My Job(s), I quit

In every crisis there are ‘jobs’, someone who organizes, someone to strategize, someone to be a cheerleader, someone to be the comforter, someone to take care of the practical parts of life ……….. Ideally, it is NOT the person in the middle of the crisis……… At least, in the last 8+ months, that is what I have figured out…….. Yet, in my life, those have been my ‘jobs’, and they are still assigned to me, as well as battling my monsters, flashbacks, known and unknown triggers, terrible rages, inconsolable sorrow and fear, night terrors, dissociation, inability to eat, sleep, getting myself out of the damn bedroom, and loss of days at a time… I am trying to heal myself from a blindsided betrayal and subsequent demolition of my ‘box’ of monsters, that I truly did not realize how big and terrible it was inside there…….

Diagnosed with what I see as a bit redundant alphabet soup This summer after knowing I was losing my mind and begging Vern, my Mom, my Sister for help for months, ultimately having to do it myself ….. PTSD, AAD, and DDNOS (what is PTSD but acute anxiety??)  I am still expected by those I love to be all of the above mentioned jobs holder……..  As I was for 40+ years, I started as a ‘caretaker’ young and it carried through to my adult life. Now I am ‘punished’ by those that love me if I don’t live up to ‘normal’ in their eyes.

Sometimes I have bad days, well, more than ‘some’ to be honest.. I am a very verbal chick, I believe in as much ‘transparency’ as possible, in that, if my day is tough, I work at saying that out loud so I won’t blindside someone. That is not fair to them in my mind, I do not like to lay landmines  and wait for them to hit them… I avoid conflict as much as possible. Doing this for them, is no favor to myself. Inevitably, one or more of my loves will push, prod, snap, chastise or any number of other things that are grinding me to dust… Most, circling around what I have fallen short on, or how I am not working hard enough to make THEM ‘feel better’ about me…. How they are so worried about me and it’s my fault I am not ‘all better’ by now.. It is making them live with undo stress, again, my fault…

I have ‘run away’ from the strife in my marriage, for a few days here and there… It has taken me a while to figure this out, but I now know there is no where for me to  ‘run’ for sanctuary, where someone would help me take care of me.. I have gone to my Mom and Dad’s only to have my Mom push and prod, wanting me to make decisions or just do what she wants me to do.. I can’t have ‘just a bad day’, it HAS to have a ‘reason’ and she will mine for information, rock solid reasons and if I have none, she will inform me of ‘what’ it is (because she ‘knows’ me and can ‘fix’ me, if I would only let her)

While at Mom’s, Vern is on the phone, defending himself and letting me know where I fell short… That happens for at least the first day, up to a few days.. Until I (if able) dismantle his justifications and he sees that…. Then, I get the, “I think this was really good to work through and I have grown for it, I understand now.” (again) I get that from him, he feels better about us, while I am laying on the floor bleeding, again (figuratively)

Gosh, I am SO ‘happy’ I could help YOU feel better… Pardon me while I just crawl to the corner to bleed out……..

I went to my Sis’s for the first time recently, since this mess started, thinking it would be the ‘quiet’ place I crave, only to be put under a microscope and pushed because I am not working on me hard enough… After the conflict that I was desperately trying to avoid, SHE tells me how much better SHE feels………

Then, of course, I have Vern, he cannot seem to keep it together for more than a week… I had found a book a few weeks ago that really ‘spoke’ to me, about me and ‘us’… In it, it spoke of ‘styles’ of conflict in attachment relationships in crisis… I clearly recognized ‘us’ in the ‘pursuing and distancing’ description… I am the pursuer (no surprise here). Here’s the thing, I see this, I told him, asked him to read it… I told him I am working to no longer do this, to give him space… Conscientiously or unconsciously he does not like this, at least that is what I am seeing… When I do not pursue him, he raises the price of poker….. As of this morning, I am done, I see it, I see him and I will not join this toxic dance anymore……

I am done bleeding out for these people….. At moments every one of them has been a bright star for me during this.. Trouble with bright stars, they burn out and the ensuing inconsistency messes with me……. Frankly, I don’t want to ‘bright stars’, just slow steady consistency and compassion at times, that is all…

I know this is not too much to ask, to take in me saying it is a bad day and just be a bit more careful, not much, don’t walk on eggshells, don’t get tense and wait for me to blow, don’t watch me like a bug on the wall……… Until YOU can’t stand it and start poking me……

How do I ‘know’ this? My Children, My Son who is 25, My Daughter at 20 (21 tomorrow, btw 😯 ) both of them knows my diagnosis, that I am in therapy (was, and going to again) They know the barest of outline of the ‘why’, it is enough for them, they accept it and ask no more….. If my day is ‘tough’, I say that out loud, they ‘note’ it and off we go, no microscope, no poking, they just accept me and my deep flaws and love and support me anyway… I don’t have to work to make them feel better about me, they are a bit more careful, yet there are no eggshells, no landmines…. It is a quiet’ support, I am still ‘Mom’, maybe ‘flawed Mom’, but, I have never felt I was ‘less’ with them.. They do not assign me ‘jobs’

Unlike the ‘mature adults’ in my life……….

I am so happy you feel better, pardon me while I bleed out

It has been a long 2 weeks.. So much going on, too much, so much for unplugging.. I am beginning to think that is not possible and a fantasy not based in reality… I have read and heard of firsthand accounts by people that say it happens, I now think, it is a unicorn or they are just delusional…….

The disaster of the Monday before Thanksgiving is still echoing in my life… Oh, not from me, I am settled over firing my therapist. The cold fish reaction I got from her in the aftermath was more than enough to help me with that decision.. It is others around me that say they agree and in fact, helped me come to that decision and strongly supported that choice, that now are using it to verbally ‘slap’ at me…

My Sister, Marie is going through a very hard time, after 15 years of marriage, she decided to end it.. It is with regret and relief that she is doing this.. It is terrible to have a dream die and grieve it.. I have nothing but empathy and support for her, I know how hard that is, even when it is the right thing to do…

We all came to her home for Thanksgiving, it was mostly a good thing… The disaster still echoing in all of us (my Parents, Marie, Vern and me), my Mom struggling the most, she has a lot of anger towards Vern, but was able to mostly put it aside..It had been decided that I would stay to help Maire and ‘unplug’.. My Daughter, Lynn is living with her while she attends school and both of them can be soothing to me, they have calm souls and that is what I need… I was 1/2 wrong…

My Sister put me under her microscope the minute I walked in her door.. I felt and knew this from a lifetime of being her sister… I also understood it as is was just a few days since my first ‘public’ meltdown and I know she was very worried for me.. Once my parents and Vern had left (work the next day and bad weather headed our way) my kids were still here and we sat down to visit.. They both knew something was up and I filled them in on what had happened on Monday.. I do not truly remember it all, just bits and pieces, impression and feelings mostly.. Marie was able to give them an overview of what she knew from ‘helping’ me drive home and her conversations with Mom on her part of that as well…

My children were horrified and outraged at the actions (inaction of M and Jay, the ‘professionals’) they took in the information, vented a bit on the mishandling and ‘stupidity’ by those involved and we moved on to ‘nicer’ subjects, funnier subjects… It was good.

Like I said, I was under the microscope and knew it, I just didn’t realize how much.. It started with her making little comments about my food intake, never ‘enough’ for her… I did lose a considerable amount of weight when my world blew up, I dropped 3 pants sizes, well, closer to 4 really.. I say 3 because I did not go buy new clothes, just dug through my old jeans and hauled out the smaller sizes… Sometimes it is good to be a pack rat….. BUT! I have gained some weight in the last 3 months, actually working at it and my pants are starting to really fit again and not just ‘hang’ on me….

So, last week, one night all 3 of us were watching TV, well they were, I was knitting, in conversation, I attempted a ‘gentle’ push back, telling her how it really bugs me to have someone ‘picking at me’ about food… She acted like she understood and I was relieved to not ‘have’ to get into it over that… I avoid personal conflict like that plague right now, I am trying to deal with this kind of thing ‘rationally’ and not escalate…. Then, after Lynn went to bed, she hit me with, “WHY do you love Vern?” She wanted an ‘itemized’ list of ‘hard facts’, flat footed, blindsided by this question, I fumbled through it… Never realizing at that moment how rude the question was… she seemed very dissatisfied with my answer… I let that one go too..

Marie has been walking on eggshells around me, to a fault she has been.. I have tried to reassure her that me startling has nothing to do with her and it is just what happens. I wish it did not, it is just what ‘is’… If i focus on it and try to ‘stop’, it seems to get worse, i get stressed ‘fighting’ it… It is a vicious cycle… Now, I have a vicious cycle with her.. She is so tense, i ‘feel it’, in turn, my anxiety starts to build, me trying to be ‘normal’ and make her feel better… It is exhausting

This all came to a head 2 days ago. Lynn and I had been out and had lunch at the Cheesecake Factory, a first for both of us. We shared a couple appetizers. When we got home several hours later, I went on a search for the copycat recipes.. I found one, the cuban sandwiches, WoW, for such little things, as tasty as they were, the calorie count was astronomical to me (more than 1,000 per ‘sandwich) 😯 Though I am working on gaining back some of my weight, i am trying to do that ‘smart’… Eating a sandwich like that is NOT ‘smart’ and stressed me a bit more than a bit….

I went to tell Lynn, I was so blown away.. On the way through the house, I ran into Marie and shared my shock at that, her response was “Good you don’t eat enough”… I was taken aback by this and said so.. She then launched into a list of what I did and did not eat for the last several days.. Ending with how I said I would eat an orange and didn’t… I explained that I had broken my favorite coffee cup washing it just before I was going to eat it and just didn’t….. She acted like I hadn’t spoken, or had blatantly lied to her and said she knew that to be true, she counted them… I snapped… How dare she treat me like an AN refeeding candidate, I am not even close to that, seriously, NOT………

I did walk away… In my head, “not doing this, not doing this”….. Later she followed me and I thought it would be a mutual apology session… Nope, she wasn’t ‘done’ yet… I did apologize for getting ‘short’ with her, she demanded to know, “Just WHAT ARE you doing?” ………..??…………………………….?!?…………………………?!?…………………………..??…………. I had no idea what she was talking about, said so and she launched into a short diatribe on how I am so broken and not helping myself, questioning if I had given up on  ‘fixing’ myself……………………….?!?……… I reminded her that I have an appointment in place and have had since the Tuesday before I came…. That again, did not matter and this time it was me saying, “ALL DONE NOW, go away”

She, I think, was ‘projecting’ her soon to be ex’s faults onto me and treating me like I am the liar he is……..

No, just, NO……. I am not, nor am I willing to be her whippin’ post……… I decided by that point to leave ‘early’, I was supposed to stay until Monday, now I would go home Friday…..

She came back later and did apologize, I did tell her I was thinking of leaving sooner than planned… The next morning, she brought up my leaving ‘early’ and said I did not have to, she felt SO much ‘better’ and it would be fine… Never mind that interpersonal conflict tears me up, I feel like I am left bleeding on the floor… I do NOT feel relieved to vent in conflict… I can have ‘conversations’ and that is fine… I am hating confrontations with those I love, or strangers, it does not matter, it messes with me…..

Why is it those who purport to love me the most and support me, think nothing of baiting me, fanning the flames and then tell me how much better they feel to get it out…. Even if I make my point and they realize they were mistaken… It seems we still have to do the ‘toxic dance’ to get there……….and it’s ‘me’ that is broken, insane one, not them, go figure……….

I am SO ‘pleased’ I can facilitate you ‘feeling better’………… Please pardon me as I go over to the corner and bleed out…. (SERIOUSLY need a sarcasm font here)