I Allowed a Passive Aggressive Narcissist (PAN) into my Home

I no longer knew where the rain ended & I began

Even years after this event I have no clear insight into this beyond the devastation this event created in me.

PAN and I had been friends for a while, after meeting in 2011, and it seemed to be a friendship based on a commonality of  abuse in our past, a sense of shared experiences and relatability. With these feelings in place we adopted a sisterhood and built on these elements of commonality into what appeared to be a deep and abiding attachment.

I did not know I was being drawn in when the tales of woe began. Soon it was constant stories of neglect, abuse, stalking and affliction. Phone calls steeped in noisy crying, sobbing as her world was ending based on the doings of a room mate, a media darling white witch, an energy practitioner, parental units, all of them apparently bent on bringing her down and destroying her spirit.

The stage was set when the call came. Her house mate was leaving her with a rent she could not afford, she had no one, she was isolated, no friends, no family, no ties, no supports ... so could she come and stay until she found something closer to me? The only answer, in my mind, was "of course".

My home is a tiny three bedroom cottage and already resident are four people each afflicted with a variety of illness and conditions that make our life "interesting". We are a family unit each supporting each other as needed and collectively we have Autism, Intellectual disability, Generalised Anxiety Disorder, Chronic Pain Disorder, C-PTSD, Bipolar Disorder, Insomnia, Diabetes, Anxiety, Adjustment Disorder, Major Depressive Disorder, uncontrolled Epilepsy, Migraine, Sleep Apnoea, and hypertension. I made the offer of a temporary place to stay based on the understanding that we are a collective of issues and our routines are fairly set to accommodate the needs of my youngest with autism as he is at school and coped best when his routines are set and kept.

Our PAN had stayed with us on two occasions and was aware of the size of the house, knew us well and knew our routines and assured me that she "took up little space, only needed a corner and a couch to crash on and could sleep though anything" and it was "only until I can find a rental place of my own" so a couple of weeks?

As a family we rearranged our itineraries to include her and she was added to the family calendar and notifications. My partner and I had an interstate trip made necessary at very short notice, due to a terminal illness in the family, and we invited her to road trip with us so she could connect with friends as I was keenly aware of her supposed isolation. Everything we planned, we included her because we made the effort and had every reason to believe she wanted family and inclusion.

After the road trip which was scheduled just after she moved in I was promised room and board because I was now paying bills for a family of five, buying meat for five, shopping for five, buying take away for five, even driving for five. Not a penny was forthcoming.

The small space we had was quickly rearranged to include two corners made over to her comfort and stacks of additional stuff in the garage. Furniture was installed and personal items arranged without consultation, but I said nothing, hoping that these accommodations would help make this easier.

Then my housekeeping was criticised, my shopping habits found wanting and my cleaning products denounced as no good. Even after I explained on more than one occasion that a particular dish washing liquid was no good to me as I was allergic to it ... I still found it replacing my preferred brand and I still had to do the majority of the washing up.

Then, one morning as I was supervising my 15yo in his morning routine getting ready for school, I was snarled at because it was too loud. Our known routine, our accepted routine, our necessary routine, was too loud for her comfort. I had to feel like I was doing something wrong as I continued to see that my child with autism got to school happy, fed and ready to take on his many challenges in a good frame of mind whilst having a shit storm directed at me and my partner because our common living space wasn't to her liking. We had changed nothing, but what we were doing was no longer acceptable.

My partner and I started feeling uncomfortable in our own home, our house guest was throwing tantrums because we were not doing enough to make her comfortable. After a day and a half of silent treatment, hysterical crying and cold shoulders, then the tables turned and all of a sudden we were expected to just ignore the behaviors and be told it wasn't about us ...

Here is where I believe the divide and conquer project started. My emotional instability started to play out. I was hurting the ones I loved, especially my partner and she was encouraging me in my instability, pressuring me to speak out unkindly and to be intolerant of little things that usually were not an issue to me. Unbeknownst to me similar whisperings were being inflicted on my partner to be intolerant of my issues and emotions. On two separate occasion this triggering and destructive behavior pushed me over the edge and I melted down, screamed obscenely, ranted cruelly and ran away.

What wasn't planned for was our deep, undying, unrelenting, unconditional love and support of each other. We knew we were more together and that we valued, beyond price, what we had together. When we made up and talked into the night, reopening channels of real, honest communication, we were met with hostility, silent treatment and increasing resentment.

In the planning stage, before the move, I had mentioned that I had thought we could make some room in the garage to allow a bit more space, but when the topic came up all my simple, make room, suggestions where squashed and after much discussion a full blown renovation I could not afford was decided on. With major medical expenses coming up I said no. Well that was the end of any emotional peace I could possibly have had.

The major medical expenses was a 5 day outpatient procedure and several tests in Sydney, 5 hours away. Our PAN had been included, at her request, so she could see practitioners she couldn't access on the South Coast where we lived. To accommodate her, and allowing for her lack of privacy at home, I booked a two bed apartment with 2 bathrooms, fully 50% more expensive than we could have had, had we gone just us two. Again I was going out of my way, and out of my financial comfort zones for her. I was trying everything to fix what I didn't know how I was breaking. After I had paid the deposit and after two weeks when the full payment was due, she decided that the atmosphere was too hostile and that she was no longer coming. I broke down and when I tried to explain that I had placed myself into a financial hole for her she screamed at me that she was putting up walls and that she was no longer going to discuss it. My distress was impotent in the face of her refusal to face the position she was putting me in. I had to suck up this financial abuse, on top of the weeks of unpaid room and board, because SHE was not taking any responsibility and making all the allusions of poor behavior to be on my part.

I no longer cared how many personalities she had now, because every single one of them was a spoiled, narcissistic brat. I was beyond distraught as the following weeks were nothing more than cold shoulders, silent treatment, ignoring meals prepared for her, and any conversation directed at her. Her days were spent at the beach without any word when she was coming or going, but when home there was slamming things, hysterical day long sobbing and then to top it off, two days of hunger strike before we left for Sydney.

The whole hysterical tantrum thing when my partner and I were around was in stark contrast to the laughing and Netflix watching done when we purposefully absented ourselves from our own home to find some peace and drama free venues. We wasted more money on cafes and driving miles to get away from the toxic atmosphere that had taken over everything in our lives. We would come home to three people obviously enjoying the comforts of us being absent and each others company, but as soon as we intruded, it seemed that we were to be punished for doing so and the toxic behaviors reappeared almost as fast as we did. I was supposed to be accepting of an excuse that she was too distraught to speak, but she could text other people all day, just not me. She could giggle and be somewhat normal with my sons, but revert instantly to non verbal in my presence. I know selective mutism, but this was just vindictive and punitive. One brief private message even told me I could go to my room. ME, sent to my room, because a guest in my house said I could, implying that I had no right to the common areas in my home. What the actual ...?

Then while we were away she moved out. We had been threatened with the move like it wasn't part of the original plan. The message that she was going to move out was such that we were forcing her hand due to our hostility, making her feel unsafe. Two weeks later, after eleven weeks living on my purse, she up and left without a word. The only acknowledgement of my existence was social media defriending and a coordinated mass exodus of mutual friends. Blocked and defriended even though I was silent on all these capers I was being socially punished because I would not change my whole life and routine for her, didn't follow through on costly renovations she expected and happened to have a strong, fulfilling relationship that she couldn't sunder. I don't know what the end game was she was trying to engineer. Was she determined to end my relationship to make room for herself in my life and my home? I have no clue, but a more insidious, hurtful, despicable motive is not in the realms of my imagination.

my corollary

Memoirs of Pain and Isolation

"Violets"
Art as Therapy - Nova Morgan 

Earlier this year I ruptured the meniscus in my left knee with the added fun of a detached tear flap. This latest adventure with pain has, for me, dragged into the fore all those other occasions I have played the pain game.

Without even trying to get my early timeline in order, little snapshots of pain spin in a carousel filled with vignettes, images of me and pain, faded, yet with crisp jagged edges framing it all.

There were the urology tests made up of urgent instructions, holding a bladder, filled beyond capacity with a burning liquid, through a tiny tube inserted in the most horrifically intimate way, especially for a little girl. Then the slow agonising release of the fiery radioactive dye that no one bothers to warn you about, as if ignorance is a band aid best applied without warning. I know this occurred before I was seven, but more accurately than that I cannot say. I had mostly blocked these memories, but they came to haunt when a child of mine, 25 odd years later, had a similar procedure due to an antibiotic resistant infection. Holding a tiny child while a nightmare plays on around you and your child screams in a crescendo that hardly covers the echoes inside the vaults of your own mind as tears for him mingle with the tears for your child self and compassion wars with a panic you can't let out.

These tests lead up to a prescription for a long term antibiotic and I acutely remember it was 2 large mauve pills 4 times a day, it was a lot of medication. The first sign that something was not right was headaches, headaches that became seizures, at school, at home, in the hospital. I think only someone who has had migraine could understand the skull splitting, brain gouging pain, that resulted. Trips to specialists quickly had me admitted to Royal North Shore Hospital diagnosed with intracranial hypertension. The fluid around my brain was squeezing me into fits.

All up I was in hospital 45 days. There were lumbar punctures, seizures, oxygen tents, children dying around me, lots of crying and screaming, a consuming loneliness, pain, drugs and a profound sense of abandonment and loss of autonomy. If anything came of this, for me, it is to never try and hide truths from children as nothing is more nightmare filled than long days, and even longer nights, of unanswered questions and critical  fear. If you think the truth is scary ... imagine knowing nothing and having everything to fear. There was also burr holes, 3 of them, drilled into my skull. The size of 50 cent pieces, approx 31mm, I think to assess any physical cause for the fluid to build up. I was left with large, skull free soft spots and 14 stitches, and at that time, no answers.

After the long term antibiotic, Nalidixic Acid, was diagnosed as my problem, by way of an allergic reaction, I was released back into my life. My hair shaved, my good eye patched so as to force my now turned eye, from the intracranial hypertension, back into a working position, and my head full of all the horrors and fear of what had just happened and been done to me, I felt isolated, fearful and out of place. Strange rumours had circulated about what had happened to me and I had no skills to reach out and reconnect. I don't think I ever felt a part of anything after that, always the odd fit, the outsider, the fringe dweller. Even though I was out of the hospital the isolation stayed with me and it was here that an undercurrent of sadness and loneliness became a part of me. I learned to make friends again, but it wasn't the same, I wasn't the same.

It is here, in this memory, that I get a lot of my understanding of, and for, my son with Autism Spectrum Disorder. His limited ability in social situations, his struggles with connections, and his isolation, especially in his early school years, all made me revisit my own history with very similar themes. The correlations were quite marked and I grieved that a child of mine had to experience it. His was not through extreme medical misadventure, but an in born difference from within his own brain, his DNA, his own uniqueness. I had come to view my oddities as an acquired brain injury, not one that disables, but one that pervades and shadows many aspects of self in tiny barely perceptible ways. I had become this broken, faulty creature, but he was perfect, just a little different. I fight for him because he deserves to be anything he wants to be. I find it hard to fight for me because being damaged left me with a belief I am not worth the trouble.

With the wisdom that comes from retrospect I can see how my perception of being damaged has lead me down a path where, being broken, I was not entitled to consideration, that I was ripe to be abused. My need to connect created a pathway to all sorts of abuse situations and a legacy of poor self image, self harm, and mental illness. This isolated wisdom does not make recovery any easier.

I spoke about my anxiety creating distracting visual input here, but emotional input and distress create a painful auditory input. The voices of derision, abuse, disdain, judgement and condescension, all from various hurtful events in my life, all scream and boom within my head. Their noise echoes and choruses with repetitions of hate all directed at me, from within me. A chaos of painful noise, pain similar to the intracranial hypertension, squeezing me out and leaving nothing, but pain, behind. Deep within the noise of other voices is also me, the me that agreed with the ugly directed at me, the me that knows I deserve no less than the ugliness directed at me over the years.

There is another me ... the me that somehow knows all the noise is wrong, but she is weak and ineffectual in the face of all that has gone before. I try to resist the tsunami of negative, but a blade of grass is no match for the storm forces that batter, bend and break.

There are other pain adventures, but this insight into pain experienced in more formative years will do, for now.

Art as Therapy - Nova Morgan

Rumour Milling The Gossip

Gossip can make you feel like you are all alone

I get it, I really do. You have a concern and you want to share it, but creating an item of gossip, shared with even the most altruistic desire to show concern, is never the right thing to do.

I have lived under the cloud of rumour and gossip for the longest time. Stories told about me, and I know many of them and know there are more besides, are often the least reflective of who I am or what I am doing. Mostly they are just the bizarre fruits of overactive imaginations and ultimately benign, but any rumour can be used to inflict untold emotional harm in the hands of the wrong 3rd person.

Nobody's life is without challenge or vexation so if you have a concern about someone's life then the kindest way to deal with that concern is to start a conversation with that person. Once hearsay, innuendo, rumour and gossip are begun there is no calling it back. There is no "sorry" that disarms this practice and makes it ok.

Nine years ago, at the beginning of my single parent journey in 2009, I was assisting some primary school friends in the organisation of a primary school reunion. These planning sessions took place over a few drinks and a meal at a local club. We were a mixed bunch who formed a renewed bond and I was quite frankly reveling in the camaraderie and the very new sense of having a group I belonged to. At one of these sessions I decided to go to the bar and get a shout and one of the guys offered to assist me, as there were about 7 of us. This guy and I shared a laugh as we ordered and waited. As you can imagine we had a lot of shared experiences and nearly a lifetime to catch up on after 30 years. We got the drinks back to our party and thought nothing more of it and after we had pooled our efforts to date, discussed next moves and deciding on the next meet up as we continued to bring about a reunion of a class of around 120 people, men and women, who had dispersed, changed names, moved on, and even died, in the 30 years since we shared a playground. The very next evening I received a phone call, a screaming diatribe from my ex, from whom I was separated. The rumour was that I was planning a weekend away with an old school friend and this rumour had traveled the world and had come from a reliable source in the UK. When you consider I lived in the suburbs of an outer Sydney area in Australia, this is a remarkable feat. I was confused because it was so strange, such that the ensuing screaming at me about my supposed plans and my betrayals and perfidies hammered me, for how long I am unsure. Nothing I said was acceptable as I was just the worst person in the world and warranted the abuse and then some ... all because of a rumour, an item of gossip that circumnavigated the globe in a single day.

Now it is a good idea to come clean. I was, at this stage, being treated for a swag of mental illness diagnoses. Amongst these was Major Depressive Disorder, Adjustment Disorder, Generalised Anxiety Disorder and PTSD. Combating the ridiculous notions of clandestine lurkers on the periphery of a snapshot of a single event was not even a foot note of a notion of mine I needed to deal with, but there I was being screamed at over something that wasn't true, slumped, sobbing, in a corner of a room trying to communicate a truth that was never going to be heard, engulfed in an abuse scenario I was desperately trying to leave behind me.

The strangest thing about a marriage break up, especially one where one party, me,  is consumed with mental health issues, is that no one asked me my story. No one asked me what happened or why. By the time I was well enough to articulate my side, the story was already out, repeated, remarked upon, discussed in wide circles, expanded on, but not substantiated from my viewpoint at all. I realised that at such a late date my side was never going to be heard without an entrenched bias opposing it, so I stayed silent, hurt by the partisan treatment I had already been subject to. Family were already treating me like the person in the wrong. I had left a "perfectly respectable marriage" and I had "ruined everybodies' lives". No one even wanted to know that my leaving was the result of a choice ... Leave ... or Die ...

I ended up living with the idea that, in some quarters, a relative that was divorcing was worse than that same person being dead, a notion reinforced by the Catholic teachings of my youth even though I had long rejected those teachings. No one said this to me, but it was the idea, the imagining that grew inside my disordered brain. I had grown past my suicidal thoughts, healed at least that much, but deep down there was a self imposed knowledge that others thought I was better off dead. The fact that so few of my relatives communicated with me, included me in their life events, seemed to reinforce my belief.

There have been many instances of unsubstantiated rumour and items of gossip that have been brought to my attention. The affairs I had and that never happened, not during my marriage and not even in the 14 months after my marriage ended. I did begin another relationship, but that began in October 2010, long after my separation and declaration that I would never go back.

Now we come to the present day. Rumours still circle, gossip still circulates and the harm still impacts me. The latest being that my household is disordered and I am used and abused. Accusations being made that my loved ones are "dole bludgers". The fact is that my household is a co-operation of disabilities, mental illness, chronic health conditions, love and support. We are not perfect and we do have occasional bouts of disharmony, but we are trying to support each other in a society and a community that devalues us, relegates us to a position of supplicant and abuses us based on bias and mass media blame washing. We are ill supported by agencies marketed as being for that purpose. We are let down by Human Services that are anything but humane. We are cast in a light that paints us unfairly, but we are enduring and we are fighting and I, even if it has to be one melt down at a time, am not going to let these bastards win.

If you, dear reader, think gossip is harmless, then consider why you are not taking it to the person concerned? Think on the repercussions of what you say being expanded upon, suppositions added, innuendo applied and then brought to the person concerned, either from a place of consideration or, worst case scenario, from a place of abuse. How could your contribution to the rumour mill be used? Are you going to be responsible for the fall out? the harm?

Please consider rumour and gossip as a tool in the hands of a bully. Do not give up your power of concern and allow it to be used against people you care about. Please do opt for an open conversation with the person and not about a person.

We are encouraged to ask "RU OK?"
not
"Is he/she/they ok? because I heard ..."

 

Rumours and gossip isolate us from the truth

Being a Carer under NDIS

Until last week I had a face to face support worker meeting over coffee. It was a small respite where I could share the frustrations of dealing with systems, supports and agencies. Then I received an email ...

"My Team Leader has directed that I am not allowed to travel to see Carers. This means that I can not meet with you face to face unless you are willing to drive to ..." the office 30km away.

I was gutted. I allowed myself to sit with this bombshell for a few hours, then mustering a gentle acceptance I replied:

"Dear PrimarySupportWorker

Travelling to your office, whilst fighting for this NDIS, which is making DisabledPensioner more and more symptomatic, is not feasible.

I kinda knew this would come about and we talked about it, if you remember, about supports getting thin on the ground. I am grateful to be given the heads up, which is more than I have been afforded before.

It saddens me, but it is what it is, and it will be whittled away further sometime down the track.

Respite has become a dirty word …

Kind regards ..."

My support worker responded kindly and I knew she was not happy about this change in her ability to provide supports as was her previous mode, but still it sat with me ill that this had come to pass. I knew I had to put forward my feelings at this time, and after allowing a day to stew on the mode of my more fulsome response and to do justice to what I felt was another slight to which Carers, and those in their care, are heir to.

"Dear PrimarySupportWorker

I am done. Over and Over I get promises of support only to have it withdrawn. PHaMs, One Door, Just Better Care, Ability Links, ADHC, Carers ACT, NDIS … it doesn’t matter how much I rely on it, or look forward to it, or struggle to make it, me being me. I will not allow myself to be set up for one more let down.

Please do share this with whomever you would like, as will I, paraphrased and adjusted for anonymity, because there is now one more carer barely making it, who cares for 3 with disabilities and mental health conditions, and who is herself a mental health consumer, who is going without.

I was promised support, via PHaMs, through the NDIS access process for ALL FOUR OF US, but no, only one of us made it, and that was only through my own grit, not because I had support. Two years of this farcical process is going to leave me broken, more broken, but that’s ok, apparently.

ADHC Started me off with their put down that my youngest was “1 IQ point not retarded enough for supports”

There was also Just Better Care that told a disabled pensioner in my care that “if he was going to insist on having a complex medical condition then he should just F#*K off back to Sydney where those sort of things are catered to”

Then we have the whole NDIS decision that Epilepsy is a medical condition and not a disability, so that my disabled pensioner and I, his carer, are locked in a battle with their Senior Lawyer at the Administrative Appeals Tribunal to get some supports.

We also have Ability Links, who in their font of benevolence, have decided that asking for a letter stating when supports were accessed and the type of supports given is tantamount to defrauding the NDIS and have refused to comply with even this basic request.

Let’s not forget Carers ACT who promised, and got a quote for, some home care services, then proceeded to bill me and sent statements and reminders month after month with no service rendered. Even with me informing them that no service was rendered each time a financial document arrived in my in box.
(post note: Carers ACT have now addressed the administrative issue that allowed this to happen)

PHaMs became One Door and I was dropped like a stone. No one contacted me, just neglect. Now this?

It was said that “No one will be worse off under the NDIS. Even if the new disability services might be different; CYP accessing the NDIS should be able FACT to achieve the same or similar outcomes”
https://www.facs.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/file/0007/436678/Department-of-Family-and-Community_NDIS-Myth-Busters.pdf

This was, is, and ever will be, now that services are being whittled down to inaccessible, a crock, a mockery of all that carers go through and have to put up with in a compassionless, dollar centric farce of a system. Are we not worth a little more consideration?
http://www.carersaustralia.com.au/about-carers/statistics/

I will soldier on, of course I will, it is what carers do … until, of course, they burn out, self-harm or die of despair at their own hand. The statistic will bear out my statements so I am unafraid of sounding too dramatic, or like some hysterical scaremonger. The statistics of our surviving our lot is frightening, but that is ok, probably because we do it out of love, our value is negligible.
https://www.australianageingagenda.com.au/2014/03/05/suicide-risk-among-carers-highlighted/

I hope you can appreciate that I have given this email much thought and refused to reply in a the heat of initial disappointment, and that the inner rage is not directed at you PrimarySupportWorker, but I have long railed against those that would diminish me by abuse or neglect, but neglect is still a wound, a wound that is compounded every time neglect takes place.

I will not be wounded any more. If I have to go it alone, I will, but I can choose to not be neglected. I can choose to not allow the line-up of people and services gasping to neglect myself and my family as they grasp at every holy dollar.

I am done. I can’t begin to iterate my despair or emphasise what that one coffee date a month meant to me, the carnival is over.

It was such a small thing to look forward to … wasn’t it? ..."

So that's it. We navigate the NDIS, succeed or fail. We try to fathom the intricacies of legislation, bureaucratic agenda, wilful misunderstanding of documents and the dogmatic insistence on particular words and phrases, regardless of meaning or intent. We work, we care and we hurt and we neglect our own welfare for the sake of those who trust in our compassion and consideration.

What do we get? Neglect and a constant whittling down of even basic supports. We are not considered by NDIS funding at all, so we are left to shift for ourselves, left with considerably more work because, more often than not, it is we who have to navigate the NDIS for those in our care.

Perhaps we should just line up for a slap in the face periodically ... it might hurt less than this.

My Life as an Impostor

Most of what I have read about Impostor Syndrome refers to workplace performance. I was effected in my work life, but more and more I have this encroaching on just about every aspect of my life.

I learned to drive when I was 46. I had tried throughout my adult life, but each attempt had ended in disaster. My first attempt to learn to drive was when I turned 17 as is the usual for young soon to be adults. I did not feel like my ambition was fully supported and feed back from my parents was that I was not to be encouraged. After 20 paid lessons with an instructor I was told "Don't worry 'bout it luv, ya useless!"

At 21 I tried again. An old manual car and with an impatient husband. First lesson took me to a fairly major arterial suburban road. Impatient instructions such as "put it into third! put it into third! cant you hear the engine? THIRD!" lead me to such anxiety straits I could barely function. The elderly car did not help when  my panicked attempt to go into third saw the gear stick come away in my hand at which point I gave it to my husband crying "there is no third", stopping the car and never getting into a driver's seat until my 44th year.

When my marriage ended it became apparent I had no one to support my mobility and that the time needed to invest in public transport as a single parent of 3 boys working full time was excessive. I once more got a learner's permit and began to pay for lessens, now with the added burden of a crushing anxiety disorder and PTSD. I could not seem to get through roundabouts without a panic attack and even an automatic transmission was too daunting for me and I despaired of ever being able to direct my own motor ambitions or driving my own destiny.

A couple of years later it became needful to move away from the suburbs to a coastal regional location. This, from a logistics point, raised many issues, one being access to specialist medical care. The idea that I should learn to drive once more raised its unsettling head. I engaged an instructor, made him aware of my mental health issues, and proceeded to learn, one meltdown at a time, how to drive.

I bought a car, my first car. Not a small, economical, automatic wee model like I have been learning on ... NO! A great, old, 4 wheel drive, manual beast of a vehicle, and so had to relearn how to wrangle this monster and still pass the test.

It took three attempts to pass the test and get my license, but I did it. Sweat, shakes, sobs and tears, but I got it.

I was told driving got easier and that soon I would wonder why I felt so unequal to the task, a task that just about anyone else could do without even thinking about it.

5 years later and I still feel like I am going to be found out. Someone is going to pay attention and notice that I should not be driving. I can't drive to a major city, 2 or 5 hours away, with out succumbing to tears, giving in to fears, fears that including injuring my own loved ones.

I hate that I cannot feel safe or capable doing something everyone else feels is so simple. I have to cling so hard to lists of what to do and how to do it that simple things will undo me and leave me flustered and on the edge of panic. The sound of a horn or a siren creates so much panic and paranoia that I am so tense and rigid I can barely breath.

I find myself holding my breath.

I feeling that I am going to be caught, dragged out of the car and punished for the audacity that I even thought I could drive, that I shouldn't be there with people's lives in my hands, being responsible for obeying laws and not harming and maiming people. I constantly see me in the middle of chaos, the cause of injury and disaster.

I become consumed by a sense of guilt and shame that people will see me being a fraud who thinks she can drive.

This is my life as an Imposter, waiting for the gavel to fall for all to know and laugh and point ... how did she ever think she could drive? ... wasn't she listening when she was told how useless she was?

Yes. Yes she was ... and that, dear readers, is the problem. I heard those words, at the tender age of 17, and learned, hard etched into my soul, how useless I was. A lesson learned and made more indelible within a framework of discouraging words and actions by loved ones surrounding me, not intentional, but permanent in it's harm.

I drive. I will continue to drive and sometimes I even get to a place where I enjoy the process, the challenge of driving well. This complex set of feelings is not constant, sometimes it is in the background and sometimes it's in my face. Some days it is harder than others. People will tell me I am a good driver, but a part of me will always feel that I will be caught out and shown up for the Impostor I am.

Post edit: I never meant this to be a story of how sad I am, but a story of triumph over my own demons. I can drive, I do drive, I have driven through cities and across states, I have crossed bridges and beaches. My mental illness does not stop me, it is just a fact of my life. I am here as a qualified driver due to the support of those around me, the skills of those who taught me and the encouragements I have experienced to not let these demons win. My abilities are not less because I suffer for them, they are more because I have to work harder for them.
This is a shout out!

I CAN!

The Battle to Function with Anxiety as told to my ASD son

My beautiful youngest son, Master14, is on the Autism Spectrum so I am often having to explain the world in terms he can understand. On this sunny day my Master14 and I were out and about getting things done and running errands together. On the way home on a small coastal “major” road I began to have an anxiety attack so I took a detour into a park with sweeping bay views and we talked.

Master14: you ok mum?

AnxietyMum: Mummy’s just having a moment sweetheart. Let’s look at the water for a while and see if I calm down.

Master14: What’s it like?

AnxietyMum: It’s like tight metal bands around my chest making breathing really hard.
It’s tears hiding just behind my eyes burning to escape.
It’s my heart racing and feeling like it wants to escape my chest.
It’s my limbs being heavy, cold, numb and unresponsive.
It’s a bone deep shudder that just wont stop.
It’s a fear so critical I need to get away, but I don’t know what from.
It’s an icy creepy feeling up my back.
It’s hairs all over my body standing up like goose bumps.
It’s a sweaty, sticky, gross, clammy feeling in my hands, my hair and my feet.
It’s a feeling of dread like something really bad is just about to happen, but I don’t know what.

Master14: Can you really feel all that?

AnxietyMum: Yes baby I can.

Master14: What makes it happen to you?

AnxietyMum: That’s a very good question … It’s like my brain tells me stories, lots of stories, of all the things that could go wrong. The stories are all very possible so they worry me, especially when I drive, because horrible things can always happen on the road.

Master14: you can’t stop the stories?

AnxietyMum: I try very hard to not pay attention to them, but …

Master14: They are like a song stuck in your head?

AnxietyMum: Sort of …
When I am driving it’s like I have port holes, little boat windows, of reality in my windscreen and mirrors, but all around that reality are images, flashes, of horrible possibility trying to make me pay attention.

Master14: What sort of images?

AnxietyMum: a dog running into the road, a child, a ball, a stroller.
I see an insect crashing into the windscreen guts all over the place, or a pelican poo, or a bird.
I see branches falling off trees, rocks flying at me, pot holes and bridges collapsing.
I see your face bloodied, your arms broken, blood everywhere.

Master14: none of that happened, none of it was real …

AnxietyMum: I know darling. I know it the whole time, but the stress of it, all of it, makes my body react to it even as if it were real. Adrenalin gets released into my blood stream and I can’t help feeling all the things that real disaster creates in a body.

Master14: are you ok now?

AnxietyMum: I’m much better thank you

Master14: Why do you thank me?

AnxietyMum: Because focusing on your questions gave my brain something to do other than panic.

Master14: I helped you?

AnxietyMum: More than you could possibly imagine.

Master14: Can we go home now?

AnxietyMum: Absolutely … that’s just where I want to be.

*quiet moment as we get back on the road*

Master14: I feel like that sometimes …

AnxietyMum: You know any time you do you can talk to me about it.

Master14: Because you understand.

AnxietyMum: Boy do I ever!

I don’t think any mother wants to have to explain why they are frail or scared or distressed. I have always tried to keep open dialogues with my children, but I am always challenged to explain things to my youngest in terms HE can relate to. I also managed to gave him a name for the way he sometimes feels. We are closer for it and I have a better understanding of my amazing wee man and myself.

Prisoner of The Season

I have to admit to a really large dose of seasonal "bah humbug". I don't enjoy the marketing frenzy of retailers that begins even before the ridiculousness of Halloween is over and I don't enjoy the all holds barred of other people's determination to enjoy their idea of festivity even in the face of the discomfort and detriment of others.

Merriment should not impact on the health and welfare of others in the community and when objection is raised for very valid reasons it seems ill fitting to direct invective at the beleaguered and distressed.

Case in Point?

Take the silent and oft unnoticed, but debilitating neurological disorder epilepsy for instance. How many in the community would even consider the effect of flashing lights for most of the night on a sufferer? The lack of sleep entailed in traffic? loud laughter? raucous exclamations? screaming children? How many people are aware that flashing lights and lack of sleep can be key precursors to seizure activity? how many care?

This is not my usual foodcentric mode, but my foodcentricity all began with a desire to find a place of wellness and fulfillment, not just for myself, but for my small family each with variety of silent, invisible illness and so the plight of those who also suffer such ills is not lost on me and those who may know me would know I care so very deeply.

What am I trying to say?

Well ..... Don't malign those who take less enjoyment in the frivolity and excess of the season than you as they may well have a very good reason.

Take into consideration that your flashy over the top displays of lack of consideration can in fact be detrimental to others.

Take with you, if you are more inclined to more sedate and considerate modes of celebration, our thanks because even though you may not realise it those not of your ilk keep us and many like us imprisoned in our homes after dark .... unable to take advantage of any evening occupations and enjoyments.

If, in your estimation, I sound bitter and at variance to the season of the Holy Dollar and that doesn't suit whatever you keep under your silly red hat then I'm afraid that's just too bad. Catering to the chronically ME-centric is not in my best interests ....