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Get moving. New Year’s thoughts.

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I recently met a lady who said that she had to drop her books in the bookdrop just inside the door at the library rather than bring them up to the desk. She said they were too heavy for her. She uses a cane to get around.

I know another lady who needs large print but can’t hold it. Just one book is too heavy for her. She now is no longer able to get herself in and out of bed, or to the bathroom.

I’ve heard stories of women who have had breast cancer surgery who can’t use their arms to get up because of the surgery. They have to let the area heal and can’t use those muscles. So they have to use their leg muscles to get out of a chair, or off the toilet. But they are in such bad shape that they have to get friends to stay with them to pull them up.

It has to be terrible to be trapped in your own body. It has to be sad to get to the point that everything is difficult. It has to be embarrassing.

This is in part why I exercise. I don’t want to become this feeble.

I know a lady in my yoga class who is 72. I am sure the reason she is doing so well is because she goes to the Y. She works really hard to stay flexible and strong.

It takes a lot of effort to stay in shape. I’m not talking about losing weight. I’m talking about having the strength and energy to be self sufficient. I’m talking about muscles in good enough shape to live well. What does it matter if you are 60 years old but you are in a wheelchair because of something totally preventable?

Exercise is no fun. The first 15 minutes I want to be anywhere but
there. I’d love to have my week nights back too. All that time at the Y takes up a lot of my free time. But even without the Y, I walk at work. Even twenty minutes at lunch is good. And even though I’m not excited about exercise, I feel better after I do it. Some of the benefits are mental. I’ve come to see exercise as the same as dialysis. It gets the icky bits out, and it isn’t optional.

I think the key is movement, and understanding that these bodies have to be maintained. They degrade in slow motion. One day, you’ll realize that hunching over your computer all day and not moving has caught up on you.

Don’t let time slip away from you. Get going. Sure it is cold outside. Walk in your building. Can’t afford a gym membership? Rent an exercise video from the library. Just move. The life you save will be your own.

“Home for the Holidays”?

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I woke this morning to the sounds of “There’s No Place Like Home for the Holidays” playing on the radio. That has been my dilemma for a while now. What is home? Where is it? Is it a place, or a feeling?

For many people, “home” means where their family is. My parents died almost twenty years ago, and the rest of my family isn’t kind. I tried spending Christmas with my aunt for a while and that just didn’t work out. I was always the “Tennessee cousin” – always in the way, always left out. I felt like I was crashing a party. There were a few members of the family who made space for me and seemed to understand who I am, and for them I am grateful. But it wasn’t enough to make it worth the drive, and the constant travelling to visit every other member of that extended family on that day was overwhelming to me.

Now that I’m married, “home” could mean my parent’s in law. I’ve faked it for years, but it just isn’t what I need. They mean well, but it isn’t quite the gathering that makes me feel the peace that I associate with the birth of Christ.

This past month it has been extra awkward, and if you’ve been following along you’ll know what I’m talking about. Just thinking about going over there is bringing back that old feeling that I’d almost forgotten – dread. I thought that my hernia was acting up – but no, that’s the feeling I get in my stomach when I am very anxious about something. It is a sharp, scary pain. It is the kind of pain that curls me over into a fetal position. It is the kind of pain that stops me in my tracks. The last time I had it was in my first year of college. I was away from home, in a dorm room, no friends, no car, no idea what I was doing.

That was about as un- “home” as possible.

If “home is where the heart is” then if there is no heart, no love, no peace, then that feeling crops up.

I’ve been meditating on this day for a month, after the whole Thanksgiving fracas. I talked to my spiritual director about this, and her take on it is that maybe God put me into this family to bring healing. Maybe I’m the Christ-bearer – that I need to bring Jesus into the situation. This doesn’t mean to preach to them. It means to be like Jesus. Calming. Peaceful. Compassionate. Loving.

The line from the 23rd Psalm has started coming to mind in the past few days. “You prepare a table for me in the midst of my enemies.”

This is not a vision of “home” that is particularly appealing. “Home” and “enemy” should not be in the same sentence. For many of us, it is. For many of us, “home” isn’t a place to run to, it is a place to run from. For many of us, at the holidays we remember why we left home in the first place.

So what is “home”? Home to me is where I can be myself. Home is where my husband is. It is where I can spend all day in my jammies, making jewelry or reading, stretched out on the couch in the sunlight. Maybe a nap will be involved. Maybe a walk around the block. Home is peaceful, and quiet, and calm. Home isn’t full of sound and noise and people. It certainly isn’t full of drama.

I’ve been doing the math on Christmas this year and trying to figure out what I can handle if I go over to my in-law’s house. Go, but leave early? How early is too early? Don’t talk about certain topics? Put on a brave face? Don’t talk to a certain family member who always likes to argue, especially about faith?

I really can’t handle being around someone who speaks ill of my faith on my holiday.

I can handle it any other time. I understand. I have a lot of the same issues with Christianity. I dislike the hypocrisy. I dislike the fact that the church has become something other, something where I can’t see Jesus for all the administration and bureaucracy. Sometimes “church” is more “crazy” than Christ-like. But on Christian holidays I really can’t take the criticism.

It is like I’ve invited someone over to my house, shared my special toys with them, and then they throw them down and stomp on them. It is rude. It is childish. It is thoughtless.

So, “Home for the Holidays”? I’d rather stay at home. But I’m expected to be at the in-laws. I don’t want to. I don’t want to play the dutiful wife. It was easier, way back when, when I got stoned for the holidays. Everything blurred into a nice warm glowy blob. Now that I’m sober it is all spiky and strange.

Lifeguard

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Lifeguards have to know how to rescue you and not get drowned themselves. Not only do they have to be good swimmers, they have to watch out for the drowning person who is thrashing about.

Drowning people don’t do anything right to stop themselves drowning. They will hit the person who is trying to save them. They will grab at them, pulling them under the water. The more they thrash and grab, the worse things get.

Lifeguards are trained to approach the victim from behind to rescue them, and to look out for sudden movements. If drowning people relaxed they’d be a lot easier to rescue. In fact, if they relaxed in the first place they probably wouldn’t need to be rescued.

Try it the next time you are in a pool. Tense up, pretending you are anxious. Feel like you aren’t going to make it to the wall. You’ll start to sink. Relax and you’ll start to float. Let go, and you are fine.

How much of this is like everything in life? Just tensing up makes an already bad situation worse. Freak out and you’ll need to be rescued. Then, when someone comes to help, you fight them. The smart helper knows how to approach you so they too don’t get dragged down.

Drowning, finances, drugs, dependency- whatever. It is all the same.

People have to get certified to be lifeguards. There are manuals to study and a test to pass. Kids in high school can do this.

Too bad that helping people not drown in other ways requires more advanced training. Maybe if it could be simplified and destigmatized it would be easier for everyone. If we can help people before they are really going under we will be doing very well.

The Anti-Christmas guide – or, how I celebrate with as little stress as possible.

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Before I got married, I read a book called “The Anti-Bride Guide”. It told me all the rules I could break when planning my wedding. It let me know I didn’t have to put on a big show. It let me know I certainly didn’t have to spend the equivalent of a car loan for an event where the main part of it takes ten minutes. Why start off your married life in debt? I’ve never been one for spending a lot of money when there is nothing to show for it, so this seemed right up my alley.

The basic idea was to strip it all down to the essentials and add from there – if desired. What do you need to make you feel married? Do you need bridesmaids? Do you need a fancy hall? Do you need tulle, really?

So now that I’m reassessing Christmas, I’m doing the same. I’ve not found and “Anti-Christmas Guide” so I’m making my own. It is a work in progress.

What do I need to make it feel like Christmas? What distinguishes this time of year from all other times that are just as cold and dark?

The sometimes fun, sometimes frustrating part of getting married is that you have to figure out how you are going to celebrate the holidays. Even if you are both of the same religion, this can be tricky. I can only guess how complicated it is if you are of different traditions.

There are plenty of things that we have decided on, it turns out. Here are some.

Rankin-Bass Christmas videos. You know, those claymation videos from the 80s. Titles like “Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town” and “The Year Without a Santa Claus” are mandatory. I usually don’t like musicals, but I sing along to every song on these.

Stockings. I love Christmas stockings. I love stocking stuffers. Scott and I made our own stockings our first year together and we still use them. Why we made them of wide wale purple corduroy is beyond me, but we like them, and it was important to me that we made them ourselves. Remembering the stocking was one of my favorite parts of Christmas when I was growing up. It was like a second Christmas. We’d usually forget about them until an hour or so after all the presents were open. One of us would glance at the fireplace and see them and everything would stop. The stockings always had an orange in the toe. There wasn’t anything special about an orange – it just fit well in the toe.

Christmas presents have to be something you want- not something you need. Christmas is not a time to buy a new string trimmer.

We went without a tree for many years. I have come to realize I need something, just not a large something. We tried a rosemary bush for a while. I made little ornaments out of beads and earring hooks. It had the right shape and a good smell, but I am not very good at plant maintenance, so it died. We tried the next year with another one and had the same results. I felt that it was sad to kill a Christmas tree, even if it was just a rosemary bush, every year. It wasn’t its fault that I’m terrible at house plants. We went without a tree and I’ve found I need it. Scott constructed a small artificial one for me and it does us just fine. I have a candle that smells like a real tree, so that helps with the illusion.

I had some ornaments that meant a lot to me when I moved here. They were from my family and there were a lot of good memories attached to them. Some were handmade, some were antique. When I first came to Nashville I lived in an apartment and there was no room for a tree. I had some friends who let me store the ornaments at their house. They have since moved and lost the ornaments. I’m still very sad over this. I can buy new ornaments but I can’t replace those memories.

A nativity set. I had one that was hand carved out of olive wood from Jerusalem. Again, lost. Perhaps it was in with the ornaments. I found a new set at Goodwill made of pressed glass. It was cheap and it does the job.

I like to play the interactive nativity set game. My husband looks at me funny. The Magi move a little closer every day, and don’t get really near until Epiphany – twelve days after Christmas. I keep baby Jesus out of the scene until Christmas Day. It looks a little odd with Mary and Joseph staring down at nothing for a month.

Advent calendar. Scott comes from the Catholic tradition and I come from the Episcopal tradition. Advent calendars are part of both. I found one a few years back that is amazing. Brace yourself – Lego. Star Wars. Advent calendar. Too much awesome all together. It has a new minifigure to assemble every day for a month.

To visit family or not? These days, not. It is, as I like to say too much, and yet not enough, all at the same time.

There are reasons that police and nurses dislike working on Christmas. There are a lot of domestic disturbance calls those days. There is nothing about “peace on earth” that guarantees peace in your family. If you all can’t get along during regular days, then it might be best to stay home for the holidays. Domestic unhappiness and alcohol are a bad mix.

Sometimes we decorate the outside of the house. Sometimes not. We appreciate the bright lights this time of year and feel it is good to do our part. It isn’t much, but it is cheery.

Christmas cards. I like getting them, so I send them. We divide up the list, his and hers. Both of us write them up together. I always get Three Wise Men cards, and often some basic “happy holidays” ones for our non-religious friends. I’m considering sending cards to offices and restaurants we like to visit. It hasn’t happened yet. We’ll see.

We make cookies on Christmas eve. We leave the best ones out for Santa along with a glass of milk, along with a note. He always eats them. We even bought a special plate and cup for this. It has a penguin motif.

Midnight mass. Usually a good idea. This year, it probably won’t happen. I like the idea of staying up late to celebrate the first moments of Christmas Day. I love singing Silent Night in a darkened church, lit only by candles. But, it has been six months since our old church and I parted ways, and we haven’t been to a replacement yet.

Last but not least – I donate money to the first Salvation Army bell-ringer I see/hear.

So Christmas is what you make of it. It is kind of like a jigsaw puzzle. I keep moving the pieces around to see what looks good. It certainly isn’t about buying lots of presents and dealing with stress. It has a lot to do with being willing to invite Jesus into every moment, and for that you don’t need a special time of the year at all.

Crazy house – work, weight, and wasting your life.

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When you are in the crazy house, all the crazy people know when you are one of them. When you start to get normal again, they leave you alone.

I’ve noticed that dysfunctional people tend to hang out with each other. Birds of a feather, you know. They don’t want to hang out with people who have gotten better. They don’t want to get better. Misery loves company, you know.

People say that they want to get healthy, they want to get well, but they don’t really. They want to talk about it and complain about it and whine about it, but they don’t want to do anything about it. And people who have been in that pit don’t want to listen to them whine and complain. They want them to walk with them or write or eat the same things they are eating.

They don’t want to get dragged back into that pit.

I spent so much time trying to come up with workarounds for the people at work. They would notice that I’d lost weight and they’d say that they wish they could. They can. They won’t.

Come walk at lunch, I said. “But I like to read at lunch” they said.
Get an audiobook, I said. “I can’t do that” they said.

It is only 20 minutes for walking, that isn’t a lot of time to miss the book. “It is too much.”

Round and round it goes.

Their choice.

I wish they would just be honest and say that they want to be healthy, but they don’t want to do the work. Who does, really? It isn’t easy. It isn’t fun. But nothing worth having is easily obtained.

I have a coworker who says that she needs to get exercise, but everything makes her hot and her knees hurt.

Go to water aerobics, I said. That is the perfect answer. Her responses started with “I can’t find a swimsuit my size” (I found a website that has all ranges of sizes). Then “I would be embarrassed to wear a swimsuit” “Everybody at the gym is in shape, I’ll stick out.”

None of that is true. People go to the gym to get healthy. They aren’t in shape. There are plenty of people who are huge who are there.

Then she came up with the “fact” that she has to cover for us at work. She doesn’t. We’ve got it. The schedule is fine. And ultimately, what is more important, work or life? If you have to sacrifice your health for your work, you are giving up the wrong thing. The job doesn’t care if you kill yourself at it. We aren’t saving the world here. We are running a library.

Use the recumbent bike at home, I said. It doesn’t need special clothes, it is easy on the knees. Her husband bought it for himself. She doesn’t have to worry about other people seeing her. It can be used any time.

Finally she admitted that she just doesn’t want to. That would have been so much easier if she had started with that.

I don’t have time for them anymore. I don’t cheer them on. If they want to come walk with me, great. If they want to see how I eat, great. But I’m not coaching, I’m not cheering, I don’t care. Not anymore.

Nobody holds me accountable. Nobody found workarounds for me. Nobody cheers me on to exercise every day.

I can’t be the reason they take care of themselves. They have to want to. They have to care about themselves.

This has to be a lot like what it is to be part of a relationship with an alcoholic. They have to want to get better. You can’t do it for them. You just have to make sure their madness doesn’t get you down.

(more) Thoughts on mental health.

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Let us not confuse mentally ill with homicidal.

I think we can agree that all people who are homicidal are mentally ill. The fact that some people feel it is necessary to express their frustrations with life by killing others is most certainly proof that they are not well adjusted. Being well adjusted is a hallmark of mental health. How much do you fit in? How well can you take care of yourself? If you can get along with others, you are well adjusted.

I’ve never understood the idea of trying to determine if a murderer is sane or not. If you kill anyone for any reason other than self-defense, you aren’t sane, it would seem to me.

Now, let’s shift gears for a moment. This is important. All people who are mentally ill are not homicidal. To have a mental health diagnosis does not mean that you are a murderer. It does not mean that you have to live in a group home. It does not mean that you are a danger to anybody.

It is the same as having a diagnosis of diabetes or of high cholesterol. It is something you live with and deal with.

The media must stop bandying about the phrase “mentally ill” every time someone does something horrific enough to warrant being on the news. They might be mentally ill. One in four people are. But the media is the media – not trained mental health professionals. They are not qualified to make an assessment on the mental state of anyone.

How much of the bad press that mentally ill people are getting is why there are so many mentally ill people who are not well adjusted? Who would want to go get help with their mental health problems if they are going to immediately tagged as being homicidal? There is a huge stigma to being mentally ill, already. It is often seen as a lack of willpower or a character flaw. Add the mistaken idea of homicidal in the mix and no wonder people won’t take care of this problem.

Mental health is treatable. You can live a long and productive and happy life and have a mental illness. Exercise helps. Eating well helps. Actually, I can’t think of anything that isn’t helped by exercise and eating well, but mental health is high on the list. If you want to start feeling bad, lay around all day eating junk food. Multiply that by a month and you’ll really be in a funk. Start taking care of yourself and you’ll see a difference not only in your body but in your mood.

How much of our mental health issues in this country are from people not being taught that it is OK for them to speak up for themselves? And if one in four people really are mentally ill, as the saying goes, then it really isn’t that unusual at all. Perhaps “mentally ill” is the new normal.

I got a letter from my brother.

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My brother wrote me a letter for my birthday. I got it on Tuesday. What is it about Tuesday right now? Last Tuesday is when I got another upsetting letter from a family member. I’m not happy about this chaos all at once. I’d like it to take a number and stand in line.

This is the same person who never remembered my birthday (45 years) and never remembered my address. He was constantly asking for it. I’m his sister. He should know these things. But I was an afterthought. I was always an afterthought.

This is the same person that I stopped talking to two and a half years ago. It was spring of 2011. I’d finally had enough, for the second time in my life, of dealing with him. He was constantly twisting my words, and constantly paranoid. He was constantly pushing me around, and treating me as a thing instead of a person. He called me “Sister” rather than by my name. He isn’t getting treatment for his psychopathic behavior, and he isn’t saying he is sorry now.

This is the same person who has abused me throughout my life. He wants to build a bridge, he says. I don’t trust him. I’ve learned that to trust him is like letting a thief in my house. Against my better judgment I’ve let him back into my life before, only to be hurt worse each time. Every time he steals something. Sometimes it is just material possessions. Sometimes it is my peace of mind.

He included a picture of him and his son, all gangly at 17 and sticking out his tongue, standing with a cousin of ours. From the picture it looks like they were in England. I had a brief moment of terror – he’s gotten to that side of the family and is telling them his version of the truth. I could go for damage control and write them, but it would just be my word against his. This is an echo of last Tuesday’s drama all over again. It is sad to see how people can be swayed to believe the words of someone who has ulterior motives. If people don’t get both sides, it shows they don’t really care about the relationship. Or the truth.

This is the same person who had to declare bankruptcy because he was a quarter of a million dollars in debt. I haven’t had to declare bankruptcy, yet I don’t have the money to afford a trip to England. It just doesn’t seem fair. His son looks cheeky in this shot, with his tongue sticking out. I’m thinking if this is the best picture Ian could have sent, then that is saying something about the attitude of his child. At least he is letting his attitude show on his face. With Ian you had to get really close to see how crazy he was.

The psychopaths are hard to spot sometimes. Sometimes they look like normal people. That’s the problem. You get lulled into a false sense of safety and then BAM! You are hurt, badly. Blindsided. I’m getting tired of being blindsided. There are too many people recently that I thought I could trust that have suddenly gone batshit crazy on me.

I don’t want him back in my life. I don’t want to deal with him. I feel that there is a slice of guilt cake I’m being served. He’s offering to “build a bridge” and I’m refusing to walk across it. That way I look like the bad guy. I don’t trust my brother’s bridge. I have played this game before and I always fall into the river, and I always drown. The stones get thrown at me. I always get hurt.

I gave him up the same way I gave up fried foods and pot. I gave them up because I needed to get healthy. I needed to be strong. I knew those things were pulling me down. But every now and then I feel like I want to try those things again. I forget how bad they really make me feel. It has been so long that I’ve felt well that I forget what it feels like to feel bad. I forget that once I start down that path again it takes a lot of energy to get off of it again. I’m reminding myself of this now to steel myself. I don’t want to get hurt again.

We have no good memories together, he and I. I look askance at people when they talk about how lovely their brothers are to them. It seems like a Disney story, a fairy tale. I can’t match it up with my reality. I think he wants a relationship with me only because I’m the only sister he’ll ever have. I think that he is in love with the IDEA of a sister, while he is not even “in like” with his actual sister. He doesn’t know anything about me. He never has cared enough to see me as a person. I was always a pawn in his games, and he was always winning.

He hasn’t come to realize that “family” isn’t just a word or an idea. It requires both people working together. It requires kindness and compassion. It isn’t about one person manipulating another person. It isn’t about debate but dialogue. He hasn’t come to realize that “family” means nothing – it is artificial. You don’t choose your family. It is all an accident. And like most accidents, it is very messy and there is a lot of pain. Worse, sometimes you don’t heal right and you walk with a limp for the rest of your life.

Birthday week

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I’ve heard that there is a time when you should stop making a fuss about your birthday. That time is when you are five. I think that idea comes from someone who just doesn’t get it.

I celebrate my birthday for a week. If you think about it, every day is a good reason to celebrate. Just being alive is pretty amazing. A birthday just adds more flavor to it.

The grumps would think so what that you have managed to stay alive long enough for the planet to make another trip around the sun? Who cares? I say ignore them. They are just trying to bring you down. The world is full of these people. Ignore them. They aren’t right.

Now, nobody is going to make a special fuss about your birthday, sure. They get busy. They forget. So it is up to you to make it special.

I take my birthday off every year. This guarantees that nobody will yell at me that I can’t yell back at. In general we’ve weeded out most of the cranky patrons at work. In general. Working a customer service job means the customer is always right, even when she is wrong. It means suppressing your natural reaction and desire to defend yourself.

I’m not taking any chances.

So to guarantee that the day will go well, I take it off and I stretch it out over a week. This year it has turned out pretty good.

There was almost a full stop in the middle because of some rather adolescent unpleasantness, but I managed to pull the car back onto the road. And I learned that all the yoga and study and writing I’ve been doing actually works to keep me well when I need it most. That alone was a useful lesson. I’d rather have learned this another week, but you don’t get to choose when you get your lessons.

A punch to the head woke me up.

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If you have told someone that something they do makes you uncomfortable, and they keep on doing it, then it is up to you to terminate the relationship.

That may sound harsh.

But it is as if you’ve put up your feelings for a vote. Who wins? Their needs or yours? Ideally, you’d both win. Ideally, everybody would be happy.

But if they feel they need to continue doing something that you have said is distressing or harmful to you, then they have voted. Their needs are more important than yours.

I went to a gathering once and I brought a jewelry project to work on. It is like a security blanket to me. I like having projects because it makes me feel more comfortable. I feel more exposed when I have nothing to work on.

A lady there wasn’t comfortable with me working on a project. I wasn’t right next to her. The project wasn’t loud or big. It wasn’t like I was taking notes. But she felt that in order for her to share her thoughts she needed me to not be doing anything and to look right at her.

She didn’t ask me directly. She mentioned casually, to the air it seemed, that she would rather each person pay full attention and not work on anything. It took me a little bit to understand that she meant me, she was so vague.

So I had a choice. Make her feel comfortable, and me feel uncomfortable, and stop working on my project. Or, pretend I didn’t hear her and keep on working. I’d feel a little comfortable because I’d have my project, but a little less than before she spoke because I would know that I was making someone else feel uncomfortable.

But really, I wasn’t making her feel uncomfortable. That was her choice.

I put my project up. And I developed a small amount of resentment to her, and a little bit to myself. I was upset that I didn’t stand up for myself. I was upset with her that she confronted me at all, and that she did it in such a passive-aggressive kind of way. It was my choice not to tell her how I felt. It was my choice to let her needs be more important than mine.

I had a coworker who thought it was funny to hit me on the back of my head when she walked by. She wouldn’t hit hard – she would often just catch my hair. That is an invasion of my personal space. That is a violation of social rules – we don’t touch each other unless it is mutual.

Now, I hate having people walk behind me anyway, but there is nothing I can do about it at work because of the arrangement of the desks. I don’t have an office. I don’t really even have a desk. I have a space that I usually work at when nobody else is around. It is a little discomforting to work in a place for many years and not really have a “place” to be, but that is for another post.

I first thought she was getting a rise out of it, out of getting in my personal space. So I dealt with her like I dealt with my big brother – pretend that I liked it. I figured that she’d stop because that works with big brothers. Don’t let them get the satisfaction of seeing you upset. Pretend it doesn’t bother you. It didn’t work. I had to tell her to quit, and in telling her I learned something very telling about my boss.

She laughed at me for telling this lady to quit hitting me. I should have seen that as the sign that it is. Hindsight is 20/20 they say. I learned this lesson later – don’t trust her with anything real. She isn’t really human.

I knew a guy in college named Carson who hurt me badly. He and I were sitting in a friend’s dorm room. I was sitting on the bed and he was sitting in a chair facing me. I don’t remember what we were talking about, but at some point in the conversation he reached over and pushed me sideways. My back was against the wall, and being pushed sideways meant that my head caught the part of the doorjamb where the doorknob was. It hurt a lot. I pulled forward, turned around, and saw what had caused the pain in my head. I told Carson to be careful – I’d gotten hurt from his shove. I figured it was an accident.

The second push wasn’t an accident. He took my shoulder, pulled me back to see where the doorjamb was, and then shoved my head sideways into the doorjamb.

Without thinking, I hit him as hard as I could right between the eyes. Every bit of energy and force I had in me was directed into that punch. I’m grateful that I didn’t hit him anywhere where it could have caused actual damage. I could have bloodied his nose, broken his teeth, bruised his eye. I could have killed him if I’d hit the right spot with that much force. It was an instinctive punch, and it did the job.

We stared at each other for what seemed like ten minutes. I’m sure it was only a minute, but time had slowed down. It does that when crazy things happen.

He broke the silence. “Don’t ever do that again.” He glowered at me.

“Don’t ever do that again.” I responded, indignant. He’d hurt me intentionally. There was no reason for it. I’d never done anything to him to deserve that. I’d never done anything to anybody to deserve that.

The first time is free. The first time is an accident. Once you’ve been told that you’ve harmed me, and you do it again, everything is over.

If they hurt you and you don’t tell them, then it is on you. If you tell them and they continue to hurt you, then they have made their choice. It is on you if you stay after that.

Repress – self-care, and boundaries

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At what point do you stop being yourself so that somebody else can feel comfortable? All the time? Half the time? Never?

Is it antisocial to do your own thing? Is a violence against your soul to not?

I’ve suppressed myself a lot throughout my life. I’ve been taught directly and indirectly that everybody else’s needs are always more important than my own. Perhaps some of it is just part of the training that every woman gets. Perhaps part is what I learned out of self defense from being raised in a house with a father who wasn’t emotionally there. We either walked on eggshells or just walked around him. We never really knew who he was going to be from day to day. Perhaps part of it is from having a brother who was the master of manipulation. The only trips he took me on were of the guilt variety.

I remember when I went to college in another town I realized I could be anybody I wanted to be. Nobody knew me. I didn’t have a history. I wasn’t Ian’s kid sister. I wasn’t Joan’s daughter. I wasn’t Pat’s kid. All of them had gone before me in that town and in that high school. They’d either taken classes there or had worked there. I had a sort of hand me down life, a sort of leftover existence, a sort of filtered reality. My life was not my own. People judged me based on what their experiences were with my family.

When I moved to another state I realized I could be anyone I wanted. So I decided to be myself. I stripped away everything that didn’t serve or suit me, and grew a new me from the inside out.

I’m doing that again now. I’ve been recreating myself over the past several years.

I deleted my sister in law as a “friend” on FB in part because she was always disagreeing with me. She often felt that my posts were going to upset her husband, or my husband. She asked me to delete the posts.

She reminds me a lot of how my brother tried to control me. Shame. Family honor. Secrets. Guilt. Don’t air the family business. Keep a stiff upper lip. Hold it in. What will “they” think?

I found myself thinking before many posts – what would she think? Would she censure me? Would she censor me? I took to posting some posts on my blog only, rather than on my FB page. I still got to speak, I just didn’t have to worry about her reading it.

Funny, she never commented on anything that she agreed with. It was always “I disagree” or “I respectfully disagree”, as if saying “respectfully” takes the sting out of the slap.

I can handle constructive criticism. I just can’t handle constant criticism.

So I had a choice. Her or me. Make her happy, or make me happy. I chose me.

It made her go a little spare for a bit.

It was one of the best decisions I’ve made in a while. Reminds me of when I deleted my brother. It was a little terrifying and a little bit exhilarating at the same time.

She now thinks I’ve gone mental, that something is wrong with me. She’s a therapist, so she should know, right? I think she’s putting the blame on me because it takes it off her. If she’d asked me privately if there was a problem, and listened to my feelings when I answered, then it would be different. Her reaction just proved to me that my decision was right.

Self-care is a sign of mental health. I will no longer allow abusive people into my life, regardless of who they are. Family members do not get free passes. In fact, I expect better from them.

I chose my husband. I did not choose his family, or who his family chose.