Hey all,
I don’t know how many of you remember that book, or if it was even published and available in your “space,” but I remember and still like it because it is a children’s book and it is not all sunshine and rainbows and unicorns. (Call me grouchy, but I have a thing against unicorns.)
Earlier last week, I was having my version of that book and I wrote about it on here. You can read it at https://avmsurvivors.org/t/ive-never-had-this-well-not-to-this-extreme/23438. If you do, please read the comments because they are much more valuable, in my opinion.
Things got better as the week went on, but more importantly, things got better as I began to regain control over my life. I wasn’t allowing my teenagers to attempt to act like the world revolves around them (their three older sisters did, why shouldn’t they, right?) I was able to purposely space activities out and not do anything for too long.
But now I have two questions - and these are topics my Randy (counselor) and I have discussed a lot.
Question #1 How do you get your significant other to understand what you’re going through and help create space for that, not make it worse. The way I look at it, if you have something going on signfiicant enough to comment or make it known to the people around you, “My head is killing me this morning.” What’s the best way to help them see it without it looking like you’re a whiny old#$%@#?
The way I see it, sometimes there are things they can do, sometimes there are not. When there aren’t, then the thing we are mainly looking for is validation. An example of how my significantly better half and I have worked it out - she is a nurse and occasionally has time to check and return messages on her phone. Typically it’s mealtimes and brief breaks (she works 12-hour shifts). So, in the middle of the morning, I might send her a message and say something like, “I hope your day is going well. I woke up with one of my non-alcoholic hangovers and feel really lousy. But the kid who still needs to get out to the school bus made it on time.” She wouldn’t be sure how to react because it made her feel like I was asking her to cure my headaches.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’d love it if she was able. But we talked it through and realized that what i really was looking for was someone close to me who said, “I see you. I see that you’re not okay. That’s okay to not be okay. Hang in there, I love you.”
Hang in there. I love you.
So what other tools/ideas do you have or have you heard of or thought of that might be helpful in these types of situations?
TJ
P.S. If you missed it the other day, @ModSupport compared me to Bill Murray. I think it was a compliment but I’m not going to tell you where - you have to go find it.