Numb with Feeling

It was a busy summer and fall started off with a possible move, but we're back to normal now and staying where we're planted at the moment. Things have been extremely busy but at the same time I feel like I'm personally stuck. I'm not growing as a person, I'm not sleeping well (I mean having a baby and a toddler you lose some sleep, but they're all crashed and I'm up all night watching netflix or cruising online articles), and I have been having a lot of anxiety. In the past I have suffered with moderate depression but that had a lot to do with circumstances that could be changed, which we changed. This feels different, and to be honest I'm pretty sure I've done it to myself again, I think my decision to "not care" anymore was a HUGE mistake.

(Have I ever mentioned that I interject humour at grossly inappropriate times?)

Anyway, I really did make a mistake by deciding to not care about things that stress me out, because I do still care about them, I just pretended they didnt matter. Now I feel numb, just totally checked out. I can't even cry when I know normally I would, or should, for that matter. I used to smoke when I was stressed, now I pull my hair out, I have a pretty large spont on my head where I'm missing quite a bit of hair, which sucks. On the brite side I'm not "polluting my lungs" as my grandpa says...lol. Tomorrow I start councilling so I'm hoping I can work on this stupid hair pulling and also on this whole feeling emotion thing again. Honestly, I should have known better then to just shut down my feelings, I've only been watching the consequences of that unfold my ENTIRE life with my mother, she's queen of emotional supression(my dad is no better in that regard to be honest). 

I have been limiting contact with my mom on the whole for awhile, I only really contact her once a month. It seems ridiculous but even though I dont want to talk to her, I get upset that she doesn't initiate contact. She hasn't actually been the first person to send a text or email since spring, pretty much since I reiterated my dislike for her boyfriend. My husband gets really annoyed by my mother's lack of effort, which I appreciate, but it makes me more upset thinking she is just further spreading discontent through her inaction. Whenever I start thinking about how shitty a mother she really is I start getting overwhelmed and just shut down before I can even process it, I feel like it's just killing my spirit and I'm tired of it. 

I'm so mentally exhausted. I've been on a rollercoaster of pure emotional bullshit since I was pregnant with my son. There has been family drama with my in laws, there has been family drama with my mother, there has been family drama with my own family, its just non-stop. Shit hits the fan for a month in one family, the mess is cleaned up, and then the next month a whole different issue within another part of the family just explodes, who wouldn't just say fuck it all and shut down after 3 years of straight chaos? For a bit I thought maybe I had postpartum depression, but hormones are not the problem here, my ability to cope just flew out the window after attempting to hold things together for too long(and really, Ive had to cope my entire life with my mothers choices, just the last 3 years have had this horrible compound effect). To top it all off, I have heard my mother say "I didn't have a mother, I didn't know how to be a mother" at least 5 times this year, if I hear that one more time I'm going to boil over. Guess what? I didn't have a mother either, but here I am, being a mom, and choosing to do the best I can. 

Ugh, it feels good to get that out.

I imagine I'll be back sooner than later, writing to strangers seems to be fairly therapeutic. 

Leslie Michael

#anxiety #trichotillomania #momblog #stress