I have been rubbing the beads all week from my friend JA. I wrote about that.
I am tired of being depressed and realizing what I have control over and what is a struggle.
It’s been super important for me to get some basic routines in place for morning especially. Everything from vitamins and stretch/strengthening to attitude and organizing my day. It makes me feel productive; it makes me feel normal; it makes an impact on the rest of my day being more positive and less affected by outside stressors; it makes me feel strong.
This weekend, Jay is in Seattle visiting the kids mainly and bio fam on his dad’s side. Or at least that was the plan. He ended up with an afternoon free before his flight this eve and saw a text this am on his bedside ipad from bio mom. I guess they’re meeting too.
That sent me off and got me triggered. I could feel my brain flipping the lid so to speak. I am tired of that and tired of that reaction that doesn’t go anywhere for me or anyone else.
I wandered around the house a bit and had one of the blue moments where I started down the road in my head of panicking about a day to myself, nothing to do, no one calling me or connecting, etc. I just don’t want to go there. Oh and Jay is secretly hanging w/ his bio mom.
Whatever.
My life is about my life. I’m really discovering myself for the first time, right now. I can look at the day ahead as a loss or not; it’s up to me.
So I tried to practice gratitude in my mind. I tried to disconnect from the thoughts about Jay and our family being taken over by bio mom. I tried to imagine that maybe he is getting together w/ bio mom to actually tell her he needs to back off and let her know this is hard on the family. I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Not being angry and uptight is such a new feeling. Not getting angry and just letting stuff go, believing nothing is bad as Kay talks about. Believing that all merges into goodness and I don’t have to feel threatened even though my old brain has such well-defined grooves in them.
I’ve been let down by people, but I’ve also let people down. I’m not perfect. I don’t need to go to self-righteousness; I just need to be healthy and I need to focus on myself.
I also need to hear what Jay has already said on the topic of his bio family. He says that he understands how disruptive it can be and is trying to make good decisions. He also enjoys time w/ his bio mom so is wanting to pursue that but realizing it won’t be a family experience.
I want to just rest and not react. Even if things come up that are hurtful, I don’t want to go to that horrible place in my mind where I “flip my lid.”
*****
Spent a little time the research around “flipping your lid.”
Jay decided to actually have brunch w/ the kids and bio mom so I’m sobbing.
I feel betrayed and can feel my body triggering. I have no appetite.
I don’t want to feel this way. I just feel betrayed and feel like I’ll lose my family.
I know the kids love me as their mom. KT mentioned a girl’s weekend w/ my sister-in-law. She said at DLand that she loves her family.
I just don’t know how to handle all this emotion.
I know I need to become more resilient. I know I need a wider circle of friends and colleagues. I feel alone much of the time.
Jay suggested I get into an art class or some kind of class this winter. The month of Dec was absorbed by more drama w/ my family and a month of doing corporate giving for the company along w/ a staff party.
I also don’t even know what to sign up for at this point. I’m still trying to get my feet under me w/ a regular schedule and plans. I’m finally getting to where I am feeling like I’m on a regular schedule and making a space to create.
I can’t believe how much a lover/partner can hurt you. Your family, everyone. I think about my relationship w/ my mom and how much it probably hurts her. I have no idea really as I had to pull away so long ago.
I want to be stable myself I guess. I just always saw myself nested in our family of four and our extended fam and whomever the kids married, their kids, etc. I guess that’s changing, and I’m the one who did the whole DNA testing thing. I brought all this into our life. My over-eagerness and my naivete.
It’s time for me to forge ahead and create my own life, whatever it will be with whomever it will be. I don’t know honestly what’s going to happen anymore w/ my family.
I know John’s bio mom likes me so I guess there isn’t any sabotage. It just feels like this is now coming into our life alot. I guess I have to get used to it? It doesn’t seem like I have a say. I guess I spend most of the time w/ Jay and he doesn’t see this person that much. I guess it feels like an affair or something along those lines.
I was hopeful and am hopeful I guess that my body can recover and heal, mostly my mind. I feel flooded today w/ the emotions of all this and that’s so discouraging. I was having such a good week.
What will my purpose be someday? What is my ikigai, as they say in Japan? Something I can feel is worth waking up for. Right now, I don’t know what that is honestly except becoming happier and more content and fulfilled in my own life.
I feel John’s bio mom had this career and life of travel and now she wants to have a family, my family. So she lives only an hour from Seattle and it’s now just going to become a regular part of our lives, to have her there in it, all the time. I don’t feel I will have any say. If I say anything to the girls, I’ll continue to look unstable and crazy. It’s already been rough with my depression the last three years that I’m finally coming out of. If I make a big deal of this, it’s just more examples of me being the unstable one, me being the crazy one, me being difficult.
Jay gets everything. He gets the kids, his bio mom, whatever he wants. His business.
I have lived my life supporting these kids and this business and him. I have had to live w/ the result of him being abandoned at birth and try to help him change, save our marriage.
It feels so so so unfair.
Life feels really hard for sensitive people. Life feels hard when you are wounded and traumatized.
I know Jay loves me, but he hurts me so much. I know I’ve hurt him.
I just don’t think he understands at all what this has been like, how this has destroyed my soul over the years, the lack of trust bids over and over, finally giving up.
She lives in near Seattle and so do the kids. I guess it is what it is. I don’t see it changing. It will just grow and everyone will want to be around these kids we raised. I gave them my whole life, all my creative energy, all my ideas, my time. It isn’t enough. You have to stay in their lives as a positive person, and I haven’t been that lately. They’ve made it clear my depression has been hard. El said she wouldn’t talk to me because I always refer her problems back to something I’ve done. She’s right.
So I have a lot of work to do on my own. That doesn’t have anything to do with Jay. Those are my issues that came from the mess of codependency w/ both parents and my self-esteem being fairly shattered by this business and relationship w/ Jay.
I don’t know if the kids really want to be around me. I think they do. I feel like a wreck even thinking these thoughts still. Those aren’t healthy thoughts at all. They’ve communicated they do, just that there are things to change and adapt as time goes on. I’m still figuring it all out.
Don’t know what to learn or how to grow in this. God, help, help, help.