Yesterday was an outstanding day, I went and got my nails done, and my first professional massage. After this last week, I really enjoyed that, despite my wonderful friend having to explain to the masseuse that I wasn't a gangster, over and over again. Tattoos are, as Pirate Chick put it, what swastikas or tear drop tattoos are to Americans. What else could it mean? And Koreans aren't known for their ability to think outside the box.
Anyway, I went out to eat with a bunch of friends, mostly medics for a change, including the one that, for whatever reason, hates my guts. She kept her thoughts to herself, at least. It's a start. We all ended up at a bar, hanging out and goofing off. People came and went, but it's not a big G.I. bar like some are, so it pretty much remained people in our group, and a few civilians. As 2 AM rolled closer, Bear got more and more visibly intoxicated. I wasn't concerned with it, as he's going through a hard time, but knows I don't like people drinking too much as it is. I figured he knew his limits and how to handle himself, and he's plenty old enough to do the right thing. At some point, he asked the bartender to pour "his girlfriend" (referring to me- wow) a drink. About the time I told him to drink the stupid drink (a shot of tequila at that) that the bartender had poured for "me", because I sure as hell wasn't drinking after a year of sobriety, he began to argue with me about what he'd said to the bartender. Mind you, he'd been standing next to me when he said it, and then repeated it to me after, as if looking for approval. It wasn't like I hadn't heard him. Anyway, he got continually more aggressive during this argument, until I stopped and told him four times he needed to drop it. I felt the anxiety level rising, and he wasn't backing off. Eventually, I left- twice. The first time, I explained to him, in no uncertain terms, I needed to be away from him, and from the argument, period. The second time he ran up to me in the street. I yelled at him, grabbed him by the front of his (very nice, clean, button-up, white collar) shirt and yelled at him, with some pretty strong language, that I had PTSD, I needed him to leave me alone before I snapped. I can only imagine how this looked, as Bear is, well, a bear. He's roughly 6 ft 3, and outweighs me, probably nearly twofold. Several locals stopped and stared, but I couldn't just turn it off, I had to get away from the situation. I was already getting tunnel vision, and it was getting harder to breathe. Two more times I had to scream at him in the middle of the street to back off, the second one ending almost in a threat, before he, I think, backed off. I didn't look back that time, as I did not want to know if he was back there, I didn't trust my response. I managed to avoid him once I got back to the barracks, and stayed with my brother for the night, to make sure there would be no more contact. This morning, I told him I wasn't mad, but that it shouldn't have happened, though I seriously doubt I'll spend much time with him for a while.
The moment of understanding came as I was walking to my brother's room. I ran into a couple I know, though I'm not terribly close with either of them, but generally respect them both as people. He asked me what was going on, and I told him. She just looked straight at me (I assume they'd both been drinking, but neither was showing signs of it that I noticed) and told me I'd done the right thing by stepping away from the situation and letting it cool down. I realized she was right, and was happy I'd been able to do that. In reference to fight or flight, fight definitely would have turned ugly fast. I wonder, in retrospect, if the commander's policy on 'alcohol-related incidents' would have extended to my punishment, as well, seeing as I haven't drank in over a year, but the other person was intoxicated. I need to remember to ask about that.
I got home this morning to an email from my sister that, well, sounds just like her. She played the 'poor me' card, and told everyone else in the family (well, myself and our father, anyway) that she was tired of playing the peace keeper, and she wouldn't be the adult in all of this anymore and blah blah blah. Maybe someday, she'll realize that 99% of the drama revolves around her deciding to not speak to, help, or take care of our father. She shuts people out just because she doesn't want to handle things, or because it makes her feel in control, I suspect, is the more likely reason. I'm sure her response to this would be something about the fact that I have spoken to my mother twice in three years now, but, frankly, being a survivor of Münchhausen's by proxy, and a recovering alcoholic, I know that I have done my best to deal with my mother, but that she will always insist on opening up new wounds if she can't reach the old ones, and I've forgiven her it. Forgiveness does not mean I have to let her hurt me again, though, and I won't. I am confused, much of the time, over what my sister must remember and what she doesn't. I don't understand how she can tell me my mother's not an alcoholic when she, herself, was the one to call me one evening because my mother was left in the house with cooking wine while my sister ran to the store, and came back to find my mother falling down the stairs she was so drunk. I wonder if she remembers the bottle of Listerine my mother still carries in her car to this day, or the times she drove us home from her friends' house drunk. I wonder if she remembers the nights we'd wake up to my mother raging and crying, an empty bottle beside her. I wonder if she remembers the insults, the hospitalizations, the medications I would vomit, just to be told I had to take them again. I wonder if she remembers me when I was so numb emotionally that physical pain was the only thing I understood. I wonder if she understands that I was 21 before I understood what it meant to take responsibility for my own actions, because all my life, my actions were treated as nothing more than a result of whatever diagnosis had most recently been slapped on my file by whatever shrink she had found that was willing to play her game without removing me from all the medications she'd had me put on. I wonder if my sister remembers my mother looking at me the morning after I lost my virginity to a rape and calling me a whore. I wonder if she remembers the arguments between me and my mother when I found out I was pregnant, my mother demanding that I get an abortion, and me refusing to leave the house with her, because I was scared she'd force me to have one. I wonder if my sister remembers the things my mother told us about our father our whole lives. I wonder if she remembers the men my mother cheated on our stepfather with, or if she even knows that she'd be sent to her friends' houses so my mother could use her bed to do some of these things in. I wonder if she ever remembers my mother swinging at her boyfriend and claiming abuse, or if she remembers the bottles of Jim Beam that littered the Cadillac. Empty alcohol bottles were a normal part of my childhood.
I will not be that woman. I will not be the woman she told me I would be. I will do better. I will not fight, I will not hurt people, I will not demand control of others. I will gain control of my own life by letting go of the need for control of other things. I will break this cycle- hers, and my own. I will not let men rule my world, and I will not let my past ruin my future. I will not continue on this cycle.
I had my tubes tied, cut and burnt at eighteen years old because my mother had me so convinced I had all these horrible conditions I would certainly pass on to my children. I still don't understand how the doctor didn't research it enough to find out I couldn't have even been diagnosed with those things at that age. I had what is quite possibly irreversible sterilization because of factors imaged by my mother. As much as this still hurts sometimes, I know that I have more control over bringing a child into this world because of that. I will have invitro once I am part of a stable, happy marriage. I will not bring a child into this world the way my mother did- wanting something to use as a pawn, to control, someone to finally give her the unconditional love she felt she hadn't gotten from her own parents. I won't do that. I won't be perfect, nor will my child, but I will not set my child up for failure by creating a human being simply for my own purposes. I can do better than that, and I will break this cycle.
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