Category: life

Exposed

Published on by cmglife

Lately I’ve been writing less than positive posts. While I’m trying to express a different side of myself I feel like they have fallen short of the way I really feel.  I have always had to laugh things off to get through life and as I’ve gotten older it’s the only the thing that has kept me alive.

Everyday life, while medicated and feeling so much better being leveled out, is still a tremendous struggle.  I am who I am.  That will not change.  I still suffer from general anxiety, social anxiety, lack of confidence and all the things left in the wake of living a life of undiagnosed mental illness in a cruel world.

Don’t get me wrong I know I am very funny (wink) and I would never deprive the world of that.

It just helps to reveal one’s real self sometimes a little bit. (Yeah, that was convincing).  I’m obviously still resistant.  I am used to the mask.  I’m used to acting my way through life.  Watching, learning and mimicking other people’s reactions to things.

Right now, writing this and then eventually posting it has me feeling very exposed.

Rejection for Christmas

Published on by cmglife

Christmas is approaching.  That’s when the old family hurts and feelings start to poke through the facade. Each year I wonder if it is easier to smile and ignore the past? So far it has been, but this year my skin feels a little thinner.

It begins when I start addressing Christmas cards. There are a few years here and there I haven’t had the mental strength to send them out and until now I haven’t realized why.

I tend to contemplate each relationship as I write the name and address on the envelope. I breeze through the names of my closest family members and friends, but then I inevitably have to write the names of those who have hurt me.  I start remembering events where I felt like an outsider, feeling misunderstood and just being downright mistreated.

And more hurtful than those names I write is the one I don’t, my mother’s.   Oh, my mother is alive and well. Physically that is.  To be kind, she is a little “off” mentally.  I don’t think this apple fell too far from the tree.  The difference is I am well and she refuses to be.  Therefore, with whatever  mental illness she suffers from she thinks she is better off without me.  I miss her. I’ve missed her for decades although it’s been only a year since I’ve seen her.

The biggest hurt was when she stopped sending me birthday cards.  That cut deep.  It’s been years and I still can’t come to terms with it.  We each have our breaking point. That is mine.

During this last year I have been tempted to contact her because, well I still miss her.  The idea will come and I will make a plan to call her.  Then the opportunity arises and I put it off.  Then I put it off again.  Next thing I know a week has gone by. I know why I don’t call, I fear the rejection.

I could go on and on about my mine and my mother’s history together, but I really don’t want to.  I’m tired of it all. Well, exhausted actually, otherwise I would dial her number again.

Betrayed by Normalcy

Published on by cmglife

I don’t feel so upbeat anymore.  It doesn’t feel chemical, it feels more environmental.  I have a lot on my mind right now.

Allison in puberty…puberty or a miniature version of me?  I’m trying not to be ultra sensitive to her mood swings.  Crying, fits of anger.  It feels all too familiar and it is wearing on me. How should I handle it?

Dying friend, do I really have to say more? Sending a funny card once a week feels lame.

John’s got some health problems.  Threats and self help strategies just don’t seem to be making a dent.

Everyday life.

In the old days I would freak out for a few days, contemplate for another few and then act without any thought.  I would get it done.  These days I am so “normal” that I’m drowning in a whirlpool of practicality and cowardice. What the “old” me would do would have been brave and brilliant.  Now I am a dud, dead in the water… a wet blanket.  Feeling betrayed by my life in a different way.

I must knock myself free of the drug addled normalcy I am living.  This just doesn’t get any easier does it?

The Space Between

Published on by cmglife

“Oh, no.  That’s too bad, I haven’t seen it.”

That is what I will say to my daughter when she notices her rival school’s t-shirt is missing.  She says she doesn’t care if the other kids will make comments or say something. What she doesn’t realize is that I have lived way longer than she has and I know these things will hurt.

It’s almost the same as the “nice rack” moose t-shirt exploiting women’s breasts that was inexplicably lost behind the space between the dryer and the wall until a month ago when it was miraculously found.  By then it was way too small for Tristan to wear anymore.  Darn.  Too bad.

Maybe we’ll find Allison’s t-shirt in the space between the wall and my dresser in a couple of years too.