I have routines upon routines and lists within lists, and I largely live my life by them. Part of this, I know, is due to the symptom/side effect of trauma that I live with to one degree or another everyday; hyper vigilance. Most people who have been subjected to trauma, particularly the abuses that are perpetrated by omniscient and all-powerful authority figures while we are fragile and completely controlled by the tyrants, exhibit signs of hyper-awareness and a near obsessive need to control or plan for contingencies. At least that's what my counselor tells me!
I like to think that I've found a nice balance between pre-planning and spontaneity, though, and I can say without a doubt that the longer I am away from the NFOO and the farther my thinking is from them, the more normalized and balanced I am. I can, in other words, deal with disruptions well, most of the time.
Lately, though, there have been a lot of minor shake-ups in routine, some of which have involved my sleep cycle. I can say also without a doubt that all work and not enough sleep make Vanci a very scary girl. So I've been taking it easy when I can and trying to be patient with myself; saying to my reflection in the mirror - "Hey! It's okay that you don't have the energy to _______. Look at the _______ you accomplished today. Be grateful for _______. Be proud of ________." It's helping. My routine is becoming re-established.
But oh man oh me oh my the Narc legacy just loves to find a way to kick me when I'm down. We say in alcohol recovery that alcoholism is a progressive illness; that even if we dry out, we have to remember that the disease is in the corner behind us doing push-ups and waiting for a chance to jump us. And that the progressive nature of the disease means that it gets worse, never better, if left untreated. I think that the family legacy of the Narcs might be like that too.
I'm out. Officially. Fini. Done. Ties severed. I have no desire to go back, I have no reason to go back and most importantly I couldn't be reinserted into the Matrix if I tried. It is impossible, after all, to unknow a thing once it's known. But they're sneaky, you know, and sometimes I discover that even behind my castle walls they've found a way in. It happens in my head, don'tcha know, my own brain, trained so arduously from day one by the malignant, sociopathic, abusive and vile fucks that called themselves my parents to keep me down, just turns on me and spews some nasty crap. It's insidious sometimes.
I take 10 or 15 minutes each morning as part of my daily routine at work to read the small, poorly written and atrociously edited local "news" (read: gossip) paper. Just a looksee to keep myself informed of the local general public, you know?
I realized this morning that I read the obituaries every day with the expectation that I will see the death notice of NM or ENF. Morbid much?
Even curiouser, I realized that each day that I do not see a notice for either of them, my gut reaction is one of what I can only quantify as disappointment.
I have loss in spades, but it's the kind of loss that drags on and on. They are, after all, all living together in their clan compound only fifteen short minutes away from my house. And by all, I do mean all: NM, ENF, GCYB and his wife and her son and NOSis and her husband and son. And god knows who else lives there too. So it's a funny kind of loss; mourning the loss of one's long lost relatives in the morning while hoping to avoid them in the grocery store that afternoon. It feels incomplete, somehow, and like the disease that can rear its ugly head at any moment. It's unfinished, a loose end.
I think that I've spent enough time in the drawn out agony of loss and I'm ready to move on. I think I'm craving grief instead. I re-read that and immediately wondered what kind of person that makes me. But I have to say it's true; I long for the end.
Or maybe I'm just hurt and don't even know it yet because I am absolutely positive that when NM or ENF do pass away, I will certainly find out by reading the local gossip rag. And when I do hear from NOSis or GCYB that it's happened, as I'm sure I eventually will, they'll have found a way to make it my fault.
What a lose-lose. What a fucking waste.
Love,
Vanci
