Today’s post is a writing challenge. This is how it works: participating bloggers picked 4 – 6 words or short phrases for someone else to craft into a post. All words must be used at least once and all the posts will be unique as each writer has received their own set of words. That’s the challenge, here’s a fun twist; no one who’s participating knows who got their words and in what direction the writer will take them. Until now.
Mt words are:
ordinary ~ help ~ funny ~ island ~ language
It was submitted by: https://www.bakinginatornado.com
ordinary ~ help ~ funny ~ island ~ language
It was submitted by: https://www.bakinginatornado.com
_______________
I don't have the language required to ask for help I guess.
Ok I think maybe trauma erased my ability to use the right words. The thought of admitting "I can't" isn't something easy to come by despite being aware I need to work on it which often leaves me on an island alone with my own resentment.
It probably also doesn't help that the majority of people I've been vulnerable enough with to ask for help have let me down completely or held it over my head. It doesn't create a lot of faith that anyone else I ask will be the one person who doesn't make me feel like shit about it.
All of that makes having a chronic illness pretty dang hard. Every time I think I have it figured out, something will happen and I have to find a new normal. Like how having had covid twice despite not leaving home and having the vaccines caused such intense insomnia I haven't slept for more than an hour or two at a time in almost 2 years. I can't even begin to explain the hurdles I now have to go through just to be able to write a couple sentences a day or maintain letters. Or just make a ridiculously funny wrestling meme. I can't even enjoy TV shows the same anymore. I can't see them. I can't read the subtitles anymore. I can't even process them most of the time. I just slip back into familiar ones that I know the plots to by heart or things that won't require a lot of brain power. The only thing I can read right now are things I've already read...and reading about new worlds and new people have always been my one method of escape. I have a whole fucking tattoo about it. I just can't anymore. At least not now...
But even with this new problem the world doesn't stop nor does my house. And my house is anything but ordinary. So by 9 a.m. I've gotten up, made the bed, medicated at least 4 animals, swept, mopped, argued with my kid about getting up to walk the dogs or about brushing his teeth or taking his meds (which I still make up for him in his pill minder) or whatever else the teenage angst is about that day, often shampooed carpet at least in spots that need it, washed dishes my kid left in the sink, cleaned up messes the cats made from at least one type of bodily function, wiped down counters and cabinets, made coffee for at least 2 people, made breakfast for everyone, cleaned up after breakfast, entered a bunch of online contests to try to win extra money because we're fucking poor, dusted, vacuumed, folded some laundry if I hung it out the day before... Sometimes there's extra. Sometimes I have help with one or two of these things. But this is just the first 2 hours of my day and it never ends. Every time I think I'm caught up something else needs to be done. I'm on my feet at home for at least 8 hours a day. Most days at least 6 hours at a time...with joint point from my cfs and plantar fasciitis making it impossible to walk. By 8 most nights, my pain level is so high I can't talk. I can't even cry. I'm too tired to fucking cry.
Every time I ask someone to do something and get told "I will" just for it to still not be done 2 hours later that island of resentment grows bigger and the next time I really need help, I won't ask. Why would I?
I keep thinking I'll learn to master my broken energy battery and only do the things that need it, but when your mom has broken into your house and tried to physically assault you over you insisting you have actually do keep things clean all because an argument started when you offered to take her on a spa trip for Christmas, could anything ever be clean enough? Probably not. Not when every time you've ever been in her house her husband still treats you like a 16 year old kid who is apparently utterly incapable and disgusting and conveniently forgetting you're 41 now and even when you were 16 with a semi dirty room you were also dealing with the aftermath of abuse and rape and were constantly threatened and bullied for being gay and weird without any support from the people who should have noticed you were drowning in a bog of torment. I don't exist as a real person to the people who were supposed to love me, and there's not any amount of time that erases the instinct to seek out worth with a clean countertop or scrubbed walls or being 3 weeks ahead on your weekly list of extra chores and thinking "I haven't done enough" and doing it all again anyway.
There's always a voice in my head. There's always trauma. There's always resentment.
And so here I am, dying for help, dying for a break... And what I get is more work.
It probably also doesn't help that the majority of people I've been vulnerable enough with to ask for help have let me down completely or held it over my head. It doesn't create a lot of faith that anyone else I ask will be the one person who doesn't make me feel like shit about it.
All of that makes having a chronic illness pretty dang hard. Every time I think I have it figured out, something will happen and I have to find a new normal. Like how having had covid twice despite not leaving home and having the vaccines caused such intense insomnia I haven't slept for more than an hour or two at a time in almost 2 years. I can't even begin to explain the hurdles I now have to go through just to be able to write a couple sentences a day or maintain letters. Or just make a ridiculously funny wrestling meme. I can't even enjoy TV shows the same anymore. I can't see them. I can't read the subtitles anymore. I can't even process them most of the time. I just slip back into familiar ones that I know the plots to by heart or things that won't require a lot of brain power. The only thing I can read right now are things I've already read...and reading about new worlds and new people have always been my one method of escape. I have a whole fucking tattoo about it. I just can't anymore. At least not now...
But even with this new problem the world doesn't stop nor does my house. And my house is anything but ordinary. So by 9 a.m. I've gotten up, made the bed, medicated at least 4 animals, swept, mopped, argued with my kid about getting up to walk the dogs or about brushing his teeth or taking his meds (which I still make up for him in his pill minder) or whatever else the teenage angst is about that day, often shampooed carpet at least in spots that need it, washed dishes my kid left in the sink, cleaned up messes the cats made from at least one type of bodily function, wiped down counters and cabinets, made coffee for at least 2 people, made breakfast for everyone, cleaned up after breakfast, entered a bunch of online contests to try to win extra money because we're fucking poor, dusted, vacuumed, folded some laundry if I hung it out the day before... Sometimes there's extra. Sometimes I have help with one or two of these things. But this is just the first 2 hours of my day and it never ends. Every time I think I'm caught up something else needs to be done. I'm on my feet at home for at least 8 hours a day. Most days at least 6 hours at a time...with joint point from my cfs and plantar fasciitis making it impossible to walk. By 8 most nights, my pain level is so high I can't talk. I can't even cry. I'm too tired to fucking cry.
Every time I ask someone to do something and get told "I will" just for it to still not be done 2 hours later that island of resentment grows bigger and the next time I really need help, I won't ask. Why would I?
I keep thinking I'll learn to master my broken energy battery and only do the things that need it, but when your mom has broken into your house and tried to physically assault you over you insisting you have actually do keep things clean all because an argument started when you offered to take her on a spa trip for Christmas, could anything ever be clean enough? Probably not. Not when every time you've ever been in her house her husband still treats you like a 16 year old kid who is apparently utterly incapable and disgusting and conveniently forgetting you're 41 now and even when you were 16 with a semi dirty room you were also dealing with the aftermath of abuse and rape and were constantly threatened and bullied for being gay and weird without any support from the people who should have noticed you were drowning in a bog of torment. I don't exist as a real person to the people who were supposed to love me, and there's not any amount of time that erases the instinct to seek out worth with a clean countertop or scrubbed walls or being 3 weeks ahead on your weekly list of extra chores and thinking "I haven't done enough" and doing it all again anyway.
There's always a voice in my head. There's always trauma. There's always resentment.
And so here I am, dying for help, dying for a break... And what I get is more work.
_______________
Links to the other “Use Your Words” posts:
Baking In A Tornado https://www.bakinginatornado.com/
On the Border https://dlt-lifeontheranch.blogspot.com/
The Diary of an Alzheimer’s Caregiver https://thediaryofanalzheimerscaregiver.com/blog
Part-time Working Hockey Mom https://thethreegerbers.blogspot.ch/
Baking In A Tornado https://www.bakinginatornado.com/
On the Border https://dlt-lifeontheranch.blogspot.com/
The Diary of an Alzheimer’s Caregiver https://thediaryofanalzheimerscaregiver.com/blog
Part-time Working Hockey Mom https://thethreegerbers.blogspot.ch/
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