The Jobs Report

The Jobs Report was on the news recently. Apparently unemployment is down, job creation is up, the stock market is up, everybody happy happy happy.

The employment happy happy joy joy hasn't trickled its way down to me yet.

Here's a summary of the last month:

1. ABCD
I had been working for Company A, doing contract work for Company B, who leases office space in Company C's building. D never asked about any of it and assumed I worked for Company C.

The job ended abruptly. I had been the assistant for an exec at Company B. She got in trouble for hiring me (she didn't follow company protocols and hire through the proper channels.) To save her own ass, she got rid of me by blaming me for an error she made. Of course I was upset. After an investigation, my employer, Company A, reassured me I did nothing wrong, Company B was happy with my work, and in the discussion I learned that Boss B has done this to other assistants before me. How lovely. (In retrospect, I see that B stands for Bitch.)

In the end karma prevailed. Boss B got in trouble for hiring me, got in trouble for throwing me under the bus, and is no longer allowed to have an assistant.

Let me edit that last point. Karma prevailed for Boss B.
Did karma prevail for me?
I don't know.
I certainly don't see any change on my end.

2. The Federal Job
Had a great interview, was told a week later that they had chosen someone else for the job.
Being optimistic, I stopped job hunting and put all my eggs in the federal job basket. Now I have to start the job hunt all over agaon.

3. Temping
Finished a 3 week part-time temp job at minimal pay yesterday, and now nothing is on the horizon.

Can we say "I am depressed?" Let's all say it again, only louder.

I AM DEPRESSED.

I ate a package of Oreos (generic because they're cheaper) and am starting on a bag of M&Ms. Somebody please stop me.

Has D said anything about any of this? He knows nothing about the federal job. has no idea why I'm not going to company C's office any more, and knows I had been temping at one location only because he dropped me off at work one afternoon. Otherwise he has not asked or commented on any of this.

This is why I'm so damn depressed. It would be easier if someone actually gave a shit about me. A hug would be nice, too, but no. Empathy is a luxury I am just not going to have while I struggle through this.


Oh, except when I came home late one evening after a job fair down in the big city. It was past my usual bedtime and I wanted to get to bed straight away. D stopped me as I hurried into the house. "You need to help me write this letter," he demanded.
What? Why? To whom?
Apparently he is now job hunting, too, and wanted me to help him with his resume and cover letters. And they had to be done at midnight on a Wednesday. No particular job posting, he just wanted to have it ready. In case. And I had to stay up late to help him with it, instead of going to bed so I could get to work the next morning.
"Can we please work on this tomorrow?" I asked. "I'm tired and need to get to bed."
"No. I have to do it now because I'm sending it off in the morning."
"To who? What job?"
"Well I don't know! I'll find someone."
So I stayed up an extra hour, helping him with his resume and cover letter (generally both should be written/modified specifically for each job posting you apply to, not generically done, but he insisted and I'm still trying to play nice so he'll let me sleep after I go to bed.)

The next day he slept in, then spent all day watching tv.
I see where his priorities are, and it smacks of sabotage.

This umbrella is perfect.
So I can walk in the rain in front of D.

I am so so so ready to move on, but feel I can't until I get a job. I don't know any other way around it. I have to get a job before I can do anything else.
Once I get a job, I can sign a lease on an apartment (found our apartment - in my budget and in the right location for me and the kids to easily get around town.) Once I move, then I can work on rebuilding a social life. I have already found the community sports league I want to join, another branch of a fraternal organization I've been wanting to join, and am ready to sign up for yoga and the local dragonboat team. I'm so ready to get out there and have fun and make friends again. (Can't start that before the job - no money.)  I'm so fuckin' lonely.

I'm ready. Just... when am I going to get that job I so desperately need?

I just wanted a hug.

This cartoon makes me cry.

image from http://www.robot-hugs.com/nest/

It was this situation that made me realize that something's wrong with D, and that I will never be able to fix it. I realized I wasn't happy and hadn't been happy for years and years and years.

At my home, I was feeling really low and asked him if I could have a hug, but he stood there and laughed at me.

So I started crying and asked again for a hug.
"Nope."

I opened my arms and said "Please?"

He backed away.

I took a step forward.

He backed away some more.

By now I was bawling my eyes out, and with tears streaming down my face, he moved away from me every time I tried to approach him for a hug. When I realized I was literally chasing him through the house in a cruel game of keep away, I stopped.

"Forget it," I spat out as I walked away.

"Aww, come on, I'm kidding! Come here, I'll hug you."

"No."

"Seriously, I'll give you a hug if you really want one that bad."

"Fuck you."

This one hug that I never got marked the beginning of the end.

I just wanted a hug.

Quick update

Here is a list of thoughts and comments:

• Today was day 4 of the new job. I like it. 
• Yesterday I got a phone call from my headhunter. Last month I had put in an application for a big, high-paying (from my perspective) job across the city. They want to interview me in 2 weeks. Yay!! If I get the job I can officially start my apartment search and can finally plan my moving date.
• Only one more week until our food stamps refill with a full month of benefits. Thank God! Beans and rice, Ramen noodles, skipping dinner so the kids can eat (D eats a huge lunch and huge dinner every day)... holding my breath... it's almost over!

Since D didn't say "good luck" or "fuck you" or anything when I've gone out for interviews,  i didn't bother to tell him I was hired for this job. My commute is so short I walk to work instead of drive (love that), so on the first day of work I left me car parked in my spot and walked to the office. When I came home for lunch, he demanded, "Where were you!?"
"I was at the such&such office."
"You never answered my text asking where you are."
"Sorry, I had my phone in my purse all morning. I didn't see it until I walked in the door."
I finished my lunch and walked back to work.
When I got home that night, I was exhausted. Kid#2 was at college and Kid#1 arrived home from their 2nd day at work soon after I got home. D hid out in the garage and Kid#1 and I were on our own to figure out dinner. We settled for Ramen noodles, Kid#1 had a little tiff in the kitchen with D, then Kid and I hauled ourselves off to bed.

The next day, Kid #1 mentioned to D that I was at work. D has never told me congratulations on the job, never asked how much I get paid, never asked about benefits, never asked what I do, nothing. I work in an unusual kind of office, and he has never even commented or asked about that. Normally I'd be very hurt that he shows zero interest in any of this, but I have finally come to expect it. I hate it, but if I expect it, then I'm less hurt and disappointed. I'm so tired of heartbreak and crying over this kind of shit.

Each day after work, except for the inedible spicy beans he cooked on Tuesday, he has ignored me and whatever kid(s) are home that night. We are on our own to figure out and cook dinner. D is home all day; I would think if he was interested in taking care of his family, he'd spend time with us when we're home, and perhaps help with meal prep at dinnertime. 

The previous paragraph could actually describe practically every night at home for the last two years. 

He does not participate in family activities, rarely joins us in family meals, and when he cooks dinner (remember, he is a former restaurant cook) it is frequently inedible. He graces us with his appearance long enough to scowl, mooch, or demand my presence - all of which always immediately precede his swift retreat to the garage.

I translate that as, "I'm mad at you, I'm taking whatever you have (usually food or cash) for my own use, and making sure you witness me ignoring you."

The pain of ostracism

In my experience, it causes deep physical pain, as well.

When D walks past me without looking at me, talking to me, or touching me, it physically hurts. I ache deep in my core with chest pain and knots in my stomach. I notice this especially when he doesn't touch me.

When D is near me and doesn't touch me, it hurts as if he punched me in the stomach. I have even found myself doubling over in pain. When I made the mistake of reaching to touch him on the arm, he jerked away and glared at me like I'm contagious with God knows what.

Nobody touches me, actually. Not my shoulder, arm, hand, nothing. I have gone for weeks without being touched by another human. It hurts. I mean, it hurts emotionally, but it also hurts physically. I'm lucky when one of the kids hugs me, and I try to hug them daily, but they're in the "don't get to huggy with mom" phase, so I might get a half-assed hug once in a while. But that's it.

This is one of the reasons I started having a few affairs with other men. It's the only time anyone touches me and allows me to continue barely clinging to sanity with my short, soft fingernails. And at least my beaus are happy to touch me instead of begrudgingly making contact or accidentally brushing against me like when a grocery clerk hands me my receipt.

This is too upsetting to write about.
My chest hurts and I'm having trouble breathing when I think too much about this.



Source: ScienceDaily.com discusses the Perdue University Study on Ostracism

Alone in my cave

When I'm stressed out (which is most of the time these days,) I tend to crawl into my little cave and disappear. People accuse me of dropping off the face of the earth. My family complains that I never answer the phone.

Years ago, I had lots of friends. Now, I only have a few left.

I've never been able to figure out why I do this now. I've been in my cave for about 7 years, but visited it now and then for the previous I don't know how many years.
Anyway, I'm a cave dweller.
I am hermit girl, hear me sigh.

What caused me to change from outgoing and popular to hermit girl? I hate being hermit girl, but can't even force myself to fake my old outgoing self any more.

Then I saw this picture at The Lost Self and it all makes sense. 
I thought it was just me. It's not. It's a growing depression from years and years of covert, passive abuse.

At least that means that when I leave the abuse, I'll finally start to heal.
I might even start to come out of my cave.

Do I have PTSD?

I was sent to a psychiatrist to be tested for PTSD in the middle of The Hell Years*.
He said I didn't have it.

Today, I disagree with his diagnosis.

I don't think he asked questions in a manner I understood, because in all my research about personality disorders and the abuse surrounding them, I'm starting to think I do have PTSD. I'm almost positive I had it back then.

There is an online PTSD test on several big psych websites, but after answering the 22 questions it said "Print out this list and take it to your doctor to discuss your answers." Well phooey. I'm out of printer ink, I don't have medical insurance right now (Obamacare-Schmobamacare) and I have exactly $12.42 to my name until my first payday two weeks from now, so taking that test was a glorious waste of time.

Tonight, I found the same test online with scoring at the bottom. Thank God!
Here's a link to the test I found at Heal My PTSD.
"If you have 10+ "yes" answers, you display many symptoms of PTSD," the results say.
I answered 18 out of 22 with a yes.

I think the big difference between the PsyD and the online test is my interpretation of the questions.

First of all, in the doctor's office, I was answering everything based on the medical horrors I had witnessed and managed during The Hell Years. It was a horrible time in all of our lives, but:

Did I witness or experience a traumatic event?
No. First of all, Hell wasn't an event. It was a situation that should have been routine but quickly went south, then turned into an ongoing life-threatening situation that dragged on for months. A year later we went through it all over again.
Second of all, we only discussed Hell. I wasn't aware that I'd been abused for years before Hell happened, so abuse didn't even enter the discussion. It was the farthest thing from my mind.

Do I have flashbacks of the event?
At the time I was formally tested, I think I was still in shock. My family was knee deep in the horror show and hadn't yet come up for air. I wasn't even to the point of having flashbacks yet.

(By the way, the P in PTSD means Post. It's Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, not UTYEBTSD: Up To Your Eye Balls in Trauma Stress Disorder. And also not NLATEOTTTSD: No Light At The End Of The Tunnel Traumatic Stress Disorder. Let's make sure we're clear on that.)

I also knew absolutely nothing about PTSD, so when he asked about flashbacks, I imagined Vietnam Vets having flashbacks (as demonstrated via Hollywood - my only exposure to flashbacks) and no. I didn't wake up in the middle of the night in a panic, trying to hide from or hunt the bad guys.

So I told him, "No. I don't have flashbacks."

If only he had explained what that actually meant. Now days, when I think of the abuse I endured over the past 20 years, and then the emotional isolation I felt during Hell when I had no friends to help me through it, yeah. They're not technically visual flashbacks, but the emotional pain and anguish wells up and it takes me a good hour to stop crying from thinking about it. I think I'd categorize that as a flashback. The pain is still very raw and I'm super sensitive when I think about it.

Do you have intense physical and/or emotional distress when something reminds you of the traumatic event?
Yesindeed. See above. Enough said.
Do I avoid talking about it, thinking about it, engaging in any reminders about it?
Can we change the subject?
Sometimes I wonder if that's one reason I need to get away from D. Because he reminds me of the abuse. Or if it's just because of the abuse. Maybe both, depending on how he's treating me at the time.
I don't like thinking about Hell or how horribly alone I felt during that time. I can't deal with my feelings when I do. It's too much.
Can I have a hug now?

Do you have memory gaps?
Do you have difficulty concentrating?
Are you kidding?? I lost part of my language skills during Hell. Common vocabulary words were gone. I couldn't carry on a normal conversation because too many words were missing.
"Please let the dog out," ended up sounding like, "Hey. The dog. He... wants. Uh, Dog needs... Um... potty." 

I felt like I had brain damage. I told my doctors that I felt like I had brain damage. They nodded and made notes in their laptops but didn't do anything to help, except to change my antidepressant meds. I still struggle to recall and speak certain words at times. Sometimes my conversation trails off and converts to gestures because I can't pull up the next word from the depths of my brain, but it's a lot better now than it was. Crossword puzzles helped me to regain a lot of my words.

Now that I know more about abuse and isolation and PTSD, I believe I actually did suffer some brain damage during that time.

New item for my to do list after I move out: talk to a doctor or counselor about PTSD.

-----------------------------------------------

*The Hell Years refers to the injuries from the accident (a freak accident - nobody's fault), the recovery, and the aftermath. 

It was really awful - the shock of what happened, the shock of seemingly normal things going very wrong, the shock of being told "We don't know if our team of surgeons can save them," and the shock of seeing more of the insides of someone's body than I ever wanted to see... and exactly one year after the accident, history repeated itself almost event by event. It was bad.

(Although one good thing about the repeat trauma is we knew what to expect. Didn't make it any easier, but we were able to call 911 sooner when things started going wrong again.)

I don't want to go into specifics in case D researches anything related to it and stumbles across this blog. Just compare it to what people in the middle ages experienced when disease or warring tribes wiped out their small village. Throw in few cases of Seppuku, and that'll be comparable to what we went through.

Support Group(s)

I did it. I joined an online support group.

Actually, a couple support groups. On Facebook.
It's a starting point.
I had to create a new Facebook profile to do this, since I didn't want D to see that I had joined any new groups. Trying to stay completely under his radar. He may be clueless to what I'm doing at home, and over here on this blog, but when it comes to familiar territory like Facebook, I'm not gonna pee in the pool, if you know what I mean.

Here's my Facebook profile.
Cherry B



I feel kind of loseriffic for not having any friends there, but that's the way it is.

1. If I friend people I know in real life, it links Cherry to my real identity, which D could figure out.
2. I don't even know how to explain my second profile to my friends, since I don't talk about this to anyone I know in real life. Yeah, I'm one of those closeted abuse victims. God, I thought sexuality issues were deeply closeted, and this is even deeper!
3. It could get back to D and then all hell will break loose.

No, it's not Cherry Bom-Beppy.  It's Cherry Bombe Pi.
You know, the Greek letter "π."
3.14159265359...

Alright, so I had a really helpful chat with a support group admin and she gave me some really good ideas on how to gracefully leave without leaving a trail of crap behind me (aka exiting without giving my dad reason to freak out on D) and how to prevent D from stalking me after the fact. These are two things that have had me stressing out like no tomorrow to the point where I was having anxiety attacks. Chest pains, etc.

I feel much better after talking to her.

Why online instead of finding a local group?

1. The local support group made me uncomfortable. I was scolded for calling myself co-dependent and that was the end of my turn. Today I decided that I really need someone to talk to, so I went online for help.
2. The others had already left their situation. I was the only one still in the midst of it.
3. I was the only one who hadn't experienced physical violence (very much, anyway) and I felt like an apple amongst the oranges. Still fruit, but different. 

As I find related blogs and forums and other resources, I'm listing them in my sidebar on this blog instead of bookmarking them on my computer. I'm not worried about D getting into my computer, but I want them available wherever I am, and maybe they'll help someone else.
You never know.
You know what? I still feel alone.
I mean, I feel better after talking, but I still feel isolated and alone.

Odd. D is in the house with me all day, every day, and I have never felt more lonely in my entire life than I have this past year. So lonely. Desolate. At least when I move out, there won't be someone moving around in the house totally ignoring me, making meals for himself only, and otherwise behaving as if I don't exist. I'll be alone because I'm actually the only one there. That will feel a lot better. And then I'll be able to actually go out and take a class or join a social group and make friends without having to explain where I'm going and justify my wanting to go instead of spending yet another night ignored at home. Oh, there's so much more about this but that's a subject for another post.