Enslavement
Today did not have the best start, nor has it gone as I would have hoped. Because of this, I have been lead to examine again feelings of enslavement and entrapment, which may or may not be the same thing. I have been feeling increasingly cornered these past several days, feeling old ties begin to slip and draw themselves around me.
First, the housework that should have been completed before the arrival, which due to problems actually beyond control of the house owner I will be taking some of it home with me and bringing fresh laundry back with me on my next visit. I walked right into that collar as soon as I stepped through the door. Due to my arrival, others besides myself saw familiar patterns despite me fighting it.
This resulted in a strike on my part. It's been written about on several levels. The same has happened regarding child care and the house owner taking off on errands of little import to the children. I do not seek to shirk my child care duties as a mother, but again same patterns, which interfere with my returning when planned, which had already been delayed by additional appointments.
Disturbingly, I have bowed meekly under most of these, bound not by a desire to do these, but a feeling of guilt. It is as if I am not a proper mother if I do not mind the place, cook meals (though now that's also because I don't want a repeat of the burger incident), and watch the children, with no room to return and take care of other things. And of course while here the house owner expects me to slip right back in line, and I find myself balking at every attempt to be lassoed again, whether intentional or accidental, overt or covert.
Not a healthy mindset. This seems to also be tearing at my sense of self-worth, as it has for years. So the difficulty is still establishing ways to maintain boundaries as they should be, and the distance between the households. I predict that I will still feel trapped for quite a while after though, and I expect further attempts at it, even if I should manage to secure both work AND job in the immediate area here. Before a place of my own can be established, I still need work around my home area, which I can not trust that I can obtain till I am back home. And even once work is gotten around home, until the children come to stay with me, there is still going to be yanking at strings (and guilt trips).
I find increasingly that I most certainly am not a submissive personality. I may act so if getting through a situation requires so, but I fume about it unless it is something that I WANT to submit to. There's not much I want to submit to, and much of it also is VERY situational.
So I wonder, am I a slave or am I merely trapped? To be a slave implies being owned, and I most certainly balk at that idea. I am my own, and if someone is going to own me, then I'm going to be the one to choose. Therefore perhaps I am merely still trapped, though it bothers me that it increasingly looks like to maintain freedom and thus my proper state of mind which will benefit the children, I may have to find ways to minimize my interaction with their father as much as I can while still maintaining maximum contact with the children.
Escape still isn't complete. Then again, life is never easy. But I still feel like I've got to chew a leg off or something and have both the kids with me to get anywhere...
First, the housework that should have been completed before the arrival, which due to problems actually beyond control of the house owner I will be taking some of it home with me and bringing fresh laundry back with me on my next visit. I walked right into that collar as soon as I stepped through the door. Due to my arrival, others besides myself saw familiar patterns despite me fighting it.
This resulted in a strike on my part. It's been written about on several levels. The same has happened regarding child care and the house owner taking off on errands of little import to the children. I do not seek to shirk my child care duties as a mother, but again same patterns, which interfere with my returning when planned, which had already been delayed by additional appointments.
Disturbingly, I have bowed meekly under most of these, bound not by a desire to do these, but a feeling of guilt. It is as if I am not a proper mother if I do not mind the place, cook meals (though now that's also because I don't want a repeat of the burger incident), and watch the children, with no room to return and take care of other things. And of course while here the house owner expects me to slip right back in line, and I find myself balking at every attempt to be lassoed again, whether intentional or accidental, overt or covert.
Not a healthy mindset. This seems to also be tearing at my sense of self-worth, as it has for years. So the difficulty is still establishing ways to maintain boundaries as they should be, and the distance between the households. I predict that I will still feel trapped for quite a while after though, and I expect further attempts at it, even if I should manage to secure both work AND job in the immediate area here. Before a place of my own can be established, I still need work around my home area, which I can not trust that I can obtain till I am back home. And even once work is gotten around home, until the children come to stay with me, there is still going to be yanking at strings (and guilt trips).
I find increasingly that I most certainly am not a submissive personality. I may act so if getting through a situation requires so, but I fume about it unless it is something that I WANT to submit to. There's not much I want to submit to, and much of it also is VERY situational.
So I wonder, am I a slave or am I merely trapped? To be a slave implies being owned, and I most certainly balk at that idea. I am my own, and if someone is going to own me, then I'm going to be the one to choose. Therefore perhaps I am merely still trapped, though it bothers me that it increasingly looks like to maintain freedom and thus my proper state of mind which will benefit the children, I may have to find ways to minimize my interaction with their father as much as I can while still maintaining maximum contact with the children.
Escape still isn't complete. Then again, life is never easy. But I still feel like I've got to chew a leg off or something and have both the kids with me to get anywhere...