Controlling

For most of my adult life people have called me controlling but it was always with a laugh.  I saw it as a reflection on being in charge, directing traffic, knowing the information and planning ahead for everything. 

Yesterday I saw a note that said I was controlling and it was in a bad way and I saw that.  At first it hit me hard but as I reflected and did some reading I realized it was true. 

They say that being controlling comes out of a place of fear and can be deep rooted in things that happened to you.  Without going into a lot of detail, I had little to no control over my life growing up.  I always played the “helper” to appease those around me.  When I was 18 I was thrust into control.  I did pretty well until I got married.  I see that looking back.  All the old fears crept in.  I again became afraid that all of the negatives I had heard growing up would send my husband running away from me.  I would wake up every morning with a feeling of dread and urgency.  My mind would race through the list of people I cared about, pressing issues, needs and problems and anyone or anything that may need my attention for the day.  I would then think through everything everyone in my family needed to do and devise a plan to make sure that no one forgot anything so there were no issues later. I am a control freak.  I see that now.  I like to know what will or won’t happen.  I try to contain, predict, analyze and understand things more than I possibly can.  I over think every mistake.  If I mess up at work, my first thought is I would get fired; if I messed up at home, my first thought was my husband would leave; if I mess up with the kids, my first though is they will stay away from me.  The list goes on and on.  It is a losing game.  

I worked/work hard and have succeed at most everything I do.  However, it is hard for me to delegate.  I don’t like unassigned seating and I do not make a good passenger in the car.  Of course, I am really reliable, ambitious and I don’t lose tickets or keys or anything.  I adhere to deadlines and get stuff done. 

After 24 years of marriage and five kids I suddenly lost all that control. I fought it hard.  I fought so hard that I damaged relationships with my family.  The more anyone pulled away; left; shut down; the HARDER I fought for control.  I was expecting everyone to be patient with me and accept what I felt when I wasn’t patient and couldn’t even name what was going on. 

I think that what people don’t understand is that being controlling is not so much about the people around us as it is about us.  Weird I know but when I seek/sought to control how everyone was going to get to a place or coordinating all the different schedules to a tee--it was not all about making sure they got there on time and safely.  It was because I was afraid someone would be late and it would reflect poorly on me; it was because I feared if I left it to someone else if something went wrong I would be blamed; the list went/goes on and on.  It became so ingrained. 

I didn’t want to see that my controlling behavior was a mask for fear and anxiety.  How that the times in my marriage and in raising my kids when I had no control made me grip harder and control harder and that being that way has damaged my relationships. 

Today, I’m going to work on changing my pattern of behavior.  I’m going to do this for ME, for my kids and my family.  I am not going cold turkey…but baby steps to make sure I change the pattern of behavior rather than just mask it.   

Positivity - it is a word - I'm just using it as a verb and not a noun...

It is becoming increasingly difficult for me to write.  Write anywhere - in my journal, my blog, facebook, emails.  I have to wonder how dissecting my life and day helps because I seem to be able to only do it negatively.  I can't focus on my share of the last 28 years or the positives.  Something that in my daily life and with my words I am actively trying to do.  I know what I need to change.  I know what I need to do and wonder if actively doing that is more productive?  I have created so much negativity in my life that I'm tired.  I know what went wrong.  Do I really need to know the how?  The why?  There were some really good things that came out of the last 28 years so do I really need to look backwards at everything?

There are many hurts out there on all sides.  I feel like I should move ahead rather than returning to the well to try and pick up drops of water out of a 28 year bucket.  I need to learn to write with more positivity; to see the good that happened; to learn to intellectually (not just emotionally) accept the past and embrace the future.  Just as the worst I have done, said, thought and believed does not make up ME it does not make up my life.  I have had and still have GOOD and I choose to live that.

My favorite lines in this song:

All of these lines across my face
Tell you the story of who I am
So many stories of where I've been
And how I got to where I am

by Brandi Carlile

I have loved.  I have been loved.  I still have love to give.  I have been broken. I have broke.  I am not the worthless I have felt. I am not the hate I have felt and projected. I WILL NOT STAY THE BROKEN GIRL.  I am laying all my shattered pieces down.  I am accepting my part in life and letting the stars shine through my eyes.  

Three years...

Much of my life has offered "trauma/drama" in bulk.  It isn't one thing but a series that last for a long time.

Three years ago this week I was accused of stealing money from a non-profit.  We were advised that if we just paid what they said nothing could happen.  We paid, we walked away to make the pain stop.  It was devestating.  I had given almost 18 years to that organization as well as other non-profits and did so with the sole purpose of helping.  I should have left that organization a couple of years earlier, it had changed and was not in line with my ideals or goals.  This incident broke me.  I remember crying for at least three weeks.  I could not eat or sleep.  My then husband was angry.  My parents were angry.  My kids were angry.  My then husband wanted to seperate but his brother convinced him to stay.  Every outburst produced a new drug.  Every bone in my body hurt.  That produced another drug.  I couldn't sleep.  That produced another drug.  I couldn't stay awake.  That produced another drug.  At one point I was on 9 medications and 5 vitimins.  I slept walked through a hysterical year.  I couldn't think.  I screamed.  I was paranoid.  I was angry.  I needed human touch.  I needed someone to wrap me up and protect me from the world and myself.  I was TOO MUCH for everyone around me.  Those closest couldn't do it and those far away tried but it was never enough.  Every day was hurtful.  The sun hurt my eyes.  Noise hurt my head.  Quiet hurt my heart.  Slowly my world kept unraveling.  I only have journals, which are chicken scratch, to remind me.  Those in of themselves are heartbreaking.  To me and others who have admitted (and those who deny) reading them.  I seem to have hurt other people during this year but I also almost destroyed myself.

The end of childhood was approaching.  The last child was graduating and going off to college.  The 2nd and 3rd children were graduating college and moving into "adulting".  The plan was that we would work for a bit and save and then bee able to travel.  Pay off our bills and live a quiet life because we were young enough to still do things like hiking or traveling non-stop.

Things got worse toward the end of the first year.  I have since come to find out that 3 of the medications I was on were contra-indicated for each other - one of them made me balloon to 190 pounds and had me wound so tight I thought I would snap at any minute and most days I did.  My husband pulled further and further away.  At one point he has said "I just never knew which Pam I was going to get on any given day."

I was diagnosed with bi-polar II.  A diagnosis that today is disputed but we are exploring.  My ex-husband was seeing his own therapist.  He insisted I was not taking therapy seriously.  Maybe I was and maybe I wasn't.  Each person I saw wanted more medications and kept telling me my "husband" had one foot out the door and we needed to prepare me for life alone.  I would stop going and move on to someone else.  I didn't want to hear that.  However, even they saw the writing on the wall.

Two years ago this month, at some point, for his own reasons, which he will not tell me with any intellectual honesty, he filed for divorce.  He says he did it after an argument and in a fit of anger.  Reality is that when he left that morning he had taken his ring off and left it next to our bed.  That was a finality.  There was no thinking.  He filed for divorce that day.  He did tell me that night but for a long time I blocked that out and denied he told me.  I raged.  If I had cancer would he leave?  So I have a mental disorder and you leave.  It sounded great and pitiful and was all mine.  He left.  He came back.  He had some conditions.  I had to get a job to help with the debt.  I had to take therapy seriously (I was insulted by that because I knew I was.  Now I look back and realize I was looking for someone to tell me what I wanted to hear and how to fix it.  Not share reality with me. ) I think there was one more thing but for the life of me I can't remember.  I put out there he had to dismiss the divorce; put his ring back on and move back in.  We agreed.

It did not last long.  I became angry because he moved back in but didn't unpack.  He became just more sad and angry.  He wouldn't talk about it.  I found a therapist who I thought was great.  He helped me off the drugs and in our sessions I started to get a grip and felt better.  Then he suggested marriage counseling with him.  That lasted three sessions.  My "husband" suggested I might have Borderline Personality Disorder.  I was shocked.  He said someone told him about it and he researched it.  I fit almost all of the categories.  I raged that Bi-Polar had a lot of the same symptoms.  How dare he.  Every validation I got in my individual session was torn away in the couple session.  Things I shared with the therapist, he would put me on the spot to ask if he could share with my husband.  My world was being turned upside down again.  On the last session my "husband" announced that he was done and that it was over.  I was struck between stunned, anger, guilt, shame, rage and a tiny bit of relief.

He left.  It wasn't an honest leaving and certainly was not graceful.  In turn I cried.  I screamed.  I raged.  I shouted.  I cussed.  I told secrets to anyone who would listed.  I tried every guilt tactic I could.  I was not the bad guy here and everyone was going to know it.  I was uncouth and had no class or grace.  I even drug my children into it.

The emotions I felt are hard to describe.  I felt everything.  If you looked at me sideways, I felt it.  Everything.  He again had taken off his ring.  Saying that even if we were still married that because he was not living there he would not wear it.  He had done that earlier in the summer too.  It broke my heart.  He left the kids out of it.  He got everything new.  He got the good credit.  The new car.  The new furniture.  I was left everyday with the memories.  Remember when we bought the Tahoe?  Remember when we spent half a day picking out the bedroom suite?  Remember...Remember... everywhere I turned in the house was a 28 year reminder of LIFE.

Again, I did not do separation or divorce with any class or grace.  He became more immune to it as time went on.  He tried to help but every time I relied on him it made my "divorce crazy" worse.  I clung to it.  I could not let go.  Slowly as he became more tolerant and more patient, my kids became less so.

That was the end of the 2nd year.  The end of the 3rd year had produced a year of drinking regularly and in excess.  Having three different jobs.  Moving from the city I had lived in for 28 years back to my hometown.  Then another move out of the first apartment after the loss of the third job.  Every set back set me BACK.  Every step forward was not looked at.  Every slight kept alive like a lightening bug in a jar.  Every thing I didn't know about with him or the kids drove me crazy.  Why was I the center hub for 25 years but all of a sudden cut out?  I interrogated.  I over-shared.  I said things that can never be taken back.  I stalked.  I smiled.  I tried to talk and put pressure on everyone around me, especially my kids, about how great they were and had carried me and my burden.  I won't agree that I was abusive.  I was lost. I was hurt.  I had no tools to cope and my family and then my in-law family of 28 years had cut me out.  I was too much and lines were drawn.  Granted I was usually the one drawing them but they were drawn.  Every soothing word from my ex (because he was my ex at this point) just sent me over the cliff.  I rushed into everything...men, alcohol, jobs, spending.  You name it, I didn't do anything in moderation or with forethought.  Demanding inquisitions popped out of my mouth before I could stop them.  The further the kids and friends, but mostly kids, pulled away for their own sanity, the worse I got.

Recently a child said I was abusive and had Borderline Personalty Disorder.  I was shocked; hurt; angry.  I sat with it for awhile.  It isn't all true but there were probably times I fit into some abusive "now" category.  I did have moments during their childhood where I would explode. However, as a child I was never allowed to be expressive and when I was I was put into submission.  Things just built up.  What I guess hurt the most was that the children were my life.  I loved them heart and soul and still do.  I was not perfect but our kids did not suffer abuse like my ex and I did.  So for someone to say that so easily hurt.  It is my hurt but their right. I can only hope that one day they see that sometimes you do things in life that you can't control and looking back it may have hurt you but it was not intentional or done with malice and forethought.  I was doing the best I could with the tools, support and life matters they will never know about.

So now three years later...I am in a new job.  A new apartment.  Once again rebuilding my credit.  Learning to be mindful.  Learning to be an active listener.  Learning that everyone is entitled to their own feelings.  That everyone, including me is entitled to their past and their memories and feelings over those memories.  That everyone, including me will forgive and love again.  That damage may have been done but the water under the bridge has a way of smoothing the stones back out.

I am living day by day and doing it now medication free, only a couple of drinks a week, without guilt, with friends, with family, with God/Higher Power, with forgiveness for myself and others.  I am living day by day trying to be mindful and not forget the past but not dwell in it.  My purpose is not for everyone around me but for me.  I hope one day those I have hurt can forgive me.  I hope that one day I can be better and those in my life realize that I am worth it because the love I have to offer is greater than the breakdown I went though and may have pushed others too.  I hope one day I have the power to remember life as a breath of fresh air, the good and the bad, and live in peace.

The journey has been hard and as I dissect it further may be even harder but I feel ready to face things with honesty, compassion, mindfulness, love and grace.

Blessed but still Broken or bruised or...

I know that I am very blessed and in many ways.  I know that my life has not been and is not as hard as some I know and many whom I do not.  I also know that I am broken and some days I am worthless.  These are valid feelings and can't be measured against anyone else.  What may seem like your worst day I may handle with ease and vice versa.

I am still finding my baseline and how to handle things when I get triggered.  I am proud that I am doing it with only cigarettes and caffeine.  However, it will make life for those around me and who love and care hard.  If it is hard for you to watch just think how hard it is for me to handle the water that pulls me under.  My ex-husband aptly put it when he said "I don't know which "you" I am going to get on any given day".  At first that hurt, today it is just reality.  

Yesterday, multiple things happened that proved too much for me to handle and handle alone, even though I wasn't alone, I was physically here alone and felt like floating back into the ocean and had to fight it with every fiber of my being.  

Today, I had one thing that happened and handled it easily and without any thought.  This is MY LIFE.  I can only try on a day to day basis.  I can only not give up.

This is what I am trying to work on. 

Life has dealt me cards that I didn't ask for, want or need.  Life has dealt me who I am today.  Life has given me everyone in my life, for better or worse.  

I can't say and won't say "I'm sorry" anymore.  I have to let this out because I held it in for many years and probably did more damage.  I am broken, that is not a pity party or whatever you want to label it because it is easier, it is the truth.  I am trying to re-build all the pieces and maintain some dignity while doing it.  I pray for Grace through the process but that hasn't come yet.  

I read an article today from a Buddhist monk who said let it go, don't try and contain and control it.  It is only when I realize that I can't contain and control it that I will let go of IT containing and controlling me. 

I have an awful lot of WONDERFUL people in my life.  I lean on that daily.  I am greatful and thankful for it, but I do not need to be fixed.  I do not need to stop.  I do not need to be medicated.  I NEED to know the wonderful people are there; I need to learn my triggers and how to effectively deal with them; I need to re-build into who I was meant to be and not the broken person I was born as; I need to not contain and control this and take one day at a time and one broken moment at a time.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gHwHIHPs3U&list=PLTXQB8znEi3XquqbhuJoW-txTnqSbhHUC&index=16

WORTHLESS...

For the last two years, specifically, I have wanted to die. I won't do that - because it is the most selfish thing that can happen in life. I am however going to retreat and withdraw. I have nothing anyone wants or needs. I will just exist.

I hereby revoke every estate document except my DNR and all promises I have made to anyone.

I am not worthy and have not been since the day I was conceived. My sole purpose in life was to give birth to 5 kids who have grown up wonderfully despite me.

I cannot love nor be loved.

I am not deserving of life and have not been since the date of conception.

My life is not productive but that of a broken, unlovable, liar, cheat, thief, unlikable, attention seeking and all around horrible person. These are not the ramblings of a "crazy" mind but those of one thinking clearly and having examined my part in everyone's life.

I do not blame those in my life but myself because I was given so many opportunities to change all that karma had to throw at me. I squandered that and ruined the lives of all.

I will not be missed because I am not worthy. I will not be missed because I was never wanted - just tolerated. I will not be missed because...life does not miss people who are as broken as me and who seek not love but attention; who seek attention and not peace; who were never wanted and needed but just broken. I did not ask for this it was the life I was born into. I tried - maybe not as hard as I could or should have - but I tried to break the cycle of destruction and ended up only making it worse and being alone.

It would seem I did what I needed to and what God wanted - I carried and helped raise 5 wonderful, beautiful, successful kids. Now the world needs to take care of them because I didn't, couldn't and should have.

Help yourself to my belongings - they are worth nothing. Help yourselves to my memories because they are all I have and those memories include everyone who tried so hard to be there for me despite everything. As the World Turns...I will exist...I will...realize that I am nothing and everyone around me has had enough - including me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guaG981MLoQ&index=19&list=FLWXF2n9VsmpOrbEZk3t3Yag

Storms of Life

For at least the last seven years, I have been on one form of medication or another.  Hydrocodone, prednisone, methatrexate, sinus sprays, sinus medications (over the counter and prescription), at least five different antidepressants, a mood stabilizer, an anti-psychotic, an anti-anxiety medication, hormonal drugs, high blood pressure medication, insomnia medications, and vitamins of all sorts.  From July of 2014 until recently there were times I was on all of those at the same time.  We should, for intellectual honesty, also mention the "self medicating" I have done.

I can honestly say that for the first time in seven years, the only "drug" I am on is an Over 40 Women's Multi-Vitamin and today is my 11 day celebration.

I have been diagnosed with so many things but in the last 3 years, a major depressive episode resulting in a Bi-Polar II diagnosis.  I had a major depressive episode - was diagnosed and then drugged up.  I am not blaming anyone.  The professionals I saw did what they knew and thought was right.  I have been diagnosed by non-professionals with Border Line Personality Disorder and other "ugly" sounding things as well.

I honestly do not know if I have a mental disorder, am pissed off or just spent so much time wrapped up in being perfect and proving myself and then on so many medications that it all looked like something that it wasn't or isn't.

Did you know that the side effects of prednisone can mimic so many mental disorders? Then add in other drugs and the "cocktail" can become something it isn't.

The point of my "detox" is not to do anything other than determine a baseline.  For the first time in my life I really only have me to worry about.  Not that I don't worry about everyone else in my life, but my obligations are limited right now to me.  I have to figure out what is going on and why and I can't do that if I am forever on some "mood altering" drug.  Medications are good and necessary but a life altering event or events can mask what is really wrong and the wrong combination of medications can mask it even further (and we will leave talking about the realtional side effects of all that for another post).

So the journey down the path to finding out my life, past and present, has been started.  I'm fully detoxed from all the drugs/prescriptions and will put one foot in front of the other to find out who I am with a clear head.  If, in that process it is determined I need a medication I won't resist, it just has to be the right one and for the right diagnosis.

I have been labeled since conception.  This time if I get a label it will be because I pulled up my boot straps and figured it out instead of using everyone and everything as a crutch.

Two years...or longer?

Today is two years since life was forever altered and almost three years since the downward spiral of my life and marriage.  I’m not sure how I feel about it as I sit here today.  I don’t know exactly how it changed me.  Do the good changes outweigh the bad changes?  What if anything did I learn from it and if I did learn something was it productive or destructive.  Maybe both.  I spent last night reading journals of my interpretation of what was happening in my life.  I can’t say I was an active participant.  I was alone, emotionally and physically.  I was scared.  I was drugged out.  I had binges of anger.  I had binges of paranoia.  I had to write things down to remember them and to this moment I do not know how much of what I wrote was accurate or what my damaged mind interpreted it too.  I have essentially spent the last three years in a downward spiral in which my family and friends could not be around me.  They could not accept me.  They tried so hard to love me but they couldn’t and I made it harder for them to do and be all those things I needed.  Those who could give, couldn’t give enough.  I had damaged my world and my loved ones in a way that damaged who I was and who everyone thought I was. 

Somedays I am very angry over the entire scene.  No one sought help for me.  Oh I was told “you need medication”; “you need therapy”; “you need to eat”; “you need to sleep” and so on and so on.  However, no one actually intervened.  At one point I lost 25 pounds in 4 weeks; had slept about 15 hours in that 4 weeks and was on 9 different medications, many of which were counter-indicated to each other.  I had not stopped crying, crying hysterically for any length of time.  No one in my life saw the destruction to me that was happening and did anything.  There was no intervention.  No push for help.  No picking me up off the floor and seeking a way to help me. 

I am also sad about this.  Was I not worth the help?  Did I damage everyone around me so badly that not one person could help me in a medical, psychological or loving way?  How did the damage I suffered throughout my life put me to the point where no one could help me?  What would it have taken for my friends and family to load me in a car and have me checked out and in with professionals who could help me and maybe help them? 

Words…words and more words.  Words did not help me.  Questions.  Why did it get to the point where it was easier to walk away then deal with the issues?  Why were phrases like “I need to find myself”; “We are not where I thought we would be at this point in life”; “You have ruined relationships.”; “I don’t need to tell you anything.”; “I never know what you I am going to get on any given day”; easier to say than to help me?  How many times did I help others in my family?  How many times did I hold it all up and together for everyone around me?  Why were my failings so hard on me and everyone?  Is there an answer or did the world just fracture too much this time for anyone to hold it together? 

So much wrong and all the right went away.  I tried so hard to not see the world that way.  Every fault and failing and mistake, regardless of whose, I would rage against and get angry but eventually I accepted and took the apology and recognized the supposed shame and tried to heal myself and those around me because I believed, well no to a certain extent, I still believe, that someday if I ever needed it, those in my life could hold me together; be my glue; would rage against me but try and help me heal and accept and love me still.  I believed. 

Two years of wondering; of fighting; of screaming; of raging; of not getting “IT”  I  wonder if any of it is mine to get?  I wonder if this was the plan all along.  Not of his and not of mine but of the universe. 

I have to learn, again, that I am my own glue.  That I have to hold myself together.  I have to admit what I can’t handle.  I have to accept that there are a great many things that are not “mine” to handle.  I have to love me.  That I am responsible for me.  I cannot correct the past or the wrongs done by me and too me.  I can try to atone for them by being the Me I know I can be and the Me I want to be.  I can’t force anyone to forgive; to love me; to support me; to hold me together.  I can only be and accept that those in my life have to now be responsible to themselves as well and not to me and I have to be responsible to me so when I need to be there I can.