Blog/Journal Type Entries

Invisible

I have been in my head for the past few days. I am really having to watch my emotions and reactions to things happening around me. I sense that Rick seems a little annoyed with me.

When I sense things like this, I have a habit of drawing inward. I blame it on being a Cancer. If there's a hint of trouble, I pull myself into my shell. There is a lot of silence. And in that silence, that feels cavernous at times, a lot could be inferred.

I was diagnosed a year and a half ago with borderline personality traits. Not the full blown disorder, because I do not have angry outbursts that are typical with BPD. I turn it inward.

So lately, the quiet has been deafening. I know he's stressed with projects he's working on for his former employer, and also side work for another firm that makes animatronic characters for Disney. Most of that work is done at home. Rick spends HOURS at his desk working, with various political podcasts playing. If I am in the room, working or watching tv, he will use ear buds.

If I interrupt to tell him something, he has to stop to pause his podcast, and then I feel bad for him having to pause it. So I try to keep it brief. I am learning to just keep most things to myself. If I bring up ANY worry about politics, he has this habit of shutting me down and will say, "Cutie, bad things happen, and will continue to happen everyday. There's no use talking about it."

The other day, I saw a story about the new Pope's brother and I brought it up to him. he said, "I don't care about the Pope's brother. There's too much going on to worry about other people." I felt rejected. Everytime something like that is said, I find myself drawing inward. Making myself small. Being more and more quiet.

The borderline rears it's head. I start an inner monologue. I go through everything I have said and done recently, nitpicking every little detail. Rick never complains. Like EVER. And even if he did, it would be constructive, and we would discuss. But nevertheless, I persist in my arguments with myself. Creating issues in my head, where I am always at fault.

I talked to my therapist on Wednesday morning. I brought everything up about being upset about everyone but me going to New York for his daughter's graduation. Even the issues I have been having lately. She broke it down. It's common for people with borderline traits and complex PTSD to have major abandonment issues. She was positive that this is a part of what I was feeling.

My hour long session ended and I went to my computer and sat down to do a little work. But my Wednesday chemo dose started to affect me. I was suddenly so exhausted I could hardly keep my eyes open. Just then, Rick's phone went off. His side job needed him to puppeteer a character at an influencer event, like IMMEDIATELY. I asked how long he'd be gone? Until 11:30 that night. Twelve hours plus, alone. On a chemo day. Usually on meds day, Rick is ever present to help me if needed.

Of course, he cannot turn work down. But that abandonment issue roared. I was in bed as he got ready to leave. I mentally started thinking up my back up plans to care for myself in his absence. I knew as the day wore on, it would become harder and harder to get or do what would be needed, so I tried to gather anything I might need, and put it close to me in our room. I closed the bedroom door and got into bed, already dozing as he kissed my forehead and left to go to work.

Yesterday, he, again, sat at his computer all day. I noticed that when he took breaks, he would still sit at the computer playing games. I made dinner and excitedly told him that there was a new episode of Criminal Minds. He said, "Cool. I will watch it with you." So I started the show. We got through half of the show, and he asked me to pause it so he could go to the bathroom. After I few minutes, I could hear him talking to someone on the phone. I could hear his sister's voice.

I sat there trying very hard not to eavesdrop, even though he was all of ten or eleven feet from me in the bedroom, with the door open. A couple of key phrases I happened to catch- "depressed due to boredom", and then, "it's just the two of us, all the time. She never wants to go anywhere." That forced me to snap out of tuning into his conversation. I went to my phone and started playing videos. It helped. After an hour, he finally got off the phone, and instead of coming back to sit with me and finish the episode, he went back to his computer, and was also going through Facebook. I gave up and finished the episode alone.

I felt kind of invisible. I feel like an annoying roommate.