Category: Random Voidness

Having A Good Cry Never Killed Anyone….Yet.

I cried last night, I mean had a tissue-in-hand-supressing-sobs kind of cry.  I had to put Sammy in the hospital yesterday, as broke as I am too, was an extra strain.  I couldn’t not take care of her.  After bedtime prayer I asked Mom for a hug, and she leaned into me so I could hug her.  I NEEDED THE HUG.  I know she was mad at me, but she couldn’t reach passed that to comfort me.  I went to my room and broke down.  I didn’t cry this much when Mom was in the hospital, so yea, it’s a little uneven [my love] between Sammy and Mom, but Sammy saved my life and sanity….can’t really say that for Mom.  What I really realized is that I am alone, utterly alone on this mortal plane.  I know Heavenly Father is there for me, and yes, I get comfort from His Spirit and the knowledge that Christ is there, and all that.  However, sometimes I just need strong arms around me to tell me that everything will be alright.

The tear stained revelation came to me that I have to do the work in the Homecoming book by Bradshaw.  It’s not something I can just joke about, or fear any more.  I don’t want to be that alone anymore.  I’m not talking about going out and finding a man, I’m talking about being whole enough to be able to find the comfort in my own solitude when things get this scary for me.  Only when I am whole, or as whole as I can get considering the privation of my rearing, then I will look for someone.  I don’t want to have to rely on someone for my happiness, that’s a trap no different from relying on your parent for comfort when she is too depth-less to understand how anyone could need comfort more than she does.

Of course the depression has a small side car of paranoia that loves to spin conspiracy theories right and left.  I made the ultimate mistake of telling Mom how much Sammy means to me and why.  I even had to choke back the tears as I told her.  (I know better than to cry in front of her), and then Sammy, about ten days after this little talk ends up vomiting glittery, crystalline substance, not unlike the sequins on her red skirt.  I keep telling myself that Mom wouldn’t hurt her because she loves Sammy almost as much as I do, but Sammy has been bugging the crap out of her lately and she has become a full on rival for my unconditional love…..you can see the little sticky wheels spin, can’t you.  I was actually beginning to think that Sammy loved my mom more than me lately with the way Sammy kept hanging out with my Mom…but the way she’s snuggling up with me and just rubbing her head all over my face has made me change my mind.  She was just annoying Mom to make me happy. (I just love her to bits)

The crying though, made me scared when it kept coming and I couldn’t stop.  When I started this blog, the thought of Sammy not getting well, or even dying made tears come back to my eyes.  I don’t like crying.  Crying is for sissies…..okay, it’s really not, I know that….but it makes me feel so vulnerable.  I don’t like feeling vulnerable around a woman who uses your weaknesses to manipulate you into doing her bidding for her…..Again, I digress into a little angry rant.  I’m trying to keep those under control.  I was afraid for a while that I wouldn’t be able to stop, which tends to be the standard fear when I cry.  What if I can’t stop?  What if I can never cry again?  I know it’s important to the emotional health of humans to have that release of whatever hormone it is that makes you feel better after you cry, I’m hoping that’s what Lexapro does because, well, I don’t want to be a cry-baby.  I don’t want to be ruled by my emotions.  Strangely enough I feel like those deep, dark emotions are like some sort of manipulation….I can’t really explain it….it’s like a war between my consciousnesses…if you cry your subconscious wins because you can’t keep it together.  I don’t like to lose.  Maybe that is the wrong way to look at it.  The tears might be the rain that flower the creativity of the soul? (Isn’t that so icky poetic).

The truth be told, I still need a good hug.  My nephew promised me one on Thursday.  I need to start this process no matter how much it hurts, or how much ectoplasm I hemorrhage.  Like a boil, my psyche needs to be lanced so the healing can begin.  Hopefully, it won’t kill me.

I’ve attached a comment as to why Sammy means so much to me, if you are confused why a 47-year-old woman is neurotically attached to a fickle little mini macaw.

Popping The Emotional Clutch

I asked my best friend how long was it going to be before I could stop being disengaged from the world in order to figure out what is going on with ‘me’ and re-engage.  She gave the best yet most frustrating answer, not quite as simply, it’ll take as long as it takes.

I feel like I’m an engine revving to go, waiting to engage the clutch to move the car forward and, like the novice standard transmission driver that I am, I’m terrified I’m going to pop the clutch and stall and hold up the world behind me.  I have to do my work in Homecoming before I can safely venture out again, I know this, but at the same time, I’m afraid to actually engage those methods for fear what will float up to the surface.  If I’m kept them so completely bound in my subconscious, why would I want to bring them up?  What kind of moron would do that to themselves…..Of course, I’m the kind of moron that is willing to do this kind of work because, like the dragonfly before it’s metamorphosis, I’m tired of living my life surrounded by cold water, keeping me from actually engaging or feeling anything around me.  I need to rip open my skin and let the wings emerge, and I can’t help but feel that it will hurt some, but like the dragonfly, it will be worth it.  I just need to keep telling myself that….IT WILL BE WORTH IT.

In the mean time, I need to keep practicing letting the clutch in and out in first  gear so when the time comes, and the light turns green, I can move forward into traffic and continue on my journey through this life without having to have to rebuild the emotional engine again.

The Ups, Downs and Pratfalls of Anger

So, I’ve been off my anti-anxiety pills for close to a week now, and I have to say, I’m doing much better than I anticipated.  I’ve also, for some inexplicable reason, stopped taking all my mental and physical meds, I guess to see what happens.  I’m grumblely, meaning when I’m asked to do something I grumble and moan behind the backs of the people that are demanding it of me.  Sometimes I put things away rather abruptly, but I’m not harsh to the other person.  Grant it, I’m not very mobile and I really resent the idea that I’m still expected to clean and play step-and-fetch it.

But the up feeling that I have from the fall-out of the whole “I’m ashamed of the way you look” BS, after my shopping, and I still stroke my purse like it’s a wonder in my life, I’m still feeling over all, very good about myself and about what I did.  True, I still haven’t hung up my new clothes, they aren’t the symbols of my up-yours like I thought they’d be, but rather a side effect.  I’m never going to change who I am innately to please two people who are so narrow in their view of life they can’t abide anyone or anything that doesn’t fit within their known universe.

See, that ranting, above, that’s that down side of not having my pills and I’m so easily startled, and I jump every time I hear Moms voice.  I don’t want to be around her, and I’m rather pissed off at C.  She knows that I’m sort of just limping along in life right now, and that I still need to take care of my mom, does she call?  Of course not.  She left her phone at work so now if we need her we have to call her husband, as she informed us as they were on their way out to Kareoke….And she says I’m embarrassing?

I guess the biggest side-effect of not being level on my meds was the swan dive I sort of took out the garage door.  I had just come home from the dentist appointment that wasn’t, did some shopping and was going to snuggle with Sammy for a while before Mother got up.  But she heard I was home and was demanding breakfast.  I told her what her options were and she felt so put out that we didn’t have bagels left, and would lower her standards to English muffins and as I was going out to the freezer to get them, wearing my reading glasses, which really aren’t for wandering around the house in, I stepped on an aluminum can I didn’t see and slid off the step, I sort of caught myself, then at the very last minute I lost it and my left foot turned in.

So, yea, I’m still feeling euphoric from the shopping spree, but I guess I’m still a danger to myself without the meds.  They better get here soon, I don’t want to know what will happen if I go for two weeks without them.

Revenge Is A Dish Best Served With Whipped Cream

Okay, a rather long title.  I’m still flying a little bit on the cheese cake(s) from my celebratory vengeance expedition at the local mall.  Perhaps I should say that revenge is best dished up with a credit card and someone elses money.  It goes back to the whole “I’m really ashamed of the way you present yourself.” and “I don’t want you to embarrass me” crap that I got from my sister today and my mother on Saturday.  So,  went shopping to buy clothes to wear to work with my sister.  Despite the fact that I got a great deal on the clothes, like saving over $200 on the majority of it, I used the money I’m supposed to pay my sister with.  Can’t have both, money and a sister that doesn’t embarass you.  Pick one.  I do have to say, retail therapy is VERY effective.

I did something I can’t believe I did but I have absolutely no regret on and that was buying a purse that is all leather, that fits all my writing paraphernalia and is just elegantly understated and is so not the tattered bag I’ve been carrying around with me because it fit everything I needed to carry around.  It’s sitting here next to me and the smell of the leather is soooooo nice.

So, let’s address the issues at hand.  First of all, I got angry and went shopping.  Everyone I talked to about how I had been so mightily abused agreed with me, even though I looked horrible, dirty shirt and torn jeans and tennis shoes, everyone agreed that was just out-of-bounds for anyone to say to another person, especially a family member.  But the sting of the anger that I normally would have been fussing at before, even though I’m off my anti-anxiety pills briefly due to supply, has me feeling more empathy for Cyndi and even understanding that she thinks it’s okay.  I’m trying to get beyond the crap our childhood has mired us in, she’s happy as a clam up to her nose in it.  She is hurting me because she is hurting and doesn’t realize it, and I can’t hate her for that.  And I’m going to keep trying to maintain that attitude.

So, the clothes, socks, pj bottoms, purse, make-up, face care and make-up brushes are my ways of compensating myself for the slight by giving Mom and C what they want, me to not shame them in public.  Of course, this doesn’t mean I won’t wear the dirty shirt and the torn jeans when we’re out as a family.  I’m not going to stop who I am because it offends their narrow interpretation of what the world should look like in order to be accepted.  They can just bite me if they think  I’m ever going to be like them.  The one thing I am keeping is my Mickey Mouse watch.  They can pry that off my cold dead wrist before I’ll give that up.

I love my purse.

The Winds Blow Against Me

The breath of negativity seems to be pushing against my resolve not to melt into a gibbering puddle of tears.  Today, I’ve been told that my sister is ashamed of me, that I’m a hoarder who needs help and that since I didn’t make any money this year so I’ve lost my mothers exemption because I apparently am no longer worthy of it.

Okay, so I’m sensitive today.  My teeth have been on edge all day, wanting to scream and run away.  I’ve had images of sawing through my wrists again.  My anxiety level is high, and I’m running low on my anti anxiety pills.  The next few days are going to be an unmitigated joy. (That’s sarcasm, btw, in case you don’t read sarcasm fluently).

It didn’t help watching Hoarding: Buried Alive on TV today because Mom lost the remote in the garbage so we couldn’t change the channel.  It taught me something though….Messy inside, messy outside – tidy inside tidy outside.  I need to put more effort into keeping my surroundings neat and tidy, I know it’s something I need to learn to grow up and do, at least according to the blowhards that are content to sit back and judge me.  Maybe I am being a big baby and I’m throwing a sort of rebellious tantrum, but F’em.  I’m ging to go through the Bradshaw stages, starting with infant and work my way through to healing my wounded inner child back to being a wonder child and champion myself the way I never have been in my life.  I am a loved daughter of God, and I am worth the effort and time this is going to take.  So, yea, F’em.  I’m not shameful, I’m not a hoarder and I don’t need the exemption.  I don’t need them F’ing up my growth or their attempts to blow me off course.

Testing Emotions

Let me just put this out there first: I am not a fan of tests.  Any tests.  All tests.  Even the funny ones that mean nothing.  I’m afraid they are going to reveal too much, like in school, that I’m stupid, or in the magazine, too scary.  Yep, that’s me, stoopid skary.  I’ve been learning about myself that I’m not stupid.  I passed my phlebotomy class and my licensing exam with minimal studying.  I still want to read the book to be sure that I have it down.  I just didn’t have the time or the bandwidth to do what needed to be done.  I could barely make it to school on time most days.

Then there are the tests you have to take to see where you are with a certain problem.  There aren’t any right or wrong answers so I try not to read the description of what the totals of different answers mean before I take the test to keep from trying to fit into a ‘norm’.  But, seriously, I can’t believe that I keep fitting outside the “you seriously need help” category as well.  For example, in the When Anger Hurts book I scored in the raging lunatic section, it was suggested I’d make a good match with Bruce Banner.  (If you don’t know that reference, shame, shame on you).

The latest test I took was for Bradshaw’s Homecoming.  Ten was the only number given, there weren’t any levels for “you’re doing well” or “Your F***ing Nuts!  Get your hug-me jacket and lock yourself in your room and we’ll pick you up momentarily”  It just said if you scored 10 or more you really need this book.  There were about 100 questions and I scored 31.5.  Yea, I know you’re wondering how I got a .5.  Some of the questions were items in my personality I already knew were  flawed and I had already started on working on them or, only half of it applied to me.  Stuff like anal and oral fixations I was a straight No but for the S&M question was a half because it looks like fun…well the roll-playing and bondage aspect of it looks fun, not the beating and humiliation part of it.  I’m not obsessed with it.  I guess that would be a no then, but it’s still an aspect of the demon so I figured it should be counted some how.

What frightened me were the sections I read after the test about emotional sexual abuse.   I have a lot of the signs Bradshaw is talking about.  I don’t know when or where it happened, and I really don’t want to know.  I’m hoping there is a way to fix it, or pave over it without having to have to have to exhume the bodies for proper disposal.  I don’t want to drill down that far into my psyche for fear of what else the action will dig up and need examination….or worse, it completely destabilizes the foundation and I just cave in, never being about to see the light of day again.

 

Off the Map

I’m still trying to bulldoze my way through the prologue of Homecoming by Bradshaw and it said something that pulled an interesting image up in my mind.

Erickson believed that every person has his own unique map of the world.

When I worked at the now defunct Sun Microsystems we had a trick-or-treat Halloween thing that was mandatory and my room were pirates.  I made a treasure map and put it on my cube wall.  I drew a free-form island and put in trees, huts, a volcano and so on and then a big X marking the spot.  I drew a compass in the middle of the ocean and off into the edge I drew dragons with the warning “Yonder there be dragons,”  I have a feeling that reclaiming and championing my inner child is going to be more like fighting dragons than I would like, but if fighting dragons means broadening my unique map of the world I think pushing my boundaries will be a good thing.  As long as it’s not the Norwegian horn tail.

A Well Medicated Machine

I chatted with Dr. W the other day and he would like me to come in every day….he feels I’m a breath of fresh air.  So, I’m doing well.  Backing down the Lexapro from 50 back to 40 has relieved the tension in my jaw, something that I’m able to counter with carrot sticks and the Buspar is still keeping me from climbing out of my skin and keeping me from losing it when things get bad.  So, I know IT’S NOT ME.

Mom on the other hand has decided to go off all psyche meds and feels the pacemaker will keep her sane.  It might bloody well keep her sane, but it’s really messing with my wellbeing.  I don’t want to be around her because I’m tired of feeling like I’m being used by her.  If she’s trying to manipulate me into getting a job she’s winning.  If she thinks I’m going to pay for a house keeper out of my money, she’s so not going to win that one.

I am feeling a little manipulated because she did a major one last night.  I’ve been sick.  She played sick all day too because I was.  It’s either to make me feel bad and take care of her because she’s sicker than I am or she wanted to guilt me into doing the dishes with bleach because she wanted me to feel like I had poisoned her with the filth in the kitchen or that I don’t clean the dishes well enough to keep her well.  So, I did the dishes, she still mewed about how sick she felt, how she didn’t think she could make it to Patrick’s dinner party and wanted me to go instead of her, I refused.  I already told him I was sick and I couldn’t make it.  She tried guilting me into going, tried bribing me into going, then Patrick called and said he couldn’t pick her up so I had to bring her.  Finally she pulled the “what if I throw up and want to leave early” card and I gave in.  She thought I didn’t want to go because I didn’t have the money to cover my bill.  It turns out I do have the money, I just didn’t want to be trapped in the car with her and I wanted the house all to myself for an hour or two……

I’m stopping this now before I get all wrapped up in some sort of straight jacket of righteous indignation.  I was manipulated which means I allowed it.  She was doing what she does, it’s my fault.  I should be pissed at myself instead of at her. It’s just easier to blame her than to blame my screwed up internal wiring.  If it’s her fault I don’t have to change.  I need to change because I don’t want to be here any more.  I don’t want to be treated like a servant and I don’t want to snap at her like she’s a burden.  Currently, without her meds, she is a burden to me.  I can’t to anything for myself without having to have to include her, or bring her along, or feed her the same things…etc.  She wants to saddle her identity to mine and be what I am, but I won’t allow her to share in the identity I’ve had to struggle to form.  Yes, she was never allowed that as a child, but honestly, neither was I.  I’m trying to make this time a time where she can do that, find herself,  for herself.  I’m not willing to share mine.

I need to get back to reading on a daily basis, and writing on a daily basis too.  I keep talking about spending the time doing 300 lines a day, but I’ve only done it once or twice.  Mom needs me, yes, but she can’t have me all the time, I can’t handle it without her medication and I’m not going to put myself in harms way because she is messing with the mechanisms in our relationship.

A Palpable Silence

I’ve been in such a funk these past few days.  I started reading The Homecoming by Bradshaw, I had some spare time in the early afternoon because I was between doctors appointments so I thought I would crack the book and see what is in store for me.  I got a few pages into the introduction and I had to stop.  Not just because they called my name but because I don’t think I could handle any more of hearing the letters these people were writing to their parents without pulling up the dregs of my own wounded child.  In some regards I wasn’t as horribly treated as some, but some hit so close to home and stirred up other emotions and memories that I keep forgetting I’ve buried.

I’ve gone silent.  Which in a way is good, I got some wholesale editing done today on my pinks but I’m not very talkative to Mom and she’s irritating me.  She won’t shut up and let me just have the silence.  She actually realized that I was trying to pseudo-nap today, what I call floating, that she needed to stop talking and trying to engage me into some form of conversation.  I need to get back to the basics with my anger management and I think I’m going to put Bradshaw on a shelf and re-read When Anger Hurts and actually do the journal this time.  I think I can handle adding the extra work onto my list of things to do.

What is annoying me is that this has been hanging on for two days now.  Normally I shake it off and go on like nothing happened.  I’m worried that I’m pushing back reading the book because I don’t want to dredge up the skeletons in my past and see them again, rotted flesh and vacant eyes, staring at me, accusing me for not protecting them when I was a child.  I couldn’t, I was a child, but tell that to them.

My mind has been focusing on scenarios that are never going to happen again, and I can’t seem to derail them.  It’s just the spinning and spinning and the whole “What would you do if-” BS that I don’t even need to waste my time on.  It’s family stuff, it’s annoying and it’s really never going to happen….at least not to me.

In the mean time, Mom keeps asking me why I’m so quiet and I have nothing to tell her.  She hasn’t done anything lately, all she did was leave a trail of dead bodies behind in my psyche that I need to give a proper burial to.  I don’t think there is going to be an easy route through this part of my education….Damnit!

Comforting The Wounded Child

Thich Nhat Hanh says there is a wounded child in all of us in need of comfort and needs to be brought into our mindfulness practices in order to facilitate healing.  He talks about bringing her along on meditative walks, maybe even spending a whole week with her, etc.  As flippant as I’d like to be at this concept I can’t find it in me.  He’s right.  The wounded little girl in me has been sending up flares for me to pay attention to her for a long time now. I’ve just thought it was a way for my anger to flare at my Mom in retaliation to all of her self-centered demands for things like they never were when I was growing up.

Memories of being hit, of going hungry, of being isolated in corners while my mother slept have been coming up in my mind.  Of remembering, or rather not remembering, my mother ever showing me how to clean house, just demanding that it be done, and yelling or spanking me when it wasn’t done right.  Of being called stupid, weird, strange, fat, pig, etc.  I won’t allow myself to believe these taunts, beatings and shunning were malicious, intentional attacks on my as a child, but it doesn’t make it hurt any less.

I guess this harkens back to the whole “getting in touch with your inner child” psycho-babble of the 70’s and 80’s, but as I recall, that just encouraged the rich and self-indulgent to be childish.  This isn’t about getting in touch with your “child” but the “wounded” child.  Two completely different entities.  Christ talks about how we need to become as children, but He was talking in faith, in wonder, in guile.  The wounded child had her wonder and guile taken from her.  Luckily I still have my faith.  I need to work at bringing her back to that child-like state and get away from the angry, child-ish frame of mind.

It seems appropriate for me to comfort her and pay attention to her because I’m trying to re-raise me as well as my mom.  To not only be the mother to her she always wanted and for me to be the mother to me I never had.  An integral  part of that is going to be spending time with my wounded poppet and comfort her, tell her she is loved and wanted and that I am grateful she was born and is a treasure if to no one else but me, and I value that treasure beyond all worth on earth.

I’m not sure how to apply this concept though.  Do I schedule something on the calendar or do I try to remember it in my daily practice and life?  I hope she tells me what she needs because I don’t want to mess myself up more than I already am.