Talking with a Ghost

Mind the tags - this post is about my experience of childhood trauma.  If this triggers you I am very sorry.

There was once a little girl who had a special friend she liked to spend time with.  One night when she was spending the night with her friend the girl found a monster in the night.  She awoke in her friend’s room, but her friend wasn’t there.  She walked down the hallway and heard strange noises coming from the basement.  Walking down into that room, the girl saw her friend and her friend’s father.  Her friend’s father was doing something the girl didn’t understand to her friend, but it didn’t look like her friend liked it.  And it didn’t look like something any grown up should be doing to a child.  So the girl ran across the room and yelled at the man to stop.  The man turned to look at the girl and stared.  He said “I am a man of God.  If this was wrong then God would strike me down.”  He was quiet for a moment then he pointed at the girl. “If you tell anyone I’ll hurt your brothers.  You have to do what I tell you from now on.”  And that was when the girl understood that monsters hide behind familiar faces.

          When I decided to start blogging about what I can remember about my childhood trauma I decided to use a narrative method.  It allows me to talk about what happened and how it felt without fully pouring into that madness.  There are huge chunks in my memory from around the ages of 7-10 and I’m guessing that’s when the abuse happened, but the truth is I just can’t remember.  It’s funny what the human mind will do to protect itself.  In my case I forgot.  I learned to ignore things that didn’t make sense because looking at things too closely would tear down those walls my mind put up.  Forgetting worked for over twenty years, and then things started coming back.  Small things came to me:  I remembered I inexplicably stopped talking to my friend in middle school and never got into another conversation with her until the night we were leaving high school.  I started having dreams about that house.  I started to notice things I had done since childhood – never leaving my bedroom door closed, sleepwalking, and always keeping my finger nails long enough to scratch if need be.  Looking at these things now they all speak the same language:  possible escape.  If they door was open I might be able to get away.  Sleepwalking got me out without me even being aware of it.  And those fingernails could be quite effective in warning someone off. 

          There was a counselor I was working with that I was going to talk to about the trauma once my cancer surgery was done.  But.  He died unexpectedly and I feel like I’m dangling in the wind now.  It is HARD to find someone to open up to about this.  This is not fun to talk about.  It hurts to write about it.  But I don’t want to be a victim to that man of God anymore.  He has no power over me.  And so I’m going to write.  Until I can find another counselor who I feel safe with and won’t make my trauma worse, I will write.  Because this anger/grief/shame/not-feeling-safe needs an outlet.  Writing about this feels like talking about the ghost of my childhood.  I don’t know if I tried to talk to anyone about it when I was a child, but I do know I escaped into books.  Words helped me to survive then and they will now.  

A Delicate Balance

Last week or so I posted a video on Twitter that had a really good description of narcissistic behavior.  The video's called How to speak to a narcissist and is by Dr. Greg Hamlin and about halfway through it he talks about the title of the video - speaking to a narcissist.  A fellow person who's had a Narcissist in their life (I'll call her Z) tweeted that appealing to a narcissist's needs felt like manipulation.  So I'm going to talk about that a bit cuz it brings up this really interesting point about empathy.

There have been numerous psychological studies done on human children to see if empathy is something we're taught or if it's ingrained.  The general consensus is that it's a combination of both nature and nurture, but that by the age of 9 months most children are capable of showing empathy to another human being.  

When it comes to narcissists there are a ton of theories on why these people are empathy deficient.  Personally I think a combination of things make up a narcissist, but whatever it is that makes them the way they are makes it very difficult to try to understand why someone else would be hurting, or upset, or feeling used.  Anger they can understand, but those more subtle emotions are really beyond their ability to recognize.  Enter into this a person who's extremely empathetic...they get when a person is hurting or upset or feeling used.  They instinctively try to make that other person feel better.  The narcissist will jump all over this person because this person gives their attention to them freely, at least in the beginning.  In a normal relationship (which is what the empathetic person is used to) there is a give and take.  An exchange happens in a normal, healthy relationship (whether it's a friendship or a romance) so that each person receives support and feels like they are appreciated.  Unfortunately, when one person in a relationship is a narcissist, the relationship becomes a vacuum with the narcissist constantly pulling from the other person.  

The great thing about the comment that started this little post is that saying 'it feels like manipulation to appeal to a narcissist's needs' shows that the person making that comment is very high in empathy.  Because if you're worried that you're hurting them, then you're feeling something a true narcissist can't.    

The other thing I wanted to mention is how invested in the relationship the narcissist is.  I haven't seen this discussed much, and have only my own experience with my mother-in-law Narcissist to go by, so take this with a grain of salt.  The example in the video is of someone going to talk to their boss, who is a narcissist.  In this example the narcissist has an investment in the relationship, but it isn't an emotional investment so negotiating both parties' needs might be relatively easy.  Keep in mind I mean relatively easy in terms of dealing with a narcissist.  If the narcissist in your life has no emotional investment in the relationship with you then forget about any negotiations.  If there is an emotional investment then the narcissist may attempt to compromise on some points and the other half of the relationship may get some of their needs met.  But.  That won't happen unless the narcissist is getting something to fill that vacuum I mentioned earlier.  And typically if the narcissist isn't invested then they're getting nothing in that emotional vacuum of theirs from that particular relationship.

So my big take away from this whole thing is - it's good to be empathetic, but you've also got to watch out for yourself.  Self care means stepping back from relationships that leave you feeling drained or vacuumed out.  It really is okay to say no, step back, and leave some people to fend for themselves.  Sometimes as an INFJ and HSP this can be difficult, but not stepping back is worse.  

Loss and Life in General

So far 2016 has not been an easy year for me.  Was given the skin cancer diagnosis on January 21st and things have been pretty par for the course since then.  The trials and tribulations of being married to an adult child of a narcissist (who also happens to be in complete denial of the face that his mother is a narcissist) have not gotten any easier.  This past Monday (March 7) we found out the counselor we've been working with for months died suddenly and unexpectedly.  It affected me quite profoundly and has left me feeling the loss of the support he provided.  At this point I'm not willing to even consider finding another counselor because we put in so much emotional work and I just don't feel like I can do that again anytime soon.  Building a good relationship with any counselor is crucial to getting anything constructive done and I just don't have the emotional energy available for that.  The other part of this, of course, is dealing with Donald's constant need for reassurance at the expense of my feeling of emotional stability.  It's not a good combination and with the death of our counselor the separation will probably come sooner rather than later.  The other major issue with Father Eugene's unexpected death is I'm now left with either finding another counselor who's dealt with childhood sexual trauma before or just dealing with it on my own.  And right now I just don't know how to proceed with that.

Update on the pre-op appointment is next, although if you've got a problem with needles you may want to stop reading here.

So...it might be best to talk a bit about the mass that was removed from my right eyelid in December before I get into the pre-op info.  The ophthalmologist at Langley AFB and an assistant removed the bulk of the tumor on my eyelid with a local anesthetic.  This means they used lots of eye drops the numb the hell out of my eye, and finally inserted a needle with general anesthetic several places around the eyelid and finally into the eye itself.  It sucked.  I'm not afraid of needles and could get shots all day long, but having a needled inserted into my eyeball was quite anxiety producing.  After that needle it was a piece of cake.

Now, moving on to the pre-op....the very nice dermatology specialists had several of us folks who were going to be receiving MOHS surgery to have their cancer tumors removed watch a video.  The video was great except that it talked about taking some extra tissue around the actual tumor to ensure all the cancer was removed.  That particular method isn't going to work well with me because there IS no extra tissue on the human eyelid.  The other issue the video raised that concerned me was the fact that is talked about doing multiple sessions of general anesthetic to get all the cancer.

I was less than thrilled by the idea of having a needle go into my eyeball not only once, but possibly several times.  It was a concern I raised with the surgeon who was understanding, but said the only other possibility was to put me to sleep for the day so they could do the removals as necessary.  Being put to sleep was not a thrilling idea either because I need to be able to eat frequently to manage my hypoglycemia.  There are times I'm amazed my body functions at all with the multitude of individual problems it has.  The surgeon was confident he'd be able to remove the mass in one go, but of course he can't guarantee that because once the mass is off they have to cut the skin into layers and look at each layer under a microscope to make sure they got all the cancerous tissue off.  So we decided that instead of having to go through my eye more than once he'd instead go through a nerve in my mouth.  Which I'm much more on board for, so yay I suppose.  The surgery itself is scheduled for May 10 and we've pretty much been told to expect to be at the hospital for most of the day.

The other super great thing that happened is I got the results back from the biopsy done on the other side of my face.  It's showing pre-cancerous (which means it's on its way to becoming cancerous, but isn't quite there yet) which brought me a lecture to do all the things I'm already doing when I'm in the Sun but hey, who's counting wear sunscreen and reapply every two hours, wear a wide-brimmed hat, put on clothing with SPF, and wear sunglasses.  Okay, I don't wear sunglasses all that often because I have prescription glasses, but I guess I'll be wearing them over the summer now.  Ugh.  At least I know when the hell they're going to cut my eyelid now -_-

Round and Round we go

It's been a couple of weeks since the last counseling session Donald and I went to.  (Feels so odd using the handle of Donald for the spouse since Trump is EVERYWHERE online right now, but that's the name we're sticking with for blogging purposes.)  Overall it was a good counseling session for me.  Not so much for Donald, but that's mainly because he's having to deal with some hard truths and he's so very steeped in denial that it's like his world is crumbling.  

The counselor asked us how we were doing since the holidays and Donald and I just looked at each other uncomfortably.  I've noticed my tolerance for his defense mechanisms and the general bullshit that surrounds his family of origin is pretty much gone since getting the skin cancer diagnosis and this session really showed it.  One of the first things I said to the counselor was that the holidays really showcased for me especially since we'd done all that work in counseling right before the holidays that as long as I'm married to Donald I'll be taking second place to his mother.  (For anyone who's reading this and is confused just follow the NPD and dysfunctional family tags on the blog and you'll catch up really quickly.)  The counselor simply nodded to acknowledge this fact while Donald's comeback was 'I don't think you'll be happy until I cut her out of my life.'  Now.  There's a huge difference between letting your mother control you which is what's been happening the 15.5 years of our marriage and setting healthy boundaries.  Donald is unable to see this because he was raised with the understanding that to show love to your mother is to let her make all your decisions.

I gave the example of the N taking video of Bess over Thanksgiving and lying to her about it.  The counselor agreed with me that this was a breach of trust, especially given that Donald has basically tried to place the N in a position of power over our family.  The counselor castigated Donald for not taking any action in the situation.  There was then a discussion where the counselor advised Donald he really needed to listen to me in regards to boundaries and the overall safety of the kids because my instincts were very good whereas he was too passive.  This was so very validating for me because for YEARS Donald has told me I'm too aggressive in dealing with the N which is bullshit.  I'm building boundaries and standing up for myself and the kids.  But the whole setting boundaries thing goes against everything he was ever taught going up, so of course he'd find it aggressive.  The power differential in his family of origin is ridiculously tilted in his mother's favor, but rather than acknowledge any of this Donald would rather stay within his cloud of denial.  It makes his life with his mother safer for him, but it makes life hell for me and the kids.

The other major thing that came up in the counseling session was what happened when I set a boundary with the N.  She'd sent us both an email that had no text and only had an appointment time at JC Penney portrait studios.  The subject line said pictures for me and the kids.  I asked Donald if she'd said anything to him about this over Thanksgiving and of course she hadn't.  We both felt the email was demanding so I handled it.  I replied to her email with one stating we didn't mind that she wanted pics with the kids, but we did mind that with no prior warning she'd sent us an appointment date and just expected us to comply with it.  I also pointed out that she could've said something to one of us while we were all at the Aunt's home for Thanksgiving.  Finally, I told her that she needed to give us a heads up for anything like pictures with the kids so we could be prepared instead of feeling like we had to drop everything to make this happen.  Her reply simply stated she'd discussed it with Donald over the Summer and she'd take my request into consideration for the future.

After explaining what had happened to the counselor he agreed that she treated me as inferior.  He also praised me for standing up for myself and the kids because Bess hadn't wanted to do the pictures for the simple reason that we'd had no notice.  The boys didn't really care, and that was fine.  Other than the N being an N the thing that really irritated me about the whole thing was all Donald did was try to soothe his mother's ruffled feathers.  He never really backed me up which is basically how this marriage works.  I'm on my own trying to take care of myself and the kids and he's constantly trying to take care of the N.

So goals for the year continue to be:  become cancer free; get gainful employment; and get separated.  Finishing up the last class of this master's degree and it's a doozy.  But it will end and eventually life will become less complicated.  Spring is coming soon and I can't wait to welcome it back ;-)

The one where you find out you have skin cancer

I'm very proud of my cultural heritage and it always amuses me a bit when people are surprised I don't consider myself just 'White'.  The bulk of my heritage is Irish, Italian, and Native American and while I think the only thing I inherited from my Native ancestry are my cheekbones, it's still very much part of me.  Because I got the Irish skin I've always been very careful with it - it rarely tans and often burns.  As a child I broke into awful rashes in the summer that the local doctors could never figure out and finally just said I had an allergy to the sun.  Because of this I've always slathered myself (and the kids now, as well) with sunscreen and taken very good care of my skin.  But...you can't really put sunscreen on your eyelid cuz it burns when it gets into your eye.  So it figures the one place I couldn't put sunscreen on would be the place I end up getting skin cancer.  

I had a sty like mass removed from my eye last month because the thing just would not go away on its own.  Got the phone call yesterday from the very nice ophthalmologist who removed it that it was in face, caner.  Nodular basal cell carcinoma to get technical.  I've been looking around online to see what I can find out about it and the good news is most bcc is rather easy to remove.  The crappier thing in my case is I had this thing for probably a good 3 years because I kept getting told it was a sty.  So I get to go see a dermatologist (which isn't a bad idea because I have a ton of moles) as well as a specialist who will perform MOHS micrographically controlled surgery on the remainder of the nbcc because unfortunately when the bulk was taken off they didn't get it all.  As long as the bcc hasn't gone back too far I should be fine and this should be a relatively non-invasive experience.  

I've been reminding myself since last Thursday that the world doesn't stop just because you've been told you have cancer.  Nature is always able to recover after natural disasters and I'm looking at this in much the same way.  Just because I got some shitty news doesn't mean I get to go hide in a hole and if my seasonal depression hasn't put me in that hole yet, this sure as hell isn't going to.  But it is a bit frightening because I've been telling the doctors for at least as long as I've had that thing that I'm just so tired...my energy level has plummeted from what it used to be.  And I have no idea if it's from this cancer, or a combination of both it and the L5 radiculopathy that's been continuously eating away at my leg muscles.  Advocating for health used to be something I only had to do for my kids, but for the last few years it seems more and more like I'm doing nothing but this for my own health.  And military health care is not an easy beast to deal with.  It's almost impossible to find an actual doctor (not a PA) who doesn't changes duty stations within 3 years.  I'm beginning to think I just need to get my care switched to the civilian sector so that I have the continuity of the same health care provider instead of having to constantly explain this to every new doctor I get assigned to.

Anyhow, life will continue.  The kids will keep growing, I will finish my degree, the world will keep on turning, and eventually this will be something I can look back on with appreciation for the experience it gave me.  But for now I just want to get through it.  And I'm not going to hide from the sun because that's no way to live.  Just keep on applying that sunscreen and enjoy the time that I have because no one lives forever and no one should.  We all get one life and we just have to make the best of it.  So that's the game plan.  I'll update my blog about this occasionally, but it's not going to overtake my life.  If anything, it will make me even more determined to enjoy what I have.  So I'll be over here doing the self-care thing while the world keeps turning.  And eagerly awaiting the end of Winter.

Surviving Thanksgiving

Okay so Thanksgiving is never super duper fun for me because in the back of my mind there is always but this is about the massacre of an indigenous culture not happy Euro Americans stuffing their faces and it bugs me that other people don't really get that.  But.  This year we decided to go to Donald's aunt and uncle's house for the dreaded Turkey feast.  Cuz it would be less stressful and junk.  For the love of any God somebody please remind me that going somewhere for Thanksgiving is never EVER a good a idea.  Yeah that didn't work so much.

So....it took us six bloody hours to get to the bloody location of the Turkey feast.  Traffic out of Hampton Roads was never this bad when we were hurri-vacing, but it was awful for Thanksgiving.  By the time we finally arrived at our destination we were all too tired to do more than mumble a few words at the relatives and head off to bed.  The next day was the feast itself and we knew that Donald's mother the Sideline Narcissist for anyone who doesn't ever look at all this crap I write  would be there that day.  What we didn't know was that she was staying.  The Entire.  Time.  Really I should have just run into traffic at that point.  The fam would have the insureance money and I'd be out of my holiday misery.  But I digress.  What we also didn't know was that ten other people would be crowding into the house for the roast beast.  Now, anyone who knows anything about Introverts realizes what a problem this is.  We're basically talking Introvert Hell here people.  It was terrible.  Went down into the basement to hide out and breathe for as long as I felt I could without being rude as all get out.  Managed to choke down some of the roast beast and other food type things.  Two hours later when all the extra people had gone away oh look the air really did clear out because I could breathe again I think someone mentioned the N was staying.  This was when I really wanted to walk out into traffic.  I didn't, obviously.  But....the dread and anxiety of the whole visit made the traffic on Sunday really not that bad.

So anyway I did all I could to not be miserable.  Used the SAD light, took the Vitamin D3, and tried to be as social as I could.  Then Bess and I got sick.  Yep.  Stomach bugs are the Devil.

And it was all very uncomfortable as the N would do her passive aggressive thing always when Donald wasn't around and there I was in a house not my own thinking well shit.  If I call her on this crap then I'm going to be starting something with her in their house and they think of her as their sister and aren't I just fucked right now?  So.  Again.  For future reference journeying to a family member's home for celebrating the end of indigenous culture day is just the worst idea ever.

There was an incident with Bess and the N that I didn't realize had happened until later.  Bess found out the N had recorded her after telling her that she wasn't recording her.  So...the N violated her personal boundaries by doing this without her permission.  Bess was very worried that the N would post said video taken very much without consent on Facebook.  So as she's freaking out about that at home she asks if Donald or I should address the issue.  My answer ended up being well she cares more about her relationship with you than with me, and Dad's asleep right now so why don't you just text her?  Tell her what you told me.

So Bess did that and stood up for herself and got the whole mess sorted.  But.  She also now knows that her Grandmother will willingly lie to her.  And I expect will probably lie to her again.  So that relationship is now in the N's hands because Bess won't put up with tactics such as those.  I've taught her over the years that manipulations such as those only hurt her and they're not worth her time.  It will be very interesting to see how that all plays out.

Now if I can just get through this coming weekend when the N is coming out to give the kids their Christmas gifts.  Thankfully I'll have lots of studying to do.  At Starbucks.  

Tis the Season/Holiday Death Spiral

Some good news to share, finally!  I bought a Suntouch Plus light therapy lamp by Naturebright to help with my Seasonal Affective Disorder.  Cuz going to bed at 7 pm is just not cutting it.  That and I'm tired of being tired all November through March.  This particular light comes with an ionizer if you buy the separate attachment, which I didn't.  Here is information on the model I bought if anyone is interested.  It's a small, portable lamp and was under $100 which fit better into our budget.  I've been using it for a little over a week now and damn....I wish I'd bought this thing 3 years ago when my SAD first started getting bad.  The energy boost is amazing and even though the depression doesn't go away, it does become more manageable.  I also take a Vitamin D3 supplement, which helps, but this light has made a HUGE difference in a very positive way.  One note of caution:  light therapy lamps should not be used by anyone with bipolar disorder.

Other good news:  we are finally supposedly anyway done with the home in New Mexico.  I heard from my Dept. of Veterans Affairs case manager that Carrington Mortgages officially signed off the deed-in-lieu for the house on Nov. 3.  Unsurprisingly I'm still getting mail from the mortgage company who hasn't updated their files.  So once I send a letter off to them stating the VA has it signed off in their system we should be free of that house.  A really big part of me is waiting for the other shoe to drop on this, but for now I'm going to be optimistic.

I also called TriCare and switched primary care managers because my Physician's Assistant pcm was just not getting the job done.  So...I need to call and make an appointment with the new doc to get back to physical therapy & request a physical.  Might as well check to make sure my iron & vitamin levels are up to snuff.

We have Thanksgiving coming up next Thursday and we're actually going to Donald's aunt's home this year.  I've got mixed feelings as the Sideline Narcissist will also be there and quite frankly I just don't want to deal with the bullshit drama that accompanies her.  So I will be bringing pumpkin pie, study material, flash drives, and headphones to keep myself sane during the holiday.

Believe it or not we've already started Christmas shopping!  I feel so flippin' accomplished cuz this hasn't happened in YEARS.  I also managed to get the kids' teachers' goodie bags out this week, so huzzah!  When we return from the Thanksgiving festivities there are even more cookies to bake & I need to get more cookie tins.  There is hope all this crap will get done now that I'm using the light therapy lamp.  But many, many naps will be had to make it all possible.