Stressed Out

“Wish we could turn back time, to the good ol' days,

When our momma sang us to sleep but now we're stressed out.”

I think about those two phrases whenever this song comes on the radio. Because I often wish I could turn back time to the days when I wasn’t stressed out as much.

To the days when addiction and betrayal and honesty and my eating disorder and dating and parenting didn’t stress me out.

To the days when the biggest mistake I made was wearing the red shirt to school instead of the blue one. Or hitting my sister and my parents recognizing that although I needed a consequence, I was a 5 year old and I was still learning.

How come people don’t give you as much grace as you get older and find yourself in new learning situations where you end up making the wrong choice unintentionally?

Is it because people expect adults to ‘have it all together’?

Because I don’t think I know a single adult who has it ALL together. 

I've been struggling fiercely lately---mostly since Thursday afternoon. I didn't get permission by the right person at one of my jobs and although I thought I was asking the right department for permission before going ahead with what I was doing, my boss found out and was angry that I hadn't gone to her.
And she said some really hurtful things to me in the process.

Like I don't even know how to process the things that were said, they hurt me so deeply.

And ever since then, I feel like I've been in this fog where I dislike going to work (at a job that three days ago, was my favorite place to be) and I'm not sure how to feel better about it all.

I get that she thought I was going over her head. I even tried to explain myself and why I was sorry for not asking her instead of asking for permission from the person that I thought was in charge of this special project.

I think the thing that worried me the most was how low I felt on Thursday night. People have said hurtful things to me many times in my life and this wasn't even the worst but I found myself bawling and shaking and feeling utterly hopeless. I was up half the night crying and I woke up on Friday with a massive headache. I wouldn't have even gotten out of bed if the kids' therapist wasn't coming over at 8:30am (Why did I even schedule a session that early?!).

And since then, I've had this hangover feeling, this gray, foggy, messy, anxious feeling.

So I don't know where I'm going from here or what is going to help me work through these hurt feelings I'm experiencing.

But I do know that with time, it will get better. It always does. Sometimes quickly and sometimes it takes years but eventually, I'll feel better and this will be a small blip in the history of my life. 

He Still Loves Me

Peter told me he still loved me on Sunday.

It was one of those moments where that tween phrase “I can’t even!” seems to fit perfectly.

He said it was hard to be around me because often times, he still has strong feelings for me. And I just sat there and wondered what that even means to me.

Because it DOESN’T mean I want to date him or marry him.

And it DOESN’T mean things are fixed.

He also said that his feelings for me are often the reason he doesn’t treat me well “because it’s so hard and confusing to be around me so he can’t control his feelings.”

Umm…

I asked him how that was MY fault---that he gets to treat me like shit because he likes me? How does that even make sense?

My mind went to the stories of little girls getting their hair pulled by the boy who had a crush on them---stories that SCREAM rape culture.

Stories of inequality for women---because if he’s mean to you, that means pay attention to him because he likes you.

Barf.

So much barf.

I’m still trying to process these feelings---and honestly, I don’t even know what it means to process these feelings. I don’t know what that looks like or feels like. I don’t know how to do it.

I’m just so frustrated. With myself. With Peter. With this entire situation of divorce and everything that has tail-spun out of control since then.

I don’t want to go back to “back then” but I’m angry about where we are right now also.

I think summer is just hitting me really hard. It’s easier to be a working mom when my kids are in school because I don’t feel like I’m missing out on as many things with them.

I hate the stress of getting babysitters and my kids complaining that we aren’t doing much this summer because mom has to work.

I remember the summers when I stayed home, when we would do swim team and water parks and vacations and the Harkins summer movie passes.

We no longer do those things---because mom works.

And I resent Peter for that. Because if he loved me, WHY THE HELL are we in this situation right now?!

Back then, I told him I would fight for him and he didn’t believe me.

And now this is our life.

This is our life because of addiction and lies and secrecy. 

Selfish

The thing is, you can’t fully trust that anyone will be loyal to you. I think that’s something I’ve learned as I still find myself struggling to fit in to my support groups without feeling this urge to take a huge leap backward.

I still find myself struggling to trust anyone. And I still question whether any of them trust me.

Although the messiest parts seemed to have passed, it isn’t magically over and fixed. I still find myself feeling traumatized and scared to move forward.

And maybe that’s because I had trusted that the messiest parts had passed last summer---and they hadn’t.

So I find myself pondering and learning from this and saying, “Well, Wendy, life is always going to be somewhat messy. You can’t control other people. All you can do is decide how you’re going to handle the messes.”

And that’s kind of what I’ve done.

Because a few weeks ago, I met with an old friend to talk about some of our past messes.

And I started out really optimistic.

And days later, I got extremely pessimistic.

And then I was more realistic.

And mixed in there were really great days and some more messy days.

And now I’m just here---back to mostly optimistic but making sure I’m also being realistic.

Or maybe I’m not optimistic. I don’t know right now.

Today I’m really confused.

Or maybe just sad.

Because I had these high levels of optimism that fixing this would fix other relationships and that we could just move on from here.

But that isn’t always how it works.

Because I don’t get to tell people how to feel or how to act or what to say.

And. That’s. Just. Life.

I was going to attend the Togetherness Project this next August, thinking it was what was best for me, but now I’m quite certain it isn’t.

I had convinced myself that I deserved to go, that I deserved to be there just as much as anyone else and I’ve realized that was my main reason for wanting to go.

And although I DO deserve to be there just as much as anyone else, I don’t need to go just to prove myself.

Because I’ve learned that people are going to hate me if they want to hate me. People are going to believe I’m a liar if they want to believe I’m a liar.

I can’t change any of that.

People can live their lives without trusting me pretty darn easily. That’s not the main problem.

The main problem is when I don’t trust myself because that is when I start to unravel.

When I trust in myself and have faith in myself, I don’t feel this urge to prove myself to the world.

And so, right now, that is what I am working on.

I’m sad about my decision because there are people I’ve wanted to see whom I truly love so deeply.

But today and tomorrow and the next day---I need to be a little more selfish and do what’s best for me. I need to learn to trust more and recover more and worry about the outside stuff less.

I need to save me before I can save anyone else. 

Peter Pan

Peter.

This weekend was one of the worst weekends to date with Peter.

He refused to give me a time frame of when the kids would be home on Memorial Day and kept saying, “When we’re done…”

He then refused to drop them off to me while I was teaching dance so I asked him to keep them until I was done (Because, you know, if he wasn’t going to drop them off BEFORE I started teaching, he would need to keep them until AFTER…common sense…)

And again, he refused.

I got a text a while later stating he had dropped the kids off at my parents’ house.

What. The. Hell.

And by this point, I was going all sorts of crazy. They had been away for a few days and they were late 2 hours getting home and now I had to drive to my parents to get them?

And I lost it. Big time.

I called my mom and yelled at her for not questioning why he was randomly dropping the kids off to her. {Not her fault…}

I fought with my mom and dad when I got to their house because the kids were swimming and I JUST WANTED TO GO HOME. {Not their fault…}

It was horrible. I felt so horrible.

On the drive home that night, my 8-year-old said, “Mom, dad says you were mad at him today but it’s not his fault. He says Memorial Day was his this year and since you never give him extra time with us, he shouldn’t have to give you extra time with us.”

So after I put the kids down to bed, I wrote Peter an email with the new Parenting Plan contract I had written up {because it’s long overdue to be updated} and I told him how disappointed I was that he had brought our children into this mess and talked poorly about me to them.

And he wrote me back some confusing paragraph about how he will ‘review it and we can come to an agreement upon said plan after adequate time is allowed for assessment of the plan you are suggesting.’ {Seriously, the oddest email I’ve ever read before with a bunch of big words that DID NOT make sense together}

Why does it still surprise me that Peter acts the way he does?

I think that’s the most frustrating part for me---that his actions catch me off guard and I allow myself to burst with anger.

I should be used to this by now. I should be able to handle things like this without getting so angry.

My therapist gave me good advice on this because I absolutely HATE when my anger escalates to the point that it did on Memorial Day. I hate feeling guilty after because I want so badly to just love and understand people and be calm and compassionate but realistically, I make mistakes and sometimes I let my anger pour out on others.

I hate this about myself. I’m trying to give myself more grace but I seriously hate this about myself.

Because I hate hurting people.

I’d rather hurt than hurt others.

But sometimes I am the one doing the hurting and I’m trying to work on that. I’m trying to recognize the anger when it’s in the beginning stages so it doesn’t get out of control. 

I wish Peter would grow up.

I do. 

But I have to remind myself that I still have a lot of growing up to do. 

And that really is the only thing I have control over.

Face To Face

Finally. 

Face to face. 

It only took fourteen months. 

Fourteen months of hurtful comments and hateful looks. 

I took a trusted friend with me because I knew I needed someone to actually process and hear everything while my anxiety did it's work. 

And when we walked up to her, I felt this waive of relief that we were finally face to face after so long. 

And maybe I felt like I had missed her. 

Three hours of each of us explaining our side and trying to get the other person to understand. 

It felt like a divorce mediation. 

She said some things that later I realized were hurtful to me as I thought over them. And I think she knew that. 

I didn't need to know details. But because she had been hurt living through it all, she wanted me to know all of that pain. 

And the reason it was unnecessary is because the whole point of this meeting was supposed to be about moving forward and about telling her how ONLY in hindsight could I have prevented everything. 

The whole point was to convince her I wasn't ever malicious. 

She already knew that though. I know she did. Because she knows me---or at least she knew me. 

I am a completely different person after going through everything I've experienced these past fourteen months. 

So we met. 

And afterward, she asked if I wanted to keep talking and let my friend go home. Maybe her and I could go grab some lunch? 

But I said no. I wasn't ready for that yet. Or maybe ever. 

And when we got in the car to go home, my friend set me straight. 

She is still blaming you. 

What she said was manipulative. 

That felt fake. 

Don't go home and blame yourself all over again. 

And I was surprised because I felt so good. 

But my friend was right. 

Because later that night, I started to panic about all of those details. 

She had gotten to me again. 

Whether consciously or subconsciously, she had said things in a way that made me wonder if this was all my fault. 

Was I really to blame? 

Somewhere deep down, did I know what I was doing? 

And as I pondered these questions and allowed myself to go back to that dark place for a minute, I suddenly remembered back to those days and weeks. And I remembered my heart and how I did everything right in the moment---the best I knew how. 

I told the truth. And although that truth brought about more pain for a while, it was still the truth. 

And in that moment, I knew that meeting did not have the power to put our relationship back where it had been fifteen months ago. 

And I didn't want it to go back. 

Because I remembered how all of this hurt my family and made it so that I could not safely talk about my own children's pain and healing. 

I had been stifled because I had been blamed by someone who should've trusted me---who should've answered when I tried to call dozens of times---who should've come over to my house to talk face to face when everything happened---who should've trusted me instead of turning me into a villain. 

I was never able to talk about my own children being hurt because the times that I tried to, I received nasty comments about how this was all my fault anyway. 

 And I suddenly questioned how any of those people would've known the part about my own children. Because I had only told one person from their group. 

And so when months later, a comment was made on Facebook that said, "How sad that you are dealing with that on top of your son being molested", how did that person know? 

And I suddenly realized that the betrayal went much further than I had thought. I kept quiet about what had happened, not knowing that a large group of people were spreading around the fact that my son had been involved. 

My family was not kept safe in all of this. 

And none of them really seemed to care about that fact. Nobody stood up and said, "No matter the circumstances, we should NOT be gossiping about her children." 

Nobody did that for us.

So yes, we met face to face. And maybe it helped in little ways. 

But it will never be the same. Because the protection of my family is far more important than gaining a friend back who wasn't really a friend anyway. 

And I have so many people in my life who are capable of trusting me through really shitty times. 

So I'm glad it's over. And I will continue to move on and heal each and every day. 

**************

PS: My children are bravely and beautifully doing well. They are warriors. And they are my greatest teachers. And I may never mention their part in this again. Or I might if it feels right. But I hope if you read this, you will respect the privacy of my children in all of this. 

------------

Excuse me while I let the negative feelings seep out.

Does there just always have to be something?

I feel good about my maturity and strength with some things that have brought immense anxiety lately. I haven’t let them get to me. I’ve done so well letting myself feel the fear without letting it consume me, and talking myself out of taking on other’s problems and anxieties.

But I cannot apply those same things that I’ve learned to my eating disorder.

I literally consider(ed) quitting my day job…for my eating disorder. Because then I’d have more time to exercise and control my eating without being around people so much of the time.

I mean, if that’s not irrational, I don’t know what is…

I’m about to get on a stage in two days and dance for the first time since having my two kids. There are days I can talk myself through this because I absolutely love being on stage and performing but there are also days where I cannot even fathom the thought of this.

I am not anywhere near what I would consider to be a goal weight. In fact, I switch between starving myself and stress-eating every damn thing I can get my hands on.

And the stupidity of this is not lost on me.

If I would just NOT eat…or if I could just eat smaller portions…or if I could just pick healthier foods…

If I would do ONE of those things, I wouldn’t be overweight. Or at least, I don’t think I would. But maybe I would…

I have a friend who is a Beachbody coach. Two years ago, in the middle of my worst addiction cycle to date, she invited me to try Beachbody shakes and I remember telling her, “Absolutely not”, because part of recovery was trying to eat like a normal individual---crazy/fad/strict diets don’t work for my recovery. But then I got to a point where I felt I was ‘in recovery’ but I was overeating and needed a different kind of help.

She offered the shakes again and I decided to try it.

And I hated them. They were so gross. I tried so hard to convince myself that those chocolate shakes didn’t taste like Pediasure but they did. So. Gross.

And that experience had me frustrated because if I could just ENJOY healthier foods and not feel like ‘eating healthy is a punishment because I’m a fat person’, I feel like this would all be easier.

Because that’s how I view food---it’s either a reward or a punishment. 

I'm Done

I was so triggered by a friend's comment today. And she doesn't get it, she doesn't understand how telling me 'skinny people are more self aware' is so damaging.

I can't do this anymore.

I'm done fighting my eating disorder.

I tried. I failed. It wasn't worth it.

The end.