36 years of pain

Wed is my birthday. I will be 36 years old and I will have spent the majority of those 36 years trying to make people like me, love me, or at least respect me. Hell in some cases I'd settle for just seeing me, me as I really am, without changes, or conditions. Lately, it has all come to a head. I got married to someone my family disapproves of. This new act of disloyalty, as it has been seen, has brought on a fresh bout of rejection, and pain. See, I have know for some time that my parents and sister love me out of family duty, but, for the most part don't like me, or see me as very capable, or strong. While I am sure I have played that roll at times, I am not the girl they think I am. All of my life, I have tried in vain, to find that unconditionalness I want so badly. Romanticly, always choosing the guy that keeps me at arms length. I have battled depression and anxiety for a long time because of this constant feeling of rejection. Lately, it feels as though it is breaking me though, like I am turning into that unstable, easily wounded little girl that my family has always seen me as. I lash out in rage at anyone who reminds me how "unimportant" I am. How unworthy of love, respect, and acceptance I am. Friends, my new husband, even my daughter and step daughter are feeling the after shocks. Afterward, I am ashamed. I hate the way I act, the way I drive people away when I need them the most. I hate myself for giving in, for losing control of my actions and emotions. I hear the voices from the past echo in my head
"you are over reacting"
"you are too sensitive"
"What is wrong with you?"
"it was a joke, knock it off"
"I never know how you are going to interpret what I say to you."
All of it implying I am the problem. I am the one to blame. I have begun to believe it now. I have begun to believe I am out of control, emotionally disturbed, unstable, and at fault. It has eaten away at me for 36 years, and now I am unstable, and I do hate myself. I blame myself, and I am convinced I am not deserving, or able to get the type of love and compassion I crave. I am in an endless cycle of hating myself for becoming the person they told me I should not be....I am weak. I scream and cry like a child throwing a temper tantrum, but in the end, no one comes to comfort me, and I feel less and less important or ok with each tear, and I have begun to fall apart.

Anatomy of a Breakdown

I have been delicately balancing sanity verses insanity, busy verses overwhelmed, and emotional verses hysterical for several weeks now. Then I collapse on the bed, sobbing and gasping for air, then sobbing some more. I am scared and desperate to get myself under control. Finally, I become numb and am able to move again. The panic comes in waves now, and without warning. My mind is spinning and I am overwhelmed by it all. I try to reach out for help, but the worlds I have fail me, and new words can not be pulled from memory as my every thought becomes jumbled. I feel like the weight of the world is upon me, and I am crumbling beneath all the things that used to bring me happiness. I am angry. I am scared. I am frustrated. I begin to lash out. My temper becomes short and I am not able to tolerate noises, and my skin feels like it is crawling. "Why does no one see me? Why does no one help, offer me comfort, offer me safety?" I am angry with them all, and I am yelling more loudly now, then I am SCREAMING. It is as though I am sitting helplessly as I watch reason and ration escape me. And all at once, I am screaming as loud as I can and I am hitting someone I love. The rage fills me to a degree I can not explain. My words are full of hate and venom. I am full rage. "SHUT UP! I HATE YOU! YOU ONLY CARE ABOUT YOURSELF!...." The words escape my lips almost before my head comprehends them. In my head there are screams of frustration. Screams of pain, and the overwhelming need to feel loved and important. Yet, yet I can not stop the rage that is pushes people away. I go to the only coping mechanism I have left, and I turn my anger on myself. I begin to cut myself as a form of release. As the flames begin to die, the anger turns to shame, and pain, and fear. I begin to sob, and just like the rage, the sorrow overwhelms me quickly. In no time at all, I am hysterical. The following day, I feel the physical affects. My arms are cut and stinging, There are bruises I don't remember getting, and all of my muscles ache. My head pounds from the tension and strain of all the emotion. I replay scenes in my mind and fill with guilt over the things I have done and said. I wonder what is wrong with me? Why can I not control this? I feel weak and crazy. I am embarrassed, and I don't want anyone to know how out of control I am. This is not me. This is not who I am. I am better than this. I am stronger than this. Why can't I do this? Why can't I control this? I am terrified now. I desperate as I am to control these emotions, I am terrified of my own darkness. I have been done this path before and it made me feel pathetic and sad. People took pity on me, or saw me as someone who needed to be handled with kid gloves or someone who needed to be fixed. I am NONE OF THOSE THINGS and I refuse, I REFUSE to allow myself to be seen that way. Now, what I ask myself. I know I can need help. I know I will continue to spin out of control until something interrupt my momentum, but asking for help will let other people know I am weak. So I continue to walk that line of sane verses insane, busy verses overwhelmed, and emotional verses hysterical, knowing that any little shift will throw me off balance once again.

AHHHHHHHHHHH I AM ANGRY

I realized yesterday that much of my life, and mood lately has been based on anger. As has much of Chucks. Not even angry with each other, though there has been some of that, but anger at his ex, anger at the situation, and anger at the "unfairness" of life. Yesterday I sent 16 text messages in a 10 minute time spand to my BFF. All of them in tirade form. Here are a few snippits (please keep in mind, especially if you are Chuck that I was venting to a friend)

My comments About Chuck:

 Omg! Omg! Omg! They took chuck off his meds and I am ready to kill him! My dog 
hit her head and there is blood on it

We ran out of gas this morning on the way to work. Then he was late picking me 
up and I am STILL not sure y he had to drive me in the 1st place

 I walk in the house all 3 of them talking at once and I ask chuck why the front 
door is unlocked and he says "here honey come in here"

So I go in the kitchen and he says " let me help u out. Here ya go" and hands me a frying pan

 I think he was joking but I nearly kicked his ass

My comments about Chuck's ex:

I am so fucking sick of thinking about this woman

So fucking sick of hearing about her

So fucking sick of debating what's wrong w/ her

Where is she? What is she doing? Is she high?

What did she do to the kids?
 
Since chuck and I met off and on over and over
 
Well now girly is safe so who fucking cares what she does? Where she is? Y does 
this still effect MY day to day?
 
 
While I am not the kinda girl who is afraid to throw the occasional f bomb,
I would not consider myself the kinda gal who curses like a sailor. Yet
 I am finding that word entering my vocabulary more and more. No other 
word seems to allow me to express exactly HOW agitated I am, truly.
Between the Adderall, the actual 
stress of the situation, and his PTSD Chuck is...well...last night I 
compared him to an injured animal that has been backed into a corner. He
 is defensive, and scared all the time. It makes it hard to talk to him 
reason with him, and knowing he is already feeling upset, I don't want 
to then dump all my angry feelings on top of his. He is switching to 
Ritalin today, and we are hoping that helps lessen the aggression and 
agitation he is experiencing, as well as, bring down his overall anxiety level. We have seen a difference as he has tapered hid dose down.

Now I believe that there is more 
than one type of anger. There is the type that pushes you, moves you to 
do more, make changes, move forward, grow. It is warranted, it is 
legitimate. It motivates you make the world, your world better. It 
empowers you. Then there is the type of anger that holds you down, 
weighs on you, and keeps you stuck in a continuing downward spiral. This may start as legitimate, but then take on a life of its own. This anger is locked inside you burning, eating away at you. So the question becomes what will you do with your anger? This
 is what I struggle with the most. I am so convinced from my past 
experiences that I have no voice, that no one care, and that my feelings
 don't matter that I don't know what to do with intense feelings when I 
have them. That in and of itself makes me angry and I begin to fester, 
until my mind and body can no longer subdue it and I explode, but then I
 just feel ashamed, out of control, and crazy. And on top of that 
whomever I am angry with, will never hear me when I am screaming and out
 of control, making whatever legitimate hurt they may have caused 
secondary to my current actions, which in turn (at least in my slightly 
maladjusted thought process) re-enforces to me that my feelings are 
unheard, illegitimate. Now I am stuck. While, in the beginning I may 
have been trying to use the anger to move myself forward, I have now 
made it into a my own downfall. 
Today I found this blog/ article on
 PsychCentral, complete with a link to a page of questions to help 
change the way you look at anger in your life.

Therapist-within learning from anger

The Fight

I woke up this morning feeling like I hardly slept at all, though I know I did. Maybe it is the depression maybe it was all the anti-anxiety meds I took yesterday. Whatever it is, it is becoming a regular occurrence. I walk around like everything around me is just happening, like I'm not an actual participant in my own life, more an observer, and an observer who is watching through a fog none the less.

After about 30 minutes and a cup of coffee I begin to become aware of my body, and how it aches. It feels like I have whiplash, but I know there's been no accident. So I begin to retrace the last few days, because this is more than just my normal sore back. It is hard to move. I think about the rage I was in Friday night. I see myself hurling things across the room, pillows, my purse, whatever. I feel myself fighting Chuck as he tried to restrain me some. I wonder how out of control I truly was. I see bruises on my arms that I can't explain and I wonder if those came from me hitting things that night too. I see the scratches on my arms and I remember the day before,  fighting myself. I remember being bent over in the bathroom crying so hard. Every muscle tense and fighting the emotion. I feel my muscles remembering that tension. I remember my head throbbing once I calmed down. The truth is that I was so worked up through a lot of it that I am sure there is a lot I don't remember too. That scares me. What did I do? What did I say? Why can't I control myself more?

Even after all that exploded out of me, I can still feel it bubbling just under the surface. Like a controlled burn. Today as I was frustrated with Chuck over being late to get my daughter from her dad. I had to take more anxiety medicine, and really breath deep as the feelings of anger and rage began to rumble below the surface. I don't want to be a screaming maniac any more. I feel exhausted, guilty,  and small after each time I loss control. Ironically, I began having rages because I didn't feel important or heard. Now each time I have one I feel smaller and less like someone worth listening too.

Uhg I look at myself, my body, how upset Chuck was, and I feel stupid! I have made nothing better for anyone, and now I hurt physically as well as emotionally. I feel beat up in so many ways and it kills me to know I did it to myself. Why do I do this? You would think after 14 years of playing this game with myself I would have figured out a better way to deal with it. Yet it seems every time I start to spiral down I eventually hit the point of no return,  and even if I see it coming. Even if I am aware, and on my meds, and desperately trying to grab hold of something to stop myself from continuing down, I can't stop it. I end up scream, throwing  things and generally acting like the "crazy" person that I so desperately DON'T want to be.

Dealing with an Elephant

Tonight is an especially hard night. I had a bad day at work, also a busy and exhausting day. All I wanted to do was come home to my happy little family, or at least what I thought was my happy little family. When I got home Chuck had cleaned up and had dinner made. My daughter ran out to meet me in the driveway with a hug. It seemed like just the retreat from my crazy day that I was needed. But then the tide turned and my daughter started acting crazy and testing my nerves. As soon as I got her to bed and came downstairs to finally spend some time with Chuck, the thing I was looking forward to all day, he starts in on me about the house and the dogs. Seemed as though he had been storing it up all evening...of course I get pissed and throw a loose my temper, because frankly that is what I do best. all said and done, I feel horrible and I am alone. crying.

I am thinking about my old habits of cutting, but knowing that is not an option I just crying and hoping the sleeping meds kick in soon.

The truth is I kinda saw this coming. Chuck is home a lot now that he is not working, our house is less than organized and the animals are a handful. It is hard to take care of a house, pets, dinner, and help raise a child. Lots of stay at home moms and dads will tell you that. It is normal to feel burnt out or just flat out get tired of taking care of everyone. I try to tell him over and over how grateful I am, but I know from experience, some times even that doesn't help. Likewise, it is hard to work all day then come home to all the needs of the house and family. There is a lot of pressure to make the small family company I work for...well, work. Since it is our only income currently.

Meanwhile, I have felt myself feeling less and less stable as of late. I have rages. They generally happen when I have tried all my coping mechanisms without results, and/or I am totally overwhelmed and tired (ie- my tool bag is empty). Currently, I feel all of the above. I feel myself ready to fly off the handle at any given moment. I am also finding myself feeling increasingly depressed. It is like I see the tailspin coming, but I can't seem to pull out of it. The fighting is increasing with Chuck, and my normal calm mothering style is more erratic. There is more yelling over all and it makes me feel like a horrible partner and mom. How can I expect to raise a happy healthy kid if I can't deal with my own emotions? It breaks my heart, and makes me feel more helpless and weak. What do I do? How do I regain control of my own emotional well being? I have counseling on Friday. I hope to be able to get a plan together. So far it seems all she has been able to do is help me through one crisis after another. I am tired of crisi and constant drama! Where is my little slice of happy? My mental illness makes me feel weak and cazy in the most negative sense of the word. I hope that someone is ready this blog, and I hope it is someone like me. Someone, who will suddenly feel less alone, less weak, less crazy. And even if not, I am thankful to have this blog as an outlet tonight. I way to deal with my pain that makes me feel braver & stronger.