I haven't posted in awhile...once again that funny thing I call "my life" keeps me from what I love to do. That was a joke, but life does get in the way of my mindless blogging. I realize that what I love to do is just put my thoughts out there. Yes, some people just call it, "talking all the time"...but I prefer a more complimentary description...like vocal entertainer. It is the same when I write...I just spill my thoughts onto the screen and hope that I remember to click save...because I could never come up with the same thing twice.
I was looking back over things that I have posted about in the past and realized that I like to post about social issues and then rarely come back to them. I just reposted on my Facebook some things from last year about human trafficking. It is nice when we pay attention to these issues...but they don't go away when we stop talking about them. There are individuals, groups, and resources set in place for all these causes...they want to keep you in the know. They don't want us to forget about so many people that are forgotten about everyday. I know we can't always donate to these causes...but we can do our part by reminding people that they still exist and continue to educate others.
I forget that all I have to do is get online and I will be in a position to help...even in the smallest way. I don't want people to forget...yet I often do myself. I forget that I want human trafficking to stop and I forget that I want North Korea to be liberated, I forget that I hate censorship and book banning, I forget that I support gay marriage and equality, I forget that I want to promote what Pro Choice truly means, I forget that I want to educate more people about domestic violence, I forget that I want to support all the friends and family of people that were deeply loved who have passed away, I forget that I want to feed the hungry, I forget that I want to...save the world. Yes...I admit it...in the midst of my fortunate life...I forget that I want to help others. Saving the world is such a huge task...but if I could I would! In my heart, heck, I am one hell of a hero.
In the real world I am a working mom, with a family that has fairly normal attachment issues. They really enjoy my company...which is nice. I support ALL of my 10 year old's extracurricular activities (day and night), and I try too keep my husband company when I can, ohhh and I also try too actually have a social life. I spent many years occupying every waking moment of free time that I had volunteering to do whatever I could to help others. I loved it...absolutely loved it. Then it turned into, do I love it or do I love the acknowledgement? Then it turned into, does my family love it? I took two big realizations away from those questions. The first was that more time with my family is awesome and the second was that it's ok if volunteering makes me feel good about myself. I can accept that I want to be the hero...in the end that's not such a bad thing. I want to educate people. I want people to feel better. I want people to be nicer to each other. And, I can admit it, in the end I want to feel better about myself. I have balanced it out...I pulled back from the excessive volunteering and spend more time with my loved ones. I devote a set amount of time to causes and activities that give back to others just as much as I put in for myself.
Actually there was a third realization that I made...when you have issues...we all have issues...but when you have quite a few things that are not so easy to deal with and you throw yourself unabashed into volunteer work, in addition to your normal life...you can easily just squash all those yucky feelings that you don't want to deal with. You make yourself feel real good inside by helping others and it helps mask whatever ugly things are festering away. The downside...one morning you wake up sobbing uncontrollably and angry at the world and you can't figure out why. You have spent the last five years living in your little bubble where you focus solely on helping others so how can you feel bad now...oh yeah...you have also spent five years ignoring any kind of real emotion concerning your own life. Yeah...that happened to me...
If you are trying to figure out where this is going...please don't...because I have no idea. At this point I am just spewing onto the screen for the sake of my own sanity. It seems that over the years I have been dealing with mental health issues...except I didn't always realize that. In the end it has been determined that I have obsessive compulsive thoughts (not actions - totally different thing) and most likely suffer from some post traumatic stress disorder (that would be thanks to a horribly dysfunctional, violent, and abusive relationship). Hmmmmm...I left that relationship years ago and moved on. I put my life back together and thrived, however, what I never did was actually deal with the years of anguish and guilt that I had stuffed inside me. I just moved on because that is what you do...you become a strong person and you deal with what life hands you. It never occurred to me that I would really need to come to terms with things...well that is until my ex died.
For those that know my story and have read my other posts you know that saga that was my ex. Well, he passed away on September 27, 2013. For those catching up...he was also my daughter's biological father. Erick, my husband is her dad through and through...my ex was never a parent to her. I left my ex when I was pregnant - but he did create her. My daughter is still not sure how to feel about it. She was not close to him and the time she spent with him was not healthy and she did not enjoy it very often. Her memories of him are not the best. Mine are mixed. Before he died ofcourse all I dwelled on where the horrible things...after he died I tried really hard to remember some nice things...and it wasn't that hard. However, his death sent me reeling in a way that I did not expect. I thought that I had forgiven him and could move on easily...WRONG! Holy cow he dies and you know what happens, I get bitch slapped right out of the nice little happy land that I had created for myself. All the lies that I had told myself about being well adjusted and how I had moved on came rushing in. The reality that I had been keeping myself busy...for years...just to avoid dealing with my past was caving in on me. The resentment that I have welled up inside is like a huge iceberg just waiting to sink the Titanic. I haven't even come close to forgiving my ex. I want to believe and feel like I am a good person who has forgiven, but I can't because I am pissed off that he died before I got #1 an apology for all the shitty crap he did too me, #2 that I didn't get the chance to really tell him off. Sure I use to tell him off when we fought but I was just as messed up as he was then. No...I wanted to get in his face and say see how awesome my life is without you. And the worst part is his dying has made me feel like crap because he died and it brought up all these horrible feelings I have about him...oh and the selfishness. Yes...I have selfish thoughts about this and it makes it even worse.
But let's skip back a couple of paragraphs to the obsessive compulsive part of my personality. My brain is on ALL the time. When you ask me a question or I have a hypothetical thought...I am off in a million directions. By the time you have asked the question I have already created 14 different scenarios in my head regarding how this situation will pan out. I can take a simple thought like, "I need to go to the grocery store", and turn it into 100 different scenarios in my head and those thoughts will snowball until I am overwhelmed. However, I can usually bring myself back from the brink before I crumble and then I leave for the store. That is my daily life, with virtually every waking thought I have. That is why I talk ALOT and ramble. That is why I am sitting here typing to clear my head.
OK back to my ex...so when he passed away not only did all these emotions pop up that I had buried but my obsessive compulsive thought process kicked in and just expanded every emotion I had until they popped like the Hindenburg. In my time I have learned to not express these things because I break down...I mean I have serious earth shattering break downs that are well ugly and no one wants to see that. My temper these days is pretty good, but the fuse is shorter and I am really trying to stuff that down. I have yet to go back to my counselor because I felt like it was just a lot of her shaking her head and nodding. Well I can talk and talk or write and write for hours for free and express the same things that I was telling her.
I don't hate my ex. His life at the end was extremely sad and I know that his own self doubt and unhappiness was way more crippling to him than any of my angry selfish thoughts. The truth was I hadn't even talked to him in almost two years when this happened. I had talked to his family, but he was just to self destructive for me to communicate with and I had to protect my daughter from who he had become. I do wish that he had been less selfish. All the way up to the end he pointed the finger at everyone else and could never accept that he needed major major help. The only times that I ever saw him remorseful were times when he was trying to get you to feel bad for him. Even his self deprecation was used to manipulate people. It was a sad ending for a sad person. The selfish part of me came out after his death because I had not dealt with my own demons.
I would get to the point of this but I don't really have one. I am just clearing my head. I guess the point is that I saw old posts about supporting causes and it made me think about the volunteer work I stopped after my ex shot himself because I decided I really needed to do some of my own healing and wanted to devote myself to my family more.
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