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Anonymous
I was a bit hesitant to "let it all out", but I took the risk and did it anyway... the reason why is because of all the other things I've been through in my life, more often than not, I had people either turn on me or turn away from me whenever I did take the chance and was honest. I learned from a young age to "keep my mouth shut, stay quiet, keep myself to myself, my feelings, thoughts, keep quiet" so as to not upset the status quo or any other dysfunctional family system or even (so-called) friendships. I learned to "sort my ownself out", even though I had a rare person come along that would say "I will be there for you" and then they weren't (for whatever their own personal reasons were). However, so far, in this forum, no one has tried to scold or shush me about how I feel in regard to my side of dealing with my husband's End Stage Renal Disease, how this has affected me (and with my acknowledgement of HIS side of it, which I don't discount or diminish for him). However, I know from very hard, long, repeated, personal experiences, that I better find some way to "take care of myself" in some way or fashion, so for me, writing in a "safe" environment where I won't be judged, scolded, reprimanded, shamed, blamed, accused, criticized, or wronged, is very helpful to me so that I don't have to feel as though I'm a horrible woman/wife who doesn't care about him, only myself. I care about him, but I don't care for how/who/what he's come to since he was diagnosed. In the past couple days, the "nice 2 weeks" seems to be gradually coming to an end. I wasn't expecting a miracle that he would've "returned to his old normal self" as he SEEMED to have done in the past two weeks; however, I also can see that I don't see HOW I am going to be able to live this way for the rest of my life. It does seem just "too much" for me as no matter how much I try to "take care of myself" that I am still affected by how he behaves, his attitude (on and off), and how that is too much of an emotional roller-coaster for me. I realize this is hard for me due to my past traumas and I admit to my "issues" and how they are triggered due to his attitude, sarcastic remarks, and behavior, all of which I've already told him I can't take. He obviously can only manage to "stop doing it" for (so far) 2 weeks and then he gradually goes back to it. How much more of this can I endure? Who knows. Maybe God knows? I know right now I don't have much of a choice due to my personal situation, but for me, it stills keeps coming back to "I want out". I still don't know how all this is going to work out or turn out. Right now, by June 1, if we don't sell something for money or we don't find jobs, it will become even worse. I see that he becomes in a bad attitude when he's not "hand given a small side-job to do", and he knows our agreement is that if we both don't work together that this situation won't work out and that time is coming quickly. I also know that he expects ME to pick up the slack and take care of whatever needs to be done although I've told him I cannot be expected to do that, nor do I think I can do it. I just don't know what on God's green earth he is thinking because he seems to have become very convoluted somehow, which is extremely insane to me because he used to be a very logical person. I can't imagine what he could possibly be thinking now with time/money closing down on us. He does not talk about it and I've now pretty much given up on trying to talk to him about it, I've already repeated myself enough times. It seems to me he will let things go down the toilet and expect me to fix/clean up the mess even though he says that he doesn't want me to have to fix everything?! I can see he is NOT going to "do whatever it takes or whatever needs to be done" to "save our sinking ship". I think I see that he is going to let me suffer and live in whatever fear, agony, misery, worry, anxiety, depression, or anything else because he knows I'm strong at the end, good in a crisis, and will "figure something out"?! Here we go again, the "poor little innocent disease victim". I'm not saying I'm a victim, I'm saying it looks to me as if HE is constantly going back to that role, which he has always had a tendency to do even before he was diagnosed (i.e., my mother was mean to me, my ex-wife was a b%*% to me, my sister is crazy, my daughter-in-law is a cow, etc. etc. etc.). That, to me, is "blaming other people" and not being accountable for SELF. I can't remember when he has EVER admitted to doing ANYTHING wrong actually! The more I assess this situation the more I can separate his illness from his mental/personality. I have a lot of experience doing this from other situations I've gone through in my life. It's extremely difficult, being in the middle of it, but I have grown in my self-belief and confidence and know that I'm not crazy and I CAN make good decisions, sensible, reasonable, and trust myself. I have grown, he has not grown, and now the disease has really taken him down and I'm not "kicking him when he's down"; however, I know he is NOT the "worst case scenario" of ESRD because he still has PARTIAL kidney function, is not on oxygen, does not have diabetes, does not have a colostomy, and they've even reduced the time of his dialysis treatments by 15 minutes, and even said he could possibly in future go to only 2 days per week instead of 3. I try to focus him to the positive, but he still only wants to complain about all the bad parts of it. I know he doesn't want to get up false hopes, but the point is that my brother gave him his job account so he could have his part-time work and he seems OK when he's doing the work, but as soon as there's no job, he turns into a jerk again and then it makes my life hell. I am trying to find my own fulltime job but am finding it difficult to land one during these economic times (even Target turned me down?!) I am a highly qualified person; however, jobs seem to be scarce at this time, so I am sweating it out until something happens, changes, or some sort of breakthrough happens with jobs, or something or other. I take life one day at a time, and keep hoping for the best, try to take care of myself, do what I can for him, and my daughter and the new baby, look for a job, keep the household running properly and smoothly, take care of all the finances, keep a good attitude (thank God I can write in here!), and generally try to stay sane and serene as possible. I am still, thus far, able to meet my "responsibilities", and try to get my husband to "do (only) what he can" (as I wrote before, I don't expect him to do what he can't), but he is extremely stubborn and gets an attitude so quickly that I feel I have to be VERY careful about what I say and do and that does NOT feel good or healthy to me. That alone creates an inner conflict for me. This makes me feel that I can't be completely "true to myself" in some sense. I have fought so hard to learn how to be able to do that, and now it's like I'm stuck and my hands are tied, so it doesn't feel good and I don't like it, sometimes I hate it, loathe it, and I try so hard to not be resentful and angry, frustrated, and even disgusted by him (and some of his nasty, filthy, healh-habits). I've been afraid to even tell ANYONE how he is because it makes me feel like I'm a bad person, like I'm talking badly about him, but when I have to "clean up after him" it has made me very sick and that's been going on for well over a year, even was going on before he was diagnosed (but still had symptoms). I won't go into details, I just can't even write it. Suffice it to say, I've squashed all this down inside me, brushed over it, tried to "live with it", and I think if I ever "got out of this", that it would take me quite some time to recover. I think if I don't get out, that I will be somehow traumatized for the rest of my life or else I will become like a "conditioned" person (almost brainwashed) to "caretaking" which is what I have probably the biggest issue with.
I hope that something I say does mean something to someone because I have to wonder what going through all this is for. I know there's lots of speculative reasons why and I also know from experience I don't always get to find out, but I sure do feel pushed to my limits (again) in life and as lawyers say "I pray for general relief".
Thank you kindly,
New Nan in Texas.
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I was a bit hesitant to "let it all out", but I took the risk and did it anyway... the reason why is because of all the other things I've been through in my life, more often than not, I had people either turn on me or turn away from me whenever I did take the chance and was honest. I learned from a young age to "keep my mouth shut, stay quiet, keep myself to myself, my feelings, thoughts, keep quiet" so as to not upset the status quo or any other dysfunctional family system or even (so-called) friendships. I learned to "sort my ownself out", even though I had a rare person come along that would say "I will be there for you" and then they weren't (for whatever their own personal reasons were). However, so far, in this forum, no one has tried to scold or shush me about how I feel in regard to my side of dealing with my husband's End Stage Renal Disease, how this has affected me (and with my acknowledgement of HIS side of it, which I don't discount or diminish for him). However, I know from very hard, long, repeated, personal experiences, that I better find some way to "take care of myself" in some way or fashion, so for me, writing in a "safe" environment where I won't be judged, scolded, reprimanded, shamed, blamed, accused, criticized, or wronged, is very helpful to me so that I don't have to feel as though I'm a horrible woman/wife who doesn't care about him, only myself. I care about him, but I don't care for how/who/what he's come to since he was diagnosed. In the past couple days, the "nice 2 weeks" seems to be gradually coming to an end. I wasn't expecting a miracle that he would've "returned to his old normal self" as he SEEMED to have done in the past two weeks; however, I also can see that I don't see HOW I am going to be able to live this way for the rest of my life. It does seem just "too much" for me as no matter how much I try to "take care of myself" that I am still affected by how he behaves, his attitude (on and off), and how that is too much of an emotional roller-coaster for me. I realize this is hard for me due to my past traumas and I admit to my "issues" and how they are triggered due to his attitude, sarcastic remarks, and behavior, all of which I've already told him I can't take. He obviously can only manage to "stop doing it" for (so far) 2 weeks and then he gradually goes back to it. How much more of this can I endure? Who knows. Maybe God knows? I know right now I don't have much of a choice due to my personal situation, but for me, it stills keeps coming back to "I want out". I still don't know how all this is going to work out or turn out. Right now, by June 1, if we don't sell something for money or we don't find jobs, it will become even worse. I see that he becomes in a bad attitude when he's not "hand given a small side-job to do", and he knows our agreement is that if we both don't work together that this situation won't work out and that time is coming quickly. I also know that he expects ME to pick up the slack and take care of whatever needs to be done although I've told him I cannot be expected to do that, nor do I think I can do it. I just don't know what on God's green earth he is thinking because he seems to have become very convoluted somehow, which is extremely insane to me because he used to be a very logical person. I can't imagine what he could possibly be thinking now with time/money closing down on us. He does not talk about it and I've now pretty much given up on trying to talk to him about it, I've already repeated myself enough times. It seems to me he will let things go down the toilet and expect me to fix/clean up the mess even though he says that he doesn't want me to have to fix everything?! I can see he is NOT going to "do whatever it takes or whatever needs to be done" to "save our sinking ship". I think I see that he is going to let me suffer and live in whatever fear, agony, misery, worry, anxiety, depression, or anything else because he knows I'm strong at the end, good in a crisis, and will "figure something out"?! Here we go again, the "poor little innocent disease victim". I'm not saying I'm a victim, I'm saying it looks to me as if HE is constantly going back to that role, which he has always had a tendency to do even before he was diagnosed (i.e., my mother was mean to me, my ex-wife was a b%*% to me, my sister is crazy, my daughter-in-law is a cow, etc. etc. etc.). That, to me, is "blaming other people" and not being accountable for SELF. I can't remember when he has EVER admitted to doing ANYTHING wrong actually! The more I assess this situation the more I can separate his illness from his mental/personality. I have a lot of experience doing this from other situations I've gone through in my life. It's extremely difficult, being in the middle of it, but I have grown in my self-belief and confidence and know that I'm not crazy and I CAN make good decisions, sensible, reasonable, and trust myself. I have grown, he has not grown, and now the disease has really taken him down and I'm not "kicking him when he's down"; however, I know he is NOT the "worst case scenario" of ESRD because he still has PARTIAL kidney function, is not on oxygen, does not have diabetes, does not have a colostomy, and they've even reduced the time of his dialysis treatments by 15 minutes, and even said he could possibly in future go to only 2 days per week instead of 3. I try to focus him to the positive, but he still only wants to complain about all the bad parts of it. I know he doesn't want to get up false hopes, but the point is that my brother gave him his job account so he could have his part-time work and he seems OK when he's doing the work, but as soon as there's no job, he turns into a jerk again and then it makes my life hell. I am trying to find my own fulltime job but am finding it difficult to land one during these economic times (even Target turned me down?!) I am a highly qualified person; however, jobs seem to be scarce at this time, so I am sweating it out until something happens, changes, or some sort of breakthrough happens with jobs, or something or other. I take life one day at a time, and keep hoping for the best, try to take care of myself, do what I can for him, and my daughter and the new baby, look for a job, keep the household running properly and smoothly, take care of all the finances, keep a good attitude (thank God I can write in here!), and generally try to stay sane and serene as possible. I am still, thus far, able to meet my "responsibilities", and try to get my husband to "do (only) what he can" (as I wrote before, I don't expect him to do what he can't), but he is extremely stubborn and gets an attitude so quickly that I feel I have to be VERY careful about what I say and do and that does NOT feel good or healthy to me. That alone creates an inner conflict for me. This makes me feel that I can't be completely "true to myself" in some sense. I have fought so hard to learn how to be able to do that, and now it's like I'm stuck and my hands are tied, so it doesn't feel good and I don't like it, sometimes I hate it, loathe it, and I try so hard to not be resentful and angry, frustrated, and even disgusted by him (and some of his nasty, filthy, healh-habits). I've been afraid to even tell ANYONE how he is because it makes me feel like I'm a bad person, like I'm talking badly about him, but when I have to "clean up after him" it has made me very sick and that's been going on for well over a year, even was going on before he was diagnosed (but still had symptoms). I won't go into details, I just can't even write it. Suffice it to say, I've squashed all this down inside me, brushed over it, tried to "live with it", and I think if I ever "got out of this", that it would take me quite some time to recover. I think if I don't get out, that I will be somehow traumatized for the rest of my life or else I will become like a "conditioned" person (almost brainwashed) to "caretaking" which is what I have probably the biggest issue with.
May 21, 2009 - 9:08pmI hope that something I say does mean something to someone because I have to wonder what going through all this is for. I know there's lots of speculative reasons why and I also know from experience I don't always get to find out, but I sure do feel pushed to my limits (again) in life and as lawyers say "I pray for general relief".
Thank you kindly,
New Nan in Texas.
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