Battle Kitten: Ascension

[fleaball]

Yes, hello, Flea here, capable of defending myself.

 

The context of the quote is from the introduction of this book, wherein the author, a psychologist with a both a PhD and a narcissistic mother, talks about having read a lot of books over the years that talk about the mother-daughter bond. "Each time I read a different volume, unexpected tears would stream down my cheeks. For I could not recall attachment, closeness, memories of the scent of Mother's perfume, the feel of her skin, the sound of her voice singing in the kitchen, the solace of her rocking, holding and comforting, the intellectual stimulation and joy of being read to." Granted, not everyone has memories of all these things and not all of these things happen. (Attachment, closeness, stimulation are all important for childhood development though.) But the reason the reading thing jumped out at me is that it's part of a pattern. I already know my mother was a narcissist. I also know she was emotionally neglectful. The reason this point jumped out at me was that it was another thing on the list that I had totally forgotten about and wouldn't have realized was a thing if someone hadn't pointed it out. (Can fathers read to their kids and form a bond and whatnot? Sure. I guarantee you mine did not.)

 

Is it possible I was read to as a child? Sure. I probably was, given that I can read now. I was told that I was read to, in the context of "I am such an awesome parent and directly responsible for your success." Because according to my mother, my kindergarten teacher regularly had me read books to the class while she got caught up on paperwork or other things. (Context there: this teacher was hired 2 days before school started and my classroom had been a supply room until that point, so she totally started behind where she needed to be.) I don't remember any of this happening either, although I do have memories of kindergarten. I also remember being preschool-aged and being in the car with my mother, her mother, and my baby brother. I asked what the "yield" sign meant, because I could read the word but didn't actually know it. And she and my grandmother were super surprised that I got it right. My distress over not being read to is more that it's yet another bonding thing I don't remember experiencing; if she did read to me, she must have stopped early. Maybe once I proved I could read on my own and therefore she didn't have to spend any more time on it with me. (I had a lot of educational toys as a kid, which directly reduced parent involvement because I could learn without them. Anyone remember 2XL? I also asked my mother why she never taught me Spanish growing up since that what her degree was in. Her answer was "I bought you that teddy bear that had the cassette tapes for it.") I don't remember having a favorite book as a little kid. I don't even remember reading a lot of the books that kids read/have read to them. I know we owned Goodnight Moon but I couldn't even tell you what other books we had. 

 

There's context fail here. I was reading a book about dealing with narcissistic mothers, but not being read to was not presented as a symptom of that dynamic in and of itself. It simply reminded me of one more thing my abusive/neglectful mother dropped the ball on.

 

I could say more, but I have somewhere else to be.

[fleaball]

Fucking lawl, I didn’t realize I’d be going to the same CT place I came with my mother in July and now I’m sitting in the waiting room thinking about it and all the shit from that day. Awesome.

[fleaball]

Guess who spent half an hour trying not to have a panic attack! 

 

Did you guess me?

 

it was me. 

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

Sorry you're having such a rough time and had to go to that same place.

[fleaball]

50 minutes ago, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

Sorry you're having such a rough time and had to go to that same place.

What's funny is that it wasn't "oh no I was here with my mother and now she's dead" that set me off. It was a bunch of little things. I was anxious because I left the house too late to make it on the train (because they tell you to be there 20 minutes before your appointment time) so I wound up taking a Lyft and was mad about it. Then I'm rushing through the hospital to get there. And then "oh right, this place." And I proceeded to remember all the ways I felt like I screwed up that day. Like, between the trip in the air conditioned transport van and the cold waiting room, she was freezing and why didn't I anticipate that and bring a blanket? And she'd had a potential procedure scheduled that day and when I called beforehand they said she shouldn't eat anything, but when we got there it turned out she could have because there was no sedation so that was my fault too. And then when they called me back, they surprised me and said I needed IV contrast, which I didn't need when I had this done last year in DC. I had it once when I was younger so I know I'm not allergic, but somehow I was expecting to fall over and die from it now. To the point that the nurse put in the IV and flushed it with saline and I immediately felt like I was going to pass out; I thought she had already put the contrast in and was leaving me there to let it go through my system or something and that I was having some kind of reaction, when in reality I wasn't even connected to anything and was just so worked up. A super nice dude took me into the room and explained everything and I still got hella nervous about the dye (not the CT scan itself) and yeah it was all just super fun. 

 

And then it got even more fun! I walked the 3/4 mile to the train station while totally not dressed for the weather, got a coffee I didn't need just for the comfort of having it and I probably won't sleep tonight, and then I made the mistake of calling my father to ask him to pick me up at the station near our house because I didn't want to deal with walking or taking the bus. Some crackhead lady kept staring at me for the entire train ride. I stood out in the cold for almost 10 minutes waiting for my father, even though i'd given him plenty of warning and it doesn't even take 10 minutes to get there from the house. He picks me up, drives like a fucking maniac and bitches about traffic the whole time, gets in the wrong lane and blames me for the fact that he didn't understand what I was saying. I was sniffling because of standing out in the cold for so long, but he must have thought I was upset because he was like "oh was it the big scary tube?" NO, it wasn't an MRI, it was a CT and I was just thrown off because I was there with mom. "oh. well it's all over now. so. y'know." I really hope he gets someone else to comfort people at work, jesus christ. So then I came home and cried. And realized I should have taken the damn bus. And now he's yelling at things downstairs again. 

 

Oh, and I forgot to say that the bandage they put on my arm started coming off as soon as I walked out the door so I somehow assumed I was just going to bleed out on the walk to the train station, despite looking at it and knowing it already stopped bleeding. 

 

So now I'm just going to watch TV all night and not do the things I desperately need to do.

[NeverThatBored]

Sounds like you could use the night off. 

 

[Owlet]

5 minutes ago, NeverThatBored said:

Sounds like you could use the night off. 

Seconding this. Yikes what a horrible experience! A panic attack seems like a perfectly reasonable response thb. If only they were pleasant to experience...

 

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

Dang, I hope tomorrow is better.

[fleaball]

Thanks y'all. <3

[fleaball]

Perfect ending to the day: I have no idea where my credit card is. Used it to recharge my T card before getting on the train, put them both in the same pocket, only the T card was there just now. Also not in my father’s car. I just locked it but hopefully no one has used it for nefarious purposes in the last 8 hours. 

[fleaball]

Stayed in bed so much longer than necessary. But I’m in a decent mood. I seriously don’t want to go driving though. Womp. 

[fleaball]

TIL I’ve been looking at the wrong line for the water level on the furnace. 

 

Unfortunately that lesson came in the form of my father telling me “yeah you see that big black line that says ‘water line’? That’s it.” -__- (for the record, there’s a ring around the tube with the water and I was told that’s what it was, and I’ve always looked at it from an angle where I couldn’t see the line drawn on the furnace itself.)

[fleaball]

CT scan found the same nodule as last year, plus another 3mm one in the same lung. x_x Still nothing to be concerned about, according to my PCP and whoever read the CT scan, but followup next year is recommended. Yay. 

[fleaball]

A) that job I applied for over the summer that closed in October without hiring anyone was relisted this week. Do I hate myself enough to apply again?

 

B.) despite my humidifier, my nose keeps getting bloody overnight because it’s so dry in my house. My doctor suggested applying Vaseline with a q-tip and it works but it’s the weirdest fucking feeling. And you all needed to know that. 

[Emma]

A) yes you should apply. What's the worst that could happen? They'll say no? You can handle that.

B.) done that too. Yes, it was weird, but it did help.

[fleaball]

7 hours ago, Emma said:

yes you should apply. What's the worst that could happen? They'll say no? You can handle that.

I'm kinda thinking the worst that could happen would be that I get it. I was told last summer that they wanted to interview me, but then they closed the posting after 4 months and now that it's open again I'm kinda like... do I want to put myself through that? 

[Sylvaa]

6 minutes ago, fleaball said:

I'm kinda thinking the worst that could happen would be that I get it. I was told last summer that they wanted to interview me, but then they closed the posting after 4 months and now that it's open again I'm kinda like... do I want to put myself through that? 

 

Would the outcome be better or worse than what you are going through right now? (Sorry, Operations Management has taken over my life - we can put this into a diagram for you if you'd like). 

[fleaball]

29 minutes ago, Sylvaa said:

 

Would the outcome be better or worse than what you are going through right now? (Sorry, Operations Management has taken over my life - we can put this into a diagram for you if you'd like). 

That's the problem. Did I come up before that I know the person that left this position? So between "whoops we can't get our shit together enough to hire someone" and some of the insider information, I'm struggling to weigh whether the paycheck would be worth the shenanigans that happen. Also that paycheck is apparently less than the industry average, so if I've waited this long maybe I should just keep waiting for a better paying position at a different school. 

[fleaball]

Also, if we're being real here: if I get a job at a university I'm 100% taking advantage of the free tuition benefits and the school in question doesn't have any degrees in fields that interest me. So that's a black mark against it.

[NeverThatBored]

4 minutes ago, fleaball said:

That's the problem. Did I come up before that I know the person that left this position? So between "whoops we can't get our shit together enough to hire someone" and some of the insider information, I'm struggling to weigh whether the paycheck would be worth the shenanigans that happen. Also that paycheck is apparently less than the industry average, so if I've waited this long maybe I should just keep waiting for a better paying position at a different school. 

 

If it helps you get out of your dad's house though, it might be worth it? Obviously I don't know the details, but with the limited info I have it seems worth the application.

[fleaball]

Was for real gonna get stuff done today. (Had planned on driving, but my brother got up at the same time I did because he was working earlier than usual and refuses to put his fucking schedule on the calendar. So I decided that rather than rushing through my shower before him or stewing in rage waiting for him to finish his, I would stay home and cross a bunch of things off my to do list.) I started strong. Took out trash and recycling, tossed some more stuff in the box of stuff I'm donating, cleaned up the documents on my computer, took a shower, went to Aldi, helped my father with various things which wasn't in my plan but whatever... and now it's 9:30 and I haven't done any of the major things I wanted to do and I'm panicking. Like, "I have so much stuff to do where did all my time go there's no way I spent all this time doing little things what the fuck" panicking. My camera battery is charging so I can take photos of stuff for sale and at least get that done so I can list things when I have a spare minute in the future (I have $175 worth of bras I bought not long before I had surgery, like a fucking idiot. I didn't return them at the time because the store only gave credits back and I assumed I would be small enough to shop at normal stores post-surgery. That was a lie, plus I forgot that I'm a fatass anyway.) I've got my resume and cover letter open to work on for another position and I'm going to get that done tonight barring a meltdown. I'll take the photos when the camera is done charging, do a couple smaller things that have been on the to do list literally forever (like take my books out of the ziploc bags I put them in during the bed bug crisis, never mind that the plastic wasn't thick enough to protect anything and it's nearly a year and a half past the point where potential bed bugs in them would have died anyway). 

 

So I have a plan. I have plenty of time. And yet I'm freaking the fuck out and the only thing stopping me from giving up and watching TV is the knowledge that I will freak out even more if I do nothing for the rest of the night. 

 

I just feel like my to do list is never ending. Even if I try to prioritize things, there's still too much. Job applications and Lyft driving are the most important things right now. But there's a lot of other things. Organizing stuff for taxes, stuff of my mother's and grandmother's to go through (my grandmother died in 2010 so I'm sure I can just shred all the confirmations of bank accounts being closed and such but I still want to make sure there's nothing important mixed in), continuing to purge the crap that I've accumulated over 30 years, selling my unnecessary crap, reading books that I want to read...  it's just ridiculous and spending time on any one thing makes me feel guilty/frustrated because it's time I'm not spending on something else, no matter how important the thing I'm doing is. Purging my shit doesn't even sound that important compared to the rest of the list but there's so much visual clutter in my room that it's driving me nuts. 

 

6 hours ago, NeverThatBored said:

 

If it helps you get out of your dad's house though, it might be worth it? Obviously I don't know the details, but with the limited info I have it seems worth the application.

That's the part I'm wrestling with tbh. I'll think about it a bit more. If anything I'll just change the date on the cover letter and upload the same materials; it was good enough for a phone screen the first time, should be good enough now.

[fleaball]

Augh this position is mostly admissions/advising-related stuff and while I know I can do it I have zero relevant-on-paper experience. Fuck.

 

I also have no idea who to address the letter to. The dean of the school? It says the position answers to a certain manager but I can't find that person's name anywhere because there's no staff page, which is weird.

 

Right, "hiring manager" it is.

 

eta: found the direct manager. in a dumb place on the website. meh.

[fleaball]

Ugh what a complete waste of a day. Took some photos of stuff but according to the eBay app none of my shit is worth anything. (Okay so it's not like I expected a DDR game for PS2 to be worth much, but it said $2 and that hurts.) Read about the school I'm trying to apply for a position at, but made no progress on the application because I have no idea what to write. And you can't do anything on the website until you've uploaded a resume so I can't even go through and do the bullshit questions to say I've started something. (What's frustrating is I found this position a while ago and then Severine sent it to me not long after so hey it's not just me who thinks I could do it! I just can't put that on paper. And also at this point they've probably found someone but argh.) So basically I took a day off an have nothing to show for it. That's always super fucking fun.

 

Someone go driving for me in the morning. I want no part of this. I just want to sleep until I can wake up with the magical ability to not make any more stupid decisions.

[Echoceanic]

11 hours ago, fleaball said:

I just feel like my to do list is never ending. Even if I try to prioritize things, there's still too much. Job applications and Lyft driving are the most important things right now. But there's a lot of other things.

I usually got lost when I tried to keep track of everything. Now I don't get lost as much because I write things down (I still get lost though and if you see my to do list you will facepalm at how many things I still need to do this month), but I do understand the 'I need to do everything ahhh' panic. You didn't make any stupid decisions, even though I know it feels that way. 

Sometimes it's really hard to prioritise things when you have just so much to do. But you did a lot. Think of it like this: Lyft and job applications are big baskets that need to be emptied. While the smaller things are either smaller baskets that get you there or will help you empty the biggest baskets faster. 

 

Example: my priories are freelance, job applications and my books. But I also have chores, sewing (cause I have to alter some of my clothes) and a million other tiny things. Just because I take a day to vacuum, measure some fabric and do the tiny little things that I need to organise doesn't mean that day is worthless. Those need to get done too. It means that tomorrow I wont have to think about those, and focus on the others. And the big things that I need to do are made out of tiny little things (checking messages, answering emails, toiling away when I can) and that makes them able to be done in baby steps. 

[fleaball]

I’m going to screeeeeeaaaaaam. It was nearly 6am before I fell asleep, so of course I overslept. And I’ve been dragging my ass getting ready. It will be 4 before I’m on the road istg. But I HAVE to go driving today if I want my rental renewed tomorrow. I still have to finish that goddamn application too. I finished the resume and started the cover letter but I’m stuck on it. Was supposed to do that before driving today. Also called the dental insurance I had last year to ask about claims I have yet to send in because I can’t find the form online; the girl says “oh btw if they took X-rays you need to send us a copy of those too.” ???? This was not mentioned when I called before, wtf. I have an appointment at the dentist tomorrow so ill ask for them but fucking really? And they have to be snail mailed in, which is stupid. 

 

Everything is stupid and I don’t want to play this game anymore.