The quiet mouse

To be honest I have a love hate relationship with our dishwasher. It’s super super quiet which I love. One the other hand it loads funky. Oh I hate the 3rd drawer for silverware. You can fit so much more in it without it. The tines are at an angle too so things fit weird. I didn’t even get to choose it. He just asked his mom her opinion and he bought it. My thoughts and feelings in this house really don’t matter

His mom used to live here and when his grandma got sick next door she moved in with Grandma to help take care of her. Well grandma passed away and she’s living in the house she grew up in. She left everything she didn’t need in our house.

Well my husband and his guy friends lived here before we got married. We eventually bought this house from his uncle.

We’ve been living here for over 10 years. The house is still decorated from when his mom lived here. Half the basement is full of her stuff. He won’t make her remove anything. He won’t let me decorate it how I want to. Essentially this house is still hers. Decisions about changes we make all go through her. It’s ridiculous.

I’m going to be brutally honest here. Here are some things in order that scare me.

My husband. Yes I said my husband. We’ve been together over 10 years. We went on vacation to a Southern state to visit friends. A few weeks before we left we were watching an anime show in the basement. Well it jumped episodes and was going to show out of order. I just kept watching. He grabbed my head and shoved it into the back of the couch cushion and kept bouncing it deeper into the cushion. I was so caught off guard that I didn’t even fight back. I never thought he would assault me over a tv show. He later said it was all my fault and that I made him do it. I went on vacation with him and our friends a few weeks later afraid of what he might do to me. I did tell him that if he ever did anything like that to me again he wouldn’t know what would hit him. I told him that people would move faster than me and he would not be able to stand up in one piece. He’s never tried to physically assault me ever again. This man has taken to emotionally and mentally abusing me. I have been gaslighted, criticized and just dragged through the trenches mentally and emotionally by him.

The hardest thing is acting like it doesn’t bother me that he’s acting like this. He’s an ass. He’s a narcissist.

Not having control of my anxiety. I can have some pretty intense panic attacks. I’ve had them last for 45 minutes. I’ve had them to where my sense of touch is all wacko and just touching me hurts. Thank goodness for my medicine that helps me so much. I can function. I can have friends. I can walk into a social situation and not be shaking by the end.

I can honestly remember my first panic attack and I really didn’t realize what it was at the time. I was out of state for college and a group of us were hanging out at of their houses. There was like 15 or 20 people. Well they decided to shoot some targets and brought out so many guns I had never seen before. Their neighbors called the police ( neighbors didn’t like these people). The police showed up and I was terrified that we were all going to get arrested. I ended up hiding in the bushes trying to hide. I was so scared. Someone found me and convinced me to come out and be social. This is honestly one of the first times I’ve talked about this episode. I grew up around fire arms and knew gun safety. I think seeing that many made me nervous and having the police show up. The amount they had covered the tailgate of a truck into the bed. It was just between two people owning them. There were a lot of things I didn’t understand 20+ years ago. Naive farm girl here. But as an adult I understand a lot more now. But people still scare me.

As a mom one of the scariest things I can’t control is when one of my kids gets sick. I’m up every couple of hours at night taking temperatures and giving medicine.

Something happening while driving. I’ve had a few doozy things happen. Driving home on the highway from classes at a local college my breaks went completely out. I somehow remained cool and heard my dad’s voice say” you always have breaks just hit them hard and the back ones will kick in.” I got home in one piece and dad was proud, pissed, and shocked I had drove 25 minutes with no breaks and no cellphone. I was a stupid 21 year old right? He was able to fix them.

I think that’s just about it. Some places, names and events have been changed. But other things are true.

Yes, that’s what I said. It’s something that not a lot of people think about. It’s something that honestly makes people uncomfortable.

It doesn’t phase me at all.

See I grew up camping in the middle of nowhere in a podunk town that you literally blinked and missed it.

I grew up camping along a river.

I grew up fishing.

I grew up catching crawdads and somehow finding snapping turtles while swimming. That’s a story for another day.

I grew up camping at two campgrounds along the same river but different sides of it.

I was there last weekend and I still struggle a bit with seeing the water coming down the river. I don’t know it just feels wrong.

I used an outhouse all weekend. It’s honestly a portable outhouse. Not like the brick building ones at the other campground. The brick ones were sturdy and had more room to move around in them. The only downside of the brick ones were the groundhogs. They would go in and chew on the seats and benches.

Im a bit of a hillbilly girl. I would run barefoot if you let me. My hometown floods occasionally. I’m not the least anxious about it when the water starts to rise. Growing up beside a river that went over it’s banks during storms doesn’t worry me. I’m just smart enough to not get near the water. You don’t know what is lurking in it when it’s raging along.

I love being at the camper. I can sit and relax and honestly get some quiet time in.

It’s a great time to sit and pray. To get yourself calm and ready to meet the day headon.

last night i texted my sister that I needed help. I was overwhelmed and everything hit me at once. I hadn’t felt like that in almost 16 years. A long time ago I dated a guy and almost married him. I went on a downward spiral into some deep dark depths of depression. I almost killed myself. I had it all planned out and I really was going to go through with it. But then I got a phone call and hung out with some pretty awesome people.

last night I felt that dark swirling depression creeping back. I am on anxiety and depression meds. I didn’t used to be on medication like this until I married my now husband. What set me off on feeling this way yesterday was being criticized by his mom.

Ya his mom. My mother in law is a nut job. I’m saying this out loud. She terrorized me over the car seats I chose for by children before they were born. She convinced her son, my husband that they weren’t going to be suitable enough for the girls when they were born. She thought that I hadn’t done my research about them. Instead he aligned with her and we sent them back. We ended up with used car seats and stroller from one of her church friends whose family member had had twins.

This women has bullied me from day one. I was on a week of vacation in July and she wanted me to send her pictures of the girls hair done up everyday so that she knew that I could do their hair. Seriously? I might be a farm kid who is a plain Jane but I know how to do my hair and I can more than do my own kids hair.

Back to the point. My sister got me a number to our local crisis center and I spoke to an amazing counselor who helped me through my breakdown. Being a mom is hard. Being a mom with people around you that don’t believe in you and those people don’t think you are capable is even harder.

What’s even harder for me is that I told my husband about the phone call. He didn’t say anything. There was no ” I’m glad you chose to get help.” ” I’m glad you’re sister helped you”.

Support? There’s really no support in this house.

Honestly I just want to sit and cry. Sometimes I do. Only when he’s not home. I struggle with wanted to be loved. I struggle with wether or not I’m good enough. I know I’m not. It’s been made plain by him and his mom.

I’ve been told through the years that I was raised wrong. I’ve been told I was backwards. I might not wear makeup. I might not have an interest in wearing brand name clothes. I might not get my mail done or spend oodles of money on my hair.

But I do know I am amazing. I handled overnights with twin babies.

I started my own business when I was told I couldn’t run a business out of my home.

I choose to be amazing. I choose to overcome the roadblocks in front of me.

I’ve always been a quiet laid back kind of girl. Unfortunately that has led me to people who walk all over me. From family to friends and even coworkers.

It doesn’t help that I have anxiety and depression.

I also have two beautiful kids. I’m so glad that I am their mom. They have brought out the mama bear in me. I don’t know if that is good or bad.

I may have been a head cashier that basically ran the store I worked at. I knew how to do everything but a few things. I did way too much for the company. One of the things that really bothered me was that the assistant manager didn’t know the tax exempt policy. It also took her multiple times of me telling her how to do a return properly. She had been there 3 years and still didn’t know company policies. Oh and the head manager didn’t know where the buttons were on the register. How do you get to be a manager and not know how to run the register and know where the buttons are?

The things I saw and heard wore on my mental health. I just couldn’t do it anymore. Here’s some examples.

Product brought in that was clearly musty. We had to still clean the product and put it out. You could smell the mustiness from the other aisles

Management not believing us that that musty product was making us sick. We wore 🧤 ves and masks when we handled it. Our faces would break out, our skin would itch and turn red from it.

The assistant manager would meltdown and have a tantrum in the floor when things didn’t go her way. Like literally yellow and scream and cuss.

The assistant manager acknowledged that she said micro aggressions to my face and said she wouldn’t say them again. Hours later she said them again.

Upper management refused to take action and enact consequences for things that should have been handled quickly.

Yep I quit.