A Microscopic Shift

As I’ve said before, acceptance & forgiveness are not love languages I was taught growing up, and as a consequence, I struggle with as an adult. 

Recently, I changed one of my hundreds of passwords to involve the word “forgive” in some form or another, so every day, whether I want to or not, I have to type that word, repeatedly, hoping to elicit some benefit from doing so. 

Additionally, 2 weeks ago I broke down and called that co-worker who, for 17 years I thought was a friend, and who retired 3 years ago. I had been giving her nothing but radio silence in all this time—and she has done the same towards me. 

Anyway, I guess I was chasing some kind of dopamine hit by doing so, and she delivered by fawning excessively. Not sure why I did it, as this person showed their true nature by being carelessly cruel to me after I suffered an injury 4 years ago—an injury which still has me hobbled to this day. 

Perhaps I was “bread crumbing” her. I don’t know why else. Maybe I am lonely & craving interaction of any sort. The bar is set pretty damned low if that weee the case, but I guess this is better than calling random strangers just to chit chat. 

Anyway. My customary response as I am walking is to blurt out “Fuck you Nizuc!” (the resort where I suffered my injury), and “Fyck you Brenda!” (the name of the person who was carelessly cruel me. I don’t recall how many weeks it has been (1? 2?) since the password change, but I noticed yesterday when the script automatically started running yesterday, I managed just to blurt our “Fuck you Nizuc!”

Looks like progress to me. 

On Unlived Lives

There’s a quote by Jung that resonates with me: “The greatest tragedy of the family is the unlived lives of the parents”

That has put a fine point on the knowledge I have been struggling within myself, that I am not living up to my potential, and looking back on my upbringing is it no wonder I struggle with learned helplessness & its accompanying self worth issues, as neither of my parents were able to extricate themselves completely from the traps their parents created for them. 

At a minimum their lives are great cautionary tales for myself of things or a life I want to avoid—so I try to move forward the best I can. There is no alternative. 

Reviewing Old Blog Posts From 2018-2017

It is wild re-reading old posts, being reminded of a few things (i.e., the solitary apology I ever received from mom), and the instability of my relationships with mom, my sister, and her sister. If things were relatively peaceful between mom and I, then things with my aunt or my sister suffered, and visa versa. 

If mom was fawning over one of us, she was fighting or freezing someone else. And always triangulating. Someone always had to be the villain or scapegoat in her narrative. 

Damaged people DAMAGE PEOPLE. The collateral damage for me is I am left shattered, anxious and avoidant, and hyper vigilant—the last characteristic I am viewing as a super power that serves to protect me, but still it is exhausting constantly bring mindful and assessing risks. 

Mom is the one who physically died, and yet I am left behind feeling as if I were already a ghost and an afterthought. Sometimes I feel as if I were a ghost haunting my own grave that no one visits.

Mom wasted so much time creating & stoking chaos, it didn’t leave much time for love, though there were glimmers of it (or so I thought) along the way that got diluted in the chaos. 

Sadly what little glimmer of familial love or ties that remained in the aftermath of her death, the Trump presidency and the persistence of the COVID pandemic diluted things to the point where I am convinced there isn’t much left at all. 

Cruelty & Weakness

 

“This Is How Things Are Now”

I originally started this blog when mom was alive as a means of documenting and warehousing and compartmentalizing the abuse & absurdity I experienced in my relationship with mom.  

In the aftermath of her passing, I now see that it has evolved into documenting my relationship with myself. 

Before COVID, I thought I had a handle on everything: controlling myself, my thoughts, and by extension my feelings to the point where I was off antidepressants for 11 years. 

Back on medication & back in therapy again, to put myself back together again. Familiar territory. 

I have been re-reading the entries in this blog and reflecting back on the version of myself writing those entries, and so many thoughts come to my mind: the exhaustion & exasperation of constantly being vigilant and protective of me, Maharajah and our life, mindful not to share anything that could be gossiped about or twisted into something else entirely. 

I spent too much time being protective, vigilant, angry, resentful. I see the gaps in blog entries where I was documenting how many days I went without contacting mom, or days when she would call me an outlandish amount of times. 

Exasperation. Exhaustion. Control. Stress. Then her love bombing with a mere glimmer of what appeared to be love, which would dissipate back into the spiral of stress, and nothing ever making her happy, leaving me feeling like a failure—why bother? 

Spending that much time being hyper-vigilant, over stressed, feeling like the villain in the stories mom told herself and others didn’t leave much room for love—and to be honest, it is difficult for me to distinguish actual love versus trauma bonding & Stockholm Syndrome regarding mom. 

I learned too late in life what this is (or was): peptide addiction (the interplay of excess cortisol + dopamine depletion in particular). There I go again, doing what I do best, intellectualizing my trauma. 

Things toward the very end moved too quick, no time for tidy attempts at a sentimental goodbye. The last month of her life was, for all of us, high stress. And in a way, I am chasing my “next hit” of dopamine from a wave of love bombing that will never come. Closure has yet to darken the doorstep of my heart & psyche.

In her 2019 Christmas voicemail to me, in response to gifts she can no longer afford to give us she said, “Well, this is how things are now.” 

Indeed. This is how things are now. At some point I hope to progress from stone cold resignation to actual acceptance. In the meantime, I am trying to allow myself the grace to “just be” and sit with my thoughts and feelings until such time my sadness lessens and my resentments melt away.

On Familiarity

Jealous Of The Life I Used To Have

I think back on my life before the pandemic and how my mom, my sister, my aunt, and even someone I thought was a good friend all were jealous of the life I had that involved traveling and visiting my in-laws who are truly lovely people. 

After my divorce from the WASband left me destitute, literally bankrupted me, leading to me residing with my hoarder cousin and stealing day old bagels & rolls of TP from work just to get by between paychecks, you’d think they’d be happy for me that my burdens (in that regard) were lightened, but no. Misery likes company. 

Now *I* am the one who is jealous & resentful of that version of myself, and how I wish that were me now. I feel like I actually died back then, and this current existence is a posthumous, dystopian fantasy illusion. 

My husband is planning this lovely trip to Paris is like he is trying to resurrect that dead version of me, hoping I’ll happily look forward to this trip.  

I am very appreciative he is in a position to plan wonderful adventures for us; however, what should be happy anticipation is replaced with fear and anxiety and trying to estimate how many N95s I will need to pack and worrying about bringing COVID back as a souvenir. 

The pandemic has destroyed 10-15 (possibly even 20) years of diligent personal work & enrichment. 

Before COVID, I was risk averse, neurotic, and distrustful of most people. Now? I have to put those pieces of myself back together, AGAIN, and I am angry and resentful that I have to do this all over again. Luckily this is familiar territory, and it all comes back to self care and mindfulness, and a bit of encouragement & accountability from those of whom I trust. 

This is the nature of life: change. Even our bones don’t remain unchanged. The cycle of building up and breaking down is the natural order of things. Lather, rinse, repeat until the tipping point is reached and we can’t rebuild again. Into the breach once more.