Monday, January 4, 2010

I'm looking around for support groups for lone parents

and just looking is making me feel pretty emotional. Perhaps I need some support more than I realised.

I ordered a 1989 copy of One Parent Plus - old school fundamentals, I thought. Approaching some of the subjects, just in the first twenty pages or so, has brought me to the edge of tears a couple of times. It hadn't really occured to me that I would react like this, and I'm intrigued as to why it's happening.

It's a similar feeling to one I get with two other triggers - emotional relationship and family stuff on TV, and approaching emotionally-sensitive subject matter. In subjecting myself to the idea of looking for some support as a single parent, I'm probably pushing both of those buttons at the same time. What it does show me is that I've probably buried or disregarded some important and volatile emotions recently and they're trying to surface when I drop the bait in, and I'm scared of confronting what I feel about recent events.

One thing I've learned over the past couple of years is that I should investigate these feelings further, especially if they provoke the kind of emotional response I've had today. The close-to-tears feeling used to be (and seemingly still is) a catch-all emotion replacing anger, resentment, fear and self-doubt with a single, reactive feeling which gives no real clues as to its source or purpose.

That I'm at all interested in confronting the underlying emotion, and I've recognised the phenomenon at all, is very comforting a sign of my continuing progress in the right direction. Every time I do something of benefit to me, I reward myself with an injection of pride and worthiness, and that's a feeling that's definitely worth having.

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