What an odd Christmas I had, it was almost like an out of body experience, certainly out of control, where Christmas joy seemed to mock me outside, yet inside lay a storm of hurt, anger, sorrow, confusion, resentment, more confusion a mess of wires all tangled up with beauty everywhere.
It is odd to be so riled up inside and the outside appearing picture perfect.
Looking inside our home last night, you would see a beautiful family and a wonderful Christmas scene; the only dark cloud was fuming around me.
Today I didn’t know how my day would go, if I would be able to get out from under the cloud, if the fog would leave so I could sit in peace.
Sit and just breathe in the day.
My family watched me cautiously, wary and on tippy toes and eggshells, as I did my self.
Wondering at my own sense of mental balance.
This mental dysfunction of co-dependency can strike at any time, a hook is caught upon another’s action and blame and resentment ensue.
If I could know that a snag was coming, I could head it off at the pass, but I am surprised as the ones I am snagged onto, unconsciously a lesson is arriving unbeknownst to me.
I stay hooked as long as I blame the other, the only way I can work my way free is to see where my responsibility and actions led to the hookup.
My freedom comes when I can stay aware in the midst of the snag and wise enough to know it isn’t all their fault, that it takes two to tangle.
And what I usually find, is that they are doing their thing and I hop on wanting, wishing, dreaming that they will drop their life to satisfy mine.
Oddly enough while it may have been the worst Christmas Eve ever, it also is a template to model the rest by, using it to design free Christmas activities in the future.
Today, as the dinner preps were needed, I asked.
I asked for help.
I asked for specifics.
I asked and it was met with no resistance, no complaints.
Now this can’t be a real test, for they were so not wanting a Johnny raincloud on Christmas day or at the dinner table.
My tone was different, the manic need was gone, there seemed to be a team spirit, a tone of many helping hands.
Again, I know that they were coming, that we were coming off of a bad experience, where my manic mood stole Christmas joy, so I can’t be sure the atmosphere changed permanently, but a change was from deep dark fear to neutral.
I will not say I was filled with joy or filled with gratitude or love or peace, but I was out of the depths of hell.
Even in neutral the rest could feel their own joy, I wasn’t stealing their peace.
How awful to witness the affects one dark rain cloud can have on a party, and to be it.
It’s like the party planner; the event coordinator creates this wonderful display, great food, and then sits and stews in the midst like a bad stench spreading it everywhere.
Like Dr. Jill Bolte says, “you are responsible for the energy you bring into the room.”
Yet I felt so out of control.
What I can do next time is just state how out of control, how angry, hurt, confused, resentful I am and it is best that I be excused.
Taking my dark insides with me.
Christmas for me was seeing the damage that darkness of co-dependency can do, how it changes the feelings of the others in the room, how it takes out joy.
It is scary that I still have episodes of this.
Yet I feel that each time I learn more about myself and hopefully be wiser next time.
It left us all happy with neutral, no over joyful or dreaded darkness, just an idle.
My mental dysfunctional co-dependency bouts start with a small item and pick up speed and volume if left unchecked, its almost like I got drunk on negative energy.
Today I felt hung over and depleted from being strung so tight my head and jaw in a vice, muscles taunt, breath shallow, vision clouded.
Braced to fight my misconstrued expectations to the death, while wanting desperately to be free and relaxed and calm and accepting, bending to the change in plans.
Instead I put support beams of thoughts around the expectations built upon nothing.
Like fluff on a cloud.
Nothing supporting nothing.
Mental thoughts being planned by a mental mind.
The left side of my head is bruised, my jaw in pain, my left neck and shoulder ache, all a stiff from my struggle with reality.
What I want most is to relax, to breathe, and to process this episode to my DNA.
What I caught a few hour glimpse of is my old life, a spirit of Christmas pasts.
My life review brought to life in reality.
I had just been thinking a few weeks ago, that our home hasn’t had me go ‘crazy’ in a long while, and there I was in full living color, out of reality, crazy.
Tonight I am grateful that I visit this state now, but don’t live there full time.
How incredibly hard that life is.
How separated, how desolate, how fearful, how lonely…
What I think now is that this mental dysfunctional co-dependency, is something to manage, never cured.
That it can sneak in and steal my peace at any time, that the more I set the stage, by voicing my concerns, needs, desires, the less opportunity it has to grab on and hijack my life.
My antidote is flexibility and freedom.
Theirs and mine, against my mind.