Disinfecting a Poisoned Well

This is what DH and I have spent the entire weekend doing.  Literally.
The apt metaphor of healing from a NFOO did not escape me.

The well
About a month ago, we started to notice a distinct... ah... odor in our water supply.  Yeah, let's just stick with 'distinct odor' as a description.  Ahem.
We live in a rural area and have a well, so I've had some experience with troubles of this kind before.  Typically, what I've come across are various mineral deposits or issues with rusty pipes, etc.  There are various treatments - like water softeners - to remove the minerals.  I thought this is the type of problem we were dealing with.  I assumed that DH would tell me we needed to look into getting a water softener.  Given what I knew, this was not an unreasonable assumption.
The NFOO
I remember realizing that there were significant problems in my NFOO.  I thought that I would be able to draw boundaries, have honest conversations, state what my needs and desires were and that we would fix the problem together.  I assumed that the members of my NFOO were reasonable people and that we would find a way to improve communication and fix it.

The well
About a week after the distinct odor appeared and did not go away, I asked DH what we needed to do. I thought it was odd that he hadn't said anything, but figured that he hadn't smelled it.  He often comments that his "sniffer's broke," then pretends to be a redneck and hee-haws while sniffing around comically.  (He worked with a lot of chemicals when he was younger and doesn't seem to be able to smell much.)  He said that we needed to have our well-water tested.  I went to our local health department, got the materials and learned when I could drop off a sample of our water, which as it turns out is only once a week.  We waited for the appropriate day and then turned in the water sample and were told that we would be mailed results.  I assumed that we'd get a test back telling us that we had excess of mineral X and that we'd figure out how to treat that excess of mineral X.
The NFOO
After spending some time trying to improve communication between the members of the NFOO and myself, nothing had improved.  I began to seek different tools to work on the problem.  I sought counseling, and when I talked to my therapist for the first time about what was happening in my NFOO and how it was beginning to effect me, he began by suggesting some simple tests.  for one, he asked me to identify a boundary that I needed to set with the NFOO and to go through the process that I would take in setting that boundary.  We decided that I would talk to my mother and father alone and I would ask them to respect boundary X.   I assumed that I would have a civil conversation with them and we would identify a plan for implementing boundary X.

The well
About three weeks after we identified the distinct odor, last Monday, in fact, which was just not the best damn day, we received the test results back.  The results were not good.  Our well had a bacterial problem.  This is not what I'd expected, this was a horse of an entirely different color.  I wasn't sure what I was dealing with anymore.  I was afraid.
The NFOO
My talk with my mother and father did not go as planned.  The were not receptive to my new boundary.  They interrupted me while I was speaking, and then changed my words and threw them back at me.  The accused me of things.  They said that I was being unreasonable.  They ignored my husband and told me that I had always been 'difficult.'  They completely discounted my boundary.  And after they left, I received a nasty, screaming phone call from my sister, accusing me of trying to hurt all of 'them.'  I was suddenly on the outside of 'them.'  This is not what I'd expected, this was an entirely different animal than I'd thought it was.  I wasn't sure what I was dealing with anymore.  I was afraid.

The well
I asked DH if he knew what we needed to do, how we identified what kind of bacteria this was, where it came from, how to stop it, how to fix it.  He said that we needed to disinfect the well.  He said that this would require chemicals, like bleach.  He asked me to research online (something he's not good at,) and see if I could find specifications for how much would be required and any kind of instructions to accomplish this.  I said that I would.
The NFOO
I went back to my counselor, emotionally battered and bruised.  I asked him how I could fix the problem with my family, how I could get them to respect my (by now plural) boundaries that I'd had to draw.  I asked him how I could feel safe again, and how I could not be afraid.  He asked me to keep doing the work and stay in the process.  I said that I would.

The well
In doing the research, I found that I would need to know the depth of the well in order to determine how much bleach to use to disinfect it.  At this point in my mind, this was still a fairly simple process, mind you.  DH happened to be home and I wasn't, so I called him and asked him how deep the well was.  He told me that he'd have to open the well casing and drop a tape measure to be sure, but that he thought it was about twenty-five feet.  I thought that this was odd, because I was looking at a graph that showed depths up to five hundred feet.  Still, I figured that he knows more about wells, has more experience with wells than I do, so I waited for him to call me back.  Surely, I thought, it can't be only twenty-five feet.
The NFOO
In asking these questions of my counselor and going through the process of identifying specific issues that needed to be addressed in my relationship with my NFOO, I began to discover that there were some connections weren't what they'd seemed.  I started to redefine actions that I'd previously seen as 'love' or 'family' and I began to wonder if I really knew what I was dealing with.  My counselor gave me specific lists of questions that I should ask myself about my relationships with all the members of the NFOO while I was interacting with them and after I'd interacted with them.  He asked me to take ten minutes after any phone call with any of them to write down five words that described how I felt.  I thought this was odd, because I didn't see how identifying how I felt after I talked to them would help me to get them to stop violating my boundaries.  Still, I figured that he knows more about family systems, has more experience with family systems than I do, so I agreed to follow the instructions. Surely, I thought, this won't tell me what I need to know.

The well
I'd always thought that we had a drilled well, which was the only type of well I knew about.  This is a hole drilled into the ground a long way, several hundred feet I thought, with a pipe jammed all that way down into the water table.  There's a pump at the top to pull all that cool, clear, mother nature filtered water to the surface and pump it into our home, right?
The NFOO
I'd always thought that my family made me feel good about myself.  Sure, they were a little demanding sometimes, but they couldn't help that.  It's just they came off like that sometimes.  They were basically good and loyal and loved me, they just weren't very good at giving me the space I needed.  They depended on me too much because I was too dependable, but I'd had depend on them before too.  These people were my family and that meant that they loved me, right?

The well
This was not the case, I learned.  Our well is not a drilled well.  Our well is in our basement, well, below our basement, technically.  Our well was dug using a backhoe.  Our well is accessed via a giant, four foot tall concrete box with a lid on it that opens onto a twenty-five foot deep hole in the ground with concrete cylindrical forms for walls.  There's mud twenty five feet down there.  This was not the mythical crystal clear water flowing from under the earth to nourish my family's health.  This was a hole in the ground in our basement.  My illusions were shattered.
The NFOO
The way I felt after those phone calls was not the way I had thought I would feel.  My family did not make me feel what I anticipated; loved, happy, safe.  My family made me feel: dark, angry, frustrated, cold, helpless, powerless, stupid, confused, sick, bad.  This was not the cherished bosom of the family crest that I'd been sold on.  This was hurtful, this was abuse.  My hopes were shattered.

The well
I bought bleach on my way home from work.  I assumed that we would pour bleach into the well in the correct amount, run the bleach water through all the taps and wait the prescribed 12-24 hours.  I was upset that I would have to go a day without a shower, but willing to make the sacrifice.
The NFOO
I learned that I did not want to feel the way that my family made me feel after those calls.  I resolved that I would not let them treat me that way, that I would not let them make me feel that way anymore. I decided that I'd had enough and that I wouldn't be letting them talk to me in such a manner the next time.  I knew that I would probably take some heat, maybe even be hung up on a couple of times, but I was willing to do so in order to hold my ground.

The well
DH laughed when I brought the bleach home after work on Tuesday and asked him if he was ready to do this disinfecting thing.  "No, babe," he said, "we have to get more tools and we'll need more time."  We had to obtain pumps, I was told, to get all of the water out of the well and remove whatever might be causing the problem.  "What could be causing it?" I asked, thinking that we were talking about a rusty pipe or a crack with mold in it or something like that.  I was a little dumbfounded wondering what could be causing the problem.
The NFOO
All of my efforts to safeguard myself were summarily shut down.  I was being a spoiled brat, I was told, and I had no right to ask for what I was asking for.  I would NOT be granted what I was asking for.  The phone began to ring constantly.  Instead of backing off on demands and honoring my boundaries, there were new demands, more demands and now the demands began to be accompanied by snide remarks and rude comments that I hadn't heard before.  I was dumbfounded by how I was being treated and couldn't understand why.

The well
Yesterday, DH began the process to pump out the well.  He soon realized that he would need a particular kind of ladder, and that the only way to get said ladder would be to ask for help from my father-in-law.  FIL can't pass up a project without joining in, so he brought the ladder and came to help.  I asked him in passing if he thought they'd have to pump it completely dry for us to clean it up.
He told me that we'd certainly have to get it all the way down to the ground in order to clear up the problem, or, in his words, "To get whatever critter is in there out, you know."
There was a dead animal in our well.  Holy hell.  Holy carp.  Holy fuck.  Our water was full of rotting carcass.  Fuck me, that's a nightmare.
The NFOO
The longer the situation deteriorated with the NFOO, the more crazy calls I had, the farther we/they tumbled down the rabbit hole, the more I reached out to the obviously sane people around me.  They let me know that they were there to help and they would do anything they could for me.  I asked them if they thought I would be okay, if it would be okay, if I'd 'get my family back.'  They began to tell me that from what they'd seen, I was being abused.  I began to realize that the issues were lifelong and deep.  My family was, indeed, out to get me.  They would never, ever, ever stop pushing and hurting and shaming me.  And they were hurting (in some ways already) or going to hurt my DDs in exactly the ways they had and were hurting me.  Holy hell.  Holy carp.  Holy fuck.  My family was full of dysfunction and narcissism and the chosen perpetration of that on other people.  Fuck me, that's a nightmare.

The well
We worked to remove the... ah... atrocity.  We pumped in new water and added bleach.  We ran the clean water and the disinfectant through every linear foot of pipe, faucet or fixture in the house.  We allowed it to sit and work away at the germs.
The NFOO
This atrocity as well has - after much work - been removed.  I've spent years cleaning house and getting rid of the parasites, germs and other rank shit they left behind.

The well
The water is now clean.  I'm glad it's clean.  I like the idea that it's clean and free of poison.  That's great.  But now that I know what was wrong in the first place, we're never exposing our family to the risk of such contamination again.  The filtration system will be installed by the end of next month.
The NFOO
This well too is now clean, at least on my end.  There is no more poison allowed to enter my system through that portal, because I installed a shutoff valve and locked it shut a while ago.  I won't be exposed to that risk of contamination again.

The moral of these true stories?
If you're not absolutely, positively 100% sure that it's good for you, don't drink the water.
Take it from someone who knows, now.

Love,
Vanci

A Holiday How-To

I've always loved this time of year.  Well, truthfully, these last few years I've loved all times of year - there's been so much freedom and growth in my life since I found my path away from the NFOO and, consequently, sobriety, that I've found myself more and more enraptured by the natural world around me.  I find joy in quiet moments in the sun and peace in the sound of rain these days; brief interactions with the world I'd been too busy escaping from to notice before just fascinate me.  But I particularly enjoy watching the world around me change - leaves turning colors and falling, days getting shorter, that crisp feel of a coming frost.  I just love it, and there's something about preparing for winter that just feels right and homey to me.  I like to nest and get ready for the cold, I guess, so I found myself this weekend on a rare trip to the store for new pillows and flannel sheets.

On my way to the housewares department, I couldn't help but notice; the holidays are upon us.  There are costumes aplenty and bins full of little multi-colored dried corn cobs block the aisles.  No matter that it's two and a half months to Christmas, the reds and greens are out in force.  Ah... the holidays.  When everyone gets sentimental for the days of yore and decides that - for at least a few days here and there - family is important.  I've a sneaking suspicion that ACoNs put family first every day of the year - in my former life family took a place of precedence (under duress, I had to take care of the NFOO, don'tcha know,) and since I escaped (for the benefit of my real family, my FOC,) my true family has become of utmost importance.  But the holidays, oh boy, they're a double-edged sword for me. 

I have a different definition of family than most people I know.  Most people define family through DNA and marriage or birth certificates.  That used to be my definition of family, sure, it's the explanation I was given.  And I broke my back and the bank for them, especially around holiday time.  I did it all - the organizing, the driving, the shopping, the cleaning, the cooking, the hosting, everthing to make the holiday season nice and fun and comfy for everyone else.  I received very little in return, one great example of this being the final Christmas pots and pans episode.  The lack of thanks or reciprocation didn't even cross my mind for a lot of years, and when it did, well... who was I to ask for anything?  I didn't want to be selfish, stubborn, greedy or any of the other bad things I believed I would be if I tried to break free of my indentured servitude to the NFOO and their holiday comfort. 

But then, I woke up.  I changed.  I stood up for myself and my real family, which originally only consisted of me, DH and the DD's.  It was in September 2007 that I issued my decree of NC with the Crazymakers.  Just in time for the holidays.  Grieving, shell shocked, traumatized beyond belief and having NO idea how to do the holidays right with just the four of us, I almost lost it just before the holidays that year.  I felt like my heart had been ripped from my chest at times, and I wanted desperately for the pain to stop.  So I made a plan.  It helped.  A lot.  And here I am, going into holiday season number five without the NFOO around, and I have a plan.  It still helps. 

Staring at those greens and reds and little dried corn cobs and pumpkins and costumes last weekend, I couldn't help but think I need to put it out there for you.  Maybe the tips and tricks and plans and advice I've gathered over the last four years of holidays can help you during this holiday season.  I hope so.  So without further ado, I present you with Vanci's Guide to Non-Narc Holidays.

Get through the first year, it will be the hardest.
It's all so new.  I remember that it felt like everything I touched held a painful memory.  The box of Halloween costumes had dresses in it that NM had helped to sew.  Some of the little props - fairy wands and wings - had been made with Narc OS's help.  The princess tiaras were a gift from GCYB.  Every recipe I planned for Thanksgiving had a history, either of coming from NM years prior, or of my having prepared those dishes at the NP's house for everyone in the NFOO.  How on earth am I going to change these dishes that serve twenty people to serve only us, a measley four? I thought.  The ornaments on the tree had history and memories.  There were even some good memories, and those were ever so much harder to deal with.   We want to believe, you know, that things can get better, that maybe this isn't the end of the way that things have always been.  We try so desperately to hold onto that one memory in twenty that was good, or at least not too painful.  Making the best of things is one of the tactics that helped us to survive, after all.  So, in the face of that, knowing that I didn't want to ruin the holidays for my FOC, no matter how small, by allowing the hurt and pain of the 'break-up' to overshadow the family time that we had, I came up with a simple plan:

Don't do anything that you've done before.  
Screw it and screw them, I thought.  I'm not doing the holidays the way that I've been taught.  It didn't work - those holiday traditions that we had didn't make us a good family, a loving family, a kind group of mutually loving people.  Even when I pretended that was the case, it simply wasn't true: those holiday traditions that we had were just another example of the way that the NFOO's dysfunction worked.  NM preened over her potpourri'd house while dropping hints about which of her children would receive special gifts and which wouldn't.  EF bought himself gifts, which he then showed us, making it very difficult to come up with anything we could afford from his very specific and expensive list of desired items.  Narc OS went shopping with EF and pointed out all of the things that she wanted, thereby ensuring that she would receive all of them; some before the holidays and the rest during.  GCYB didn't contribute, but certainly showed up on time to eat and to open all his presents, his many, many presents.  Vanci shopped for gifts for everyone, bought all of the food that she would then prepare, packed up her entire kitchen, all the gifts and her family and drove out to the boontillies to bring the gift of a great holiday to her NFOO.  This went on for years.

So, in year one, I didn't know what to do.  I was at a loss.  So I looked for opposites.
For Halloween, we'd always been obliged to drive our DD's to far reaching family's houses so that everyone could see them all dressed up.  This had been difficult as we live in the North so Halloween is dark and cold.  It's also often on a weekday.  So, after work, we'd get the girls ready, feed them, trick or treat a couple of houses in the neighborhood then start the rounds out to the backwater compound of the Crazymakers.
What's the opposite of that?
Well, we did work, came home, had a snack and got ready and then we drove to a neighborhood where we knew not a soul and trick-or-treated for HOURS randomly.  No one knew us.  We didn't have to make nice with anybody.  The kids got to run wild through the streets till their little princessy legs gave out.  Then we came home and had hot apple cider and sorted candy and watched a movie together with all the lights out.  It was simple and fun and we all had a great time.  And it wasn't like anything we'd ever done with the NFOO.

For Thanksgiving, for the first time ever really, we had a simple meal with a simple day in our own home.  We played out in the yard.  We fried a turkey.  We played card games.  We went for a walk.  We took naps.  We ate mashed potatoes until we were about to explode.  Again, not like the chaos that had reighned over the NFOO Thanksgiving.  No one fought.  No one yelled.  It was awesome and peaceful.

On Christmas Eve, which was traditionally when our presence (and money... and labor...) had been required at the NP's, we stayed home.  We started a tradition of new recipes and we went ethnic, both the DD's helping to meal plan our sweet and sour pork and spicy orange beef that we made from scratch together.  We ate with chopsticks.  We've since done Thai, Indian and Mexican.  My DD's are already talking about what we'll try this year. 
We invited the in-laws over to play board games and they came, bearing a surprising amount of highly thoughtful gifts.  We discovered a new recipe to make - Oreo balls - for Santa, and we left those out instead of the cookies we'd always made before.  On Christmas day we did our regular wake-up, open presents and play with them, but we added a new item: a family gift.  It was a video game that year, and we played together, all four of us for a lot of the day.  This has become a tradition for us... what game will it be this year?
DH made his signature dish for us all, which is a real treat as he only has two dishes he knows how to make.  It was the best Christmas I'd ever had.

You have to leave the old traditions behind sometimes to make room for new ones.  And that is a good thing if you grew up with Narcs - those old traditions aren't friendly.  When the year one holidays were done, DH said, "I've been waiting for those kind of holidays with you for YEARS."

Keep an open mind and a sense of humor.
Letting go of established holiday traditons is hard, coming up with new ones is harder.  Change is hard and new is hard under the best of circumstances, throw a recently recognized lifetime of hurt into the emotional mix and the simple act of putting up the Christmas tree can become overwhelming.  Be patient with yourself.  You're building something from scratch, you know, and you'll make mistakes.  You'll try things that won't work.  It's okay, though, if you can keep it light.  Stretch your wings and take off: make a new recipe, watch a new movie, buy a funky gift for someone, volunteer for something that you didn't have time for before, invite that person that doesn't have anywhere else to go over for Thanksgiving dinner.  Maybe their kid will plug up your toilet with your hairbrush and you'll burn the pie while trying to get the plunger to work.  If it happens, hey, you've just learned who not to invite next year.  And if it happens and you can keep it light and not too serious, well, you'll have a brand spanking new memory and stories to tell in the future about the Thanksgiving That The Plumber Had to Come For Dinner. 

Remember, whether they're good or bad, these new memories and traditions that you're working on will be absolutely awesome if for no other reason than you will OWN them with your FOC.  The N's won't be able to spoil them, and if you're NC, the N's won't even know about them.  So keep laughing, whatever happens and whatever you do, because progress is progress.  If the Bumpous Hounds get the turkey, well, there's always the option of smiling duck at the Chinese food restaurant. 

You're going to be sad/mad/hurt/angry/upset at some point.  Plan for it.
Yes, it sucks to have a crappy family of origin.  It sucks, frankly, ass.  Big ass.  And breaking away for the sake of our sanity and souls is a GOOD thing.  But in the beginning, it can feel like abandoning a sinking ship for shark-infested water.  For awhile, it sucks just as bad to be away from them as it did to be with them, especially when the entire rest of the world is pasting on their happy family holiday faces and signing about heading over the river and through the woods to grandmother's house.   Everyone around you will be talking about their plans, which will invariably involve relatives coming to visit them or vice versa.  They'll be excited about it.  And while you listen to their stories of mirth and joy, you will have a tape running in your head that's playing some version of, "My family sucks, my family hurts me, we're going to be lonely, this is new and wrong, can I be wrong about this, etc, etc, etc..."  You're going to be upset.  Accept it.

I have sacred space in my home where I can go and shut the door and feel everything I need to feel without having to guard my face or my heart for any reason.  I can cry a little there.  I can talk to myself there.  I can pound on things there.  I can breathe there, always.  I can stay there until I am able to reconcile what I feel with what I know and that is this:  I'm mourning what should have been.  I'm mad and angry becuase they hurt me and I let them for far too long.  I'm hurt because they hurt me.  I deserve time and space to heal.  Allow yourself all the time and space you need to process the emotions when they become too much.  Remember that you deserve to be treated well and you deserve to not be hurt.  Don't leave your sacred space until you've said these things outloud.  Don't leave your sacred space until you remember that it's going to get better.  Allow me to repeat this, with emphasis:  Your life is going to get better without them in it.  It might take some time, but hey, if you're like me, you'll have a hell of a lot more time without having to serve the N's anyway. 

What's that?  You don't have sacred space, you say?  I beg to differ!  I've been locking the door, turning on the shower and sitting on the closed toilet lid to deal with my moments of emotional confusion or distress for years.  There's a lot of healing that's happened in my bathroom.  It's a great place for alone time, let's face it.  Nobody really wants to be in there with you anyway!

Initiate a lockdown system.
On our first NC holiday go-round, I carefully shut down my cell phone and placed it in the glove box of my car the night before each major holiday.  I didn't check email.  We didn't have a house phone, so there wasn't a worry there.  We talked to all the in-laws and close friends we had (painfully few on that front) the day before the event and let them know that I would be incommunicado on the holiday, and we told them why.  DH had his (carefully placed on vibrate and completely out of my site) cell phone with him for emergencies, but other than that we fell off the face of the planet on those first holidays. 

It wasn't really a question of whether they were going to contact us or not, we knew they'd try.  It wasn't even a question of what they would say or how they would try to hurt us, we knew that they would find a way.  What it really came down to was self-respect.  I and my FOC deserved to have a nice holiday, that's all.  I couldn't help that they knew where we lived or that they had my number, but I could contol my controllables - I didn't make it easy for them to weasel in and ruin the day. 

They day after Thanksgiving, when I returned to reality and turned on the cell phone, I had messages, sure.  But they hadn't ruined our family's special day; I hadn't had to react to their attempts to contact and was able to put myself in a position to choose when and how I would approach the ugly, if at all. 

I know that we live in a world of constant contact, but have some perspective.  What are holiday's really about?  Celebrating life, enjoying the people who are close to you.  Hopefully all of those people are already there with you, but if they're not and they truly care for you, I can guarantee that they'll be secretly cheering you on when they speak to you the day before or after the holiday.  Shut out the N's capability to reach you and you'll have a much more pleasant holiday.

I know this because I became a little complacent during the holidays of year two: I'd plugged my phone in to charge in the garage and had one of those heart-thumping, blood draining moments of horror when I walked by it to retrieve something and saw that I had a message from NM.  I immediately turned off my phone and moved on, but I'd be lying if I didn't say it had a damper on my day.  (BTW, the message, "Well Vanci, I hope you're having a good day with your family.  That's all I wanted to say.  I love you.  NM."  Emphasis was hers.  LOL.)  So, after that, I've been more precise about making sure my phone's turned off.  Holidays are for family after all, and it's just too bad for them that they don't get to be in mine anymore. 

Those are all of the major points that come to mind right now.  I'll certainly write more as they come to me. 

For now, though, I can hear my new flannel sheets calling...

Love,
Vanci