A weekend with the in-laws

After almost three years, I visited the in-laws this past weekend. It was an exercise on learning how to deal with disagreeable situations and not taking the stuff personally.

I did really well. I was able to show compassion for my MIL’s shortcomings. By telling myself that what she did and said reflected who she was and what she saw, not me, I was able to shield myself from her. She was trying very hard to behave, mind you.

Once I took myself out of the picture and observed her for who she is, I started understanding the woman. It was amazing. It was like seeing the play by play in slow motion and seeing the workings of her mind and those parts of her behaviour that I find so annoying.

I found out that the whole time she was trying to be pleasing, agreeable, and loving. She has no idea that the final result is annoyance. I realized that she talks non-stop out of pure inadequacy, and the more she talks, the more she puts her foot in her mouth. I was able to just listen, observe, and analyze: a very interesting exercise.

What we did, most of the time, was to use preemptive measures. I brought the baking, so she didn’t have an excuse to kill herself baking for us. I cooked more than half the food, to stop her from going around complaining. But by the third day, this morning, she’d decided to take her place in the kitchen.

From the moment we woke up, she started offering food, and more food, and juice, and cookies, and water, and more cookies. When my husband and I started lining her cupboards, a project her husband had been procrastinating, she kept offering scissors, a knife, this and that, non-stop. Then I went completely silent and decided that I’d had it. It was time to go. Three days was my limit, as planned.

The problem was her hip issues. When she walks she constantly says “ouch,” every two seconds or so. But she comes to you with questions like, “Do you want the bigger cutting mat? No? Are you sure? I can get it? It’s bigger. It will make it easier. It’s no problem. I can just go get it.”

When you finally cave in and say yes, then she starts her slow, painful walk downstairs. You can see her slow, clumsy movements, and you can hear her, “Ouch…ouch…ahhh…ouch…”

Yes, I did well. But it was time to go. Actually, when I remember, I kind of feel like throwing up. But I did it. I didn’t say, “I can do that. There is no need for you to bother. I’m an adult, you know. I can help myself.”

Why wasn’t that a good idea? Because I tried it before. Then she cried her eyes out, and continued her futile quest to be liked by doing sacrificial, unnecessary deeds. So it is a waste of time. Better let her do whatever she likes. After all, it is her house. Who am I to come and set rules for her?

Erasing negative memories

That book I read, The Power Within You, is the best motivational book I've ever read. I learned very much in it regarding how success comes about.

One of the addressed issues was how to change our longtime negative thoughts, so they don't affect our present anymore. He said that what we need to do is to re-live the situation we've failed at in the past and mentally do the right thing.

For example, I remember becoming very upset once, when a Chinese co-worker said to me that I should exercise at lunchtime everyday, to lose weight. And to make her argument more persuasive she added the name of her best friend who was skinny. "You should. Julie exercises at lunch everyday."

This girl, Julie, thought she was beautiful and smart and the apple of everyone's eye. Apparently, she was beautiful by Chinese standards. All the other Chinese in the office looked up to her, as if she'd been god.

So when her friend told me to lose weight to be like Julie, I must have gone completely red, then I grimaced, and waiving my hands said sharply, "Why would I want to be like Julie? I have everything that I can ever want in life. I don't need to be like Julie."

Of course, her majesty was told of the incident. All the Chinese heard about it, and my over-reaction went into my repertoire of temper blow-ups that everyone knew of.

I've been thinking in recent days that I should have reacted hypocritically. I should have said, "Interesting idea, Sandy. Thank you for your concern."

Then I should have gone to the bathroom to have a fit, all by myself. My problem is that I tell the truth, and people don't appreciate it. The truth is a gift they don't want. So I need to be as fake and hypocritical as they are, and experience my anger in private.

And to learn how to do that, I will, in the next few weeks, go out there and put myself in situations I've been avoiding like the pest, so I can practice.

Yesterday, I tried to go to a CODA meeting, and I couldn't find the address. That's a place where I can really practice, telling the co-dependents that I appreciate their help and then leaving the scene in a hurry.

This Easter weekend I'm facing my in-laws. That should be interesting. I can just hope that I won't be boiling over in anger for weeks to come. Let's see how it goes.

Working on my issues

I’ve been working on my issues for many years now. What are my issues? Rage, depression, lack of people’s skills, blurting out my unfiltered thoughts consistently, speaking evil of people behind their backs, speaking evil at people on their own faces, hating anyone with imperfections, getting easily upset and never forgiving, etc. etc.

It is very hard to live in the world when people have to be perfect to make your list of only-people-she-will-ever-talk-to.

My issues are severe, serious, and difficult to overcome. But I’ve been working at it. Of late, the one issue I’ve been forced to face is fatalism. The last time my husband was unemployed for a while, I became completely depressed, constantly worrying about us ending up on the street, begging for food. Yes, that’s what I did for a whole year, and we had a six-month severance with a whole year of Employment Insurance benefits to follow. On top of that, we had no mortgage or debt of any kind. But I was miserable. In my mind, I saw us completely destitute. I never did picture us getting jobs and moving on.

Having been through that before really helps this time around. But working on the “issues” all these years is really helping as well. For some reason, I’m refusing to worry. I’m determined to be happy “in spite of” instead of “because of,” apparently.

I’m really shocked to see the emotional resilience I have developed. I didn’t expect it to be this way. In fact, when he lost his job, my biggest concern wasn’t his unemployment. It was my reaction. I thought I would feel as if somebody had kicked me on the stomach, for the entire time of his unemployment.

I wasn’t expecting to be feeling shitty health-wise, but as I was telling him yesterday, I feel uncomfortably unhealthy, but now I know why. Not only that, I know that millions of perimenopausal women all over the world are experiencing my symptoms, and for some reason that helps. Maybe because I realize that I’m not crazy or hypochondriac, just menopausal.

As for my own unemployment, for some reason I feel really positive as well. I only hear good stuff from my inner voice. It could be that this time I’m determined to do just about anything for a buck--but not only for a buck. I want to work because I miss being out there, meeting people, making friends, having my own money to spend.

Being employed offers a lot more benefits than just money and extended health insurance. It is good for you. It helps you know that you belong in the universe. It makes you feel useful. And I’m determined to have that again.

As for my issues, I am working very hard on my affirmations. I have one that says, “I surprise myself with my incredible patience.”

Let’s hope that when I get my job in May or June, that I will be the model employee. One who never complains, keeps her strong opinions to herself, doesn’t take anything personally, allows people to be imperfect, and concentrates on the work at hand instead of on the surrounding people.

Indecision

I just realized that the problem I’m having with my marriage is that I still want to live as a single person. After nearly 12 years of marriage, I am still not used to having to wait for another person before I go ahead with a plan.

I married at 34-and-½ years old, and all my life I pretty much did whatever I wanted. That didn’t cause me too many disciplinary problems at school or at home, since whatever I chose to do was always lawful, decent, and reasonable.

But I find myself now married to a person who also lived his life as I did, at his own whim. A good, smart kid, he always made sound decisions and his parents trusted him to follow his own path.

These two good kids got married and both make reasonable plans and discuss well thought out visions of life. We always have good options to choose from, but we are two different people and one of us has to give in. We are not used to giving in. Neither of us is.

So, in my case, not only do I have to get ready to give in. But I have to wait for days, weeks, or even months for him to make up his mind. And this kills me. I have always been the type to decide and do.

In other words, if it had been me alone way back in November who decided to sell the house and move, I would probably already be living at the new house.

My husband, on the other hand, is just now getting excited with the prospect of moving. After nearly three months of toying with the idea, he is now on board full time. By now, I am tired of thinking about it. I am tired of deliberating, should we live at the north or at the south? Should we take a mortgage or go cheap? Should we this? Should we that?

I am just about ready to move on to something else. And now he wants to think house, house, when I am out of steam, when I couldn’t care less anymore.

Maybe that’s the reason that I have become so not me. In the past I dreamed, I planed, and I went for it. There was no delay button. I just went.

Now, it is almost as if I’ve lost the ability to dream. Why bother dreaming? I’ll wake up, go to sleep again, and wake up, and my husband will still not know if my opinion is worth considering.

Frankly, I don’t think he can be changed. That’s who he is. And I shouldn’t have to change either that’s me. There is, apparently, no solution to my problem. But there has to be a way for that awesome man and this remarkable woman to find some balance. I just haven’t figured out the way yet.

I ignore if it will help, but perhaps I need to get a job. Sometimes I think that I should work in retail or get some other low-paying job, but making minimum salary will just increase our taxes, and the little extra money would not be enough to compensate us for the many homemade, healthy meals and other stuff that I do because I can be home doing the work: sewing window treatments, making tablecloths, repairing clothes, making homemade bread, ice cream, pies, soy milk, etc.

I truly don’t know what to do. But I need to find my spark again. I’m pretty sure that this complacency I’ve settled for is low-grade depression: barely noticeable but existing and nagging.

She Drives Me Crazy – Part III: Delayed Anger and Grief

I think I just had an aha moment regarding this friend, Marissa. What I’m experiencing is delayed anger.

She is a hyper-controlling person who thinks she is right and the rest of the world is wrong. In other words, like a cult leader, she believes she is “god,” and she is so sure of it that you buy her shit. I fell for it, when I was backboneless and insecure.

She annoyed me, yes. But the annoyance was a vague feeling that something was wrong. I couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it was. Looking back, I see that when she said, “Go right,” I went right. She had a lot of power over me. She looked so together and smart. Even three weeks ago I thought she had it together and had a method to her madness.

But then I went there and lived in her house for a little over 4 days, and all of a sudden I noticed the bunch of stinky bullshit. She lives like a homeless and speaks as if she lived in opulence. Going for what she says, you would never believe that the kids behave like beggars when they see a jar of yogurt. Imagine if I’d had candy!

What I am is angry that a clueless narcissistic bitch tried to run my life once and is still trying (going for how hard she tried to convince me to go back to Christianity). I can’t believe that she is presenting herself as the Virgin Mary of motherhood, when she should be jailed for neglect.

These days I daydream of telling her that she is a domineering abusive mother who has lots of children because that’s her only way of getting friends. I wish I could go back to the times when she looked down on what I was wearing and scream at her, “Who are you to tell me what to wear, you who dress like a homeless.”

Today, I remember how she was nice to me, but she also controlled me, and I hate her for it. I suppose it angers me that that’s exactly how she’s abusing her children. With lots of hugs and kisses she has convinced them that they don’t need food, or new clothes, or a clean house. All they need is mommy and she is “god.”

I wish I could go through her house showing her how dilapidated her house is and tell her that she has no right to bring any more children into this world, because she doesn’t know how to take care of them. I wish I could scream it at her.

My eyes have been opened, and now I see the past with different eyes. I am reprocessing all my past experiences with her and moving them from one compartment of my brain to another. She just went from the slot for past good friendships to the abusive-relationship slot. I will be angry for a while, very angry, no doubt about it.

I don’t know if she already clued in that I had the gloves off during my visit. It is possible that she did clue in after I left. For her sake, I hope she did notice that I am no longer the person I used to be. I am no longer abusable or manipulable. She can forget about me even trying to swallow her shit with a straight face, ever--not for a long time, anyway.

I suppose I should have some compassion on her for being so clueless and misguided. But the time to have compassion on her will come. For now, I need some time to have compassion on me, for having put up with such insanity for so long.

I wonder how many other friendships I need to re-process, even if I am no longer in touch with those people.

She drives me crazy – Part II

As per my previous post, after coming back from visiting my friend ( I’ll call her Marissa) who lives in the country, I kept analyzing the reasons for my major discomfort. My husband, who as I said has a little trouble being around her for too long, says that I need to stop torturing myself for having been disagreeable. He says I just have to be who I am and stop tormenting myself over it.

Realistically speaking, I don’t think it is humanly possible for me to sit around seeing the stuff I saw and feeling the stuff I felt and say nothing. It would be way too hard.

But I’d better be more specific. During the last few days, I’ve been analyzing her behaviour, trying to figure out why she annoys me so much.

This woman is a psychologist who stopped working in the field because—I think—she had trouble with authority. As for the rest of her background, as far as I know she comes from a middle class family with good manners and a good financial situation.

But she acts really weirdly. For instance, she wears clothes that don’t match, decorates horribly, and seems to know nothing regarding all things house and good manners. At some point she showed me, proudly, an old, terrible, wrinkled table runner that she bought at the thrift shop. Worse yet, she doesn’t use it to decorate the table, she uses it as tablecloth. That is, at meal times, she spreads the horrible thing on the table, and removes it after. Maybe I’m the crazy one, but I use runners as decoration. At meal times I use a tablecloth. Also, she doesn’t use napkins at the table. For every meal, I had to go to the bathroom to get toilet paper, so I could wipe my fingers.

Another disturbing incident happened when she got me to teach her children to make an ethnic hot beverage from my country, and I needed a measuring cup. She only has one, and I’d seen it in the washroom. So, in the middle of teaching the kids, and after having asked for the cup a couple of times, I had to go to the washroom myself to get the measuring cup, so I could continue with my recipe. (Sometimes I think it possible that she is insane.)

All this is upsetting me because, when we were single, I was very insecure. New in Canada, I thought she knew better and let her boss me around and criticize me, as if I was always wrong and she was right.

Twelve years later, I have developed a much healthier self-esteem, have learned things about life, like decorating, cooking, baking, sewing, and etiquette, and I can see now that she is as ignorant as they come. She knows nothing. She is clueless. (Isn’t that what happens to children when they grow up and discover that their parents don’t know everything after all?)

Every time I remember that five years ago she came to my beautiful home and tried to redecorate it, I get really angry. But, angry at who? At myself, perhaps, for having trusted her judgment. I should have stood up for myself, but I didn’t.

Going back to the present, I now finally realize what her problem is. It is easy to see where her parents screwed up when you see her dealing with her own children. For instance, her little girl wears, say, a shinny dressy outfit to the mall, because she wants to. That’s enough for mommy, that the little girl wants to. It hasn’t occurred to her that her role in life is to guide her daughter though life, to help her fit in. No. Her role in life is to (1) praise everything her daughter does, (2) let her do whatever she wants—in areas where mommy doesn’t care, (3) teach her to care very much about other people’s opinions, and (4) kiss, her, hug her, etc, overly so.

It may sound good on paper, but in practice it produces horrible results, as exemplified by how difficult it is to tolerate Marissa, by many accounts.

Marissa is a sucker for praise. She is always asking if you like whatever she does, wears, cooks, etc. And you must praise her, because if you don’t, she’ll keep asking what she did wrong, how she can improve, and—not on those words but—how can she possibly get you to praise her. In other words, she behaves like a four year old.

The four days I was at her house, among other things, she sang aloud so I could hear her (she is an amateur singer, BTW), and she fished for compliments continually. Come on, everybody knows she sings well. Do we need to tell her 24 hours a day?

She showed me all the schoolwork that her homeschooled kids have produced for years, and I had to pretend to love the stuff. It was good stuff, but why submit me to such torture?

She showed me the dress collection of her daughter, from babyhood to today (six years). I was expected to praise each piece of shit, because if I didn’t, she would start asking what was wrong with the dresses.

Personally, I think it is all about balance. Parents should give their children some room to breathe regarding choices, but some guidance should be offered. For instance, shinny dresses are for special occasions, to the mall you wear something comfy, like jeans.

Also, teach your kids to be who they are, sure. Tell them to use their instinct and their taste. Why not? But also be sure to let them know that if they’re going to be different from the “pack,” they shouldn’t expect a standing ovation. Teach your kids that being different has consequences and that, if they’re going to be different, they should be prepared to be bullied, laughed at, or at the very least, not praised by everyone and sundry.

Teach your kids that people are too busy living their own lives. They don’t have time to (1) be praising everything you do, or (2) to care at all. Praise-thirsty people can get on every one’s nerves. Marissa does.

I strongly believe her problem is that her parents didn’t guide her at all and praised everything she did. The end result is a person who doesn’t know how to do anything right but expects you to praise everything she does.

On this trip, for the first time in my life, I expressed my disagreement. I said no many times. It is too bad that there being so many people in this world, it falls on my shoulders to let that narcissist know that no, she isn’t perfect, not by a long shot. Shame on her parents for letting her think she is. (Actually, I have it in good authority that her husband is just hanging on for dear life, and that he and I agree on almost everything regarding his wife’s behaviour.)

One disagreement was about her three year old who had never, according to her, stayed with anyone but mom or dad. When she asked me if I was willing to stay with him, I said, “Sure, but don’t make a big deal out of it. Just go, OK?”

“But he needs to know that I won’t be home.”
“No he doesn’t.”
“Yes, he does.”
“No, he doesn’t.”

Of course, I wasn’t saying, “Don’t say bye to him.” I was saying “Don’t make a big deal out of it.”

She goes, “Honey, mommy and daddy are leaving, OK? Are you going to be fine with L----? Mommy and daddy are coming soon honey. Don’t worry about it… blah, blah, blah.”

And she went on, and on, and on until he actually turned around and walked away. It was almost as if she were saying, “I am staying long enough for you to cry, because mommy needs to know that you can’t live without her.”

I felt like slapping her. But, the kid chose to tearlessly stay with me, anyway. That I found hard to believe. But it did happen.

Yes, I was disagreeable. Yes, I spoke my mind. Yes, perhaps I shouldn’t have. But I am thinking that I shouldn’t worry too much. Maybe she’ll just get tired of not being praised by me and will never call me again. I won’t be too broken hearted.

Anyway, if you made it to this last line, I thank you with all my heart. Thank you for reading this long post. Talk about bitching!

She drives me crazy!

I’ve come back from my trip feeling totally weird. This friend of mine is considered by most highly annoying. Even my husband gets quite irritated when she is around. But she is a good person and has always been there for me when I have needed her. She puts up with me better than my relatives. She has four children 11 and under, she is a home schooler, and going by what I could see, she is driving her husband up the wall.

She is unorthodox in that she has a unique way of doing things, but on the other hand, she is afraid of what others are going to say. In other words, she acts weirdly and annoys everybody, but she's clueless. In her mind, she is portraying the image of a perfect wife and mother, and being admired by all.

We had a serious disagreement after church on Sunday.

We came to church and she just threw her jacket on the pew, when she could have hung it on the hallway. I took it and went outside to hang it. Then, she took her boots off, and her six-year-old daughter moved from two places away, by walking on the pew, to her arms, to be cuddled. Since we were singing standing up, she sat the girl (taller than most six year olds) on the back of the pew in front of us.

I looked around and people were looking, bewildered. Most folks teach their children to behave in church, so to me what she was doing was highly unusual. Then her little guy started acting out, and daddy on the opposite side of the pew, handed him to her.

He continued to be difficult and at some point, she run out of the sanctuary, barefoot, to calm down her three year old. She did that two more times after that.

At some point during the service, she had insisted that her eldest put away his Garfield comic book. He refused.

When we got home, she scolded him, for having disobeyed her. At that point, I couldn’t shut up. I said, “He was quietly reading his book, behaving perfectly well, while his sister was walking on the pew and acting out, and you’re scolding him? People were looking at us, bewildered.”

She went on to insist that there was nothing wrong with the girl standing on the pew or sitting on the pew’s back. I was wrong. People weren’t scandalized.

I feel awful for having argued with my hostess. Awful.

But the arguing didn’t stop there. I had been there since Thursday and had seen enough. Her priorities don’t include feeding her children. Sometimes, it is 11 am and the kids haven’t had anything to eat. Since I had to eat, I had to share what I made for me. I gave them yogurt, chopped fruit, sliced sausage and what not. In fact, the day I left, the little one said, “I like ---. She gives me yogurt.”

We were talking about traveling when she said to prefer going out with the children alone, without her husband. I, stupidly, jumped off my seat and blurted. “Oh, my gosh, don’t do that. You’ll starve the children to death.” That didn’t go well, since she's not only careless, but she's also a terrible cook.

I also said later that she should send me the children so I can take them to the Olympics. “No, not you, only the children. I’ll send them home overweight.”

The kids and I got along great, and I had great conversations with her husband, who is also my friend. We all met when we were single, a lifetime ago.

For what I gathered, she has trouble finding people to visit her and to stay with when she comes into town. She says the children drive everyone crazy. She couldn’t believe they didn’t drive me nuts. But I think it isn’t the kids who make people climb the walls, it’s her.

She believes in “communication skills.” So she is constantly “perception checking.” Every moment she is with you, she wants to know if she offended you, if you really want to, say, go out, or whatever. But she doesn’t ask you once, she asks again and again. “Are you sure?” “Is it really OK to leave the children with you for a few minutes?” “Is no problem, is it?”

After the third or fourth time, I get quite irritated, and showing annoyance say, “Why wouldn’t I want to stay with the children?”

The weird thing is that up till the last second, she kept saying how glad she was that I came, how much the children liked me, and how much she’d like for me to come see them again soon. She even wanted us to figure out which room my husband and I could use when we come together, this winter preferably.

Why would she want somebody grumpy like me to come visit? Why isn’t she offended by my nasty retorts and lack of patience? Why does she want to have a visitor who constantly disagrees with her and sides with her weary husband?

Sometimes I daydream that I’m telling her all these things. Or at least, I’d like to know why she wants to have such a disagreeable friend. I truly don’t get it.

I know I came with presents for the kids and they loved me for it, but it was cheap stuff. Nothing to write home about. I am also trying to convince her to stop trying so hard to be perfect. I say things like, "Don't be so hard on yourself. There are no perfect parents. No matter what you do, you'll always make mistakes." Or, "The purpose of life is to be happy, not to be perfect."

I just feel that I showed her in too many ways, nice and nasty, how much I disagree with the way she goes about life. And I don't like that. I believe in accepting people as they are, not in trying to change them. Basically, I feel that my co-dependency flared up, and I don't like it.

Today, I’m puzzled. On one hand, I am glad I went and enjoyed her lovely kids. Great kids. I loved feeding them and giving them attention and being useful. But I’m not sure that I should go back. I feel bruised and traumatized. Shouldn’t she feel the same way?

Realtor

I’m having an existential crisis that makes me envy people who can say no to anyone anytime.

When we bought our house 12 years ago, we used a Realtor from my previous church. A guy I sang next to for years in the choir. I loved him and respected him and he proved to be a top-notch Realtor. He ended up contributing his wonderful singing voice to our wedding ceremony.

But that guy retired and delegated his clients to a new one. For years, our calendar has been coming from the new guy. So when we thought of the possibility of putting the house for sale, I called him, and never having met him, I made the regrettable mistake of pretty much giving him the job.

I said, “We are thinking of putting our house for sale sometime next year, and since it would be you selling it, I wonder if you could come and tell us how we can improve the house to make it ready for sale.”

He did come, in a hurry, because he had to get back home before rush hour. He found the bridge’s traffic scary—obviously he lives on the other side.

We took him around the house, pen and paper in hand, asking for suggestions. He would say, “I don’t know.” or “I’ll pay for a staging consultation, and she will tell you that.”

He never did even sit down, his phone was ringing constantly, and he provided very little information. He said that it would be hard to sell our house given how terrible the neighbours retaining wall looked, and he said we should call the city about it.

The next day, we went to an open house, and we found a home we loved: a 100-yeard-old, English-cottage style home sitting on an acre of land with lots of trees and a huge driveway for six or seven cars.

Naturally, we told that Realtor how we felt about the house, making it clear that our house wasn’t even in the market yet, and that we had issues with the neighbours retaining wall. “I’d be happy to come over and have a look,” she said.

After telling her that we didn’t want to waste her time, I finally agreed to let her come over and made an appointment for the following week. But when we came home, my husband said that he needed to build a sundeck before we could move. “If I don’t build one here, I may never have the chance again.”

“I brought up the issue of selling to stop you from throwing money into this house,” I said. But he continued to make plans to build the deck. “It’s only $2K. Big deal!”

I told the newer Realtor not to bother coming because the house wasn’t going to be up for sale until the fall, but she decided to come anyway.

She came last Friday. She had called the city herself. She had numbers of recent sales in our neighbourhood, she CONVINCED my husband not to build the sundeck, and gave us a list of small, cheap changes we could make to give the house more appeal. She presented us with a marketing plan and offered to take us around to see houses currently in the market, just for us to see what’s out there. She was here for three hours and did not answer the phone the whole time.

How do I tell this woman that I’ve decided to stay with the other Realtor, when she’s already given us much better service? How do I tell the other Realtor that after giving him my word, I now want to go with someone else?

I just don’t know what to do. I don’t want to let go of any of them. This is terrible.

The woman has been in Real State for only 2 years. The guy has been selling for 25. But he seems technologically challenged, and she has the latest technologies, and works for a company where the head guy has 35 years of experience. Also, her people’s skills are superior.

I feel that because she’s newer and has fewer clients, she will give us much more time and effort. Plus, she has seen exactly what we like, a 100-year-old house.

Ah, shoot me, please. Shoot me. Husband won’t help. He just says, “I don’t think you should go for a Realtor you’re not comfortable with.”

But how do I tell him? How?

To dramatize or not to dramatize, that's the question

I just figured out one of the problems I have with social interactions. I’m opinionated. I know that. But the problem is that my husband enjoys it. Our life is a sitcom. I express my opinions outrageously, and he laughs about it.

We were watching House Hunters on HGTV just now, and I saw a kitchen with ugly green walls. I grimaced and loudly said, “Ohhhh…that’s terrible.” You would’ve thought I saw someone puking. But it was just ugly paint colour on a kitchen wall. I’ve grown accustomed to overly dramatizing and to having my husband laugh his heart out.

When I do that in front of others, however, they seem bewildered, as in they can’t believe I can express myself so freely.

The problem is that there is only one of me. I can’t be one person at home and another one with strangers. It just isn’t possible. We are creatures of habit. Our responses are automatic. Had I married a prim and proper guy, I would be used to behaving, but that isn’t the case.

My sister, however, married a prim and proper guy. She has trained herself to speak quietly and to have fine manners (or so she thinks). I think she reserves all her nastiness for me, especially when she is trying to train me to be like her husband. One of these days she’ll get tired of my nasty retorts and will give up—I can only hope.

Anyway, there is my dilemma. It kind of sucks.

If you’re ever only extremely happy or depressed, clap your hands

Nowadays I am more eager than ever to experience my feelings and to pay careful attention to the progression of my emotions during troubled times.

As per my previous post, I went through an incident last night, which sent me back down to the pit of despair all over again. But I was watching myself through it all.

Earlier on the day, I had gone to meet the one woman at the non-for-profit I’ve been dealing with, another volunteer. I was surprised that we had a pleasant interchange, because I couldn’t stand her at the beginning, a few weeks ago. I didn’t like that she was calling me at all hours, including supper time, for insignificant issues that could have easily been dealt with via e-mail.

With a heavy heart, I met her at a McDonald's yesterday, fully prepared for the worst. She turned out to be a very nice person, easy to talk to, with much in common with me. I even entertained the idea that we could coffee sometimes and even become friends.

The meeting was highly productive, I came home really happy, and was on a “high” until I received that disturbing e-mail in the evening, when I went on a severe “low.” I was angry, sad, discouraged, and all of that. I continued to watch myself.

I first felt the anger. I closed my eyes and let myself feel all the force of the anger. I could feel it coming out of my ears. That sent me quickly to the sadness stage. Good thing. Sometimes I stay angry for days. Then I decided to shut down my e-mail until I felt better. For 24 hours I worked on making myself happy. It was hard, but I felt better finally. I did it by solving a problem that had been distressing me with another website I’m working on. After that, I felt brave enough to open my e-mail.

There was an e-mail there from the woman. In short, She said sorry for the misunderstanding and thank you for the help.

I felt so relieved that I went on another “high.” So, so happy I could’ve gone around the block hope skipping. Thankfully, I had enough sense to notice that I did need to settle down. I accomplished that by popping a Midsomer Murders DVD on the computer and watching it from beginning to end.

Note to self: watch a movie next time you need to calm down. It works because it takes your mind completely away from self and focuses it somewhere else.

I do not believe I’m manic depressive, ‘cause I have a friend who is, and I know how much more extreme and lengthy the bipolar stages are. But I do experience some aspects of it, I think. Why do I rarely feel just good, or at peace? Why do I have to experience those huge emotional swings? That’s got to be detrimental to my health. In fact, I had trouble sleeping last night. My shoulders hurt and I couldn’t sleep on my side like I usually do.

Anyway, I will raise the issue in therapy. I must find ways to manage those highs and lows. It just isn’t healthy.

Discouraged

I’m very discouraged right now. I was doing volunteer work for certain organization, and things have turned out a little sour.

I won’t elaborate, but the person who was my liaison gave me the impression that she was in charge. She wasn’t.

I was supposed to be moving their website to another ISP, and when I told this woman that I was moving ahead, she forwarded the e-mail to her superior, and the superior is talking down on me—telling me how to do the move.

I’m upset for two reasons (1) the woman I’ve been talking to misled me, and (2) if they already know how to do what I’m doing, why didn’t they do it themselves?

I know that doing volunteer work is supposed to be good, in that it helps you gain experience and meet contacts, but this isn’t the first time that a non-for-profit's lack of structure has backfired on me.

I keep thinking how I could have avoided this outcome, but I don’t know what else I should have done to help things go smoothly.

Right now, I am not checking my e-mail. I’m giving myself 24 hours of cool down time before I talk or write to anyone, or before I make any decisions. Typically, I would just say, “You know what? Goodbye.” But that isn’t right.

OK, maybe I will say that but nicely. How about, “My health is acting out these days and I have decided to take some time for healing.”

Or, “I have taken a seasonal job and won’t be able to continue on this project. So sorry for the inconvenience.”

It would be different from what I’ve done in the past in that I won’t tell them that I’m upset and that they have wronged me. Instead, I will leave in good terms. What I want is to leave in good terms—as much as I can.

Misery

I've been feeling miserable for a couple of days. Ever since I started linking in with former co-workers on linkedin.com.

There are several reasons why that makes me miserable.

It reminds me of the horrible person I used to be, and that I can sometimes be, when I turn into my mother. I know all those co-workers know how good I was technically, but they also remember how intolerant and difficult to work with I was. I can only hope they feel sorry for me. It was that bad. We were friendly when we were co-workers, but my inferiority complex when it comes to interpersonal relationships, especially those in my past, is alive and well.

I know I have to forgive myself, and I have. But I can't expect that other people are going to forgive me, too.

It also makes me miserable to see that even those co-workers who were under-performers are out there with a career in technology, and I'm not. It is very hard to swallow.

But, even though I feel terrible, I think it's a good thing that social media gives me the change to sneak my nose out there and see where everyone is and what they're doing. Imagine that! In the past, when we lost touch with former acquaintances, our chances of finding them again were minimal, unless we kept in touch.

Nowadays, you can go to linkedin.com, search by name, and there they are. You can know where they've been working since you saw them last, and what they're doing right now. If I hadn't been so hard to work with, that would be a mine of contacts for me. I could probably get myself a job on the spot. But that isn't the case. My business manners were bad, and now I have to live with it.

I think it is healthy to face reality and process all those memories. It takes me to a place of acceptance. I can acknowledge that I was a real bitch, and look at reality straight on the face. All these years I've been locked in the house because I didn't want to see that face. It was easier to hide. But now I am out there.

I was also embarrassed that they would find out what kind of a loser I had turned out to be. But the truth is out there now. I can't hide anymore.

So yes, I am miserable these days. The pariah complex is back to haunt me, and I have to live with it, bravely so.

It reminds me of the time I sent a letter to a gentleman confessing my love for him. He said he didn't feel the same way. But the next time I saw him, I had to walk by him with my chin up. About six months later, I met my lovely husband.

Career wise, I am trying to talk nicely to myself. I am saying, "That was the first half of your life, now you can be different in the second half. You don't need those people who know your past to start a new life, other than using a couple of the nicest ones as references. Use this challenge as motivation to get out there and reclaim your career."

I really can use the motivation. Up to a couple of weeks ago, the motivation was that my husband was going to lose his job. I can't use that one anymore. Maybe I can tell myself that I need to get out there and make some new, positive contacts that I can look to, in the future, proudly.

Right now, my eyes are dry but my heart bleeds. It bleeds from a lifetime of ruined relationships and opportunities. I'm going to believe that there is another opportunity out there for me. I have to believe. I have no choice.

I just hope that my body will hold up. This is a lot to handle.