I had a bit of a meltdown yesterday afternoon when my mother phoned. She practically started the conversation with “You know what you should do; you should take some classes at night at the local university.” Well, I’d pretty much had it with everyone in my life telling me what I should be doing with my time. For two weeks, all I’ve heard from doctors, therapists and parents is what I should be doing and I’m 36 years old and I’m feeling stressed out and overwhelmed and I feel like I’m barely treading water as it is. I can’t figure out how to do it all and afford it all and then have time to relax, which apparently I’m also supposed to be able to do.
I really would like my therapist and my doctors and my parents and my boss to all get together and figure out my schedule so I can go to work, go to therapy, exercise plus do aqua aerobics, go to doctors’ appointments, take night classes in something they approve of, clean my house, run errands including going to the dump, take care of the extra stuff that needs to be done with the house, keep up with the surprise things that come up, pay my bills, get 8 or more restful hours of sleep a night, and make new friends.
And of course, when I got upset with her for starting a conversation by telling me how I should be spending my time, she told me that she could tell I was having one of my “bad days” — meaning, she was telling me I was cranky from my depression and she’d rather talk to me when I wasn’t so cranky. (In her defense, she called while I had a migraine and the medicine was making me queasy.)
Well, I’d kind of been stewing for a couple of days over some resentments from childhood so this set me off even more. I’d been kind of ready to pick a fight with her about the fact that she pulled me out of therapy in 6th grade and I remember that she told me it was because the therapist thought that the problems were with my parents rather than with my classmates, which is where I was having the problems. So I asked her about it yesterday and she said she didn’t recall but she seemed to think that the therapist said I was finished and that I was getting better. I know that can’t be true. I told her what I remembered and wanted to know why she would take me out of therapy if she didn’t like the therapist without finding another one. Of course, she doesn’t know. She just doesn’t remember. I’m feeling resentful. I feel like I lost over a decade of opportunity for help and I kind of feel like my mother did it because she was afraid the therapist would say she was a bad mother.
Then I couldn’t help myself and I also told her that I had been reading about how cultural messages shape us as children and how I remember how she’d pulled me aside as a child and told me to let my friends win at games. Of course, she was like “Well, I’m sure I didn’t mean it like that.” The thing is that there are a lot of those instances where she’s sure she didn’t mean it like that but I took her quite seriously and those moments shaped me and became a part of me.
I don’t mean to blame my mother. At some point, I must take responsibility for who I’ve become. I guess I just want her to recognize that she doesn’t get to take credit for just the good stuff.
And today I’m still feeling grumpy I guess. I’m in a mood at the very least.
Ever since that therapist started in on me about my weight, I’ve been obsessing about it. Really I was kind of comfortable with myself until then. I knew I was overweight but I wasn’t horribly miserable, but today I’m feeling frumpy and fat and over the last week, I’ve been feeling more and more like I have to do something about it. So, yesterday I signed up for Diet2Go. I’ve used them before so I know what to expect; they deliver your meals to your house once a week and it’s not like Lean Cuisine or Smart Ones; they’re more like if your mother made you home cooked meals and pre-portioned them in Tupperware into your freezer. Everything you need for each meal comes with it so there’s no shopping for that meal and they’re incredibly tasty. I’ve signed up for the vegetarian meals and will be getting 5 days of lunch and dinners so I can supplement 2 days of seafood/fish. They’re designed to fit into a 1200 cal a day diet so I’m just going to have my yogurt and granola every morning. I’ve decided to do this for a month and see how it goes. If I don’t lose any weight in a month, I’ll try something else.
But to be honest, I do feel a little resentful still that I had to add this into the chaos of everything else going on. It’s one more thing that I have to worry about on a pile of stuff that’s going to bury me.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
No need to feel resentful about the parents issue. I have been trying to deal with my mother for years, and have only recently come to a similar conclusion that she is most of the cause of my current issues. However, that is no excuse for me letting myself get down when I feel overwhelmed. On the diet note - keep me posted.
K.
Well, the good thing is, is that you’re not alone in this world as far as the feelings that you have about your mother. I think that a lot of people harbor resentments about what a parent could/should or could not/should not do. As a parent, I’m sure that I’ve made a few parenting mistakes in my son’s life. You kind of just do what you think is best at the time…it’s sometimes doesn’t occur to you what affect this might have on the child in adulthood.
Anyhow, I wish you the very best of luck on the dieting front. Although, 1200 calories seems like not a lot of food. I hope that you supplement with some low-calorie snacks…