It is time to work on my boundaries again. My mother hurt her back. I feel really badly for her, back pain is awful. She has muscle relaxants and pain pills, but they are putting her to sleep, not helping with the pain.
She asked me if I could time off from work to help her around the house. My mother is not immobile. She is able to take care of the basic things like feeding herself and using the restroom. She just can't do her laundry or wash the dishes.
I talked to her about having a bonded home caregiver come in, but she didn't want that. She admitted she wants company. While I feel for her, my mother wanted me to take time off from work because she is bored and alone. I have already taken off two days from work because of my mother. My mother knows that I used all of my sick leave last year due to my own health issues, so I have no reserves for myself. I am sure she hasn't considered this information, but she does know.
My mother asked me to come and see her this weekend. It's a perfectly reasonable request, but I can't express the anger and rage that filled me. My mother wanted an Easter dinner, but when I told her that she was welcome to come down and help me cook it, she declined. I can't recall a time in the past 20 years that my mother has come to help me when I have been sick or overwhelmed. When my mother comes to my house, she wants to be treated like a guest. When I see her, she wants me to help her like a daughter. I feel bad that she isn't doing well. I am more than happy to have someone come in to help clean, cook, or do laundry. But I don't want to give up my weekend for her.
I don't have a good excuse. I have no pressing plans, no non-refundable tickets, no obligations. The only reason I have is because I am pissy and resentful. I don't want to.
When I told my mother that I couldn't take time off from work, she became very short and got off the phone with me very quickly.
As a good daughter, I should help her out. But I know that there is no such thing as a "good daughter" at this time. I have to draw boundaries and I have to be firm. My mother has chosen to live alone. It is not my job to provide her with company. I am certainly not going to miss work. It is all right if I don't wish to see her. I have my own life and I do not owe my mother anything.
This is a very hard thing for me to deal with. My mother made her own choices. She has to live with them and the consequences. And when I say that out loud I feel like the worst daughter that ever breathed oxygen.
So I have spent the night crying and trying to figure out what the right thing to do is. Whichever way I look at it, I feel like I am either failing myself or my filial duties.
I really wish I had siblings right now. I want someone to talk to.
I find it interesting that we ask someone to "give us another chance" when we mess up. Chance is a form of gambling. When it comes to trusting someone, there is a huge amount of emotional investment on my part. When I give someone a chance, I often feel like I am playing with all of my emotional chips plus additional ones I don't have to lose.
I have a lot of negative things to say about my parents. However, I can say that I trust my mother implicitly. I know that when my mother says that she will do something, she will do her best to make sure it happens. I did not get a lot growing up, but my mother made sure that I had a prom dress, even after my father flaked on his half. My mother made sure I had a car, even though my father (again) flaked. I couldn't trust my father to do anything he said. If it wasn't in my hand, a promise from my father didn't exist. My mother's word, however, is as reliable as the gold standard.
As a rule, I don't trust people. I learned a long time ago that there are intimacies that I can share with people that mean very little to me, but usually make them believe that I trust them. I hold most of myself apart from my social circle, only letting them see what I want them to. It's not that I want to deceive people or that I don't have friends I love and trust. It's just that people don't seem to know how much I can hide.
The exception is blogging. From the moment I discovered LiveJournal, I poured my heart and soul into the ether of the internet. I knew people read what I wrote, but it didn't ever feel real. It still doesn't. I know that my exes, people who don't like me, and people I haven't spoken to in years have stumbled across this blog (or my LiveJournal) and even when directly challenged about what wrote down, it didn't feel real.
Online writing, however, is the only way I have ever found to discuss my feelings. No one has to read what I write. I never expect it. So if people are reading, it is by their choice. I am not imposing. Unlike writing in a journal, blogging feels cathartic because I know someone is reading it.
Blogging feels like a sure bet.
Trusting people feels like a loser's game. There are so many reasons that my already poorly established trust algorithms stack the odds against me. Because I am human, I remember all the times when my trust has been broken and I find it difficult to remember the times when the person has followed through. Even though I cannot recall one time that my mother made a promise and went back on it, my childhood feels like a series of disappointments from a father who never really knew what to do with me.
It is really difficult for me to trust someone who has, for whatever reason, gone back on a promise. That does not mean I will leave. In fact, my father trained me too well to accept people (particularly romantic partners) who do not keep their word. There is always a reason, an excuse, and I believe them when they tell me that they didn't mean to break their promise. I believe them when they tell me that they still care.
I think my husband is the first romantic partner that I could depend on to be reliable. It has got to be the sexiest thing, to know that someone will say something and then follow through on it. He even puts up with my continued defensiveness, despite the fact that we have been together for fourteen years.
I still put up with a lot from people that maybe I shouldn't. I never learned to draw boundaries with my father. I never believed him, but I rarely made him deal with the consequences of his actions. It wasn't until I realized that he was doing the same thing to my children that I put a stop to it. Neither of my kids had much of a relationship with their grandfather and I don't regret it. No one should grow up believing that promises are something that can be broken when they become inconvenient.
The problem is that my thinking has become all or nothing (as per usual). If I trust someone, I want to trust them completely and any violation of that trust means I will never trust them again. However, once I have had my trust violated a couple of times and I am still with the person, I stick around hoping this time will be different. I fall into the same scripts my father taught me.
It is hard to know when to give someone another chance. I don't gamble much. I get bored with losing and so after a few hands of blackjack or a couple of quarters in the slot machine, I wander off to find something more engaging. Why play when I know that the house always wins?
However when it comes to people, especially people who trigger the same script as my father, I am like an addict and I will spend emotional currency until I am broke and taking loans. If there was such a thing as an emotional loan shark, I'd be getting beaten black and blue for not paying up. In some ways that is what is happening to me. It is harder and harder to put on a cheery face for the rest of the world.
I feel like I either don't trust anyone or I get the shit kicked out of me. There is no happy medium.
Today's song is not entirely appropriate to my post, but the pathos of it suits my current mood.
When I left my first husband, I feel like I lost a lot of friendships. There were problems because my ex and I were both so young. There were also the problems that I don’t think I was very good at PR and I believe that he was.
I do not need to drag a relationship that ended over 20 years ago through the mud, so I will skip the salacious details (such as they are). I learned a great deal about friendship, loyalty, and how people will make assumptions without information. People pick sides and it seems human nature to do so.
I don’t know if I got better at PR or if my second husband was just a wretched human being, but I feel like I ended up with the lion’s share of the social group when we separated.
Break ups are never easy, regardless if they are mutual or if one person feels the need to leave the other.
However what made both of my divorces particularly difficult was that unlike the option many couples have, I had to continue to work with my ex-husbands as we attempted to co-parent the child that we had together.
As I am fond of saying to my students, time travel is not a thing and debating whether or not an event should have happened is a waste of time. The milk is spilt. The purpose of revisiting history is to determine what can be learned from the situation. I won’t marry too young again, I won’t marry impulsively again, I won’t get pregnant before I am ready again. However, I can learn from my experiences and I have been trying to do so.
One of the questions that I am asked about being polyamorous is how to deal with the jealousy. I won’t pretend that jealousy doesn’t exist, but my biggest problem is dividing time. I want things to be fair and I do my best to make them so.
There is nothing that makes me angrier when I feel like something is not fair. All of my impulsiveness and anger will come to the surface when I feel myself or someone I love has been treated unfairly.
What makes polyamory (or any relationship) difficult is that how I see the world and how someone else sees the world might be vastly different.
I suppose if there is anything I have learned from co-parenting with two people who were often working at cross-purposes with me is that it’s important to pick your battles.
I have learned that there is no good way to communicate through a conflict. E-mail, texting, phone calls, or in person all have their advantages and disadvantages. If there is no common ground between two people, no amount of communication will solve it if both parties (or one party) refuses to budge. I am not saying that people should abandon communication, but declaring that people can only resolve things in person or via e-mail is narrow and doesn’t address people’s individual needs. That's a piss-poor way to open an already difficult negotiation.
I loved both of my husbands. (Yes, I really loved both of them.) However love is not enough. I learned that once a relationship is truly over, no emotions will protect you from the fact that this person you have spent a part of your life with no longer gives a damn about you. They have made you the enemy and fair is no longer a factor. This makes co-parenting incredibly difficult.
I suppose the final thing I have learned that it is never easy to leave a relationship no matter how broken it may be. It just hurts like hell.
I am teaching the social psychology unit for my Advanced Placement Psychology class. I always forget how difficult of a subject it can be to teach.
Specifically I am teaching about Milgram's experiments and the psychological ideas behind why humans feel obliged to obey. This compulsion is especially strong is the person has the trappings of authority.
As the child of an alcoholic, I believe that I was wired to obey perceived authority figures. It started as a defensive mechanism. If I didn’t obey my parents the consequences were often dire and rather painful. Complete and utter obedience was the rule and the idea of arguing or negotiating with them was something I never really considered.
I was a good girl.
I recently recognized that tendency was really hurting me in a number of places. Teaching is very egalitarian. While there are guidelines and standards, there is no authority to please about how I teach. I keep seeking approval and getting frustrated when I don't receive it. Unlike a corporate job, where there are reviews, project milestones and other structures, when it comes to teaching, I am the authority, at least in my classroom.
I have noticed it in my romantic relationships as well. I want to please my romantic partners like I would an authority figure. This is very dangerous and much of why I have exited a number of relationships is due to my choice to remove myself from what I have perceived as their authority.
I have had to consider this in a recent relationship. It wasn't the partner that was the problem, but their other partners who I felt had too much say in my life and my schedule. I feel I have tried to negotiate with them, but after the most recent round going nowhere, I realized that it felt like that they wouldn't work with me unless they got their own way.
The thing that I have learned about authority is that is assumed, both by the person who has it and by the people who have given it to them. People who are have authority are likely to abuse it and see it as their right to do so. While not comprehensive, Zimbardo’s Prison experiment is a good example of that concept.
I know I need to start examining the people who I consider to be in authority and what power I am granting them. I agree that leadership in any social group is needed. As a history teacher, I even believe that sometimes a democracy is an inefficient model for many groups and that authoritarian leadership can be useful for a short term endeavor.
When I see a someone in power that is abusing that power, I think it needs to be challenged. This is difficult for me. Good girls don’t challenge authority. I spent many years of my life being socialized to follow authoritarian figures to the letter of what they told me or suffer dire consequences. Saying no to authority feels life threatening to me.
It is not easy for me, but I have found ways to stand up and say no.
What frustrates me is when I see people abusing power (and it has usually been men) and no one calls them on it. It's only when the problems are so tremendous and vulnerable people (like women or children) have been hurt that people complain that something should have been done sooner. I don't think they realize that by ignoring the abuses done by the person in authority, they were compliant that the abuses occurred. Abused authority relies on people remaining silent.
According to Milgram, in those situations, people would rather say that they weren't at fault, they were only following orders of the person in authority, so they can't be considered responsible.
Yesterday my son suffered a grievous loss. His uncle passed away very suddenly. While my son has dealt with loss before, it has never hit him like this did. His uncle was the cool adult that my son could turn to when he was having problems with his father or me. His uncle was the person who never judged him, was always generous and would listen to my son talk about whatever for however long my son could go.
I don't think I have ever felt as inadequate as I did last night. I hugged my son while he cried. I offered him as much support as possible. His uncle and I had not spoken in years. Uncle Dan was my ex-husband's friend and he never really cared for me. However, I could never thank Dan enough for the kindness and consideration he gave to my son.
Dan's death was completely unexpected. He was 44 and while it doesn't seem like he suffered, he died way too young. (I do not know the cause.)
His death brought some things into perspective for me. The same thing could happen to me if I don't take better care of my health. A few days ago I saw my glucose and blood pressure spike dangerously high. It was due to situations I put myself in and I paid the consequences. It did not help that someone who does not care about my health or emotional state decided that was the day to come after me with both barrels.
I had something similar happen Sunday night. I put myself into a situation where I allowed stress to affect my sleep, thus impacting my glucose and stress levels yesterday. Last night, I went to bed with my TMJ acting up and in pain.
I am simply not capable of dealing with other people's problems. Well that's not true. When my son called, I ran as soon as I figured out that something was wrong. But it took a while. I was caught up in my own crap and I didn't hear the pain in his voice. However, I am very aware that I have certain limitations to the amount of emotional energy I can give and I have to be better about dealing with my boundaries.
I have lost a number of people in my family who were too young. One of my uncles died because he didn't address the stress in his life or the symptoms of a heart attack when it happened. He was only a few years older than I am now. I don't want to live in fear of death, but I should be better about taking care of my own life.
Yesterday, in a flurry of frustration and anger, I pushed some people out of my close proximity because I feel that their behavior is negatively affecting my health. The people are connected. I feel that I have been incredibly understanding and patient with them. When I was already stressed and in pain, they didn't support me; instead they added to my stress when I desperately needed understanding.
Maybe they are right, maybe I am impulsive, thoughtless and selfish. I am already trying to deal with some very negative situations of my own and if that means I am unable to accommodate them, then I am probably better off without them in my life and they are better off without me in theirs.
That's really easy to write. It's really hard for me to believe. I keep thinking that I should apologize, that I should try to appease their complaints and ask them to like me again. I think I must be the reason that things are bad and that I shouldn't be asking for their understanding.
The best I figured out to do was simply remove them from my proximity and keep them removed until they are able to better consider my needs and me theirs. The cognitive dissonance is considerable, but I just tell myself that if I don't do this, I will damage my health and give my son another reason to cry, which is something I never want to do.
Today's song is more the feeling than anything specific.
I feel empty and lost. I feel like I am doing so much for everyone else that I have forgotten to take care of myself. I think I have forgotten how to take care of myself.
I am supposed to be able to tell people what I want. I don’t know. Give me a problem to solve, ask me to fix something, and I can do that. I can cook a meal, pick you up from the airport, and give you advice. When I do all of these things I do it so that someone will like me, will care for me. When I don’t get the care I am hoping for, that I need, I blame myself. I figure I simply didn’t do enough.I start to believe that I am not good enough.
I have cognitive exercises I am supposed to do. I am not sure how to do them when I think that I can rely on someone, that I can trust them. It’s hard to end the narrative that I am expected to take care of people. If I don’t, they won’t like me; more importantly they won’t support me when I need them.
I don’t know how to fix this. I just know that I live in deep fear that if I don’t do the things I am supposed to, I will be alone when I feel I am in need. That was certainly the case today. In fact, I was yelled at for being selfish. Everything I had done was for my benefit and that by asking for more was wrong.
I didn’t do any of the things because I expected the favors to be returned. However, being told: “I would very much appreciate it if you would figure out how to act like a grownup with impulse control...” didn’t help me today. I asked someone for what I thought I needed. They agreed to give the support I requested, multiple times.
However, then the person decided that they had something better to do, so thirty minutes after they assured me of their support, with what felt like nearly no warning, they decided that they had better things to do. However I am called immature because I got angry.
This is why I don’t tell people what I want. This is what happens. I am damned if I do and damned if I don’t. I am tired of it. I am tired of having my trust broken right after someone has told me that I am supposed to tell them what I want and need.
I have been chided because I am not articulate. I tried to say what I wanted clearly and I was told that it was no longer on the table.
I have been called immature because someone had their own opinions about my character and feelings and did not ask me about them, they just assumed.
I feel like asking for anything just makes me a victim. I feel like offering anything to people is just a way to be called a chump.
