going to take time, but again, at least he admitted it.  You hang in there, hopefully this all works out for you, I wish you and your family the best!!! Take Care!!!! 

I am so tired. Just got home from working the nightshift a few hours ago and started doing tidying up the place. I haden't even had time to sit down and read the newspaper when my other job calls to ask me if I can fill in tonight. I would really like to practise my aikido tonight because last week I worked all week and couldn't find the time, but I also want to show the boss my willing spirit and couldn't really say no (though,I managed to tell the boss I'd do it if they couldn't find anyone else).

I constantly feel physically weak and tired, have headaches at least once a day, cry at least once a day, want to sleep all the time, long to slice cut myself like a kid longs for christmas eve, hate my body and my self, feel like I'm worthless but somwhow everything comes to depend on me in the end - like I carry the world on my sholders and I'm stumbling.

I have to be a good sister, good daughter, good granddaughter, good friend, good employee, good co-worker, good fiancé, good cook, good housekeeper, good athlete, good providor and breadwinner. And not only good but the best in fact, and I can't afford to fail. Still I have failed and now I'm just trying to cover it up so nobody else will notice I'm not as splendid as I seem to be.

 

Sorry about that everyone, I just needed to get some things off my chest. I feel alot better now, thank you.

Wow, you are a very busy person, sounds like you are burning the candle at both ends. Dont worry about what other people think of you..the "good friend" "good employee""good daughter", you are judging yourself, I feel like that sometimes but always remember that you have nothing to prove to anyone and you have to make time for yourself, some relaxation time. It sounds like you deserve some "Me Time" I am always worried about everybody else too... I have a hard time making time for ME, but I do try to. Always remember, your family and your real friends will never judge you, they will love you unconditionally for the person that you are. You need to tell yourself that you ARE a good person and you are doing the best that you can. Try to take it day by day and definitely make some time for yourself!  You need it and deserve it!  Take care!!