Poison and Power

I started this entry on December 11, 2010 but got stuck and couldn't finish it. I didn't like how it sounded and some of the concepts were just not coming out right. I came back to it today and am a bit shocked at how much transformation has happened for me in the past six weeks. Now it feels ready. Yay for me!

I find it amazing how much poison one person can spread. How one single, solitary person can be so poisonous, infecting everything they come in contact with. Just that one person can take a perfectly contented, smooth situation and tear it apart. A situation with lots of people involved, a variety of personalities and behavior patterns who have historically interacted exceptionally well. Each person brought their own strengths and added to group, which made the group better and stronger than any one person alone would be. Add poison. Instantaneous mess and chaos. Suddenly no one is happy, everyone is suspicious of everyone else, people are lashing out at each other, no one will reach their potential or be productive or sane. Each person is working alone, and the team dynamic has been killed. This person could be a family member, a neighbor, an in-law, a co-worker, the significant other of your best friend. A person you can’t just choose to quit being around. Someone you are forced to spend time with. Good manners or some other equally annoying set of circumstances requires you to put up with shockingly atrocious behavior in an attempt to avoid A) losing your best friend, your job, or your spouse, B) a major family rift, or C) a feud with your neighbor. Whatever the reason, you can’t simply stand up for yourself and plainly say what is on your mind. Mainly that you think this person is a complete jerk and that you fervently wish you had never met them.

Even more surprising is how much such a poisonous person can seem to truly feel joy from infecting everyone that crosses their path. How can you get along with someone who enjoys such a thing? No matter how hard you might try, how nice you are, how perfect you act, how much you strive to behave what the way you think they want, how much you try to stay away from them, resistance is futile. If someone enjoys spreading their poison they will always find some way, some justification for their stunningly inappropriate and unacceptable behavior.

Lucky me, I am dealing with just such a person. Let’s assume this person is male, and call him Phil. Phil is a constant source of anger, stress, trampled feelings, frustration, resentment, crushed pride, misery, and overall distress. Phil has infected a part of my life that was once a wonderful thing. A place I felt accepted, useful, wanted, needed, trusted, competent. I look back now and realize how much I took that environment for granted. Such a shame that I didn’t appreciate it more, acknowledge and thank the people who made it be what it was. I was young and had no real sense of how lucky I was to be a part of it. Phil has taken all of those things away from me. And Phil simply seems to enjoy having the power to do so. Phil loves getting a rise, a reaction, seeing his negative affect on others. I can see it dancing in his eyes and lighting up his face. He adores his power. I am sickened by Phil's love for infecting others, by the joy he derives from exerting his negative influence however and whenever he can and then watching the disastrous effect he inflicts unfold. He lies, accuses, shifts blame, persecutes, spreads discord and animosity, belittles and patronizes, all in an effort to defeat the spirit of anyone he can.

Phil expects the worst, assumes the worst, and therefore sees only the worst. He is blind to any other possible explanation for behavior. Phil abandons any and all common sense in his dealings with others. He wants to see the worst, or fabricate the worst, so that he can wield his authority and make those around him suffer his poisonous wrath. Maybe he has been filled with poison for so long he can't fathom anyone being purely nice, kind, honest, and good. Maybe he is so rotten inside from his poison that he can't imagine others have the best intentions at heart ninety-nine percent of the time. It just doesn't occur to him that truly good people exist. He assumes everyone else is as poisonous as he is. He sees everyone as an adversary, an enemy that he must squash quickly, before they have a chance to squash him. And with the authority and power he has managed to gain, he has the ability to squash many people, often, and seemingly without consequences.

Why is poison infecting my life? Why has Phil crossed my path? Why now? Since there is nothing, at the moment anyway, that I can do about the situation it is time for me to use the ongoing experience as a growth opportunity, a learning experience. I believe there is much to be learned from Phil and my relationship with him. Through disengaging and observation, I have learned how not to act, how not to treat others, how it feels to be treated without respect. Through analyzing my reactions, I now comprehend how people can literally go crazy when they are stuck in a situation of constant harassment and oppression, verbal and emotional abuse, and complete lack of control or freedom. How a normally sane, kind, easygoing person can turn into the complete opposite, someone who says and does and thinks and wishes crazy, unpredictable, unkind things completely out of character for their normal personality. Becomes a person they are ashamed of being. I am also learning how to stand up for myself in a non-aggressive manner. I am starting to grow some balls. This has been difficult for me as I usually attempt to completely avoid conflict and normally don’t speak up and defend myself when I should. It has also been difficult because it has been a long hard road for me to realize that it's not really personal. Yes, his poison is directed at me some of the time, but it is also directed at anyone else within reach. I have felt personally attacked, bad-mouthed and ripped to shreds, falsely and unfairly viewed as unworthy and unimportant. But I am starting to realize that all of this is his issue and not mine. There is no need for me to take it personally. There is no need for me to live in fear. And those are a very powerful realizations. Powerful. Now who has the power?

Surreal

Today I made it out of my bedroom. In fact, I made it out of the house. But it feels wrong. I don't want to drive in the car with the sunroof open and the windows down, even though it is a truly gorgeous day. I don’t want to go outside to do my walks. I just want to sit at my desk, hide in my corner, and focus on my work. The beautiful blue sky, the sunshiny, springy feel in the air seem wrong to me. It should be dark and cloudy like I feel. I would feel less out of place on a stormy day, because that’s how my head and heart feel . . . stormy, gloomy. If I go outside in the fresh, crisp, sparkly, spring-like weather, I feel like I should be happy and smiling and full of energy. It only serves to make my gloomy mood stand out even more, at least to me. So I skip my walk, which in retrospect was probably a terrible idea. I very likely desperately needed the mood boost.

Everything feels surreal. I feel fragile and fake and dreamlike at break and lunch as I try to engage in normal conversation. No matter how hard I try, I feel awkward. I feel separated from myself, looking in, wondering if my friends think I am acting strange or notice that I am different. I skip my afternoon break altogether because I feel safer, more comfortable being in my cubicle. So I sit at my desk and focus on my work which helps tune out the feelings. But I feel like I'm in a bubble, like my mind is floating in lukewarm, murky water. I am not functioning on all cylinders. I know part of this is because I am trying so hard to keep the thoughts out until I can go home and let my guard down. I am blocking out part of my mind. I feel like I have to to make it through the day. I really need more time to just "be", just be alone with my feelings and thoughts and memories, to work through them.

I hope that I won't be so good at blocking out the feelings that I revert into denial. I don't want to do that. Sometimes that feels like the easy way out. But in the long run that will only make things more difficult. I know the longer I hold on, the worse it will get and the harder it will be to work through. I need to learn how to balance the living of life with my need to work through the difficult memories and feelings. I need to learn how to deal with these memories and feelings without it debilitating me, incapacitating me. I want to work through this now, however messy and painful and lonely and bleak it may be. Because that is the only way to truly put it behind me. I want to leave this in the past, leave behind the regret and the pain and move on into a sunny, happy future. I'm tired of hurting, of holding on to the resentment and anger. It's not hurting anyone but me.

The Process of Healing

Today I am tired. Exhausted deep in my bones. Shaky. I ache without even moving. I feel like every muscle in my body has been sucked dry. I want to cry but I can’t. The emotional pain is almost unbearable and it scares me. It is worse than physical pain. I curl in a ball and hide under the blankets in my dark, quiet room. I want the weight of many blankets, the protective feeling of having all my skin covered, even if it makes me too hot. I clutch pillows tightly, afraid that if I let go I will explode into a million tiny pieces and disappear. My room is the only place I feel safe. There I am allowed to relax, not pretend that I feel ok, not pretend that everything is fine. I don’t have to fight tears if they want to come. I don’t have to smile and focus and interact. I sleep all day because it blocks out the pain. Sometimes. Usually I want to eat until I feel sick. I’d rather suffer that overfull feeling than face my internal turmoil. But today I don’t even have the energy to eat. I only eat because Ed is kind enough to bring me food. I just want to sleep and sleep and I worry what tomorrow will be like. Because I have too much to do to feel like this again in the morning. I know I have to go through this to come out the other side healed and whole again, but it’s so awful right now. This space is so lonely and scary and black and seemingly endless. I just want it to be over and done with. I have things to do. I am too busy to be shot down, debilitated, immobile. I have a life to live.

Abuse

I'm cold. Not my hands. Not the tips of my ears. Not even my feet. I'm cold on the inside. I'm cold in a place that hot showers and heaters turned on full blast can't touch.

Yesterday I was forced to face a harsh truth of my past. It was a routine conversation with someone I have had many deep conversations with. I was sharing some memories of my past, and my friend was so plainly saddened and angered by what I had lived through. To me, it was just another conversation, not much emotional weight to it. I was somewhat taken aback at her reaction because it seems "normal" to me. It is a part of my history, something that I take for granted, an integral piece of "me". I usually don't think much about it, and probably didn't when I was living it either because it was a very painful, confusing, dream shattering time for me. I chose at the time, and apparently in the years since, to live in a sort of bubble, protecting myself from the real feelings that I'm sure I must have felt and still feel. I can talk about it like it's just another story, no big deal. But to my friend, it was so very obvious that what I went through was a very big deal, not only not "normal" but truly unhealthy and heartbreaking. I spent most of yesterday evening thinking about the conversation and trying to assimilate my friend's reactions. I didn't want to have to face the possibility that she was right. It left me speechless at how well I had convinced myself that my experience was "normal", how well I had walled myself off from dealing with it. I have spent most of today realizing that my friend is right, and coming to terms with the fact that I have been in denial for a very long time. Which means I have a lot of work to do (damn). I am sometimes surprised at how adept the human mind and heart can be at reframing and/or ignoring things that are right in front of them.

I had always thought of myself as mature for my age. In a lot of ways I was. But I also led a very sheltered childhood. There were many things I simply had not experienced. Because of this I was protected from many things but was also sometimes left unprepared and defenseless, very easily charmed, manipulated, and taken advantage of. When I started dating my husband I was still a little girl in so many ways. Only 21, still in college, I hadn't been single for more than a couple of months at a time since I was old enough to have a boyfriend. All I wanted was someone to love me, to take care of me and protect me, to comfort me. To laugh with me and grow with me, to experience life with me. To encourage me to be the best person I can be. To hold me when I fall asleep. And to let me, want me, need me to do all these things for him. Really, that's still all the little girl in me wants.

The best day of my marriage was my wedding day. It was the perfect day. I had a beautiful dress. Several people told me I looked like a princess, which was the point, and it made me glow. Most of my friends and family were there to celebrate with me. It was a lovely day. I was giddy. I was married! I was a wife!! I had a husband!!! Life was going to be grand.

I had such a perfect vision of what being married would be like. We'd go off to work in the mornings. We'd come home in the evenings, have dinner together and talk about our day. We'd go for a walk, watch TV or a movie, make love, fall asleep cuddled or holding hands. On weekends we'd go to the coast or to the city shopping. We'd do fun things, go places, visit family. On clear nights we'd lay on the grass and look at the stars. On rainy days we'd play games or put together puzzles, read books with the cat curled in our lap and then make love and take a nap. Such a beautiful, rose tinted life. This does not even come close to describing the real life of my marriage. Never once did I think marriage would mean being controlled and belittled and patronized. Made to feel stupid, worthless, unimportant. Ugly, useless, unwanted, unnecessary. Lonely. Sad. Angry. Powerless. Anxious. Hopeless. Weak. Impotent. Inferior. Scared. Crazy.

I was an abused wife. I hate those words. I hate thinking them. I hate typing them. I hate saying them. I hate admitting that they are true. It has taken me fifteen years to admit something that was immediately obvious to my friend. Fifteen loooong years to admit to myself. To acknowledge it, to say it out loud. Husband and I were together for seven years, married four of those years. I have been divorced almost eight. That's a lot of years living in denial, pretending that what happened was "normal", "ok", that the pain was all in my head, I was crazy, and that somehow the marriage would have been manageable had I been a better person, a better wife. I was aware while married that I was desperately unhappy, miserable, depressed, but had never labeled the situation abusive. I was never hit or pushed or slapped. My body was never bruised or battered, scarred or broken. My heart was. My soul. My mind. But never my body. I couldn't fit together my experience with the word "abuse". I had no bruises or scars or broken bones, no physical signs. How could I cry abuse? How could I call myself abused? So many women, so many children live with such abuse every day. I would have felt wrong and weak calling my marriage abusive. I never wanted to be a whiner, a victim. I never wanted to be THAT wife, that ex-wife. I still don't.

I hate myself that I put up with it. For so long. At all. Why did I marry this person who made me feel so awful about myself? I knew him for three whole years before I married him. What the heck was I thinking? I thought I was strong and smart. Maybe he was right after all.

Frustrated

Wednesday was a rough day. I woke up in the early morning with a migraine. I took a pill and went back to sleep, glad it was only 4am so that I had time to sleep off the headache and the nasty side effects I often get from the pill. Unfortunately that extra two and half hours wasn’t sufficient. I woke up without the headache, but achy and tired and quite grumpy. As the day wore on, I felt tired and was hurting and started to worry that maybe I was getting the flu. That’s kind of what it felt like, the all over body aches and dragging, tired feeling. By the end of the day I was exhausted and still achy all over. I debated all afternoon whether I would exercise when I got home. I missed Tuesday’s session because I was getting my new tires (Yay!! Thank you again to my wonderful dad). So if I skipped Wednesday that would mean I’ve only workout out one day so far this week. My New Year’s resolution minimum is four time per week. The most frustrating part was trying to decide whether I felt icky enough to justify skipping out. And if I decided to push myself through it, would I feel even worse the next day. It’s only week two of 2011 and I don’t want to blow it so quickly. But I also don’t want to push myself, feel worse the next day, and end up missing a week or more. This is one of those times I wish I had a crystal ball to tell me what I will feel like if I go with plan a (exercise) or plan b (relax and go to bed early) so I can make an educated decision. At some point it occurred to me that the achy, tired feeling was most likely not the flu but a continued side effect of the migraine pill. But I couldn’t be sure. In the end I did not exercise. I went to bed early hoping I wasn’t coming down with the flu and wouldn’t get another migraine on Thursday. I was hoping to be full of energy and ready for a workout Thursday afternoon. Migraines are such a nuisance.

Living in the Moment

Today I was a busy little bee. I started by taking storage boxes that were cluttering up the guest room out to the shed and reorganized the shed to fit these new boxes. I also put away the Christmas decorations, which is a huge improvement over last year as some of the decorations were still in the house (in the guest room in boxes). Then I rearranged the DVD/Wii area in my bedroom. I did four loads of laundry, ran the dishwasher, vacuumed the living/dining room, bedroom, kitchen, laundry room, and my car. I shampooed the carpets in the living/dining room and bedroom. I emptied the dishwasher and made my lunch for tomorrow. I walked on the treadmill for thirty minutes, scrubbed the shower and toilet in my bathroom, wiped down the counter and sink, and took a shower. I am tired, but feel extremely accomplished.

While I was working away, I kept reminding myself that I was not participating in a race. I did not need to hurry. My usual method is to work through things as fast as I can, so I can BE. DONE. But today I just kept repeating my mantra . . . . Slow Down. Take a breath. Pay attention to what you are doing. Enjoy yourself. And you know what? I did actually enjoy it. And I got SO MUCH done. More than I usually do (hmmmm, is there a lesson there??). It was nice and refreshing to be in the moment rather than striving to be done as quickly as possible so I could move on to the next thing (usually a book or a nap).

I took my time in the shed rearranging things, looking in boxes, finding things I'd forgotten we had. I took lots of things completely out of the shed and placed them next to the new boxes. Then I surveyed the shed and my pile of boxes and thought about setup before I started putting things back in. And all of it fit, it looks nice, and I didn't hurt myself like I usually do (except for hitting my head on the doorway like a doofus). I tossed out some things that we no longer need and made a pile of things to ask Ed about. I even found my hammer!! Yay!!

Vacuuming and shampooing the carpets is such a satisfying task to me, because there is usually such a noticeable improvement. If nothing else, I get to see all the dirt that is no longer in my carpet every time I empty the shampooer. I got some spots out and the carpet looks and feels so nice and fluffy. It makes me want to walk around barefoot just so I can feel the softness on the bottoms of my feet.

I'm a freak of nature I know, but I love doing laundry. I love the fresh, clean smell of laundry soap and the homey smell of dryer sheets. Everything comes out so clean and soft and ready to be folded and put away. I even got to do blankets and a comforter today. Those come out of the dryer just begging me to wrap up in them. I love to bury my face in the warmth and the softness and the smell of clean linens.

I am proud of myself for doing my thirty minutes on the treadmill. I could have probably passed today with all the other activity I did. And I already did four days this week (my New Year's Resolution minimum). But I was feeling good and wanted, yes WANTED, to do it. So I plugged in my iPod and blasted some Rihanna to get my blood flowing. I even did no hands for 28.5 minutes!! Probably no one but Colette knows what this means, but I am excited. It means I will soon be ready to use hand weights while I am walking. Yay Me!!

Then on to the bathroom. I scrubbed the shower stall and it felt so good to have texture again under my feet. It was pretty slippery in there, definitely time to clean. It's one of those things like the carpet that is very satisfying because there is such a noticeable improvement, at least in how it feels on my feet. I scrubbed the toilet, cleaned off and wiped down the counter. Then I showered which felt heavenly because I was filthy and sweaty and feeling oh-so-not-feminine. I even did a full shave on my legs just because. Man it felt so good to be clean and put on fuzzy, warm sweats.

After dealing with my hang-dry clothes, I sat down in my favorite chair and started mending some clothes. They had been sitting on my desk waiting to be sewed for weeks. I felt so domestic, curled up in my chair with my needle and thread. I also felt so relieved to be sitting down. I am tired, but I feel good. Ed and I talked and I worked on my sewing and it felt very . . . . comfortable and nice.

I feel like today was a good start on me working towards living in the moment. I tried to keep in mind that there was no need to hurry. I tried to slow down and focus on what I was doing rather than keep thinking ahead to what was next, wishing I would be done so I could relax. Instead of seeing the work as a chore, I decided to try enjoying each moment and that in itself was a sort of relaxation. And now I can face Monday feeling like the weekend was productive. I did have to keep reminding myself to take a deep breath, slow down, and be present. But if I keep working at it, eventually that will be my normal way of doing everything. I can't enjoy life much if I keep rushing through everything. Each task has it's own special gift to give, and if I am constantly focusing on being done, I will miss the gift. And what fun is that?

PS: Yesterday I took my car to a new mechanic and I LOVE HIM. He did an oil change and checked everything out for me. He fixed my middle taillights/license plate lights that have been non-functional for probably eighteen months. Yay!! Now I won't get pulled over for that license plate light being out. He also told me that the only thing it needs right now is tires (which I knew) and a battery (which doesn't surprise me). I am so relieved there is nothing wrong with my car.
I LOVE MY HONDA!!!

Many thanks to my BFF Keri for helping me drop off the car and spending the time with me yesterday morning. I had a blast.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KERI!! ♥ I ♥ Love ♥ You ♥ My ♥ Beautiful ♥ Friend ♥

PPS: Many thanks to my dad who just told me he'll be getting me the tires. Whew!! What a relief as it's supposed to rain again soon. Now I can just focus on the battery. I can't thank you enough for all that you do for me. I have the best dad in the world. I Love You!!

In Pursuit of the Perfect Cookie

Over the past couple of months, I have had occasion to bake several batches of cookies. Mind you, I say bake, not make. I will not deceive you . . . this has been store bought dough. Mostly the kind that is scored and ready to for you to break apart, place very lovingly on a cookie sheet, and watch with anticipation for the blobs to turn the perfect shade of golden brown, not a gooey tan or a tough dark brown, but a lovely, crispy, golden brown. I am, lest you think I am completely inept in the kitchen, quite capable of making cookie dough from scratch and have done so many times with delicious results. It just seems like premade dough has come such a long way and it's so much easier, and cheaper, to buy the Nestle dough already made rather than buy all the ingredients to make the recipe off the back of the Nestle chocolate chip bag, which is probably the same recipe as the premade Nestle cookies anyway.

So I've toyed around with the process a bit – baking time, temperature of the dough when I put it in the oven (straight out of the fridge or set out on the counter a bit first), smooshing the dough flat before putting it on the pan, lowering the oven temp a tiny bit and extending baking time a bit – all this tweaking with the goal of producing the perfect consistency cookie. I prefer a nice crispy, crunchy cookie with absolutely NO burn on the bottom. This is not all that easy to do folks. I'm pretty picky and kind of a perfectionist. I am also so gunshy about burning the bottoms of the cookies that I often prematurely take the cookies out of the oven only to have a chewy cookie that is probably not quite baked all the way through. Not bad tasting, but not the perfect consistency cookie I was aiming for. I am amazed at how much difference even thirty seconds can make when you are in pursuit of perfection. I am also amazed at how you can be looking at a blob of dough (or twenty-four of them) and they look really . . . ummmm . . . doughy . . . . in the middle, gooey and not quite baked through, yet it truly is time to take them out. They are in fact baked through and the centers harden up really nicely once removed from the oven.

I am coming to realize that a lot of what I am striving to learn is more undefined than oven temperature and baking time. It's not as simple as just following the directions. What I really want is to be able to look at a baking cookie (or brownie or cake or any other goodie) and judge by it's texture and color and other characteristics when it is done. And this is something that can only be learned through repetition. Eventually I will become an old hand at baking and I will be able to tell by looking, not just at Nestle premade cookies, but at any cookie whether it is ready or needs a bit more baking time. I'm almost there. Tonight I made a batch of cookies and they turned out almost perfect. Practice makes perfect, yes? It's really a bummer that I have to eat at least a couple of the cookies from every batch. I must sample from each batch so I can test the different techniques, see what works and what doesn’t, and keep altering the combination until I find the formula that is just right. It's a tough job, but somebody's gotta do it. Ed hasn't been complaining about the frequent plates of cookies either. Here's to an almost perfect cookie : )

PS. Ed seems to agree that this batch is quite good. I am watching the plateful of cookies disappear even faster than usual. Score Mary!!