okay, i blatantly got nothing done today. i ended up having an awful night's sleep, and not much of it, either. i finally fitfully drifted off to sleep at six something and i woke up at eleven. my guests from last night left before my eyes stopped aching. what did i do today? i cleaned up after the visit, i read half of a prayer for owen meany (which is looking really good thus far), and i talked to
my sister.
debs just told me that rob proposed to her! :) she referred to it as "the debacle," as i recall. apparently they've been talking about it for a while now, and rob had previously been careful to use phrases other than directly asking because he told her he wanted to do it right. nice restaurant with ring and all. apparently he said it accidentally and she just automatically replied yes without thinking.
how odd! not even a really decision, just automatic, eh? huh. well, i guess she said he's most likely going to try again with a ring later. darn it all, this is making me so broody.
i'm really happy for my sister, but it's so hard to avoid thinking about how lonely i am here at home. the only friend i see with any consistency is kathryn, and she's leaving at the end of the month. (and i just found out once she's off she won't really be back. only a few days after the family returns she's off to florida again for the year.) i am just miserable. i'm a social person, and this is severely stunting my life, my emotions, everything. i feel as though i've been lethargic and just running on automatic. i'm not really living so much as just continuing. i want to be back at school already. i never really need more than a week's break, and at the end of two weeks i'm straining at the bit.
i don't think i'm depressed as such, i'm just low. no energy, no ambitions, no feelings. i'm just not happy here.
damn it all this isn't even home. it hasn't been for a while. i don't have a home now. this place doesn't even look like i live here. everything is still in crates, laundry baskets, and bags, but i can't unpack because there's no room. i just want to throw all of this away. if i didn't take it to school with me, then i obviously don't need it. this isn't even all my junk, though. in my absence my room became the linen closet. what the heck does one do with all these towels and sheets and things?
i just want to be free. free of possessions, free of this house, free of control. i want to walk off with a bare minimum of possessions and find reality. i feel like i'm being subsumed by other. even just the simple things are bothering me.
how many pairs of shoes do i have in the closet that i'll never wear? how many outfits that i didn't take with me because i don't like them, but i haven't thrown away because they're too new and i feel like giving them up would be a waste? books and decorations all over the place. those i could almost find precious, but now they are just another load. i genuinely don't want any of this, and i don't want to be here, and i feel like i can't take action.
i'm seriously beginning to wonder if i'm just mildly depressed, and if perhaps i have been for years now. yesterday kat thought i looked like i was going to cry a few times. i was spending time with friends and trying to enjoy myself, and apparently i looked utterly miserable.
i need to get out. i need to see jenna and lisa. i haven't been having much conversation with anyone lately. nothing of any meaning, either. i have a lot of things on my mind now, and no one is around that i can seriously discuss them with. now i'm just dumping it all in here, instead, i suppose. not bad for an outlet, but i need some actually human contact. i need some hugs, too, darn it.
i did have an hour on the phone with debi today, but it often seems that she doesn't have anything to say to me, and vice versa. there's just nothing. is this boredom? this seems like more than boredom.
i'm just completely dissatisfied with everything. darn it all, i bet it is just chemicals. the thing is that my sadness is more powerful than my happiness. when i'm down it makes all the good things in life seem completely superficial. when i'm happy, i still feel the sad things, although i tell myself they aren't critical. depression manages to tint my entire worldview, whereas elation is just transient and seems more like a mask than a part of me.
bloody fracking hell!! i will swear up and down that i'm fundamentally a happy person, but it almost seems like it's a constant battle. i think i'm just unspeakably frustrated. it's fairly hard to be eloquent about frustration, now isn't it? i want to take what i'm feeling all throughout me and deep in my bones and i want to grab it and hurl it bodily into the void. i want this deep feeling of helplessness and frustration and dread to just be seared out of me in an impossibly bright and powerful burst of light. i want to pour all my anxiety off of my palms and let it stream out into the ground.
i never used to think i was this poor at solving internal problems, i always thought that i had a good concept of my emotions and how to deal with them. now i'm finding that i may understand quite a bit, but i can't solve the problems.
it isn't like i'm going to have a breakdown. i don't think i will any time soon; it would have happened already. it's just that i seem to excel at just taking problems in. it's second nature to me to just absorb anxiety, hold on to anguish and shove anger off to the side for later. i've never been good at feeling anger, and i think it just leaves me with this large mushy puddle of ennui after all the accumulation.
somehow that isn't entirely accurate. i do get angry. i scream and rage when i have to, but i do have one very large anger issue. my mother again.
the problem is that it has never been safe to be angry at my mother. i've always gotten the message that if i show my anger toward her i'll get hurt. a few times i've actually gotten to the point where i couldn't suppress it any longer, and the two incidents i remember ended up with mom getting physical.
i generally can't remember all the background, but the incredible, searing rage is always rather clear. i clearly remember from when i was younger becoming so infuriated that i couldn't form words for about five minutes. i felt like i was going to bust open. i finally did. i roared. i used the f word, actually. rather loudly. i got a sound slap in the face.
the other time i remember more clearly because it was only two summers ago. both mom and i were on short fuses. my temper was due to another fun nine hour k mart day. must have been a particularly bad one, considering how little patience i had. mom was in quite a foul temper due to some issues with a tenant. i almost didn't make it home in the car with her, i was really considering opening the door and walking off. i did make it home, and i
didn't even get to lock the door before i had to leave. she grabbed my face and told me never to disrespect her. something like that. i can never remember the exact words.
i never remember what the exact words are that trigger her temper. i wonder if this is an attempt on my part to pardon myself? i doubt it. i'm not that unreasonable a daughter. granted we can all lose our temper and be thoughtless at times, but what am i doing to provoke this unreasoning rage? i have no control over my mother. all i have is my own disagreeable self. all of our arguments end up being over incredibly petty things, anyhow.
i'm so frightened of her. it amazes me each time i realize it anew. she spent most of the day in the city today, and i was waiting for her to get back around five thirtyish. when our downstairs tenant came to check the mail i thought it was her and it made me panic. i tried to call kathryn and see if i could be inaccessible when she came in. i swear i spend half of my time trying to hide from her. i always expect anger, insults and punishments from her. that saddens me so much. it's been that way for a long time.
back in middle school was when i really had a lot of problems with my mother. there was also this whole bizarre incident with the child protective agency which came about due to some massive misinterpretation and possibly even fabrications on the part of a school guidance counselor. oh, how i love and revere therapists. i'll never forget that, it was horrible. debi was so angry. what are you doing, you moron? do you want to break up our family?
the person from the agency asked us all these questions. there was evidently a lot of misunderstanding. i keep hoping it was misunderstanding, but i feel as though it couldn't really have been. it all seemed much more sinister.
i did tell that counselor woman one thing. i remember it clearly. i related the story of when my mother had recently hit my sister and debi fell over and bumped her head on the floor. yeah, that isn't pretty, but what it got turned into.... the agency person asked if my mother had repeatedly bashed debi's head into the floor. what in the hell was going on with that guidance counselor? what, do you get commission? it was all a nightmare.
i think that some of what my mother has done could qualify as abuse. especially during those years around my adolescence. my mother has severe anxiety and she wasn't being treated at that point. i don't think she really got sufficient treatment or attention until i was in ninth grade and she had a breakdown. i recall that all too well, as she was in some sort of hospital for a month and i was doing incredibly poorly in classes at the time.
looking back on my childhood, my mother did slap us in the face a bit more often that i think could really be excused, and i know the way she has treated me really feels like emotional abuse at times. the thing is that she has a lot of mental issues, and the way she was raised was quite a bit worse. i can understand why this all happened, and i excuse it.
i was thinking about this all about a year ago, and i was talking to my wonderful roommate, julia. i said that i sometimes wondered if my life would have been better if they had taken us away from my mother. she told me she didn't doubt it at all. i can't remember a time when i was more saddened. it was such an insane feeling. my mother means no harm. she really wants the best for us. what a concept.
my mother is a lot more stable now, but she still manages to hurt me in so many ways. at one point my sister told me that i should just not trust her, because while she does love us and care for us, i excel at being hurt by her. i'm a deeply emotional person. when i was younger especially, i had a tendency to get very close to my mother, then get slammed. repeatedly.
she manipulates so much. my freshman year in college she gave me the impression that my sister was suicidal so that i would try and talk debi around to what mom wanted of her. i was in such a panic for about three days afterward until i was finally able to speak with debi. when i did, i found that debi was quite confused at the depth of my concern.
my mother knows quite well that debi and i trust each other so much more than we trust her. she willfully manipulates us knowing debi and i will listen to each other. she tries to gather information. the whole thing seems like a war. it's so sick.
my first roommate, pam, was always so confused about how my relationship with my mother could work the way it did. for a good bit of freshman year there was a fifty fifty chance that when my mother called me i would be in hysterics by the end of the call. pam could not understand what a could possibly happen to for me to be that upset by my mother. people hold their families as valuable support. i do get support from my family. however almost all of the stress in my life is also from my family. i feel as though i can't really afford to depend on my family. it's far too dangerous.
the odd thing is that at this point i've considered it rather a bit, and i've decided i wouldn't trade it in. i have been known to say the opposite, but that will just be a momentary expresion of frustration. i really find that my whole messed up life has been invaluable.
i know that when i say i'm a strong person, i am absolutely right. i have more empathy than almost anyone i know. people trust me and look to me for help and acceptance. i'm more than willing to listen to anyone because i care so damned much. i care about everything and everyone. i wouldn't be the same person if i had just always been happy. wow, i must be feeling more than i thought i was today.
posted by Unknown at 1:05 AM