Thursday, June 1, 2017

Why can't I just be?

TW wrote me: Ruth, do you ever "have time" to just BE? Think you can do that?!


Nope...absolutely not....I do try.  Thanks TW for reminding me I am enough.  https://weareone-ruth.blogspot.com/2017/05/body-image.html


 There is a bit of history to this one.  Childhood was not a time for relaxing for me.  I was either turned totally loose to go and do what I wished any where or I was tightly under my mother's thumb.  I never knew which way a day would go.  The days of extreme control I craved to just be....for me that was so not happening.  If I appeared to be doing 'nothing' more work was heaped on me.  I learned to function at a frantic pace.  Didn't matter what, just something. A poem my mother used to chant.

If you got too much to do and you don't know where to start
And you start to feeling blue and you're quickly loosing heart,
Don't be a dumb thing,
Start something.

Evil poem....chanting of a slave driving inner critic that valued doing over being or doing something useful. 

On my other blog I shared the 11 forms of self abuse from Lilly Hope Lucereo. 
https://ptsd-acceptingcopingthriving.com/2017/05/28/self-abuse/


https://healingfromcomplextraumaandptsd.wordpress.com/2017/05/28/11-ways-child-abuse-survivor-emotionally-self-harm-lilly-hope-lucario/



 The two that drive me are 'Working too hard' and 'Lack Of Self Care & Lack Of Healthy Boundaries'.  I also spent over 3 years in bed.  I didn't know it at the time but I had a complete break down but I had kids to care for while my husband worked on the road.  I kept moving but lived a twilight half life.  I have 10 times more energy now than I did when I was 35 years old.  I have so many things I want to do and I want to do them all right now.  I was playing Happy Acres on Facebook, I became so competitive that I wasn't eating or sleeping trying to do everything.  Yes, I was trying to do everything in a game designed to allow me to pick and choose....oh no. I had to do everything.  When I started to play at work, I knew I was in serious trouble.  I was an addict.  

People forget the drugs and alcohol are not the only things people get addicted to.  I feel driven to do things.  The sit back and relax thing doesn't happen.  Watching TV I usually watch two shows and either crochet or work on Sudokus.  Just sitting and watching doesn't happen.  We went to the movies.  I bought popcorn and kept eating one piece at a time to keep my hands doing something.  I schedule break time but often work through it.  Playing a game is not relaxing either.  TW thank you for reminding me that going at a frantic pace is not required.  No one will give me brownie buttons for working harder than any one.  In fact, more than once I was reprimanded for working too hard and too fast.  The boss at the time thought I was trying to show him up.  He didn't realize I only had one speed R for RACE.  

One of my coworkers was assigned to help me change over computers in a computer lab.  30 computers to be changed out.  He moaned and groaned complaining it would take all week.  I asked him why?  I pointed to the other side of the room, "You start there, I'll begin here, and meet you at the back."  I worked silently and intently.  Took a break for lunch.  I met him at the back at a little after 5 PM, mandatory quitting time.  (They threatened to fire me if I worked over time.)  The coworker was astounded.  We completed the lab in a day.  He turned to me and asked, "Do you always work like this?"  My answer, "You mean there is another way to do it?"  He had to reassess his opinion of what he heard about me.  

At one point in my marriage I worked 3 part time jobs.  When I went to school I would take crazy difficult classes.  DH and I had an argument and he accused me of always having to get an A.  I thought seriously about this.  I demanded so much more out of a class than the teacher expected that I got the A as a byproduct of my own expectations.  I realize now, I drove several teachers crazy with how much I did in class.  In counseling, my therapist restricted me to one hour a day working on why I functioned the way I did.  He told me to fire my MEAN BOSS.  That mean boss is me.  Still tend to be a bit of a slave driver.  

TW....this summer I will set a goal to sit and be for at least....I don't know how long I can keep myself still before I jump up and go again.  Work in progress.  Thanks TW. 

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