Tormented

A Momentary Pity Party - Then Shut Up & Get On With It

Disclaimer:  This post was written in one 5 hour non-stop sitting.  I have not edited it to be more coherent.  I left it as is to show my altered state at the time of writing.  This is my pity party before going back to getting on with living.  Hopefully after writing it out and getting it off my mind it will help me.  This blog is, after all, my 'confessor' of sorts.

I've spent the majority of this week angry... for many and no reason(s).

• Angry at my husband for not being a whole person, equal and partner in crime.
• Angry at my mother for being a manipulative bitch and emotional blackmailer.
• Angry at my financial circumstances no matter how hard or long I work.
• Angry that I am unable to stick to anything that is good for me without guilt and thoughts of how I'm perceived by others.
• Angry that I am stuck and stagnant and so depressed I cannot find joy in anything and am forced to fake it every damn day.
• Angry that I can't make it better... make me better.
• Angry that my life is going nowhere and that I complain via this blog or even in my own mind when I know I am better off than many others.

My anger wants to smash, to hurt, to trash, to break.  I am pushing my friends away because their happiness hurts... I'm not talking about looks or material possessions I am talking about a different happiness that I don't know how to describe.  

I'm tired.  Tired of putting myself last.  Yet I'm guilty if put myself first.  I feel like running away.  I just want to go away where no one sees me and I can just be nobody.  I don't know how to explain it but I"ll try.

I am tired of being the only person responsible for my household, my husbands personal assistant, secretary and reminder (as in reminding him of who he is to call, what he is to do, his appointments etc.); tired of being a daughter; wife and worker.  I want to find my happiness - I don't want my PTSD to be triggered, have panic attacks and depression.  I don't want to be responsible for anything but myself.

When I have tried to do that... that's when things fall apart.  The household turns into a shit-hole because he can't do much cleaning, let alone cook or do dishes due to his disability; bills are not paid; appointments are missed; shopping and cooking can't be done and nothing that needs to happen at home would be completed.

I can't bring myself to create; to read; to sing; to play.  It has been a struggle and over 5 hours just to write this, never mind writing for pleasure.

I was told by a friend who is a social worker that some of what I'm going through is called caregiver fatigue/depression.  The rest is chronic depression.  Googling caregiver fatigue came up with some scholarly articles (like the one I have linked to) and many 'holistic' and 'spiritual' pieces.  

Being told to 'find my bliss' or pray or have faith/trust in "insert deity of choice here" or my "higher power" isn't helpful.

• I don't believe in God and my higher power is myself... not helpful
• What the fuck is my 'bliss'?  

I am not where I thought I would be at 52.  I feel like I have failed at life.  Like my every decision has been wrong. Some days I even wish I had followed my original plan from so long ago when I was homeless.  The only thing I would have missed are my dogs.  That's it.  I wouldn't have missed family drama and dysfunction not to mention other things I'd rather not discuss here.

That's sad.

I know I am depressed.  I am going to have to go back on my anti-depressive drug again.  I am never going to be able to stop it until I'm dead.  I hate the thought of taking it... of having to rely on a drug to cope.  Or am I coping by covering up who I am with drugs.

In some ways I feel like I'm working my way towards a self-destructive end.  Being self-destructive by not taking my iron (it is expensive and sometimes I just can't afford it), B12 injection (just can't be bothered), and vitamin D (very low especially during the winter) and anti-depressant.  It seems too much work to take the medications.  Not moving or exercising, not doing those healthy things others do.  I eat crap too.  I'm obsessed with food sometimes.

I think some of it is from being homeless.  At that time I ate what was given to me or what was discarded by others or I didn't eat for days at a time.  

Some of it is stress.  Food is my only comfort.  I don't do drugs, can't drink, have sex (I'm true to my wedding vow) and I don't have money for retail therapy.  I don't know how else to fill the void except with food.  There is no joy, no pleasure except what I get from food.  Food doesn't talk back, is within reach and raises up whatever endorphins I do feel. I can't seem to get pleasure from anything I used to do.
 
Every day I'm waiting to lose my job, lose my home, run out of money and be so deeply in debt that I go bankrupt.  Triggers, panic, anxiety, depression.  

My self-destructive behaviour is strong lately.  I have had Trichotillomania (Hair Pulling) since I was a tween and to a lesser extent Dermatillomania (skin picking) over the last few decades.  And of course, I eat crap.

What can I do to fix myself?  I'm currently talking to a great clinical psychologist about other things, but my Employee Assistance Program through my work only covers 4 visits per topic.  Right now I have 2 more sessions to deal with my dad's death and the mental/emotional stuff around my mothers attempted manipulation of me then I'm done with counselling for a while.

You would think after all the therapy I have had for the last 30 or so years I'd be better.  I am, in some areas, more aware and can sometimes step away so I can think rationally and logically about what goes on... but I don't feel better.  I don't feel better equipped to deal with it all.

I'm sorry I'm whining.  I know I am.  I am playing my mother by whining.  But is it so wrong to want someone else to take care of me and take some responsibility for a while?  Not permanently since I won't live under orders from anyone else... I'm too independent (so I'm told).

I'm tired.  I want to rest. But how can I?

I have a disabled husband who, due to his morphine for pain or his actual disability couldn't take care of us.  I can't rely on others - this I know from experience a few times over.  I will not be a burden to my friends, and in truth, most of them don't know the whole story of my life and my feelings and it's really not their business no matter how close we are.

I'll have to find a way.  

Or not.

Cue The Inevitable Toxic Backwash

I am coming to grips with burying my already dead father (see previous post).  Working through the issues of why both my parents seem to hate me when I can't be manipulated.  I'm over 50 now but there are times I still feel like I'm a youngster.

My last post dealt with the death and my feelings and circumstances around contacting family, dealing with the reality of his dislike for me and that there won't be further chances to talk to him.

I think my father was similar to Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde.  

What he did was flush his first life - blue collar worker, bread-winner with a fat wife and daughter, what would have been a severely disabled daughter had she survived and a son... and dig out a better existence for himself.  

Cue the second life - a ballroom dance teacher with a studio, thin 'wife' with money, thin and smart daughter and extended family with a nice house, ability to travel wherever he wanted and in the spotlight at the dance studio.  Going on the notices written in the online guest book for the funeral he was a sweet, kind, gentle man who made people laugh.  What I read is that he was happy being the centre of it all. 

Fuck the first family when you can be the centre of it all.  

Now the fat wife/daughter comment.  I've had my mother and other family confirm that my dad made the comment (I may be paraphrasing as I didn't here it from his mouth) that 'I don't mind having a fat wife, but I don't want a fat daughter' at one of the family gatherings.  Since it wasn't just my mother that told me that story I put more belief in it.  

My father and I were never close.  He was emotionally distant and on too many occasions he grossed me out or weirded me out - but I'm not going to go into it all here.  I've dived deep with therapists and have worked some of it out, some of it I've had to let go not knowing. 

On hearing of dad's death, my mother tried to contact me but she is blocked on all phones and just by good luck and happenstance, we moved after the final blow-out I had with her, so she has no idea where I live.  BUT she does know where I work and managed to call while I was off to leave me two voicemail messages that fairly dripped with smiles.  I won't type them out verbatim - because you guessed - I kept them, but the gist was that she was 'so shocked and saddened by his death, so sorry for my loss', and that I could 'contact her as I am here for you but you probably don't want to talk to me' and worse yet 'I know what it is like to lose a parent'.  

Khalid Albaih

Just jam that old knife in a little harder and turn it in the other direction - that was my first thought.  She wants to get a rise out of me.  She knows what my relationship has been like with my father.  She knows that every time for most of my life when she told me "your just like your father" how that would kill me inside.  She also knows the phrase "I know what it is like to lose a parent" is also a comment on me cutting her out and that now I'm without parents. 

Both my parents were/are master manipulators.  I don't know whether it is the low emotional intelligence, the attitude of 'it should all be about me' or whether they truly don't know what they are doing.  I really don't believe it is the latter.  I think that has something to do with why I prefer being in the background of everything and I go out of my way to not be noticed. To do a good job, to be competent but to fly under the radar. To be nice and polite and to do the right things.

This week it is back to normal at work.  Until the mail person dropped a card on my desk.  I didn't recognize the handwriting and it had no return address, but that happens when you're out in the community.  When you take time to speak to groups they often send you thank you cards.  It wasn't a thank you card.  It was a sympathy card from my mother with a handwritten note included.  

So she took the time to buy a card and have the cashier or the person at the post office write the address, my name and department on it since she knew I would recognize her handwriting.  The note inside is her usual neat, printing with her high impact words highlighted and underlined.  This wasn't for sympathy.  This was to dig a little deeper.  In her one voicemail she did tell me she was going to send my brother and I sympathy cards with a note but I didn't think she would send it to my work.  Smart job in getting someone elses handwriting on the envelope.  Had I recognized it I would have shredded it immediately. 

I will be having a conversation with HR about her contacting me.  I have spoken to my friends she has tried contacting when we first had this fight.  She did it in order to spread lies and try to cause problems.  Next stop if she tries this again is the police via my workplace. She is dead to me - it is safer to cut her out than try to work things out.

Sadly I'm like both of my parents in that I show as unemotional (like my father) and can be very reactive and overly sensitive about things (like my mother).  I've spent years with therapists, mental counselors, social workers, and psychologists to NOT be like them. I just didn't realize how much I have done to distance myself from being their child. 

I think it also explains why I keep everyone at a distance - except a handful - and even then I don't share everything.  Being alone, being a loner, is being protected.  Protected from the acid, from the hurt, from the broken trust, and from people who will let you down when you most need them. I can move faster on my own; faster and lighter instead of being tied down. Although I am tied down with a husband and animals.  But that was a choice and I made it with my eyes open. I may regret it sometimes, but I stand by it.

My father was an attention-seeking lay-about who wanted to be the centre of everyone's world and my mother an over-reactive martyr with a hate for everyone who has something she doesn't. As my Clinical Psychologist has recently pointed out, I have had some great role models in my life.  My Grandpa and Grandma, my Uncle Les (family by choice since he was a neighbour), awesome teachers - Mr. Bishop, Ms. Poppelwell, Mrs.Akey and Mr. Symsyck.  I tried hard to be everything my parents weren't.  I'm still trying.  

I am very independent and self-sufficient (I had to be), I have great friends, I like my work, love my dogs and I'm working on me.  I'm pretty lucky in the grand scheme.  

But in the back of my head it still still niggles... what is it about me that both my parents hate so much? Mother told me she married my dad to prove to her mother that she was an adult but why did she have children? I asked her that question once and her answer was to imitate and mock me.

I have no idea why dad picked my mother, but again, why have children?  If they both wanted to be the centre of the universe, why spread the gene pool out just to harm what you caused to be born?   

I'll never know now.  But I still want to.  Sad. And sadder still, I want to hurt them like they hurt me.  Guess that does prove I am like them.  Because they excelled at the hurt.  Another part of myself I need to work on.  Revenge is my parents dinner... not mine, yet I hunger for that satisfaction like I'm starving.  What does that make me?  A sad excuse. 

Alive is Really Dead. Really.

As of May 2014 both my parents are dead. As of January 2017 only one is still alive and walking on this earth.

If you have read any of my previous posts (not required) you may have guessed that I am estranged from my father. Back in the 1990s he wrote me a lovely card (that I still have) stating that I should consider him dead. After many years in therapy (on my part) we reconnected a year or so before I married. 

During the wedding preparation I explained that at 32 I would be walking myself down the aisle (holding onto my Grandpa's watch) and that his "lady" would not be invited in deference to my mother since my parents were not divorced at that time. Instead his understanding I got another letter and a voicemail at work stating he would not attend; that it was obvious my mother was running the show; and I should consider him dead once again. No one from my father's side of the family attended my wedding - they stood with my dad.

A few years after the wedding Nana (his mother) asked to see me. My husband and I drove down with wedding album and other things. Suffice to say the lies that he had told her and the family were shot down and my Nana accepted me again. It was only a few months after that she passed away.

Over the years, at the funerals of my Nana, his sister (my aunt) and at other family funerals I approached him to initiate some sort of dialogue and he literally turned his back and walked away. Fair enough it was his choice not mine. It bothered me back then but I moved through and past the anger with help from therapists.

On December 17, 2016 I got a call from my cousin that my father was dead. I didn't feel anything at first... it had been almost 20 years after all since he declared that I was dead to him. My cousin and uncle were upset which I understood since they had a working relationship with him. I didn't understand how I felt, if I felt, why I felt. I didn't have 'love' feelings so why would I have 'loss' feelings? I said the usual polite things to my uncle and cousin... it is what you do when you know someone is hurting. 

It was explained to me that they never got all of the cancer they found last year and that it had come back this past summer but that he had told them he didn't want me knowing anything. So the didn't tell me. They obeyed his wish - I respect that. Three weeks earlier they had stopped chemotherapy or radiation treatment because it was causing heart issues. He and his lady put his affairs in order and went on with it. On the December 16 they thought he was having a heart attack so he went to hospital and after tests had been moved into hospice that day. Uncle had time to see him and then early the next day he had died with a hospice worker present. They called me later that day probably against his wishes. 

Working in healthcare I asked the usual questions: 

• was he in pain - no; 
• was he alone - no.

That represents a good death from my perspective... and I expressed that... mind you with a little more emotion than I am now. I asked after his lady since that is also what you do - and I was observing the convention. I said I was sorry for their loss. They in turn told me they were sorry for my loss and were worried about how I would feel. At the time I didn't feel anything and certainly did not feel any loss. 20 years after his self-imposed death how was I supposed to feel? I didn't know.

I called my brother who I hadn't spoke to in a long time and we reconnected (after a fashion) once he said he knew dad was dead. I also called my mother's cousin and explained that dad was dead and asked that she go over to tell mother since I wasn't going to deal with her. I didn't tell my cousin all the details of dads death. She said she would go in person to tell her and that was that. 

The next day mother tried calling me on my home phone. She is blocked from the home phone but it does show me who called, just doesn't ring through or allow them to leave a message.  She didn't have the cell phone I used with my cousin but must have gotten that number from her because she also called the cell. I immediately blocked her. My own cell had been stolen the year before so the person that number had been assigned would have had the pleasure of speaking to her. While I don't receive her calls I can see whenever she tries to call... so that's that. Or so I thought.

In the week that followed imagine my surprise when I started spontaneously crying in unusual places. While I am not unfeeling, I don't show too much emotion... some think I don't show any... maybe not show but I do feel.  During the bereavement leave I did a lot of reading on loss. But so much of it didn't seem to apply to me since we never had a loving relationship or family life. My family was and is dysfunctional. I cried at stupid things, I got angry at stupid things... I was really not feeling like myself.

I was shocked when I googled his obituary. The shocking part was the fact that his only other blood daughter (my little sister) who died after only living 30 days and his son... father to the grandsons he was so proud of, were not mentioned at all!  His woman's kids were mentioned as if they were his own. His woman was called his wife altho as catholics they were not supposed to divorce/remarry, and they were not married.

I don't dispute the fact he was proud of his grandchildren...but to not mention your own daughter and son... and drone on about your woman's children and such. THAT bothered me. That ENRAGED me. Hearing my uncle call this man his 'hero' angered me. Considering how often I was told by my uncle that he tried to get my father and I to talk... it angered me that dad would be called a hero. Anyone's hero. He is NO hero.

At first I was going to go to his memorial, if his woman was comfortable with me going.  Then I started to think about everything. I wasn't going after all. I mentioned to my uncle that I hope he wasn't disappointed but that I would not be going to the celebration of his death. That he wouldn't talk to me and didn't want me to know he was sick... he wouldn't want me to be at his funeral nor would his lady. Uncle understood and seemed relieved.  

When I mentioned I would send his woman a sympathy card he said 'I would just leave it alone". Others thought I should go because he was my father and told me I would go with them. My return comment that he was father in name only was met with silence even after I sent his obituary as proof that it was of no consequence that I wasn't going to go. Still silence.

But that wasn't the end of it.