Tag: venting

It’s been quite a while since I wore anything over like a 1" heel, anyway, because musculoskeletal problems. I never did wear particularly high heels that regularly.

But, I do find myself resenting not really having that option anymore without maybe doing myself some serious injury, thanks to diabetic foot bullshit.

(Similar with never reasonably being able to walk around barefoot anymore, which is something I’m a lot more likely to want to do in the first place 😒)

The “small” quality of life things can really pile up and get overwhelming sometimes.

I am also pretty mad at my uncle and some thoroughly ingrained scapegoating family dynamics after that mail earlier. One of the reasons I hadn’t gotten in touch with him for years before this came up, tbqh.

He’s trying to be nice, and I have never been the Designated Family Scapegoat myself. Just her kid. (I actually thought I might have inherited the role with her gone, especially as bad as I am at staying in touch. But, it’s not sounding that way.)

What got me today was that we were having an only tangentially related e-mail conversation, with him making an effort to get along because he was glad to hear from me. And that thinking is still so deeply ingrained that he had to get in a barely veiled victim-blaming dig at his dead sister anyway.

To make it even better–and more exasperating–a dig that directly echoed some horribly abusive shit my Mamaw said to my mother in front of me when I was 6 and my parents had just finally split. That scene was bad enough that I still remember it pretty much verbatim–and then my mom further got blamed for making her mother that upset 😡

My uncle probably doesn’t even know where he got that specific line of crap, other than Everybody Knows. Which honestly just makes it worse. There’s not a lot of room for reflection or insight, and I just get so tired. It’s not even directed at me, but jfc I do get tired.

Anyway, I know I’m not in the best emotional state, even without that. And I know I’m a little too prone to jumping into anger as a distraction from worrying about other matters. Anger is easier to deal with in some ways. (My uncle is also the same way, whether or not he’s as aware of what’s going on with it. I recognize the pattern too well. Yay, Family OCD Brain on trauma! 😵)

One reason I am just sitting on that message for a while, yeah. Not that I think hollering at him would do much good anyway. Definitely not when it comes to behavior like that.

Besides setting myself up as Unreasonable, of course. I know that pattern too. I’m more exasperated right now because I don’t think he is always even consciously aware that he’s baiting. As was just demonstrated again.

clatterbane:

But yeah, reminded with the great parenting example? My mother actually found James Woods’ performance in The Boost extremely triggering when she watched it, with some way too familiar character behavior. Speaking of running with some salesman stereotypes. That was also when she really started wondering if coke might have been a factor earlier.

Combined with the fact that he was basically working for the Sopranos for a while.

(And, I would add in terms of ethics, happy enough to flog equipment to the destructive mining industry on their behalf for years if the pay was good enough. With all the money flowing around the mining industry, it’s hardly surprising there at least used to be a lot of not so secret Mob involvement. I don’t know about anymore, but it’s not like the money has dried up there.)

Again, I don’t know if the details even really matter as to why he did crash pretty spectacularly and his behavior got way more erratic.

But yeah, I am still kind of conflicted about having had no contact with him (by his choice) since like 1986. It’s also hard to separate out some of my mom’s really unbalanced splitting behavior and wanting to blame him for literally everything that ever went wrong–to the point she kept taking it out on me because I reminded her of the man–from his very real lousy behavior. With someone I haven’t seen or talked to since I was 11 years old. When he was several years younger than I am now.

I don’t know if trying to get back in touch as a grown-ass adult would even be good for any closure there. But, I’ve been thinking about it some lately. My mom is also not around to flip completely out on me in response to whatever I might decide to do there.

(Assuming he’s still around, anyway. I know where he was, and he was still there 10 years ago. But he’d be getting up there, and it’s not like he was taking great care of himself before he hared off, way back when. Who knows.)

I ran across this post from like a year and a half ago, while looking for something else.

Now that it turns out that the man is, indeed, still around and also trying to get in touch? I’m still conflicted in pretty much the same ways.

Honestly, if he hadn’t managed to get his shit together at least somewhat compared to when I was last around him? He might not have made it past 70 at all. His behavior was that unstable back then, just going by what I personally witnessed and trying to leave my mother’s takes out of it. And hopefully he has the sense not to pop up out of the blue to try and start shit. Who knows.

Anyway, I’ve been thinking about this whole situation more than I wanted to tonight, after getting another mail from my uncle earlier. And apparently needed to vent some–with as close to a neutral uninvolved audience as you could hope for.

(I’m also mad again right now, with the reminder that this neutrality description is the exact opposite of the therapy I got forced into when I was younger. Which was…not what I needed, to put it mildly. But, again, parents as the real clients and conflicts of interest :/ My head would not be in some of the specific knots it is now without that. Likely some other types of knots, but not ones installed by professionals.)

I’m aggravated tonight because I have had the evening off–and gee surprise, I’m still too sick to try to do some way overdue fish tank cleaning 😬

Maybe Wednesday, but yeah. I do feel bad because they really don’t need a dirty tank to live in. It can’t be helped right now, but that doesn’t make it right.

Once again, I kinda wish I could get some Singulair. It really really helped when I was given that before back home. Not just with the asthma, but with the general allergy fuckery driving it.

But, it’s like 3rd line for asthma treatment under the cookbook formulary system here, if adding regular inhaled steroids doesn’t do enough. (Also not nearly as cheap as the steroids 😑) And there are actual reasons that I don’t even want to try daily doses of even inhaled corticosteroids, with diabetes and a history of Cushing’s so my system is extra sensitive. Seems like an unnecessary risk.

Anyway, Singulair is rarely enough used that it’s not even readily available through Dodgy Online Consultation, because I got desperate enough to look into it a while back.

Feeling a little more human after I managed to get a couple of hours of decent sleep a little while ago. (Plus another about an hour of keeping waking up coughing, but it was just about tolerable and I was so not getting up yet if I could avoid it at all.)

That’s probably better than I managed in a stretch after bedtime earlier, with the inhaler and plenty of Robitussin before getting down. And propping myself as close to sitting up as I can. One benefit to already having the ridiculous pillow nest going: a little adjustment, and we’re good to go 🙄

So yeah, it’s turned into one of THOSE cold/flu asthma flares. The neighbors probably want to strangle me by now, never mind Mr. C sharing a bed with that hellacious cough. (More an issue with some of the attempts at napping, given our usual sleep schedules.) And it’s still early days, from past experience 😩

Even if it’s not doing as much as I would like, at least I do have rescue inhalers which are helping some now. And I have a lot better idea of what helps/does the opposite. Unlike with all the bouts of “asthmatic bronchitis” when I was a kid. No blackouts yet, so far! And I’m doing much better at keeping warm food down with inhaler access! *fingers crossed*

The situation right now is still reminding me too much of that.

Though, maybe best of all? I don’t have to look forward to sitting in a classroom all day–on maybe a few hours of bad sleep, with what feels like broken ribs. And likely with the teacher acting like I keep having coughing fits on purpose to be disruptive* 😑

(I did end up staying out a lot with that every winter, but when each episode hangs on for weeks? Really can’t stay home until it stops. Even without abusive attendance policies then.)

Really wishing this crud would hurry up and finish, but it could definitely be a lot worse.

* Unlike this one professor late on,, who got very concerned at the sound of it and kept trying to get me to go to the ER. A more reasonable response to someone having breathing problems in front of you, but kind of funny in another way.

Light boxes are bad enough for triggering migraines for me that I have just had to give up on them.

At least things should be better again, knowing that I do need plenty of vitamin D supplementation. Even before moving this far north, February was always the worst month–and incidentally when people’s vitamin D levels dip the lowest. That hasn’t been as bad since I figured out to start supplements, at least. *fingers crossed*

The time change (a week before the US) really fucked me up as usual, though. Its getting full dark before 5 p.m. was really not what my system needed. With still more than a month–and another hour of afternoon light–to go until the darkest point. Staying cloudy pretty much constantly doesn’t help either.

Tired of having to ride this out every year, but there’s not much else to do ¯_(ツ)_/¯

clatterbane:

Time for another episode of “I’m sick and sweaty-gross, and I really don’t want to hike up the street to the store. But, we’re essentially out of items such as wet cat food and toilet paper 😨”

Home again, with something quick to eat too.

One thing I probably should have foreseen from past experience, but just didn’t think about in advance? All the firework smoke. It looks kind of foggy out there, but it’s all Bonfire Night fireworks haze. They were going all weekend with it, but nothing compared to this evening already. (It’s not quite 8, on the holiday itself.)

Not necessarily what I needed with a pretty bad asthma flare already, from this cold/flu/whatever. And that’s a short enough trip that I didn’t think to put an inhaler back in my bag.

But, finally home and intending to stay here.

Time for another episode of “I’m sick and sweaty-gross, and I really don’t want to hike up the street to the store. But, we’re essentially out of items such as wet cat food and toilet paper 😨”

clatterbane:

Time for another round of “Is this ‘just’ a particularly nasty allergy/asthma day, or am I also coming down with something?” 🤔

I definitely got a snootfull of mold spores I shouldn’t have yesterday and especially after I got up today, but yeah. Hopefully that source is taken care of since Mr. C got home and dealt with the likely source (*crossing fingers*), and I have the HEPA unit running in there to try and mop up the worst of the remnants. With any luck, tomorrow won’t be a repeat.

But, I’ve been frustrated at being pretty firmly on the disabled list tonight. Between that and the antihistamines, I just got up from an unplanned nap a little while ago. When I had planned to push through and get some already overdue aquarium cleaning done.

We even got Indian delivery to try to save some spoons for that, though tbf I didn’t really need to work in the kitchen when I could hardly breathe either. Still irritated at not being able to follow through.

I am the only one here, BTW, who even seems to question whether getting takeout just because I feel like crap is reasonable. The damned pushing in general.