Tag: real life

International Women’s Day

I had no idea it was International Women’s Day.  I had no idea there was an International Women’s Day.    My first failure as a woman.  Not my only failure and certainly not my last failure.  

How should I feel on IWD?  Empowered?  Uplifted?  Kick ass?  Take on the world?  I don’t feel any of those things.  And that’s no one’s fault except my own.  I TOTALLY own that.  I actually feel similar to that of a beached whale.  Bloated, sloshy, swollen, poke me with a stick and I will ooze grossness.  Others are staring at me, seeing what I’m feeling; I know they are.  Like the little old lady in Sixteen Candles; making squishing noises as I walk.  

I completely do it to myself.  I talk to myself all the time.  Make the right choices.  I know what the right choices are.  I don’t always make bad choices, but we always focus on the negative, right?  I ate a small bag of Goldfish.  I shall now perish in the flames of hell and feel like a fat cow the rest of the day.  But I promise myself to do better tomorrow.  But why should I do better tomorrow if I already failed today.  I know I’m just going to fail again tomorrow.  Might as well just say fuck it now and roll in a tub of Crisco and order some muumuu dresses right now for the upcoming spring and summer.  No reason to try to change, nothing ever changes anyway.  

I want to say nice things to myself.  I try to.  I fail at that, too.  I don’t have those tools in my toolbox.  I love helping others feel good about themselves and try to raise others up.  That makes me feel good.  Knowing I might have helped brighten someone’s day, even for just a brief second.  Why can’t I do that for me?  Wait!  I know this one!  Because I hate myself and I know I’m not worth it.  It takes much more time and effort to be happy and positive. 

I want to feel empowered; I need to feel empowered.  I want to feel uplifted; I need to feel uplifted.  I want to feel kick ass; I need to feel kick ass.  I want to take on the world; I need to take on the world.  So why the fuck do I let my size dictate that?  GODDAMN IT.  

Can I make the necessary changes as I am about the enter my 52nd year in this world? I can, but will I? Can I make me a priority? I can, but will I? I must at least try. I need to make a promise to myself to try.

Happiness

What is happiness?  

Websters defines happiness as: a state of well-being and contentment.  

Let’s try to break that down.  

A state of well-being.  This is defined as:  the state of being happy, healthy, or prosperous.

Contentment.  This is defined as:  a state of happiness and satisfaction.

Prosperous.  This is defined as:  successful in material terms; flourishing financially.

Healthy.  This is defined as:  normal, natural, and desirable.

And so on and so on and so on.

We each have our own inner definition of happiness.  My happiness isn’t the same as your happiness.  Right?  

I feel the state of being happy when I kiss and hug my grandbabies.  But that’s not everyone’s happiness. I don’t know when I feel like I am in an actual state of well-being.  Is that horrible to say?  I thoughts of self-doubt constantly.   I struggle with feeling depressed, being enough.  That isn’t a state of well-being.

When do I feel contentment? Do I feel it?  Have I felt it?  Or do I pretend I feel it because that means I’m happy.  

Healthy. Ha, that I know I’m not.  I eat too much, drink too much, weigh too much, stress too much, sleep to little, exercise to little.  The list is endless.  Would changing these things make me healthy and happy?

Desirable. Dear God, don’t even get me started on that one.  No, I do not feel desirable.  No, I do not feel I am desirable.  I rely too much on others to make me feel that.  It is not something I have ever found on my own.

I think I can lump prosperous, successful in material terms and flourishing financially all into one group.  Do you agree?  I feel I am prosperous in some ways as I am successful in material terms; meaning I have spent too much money on material items to make myself happy, which in turn means I am not flourishing financially.

So, am I destined not to be happy because there is no way I can ever meet all the definitions of happy? 

Random thoughts on a dreary, rainy day.

Scattered

Scattered. My brain is scattered. My world is scattered. I’m trying to sit and get it all out. I can’t seem to find a place to start. There are so many places, so many things that keep rolling through my brain. The things that keep me awake at night. The things that scare the shit out of me.

I don’t know why I haven’t put anything on paper recently. Maybe because it makes it all too real for me. If I write it, it’sreal. If I don’t, I can pretend. Pretend everything is “normal.” What the hell is normal anyway. Normal, a preconceived idea of what life is supposed to be like, what you want life to be like. If only it were that simple. 

I apologize in advance it there are errors in the following. It is hard enough to write, its even harder to try to go back and proof and re-read.

My girl child. It happened again. February 6-7, 2022. He beat her again. She went to see him on February 6th, messaged me to tell me she was staying over that evening. I was at work (a new job that I have been at for only about a month). My cell phone rings and it’s my girl. I couldn’t answer immediately because I was talking to someone. She called back, I answered. She was crying and close to hysterical. She said they had a fight. I asked if he touched her. She said not as bad as last time. I asked where she was and she said she was in his car, driving to where her car was parked. I asked where he was, and she said she had no idea. They fought and she left. I pleaded with her to be safe, get to her car and lock the keys to his car in the car. I called my husband, told him what was happening and asked him to go to the parking lot where her car was parked and watch for her. He did. She never showed up. I tried contacting her with no luck. She called again, screaming, yelling, hysterical begging me to help her, begging me to save her, she was throwing up and dry heaving while she was talking to me. I got from her she went back to his house, they fought again, she ran outside and was at a convenience store and scared that he would find her. I have her on the cell phone and call 911 from my work phone. I give all the information I have to the dispatcher; he sends police. Her phone goes dead. She calls back from the convenience store phone. Still crying and begging me to help. The dispatcher tells me the officers are on scene. I hear them talking to her. She is beyond rational thought. I can hear the officers now yelling at drippy dick who found where she was. They were telling him to get away from her and stop talking and to listen to them. Drippy yelled at her for calling the cops. She blamed me. The phone went dead. I hear nothing for hours. I finally get a call from her saying she needed to figure some things out and she would be in touch with me, but she didn’t know when she would be home. Deep breaths. Trying to stay in “control,” trying not to freak the fuck out, trying not to let my new employer know what’shappening.  

She calls again on my cell. Upset, but not hysterical. She tells me that drippy dick was driving her back to her car, and he got stopped by police for expired inspection. The car smelled strongly of weed (shocking), and drippy was put through Field Sobriety Tests and then taken for a blood test. She now had to drive his car to the police station and wait for him to be releasedbefore she could come home. I offered to get her an Uber, she refused. 

I go home at the end of the workday. I message my girl a few times and finally hear back that drippy dick is driving her to her car. This would be about a 30-minute drive from where drippy lives to where her car is parked. She messages and says she would like to talk when she gets home. We wait and wait. We go to our bedroom because it’s getting later, and she isn’t home.  Again, my cell phone rings and it’s her. Again, screaming and crying for me to help her. She fears him. She got to her car, they continued to talk, and she drove away. He was now following her, and she did not know what to do. I told her to keep driving home, told her to drive to a police department. Again, she really isn’t hearing me. She stops her car at a gas station and tells me where she is. The phone again goes dead. I call 911, again. I tell the dispatcher the details of what has happened throughout the day and ask him to send officers to help her. My husband also leaves to go to the area where she is. Officers call me back. They can’t find her. I tell them the events of the day and what happened. I call my husband and relay to him that the officers can’t find her. He is in the area and sees the officers, so he stops to talk to them. I get a call from a strange number and answer. It’s her calling from one of drippy’s phones.  Her phone is turned off so we can’t track her. She will not tell me where she is but tells me she is safe and okay, and they are talking. But he is sitting in his car, and she is locked in her car and they are talking via phone.  We have an idea where she parks her car and my husband, and six officers are in that area searching and find nothing. She calls me numerous times from drippy’s phone, and the calls just keep dropping. I have no idea what is happening. Eventually, the officers must respond to other calls and my husband comes home. She eventually gets home sometime after midnight on February 8th. 

I don’t see her until the evening of February 8th because I had to work. 

Sorry, back up a minute. As the things were happening the previous day, I was advising my sons, so they knew what was happening. 

My girl messaged me at some point during the day on the 8th and said she would like to talk when I get home from work. I told her yes, we would definitely be talking. I asked my sons to be there as well. That way everyone hears what I have to say in case she isn’t thinking clearly, and she decides to go to one of them for help. She initially wasn’t happy that everyone was. I told her she needs to be honest and no lies about what happened. 

Drippy dick decided it would be a great idea to get them Xany-bars for Sunday evening (the 6th). She said she had never tried them before. They ate them. Apparently, they ate a lot.  She has little memory from Sunday evening at around 11PM to Monday evening around 6PM or 7PM. She knows they fought almost none stop. She showed us a few bruises on her legs. She was still very……. on edge. She said she could still feel whatever was in the bars was still in her. We asked that she tell us what she does remember. She knew they fought both inside his house and outside his house. She told him she was done and wanted to leave and was getting some of her things out of the back of his car. He was in the driver seat and when she reached in the back seat he started to drive away and drug her with the car, hence the road rash all over her ankle/leg. She remembered him punching her in the back of her head when she was trying to walk away from him. She said she knows at one point she was fighting for her life and had his skin under her nails when she came home. We all talked for about an hour. I could tell she was reaching her limit. She just repeated over and over that she wanted to sleep forever, she was tired of this, tired of making mistakes. She wants to be dead. We encouraged her the best we could. Knowing if we push too hard, she would flee. 

She has been at home since this happened. I know she has been in contact with drippy, but she has not seen him. Will this be her rock bottom? Will she want help this time? Will anything change? I am trying to get her to talk to a Domestic Violence hotline. I am trying to talk to her about maybe trying a wilderness program where she has no contact with anyone. Will any of it help? I don’t know. 

Watching her is hard. Hearing her words is harder. Not knowing how to help is beyond words. Seeing her beat up body is debilitating to me. She took a video of her body. The bruises are unbelievable. Her neck, throat, shoulders, arms, legs, feet, and head all have bruises. But I am sure that her brain is the most damaged. That damage doesn’t fade like a bruise. That damage is deep and permanent.

My walls

Each day my walls grow stronger, taller, impenetrable; my walls are my power

Reinforced by the hurt, the sadness, the loneliness, the fear

My walls keep me safe; they keep my heart safe

Safe from feeling too much, safe from giving too much, safe from caring too much

My walls make me a cold-hearted bitch

Walls help me pretend, help me keep going, help me disappear

Behind my walls I can show you want I want you to see; not what is really me

I dare you to get inside my walls

Her end

I feel her end is near. I fear her end is near.

She will not accept help. She will not listen to anyone but him.

He is killing her slowly. She is killing herself slowly.

She is allowing it. I can’t stop it.

I can’t save her. She doesn’t want to be saved.

Reality

This is my daily reality. My beautiful girl child has Borderline Personality Disorder. This is what it looks like.

Self harm and this was a mild one

It’s 2020. People dealing with mental health issues are not getting the proper help. I can’t help my own child. It is devastating. It is sad. It is scary.

Just a typical Saturday

Just another typical Saturday. I have the timer on my phone set so I can get the towels hung up on the wash-line as soon as they are finished. The sheets and blankets are already out and drying. Who doesn’t love the smell of sheets and towels that have been hanging outside for hours?

Just another typical Saturday. The sound of the neighborhood is the background noise. Lawn mowers, power washers (shit, I have to remember to get the power washer from my parents – note to self), darks barking, and kids laughing.

Just another typical Saturday. My girl child told me yesterday she doesn’t have the fight to live anymore. She wants to give back the life I gave her. She doesn’t want it. She is tired, so very tired of fighting. She is so very tired of pretending everyday is just another typical day.

I can’t explain what that does to me. She is sitting in front of me baring her soul to me. Telling me her truest feelings and emotions. And all I can do is sit and listen. We talk about options. The only real option is signing herself into the hospital, again. She decided to call her current therapist and talk to her about what some options might be or what the therapist might suggest. She called, the office is closed on Friday due to COVID-19. She doesn’t get a call back . We talk about the hospital still being an option or if she feels she will be safe at home, wait until Monday and see what the therapist has to say. We are open and honest with each other in the fact that if she goes into the hospital on a Friday night, nothing will be done or put into motion until Monday morning anyway. However, my concern is will she be safe. She told me she doesn’t have a plan to end her life and doesn’t feel like she will do anything stupid right now – but she feels it is coming to that. She admitted she is pushing us away because it would make it easier for her to leave. She wouldn’t feel as guilty if she didn’t think we cared or if she pushed hard enough for us to give up on her.

My girl feels lost and hopeless. I feel lost and hopeless. She told me the only reason she is still alive is because of me and her dad and her niece. She is not alive for herself. Wow. Think about that. Seriously, think about that. Not having anything within your self or joy in your life. Remember, as you begin to judge her – she is fighting an invisible monster NO ONE can see, NO ONE can feel, NO ONE can imagine fighting. This is not a phase, this is not a “get over it” kind of situation. This is real. It is very, very real.

Am I being selfish with my girls life? Of course I don’t want her to end her life and not be in my world. But how much can one person take? How much can one person fight? When is it enough?

My timer went off.

Just a typical Saturday.

blah (or this could be titled me #2)

Blah – pretty much explains how I am currently feeling with life itself. I imagine lots of people are feeling this way. Life as we know it has been changed. Will it be an indefinite change? We don’t know. I’m not sure if it’s the current “mood” of the virus situation or it’s just me being me, but I have definitely been doing quite a bit of thinking. Some days that is good, some days that is bad.

I have finally accepted that my daily work is doing nothing for my personal self. I am not being enhanced or enriched. I am not challenging myself, I am not learning new things. I am being paid too much to do what I do. I am not giving back, I am not making a difference. I will never move up the ladder because there is no ladder and if there was a ladder I would be trying desperately not to fall off the bottom rung into a big pile of shit. Technology changes and other upgrades have basically made my job obsolete. That’s a hard fact to swallow. It makes me sad and depressed to think I have wasted 30 years of my life. Things have happened in my work place over the last 30 years that have changed me, deeply changed me. I never truly admitted how much they affected me until recently. That pisses me off. I allowed these events to make me feel worthless and hopeless. I allowed them to change me and my view of myself. I still don’t know what I need to do to change that. I don’t know if I have the courage, strength and resolve to fight for myself and what is right. I do know that before I can move forward, I have to figure this out. I’m just not sure how to do that.

My husband, my love, my everything. I can’t explain the feeling watching him interact with our grand-baby. It is beautiful. He is so completely in love with our little bug. I can’t wait for October when our next grand-baby joins the family. Unfortunately, I feel like I am pushing my love away and I don’t want to do that. Without him I would be lost. He grounds me, he makes me whole. I have once again retreated into my shell. I know when this is happening, and I just can’t stop myself. I hate it. I think about him more than he can imagine. I miss him more than I can describe. I miss us. He knows when it’s happening, he sees it and feels it. He does all he can to pull me back to him.

I think I have to stop now. This has made my mind tired and sad.

A ray of hope – squashed

There was an approximate 24 hour period where we thought we had our girl back home and away from drippy dick. It was a ray of hope that faded all to quickly.

On Thursday, 1/2/20, I heard from my girl for the first time since New Years Eve. On New Years Eve she sent me a message letting me know drippy was driving her home so she could shower. She arrived around 9pm, came in the front door, straight up the steps and into the bathroom. No hi, no nothing. When she was finished showering and what not, she came down the steps and went directly out the front door. No goodbye, no nothing. She jumped in drippy’s car and was gone. When I messaged asking what the deal was I simply got a “I’m sorry” as a response.

Anyway, back to Thursday. Thursday was back to work for my husband and I after the holiday. I had been very reluctant to message my girl since I had no idea when drippy would be reading and/or responding to me or what influence he was having over her responding to me. Even though the year is now 2020, I still do not have cell service at work. I have an iphone and can receive texts from other iphone’s, but nothing else. That is why I always relied on Facebook Messenger to communicate with my girl when I am working. Around 1pm I got a message from my girl asking me if I would get her an Uber to get home. She was with drippy. I asked few questions and realized they were having another fight and she needed to get out of the situation. This was our biggest fear in taking her car. She is 45-60 minutes away and has no way to get away if she needs to. I ordered the Uber and was glad it was only 5 minutes away from her. Yes, she now had to give me the address of drippy, at lease I am assuming they were at drippy’s house. I tell her it’s on the way and get a message saying I should cancel it and she would “figure it out on her own”. I replied it was too late the Uber was coming and she needed to come home. The Uber drive sent me a message and said he would be picking her up at a nearby intersection, I relayed the information to my girl via message. She responded she didn’t know where it was and then another message comes in from her that reads “lmfaooooooo”. I was very confused. And then I realized drippy was reading and sending messages on her account. I called her just as the Uber was getting to her. Again, she was crying and distraught. I made sure she was in the car and on the way home and hung up. The next message that came in was “fuck you both”, which was sent by drippy. A few minutes later another message came in saying “I’m done you guys win”. I had no idea who sent that and what is was referring to. I stood by a window to send my girl a text and find out if she sent it and what was going on. She told me he sent it and that they were done. She made it home safely and told me she was going to shower and would see me when I got home from work.

Of course the remainder of the work day seemed to drag by and all I could wonder was if I was going to go home and find her dead or alive.

I got home and she was in her room. I could tell she had been crying. I asked if she wanted to talk and she said she wasn’t ready. That evening she went to visit her oldest brother and his family. She said she needed the distraction. She ate dinner with them and got ice cream. When they brought her home she looked exhausted, sad and just awful. Before she went to bed I asked if she was ready to talk about what was going on. Again she said she needed some time to think. I was okay with that, I knew from past experience if I pushed her to hard she would completely shut down.

Friday was another work day for me and my husband. I checked in with her throughout the day. She told me she was sad and didn’t feel like getting out of bed. Eventually she did get out of bed and showered. I got home from work and checked in on her. I told her we were thinking of going out to a local restaurant for dinner and asked if she wanted to go or we could do something else. She said she wanted to go and would get ready.

I waited downstairs for her and when she came down we made some small talk and then I asked her what was going on. She said she didn’t know what was happening with drippy and that he might come to talk to her later that evening. I took the opening to ask her if she really thought this was a healthy relationship, asked how much they fight and argue, and a boatload of other questions. She was open and I think honest with me. She told me she felt physically ready to leave him but not mentally. I told her I feel she doesn’t want to stay at home because we would make her live in reality and deal with her Borderline Personality Disorder (BDP) and when she is with drippy she can live in a fantasy world where no one makes her be responsible. She didn’t disagree. I asked her what she thought about the message he sent me regarding the Christmas presents. She always becomes defensive of drippy. I was very honest and told her that I don’t think I could ever get past what he has said to me and other members of the family and there was no way I would allow him to be around my granddaughter. I asked her if she was okay with his comment them getting married and having kids and never letting me see the kids because I’m such a terrible person. She didn’t have a response to that. There were many other comments made about therapy and getting a job. I can’t express in words how heartbreaking it was to hear her say she just doesn’t care enough to get the help she needs. She doesn’t want to be here and wishes we (meaning the family) would just hate her because it would make leaving the world easier for her. The hopelessness she expressed was simply heartbreaking. She told me she thinks about not being alive every day. She was in tears, so was I. I ended the conversation telling her we would never not care or not love her and all we wanted was for her to be mentally and physically healthy.

We did end up going out for dinner. I think we both needed the distraction. My middle son and his wife joined us, as did two close family friends. We sat and ate and chatted. At one point my girl said she would like to go home, she was feeling anxious and needed to get away from the noise and commotion. I was okay with that since the place we were at is about three minutes from our house. My husband took her home and then came back to the restaurant. After about 20 minutes I got a message from my girl telling me that drippy was coming to get her. I told her I didn’t understand why she was going to leave with him and she said she needed to talk to him. The cameras alerted us when he picked her up and she left with two bags of clothing.

My girl came home Saturday evening, again to shower. We had friends over that hadn’t seen her in about a year. They were shocked how skinny and pale she looked. As soon as she came in I could tell she was stoned. And she didn’t stick around to chat. She showered, came down and talked for about 5 minutes, took some food and left with drippy.

Any hope we had that we would be able to get her the help she needed is gone, again. She promised me she would call about therapy on Monday, but I have heard that many times. My heart is heavy and my fear is off the charts. It’s just a matter of time before something happens to her. I have nightmares about answering the door and seeing police officers that came to tell me she is dead. I fear she will be at a very low place and do something to herself and drippy will never tell us. She is slipping farther and farther away and I am terrified.