Monday, February 17, 2014

Damaged Goods

Yep, that's what I am - Damaged Goods.  Damaged in so many ways - physically, emotionally.....Sometimes I think I'm damaged beyond repair.  No one knows what goes on in my mind or the thoughts that play through my head.  The thoughts are sometimes like a broken record - self-loathing, feeling of being completely inadequate, upset with myself for putting up with all I have put up with in my life at various points.

No one knows the hurt I've experienced, or what it's done to me.  Even I forget sometimes, and then something happens to remind me of things I'd rather forget.  A recent example - riding in the car, listening to Eminem on the iPod, and the song "Kim" comes up.  For those of you not familiar with the song, it's about him confronting Kim for cheating, and he's cussing her and threatening her and it gets pretty violent towards the end of the song.  My ex-husband used to constantly accuse me of cheating, and I never did cheat on him.  It didn't matter to him that I had always been faithful and it just wasn't logistically possible for me to have cheated on him, as I was always either at home with him and the kids, or at work.

Anyways, the song reminded me of how he would interrogate me over various things, and start screaming at me and threatening me, and listening to it just really, really upset me in a way that I don't know other people who haven't lived through something similar would be able to fully understand.  I've been told by more than one person that I just need to "get over it" and "forget about it" - but I think a lot of folks just don't understand how damaging domestic violence and abuse, physical and mental, can be.

You'd think that after being out of that hell for over 7 years now, that I would be over it and be "deprogrammed" from various feelings and triggers, but I'm not.  There are sometimes simple, every day things that will trigger a thought or emotion, or an old reaction from me.   It's something that was just ingrained into me, and it's taking time for me to unlearn those behaviors, thoughts, and reactions.

Needless to say, I really dislike conflict and confrontations.  Many times I fail to speak up for myself, for the dread of the confrontation and conflict that will ensue.   I let things go, and go and go, and stuff those emotions deep inside me, until at some point, I explode.  Usually it's something small that sets me off, and then it all just comes raging out.  But most of the time,  I  put a lid on it before it really even gets started, for fear of having to deal with the fall-out of letting it all out.  Sometimes it's just not worth the stress of dealing with it.

Of course, not dealing with a problem doesn't do anything towards fixing it, but depending on the situation, fixing it may not be an option, or leaving it unfixed may not hurt anything.  I've just really always been the type to want to always have the last word, and in some situations, it's difficult to just walk away without having that last word.  Even if I know it's driving the other person nuts to think I don't care enough to respond and engage them further, it drives me crazy too.

Oh well - I will say this: this is another one of those blogs that I absolutely do NOT want to get any personal feedback on.  If you want to comment something here, that's fine.  But please - no phone calls, texts, or personal messages via email or Facebook regarding the contents of this blog post, and no comments about it in person.  (I actually started this blog entry a few months ago and have just now decided to go ahead and post it, so while the last 2 paragraphs are new, the rest is old, from when I was having a down night after hearing that stupid song).

Thursday, February 13, 2014

Somebody make it stop!

OMG this cold is kicking my ass!!!  I feel like a fully functional snot factory!  My nose is so sore and my lips are so chapped from sneezing and blowing my nose and wiping my face with regular tissues.  I wish I had the super soft/strong Kleenex instead.  I like regular tissues for every day stuff but when I'm sick I need the special ones so that my nose doesn't get so sore.  Oh well, I've been putting Aquaphor on my face to try to soothe the skin, and thankfully it's working pretty well. 

Second day at home due to the snow & ice storm.  It's amazing to see the news reports this morning and seeing how few vehicles are out on the interstates.  People actually paid attention to the reports this time and didn't try to get out.  Plus, we were all fortunate that the heavy stuff didn't come in until the evening, so we didn't get the gridlock on the interstates like 2 weeks ago.  Tomorrow hasn't been decided yet, as far as whether we will be working or not, but if I don't feel any better I may be staying home and perhaps even heading to the doctor.

Glad I'm not in Clayton County anymore - reports are that the conditions there are pretty bad, and I think they have the highest # of people without power in the metro area.  We have fortunately not lost power, other than I believe the power must have gone off for at least a moment last night because I had to reset the clock on the stove and Clydie mentioned her clock was messed up too. 

Our heat is working great, we have plenty of food, but the cabin fever is setting in!  I don't like going outside and playing in this stuff, and being sick I'm sure it's not advisable anyways.

When I went to bed last night, we just had a small amount of white stuff on the ground, and I believe most of that was ice.  This morning, a nice blanket of snow and ice:



Looking out the front window, towards the driveway:
 
 
Looking out the front window, across the street in the other direction: 


Close-up of a tree out the side window from the living room:


Close-up of another tree out the same side window:


View out the kitchen window - the backyard:

The sun is coming out, and things are starting to melt.  It was out for about 5 minutes and now is behind another cloud.  The sky looks beautiful - nice and blue with big white, fluffy clouds, not those yucky looking snow clouds.  Hopefully all this stuff will melt and life can get back to normal.  Now, just to get relief from the snot, sneezing, and coughing.

And here I am, warm and cozy in the house, with my pretend smile:

Gotta put on the pretend smile, keeps me from being so damn whiny.  Maybe......Just wish I could taste the goodness of the cocoa drop cookies I made last night.  Dammit!