Tag Archives: Posttraumatic stress disorder

STOP THE LEAKING

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4

I am a baby, a cry baby. There is no denying it, and I hate it. I loathe it all day. It just is incredibly inconvenient to me to be such a cry baby. Today at work we were talking about the ins and outs of forming a board for an appeal that needs to be heard. I made a suggestion about one way of selecting members for this group, and this guy just said to me, “What the hell does that have to do with anything?” I was stunned. I felt metaphorically slapped. Trust me, I recognize that most peeps aren’t as sensitive as I am.

Then I had to wait while my boss spent 25 minutes talking with a co-worker about the tragedy of her Christmas tree falling over this weekend. She saw me waiting outside her door, and waved me into her office, but then proceeded to continue this personal conversation with a coworker for nearly a half hour! If I had known it would take that long I would have gone back to my desk. I was just waiting to see if she had any guidance on how to get the damn thing done. Well, by the time I was able to ask her my question about the stupid issue I just started getting all teary. I did not realize that I was still upset by the dumb guy’s comment, and that’s what probably got me teary. But … Ugh!!! I really hate that, especially since I know that she looks down on people who cry. She does not care for it. She treated me fine, but it blows that I’ve heard her make disparaging remarks about people who cry. It just feels humiliating.

It probably did not help that she had me stand there for nearly a half hour while she yammered about something else with a coworker.  Still, I wish I was less sensitive. When things like this happen I start to feel like I’m in elementary school again, and even the teachers called me a cry baby.

I wish I had a STOP THE LEAKING button any time I start feeling like I am going to cry, but don’t want to cry. Such a thing would be incredibly handy to me.

?!?!?!?!?!

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I have to get rid of the cacophony of noise in my head. Everyone is all stirred up, and I am out of options for calming everyone down. It’s times like this that I really wonder why I try so hard. I used to drink to get rid of the triggers. I had sex to excess, and that addiction helped me ignore the dissociation. Four years ago I gave up drinking and addictive sex. Now that I don’t have those crutches everything is horribly visible to me. I can hear and feel everything. In a way I am glad I did not have the knowledge of how it would be at the time I decided to quit. I may not have quit if I had known it would be like this.

The truth is that I am just holding on, and I am not even sure why. Why hold on? So that I can be in the same damn spot a year from now?

Someone inside of me wants to die, and I have to tell you that it becomes harder and harder to talk sense into them. I just numbly ignore the desire and go about my day, but it’s always there in the back of my head, gnawing and wanting to be done.

It is all a ruse, an act. I’m hardly sane. I just go through the motions, acting the part of normal human being. But, really, it is not real. What is real is in my head, and it is not for public consumption. It’s hardly for my own consumption.

I feel like I am out of options, out of choices. I see Doc in the morning. Whoop de doo. I’m not happy with him either.

I have to sleep, and I am not up for it. I am even annoying myself with how much of a prickly pear I am today.

God, give me a clue as to what I am supposed to be doing because I have no flipping idea.

Cooking for money?

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I need to backtrack a bit. My friend that I’ve been talking about these past few days is Dan. I first mentioned Dan back in October. Dan is an ex-boyfriend of mine. We dated for a year back in 2007, and have been friends since then. Dan and I broke up, and went our separate ways for a few months. There was no contact between us until I was attacked by my director. Soon after that happened, I reached out to my best friend at the time, Anita, and that was a life-changing disaster that I won’t go into detail here for fear that I will get triggered.

So, after that experience with Anita I was left with few options of whom to turn to for help. I reached out to Dan. He has been, and continues to be there for me.

Dan cares for me, though we certainly have our differences. He is reminiscent of Sheldon in the Big Bang Theory television series. He can be rigid, to say the least.

Today he offered me $50 a week if I cook a slew of meals for myself twice a week. I was aghast. It’s hard to get mad at him because he means well, but I was stunned. It’s not as simple as he’s making it out to be. Of course I wish I cooked more, and spent more time at home. The offer of the money is insulting on it’s surface. You could be offering me $1,000 and I’m still going to have the same problems with being home alone. Money is not going to solve this issue.

I immediately got switchy, and I switched into a younger peep. I feel silly that I can’t identify these peeps very well. I felt myself start to cry and babble into nonsensical upset talk. We then went to sit on the couch to talk. I started blabbing on about how I feel like a bad person because I can’t be home a lot, and, for some reason, I brought up the fact that I don’t speak to my mother. He’s always been strangely silent about that, and while I was going on and on about the things I felt bad about I tossed that in the mix. I asked him, “Do you think less of me because I don’t speak to my mother?”

Dan said, “You know how I love that game Conflict of Heroes that I play every other Tuesday? Well, the best player in the group is this guy Russ, and it bugs me that I can never beat him. Now I could have dinner with you and go on and on about how it bothers me that I can never win against him. You can listen and be supportive, but there’s not a whole lot of feedback you can give me. You’re not very familiar with tactical board games, war games or even World War II, so we can’t have an in-depth conversation about it. All you can do is listen. Whereas, I have other friends that can ask me questions related to strategy, or they can ask me what I’ve tried, and give me feedback on their experience with certain moves. I don’t have anything to offer you about your mother as I have no experience with that kind of thing.”

We stopped talking about the offer of $50 if I cook for myself. When I brought up the issue of my mother it took the conversation in a completely different direction. Though the issues he’s comparing are very different, I do think it’s sweet that he even offered something up. Years ago he would not have been able to say very much. His Asperger’s features are fascinating to me. He tries the only way he can, and it’s more than I can say for others that have come in and out of my life.

I still don’t know how to handle the cooking for money offer on the table. I want to throttle him, and hug him at the same time. Such is the eternal nature of our relationship …