Victim/survivor mentality

So I've never painted myself as a victim. I've always been proud of the things in my life that I've overcome and survived. I don't focus on the slings and slights that are part of the process of life. I try to rise above and not lower myself to their levels. I choose people to be close to me who only love and support me and what I want in life. I try all this, and what do I get? A constant stream of people who seem to feel the need to cut at me and swing at me whenever the opportunity arises. My mother calls me and makes a point of telling me that a friend I haven't seen in 20 years is at the beach. In the next breath tells me there is no room for me at the beach, and not to bother coming down. To me, that's just mean. This isn't just one time. People I choose to let close seem to take a fair amount of pleasure in taking digs like that. People I let in my choice feel the need to take advantage of my nature and take aim at me. This is a theme in my life that has repeated itself many many times. I sit here and ask myself why is this my fate? What am I doing wrong that people close feel no remorse for hurting me? I rise above, I move past. I ignore deflect and defend. It rarely does any good. It only happens again and again. So often the damage leaves no marks, but small scars only I can see, forming and intricate pattern across my skin describing poor choices in my past. I wish it were just her. Its really not. The list goes on and on. I can't say I allow it, but what do I do to prevent it? I've been told in the past that I should retaliate every time, but I don't know if I have that in my nature. Maybe I need to change. Maybe I need to be a castrating bitch. Maybe if I push first people won't feel the need to see what I'll let them get away with. Maybe this is just part of the human experience. I don't know. All I know is I'm really exhausted from wondering where the attack is coming from and how I will need to defend myself this time. I don't know anymore. Maybe I really am too nice. Funny thing is I always thought it was one on my better character features. Maybe mean really is better.
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Questions questions questions

I find myself stopping and starting this entry, asking myself just how honest do I really want to be? How much of myself am I willing to reveal, and if I’m not willing to show myself, what is the purpose of this exercise at all? If I continue to hide things, am I really doing any kind of a service to myself or to anyone who might actually happen to read this? Do I hide them because I’m not willing to admit it myself yet? It’s so easy to reveal the inner workings of my kids and the things they are experiencing, but when it comes to me, what’s really going on inside, I mitigate the content, choosing not to reveal as much. Why am I so afraid to show myself? Perhaps I fear rejection at some base level. Perhaps there is the fear people will tell me I’m crazy and not to think that way. Maybe I already know I’m wrong and I don’t want to hear the confirmation from others. I don’t know, and yet I still sit here and struggle with this. I can honestly say I don’t know which direction I’m going to go just yet. Maybe I’m afraid to go after what I want. Maybe I don’t want to admit that I want what I do. If that’s the case, why am I afraid to admit what I want? Is it because it will risk me condemnation from those I’m closest to? And yet that doesn’t stop what I feel. Following what I feel when it comes to my personal life has almost never taken me anywhere positive. Maybe this time I need to follow my head instead. Does that mean risking a shallow meaningless interactions because the right answer is only the right answer on paper? If I land in a stable contented place, does it really matter how I got there? I find myself at a cross roads with no distinct signs to tell me which way to go. Both ways have their own pitfalls. It comes down to asking myself who I can trust. The answer of course is neither but for totally different reasons. The only person I can really trust is myself. Maybe the right answer is none of the above. I think that’s what scares me most of all, finding out later on I chose wrong and the right answer was neither. Maybe I should choose myself for once instead of something else.  And I don’t have any clear answers. Maybe I’ve revealed more here than I realized. Maybe it’s all out there now for the world to see and I only think I’m hiding. Doesn’t matter I said what I think I needed to and that’s the whole point.

 

 

the anxiety monster

My heart breaks just a little for my son. He battles demon every day that only he can see and no one else can truly help him with. It whispers to him, sometimes I think telling him only the scariest possible outcomes can be had from any situation. this monster exists only in his mind of course, but its as real to him as the stars at night are to everyone else. His anxiety monster doesn't roar or gnash teeth, its almost silent, telling to be fearful, that he's just not good enough and he's not capable of handling anything. He withdrawals when the monster whispers, hiding behind a mask of reserved silence, finding comfort and escapism in video games and beloved stuffed animals. No child should have to grow up feeling this way. No one should have to face a new day battling against uncertainty and a lack of self worth. I think back to how his face glows when he does something he's proud of. If you could plug him in he'd light a room. But those moments are fleeting. Soon enough, he's being left behind or ignored by those outside the family and the vicious cycle begins again. I find myself asking if I feed into this. I comfort, I reassure and help him think through things. And I truly helping or am I a crutch he will never outgrow? Change, even a seemingly small change is so very hard for him. Something like starting a new school year causes weeks of stress and gives the monster entirely too much fuel to grow with. The whispers have such credence to him. "What if no one likes you?" "What if you have no friends?" "What if the bus driver yells?" These are not hurdles a 5th grader should have to cross, as they had been long ago conquered and defeated. I watch his friends, and see none of this. They carry with them their armor, the unshakable sense that the world is safe and predictable and bad things exist only on the nightly news. Pat has none of that. He knows how suddenly this world can shift. He faces the smaller monster we all do, armed only with a much larger monster that reminds him his own father cast him aside. I cannot understand his fear, but I hurt for it just the same. I cannot fight this monster for him. I hand him small weapons I have found useful in the past in fighting some of my own demons. Some he uses, some are to unwieldy for him to manage. My heart breaks just a little as he sleeps because only in that place is the monster truly silent. Sleep eludes him frequently as the monsters whispers become more urgent, and time presses closer. And there is little I can do. That is the hardest part of all. He needs to find his own way to silence him once and for all. I hand him weapons, psychiatrists and therapists and they do shore up his armor, but at the end of the day, it is only him who can fight this. I can only hope its enough. I can't make him see himself as others do, as a funny spirited intelligent boy with a knack for technology and a passion for swimming. They see awkward. They see shy. They see lazy and disorganized and weird. Most people never see he is none of these things. They see what the anxiety monster wants them too. Perhaps we will be able to silence him some day, once and for all. I dream of that, for him to see himself as I do, smart, resilient and perfect. Its time for you to go now monster, were done with you here.