Posted by kalyb on June 22, 2003, at 12:19:35
In reply to Re: Kaly I didn't know you lived with my mother!, posted by noa on June 20, 2003, at 20:18:19
“When you’ve woken up, we need to have a serious talk. How do you think you’re affecting us?” Actually, I’m not sure so I shrug. I know I’m affecting them, I’m trying not to, but it’s not working. And they’re affecting me and my day to day mood too, but I know I can’t say anything about that. I also think it’s a little unfair of her to get me to start on this in this way.So she continues. It would seem I am affecting her family (her, her partner and their baby). She can’t go out and enjoy herself because she finds herself talking about me all the time, because I’m upsetting her so much. I affect the way she mothers her baby. I affect her partner and the way she and he interact. In fact I seem to affect everything.
I acknowledge I am affecting things and wish I wasn’t, I tell her about my guilt about this and how I am trying to do something about it. She brings up all kinds of things about my personality that she finds maddening. She says that I can’t hold a normal conversation without putting people down. I always have to input something, like I know someone else who did that, or I did that or someone did that better, or add a lot of unnecessary information which sometimes takes all the pleasure out of it for the listeners.
She also feels that I use people, and that I am using her and her partner and have been since I moved in. She invited me into her home and did not expect this. She provides me with free food, free electricity, free washing powder. I wouldn't eat so well and wouldn't get a cooked meal every day if I wasn't living here. (I would and do - I love cooking and have always eaten well, it's one of my bottom line pleasures). Her perception is that I use everyone and always have done throughout my life, citing several examples.
The crux of the matter is that she was going to tell me to pack my bags and leave today. I am not sure why she didn’t, although I would argue that I have some rights as I am paying her rent. We talked a little bit about my depression, which she feels I use as a crutch to excuse my behaviour. I start to try and tell her that my problems are probably a lot greater than mere depression but she stops me, saying there I go again, making excuses. At this point I really do not know what else to say.
A lot of other things were said but as usual, my anxiety means that I can’t remember most of it, which is about normal for me. Oh, on the subject of normal, she says I am perfectly normal. Personally, I can’t see how she can think that when she’s just sat there telling me how abnormal I am, but there you go. It only needs someone to talk to me like this to make me realise the absence of feelings and thoughts and interactions with other people I have, just aren’t normal.
The conversation (or rather, she) calms down a bit. When it has, I try tentatively to talk about how she makes me feel. At the mention that I find her criticism “does my head in” she flies into a rage, saying how dare I, when I make her feel that way too. She tells me that was a rude and ungrateful thing to say. She demands I give her examples and tell her exactly what I mean by what I said. I stand firm, apologise if it was rude, and say that I try very hard to do things right and please her but feel that I get criticism from her and get things wrong all the time. The answer to that is that certain things are done certain ways in HER house and I don’t listen and don’t follow instructions, and she finds herself telling me over and over again how or what to do. I apologise again and say that my memory is not good for some things. She then tells me that apparently I went on and on about something not long ago about how good I was at remembering certain things and she just wanted to laugh, and it drove her crazy listening to it. But did she take on board what I said about my memory not being good? I’m not sure.
There is a lot I wanted to say but brain fog and inarticulacy, fear of being misunderstood and fear of just getting it wrong or it coming out the wrong way prevent me. She jumps on every little thing. As well as fear of upsetting her even more. I know that this situation cannot be worked out in the long term, I have known it since I moved in, but I hoped.
At one point she asked me what I wanted out of life. I did try to explain to her how just getting through each day and surviving was so difficult for me that that’s all I can do most of the time. That is my life’s achievement. I don’t know if this sunk in or not. But I tried to explain how many times I feel I can’t even do that and everyone around me would be better off if I wasn’t here, or dead, and that would end the pain and difficulty for me as well. Therefore, just surviving is often the best I can do.
A little later I asked her if she would give me a month’s written notice to quit, because that would help me find alternative housing with the Council. It would put me higher up their list of urgency. I say that it can be rescinded if necessary, but it would help. She is reluctant to do this and doesn’t say why. I tell her I have forms to apply for council housing, and I am waiting for my p-doc to write a reference which will put me as more urgent on the list. She does not believe I have the forms and demands to see them. I refuse, because she really ought to take my word for it, but she insists because apparently I have lied to her about other things before. (I’m not certain I did, actually - it seems to me sometimes that her take on things is her - and therefore THE ONLY - truth, and she will fight that belief to the death). Anyway I show her the forms, but of course, if I feel hurt or angry about having to do this, then I can’t reveal it. She knows the council waiting list is about 2 years. And if I am referred by my pdoc, plus if she also gives me notice, I will be classed as “urgent.”
“Do you think you are urgent?” she asks. I can’t help thinking she’s asking me if I feel I deserve to be housed at all! “If I am homeless, I would be, yes.” I reply. “But you aren’t homeless,” she says. “I would be if I had to leave here” I reply, “because I have nowhere else to go.”
I feel like screaming at her, FOR $%&%’S SAKE, I HAVE A MENTAL ILLNESS. I AM NOT NORMAL! I DO NOT THINK, ACT AND FEEL LIKE OTHER PEOPLE DO! LIKE YOU DO, OR YOU WANT ME TO! CAN’T YOU GET THAT INTO YOURTHICK, IGNORANT, STUPID HEAD AND ACCEPT IT? AND ACCEPT ME? I AM A NUT! I AM A LOONY! I AM A MENTAL CASE! I AM BRAIN DAMAGED! I AM INCAPABLE OF BEHAVING LIKE OTHER PEOPLE!!! but I won’t, and I can’t because I have brain fog and don’t have the confidence or bravery, or the thick skin to withstand the inevitable fallout.
The bottom line is, I think, that I am not normal, I am not like other people. There’s always been something missing there, and she’s picked up on it but is continually making me feel bad. I don’t know what my disorder/s is/are, they don’t like to give diagnoses here, but if I knew I was Borderline or Bipolar or whatever, I could understand that’s WHY I am like I am, and maybe other people could understand it too, that I am entirely normal for whatever damaged condition I have.
I know this is not working. I was afraid it wouldn’t. All she said about not enjoying herself because of thinking about this situation and being affected by me, is precisely how I have felt for a year about her, and living here. That came as a shock to hear really, when I've lived like that every day for 12 months myself. I don’t know how to get out. I want to crawl away somewhere and sleep and not have this problem any more. I’ll have other problems instead, I am sure, but I’ve exhausted this one. I’m exhausted. A cardboard box in a shop doorway looks attractive. Oh God, help me.
Kalyb
poster:kalyb
thread:235513
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20030617/msgs/236019.html