Sunday, January 14, 2007

Close to crazy!

I should be sleeping. Already took my meds and all. I feel sick inside. Man, I am so far from the person I mistakingly thought I was. It's shocking really. You know, you think "I'm and OK person". Could always be better, but yet still a decent person.
Tonight I re-realized that I am a crappy excuse for a mother to my oldest daughter Kate. I can't seem to put the junk behind me and get moving forward. She is 12 and I am to her...................as Kit says "part-time". I am her mother. I will always be her mother. But just having that title means pretty much nothing if you don't behave like a mom should.
I love Kate. I love my kids all the same. But when Kate goes back to Pittsburgh with her dad, It's like I shut down that part of myself. Sure there are the occasional phone calls and e-mails. But I really feel like I am a big, not much in her life. It breaks my heart. It hurts even more to know that I created that situation completely on my own.
Is is too late to turn things around there? Just like my last blog, you get to where you wonder if you should even try changing. Or are you destined to be whatever it is you've become. What if you hate who and what you've become?
My depression just seems to be worsening. I believe I need a doctor. A real one, that can not only do "talk therapy" but also do meds too. There must be something chemically wrong with me to be the way I am.
Tonight and lately, I've been feeling a sense of urgency to start the wheels of change actually rolling in the correct direction. I'm not sure exactly how I'll go about that. I just know I can't keep on keepin on like this. I'm close to crazy. Or maybe I'm already there.

Saturday, January 13, 2007

changing who you are today so you can be that person you had dreamed of growingup into.

Thee seems to have come a time in life, well, atleast in my life, where I've reached that number in age where I thought I'd have it all figured out.I'd really have it together...somehow. I overlooked the fact that in order to be in that place in life, I would have actually done some work, taken some classes or something.Anyhow, just prepare for getting to that place. But like all I do, no preparing was done. I just waited around till I ended up where I am now. Which is realizing I have a lot of work to do on myself to someday get to where I've got it together. I'm clinging to the hope that it is not TOO late for me to turn this ship around. I can not end up the very person I was so sure I would never be. Coincidently, the same person I seem to be at this point
So, I've been asking myself some pretty seriously deep questioins. It really troubles me that I don't have the answers to many of the questions. If I tell the truth on every question I really have to face the fact that I am catastophically flawed.
I want to live with the priorities of the person I want to be with the valuale priorities.
I look at Kit tonight and I could just cry. Instead of building him up, I'm completely breaking him down. He has reverted back to avoiding eye contact with me and of course casual or any other form of touching and connecting is not in the mix right now.
He is literally doing everything he can to keep things together for our family while we deal with my (our, really) lupus. He is tactically doing everything possible to keep the house and our little "Team Trotter". He looks so miserable to me. I wish we could just talk whatever he is feeling out between us but our dynamic right now is difficult to say the least.
I love you baby! I've made you my whipping post lately, and it needs to stop right now. You and the kids are my world. We are going to make it through this latest flare. I have to believe that we can and we will find a comfortable, productive, loving way to work through all the crap together.
The person I want to be would be trying harder to lighten his load. I would be happier, I would try totake the time to look decent. I'm been letting myself go lately and that is just wrong
I'm getting sleepy and my thoughts are starting to loose focus. So,I'm going to have tocome back to this post and content later.

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

AARRGGHH! OK, not gonna be positive. Not right now. Pain level is through the roof. I am sick to death of insurance companies, medications, doctors, tests etc............................I finally have a wonderful pain management doc here and guess what, my inner voice is telling me we are looking at yet another move. Probably in the next 6 months or less. I'm so sick and tired of starting over. Kit's job situation is a dead end. I do not understand why we fucking came to the Outer Banks in the first place. I had hoped for a relationship with my parents. I had hoped they would want to get to know their grandchildren and play a role in their lives. Boy, was I wrong!! Wrong with a capital W!
I have asked my parents to watch Maddie for us twice in the past 3 years. Both times were for the work Christmas party. When Maddie goes to my parents house, she is put in front of the living room T.V. and told to watch DVD's until we would come to get her. Actually, that is what Maddie is supposed to do on the rare occasions that we go over to their home.
My mother sits in the kitchen in front of her t.v on the counter, blaring, cigarette dangling from her one hand and a scotch on the rocks in the other hand. She makes no attempts at having a conversation with Maddie. She treats her like she treated me growing up..............like I was invisible.
Katy gets a little more attention from "Gran". Only because now Katy is "old enough that she can carry on a worthwhile conversation with her".
Baby Jackson. I kept the pregnancy with Jack a secret from my parents as long as possible. I was terrified to tell my parents. I knew they would treat me as if I had committed a felony and I should be punished, rediculed and made to feel as if I was the stupidest person on the planet. How dare I bring another "brat"into this world.
My mother treats my step-sister the same way in regards to our children. Erin, my step-sister had her third baby this past Friday! According to my mother her first comment to Erin over the phone upon hearing that the baby had arrived was "So, how long until you plan on doing this shit again to try to give Jim (my step-brother-in-law) his boy?". Un freaking believable.
Bitter, bitter, bitch. I am so angry! I am fighting back tears as I type this. I can not stand that this woman is my mother. I can not stand how I LET her affect me. I made this stupid decision after being "disowned" by my father, that no matter what, my mother is my mother, and I will not walk away from her. But, she is ruining, no I take that back, I am LETTING her ruin me. My health is suffering. I feel like total shit after most of our conversations.
She manipulates everyone around her. I can not believe my dad (step-dad) has stayed with her for 30 yrs. He is codependent, just trying to survive her wrath.
My therapist made the point that not allowing my mother in my life anymore , or God forbid when she dies, it would really be no different than it is now. I, for all intents and purposes, do not have a mother now. So, the only thing I would be morning is the mother I had always wanted and needed but was never given.
I am freaking out. I am fighting the urge to take off. To just move as fast as possible away from here. Away from her. I'm angry that I came here at all. I'm angry that I allowed myself to hope to find a mother who loved me and valued me.
My father disowned me. My mother hates me. I must be a real wonderful contribution to this world.
But, I WILL find a way to not be like her. I LOVE my children. I can not let my emotional baggage, and weaknesses be an excuse to be a rotten, bitter, angry, self-absorbed parent and partner for Kit. My children and my husband see something worthwhile in me. I have to hold onto that. I HAVE to.
I am so close to an emotional breakdown. But, I will NOT give into the emotional weaknesses. I will get help! I will use a productive outlet. But right now, I want to cry. I want to scream. I want to drive over to my mother's house and tell her what a rotten parent and person she is. I want to tell her that I'm done taking responsibility for her rotten defective parenting.
Guess what mom! I am not the reason you drink. If you didn't have me, you would've found another excuse. Besides, Dad told me you started drinking way before I even was born. You drank and smoked throughout your pregnancy with me. You told me you never wanted me! Dad may have been a lot of rotten things, but he wasn't a liar. YOU are the liar. I do not have to pretend I believe your lies anymore. I'm not crazy. The things I think happened in our home when I was growing up were NOT my imagination. I will no longer put myself down to you to try to get your approval.
I was a child. I was YOUR child! I was the only Child you had! You abandoned me emotionally. You ignored me. You could never hug me or hold me when I was just a little girl. I held you when you were too drunk to hold your head up over the toilet. I was the one who called the police when you took all those pills and drank all that scotch and I was so afraid that you were dead. Lying there on the floor in your underwear. Dad had left me with you. He knew how sick you were and when he walked out, he left me there with you to take care of you. I loved you Mom. I wanted to help you. I wanted to be enough for you to be ok. I wanted to be worth enough to you for you to be strong. But you never were. Never.
I could end up like you mom. but i won't. I won't. You know why? Because I love my children, my husband, my friends, more than I myself. I know how to love. I don't ever want my children to ever feel for one single second the way I feel as your daughter for my entire life.
You will die someday. I need to find a way to deal with the reality of understanding that no matter how much I try to love you, it will never be enough for you to embrace that love. Your too comfortable in your misery. You will die and I will grieve. I will probably never get to have things be the way I've wished they'd be between us for so long. I didn't want much. I just wanted you to be proud of me. I wanted you to respect me. I wanted you to let me in and let me love you.
Just like when dad died, I'll never have things straight. It's hard to know that even now, while you are still alive, the outcome will more than likely be the same.
As I held my 6 month old son(at the time) in my lap while I puked in the toilet after my chemo treatments this past summer I remember thinking this is all wrong. I would drive myself to and from my treatments alone so the kids wouldn't have to see me go through those. Kit would stay with the kids. Kit could only take a day or 2 off work so then I was left puking, exhausted, just all out horribly sick to care for three kids alone. Not once did my mother or my father offer any sort of help. I'm not playing a victim here. I'm just realizing what a horrendous excuse for a mother I actually have.
When i had a near fatal accident in July of 2002 and ended up in critical condition on a ventilator, my parents didn't even try to come to Texas to see me. Yet she can drive her ass to Atlantic City to the casinos every month. She did tell me if I had died, she would've shown up for the funeral. I guess that would've been important to make it look to other people at my funeral like she gave a damn. But no, she left Kit to deal with the two girls, me in ICU and thank God for Kit's family.
I have lots of reasons to be pissed off! How can a mother treat her child this way???? I'm not sure where to go from here. I just know I HAVE to get this anger out in a constructive way because I'm gonna loose it. I literally feel the urge to break something, to put a hole in the wall, to destroy something. But, I won't. Not today. Tonight I will get a good night sleep and tomorrow I will feel better. Somehow I'll figure it all out. But for right now, I'm furious! How dae my parents throw me away the way they have. Or worse, keep me around to wallow in their misery. I didn't ask for them to have me. I didn't pick them out as parents.

Monday, January 01, 2007

New Year, New Route!!!

Happy New Year!!! Blah, blah..............OK, right now I'm mentally seeing two ways I can go with this post. My instincts are pushing me towards the negative, ranting, raving, everything sucks, just another year and everything is no better in my life, in fact, it's worse..............................road. Here is where I make the purposeful decision to push that instinct away and uncomfortably forge ahead towards the positive. Man, taking this road feels sort of like trying to steer a car with no power steering. Not easy. Very uncomfortable. But Kit (my guru) likes to say "You keep doing what your doing, you'll keep getting what your getting." I'm worn out on getting what I'm getting.

So, here I am driving down a different road. I'll figure out a name for this road later. Lets see what it looks like from the drivers seat this morning. Through the window I see that it's 9am and I'm showered, dressed, make-up on. Don't see that on a usual ride down negative street.
I also see that I actually cooked breakfast for baby Jackson myself. Scrambled eggs with cheese. He loves that. I've got a load of laundry going in the washer, and the dishes are done.

I"m still struggling with the conversation I had over the phone with my mother. But writing about that would definitely put me back down negative street. So, I'm going to give it all I've got to not dwell on that and the other negative thoughts that have me on the verge of tears. I'm going to come up with some positive things to replace the negative thoughts.

Things to focus on today:
1: My children and my husband are healthy.
2: My husband and myself still have our jobs.
3: We ARE going to Disney World in 27 days.
4: We had a wonderful Christmas day here with the kids.
5: We have a nice house to live in.
6: For today the cable is still on.
7: I have the bestest best friend a gal could ask for. Love u Steph.
8: I am having a relatively low pain day.
9: We have cars in good condition to get around in.
10: We do not have a car payment.
11: We believe in God and are trying to get back on track with him.
12: We have a YMCA membership and therefor I have an outlet for my stress that I will use.
13: My husband loves me.
14: My husband is a wonderful father.
15: My husband is my best friend and is a total team player.
16: I can make today a great day just by the thoughts and attitude I CHOOSE to have!
17: I am no longer a victim.

Thats a pretty good start. Guess I better get going on it.

Look out Disney, here we come!