Stuck in a mess

[Dory]

I had to take a bit of a break from these boards, life's been very hectic the past couple of weeks, my anxiety has gone into overdrive - making it difficult for me to focus on almost anything for any sustained period of time.

The weekend before last, I learned from my brother that my grandmother suffered a stroke...thing is, my uncle's widow who found her, neglected to tell anyone in the family. It was a week after the fact that she left a VM for my brother. Some intense family drama ensued, major mudslinging, etc, etc.

My family of origin is insanely dysfunctional and toxic. I have very limited contact with my family aside from my brother and grandmother. I just can't tolerate much contact with any others, it's just far too crazymaking and my anxiety becomes close to unmanagable whenever I'm around them. Aside from my brother and grandmother, no one from my family knows a thing about my sitch or anything regarding H's mental and physical health problems. And I prefer it that way...any one of them knowing anything remotely personal about my life would be a recipe for disaster...

Throughout all this, I managed to keep myself out of the family drama. I sat back and watched it all unfold (on facebook, to boot) and kept my communciations limited to updating family members on my grandmother's health.

And then I got a nastygram email from one of my cousins, telling me I should be ashamed of myself for keeping my distance and not being a source of support for the family, especially my mother (who I haven't had any contact with in years, as she makes Joan Crawford look like June Cleaver). She got a kindly worded F you, mind your own business & I don't need your s*** response.

Gotta love those guilt trips on the crazy train to dysfunction junction!

So my anxiety has been in overdrive lately and I'm just now getting a handle on it.

Thankfully H fully understands what they're like and has been supportive throughout all of it.

We're still getting along just fine and text each other almost daily. I was afraid that once my inlaws got home from being down south for the winter, things could take a turn for the worse as they insist on involving themselves in our sitch. I figured things could go either way, H could start drinking MIL's koolaid again and start spewing vile hostility my way or, the distance of having his parents away and uninvolved for a period of time would open his eyes of how intrusive they are & have been.

It's hard to say which one it is. H is showing an incredible amount of impatience again about the house not being sold yet. It's futile for me to try to figure it out. Unless or until H tells me there's no point in even trying to guess.

Oddly enough, last night at D12's ball game was the first time I've seen or spoken to FIL since the beginning of October. Although he did leave me a happy birthday message for me on facebook a couple of weeks ago. When H told me that his dad was going to be coming to watch the ball game, I anticipated some degree of awkwardness but surprisingly, it went fine.

Today is H's birthday. I sent him a text this morning wishing him a happy birthday & last night gave him a card and a package of wine gums. I bought a starbucks gift card & card for him from D12, which she also gave to him last night. He's coming over saturday night for dinner so we can celebrate.