Head Space

Headspace by lucid a

I've not been in a good one lately.  Head space, that is.  Last night I asked Gerry for a divorce, convinced that was going to solve all my issues.  All the issues that have been around long since Gerry and I ever met.  I had convinced myself that our lack of intimate sharing and emotional connection had wore me down so much that I just couldn't go on in our relationship.  I was certain that our relationship had run its course.  All this stemmed from our first session with a new marriage counselor when I said that I sometimes wondered if our relationship was ever truly genuine and if we only were together because it was convenient for the both of us at the time.  We both had needs and empty spaces that needed to be filled, and we stumbled upon each other at the right time to satiate those needs of that time.  And for a while I was happy and satisfied in our relationship.  I loved spending time with him. I loved our adventures together.  I loved us.  

Something changed, though. I wanted things to go to the next step - marriage - and I felt like there was some push back on that.  There was.  When ever I brought it up (usually several drinks in) it would become a point of contention.  I wanted to get married and he jumped around the idea.  He wasn't committing.  That confirmed, for me, the insecurities I have always had about myself. I wasn't good enough for marriage. Or at least, I wasn't good enough for marriage to him.  That ate at me.  That belief (whether it was true or not) wormed its way into my brain and set up shop.  And it hasn't gone away.  Instead, it has built a big ole mansion in the front of my brain, and it has colored my vision in a way that I struggle every damned day to see myself in any positive like.  

I am overweight.

I am not active.

I don't have a degree.

I don't make enough money to support myself.
I was mean to my mother when she didn't deserve it.

I neglected my children.

I am selfish and self-centered.

I never finish what I start.

I don't trust others.

I don't trust myself.

I don't know how to be genuine - I feel like everything I do is "put on" to appease others.  This one runs deep.  I have *always* struggled with knowing who "erin" is, because "erin" has spent a lifetime of molding herself into who she thinks people want her to be.  And THAT has gotten exhausting.  I am tired of playing whatever fucking role that I am playing.  I miss feeling joy and excitement for life, which I do recall having at one point when the kids were young.  But it's been lost and replaced with exhaustion and anger.  

I am angry a lot.  For stupid things.  I don't want to be angry.  I feel like I come from a long line of angry women.  My mother, my aunts, my grandmother.  All angry and disappointed that the world doesn't work they way they think it should.  

Lack of control is big too. More often I feel like I am "along for the ride" in my relationship.  I don't feel like I add anything but frustration to our relationship because I like to stack the dishes one way and Gerry doesn't care.  A minor example, but a good one.  It's usually the minor shit that works me up and because I am unable to express myself in a reasonable constructive way, I end up landing on getting angry at little things that aren't really a big deal.  

BUT - at the same time I have this thought that I am allowed to want things done a certain way and, just because I do and Gerry doesn't, does not mean that I am wrong or being problematic.  And that's how I end up feeling.  My thought is, if it doesn't matter to you where the kitchen scissors go, then why not just put them where I prefer them to go (another small, but accurate example)?  Why dig your feet in and accuse me of trying to "control you" when you say you don't care where they go?  These kind of examples are the kinds of things the build up in my head, and I begin to wonder where I actually fit in in this relationship.  What the hell is my roll here? 

I cycle through this thought pattern every damned month, sometimes more, and it is wearing me the fuck down.  Some days I feel like I want to get on my knees and PLEAD to the Universe to take me out.  I am DONE.  There is too much pain and sadness and anger to stay here.  I just want peace.

As with my head, this post is all over the place.  And reading it back over, the examples I gave seem so trivial and don't match what it going on in my head.  But those examples are literally just the teeny tiny tip of the iceberg.  What is below the surface is so much bigger and complicated than what everyone else sees.  And I can understand how only being able to see that tip would look bad to others.  And by others, I mean Gerry.  I know he knows that I struggle with depression, and he knows that I had a rough go of it as a kid, but sometimes I feel like he thinks all those things are just easy to move on from and that I am making a bigger deal out of things than they are.  And there probably is truth to that because I do tend to get worked over seemingly simple issues - but that's not because I am trying to be an asshole.  It's because I don't KNOW HOW to be anything else.  Growing up, there was never such a thing as "something simple that can be easily resolved."  There was always a big deal, and more often than not, a huge altercation as a result.  Sometimes only verbal, sometimes verbal and physical. I lived with constant chaos in my life.  I never knew when my mom was going to get upset and lash out.  My Dad and my step-mom weren't any better, though no physical.  I never knew if/when I was doing something wrong in their presence - either by acting the wrong way, saying the wrong things, etc.  With all my parents I was always analyzing and trying to adjust myself to do what they want me do or who I thought they wanted me to be.  

I still do that today.  When I talk to my dad & step-mom I alter my conversations and stories to best fit the narrative I think they want. I do that with people at work.  With people I make "friends" with.  People I have just met.  I don't know who the fuck I am.

I just asked Gerry if he knows who he is, and he said for the the most part he does.  He doesn't think much about it.  He said he attributes a lot of that as growing up in the Catholic church - knowing that you are one of Gods creations on Earth.  Ha.  Maybe I just need God.  NOT.

I need something though.  I need to figure out this shit in my head, because ultimately it will end me.  One way or another.  

Oh.  I took back my request for a divorce today.  I think Gerry knew it I would because he was fairly low key with it yesterday.  But this is becoming enough of a pattern for me, that something needs to change.  Even if he and I don't stay together, I need to fix whatever this has been eating away at my soul.  This un-detectable emotional cancer that makes believe that there is no love for me here and that I will only find the peace I seek after I die.  Sometimes that desire for that peace is so strong, it is frightening.