Tag: Family


The Battle Has Begun

3
January

I am in an epic battle with my sinuses.  (10 points to Gryffindor for the proper use of epic, please?)  They’re not only filled with gross mucus crap (sorry for the visual), but when I get that stuff out I start getting not only the dried blood, but lots of not-so-dried blood, too.  (Again, sorry.) I don’t know why they have suddenly decided to intensify the crappy feeling, but they have.  It may be that I’ve been without my Flonase for around a month now, which I could probably remedy by calling my family doctor (or my allergist or my ENT doctor), but I haven’t done that and I’m not sure if I want to do that.  Well, I would like to have my sinuses not feel like crap, but I’m not sure if fixing that feeling is worth the anxiety of calling any of the doctors.

I still do not know the results from EEG and MRI.  I do need to make that call today.  I was going to call yesterday, but I am pretty sure that the neurologist wasn’t there yesterday and I was asleep for most of the last twenty-four hours.  (I took 2 Flexerils at 4 AM yesterday, then took 2 more at about noon yesterday, and doing that kept me asleep most of the day and night.)  I would probably be asleep right now, but my iPod had reached the red section of the charged bar, so I needed to recharge it so I could listen to music instead of having bad dreams.

It’s pretty damn cold today, which shouldn’t be surprising since it is winter, but it is kind of shocking to the system since I was running around in shorts and short-sleeved shirts last week.  Right now it is 21°F (or -6.1°C) outside (unless you’re in some parts of Madison County where it is 9°F or -12.8°C), so I had to change from my warm weather clothes to my cold weather stuff. I wish that I wore socks right about now because that would keep my feet a bit warmer, but I don’t, so no socks for me.

Oh, I had a weird dream yesterday. It was one of the few bad dreams that I think that I’ve gotten while doing the listening-to-music-the-whole-time-I’m-sleeping thing. I’m not exactly sure how it started, but apparently, different parts of my family actually had money in the dream. My parents and I were living in this huge house in an affluent neighborhood, and the house was right across the street from Deb, Nana’s first cousin who was raised by Mama and Papa (Nana’s parents) after her mom died. Apparently, in the dream, Deb’s husband was involved with an organized crime organization, which would never happen because he is way too nice and too good of a person to be involved in a crime enterprise. Deb had apparently found out and gotten him to turn someone in, and when the group found out, they made him choose between his life and hers, so he basically ordered a hit on her. She was killed in the house my family lived in, which I apparently witnessed, but couldn’t remember because I had some weird form of amnesia. Anytime anyone would bring up her name or what happened, I would start crying or saying that it didn’t happen. It was very, very, very strange.

I had planned on making icons everyday during 2012 for my icon/graphic community, but I haven’t made any so far.  So, I need to make some today.  I was planning on doing some Colin Morgan on the 1st, Kate Bosworth on the 2nd, but I don’t remember who I planned on featuring today.  I guess I could make the first two and do some others today, as well.

Ugh, I need to not pay attention to Rand Paul making his dad sound like this über-cool guy.  I don’t like or trust either of them, don’t get the appeal of either of them, and don’t want either of them involved in decisions of the government.

Comment » | Confessions, Family, General, Like So Totally Me, Sickness and Health

Let Her Cry

29
December

I’m not exactly sure how to structure this post because there are so many things I want to talk about, so if it is a little more flighty than usual, then I apologize.

I guess first of all, I should talk about Christmas.  My parents and I had our Christmas meal with Nana on Christmas Eve so that my aunt didn’t have to see me or threaten violence against me.  I cried almost the entire three or four hours that my parents and I were there.  I managed to almost have an asthma attack because of the crying and I messed up my internal system by getting so worked up.  (My temperature shot up, I started getting sick, etc.)  So, it wasn’t all that pleasant.  I felt bad for my grandmother because she’s almost 80 and she’s got a lot of health issues going on, so having to have separate Christmases was tough on her physically and mentally.  (She has a lot of anxiety issues, so this whole situation has upset her quite a bit.)  I also felt bad that I couldn’t even fake a smile or a good mood while we were there.

When my mom talked to Nana about how Christmas Day went with my aunt, uncle, cousin, cousin-in-law, and cousin’s son, she said that it wasn’t a really festive occasion.  Apparently, my cousin’s son went through Nana’s house looking for me and was sad that I wasn’t there to play with him.  I almost cried when my mom told me this.  I missed him, too.  He’s the one person that I have missed every second of this whole non-communication between my aunt and me thing.  He’s just so awesome and thinks differently and is so smart and creative, so being around him is always fun.  I feel like he’s a kindred spirit.

Nana said that my aunt asked how we handled Christmas without them.  When Nana told her that I cried almost the whole time, my aunt said that that was good because I hadn’t made any effort to apologize to her.  Okay, that isn’t true.  First of all, I actually did write a “letter” via Google Docs and sent it through my uncle’s email address with a note for him to please give it to her.  While the apology isn’t a complete acceptance of the alleged wrongs that I’ve been accused of committing, it is an apology for what I did do; a request that she cease this anti-Janet “campaign”; a request that she learn a little bit more about the physical and mental health problems affecting my mom, Nana, and me so that she could understand the context of the posts I write; and questions about why she made comments to my mom suggesting that I should be kicked out of my house, that I was a bad daughter, etc.   Anyway, the apology is the best that she is going to get.  I would’ve sent it to her personally on Facebook but  she blocked me from sending her messages after I sent the message chastising her for not contacting her sister (my mom) after the June 2011 hospitalization or any of the hospitalizations/surgeries.  I can’t do it via the phone (fear/anxiety issues), face-to-face is out of the question, I don’t have her personal email address, and I just don’t think sending a letter is practical.   I would post the apology letter on here, but she doesn’t actually read this site, so it wouldn’t do any good.

On Christmas, I wasn’t just upset about the downfall of that particular relationship.  I was also upset that my maternal grandfather’s only surviving sibling had unfriended me on Facebook, as had one of his kids.  These were two of my favorite people in the family, so being unfriended saddened me.  And part of me wondered if my aunt had anything to do with it.  I hate being paranoid, but it was weird how they unfriended me shortly after she had posted something on each of their walls.  That thought/paranoia, plus the knowledge that she keeps badmouthing me to Nana and (when my mom calls her) my mother, made me very frustrated because some of the key issues with being Borderline are the fear of abandonment/rejection and intense and unstable relationships.  I think anyone who knows me in any way, shape or form could cite any number of examples that I will go to a near breakdown state whenever things change, relationships end or near an end, I start feeling unappreciated, and when I feel alone, unloved, or unwanted. So, when I was crying on Christmas Eve, I was thinking about the familial implosion, possibly killing myself over it, and how I was somehow a horrible human being.  That’s not the kind of thinking that one should have at any time, but it is especially bad during the holidays.  And that thought process and the pain that it caused makes it harder for me to come up with a way to apologize over any of this or keep quiet about how I feel.  I don’t want to excuse my (sometimes) bad behavior, but I want my family to understand where it comes from.

(BTW – When my aunt tried to lay all the blame on me for this, Nana wouldn’t have any of that.  She told her that she [my aunt] was to blame, as well, and that she was the one who wanted the family split up. She’d also told her off on the 23rd when Nana mentioned that she had to fix the table for our lunch and my aunt told her not to worry about it with us because we “weren’t used to eating at a table” anyway. )

Aside from the Christmas tear-fest, I was going to share whatever the results were from my MRI and EEG.  I went to the neurologist’s office yesterday, but (after waiting an hour and a half) I was told that the neurologist had just left to attend to an emergency at one of the hospitals.  In a small way, I was upset over not finding out the answers, but I would rather not know what was wrong with me than know that my neurologist might have wasted time with me that he could’ve spent on someone who was truly in need of his help at that moment.  (And I know that neurologists are not exactly doctors who have soft-fluffy-type emergencies.)  Anyway, my neurologist was supposed to call me sometime later in the day yesterday.  He didn’t.  He still hasn’t called.  I could call them, I guess.  The only thing I do know from the appointment yesterday is that I had lost another 6 pounds, in addition to the ~50 that I’d lost in the last year.

Oh, I finally had my T4, TSH, LH, and FSH tests done yesterday afternoon, over a month after they were originally ordered.  The woman who did the test asked me if that was my husband in the waiting room.  I silently gagged and told her that that was my father.  She told me she was glad because she had been mad when she thought he was my husband because he should know better than to be with someone so young.  In a way, I understood what she meant, but it was kind of weird to have someone say that kind of stuff.  I mean, she doesn’t know me, so what was she going to say if she had been my husband?  How would she have gotten around her disgust?  And is saying that kind of thing a good idea when you’re sticking a needle into someone?  (It could cause someone to tense up and cause veins to ‘disappear’ in someone who, like me, is a hard-stick.)

Comment » | 10 Years of Madness, Facebook, Family, FPS-Related, General, Holidays, Mental Health, My Family's Weirder Than Yours Is, Sickness and Health, So Damn Special

Pick A Day Already

10
December

It is almost Christmas, just two more weeks now, and I still don’t know when my parents and I get to go see Nana.  Apparently, my Aunt has yet to pick her day.  And since we can’t have Christmas together like a normal dysfunctional family and since, according to her, we “picked” Thanksgiving Day to spend with Nana, we can’t pick Christmas as well.

I don’t get how we picked Thanksgiving.  There is one day to celebrate Thanksgiving on and that’s Thanksgiving.  We didn’t say we wouldn’t eat with them.  That was my aunt’s decision.  And since all that we do on holidays is eat together, because they always seem like they’re ready to be somewhere else, I don’t get why we couldn’t stick food in our mouths at the same time and in the same place.  They would leave right after anyway, so I just don’t see why they can’t be grown-ups and bottle their hostilities towards us for an hour or so on two days this year.  I mean, I’ve been bottling it up (obviously) for years and they want me to continue bottling it up publicly, so why can’t they do it for two out of the 8760 hours in the year?  Apparently, that’s too much to expect.

And if we have to have separate holidays, then I think that we should get to pick Christmas.  Last year, we got snowed in on Christmas and they chose to eat lunch and open presents at my grandmother’s house on Christmas, without us.  And, according to Nana, the cousin-in-law was none-too-pleased that my parents and I weren’t willing to drive over an icy bridge, up and down an ice-and-snow-covered mountain, and down some country roads to get there in a car that’s 12 years old and didn’t even have much get-up-and-go when it was purchased, doesn’t have 4 wheel drive, and doesn’t have any winter weather gear (because this is Alabama) to celebrate Christmas with them.  Oh, and the drive would’ve been without the dogs because we haven’t been allowed to have them around this particular family member since we first got Xander.  (Odd, since they have a dog of their own now.)  So, we would’ve been leaving 5 dogs at home, without food, with a limited supply of water, and (for Willow) without their medicine.  We also would’ve had to take all of our medicine and some extra clothes with us, in case we got snowed in there.  So, I’m not exactly sure why she was upset at our not coming last year and I’m not sure how it is that they got to choose when they celebrated Christmas with Nana last year and how they get to choose it again this year.  Of course, they picked the day the family celebrated Christmas during the first few years that my cousin and his wife were married, thus leading to some issues for my family with regards to Christmas.  So, it’s always been them who gets to choose that day.  It kind of makes me feel like my family has never really been appreciated by their family.  And that’s not exactly the warm, fuzzy feeling that one should have on Christmas or at any time of the year.

It’s not like it should matter to me when we celebrate Christmas.  There are no presents to open in my immediate family, so it’s not like there will actually even be a Christmas here.  At least, not a materialistic type Christmas.  And Nana doesn’t buy presents anymore, so there won’t be anything like that from her.  So by not getting Christmas with her (again) I’m just missing out on one of the two days a year when I don’t (generally) have to cook.  Basically, I’m not getting one of my days off because some members of my family can’t put their big kid underwear on and deal with us for an hour or so.  Way to go, them.

I could easily end this by apologizing, but the more ridiculous they get with their behavior, the less I think I should.  Besides, like I’ve said many times (online and off), I haven’t said anything that I should really have to apologize for.  They’ve used the same language in conversations about other people.  Why do I have to apologize because my “conversation” is available for lots of people to read?  Their conversations are a lot more likely to be overheard by someone that could take offense than my posts are to be read by someone who would get upset.  Maybe I’m not completely competent about social mores, but how is their behavior any better than or my acceptable than mine?  How is it okay to insult or degrade people about their lives behind their backs if you’re doing it vocally, but it isn’t okay to rant about my own feelings about what goes on in my life on a website that I pay for?  Why is that okay?  Maybe whoever is reading my blog on their behalf (’cause I know they are) will be willing to have my aunt or uncle or cousin or even the in-law send me an email or something explaining that.

Sometimes I wish that I had a truly boring life.  One where my family got along and everything could be considered normal.  Then I realize that wishing for a different life won’t do any good because I’m stuck with this one.  I’m stuck in a family where our relationships are basically based on some antiquated caste system with the “better than” members not wanting to talk to or spend time with the “less than” members, where it is normal to have third parties read blog entries to find negative words and then report back about how “this” or “that” was said even when it wasn’t, where it was okay to give R-rated movies to me when I was 15 but the second I mentioned being suicidal or psychotic I started getting gifts most families would consider to be okay for a little girl, where censorship is okay when I judge but they’re allowed to spew whatever crap they want, where my dad has to get “groomed” (haircut and extra shaving) to keep them from calling him names behind his back, and where I’m told not to talk about them, but they get to lie to my only living grandparent about what I say so that maybe, just maybe she might decide to quit talking to me or loving me or something.  Yeah, that’s the family I get to have.  I should just accept it and move on.

Comment » | 10 Years of Madness, Confessions, Family, Holidays, Mental Health, My Family's Weirder Than Yours Is

The Worst Month of the Year

28
November

I think that in the last 30 days or so, I have been seriously frustrated by some things that have gone on.  I’m not really sure why this month seems to have sucked more than usual.  Oh, wait.  I know exactly why it sucked, but I don’t really get why it all had to happen in one month.

First, there was the whole iTunes account hacked issue, leading to me getting charged for an app that I didn’t purchase.  I did get that taken care of, but I ended up having to delete my PayPal account (since it was the funding source and I felt like it might have also been compromised) and put a fraud alert on my credit report.  I had to change all of my passwords everywhere, but apparently missed a few, as I would find out a few weeks later.

After the iTunes issue, my laptop decided to take a break.  My external hard drive’s enclosure was also on a break.  The new enclosure came first, but I couldn’t see if it still worked until the laptop came back.  When it did come, I had to format the external hard drive’s drive again.  Now I’m working on getting everything back on the drive.

Meanwhile, I go to log-in on likesototally.me’s WordPress and find that it has been hacked.  I figured out what was hacked–the .htaccess.  I decided to download files from it that I knew were safe and not located elsewhere before trashing everything else.  The deletion finally got done last night.  I changed the domain’s username’s password before I decided that I needed to change the username as well.  So, that was fun.

In terms of non-tech related bad things, I had thought the disintegration of my extended family on my mom’s side was the worst possible thing in the world that was going on, until we got a nice little letter from ALFA (our insurance agency) letting us know that we would be dropped from our homeowner’s policy in February.  Apparently, insuring us was “too risky” and wasn’t worth continuing the (at least) 26 years of business with my family.  Well, technically, they’ll still be doing business with us because the life insurance policies for my dad and for me are under them, but my parents are planning on moving the car insurance when they find a new insurer.

I felt like it was my fault that the insurance got dropped.  First of all, ALFA is the employer of certain members of my family that I am not really on speaking terms with and their position in the company is fairly high, so my first thought went to that ongoing crap.  Even though they don’t want to be around us, I figured out that they wouldn’t do something that petty in order to punish me for talking about them on here.

After realizing that they were probably not behind the dropping of coverage, I thought that maybe my dad had decided not to pay the (staunchly conservative) PAC  ”contribution” when he paid the membership dues for the farm bureau.  (You have to belong to the bureau in order to get insurance and it is requested that your membership payment include a “voluntary” contribution to the PAC.)   But they say that you don’t have to pay into the PAC, and I don’t know if the company would really drop people because you choose not to contribute to it.  Somehow, I’m not sure if that decision might keep us from being insured.

The other possibility is that because of the continuing issue with the grass, this house might be considered too unsightly for them to insure.  Their standards are pretty high, and my mom suggested (at one point) that they may have been doing some of the reporting to the city about the grass and the stuff on the porch.  Of course, that makes me even more paranoid.  The idea that you can lose your insurance and get threatened with jail time because of grass and because of other random crap is just something that causes me intense anxiety.

And, as per the norm for me, I have felt worse lately.  I’ve had bouts with dizziness, pain, fever, sinus crap, and (of course) the heavy period that came around for a week and a half, and is currently on hiatus again. And I got a call from my family doctor about wanting to do blood work, which is always torture for me, so that has me kind of apprehensive.  Then, of course, there was the depression, mood swings, and generally nuttiness that I usually deal with and that usually gets worse this time of year.  It’s just been the rotten cherry on top of a melted sundae.

So, yeah, this past month has really, really sucked.  I’m hoping that December will be better.  I’m guessing that it won’t, though.  That’s not me being pessimistic or anything.  I’m being completely realistic.  And realizing that the most joyous time of the year is probably going to be suck-filled is awful.

Comment » | 10 Years of Madness, Alabama Weirdness, Confessions, Family, Geekery, Internet, Janet Goes AWOL, Like So Totally Me, Mental Health, Music Stuff, My Family's Weirder Than Yours Is, My Sites, Sickness and Health, So Damn Special

Come On Now

15
November

My mom decided to call her sister on Saturday to find out why exactly her sister’s family won’t be at Thanksgiving. It was, of course, my fault. Apparently, she is upset because she had been told that I called her an evil bitch. I didn’t remember doing this, so I decided to do a search. In the ten years that I have had this site, I have used the phrase “evil bitch” 3 times.

  • The most recent was in 2010. I referred to a psychiatrist as an evil bitch after she told me I smelled bad, even though I had showered, put on nice smelling clothes, etc. Valid use of the phrase, no?
  • The next most recent was in 2005. It was a reference to the furthest back entry where I had called a psychiatric nurse at the Mental Health Center the “Evil Bitch Monger from Hell”.

Clearly, since my aunt is not a psychiatrist or a psychiatric nurse, I didn’t call her an evil bitch.

I decided to try just evil next.

As for various forms of the word “bitch”, I said others described her decision about the separate Thanksgivings as bitchy, I described someone from the other side of the family as saying things that distressed me and led to me making bitchy responses, I mentioned an argument between my mom and me (later in the argument, my mom began talking about how awful I was vs. her sister, which led to sarcasm from me), I called myself bitchy, I called my eighth grade history teacher a bitchy person and said she was a misogynist, I described the call from my aunt’s daughter-in-law as being done to bitch me out, I described my mom’s mood swings as “incessant bitchiness” right before I first mentioned how frustrated I was about the video on the news, talking about nother bitchy psych nurse, a reference to myself, my mom calling me a bitch, saying my dad was bitchy about Farmville and Facebook, my being pissed at a former family friend, me mentioning a philosophy teacher that I felt was bitchy, and talking about the evil psychiatrist. That’s pretty much it when it comes to calling people bitchy or bitches or anything of the sort. So, technically, I didn’t call my aunt a bitch. I also didn’t call her evil.

She also said that I said that she made my life a living hell. I did accuse her of that as part of a meme I was participating in April. I spelled out my reasons for it, too, which I think she should read since apparently she has never read the actual entry. Other than that, my comments about her have been relatively mild. They have all been based on the same things that were discussed in the other post, which makes sense because we, as a family, have not dealt with the cause behind the feelings. Until we do that, the words will continue to be something that probably comes up. That isn’t a threat. It’s just part of what goes on until some kind of resolution happens.

It’s weird how she is upset over the 5 or 6 that had any negative content about her in the past year, but doesn’t realize I’ve also posted 1 where I was genuinely concerned about her after she had eye surgery, quite a few posts after Thanksgiving last year gushing about her cooking the meal, the 3 or so in the last year where I talk about missing her in some way, etc. That’s out of around 100 posts total that I’ve made on fuzzypinkslippers.com in the Family category and the 152 on the site overall the beginning of 2011. Most of the posts in the Family category refer to my mom or my dad or both. There are  probably more posts from the last year about going to court over my grass than there are about my aunt. So, I think a littler perspective might be helpful.

Now, if she wants to claim that I’ve been more harsh about her daughter in law, then that might be a legitimate issue, but…I haven’t even called her a bitch or evil.  I did accuse her of being a catalyst in tearing apart our family and of having a double standard about medications, but I didn’t even get all that vicious on her.  So really,  they need to get over it.  If what I say is causing them so much anxiety, stress or anger, then they are old enough to know how to click the little x in the corner of the browser.  They are also old enough to not have surrogate blog monitors check out the site for them.  I think that if they would lay off on the familial pressure (via the monitoring and the accusations they make to my mom and grandmother) then things might get better.  I keep posting things related to them because their anxiety heightens my anxiety and my paranoia.  I really wouldn’t think that people who are related to me would want to cause me to either get so angry that I have severe headaches or so depressed that I cry for hours on end because I’ve heard yet again how horrible (in terms of actions) yet insignificant (in terms of importance to them) I am.  Honestly, the best way to end all of this drama is for them to back off.  They want to prove that I’m immature or wild or needing to be controlled by my parents*…that’s fine, but this all seems like a way to bait me, which doesn’t make them come off as being much more mature than me.

*Yes, my aunt actually told my mother that my mom should be able to exert some kind of parental control on me about what I blog about because she is my parent.  Yes, my aunt knows that in less than four months, I will be 28.  She also knows that I am a lot better behaved at 27 than my mom was during her teens and twenties.  So, again…perspective.

3 comments » | 10 Years of Madness, Confessions, Family, Holidays, My Family's Weirder Than Yours Is

A Face That Laughs Every Time I Fall

7
November

I had therapy this afternoon. As usual, I forgot that I had therapy today until I saw the appointment on the family appointment schedule/calendar. The appointment was going to be one where I discussed something that has been pestering me since I was a little kid. It was going to be one where I discussed something I’ve only mentioned to two or three people total in my life. Of course, therapy never seems to work out the way I plan on it working.

One main reason that I didn’t discuss that pestering issue is that Nana had called at about noon today. She’d told me that a certain relative had been talking to her about Thanksgiving. The relative asked if my parents and I were going to be at Thanksgiving dinner (lunch) on Thanksgiving Day. Nana said that of course we were going to be there. The relative then said that that meant she (and her family) would not be at that dinner and that they would have Thanksgiving some other time. I wasn’t too surprised by this, given the amount of drama that has been brewing related to it. I was okay with it, or so I thought.

Having them there in a “normal” year is a rather stressful thing for me anyway. I have internal fights and arguments in preparation for the day. I have panic attacks about what might happen if I mention certain things during dinner and cause an actual brawl. I stress out over how I might end up being belittled for my education (or “lack” thereof) or how I might see or hear them give someone (Nana, mom, or me) a difficult time about their use of pain medicine or some other relatively minor thing that ends up causing major family drama. So not having them there means that I won’t be feeling quite the same level of pre-Thanksgiving anxiety and stress. That should be a good thing.

It isn’t, though. I feel guilty. I feel like this drama is my fault, even though it wouldn’t have started if there weren’t issues with how the family functions to begin with. The drama has been there for a long time, even if it hadn’t been exposed. So I shouldn’t feel so horribly guilty about it, but I do. And I think that was the purpose of the boycott. Maybe that’s just my inherent paranoia, but it seems like this is a way to make me feel bad about the whole situation and to feel even less comfortable about my blog and my way of handling stress related to this kind of stuff.

It doesn’t really impact my decision about what I’ll talk about online, though. I will continue to talk about how I feel openly. I’ll do it even though it might be part of what drives a wedge between the two sides of my family. I’ll even do it knowing that there are still regular visitors from Oneonta and Guntersville/Arab/Boaz/Albertville, which I know must be them coming to check on me to see what I might be saying about them. (Yes, Analytics is still catching them checking out fuzzypinkslippers.com, my personal tumblr, my LJ, Hyperaware, and Blah Blah Biddy Blah. They may be visiting other sites of mine, which amps up my paranoia.)

Instead, it just makes me feel like it doesn’t matter that the problems with the family wouldn’t be discussed if I didn’t blog about it.  It makes me feel like my feelings about everything are insignificant.  And that is what I mainly talked about with my therapist.  Anytime I’m told not to talk about something or told, in general, to shut up or that someone doesn’t care, it triggers the internal belief that I am insignificant, which triggers the brutal depression and the worsening of social isolation.

It also makes me feel like I’m supposed to feel guilty about how I am tearing apart the family, even though I am not the one making the decision not to show up for Thanksgiving (for the third time in a decade) and I am not the one who is trying to make this about one part of the family being more important than another part. Knowing that family is extremely important to me and then trying to use it against me to make me feel guilty is about like handing a razor blade to a suicidal individual and challenging them to end their life.  It is using a known weapon and a known psychological stressor to manipulate one person into doing what you want, and that isn’t fair.

Between this ongoing drama with those family members and the repeating pattern of destructive interpersonal relationships, I broke down about how “people suck” and how I felt like I keep entering and perpetrating dysfunctional relationships because I get something out of being in those relationships.  (Almost twenty years of therapy and I just figured this out.)  She told me to look up the Karpman drama triangle, which I’ve added to examples of below:

Karpman drama triangle - ex 1
Karpman drama triangle - ex 2

So, I guess that internet theory about online drama perpetrators/victims being equally responsible for online drama also applies to real life.  I think, in many of the relationships, I am definitely continuing patterns of victim-like behavior and perpetrator-like behavior.  (Sometimes I trigger/accuse someone of doing something, which starts the whole cycle over again.)  My therapist compared the drama issue with something that foster kids do.  (She was a social worker with the agency we did foster care out of, and handled Stephanie’s case during part of Stephanie’s stay with us.)  Apparently, what I do is like what those kids do when they are so used to placements failing that they become convinced that a placement will fail and decide that they will make it fail so that they have some level of control over their lives.  I guess that makes sense.  I’ve always felt out of control when it comes to a lot of my life, so it would make sense that I would do something that causes me to not only be miserable, but also allows me to control when I am getting miserable.

I need to get out of that cycle.  I also need to form healthier attachments.  And more than all of that, I need to figure out a way to be happy.  I’m not talking about the little bursts of joy that any person might have during their life.  I need to find a way to have some kind of sustainable joy in life. I didn’t want to work on my mental health for years and I actually enjoyed periods of crippling depression because it was more predictable than happiness. I really need to change that mindset.  I need to learn how to deal with life and how to be happier.

So, I didn’t get to talk about one thing that may have been to blame for some (or many of my emotional issues), but I did get to talk about another.  It actually makes me feel grateful to the family member for reacting in a way that some close to me have referred to as being “immature” or “bitchy” because without that reaction, I might not have started working on one of my major psychological issues.  So, yay for that.  Maybe I should have more thoroughly pissed that person off much sooner.  I might have graduated from college.  I might have gotten married by now.  I might have felt happy.  Okay, maybe none of that would have happened, but it does make me wonder.

3 comments » | 10 Years of Madness, Blah Blah Biddy Blah, Confessions, Family, Friends, Holidays, Hyperaware, Internet, LiveJournal, Mental Health, My Sites, School, Tumblr

Why Do I Even Bother

28
October

Mom just got a call from her mom. Apparently, I’ve been up to no good again and saying “bad things” about certain people. I thought this was weird because I haven’t been saying anything recently about certain people. The last thing that I could find that is public is something from September. It was a rant about my mom taking me for granted while glorifying a particular family member, who I was (and still am) annoyed with over the lack of participation in my mom’s recovery process. I still feel my rant is justified. Of course, I still feel my rant from January is justified and I feel the rant I made in 2002 was justified, too. I also think that they have been taken way too seriously in some respects, while not seriously enough in others.

Since I know that those people are probably reading and will probably continue reading, I want to say this:

I have specifically asked, many times, that you not read this site if you don’t like what I say. I have also asked that you not take it off the computer or try to use it against me with other family. Apparently, this isn’t possible.

I am sorry that you were offended by what I said, but I’m not sorry that I said it. That may sound childish or rude, but let’s face it, I’m not exactly thought of as the most mature member of the family.

I do think that it was unfair in 2002 to shut me out of your life for 9 months until you suddenly decided that something might happen and that you couldn’t live with yourself if it did. I think it was even more unfair that for the next 9 years, even when I tried to make up for the 2002 post, I was basically ostracized within my own family. I think it was unfair that I spent two Thanksgivings when I was severely depressed wondering what I would have to do to make you spend time with me on a holiday that we used to enjoy together.

I think it is unfair that I am the bad one about the January thing in general. I find out something that was apparently so private that people who share DNA couldn’t know, but that was okay for hundreds of thousands of strangers to find out at the same time as those strangers. I get pissed about it. I make one tiny little comment, then become public enemy number one. Meanwhile, it is okay that that post that got her so upset was found only 6 or 7 hours after it was made meaning: she was checking up on me. Yeah, you can say that I apparently needed to be constantly monitored, but the thing is that I didn’t.

I also think that it was unfair that in January, when you talked to her after the post, you didn’t somehow emphasize that making a phone call to me would only further agitate me. You have known me since I was a little kid. Have I ever really been comfortable on the phone? No. Have I ever really been able to vocally defend myself? No. Didn’t it occur to you or to her husband or to anyone who may have thought that call was a good idea that it was, in fact, a bad one?

I shouldn’t be forced to feel guilty because I said things you didn’t like. I shouldn’t have to be told not to write about things that you don’t like. If I cater to you or to anyone else, then I won’t be writing about what is upsetting me anymore. I won’t be doing what the blog was basically set up for. Writing about my issues is how I deal with them. If I don’t write about them, I go more crazy than I already am. If that happens, then I go to the hospital. If that happens, then what? Are you going to move my mom and dad down to your house to make sure that they’re taken care of? Are you going to try to keep up with their health problems? Are you going to give my mom shots (insulin or otherwise) when she’s so out of it that she can’t give them to herself? If I don’t write about these things, these are questions that you will have to have answers for.

What I say doesn’t actually hurt this family in anyway. How have you been harmed by my words? Offended? Maybe, but not hurt. Whereas, I’ve dealt with having my education called into question multiple times, been treated like a dangerous fiend since my time IP, and hearing speculation that my grandmother (and then my mother) have drug problems because of their use of pain medicine. I’ve seen our family get torn apart because suddenly there is only room in the family for you and my uncle plus your son, his wife, and their son, and maybe your mom’s “adoptive” sister that you apparently communicate with more than you do with your own biological sister.

I will not quit writing about things. I will not apologize about your getting upset by them. I will not pretend that I’m okay that this family has been so dysfunctional for years now. I will remind you that you are an adult, you have a choice about what you do when you’re on the internet, and you make the choice to read these things. You know what you will find and you do it anyway because that justifies the anger that you have toward me. The subsequent acting-like-Janet-is-a-subhuman attitude is then okay because I brought it on myself. If you don’t want to be angry with me, then don’t read things I say. If you don’t want to know that I’m frustrated about you, then don’t read it. Or learn to skip posts that are categorized as “family” because they “might” be about you and they might be negative.

So, I shall say this now: back off and try to get over it. Oh, and stop opening that entry over-and-over. It will not be going away. It will not be edited. You need to move on.

I’m guessing this feud will probably hamper any Thanksgiving plans, but…it might be worth it. Sure, Thanksgiving is one of those rare days where I actually do eat a significant amount of food, and it is one of the few days that I get to see people I’m related to that aren’t my mother or father, but if I’m going to have to put up with this crap then I don’t want to spend the holiday with them. I want to spend it with Nana. At least she’s loved me and actually tried to be there for me through all of this.

I shouldn’t spend a family holiday with people who clearly don’t want me to be a part of their family.  I want to be where I’m wanted, and that probably won’t ever be in a room where she is.

Comment » | 10 Years of Madness, Confessions, Family, Holidays, Letters, Rants, So Damn Special

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