Marsia's Diary
- Thread starter Marsia
- Start date
Thanks Llama, I slept so well. I love the sound of heavy rain! The property is holding up well. The marsh is nearly full and the lawn a little squishy, but not too bad. Not many fallen tree limbs either. The main part of the storm comes tonight and then a week of rain. So I may need to make up some sand bags for the garage door. Luckily our soil is sand, so I can just dig some up in some garbage bags and I'm all set. I am having so much trouble getting started today so made a nice ice coffee and promised myself after this I go into turbo mode. So I thought I'd visit diaries quick before I leap into action. I am just getting my room organized where everything I stuffed in here is packed and the closet is organized. It has a bunch of big storage containers that I never unpacked, so hopefully isn't too bad. J asked what K wanted for her birthday, and K told me she wanted help paying for college. I sent J a fairly scathing email about all the ways he stole from K by ripping me off and how he can make up for some of that by helping with college. That should help K when they meet for that letter reading therapy session, I hope. We want him to make a college account that she can draw from for college expenses. I need to consult with someone to make sure J can't see where she is going to college if that is set up though. I don't know if that will happen or not, but it's worth a try.
Glad your power went back on and you could get your coffee! It's such beautiful rain here I am getting distracted looking out the window. I think I will stretch a little. I have that weird stress thing where it feels like something is picking you up by the collar bones. It feels lovely to procrastinate, but when I hit "post reply" here, I will see if I can get my whole room done today. This is my least favorite project, so it should be pretty nice after this. I am falling asleep sitting up lately, so I can tell I really needed a few calmer days like this!I'm glad you missed the tornado. I hope your power stays on, but sounds like you are prepared if it doesn't. My power was off for a couple of hours this morning and I missed my coffeeHaving a late one now that it's back on!
Kudos to you for still being able to feel your bodybrain's needs after all that's been happening.
The only reasonable answer to your child asking you for support through college as a birthday gift is "of course I'll support you to the best of my ability, but is there anything I can get you for your birthday?" I'm aware that's probably not going to be J's answer - unless he's trying to impress someone - but I hope he proves me wrong.
Enjoy the rain! We had one day of it and it was glorious.
The only reasonable answer to your child asking you for support through college as a birthday gift is "of course I'll support you to the best of my ability, but is there anything I can get you for your birthday?" I'm aware that's probably not going to be J's answer - unless he's trying to impress someone - but I hope he proves me wrong.
Enjoy the rain! We had one day of it and it was glorious.
Thanks Cate and Llama! I doubt J will contribute unless we told him where K will go to school, but it's worth a try. I am going through an angry spell towards him which is hard because it makes me hurt all over. I don't like spending all this money fixing up the house to sell and worrying because the housing market is softening and this is not the ideal time of the year to sell. I don't like all this money stuff and can't wait until that part is over. I think about how forgiveness of others is for yourself because then you are not stuck in negative emotions, but I am not good at forgiving, and I think almost everything J did was unforgivable. So I just have to wait out the anger, I guess. I think it's like Liza is talking about with anxiety. If you have it, just feel it and don't try to get rid of it because that will make it worse. I think what is happening is that I finally feel safe enough to let myself feel the anger.
I didn't get much done yesterday, but what I did made me feel unstuck. I sorted a bunch of stuff in my room which makes the rest of the packing go a lot quicker. I did get the living room mopped and some little projects done, too. I am starting to feel human again. The electricity stayed on even with the tropical storm eye passing close to us last night, so I think that should be the worst of it.
I didn't get much done yesterday, but what I did made me feel unstuck. I sorted a bunch of stuff in my room which makes the rest of the packing go a lot quicker. I did get the living room mopped and some little projects done, too. I am starting to feel human again. The electricity stayed on even with the tropical storm eye passing close to us last night, so I think that should be the worst of it.
You don't have to forgive a person for intentionally harming you. You may want to, once things have settled and you can look at them from a distance, but you have every right to think of him as an abusive creep for all eternity - if you happen to think of him at all while living your wonderful new life.
I don't expect J to suddenly become a decent dad, I was just saying that's what the logical response would be if he was.
I don't expect J to suddenly become a decent dad, I was just saying that's what the logical response would be if he was.
Having a college account sounds good and that seems like a good idea for anyone wanting to send birthday gifts or any other gifts to be able to contribute to that. I like when young people have a nice practical goal to contribute towards as it becomes so difficult to buy for people as they grow older.
Yes, I can well imagine a big mix of negative emotions towards J...and I know what you mean about wanting to let them go for your own sake. Hopefully once this period of the stress of selling is over it just won't come up as much as an issue. I would be so mad scrubbing his bathroom to get the house ready for a sale! Never mind all the rest of it!
Glad your electricity stayed on!
Yes, I can well imagine a big mix of negative emotions towards J...and I know what you mean about wanting to let them go for your own sake. Hopefully once this period of the stress of selling is over it just won't come up as much as an issue. I would be so mad scrubbing his bathroom to get the house ready for a sale! Never mind all the rest of it!
Glad your electricity stayed on!
Cate
Long term member
I think feeling angry with J is absolutely justifiable, not that you need any approval or not by anyone to be angry. I don't like how anger makes me feel personally as it only seems to hurt me, not the person I have been angry towards. I am all for the mental bazooka, but then I have a weird & vivid imagination. BOOM! I just blew him into smithereens. I would never hurt anyone IRL but the occasional mental kaboom does do wonders for me.
The college account sounds very good. If anyone does pay into it they can leave a message though, so if you or K don't want that happening then that is something else to consider. You & K will be fine.
The college account sounds very good. If anyone does pay into it they can leave a message though, so if you or K don't want that happening then that is something else to consider. You & K will be fine.
Hi Llama! I don't know if I will ever forgive him, and it's a good point that he intentionally harmed us. I got it that you were comparing what he'll probably do (nothing) with what a reasonable dad would do. Now that I am calmer I think I want to focus on picturing giving back all that anger and weirdness that was focused on me over the years. I don't want to impose any of my own, just give back what was dumped on me. I think I got triggered because he is pretending to be this wonderful dad suddenly, and I get sick of ignoring how he thinks of himself as better than everyone else when in reality he is just a thug and a bully. He has this imaginary world where he is wonderful that he expects people to not question. I need to keep picturing that it's a matter of a few months until I don't have to deal with his insane perspectives any more. Today my attorney called with a little bit of good news, and it just made me so happy, and also put into perspective that the divorce is only a little more than a month away! I got so happy remembering that!!
A college account is a good idea. I have been thinking of telling his relatives about the financial part of this if he is a jerk and tries to take more than the agreement. I could ask for a little help getting K through college because J didn't contribute to that. I will be able to pay for things if she can do 2 years of community college and then transfer to a 4 year college, I think, but it will be tight. I do think the scrubbing of the discolored shower hit me symbolically. I think once we are out of here, we will think of him less and less.
This helped me get through the day, Em! I pictured powering on and got 3/4ths of my room done today, which felt great!!
I agree on both counts, Cate. Being angry with him is so justifiable, but it does feel awful. I am picturing giving the bad energy back that I borrowed by mistake, like returning library books, but more black and gooey. I like your BOOM! My vision was more a black sticky SPLAT!!! of tar-like stuff that doesn't come off! I do think K and I will be ok. We are starting to make fun plans for our future!I think feeling angry with J is absolutely justifiable, not that you need any approval or not by anyone to be angry. I don't like how anger makes me feel personally as it only seems to hurt me, not the person I have been angry towards. I am all for the mental bazooka, but then I have a weird & vivid imagination. BOOM! I just blew him into smithereens. I would never hurt anyone IRL but the occasional mental kaboom does do wonders for me.
The college account sounds very good. If anyone does pay into it they can leave a message though, so if you or K don't want that happening then that is something else to consider. You & K will be fine.
Today it rained cats and dogs, and I didn't go outside much, but saw that there were massive puddles in the yard. The tropical storm should circle around us in the night and early morning again before heading up north, but not be too bad. I want to plant some things in the screen house between rains tomorrow so they get more gentle rains for the next few days. I feel like I am over a major hurdle having most of my room done. I didn't bring the boxes down yet because I am not sure how much my back will want to lift yet, but lifting the boxes and setting them outside my room wasn't a problem, so I think it's getting better. I ordered a couple of inexpensive pieces of furniture (open box deals) for staging the house and it's nice things that we'll want for the new house. I can't wait until they can be delivered. They didn't deliver today because of flooding on so many roads. I want to take pics of my progress to show the realtor and surprise her that I got the furniture that she was sad I didn't have. It actually turned out less expensive than getting it on Facebook Marketplace where no one bothers to respond to my inquiries anyway. Ok, I'm going to plunk some wash into the dryer and go to sleep so I can wake up early and finish my room and get out into the garden while it's still in the 80s because of the rain.
Sounds like you're solidly back on track! I think telling J's relatives about the financial abuse will only be helpful if there's someone among them you get along with well personally. I'm sure he's used all of the DARVO letters and convinced them you're the crazy one and he's a hapless victim.
Awesome! Lovely to hear!
That's so good to have gotten your room done and I'm glad you are continuing to take care of your back.
Oh that is exciting--will be fun to see how they add to the house staging I'm sure.
Fantastic to hear you got good news from the attorney and you made such progress on your room.
You ladies will be amazing. That's so great to hear.
Cate
Long term member
Now, I'm picturing J staggering around with black, gooey, sticky splat all over him. Eeuww! That is a funny picture. A different sort of boom!
It's good that you could get some inexpensive pieces you will be happy to take into your new life. The house must be starting to look very schmick!
Thanks so much everyone! Llama, I had to look up DARVO, and read the best article on it. I just can't believe that when we learned about narcissism in college classes, no one explained this in a way that made it make any sense, and what we were taught was a sort of Cruella de Ville cartoon version of the really overt narcissist. It's shocking how many articles I've read on this stuff, and there's still more common knowledge for me to find. I agree, I probably will tell one other person in the family who married into the family and suspects J for financial abuse. She is very shy and quiet and smart, so probably won't have much influence in the family, but I do want to warn her about J so she can be sure to protect her kids from him. Everyone else will be his flying monkeys, for sure.
Cate, I graduated from SPLATS to BOOMS like yours and also FLYING KICK-A-POWS. It really helps! Em, I am just so happy making plans with K. It is going to be so amazing to finally do the things we want to do with our lives! Liza, the furniture got here late in the day, and it was so heavy I had to take the pieces out of the boxes and carry them into the house, but I got the breakfast table together and it looks wonderful. It's got a glass top so you can see through it to my Chinese tiger rug underneath, so it will look really nice in pictures. The big navy blue dresser will take a while to put together. I really love projects like that, and it will make the master bedroom look nice, I mean schmick! Right now there's just the bed, a rug, and a small side table in there, so it was looking pretty empty, and once this is together, it should look fancy with a picture over it.
I wanted to get so much done today, but we had to go pick up medicine and run a few errands, and I did get a good amount of my room finished up, but then took a power nap, and must have slept for a long time, because the day went really quickly. I do feel much better though. I'm going to stay up and get a lot of the dresser put together to make up for the long nap. I thought I've been eating really badly and was so worried about weighing myself, but I lost another pound! I've also washed all the linens that have been in storage and a bunch of sweaters that I couldn't wear here because they are too warm for here, so my room will only take an hour or two to finish up, so maybe I didn't do too bad today.
Cate, I graduated from SPLATS to BOOMS like yours and also FLYING KICK-A-POWS. It really helps! Em, I am just so happy making plans with K. It is going to be so amazing to finally do the things we want to do with our lives! Liza, the furniture got here late in the day, and it was so heavy I had to take the pieces out of the boxes and carry them into the house, but I got the breakfast table together and it looks wonderful. It's got a glass top so you can see through it to my Chinese tiger rug underneath, so it will look really nice in pictures. The big navy blue dresser will take a while to put together. I really love projects like that, and it will make the master bedroom look nice, I mean schmick! Right now there's just the bed, a rug, and a small side table in there, so it was looking pretty empty, and once this is together, it should look fancy with a picture over it.
I wanted to get so much done today, but we had to go pick up medicine and run a few errands, and I did get a good amount of my room finished up, but then took a power nap, and must have slept for a long time, because the day went really quickly. I do feel much better though. I'm going to stay up and get a lot of the dresser put together to make up for the long nap. I thought I've been eating really badly and was so worried about weighing myself, but I lost another pound! I've also washed all the linens that have been in storage and a bunch of sweaters that I couldn't wear here because they are too warm for here, so my room will only take an hour or two to finish up, so maybe I didn't do too bad today.
