How crazy it is to be trying to do something you never had modeled.
In fact, you had the opposite thing modeled than what skill you need now.
Right now, I’m trying to live a life in my 50’s where I’m trying to earn money for retirement, to help my kids make big purchases like a house, spend some on ourselves, etc., and I’m completely distracted and absorbed by the situation with my parents.
It’s a complete and total blackhole by all definitions: emotionally, physically, resource-wise, spiritually. It’s a complete fucking mess. They are literally spewing negativity and toxicity into all of our lives with their stubborn, angry postures and positions.
I realized there is a really big difference between saying, “You’re ruining my life” and “They spewing toxicity into my life.”
One implies I have no choice; the other implies I have a choice.
One is a state of being; one is an action verb.
The state of being implies there are no options and the outcome of their negativity has to be my ruined life.
The other implies that they are acting out and spewing toxicity and THEN I HAVE TO CHOOSE how to respond.
This is incredibly important for me right now because today, I decided to divorce my mom and stepdad.
Our conversation went south as it does after trying to get her some help. I should have known it wouldn’t last, the interest in moving. She informed me everything was fine because she was the reason things weren’t good. Her selfishness is what the problem has been all along. God told her that as clear as day this morning. So they don’t need to move and it’s all her fault.
When I tried to remind her that she had the disease of dementia and we need to talk about this as a family, she interrupted me and said listen to me and I don’t have that… and then when I heard that, I put the phone down and pushed the little red button for off.
I hung up on her, just like that.
I think I then screamed F-You or something along those lines. Then, I texted this to our group: I DID find if you throw your phone while driving and it’s connected to your phone charger, it’s sort of life a lame bungee cord but keeps it from shattering.
I am laughing and chuckling again as I write this.
Overall though, the whole thing sucks. I think the only bright side is I’m done talking to them both. I was trying to think of scenarios in which I’d participate in a discussion and can’t think of many right now not related in some way to medical care. I feel quite bad for my step-sister and her husband and son, but it’s the path they all very willingly and aggressively took. It’s sick and tragic and is probably going to dramatically ruin all of their lives.
*****
I wrote this on Insta today: No one, no matter how kind, generous, caring, supportive, loving, sacrificial, maybe even over decades, has ever earned the right to also knowingly and repeatedly hurt, abuse or disrespect you. It’s sort of confusing. But actually, it’s not.
This was incredibly freeing and a big step for me. I need to detach more from my parents. I need to stay away and not see the weakness, the declines, the sadness, the fear because on the other side of it is the stubbornness, the anger, the ruthlessness and vicious communication.
I was on the receiving end of that today, and it felt amazing to just click it off. It felt amazing to have the power to just hang up, to say that I don’t have to ever anymore receive that kind of toxicity. In some ways, the relationship is officially over, sortof like it has been in my heart for years. This just makes it official.
It’s too hard for me to hear her talk. To see her declines and know that she’s paying the price with deeper sadness with the choices she’s making. It’s just too painful to see it all unfold. It kills me, and I can’t manage all this emotion anymore.
I admitted to Jay tonight too the toll it’s taking on my life and on our marriage, friends, my career, everything. The meditation training I’ve been doing, they talk about how the goal isn’t to be free of stress. The goal is to know what to do when you have it.
What happens is that talking to my parents is stressful, all the time. Always. I am never, not stressed around them.
So then I have to spend considerable time dealing w/ the stress. It’s great that I have new tools to help me, but it’s still draining, exhausting. Sometimes, it takes hours to come down from an episode.
So this is literally sucking my life force away. It’s taken away years of my life and given me nothing in return.
I’m sad for the kids. I guess I’ve been wanting it to be better than it is for the sake of some sense of family.
It affects how I am with my kids. It affects my ongoing efforts to communicate better with them, help heal so that energy can enter our family. Instead, I’m hung up on all this, and it constantly disrupts my life, ruins so much.
So this was a big day. A really big day. It feels good in that I feel safer and less prone to the triggers. But it’s sad and tragic and will make some things more difficult and some things easier.
On the fun side, we did the critique of our still life projects in class today. I got some good input for my beach still life so that was really cool. It was uplifting to have this positive thing in my life. It felt good that I pushed through last night and got it all done even though I was stressed and confused.