Friday, May 23, 2014

Failure to communicate

I had a visit with my doctor today and brought up the subject of PMDD. While he conceded that, yes, that could very well be the case and the anger I feel over things that might simply cause another to feel slightly annoyed, could be exasperated by the symptoms, he urged me not to dismiss the things that are actually going on in my life. Fine. I get it. While it would be nice to have one simple answer to all of my problems, nothing is ever simple. And by ignoring a problem we don't solve a problem. We only create more problems. I fucking get it. I'm not one to shy away from trying to fix something that is wrong. I'm not Irish. Not even a little bit.

Only there is no solving this problem. Once again, like a stupid fucking idiot, I used my voice. This is never a good thing. One because it causes that fucking sound to come out of his mouth. That sound of disgust. It's like a fucking knife in my back. I hate it. I can't even begin to describe how much I hate it. It ruins everything right then and there. Anything that I could have said in a normal rational way is out the window. And then the show begins. Nothing is ever solved.

I tried. That is the best I can do. I'm not happy with the way things are. I'm just not and it doesn't matter if it's two weeks before my period or during. Everything has changed so much from the way it used to be, and yes, I KNOW things change. I'm so fucking sick of hearing that. What if I didn't want it to? What if that is the kind of relationship I needed and not this? What if the house and the laundry and the shopping and the dishes and the waiting for the man to come home isn't what I fucking want? What if I want someone I can talk to who won't let out a sound of disgust? What if I want to discuss a book I read or a movie we saw. What if I want to be able to say what you did hurt me...without watching the eye rolls. Fuck that. And no I don't think I'm losing my mind right now, I just think I'm fucking pissed.

I've always had this ridiculous need to "fix things". I think that stems from the whole Alcoholic parent thing and feeling like it's your fault and blah, blah, blah. But really, why?  Can't something break and just be broken. Why do I struggle so much with accepting that? Why do I invest so much in something that no one else is concerned with? If it's broken, toss it out. Walk away and don't look back.

Christ. I'm like that fucking little kid that no one wants to play with, only I don't know that no one wants to play with me. I don't get it. So I just keep coming around.

I'm starting to think the whole relationship concept is a piece of shit. Is it even real? It starts with something that's purely instinctual on most occasions. It's start with lust. Lust. Infatuation. Perhaps a little obsession. Maybe some addiction. But when those things fade away, and they always fade away, ( I know. I've been married twice. ) what are you left with? The person you thought you knew better than anyone becomes a stranger. I'd like to say this is just my observation alone, but the divorce rates speak for themselves.

Maybe we are not made to be with one person forever. Maybe that isn't the way to true happiness. How could it be if we aren't happy?

Loving someone isn't always enough. We all have needs that have to be met in order for us to find some level of contentment. I realize it's unfair and unrealistic to expect one person to meet all of those needs, but don't they have to meet some? A few? Or do we meet our own needs with complete disregard to how our partners think or feel?

I don't know. I thought I knew once. I thought I had found the best thing ever. The person who was perfect for me, despite being my opposite. Or was that the lust and infatuation and obsession? Probably. All of that is changing now though. It has been over the past few years, no matter how hard I have tried make it stop. The addiction was the hardest part to get over. I'm not even sure I'm over it. Would I still be here if I were?

Hope, who wishes she could just forget.


Thursday, May 22, 2014

Going off the rails...

This blog is completely one sided. By reading just a few of the posts (never mind all of them) it's easy to get the impression that I am completely miserable. That there is never a reprieve from the anxiety or the anger or the struggle. That's not true. I don't share everything here. I just dump my shit here. Believe it or not, and I'm sure it's hard to believe, there are times when I am happy. There are days when I do enjoy life and I even laugh. Ask my friends. Both of them will tell you.

But I don't share those times. I've been criticized in the past for not writing anything happy, and the truth is, I don't. At least not very often. One reason for this could simply be that the urge to write comes when it comes. I can't control it anymore than I can control when I struggle with life and when I don't. Another reason, I'm sure, is that when I am happy, I'm off enjoying my life, instead of reflecting and dwelling. When the helplessness and the anxiety and the anger are gone, the last thing I want to do is the activity I normally do when they are present. And in all honesty, if I were to write both sides, your heads would be spinning as fast as my own with the drastic and sudden change in my mood and my outlook. If what is here now doesn't make me appear crazy, the Jekyll and Hyde posts surely would. Having said that, it may just be what I need to do.

These past weeks have been especially challenging. If I try to explain it away I can say things like, I've been under a lot of stress, there have been a lot of changes, and I'm simply tired and worn out. This makes sense. The move was stressful. I'm still having conflicting emotions about being here because there was nothing in me that wanted to make the move in the first place. I can't put everything away because there is simply no room to put everything away. For someone who is in desperate need of order this is a huge struggle and it's interfering with my daily life. I'm not adjusting well to working here. The light is different and nothing looks the same. It's hard. This I mostly blame on my neurology. It is what it is. Whatever it is. I'm pushing to "get over it", but I'm stuck in the middle, like a needle on a broken record.

But there are other things too. Like the anger. The intense frustration with everyone around me and the deep and frantic desire to either remove them from my life or remove myself from theirs. The paranoia. The belief that no one will ever be faithful to me and that I'm being lied to. The emptiness. The times when I can't do what I love because I can't even feel what I love anymore. The discontentment. When I don't want you to touch me or be around me, but at the same time I fucking hate you for ignoring me and leaving me alone. And the sadness and helplessness. That feeling that this will never change and I will always feel empty and no matter what I try will never help. These things can't be blamed entirely on neurology. I know this because it's not a constant feeling or desire. It comes and it goes. Just like the tide and just as quickly. These things are part of something else and I only share them from my own point of view when I am deep in the throes of it all. When it is all consuming, I come here and I spit out my anger, and it's always someone else's fault. Always. I'm not sure I was fully aware of that until last Saturday night. I've been aware of the shifting and the back and forth, and of experiencing happiness which was quickly followed by the fear of "how long will this last?" That, I have been aware of for quite some time, and in reading through old writings from when I was a teenager it was present then as well. There have been times when I feared that perhaps I was bi-polar. I haven't shared that thought or fear with anyone. Not even my doctor. It's one thing to call yourself crazy. It's something else entirely to be labeled as such. We don't mind being a little crazy, we just don't want to be "cocktail of medication every day for the rest of your life" crazy.

So what happened to give me that moment of clarity? Earlier in the week I could feel my frustrations building. With my life, with the move, with my relationship. It wasn't anything drastic that was happening it was all the little things. I had to pick up dirty laundry. Plans kept changing last minute. My boyfriend was distracted by the television and wasn't hearing anything I said. The kids kept slamming the door. The noise. etc...Things that are annoying. Things that might make someone "take a break" for a while. I did take a break upstairs in my room and looked up apartments for rent. Later I sat outside alone for a while. When I came in, everyone else went outside. I felt completely alone and  like I needed an escape all at once...like a caged rat and a piece of the furniture all at the same time. I could feel the anger building and honestly I hated everyone at that point. I left to go to the food store because I could think of nothing else to do and when I got there I had no idea what to buy. I felt like I wasn't even really there, like I was controlling myself like you would  a character in a video game, just making myself go down the aisles and place random items in the cart. There was nothing left inside of me, if that makes any sense, and I'm fully aware that it may not. Somewhere on the ride home, during a phone call that I wasn't paying attention to, I decided I needed to leave my boyfriend. That we weren't going anywhere and that although we were happy once, we could never be happy again. I had made up my mind. He can stay here and rent this house because I don't even want to be here anyway. ?Saturday night there was a play at his kids school. He had repeatedly asked me during the day if Jack and I wanted to go. I never answered him. I couldn't answer him. How can I go to a play when my whole life is falling apart!? How could I possibly deal with all of that and not dive head first into a panic attack? (keep in mind, now, I've decided...decided...that I have to leave him and he has no idea that these thoughts are in my head and if only he would have picked up his dirty socks and so on...are you getting the picture?) In the end he and the kids went because I managed, through the invisible hands around my throat, to get some words out that somehow communicated that I couldn't go. The thought that crossed my mind the minute he said he would take the kids and I could be alone, was not the moment of clarity. In fact it was the exact opposite.

Thank god I will be alone, and maybe I will die while they are gone.

That is what I thought.

Maybe I will die.

If I try to explain that thought now I just attempt to rationalize, only there wasn't anything rational about it. I simply felt in that moment, that somehow, if it happened, it would bring relief. I didn't necessarily think, I should do something to make myself die. But this completely worn out and empty part of me...hoped. What happened instead was that the minute they drove off I felt the invisible hands remove themselves from my throat and relief came. All on it's own and unexpectedly.  I came over to my computer where I'm sitting right now, and blogged about the anxiety side of things and not going to events that my son wants me to go to, leaving out the other messy details. Somehow it was enough to clear away some of the debris that was cluttering my thoughts and it was like I came rushing back into reality. Back to the here and now. And immediately I thought...what the fuck is wrong with me!?!  It was like I'd been hit by a truck. This isn't right. This isn't normal. This is making it so hard to live. My neurology, of course, took over and my need to know kicked into full gear. This is where it lead me.

Living with PMDD- A partner's perspective

This is me. This happens. There is a brief break. And like clockwork, this happens again. This may have ruined all of my relationships. This could ruin every relationship in my life. At least until menopause...

As I've stated, all of my experiences are documented from my point of view only. This one comes from the partner in the relationship and as I read it I could hear my own partners voice reciting the very same words.

I started keeping a log so I can clearly see how I feel and what's happening on each day of my monthly cycle. When is the anxiety worse? When do I have panic attacks? What days do I have my suitcase packed and one foot out the door? When do I feel helpless or full of hope? What days do I hate everyone? What days do I actually believe my dreams can still come true?

Yesterday was the first day I actually felt energetic and got things done. I even cooked.

Last night I got my period.







Saturday, May 17, 2014

Avoidance.

"You're not going? Why aren't you going to go?" He asks. The very same question I remember asking my own mother time and time again.

"It's just not my thing." I say. Something he always tells me when there's something he doesn't want to do. Something I think he can relate to and hopefully accept without further questioning. Because, really, how can I tell him all the reasons why? How can I tell anyone, so that they would understand?

How can I say I've just had enough today? And this week. And this month. That too many things have changed in too short a time and my whole world is out of order. That the slamming door and the loud TV and the constant motion of the day have filled me up. That I don't feel what other people feel. That as much as I may long to be a part of something, to be included and to belong, that I simply don't, and I feel more alone than ever in a room full of strangers. How can I explain that already my thoughts are racing faster than my brain can keep up, but I can barely form a sentence? Choosing the right words is nearly impossible. How do I describe the darkness? The emptiness? The fear? That sitting in a row with no escape is suffocating and keeping my eyes where they ought to be requires more work than I am able to do. That the sound of clapping would be so amplified right now I would surely jump out of my seat. That the unknown isn't something I can face tonight no matter how weak or pathetic it may make me seem. How do I explain that the panic is lingering and past experience has taught me that it's just around the corner? That when I get dizzy and have nothing to hold on to, when my heart starts racing and the pains shoots up the left side of my head and that icy cold feeling of death rushes into my chest, that I can't be in a room full of people. That I'd rather be home, alone, where I can cry, and shake, and make deals with the devil.

How could I explain any of this without sounding like a lunatic? I can't. So I don't. Instead, I force a smile, and tell my almost ten year old that... It's just not my thing.

And as much as I may have longed for understanding my entire life, I truly hope to god that this is something he never, ever understands.

Hope.

Thursday, May 15, 2014

The next move.

It's always hard to know how to start up again after a long blogging break. Blog. It's a Funny word. For some reason, right now, it sounds funny. Blog, blog,blog,

Anyway. I could go into the long details of the last month or so, but I couldn't do it with feeling. Simply because I'm not feeling now what I was feeling then. Now I'm only feeling what I feel now. But more on that later.

Instead I'll take the long story short approach. We moved. Too short? Okay after a shit load of stress, we moved. Stress that included giving our notice and then finding out my aunt was having second thoughts about renting. Stress that included only having a month to organize and complete the packing and emptying out of not one but two houses, along with a partial renovation which included the ripping out of old stinky 30 year old carpets and the purchase and installation of new stinky carpets. Stress that included finding the mold in the house that I had said was there from the beginning. Stress that also included our final rent cost being increased not once but twice from where we thought it would be. ( The whole reason behind the move to begin with). There's more but I'll leave it at that for now. I've never done so much work in a short period of time and I can say with all honesty I will never do it again. When all is said and done I'm betting that the "savings" this move was supposed to generate will be negligible. But, it's too late now. Always go with your gut people. When you don't, well, you end up here. 

In any case, I'm trying to make the best of it and moving forward as best I can. Which, by the way, is slowly. I'm moving very slowly. 

As for what I'm feeling now, drained would probably be an accurate description. I'm tired. So tired in fact, that I'm also fed up. With everything. With everyone. I find myself fighting for things I'm not even sure I want anymore. If you have to fight too much, it makes you wonder if it's even worth it. All that time spent begging someone to pay attention to you, could be spent with someone who actually pays attention to you. See? I'm learning! So what do I want? I want to be heard. I want my life to slim down. I want the people in it to be the ones I can relate to. I want to be able to take time away from work and stress so I can enjoy the things I enjoy. That's really about it.  And as simple as that seems, it just hasn't been that simple at all. 

I'm trying to stop kicking myself in the ass because it doesn't do any good. The "You knew better!" thoughts only further increase my anxiety. I'm trying not to care too much, because that usually sends me straight into panic. And I'm trying to find some joy. I've even fought for it a little. 

My next move is to rewind. All the way back to when I knew what the fuck I was doing. Or at least I thought I did. I'm not really all that sad, so that's good. But I'm certainly in self preservation mode. I think I'm ready to be selfish again. I think I'm ready to give up on caring about what anyone else thinks again. I think I'm ready to stop looking for understanding, and I'm ready to only speak my truth. All of these things, by default, usually help to slim down a life. Instead of continually wishing I was someone else or I could be different I'm now saying " fuck it." Some will understand that. Some won't. And that's how we learn where we belong. 

I really am tired. 

Hope, who is just a bit unplugged at the moment.