I cleaned up the kitchen and put everything away and got P ready for bed and went into the bathroom to change into pajamas and was suddenly hit with this blow of anxiety and guilt. It felt like a boxer had hidden behind and bathroom door and suddenly reached out and clocked me hard when my back was turned. At first I wasn't sure what was wrong. I wasn't even sure what I felt I did wrong. Then I thought of the cake. That horrible indulgent delicious cake. I shouldn't have made it. I shouldn't have even stood next to it.
What?
As the paralyzing and stomach churning anxiety flooded over me my brain was rolling its eyes and saying, "Seriously? You are feeling guilty for MAKING a cake? You didn't even EAT it yet. Jesus H Christ on a popsicle stick that is messed UP."
Paralyzing and stomach churning anxiety aside, I had to side with my brain on that one.
I tell this story sometimes but I am not sure I ever wrote it down. When trying to explain to people how difficult it was for me to deal with db sometimes, the best example I could give was that if we had to go to a party, there were inevitably three possible outcomes:
1. I would convince him to leave slightly early due to not knowing where we were going, traffic etc and we would usually end up early and he would be a peach the whole time except either before going in or on the way home I would get "the lecture": You know we didn't have to leave that early, why do you have to be such a pain in the ass goody two shoes have to be early so you don't miss anything what the fuck etc etc etc.
2. I would not try to get him to leave early because I had learned THAT lesson (see number 1) and so we would end up arriving late and I would then get the lecture: You are so rude. Can't even be bother to get somewhere on time. You know we should have left early so that we wouldn't be late. You can't even have the slightest bit of respect for anyone because it's always about YOU.
3. After experiencing 1 and 2 on multiple occasions, I would make a monumental effort to get us there EXACTLY on time so as to avoid lecture 1 or lecture 2 and if I did, his response would be (read this in your nastiest most sarcastic voice): Oooooh little Miss Perfect Jesus Christ you are such an anal retentive cunt...can't be early...can't be late...oh no....have to be so perfect and on time and better than everyone else.
If you are looking at this and saying to yourself, that makes NO sense, you are correct. If you read my "To His Wife" letter you will see I highlighted the "refusal to ever be pleased" line and this is a great example. This was not limited to this scenario. It could be anything from a pair of shoes I bought to cleaning out the fridge to trying to decide on sometime for work. No matter what I did, he would find something wrong with it and harass me about the decision or choice or course of action. Sometimes the harassment was loud and mean and involved calling me names like bitch, whore, cunt, and slut (yes, even if it was just about mustard...never could quite understand what mustard had to do with me being a whore but....) or if it wasn't in my face nasty it was just these wretched sighs of annoyance or irritation. Eye rolling. That "I suppose if you want to do it all fucked up you can but don't ask me to help or fix it because you are just an idiot" look. Trust me, he could get ALL that in ONE look. If I adjusted to avoid the criticism, he would just find something new to criticize. It got so so so tiring.
I think, I picked that up from him. I think that is what was happening tonight with the cake. Because as my brain fought back against the anxiety with "But I didn't even eat it" the anxiety would counter with some other criticism like I shouldn't have made it because now I will eat it tomorrow then my brain would argue that why should I "punish" my brother by trying to make him some cake out of fruit like a hunk of watermelon just because I don't need the few calories and that voice would fire back I was just making excuses to which I realized that if I listened to the voice and did make the watermelon cake (a giant round of watermelon topped with fruit) then I was being an ass to my brother and .....see how that works? I catch my brain doing to me what HE did to me. It's like he left a computer virus in my head and I can't seem to get it quarantined and eradicated yet. At least I know it's there, though. Sigh.
I am not sure what to do with it. Have added it to my list to talk to the shrink about. I did catch myself as it hit me letting loose with a gut wrenching sob and my eyes started to water but I stopped it and pulled myself together and decided to come out here and write about it so as to force it into an academic corner versus letting myself get caught in the wave of anxiety and panic. I am still feeling sad. Somewhat anxious. But I no longer feel like I am going to go down on one knee under the weight of it.
It is absolutely ridiculous to feel bad about making my brother a birthday cake.
It is absolutely ridiculous to feel bad about knowing I am going to have a small slice of it tomorrow night.
It is absolutely ridiculous to feel bad about it tasting good if it does which I know it will.
I am doing nothing wrong and this is just his silly stupid mean cruel manipulative abusive ghost still trying to haunt my mind.
A dead ghost can't hurt me, even if it annoys me.
I don't eat cake every day. I don't even eat it every week. I have nothing to feel bad about.
Deep breath. Okay. I think I've got this.
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