I feel bad for posting this - there are a handful of threads I really want to respond to - but I'm kind of a mess right now and I guess I will have to get back to them later.

I think I need to post this though - or maybe not. I dunno. It's just a really tough night tonight.

I talked with my regular T about Christmas plans today. Mine are tricky and involve navigating a lot of family junk. Major junk and generations of heartache. And grief. First Christmas I won't have the oasis of visiting my grandmother. She passed away about a month ago. She always welcomed me, even when her own son would not even admit I existed for the past decade (litterally). In her last few months, as she went down hill pretty fast, and began to lose cognitive abilities, she even always recognized me, even until the end... even when she couldn't recognize anyone else. (My counsin said she thought it was "so weird." um, gee thanks. - but most of my extended family did not know of the long times I would spend with her, just by her side. And because there was little I could do to help, I would just sit with her - while they would spend time with her doing much more stuff and taking care of her house and everything. The only thing I could do was sit. So it makese sense... I didn't do anything really. Yet at the same time, she always went to this huge effort to tell me over and over "you are welcome here"
"I know Grandma"
"you are welcome here, never forget that."
"I know."
"I'll never make you go away."

and then I would try to re-direct...

but soon she would say again, half confused, half like we were meeting again,
"Jane, I am so gald you are here. You are always welcome here."

My grandma. In a family where... that is is NEVER said. never. It is usually how much I am NOT welcome, and/or something they might "allow."

Allowed.

welcomed.

such small words that reflect such big things.

And I miss my grandma. I miss her couch. I miss curling up on the couch, with her in her rocking chair watching TV or talking about the paper. Just sitting and being near.

I would do that for days every holiday season. Just me and my Grandma. No other family except sometimes my mother.

My grandma is gone this year. I miss her. And I miss those words too, "You are always welcome here."

(Oh how I long for someone, anyone, in my family to say that about anything... welcome... so glad you are here... )

In my session with my T, we talked about past hurts and current dangers, challenges, and changes.... We talked about a lot more than just logistics but what I wanted and why. We talked about my fear and shame...

I asked my T, "do other people have to deal with this kind of stuff with their families around the holidays?" I wanted to suddenly feel less alone, less abnormal, less... something... I'm not sure.

She paused, said "yes, a lot of people have a lot of family probelms they have to deal with during the holidays... but your father, and the way he is, and the way your extended family is about him, is pretty extreme."

extreme.

I didn't know what she would say. I love my T's honest reaction and words. She cares so much about me and yet never super sugar coats stuff - and yet is usually is very very gentle about everything she says too.

"extreme" sorta surprised me, and yet didn't surprise me too.

I think she was trying to probably help me understand my feelings and level of heartache are fitting for the nightmare-ish junk I have to deal with - and that there are many abnormal things about it. She said I'm "reacting normally to very abnormal" stuff.

I didn't find that very comforting. (It was a good session, and it was comforting to talk about it with my T.) I just don't like things being so ABNORMAL.

Later today, I got an email from someone (who is not a family member) and they said something really hurtful in the email. Or maybe I misunderstood it - but the email just really hurt too much to even re-read. I didn't respond. I just didn't do anything. I'm go glad I didn't. Thankfully the sender copied someone else, and that someone else thankfully stepped in and sent an appropriate response, the response allowed me some space and time before I have to respond. But the email itself still hurt... and it hurt right where I was already hurting and my heart is so sore...

Then a few hours later, I talked to my mom... it went ok-ish... but it wasn't without her starting to be very weirdly controlling in a way that she tends to be every year when the holidays come around. I've learned to expect it by now, and it wasn't too bad, but still - it is hard. I tend to have to fight to feel like a *capable* person, in any way, after dealing with her being like this.

There are all kinda of internal messages running around in my head tonight. Especially about how my T said my family chaos is extreme. It's not new for her or others to say that. But still, it hit me hard today. (btw, It could be so much worse.) I keep thinking things like, "yeah, it's extreme because I'm extremely messed up and extremely disgusting." And worse. I know that is not true. And for the most part, I seem to be able to silence those kinds of thoughts (which is very. very, vert new for me. Not sure I have ever been ablet to do that before.) But when I do, and when I stop beating myself up, I sink into a saddness that takes my breath away. A saddness I am so tired of being haunted by. Now it is not just haunting me, but consuming me. And so suddenly. I think it has been there for awhile, and the walls holding it back just broke.

Maybe it is easier to just hate me or blame me than feel this.

All I want to do is cry, and curl up in my blanket, and sleep for days. Hide from me and the world. I feel so suddenly physically exhausted. I don't quite know why. What is wrong with me?

If I let me hate me like crazy, then I have engery. But if I let go and let the grief come, let the desire of the things I long for come, if I try to hold on to the truth of... whatever is true about all of this (which I am still figuring out but includes the fact that I am somehow loved by God no matter what) .... I get so exhausted and so sad and so down it's just super intense - and feels so sudden. Like a damn breaks and I'm drowning in the dark flood.

Yet of course, thanks to PTSD related insomina, I can't sleep. And I'm afraid to let the tears come. I usually can't hold back tears so well... I just don't want to let the messed up stuff with my family take another moment from me. I don't want this! I don't want to let it make me feel sad. NO. I want to yell at all of the brokenness "GO AWAY. I AM SICK OF YOU. I AM NOT DISGUSTING AND I AM CAPABLE AND JUST BUG OFF" and at the same time I want to say that to the borken stuff my family does, I want to say to the actual people in my family "please, oh please, don't leave me..." I want my family to GO AWAY and yet please not leave... please accept me. please stop doing things that I have to stay away from. please don't hurt me. please go away and stay.

shiesh. I'm messed up.

No wonder I'm exhusted. Just trying to make sense of my own self is wearing.

I just needed to post this. I'm just in a tough place and rather suddenly so. (maybe I'm now losing it in a new way?) I'll be ok, it's just a very dark night for me...