Things have been circling around me in a very chaotic manor lately.
A few weeks ago my mother left her phone in the city where I live, she told me that I was bringing it home when I visited that weekend.
I wasn't going to visit that weekend.
I talked about various options with my counselor and we decided that I needed to be assertive that I was not going home, that it was her problem and she would work around my schedule, or she could come get it herself.
To me, her telling me that I was going to take it home with me that weekend was more than a step across a line that she did not have a right to cross, it was pushing her problem off on someone she thought she could manipulate into doing what she wanted so it became their problem instead.
I offered up two options: Either we could meet halfway that night (Friday) at 7pm and I'd go back to my home instead of to hers, or she could wait until Sunday when my brother went back from spending the weekend with me and took it to her.
The second was not an option for her, her phone was more important than that and she needed it as soon as possible, so I needed to go all the way to her house to give it to her.
This to me, was not an option.
Historically, I go to a very dark place when I have to be around them, and it only gets worse the longer I'm there.
I spent two days under their roof in May, my thoughts of suicide came back full force.
Going to what use to be my home is a life threatening mistake for me, one that they don't know about.
I held firm on not being able to go home, on false reasons but they didn't need to know that.
In the end, we met at a gas station an hour and a half from me and 45 minutes from her. Better than alternatives I suppose.
One week later, actually, not even that, my father emailed me saying that there was a family reunion at a pub somewhere in Kansas.
He didn't type anything below the image of the invitation.
It was seriously just a forward.
I considered ignoring it, but two days before it was suppose to happen, my dad forwarded another email, which showed that he had registered for 4 people to go.
Himself, my mother, my brother, and myself.
I hadn't replied, saying that I was going, as a matter of fact I wasn't planning on going.
I got a phone call that same day asking WHEN I'd be at their house.
I decided to minimize my time there if I was going to have to go.
The reunion was on Sunday, so I got to their house around 6pm on Saturday and went to the movies with my brother, getting back around midnight.
This limited the actual time spent with my parents.
My mother was still awake, but I limited the amount of time around her by not stopping to talk to her and taking my clothes with me to the bathroom to change, then turning my light off immediately when I got back to my room.
One day down, right?
The reunion wasn't terrible, they made us sit with people we weren't directly related to.
I only knew 5 or 6 people there, so that wasn't hard.
The people my brother and I ended up sitting with were our cousin, his wife, and two children.
We'd never met before and it was evident that they wanted to be there as much as we did. (If you didn't figure it out, we didn't want to be there)
Turns out they were also guilted into going, something about meeting the cousins we should have grown up with, and always wanted to meet.
When you put it that way... His kids were my brother and my's age.
Made it back to my home without too much pain.
One week passes, July 4th.
On the 3rd I get a call asking if I'll be at their house for the 4th, short answer, no.
I didn't elaborate to them, and I didn't budge.
It was a no.
Saturday, July 11th. My mother had sent me a message on Wednesday or Thursday, no text, same as with my father's, a picture announcing a different cousins retirement from the military after 22 years.
I ignored this, I didn't want to go. I've met him once, sent me a few pictures from when he went to Iraq the first time, I was in Fourth grade.
Returning to Saturday, I got a phone call when she was about 15 miles from where I live, it was about 1:15, and she wanted to go to lunch before we, yes we, went to the ceremony.
I'd eaten lunch, explained this, her response was that she wasn't hungry any way, and we would meet at my apartment then go to get a retirement card before we left.
As a side note, she had never known where I live prior to this.
I liked it that way.
I wasn't getting out of it though, so I made sure she wouldn't be going into my apartment.
It was good seeing my cousin, neither of us really cared though. He, his wife and two kids were moving to Florida. The wife and kids having lived there for a year prior.
Not horribly eventful, my mother fell once, in the bathroom of the military facility, then again at the restaurant we went to.
I made sure she was okay, but over all didn't really care. She made a lot bigger deal about it that it was.
When we got back to my home, she asked which floor I lived on.
I hadn't disclosed this information.
I replied fourth, and she asked if there was an elevator.
To my thankfulness, there wasn't, and I knew she wasn't in the mood for stairs with her hip hurting.
Crisis avoided.
The parents still don't know about Hilary my cat.
But wait.. we traded cars that Saturday, mine was getting worked on again after having the engine replaced in late May, more engine trouble.
I got my car back and I was excited, granted I wasn't sure why I did because the issue wasn't fixed.
Two hours after she had left, I get a message saying that yes her hip is bruised, and we have to trade cars again because mine wasn't finished yet.
She wanted to do it Monday, but I had things I needed to do so that didn't work. She asked about later in the week and I said that I get out of class at noon and could meet her halfway again, at about 2 or 3.
I had thought this to be the plan until I get a phone call from my mother on Tuesday, at 12:30.
She was at exit 124 and wanted to trade cars, go to lunch, and see my apartment.
You can get off any any exit, 122-129 for where I live, I usually get off at 127 because it provides a fairly direct route.
I got Hilary's food, water and litter box hidden, she was asleep behind the couch so I wasn't too worried.
At the last minute, I decided to move the litter box from under my bed to in the empty pantry in my kitchen.
I had set up with a friend on a different floor of my building to take Hilary should my mother ever come into town. She was at work at this time though.
I crossed my fingers that Hilary wouldn't have to use the bathroom or get hungry, let alone decide that she like strangers instead of her usual hide from them.
I met my mother in the parking lot, had eaten lunch right after class (my usual) so we didn't go out to eat, and she went up to my apartment.
To say that I felt my place of sanction and safety being infiltrated by the enemy would be an understatement.
I gave her the small tour of my kitchen, which is connected to my living room, then my bedroom, closet, and bathroom.
I about had a heart attack when she asked for the quilt I'd made last summer, I had used it to cover the couch for Hilary, she liked to sleep under blankets. Meaning it was covered in cat hair, on a black background. Hilary is pretty much white.
She wanted it for a quilt show, and I quickly thought, oh no, sorry it's dirty. But don't worry she offered to wash it.
I'm not sure what she thought, if she did in fact see the cat hair on it when she got it back to her house. I'm sure to find out later. maybe she thinks it's from their cats.
As she was leaving my bedroom, she turned around and looked under my freaking bed.
Who does that?
It's like she wanted to find something to give me hell over.
It's okay though, she also looked in my refrigerator before she left, saying that she needed to get lunch.
If that wasn't an invasion of privacy I'm not sure what would be.
The intrusion lasted about 45 minutes, not horrible, but 45 minutes longer than I wanted it to last.
I really don't know what to do with myself.
Now being in my apartment seems like she'll just drop by.
Basically what she did that day, but maybe with less notice next time.
I hate them, my parents, I really hate them.
If I didn't have them, I wouldn't end up in this mindset, I wouldn't be dreading the next time I had to go back to that horrible place they call home, and I wouldn't have to put up so much energy to pretend to be the person they think I am and want me to be.
That person that they want me to be, I hope I've never been, but I know that at some point I was.
I did accommodate their demands.
I did fall into their guilt trips over things that I had no stake in.
I did do what ever I could to make things easier, on myself and them.
Now, now I'm not.
I'm not accommodating them, I'm living my life how I want, now how they dictate.
I'm not playing into the guilt they try to hold over me, or try to bend me.
I'm not going to make things easier on them, because they never granted me that courtesy.
I had to protect myself from things that I didn't even know I was protecting myself from.
I gave up things I loved, because when they saw I liked it, it became their accomplishment.
I made things harder for myself in the future, by making it easier at the time.
I'm willing to keep the real me a secret from them, if it means that when I'm not around them, I can be me without any influences.
Needless to say, Hilary remains one of my secrets.
I have gone down hill from where I was before her unexpected visit.
My migraines got worse, they had been doing okay, but not any more.
I can't sleep through the night, and my days are filled with thoughts I thought I was done with.
I've cried myself to sleep a few times, and that seemed to work.
Sleep aids don't, I still wake up just as much, four to five times a night.
I now have notes around my apartment remind me to." Be gentle on yourself, you're doing the best you can." and reminders of the future that everyone deserves to have, the one they want.
"I still may not know
what I want to be when
I grow up but I do know
that I want to live at a
home filled with books
& travel souvenirs. And
the walls that aren't
covered in bookshelves
will be covered with photos
of my family & friends.
When I leave home I will
be going to a job I love,
and I'll return to a
person I love. So that is
The dream I am working on."
I don't know who the quote is by, but it's true, next to my door so I see it any time I leave my room, the small hopes.
Someday, when I am able to have the life described in the quote, I won't have to live my life as a secret from a few people.
Those people won't matter.
They won't be in my life, because it was my choice not to bring them along.
Here's to the future, to a life that isn't a secret.
A few weeks ago my mother left her phone in the city where I live, she told me that I was bringing it home when I visited that weekend.
I wasn't going to visit that weekend.
I talked about various options with my counselor and we decided that I needed to be assertive that I was not going home, that it was her problem and she would work around my schedule, or she could come get it herself.
To me, her telling me that I was going to take it home with me that weekend was more than a step across a line that she did not have a right to cross, it was pushing her problem off on someone she thought she could manipulate into doing what she wanted so it became their problem instead.
I offered up two options: Either we could meet halfway that night (Friday) at 7pm and I'd go back to my home instead of to hers, or she could wait until Sunday when my brother went back from spending the weekend with me and took it to her.
The second was not an option for her, her phone was more important than that and she needed it as soon as possible, so I needed to go all the way to her house to give it to her.
This to me, was not an option.
Historically, I go to a very dark place when I have to be around them, and it only gets worse the longer I'm there.
I spent two days under their roof in May, my thoughts of suicide came back full force.
Going to what use to be my home is a life threatening mistake for me, one that they don't know about.
I held firm on not being able to go home, on false reasons but they didn't need to know that.
In the end, we met at a gas station an hour and a half from me and 45 minutes from her. Better than alternatives I suppose.
One week later, actually, not even that, my father emailed me saying that there was a family reunion at a pub somewhere in Kansas.
He didn't type anything below the image of the invitation.
It was seriously just a forward.
I considered ignoring it, but two days before it was suppose to happen, my dad forwarded another email, which showed that he had registered for 4 people to go.
Himself, my mother, my brother, and myself.
I hadn't replied, saying that I was going, as a matter of fact I wasn't planning on going.
I got a phone call that same day asking WHEN I'd be at their house.
I decided to minimize my time there if I was going to have to go.
The reunion was on Sunday, so I got to their house around 6pm on Saturday and went to the movies with my brother, getting back around midnight.
This limited the actual time spent with my parents.
My mother was still awake, but I limited the amount of time around her by not stopping to talk to her and taking my clothes with me to the bathroom to change, then turning my light off immediately when I got back to my room.
One day down, right?
The reunion wasn't terrible, they made us sit with people we weren't directly related to.
I only knew 5 or 6 people there, so that wasn't hard.
The people my brother and I ended up sitting with were our cousin, his wife, and two children.
We'd never met before and it was evident that they wanted to be there as much as we did. (If you didn't figure it out, we didn't want to be there)
Turns out they were also guilted into going, something about meeting the cousins we should have grown up with, and always wanted to meet.
When you put it that way... His kids were my brother and my's age.
Made it back to my home without too much pain.
One week passes, July 4th.
On the 3rd I get a call asking if I'll be at their house for the 4th, short answer, no.
I didn't elaborate to them, and I didn't budge.
It was a no.
Saturday, July 11th. My mother had sent me a message on Wednesday or Thursday, no text, same as with my father's, a picture announcing a different cousins retirement from the military after 22 years.
I ignored this, I didn't want to go. I've met him once, sent me a few pictures from when he went to Iraq the first time, I was in Fourth grade.
Returning to Saturday, I got a phone call when she was about 15 miles from where I live, it was about 1:15, and she wanted to go to lunch before we, yes we, went to the ceremony.
I'd eaten lunch, explained this, her response was that she wasn't hungry any way, and we would meet at my apartment then go to get a retirement card before we left.
As a side note, she had never known where I live prior to this.
I liked it that way.
I wasn't getting out of it though, so I made sure she wouldn't be going into my apartment.
It was good seeing my cousin, neither of us really cared though. He, his wife and two kids were moving to Florida. The wife and kids having lived there for a year prior.
Not horribly eventful, my mother fell once, in the bathroom of the military facility, then again at the restaurant we went to.
I made sure she was okay, but over all didn't really care. She made a lot bigger deal about it that it was.
When we got back to my home, she asked which floor I lived on.
I hadn't disclosed this information.
I replied fourth, and she asked if there was an elevator.
To my thankfulness, there wasn't, and I knew she wasn't in the mood for stairs with her hip hurting.
Crisis avoided.
The parents still don't know about Hilary my cat.
But wait.. we traded cars that Saturday, mine was getting worked on again after having the engine replaced in late May, more engine trouble.
I got my car back and I was excited, granted I wasn't sure why I did because the issue wasn't fixed.
Two hours after she had left, I get a message saying that yes her hip is bruised, and we have to trade cars again because mine wasn't finished yet.
She wanted to do it Monday, but I had things I needed to do so that didn't work. She asked about later in the week and I said that I get out of class at noon and could meet her halfway again, at about 2 or 3.
I had thought this to be the plan until I get a phone call from my mother on Tuesday, at 12:30.
She was at exit 124 and wanted to trade cars, go to lunch, and see my apartment.
You can get off any any exit, 122-129 for where I live, I usually get off at 127 because it provides a fairly direct route.
I got Hilary's food, water and litter box hidden, she was asleep behind the couch so I wasn't too worried.
At the last minute, I decided to move the litter box from under my bed to in the empty pantry in my kitchen.
I had set up with a friend on a different floor of my building to take Hilary should my mother ever come into town. She was at work at this time though.
I crossed my fingers that Hilary wouldn't have to use the bathroom or get hungry, let alone decide that she like strangers instead of her usual hide from them.
I met my mother in the parking lot, had eaten lunch right after class (my usual) so we didn't go out to eat, and she went up to my apartment.
To say that I felt my place of sanction and safety being infiltrated by the enemy would be an understatement.
I gave her the small tour of my kitchen, which is connected to my living room, then my bedroom, closet, and bathroom.
I about had a heart attack when she asked for the quilt I'd made last summer, I had used it to cover the couch for Hilary, she liked to sleep under blankets. Meaning it was covered in cat hair, on a black background. Hilary is pretty much white.
She wanted it for a quilt show, and I quickly thought, oh no, sorry it's dirty. But don't worry she offered to wash it.
I'm not sure what she thought, if she did in fact see the cat hair on it when she got it back to her house. I'm sure to find out later. maybe she thinks it's from their cats.
As she was leaving my bedroom, she turned around and looked under my freaking bed.
Who does that?
It's like she wanted to find something to give me hell over.
It's okay though, she also looked in my refrigerator before she left, saying that she needed to get lunch.
If that wasn't an invasion of privacy I'm not sure what would be.
The intrusion lasted about 45 minutes, not horrible, but 45 minutes longer than I wanted it to last.
I really don't know what to do with myself.
Now being in my apartment seems like she'll just drop by.
Basically what she did that day, but maybe with less notice next time.
I hate them, my parents, I really hate them.
If I didn't have them, I wouldn't end up in this mindset, I wouldn't be dreading the next time I had to go back to that horrible place they call home, and I wouldn't have to put up so much energy to pretend to be the person they think I am and want me to be.
That person that they want me to be, I hope I've never been, but I know that at some point I was.
I did accommodate their demands.
I did fall into their guilt trips over things that I had no stake in.
I did do what ever I could to make things easier, on myself and them.
Now, now I'm not.
I'm not accommodating them, I'm living my life how I want, now how they dictate.
I'm not playing into the guilt they try to hold over me, or try to bend me.
I'm not going to make things easier on them, because they never granted me that courtesy.
I had to protect myself from things that I didn't even know I was protecting myself from.
I gave up things I loved, because when they saw I liked it, it became their accomplishment.
I made things harder for myself in the future, by making it easier at the time.
I'm willing to keep the real me a secret from them, if it means that when I'm not around them, I can be me without any influences.
Needless to say, Hilary remains one of my secrets.
I have gone down hill from where I was before her unexpected visit.
My migraines got worse, they had been doing okay, but not any more.
I can't sleep through the night, and my days are filled with thoughts I thought I was done with.
I've cried myself to sleep a few times, and that seemed to work.
Sleep aids don't, I still wake up just as much, four to five times a night.
I now have notes around my apartment remind me to." Be gentle on yourself, you're doing the best you can." and reminders of the future that everyone deserves to have, the one they want.
"I still may not know
what I want to be when
I grow up but I do know
that I want to live at a
home filled with books
& travel souvenirs. And
the walls that aren't
covered in bookshelves
will be covered with photos
of my family & friends.
When I leave home I will
be going to a job I love,
and I'll return to a
person I love. So that is
The dream I am working on."
I don't know who the quote is by, but it's true, next to my door so I see it any time I leave my room, the small hopes.
Someday, when I am able to have the life described in the quote, I won't have to live my life as a secret from a few people.
Those people won't matter.
They won't be in my life, because it was my choice not to bring them along.
Here's to the future, to a life that isn't a secret.