I wanted to post this to both bipolar reddit groups, which I hope is o.k. Mainly because I just want thoughts, impressions, and something like advice on how to handle the situation going forward. I'm not exactly looking for 'telling me what to do' advice though also. Of course much of this is dysfunctional to say the least, but I'd like to request that you try and minimize any judgement, as it'll just make me feel worse, won't help anything, and what's happened has already happened..
And I'm often compelled, especially with emotionally fraught stuff, to go into detail. I only have a few people I can talk to about this. I haven't been in therapy for awhile for various reasons. My psydoc is pretty good and has been seeing me for several years. But I'm having problems with my insurance, but I've already made an appointment for a few more weeks from now.
So it's going to be kind of long and rambling, but sequential for the most part. I do believe it's crucial to understand my issues by seeing all the backstory. But hopefully the fact that one can skim it if necessary will make it so that too many people won't just skip reading it altogether.
I am married with two daughters, one between 11 and 14 and the other between 6 and 9.
I have bipolar disorder, 1 I think. Usually hypomanic but if unmedicated long enough will become manic. Generalized anxiety that has given me functional deficits; was on disability since 2010 but after the first review last year got denied and missed the appeal time period, because I didn't foresee getting denied and was getting worse and worse about having my head in the sand about looking at the mail since around early 2016. I thought they would just get the newer information from my doctor, even though I know it should have occurred to me that they would most likely try and deny me again.
I also have a type of generalized, closely-related to an even more than usual anxiety-based type of OCD, in comparison to classic germaphobia, etc., where I have meltdowns if someone tries to make me do something that is other than the only way i know how to or want to do them. And with conversations involving information, I always have to 'make sure' the person said exactly what I thought they said, when it might be clear but sounds ambiguous to me. And a lot of mild to extreme stubbornness.
All three of those disorders send me into rages and tirades, unfortunately against my family because we live together. Frustration, irritability, but I think it's often kind of 'impotent.' Passive-aggressive maybe? Don't know; all that gets kind of confusing for me. But sometimes I guess it causes people to be drawn to that possibly perceived weakness.
But being provoked and dismissed puts me on the edge of thinking quite violently, and I'm always having to hold back literally striking out at whoever is doing it to me. It's been years and I haven't really yet, as I don't want to get arrested etc. And I don't really believe in just reacting back in retaliation and physically hurting anyone.
And then there's the years of hoarding, both my husband and I, and his actual ADD, and my symptoms of it; the disorganization problems just worsen the hoarding.
In general I get overwhelmed easily, confused easily..forget stuff more and more. My constant fuck-ups and more and more 'dropping the ball' takes its toll on my family. But with my conditions and personality any criticism and negative reactions from them just angers and hurts me and it's so hard, because surely it wouldn't be like that nearly as much if I didn't have mental illness.
And I know it's bad for me and from what I've heard and read contributes to a lot of my current symptoms as far as the bipolar, but I only get like 4 hours sleep a night, (but then sleep for 3 hours or so after getting the girls out the door for school). I mostly only eat carbs and some protein. I 'kind of' want to make meals, but I'm so tired and the kitchen is so cluttered that all we eat is pasta and smoked sausage (as opposed to hot dogs). I keep buying some fruit and bags of spinach..The kids are tired of apples for now. Perishable food is a struggle. The refrigerators currently working are small and old. My husband does make stuff every so often.
I don't take vitamins, but used to. We're always getting colds and stomach viruses. (especially now that school's started). I don't exercise, but used to. Just general depression symptoms of struggling everyday to just get through the day and get the minimum done without sleeping all day.
Now to the current issue: mother-in-laws can be hard enough to deal with it seems, but it doesn't help when you have mental illnesses that inconvenience them and cause you to make more and more mistakes that may or may not affect them. Husbands too, but that's of course something else.
I'll call her 'mil' - short for mother-in-law, but mostly 'she'. As far as the situation between her and me, it's also worsened because of whatever conditions she has or may have..definitely some type of personality disorder or personality issues contributing to a bullying mentality, being judgmental, automatically thinking she's always right, always has to have the last word. Critical and verbally abusive, especially in calling others names. Insulting. Sometimes cruel. Has less than no patience much of the time, and especially for annoying, 'flaky' people and the situations they create. Holds grudges for years, often, imo, about relatively trivial crap. She's educated, but refers to mental professionals as shrinks. Too smart for her own good, for lack of a better phrase.
I met her when I was nine when she and her son moved onto our street. She was really charming much of the time..Introverted and social at the same time; often charismatic. We live in a medium large town in the eastern midwest. She is from here, but moved to a large city out west in the 60's. She loves 'the counterculture.'
So, she, and later her son, fascinated me. I was pretty lonely, and loved their what seemed to be so much knowledge about so many things. Off and on for years, when she wasn't too irritated with me, she actually seemed to enjoy talking to me. She has some of the best stories. But I've unfortunately chosen to confide in her pretty much up til about several years ago, but then as I realized the depth and increase in her dislike for me, I finally have gradually reduced that.
As her son became my boyfriend and we started spending a lot of time together, she told him she wanted me to not come over any more for awhile (she wanted a break from me.) I remember trying to talk to her a couple of weeks later when I saw her outside. She gave me 'the silent treatment' then and for awhile.
My husband has always done that some too. He has the sometimes-harsh treatment of people, or at least talking about them behind their backs like that, and some of that similar cruelty towards the kids and I, I guess partly because of living with her all his life. He was an only child and she was a single mother. They moved back here when he was 11.
But he has depression and ADD, along with the hoarding, and anxiety seems to contribute to some of his anger as well. When he's off his medicine, he gets so angry that he punches holes in walls, throws stuff, sometimes breaks things, curses at me and then does the silent treatment (well, that's even when he's on his meds). I hate that the most about him, when he does that. Eventually I began yelling and screaming a lot more, like he also does, and feeling a strong urge to throw and break things. Especially after I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Especially when I've even a little hypomanic.
The next most behavior I hate is when he's not on his meds, is physically restraining me or keeping me from going into another room or getting on our bed. And right now the beds are pretty much the only comfortable places to sit in our house. So yeah, he loses a lot of control of adhering to personal space boundaries when he gets like that.
But mil's done a lot for us. Especially since the girls were born. The older one (K.) is her favorite in many ways, and I don't think she could live without her. We let her stay with her half the week from the time she was about 7 months old until soon after my youngest (E.) was born, when K. was 3 1/2. I knew K. would have started asking why she had to be at her house all the time while E. was always here with us. So I ended it.
At the beginning though, of course I jumped at the chance at the time for me to have more time to sleep and do more of what I wanted and was compelled to do. It took a few years, but I realized that she didn't do it to help me; she just wanted and needed to be with K. So I guess I also gave her some of my power. I also lost a lot of special moments I'll never be able to get back.
She has annual festivals and things she pretty much always takes them to, which are pretty much really important to her, and thus she wants to and always has no matter what. She also has them both on Friday afternoons and evenings. It used to be and additional day of the week for K.
And after I happened to lose a form she gave me to fill out for a summer activity for E.(this past summer), she told me she wasn't paying for it after all, since she was trying to reduce stress in her life. I think that's why she isn't having them over as much either. She has a lot of energy, but is 73 now.
She also pays and has paid for a lot of stuff; years of dance lessons for K. (all her idea), K.'s 2 years of preschool and one year of kindergarten, given us various amounts of money, none of which we ever asked for, when she could tell we needed it especially to make up for stuff we had to pay for but didn't really have the money to. And large amounts for my husband's birthdays, and for Christmas for him and the girls. And many more things I can't remember.
So there's always this constant underlying, mostly unspoken tension between her and I. We both hold back from confronting each other as much as possible, but I think with her increasing age, she's losing the ability to do that. But she would have her little blowups/tantrums 'at' me every so often, and then would act like it never happened, so I went along with that, because I don't deal well with people even saying anything in anger to me.
OK, finally to the main stuff that happened the other night!!
She left with the girls this past weekend for a 4 day trip to a quaint historically significant "tourist attraction". Not to sound rude, but it's not the usual type of tourist attraction; it's more of a simple, quiet place where you can stay in restored old buildings.
They always go on this weekend every year because the place has their big fall festival that has lots of kids activities as well. K. has always enjoyed going, and this was E's first year going, and she really liked it too.
She always gives us either an exact time or time range in which she is ready to drop them off or for us to come pick them up. I guess this might be the norm for people with children; I don't know (probably is; not complaining though) but it's assumed that we have to be ready for any change in that time, because she's the one going to the trouble to take them somewhere. And it has changed before, even at the last minute, where we sometimes have to go pick them up instead. She told me they'd be back sometime close to; before or after, dark. She said she would be able to drop them off. She also hates cell phones with a passion, and of course refuses to get one or for us to give her one, because they are not as reliable as landlines.
You probably can tell where this is going, but of course I want to tell it bit by bit. I really have been trying to be kind of concise in everything I've typed. So then, 3 hours before they could be here at the earliest, my husband decides he needs to go to our other house and cut the grass and dry our laundry there. I asked him if he would probably be back in a couple of hours. He said probably, but maybe longer, depending on how much stuff he decided to do there. This house was our first one, but we had to leave pretty quickly for various reasons when K. was a baby. We've used it for storage, which I realized was a bad idea a year or so later, but it already was filled with a hoard anyhow. It's also in disrepair, so my husband is always working on it off and on. He refuses to sell it.
Looking back, of course I realize I should have told him when to be back no matter what. He should have thought of it as well. Only one of our cars is driveable, and I have a suspended license until I get a day and time assigned to go to traffic school and complete that. Yes, once again I put off looking at the mail to see when the original day was set for or that I needed to set it up first; I don't know. So then they suspended it because I went past the deadline. She knows about it; I had to tell her since up until then I have mostly been the one to be here when she picks them up and drops them off, and to go pick them when it was my turn.
So of course she calls maybe a half hour or hour after he left, and said they were exhausted, and asked if he could come get them. I told her everything about what my husband was doing and where she was, and we both thought he would probably be back in time, or that I would be able to reach him on his phone. I knew that wasn't always the case.
So I waited until about a little more than an hour later, after trying to call him repeatedly, and then called her and asked if she'd heard from him. She said no, and was starting to sound irritated. I told her I could try and call one of our old neighbors, or even run over there myself. It's about a twenty minute walk from where we live.
She then just said something about how she couldn't bring them because she didn't have her car and that she couldn't drive the one she had at night. Then she screamed, "Why can't I have a normal fucking family? You all just aren't living right." Then she hung up on me. She's done it before; my husband has done it many times. Of course my kids told me afterward that she was as mad and loud as she's ever been, talking about me and my suspended license and other stuff, but mostly about me. K. has also told me about her saying the not living right thing stuff before, from a few years ago.
I got hold of my husband soon after, and he said that he hadn't even felt his phone vibrate and that he'd been of course running the lawnmower, working on the roof some, and waiting for the laundry to dry, but would go get them.
She wasn't out there when he did. She's done that to me too, also when she's been angry with K. about something. We did always tell her to just call us when she got overwhelmed after that happened once. Sometimes she still didn't.
I was upset and angry also. It took me a couple of days to calm down. I couldn't sleep well that night, worrying about it. It kept going through my head constantly. At first I felt very confrontational, even though I knew that would just make things worse. I'm just so tired of being walked all over. Yes, by my husband and her, but of course there are a lot of different issues there. I called my dad and a friend and talked to then about it. I've been writing this off and on all week.
I now think that she tried to hold it all in like she always does, at first, but this time she couldn't, because of how physically bad she felt and whatever else, and was just so exasperated. That's understandable. I know I can't expect people who have to deal with us all the time and know what the house looks like to not get frustrated and say things in anger sometimes. And then there's her age again.
No, my husband has never been much help, because he knows we can't make her stop doing anything; that she's not going to listen to us, and not going to change. We've both known all the stuff we've done wrong that she's held against us. So he didn't say much except for being irritated and cutting me off about what she said; saying he already remembered me telling him she said that last part before. I'd forgotten; I forget so much of all kinds of things.
I know many of you will say we should have gotten divorced long ago. We almost did, lots of times. But there are many reasons why we don't want to, and why neither of us could do it now. Of course there have been and still are so many good things about him, between us.
But I've seen them in arguments, etc. before a couple of times ever since we were teenagers, pretty much always because she started talking some kind of shit to him. So I'm now leaning towards the acting like she didn't say anything choice for when I have to talk to her again tomorrow (Friday). I haven't had to see her since that Sunday night. She usually gets the kids after E. gets off the bus those afternoons. Then, unless we've already talked about it, I have to see when she says she wants him to come get them. I could tell the kids to have her call my husband later; I've done that before, but ahead of time, when I felt like it was a situation where I'd rather him deal with her, but not at the last minute.
I want to go out there after E. gets here, so I don't look even more weak. Then again, sometimes K. will go out first, since she gets home an hour earlier, and then she can just come back in and tell me the time. Or she might choose to call him.
If she says or seems like I need to say something new, I guess I'll tell her me and her can just adjust things somehow to where this could be more likely to be prevented in the future..she always does tell us however she wants this or that too, now that I think of it.
So I guess mostly you all will just be able to comment on this. If you want of course. But I doubt things will go any differently than they're going to. Thanks for listening to me about this large section of my life. That's partly why it took so long.
Submitted September 28, 2017 at 11:32PM by liesl72 http://ift.tt/2xJ7eAo BipolarReddit
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