On Marriage and Family

So many times this past week I had such scathing things to write about my husband - I was so frequently pissed or frustrated. But by the time I start to write it I no longer feel it. So I erase it.

This weekend he was supposed to take the girls on a camping trip. I could tell early on he was looking for a way out. If they didn't do this, or if they keep that up, .... nobody will be going anywhere.

Friday a teacher called to say 10 had been disruptive and out of control on her own during her sisters v-ball practice and game. Turns out she was wrong - and I have witnesses who say it was two other girls. But before we knew that, and certainly before H thought of every checking into it, this blew "this weekend all to hell!" Thankfully that was overcome, but not without my having to endure eons of ranting.

Today while preparing to camp - having delayed it one night already much to the girls disappointment - we discovered a MAJOR oil leak in the Honda. Mr. Gloom and Doom went on and on and on about how just when you think you're getting ahead, something slams you back down into the black hole. Or something to that effect. Ranting about car repair costs, gas costs, poor him, yadda yadda.

Not much I could do but sympathize. It's not that it doesn't affect me, but what good does that gloom and doom crap do?

Anyway I digress. The point is I was not too fond of him at that point. I was frankly tired of having to try to keep the boat afloat. I'm tired of him overreacting and acting like everything only happens to him.

But I supported. I encouraged. I sympathized. Because I knew that's what he needed. I could have bought into it all, but I didn't. Eventually he realized that its not the end of the world. The truth is we've been here before. We've been where we thought we'd lose it all - including our sanity - and we bounced back. True we have more to lose, but when we stick together we can't really lose everything. At least not the things that truly matter. The important thing is that we REMEMBER what IS TRULY IMPORTANT. Each other and our family.

Peace,
Me

Confession

I confess I ate two peices of lemon cake after having tortellini and the thickest most fattening alfredo sauce ever. Now I'm not so much enjoying the pinot grigio i splurged on. darn.

CRRRRRRRRAP!

Friday was HELL DAY!!! I have not had such a terrible awful rotten no good very bad day since....I don't know when.

It was one of those days where one thing after another happens and happens and happens again, each thing taking me in another direction, causing increased anxiety and stress, adding stacks and stacks of files and paperwork and deadlines and pressure to me and my life. I just wanted to run away!

Just when I thought I could start to dig my way back to the bottom, during the last hour of the day, someone drops a bomb.

I check my messages and this client says he wants to talk to my supervisor. CRAP! That's ALL I need. First I will say that I am largely at fault for the issue, I and my procrastination and avoidance. Second I will say that I have not done nearly all that I could or should have in any sense of the time it should have taken me.

BUT....this particular person happens to speak very very very little english. Speaking to him is incredibly frustrating because he acts like he understands what I'm saying, we shake hands, he leaves. Then an hour later he'll be calling me upset wanting the information I just gave him when he was in my office.

If he calls and leaves a message and my voice mail message states that I am out of the office and says when I will return - he gets upset that i haven't returned his call even though the message says I am out of the office. This is because he doesn't really understand what he's heard. This has certainly been the case lately as I've been out of the office every damn chance I get.

Additionally I can't really understand him. He gets angry when I gently say that I'm sorry but I just can't understand what he's saying, and we keep trying. I try to go through his wife, but this just pisses him off. His culture is one where the wife is somewhate subservient and he flat out says it makes him angry that I can't understand him, but how is that my fault?

Therein lies my only justification for the ongoing difficulties - and that's only a 1/4 th of the issue. The other 3/4 lie with me alone.

SO. I start to send my boss an e-mail to give him the heads up because he's out of the office. Because so much stuff keeps happening, the phone doesn't stop ringing, people keep stopping in, etc. I am not finished with it by the time he arrives back in the office and I find out that the "heads up" has now become an afterthought because he's already heard from the guy.

I hate this. I hate being called on the carpet. I hate it because all I have are excuses, because I deserve it and it forces me to face the fact that I am failing ..... HUGELY. It creates such a level of stress and anxiety in me that I just want to run home to my family and disappear with them.

Thankfully he gets sidetracked with a phone call and I have to leave to get the baby from daycare. Praise Jesus that it happened on Friday afternoon and I have the entire weekend to escape and hide out.

Unfortunately today is Monday and I'm back. He isn't right now, but eventually I will fricking have to face up to it. I drove here this morning finally realizing that i really have to quit. I have to find some other job before I've completely burned my bridges here and end up fired and unable to get another job. After all, I didn't win the lottery....again.

My first e-mail of the day ~ not from Boss, which is a good sign that he's not pissed at me and is buying my pathetic excuses. But it's from another client I have sorely neglected and she is pissed. Happy Fricking Monday. I buy time saying I'm on my way into a meeting and I will call her as soon as I'm out of it.

But now my pathetic lack of organization has me searching for a stupid phone number so I can call the people she needs to connect with so I can set up an asap meeting to get her issue taken care of. I am an idiot.

All I want in this life is to be able to stay home and take care of my family - I hate going to work every single day. I lose sleep every single night thinking of it.

So today, again, I'm avoiding the phone - letting it go to voice mail. I know someone on the other end has a question I'm not prepared to answer, or is pissed off at something I haven't done due to avoidance issues. And I'll check voice mail over and over and call back the people I can handle and try to come up with some results for the people I can't...before I call them. The usual.

I just want to be at home with my baby where I feel safe and in control and happy.

To heck in a handbasket....

that's where my good feeling went yesterday after H got home. Ugh. :-(

Came home, checked in w/the kids, cleaned up, tidied up, emptied and reloaded the dishwasher, washed the cookie making dishes left by H from the night before, tried to figure out what to cook for dinner, fed the baby, sat down with the girls to go over a new afternoon schedule that will have them prepping the kitchen so it's clean when I get home, went to the store (H came home while I was gone), started dinner, continued to tend to the baby.

H sat and talked with the girls in the living room, never coming to tend to the baby as she fussed and cried while I cooked and set the table. After asking what was for dinner, he complained and I - being irritated already by the fact that he was lounging while I hadn't had a moments rest - replied that the personal shopper hadn't done the grocery shopping and my personal chef didn't show up today or leave a menu.

He finally comes in and sits on a stool near the baby's bouncy chair. He tells me stuff about his day - doesn't ask about mine. He asks if I've fed baby any rice cereal and I reply not yet, he seems irritated by this and asks why not, I explain "if he wants to, that's fine - but I'm currently busy preparing dinner for everyone else." he makes no move. So while things are simmering and heating I make some and hand it to him to feed to her.

Dinner's done and I serve up plates for the girls. H makes his plate and goes to the living room to watch tv and eat. I'm left with the baby....as usual. So I wait. He leisurely finishes his dinner and doesn't offer to take the baby so I hand her to him and comment that I'd like to eat too. He leaves his dirty dishes on the coffee table.

He follows me into the kitchen with the baby while I make my plate of food and reheat it as it's cooled by now. I hate that. Take her outside or at least don't make her stare at me and whine while I'm trying to eat. I feel compelled to wolf down my food and take her back.

With me she remained the rest of the night - with no attempt by him to parent her in any way, even when I left her alone to cry a few minutes here and there.

With him upstairs in his clothes in bed watching tv with the girls, I clean up after dinner, put away leftovers, start up the dishwasher, make some bottles for the next day, make sure the diaper bag is packed, get my pump set up for the early a.m. pump, do some laundry, fold some laundry, clean up, tidy up.

Then he comes down for cookies - makes some snarky remark about my negative attitude and how it isn't any good for the kids or the baby. (I muttered quite a bit in irritation during the previous hour) I counter that 90% of everything that comes out of his mouth is a complaint and that he criticises us all in the morning instead of saying good morning. He goes back upstairs.

I feed the baby, rock her to sleep - she's fussy and I haven't even had a chance to say goodnight to the girls even though it's 9:00 and they're in bed.

I put her to bed, get on my pj's, he snarks at me again, and I decide I can't stay in the room with him so I wash my face and go back downstairs to veg in front of the boob tube until I'm good and tired.

This morning - I'm up at 5:19 with the baby. Normally that's when I pump...then feed her an hour or so later. If I feed her first I won't be able to pump enough for her last feeding at daycare today. So I'm in the middle of the living room hooked up to a double breast pump, standing bent over, with one foot on the base of her bouncy chair bouncing it, with disney cartoons on the tube to keep her calm until I can feed her. 6 oz. later I unhook myself and feed her.

Bag the milk, finish packing the diaper bag, put a load of laundry in, wake up 10, take the baby into the bathroom with me while I shower, get myself ready, feed the baby again, hand off the baby to 13, finish getting ready.

By this time H has gotten up and taken a shower - he stops to make some negative comment to me about something I don't even remember - probably how much noise we make in the morning while he's trying to sleep. Then he goes down stairs, makes his coffee, and sits down in the comfy chair and watches the news or MTV while H drinks his coffee and "energizes" for the day. Not, of course, without bitching at the girls and telling them everything they've done wrong so far this morning.

Soon they are upstairs with me avoiding H.

Finally I get my purse, pump bag, bottles, diaper bag, the kids, and their gear into the car. Off to daycare to drop off the baby, then the kids go to school, then I stop and pay the water bill, then off to work.

Ok - whose carrying the fricking burden here? Who has a right to be grouchy and who doesn't? Who is totally not appreciated?

Back to Bad E-mails

Okay - I'd said something earlier about this misinterpreted e-mail. James suggested that would be grounds for putting this person last on the list for responses or action from this point forward and I explained that I couldn't do that since this person had a position of authority over a corporate certification. So I ate crow. But, at my bosses suggestion I wrote her to ask if I'd somehow offended her or if I was misreading her e-mail. She completely ignored my e-mail and never responded. That says enough and I didn't push it.

NOW....my boss just says to me that this person denied our recertification, but doesn't yet know on what grounds. This is the first time that we've been denied certification ever and I've done the last three applications. So this has the potential to reflect directly on me.

Although the information is asked for in different formats, it's basically the same information. Only the narrative about our related activities and community support changes because there are always new activities and projects and partnerships. So the content shouldn't be any grounds for denial. There may be one possible exception to that - one small item - which would in no way be my fault.

I'm wondering if the denial is just her pulling a control move because she's pissed at me for God knows what reason. I didn't include the asterisk next to the required information like she asked??? I didn't label something correctly??

Either way I said right off the bat that someone else needs to follow up on this because she clearly has some issue with me about which she is unwilling to communicate. So I guess boss is doing that.

Here's what I wrote her to inquire about the "tone" of her e-mail:

Your last message has really been on my mind. As I wasn’t sure if I was reading it right I shared it with my Director and he suggested I go ahead and ask you about it.

Did I do something to upset you? The initial message from you asking for clarification didn’t sound at all upset, but this last one seems to have a tone of annoyance or sarcasm. Please let me know what could have caused this shift in tone during our communications yesterday.

I’ll be glad to make any correction or clarification necessary.

Thanks,

Ok - I admit, I did add in the part about sharing it with my Director so she'd know that someone else in authority was aware of what she'd said and was watching the situation. But still - come on - did I f__ up? Would this be enough for someone to pull a total control move and cancel a certification on which we depend for contracts???

I'm so ticked off I just want to scream.

GRRRRRRR! I can't wait for this darn day to end so I can go be with my kids.

Feeling Better???

just came from therapy and am feeling markedly better. after days and days of just random crying at the drop of a hat and without a seconds notice, i made it through a whole therapy session without a tear or a whimper. yay me!

h did his homework for my therapy session.....sort of. he was supposed to write a list of all of his complaints, categorically, re: the house, the kids, work, our relationship, etc. He wrote pretty much one broad complaint about each and i think mixed one in about me with something else. i didn't keep a copy and K kept it for the file. something about "mind games". i can't say yay or nay....maybe i do...probably....maybe i dont. on some level i guess i do. but i KNOW we all do.

i didn't realize how much just talking about things in a protected environment, when its all about me, really thoroughly helps. it energizes, lifts the spirit, provides some level of clarification and validation about what i'm feeling. it's good. a general feeling of positivity and hope arises.

still i feel like she may be oversympathizing with me. it makes me hold back a bit from the full extent of venting i might like to do about h because i dont believe, and dont want her to believe, that he is 100% of the problem and i am perfect. its just that its my session and it can be about me, so she's just hearing my side. so - if K ever reads this, i hope she understands that i just don't want to be let off the hook while H is left on.

so - if i havent already said it there is one major issue that we've been coping with. 10 had a mental breakdown that is reminiscent of an anxiety or panic attack. it has persisted for over a week - not in attack state, but the general anxiety symptoms. it's so rough for her. i'd take all of those feelings on myself in a second if i could. it's so crushing to see her suffer the way she is. she's too young and too small to have to cope with this.

she can still function day to day ~ go to school, play with friends, eat, sleep, do homework, etc. But through it all she is masking the constant "bad feeling" that compells her to desperately search for and confess any deed, thought, or word that she feels she's done or used for a wrong purpose or in a wrong way. it's very OCD.

every night is fraught with anxiety, worry, self doubt, confessions, jitters, lack of peace, racing thoughts, stomach aches, restlessness.....it's torture.

i have to admit that at times ive grown a bit tired of hearing the confessions. they always start the same. "i have to tell you something....but its embarrassing..." but she has such a difficult time saying it that i usually have to guess while she gives me hints. sometimes she can write it down. or this morning i suggested going one word at a time until i can finish the sentence. sometimes it's something so miniscule i can't imagine how it could have been embarrassing or hard to say or even worrisome. it grows tiresome. sometimes i just want to say "enough already!! - keep it to yourself!" of course i don't.

at this point i dont believe all that she says. it seems like the "bad feeling" started first, then she felt like she'd done something wrong and tried to figure out what it was. then she confessed it and felt better. but the bad feeling came back. since confessing worked before, she decided to try it again. thats how it became a pattern. now i think she's to the point that shes just making up stuff or confessing to things that shes only THOUGHT about doing as if she's really done them just for the sake of trying to get those few moments of relief.

things i need to do. figure out some sort of schedule that keeps her structured and in a routine, reduces chaos, encourages family meals together, minimizes television and pc, gets her AND the family out for walks daily, and helps her to refocus.

whew. that took care of any good feeling i had to start with :-)

Peace

Baby Breakdown

Friday 10 called me at work ...... she was hysterical and I couldn't understand her even after she repeated it 2 or 3 times. I told her I'd call her right back from a different phone - thinking it was a prob w/my cell. I called her right back and still could hardly understand her. When I could ~ it was something so far from whatever I imagined it could be.

It could have been that she hates it when Aunt is over taking care of her because all she does is watch tv. It could have been that Daddy gave her a list of chores to do. It could have been that she wasn't allowed to do something. It could have been any of the every day things that might usually cause a 10 year old to overreact and act like it's the end of the world.

But it was big. It made me speechless. I stammered through my response just dumbfounded and profoundly saddened at how awful she was feeling about herself. I did my best to talk her through it and she seemed remarkably calm.

She called again a few minutes later and then I said "I'm coming home right now." I couldn't care less about work now.

Mean time H comes home and calls me and I fill him in - but don't tell him what she said, just that I was coming home to be with her and to talk to her about a personal issue. He calls back to say she confided in him and they also talked it through but she still wanted me to come home. I was halfway there.

I get home and hug her and tell her it will be ok. Then I find out that my sister also dug in. That actually pissed me off. At first I thought 10 just sought her out, but I came to learn that Sis would not let it drop until she heard what was going on. WRONG person to tell. Now Grandma will know and Uncle, etc. But, still I'm glad that she had so many people to talk to. I just wish she'd stayed out of it.

So we took a walk, we went for a swim, we read together, we hung out. She said now "she felt free."

But it continued. Each day she would confess something - some miniscule thing, maybe from over a year ago. Some dishonest thing or inappropriate thing. She kept saying how she felt like she wasn't telling us everything, but she didn't know why. She didn't know why she felt like that because she couldn't think of anything that we needed to know.

I mean, she was in tears confessing to having "taken" a tiny (1/4" at most) plastic figurine from the home of a friend of the family because she was jealous of their two little kids. It was literally not anything special - it was a piece of junk. Some plastic toy accessory thing. She felt so horrible.

Ok - at first I thought she really had felt horrible about the first thing....which I'm not going to explain. But then I came to realize that she didn't know why she felt horrible. But she'd felt such relief, although temporary, from the first discussion and confession, that I think she was hoping to get rid of the feeling altogether if she just kept confessing things.

Then I figured out that this is Anxiety. This is a true anxiety disorder at play. Anxiety can't be pinned down or explained and so a person tends to apply blame to whatever occurrence or situation or circumstance that seems plausible. In her case she feels horrible about herself for no apparent reason so she's coming up with everything she could ever have done "wrong" and confessing to it to try to overcome the horrible feelings.

Note to self: I should explain that if you do something that you know is wrong, you should feel bad. That's how you know it was wrong and not to do it again. But not forever.

Today was the first day back to school. Last night she was up until almost 11 continuing to confess to me about everything. We had talked about the possibility of therapy to learn tools to deal with and overcome feelings of anxiety. We talked more about it then. She seemed to feel better.

This morning she seemed fine and then....she broke down. She couldn't face school. She felt disgusting. She felt sick. She had this stinging feeling in her head. Couldn't she skip, just today?

No. I knew if she skipped today, she'd still feel it tomorrow. So I said I would stay with her as long as she needed. I did. I also talked w/her principal and her teacher to give them the heads up about how badly she was feeling. An hour into class she was happy and settled and waved me away.

But now I'm a mess. Now I'm so worried about her.

I hate working.