Ordinary is welcome

I'm pleased to be back at work today. There is some semblance of normal returning. After a festive seasons of highs, lows and confusion the everyday is very welcome.


Dad is back in his usual dementia unit within the hospital, a place that knows and cares for him well. His two days of not waking, nearly a week of not swallowing, and consequently not eating, are past. He's as up and about as he gets. A chest infection has set in, but at least it's being takien care of. I hope it passes quickly.

My mother can only demand so much of my time when there is an office to go to. She exhausts me and irritates me. She makes it hard to love her. She makes it hard to say 'no' to her.

And then there is the musician. I want him and don't in equal measure. The thoughts of him fill too much of my head. It's almost as if he wants to be found out. We are not having an affair, but we are doing something. I just don't know what. It is an emotional betrayal. Worse perhaps than some meaningless one night stand. At least, there is little contact between the times when we find each other amongst friends. We are not spiralling, yet.

Going back to the usual routine is reassuring and distracting from all of these things. There are fewer hours in the day to ponder those questions for which I have no answer.

Guilty

So now begins the cycle of guilt.


I feel guilty for leaving her.

I feel guilty that my sister got dragged in.

I feel guilty for being so angry with her.

I feel guilty for writing my last post. Surely I am a bad person for thinking and wirting such things about my mother....

So on, and so forth.

I want to make it better but I also want her to take responsibility for her part. Will I stand my ground? Or will my guilt eat away at my conscience until I succumb to it?

She is now in hospital.

I will visit my father in his hospital this but will I visit her? If I do not, I know that this will drag out further. If I do, I hand all the power back to her.

She will tell me she doesn't want to talk about it. She will tell me it was the drugs talking and it is not her fault.

She no longer behaves like a mother but like a petulant child. If I capitulate, which I inevitably will, she will do it all again at some point in the future. I am exhausted with it all.

Exhausted. Head and heart.

I'm shattered after the fortnight from hell.

Huge work deadlines, continuing saga of the sister's grumpy boyfriend impacting the rest of the family now and has us arguing rather than supporting each other. The exhausted me hasn't helped the situation at all and compounds all my fears and insecurities.

Big day today in getting work moved forward, presentations etc. I feel like I've been on some crazy job interview. The rational me knows I'm good at what I do. The tired emotional me feels like a fraud and is terrified of everything falling to pieces. Doubting myself and my abilities.

Even the fun stuff feels like hard work and I'm longing for the security of having an employer whilst knowing the freedom of the freelance life makes me happier.

I can't think straight or take an objective view. It all feels like it's my fault (whatever 'it' is), that I'm not good enough. The devil on my shoulder is shouting way louder than the angel can compete with.

I know it will pass. I know it will be OK. But tonight? I'm not OK. Maybe I just need to write it out of my system.

A day when the worms are winning....

Today is not a good day. An early morning counselling session has left me struggling.

Over the past few weeks we've been reviewing everything from the beginning, in order to figure what still needs to be faced, head on, no putting it off, plan of action required.

I've looked at the lists, heard words that I wrote at the beginning and I know that I've moved on from. I recognise them but feel differently now. I've achieved a huge amount. But....today's 'to do' list is hard. It's the stuff that has held me back always, and will be the hardest to confront.

It reminds of my greatest fears.

It's a day when I feel that I deserve nothing and that I know that I don't know how to accept kindness or love. A day that I will look at anyone who's offering their support and think that they are are mad.

I am sad and scared.

It's the stuff that I'm scared to dream about or want for my future, because it all feels so very far away and I know how much work I have to do to get there. I will do it.

Today I am glad I'm here on my own because I suspect if someone said the wrong thing, tried to be too nice to me or told me how to feel, or pressed an old button I would probably push them away, cry or scream.

It's a day when someone could easily be a target for all my hurt, anger and fear. It's a day when I all really need is a hug and to be listened to and to feel safe.

It's a day when someone would have to be hugely patient, and see past the ugly words and know that they are looking at a hurt little girl.

It's a day when I must do this for myself.

I have too much work to do and I can't concentrate. I will try. I must.

I am an idiot

Sometimes I just can't get a grip on the self destructive part of me. The part of me that feels hideous, worthless, useless, ugly and stupid. I know these things are not true but it all feels very real when it happens.

The negative bit of me overwhelms the rest, and even though I know it is the evil depressed anxious feelings that are getting in the way, I struggle to take a side step. I hate it. It leaves me angry at myself and everyone else and exhausted. Will I ever just be ok?

Today will pass, I hope it hurries up

Today I am unravelled and upset, and I don't really know why. I know where it's come from, but I'm not sure what it is exactly. Partly it is not feeling respected.


I have no idea what to do with it.

My morning has been a write off. I am tearful and pissed off and frustrated and wondering if I will ever be able to make this better, or if I should give up trying and accept that it is what is and I that I'm not going to move forward from here.

I am tired of being angry. I am tired of fighting to keep my head above water. Most days are not like this, but this one is. Pressure builds and must, from time to time, be released. 

I do not want to be told how I should feel or think.

I just want to be loved and cared for. I want a hug. There is no one to give me a hug, and no one to ask me how my day is, how I am, and let me cry, make me safe until I've let it all go and I'm ok. I have to do this for myself. And I will try.

I will just have to pick myself up, dust myself off and carry on. I need to focus. I know I shouldn't, I know I should go with this and allow myself just to feel and 'be' whatever comes along, but that's not going to get my work done and pay the bills. I can't take a sick day because I earn my money by the day. My time is billable. Clients and deadlines.

I won't give up, I will keep fighting, keep trying because I have to. I can't go back to where I was, but right now the slope feels very slippery indeed.

Buttons and explosions

I hate that I sometimes react wholly inappropriately to small things. Sometimes a button is pressed and off I go.

Yesterday a friend made a perfectly reasonable observation about something, and off I went. Instead of taking the comment as it was intended I ran off in a completely different direction with it. At least inthis occasion I was tearful rather than anything else.

I can be overwhelmed by the strength of my feelings sometimes, my reactions shock me. Sometimes I am just numb.  At least now I have the ability to take a step back, understand that I am reacting not to what has just happened but to a lifetime of experiences. And I can hold my hands up and say sorry, explain a bit.

I'm better at sharing what I'm feeling rather than defending myself from a imagined enemy, or withdrawing.

I hate it. When I'm on a low ebb I'll fight back when actually what I need is a hug and a listening ear. I just don't know how to ask for that. Sometimes I just need a bit of reassurance, to know that I'm cared for and that it is only a passing storm.

It's getting better, and will continue to do so, but I'm not there yet.

And so, the journey begins again

I woke up this morning and cried.

Yesterday's counselling session had left me feeling stupid, and sad, and unable to see for myself how I can stop getting it all wrong. I guess if I knew the answer I wouldn't be there. I'd be somewhere else being happier.

I know I need to unpick things before I can put them back together. I know this stuff takes hard work and patience, but I do get so very tired of trying to be strong and positive. I feel like a kid lost in a physics class that logically flows but by the time I get home it all looks like Greek.

Will I ever be able to learn how to let people see me, love me, just be me? Do I even know who 'me' is? I given so much of myself away over my lifetime that I'm not sure what's left. I am lonely and a bit scared.

Too many questions

Two weeks ago I left the pub after one drink, and my sister's boyfriend behaving like a spoilt child. I haven't been back since.


It's Friday night and I'm home alone after an exhausting couple of weeks. Glass of red wine, too much to eat, cigarettes, junk TV and some domestic pottering.

Despite phone calls from three of my usual Friday evening companions, I just don't want to go out. I've made lame excuses. I can't figure out if I'm tired or grumpy or worse. I worry when I get into this hiding mode that I'm on the verge of wanting to stay away and wallowing. Is my response my response to the idiot boyfriend reasonable or rational? Am I playing out one of those old stories of my child hood again and not recognising it?

I can't find the root of this. I wanted those phone calls, and still rejected my friends. I wanted to know they cared, and miss me, and still I am here not there. Why?

The longer I leave it before I return to their company, the harder it will be to go back to the fold without creating something of nothing. It wasn't nothing though. It mattered to me. It just doesn't matter to them. I am making the boys uncomfortable by my absence. If I were there it wouldn't be an issue, by not being I am shining a spotlight on an argument so far unresolved and making them complicit.

Am I punishing them for not standing up for me when I needed it? Would I have accepted help if they had? Probably not. The reality is, I am the only loser.

How do I regain myself and let it go?

Deaf Ears

I don't need to have the last word. I don't need to be right or wrong. I just want to be understood. I sometimes wonder if I'm speaking a different language. I am trying to stop editing my words so that I do not offend, or upset, or challenge losing my voice along the way. I am trying to be truthful.

My mother has spent my life telling me that 'if I say black is white, black is white'. Any attempt at putting across another opinion or asking her to see someone else's view met with that helpful remark. I learned that it was her way or no way at all.

I didn't shut up, I kept fighting, kept trying to be heard, kept getting shot down. I was relived when I left home. I was tired of trying. Tired of fighting. Tired of not being heard. I learned to save my energy for the battles I could fight and hid the rest.

In all those years, I don't know I ever told my mother about the name calling, and the like. I remember being told about sticks, and stones....' Perhaps I did try. I know I stopped telling her things. A recent conversation has shown she hasn't got any idea of quite how much I put up with, and probably never will.

Any argument or discussion where I feel I am not being understood still stirs up that urge to fight back and be acknowledged in some way. I am thirteen again.

If someone tells me 'there's nothing else to say' or 'let's leave it there' or 'let's agree to disagree' or, or, or.....

It lights an old touch paper. These words translate in my head as 'your views or feelings are unimportant, I don't care, I don't want to know what you think, I don't respect you, I don't love you'.

I fight back harder than I should because I am thirteen again, not thirty something, and I am trying to be heard. All I want is for someone to ask me 'what do you think?' or 'I don't understand, why don't you tell me?'. Is that so much to ask? Perhaps it my responsibility to be more eloquent.

But am I thirteen again, and hurt, and scared of everything slipping through my fingers. I fight back in a fit of unreasonable proportion. Or, I am silent. Choosing my battles. Or, I am silent. Scared of my vulnerability.

She still doesn't listen.

Perhaps?

Perhaps I am changing, perhaps I am learning? Perhaps not?

It is fair to say that I am utterly confused. I met man a few weeks ago who is sweet and kind and gentle. Everything I’d like a man to be. But it leaves me feeling very strange. I don’t know what to do with his affection and kindness. There is no challenge, no disaster on the horizon and I am left feeling completely at sea.

He is the things I would like, but I just don’t know how to work with these differences. I know what to do with a rogue, or an unattainable man, or a man who needs fixing. I also know that these will always fall to pieces. I set myself up for failure. This time I have set myself up for success and I don’t know what to do! But then again there is geography which could create disaster. As he falls towards me, I push back. I want him, but I don’t know how to be. Or do I simply like the idea of him?

He is talented, musical, clever, patient, ordinary. He is not handsome, but still he is attractive.

I do not want to lead him on, promising something or someone I don’t know how to be. I do not know why I have chosen another man who does not live where I do. I can speculate, but can’t pin it down. I can’t also breakdown my feelings, behaviour or confusion. Find its root. Recognise it. Challenge it. Do something, anything, different. Give him and me the chance to be something special.. There remains two constants. Firstly, that he feels like someone important. Secondly, that nagging question about long distance. I have been burned before because of it. Can I let myself just go wherever the road takes us and stop worrying about the consequences? I don’t know.

My lodger is staying another month. The extra cash is nice. Loss of my space, and fiddle playing, bathing, pottering, hostess-ing time is not. Is it worth it?

I am left grumpy, listless and lost with it all.

Comfort eating is rubbish!

I don't know if it's even comfort, but today I have consumed everything I shouldn't polished off with a nice glass of wine. I am calmer than i have ever been and still one small chain of thoughts sends me for the fridge. Hopeless! I should alarm it! Maybe I'll just blame PMS, or not enough sleep, or something. It's a strange and frustrating thing.