I have a love/hate relationship with my career. I am not sure there is any better job for me other than teaching. Education feeds my soul in ways that nothing else does.
I have had some concerns about staying in teaching. After a great deal of thought and consideration, I decided to commit to remaining at my current posting for the 2018-2019 school year. I am hoping that a better daily schedule and the fact that I will not be teaching anything new for the first time in a long while will allow me to focus on organization and work flow.
I enjoy teaching people and watching them learn. Like most teachers, it's the aha! moment that makes teaching more than a job.
I dislike the paperwork. I dislike the meetings. I dislike the idea that I am responsible for choices that another student makes. If there is anything that will drive me from teaching, it will be people who refuse to take responsibility for their own actions and choices.
I have been working with a young man and in the past few days, things have gone very poorly. He is dealing with consequences, and it's just not fair. He had barely scraped during after some major struggles in August and September. He pulled things off at the last minute did a lot of juggling and managed to get by, but January was a close thing. I warned him that if things didn't improve, there would be long term consequences before the end of the year.
He did not improve. He did not really try. He let things get worse. He blew off work, he didn't apply what he was learning and so he failed at the tasks he was assigned. He changed plans and didn't follow through on his obligations. He was no longer seen as reliable and people lost respect for him. I communicated with him multiple times, but I feel like he just didn't not pay attention.
In the past few days, the consequences I had warned him about came home to roost. I spoke to him yesterday and he didn't listen. He made excuses. He told me that he couldn't deal with consequences because of things that were happening at home. He made excuses about not working with me because there were other obligations that had taken precedence. He kept dodging and telling me how I just did not understand the pressures that he was under.
He told me that he needed more time, he couldn't get all the work done and I was just not understanding how difficult things were for him. I admit it, I lost my temper.
I tried to explain to him that this was not just about the past ten days. His problems were the results of choices he made in August and September and instead of trying to fix them, he put them off and ignored them. I tried to point out to him that he was engaging in behavior that was counter productive and despite multiple warnings, he was still doing it. I tried to explain that he needed to stop making excuses, take ownership of his mistakes and implement changes immediately.
He got angry with me because I told him that his time was up. He asked me if I would even could look at the work he was planning to turn in (which will be late). He told me that he had family obligations last weekend, so he simply couldn't get to the work (which was already overdue). Then he told me that I wasn't being fair and simply didn't understand.
I regret that because of the second (and third and fourth) chances I have given him, he will likely pass. I know that I am not helping him. I know that all I am doing is passing along a problem for the next person who tries to teach him this lesson. However, I wonder how many opportunities he will lose out on. This is what I hate most about teaching. I know I won't reach everyone, but there are ones where it's very difficult to let go.
I suppose part of the problem is that I know the end result of this sort of behavior. I married someone like this. My ex is charming, smart, and charismatic. He has gotten by with fast talking and making excuses. To this day, my ex won't take his head out of his ass long enough to see that he is the only person responsible for his problems. He is also the only person who can solve his problems. My ex is in a place where years of fast talking and charm won't make up for the fact that he has been making the same mistakes since he was 23 and is still blaming everyone else for not understanding his needs and not giving him time to process. I left him because he didn't understand that no one else fucking cares.
Life is about to become very difficult for this person I have spent the past year working with. If he doesn't learn to take responsibility for his own actions and quit making excuses, I can see him being in the same place as my ex-husband and I feel sorry for the people who get screwed over when shit hits the fan.
I suppose that is the reason I let it get to me. My son and I have both dealt with the consequences of a self-absorbed ass. I wouldn't wish that future on anyone.
The song isn't quite correct, but I liked the imagery and the allusion to the New Testament.
I am a very fortunate person. I have a career. I am not hurting financially. I have solid medical care and the money to pay for it. I live in a home I own with my husband. I drive a fairly new car. I have achieved nearly all of my goals and am in a position where my goals are no longer based around mere survival. I remember growing up without many of these things, and I try to be as thankful as I can that my life is not in that space.
Like everyone, I have a number of physical and emotional problems that I have to live with.
I have an autoimmune disorder, Hashimoto's Disease. I was diagnosed in 2007. It's not life threatening, but it does require maintenance on a daily basis. I believe the hardest part is knowing that a slow metabolism makes everything a little more challenging. A cut will heal slower, substances take longer to process through my body, and I will never be able to be as productive as some people. I get tired and once I hit a certain point, I simply crash.
I am a type 2 diabetic. Given that both of my parents were type 2 diabetics, I was not surprised. At the moment I am able to maintain my blood sugar levels through diet, exercise and medication. However, due to the Hashimoto's, insulin shots are a likely part of my future.
I have ADHD. I have a lot of trouble getting out of my head. The best way I have ever found to describe it was the way my friend Mark put it. I have incredible processing power, but no buffers. If I am waiting for a response to an e-mail, I can think about fifteen ways I should have rewritten it, anticipate ten potential replies that I might receive and how I will respond to each of them. And I will still have 23 hours to wait before I can reasonably ask about when I might receive an e-mail in response. (I believe this is one of the reason's that characters like Quicksilver and the Flash appeal to me so much, they spend so much time just waiting for people to catch up.)
I also have a couple of learning disorders, most of which are due to the ADHD and lacking the ability to focus. A job, any job, is always a challenge for me to get done from point A to completion.
I live with chronic depression. In some ways, this is the most deadly of my problems. Despite the fact that my quality of life is fairly high and that none of my health issues are particularly serious, there are days when I do not see the point in living. My overall endocrine system is significantly compromised and so I will spend the rest of my life dealing with symptoms that will get worse and treatments that will be less effective. There are times when I wonder if life will be worth the bother. I hate those days.
I have TMJ. In the grand scheme of things, this has had the most significant impact. My problems started happening in January. I have been dealing with chronic pain of varying levels. Due to the Hashimoto's, pain relief has been difficult. I get nauseous with most pain killers. That changed my eating habits, since I was having trouble keeping food down and eating healthy became really hard.
Due to the nausea, I stopped taking my brain meds, because they cause or worsen nausea. Because of pain and nausea, I stopped taking the medications for my diabetes, because they also cause nausea, especially on an empty stomach. The only thing I have been taking is my thyroid medications.
My emotional health is completely ruined. Any benefit from my depression medication has cleared my system. The diabetes emotional glucose roller coaster is taking me for the mood swing ride. My ADHD is giving me the ability to dwell on these issues to the point of obsession. I am a mess.
I need to work on a lot of things and I feel very overwhelmed.
I have spent most of my life having problems and pretending that they don't exist. I try to hide them from other people and present as neurotypical. I can't anymore. I am lucky if I am able to hold things together. I can't do my job, my relationships are falling apart, and I just want to take substances that hold the pain at bay.
I am scared all the time.
I am taking steps.
I have kept my medical team updated and they are helping me.
I finally have a mouth guard.
My doctor found a muscle relaxant that does not make me sick to my stomach.
I have consulted with an endocrinologist.
I have let my psychiatrist know and we have made some adjustments to my medications while I get back on track.
I am going to find a private therapist to see on a (hopefully) weekly basis during the summer.
I am not flailing and doing nothing. The first thing I am doing is telling the people in my life that I am not neurotypical. I can't pretend to be so right now.
Everything hurts and I feel so alone and I am scared if I tell anyone, they will abandon me. Well, I did tell someone and I feel like they did.
I was thinking about apologizing for the posts that will involve me processing through the end of a relationship. I thought about trying to curtail my posts. Then I remember what my friend Beth tells me every so often. It's my blog, I'm not making anyone read it and I can post whatever the hell I want.
I have been thinking about many things in my life, specifically absolutes. It is the danger of the single story.
I show this to my students every year. I think it's a beautiful concept and if you haven't seen it, I cannot recommend it enough. What is your single story? What do people think they know about you? What would you like them to know?
One person commented that the stories I shared yesterday were mostly negative and why would I want to be with such an asshole anyway? I noted that of course there were good things about the relationship, I might be an emotional masochist (see my first two marriages and the relationship with my mother) but if there isn't something positive about the relationship, I don't spend three years fighting for it.
I realized that my big problem with both Primary and Secondary was dealing in absolutes, feeling like they only knew a single story and refused to learn more about me.
I am not sure what I did to make Primary think I was unreasonable about scheduling and time. I am sure there are some legitimate kernels of truth on which she bases her opinions. My guess is that I don't consider the needs of a friend as seriously as I would a romantic partner. I probably dismissed her requests and needs when I believed that Primary and Secondary were "just friends". Once it was explained to me that they were more than friends, I tried to adjust, however by then it seems it was too late. I know that once Primary (and many other people) have decided on a story, they use that to define everything about a person and rarely update how they see a person.
It might seem to be a semantic argument, but it's an important to me. I want to reply to her complaints about how I am unreasonable. I can say, "I am sorry that you are frustrated. Can you give me an example of a time that I scheduled in a way that was offensive to you, I would like to understand better so I don't do it again."
Will people do that? I doubt it. I know that my most likely response is going to be, "Oh yeah, what about that time you did this, that, or the other thing?" There are places, even in an argument, to stop the one upmanship and have a conversation. It's not an absolute response, even if it's a very frustrating one.
This interaction (posted without permission) is an example of what I am trying to say.
I wrote to Primary: 'My reactions to your email and texts has been poor because of comments like "the only way you are willing to have things be okay with [Secondary] is if his relationship with me *never makes him unavailable to you in any way*, which of course isn't really something I can work with anyway.)" That came across incredibly negative and makes me very defensive.'
Primary's response was, "I'm supposed to take all the angry/bitter/negative you send my way and never say anything negative-sounding back? That's an interesting double standard you've got there." I know it's really easy to cherry pick quotes to make Primary look bad. That isn't my intent, but this is typical of her communication. Obviously, there is a lot of animosity between the both of us. However, I simply don't know how to even start. I see no place to open a discussion. It feels like a wall, not a window. I am tried of trying to crack open walls. It's why I have given up trying to speak to her, because I feel like I gave her the benefit of the doubt and was open to conversation for a long time. At a certain point, I had to give up. I can't work in absolutes.
I haven't contacted Secondary in any way for over 24 hours. In that
period of time I broke up with him. Now he probably knows, he can read
this blog, he lives with my best friend, and he's not stupid.
However, I
haven't told him. He told me that he wanted a two week period of absolutely no contact, so if I am respecting that, I can't tell him that I have ended our relationship. I mean I could. I could text him, send him an e-mail, leave him a message, or hire a singing telegram. Just because he said a period of no contact doesn't mean that I have to oblige him. However, I ended the relationship, does it really matter when he learns about it or how he learns?
Absolutes have their place, but
I feel that when you use them as a defense mechanism to avoid conflict and pain, you
are removing another person's agency. There is nothing wrong with
telling someone that you need a break and would work best for you. I think telling someone, when you are in the middle of a fight, that you want a period of absolutely no contact gives the other person a wall.
Secondary did try to walk it back. I was talking to a friend about it last night and I said, "I don't understand what he was thinking to believe that cutting off all contact for an arbitrary amount of time was ever something acceptable."
Then I thought about it for a minute and realized that I had answered my own question, he hadn't been thinking.
There is nothing wrong with telling someone that you need to take some time for yourself. There is nothing wrong with telling someone that you would prefer that contact be minimal. However if you want to make sure you drive someone away, communication like the example I gave with Primary or Secondary telling me that he needs 14 days of no contact is a dictate. It's taking agency from the person you are telling and taking it all for yourself.
I am not always a reasonable person, I know that. However Secondary and I already had separate plans for this coming weekend. It would have been easy if he had said, "I need some quiet time, with no contact."
Then I could have said, "All right, unless there is an emergency, how about we not talk until Monday
night? We can check in and see if we need more time apart." Now I am not pushing back against a wall, I am able to address his needs while still knowing that I will have a chance to communicate in a few days."
In all fairness, Secondary said that he walked the two week declaration back. I was so upset that I don't know if he was offering to walk back the timing (the two week period would start a day later) or if he was walking back the entire thing. We were supposed to discuss it last night, in person. Regrettably, Primary's e-mail arrived a few minutes after we agreed to discuss it. That's when I gave up.
I have given Secondary and Primary so many chances. However, I guess neither of them feel I am worthy of the same. They have their single story about me and nothing I do will get them to see me otherwise.
That's why I posted what I did yesterday. I am worthy. I deserve to be treated with respect. I deserve second chances. Mostly importantly, I don't deserve walls, I deserve windows. As my friend Chris said, a "break with no contact" is a coward's break up. All I did was take Secondary's waffling and turn it into something concrete. I solved the problem. I don't like the solution, but I did the best I could at making an absolute decision.
Many years ago, I was a single parent, living alone. I had been recently separated from my partner of seven years.
One evening, Jack came to visit me. Due to injuries from a traffic accident and other issues, he and I maintained minimal contact after my husband and I separated. As I recall, I knew that Jack wanted to discuss the challenging relationship he had with his current partner. I had told him I would help and invited him to come over.
I remember the strangest things. I remember that I was making tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches (because it's what I had in the house and it was the end of the month.) I made an additional can of soup and two more sandwiches. We made small talk while we ate. After dinner, I tucked my son into bed while Jack cleaned up in the kitchen.
We sat down and I gave him my advice for how to fix his relationship so he could marry the person in question. I guess my advice was useful, since he did marry the person and has a family with them.
At the end of the conversation, I told him that the only further advice I would give him would be how to end that relationship. He has never taken me up on the offer. I wouldn't make the same offer now. This is not a commentary on his current relationship. I have limited contact with him and his family. The limited contact we have had has been incredibly positive and mostly in my favor. Jack and his partner have been very generous to my husband, me and my children.
I said that because I needed to end my relationship/friendship with Jack for my own emotional health. I had hoped that we might resume our prior relationship, maybe turn it into something more. Our conversation about fixing his current relationship killed that dream. Our association had always involved long conversations about our relationships and giving each other advice. I had just ended my own marriage. I could not reliably give advice to Jack about building his own long term relationship. I certainly couldn't give good advice if I was resentful at his partner for being the right person at the right time.
For the most part, I like to remain friends with my former romantic partners. I (usually) date wonderful people. My current husband and I were introduced to each other by Jack and another mutual friend. An ex of mine was my wedding planner. I am friends with a number of former romantic partners and their current spouses, I value these relationships, not just because I like seeing people I care about happy, but also because I get to keep them in my life.
Jack is one of the few times I ended a relationship, knowing that a friendship was unlikely to come out of it. It isn't that I didn't care about Jack. I believed that his spouse and I would not be able to have a working relationship, even friendship. It's odd to try and explain that they are the first two people I called when my husband went to the hospital. I consider them family, but we haven't managed friendship.
I have not repeated this experience in many years. I have avoided relationships where a similar dynamic was likely. I may understand why Jack and I are not friends. I even agree with it. That does not mean I don't miss our long talks and extensive writing sessions. I never wanted a repeat of this situation, it's too painful, even now. There are times when I really miss Jack. Not the current Jack, I hardly know him, but my memory of the person I think he was.
It should be pretty obvious to anyone that knows me, that this entry is inspired because I ended another relationship for the same reason. Someone I love and care about very deeply has (what I would define) as a primary relationship that has no place for me. It took over a decade, but I managed another deeply emotional relationship that has ended up hurting like hell and went on for way too long.
I told Secondary a few days ago, that I couldn't give him any further advice except how to end his relationship with the person I consider his primary. (One of the problems is that he and this person can't agree on a definition of their relationship. I feel that has made poly negotiations impossible.) I do not know what the future holds for them (although I have guesses). However as long as Secondary is involved with Primary, I doubt we can even be friends.
The final straw was when Secondary declared last night that we were taking a two week break. He would allow no contact of any kind, not even e-mail. I have been sick, my primary has been sick and I have needed a lot of support. Secondary, who has the worst timing of anyone I have ever met, couldn't have planned this "break" better if he had intended to cause the most amount of damage possible.
I know that there is acrimony on either side of at the end of a relationship. This one has been very difficult to end. As such, I am going to list the reasons that I feel that I have no place in this relationship. I told Secondary that he had to choose Primary or me (knowing full well that he would choose her.)
I am dishing and bitching and so if you are friends with Secondary, please be warned. I am not holding back. Here is my version of the reasons that I have to end this relationship, at least until he ditches his primary. I don't want to, I still love Secondary. I just have no choice. I don't think I can even offer him my friendship.
So the reasons:
Secondary started his relationship with Primary without discussing it with me, even though he and I had been dating for over a year. I understood because he is younger than I am and inexperienced with polyamorous relationships.
His primary refused to meet with me for the first year of their relationship. I understood because she is younger than I am and inexperienced with relationships in general.
One of the reasons that Primary gave for refusing to meet with me is because I had hurt her best friend and got him kicked out of one shared venue (after he actively harassed me three years ago). This is the same friend who has kept up a sustained effort that prevents Secondary and I from comfortably attending any dance event that he is organizing because we "betrayed" him.
Please understand that this "friend's" relationship with Secondary was less than 4 months and had been overly for nearly a year when Secondary and I got together at this "friend's" instigation.
I thought the friend was doing something like what I do when I want to keep people in my life. I point them towards potential partners that I think will be a positive thing in their life.
This "friend" encourages Primary to attend events, even though she is also dating his ex. I think that he only maintains the friendship as a way to keep tabs on the ex, tabs he can't get through me or any of this other friends who told him to fucking give up already. The only reason I have for understanding this is because I am stupid.
About six months into this...mess, Primary asked me to give up my already scheduled weekend (a holiday weekend) so that the two of them could go camping. I did so, hoping that my gesture would pave the way to better communication.
It didn't work. Further, she inserted herself into my "compensation weekend" and Secondary allowed it. I ended up not going and they went (although they didn't go "together".)
I understood because the weekend event that Secondary and I were attending was activity that Secondary and Primary had met while doing.
I don't think Secondary made her aware that she was crossing a boundary. It became a source of contention for Secondary and me.
A few months ago, Primary decided, that since I wasn't going to leave quietly, she should at least make an effort to tolerate me. We managed to have a decent in-person conversation and some good interactions. Secondary folded like a bad hand of poker and decided to let Primary and I determine all of the scheduling. It went poorly. I didn't understand and I have refused to meet with her until we could all agree to a format that included all three of us. Despite the fact that she refused to talk to me for over a year, I am the one at fault for the non-functioning polyship.
There have been a number of other issues, but the final straw was this past weekend. I know that Secondary had plans with Primary on Saturday. I know better than to ask them to cancel plans as scheduling has been an incredible source of conflict. If I was asking Secondary to help me, it was serious.
Here is what I considered serious enough to ask my Secondary to cancel his plans with his primary: My husband was sick and running a fever. My housemate and my son were recovering from the same illness. I was dealing with significant health issues related to my autoimmune disorder. The reason that support on Saturday was important was because my dog had been skunked Thursday night.
I was up until nearly 01:00 washing and cleaning by myself (the skunk happened at 10pm), I was not able to take care of removing the smell from the house. Everyone else was too sick to do anything all day Friday. Between my own issues and a long week at work (it was the final week of Advanced Placement testing and I am an AP teacher) I came home to a mess on Friday night.
Given all the recent conflict between Secondary and myself, I told him that I'd prefer to just not see him last weekend. I wasn't up to another fight about scheduling on top of everything else going on. It would suck but there were other people I could ask. Secondary decided he knew best and came over anyway, to "help". He asked if he could bring down a load of laundry.
His contribution was to do his own laundry Friday night (2 loads) and little else. He saw (and smelled) the state of the house. He saw (and heard) the coughing and general illness of the denizens of my home. After seeing all that he told me right before bed that he would be leaving early to spend the day with Primary.
I broke down that night and chose not to spend the night with him. In the morning. I explained to him that I needed his help. I pleaded and cried. He agreed to call Primary and let her know he was cancelling. I left the room to give him some privacy. About an hour later, Secondary came out and told me that he was going to keep his plans with Primary anyway. He left me with a mess and now it was too late to reasonably ask anyone to come and help.
I e-mailed Primary and Secondary to beg them to reconsider their plans. I got no answer from either of them. I broke down and I texted some really horrible things to Secondary and called him a number of negative things. In response, he made plans to spend Sunday with Primary and her family at Maker Faire.
Secondary and I spoke about it on Monday and he agreed that what he did wasn't just being a shitty boyfriend, but he had also been a shitty friend. He admitted that plans could have been changed on Saturday. He could have helped me and gone to the fair on Sunday with Primary.
Secondary explained that when he called Primary to cancel, she explained to him that I was just crying wolf and that my problems weren't really that bad. There is disagreement over this next point, but as I understand it, she threatened him with a three-week hiatus on making plans if he cancelled on her and implied more dire consequences. She never asked me and she disregarded everything I shared in my e-mail. She made that judgement without any information from me and even giving her further context and detail, she had no interest.
I finally got a response directly from her last night. She said that Secondary's relationship with her would only be acceptable to me if it "never makes him unavailable to you in any way." I have no idea where that idea came from. I believe that I was very accommodating of their relationship on a number of occasions. I am sure she would say I am wrong.
I can only guess that my past sins negated my plea for help when I was alone with three sick people and a burgeoning migraine because of the skunk smell. (As a note, I don't get migraine headaches. I had to look it up before I knew how to treat mine.)
While Secondary apologized for Primary's response to my pleas, he also decided that he needs a two week break from me (but not her). He told me last night. Apparently I am too negative and making his life miserable because I have feelings about last weekend. By break, Secondary means absolutely no contact, no communication, nothing. He says he walked it back, but I am unclear if he just meant the starting date or cancelling the break as a whole. I decided that I was just taking the break as presented, because fuck this shit, I deserve better.
It should be noted that my husband is still recovering. I am coming down with the same damn illness (and I have to be at work until nearly 9 tonight). While Secondary said "I'm sorry", he did very little to "make up" for last weekend, even though he said he treated me like crap and without consideration when my need was clearly legitimate.
So I am writing this all down so I can't understand (fold and cave in because I do love Secondary, much to my own detriment) again.
I am airing dirty laundry (the laundry I didn't get to do on Friday night thanks to him) so my friends will remind me that there is no place for me in this man's life. If there were, if I were actually important, last weekend would not have happened.
If Primary wanted a functioning polyship, she wouldn't have played emotional hardball. She wouldn't threaten Secondary for cancelling plans on her when the reasons were obvious to anyone who spent the night in the skunky house. Of course, he stayed in the only room that had been spared, since the door was closed when the skunkification happened.
I am also saying publicly that nothing Jack's primary ever did comes close to the bullshit that Primary has done. If I could go back, I would kick my own ass and tell myself to try harder to maintain a friendship with Jack and his spouse. They were the same age as Primary and Secondary are now and they knew how to be supportive and understanding people even when I was a selfish little shit (in retrospect).
There are two sides to every story and I am sure if you were to discuss this with Secondary and Primary, you would hear what a horrible, selfish and awful person I am and how everything is actually all my fault. That is a regrettable reality of break ups, they get very divisive and acrimonious. I recognize that I am hurt, biased and really, really angry. Please take that into account before you judge anyone.
This relationship has been the past three years of my life. I have worked really hard to make this relationship work. I have invested a huge amount of my time, experience and understanding into accommodating Secondary and Primary while they figured things out. I have waffled and gone back and forth so many times that I know that I did this to myself.
My patience and understanding are done. I am posting this (somewhat) publicly so that my friends can kick my ass if I try to go back again. The only reason I have to talk to Secondary again is if he tells me that his relationship with Primary is over. (Well and because he lives with two friends of mine, but I can handle chilly pleasantries; part of my family is from the south.) I will not understand, I will not be patient. I will not overlook, accommodate or forgive. Secondary hurt my family and me because Primary refused a reasonable request. As long as they are together, he is nothing in my life.
Help me go gentle with myself, because all I feel right now is shock that he would treat me so badly after everything I have done for him. I feel stupid for putting it with up for as long as I have.
Today's song is a repeat of one I have posted before. I figure since Secondary has fucked me over multiple times, I get to use this song as a reference to our relationship as often as I care to do so.
*Content edited and updated for clarity and typos at 13:50 and again at 17:55"*
I have been in pain for over a week. It’s isn’t severe, but it’s constant. I can’t eat. I can’t think. I can barely function. Yet, I have been going to work because I can’t think of anything else to fucking do.
I spent yesterday on pain medications that barely worked and made me super emotional.
Yesterday my husband told me that he wanted to take the weekend off. I suppose that’s fair, because neither of my children are his. What the fuck is Mother’s Day between us? (To be fair, he did buy me flowers.) I spent most of the day crying and hungry.
Yesterday, my boyfriend (who really shouldn’t be) decided that his “me time” was actually his “spend time with his other girlfriend and neglect to tell me about it” time. The resulting nuclear text blast was epic and the fallout is probably that the relationship is over and there is little chance of salvaging anything positive. I spent most of the day already upset, so I am not sure where the crying from feeling betrayed and the crying of feeling dumped is. I suppose it really doesn’t matter. I know I don’t matter to him. If I did, he wouldn’t treat me this way.
I woke up this morning in pain. I am the first one up.
I woke up to a text diatribe from my daughter explaining to me why she wouldn’t visit me today. She took what I texted her yesterday in the worst passive aggressive way. She decided that she needed to tell me that she could visit me, even if I didn’t offer free laundry, shopping trips or a ride to and from my place. She was in just too much pain and so she wouldn’t be coming down. (I already knew this. But what a great thing to wake up to.)
I would like to note that if what my daughter said was true, then in the years since she’s moved out, she has never come to visit without opting for the free laundry, a shopping trip or a ride. It’s not about visiting me today. It’s that she never visits me unless there is something for her to gain. I won’t bother telling her that (directly), but that was my first thought and I wish it were not a thought that came so readily to mind. I guess I am a horrible mother who doesn’t support her children, on top of everything else.
My second thought was Happy, Fucking, Mother’s Day.
I have started today alone, in pain, and with nothing to eat. I can’t imagine the day is going to get much better and given how I am feeling, I have no doubt that this morning will be the best fucking part.
I may just have to take tomorrow off from work, but I don’t have a bloody clue what assignments I will give or what I will do with the students, so what’s the point?
My mother is not much for caretaking. When I was sick, she couldn't stay home with me. If I stayed home ill (and that was rare) she'd park me in her room with the television. I had to take care of my own needs, for the most. Being sick did not get me attention, I was always aware that if I was sick, I was inconveniencing my mother and that was a bad thing. I felt bad about being ill and would often hide it.
I contracted chicken pox when I was 12. I got really sick with it because I was so old. I ran a fever and got spots everywhere. My mother had to park me with my grandparents because I couldn't be left alone. My grandmother was the opposite of my mother. I wasn't left alone and better, I was taken care of. There were cool compresses, gentle foods for my stomach and salves for my itches. I didn't want to go home, it was so nice.
I have always tried to take care of people when they are ill. I try to provide the cool juices, the tasty treats and quiet company. I know how much I appreciate it, so its something I like to give to others.
I am horrible about asking for help when I am sick. Regrettably my partners are not terribly attentive and I am not very good about asking.
I have been in a lot of pain for the past few days. My husband feels bad, but he has his own stuff going on, so he hasn't been terribly attentive. I am not good at asking for what I want or need either. So I have been miserable. I don't even know what to ask for. My TMJ hurts, make it stop, dammit.
The word no is not one that readily exists in my vocabulary. As a woman of my generation, raised as I was and other factors, I never learned to simply say, "no."
I learned to say things like, "I would, but..."
I learned the soft no. The gentle refusal. I learned to say no in a way that would keep me protected and safe.
I've never been sexually violated, per say. I just have said a lot of soft no's and have done things I didn't want to. I kept myself safe, extracted myself from the situation if I could and tried to forget it happened. After all, it was my fault, I didn't say no.
When someone asks me to tell them what I want or what I need, as I mentioned in my previous entry, I am unable to do so. I can't tell people "I want 'X'. If I tell someone clearly what I want, they will have power over me. It's not that I can't handle an answer of no. It's because if they know clearly what I want, then they can exploit it and use it against me.
When I am asked what I want, I freeze up. I get scared and I fall to pieces. It happened last night and I felt like the person didn't even care.
And they wondered why I didn't choose to tell them what I wanted.
My mother has a pinched nerve. She expects that I will come to see her this weekend. When I wouldn't commit to a day and time, she got angry with me. She had the nerve to ask if I had plans or tickets for this weekend. It didn't occur to her that I would just say no.
What is worse is I was texting with a friend when my mother called. My friend told me that they were willing to come down and offer some support. I foolishly said, "If you have something else [tonight], please don't miss it on my account."
I didn't mean it.
I didn't fucking mean it. I don't want to be alone. I want to cry and rage and have someone listen to me. (My husband had to work late tonight.)
My mother has no problem demanding that I come to help her. I couldn't admit to someone I have known for years that I need their love and support, even after they offered.
Regrettably, my mother called while my friend and I were talking. I could not explain to them that I needed them and that it was only my anxiety that prevented me from taking them up on their offer.
My friend lost their patience and withdrew their offer. I ended up alone and upset for most of the evening.
I am going to see my therapist tomorrow, hopefully we can discuss this.
