This is a long, drawn out story, but I need to get it out there so I can get past it.
I went for a run yesterday afternoon and when I got home, the front door was locked. It is always open on the inside and we have to check the outside knob to make sure it's unlocked if we leave and want to get back in through that door.
I thought I had left it unlocked when I left. I'm rather OCD about it. But either I missed it or someone locked it after I'd left.
I rang the doorbell to have the family let me back in. Nobody came. I rang it over & over & over. Nobody came. I went to the back yard & looked in the patio door. It was locked & no one was in the family room. I went back & rang the doorbell over and over. Nobody came.
I run with my cell phone, so I called the home phone and Mark's phone, but no one answered. I texted Mark; no response.
It was a nice afternoon, and I figured Mark had taken the kids for ice cream or to the park and they'd be home soon, so I didn't freak out. Just felt irritated, mostly at myself because I hadn't replaced the extra key I keep on the backside of the house. I'd given it to Mark's brother when he stayed with us in July, and I have no idea what happened to it; either he kept it or I misplaced it. Getting a key made is a pain, and I just hadn't gotten around to it.
Niece Kate called as I was starting to sweep off the deck (berries from the bradford pear tree were everywhere, and they are sticky and take a lot of time with the broom to get off the wood). I spent about 30 minutes on the phone and on the deck.
After I hung up with her, I texted Mark again. I started to get really upset. I had nothing else to do, so I worked on cleaning up the landscaping, then I went to the neighbor's house & borrowed a rake to get the maple tree leaves out of the front yard. After almost an hour of being locked out, I got very upset and started crying. The anger and resentment was building inside me.
Then Luke walked out the front door. I asked him where he'd been. He said they were home.
I went in the house, asking (yelling) what the heck was going on. Why didn't they answer the door bell? Why didn't they answer the phone? Why weren't they worried that I had been gone--on foot--for two hours?
They were in our bedroom watching a movie with the sound turned up, and didn't hear the doorbell. The home phone is in the front room only, and they couldn't hear it either. Mark had turned off his cell phone at church and never turned it back on.
I asked why they weren't worried that I had been gone so long. He said he saw me out the kitchen window on the deck sweeping and on the phone, and was disappointed I hadn't come in the house to tell them I was home but he figured I just wanted some more time to myself so he didn't bother me.
It was a giant, horrible cluster f***.
They had been enjoying each others' company and the movie and were taken completely off guard by the situation. I was beside myself with anger and hurt. They didn't feel like they deserved to be yelled at and I shouldn't be mad at them, and I couldn't believe they neglected me like they did.
The kids both said sorry and that they'd had asked about me a couple of times; Mark said sorry but he was mad that I was so upset. He'd been working on laundry all day, helping me out. He gets angry easily, and it usually takes time for him to see another person's point of view when he feels like he is being shamed or made to feel guilty when it's not his fault (we have a long history of this).
I had started the leaves and was determined to get them done. I told them all to come outside and help. The kids worked together (yes, it was like a kind of punishment); Mark held the trash bag while I stuffed leaves in. He can't bend over repeatedly because of his back. He just stood there, saying nothing. After a few minutes I asked if he had anything to say, if he was just going to keep his mouth shut the whole time he was out there.
He explained what happened again in detail, but still didn't see my side of it. He asked me why I hadn't looked in the garage to see if the car was still there, or why I didn't look in the bedroom windows to see if they were inside.
It never occurred to me they were in the house. He locked me out of the house a long time ago, when I was pregnant with Sophie. I'd gone out through the garage to work in the backyard, he left to go somewhere and closed the garage, and I was stuck outside for a couple hours.
So there was a precedent here. And I have the memory of an elephant when it comes to being wronged. My first thought went to being left behind with no one home.I started crying and telling Mark that I felt abandoned when no one was there and no one answered the phone. What if I'd been hit by a car and was in the hospital and they couldn't be reached? What if Luke hadn't come outside looking for me--the kids both asked Mark where I was, and when Luke finally said he wanted to be with me, Mark said I was outside and to look in the yard--what if I'd been outside for another hour or more? Would he bother to come and get me?
The deep issue here is my fear of abandonment and having no one to rely on, which reinforces my need to do everything myself and depend on no one else.
I've talked to my therapist about this before. I have issues that are rooted in my childhood, and also in my relationship with Mark. There have been many instances where I can't count on him, which I can't get into on my blog because they are too personal to share.
But I've talked it over with my therapist and I understood immediately why I was so upset.
I was abandoned and alone, and my fear that I can rely on no one but myself was painfully confirmed.
Thankfully I already have an appointment with my therapist for this Wednesday. I made it after going through all the issues with Mark's back pain. Now I'll have even more to talk about.
I felt better after I'd made him mostly understand where I was coming from. He still didn't really get it, but I wasn't steaming mad any longer. I didn't want to inflict any more pain on the kids and figured it was time to just stop being mad; it was pointless. We finished the yard. I went inside and was worthless the rest of the night.
Cleaning up the outside was not on my agenda yesterday. I haven't shopped for Thanksgiving at all. Still haven't even made my list of what I need to buy (doing that this afternoon, hopefully). But I was emotionally a wreck, took a xanax, and I was done for the night.Mark went to a church meeting at 5. When he got home, as per his usual behavior, he'd gotten some distance and time to think and he finally understood how awful it was to be in my shoes. He said he was sorry. He installed an app on his phone that somehow warns him to turn off vibrate & turn the ringer back on.
I am getting keys made when I go to Walmart today or tomorrow. I am never going through that again.
I did eat over it. Not sugar, but I ate too much food for dinner and I ate a luna bar and blue corn chips (neither are on my binge list) at 10 pm when I was watching TV. I don't feel like it's enough to blow my abstinence--it's a yellow light issue, not a red light.
This week is going to take a lot of surrendering for me to get through. Making my therapist appointment was the best thing I could have done for myself.
I'm going to take time off from work tomorrow to get the tables set up for Thanksgiving and finish grocery shopping. The carpets are getting cleaned today and I still need to clean the bathtub (Mark's brother is staying with us). The laundry is all done, thanks to Mark. The rest of the house is ready; I've been working on it for over a month. So there's not that much to do other than food.
I'm going to OA tonight. I will talk with OA members Thanksgiving morning. I will run. I will pray. I will sleep. I will not be perfect, and I will try really hard to be okay with not being perfect.
Most of all, I hope that I can squeeze in some peace and thankfulness in the middle of all the chaos.
8 comments:
On the absitence thing-- I feel like I handled this really well, as far as my first thought was NOT to go to food. Neither was my second thought. I took a xanax--better living through chemicals.
But obviously, since I had an Amy's meal and 2 slices of the kids' pizza (the pizza issue--one of the old timer's at OA said he has 2 pieces of pizza, and that's his limit to stay abstinent. It works for me--2 pieces does not push me to cravings), and that was too much food.
And the 10 pm luna bar/corn chips thing was a reaction to sitting in the family room watching TV (Ken Burns "The Dust Bowl"). Not abstinent behavior, but there were no binge foods involved.
I don't feel like it's OK to "punish" myself by losing my day count. It would add insult to injury; I still feel very tender about the situation.
I was painfully aware that if I chose to eat cookies--which did cross my mind, but was dismissed immediately--I would lose my day count. That was a big motivation for staying (mostly) clean.
OA works when I allow forgiveness of myself in this type of situation, and am not extreme in my response to my actions. It also works because I am still learning to deal with my emotions by not eating sugar.
I didn't call my sponsor because I honestly just couldn't relive it last night. I just needed it to go away.
I get it Laura. That would have made me mad too for exactly the same reasons - no one likes to feel like no one else cares.
I'm glad you and Mark talked it out. It's good that he finally realized WHY you were so upset even if he didn't completely understand it.
I watched the Dust Bowl movie too last night. Got completely sucked in and finally at 10:30 had to make myself go to bed! It was very interesting. And I won't tell you what I ate while I watched it but I will tell you I felt worse instead of better after I ate it.
I'm glad Mark was able to finally understand why you were upset -- I would have been too. Even if you had known they were home, you had already done everything you could to alert them.
Having keys seems like a smart step -- I wouldn't like leaving the door unlocked.
We have a key pad on the garage door. We also have a phone in the garage. Not so much worried about getting locked out myself, but always worried about the kids. All of us have a house key, for emergency or if electricity is off, but years go by and keys are not used.
I don't think it would have occurred to me to look in every window. And I think of stuff more than the average person.
I give you credit that you did not break a window.
Did you have to pee in the back yard?
I had to think about this before I knew what to say.
I used to spend A LOT of time with that type of frustration with my husband.
I am not saying this for you, but I am saying it for me.
It was ALL about me.
I have learned not to count on anyone, anything else for my stuff.
When I switched it in my brain, then the frustration totally went away.
It is not that I expect nothing from him. But it is more that I have learned to out smart circumstances.
I also have learned with each occurrence. Not so that I yell at people after something happens, but more so that I remember for next time and am smarter.
When I got rid of the woulda shoulda couldas for myself, then I also got rid of the you should have's for everyone else.
At my house this is very much a communication and planning ahead thing.
I am very clear in communications.
Again, not saying this applies to the situation that you discussed in this post. I am talking about the big picture of changing my brain.
Thank you all for the support, as always. :)
Vickie, I love what you said about getting rid of the "you should have's" for everyone else. That is a huge shift in thinking that will offer peace, and I never thought of it that way.
Yesterday morning after I wrote the post, Mark came into my office and asked how I was doing. I told him I was still emotional about Sunday. He apologized again, very sincerely in a "if I were in your shoes" kind of way. It helped. And around mid day I let it go.
Which is pretty remarkable. In the past it would have bothered me longer.
When I left work yesterday I told two of the guys in the office what happened and it was funny. They laughed and I laughed. I told it again at my OA meeting last night (the theme was on gratitude). I explained that I was grateful the program gave the ability to not eat sugar over it and also allow me to release the negative emotions relatively quickly. Everyone laughed at OA, too, but several women talked to me after the meeting and agreed they would have been just as upset.
I had described my abandoned feeling, and one woman said that was an AHA moment for her in her own life. She hadn't named what she was feeling as abandonment.
It helps to hear from you Vickie that it's OK to rely on yourself for everything. I guess you have to figure out a way to live with the people in your life, recognize their limitations, and work from there. For your own sanity.
It's funny, isn't it, how a little thing suddenly snowballs into something else bigger? I'm glad you're getting help from your therapist and you've acknowledged about it, since it means you're already on the way to recovery, even if you're not quite there yet. On the subject about keys, it's better if you have a keyless door lock instead. As long as you have a reliable locksmith to ensure installation would be no hassle. Keyless door locks are more convenient and secure than the typical lock-and-key combination.
Access Lock Technologies, Inc.
Granted that all your worries and resentment were pointless in hindsight, as they were inside all along and this was all clearly a misunderstanding; but the point is the petty incident triggered something inside you, so this is truly something that should never happen again. I am glad that you’re getting yourself a spare key. I hope you’ll never have to go through this situation again!
Joyce Roberson @ Locked-Out Locksmiths
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