I’ve been handling things a little better.. at least I’m out of the panicked stage. Now it’s just day to day and half of the time I have no idea what I’m doing. I’ve gotten to the point of being able to keep it together at work at least but there has been a brand new development. Apparently I surpassed my threshold for stress and instead of panic attacks *which I still have btw* I’ve been hallucinating for the last 3 or so weeks. Yay that.
There’s a very thin line between feeling like you’re crazy and actually being crazy – I’m kind of riding it.
So my.. Brian. Brian – my “dad” that adopted me when I was 9 – attempted suicide and almost succeeded. This has been an issue that I didn’t realize was an issue until recently but it actually started (my first experience with it) when I was 13. He and my mom were fighting and he pulled a gun out of his truck, held it to his head and said, “Well I might as well kill myself since you don’t want me.” That moment broke my trust, and honestly my side of the relationship, with him. That was 11 years ago and everytime I think about him, and I think about him everyday – he’s my dad – everytime I think about him I see that moment. So it doesn’t matter how wonderful a visit with him is or what a great time or conversation we have, at some point it smacks me in the face and I can’t help but pull away and put that wall back up. The thing is – I’ve blamed myself all these years for not being able to move on like everyone else did (which I brought up to my mom this week and she explained that she was so focused on him not wanting her that she didn’t see that I was focused on the abuse and suicide threat and she apoligized for not seeing that and helping me deal with it) but it turns out that this moment in my past that has tortured me for years – and the 2 other attempts and this newest almost success – were only ploys to win the argument with whatever wife was trying to leave him, because he was abusive, and he never meant any of it. The only thing that was different with this last time was that he was actually willing to die. It wasn’t about hitting rock bottom or feeling lost and hopeless. It was “This will get her to come back but if she doesn’t – Hey – I won’t have to deal with her leaving.” I have worried to the point that I’ve been physically sick, my panic attacks are back with a vengence, I’ve hallucinated because I haven’t been sleeping (I’m prolly getting enough sleep for 1 good night every 5-6 nights), I’ve had so many meltdowns that I’ve lost count, I’ve had to leave work early twice and I’ve had to bail on 3 shifts and that has led to me having to have a sit down with the GM tonight, and I’ve had moodswings so low that I was scared and almost asked to go to the hospital. It’s like over all these years I’ve taken everything that I couldn’t handle and put it all in their separate little boxes so that I could deal with it and when he almost died, I couldn’t handle it and I was working on getting it put into a box and then I found out that it was all for the sake of winning an argument and nothing more and.. all of my boxes broke and I fell apart.
Normally I would be able to put myself back together on my own – obviously with help from Michael and, most of the time, Robert (my biological dad) – but this time I just haven’t been able to. I used to just know that I was going to be hurt for a while but I would get over it and I’d never have to say anything to whoever it was that did the hurting. The reason that I’ve always handled things this way is that somehow I ended up being “the great protector” of the people that I love. It just so happens that I end up protecting them from knowing how badly they hurt me. There have been so many things that have happened to make me the way that I am but I’ve been realizing different ways that I’ve been damaged by those things and I never knew it until I realized how bad they are capable and willing to hurt me. I think that this has forced me to take a step back and it’s letting me see things much more clearly and I really don’t like what I’m seeing, especially what I’m seeing in myself. I think that the fact that I’m hating the things that I’m seeing in myself is making me, not only struggle with hating these parts of myself, but it’s making it seem impossible to handle this and since this has brought back everything else I’m not able to get over any of it – including things from when I was 13 years old. Now, on top of everything else, I’m feeling really stupid and really pathetic for having such a hard time handling everything.
I did end up calling Brian while I was in the middle of the original breakdown and tell him off – hopefully in a way that made him understand what he’s doing to his children and that I still love him even though I’m hurt and angry. That is the first time that I’ve ever talked back to him and the second time that I’ve talked back to anyone in my family. When it comes to conflict, I can’t handle it. If it seems like someone angry is even thinking in my direction *someone that matters to me* it’s like my mind crawls into a hole and hides and I physically can’t say anything. It’s not that I’m afraid of confrontation because I’m not – it’s that I’ve been conditioned to react that way to conflict and this is why (I finally figured it out.) My mother is very headstrong and stubborn. When it comes to conflict, she runs headfirst into it because that’s just her personality. She’s brutally honest when she needs to be and she’s very suspicious because she’s been hurt so many times so when she feels like she can’t trust the person she’s with, she doesn’t beat around the bush at all. She is that ‘get in your face and tell you what she thinks’ person and I’ve always admired that about her. ..or I did until I saw her run head first into a conflict with Brian and then I saw him put her head through our livingroom wall. There was more than one, more than too many, of these.. incidences and too many of them had me thrown into the middle trying to protect my mom and I got hurt more than once. Over time I guess it just taught me that when you meet the conflict head on, you get hurt so if you’re quiet and you back away you can stay safe. At first it was a conscious decision to back away – because I really have a temper – and eventually it became instinctual and now I can’t control it at all. The thing is, now that I’ve realized that this is happening I’m also seeing how much it has affected my life. I thought that I was just too shy to be a server before but the problem was that I was afraid of Jason (GM) and I didn’t even realize it. During our sitdown tonight it hit me and I even asked him if he noticed a difference – he must have since he moved me right up to server this time – and as I was explaining that the difference must be that I know him now *where I didn’t know him when I was new and when I saw his angry outburst I became subconsciously afraid of him* and I know that even if he gets angry and has an outburst (which he’s been working on and there has really been a change in his control) I know that he isn’t going to hurt me. He’s going to yell, maybe slam or throw something *but not at anyone* and go smoke and then in an hour or so he’ll be back to normal. So since I know him and am comfortable with him (I do back away when he’s angry but it’s so as not to stress him out more. Not because I’m afraid.) I’m able to talk to him more which is why he was comfortable moving me up so quickly. We actually had a really great talk and while I’m normally not comfortable spilling so much of my guts to my boss it was nice to get some outside advice and for someone to let me know that they could tell that something was wrong and they wanted to know how they could help. Don’t get me wrong. Michael is amazing and has been amazing. He knows me better than I know myself and somehow, even when I have no idea what I’m doing or why, he always knows. The thing I love about him, one of the many things that I love about him is that even during the times that I feel lost about why I’m feeling whatever it is that I’m feeling and he, through whatever magical way he has, knows why – and this may sound kind of weird – he lets me give up and then he sits me down and explains me to myself and, because he let me wear myself down too much to be able to fight him on it *because most of the time the ‘it’ isn’t a good thing* I’m able to listen and let it click in my brain and once I understand why I’m doing/acting/being completely wackadoo over whatever the issue is – POOF! – I can get over it and move on. I mean, sure, it takes some work to stay over it.. you know how bad issues like to fight to stay around.. but after a little while I’m better when it comes to whatever the issue was. It’s really quite amazing and I have no idea how he’s able to nail it every single time but he’s always right and I’m so thankful that he loves me enough to know me enough to understand what’s going on in my brain, especially when I have no idea – which granted is a lot of the time – what I’m doing or why I’m doing it. The flipside is that he can tell me why I feel the way I do but that means that he doesn’t have to ask what’s wrong. Really this isn’t important because when something is wrong and he does ask me I can’t tell him. Either I can’t find the words to explain it, or I have no idea what IT is, or there’s a risk that it could cause some kind of conflict for some reason or another and that block in my brain locks into place and BAM I can’t talk no matter how hard I try. But my point, I think, is ***im falling asleep so ill finish this later.
He’s the only one that can save me from me.
While I’ve learned far more than I wanted to over the last couple of weeks – tonight I learned something about myself. When it comes to conflict *including me or just witnessing* I mentally/emotionally/whichever way you want to look at it – I crawl into a hole and hide. It doesn’t matter what we’re “arguing” about – I use the word arguing loosely because we rarely have a real argument – he says what he has to say and I… sit there and say nothing. No matter how upset I am or how easily I could make my point and make him understand me I just can’t say anything. Like I physically cannot speak. The words are there, the thoughts are clearly there but they won’t come out. Well tonight was an example of this and I was frustrated but didn’t know exactly why since *after 2 hours of me sitting in pouty silence and him being frustrated because I wouldn’t tell him what was wrong* we got everything worked out. Then he mentioned that I need to call the insurance lady tomorrow to find out if I can get health coverage so we can try to get into this migraine/headache clinic to try to figure out someway to deal with my headaches and I just crashed. I went from being upset because he wouldn’t listen to frustrated, but not at him, to absolutely hopeless. It was so bad that I was considering asking him to take me to the hospital. I didn’t want to cut. It wasn’t that kind of sad or angry with no outlet kind of feeling. It was just a don’t want to be here anymore but with no specific urge to do anything. I don’t really know exactly how to explain it. If I ever thought I’d felt hopeless before I was wrong. This was a feeling that there was no reason to call the insurance lady because my head would never be better and I didn’t even want to try anymore. I just didn’t want to BE anymore. I felt like I was giving up. I’m tired of things always being hard and always being miserable and I was just done. I’m so glad that I have Michael to remind me not to give up. He somehow manages to do that without even trying. I really believe that God knew I was gonna need him and I’m so thankful for him.
Massive Overload Panic Attack.
I didn’t sleep again last night. At around 7:30am I curled my hair as an experiment *I posted a picture of it* and burned my hand pretty bad. At around 8:30 I did my make-up all pretty since I obviously wasn’t going to get any sleep but of course I fell asleep promptly at 9:45 and woke up at 10:25 – exactly 5 minutes before my absolute last minute to leave to make it to work on time so I was panicking when I pulled into the parkinglot to see Jason’s car since I was 5 minutes late and Jessica got me into trouble on my last shift for being 7 minutes late. I tried to breathe my way out of the panic attack and I thought once I started working and had something to focus on the attack would calm down like it usually does. When I finally got finished with my last table I was able to go outside for a few with Jamie. She can usually talk me out of the attack if I can’t calm myself down. She’s the only one at work that I trust to talk about it with. When I felt calmer we went back inside but as soon as I walked to the back I got really dizzy and couldn’t catch my breath. I almost passed out while rolling silver and one of the kitchen guys caught me and brought me some water. Then when I was trying to finish my work so I could leave they got popped. Normally I volunteer to help if needed. I always help when they need it but I could barely stand on my own so I just couldn’t. When they asked me to come back on and I told them I couldn’t it was like I disappeared to them. Then they said over my head – for those of you who wont help give me your checkouts and get off my clock. So I did and was almost in tears on my way out when Jamie stopped me and told me that it was ok that I couldn’t help this time and for me to go home and get some sleep. I tried to call Michael so he could talk me down on the drive home but our phones are messed up so I couldn’t hear him and there were so many cars and I was freaking out so bad by the time I got home that I threw up for almost half an hour. Then when I thought I was calm enough to tell him what happened I completely broke down into hysterics and it took a while to get calm and we decided that on Monday – my day off – we were going off grid and locking ourselves in the apartment. I need a break and he needs a break so we’re gonna take one. I’m also determined to get 2-3 days of just us vacation time very soon. We prolly wont go anywhere but I need a real break from life.
My insomniac hair
Lack of sleep left me far too long with my curling iron. Plus it spent a bit of time on my hand. Big ole blister burn for me. Yup.
So I joined this Migraine Support Group on FB
It’s a private group so I can actually talk about what I’m going through with these migraines. On FB I have to censor everything I say – ironic since FB is where you’re supposed to be able to say what’s on your mind right? It’s kind of cool but most of it is “oh we understand. thanks for sharing your story. we appreciate you!” and that’s cool at first but then I’d like to have an actual conversation with somebody about what I’m going through.
I think I’m having pain related anxiety attacks. My migraines have been extremely intensified recently and whenever I do get a break in the MAJOR PAIN I’m steady waiting for another attack to hit and it’s making it hard for me to breathe…
Damned if I didn’t bitch myself into a flare up.
P.S. I broke my phone screen. =[
Erika
Called to say how “miserable and terrible her migraine is and that she might need to just get dinner to go home”. (It’s family dinner night at his parents house) then she walks in the door, totally fine, talking about how the drive home helped her head. The drive home consists of rush hour traffic, idiotic drivers, driving into the sunset so bright light in your eyes and the normal stress that comes with trying to drive with a migraine. Can someone tell me how the fuck the drive home cured her migraine?! I’m on the low end of my usual migraine *with a wave on the way – I can feel it coming* and every sound in this house is making me want to run and hide in a dark hole somewhere but she’s just hanging out, chatting everyone up and talking on the phone. Not so much as a flinch when the mixer was turned on to make mashed potatoes. I just dont get it.
Baking 2
We have perfected the soft pretzel bites and dessert (cinnamon sugar) pretzel sticks. I also threw together a powdered sugar glaze to go with the dessert pretzel sticks. It also only takes about 45 minutes for a batch of either pretzel so that’s not bad at all when one batch makes around 80 plain pretzel bites and 40 dessert sticks. Pretty good size batches. We want to come up with an assortment of specialty baked goods options and try to start selling them for extra money. I don’t want to do cakes and cupcakes because everyone does that – although there would be that option if requested. I just can’t figure out what kinds of baked goods I’d like to try. I know I want to find a good bread recipe and I’m gonna make some homemade hot fudge to put in jars to sell. I might do that with the glaze icing as an add on for the dessert pretzels.. I’m also thinking about mini donut recipes since I have my mini donut maker. I can also work out some different homemade icings or glazes to jar and sell. I’m really excited but it’s gonna take some time to work out our recipes. I want these recipes to be ours and not a copy of someone else’s.
Baking
We tweaked a bad recipe into cinnamon sticks that taste better than pizza huts AND I threw together an icing for them. Amazing. I’ve been working on the pretzel recipe and I think I finally got it. I’m gonna try it one more time to make sure but I’m really excited about it. =]
A peek inside Ashley's head 