Time to say good-bye

Dear Friends, it's time to say good-bye.  I won't be posting on this blog anymore, although I will keep it up.  I feel like I've dealt with most of the direct issues of having been raised by N's and having Nsibs.  It seems like some issues just go on and on, however - in an effort not to marry an angry, violent man like my Nfather, I married an angry, emotionally punishing man who resembles my Nmother more than I like to think about...   He is in care now, since he also has Parkinson's and Parkinson's dementia - with that in addition to his diagnosed Attachment Disorder (Yes, yet another personality disordered person...), I really can't take care of him anymore.  He can't listen to me, so I can't keep him safe.

I've spent the past year learning how to be a Non-care-giver (I think this is a new moniker for those of us who've taken care of personality disordered folks our whole lives.)  and I'm not finished yet - I had a moment this week when I actually considered taking him home - I miss my kids soooooo much and I really would like to be closer to them, or at least on the same continent.  My loving sister spent hours with me doing an intervention of sorts, and kept me from behaving recklessly and endangering my mental health yet again.  I'm so grateful for her!

So I'm starting a new blog - livingwithanattachmentdisorderedhusband.blogspot.com.  You're welcome to visit me there!  This is the poem I wrote for the first post:

Love's Last Gasp

I mourn us daily

I grieve the love I gave without return

Spill-over sadness rolls down my cheeks

As I try to check the pain that threatens to take my breath away.

                                                                                   

I ache for a touch

For tenderness and talk of love

The loneliness eats away at my soul

I moan and gasp for enough air to breathe just once more.

Long years of silence

Stingy crumbs dropped at a banquet

Need inspiring mad fury, flashing eyes,

More silence that sucks up all the air, love's last gasp.

I've decided that I'm not ready for a new blog yet - soon, soon, I hope...

Party!

Last night, I threw myself a 65th birthday party - it was wonderful!  My house is full of flowers and other gifts and lots of great memories!  The house was full to overflowing (Ok, it's a small place...) and there was lots of dancing and visiting and music, music, music.  Sigh...  The last time I threw myself a party was 30 years ago - and it, too, was full of dancing and music!  Maybe I need to do this more often...  Honestly, I sometimes forget that although my parents didn't love me, many of my siblings don't love me, and my husband, God love him, is incapable of love, I am loved by many other people, people I value and cherish.  Life is good.

Ta-da!!

The happiness continues....  It's absolutely amazing that I feel soooooo much younger and soooooo much calmer and soooooooo much more like my real self.  The process of self-discovery after years of living within my role has been difficult and painful and I thought it would never end, but here I am - at the end of dealing with other-imposed nonsense, at the beginning of living as my very self.   I know that I'll always have some issues - but now I'm discovering them bit by bit and I'm not overwhelmed by them.  I just see them, deal with them, and move on.  (Ok, sometimes I put off dealing until later....) 

Life is more than good!  It no longer constantly overwhelms me.  Sigh...   And when I do get overwhelmed or guilt-ridden, I talk to friends who've walked this with me and they remind me that the goal of this whole, long, difficult process was to be free - not to re-enslave myself.  So far, so good.  My house is full of flowers, my life is full of what I want it to be full of - training for a new job, swing dance lessons, weaving, reading, walking, visiting with friends...  Honestly, this is a great way to live life.  Ta-da!

The strangest thing...

The strangest thing happened to me last week - I woke up happy!  Now, I've been happy before in my life - my children's lives make me gloriously happy and any time with them is delightful and full of joy.  I have friendships that make me laugh with happiness.  The early years of marriage were fun and the extent of my spouse's attachment disorder wasn't as apparent as it was after the kids were born...  But this is different, possibly because it's not accompanied by anxiety.  It's just there, seated somewhere in my soul, and I'm enjoying getting to know it.   I think part of it may just be my soul stirring - I cry more easily now (Those of you who know me well know that in the past, I rarely cried in front of anyone - waaaaaaaay too scarey!) and I laugh more easily, too.  I find myself laughing out loud at the oddest things.  I went to a movie with my son and found myself laughing at things that I knew I probably shouldn't be laughing at - and it was hysterical.  I laughed so hard my stomach hurt. 

I'm singing again, too - and when I listen to music with my eyes closed, I see colors again.  I feel more in touch with the world, with people, with myself.  I actually like myself - all the things my NFOO told me about myself appear not to be true after all!  I'm feeling more feminine, more energetic, more mindful of my needs, more caring for myself, less inclined to be hard on myself - just plain happier!  And I feel that happiness has settled in, that this isn't a transient thing, that maybe, just maybe, I'm now a happy person.  Sigh...

Staying Well

Looking back over my life, I realize how often my role-induced need to take care of people has led me to be involved with N’s and other personality disordered people over and over again.   For years, I’ve been convinced that my spouse was P/A and that if he could just get the right help, he (and we) would be OK.  He would go to a counselor for a few sessions and then stop.  This was a pattern – he’d do just enough to make sure that I wouldn’t leave (and I was pretty obviously easy to trick), then he’d stop and revert to old patterns.  A few years ago, one of his short-term counselors told him that he wasn’t P/A, but that he had an attachment disorder.  I scoffed, thinking that this was yet another way that he could trick me into feeling sorry for him.  A few weeks ago, however, a counselor that I trust and respect told me the same thing – that since he behaves this way only towards ME, he isn’t P/A; he has an attachment disorder. 

From what I know of attachment disorder, this pretty much explains why he has HUGE problems with intimacy – and I mean intimacy across the board, not just physical intimacy.  I know very little about his childhood and early adulthood except what I learned from his mother.  I don’t know how he feels about things most of the time – and neither does he.  For years, I told him how I thought he was feeling based on his body language and facial expressions.  He’d deny it if he viewed the feeling as negative…  Aack!  

So here we are now – he’s been in a care facility for about 9 months.  I’ve spent that time getting well – I was completely stressed out – one of the issues with attachment disorder is that the person CANNOT do what they’re asked to do – it puts too much power in the hands of a person they don’t trust.  So anything I asked him not to do HAD to be done.  With a smirk…  Yes, it sounds familiar, doesn’t it?  But it means that I can’t keep him safe – unless I do backwards requests, which I don't want to do because it makes me feel conniving and untrue to myself.

So here’s what’s been going on – we spend a good chunk of our income on this facility – so I was thinking (You’re not going to believe this…) that since I’m feeling so much better, that maybe I should bring him home and save that money, then move back to our home country and live together there…    I had the senae to speak with some friends who thought that the whole thing was a TERRIBLE idea and I talked to the counselor who I trust who thought that I was just a wee bit out of my mind – but it wasn’t until I realized that I was starting to have a lot of anxiety again that I woke up, gave myself a good shake, and realized that I was again trying to take care of him to the point of jeopardizing my own health.

He’s not going to change – I’ll always be his mother in his eyes (a woman who wasn't very loving to him), I’ll always be the one who has to give in and do things his way, I’ll always want to find things that will help him even though I don’t think he really wants to get well –I’ve struggled with his “invalidism” our whole married life.  (He has a disease that’s incurable, but there are ways to make life better within that frame – but he agrees to follow a particular diet, for instance, and then sneaks around and eats junk, etc.)  He remains a child in many ways and NOTHING I DO WILL CHANGE THAT.  EVER.  

So – we’re not moving back, he’s staying in the facility, and I’m just going to go home and visit the kids, friends, and family more often.  I like the way my life is now, even though I miss my kids, friends, and some family like crazy.   I’m finally well – I want to stay that way!!!

Happy Easter!

I've written about my issues with my church and with God - this role of forgotten child is a tough one!  No one from my church came to see me when I broke my foot and was taking care of a man with dementia - in fact, I called two people who said that when I was better, I should call and we'd go out for coffee!   During my childhood, Nmother either ignored us when we were sick or explained patiently that we really weren't sick - we just wanted attention...  Yes indeed. Being a forgotten person in your own church is discouraging!

I went NC with God for a couple of months - I'm cautiously approaching that relationship again - we'll see where that goes.  And the pastor has resigned - this is cause for an "Alleleuia!"   I have to slowly and cautiously see if anything changes with his resignation.  I really don't want to be treated the way my family has treated me my whole life.  Ever. again.  Not by my family, not by my friends, not by my church...  You get the picture.

So today I'm staying home and taking care of my spouse - the place where he's living suggested that I take him to a hospital because he has a bad cough.  I took him to a doctor last week because he had a high temperature and I thought he might have pneumonia.  He doesn't, but he had a UTI, so he's on antibiotics.  He was keeping people awake with his coughing and they were complaining, though, so he's here for the duration...   I've put him in a room with a vaporizer and given him some essential oils, and he's sleeping soundly.  He's already carrying a toxic load with the Parkinson's and now the antibiotic that it just doesn't make sense to me to give him more meds... 

So Happy Easter to those of you who are celebrating today!  May you learn to enjoy life more, to take good care of yourself, to love yourself and trust yourself so much that you wake up each morning looking forward to whatever is in store!  Be joyful whenever you can! 

Fight or Flight - or not...

So I'm settling into taking care of myself - following the nutritionist's advice, taking massive amounts of supplements, drinking gallons of water, and trying to untie myself from the fight-or-flight response that's led to my myriad health problems.  Fight or flight is a great response to meeting a bear in the woods or a mugger on a quiet street, but I've been using it for daily life and its just not working for me anymore!  The nutritionist told me that my endocrine system is fatigued and that if I feel tired, I should just lie down and sleep.  What a concept!!!  I'm finding that I need a nap about every 4 days now - I just get so tired that I can't go on anymore - which I would have done before, but now I'm just taking the nap and then getting on with things.  I'm hoping that this is a temporary situation, that great nutrition, supplements, herbs, tonics, and relaxation techniques (including naps, yoga, deep breathing, meditation, and long walks), and resolving many of my myriad NFOO issues will finally produce a healthy me!  Things are improving - I can read again - read and comprehend!  The brain fog is lifting - hurrah!   I can plan ahead more than a couple of hours - another plus.  I'm hermitting more, but I assume that's partly so I can stay focused on me - I'm easily distracted by other people's pain.  I feel like I'm on the right track.  At last. 

Pondering...

So - when I went to the holistic doctor this past week, he did a test that revealed only one thing that I didn't know - according to this test, I still have significant emotional stress.  Hmmmm...  So the fact that I feel that a HUGE emotional burden has been lifted and that I'm "relatively" stress free (pun indeed intended) seems to indicate that the burden that I was carrying was gargantuan and that what I consider "stress free" is still markedly stressed.  This is weird and I've given it a great deal of thought - it's obviously no wonder that my adrenals have been over-taxed and that my thyroid is working at less than optimum levels, that I have a systemic yeast infection and that I've suffered from brain fog for quite a while.  Egad!  If this feeling that I'm now experiencing is still stressed, I can't even begin to imagine what genuinely stress free is going to feel like!  Maybe I'll be able to fly!!!  It's delightful to ponder...

The Emerging Pearl

So, taking care of myself after NOT taking care of myself for years is turning out to take a lot of time!  I've been to a nutritionist and to a holistic doctor and my, oh, my - I have a lot of damage to repair!  My thyroid isn't working up to snuff, my adrenals are a mess, my immune system is ridiculously low...  All caregiver/ACON stuff - I'm determined to get my body back in decent running order and NEVER let this happen again.

I'm also doing some silly stuff, stuff that most women do in their teens and 20's - I'm figuring out what sorts of clothes look best on me, what colors I want to include more of in my wardrobe, what I want my "style" to be - honestly, this sort of thing never really showed up on my radar - Nmother had pretty much convinced me by the time I was a teenager that I wasn't to stand out, that my choice in clothing was abysmal, and that she and she alone determined taste and style. Needless to say, these choices did not include COLOR!  It's hard to blend into the background while wearing COLOR!  My loving sister helps a lot by telling me that certain colors look really good on me - I'm wearing more color, but now I want to tie it together more - it sounds kind of froo-froo to me, but I'm over-riding that and forging ahead!

I'm also spending some time thinking about what I want to do with the rest of my life - this nutrition/herb/oil thing is intriguing to me - I'm seeing dramatic improvements in my health rather quickly, which I hadn't anticipated.  The people I'm working with are wonderfully intuitive, they're great listeners, and I trust them to have my best interests at heart.  I'm looking into it - I'll probably have to work at least part time for the rest of my life and this time, I want it to be something I love doing and something that won't require 60 hours a week to accomplish well!!!

My role - the Lost Child

When I read Peter Pan as a child, I identified with the Lost Boys - that's what I'd always felt like in my family - Lost...  This role also gets called "the invisible child" - and I felt like that, too.  I've talked a little about my invisibility in other blogs, but all of this came up again when my eldest sibling came to visit.  I tried to explain it to her, but she kept saying that she never thought of me that way - I explained that that's not how it works - you don't say "She's the Lost Child" or "She's the Golden Child" or "She's the Scapegoat" or She's the Hero" or "He's the Mascot."  It's all in the way you treat a person. 

Finally, a situation came up when we were talking about Nmom's death.  (I've talked about this before, too - my "failure to properly greet." )  My sister had told me that the WWW was so upset about my not properly greeting her when I arrived - I explained to my sister (and this should NOT have needed an explanation) that I had just driven 7 hours, slept on the floor of a friend, flown across the country, and then driven 4 hours, all the time believing that Nmother might have already died by the time we got there - I know, I know - at that point it was somehow important...)  This sister saw WWW's "pain" at not being greeted properly, but did NOT see my exhaustion - she kept saying, "But you didn't look exhausted..."  Really???  How is that even possible?  I know that I'm a magnificent specimen of elderly womanhood, but really?  I was literally folding in half from exhaustion.  But she couldn't see it!  That, my friends, is invisible. 

Another VD survived!

No, that does NOT mean what you probably think it means... It's Valentine's Day for those of us who didn't see that marrying familiar is NOT a good option.  This post won't make much sense to those of you who got healthy enough to not choose someone who sort of looked like the opposite of what your family was - and then turned out to be waaaay too similar.  I didn't marry an N - I suppose I'm grateful for that, although I might have gotten out early if I had.  I married a passive-aggressive, who also now has a type of dementia.  He cried over dinner tonight, telling me that someone who works at the home told him that if he thought he was lonely in his room at the home, he should think about her alone in her apartment.  When he'd finished crying, I reminded him that his wife was also living alone.  He just looked at me and then said that he was sad about that, too (but without tears)...  Honestly... And I need to talk to that woman now, too...  Boundaries, people - boundaries!!!

But the good news from the week is that I went to a nutritionist who determined that I have an underactive thyroid in addition to a couple of other things and I'm taking iodine drops.  OMG, I have so much energy - and it's not the type of energy that  I've had for decades - the kind where I PUSH myself to get done what I need to do - this is an ABUNDANCE of energy and I can get an amazing number of things done!!  But I'm also calm - not anxious, not nervous - calm and energetic - what a combination!

On balance, the week's been good.  And there won't be another VD for 364 days - hurrah!!! 

Worth all the pain!

This process has been long and difficult, but honestly, it's been soooo worth the effort.  The Protector of the WWW and her Flying Monkeys has been visiting for the past week and we've had a good time.  There have been moments, of course.  She's asked questions and I've answered them honestly, which has usually stopped all conversation for a while, but I don't offer  additional information unless she asks more, which she doesn't...  She asks but really doesn't want to know... I've held my ground, protected my boundaries, and have mostly enjoyed our visit.  Now, of course, I have to see if she can honor her commitment to not spread information about me to the crazy triumvarite...  If not, there won't be a repeat visit.  Best part:  no anxiety!

Therein lies madness!

The most crazy-making thing about dysfunctional family roles is their immutability – and if you leave your role because it was in its nature a sucky role, you’ll be emotionally beaten up by N’s and their ilk.  Aack!  And thus NC came into being….  Honestly, I’m beginning to think that having relationships with most of my sibs – ANY kind of relationship- might just be impossible.   We’re old and N’s get set in their ways early – and those who’ve catered to them forever just can’t work up the courage to start saying NO.  The Nsister who controls the family is a scary person – if you met her, you might think she is sweet and caring, but upon closer inspection,  those of you who know N’s will realize that she is manipulative, whiny, a martyr to her kids, a gossip, and generally a witch.  She rounds up posse’s to handle those who aren’t in the “Circle of Power” and conveniently “forgets” the hateful things she’s done to the outcasts.  Her Protector always believes her, of course, and chastises those who wander from the herd or “hurt” the Nsister.  

I know I’m mixing metaphors all over the place, but bear with me…   So – the N and her flying monkeys aren’t worth considering relationship with – it can’t happen if I’m to maintain my sanity…  That leaves the Protectors, who haven’t shown much courage, so if push comes to shove, I suspect that they MUST honor their roles – not much chance of any sort of trusting relationship there…  One Nbrother was a secondary GC – nope. And a sister who was a sibling scapegoat looks remarkably like an N herself – how did that happen???  Often, the scapegoats are the ones who get out!  I’ve tried – and I think the time has come to stop trying and just accept that I have only one real sibling with whom I can share my life without having to worry that information is going to be broadcast in the Nfamily.  Sigh.  Acceptance is good – there’s really no point in trying to see something that isn’t there – therein lies madness!!!