I didn’t think I cared this much about my age, wanting it to be just a number, but all of a sudden I’m just drowning in this.  My poor husband would probably like to do something for me to celebrate the birthday but he’s afraid of upsetting me.  Every year I think I want to celebrate my birthday and do it up, but other than a night out at a bar a few years ago where I had fun with friends, my birthdays have been very much about avoidance of the spotlight.

I am pretty certain that I need to go back to therapy. I have no self-esteem, I used to be active in theatre (stopped around 10 years ago when I was in college) and had no fear, and now I just find myself shrinking back into the corner.  I was at a conference earlier this week and was about 3 feet from multiple people who I admire and instead of saying anything to them, I just let the moment pass. WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?

Sorry for the ranting. Hopefully putting this somewhere real will help me to start dealing with it.

The date went well, very well.  I was comfortable with the guy, we had lots to talk about, it was successful in many ways – except I felt no attraction to this man at all.  None.  He’s a nice guy, don’t get me wrong, and I did have a good time talking to him, but I felt no spark, no chemistry, and after three hours of talking, it was clear to me that we had very little in common.

This date was a big deal not only for me but for people close to me whom I chose to tell the story to.  I all of a sudden became bombarded with so many opinions about this, and so much advice I barely knew what do do with all this extra information.

I have Borderline Personality Disorder, and part of what comes with that is a need for external validation.  What I also tend to do a lot as a BPD is look for cues about how to feel from other people – mainly because I was so invalidated as a child that any feeling I naturally had was labeled wrong, and so I never learned for myself how I felt about things.  But the thing is, I know.  I know.  I was just looking to have someone else confirm it for me.  Alas, this isn’t what’s happening in this situation.  I’m getting information and advice that is conflicting what I believe I know in my gut – this isn’t the guy for me.

This is probably the first time I have consciously thought, Wait a minute, I don’t need all this input.  I know in my heart what is right in this situation.

That is a HUGE step in my BPD recovery!  I can’t tell you how huge it is.  If I get nothing out of this dating situation besides that discovery, it’ll have been worth it.

Incidentally, I will see this guy again because I think he might be good friend material.  I will just have to be clear that I’m not interested in anything romantic.

Along the way life impacts on us, forcing us to make decisions about how we respect ourselves. If we are treated with love and esteemed for being our authentic selves, then chances are our self respect will be great!

Our sense of self is determined by life’s knocks and bruises, by our optimistic or pessimistic nature, and by our ability for resilience – that is whether we roll with the punches or get snowed under. If we harbor resentments, untruths, dishonesty and lies, it is not difficult to see that our armour of self respect will be sadly dented.

As we journey toward authenticity, reviewing our definition of respect will direct us toward those areas which need attention.

Although others may show their respect for us, we cannot get self respect from others. It comes from within us and must be known and experienced as our own truth.

Sometimes our lack of self respect comes heavily disguised and is, for instance, cloaked in constant acts of kindness and service to others, inordinate attention to how we look, the need for excessive order and control in our surroundings – in other words we project out what we do not do for ourselves.

(source: authentic-self.com)

The last paragraph rings so true for me.

I will start this journey by being more honest with my husband. I see now that I have been playing the role as “good wife” a little too hard ever since he got really sick with cancer. I am burnt out. I have changed. The cancer has changed me. I no longer have a healthy husband. I have a husband who is disabled by illness about 80% of the time. That does not mean that I don’t still love him. I love him deeply, and I need him in my life. I do, however, love him differently. He is not the man he used to be. That is not his fault. I blame the cancer for ravaging his body and causing permanent damage. I blame his chemotherapy for taking him away from me most of the time. I support his fight. I am here for him. I want to be here with him. But things are different, and I’ve been spending about six months now trying to pretend that everything is “settling down”, “stabilizing”, and that we have a “new normal.” The truth is, that is bull-shit. There is nothing “normal” or “stable” about my life and especially with regards to our relationship as a married couple. So why should I go on any longer pretending? It is draining me to be so completely fake about so so much. I want to be more authentic. Say what I feel, do what I want, have free will to live my life with dignity and confidence, not humiliation and insecurity.

more on all this later…

I set a very frank boundary with A last week about the need for her to exercise her dog. She started last night saying that her dog was ‘limping.’ I didn’t see it, so I don’t know if it was true or not. Every time she wanted out today it was prefaced by: “you can go out to pee but you can’t run because you are limping.” Instead of just saying that she was not going to exercise her because she was limping I had to put up with this all day. It wore very thin, very quickly. Finally, she took her for a leash walk without me saying anything.

I am finding it increasingly difficult to have other people living in our house. I crave peace and quiet and a stress-reduced space. D and I are never alone and the only time we can talk is when we are in bed. I really just want to sit in my living room and watch something on tv without anyone else there. A always watches all the shows while I am at work or asleep so by the time I get to them she has seen them. I would think she would leave the room but no, she sits and reads a fucking book and yells at the dogs. She is very loud and I can’t hear the TV over her.

I do have to say that it is at the point that it does not matter what she does it is going to annoy me. I recognize that and I am not sure how one finds one’s way back from that place. I resent her presence in my space and I want her gone.

We also have L. I have known her for 20 years. I moved into her house more than once over the years when I lived in Calgary. Whenever I needed an inexpensive place to be for a short amount of time that is where I went. Now she is here and I have a house and I could not say no. To say that she is challenging is an understatement. She is a conspiracy theorist, thinks UFOs are everywhere and that the US is not a democracy. She is uneducated and very simplistic in her thinking. Critical thinking is something she missed out on. I am not sure how but it is not there. She also has Asperger like symptoms including one called: one-sided verbosity. She says the same things, over and over again, in the same vocal intonation, with the same speech function to the dogs. An example is: “I like you Madison.” Over and over and over again. It was actually D who suggested she may have Aspergers. She is also very loud and swears inappropriately in both volume and frequency. She perseverates on how people have treated her badly ie former girlfriends and their children is a favourite topic.

So, the solution? Well, I thought we would just get away more often. D and I could go away for a couple of days here and there and we could cope. Enter the mother unit. There is a very long and complicated history between me and my mother. Suffice it to say, I am adopted and I am different but she has always relied on me to the point where I feel like I am parenting my parent now. She is highly emotional and she likes to control my sister and me. In a fit of generosity a couple of weeks ago she offered to send us a substantial amount of money. My mother is a multi-millionaire. It was very generous of her. In the past, I would never ask her for money because of the cost involved. I, naively, thought this time would be different.

It started the day I got the cheque. I had booked our tickets for our second trip to Calgary this year and she was bemoaning the fact that we were only staying for 2 days. We were only ever going to stay for 2 days and she knew that. I  told her I could not get any more time off, which was not entirely true but I was not going to have my mother use all of my vacation time. It is not a vacation when we go to see her.

I plan to take 2 weeks off after labour day. We are going to see her on the next weekend and I had hoped that D and I could just go to a hotel for a couple of days to get a break. Well, nix that plan! She now seems to think that she can tell me what to spend money on. I mentioned, in passing, that I was going to get an electrician to put another electrical outlet in my office as I only have one and I am the network hub. I have the router, the cable modem, two printers and a scanner. It is ridiculous. Then she starts in suggesting there are better things to spend the money on like a roof (which we don’t need). She also started to make disparaging comments about our house – which she has never liked. I am not sure if it is because it is not a cookie-cutter house like hers or because we have so many dogs. The discussion about me needing an additional plug of course led to her commenting on the number of electronic gadgets I have. She thinks I have everything – I don’t.

So, I am not happy at home and now my mother feels like she can tell me how to spend money. I am sure she would think us going away is a ‘waste’ of money. I know she thinks it is with my sister why would I be any different? Plus I call her everyday and she will know I am not home which will then bring up both the money and the lack of time off issue. I can’t fucking win.

I wish I had a solution. One is not apparent at this moment but hopefully it will come. I need to uncomplicate my life. Any thoughts?

PS – I apologize for coming here and venting. It is the only safe place I have online to say what I feel.

The other big stress in my life is our 10 dogs. Yes, we have chosen to have the dogs and we wouldn’t change it…so that is not going away. I can deal with that.

The other major stress is A who lives with us. She is 23 and has Borderline Personality Disorder. She makes me mental because of her behaviours. She cuts and she likes to show off her scars. We had company on the weekend and I told her that if she wanted to participate she had to cover her arms and not swear as there were going to be children there and the last thing I wanted was for her to plant that seed in a child’s head. This is not the first time I have had to do this. She has no regard as to how her behaviour affects other people. She has a pitbull – who is a great dog. She needs a lot of exercise yet A does not exercise her. This in spite of the fact that we have discussed it numerous times. I have decided that I am just going to address issues and if she does not like it she can move. We had a big issue about her dog last night and I know she is quite mad at me right now.

I am now also completely off of cymbalta and clonazepam. I saw the psychiatrist and he basically stated that I should do cognitive behavioural therapy and that my pain needed to be kept under control so that my anxiety is better controlled. I am still on one med for anxiety – trazadone.

I have committed to myself that I am going to take more opportunities for time away for me and Deb (if she wants to come…and I am sure she will!). I am also going to make a concerted effort to set clear boundaries with A and perhaps do some research around BPD so that I can be more effective.

Any thoughts are welcome!

Finally I checked voicemail and Dad needed help in figuring out which external hard drive to buy. I called him to talk about that and of course the subject turns and he starts bringing up my brother.

I tell him that I don’t want to know about it and he tells me that he and my mother now have him going to a methadone clinic, and this program has him doing individual therapy once a week and I think a group thing once a week as well.

The conversation went on from there, unpleasant as always, I told my father that I’m not particularly interested in talking to my brother right now, I still think that part of this is his own doing. Does that make me an evil bitch? Apparently it does and so I come here and write about it. I love my brother with all of my heart but it doesn’t mean I have to like him. How can I NOT be angry with him about all of the hurt he has caused my family, whether or not he’s been addicted to whatever he was taking this whole time?

I haven’t talked to my mom either, she’s clearly not wanting to hear anything about it because she hasn’t called and she always calls.

I am happy it is the weekend.

When I was a little kid there was a game I used to love to play.  It was called The Final Straw.  The main game piece was a plastic camel that was split into two pieces and held together by a rubber band.  The camel had a pair of baskets that hung over it’s back.  The object of the game was to fill the baskets with straws, hoping that the straw added during your turn was not the one that caused the camel’s back to snap in two.  The beginning of the game was always easy.  After all, a straw didn’t weigh much at all and one straw wasn’t going to break the camels back.  But as the game went on the weight of the straws added up and, if you weren’t careful, a single straw would cause it to snap.  I was very good at this game.  I learned that if you paid attention to the rest of the straws in the load and kept the load balanced, the camel could hold a lot more.  I could almost always use my straw to balance the load and let the other players worry about breaking the camels back.  But occasionally I would play with somebody else who was also very good at balancing the load.  It was then that my skills really didn’t matter because, eventually, the load was going to get to be more than the camel could take no matter how well it was balanced.  In those games, when our matched skills let us pile to most straws onto the camel, the break was a lot more fun to watch.  With the extra weight, when the camel’s back did finally break, it would snap with more force and send the straws flying all over the table.

I often find that life is a lot like that game.  We are hit with little things every day and, by themselves, those little things are no big deal at all, far from a burden.  But those little things can pile up and become a burden.  And if the burden becomes too great – snap!  They also impede our ability to take on the bigger things that come along from time to time.  The trick is not only to balance the little things, but shed them as quickly as they come so that we are not overwhelmed when something bigger (and sometimes better) comes along.

In real life I am not always so good at the game, especially when it comes to casting off the burden.  I’m always too happy to take on a little something more, often at the expense of the things I enjoy.  I’m missing out on too much and nearing the breaking point.  

It’s time to get creative.

• I saw the psychiatrist last week. The appointment went ok. He gets the chronic pain and basically said that it is hard to feel good when you hurt. However we spent a fair bit of time discussing cognitive behavioural therapy. The outcome of this for me was somehow a statement that I was ‘thinking’ wrong. He kept telling me how smart I was and that clearly I had figured out ways to manage my life, anxiety and stress and that this situation was no different. I felt a bit manipulated by him as he was using this to get me to buy into the CBT. What I have a real issue with is that no one seems to understand that I have not been the same since I was very seriously ill and hospitalized for 2 weeks. Ulcerative colitis (UC) has completely fucked my life and I end up struggling to get through every single day. Very rarely do I wake up pain free. He wants me off the clonazapam completely – I am fine with that as it does not seem to be doing anything anyway. I am down to 1/4 mg a day and will drop that by the end of the weekend. He questioned whether cymbalta was doing anything. I don’t think it so I am coming off of that. He liked the trazadone, said it could be doubled if necessary. He recommended another med, buspar, if things don’t even out. Given that my anxiety is linked to pain caused by UC I think as long as the pain is under control then things will be fine.
• One of the other major symptoms of UC is skin disorders. I get a lot of boils. Most of the time I ignore them and they go away. But I have one on my stomach, right beside my 10cm by 20cm scar from pyoderma gangrenosum (picture 2 looks like what I had, only much, much bigger). I get a little concerned about that scar and anything interfering with it because it still hurts. I had a boil right beside it that was about 3 inches across. It would fester up and then go back down on a monthly cycle and never drain. It had become a carbuncle and the choices were antibiotics or cleaning it out. Given my propensity to weird diseases my doctor wanted to do the antibiotics. So, we started a course of Keflex. I hate keflex. I hate antibiotics. Basically antibiotics enhance the immune system, which for me, makes me really sick. I felt like I had the flu, dizzy, fatigued, barely being able to drive. Then the yeast moved in. It moved in, everywhere. Ok, not everywhere – I was spared thrush this time. D and I went away for a romantic weekend and I had the yeast infection from hell. I have never had one that bad. I also had it on my skin in various places i.e. groin, under my breast, armpit, feet etc. It has taken me 2 weeks to get over being on keflex.
• D and I had a huge fight this weekend that started Friday and is still not quite resolved. One of her friends from one of her support groups came for dinner. This woman makes me rather mental. She is heavily medicated and seems to completely abdicate responsibility in her life. She is a victim. I have no patience for this kind of behaviour. She is also overtly catholic. Our household is non-Christian. The first time she was over and she started to say grace (she did not ask if she could she just did it), I informed her we were a non-Christian family. I thought I was heard. On Friday, I was doing my treadmill time and she followed me into the living room to ask me a bunch of questions about social programs and then at one point said: “God bless you.” I asked for what and she said for walking on the treadmill. I said what does god have to do with me on the treadmill? Then as we sat down to dinner she said “Grace.” I again informed her we were a non-Christian family. She then ‘tee heed’ and said “I already said it.” I was livid. Had she asked if it was ok if she say grace I would have said yes but to have it imposed on me in what appears to be a pre-meditated and sneaky way was extremely offensive. This turned into a big fight because D thinks I am being close-minded and that N is just like that given that she is 62. I don’t agree, obviously. I think D over reacted to the situation and was quite mean when she told me I was close-minded. I would appreciate input about this one.
• When I came home from work on Friday I was in a good mood and for the first time in months I was ‘in the mood.’ I communicated this as best as I could given that we had N for dinner. I was fairly sure that D understood. She has another friend who recently had a baby and she has been having trouble breastfeeding. Deb has been cooking food and exercising their very hyper dog. On Friday night she came back quite late and then started fighting with me about N. D can be quite passive aggressive in her behaviour. It seemed to me that we fought about N because she felt bad for being out so late and scuttling my plans. We carry on to Saturday. I had made plans to go to the store and buy enough food to cook for us and D’s friend. I did a whole chicken and stuffing. D took it over etc. However, all day she basically ignored me except for when we were at the store. I felt like she was not seeing me. D has difficulty modulating her commitment in relationships. She does not seem to understand how to maintain a primary relationship and have friends because she has always shied away from having friends. Sunday things were a bit better, we had a 5-minute conversation about what kind of yogurt I wanted while she was at the store and she made a positive comment about what I was doing on the treadmill. On Sunday I felt like was seen. I tried to illustrate the difference and she concluded that I was jealous of E. I couldn’t believe it! Nothing could be further from the truth. I have encouraged this friendship. Plus, as I pointed out to her, I was even participating in cooking food for them! Where was the jealousy. Then she accused me of being needy and told me I was 44 and should not need that much attention. I was floored so I asked her how much attention did she think I needed? Again, I explained the difference between the two days. Then she reminds me that I like to spend a lot of my time listening to music and playing on my computer or watching tv – all true. We have had this discussion so many times that I am sick of it. I told her, yet again, all I needed was a little acknowledgement, a hug, a kiss, rub my shoulders etc. Very little. I am unclear why she cannot remember it.
• In hindsight today I have determined that we both violated our usual rules of interaction which are – to be kind and to assume good intentions. The other thing I realized was that I was tired of her imposing her anger on me all the time. She does not modulate her energy very well and she stomps and slams things around. Quite often it is not even me she is mad at but A who lives with us. I then of course go and ask what is wrong. She says nothing…and it all starts again. I have told her that she needs to figure it out. I am going to remove my part (or try to). I am not going to ask her anymore what is wrong. I am going to tell her that when she has figured out what she is angry about she can come and let me know and we will discuss it.

The bottom line is I am very frustrated. I know that my pain level makes it worse a lot of the time. Sorry for the long post but I just needed to get it out. Any feedback welcomed.

Anyway, he’s been completely irresponsible for as long as I remember, and things have been going steadily downhill for the last few years.  Three days before my wedding I got a frantic call from my sister, telling me that the flight she was about to get on with her family was boarding and our brother was nowhere to be found. I called him probably 50 times and had a family friend on the way to my parents’ house (where he lives – my parents had already left to come here for the wedding) – he finally called me and told me that he overslept. My sister told me during our next call that she thought he was addicted to pills or something.  I ended up buying him a one-way plane ticket for later that day, and my mother begged me not to tell my father. My husband and I were in the car going to pick him up, both of us crying. I had my husband check my brother’s bag later and he found a bottle of Excedrin peppered with painkillers, morphine, oxycontin, etc. 

I didn’t say anything at that time, I was so stressed out and I was incapable of dealing with an intervention. My husband and I went to dinner with my parents 2 nights after the wedding and we told them that we thought my brother was addicted to pills.  They basically told us that we were wrong.

It was about a month later that my dad called to tell me that my brother had told them he was addicted to oxycontin.  My parents paid a few thousand dollars for him to go to an outpatient rehab program.  They prescribed him suboxone, which is supposed to be good to wean off of that stuff, and he went to therapy a few times a week.  We thought it was working, my parents continued to let him live there (I told my parents that I thought that a requirement for him to live there rent-free would be to take regular drug tests, they told me that it was too expensive to buy them).

I did end up finding out that when my brother missed the flight to come for my wedding that he had stayed up taking pills and doing cocaine with his “friend”/dealer all night the night before.

3 months later my dad was moving my brother’s car and found the little bags that hold the pills when you buy them from a drug dealer.  My brother confessed to being on the pills again and my parents started taking him back to the place where he went for the rehab.  He was apparently fine after a while, but I tried to stay out of it and didn’t ask questions.  I live 7 states away so I only see them a few times a year.  As things have gone downhill I have focused on my life with my husband and pulled away from my family more than I would like to, but it feels like what I need to do to stay sane.

Anyway, in October 2007, my aunt offered my brother a space in her house and help getting a job, she figured that he might be able to have a stepping stone by living with her (I lived with her for about 2 years when I moved back up north, before moving in with my husband in November 2003.)  So he was all of a sudden living very close to me and from what we saw, things were OK and he wasn’t taking drugs.  He lasted about 6 months before a major blowout with my aunt that my husband and I were also involved in, and it’s been almost a year and a half since we’ve spoken to her, as a result of it. 

So my brother moved back to live with my parents, and since then has been messed up. My parents think he is doing drugs, but I’ve come to the point where I think that he isn’t on the drugs anymore.  I think he knows how to play my parents and telling them that he is on drugs makes them want to save him.  Things he has done to them include stealing money, stealing things out of their house and pawning them, stealing from my grandmother, lying all over the place, and letting my parents pay all of his bills.

It’s like they don’t want anyone to know that they have a kid with problems.  My issues with weight resulted in my dad telling me that he would pay me to lose weight before my wedding, making it clear that he was not happy with how I looked.  I didn’t lose any weight before my wedding, and in turn, he said nothing to me on that day about how I looked. 

I’m sorry that I’m not staying on topic.

So anyway, I’ve been telling my mom and dad for months that I think it is ridiculous that they have not kicked him out of their house and changed the locks. HE STOLE FROM THEM, what else does it take? That is the lowest thing I can think of.  The first bout of stealing was a few months ago, and my parents started the “we’re really getting to the end of our rope with him” business.  They say it every time and since they decide to ONLY tell me about all of the bad shit he does, I feel like they give me the space to tell them that I think they have enabled him quite enough and that they need to stop and kick him out of their house and tell our family that they should not let him stay with them because he will likely steal from their house in order to pawn things.

I am friends with his girlfriend on Facebook which makes me think he is not on drugs.  My parents think he is back on drugs and is spending money on that.  I am privy to his girlfriend saying that he got her roses last week, he took her out for an expensive hibachi dinner last night, I met her once and she is so spendy, I think he caught it from her.

Dad called today and told me that he stole some more stuff, that I have no idea how much money my parents have put out to pay his shit, and I asked him, AGAIN, “why is he still in your house?”  He says ”that is our son and we want to help him.”

I don’t have kids and maybe I don’t get it? How far do you let your kid walk all over you when they are in their late 20s?

I’m so upset about this, I am tempted to get involved by telling the girlfriend about what’s going on with my parents so that maybe she knows what is going on there. I almost wish she would break up with him.

Anyway. I have been typing this for what feels like hours. I am just so frustrated with my family right now, and my husband is just so done with it that I needed to vent somewhere.