theoddminddump-blog

[theoddminddump-blog]

Funny story

I remember when my mom was offended at the fact that I was against beating kids as a disciplinary tactic. She said, "You're brothers got more spankings than you and they don't have any problems." But one of my brothers has a baby now and my mom and grandma are like, "I hope this changes him." Like, sure, I have problems but they're coping problems. My brothers, on the other hand, take nothing seriously and consistently make bad choices. So yeah. That tickled me a lil' bit.

[theoddminddump-blog]

C sections suck

No one ever really tells about the consequences of having a c-section. The possible mental trauma, the lack of autonomy, the possible risks after the fact. During my post-partum visit, I had asked the doctor when I could return to working out. I was chomping at the bit to get a good workout in and my dumbbells had been staring me down for a while. I was told that light exercise was recommended for the first year. She suggested against *any* heavy lifting. So here I am, 7 months out, twiddling my thumbs because I'm afraid to challenge my body. It fucking sucks. My workouts always feel incomplete because I can't do crunches or planks. I probably sound like a crazy person but I miss them. It's making me hate my body. My midsection looks like I'm back in the tail-end of my first trimester. I feel weak, doughy, and unattractive. What really makes me angry is that there is really zero help offered after being discharged after *major abdominal surgery*. I don't know if it's different with civilian hospitals but it was like everyone shrugged their shoulders and sent me on my way with no information on how to snap back afterwards. So I'm stuck here, googling for decent post cs workouts and all I get is walking, cobra poses, side planks, and glute bridges. I've done them all and yet here I fucking sit, with a gut that still pokes out and me staring longingly at a picture of me at 4 weeks pregnant. I had a great core back then.

[theoddminddump-blog]

I survived my first Mother's Day

Well, of course, my mom didn't call me first. Haha I bucked up, imagined myself to be the bigger person, and called. Thankfully, it was a very short call. She was actually the one to end it! Lol My husband was surprised too but also told me to not dwell or think too much about it. Instead, I called my step-mom, talked to my dad for a bit, and texted my MIL and stepMIL. My own celebration was very nice and was actually celebrated over the whole weekend. I told my husband that I didn't want anything but he doesn't really let that fly. First, he let me sleep in on Saturday and Sunday and took up more than half of our son's care. I was given a funny card with a thoughtful note that made me tear up. I ate some tart topped with fruit for breakfast and dessert. We ate a bbq feast and he's buying me a 'Filthy Casual' shirt. So yeah, I enjoyed this weekend. The call to my mom went over waaaayy better than expected. My husband is awesome. The End. :)

[theoddminddump-blog]

'Brace yourself... Mothers Day is coming'

Yes, I used an overused meme for my title. Wanna fight about it? Last night, I realized that I hadn't posted anything in a while. It's actually a good thing because it means that I'm getting better. After that disaster of a call with my mom everything has been pretty quiet. My therapist has also been helping me out with the family issues and basically telling me that I'm not a bad person and I run my own life. Anyway, Mothers Day is this weekend and I'm wigging out a little. I see ads for it all over the damn place and it makes me a little bitter. This'll be my first Mothers Day as an actual mom so it's probably weird to feel skeeved out but the more reminders I see for it, the more I feel like it's just a day for mothers to feel entitled to praise. Personally, it's in my opinion that good foster/ adoptive parents should be praised this Sunday. I mean, can you imagine loving and raising someone else's kids as your own? That's some salt of the earth type shit. Okay, that was slightly off-topic. I'm not against celebrating it. I guess I just see so many mothers actually expecting something. So, I made the stupid decision to tell my therapist that I'd probably call my mom this Sunday and I want to smack myself for it. Before, I was just going to settle with a text. I'm trying to get rid of the anxiety of even talking with my family so calling and controlling the conversation to a degree would help me out. But still, part of me thinks that she doesn't deserve a call. Not after how she talked to me last time I called. On top of that, she's probably even expecting a call from all three of her kids and I hate when stupid things are expected of me. Quick related story: One time, my mom got butthurt that my dad didn't tell her 'Happy Mothers Day'. They'd never been in close contact and he's never said it to her before, but now that I'm in contact with both of them, she expects him to 'thank' her for my existence. It was funny at my last appointment. My therapist said, "Maybe they'll actually call you first." I wanted to laugh. It's obvious that both my mom and my grandma think they're more important when stuff like this comes up so I highly doubt it. I will be genuinely surprised if one of them calls first. Of course, I'm not going to make any sort of issue out of it. I don't think I deserve back pats for choosing to have a child. So yeah, I think Mothers Day is going to suck for me either way. Oh well. 'Tis a silly holiday anyway. (Yup, made a loose Monty Python reference too. Whatcha gonna do about it?)

[theoddminddump-blog]

The Perpetual Victim

I keep trying to write this shit out but it keeps turning into this giant block of text. I'm going to try to stay brief-ish this time. So I called my mom, per the doctors orders. The hospital stuff is out of the way and I'm finding that I want those problems back as long as I don't have to deal with family. But yeah, I regret just about everything. I 'disowned' them for five years for good damn reason. They're perpetual victims. Holy shit. Especially my mom. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but still, being on the receiving end of that whole thing makes me feel gross. I'm back to having trouble going to sleep because my goat is got real bad. Anyway, it's clear that my family doesn't seem to understand boundaries and actually get upset when I flex them. My mom and grandma are waaaayyy downstream in the river of denial. They insist that my upbringing was an absolute dream. Sure, you didn't outright abuse me but doctors believing that I have OCD didn't just come out of nowhere. On top of that, she had the nerve to sit there and use that dumb- ass platitude, "You'll understand when your kid is older." Nah, I'll raise my son to be aware of what's around him but I'll also treat him with respect. I also want to make sure that he's comfortable coming to me or his dad if he has any problems. I want him to be able to disagree with me and not be afraid of my reaction. I just want him to be fucking normal. Oh, and she also went for a nice little low blow with her, "I hope and pray your son doesn't disown you when he's older." Just wow. Fuck you and your 'sins of the father' bullshit. How about this? I hope and pray that you find some peace and power to not feel so put upon all the damn time. I'm almost gotdamned 30 years-old. I have a husband and a kid. I'm too old and have no more time for shit like this. I have boundaries. I've neve made demands of my family. Ever since I 'disowned' my family at 19, I haven't asked for shit. All I wanted was some semblance of normal and they had to go and fuck it all up. I'm done. Only positive and productive people in my family's life now.

[theoddminddump-blog]

My new normal+ What's her motive?

Something about that hospital call a few weeks ago really changed me. Or more over, therapy has shown me the things I can do. I almost feel like a new, better person. I don't pick so much and I'm able to quell my anxieties in good time. I don't want to day that I've been riding on a high for two weeks or more. It's more that I feel like I'm living a new and positive normal. The old normal for me was just getting by and brushing shit off. Not the best type of normal. So yeah, things are looking up. I've also found that my attitude about certain things have changed. My attitude towards my family have switched from fear and anxious to just annoyance and apathy. It's not really the best feelings to switch to but it's almost impossible to respond to their antics with positivity. It started when my grandma called. The two biggest things I remember was that my brother (the one who is enabled all the time) wants out of the military and is in a shitshow of a marriage and that my mom was upset that I didn't respond to her video chat calls. For my brother, I literally scoffed and just said that it's a bad idea, he's lazy, people around him enable him to make shit choices, and he needs to get a divorce. It felt great getting all of that out and my opinions were met with little resistance. As for my mom. Wew. Fucking. Lad. I just said that the only calls I got were video calls and that I don't have messenger anymore. She does have my phone number though. That's about when the annoyance really started up. I'm still trying to wrap my head around being butthurt that someone won't pick up a fucking video call; Especially when you can try the old-fashioned way. She does have more free time than me AND access to a landline. So that was that and soon after... I get a fb message from her asking about where I order my glasses from. I was pretty suspicious but I answered. She sends me some cutesy gif and I just reply with a 'lol'. Still no phonecall. Whatever, not my problem. Sometime today, she sends me another message asking me to call the landline. At that point, I just roll my eyes. I'm trying to figure out what she's doing. I feel like there's some sort of motive here, especially with those hollow fb messages. I'll call her eventually. High road and all that. It's still going to be on my time though. I'm too old to be at my mom's beck and call whenever she wants me. So yeah, this is currently the newish me.

[theoddminddump-blog]

Why change a good thing?

This week has actually been pretty great. Ever since things got hashed out with the hospital rep, I've been on the up and up. Along with the tools my therapist have given me so far, I feel like I've been able to get a better handle on my life. There was almost a snag with the help I'm getting that just about threw me for a loop. Almost a month ago, I got some help in getting an appointment with a neurophycologist to address my skin picking. At that time, it got really bad. I had chewed up one of my thumbs until it was pink. It was suggested that in the mean time I use silly putty for whenever I get the urge or catch myself picking or chewing. I grab two and get my hands to work. At some point, messing with the putty was actually relieving so I kept at it. Then the day of the appointment comes up, almost one month after. I was told that I display signs closest to OCD (which I believe) and wanted me to try out some meds. He's giving me two months to wean my son off of breastfeeding and I have to go somewhere to do a blood draw. Now, when all this shit hit the fan I did say that I was open to medication. I felt so out of control in the beginning that I wasn't sure if stuff would get better. I go back to my therapist with this info and I tell her that I was unimpressed with the visit but she sets me straight. I had never really voiced the fact that I feel like I was getting better so she was basically like, "He might be right. Give it a try." I ended up letting her know that I don't think I need medication because working with her has already done wonders for me. Why change up something that's already working? She sounded really surprised and pleased to hear it and suggested that we just keep doing what we're doing. Anyway, I wouldn't count something like that as a black mark on the past week. A lot of positive stuff happened and I was able to flex my 'not my problem' muscles. My son is slowly starting solids. I got him a can of rice cereal and he actually enjoys it. He learned real quick what the spoon means. I think he manages to actually eat maybe half or more what we give him. Soon, we'll be trying out purees. My grandma called. Lord, I was about to have a heart attack when I picked up but I was handle everything. This was actually an easy call though because she wasn't being weird with me. No, "Why haven't you called?" Just, "How are you? The baby? Your husband?" I got the confirmation that my both my brother and his wife are losers. It felt good to state my piece on that subject. I didn't even get angry or anything. I just said that everyone's been enabling him all his life and he's lazy. I didn't get any pushback about it which was surprising. My mom is butthurt that I didn't answer to her three video chat invites. I said that she has my number and that I don't have messenger on my phone. I was really proud that the first thought that popped into my head was that it wasn't my problem. Grandma asked, in her concerned tone, if I was vaccinating my kid. That started some weird discussion. I put my foot down about three times though. He's getting his damn shots. The weekend rolled around and we got a visit from my MIL, SIL, and the step father in law (is there a name for that? Do I just have two FILs?). It was a nice visit. They're cool people and they take the baby off of my hands for a few hours. Lol And then there's today. It's just starting but I'm still riding the feel-good train. It just feels like I'm functioning like a normal adult and it's great. :D

[theoddminddump-blog]

Progress

So, it's been a bit since I last posted but I've been a busy bee. My son is turning into a handful, I'm getting back into exercising, I'm trying to keep the house in decent condition, and I'm trying to find time to do my own stuff. I have a little bit of morning time on my hands today, so I wanted to share my progress for this week. On my last appointment with my therapist, we called the patient relations for the hospital I got my prenatal care and delivery from to voice my concerns. Having her support was so helpful because as soon as the people on the other end picked up my brain went on lock down. Seriously, despite having a piece of paper with my thoughts in front of me, I was still drawing a blank, so she took over to explain what was going on. I think that was also extremely helpful in getting the seriousness across to the hospital reps. I was afraid that if I called on my own that they would just label me as an entitled dependa. So, we get the gist of the issue across, they take my information and let me know that the reps are busy with other patients on the lines but gives me names, numbers, and a day which to expect a call back (Monday). Monday goes past and I get no calls. I'm super annoyed at this point and vow to bug the shit out of them on Tuesday. The next day, I call at around 9am and it goes straight to voicemail, I leave a message but plan to call back during my kids next naptime. 11am, call again, but someone picks up this time. As soon as I stated who I was, they recognized me immediately and let me know what's going on. They'd pulled my medical file and had passed it around to all relevant parties. I was told to expect a call that day. Of course, it never happened. Such is life dealing with anything related to the military. Wednesday comes around and kiddo has a check-up so we're gearing up for that. As I'm feeding him, my phone lights up. It's the hospital. So I hand the boy off to my husband to take the call. They introduce themselves as the head of the department (I think) and wanted to hear me out to make sure that any bad blood was settled. Starting was hard. I was super nervous because I was afraid that I'd go off the rails but, somehow, I didn't. There was a lot of positive back and forth. The lady on the phone seemed really understanding and told me about her similar experiences. There were still some disagreements. She had assumed that the babys readings during labor were dodgy because of a failing placenta when it was because he was being choked out with his own cord (I checked his and my discharge papers), and I wasn't happy with the hospital policy of induction despite having consistently normal BP readings. Of course you're going to have a higher percentage of successful deliveries if you're just forcing women to give birth/ go through a c-section. *eye roll* She did agree with me that I was sort of in a weird medical grey area and there was a repeated lack of communication. I missed out on a lot of opportunities because I wasn't uncomplicated but also not high-risk. They also finally addressed that, yes, I am white-coat hypertensive. Something that I had been bringing up for every time I went to a doctor's appointment and got brushed off for. I *finally* got asked if I feel keyed up if I have to talk to in front of people and I said yes and then added more examples of stuff that makes me turn into soggy noodles. Anywau, there was a lot of admitting mistakes and a lot of, "We'll talk to the right people and make sure this doesn't happen again." I added another concern of the staff completely ignoring my husbands existence in my recovery room which I thought wasn't a big deal compared to the other stuff. The lady on the phone was appalled at hearing about it though and said that it was a pretty big deal. I was actually glad to hear that. I had been struggling to have people recognize that my husband was also participating in my pregnancy. While I was recovering from surgery and a shitty infection, he was the one taking care of the baby. He was also the first to see him in the NICU so it was really shitty for the staff to sit there and ask specifically ask me questions only for me to defer to my husband. So, the call ended on a positive note. I feel like it's still in my (and my sons) best interest to be a bit more vigilant about medical stuff instead of blindly trusting medicine. Not to say that I hate doctors, but obviously there was some easily preventable stuff that happened and I just rolled with it and assumed that it was normal despite my gut feelings. Anyway, I still count it as progress. I'm mostly settled with the situation. I still have these pesky symptoms to deal with, but that'll come in time. It just means no more random ranting about the hospital and it's practices. In other news: My mom has currently tried to video chat with me for the third time. I'm sure she's butthurt about me not responding. I'm just astounded that she hasn't bothered to call like a normal person. She has my number. Hell, she can also just message me instead of sending video calls. I'm pretty sure her Ipads keyboard function isn't broken. *Then* I learned that I missed a call from my grandmas number. I was at my kids check up so I couldn't answer. I tried to call back but no one picked up. I didn't receive any more calls from them for the rest of the day. Most I can do is shrug my shoulders. I did my part. I also see this as progress. It might seem petty to outside parties but for me, it's establishing boundaries. I am damn near 30 years-old and I'm pretty done with acting and feeling like some teenager that just left for college.

[theoddminddump-blog]

Something positive for once

My latest therapy session was yesterday. We were supposed to be calling the hospitals Patient Relations number to voice the 'concerns' I had during my care and stay. I was getting a bit worked up since I'm not really good at sticking up myself. I also have the belief that because it's technically and military institution, that they'll just shrug me off as some complaining dependa. We ended up not getting to that. There was more talk about my dad and his side of the family and my place in it. I am the oldest of all of his kids, but I wasn't raised with them. BUT we're all on good terms since he worked to have just about all of us hang out with each other in some way. He made sure to treat us ALL as one family. That's something I did not get with my brothers on my moms end. There was always a sense of 'other' because their dad always had some shitty hand in 'raising' his own kids. Then, we moved on career goals. In another session, she had sent me a link to a career test. It was super simple and I didn't really enjoy taking it for that reason. We ended up going through my results yesterday and they're heavily favored in tech and art. She also had an explanation for some of the other results that I didn't score higher for. A lof of them had higher scores than expected because I basically answered that I enjoy creative endeavors. That somehow translated as me working with food because I also answered yes to being interested in being a taste tester. Really, who wouldn't want to make a living tasting food? We ended up focusing on the more artistic stuff. I do have computer experience, and while I'd like to lean more towards certs to work with repairing and maintaining computers (like my husband) she leaned more towards me building on my already established freelance work. Computers and IT work is still something I'll be working on, but in the mean time, she did give me a great plan to be more efficient with my artwork. I'm actually really excited to start because it sounds like a plan to make my work easily marketable. I also want to slap myself for not thinking of it earlier. It's really simple. I just work on smaller pieces and eventually work up to larger pieces. The focus will be world-building. It's what a lot of artists are doing themselves and it's something I've wanted to do but never knew how to implement it. I'd always put too much thought into it and get overwhelmed. Now, it seems so easy. It's great! Maybe something awesome will come from this.

[theoddminddump-blog]

Looks like it'll be another rough night for me. I don't know if I consider this lucky or what, but this time I'm not posting about my family. I think I had mentioned it in my intro post, but I had a bad time delivering my son. Almost 4 months out and it's really weird for me to say that I even delivered him. He was born via C-section due to a badly failed induction and the whole thing still haunts me. It's most of the reason my anxiety and skin picking came back with a vengeance. So, one of the weird things that gets my goat nowadays are bathing. I used to take a nice, long bath every Sunday. I used to bask under the hot water from a shower. I used to be pretty meticulous with my hygiene habits. After the birth, I just can't anymore. I have this ugly, red, kind of itchy scar now. That area is still pretty numb. I hate it. I hate seeing it. I hate accidentally touching it when it's itchy. I hate my body. I knew it wouldn't look the same, but I figured I could manage. I used to love getting a good workout with my dumbbells. Then I find out that I can't mess with weights the way I used to. No planks. No crunches. No twist. I can't even do curls with substantial weight. So now I'm left with this too soft body. I'm back to my pre-pregnancy weight but my clothes don't fit right. I have this pudge on my stomach that won't fucking leave. I stay in pajamas pants and my husbands goodies most days if I don't have to leave the house. I'll wear anything that pretty much hides my body. I used to wear clothes that showed a bit of curve because I liked my body a lot. I found it attractive. Intimacy is all dried up. I'll get in the mood but as soon as I see my stomach or just me naked, I get turned off. My husband, some how, still finds me attractive. I don't see how. Either way, it's hard for me to find myself attractive now compared to before I was pregnant. I used to love my body and I was able to bring that into the bedroom. Now, I'm my own boner killer. I don't know how to get my husband to understand that I can't just shrug my shoulders and just have sex. Showers are the worst. I used to take one every day. Now? About twice a week. My showers are 5 minutes max. I rarely shave. I don't even bother with lotion anymore so I look like someone blew chalk dust at me. I can get a shower without driving myself nuts if I bring my phone in to play music. It's a great distraction. If I don't have a distraction then it's just me and my repeating thoughts. I don't exactly know why it happens but my thoughts in the shower focus around my shitty hospital experience. I don't think about it on purpose. It's just that I hop in under the water and my brain decides that shower time is bad thought time. When this happens, my mood is pretty shit for the rest of the day or night. In todays case, I took one before bed and now I can't sleep. My husband is pretty tired of it. I can't blame him but I wish he was more understanding. He's more of a 'fix it' type of guy and since he can't fix it, he's pretty much left everything to me. I still got a cuddle and a 'I love you' but I can tell that he's getting tired of constantly dealing with me being in some sort of mood. I don't want to say that I can't help it. I'm in therapy. We're addressing the problems and coming up with solutions. I can't just turn on a dime and I hate it. I wish I could just shrug this shit off and just be like I used to be. When we decided to have a kid, I didn't fantasize about being some happy-go-lucky mom who looked forward to play dates and commiserating with other mothers. I was pretty sure that I was going to just be my normal self but with a cool baby to teach stuff to. What I am now was definitely not in the plan and it's jarring. I'm angry at who I am now. I have periods of good times. I feel my best after coming home from a therapy session. Any other time, I feel like I struggle to muster the energy to do the things I used to. I used to draw. I played video games sometimes. I used to be super handsy with my husband. I used to wear normal clothes everyday. I used to cook breakfast every weekend. I used to cook dinner every night. I used to exercise every morning. I used to have cool painting ideas bouncing around in my head. I used to have energy. I want my old self back.

[theoddminddump-blog]

Co-dependency or Culture

Recently had another go with my therapist this week. Everything is going great and I feel more empowered and sure of myself after every meeting. This won't really about anything deeply related with my sessions but rather some thoughts I had afterwards. When I described the relationship between my mom and my grandma, I had mentioned them being 'co-dependent'. I had always seen it that way because they're both so involved with each other. My mom and grandma have lived together since before I was born. There have been stints of my mom leaving the nest but she always comes back. Grandma acts likes she doesn't enjoy having her living with her but definitely basks in the benefits of having her adult daughter pay bills and help maintain the house (which isn't big at all). My mom lives there under the guise that she's helping her mother in her old age. My uncle, on the other hand, has not returned home since he got married 10+ years ago. Even after he was divorced, he stayed put with his two daughters. Even in his other actions, I can tell that he is independent from his mother. Given my immediate familiys relationships, I wonder if it's more a culture thing than co-dependency. For clarification purposes: My grandma is white, my mom and uncle are biracial. My grandma spent a majority of her time parenting as a single mother within a black community. My mom was also a single mother but co-parented (I use that term loosely and sarcastically) with my brothers' father. Also within a black community. This is why I feel like I might have misspoken when I had mentioned co-dependency. It seems more like a tight matriarchy where everything trickles down from my grandma. I also wonder if it's something that's aggrivated by culture. Some of us had the platitude 'Respect your elders' drilled into our heads. Add the core matriarch and you get my grandma. This is something that I have realized quite recently. She assumes that she is owed things because of her age and status in the family and, through many conversations with her in the past couple years, it's obvious. Examples being: Her expecting me to drive 45 minutes to help her with her lawn. This was based on the knowledge that my job at the time was flexible and my husband was deployed. Her reaction to her 'victimhood' being called out. My mom and her got into some tizzy over who gets to watch what in the TV in her livingroom. While my mom went to her space to blow off some steam, my grandma called me and demanded I drive over to talk to my mom because she 'feared for her life' and blamed it all on my mom. I had suggested that maybe she shared some fault in the situation and that they both go calm down and hash things out. The earful I got still makes my chest tight. She whines like a 5 year-old which doesn't help. Another example is when I became pregnant and told my grandma. She immediately wanted to tell the rest of the family but I told her that I wanted to be the one to tell them. Her reaction was, "But it's my baby too!" with that same childish whine. Mmmmmmm, no it's not. Pretty sure she had zero involvement in my sons conception. The last example when I was further along in my pregnancy and I video chatted with my mom. My grandma came into the picture and demanded to see my belly. I flat out told her no. "But whyyyy?" Again, with that childish whine. You get the gist, right? Anyway, I do wonder if it's more a cultural expectation or just co-dependency that had a hand in creating the building blocks of my fuckedupness. It could be a combination of both. Who knows? I don't want to sound like one of those people that lays all blame on their family. There were some good times too. But I do know that I fear the expectation of perpetuating those ideals. Will I have to endure the same thing from my mom? I can't. I'm in a point in my life where my son and husband are my priorities and I'm afraid that fact won't be taken well with my own family.

[theoddminddump-blog]

Boundaries/ Solutions/ Empowerment

It's really funny when my husband and therapist tell me the same stuff. Maybe if he had a nicer disposition, he could be a therapist too. Haha I basically went on a word vomit about my family to both my husband and therapist. The problem boils down to my mom and grandma still feeling like they have some sort of ownership over me. About my mom and grandma: They are extremely distrustful of men. I fully believe that it was spurred on by my grandma first as she had to raise two kids by herself in a not great neighborhood in a not great city. My mom had me when she was 18. When my grandma found out about the pregnancy, she ran my dad off. Claimed that he would amount to nothing. (His words. Mom and grandma won't comment about the situation. ) Now, he isn't absolved of any 'sins'. Two teenagers decided to have a baby together. Like they say, it takes two to tango. BUT, since then, there's always been this sort of dysfunction when it comes to men unless it's my uncle (mom's brother) or my brothers. Mom was very, VERY attached to my brothers father despite him also being involved with two other women. She did date a couple of other guys from what I remember, but I feel like she was holding out for him. Then, he got married to one of his babymommas last year and maximum butthurt happened. I wasn't going to really say anything about it because it's not my business but it's like, what did you expect? Anyway, other huts were that I wasn't allowed to have boyfriends, even in highschool. It was in fear that I'd just repeat her mistakes even though she could just... be an active parent. My brothers were allowed girlfriends though. They were allowed to hang out at their girlfriends house. Parental supervision was not guaranteed. Then, after I got married, there was a point where my grandma called me just to check up on me. The standard 'how have you been' questions pop up and at some point she's making sure that my husband is 'treating me right'. The question threw me off and my reaction time is shit so I'm like, "Of course he is." She then replies somewhere along the lines of, "Good. I taught you better than that." In reality, they didn't really teach me at all. They sat there and tried to teach me that boys and men where the bad guys but a lot of my friends were guys. My favorite teachers were usually guys. That's not to speak against any female family members, friends, or teachers. I just had more in common with dudes and stereotypically dude things back then. In middle school, I liked video games and anime. Namely Gundam Wing and G Gundam. My history teacher, Mr. B gifted me one of those Gundam models you snap together and paint and a G Gundam action figure with changeable hands. In high school, my English teacher (also a dude) was the only one open to sponsoring my anime/ Japan club despite not knowing a thing about either subjects. Anyway, waaaayyyy off topic. Back to it. My therapist listened to everything and gave me really good feedback. My problem is that I don't set boundaries that benefit me. She's totally right. I was too busy trying to avoid the 'bad daughter' label which is super unhealthy. It's okay for me to derail subjects when something makes me uncomfortable or if something isn't my business. At some point we'll be putting this into practice and doing mock phone calls. I'm nervous, but also maybe ready to try it out. Until then, she just suggests that I keep doing what I've already been doing. Everyone gets regular picture updates of my son. Also! I'm supposed to be trying to set an appointment with a neurophycologist to address the skin picking problem. It got pretty bad and I had also mentioned that I usually have a low buzzing sensation in the back of my head. Until then, she suggested I grab some silly putty to keep my hands occupied and she's also supplied me with a giant rain stick to ground me. They both work very well so far. I still have some short instances of skin picking, but I usually catch it and go to town on silly putty. The rain stick is used every morning for at least a minute. I see it as a sort of mental reset.

[theoddminddump-blog]

Family Ties

Two nights in a row of sleep issues. Every time I'm done feeding my son, I slip into bed and I'm just bombarded by thoughts that won't go away. I had actually talked to my husband about it. He knows when I'm all twisted up about something. I think I'm finally giving up on the idea of having a normal family and it's a bit heartbreaking. It's really petty, but I had deleted all of my family on my mom's side from my facebook. They never really actually cared about me unless something positive going on. All through my pregnancy, I got supportive comments and little gifts for my son. When I started dealing with the symptoms of trauma though, they were no where to be seen. I'm the most disappointed in my own mother. I told her exactly what I was dealing with and why. I was grateful that she had given me some space before, but now she wants to resume contact but on her terms. All I get from her now are requests for video chats and I don't even have messenger. Why can't she just call like a normal person? Luckily, my in laws seem to give a shit about me as well as my dad. Sometimes he calls and we just talk about stuff. It makes me feel like I'm not just a mom.

[theoddminddump-blog]

For starters

As I get older, a lot of things from my past have come to really haunt me and my goal for 2017 is to maybe work through them. I am currently in therapy, but I would like to try out journaling too since I'm terrible at actually speaking. For starters: I'm a 28 year-old woman. I'm married to a pretty neat dude and we both have a pretty neat baby boy. I look normal-ish (maybe) to most people but I deal with compulsive skin-picking and I'm generally a really anxious person. I'm my most calm and feel the most normal when I'm partaking in any creative endeavors, when I'm cuddling with my guy, or when I'm genuinely having a good time. My goals are to severely reduce or eliminate my skin-picking, to be much less anxious, and to be a stronger person for my family and for myself.