when are you coming home?
i wanted to make a separate blog post about my ptsd and cptsd. gonna go into some fun mental health stuff and mentions of abuse so if that aint comfy, go ahead and bounce✌️
i had an annual review with my boss recently. for weeks ive been anxiously preparing for the worst - that id get a pay cut, that id just lose my job entirely. i went to lunch with a couple coworkers who, when i admitted these fears, laughed and swore up, down, left and right that id be the last person they’d let go. and if i was, theyd go right with me.
i got a 1.50/hr raise.
ive been perplexed ever since. like, objectively, ive been doing great performance-wise. ive been busting my ass making sure other teams are able to do their jobs even in the eleventh hour. but internally, in my brain? its never enough. im always tiptoeing the line between “has a job” and “does not”. im always behind, theres always one thing or another im fucking up. and with my position, theres always a ripple effect.
ive been seeing both a psych and a therapist for some time now - my psych since march, my therapist since the middle to end of june. they have this coordinated care thing set up which is nice. my therapists shares whatever insights i give so my psych can decide whether or not to up my welbutrin dosage lol
anyway, ive learned a lot about myself. ive also swiftly broken apart both physically and mentally in ways i didnt even know was possible. they say it gets worse before it gets better, but… when does it get better, anyway?
my therapist and i have found that the crux of my issues is attached to my experiences growing up and the relationship i have with my mother. being an “ex-gifted” kid, i had developed a rather warped sense of self, my yardstick for determining my self-worth being a fucking curly fry. excellence was not something to be nurtured and celebrated, it was a standard. a constantly moving goalpost based on whatever mood my mother had that day. if I struggled with something and came to her for help, more often than not she’d just tell me to “figure it out” and that i was “too smart to ask for help”. And god forbid you piss her off.
the whole parents divorcing thing and my life crashing and burning in my teenage years, climaxing to her quite literally pinning me down and beating me for failing English, certainly didn’t help things.
over time, a lot of things became clear. why i struggle with anxiety so much, why i feel as though i have this obligation to prove my worth to everyone and sacrifice so much. why when people tell me they actually love me and appreciate me that it just rings hollow in my ears. why i walk into work every day scared ill be told to go home and never come back. it, for one reason or another, traces back to her.
subconsciously, i see her everywhere. when i hear my boss gently letting me know of a mistake i made, i only hear my mother readying up yet another tirade about how “fucking useless” i am, how im “wasting [my] smarts with stupid decisions”. when i see myself falling behind, theres an unrelenting dread that tightens its grip upon me.
moving two thousand miles away may have distanced myself from her, but her influence is still strong nonetheless. theres this terrifying disarming effect she has when she calls me - its no longer the tyrant that lorded over my life for so long but… mom. And mom misses me.
But when she actually talks about me, its never the present me. its always Little Baby Bee. The one who wouldnt stop crying til she could walk. the one who was so scared to go to her first day in kindergarten but looked so, so cute in her little sunflower sweater. the one who’d always come to Mama when she’s scared, when she needs someone.
Little Baby Bee doesnt exist. She hasn’t existed for nearly twenty years. She’ll never come back.
And I don’t want to. The shitshow that is Ohio’s political environment notwithstanding, I’ve started to grow and get used to living in a place with actual people, not being holed in the middle of nowhere. I pass by ASU and I grieve for what could’ve been. The experiences i was forbidden to have because my mom said so. Instead of going to a good, actual school for a field I had interest in, I was pidgeonholed into doing online courses for a field I now loathe while under the lock and key of my mother’s watching eye. Practically under house arrest until I was approaching my mid-20’s and could actually afford to leave the damn state while also having arrangements on the other side.
But every time she calls, once in a blue moon, she always asks - “when are you coming home?”. She’ll bargain with me - she’ll buy me a car, she’ll find me a good job at the company she works for, she’ll pay for my flight home, she’ll do this and that and whatever the fuck else to keep me within arm’s reach.
And every time she calls, my friends remind me - you don’t have to. You have the power to say no. My mom cannot hurt me here - after all, despite her having a great job and all this money to bargain with me, she didn’t even bother to buy me a birthday gift, let alone actually come and visit in the couple years ive lived here. I have a choice.
If only my brain could accept that, too.