Miscellaneous ramblings of NarcKiddo

[NarcKiddo]

Thank you, everyone.

I don't feel bad about needing to continue therapy as such. I can afford it and I know it is helping me a lot. So that's fine. It's more that I honestly thought I would be OK with less frequency but even the suggestion of it has coincided with adverse reactions. Oh well. When I look back, I realise that I have actually cut frequency. Before, when T or I had to go on holiday I would schedule a catch up session. Or she would let me raise issues by email if we couldn't do normal zoom. If there was an unexpected change because she was ill I would take it badly. All those things I can now take in my stride and I don't bother with catch up sessions any more. So, there's progress I had not actually recognised until just now.

But wow, I am on a very short fuse emotionally right now. And out of nowhere, too, which sucks extra.

Like today. All was fine. Really good, actually. Felt calm and happy. And then my husband mislaid the car keys. Which also have our house keys attached. He often does this. I have suggested an air tag many times. But no.

Logic dictated that they were in the house or garage. His occasional habit of leaving them actually in our door lock, on full public display and ready to be stolen, was enough to make me worry more. We have cameras and it is very unlikely I would have missed someone stealing our keys. But still.

So he just sat in our summer house reading his iPad while I finished my laundry and then went on a search. I found them fast, which did not help. He had put them in a garage cupboard where they do not live and should not be. But if he had only bothered to open the garage cupboards he would have seen them and saved all the aggro.

Oddly, it was my finding them that sent me over the edge. I gave them to him, told him where they had been and stormed off into the house to have a full on tantrum in private. I mean a toddler tantrum here. Shouting. Jumping up and down. Dissolving into a crying fit. It was totally epic and what anyone would have thought had they seen a middle aged woman doing this I have no idea.

Anyway, it got the worst out of my system, such that I was capable of going out for coffee as we usually do. On the way I did not suggest he get an air tag, I flat out demanded it. And he said he would and when he had been reading his iPad he had in fact been researching such things. And he apologised for losing the keys. Which of course was not really the problem, but his behaviour around it. Anyway I need to process all of that before I consider how to approach it with him.

So coffee was OK but kind of stilted. And we drove home. I was just about to get out of the car when he said "Do you forgive me?". All I could do was squeak "yes" and hotfoot it out of that car.

He was not to know, but the one and only time my mother asked me that question was when I was 7, in the car, after she had totally unfairly raged at me. And I hadn't forgiven her yet and was stupid enough to say so. To be asked that self same question, when I am already fragile, IN A CAR was just the end. Slap bang back into the EF. So the rest of today is being spent trying to calm myself before we have to go out for a meal with friends tonight which will be nice but also stressful for various reasons, and then have several medical appointments tomorrow which will not be nice in the slightest.

Ugh. And plenty to chat about in therapy this week. Again. 

[sanmagic7]

yeah, it sounds like a lot    NK.  dang. i do hope he gets an air tag (i just looked it up, sounds like it would be perfect for this situation).  seems like you've been living w/in no sense of safety, which, in my mind, completely warrants that 'tantrum' - a lot of feelings associated w/ feeling unsafe. EF sounds just about right for the situation as well.  and then you had to be the responsible one, do a search and find the keys in order to restore a sense of safety, take care of it all yourself.  there's a lot there to process.

i do hope he gets one and it eases this problem.

and, congratulations on your therapy progress.  the fact that you can now manage some things you weren't able to before is wonderful.  keep up the good work, ok?  love and hugs