Having a Hard Day....just when I thought things were evening out a bit

I have no idea why but today has been a struggle. I couldn't stay asleep and as soon as I got up I was moving all day, cleaning washing, tidying....just appeared to have a lot of motivation and energy to get stuff done. i think I was really running away from myself.

In the back of my mind were the thoughts...its only 3 weeks and my parents will be coming to stay and I HAVE to have the place spotless. OMGawd...my mother is coming to stay(major major major trigger!!!!)

Also in my mind are thoughts about my annual performance appraisal which is scheduled for Monday, and I am trying to pretend that I am not freaking out!!!!! (But I am)

So I have been "keeping it together" and getting on with things......all the while I seem to have energy I am just feeling completely exhausted also. I feel like I need to sleep for days, and my body just aches like I have run a marathon and been hit by a bus. I think I am soo deeply anxious that it is showing up in other ways, pain in my back.......and worse..........

I have been horrid to my gorgeous wee boy. I have had no tolerance for him today. It feels like he has pushed ALL of my buttons and I raised my voice to him, pushed past him, made him go his room.......this is not regular behaviour for me and only ever happens when i am extremely stressed/anxious. I feel like such a bad bad mother and person to hurt my weeman like this and make him cry. I just suck.

And tomorrow there is the local Xmas Santa Parade in town....and my weeman gets to go with his dad, step mum & little brother. His family. I feel very left out at times like this.....

I am not sure what I want or need by posting this....apart from maybe just getting it out. I am home alone, my boy is back with his dad and I feel soo terribly alone, anxious and just wish I had some support. I feel dreadful.

Why do these days just sneak up on me? I just seem not able to keep balanced........ Do others struggle like this? Ugh, I am over it!

Oh, I absolutely struggle. The emotional roller coaster is the worst. I wish I could say how I would feel in the imminent future. At least I would know how to plan.

How old's your little guy? Is he old enough yet that he can start to understand the "I'm sorry but I'm in a bad mood today, I need me-time. Please play in your room today?"

I'm sorry that you've had a rough day sneak up on you I find them to be the worst ones because you're just not prepared for it at alllll.

I think you should just plan on having a me day while your son is busy with his father. As long as your son is "safe" and has a nice day you should try to find a way to allow yourself to let go a little and be ok with it, no anger etc.

It sounds like you have three things bothering you at once and they are all emotional challenges involving "other people" who have somehow challenged your boundaries in some way that is not pleasant for you. You also expressed some important "keys" for your stress and even inner critic too. "His Family" and "mother coming to inspect and be serviced" and "annual performance appraisal" are all things that would make "anyone" feel stressed, however with the PTSD, it magnifies and is more challenging. This is why you feel like you ran a marathon, it is how anxiety and stress affects our bodies. Then because it does tire us out our minds switch on the "sleep censors" which creates that strong desire to "I need to just shut down and sleep". Yes, I know the challenge myself and I can get short tempered too when I really don't want to be that way.

That is why you need some time to yourself, relax, slow down, and have some quiet me time. While you have this time, see if you can plan things out where you don't feel so rushed and unknowingly start pumping up too much cortisol that is the major culprit that leads to the challenge to think clearly and have this short temper. Having adrenaline is ok, we often like to have that so we are inspired to get things accomplished that helps us to feel a reward of being in control and having the ability to accomplish things. It is when we allow ourselves to start thinking that we have some kind of "predators" approaching into our space that we begin to "pump up the cortisol" too that makes accomplishing things so tiring. And that is why you need to pay attention to the negatives you think and say and trace them to where and why you get so uncomfortable so that you can learn how to overcome these switches that are so negative to you. This is the part that is a challenge and while it sounds "easy", it isn't all that easy, there is no "just" to it as others tend to advise which can be a trigger too.

Well, venting is healthy, especially when you write it out like this because you get a chance to look back and see the things that come up that create the turmoil in you. That is when you have something to go by to talk about in therapy so you can get to the "root" of the disturbance that you will need to work out so you can teach yourself how to slowly understand why these triggers happen and how to stop them by thinking about them differently then you have been deep wired to think, feel , and react unknowingly.

((Jane)), you are smart and you did take time to develop some skills so that you could thrive in your life. You just need to get out the bugs that you have deep in you that developed early on where other people around you deeply disturbed you and you didn't know how to understand it or deal with it and you began to self blame and feel inadequate because of it. I noticed when you were venting that it was not your father coming that you are upset about, it is your mother.

Ok, so you need to get to the deep issues your mother created and hash that all out, figure out why and see "her" in a very different light. Which means you need to get to that child part and begin to look at how she made you feel that you didn't understand at the time, it's always there and it is "always due to a deficiency in good nurturing skills on the mother's part".

What I "do" see that challenges you is how your brothers got their needs met, were important to your parents, and you didn't get the same treatment. Some of that comes from a long time cultural belief that the "males" were the ones that had to have the abilities to be capable of having a way to take care of "their family and also carry the family name".
Women were not as important, they were to find a good man and their job was being a dutiful wife and running the home. That "is" a very deep seeded subconscious message that is not as "conscious" where a parent really stops to recognize society just is not that way anymore.

We also consistently deal with how the offspring in a family tends to have some deep seeded need to "be the favorite or most appreciated" in the family. So when a child was not "recognized" and took a back seat to other siblings, they tend to harbor some deep inadequacies in their subconscious mind that affects their "self esteem" as they go through life.
I can see you are still harboring a feeling that you need to important or pleasing to your parents and are still in some ways competing with your brothers. Well, that is something you have to finally decide isn't important anymore, you are the only girl and you have done well in spite of how your parents "out of ignorance" didn't meet your needs.

When you are with your son, remember, with you he has a chance to feel "important", where when he is with his father, that may not be the case, he may be facing some competition that can challenge and confuse him in ways he is not really "aware" of. Always make sure you talk to him to make sure he isn't feeling "left out" somehow so his self esteem gets a chance to develop in a healthy way. Often our own insecurities are imprinted in our children and we just don't realize it. Hey, it isn't always easy to be a parent, there is much we just don't think our children can pick up from us that we are not aware of.

Well, you love him and send him messages that he pleases you, when something comes up that compromise that, just pay attention and make sure he understands it is not him, mommy is just a bit tired and grouchy.

What helped me a lot was having adult conversations with my parents and encouraging them to talk about their parents and childhoods and themselves. Often they unknowingly pass on "bugs or viruses" that were instilled in them from their parents and their parent's generation. This need to "got to have things clean and organized just right for "her" is a bug/virus that has definitely been passed from many mothers who had that instilled in them constantly while they were growing up too. Well, while it is nice to have a clean home and have things look nice, it should not create so much stress in someone where that is the "most" important thing to bring a sense of comfort and being appreciated.

((Hugs))
OE

Just to clarify a couple of points, I am sorry if this comes across as short, but it is very triggering for me when I feel someone is assuming things about me or is misunderstanding me. I know it is not intentional, and it is because of a wish to help, but I feel I need to clarify now...

I don't talk about my father beause he is dead, but when he was alive he left us when I was just over 2 and was not a positive influence in my life ever. When i talk about my parents I mean my mother(who was horrid to me) and my step father who came in to my life when I was 10.

I am not the only girl in the family, I have a younger sister who was the darling for my mother.

I agree that i have a lot to work through in regards of my mother and my childhood, it was......often unpleasant and emotionally difficult to say the least.

Once again I am sorry for being snappy.....I will stop writing now as I realise that I am reacting because I am triggered....and I sincerely do appreciate the feedback normally.

This is not a good day again.........

((Jane))),

Sorry you were triggered. I was giving "some" ideas or reasons that can be underlying causes for "anxiety and triggers" that a person may not realize when they have a challenging day. I have had to learn how to understand a lot of this myself, and I have also learned a lot by listening to others, reading and having my T also work on it with me.

Jane, I don't know "all of the details" that challenge you, I just picked up on a few things that struck me, were familiar to me about some of the things you have expressed in your working through your challenges, things I have addressed myself too.

I was trying to address you with "could it be" and "often this is a root we do not always recognize" that is not our fault and simply things we had worked around but never resolved for "ourselves". I was also trying to help you recognize the things that you "have accomplished" in spite of the short comings of others who could have done much better to "nurture you in more positive ways".

I have been working on these challenges myself Jane, and to be honest with you this Thanksgiving Holiday has been a big challenge for me. After I experienced so much damage to my horses and ponies that were such an important part of me, I broke down and ended up in a psych ward that ignored my constant requests for rest and grief counseling. My family pretty much abandoned me, my older sister came in to see me and basically yelled at me ignoring my pleas to get me out of that place and how it was making me so much worse. I was also misdiagnosed and those 9 days were horrible, just horrible and no one would listen. I left there worse then when I went in and my family was so unsupportive and angry with me. I have "complicated grief disorder" and PTSD, and if I had had the right treatment, I would not have gotten so bad. If one wanted to punish someone for experiencing grief so badly that it was overwhelming them in every way?, it would be how I was treated.

Trying to get through the holidays for me is very painful. I deal with some very crippling ghosts that just come over me and at the same time I am trying to just function through these holidays with the very family that "failed me" and actually made me feel horrible for being challenged with something very real, that I just could not help and really needed help with. So I have had to look at a lot of things in some very different ways. And I try to share what I have been learning with others who deserve to be heard and comforted.

I see you as a very smart, gifted, good person Jane, and you didn't get some things you deserved to get from your family too. I find that it helps to be able to look behind these people who failed us to why they have these deficiencies. It has helped "me" deal with some deep challenges better myself because I am able to get to a higher level of overall understanding rather then just being within the dysfunction itself and suffering from it in these disturbing cycles.

I am a work in progress myself Jane, I also have some crippling PTSD challenges myself that I am still slowly learning to understand and work through some very deep injuries. I can tell you, I am certainly not at my best right now tbh. I am not a therapist, I am also struggling and most of what I say is "do you think it could be this, here is what I am learning" however, I may not always be wording my messages the way I mean to, so I am not judging you or assuming, so if you feel that way, it isn't my intention. Especially right now when I am also having a challenging cycle.
I ended up having a horrible night last night, I could not seem to get warm, but that was because I was having flashbacks of being in the psych ward where my room's heat was not working, I was given a thin blanket where I could not get warm, I was in shock too and the only attention I got was being checked every 15 minutes that only kept startling me when I really needed so badly to be able to sleep and rest. It was horrible, and I hate when I experience that with flashbacks and body memories, even when I don't want to, or am not even thinking about it.

((Hugs))

OE

(((OE))) I am sorry that you are having a tough time also....I can imagine it must be terribly hard right now. I do hope you are taking care of yourself, being kind and gentle and giving yourself space to rest and refresh as you need to. I can see you have agood heart OE.

Don't worry about me, it was my fault for responding when I was triggered. I know you meant the very best trying to offer me some kind and thoughtful comments.

I am doing a little better now, although completely exhausted and feeling a little out of sorts emotionally..... a bit up and down. Lack of sleep is adding to that.

It's okay Jane, as long as you are ok. I understand triggers and responding from a trigger. I have lost count how many times I have done that. But it's actually helpful to have it in writing and be able to ponder the trigger and track it, I had to do that a lot at PC, especially the first year, I was not doing well at all that year.

((Hugs))
OE

Jane