Disclaimer: The following is an outpouring of feelings, such as I was having at the time. It was done as an assignment from my therapist. I realize that much of it is self-serving and ignorant of the others’ point of view. Let me just say that I do realize they have points of view that are every bit as legitimate as mine.
Unique burden.
My feelings are not weighed or respected. Perhaps no adult’s are in our society, but mine least of all. Always the perpetrator, never the victim, and any complaint about my status only serves to cement it.
Me: I don’t know how to stop being like this/feeling this way. If I knew how I would.
Wife(W): You can start by not yelling.
Me: No I can’t … You think this is under voluntary control, but it isn’t.
Actually, I probably could have stopped. My misspoken response was prompted by the fact that W’s solution to my problem was not a solution to my problem at all (which is what I was pleading for); it was a solution to her problem. Thus it has always been going back to the “anger management” days. With a couple of cherished exceptions it has always been, “Solve my problem first, then help yourself.”
Justified or not, there was the perception of my having been disrespected in my own house, and of my daughter having once again slipped through the gate, so to speak. The dishes she got out of loading were dishes that were buried under the matting of clothes and other debris on the floor of her room. I had dug through the matting and harvested a sink full of dishes. It seemed right a proper that she be the one to load them. But it was not to be. There were already clean dishes in the dishwasher, so she filled in the empty spaces around the clean dishes and started the dishwasher.
So while my daughter chats with her boyfriend and W watches videos, I get to write this. Tomorrow is my Friday “off”, which is never “off”. Saturdays used to be sacred, but not anymore. Not since the day I didn’t blow up. Monday it will be back to commuting an hour and a half for 9 hours work, exercising in the morning, chores in the evening and an hour to unwind. At least I get that. But not this month. This month it will be a balls-to-the wall scramble to find an optimal solution to Verizon’s pulling up stakes as our ISP.
Unique burden.
I am the Christ of the Naelmin family. Whatever blame might have be borne by anyone else is removed by my anger and my actions and placed solely on my shoulders. At times this actually is beyond voluntary control. I don’t want to draw away the need for others to look at their own roles, and I know that that will be the effect of my actions. Sometimes there is significant lead time between this realization and the initial blowup, while I try to hold it back. But once I reach the point of trying to “hold it back”, it will not be held.
The Christ has no Christ to call his own. I wait days for the absolution I granted so freely to others, but it doesn’t come. Eventually, the need for it is diluted in the sea of tears we call life … until next time.
Unique burden
I am growing callous, or perhaps that’s just wishful thinking. Uniquely, I am the family member from whom contributions are received without gratitude and against whom offences may be committed without remorse.
Sure I can stop telling my wife how much I appreciate her and I can stop apologizing when I mess up, but does that make me callous? Not really; just wishful thinking.
Unique burden
So what does unique burden feel like if not callousness? That was after all the point of this assignment. It is dispiriting, demotivating, and very very heavy.
Unique burden.
