Bullies and Bitches

My eldest son is about to quit his job because of merciless bullying.

Lest ye think he is a "pussy" or a "whiner", I'm frankly proud of him.

He's been working 48 hour weeks for five months at a regular factory job surrounded by "regular" people, a few of whom apparently believe autism spectrum is on par with stupidity.

He is also not a "baby" or "tattletale" since he refuses to let HR intervene, even though they are aware of the issue. He won't tell me the name of this person because he has that many scruples (a few more than myself, I might add), I suppose because he worries that I'll come uncorked. He's just been pushed too far one time too many by a small-minded fuck wit for whom I can only hope that karma has a big, juicy, rotten can of shit in store.

If I ever find out who it is, I'm not above asking people I know in law enforcement if they'll keep an extra-special eye out for the twat, and my son is so good, he wouldn't want me to do that.

Come on, karma.

A Good Book

For the book-devourers among you, you may enjoy "Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents" by Lindsay C. Gibson. I've been reading this one this week, and it contains a lot of information that gives me better insight as to why my parents created such problems.

Some quotes that I found particularly validating:

"....emotionally immature parents expect their children to know and mirror them. They can get highly upset if their children don't act the way they want them to. Their fragile self-esteem rests on things going their way every time."

"When stressed or emotionally aroused, immature people don't experience themselves as being embedded in the ongoing flow of time. They experience moments in time as separate, nonlinear blips, like little lights randomly going on and off, with few linkages in time between one interaction and another. They act inconsistently, as their consciousness hops from one experience to another. This is one reason why they're often indignant when you remind them of their past behavior. For them, the past is gone and has nothing to do with the present. Likewise, if you express caution about something in the future, they're likely to brush you off, since the future isn't here yet."

I especially find the book's information on how children who were brought up in these types of households often fall into the categories of "internalizer" and "externalizer". I can see clearly how in my teen years I was an externalizer and morphed into an internalizer as a young adult. The book speaks about how internalizers end up doing too much emotional work in their relationships because they were trained to do the emotional work of their parents in many cases and felt it was their place to take on all this extra crap.

This book is especially good if you are someone who is self-reflective. If you haven't read this book already, I highly recommend it. 

If You Can't Sleep, Blog

Last summer I had boundless energy, and initially it appeared I was headed in the right direction after years of being exhausted and sleeping at every chance, though during those years I felt calm and mostly stable.

The energy helped me accomplish a lot of modest goals last year. I spent much of my time on missions of my choosing when I wasn't slogging through misery at work.

The other day when I was reading back through my blog, it's plain my posts from last year were unhappy ones.

The truth of last year is in what I accomplished. I welcomed traveling to see a childhood best friend I hadn't seen in years. I bought plane tickets so my younger son could try flying. I socialized with my husband and made myself go on golf outings. I painted the house and garage by myself. I went on vacation with my sister. I didn't do this stuff because I was happy and content; I did things I thought I wouldn't be here to do in the future.

I was quietly suicidal and equally hoping that a deadly illness would strike me. I was pushing for the illness so my husband and kids wouldn't have to know how much I really wanted to die. I could not see the future in a favorable way and I was in hell. Obviously, I needed the hospitalization that I got late last year. It's easier to put all the blame for my breaking down on the Xanax and the paradoxical reaction than admit how badly I was losing my shit.

It occurs to me that the timing of my breakdown happened a couple years after separating from NM. Overall, a very positive separation, but my natural predispositions and my struggle to define myself separate from her have been very taxing.  NM had her nervous breakdown a couple of years after her mother died - a forced separation, but a separation nonetheless. Maybe she didn't know how to define herself without her NM either.

When Forgiveness Feels Like Selling Out

For a few months, I've been reading heavily on living with mental illness, growing up surrounded by it, and living with toxic and unhealthy people.

I discovered a couple of Susan Forward books, Mothers Who Can't Love and Toxic Parents. I think most of us who blog on narcissists are already pretty well versed in what makes them tick and what gets them off, and the support from the community of survivors is a very solid tool for understanding. something that Forward writes about in her books is how forgiveness is not a necessity - how for many people it can impede rather than enhance their progress.

Why should you forgive someone who treated you like shit when you were at your weakest and most vulnerable? Because God says so? Because your abusers say so? Because some asshole who doesn't know the truth about how you were treated says so?

I don't buy that shit. I am pretty damn happy now that I've made a conscious decision that I don't have to forgive anyone unless I want to. If it doesn't happen, I won't lose sleep over it or tell myself what a bad and childish person I must be that I can't "turn the other cheek." Forgiveness is only divine for the bully that gets to walk away laughing if you're sitting in a heap of mess over the pain they continue to cause you.

If you want to forgive, do it. If you don't want to, don't do it. Just because other people tell you what they want you to believe does not make them correct. Opinions are like assholes, and some assholes are more offensive than others.

Anxiety

I made the mistake this weekend of having enough wine at a gathering. Not too much, but enough. That shit sent me into a tailspin the following two days.

I do know that with the medications I'm on, drinking is not advised. I kinda think it's not so much the alcohol with the medication, though. Looking back, there are a significant number of times that I've had drinks that I didn't get schmammered on that followed up with a day or two of anxiety.

I just never made the link before, or I refused to see it. Boy, it's just not worth it.

The State of Making a Living in America

When I was younger, I felt the epitome of having arrived was to have a "good" job. Of course, in my world a job was going to be a necessity, but I dreamed of the day when I had my evenings and weekends free at a full-time job that paid a livable wage and had benefits. Fuckin' A, my dreams came to fruition. It's funny, but it never occurred to me that I would be unhappy if I got this list of things I wanted.

It's just soul-sucking at a different level, now, see. I have a boss who is a strange mixture of politically motivated/wants everyone to like him. So, he'll kiss the ass of someone who doesn't like him and he can't understand why, but he takes for granted the people who he feels have to be there for him. The job is comprised of approximately 4/5ths male employees, most of whom are an appalling mixture of extremely sexist/need their didies changed. One of these assholes suggested I should be trained on using their checklist for gathering their paperwork to submit to the DA. I think I fucking know how to use a checklist, moron. I can only check off the shit you give me, not the shit you're thinking about giving me. That's why the goddamned checklist is for you.

The boss kow-tows to another bag of shit who has a huge control complex and puts all of us in positions where we can clearly see how much control we do not have, but it doesn't bother the boss because shitbag's lips are firmly suctioned onto boss' ass.

The other two women who work there dislike each other and I get put in the middle. I see so much condescension from one to the other that it boggles my mind, and I know how they treat each other when the other isn't around is how they talk about me when I'm not around.

I'm not really helping anyone, and being helpful is a big motivating factor for me. I do what I can with the log chain around my neck, but the only people I generally can assist are people who don't deserve my assistance. I have to try to find contentment with being nice to whoever I can find it in my heart to, and most of the time, I'm so pissed and angry about the horrible ego-agenda-babies that I'm surrounded with, that I lose any joy and good will.

Is this what I have to do until I'm 70 years old so that I have healthcare and a roof over my head? I hear this theme from most working people. Most of the other people I see each day are welfare rats who spend their days trying to get their pals' foodstamp cards signed out to them from the jail so they can defraud the government.

I have sold my soul for a "good" job.

For Fox Sake.

I got a fucking birthday card from mother yesterday. Home sick from work with a nasty cold, a few days after my birthday has passed. Ooooo, the struggle. Do I just pitch it? I should just pitch it. I'll take it to the garbage and...openitopenitopenit. A handwritten note inside: "...I'm sorry I wasn't there for you when you needed me. I hope you can forgive me my failings..." So she's apologized. It means squat to me now. She's fake apologizing so she can get what she wants, which is for us to all get together during the holidays. How do I know this? I don't fucking know, I just know. The beginning of the letter asked for pics of my boys, asks how they're doing. Shit she should have asked about years ago but didn't. It's fake, it's ALL fake. She's figured out this equation in her head: if c, then b. If a, then not b. She tried a, and it didn't get her what she wanted, so she'll try c. Three years down the road, after multiple non-apologies. Frankly, this was a non-apology, too. She doesn't need forgiven, her failings need forgiven. She's not sorry for what she's done, she's just sorry I didn't have her when I needed her. I got what I knew I was going to get (that I hoped I wouldn't get) when I opened that card. Fakefakefake. At this point, there's nothing she could do to change my opinion of her, so why did I hope? Cuz I'm an idiot who she's trying to play like a fiddle. I disliked her less before I opened that letter.