Freeze!

 Fight, flight or freeze! For months I've felt like I'm frozen. I feel incapable of making big decisions, I need to choose an orthodontist, I need to figure out somethings for school. feel like I'm failing my kids all the time. I used to have a very thick skin to their childish behavior. The things common to first world children, There are complaints about meal options or criticisms about how a meal isn't up to the ideal. I used to have a sense of humor and just roll my eyes and remind them of the boundary that the only thing I want to hear is, "Thanks for the food." and to keep the criticism and whining to themselves. But now it hurts my feelings, it feels like everything is spiraling. Like someone shot out one of my engines and I'm just in a tailspin heading for the ground. I don't know how to find that internal equilibrium, that sense of humor and irony that kept things in perspective. And I am failing them. 

We moved 1000 miles in July 2020 when COVID Everything was insane. We hunkered down the first few months, trying to get settled...Many homeschool things weren't up and running yet and we were hanging out with Hub's family a few weekends a month so that was some social interaction. We started to venture out in October, and sent to a few meet ups. I met some nice people, the kids haven't really connected with anyone. Then we were sick in January and February and again in March..When you're a family of 7 it takes at least a month for a cold to make it's way around the house, and whatever crud we got lingered. It was with a loooong cough deal, maybe it was the Big C, I do know a couple kids are allergic to the pine and oak pollen that hits crazy hard in late March and it also causes an obnoxious cough. I don't know but you can't take kids out with a cough at that point without everyone losing it. So we stayed home. And then we were consumed with the house build and moving in May- July. It was a 45 minute move to the other side of the county and it was like starting over all over again. New stores, new highways, new everything. Then the end of July we got sick again, really sick and then the minute we were better we took a trip to PA. We got home and got a puppy which was 6 weeks of lots of training work. It was suddenly the end of September and then all hell broke loose with Hub's family. We laid 9,000 sq ft of sod in there and since then I've been spinning. It's been 6 months on Sunday since we cut ties and everything hit the fan. I need to find them friends. Local people to spend time with and build relationship with...They hang out all the time on discord, video chatting with their group of friends back home. They spend hours a day together playing Minecraft together building in servers and talking to each other. They make movies together shooting different scenes between them in their respective homes and splicing it all together. Hours and hours writing script together while they video chat and type and edit.  I don't want to leave our old friends, I miss our old friends so much and somehow moving forward feels so wrong. I feel stuck. And the women I've met are very nice. But they don't feel like My People but then again, I can't really trust my judgement on any level right now.

I just want to go home, I want to hide in the shelter of people who know and love me and lick my wounds. But also this stuff has opened up some stuff from long ago in my family of origin and some of those relationships feel unstable to me now too. Blergh.

Because it wasn't just discovering that my Father-in-law is a pedophile. It wasn't just seeing some childhood memories I had in a new and disgusting light. It wasn't just realizing with horror that I unkowingly exposed my children to a predator for years. It was also realizing all the disconnects of the last 17 years were part of pattern of narcissistic abuse directed at me and my husband. It is this constant nagging feeling of "Why did we put up with it?" as we continually recognize the patterns of abuse and the validation and satisfaction of realizing we weren't crazy or unreasonable. Yes, validating but also another angle of ...I don't know the word for it. Grief? Relief? Deep hurt? More horror?  Anger, I feel so much anger. I didn't deserve that, I didn't actually do anything, I wasn't the problem!!!

We did 6 weeks of therapy together and have plans to move forward with individual counseling. I contacted someone but now I'm second guessing and kind of chickening out about setting an appointment. I followed the directions on the search resource I used and wrote what they told me to include. Her response was really ...it felt off center from the response I expected given the site's directions and so I'm not sure I want to move forward. I am going to go dig through a few other options and see if someone else feels better. The stupid part of being a highly intuitive person is that when you're spiraling you can really get in your own way. Bottom line, I absolutely need therapy to rebuild that engine and find equilibrium. Whatever got shot out of that engine needed to go but putting it back together is imperative. I want to be the best Mom for my kids. I'm doing better in the day to day. I'm not disassociating or checking out nearly as much as I was last fall. I'm connecting more, we're getting school done daily, moving forward on projects around our property and home. But I need to find more stability so I can help them make friends, we need safe people here too.

Step 1: find a therapist and book an appointment.