What Did I Ever Do To The Gods?
Nov. 13th, 2014 11:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dodger_sisterI shouldn't post when I am having a panic-crisis, but I need to do something to get it out. I just found out that my dad has started physical therapy...at my clinic. I can't breathe. I love my dad, I do, but he weighs 500 pounds and is dirty and smelly and has sores all over him and I can't...I don't want these people to associate how he lives his life with me. I work hard to stay as healthy as I can. It takes a lot of spoons for me to shower and get dressed and put on makeup before I go to PT, but I do it because I try to take pride in myself. And my dad lives in his own filth. He doesn't even care at this point and I just can't...
I do not exaggerate when I say going into his house makes me physically ill - I get an arthritis flare-up every time I set foot in his place just from the smell and the mold. On top of it, I have spent my whole life listening to everyone tell me how great my dad is, how lucky I am to have him, how funny and charming and involved he is. These people...people who never had to live under the terror of his roof...they don't know. He was physically abusive to my brothers and also emotionally abusive and neglectful to us and I remember like hiding in my closet as a child and shit. And though he tries now - got on medication for the bipolar and he is always there if I call with a financial need and things are better between us - he is still unbalanced and there is so much history there and I can never put into words what living in that house was like. And somehow he charms the pants off everyone he meets and the thought of my people being wooed by him is too much. I can't have him in my safe space like this, in the other half of my world. One of the things I like about my PT clinic is that it doesn't feel like a medical clinic...it's professional but casual and I need that, I need low stress because I do get medical/health anxiety and now I have family anxiety on top of it and it is no longer a safe space for me if he is there and idk what to do about it.
Like, I knew he was going to PT soon, but I thought they would send out a home health person because Dad is basically homebound - every time I got it in my head that his doc might send him to my clinic, I made myself dismiss it because what were the odds?! But I have had several anxiety spikes about this in the last few weeks, as he worked out the details to get in somewhere, and now my fears are real. I had a panic attack earlier, like shaking, couldn't breath, called The BFF, took a Xanax and tomorrow I will call my counselor and make an emergency appointment for next week. As for my PT appt tomorrow, I may cancel, if I don't feel any better by the time I get up, because the thought of going in there and having everyone be like, "Oh, I met your dad. He's great," is too overwhelming. He did tell me the name of his therapist and at least it isn't any of my therapists, no one I've ever worked with before. I'm not even worried about medical confidentiality like I was the one time my mom went there and K gave everyone a big speech about remembering their confidentiality with patients and then specifically pulled my therapist aside to explain that under no circumstances, not even for casual talk, was she allowed to mention me to my mom. It's not even that with Dad, it's just the thought of him in my clinic, charming all these people, and...okay, you all know I have a familial father/brother relationship/friendship with K, where he tends to introduce me as his foster-sister to people, and even though he knows everything about me and my dad, the thought of the two of them interacting, the thought of 'the family we make' crossing over with the family I was given...it's all too much.
/deep breath/. This is not really the issues that are why I am in counseling, but it will be nice to have someone to talk this out with that isn't my sister, who deals with her own issues with my dad. I'm going to watch some Firefly now and eat a shitton of Cheezits and worry about the rest of it tomorrow. Also, reminder to self that once I chill the fuck out, I want to post about how zen I found the aquarium in Chicago and the crazy Ebola-Steve McGarret-Chad Michael Murray dream I had the other night. But not now...now I just breath and try not to think about how good taking like 3 Xanax sounds.
I do not exaggerate when I say going into his house makes me physically ill - I get an arthritis flare-up every time I set foot in his place just from the smell and the mold. On top of it, I have spent my whole life listening to everyone tell me how great my dad is, how lucky I am to have him, how funny and charming and involved he is. These people...people who never had to live under the terror of his roof...they don't know. He was physically abusive to my brothers and also emotionally abusive and neglectful to us and I remember like hiding in my closet as a child and shit. And though he tries now - got on medication for the bipolar and he is always there if I call with a financial need and things are better between us - he is still unbalanced and there is so much history there and I can never put into words what living in that house was like. And somehow he charms the pants off everyone he meets and the thought of my people being wooed by him is too much. I can't have him in my safe space like this, in the other half of my world. One of the things I like about my PT clinic is that it doesn't feel like a medical clinic...it's professional but casual and I need that, I need low stress because I do get medical/health anxiety and now I have family anxiety on top of it and it is no longer a safe space for me if he is there and idk what to do about it.
Like, I knew he was going to PT soon, but I thought they would send out a home health person because Dad is basically homebound - every time I got it in my head that his doc might send him to my clinic, I made myself dismiss it because what were the odds?! But I have had several anxiety spikes about this in the last few weeks, as he worked out the details to get in somewhere, and now my fears are real. I had a panic attack earlier, like shaking, couldn't breath, called The BFF, took a Xanax and tomorrow I will call my counselor and make an emergency appointment for next week. As for my PT appt tomorrow, I may cancel, if I don't feel any better by the time I get up, because the thought of going in there and having everyone be like, "Oh, I met your dad. He's great," is too overwhelming. He did tell me the name of his therapist and at least it isn't any of my therapists, no one I've ever worked with before. I'm not even worried about medical confidentiality like I was the one time my mom went there and K gave everyone a big speech about remembering their confidentiality with patients and then specifically pulled my therapist aside to explain that under no circumstances, not even for casual talk, was she allowed to mention me to my mom. It's not even that with Dad, it's just the thought of him in my clinic, charming all these people, and...okay, you all know I have a familial father/brother relationship/friendship with K, where he tends to introduce me as his foster-sister to people, and even though he knows everything about me and my dad, the thought of the two of them interacting, the thought of 'the family we make' crossing over with the family I was given...it's all too much.
/deep breath/. This is not really the issues that are why I am in counseling, but it will be nice to have someone to talk this out with that isn't my sister, who deals with her own issues with my dad. I'm going to watch some Firefly now and eat a shitton of Cheezits and worry about the rest of it tomorrow. Also, reminder to self that once I chill the fuck out, I want to post about how zen I found the aquarium in Chicago and the crazy Ebola-Steve McGarret-Chad Michael Murray dream I had the other night. But not now...now I just breath and try not to think about how good taking like 3 Xanax sounds.
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no subject
Date: 2014-11-14 05:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-11-18 10:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-11-14 07:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-11-18 10:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-11-18 11:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-11-14 07:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-11-18 10:32 pm (UTC)Yes, so much. And they are especially hard for me to find with medical type places because of all the bullshit I have to put up with with my body. This was one place that I was safe and now I am not and it is rattling.
/hugs back/ <3
no subject
Date: 2014-11-14 12:29 pm (UTC)Can you get K to help you out my making sure you and your Dad are NEVER there on the same day, the same shift? Can you ask him to again make sure that everyone knows NO ONE is to mention you to your Dad, or your Dad to you? I bet K would be more than willing to help bubble you away from anything related to your dad at your clinic.
And, it's morbidly cheering at best, I know, and feel free to scream at me if this doesn't work for you, but I'm trying, here:
They say Charles Manson was very charming, too.
no subject
Date: 2014-11-18 10:39 pm (UTC)He offered to do this actually, double check our schedules. He is kind of limited on what he can and cannot do/say because of his profession now intersecting with my private life. Like, I texted him to ask if he could check for my dad in the system, just to be sure that my dad was right about what clinic he was at, and told K the details my dad had given me thus far. He texted back, "I cannot give specifics, but I can verify that the information you have received so far is correct." Like he has to be careful about confidentiality and all that. Which is another suckfest because K and I have never been careful about what we say to each other, we can always say anything. And now he has to think before he speaks, like, "Oh, is this about her dad? I better think about what I'm saying," instead of just us being able to talk openly about my family issues. It pisses me off so much.
They say Charles Manson was very charming, too.
Manson just got approved for a marriage license to marry some 28 year old groupie. That does not make me feel better! (seriously though, with my dad, it's that whole 'abusers can be so charming' thing' ugh.)
no subject
Date: 2014-11-18 11:43 pm (UTC)Euw, I know! She's too stupid to live --and she just may not. How is that some real jerks can sometimes be so charming, too? It seems like a major fuckup in Nature.
no subject
Date: 2014-11-14 07:27 pm (UTC)The upside, hopefully, would be that you wouldn't have appointments scheduled at the same time, right? So at least you don't have to run into him and witness that behavior?
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Date: 2014-11-18 10:42 pm (UTC)This is true. And K has offered to make sure I am never schedules at the same time as Dad, but still, I have managed for so long now to keep him in the one area of my life and I am so out of practice with dealing with him right there in the center of my life and I just don't know if I can handle going back. I guess I don't have much of a choice though. I see my counselor tomorrow to make a game plan - so moving forward. <3
no subject
Date: 2014-11-15 02:04 am (UTC)I love aquariums glad you had fun.
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Date: 2014-11-18 10:45 pm (UTC)I did have a great time at the aquarium - I wish we lived closer to one, it is a great zen place to be, just under the water, with the fish swimming about you on all sides, the water lapping back and forth - so peaceful, even surrounded by all those people. <3
no subject
Date: 2014-11-15 02:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-11-18 10:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-11-21 08:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-11-23 09:54 pm (UTC)Yep, that's basically it. I have so few medical places that I feel 'safe' in, because of my health trauma of the past, and this is a place I am secure. But as soon as one of my parents steps into a place, I feel guarded again and I shouldn't have to be guarded there.
I really hope it turns out to be less stressful than you anticipate.
I think most of the stress is internal. I felt really self conscious at the last PT session, like "Who here met my dad, who knows he was my dad, what did he touch, did we use the same machines?" etc, etc. Hopefully that will die down, and as long as we never cross paths there, hopefully it'll work itself out.