Jots of Thoughts Daily Journal
So here we go again... The weather is getting warmer, and Dan's place of employment is offering more overtime. He drives a dump truck hauling asphalt, dirt, stone, etc. It's an extremely stressful job with enormous responsibilities. People don't understand how hard it is to stop 100,000 pounds when they drive dangerously near these big trucks. It affects Dan's mental health in horrible ways, every day.
Dan has demanded that he is going to work 2 triple shifts every week until I get a job. We went through this same fucking shit last summer. He works all day Monday, into Monday night, and all-day Tuesday. He comes home to eat and sleep Tuesday evening, then on Wednesday, he works all day, all night, and into Thursday again. Dan worked this schedule all of the warm weather months of last year.
That amount of work put too much stress on Dan's body and caused his internal organs to not function properly; that's why he was in agonizing pain every day, and that's what made him so sick that he could barely walk all winter. I don't ever want to see my husband get that sick ever again!
But history is repeating itself. Dan is back to working seven shifts a week, and already I see his health declining rapidly. It worries the hell out of me now that I know the reason why he's getting sick again. His internal organs are starting to fail again, and his knees are starting to hurt again, and here we fucking go again!
Of course, I'm highly upset about all of this! None of this is healthy for any of us. Dan and I have lost touch with our friendship between us because we don't make time for each other, Angel isn't getting to have the father figure in her life that she needs, we don't get to strengthen our relationships as a family, and we don't do anything fun at all anymore.
Now top all of that off with my husband needing dialysis by the end of this summer because his kidneys are failing, and him needing an organ transplant by this coming winter; Where the fuck do I sign up!?! Because I can't wait to go through all of this bullshit again!
The really fun part of this whole shebang is, it's all my fault! You got that right folks; my punishment for expressing how upset I am is why Dan decided to stop working overtime. He has made it very clear that the consequences of his decisions are my fault, and that I'm to blame for our family's future financial failure. His demanding control has stripped me of all my rights to have any say, making me feel completely helpless and totally worthless.
But wait there's more... Dan informs me this morning that he's been applying for auto loans so we can get a second vehicle. His credit score is 450, he knows that we're not going to be able to afford the financing options available to him, and he's not allowing me to have any say in any of this. I feel like he's purposely trying to cause us to lose everything so he can blame it all on me. I feel so useless.
The reason why Dan insists on working himself to death is because
1. He wants to dump more money into our motorcycle, and
2. So he'll have enough money to retire comfortably in 10-15 years.
OK SO...
1. Dan worked his life away last summer and spent thousands of dollars on our motorcycle, and the problem isn't fixed. We still don't know why the fuck the bike won't run! We're still exactly where we began with this mother fucker!
AND
2. If working yourself to death hasn't gotten you ahead in over thirty years, then what makes you think that it's going to work now?
We've been working together with budgeting our money and financially we're doing better than we ever have before. Me not bringing in an income isn't why we were going through hardships. The reason why we're digging ourselves out of a hole is because of Dan's health declining, his missing work to see specialists, our out-of-pocket expenses for lab work, and us paying ridiculous amounts in copays for each doctor visit.
This cat chasing its tail shit is bullshit!!!
Another funny thing is, when Dan reads this, he's going to be upset with me for saying "our bike" & "our money". He tells me that none of what we have is ours because I didn't earn any of it. Everything I do for this family is belittled because I'm not earning money.
I carry the weight of most of the responsibilities for our household; I keep our food, toiletries, medications, dog food, and everything everybody needs in stock. I organize, finagle, arrange, manage, keep track of, and coordinate all of our schedules. I bust my ass to keep our house clean, more so now than I used to because of Dan's allergies to dust and dander.
I keep track of the inventory of everything we use and replenish things as needed. I do the food shopping, food storage, and meal prepping. I cook nutritious meals for three people every night. I lug our clothes, bedding, and linens up and down two flights of stairs twice a week. I fold and put everything away. I load, run, and unload a dishwasher full of dishes 2 to 3 times a day. I keep up with the appearance of our house, inside and out. Plus, a multitude of many other responsibilities that come along with taking care of three people and two dogs.
I'm the support homeroom parent for Angel's class, I volunteer for her school's activities and for her sporting events. I'm the disciplinarian, the life coach, the role model, the support system, the ear to listen, the words of wisdom, and the shoulder to cry on for our daughter.
This kid has two Dads that act like their only responsibility is to provide for her financially. Both of Angel's dads chastise me for not earning an income, but neither of them is pitching in to ease my workload. They think that taking Angel for a couple of hours once a month or occasionally taking out the trash is helping me.
So, when all of my responsibilities are taken care of, and everyone's needs are met, I spend my "downtime" working on advancing my freelance writing career, looking for jobs, applying for jobs, and pitching myself to the companies that show interest in hiring me. It might seem like those are easy and effortless tasks, but they're not.
I put a shit ton of work into learning how to become a freelance writer. It takes time to read the job post descriptions and requirements to make sure that I'm capable of doing the obligations. There's a tedious process of questions and aptitude tests when I apply for each job. It's convincing prospective employers that I have the ability to help their business succeed, with my GED education, twenty years of cleaning houses, and no work experience at all in the past four years.
I don't get any recognition for all that I do because it doesn't earn an income. I'm told that I'm appreciated but shown that I'm not. All of my hard work and contributions to my family don't count because they don't bring in an income. I'm doing better than I ever have in my entire life and it's not good enough.
I'm in need of feeling loved and appreciated so badly right now. I want my husband to treat me like I'm valuable to him. I want recognition for the hard work I do. I want to be respected as an equal to my partner. I want to feel like I'm worth something.
But I won't get any of those things until I'm earning money.
Ain't that some shit?
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I've been really busy.
Being a homemaker is a full-time job.
I work hard every day to keep my family happy & healthy.
When I'm not working for my family, I've been working on my resume, and improving my pitch, while searching and applying for jobs.
Meanwhile, my husband is making me feel like I'm worthless because I'm not earning an income.
I'm trying so hard & getting nowhere.
I feel like everyone around me hates me.
I'm so burnt out.
I feel like giving up.
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I am my own worst enemy mentally. I beat myself up and put myself down with negative thoughts on a daily basis. I've learned to combat the mental insults that I put myself through with positive affirmations. I wrote a blog post called Who Do You Think You Are explaining how and why positive affirmations work. This is the most powerful tool that I've learned to help me in my recovery from abuse.
I haven't been able to reopen the yellow folder since my journal post on May third. Partly because I've been busy, but mostly because I didn't realize how hard this was going to be. I've been overwhelmed with emotions and I'm working hard on processing them.
It's been exhausting coping with my anxiety and PTSD over the past five days.
I feel embarrassed to reveal the things that I was forced to live through. I feel ashamed of the bad things that happened to me. I feel scared that everyone reading this will dislike me, turn against me, and alienate me.
I don't deserve to feel mortified to talk about my childhood.
THESE FEELINGS ARE NOT MY BURDENS TO CARRY!
I posted in a few childhood abuse social media groups in hopes of finding people who've been through the things that I went through. I haven't received any responses yet. I feel so fucking alone!
I read other members' posts about their childhood experiences with abuse and how much it still hurts them, and my thoughts are "That's nothing compared to what I went through".
Please understand that I'm not trying to make people feel sorry for me, I'm much too strong for that.
I'm not trying to chastise my abusers, for that would make me just like them.
I am working tirelessly to process and heal myself.
Hopefully, I'm doing it right...
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5-6-23
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5-4-23
Whew! Yesterday's journal entry was so hard for me to open up about. I spent the rest of the evening sick to my stomach, feeling mentally exhausted, and fighting an anxiety attack.
I'm taking it easy today.
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When I decided to pursue a career in writing, I thought of the yellow folder I had safely stored in my attic.
When I needed content to show my talented writing skills, I felt the urge to use the writings from the yellow folder.
When I realized that I was strong enough to re-live the hurt from my past in order to improve my future, I knew exactly where to start.
I wasn't sure if my writings from the yellow folder were going to be any good, so a thought in the back of my mind was "Reading these writings could be a waste of time".
I felt scared that remembering the horrific feelings could possibly trigger my PTSD.
Yesterday, my only intentions were to digitalize my writings from the yellow folder onto my laptop.
I pulled out the stack of papers from the right pocket and began transferring each piece, word for word into my blog. I am a perfectionist, so it was difficult to record my writings as they are without altering or improving them.
I began with the very first poem at the top of the stack named 'Loss', and continued onto the next writing, and so on consecutively.
I recalled the excruciation that I felt when I composed these pieces many years ago and I see things so much differently now. The fears and reservations that I had about reliving my past, have been replaced with awareness, comprehension, and pride.
I was never the worthless piece of shit that the adults brainwashed into believing.
My drug addiction as an adult wasn't my fault.
I was a child regardless of how grown up I acted.
I'm not responsible for the consequences of my parents doing cocaine and meth with me from twelve years of age.
A thirty-one-year-old man sexually abusing a fourteen-year-old is wrong of him, not me.
The adults who I trusted to help me destroyed my life.
They made me think that it was my fault because I acted like an adult, so that made it ok for them to treat me like one.
My youngest child will be twelve years old in a few months. Thinking of all the abuse, neglect, loneliness, and sadness that I had already lived through by her age really puts things into perspective for me.
I am so proud of who I've become.
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For me, writing is a mood
I feel a strong urge to write
like I'm starving for food
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Whether it's because our dogs aren't allowed to sleep in our bedroom anymore because of Dan's allergies, or if it's in protest to the Roomba literally scaring the shit out of them every night; one of my dogs has been pissing and shitting in the house a couple nights a week lately.
Whether it's a spiteful revolt to express how pissed off they feel, or if they just like watching the Roomba spread piss and shit all over the floors; the last thing I want to do is wake up and have to scrub my floors! Especially after I had just mopped them yesterday!!!
I'll be adding a surveillance camera to my To-Do list today.
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4-29-23 Diggin Up Bones
This raggedy yellow folder contains my writings from 20+ years ago.
The absolute worst feelings I've ever felt are written on some of these sheets of paper.
I'm not sure if I'm ready to open up what's inside.
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4-27-23 Happy 4-Year Wedding Anniversary!
Four years down and a lifetime to go! Happy Anniversary my love, my best friend, my inestimable soulmate. The rest of our lives doesn't seem like long enough.
Today is the first day that all three of us are perfectly chill with no stress, in about a year now.
It's a relaxing rainy day, ALL of our bills are paid, we have plenty of yummy food, none of us have to go anywhere, and the serenity in our home is incredibly Zen right now!
Dan & I were relating with each other this morning about how weird it feels to feel like this after being so stressed for so long.
It's like a "pinch me, I must be dreaming" kind of feeling 😌
The preciousness of the peace between us takes conquers all in our home today.
It's funny, Dan was yelling at Angel while I was writing that. 😂
She leaves the bathroom closet door open which makes it hard to get in through the bathroom's main door. She's a lot thinner than we are. 😂
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4-26-23 The Tortoise and The Hare
When my husband's health began deteriorating last summer, I secretly began preparing for having to support Angel on my own. One of my biggest beliefs is to always hope for the best while preparing for the worst; That way you're equipped to handle both.
I had two options for my family's survival
1.) Get a corporate-based retail job that would barely make ends meet, and risk being unable to keep this roof over Angel's head if the worst did happen.
Or
2.) Make something out of nothing and build a stable foundation that will greatly support us financially in the long run.
It wasn't an easy decision to make.
Job stability, and pay regularity are excellent factors of a corporate-based job. But the unappreciative managerial chain of command that treats their employees like disposable diapers is not something I'm capable of dealing with long term.
The best days of my employment history are when I owned my cleaning business. I'm the best boss I've ever had! I felt so proud of myself when I was a sole proprietor. My clients became like family over the years, and when I was younger, the amount of money I was making was worth the back-breaking labor.
I'm familiar with the tremendous amount of hard work and dedication that it takes to reconstruct a business entirely from scratch; It's an accomplishment that I'll forever cherish. I wasn't sure if I was going to be strong enough to teach myself a completely new career, turn it into a profitable establishment, nurse my husband's rapidly failing health, work my full-time unpaid job as a Homemaker while keeping my daughter strong because her biological father had dropped out of her life.
So who won the race? The slow tortoise (building a business), or fast-paced hare (corporate employment)?
Looking back over the past year; The journey of becoming a freelance writer and juggling an elephant riding a miniature bicycle while balancing a saucer and teacup on the tip of its trunk (being strong for my daughter and husband) was so much harder than I had anticipated.
The financial strain of inflation riddled me with guilt from not earning an income. How do you justify a vision of success to a family on the brink of losing everything? Yeah, that's fucking stress!
My job interview went very well today! I felt so proud to represent myself as the professional writer that I've worked so hard to become. The weight has been lifted, and all of the doubt, anger, and fears are gone. The insurmountable task that I faced a year ago has been seen to fruition.
The feeling of satisfaction and contentment comes off as foreign after being stressed for so long. You can't place a monetary value on the admiration and gratification of my accomplishments, but you can't say I didn't earn anything.
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I have worked so hard for this day today. Less than a year ago, I decided to become a professional freelance writer. I had no clue how to build a website, design a blog, or make a successful career out of writing, but I put in the dedication to learn how. The more I learned about freelance writing, the more excited and determined I became about achieving it.
The financial stress of my husband being the only source of income is ruining our marriage. Several days a week we have huge arguments about me not bringing in an income. Instead of getting a shitty-paying job that barely helps us out, I built a fucking career! I am so proud of the accomplishments that I have made.
I began applying for writing jobs today! I already have a job interview tomorrow morning! It's such a great feeling to see all of my efforts coming to fruition!!! I am so proud of myself!!!
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4-24-23 ~ My Soul Is Tired
It's been a weary travel over the last 42 years. I have days where no amount of rest or sleep will rejuvenate me. Today is one of those days. The combination of me beating myself up mentally mixed with the constant crucifixions from my husband, steals every ounce of energy and motivation within me some days.
Being a stay-at-home mom earns zero income, therefore my husband has difficulties distinguishing my worth. I bust my ass taking care of my family, but since my job doesn't pay any money, I don't have any monetary value, and since I don't bring a monetary value to our family, I get made to feel like I'm not good enough.
I'm now accepting applications for an individual who'd love to:
Never have to clean their house, do their laundry, organize their household schedules, or go food shopping ever again. A restaurant-quality meal is served to you every evening as well.
Sincerely, an undervalued and unappreciated Mom.
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