When you're caught in a loop...

I'm super good at counting, listing, and identifying the ways I still need a lot of healing.

I'm frustrated, a lot of the time, because I am caught in a loop [of my own creation]. I have a child that can't go to preschool until she is potty trained (which she is strongly resisting), and then of course we have to be able to pay for the preschool.

I spent two solid years of my life hunkered down at home, managing a household for 8 people, and keeping another baby several days a week. I dedicated every bit of my energy, brain space, emotional space, to those babies and the rest of the kids in the household, and to my husband. I gave of myself in every conceivable way.

And then shit hit the fan and somewhere amongst the rubble I was told I was "weird" and had a "victim complex". I'm just wondering where the line between identifying and addressing toxic behaviors and distancing from them (as seen in literally millions of widely lauded and applauded TikTok videos) and "victim mentality" is. Because I call out bullshit I have a victim complex? Huh.

Because of life circumstances, many of which were beyond my control, I had to withdraw from college mere weeks before my graduation (back in 2011). I completed all my courses but one, when I had a family court date in SC concerning custody of my son and one professor would not allow me to take the exam on a different date, so I didn't complete the class and then was unable to graduate college. So I have 130 college credits and no bachelor's degree, making a TON of jobs out of reach for me. I almost immediately became a single mother and had to go to work fulltime to support us, and returning to college faded further and further from reach.

I am perplexed and frankly obviously really, really shitty at navigating social media to gain any kind of 'following', which is pretty mandatory these days for writers. I try to gain some traction with my writing and it either gets absolutely zero views or it gets really negative feedback so I just delete it. I've literally burned notebooks of my writing. I have little of a personal 'library' of things I've written because the very, very few people I had the courage to show them to sneered at them or made fun of them or dismissed them entirely, so I've given up more times than I can count. And now, even attempting freelance writing but not having a 'social media following' to utilize to get gigs is proving pretty futile.

I'd like to find a work-from-home job. That's the only way I can see realistically getting employment at this point. The idea of going back to an office, with my ADD, sounds like torture. I had a boss once who "got" me, who realized I had valuable skills and insight and when given a little room to breathe, I performed well and did very well at my job. Most 'managers' are super micromanagers and if you don't work the way they work, or the way they think you should work, you're wrong and are penalized even when you're producing remarkable results.

Maybe I am just a whiner and have a victim complex, but I ponder how the people who call me that would have handled HALF the shit I've had thrown at me in life. From the absolute terror of my childhood, to being dumped in the 'real world' at 18 with absolutely zero guidance, assistance, structure, information, and I've had to "just figure it out" basically my entire existence, I've had to make the best of whatever life handed me for years. Decades. Any opportunity I had to try to "turn things around" or make my life better in some way backfired, in one way or another. I didn't even realize I was navigating the world with CPTSD and ADD until my mid-thirties!

And back to the point, now I am caught in a loop. I've been out of the traditional workforce for almost seven years. I had my own consulting business, which was pretty successful but also relied heavily on businesses and organizations that were drastically and deeply affected by Covid-19. The idea of drumming up an entire new clientele, with no budget to boot, is pretty far-fetched. I have a 3 year old who will be able to go to preschool once she masters the potty, but we'll need to pay for it. I have to find a way to be able to make at least seven hundred bucks a month so she can continue in her appropriate development (which I've been fastidious about since day one).

And I'm deeply lonely. Deeply. I love my husband and he's amazing. I love my children and they are amazing. But I miss having friends. Going out and having dinner or desserts and coffee and just being with people who don't NEED me for something. Talking about things other than potty training and teen shit and utility bills. But apparently I don't have the skill set for that either. Something about me is so off-putting to people, and I literally wish someone would just tell me WHAT so I can fucking FIX IT. I have a little bit of social anxiety, but I don't think it makes me intolerable. We are always on a fixed budget so I can't just take off to go out to dinner at the drop of a hat (not to mention finding childcare). I see other women online who are seeming to balance it all effortlessly and I don't get, like I literally do not understand, what I'm doing wrong.

At this point, I am just ready to buy a house out in the country somewhere, have a big garden and chickens, and work at a local gas station or something to make a little bit of money. So many people, so many good people, gassed me up when I was younger and made me believe I had some kind of promise, and as each year passes I'm starting to realize it was the kind intentions of pitying people who sold me these platitudes but the reality is that I'm a tired, washed-up middle aged woman who "worked" as a hamster on a wheel for many years, working for nonprofits and similar organizations who used a lot of my time and labor for mere pennies, who gave away some of my best years to ungrateful employers and bad people, and all the while was just desperately searching for deep connection and real love while being thoroughly ignored and rejected by the people who adopted me and promised to be my parents for life and scratching out a life as best I could for myself and my children in a harsh world.

I'm super tired, super disillusioned, and super bitter. I can freely say all of that. I am proud that I didn't fall into addiction or simply give up on what my idea of being a "good person" is. I'm proud that I've never stolen or broken the law to get what I need. I've let my earnest drive to be a "good person" go too far sometimes, and I can also readily admit that. That's why I don't check on people anymore, I don't pick up the phone and call people who haven't called me in months or years, I don't care about people who don't care about me, and through this process it's been pretty illuminating how many people were just around for whatever I could give them of myself.

I'm also frustrated that I don't seem to "get" how to get anywhere, and don't even dare say "hard work". I worked my absolute ass off for YEARS and YEARS and got nowhere but taken advantage of. To live in America and truly become successful, you have to know ALL the "tricks". The "tricks" to get your resume looked at. The "tricks" in an interview to get a higher salary and better benefits. The "tricks" of inter-office politics to get raises and promotions. The "tricks" to get and keep a great credit score. The "tricks" of how to negotiate this and that and this and that in order to have a decent quality of life. I don't know ANY of the tricks. I feel that I'm a good person and have pursued work and friendships and relationships with pure intentions and, mostly because of my codependent tendencies, I find myself screwed over more times than I can count. Of course there's one common denominator: me (that's what I've been told... twice... both by wildly toxic and abusive people). But of course when someone has grown up in an abusive environment and so become codependent as fuck as a survival mechanism, there will be future situations where they are the common denominator- before they learn the red flags to avoid those situations.

I also found my biological mother this past year, which is absolutely incredible and has been an amazing experience. But it weighs on me that now I am responsible for her care, as well, which is another layer to consider when contemplating getting a job and bringing in income.

I feel stuck and unqualified for much of anything. I feel like a dead weight on my husband, who is working two jobs. I feel, today and many, many days, that the world would most certainly be a bit better, easier, and lighter, especially for people close to me, if I weren't in it. I fail to see my greater purpose and I'm just a burden and weight on people. I don't seem to contribute much of any worth to the world; whatever I've worked SO hard for in the past, causes and organizations, despite massive amounts of work and time and energy and sacrifice, there's no evidence of any great societal contribution from it. The people who adopted me couldn't wait to rid themselves of me and even told my first husband gleefully, "She's your problem now! We wondered if anyone would ever marry someone like her!" (I was the ripe old age of 20 at the time of that conversation... I was a real old maid apparently.) I'm pretty good at cooking, but I also can't (not supposed to for health reasons) cook the feel-good comfort foods that my kids love so much so when I'm cooking mediterranean recipes or recipes that are actually good for our health, they reject that food so now the one thing I kind of had going for me mostly gets thrown in the trash anymore. With the cost of food being what it is now, I just want to revert back to the cheaper, more comforting foods that I am familiar with and that my kids will eat and just say fuck everybody's health.... I want something to feel good about again. If it's just cooking, so it is.

My history of codependency and some of those traits attracting people who are just 'users' of good people has made me incredibly gun-shy of making new friends. I simply can't go through another betrayal at the level of those I've experience. No fucking way. I'm not opening myself up to someone and giving them the tools to gut me. So it's either crippling loneliness, or entering friendships with a predetermined expiration date that I just have to find out... the hard way.

Perhaps this modern life has given us too much information and too many tools, and maybe some of us weren't supposed to have all this swirling around in our brains. I find a lot of happiness and contentment being home with my daughter and shaping her development, but in a capitalist nation that isn't a rewarded use of time... in fact, in many ways, we are "paying" for it. I feel the weight of guilt every single day of my life that I'm not making money, even though I'm managing a household for nine people every single day with no breaks, including meal plans and home-cooked meals, cleaning, keeping up with appointments, school, assignments and issues at said school, and trying to keep everyone above-board in terms of mental health and wellness. But our society doesn't pay for that as a service.

In fact, I'm told in countless FB comment sections what a freeloader I am. A freeloader! For doing six figures worth of work a year; if you had to pay for a personal nutritionist and cook for each of your family members, you'd be paying six figures for those services ALONE. But moms? Moms do it for free. Doesn't even count cleaning, home maintenance and organization, clothes maintenance and inventory and shopping (I'll bet most moms have sales emails in their inbox right now from their kids' favorite brands/stores like Hot Topic, Zumiez... you think those are for me??), and then the emotional, mental, and spiritual labor of raising children that literally doesn't have a price on it (and is GROSSLY undervalued anyway considering what public school teachers are paid).

I want to be clear: my husband has said none of this. This is what I've gotten from people outside our home or just random people in general. My husband and I agreed to me being home with our toddler while I was pregnant with her, and he still is completely on board with the arrangement. He also participates in the responsibilities of our home and family as soon as he gets home from work, every single day, without fail. None of my feelings come from him in any way, other than me feeling guilty that he's so stressed and works so much to ensure we have the means to make ends meet.

This has definitely been a more dark and gloomy but, but I believe in full and raw authenticity throughout this journey of mine. I can't just "produce content" that is fake and cheerful when that doesn't represent my truth at this moment. I know it's a temporary low spot and I will feel better, sooner rather than later.