Briannah

Hi everyone!  We're doing great, Nikki has responded to the Zoloft exceedingly well and continues with this therapy, although they bumped it down to monthly since he's doing so great.    And we had a wild summer packed full of all things fun.  (and i also managed not to explode and actually made the fireworks at the fourth of july this year!).  I have 8 more working days, then I"m outta the job from hell.  Nikki continues to look for a new job, but being back on an overall even keel has returned to his I like my job, just not my coworkers overall feeling about it and is doing fine.  I'm mad at the library for not hiring him, I think he would have loved working there!

Oh my gosh STeph, that is insane heat.  The worst we hit was 98 degrees Fahrenheit, which my phone tells me is 36.7 celcius.  I swear the pool is the reason we made it through this summer without hospitalization for heat stroke, the humidity has been weirdly insane for the lack of rain that fell this year.  I've spent summers here since I was 8, and lived here full time since I was 23, and only in the last three years as the lawn ever crunched when you walked on it.  Being so close to the great lakes it rained a LOT. 

My asthma is holding off great, summer makes me almost like a person with normally functioning lungs!    I love summer.  It's winter where things get...unpleasant.  Nikki job hunts in Florida too, since I actually loved it there and it's warm all year round, but unlikely that he'll actually find anything, jobs like people already in the area.  But a Bree's gotta dream, right? 

And don't worry about my hydration, you should see the giant water drinking thing I walk around with.  it holds a little over a liter, and I fill it up and suck on it.  Good for the diet and the hydration both, I"m always really full of water.  I joke it's why I float in the pool so well, neutral bouyancy with all the water inside!

I hope you have a speedy and complication free recovery!  Don't follow in my footsteps after that last surgery and end up with creepy infections that you can't pronounce! 

Thank you Ace, we are slowly adjusting to the lack of cuddle cat around the house.  Her brother has finally stopped looking for here, I'm not sure whether to be happy or sad about that. 

Monica, not that I really want to jump to defending my dad, but I did point out that I'm told by those that remember that it started after her graduation, she would not have been a minor.  And those people were not inlcined to protect my dad, it was my maternal grandmother that hated him.   To my knowledge every woman he's dated has been of legal age, and generally no more or less than a 7 year age gap.  His current wife being seven years older than him.  (Which made him freaking out about the five year younger than me issue with Nikki even dumber that he threw a fit over once upon a time until I pointed out his situation and how stupid he sounded). 

It's not just that first introduction to cheating from my dad, it's his general behavior on top of it.  He constantly preaches responsibility, and yet when it's HIS behavior that requires it suddenly we're all crazy and he never did anything wrong (he's huge into gaslighting everyone when it's him).  And then raising me to validate cheaters if their partners don't make them 100% happy.  He and my stepmom literally taught me all my life that it's my mothers fault he cheated (I was three, and at my grandparents all week, and they wouldn't watch me on weekends because they thought  my parents should actually raise me some of the time too, and Dad wanted to go out all weekend drinking for example), and that the reason he never cheated on my stepmom was she literally subsumed her whole life into him.  And it wasn't until the last ten years or so ago that I realized how REALLY unhealthy all that is.  Not to mention all his talk about blood ties being SO IMPORTANT and the man makes every effort NOT to connect to my son. 

Literally the only time in my offsprings life that my father asked to spend time alone with him was...to teach an emotionally unstable 10 year old to shoot guns.  I wish I was kidding.  Daniel inherited a hormonal disorder from his biological paternal family, and had a lot of challenges growing up that were based physically, where as I had a lot based environmentally.  both difficult childhoods, but we got through them.  But yes, let's teach a 10 year old who at that time has severe mood swings and is too young to consider medication to help because of the nature of the disorder and the effect of hormones on the brain to shoot guns.  THAT can't possibly go wrong!  *sighs*  Now that he's an adult and pretty much grown up of that, he can learn anything he wants, but he's not a big fan of guns.

So you can see it's a giant, interconnected can of worms.  And let's just say it's been interesting since I opened it. 

*Hugs for Steph* I know, it's just easier said than done sometimes.  Especially as my family went from huge to really small as time takes it's price and there are less and less around.   I am healthier about this crazy weirdness between him and I than I've ever been, and progress continues, just sometimes...I don't know what to do with it all. 
 

I'm sort of surprised, so far silence from the other camp since I wrote the essay on it and posted it where it was visible.  It wasn't directed at them purely, it was a I'm tired of all these people trying to defend their crappy actions blaming them on the spouses rather than their own internal lack of integrity. And looking to me to validate it.  Yeah, I was raised that way, but as an adult I see that it was wrong.  Meh.

Yeah.  There's just this stupidly complicated dynamic between me and him, and I'm trying to figure out how to change it without destroying the dwindling amount of family I have left.  I don't know that it's possible.  It feels more and more like it's eat the poison pudding or lose everything.  But if I have to choose, no more poison pudding.  I'd rather have just Nikki and my son than keep eating that pudding.

My dad has a real feeling that consequences are for everyone, until it means him.  *Headdesk*  I don't know that this can be navigated in a positive way without me being willing to let him continue like that.

Hi Veronica!  Cottonpocalypse occurred here two, for two days it looked like it was snowing outside.  I don't think I'd ever seen that much before, I suspect the wind was an unusual direction and I was in the right place at the right time.  It was beautiful, but allergy people in that area of town were so not happy.  Cottonwood isn't one of mine, so I was able to stand out in the white fluff and watch it fall.  I'm paying the allergy reaper in other ways, the cycling humidity is doing fun things to the mold/fungus counts here and that is getting me.   

Are you all settled in and unpacked from the move now?  How is the new place working out?

Emma, I was SO close to buying one of the yard sprays that reduces (cuz nothing gets rid of those jerky insects) the population, but too many new plants and my dog.   I know it probably won't harm either if I follow the direction, but sometimes I just get uber paranoid about things.  But I was close. 

This year seems well though, it has been unusually dry here and the total population of bugs has been manageable, as opposed to something outta a horror movie, swarms upon swarms like that last several years.  One year the fleas were so bad EVERYONE had them, didn't matter if you had animals or not.  When you looked outside at the grass you could see creepy black waves of them moving around. 

Nikki managed to lose one of our window air conditioning units.  LOL  I'm sure it's somewhere in the house, but at the time of it's removal from the window I was still somewhat limited in mobility (unexpected abdominal surgery in July taught me a lesson in how very MUCH your abdominal muscles are involved in movement wise, even reading hurt), so I have no idea where it got stashed. 

We are working on a project for next summer, when we only have to coordinate his schedule.  We're replacing all the camping gear we lost back in 07 after the flood (I know, it's been forever, but camping was just one of the things that fell by the wayside getting everything back up after the flood and all that came after).  There is a place I went with my Grandpa nearly every summer growing up, called Assateague Island off the coast of Maryland and Virginia.  It's a lovely barrier island, they tried to build a town on it once but it didn't last as the island is VERY mobile.  You can see the remnants of the streets on the dune trail.  On the Maryland side you can camp on the island itself, there is a National Park (Less expensive, showers have cold water only, but three lovely trails to explore) and the state park (more expensive, but warm showers!).  On top of all the usual camping fun, Assateauge has something special, PONIES!  Yup, a large herd of wild ponies that have been there so long no one really remembers how they got there.  There is a story of a spanish galleon carrying horses to the new world going down and the survivors made it to the Island, but it's considered somewhat unrealistic given that the Spanish influence was much further south.  The more boring theory is that the island was used as a natural corral and somehow they got forgotten. 

They're not actually ponies genetically.  Once  year the Virginia side has a great festival called Pony Penning Day where they round up the ponies, swim them across the small channel, herd them down main street, and auction off the foals as a combination population control and the money goes to supporting Chincoteague.  I got to see the festival once, it was great fun.  But if you buy a foal and give it a proper diet, you will have a full horse.  It's the overly salted food of the island that stunts their growth and gives them the distinctive Assateague pot bellied pony look.    I can't WAIT to show Nikki around all my memories.  Maybe not crabbing, Nikki's tolerance of seafood is even lower than my nearly non existent one, but crabbing was so much fun with Grandpa.  LOL

He's been looking for ages, there's not much else around here. 

Thank you Monica!  Sometimes I'm not sure which of the tones in my  head to use for things.  It's like everything I think occurs in my brain six different ways, and it can be really hard to pick which way to say it.  But that struggle is good for us, yes? 

Hugs,

Bree

Hugs Monica.  Relationships are all complicated, since they involve two or more human beings and all of us are complicated somehow, and that sort of behavior is absolutely tiring.  I completely understand why you feel that way!   I'm glad that you are so intuitive with what is going on and knowing how to protect your feelings in this mess!  And that is a very sad, very clear sign that she will never get better, because she doesn't really want it.  I'm so sorry you had to go through that.

I want a tiny house for my yard too, would make a great 'hotel' room for guests and/or changing house for the pool when we have a large cookout.  But so many other things around here need done it's unlikely.  Send me pictures if you build one!  I love them.

It was really awesome, had some reconnection time, the day was beautiful, there was a funnel cake a la mode that we shared.    We had a blast watching the wolves, they gave them giant ice cubes with fish frozen inside, and the wolves were trying to work the fish out.  Our zoo does a LOT of enrichment activities like that, you can catch them going on all over.  And of course they have a temporary exhibit of baby galapagos tortoises, so you know where I spent a chunk of time.

Oh my turtles I am SO tired, but we had a blast at the zoo.  The animals were all really perked up by the reasonable weather (still not summer...want my summer) and entertaining, and now I am totally going to sit in this chair and wait for feeling to return to my feet.  LOL  And he surprised me with a plushie turtle when he went to buy us some of that awesome fudge. 

Mental health issues is a tricky road to navigate no matter what the diagnosis is.  In my experience, only the people who WANT to be healthy have a snowball's chance to do so, without that internal and honest desire for health it never goes well. 

It's just so frustrating.  I'm not an atheist who needs to convince anyone to join me.  I respect everyone's right to whatever belief system they embrace.  I mock no one, and accept whatever they tell me as their personal truth about how they view life, the universe, and everything.  But at my job I'm constantly made fun of for not being christian, told I'm going to hell and do this for me, it's always there.  It's a WORKPLACE, not a freakin' church.  I was slipping by quietly for years til she decided to announce it to everyone, because I have zero need to challenge anyone's beliefs or faith, I only challenge them LEGISLATING it.  We can all practice our own beliefs and life ethics without forcing them on others. 

I have been luckier than Lee, no bloody noses, but the constant 'you have to join our beliefs' pressure here does get wearing.  I could probably understand it better if I was also more 'live like me' about it, but I figure the whole point of freedom of religion is actually about being free to choose what religion, mix and match, or choose no religion as your life experience moves you.  Guess not here.  Sometimes I'm just really beaten down by it. 

Nikki may disagree with you, I snapped at him last night.  Ah, marital squabbles. 

Dysthimia's longer name is Persistant Depressive Disorder.  It's a long term disorder that has both an emotional and a biological component, so both need to be (and are in this case) treated.  The biggest dangers are that it makes people vulnerable to bigger depressive episodes and normalizing the disorder and not realizing it IS a disorder and your quality of life has been sucked out and it's not just "how I am".  Apparently a lot of people normalize this and don't even realize they have a treatable emotional disorder, luckily Nikki hasn't forgotten what everything used to feel like and realized he has a problem and wants to get better. 

It's good to hear from someone whose used the mediation without any issues! 

No no it's fine, my head just goes creepy places.  The Transgender Day of Rememberance was a sobering reminder that for many transpersons it's like I was back then, and it ties together in my head.  We Bree's have to look out for each other, right? 

Thank you, I just feel so bad that I couldn't't find a place to give them better lives.  If I had any doubts about the statistics of feral vs. household cats before, they are gone now, I never see the same cats more than two years around here.  I think the five year average is a bigger area figure, and in my area it's much smaller.  We just had to dig the body of a less than two year old feral kitten we watched grow up through the windows in our back yard (it's privacy fenced, they like hanging out in it) out from under our computer room after the smell became noticeable.  Mama cat has moved them, and they are off to face their short lives. : (  At least Creed and Yuriko were saved, even with her sad end Yuriko lived 14 years and had a busy cat life bullying the daylights outta our dog and her brother. 

If you're wife needs someone to talk to, I'm not in the same boat as she is as at this point Nikki identifies as gender/fluid/crossdressing and transitioning is not currently happening, but I would be happy to listen and offer whatever support I can.  I may  not know all the feelings she is having right now, but I can still offer hugs and a safe ear if she would find that helpful. 

​Yeah, one of the reasons everyone here calls me Briannah is that Nikki  made it quite clear horrible things happen and he doesn't want to be 'out' at this point because of that, so I got scared for you.    I remember what it feels like to live with a monster in the house and not being able to defend myself, and no one should ever live like that. 

I"m rather relieved, from the title I was expecting something...darker.    I'm glad you're okay!

Just a hug.  Life is messy, and we do the best we can. 

Thank you Emma.  Writing it out helps me sort out my feelings and what is actually going on in the chaos that is my head, I'll be mid-sentence and suddenly be all "Really?  That's where I'm trying to go?"  LOL  So helpful.  My thought patterns are so disorganized that I'm not always aware of all of them, and free form writing was one of the things Dr. Hollandt taught me then rereading what i wrote to learn from myself.  It's amazing how well it works!

I hope I don't come across as Nikki is bad in anyway, he's awesome.  I'm just frustrated some days trying to manage his issues and mine at the same time and trying to dump the "I expect from a spouse behavior x" because there is no manual on being a spouse, each relationship is different and everyone behaves differently in a marriage.