matilda36

 Yesterday I was talking with cleo69 about my meaning of life search and she said that the secret is self love. Love thyself and you don't need anything else.

Loving myself has always been a problem for me. I was chubby and with a "weird" family, I had a tendency to wander in my own world because the one I had wasn't all that fantastic.

My father was never home, my mother was a drunk (and an angry spiteful drunk that took it out on the person closest to her, i.e. me) and I was in the middle.

Add to this a blossoming bipolar and you have not  the most stable and nurturing environment.

The fact is that 20/30 years after that I am not yet over my childhood. I keep dreaming my mother, busy taking away my father's love from me and hating me. Even in the dream I can feel the hatred.

I spent 3 years of my life trying to make peace with her and I thought I had , but I haven't. For every step towards self love there is a step back in my terrified immobility, the immobility she condemned me to. She and this shitty illness. Since I found out I am bipolar, things have been worse. I am so afraid of making the wrong choice, to scare people, to behave in the wrong way. Yesterday I was calm at work, but only because I have been thinking about this hypomaniacal episode and tried to focus on myself. That meant to go back to my immobility, but I feel positive, as if this is a moment that I need.

Spent yesterday morning with my auntie, my mother's sister, reminiscing and talking. She misses my mother too. We had a big argument during my mother's last days, because we lived our pain differently, but now we are trying to mend fences. I have been trying to men a lot of fences recently. I am well enough and old enough to make peace with myself and people I thought I lost.

In the afternoon I went to the funeral. More people I hadn't seen in a while, but I was happy to see only 2 of them. Ester and her brother in law, Alberto. We were very close when we were young. I plan on trying to keep in touch now.

Today back to work. I started as a zombie but I woke up in the end, enough to bring up all the water I bought. I think I have enough water to drink for a month now. Then I cleaned the kitchen. I am pushing myself to clean and do more things, but now it's time to read and relax.

Oh and my father was just having problems with his phones, both of them. He's safe and well.

I went to the cemetery to visit my mother and discovered (well I knew it already, but it struk me like lightening) how much I hate my mother. Talking to my aunt who still idolises her, made it.

I have alwyas been jealous of my mother: she was a thin charismatic presence while I was the mousy and fat daughter, shy and daydreaming.

Now I am less shy and more confident, even if I am going through a binge eating phase with no end in sight (well maybe when this wave of overtime ends, but that as well has no end in sight). I still daydream a lot,  but I don't see it as a problem. I don't see my dreams as an alternate reality where I am this super Mary Sue, but stories that I tell myself to go to sleep at night. So I am no more envious of my mother, also because I  have seen her worst moments.

Anyway the point is that the charismatic woman was a total bitch to her daughter and no excuse will change this fact.

So I think it's ok to hate her a little bit.

Earlier this year I agreed with my psychiatrist that I would attempt psychotherapy again, in the hope that third time's the charm. Now I finally got an appointment and my hackles are up.

First time I went into therapy, I got Prozac and Elektra (you know the crazy girl with a daddy complex who pushed her brother into killing their mum?)

Second time I went into therapy, I wasted three years answering again and again the question: "What are you feeling now?" I get it, my emotions are out of whack, give me the Lamictal already.

This time... I know what I want out of this. Or at least what I think I want. I want to improve my social skills. I want to be able to handle myself and my emotions better in public and to deal with the memories of my mother.

But most of all I want this not to be a waste of time, in which somebody tries to place me in a ready made box and manipulate me into being. Yeah I know not the best frame of mind.

On the bright side, this will look good on my disability benefits application

Should I go?