Thank you all for the kind words 🙂 I’m finding strength from your kindness.

To Inky: The moving company sounds like the way to go for me too but I am not sure we can afford it. I think my fiance is really stressed out right now too so he’s probably panicking a little bit. I’m guessing he thinks if we don’t start packing early that it will never get done. We are going to move into the condo whether we get approved or not because my mom will let us stay there and pay rent if we don’t. A monthly mortgage will just be cheaper than what she’s charging us for rent.

To Anita: Yes, you are right. You have a good memory! Being around my mom makes me a lot more stressed, anxious, and angry, and I am definitely trying to limit our face to face interactions, but as you can see she is very involved in my life right now. I do believe, however, that she has been through some personal growth within the last year, and I have seen some positive changes in her personality and actions.

To Peter: Thank you so much for your great advice. Mindfulness and awareness helps me so much.

To Erin: I’m so glad to hear that I am not alone. You understand not just the nursing school part, but the 3rd shift part too! I think lack of sleep is one of the biggest factors for my mood and anxiety. Once I get a good night’s rest, everything is a lot easier. Good luck to you!

Hi Anita,

Just met with my doctor today. He agreed that I should be away from work for another 4 weeks. I am okay with that. My problem now is going to be finding things to occupy my time. I injured my dominant hand so there is still a lot that I cannot do..

Like sweeping my kitchen for instance is a real struggle, folding laundry, making my bed, cooking (chopping, slicing, etc.), lifting anything that requires two hands… I am never going to take any of these tasks for granted once I get my right hand back.

She will ask me to do favors for her all the time and if I say no I can’t she will guilt trip me and try to make me feel like I never do anything for her or don’t care enough about her. Like “oh your sister would have done this for me.”

I had an eating disorder growing up (no surprise right?) And she STILL makes comments about my weight.. like “are you pregnant?” And Ill say mom please don’t comment about my weight and she’ll get all huffy and turn it around on me and say “I just can’t say anything to you without you getting offended!”

Most recently.. maybe a month ago.. We were having an argument… and somewhere down the line she threw into the argument “well I was sexually abused by my grandfather and I turned out okay. What’s your excuse?” And I was like WHAT? Because she has never told me about her sexual abuse.. It’s like she just wanted to win this argument we were having. And I so badly wanted to tell her “growing up with you” but I didn’t.

She loves to give me advice about work because her career is the most important thing to her. And I feel like work advice is the most motherly thing she gives me.

Advice about anything else I can’t listen to because she will go on and on about how things are my fault.

Yes Anita you may be right about my mom. She has always found a way to guilt trip me or make me feel sorry for her. It’s like we were having an argument a while back, and just as a I felt I could stick up to her and be honest about how I felt about her and the way she treated me growing up, she pulled out something that made me feel like she was too vulnerable to say so much to her. Or maybe part of me wanted to avoid the conflict it would bring up and feared us getting into it to the point we would never talk again.

One time I did stick up to her and told her I didn’t like her perfectionistic style of parenting and she got really upset and denied everything. She said that I should be lucky she wasn’t a drug addict or alcoholic like my dad. She has never validated my feelings about anything.

So I do see a pattern with her.. but I think I am really struggling right now to just accept myself and feel confident in myself and I don’t know if confronting all my past bullies would set me free. After all the people who have bullied me in my life, my inner bully has always been my biggest bully.. i don’t know if I should just tell it to shut up or what. I have been taught to accept and love all the parts of me.. but it is hard. Especially when you have a inner bully.

It was mostly from peers in school. It’s funny you bring up confronting them. There was a guy who tormented me in middle school and recently he asked to be my friend on Facebook and sent me a message saying hey how are you? Does he not remember how awful he was to me??? And I guess my mom has always been really critical of me but I feel like I have let that go.. What’s kind of getting to me is that I know of a few people that don’t like me who no doubtedly believe I didn’t deserve the award.. At least I’m assuming that is what they are thinking, because I know they don’t like me…

Haha, I hear you Anita. Mental health has such a long way to go… I just don’t know how else to be at peace other than to have some compassion for my co-workers. Otherwise I am going to be pissed off every day.