Things I Think About - Exits and Entrances
I like change. Ginormous fan of it, in fact. I'm sure it's related to spending my teenage years stuck in never-changing dysfunction. Now, when things even remind me of that endless, depressing sameness I start feeling like I'm going to crawl out of my skin. It's one of the hardest parts of seeing my mom. Knowing that all these decades later, the only change at home is that dad now has physically decayed to the point he needs someone else to wipe his ass.
Pretty sure the way my family lives, that never-changing hole of co-dependence, is a form of living death. In fact, I think that not ever changing is essentially death. Kinda the key to that whole evolution concept, too. We have to change in order to grow, otherwise we become fixed in time and the story is already over. Survival of the fittest has nothing to do with brute strength and everything to do with adaptability to change.
But change is hard and scary and disorienting for most people. I guess it is for me, too, just not as hard as the death march of waiting for something that will never happen. I learned long ago that you can't control anyone else. So, if I'm in a position where I'm forced to wait too long for someone else to change a thing I really need changed, I will eventually radically take matters into my own hands. Sadly, that often involves taking an exit.
Exits are a powerful thing. They are an act of personal control, one way or another. I like that reminder that I am the boss of me. And sure, there are very realistic consequences depending on how you take that exit. I've walked on jobs and understood that returning was no longer an option. So I tend to be careful not to take the exit until I know I'm ready to deal with what will inevitably follow.
But knowing the inevitable in no way prepares you for the details of the ride. Probably one of many reasons why change is so damn scary. There are a cascade of things that shift around you for every change made. And I love it. I love that reset button. It is a terrifying gale of fresh air after I've allowed my surroundings to go stale for too many years.
TJ and I fight. Not all the time. Just when I have major depressive episodes. So you know, at all the worst possible times for me. It started within months of when we were married. When I had that first hysterical pregnancy that went undiagnosed, lost my job, was physically immobilized, and generally freaked the fuck out about the unknown. I've fully bottomed out a few times in my life, but that was definitely one of the worst. And I don't blame him for not knowing how to handle it. The real problem is that we established patterns during that time that we were never able to change.
From that point forward, any time I got depressed or stressed or anxious, he treated me like it was that time. And it didn't matter what I did, how I handled it, how much effort I put into myself. Every time I was struggling, he treated me like I was a terrifying thing that he could only safely poke with a stick. Our relationship was fine as long as I was. He could be a ball of stress because of work or his mother's endless personal drama for months on end, and as long as I stayed calm, we were okay. But the moment I cracked or showed any sense of weakness or struggle, I inherently became the conflict he would do anything to avoid.
And when my post-partum hit after M was born, it was a moment of now or never. If he couldn't support me then, after I had done all this terribly difficult work on myself to give the man the babies he so desperately wanted, he was never going to support me the way I needed. And my post-partum was terrifying. It involved all kinds of horrible thoughts I didn't have control of, many of which involved me wanting to die violently. Or imagining terrible things happening to the girls that I couldn't control. I saw C fall backwards down the stairs once, luckily from just a few steps up, but that visual would replay in my brain with catastrophic endings.
So I started seeing a therapist and her first major insistence was that I take care of myself. What a shockingly refreshing thing to have someone say to me. And I realized that neither TJ nor his mother ever treated me that way. They were too busy with things that were important to them to think I might possibly need something. Even when pregnant. Even when depressed. Hell, Nana was among the first to hear about my post-partum but she didn't act as though she even gave a shit until one of the aunts found out about it and expressed sympathy months later. Then suddenly once other people cared she feigned an interest once in this one conversation.
And TJ... Well, the dude certainly talks a good game. But it was my therapist who insisted that I start planning for uninterrupted sleep periodically. And even then, I didn't realize my marriage was in jeopardy. TJ conceptually was in huge support of me taking care of myself, so verbally so that I thought he actually meant it. It wasn't until later that I realized we ended up having a fight EVERY DAMN NIGHT I was supposed to have off for myself. So those periodic weekends where I would have one night to sleep in without interruption? Yeah, we fought for at least two or three hours the night before, I would then anxiously stay up for another two hours trying to unwind, and wake up miserable. See, unlike TJ, sleep isn't a magic reset button for me where I wake up feeling just fine. My moods linger and slowly dissipate. So a three hour fight is gonna take a few days to rinse out of my system.
And that's what it was like that entire fall. Every time I planned to do something for me, to take care of me, ya know, after giving birth, supporting a husband and mother-in-law who BOTH ended up laid up during the time I had a baby, spending my maternity leave studying for a test at work... Every time I tried to do something for me after doing all these things for other people, I instead spent HOURS fighting about something petty, stupid and pointless.
By that December, I told TJ that if we couldn't make our anxiety fights stop (meaning we fought every time I felt anxious), we needed to end our marriage. And even then, dude duped me along. Telling me "no, I don't think we need to see a counselor. I think we figured something out _this_ time". I think we figured something out. What a fucking joke. Yes, we figured out that you hate conflict so much you'll dope yourself out on anxiety meds, poke at all my sore spots, and then act as if I'm the one always starting things.
Oh my god, just thinking about that time I desperately want to make it stop all over again.
And I don't know. Maybe he isn't capable of figuring out how to deal with me in those moments. That's what I kept hearing. Maybe my feelings are impossible for others to tolerate. It really isn't pretty when they all come flooding out at once and I no longer have control. It's pretty terrifying stuff, so maybe it's the sort of thing no one will tolerate or know how to deal with. After a good decade of trying to figure it out with just one person, can't say I feel terribly optimistic that I'm gonna be tolerable to anyone else in those moments.
Anyway, during our five nights a week for months stretch of fighting for at least two hours, I put my focus on working on my entrances and exits. If I felt my own anxiety creeping up, I would go out to the garage for a smoke and to regather my chi. And I'd walk back in calmer and try again. But I also told him that I was going to start pointing out all the little slights and insults he snuck into conversations. So while entrances and exits made a difference, we kinda started fighting more because I wouldn't let the little digs slide. And there were so many thoughtless, hurtful little digs. Even now I doubt he'd accept that as something that really happened. Even pointing it out in the moment, I was typically unreasonable.
I'm gonna be honest, at this point, I'm still not sure if it's all my fault. Spent a very long time thinking so, and based on my life experience, it tends to be the explanation that makes the most sense to me.
It's almost laughable to me that I spent that last year of our marriage telling him I was working on my entrances and exits. Almost as if I knew that I was working myself up for one last, holy hell dramatic exit. God that was a ridiculous experience...
But here's the thing most people don't understand about exits. You get to re-enter. If you want to. And while you're gone, people EXPECT you to change. It is completely natural for something to be different when you choose a new entrance. For things to have changed in the interim.
It's bizarre to me how even my divorce process has been an exercise in TJ telling me I am the same and unchanged. Still treating me like that first hysterical pregnancy and ignoring all the evidence that I've grown since then. All my struggles and bad feelings mean one terrible thing to him and I've never been able to make that change. And after months of fighting, begging, and insisting on that change, in the end I had to take the exit.
And he will always be part of my life and I hope that we can return to a place of casual friendship on top of ACTUALLY COMMUNICATING about parenting... But how we functioned together had to stop. Had to change. Hopefully, once he finally accepts that I am not the same person he learned to never stop suspecting, once he maybe is finally able to trust me again (pretty sure now he stopped trusting me during that first hysterical pregnancy and never started back up), we'll find a healthier way to engage. But not like that. Never again like that.
When you can't control others, only yourself, sometimes you take the exit. You can always re-enter as something new, something different, something you control. But, ya know, only if that's what you actually want. Otherwise, there are other entrances to be found elsewhere.
Scary? Hell yeah. But without change, I'd be dead already.
Pretty sure the way my family lives, that never-changing hole of co-dependence, is a form of living death. In fact, I think that not ever changing is essentially death. Kinda the key to that whole evolution concept, too. We have to change in order to grow, otherwise we become fixed in time and the story is already over. Survival of the fittest has nothing to do with brute strength and everything to do with adaptability to change.
But change is hard and scary and disorienting for most people. I guess it is for me, too, just not as hard as the death march of waiting for something that will never happen. I learned long ago that you can't control anyone else. So, if I'm in a position where I'm forced to wait too long for someone else to change a thing I really need changed, I will eventually radically take matters into my own hands. Sadly, that often involves taking an exit.
Exits are a powerful thing. They are an act of personal control, one way or another. I like that reminder that I am the boss of me. And sure, there are very realistic consequences depending on how you take that exit. I've walked on jobs and understood that returning was no longer an option. So I tend to be careful not to take the exit until I know I'm ready to deal with what will inevitably follow.
But knowing the inevitable in no way prepares you for the details of the ride. Probably one of many reasons why change is so damn scary. There are a cascade of things that shift around you for every change made. And I love it. I love that reset button. It is a terrifying gale of fresh air after I've allowed my surroundings to go stale for too many years.
TJ and I fight. Not all the time. Just when I have major depressive episodes. So you know, at all the worst possible times for me. It started within months of when we were married. When I had that first hysterical pregnancy that went undiagnosed, lost my job, was physically immobilized, and generally freaked the fuck out about the unknown. I've fully bottomed out a few times in my life, but that was definitely one of the worst. And I don't blame him for not knowing how to handle it. The real problem is that we established patterns during that time that we were never able to change.
From that point forward, any time I got depressed or stressed or anxious, he treated me like it was that time. And it didn't matter what I did, how I handled it, how much effort I put into myself. Every time I was struggling, he treated me like I was a terrifying thing that he could only safely poke with a stick. Our relationship was fine as long as I was. He could be a ball of stress because of work or his mother's endless personal drama for months on end, and as long as I stayed calm, we were okay. But the moment I cracked or showed any sense of weakness or struggle, I inherently became the conflict he would do anything to avoid.
And when my post-partum hit after M was born, it was a moment of now or never. If he couldn't support me then, after I had done all this terribly difficult work on myself to give the man the babies he so desperately wanted, he was never going to support me the way I needed. And my post-partum was terrifying. It involved all kinds of horrible thoughts I didn't have control of, many of which involved me wanting to die violently. Or imagining terrible things happening to the girls that I couldn't control. I saw C fall backwards down the stairs once, luckily from just a few steps up, but that visual would replay in my brain with catastrophic endings.
So I started seeing a therapist and her first major insistence was that I take care of myself. What a shockingly refreshing thing to have someone say to me. And I realized that neither TJ nor his mother ever treated me that way. They were too busy with things that were important to them to think I might possibly need something. Even when pregnant. Even when depressed. Hell, Nana was among the first to hear about my post-partum but she didn't act as though she even gave a shit until one of the aunts found out about it and expressed sympathy months later. Then suddenly once other people cared she feigned an interest once in this one conversation.
And TJ... Well, the dude certainly talks a good game. But it was my therapist who insisted that I start planning for uninterrupted sleep periodically. And even then, I didn't realize my marriage was in jeopardy. TJ conceptually was in huge support of me taking care of myself, so verbally so that I thought he actually meant it. It wasn't until later that I realized we ended up having a fight EVERY DAMN NIGHT I was supposed to have off for myself. So those periodic weekends where I would have one night to sleep in without interruption? Yeah, we fought for at least two or three hours the night before, I would then anxiously stay up for another two hours trying to unwind, and wake up miserable. See, unlike TJ, sleep isn't a magic reset button for me where I wake up feeling just fine. My moods linger and slowly dissipate. So a three hour fight is gonna take a few days to rinse out of my system.
And that's what it was like that entire fall. Every time I planned to do something for me, to take care of me, ya know, after giving birth, supporting a husband and mother-in-law who BOTH ended up laid up during the time I had a baby, spending my maternity leave studying for a test at work... Every time I tried to do something for me after doing all these things for other people, I instead spent HOURS fighting about something petty, stupid and pointless.
By that December, I told TJ that if we couldn't make our anxiety fights stop (meaning we fought every time I felt anxious), we needed to end our marriage. And even then, dude duped me along. Telling me "no, I don't think we need to see a counselor. I think we figured something out _this_ time". I think we figured something out. What a fucking joke. Yes, we figured out that you hate conflict so much you'll dope yourself out on anxiety meds, poke at all my sore spots, and then act as if I'm the one always starting things.
Oh my god, just thinking about that time I desperately want to make it stop all over again.
And I don't know. Maybe he isn't capable of figuring out how to deal with me in those moments. That's what I kept hearing. Maybe my feelings are impossible for others to tolerate. It really isn't pretty when they all come flooding out at once and I no longer have control. It's pretty terrifying stuff, so maybe it's the sort of thing no one will tolerate or know how to deal with. After a good decade of trying to figure it out with just one person, can't say I feel terribly optimistic that I'm gonna be tolerable to anyone else in those moments.
Anyway, during our five nights a week for months stretch of fighting for at least two hours, I put my focus on working on my entrances and exits. If I felt my own anxiety creeping up, I would go out to the garage for a smoke and to regather my chi. And I'd walk back in calmer and try again. But I also told him that I was going to start pointing out all the little slights and insults he snuck into conversations. So while entrances and exits made a difference, we kinda started fighting more because I wouldn't let the little digs slide. And there were so many thoughtless, hurtful little digs. Even now I doubt he'd accept that as something that really happened. Even pointing it out in the moment, I was typically unreasonable.
I'm gonna be honest, at this point, I'm still not sure if it's all my fault. Spent a very long time thinking so, and based on my life experience, it tends to be the explanation that makes the most sense to me.
It's almost laughable to me that I spent that last year of our marriage telling him I was working on my entrances and exits. Almost as if I knew that I was working myself up for one last, holy hell dramatic exit. God that was a ridiculous experience...
But here's the thing most people don't understand about exits. You get to re-enter. If you want to. And while you're gone, people EXPECT you to change. It is completely natural for something to be different when you choose a new entrance. For things to have changed in the interim.
It's bizarre to me how even my divorce process has been an exercise in TJ telling me I am the same and unchanged. Still treating me like that first hysterical pregnancy and ignoring all the evidence that I've grown since then. All my struggles and bad feelings mean one terrible thing to him and I've never been able to make that change. And after months of fighting, begging, and insisting on that change, in the end I had to take the exit.
And he will always be part of my life and I hope that we can return to a place of casual friendship on top of ACTUALLY COMMUNICATING about parenting... But how we functioned together had to stop. Had to change. Hopefully, once he finally accepts that I am not the same person he learned to never stop suspecting, once he maybe is finally able to trust me again (pretty sure now he stopped trusting me during that first hysterical pregnancy and never started back up), we'll find a healthier way to engage. But not like that. Never again like that.
When you can't control others, only yourself, sometimes you take the exit. You can always re-enter as something new, something different, something you control. But, ya know, only if that's what you actually want. Otherwise, there are other entrances to be found elsewhere.
Scary? Hell yeah. But without change, I'd be dead already.