bliss-sad's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- FIL It's that time of year again, Mercury retrograde, beginning of fall, October... This is the season of the big sad for me. It has been for as far back as my trauma brain will let me remember. It's nice to be distracted. I've written about it at great length, but this new job is all-encompassing. I have to leave the emotional shit at the door because there is so much I need to cram into my brain in such a short amount of time. The employee I'm replacing retires at the end of the year... They've worked at the company for 40 years, so I'm desperate to mine his brain as much as possible before he's gone. It's also nice to leave the home stuff at the door, because jesus fucking christ. My husband and I had our first big fight in months this week. In front of his father, of course. A side I hadn't seen before came out of my husband--it was all very explosive and stupid and pointless. We haven't really talked about it, or spoken much since. It's not like us to avoid reconciliation like this but he's on night shift right now. And, of course, we can't really prioritize ourselves and our relationship the way we used to. I'm still weirdly hurt that I can't be on/near the top of hubby's priority list the way that I used to be. Although I have no real concept of what the fuck we were actually fighting about, but at least part of it was that he didn't grab a few items from the store for me when he went into town. I know exactly how ridiculous and petty that sounds, but there was a point in the argument where he said something like, "Even if I hadn't forgotten, I wouldn't have stopped" and that cut the shit out of me. I felt--and in some ways still feel--as if I've changed my whole life to accommodate his dad's transition to Iowa. I've given up space in my home, sacrificed my privacy and basically all of my alone time, taken on the responsibility of helping with the day-to-day care and assistance my FIL requires and adjusted my entire way of living to make my FIL comfortable. I didn't think I was going to have to sacrifice so much of my relationship. And, I know, my husband made these changes too. He just....doesn't seem bothered by what's happening between us. I also know that's only my interpretation of it. That's not necessarily the reality of things. I can't assume that I know what he's feeling, which is easy to do when he's not telling me anything. Lately, it's just me and the voice of my depression, like, battling it out in my head. He's not there to help interrupt it anymore. All of this is made so much harder by my FIL. I mean, we can't exactly expect him to have a great attitude about things when we gave him no say in whether or not he was moving in with us. (This was and is medically necessary. He is no longer in a position to live alone.) We took him from Florida to Iowa; like, that alone is awful. But he's also lost a lot his autonomy, a lot of his privacy, a lot of his personal time/space. Even though he was a literal shut in, he still had to give up the place he knew. That's disorienting as shit on its own, and then add in his massive list of medical issues and it's a perfect storm for a miserable dude. That's the issue, though. He's not just miserable in a depression kind of way, he's miserable to be around a lot of the time. His favorite way to show his love for you is by picking on you--criticizing you and making deprecating jokes. My psyche isn't strong enough for that! He's constantly making jokes about killing or hurting my pets, complaining about our cooking, about how long a drive it is to go anywhere (again, even though he was a literal shut in who NEVER left the house), about the lack of entertainment on TV (we're subscribed to several streaming services, but he's an extreme luddite who both doesn't understand and vehemently hates the internet)... I could go on, but I think I've made my point. He's also having episodes of delirium. Like, he's convinced there are massive swarms of flies in our home. He claims to pull them off of his body by the handful. He simultaneously believes that he can live alone and have a normal, productive life AND that he's incapable of getting of out bed. I mean, depending on the day, I suppose both sides are true..... He refuses to let me do much to help him. Some days, every conversation feels like a game of chess--like he just wants to argue about arbitrary shit that neither of us have any investment in. I feel drained and exasperated a lot. And, of course, I empathize with my FIL so much. I love him. I can't even imagine how hard this whole thing has been; to go from being the caregiver to his mother before she passed to needing a caretaker in a few year span has to take a toll on the mind that I can't even fathom. His depression has been the only voice he's heard for a long time. I don't want to be mad at him. I try my best to be patient and caring and keep a happy tone in my voice, but it's exhausting. He and my husband have similar (negative/depressive) thought patterns, and trying to keep both of them on track is too fucking much. My husband has to feel the same way.... but I just thought this would, I don't know, bring us together. Unite us. I've never felt further from him or more on my own. Maybe I'm being dramatic. Maybe it's the retrograde. I guess we'll see what happens. 1:16 p.m. - 10.15.21 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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