I Hate the Holidays

I hate the holidays.  I don't merely find them stressful or tedious.  I truly, madly, hate them.  I have hated them since I was about nine years old.  Several things happened when I was nine that changed my life forever -- and definitely NOT for the better.

Anyway, from the time I was nine until I was twenty-five, when my mother finally died late on Christmas Day, the holidays were an absolute horror for me.  I hated all the fuss, all the stress.  I hated having to interact with an extended family that made no secret of their disdain for me.  I didn't like them either, but I at least didn't talk badly about them.  Not then, anyway.  Nowadays, I have no problem expressing how much I disliked them.

After my mother died, things got a little better.  I felt no obligation to spend the holidays with those who would enjoy my absence more than my presence.  I still hated the holidays.  But now, I didn't have to pretend to enjoy them.  I could growl at the Christmas decorations in the stores.  I could not buy a single present for anyone other than myself.  I could spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day alone with a good book and a cup of mulled cider.  I was not happy.  But at least, I was alone and didn't have to hide my unhappiness.

Gradually, as the years passed, I began to be a little less stressed about the holidays.  I managed to make friends with a few people who actually liked me as I actually was.  They made it their purpose to create happy holiday memories for me.  I still didn't like the holidays, but they did succeed to such an extent that I no longer found myself growling at the Christmas decorations in the store.  Those few years between developing those friendships and meeting my husband were probably the least stressful holidays I ever experienced.  I wasn't alone, but nothing was really expected of me either.  I could just be myself and hang out with my friends.

Then I met my husband.  I love my husband.  If it weren't for him, I probably would have committed suicide years ago.  I even like most of his immediate family.  I love his sister like the sister I wish I had had growing up.  I adore his father.  I even like the man his sister is marrying this spring.  He and I are developing a very nice friendship.  His mother... well... you know what they say about mother-in-laws.  She doesn't like me.  I don't like her.  I try and be polite to her.  She finds ways to subtly and not-so-subtly insult me.  However, she could be much worse.  So I can't complain too much.

His extended family isn't that bad either.  I don't have much of anything in common with them, but they are friendly towards me, and I try to be as friendly to them as I can be.  I'm just not naturally a very sociable person.

However, because hubby does have a family -- a family that is as into celebrating Christmas as most American families -- I am expected to participate in the Christmas madness.  If I don't go to family Thanksgiving and Christmas parties, then hubby is pestered with questions of where I am and why aren't I there, which puts a lot of stress on him, and consequently on me.  (He doesn't "take it out on me" or anything like that.  It's just that when he's stressed -- especially when he's stressed because of me in some way -- it makes me feel bad.)  However, if I go to these parties, I have to pretend to enjoy them, which puts even more stress on me.  So, no matter what I do, I end up stressed.

And then there are the traditions of his immediate family.  His mother is very religious.  She demands that the immediate family go to a Christmas Eve church service -- despite the fact that no one but her really cares about it.  I was raised Christian, but now have very negative feelings about anything to do with organized religion.  I hate going to that church service.  I am being hypocritical. I do not believe.  I am putting on the appearance of belief in order to propitiate hubby's mother.  And no matter how much it disturbs his mother, I simply cannot take communion.  That would not just be hypocritical on my part, it would be a profanation of a symbol that the rest of those at the church truly believe in.  I simply can't do that.  I may not believe, but I do not want in any way to degrade the beliefs of others.

Finally, there is the Christmas morning giving of presents.  I actually like giving presents.  I like shopping and finding things that I think will make people happy.  I tend to buy lots of presents.  However, no matter how much I enjoy giving presents, mother-in-law generally finds some way to make the gift exchange stressful and unpleasant.  She subtly insults the giver's gift acumen.  She talks about how sister's fiance' isn't really part of the family.  She insults the way I dress.  She always finds some way to insinuate negativity into the situation.  The one part of Christmas that I might possibly be able to actually enjoy, she manages to make frustrating and tense. 

It is now officially Christmas Eve and I am dreading the upcoming 36 hours.   I wish I could just spend the time with my husband and with the people that I actually like.  I know hubby loves his mother.  Despite the fact that she frequently makes him miserable in various ways.  She's his mother, and despite her many faults, she does love him.  So he has to love her.

She has breast cancer.  She's had the surgery and she's undergoing chemo and things are going as well as they can be.  But the fact that she's sick is making my husband extremely stressed this year, and is bringing up all sorts of negative memories in me regarding my own mother's very long term illness.

You're not supposed to speak badly of someone who is bravely struggling against cancer or any other life-threatening illness.  Even if you don't like them, you're supposed to be all supportive and everything, and I just can't be.  I've never liked her.  I didn't like her before she got sick, and just because she is now ill does not make me like her.  It just makes her presence even more stressful for me.  I hate this.  I hate this.  I hate this.

I can't wait for the holidays to be over.

I hate the holidays.

So much for all those years of therapy paying off.

Today something stressful happened to me, and I had a huge panic attack. For once, the thing that set me off would have even upset a normal person. I actually had a reason to feel distressed. Of course, I didn't just feel distressed. I had a huge fucking panic attack.

I totally freaked out. I couldn't breathe, my heart was trying to beat itself out of my chest, my blood pressure rocketed to the moon and my head felt like it would explode. And while I was going through all of this, I had to try and fix the problem that had caused this panic attack in the first place. Which meant dealing with people.

As you know, even when I'm at my best, I don't deal with people all that well. I really tried to not let my panic attack affect my communication with the people I needed to talk to to fix the problem, but I'm afraid I wasn't completely successful. I ended up yelling at someone over the phone and sent some emails that maybe weren't completely polite.

Fortunately, the situation was resolved very quickly. And I really appreciate how helpful and competent the people were who fixed things. Even though to me, every moment that I was waiting for things to be resolved felt like hours.

After the problem was corrected, and I had checked over the emails that I had sent and determined that although they were a bit abrupt, they weren't all that bad, I was still in really bad shape.

I went out back and spent time with my critters, which can usually calm me down. It helped, but nothing was going to stop my body from the physiological over-reaction it was engaged in.

For several hours after everything was resolved, my heart was still pounding, my blood pressure was still spiking, I was still having trouble breathing and I had the most intense stress headache. I was also crying uncontrollably. Not huge wracking sobs or anything like that, just tears dripping from my eyes and the occasional sad gasp.

And in case you've never understood why women love their cats so much. As I was laying on my bed crying, several of my cats came and rubbed up against me or curled up next to me. One even licked the tears from my face.

I know that though the thing that happened did deserve an emotional response, it did not deserve this extreme anxiety reaction. I knew that even as I was panicking. But did it help? No.

This is my life. Even when I know that my reactions are far beyond what they should be, that doesn't change what is going on. Knowing that you are over-reacting and not being able to stop it, just makes things even worse.

This is why I am a recluse. I am incapable of dealing with the everyday stresses that normal people encounter in their every day lives.

I thought that limiting my interaction with the outside world by creating an online identity or two that only dealt with the rest of the world through cyberspace would protect me from these kinds of stresses. It does limit them, but apparently, it cannot completely prevent them.

Allowing Myself To Feel Negative Emotions

I was working on my computer today when something happened to upset me. I immediately tried to quash my feelings of distress, telling myself that I had no real reason to be upset, and to just ignore what I was feeling and get back to work. Then, miraculously, I realized how unfair I was being to myself.

I was feeling what I was feeling. It didn't matter if the reason that I was upset was a good reason to be upset or not. I was upset. And I had every right to be. No matter what the cause for the distress was.

Instead of continuing to berate myself, I told myself that I was allowed to feel upset, and I gave myself the time to accept my emotions and work through them, instead of just trying to deny that they existed.

And the pride that I felt for actually noticing that nasty little psychological habit of dis-allowing negative emotions, and nipping it in the bud, helped counteract some of the distress that I was feeling.

I guess all those years of therapy are finally paying off.

A Lie And A Dream

My husband lied to me on Wednesday. It was a lie of omission, but it was a very important omission and a nasty little lie. He did it to manipulate me into doing something that he knew I would not want to do if I knew the truth.

I feel so betrayed. 

He's lied to me before about little things. Mainly things to protect his own feelings. (He obviously doesn't feel the same way about lies that I do.) And I've let him get away with it. Because they were little things, and I could tell he was lying, and I thought he could tell that I knew he was lying. I guess maybe he couldn't. And so he thought that lying to me this time wouldn't be a big deal.

He was wrong.

I was FURIOUS. So furious that I could barely speak. My body was shaking and my throat was so tight, I could barely breath. My eyes burned and watered and didn't want to focus properly. My heart beat so hard that every pulse hurt. My mind might have been able to rationalize what he had done, but my body knew that I had been betrayed and responded with a massive panic attack. It took hours for my physical symptoms to calm down.

I'd trusted him. I'd trusted him more than I have ever trusted anyone else in my life. I thought that he would always look out for me, the way that I look out for him. I used to feel so safe and protected with him.

Not anymore.

Lately, I haven't been feeling safe and protected at all. In fact, I've been feeling sort of neglected. And I told him so several weeks ago. I told him that I felt that he had given up on me. That because my problems hadn't magically gone away simply because I was now in a loving relationship, that he had simply given up on even trying to help me when I was in one of my funks. He apologized and insisted that he hadn't given up, that he simply didn't know what to do to help me.

I don't expect him to “help” me. At least not in terms of healing me. But he used to give me lots of emotional support and attention when things were bad, and even though that didn't heal me, it did make me feel better. Now, I feel like he just says the words he thinks he should say, but he doesn't really mean them. He's just going through the motions. It doesn't feel real, and it leaves me feeling even more hopeless.

And now, he has betrayed me. 

This is only the second time that we've really fought in the eight years that we've been together.  My husband is generally a good man and usually there is no need to fight. If we disagree about something, we simply talk it out.  If it looks like it's going to be a real problem, I usually just give in.  I don't like fighting.  It triggers my anxiety attacks.   But this time, I was not going to just give in.  It wasn't a simple disagreement.  He used a lie of omission to MANIPULATE me. He KNOWS how I feel about manipulation.  And he did it anyway.  To get something that HE wanted, without any regard to my feelings.

I feel so alone.

Last night I had a dream that Foxfire, I and some older man were part of a military excursion in a middle eastern country. The man was in a big truck, Foxfire was driving a truck and horse trailer and I followed behind them on a little motor scooter. As we were leaving the place we'd spent the night before, I told them that I needed to fill up my scooter because I was on empty. But they didn't hear me, and they didn't stop.

I rolled my scooter over to a makeshift little booth that had a gas pump and started to fill it up. Then I realized that my purse with my id and money were all in the truck with Foxfire. I apologized to the woman running the booth, and told her that I didn't have any money, that my companions had taken everything I had and left me behind with nothing. She kindly allowed me to finish filling up my scooter, saying that surely they would come back for me, and I could pay her then.

I waited and waited, and they never came back for me. However, a group of Australian men and women showed up and they paid for my gas and hung around with me, waiting for my people to return. When night came and still no one had come back for me, they allowed me to bunk with them in the large crowded room that they and a number of middle easterners were sharing for the night. As I lay on the floor, one of the men in the group, curled up next to me and held me, comforting me. I had been feeling horribly alone and deserted by my husband, and this complete stranger made me feel safe and secure.

And then, of course, the middle eastern army attacked the building, looking for the Americans who had been there earlier. All the middle easterners that had been sharing the room with us ran out a window and were mostly killed. The Australians and I hid under the bunks. The man who was holding me protecting me with his body.

The next morning, we looked out the window and saw that the little booth where the woman had been so kind to me had been completely destroyed. Probably because she had helped the enemy American. I felt horribly guilty that her business had been ruined because of me.

And then I woke up.

Not exactly a subtle dream. My sense of self has been taken from me. I feel empty, abandoned and alone and must depend upon the kindness of strangers for my well-being. However, anyone who helps me is put in danger and/or destroyed.

Rejection

I am feeling very rejected today. Not dejected, rejected. A website that I visit daily and in whose forums I regularly participate, posted a request for articles to be published on its site. They said that they were “desperate” and that they would accept “anything”. Wanting to be helpful, and also wanting to get something that I'd written published on a “real” website. I edited and revised a couple of things that I'd posted on another blog that I had just started which dealt with issues relevant to their site, and sent them in.

I felt happy and confident, because for most of my life, I've been told that I'm a good writer. I'm not a very entertaining writer, but I can write clearly and efficiently. And the articles they wanted weren't just for entertainment, they wanted informative articles. Explaining things in written form is something that I thought I was good at. In my past, I've actually worked professionally as a technical writer and editor.  I thought that they would like my articles. I was looking forward to seeing them published.

And then I got the rejection notice.

Despite all their pleas about how they were “desperate” and would accept “anything”. They rejected me.

That really hurt.

They did give a very brief explanation of why they couldn't use my articles. But that didn't make it any easier. I know that I am overly sensitive to rejection. But it doesn't matter if I know that I shouldn't take it personally, it still hurts.

I hate feeling this way.

Damn you for rejecting me and making me feel worthless.

Midnight Panic Attack

I woke in the middle of the night last night having a panic attack so bad that I was literally shaking. I crawled out of bed and downed a valium as quickly as I could, then crawled back into bed and lay there hoping the valium would kick in soon.

I don't know why my anxiety attacks are so much worse lately. My mother-in-law was recently diagnosed with breast cancer, but it didn't seem to affect me that much. At least not consciously. I was more worried about providing emotional support for my husband than I was about my mother-in-law's illness. It sounds heartless to not be worried about someone with cancer. But I grew up knowing that both of my parents and my brother had terminal diseases. (Turns out my brother's wasn't terminal after all, he's still alive and kicking, but one of my cousins did die from the same thing.) I think my parents' long term illnesses and eventual deaths wore out all the circuits in my brain that are programmed to worry about parental illness. Or maybe somewhere deep deep inside I am worried, but it's just not making it to the surface of my thoughts. Who knows.

Or maybe the anxiety is simply about my husband. He is emotionally torn up about his mother's illness. He is also stressed about being emotionally torn up. I've tried to tell him that it's normal to be upset, but he keeps beating himself up about over-reacting. Personally, I think that he's handling it extremely well, but it's what he thinks that matters. I just try to be there for him. Which means I'm back to hiding how badly I feel so as not to put any more stress on him.

Someday I'd like to run around screaming at everybody, telling them in graphic detail exactly how miserable I am. I suppose this blog is my more subtle way of doing that. I may not be telling the people in my life, but I am telling someone. Even if they are complete strangers.

Bad UMPA's, Broken Sleep and Suicidal Thoughts

My Usual Morning Panic Attacks have been worse than usual lately.  Instead of waking up with a somewhat elevated heart rate and a vague sense of dread.  I've been waking up with a pounding heart, shortness of breath and the absolute conviction that I would be much better off if I could just go back to sleep, preferably for the entire rest of the day.  I don't know what's caused my UMPA's to become worse.  There is nothing particularly stressful going on in my life right now.  I was under a lot of stress during the jousting tournament, but it's been almost a month since that event.  It's more likely that the bad UMPA's are related to me not sleeping well for the past several weeks.

I've always had sleep issues because of my non-24.  But ever since I gave up trying to keep to a regular 24 hour sleep schedule a couple of years ago, I've actually been sleeping pretty well.  I'm completely out of sync with the rest of the world, but I've been falling asleep when I go to bed and sleeping through the "night".  Lately however, even though I've still been falling asleep pretty quickly, I haven't been staying asleep.  I'll wake up after three or four hours and have problems getting back to sleep.  And even when I do manage to get back to sleep, I only sleep for another  three hours or so.  Even combining the two sleep sections doesn't get me up to my usual nine hours of sleep.  This has been going on for several weeks, and I'm getting really, really tired.

I just want to sleep.  A nice, solid, restful, nine or ten hours of deep peaceful sleep.

But lately, even when I get  eight or nine hours of broken sleep, I still don't feel rested.  I wake up tired as well as terrified.  It's exhausting.


And, of course, my depression is acting up as well.  It's not the worst it's ever been, but I have been having fairly regular thoughts of suicide.  I've been calmly trying to figure out what method of suicide would be the least traumatic to those left behind.  Debating who I should write letters to and what I should say in them.  Even thinking about what kind of memorial service would be nice.  That last one's new.  I've never really thought much about what would go on at my memorial service.  I've always made it clear that I would prefer to be cremated, but that I didn't really care what happened after that.  I'd be dead.  The memorial service is for the survivors, not for me.

But lately, I've been creating song lists in my head, and wondering if it would be completely inappropriate for me to leave a letter telling my husband and friends that I would really prefer it if they danced and ate good food and told funny stories and tried not to be all mournful and depressed.  There was enough depression in my life.  I'd like to think that in my death, I could finally escape it.