Abuse doesn't stay with the abuser. It stays with the abused, and you carry those feelings with you always. - Evil Lives Here, "To Infinity and Back" S9/Ep8 ID
I just saw this on a TV show on ID and it made me want to save this woman's statement because it is so true, or at least it is in my case, especially now that MD is dead. WOW! That means that if I am the one who keeps resurrecting MD, that
she isn't responsible for that resurrection, but rather that I am. That's also confusing me: am I
healing by remembering and letting go or am I simply
ruminating (chewing that old cud from decades ago) and continuing the abuse in MD's absence? It's food for thought.
===========(many days later, fighting for my sanity and trying to avoid the abyss of Clinical Depression)
So what's the big deal about a weed eater? No big whoop, right? WRONG. So I'm out there a few days ago and my old weedeater sputtered and DIED.
I tried to do what I could, but when DS came out he declared it deceased and we took out its battery and he placed it into the black garbage can (appropriately black) and we said our goodbyes. But I had already planned for this to eventually happen. I then asked DS if he'd get the OTHER NEW weedeater that I'd purchased at the same time as the old one so we'd have one just in case and one that took the same batteries (I have 4 of the batts), and this seemed to be the perfect time. It was just a small delay. Again, no big whoop.
But we have two dogs and a WHOLE BIG BUNCH of horrible fox tail weeds standing tall out there, and I have already had to pull one out of Boots' eye and taken Mittens to the vet for one in her ear. They're easy to mow down with a weedeater, but
without one? UH...NO!! But my requesting DS to do anything more than to LOOK at the weedeater was enough to really irk him. He later said sorry and that it was because he wasn't feeling well. He was so irked that he grabbed a hammer in frustration (we are autistic and sometimes we flare when frustrated) and broke the replacement weedeater. I didn't cry from frustration myself, but I was SO close to losing it. But instead I ordered a new one, same as before; luckily Amazon still carried that exact model. It got here on Sat. and I was thrilled! But they all need that tiny bit of assembly to attach the safety guard, and only today, with mere minutes left until he had to work today until midnight, he
insisted on setting it up for me RIGHT NOW. I was saying that it could wait until tomorrow. But no, he insisted, saying that it wouldn't take long.
AND THEN HE BROKE THIS ONE, TOO. He says it can't be fixed. I could use it without the guard on it, just like I see the professional gardeners using, but should I? I was so upset and heartbroken that I just sobbed. That upset DS, too, and he stormed off and left for work. I sat in the kitchen crying for about a half hour, and then went to my room and began to ruminate AGAIN. Or shall I say I sat there REFLECTING? That sounds much less non-judgemental. I can't help but remember some times when others treated me like this. One fellow even broke my dishes and then asked if I still wanted him to do the dishes. DS's father put up two of my window treatments in my bathroom, but then said he'd "hurt his thumb" and could no longer help me. MD is a PRIME example of this type of "chore abandonment". And now? I am EXPECTED, at 76 yrs. old, morbidly obese with a heart and lung condition and about every arthritic type known to mankind, and recovering from breast cancer surgery (
and gout
and cellulitis - NOT cellulite! big difference!)
AND diabetes, to clean up this whole mess around here
ALL BY MYSELF!
As I sat there pondering about all this and how abandoned I was feeling, I realized that I'd been treated like this by just about everyone for my entire life. GOD FORBID that I would find myself in need. The attitude was like MD said, "You made your bed. YOU get YOURSELF out of it!!"
And that's how it always was: if I provided for myself, and even others, I was ok. But if I needed something from someone else, forget about it! And so it went. I did attract a lot of people, needy people, greedy people, tricksters, but these people had nothing to give to me when it came down to it. And I was TOLD about codependence, but never quite really understood it and how it was effecting me. That was a LONG, LONG time ago. I get it now!
Or maybe not so much. I need to ponder this some more.
From Psychology Today's website:
Codependency is a dysfunctional relationship dynamic where one person assumes the role of "the giver," sacrificing their own needs and well-being for the sake of the other, "the taker."
I am the provider ("the giver"?). I've always been the provider, either for myself or for my kids or even my other relationships. I was shunned and eventually just kept away from my nuclear family by MD. I was taken advantage of by a great many people, even when all I had was a Welfare check to live on and an apartment in the Projects.
My life today is sort of like being on Welfare, but with money. I am not under a boss or a work schedule, and I can do what I please. The trouble is that I
can't do it all by myself anymore. I'm not 25 or even 55, and my energy is lacking. And it's only going to get worse. What will I do when I need care or when I can't protect myself? Will DS just shout me down and break my things if he gets upset? I need some help and I need some TLC.
I'm losing what little trust I had. DS is hot and cold, and I never know just what I'll be facing.
I know what old age looks like. I also know how those who were cared for all their lives by the best of people can turn on a dime and abandon those people in their time of need. That frightens me...deeply! I took care of my grandparents towards the end of their lives. I lived in the little cottage out back. Yep, the same one, only this time I was the one that had the little child. I had NO nurse's or geriatric training of ANY kind, but I was definitely my grandparent's caregiver. I used to say that I had all of the responsibility with none of the authority, and it was painfully true. I was in my mid-20s. Watergate was happening and then Nixon bowed out (Aug. 1974) and then Ford (briefly) and Carter were in the White House. It was a rough time, but on Welfare, especially how it was so generously set up then (
plenty of food stamps and the BEST medical available), I barely noticed except for the often bare grocery store shelves. Yes, empty shelves happened then, too. This is nothing new. During that time they coined the term "stagflation": (job) stagnation-(prices) inflation. Home loans were at 18% and higher! But back then, for me, home ownership was just a pipe dream. I was lucky to have a place to stay.
Think Inflation Is Bad Now? Let's Take A Step Back To The 1970s
May 29, 2021The 1970s are starting to trend - for all the wrong reasons. ... upward spiral like the one that spawned "stagflation" in the '70s and haunted presidents from Richard Nixon to Jimmy Carter. ... www dot npr dot org
Both my grandparents were suffering from really severe dementia by then. MD lived over here, 100 miles away from the rest of us then, and was simply not interested in her ADOPTIVE parents and never came to help out or even oversee. She was very embarrassed of all of us LESS THAN "elegant" people. She figured that if she "acted elegant" that no one would know her as anything less. It never worked.
She still spoke with a heavy mid-Western accent: "warsh" instead of wash and "crick" instead of creek. My Aunt M lived in town, and she was good, but had a demanding, cheating, and abusive husband who didn't want her to give her attention to ANYONE but him, not even a phone call. She was the complete opposite of MD, meek and mild and certainly no match for either MD OR her own husband.
She even had me HIRE (ME!!
) the live in help that I'd insisted on getting. I was being responsible for both "incontinent dementia patients" (my beloved grandparents, but a LOT of work!!), doing it from my house across the yard, and doing it 24/7/365. IMPOSSIBLE! I didn't even know what to ask the people who responded. I'd know now, but back then, NO. So I hired the ONE lady that actually came out there, asking her very few questions. Later on, I caught her stealing a big beef roast out of the freezer for her own family and had her put it back. I also "fired" her, but she laughed in my face and told me that ONLY my Aunt M could do that. She knew that my Auntie never would, and so did I, but she'd never met MD!
I was gently told by my Aunt, however, to stand down, to do nothing, and to not "stir the pot" with our "help", even while her own helpless mother was being ripped off like that!! She never even took the time to come over.
Then one day I heard this bitch SLAPPING my GM HARD and SCREAMING at her. It was warm and my screen door was open and so were the windows in my GM's back bedroom. Only 40 ft. of lawn separated the two buildings, so I could hear this quite plainly. I had been told that IF I stepped in to stop the abuse and this HORRIBLE person then left our employ, I would simply be put out in the street, bag and baggage, no questions asked. In desperation, I called MD. Even SHE could hear the slapping and screaming over the phone! So she grudgingly agreed to come the 100 miles and FIRE this woman! And she did just that: Abusive woman grinning from ear to ear, "Hi! I'm D. Nice to meet you." MD: "Hi! I'm this woman's daughter and YOU'RE FIRED!!" I was still being held outside, but could hear through the open window. IT WAS MOST SATISFYING to hear that, I can assure you!!
Still MD did not stay. Within the time it took to usher D out the door, MD had piled herself BACK into the car with my father and DB, and they were GONE AGAIN, back to their home 100 miles away. I don't recall her even speaking to me. It was always that way.
The way my GM died was that I was not told by the latest "nurse", a fairly good one that I became friends with, that my GM was sick and that she'd called both an ambulance and my Aunt. They whisked my GM off to the hospital without my knowledge. They were very crowded, according to my Aunt, and they put my GM in the hallway on a gurney. This was about dinnertime and my abusive uncle wanted my Aunt HOME cooking dinner for HIM, SO HOME SHE WENT, frightened by my uncle's whining,
ABANDONING MY GM AT THE HOSPITAL. STILL, no one said anything to me. I would have happily been there as I was
every single time before. This JERK of an uncle couldn't have thrown a pot pie into the oven or something?
And why didn't my Aunt or even our "nurse" just walk out there - IT'S A SHORT WALK! - and NOTIFY ME?? But instead, my GM was abandoned in a hospital hallway where she choked to death (unobserved??) due to an old auto accident injury that had messed up her neck. It still makes me cry. If I'd have been there, I'd have grabbed a nurse or a doctor and gotten her help IMMEDIATELY...but I wasn't there. They didn't tell me that she was where she was, all by herself, demented, probably scared, and then she choked to death...alone. OMG!!
And all so my idiotic uncle could have a hot meal.
While I lived the little cottage in the back as an adult, I GARDENED! A LOT! My GM LOVED it when I brought fresh veggies in from every little cranny of dirt on the property: carrots, radishes, tomatoes, squash, you name it! I grew it. And as an old Omaha farm girl, my GM appreciated it, too. Once I planted sunflowers for her, and when they got to be toweringly tall and the heads just began to bend down with the weight of the seeds in them, I took GM out to the way back yard to show her. The instant she saw them, her hand went up to her mouth and she began to cry. "Oh, sweetheart! I haven't seen sunflowers like this since I lived in Nebraska." Then I got two chairs and we just sat there admiring the sunflowers. ♥♥♥ I really miss my grandparents! ♥♥♥
I need to get busy, though. I'm redoing my desk/computer area: smaller "desks" (folding tables), a PRINTER AGAIN, new keyboard that doesn't stick, and the happiness of having a LOT more room to move around in without so much fear of falling. I'm also sorting out the boxes "cluttering" my room (moved in here to clear a way to
move the computer ROLL TOP DESK "immediately" [remember that? Years ago?])...PLUS working on the Storage Room...and if I'm still wide awake (and can still walk), I'm going out into the wilds of my garage for some serious tidying up out there as well. DS picked up my sand for me and I'm dying to use it to plant seeds (saw that method on the internet) and to eliminate the indoor fungus gnats that have plagued me in my attempts to grow plants from seeds under my grow lights. Sprinkle a ½" of playground sand on top of the potting soil and the fungus gnats are a thing of the past! (Supposedly - we'll see.)
======================(Friday 2am)
But life seems a whole lot better at this time. DS FIXED MY WEED-EATER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YES!!! And he did a whole lot of other chores that really sweetened my mood.
====================(Friday 9pm)
Slept all day. Need to write more, but I'll send this overlong diatribe now and then writing what's on my mind currently. My abuse just keeps haunting me and writing it out like a journal really helps me to cope with it all.
Honeybera
I literally ended up with BATTLE FATIGUE and SHELL SHOCK due to MD, my OWN MOTHER! And when I saw that, I got tears in my eyes and stopped the video and came here. WOW. 
