Once again... I am skipping chapter seven. I wrote some answers last time I made a post and saved them, but they haven't resonated with me yet. The questions nor the answers I put down. I will sit on that chapter and move forward. Maybe it will come to me in another order. Or maybe it'll always hang in the abyss of my consciousness for years until it finally does click into place. You can never predict how a brain will absorb information, especially mine.
Sometimes it is really difficult to hold in my pain. Or my anger. Or anything, really. I lash out. I get snippy. I can be a jerk. I can be a bitch. I can say things that I realize are hurtful. The fact that I am trying at all, gives me some hope. I used to think that I needed to be perfect and kind and nice all the time or no one would like me. I stopped sharing parts of myself that were not exactly "appropriate" and over time, I didn't know those parts of myself as well. I took a trip to India and I realized there, that those parts of myself aren't meant to stay hidden. I'm only meant to soften the edges around them. I can have unpleasant feelings. I'm allowed. I can grow from them, learn from them, vent, even. I started accepting those parts as a bigger picture of who I am and how I can be towards myself and others. It wasn't an easy road, it's always moving forward, and I learned to be okay with them.
Sometimes, I find myself being so comfortable that I will say anything on my mind. I forget that there are people listening. I've started to think about how my lack of filter has an effect on other's feelings in the workplace. I can sometimes stress out my co-workers or my boss by feeling frustrated. And sometimes, they want to help, but explaining it takes more negative energy than to just fix it. I love to problem solve (and I have no lack for it in my job) but sometimes, I get stuck. Speaking out loud can help with this. I have an added reference now that can help with these moments. "I am just thinking out loud, it helps me solve my problems." "I don't need you to fix anything or even listen, I'm just verbalizing to process." These have come a long way, just like me.
It always seems to be around a big or super or full moon that feelings get so loud! I cannot say how many fights or bickering matches I broke up between my kiddos (and ones I participated in) all evening yesterday because it just became the night itself. I told them both, as I was frustrated and a little irritated, that we need less screens and more family time. We need more time to play with the cats. Play with our friends. Play games with each other. Be alone and just exist in our own worlds. Work on our mental health and check in with each other. Especially for my daughter these days, I see that she needs mental health checks so much more than she used to. My son was always resistant to mental health chats but he, begrudgingly, will participate if there is a professional present, if he likes them. My daughter is lacking in a professional and while I fight with my wallet and lack of insurance coverage to find a child therapist, I am doing it all on my own. This has its own weight and I have to speak to someone about that, too. It's a perpetual cycle that I had no intentions of ever putting myself or my children in, but here we are. Just cycling around and trying to jump to the next layer of healing as often as we can.
The issue of screen time is also cyclical. They have some games that eat up all their attention. There's drawing apps. Their friends who cannot come over are online chatting and playing in games with each other. There's a thin sense of community there that they don't get without the screen. I'll admit, as an introvert who was taught to be quiet (be neither seen nor heard), I have the whole being alone thing down pretty solid. It was a challenge for me to not use my friends and family as a crutch to my own feelings (and yes, I did fuck up relationships, a lot of relationships, from not being healed from this co-dependency). I can now be alone and I enjoy my time. In fact, I will choose to be alone sometimes, just so I can reset. I often spend this time reading. Sometimes, I write, sometimes I don't for months. I take long baths. I cook. I tidy up and de-clutter. I draw or color or create art, even less often. But, I have things that I am always working on. Little projects or a story to read, something. I remember when I felt like I needed someone to just sit with me or be around me and then I would get annoyed and irritated because it didn't solve the feeling I was having. I would create an excuse, a reason, a made-up story, to just cut myself off from them. Whether it was a subconscious choice or not, I would beg to be near people and then push them away. It was infuriating to not understand how to deal with it.
I am trying to teach this to my kids. Everyone needs alone time. Self-care time. The self-care that is shoved down our throats these days is not what I mean. Although, taking a bath and having a little spa routine is very nice and can be a small form of self-care from the perspective that it feels relaxing and nice to do. However, working on art or crafts or simply making a choice to eat a healthy snack instead of something unhealthy can be self-care. Saying, no, thank you when you are overwhelmed and need a break from tasks or people, is self-care. Self-care isn't something that costs money. It's just choosing yourself and aligning with your own wants, desires, and needs instead of living for someone else. My self-care game has been great lately. But, I also see where I still struggle.
Rejection sensitive dysphoria is a current struggle. I want to be liked, who doesn't? But, I feel pain about not being liked at the smallest things and in the worst moments. I've been accepting these and feeling through these portions of my interactions, even if I messy cry over something as simple as my friend saying no to a cup of coffee that I didn't anticipate. Being in healthy relationships means sometimes people say no to you. And I would love to work on saying no to people. The problem for me is that I am a people pleaser by nature and I want them to be happy, and a lot of the times, I just don't care which choice gets made. I like both choices. So, I give that power to someone else. I've been keeping an eye on being more assertive in what I want and then knowing deep down I could take or leave either choice, but then they are adamant about the other choice. So I just say, okay. Even though, I think it's my turn to have the final say. But, does it even matter to me? Not really. So I am letting them go. As little as they are, I worry that I will care out of nowhere at some point. That enough of the okay, whatever you want will pile up into a mass that screams it's never what you actually wanted, though and I'll be angry. Say the wrong thing. I don't know. I have created these little spots in my mind that I want to go out with someone and do a fun thing. I create these great dates and then I can't follow through sometimes. Those hurt, but ultimately, it's okay, in the end. I do live another day despite the fact I didn't get things that I wanted or to be around people I wanted to. I've started to come up with back-up plans. If they don't want to go to the movies with me, then I will write. Or, if they can't meet me at the event, I'll go alone and bring my book. Or I can ask someone else to go with me, if they don't want to. It's surprising how much that these little changes in my mind has helped me realize so many things I need to work on and how far I have come in processing my feelings and guiding my children through them, too.
There is no miracle fix. There are times when I'm just annoyed. Or hurt. Or sad. I cry. Ugly cry. I dip into the mentality of no one loves me and then I come back out the other side wondering why I was so upset. I explore it and find out that there were other times that I had been hurt or annoyed or angry or sad and then I start to remember why I was feeling so big about it. I didn't finish processing those feelings in the past. So I do now. I let them ride until I feel better and then next time, it's not as bad. It hurts less. It feels somewhat more reasonable to deal with like a normal occurrence in my life.
The worst part is dealing with big feelings when there are two little people who process things similarly and also completely different from myself and each other and we all clash in this ball of rage. The tantrum of the century can occur. We all get upset. We all yell. We all say things that hurt and wish we didn't but we're in it too deep to turn back now (my adult version is different than their kid version, but I can see the hurt from a simple phrase that wasn't intended the way it hit- and I know exactly the feeling they have in those moments and I say, fuck, internally to the trauma they will share as adults about the one thing I said around a full moon in January of early 2026 that re-shaped their entire inner world and caused them to have a thorn in their side for an unintentional you're being annoying or whatever it was I said). But, there is actually a way out. To stop. Say sorry. Explain that it wasn't your intention. To explain how it could have been handled better. To follow through and not say that again, or anything similar, and to have a better handle on yourself.
I spend a lot of my energy asking the kids to separate themselves. From me. From each other. I tell them to go to their rooms to be alone with their stinky attitude. I tell them to stop trying to fight when it's not anything worth fighting about. But yet, it still happens. They still go head first into bickering and arguing and forcing me to take their friends, screens, and desserts away until they can play nicely again. This is only the beginning of winter, the end of winter break, and the moon is big and causing conflict, again. I want to scream, sometimes. I want to just take a nap, sometimes. I just want things to be peaceful, and I forget what peace is just as I forget how it can be broken, in the gaps when the kids are here and they aren't. I know that this time period is temporary. Someday, they will figure it all out, just as I try to help them to, they will see what they should say and do and think twice about being the person who just kicks the other kid to cause chaos.
I think I'll buy less ibuprofen, then.
Chapter 8:
What's your current relationship to conflict?
I hate conflict, to be honest. Some people enjoy it, weirdly. But, I am of the opinion that it is stupid. I think that people have the capabilities to be kind to each other and enjoy each other's company and if they aren't, there's other people to be around. Problems happen, sure, but you could take a second and read what people wrote or process what was said or ask for time to think about what you want to say/reply/write before causing an issue. I've certainly made mistakes in communication, but I do my best not to, because I do hate conflict.
When there's a perceived conflict, what do you fear will happen if you face it?
I always fear that I will lose people/relationships. I don't want to say goodbye to the potential of relationships. I always think that things can change. Things can be different. People can change and be different. I want to see what happens. I have curiosity for the potential that I see in people and relationships. This has gotten me in so much trouble, in my past. I am working towards more potential for seeing what can grow, instead. Letting things just settle before I respond can make a mountain of difference in seeding relationships.
What do you need during conflict (whether it's from yourself or the other person) that would feel soothing to you?
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