Overwhelmed

I consider myself a simple person with a big heart and for the life of me I cannot wrap my head around the concept of my spouse believing they are alone in their life. I do not know were to begin my story, do I just talk about today and over time slowly disclose my history through a series of flashbacks? Do I set the background by giving a history of myself and letting you make your judgements on me based on my past? We all have a past and we can only take it and learn from it to make us better growing versions of ourselves, or we can just continue on the same trajectory and not learn and hope for the best. I like option one on both sets of questions. I like a good movie that just jumps right into the character and we learn about them as the movie dramatically moves forward and we make our judgements about who they are when we first get acquainted with the character and I like to believe that we all want to be better versions of ourselves, if not then why do we go through this process of life if we are who we are when we are young and stupid.

So, that means I will skip the introduction and just jump right into the current story of my life. Somehow we live in a world where it is easier to pour our hearts out to complete strangers in the cyber world and put it all out there for people who don’t even know to judge us or root for us to succeed. I put overwhelmed up there because that is my life at times. I am an anxious person and I want to understand things that I cannot understand. I want the story behind the story. I want to know the why.

Why am I overwhelmed then? I am overwhelmed because of me and my own actions and reactions to parts of my life that I cannot fathom someone can struggle with certain tendencies. I am overwhelmed because I grew up in a home where personal things were not discussed. I am overwhelmed because my spouse is the complete opposite of me, which is great, but can lead to anxiety. I am overwhelmed because I live with a spouse who battles mental demons that come along with combating depression, OCD (really not just self-diagnosed), and struggles with borderline tendencies. Yes, that is why I am overwhelmed. How do you communicate with someone whose mind self-translates things that are not being spoken and takes those translations and refuses to accept other translations. I should have titled this one Lost in Translation. Today’s trigger was my forgetfulness of wiping a peace of paper prior to putting it in its proper location. Yes, wipe paper with a Clorox wipe to ensure it is germ free before going to its home. Now this brings flashbacks of miscommunications in the past that included my improper handling of the dryer lint tray, of miscommunications of what was in a trash can that needed to be take outside (this may sound simple, but taking out the trash requires a shower afterward so taking out the trash is a task that requires proper timing and scheduling in line with showers as to not add more showers to the day, I do take two regularly).

So, why am I overwhelmed? No it is not because of my spouse, I am overwhelmed at the anxiety I bring onto myself and the fears of getting something wrong and suffering the consequences of being called names and being called selfish. I have read a great deal into how to manage these things and some of you may say don’t put up with that crap, but I say I am not putting up with it by not engaging in the return fire. These just aren’t any names, these are personal attacks that make sailors plug their ears.

Learning how to cope with this took years not to take it personal, it was not who I am now. I fought back with equal strength in my past and when my spouse threatened to commit suicide with her words (they did this four times that I can remember before I responded), I actually answered with “just do it already.” See, I am an asshole. That is why I wanted to start with who I am today, not who I was over 10 years ago, as is my spouse who has also said to me “I hope you feel pain so you understand how it feels.” Are you overwhelmed for me yet? I am not looking for pity. I am only doing this to tell you that you are not alone, and you can be a greater version of yourself and to provide you with hope and understanding that if you have someone like this in your life, that it is not a personal attack on you. WTF, really, I was just called the worse name in the english language and its not personal? Yep that is exactly what I am saying. It is not personal that my spouse (literally) just left the house because I did not wipe a piece of paper and when they asked for space I went into my office and closed the door and now I am being called selfish for doing so and for the thousandth time in our marriage I do not know if they are coming home or not? None of it is personal.

I am not going to go all theological on you, whatever you do is your business, just do something that brings warmth to your heart and builds you into the person you want to be when you grow up. I hope my spouse will return as they typically do and we can live our lives better and better each day and have more good days between the bad days and continue to grow more good days and be the best versions of ourselves that we can be on that day. I am writing this as I am signing the Valentine’s Day cards for my spouse and that alone is all I need. I will deal with the anxieties and overwhelming feelings when they come and my hope is that when you read this you will know that you are not alone and as someone who was in the military for over 20 years and dealt with deployments to not so great places and as someone who has had over 30 surgeries in the past 8 years dealing with ONE health issue (that is my teaser to keep you tuned in for more), I assure you that when you feel overwhelmed and anxious you are as normal as they come. Thank you for “listening” and I look forward to unraveling my story to a world of strangers.