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Processing Feelings of Powerlessness and Vulnerability
It’s time they went their merry way
Years and years of overworking, outperforming my own resources, and the effects of high expectations of others have brought me here…to my knees. After DO-ing for everyone, facilitating the lives of my own children, others’ children, and an ungrateful man, and ignoring my own needs for quiet, calm, and downtime, I am wearing a heart monitor.
I’ve had plenty of motivation to be intensely introspective this past almost two weeks. I’ve looked into my past to see when I have felt like this before, how long it lasted, and how I had no choice but to ignore it. I was not in a position to address it. Life, as I knew it, had no means of slowing down.
What I was DO-ing, was essential. Feeding a family, working three part-time jobs, having assignments at church, homeschooling, taking care of the farm, and trying to keep an old farmhouse clean was enough work for three of me…and I am a pretty hard worker.
There was no downtime. There was no sitting and watching movies with my kids. I might have folded laundry and made dinner while they watched…and I laughed along. There were no date nights with my then-husband unless I planned them. And I was so damn tired. Unreasonably so. So that rarely happened. But when it did, I planned a night with friends at the same time. Their spouses were academics as well and they could talk while we chatted. It was a happy thing for me. The car rides there and back…not so much.
Yes, I chose so much of that life. But so much of it did not feel like a choice. It felt like an expectation that mattered so deeply I could not say no, just like saying “yes” when he asked me to marry him. I had daydreamed for months about this moment. There was no choice to make, really.
I vividly remember a certain Sunday afternoon, after church, fighting with a migraine (which was very common on weekends). I had come home from church and found something to eat right away, due to the fact that I was (incorrectly) thinking that my blood sugar was low. I was shaking and anxious and exhausted.
But the shaking didn’t mean my blood sugar was low. It meant that I needed a BREAK. I needed to SIT. I needed the nap my then-husband was…
