I just cried. I think it was the twelfth time this week. Oh wait, today's Sunday, so actually it was the first time this week. I have no idea why I'm sitting here torturing myself by having Christmas music playing in the background right now. It makes me want to throw something. I love Bing Crosby's voice, just not right this very second.
I was hoping this holiday season would be easier than last year. Up until last year, I had always done relatively well for the most part. I mean, there were definitely a couple of years that were pretty hard, but nothing like last year. Last year sucked. It sucked giant Santa balls. This one is undoubtedly feeling in the same direction. Right up good ole' Kris Kringle's chocolate whiz way. It's not something I do on purpose, and it's most certainly not something I can 100% control. If I could, I would probably be dancing around my living room right now singing Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer with jingle bells hanging off my nipples. Just kidding about the jingle bells. They'd be hanging around my wrists. Unfortunately, I just literally cannot MAKE myself be Christmas happy all the time. I have my moments.
I've been told to focus on the positive countless times this past week. While I appreciated the unsolicited advice (LOL), it simply isn't that simple. If only people knew how much I wish it were. I am very thankful for the positives. I'm thankful that I'm no longer homeless. I'm thankful that I'm dealing with my bipolar disorder and depression and all the holiday triggers without self-medicating or self-injuring. I'm thankful that all 4 of my children are alive, healthy and seem to be doing well. I'm thankful I have a job. I'm thankful for the encouraging and uplifting people I talk to. I'm thankful for the ocean breeze that is 2 miles away. I'm thankful that I haven't had a nervous breakdown so far this month, although if one more romantic Christmas movie comes on this weekend I actually might, because bah humbug my ex-fiance is a douche bag.
Can anyone relate yet? Let me add a little more.
I think my ex-fiance has a lot to do with the fact that this holiday season is just as rough as last year. Granted, at least I have a place to live this year. I'm not in a drug and prostitute infested crack hotel like I was last year worrying about whether I am going to have a bed to sleep in each and every night or week. No one is getting stabbed in the neck right down the hall. I can walk out of my building without someone trying to get me to take a ride with them to get me to do God knows what. I'm just still.. angry. I don't feel like I've healed much. Maybe I am just now getting to a place in life where I can actually allow myself to heal. Life is actually slowing down just a tad. I finally, just as of this last month, no longer have to have any contact with him. I can start to move on. The stuff he still refuses to give me, he can keep. I was able to finally get the few most important things. He can keep what he destroyed. He almost destroyed me, but failed. The anger, the hurt, the pain, the sadness.. it's all right here, right on the surface. The triggers during this time of year are paramount when it comes to everything "him." I don't know how to make my mind shut up, but I'm trying.
Moving on.
Most of you know this; however, I've gotten a lot of new followers recently. (Still not sure how that happened, but I'm thankful for that, too. One, because that means awareness is being raised. Two, because I am here to listen to and help others if I can. Three, because that means someone is listening, or at least pretending to.) Two of my children talk to me. Two don't. The fact that two don't compounds the sadness and triggers of the holidays so freaking much that I wouldn't even know where to start or end with trying to explain the magnitude of it. My heart goes out to anyone who experiences this. If one more person tells me "he'll come around" or "she'll feel bad one day" I'm going to punch them in the face. It really doesn't help me. Really. Because seriously, you just don't know that. Don't tell me you do, because you don't. There are no absolutely positively no guarantees in life, so don't tell me that one day everything is going to magically be all mended and wrapped in a pretty pink bow because you just don't know that. A multitude of things could happen in the interim where it's just not even a possibility, so please. Just stop. It doesn't help. What helps is listening and just helping parents of estranged children reach a point of acceptance and a place where it's going to be okay even if they don't talk to us again.. which is super hard to do, but it's 12,948 times better than false hope and setting us up for potential disappointment. I hope you can understand that.
My oldest is 22 and recently got married. He has his own life now. If it were just the simple fact that he is an adult and has moved on with life and so on and so forth, it would be much easier to accept. It's the fact that this has been going on for years that makes it difficult. I'm not only cut out of his life, I'm also cut out of his wife's life. He even instructed her not to become my friend on Facebook. I'm blocked from his. I wish I could say I understand it all; why, how, etc. I just don't. I think I understand why he felt he had to do it at first, but so much time has passed that I can't grasp the why of now. I fear that I'm never going to be able to get to know his wife the way everyone else has had a chance to get to know her. She's beautiful, sweet, endearing. God gave him an amazing girl. I'm super happy for them. I'm just really sad. I don't get to see the pictures of the life updates that everyone else gets to see. I don't get to have occasional dinner with them. I'm scared to death that once my first grandchild comes along, I'll never get to spend time with him/her. I'm missing so much. My eyes are burning right now with the tears that are begging to spill down my face. I'm missing it all and there is nothing I can do about it. I've tried.
My youngest daughter just turned 18. She hasn't spent any time with me for about 5 years now. So many things made that reality especially hard. She was my shadow. Like, almost literally my shadow. I would walk from one room to another and turn around and run right into her because she had followed me without me even realizing it. She would fight my other 3 kids for the spot right next to me and would insist on being my sidekick at all times. I wasn't the only one who noticed, either. Everyone at church would say "here comes mini-you" when she would walk into a room. She wanted to do everything mommy did, be everywhere mommy was. She has a lot of my same traits, including bipolar disorder. I wish she didn't have that one. I wish I could take that one away from her. I wish I could take away the pain she has gone through because of this hated illness. I wish I could fade her scars that she had caused on her own body. I wish I could take away all the nights she felt like she was worthless and didn't want to live anymore. I'm glad she's still alive after so many attempts. I wish she would talk to me. I wish she didn't blame me because I have bipolar disorder and she feels like it's my fault she has it.
I wish I could stop crying now... again.
I'm in a lot of contact with my other two children. My oldest daughter, who is 19, spends quite a bit of time with me. She is legally blind, and she and her dog will come spend a weekend with me or several days. We are always laughing when we are together and we always find something to do and a way to smile. She is a lot like me, too. She takes things to heart like I do. She see's the best in people. She always wants to do things for others, even if it costs her something (to a fault sometimes, like me). She got accepted to the local university for the spring semester. I'm so proud of her. My youngest son is 15. We don't get to spend as much time together as we would like because of his crazy busy schedule right now and the fact that I live an hour away, but we do our best. We send each other silly texts and joke around. He's my comic relief and makes me smile. He really cracks me up. He plays soccer a lot and I'm glad he found something he loves to do so much. I'm really looking forward to spending more time with him once his schedule loosens up a bit when school lets out and his activities slow down. I call these two kids my two "A's" because their names start with an A.
My two A's when they were younger:
I have the opportunity to take my two A's to the Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party on the evening of December 13, and you really don't understand how completely ecstatic I am about it. Totally stoked. They are about a million gazillion times more excited than I am, so I know that's a lot. My daughter A has only been to Disney one time and my son A has never been, which is sad since we've been in Central Florida their whole lives, so needless to say they absolutely cannot wait. Even though the tickets are cheaper than regular daytime Disney tickets, they are still above my budget, but you know what? They've waited long enough. I've waited long enough. If I don't do something special and positive for once this year, I am positive I just might lose my mind. So, I have to do this. We will have practically nothing at all to spend while we are at the park, but at least they will have fun. I hope. Yes, they will. Judging by their excitement, they will. They know I'm struggling, and one thing I can say about my children is that they have always been really good about being understanding when it comes to finances. I'll never forget my daughter telling me when she was younger, "all I want for Christmas is you." I'm tearing up again.
How do we get through the holidays, exactly, when our lives are in shambles or if we have trigger overload? I can't always get away from my triggers, and I think it's safe to say you can't, either; however, I think that if there are certain triggers we can avoid, we should certainly do that. Here is what I have discovered this year so far:
1. Don't watch all the sappy Hallmark Christmas movies that are flooding the television stations right now. Our lives very seldom come close to even remotely resembling the crap that's in the script and instead of making you go "awww" and giving you a warm and fuzzy feeling, you end up wanting to break your shit instead.
2. Avoid alcohol in excess (and avoid drugs entirely). If you want a glass of wine, have a glass of wine. Just don't drink the whole bottle. You might think it's going to help you, but it's not. You'll end up calling or texting everyone in your phone's contact list and telling them you love them so much or you hate them so much and neither is probably a good idea, not to mention all the other things you might end up saying. Plus, alcohol is a depressant, and most drugs are just bad. Yikes.
3. Write. A lot. That journal or notebook that has been sitting in a drawer for months or even years can come into some good use right now. Just start writing. Write everything. If it's in your head, write it. You'd be surprised how much stuff you are actually thinking about. You'll also be surprised at how much better you just might feel once you've gotten it out of your head. Sometimes I read what I've written later and all I can say is "what the hell?"
4. Only listen to music that is going to lift you up. If it's making you feel sad or angry, turn it off immediately. Kind of like I did the damn Christmas music I had playing when I started writing this blog. It was on for a whole 7 minutes.
5. Go for a walk. I have taken so many walks recently that I'm actually kind of angry that I haven't lost like 20 pounds at this point. It releases both physical and emotional tension. I don't always FEEL like going for a walk, but I have come to realize that if I take that first step out the door and make myself do it, I'm always really glad I did and feel better afterward. Except for the morning I went jogging on the beach in my bare feet and didn't see the hundreds of jellyfish on the shore until I was tripping over them and I basically almost died.
Lastly, never ever ever be afraid to reach out. None of us have to do this alone.
My inbox is always open on my FB page. Ramblings of a Bipolar Sober Chick.
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