Dear Anita,

It has hit me.  Yesterday was the day.

My previous 3 posts (not the most recent ones but the ones you really enjoyed) came from the heart.  I felt every ounce of them, and they were a breakthrough.  I then went on to explain some of their continued abuse (such as above with the conversation, and also the mother voice in my head regarding the move).  None of this is new.

Anita, yesterday I was at a busy city hospital (new place) working a 7a-7p shift.  It is as intense as places go (just setting the background, my job seldom overwhelms me or causes me stress – it’s my emotional trauma that  does)

I wake up with a crazy migraine ever since I get back from the trip, and it feels like there is something just eating away inside.  This of course is worse and worse when I wake up at 5, head to work, etc.  It feels different from my normal pains (as you know I carry stress in my body, headaches, neckaches, upper back tension).  This felt severe.  The same exact feeling 2 years prior that led me to get an MRI.  Looking back at that time, it was a month before our proposal and my parents were daily harassing my current husband and I.  I was preparing for my oral boards examination (most difficult exam for an anesthesiologist), and they were non -stop  (some of this referenced in our very first posts with you).

Anyway, I feel this terrible feeling, and pain.  I am a doctor, and still I felt like: there is something inside that is literally eating away at me, like a cancer.  And this is what it was – emotional pain, anger: a cancer sitting in my body trapped – causing severe somatic (physical) manifestations of emotional trauma.

Around noon I get a text from my father.  It says how are you, are you at work.  They know very well I am at work. I sense anxiety brewing in me, just like all of the other times: it starts like this.  “are you at work….yes…okay we need to talk to you…okay here i’ll give you 15 mins….and they bring up insane things out of context…trying to scare with fake chest pain 2 years ago, screaming that my mother in law is trying to control me, my mother on the floor she can’t move because you cali-chica have caused her too much pain…the gamut.” you know exactly what i mean, Anita.  Therefore, this brewing anxiety and waiting for that shoe to drop was nothing new.

They say okay we just need to talk to you for a few minutes, I then instantly pick up the phone.  I felt this sudden rage and anger, and the okay “what do you want just say it – just  SAY IT”

My father starts with: “oh is it busy”

I wanted to scream, I am at a level 1 trauma center doing a 12 hour shift, where half the patients are hardly alive…and you want to know if I am BUSY?!?!? you are a medical doctor, you trained in this area – what do you think?!?! anger brewing more #1, But I say nothing – I let it pass.

They then go on to what I referenced above, my father is on the microphone (the phone) and my mother is spewing script material in the background:

“every father and mother cares for their child.  every parent wants their child close to home.  every parent forgives their child no matter how much hurt.”

anger brewing part #2 for me

Then on to all the reasons why moving far aren’t great, and will slowly be realized by me…okay fine.

then on to: oh so do you want to know I put in $2900 in a life insurance plan for you and your sister every year.  “oh okay that’s great I say.” he goes on – okay here are the exact details of the plan.  anger brewing #3,4,5 for me.  This made me almost lose my mind Anita.  I wanted to scream and say I AM IN THE MIDDLE OF WORK AT A HOSPITAL AND YOU THINK IT IS AN APPROPRIATE TIME TO GO OVER THIS?!?! USE YOUR MIND YOU SOCIO-PATH..you’re a doctor yourself!  but I said: this isn’t the right time for this, I can hardly hear you, I have a very tense day at work.  he responds “OH well I thought you should know, you know parents try to help their children….”  Anger brewing #6,7,8.   How dare you throw some random life insurance plan in my face to try to get me to think you’re amazing.  How stupid do you think I am.  And how dare you deflect when I  say it’s not the right time to explain it, and push it back on me! (oh i’m just a sweet innocent father here to help my daughter, oh what a shame she doesn’t even make time to listen)  ABSOLUTELY NOT!

Ironically at the same time, an alarm went off – that signalled one of the patients were in trouble. I put the phone handle down run across to the other room, attend to what’s going on an then return to my desk.  To my bewilderment, I see I had not hung up the phone, and I pick it up and say “helllo.” and there’s my father waiting on the other line, his first statement is:

“so yes, i think we had a good and productive conversation, make sure you relax today and eat at work, make sure you don’t take too much stress at work”

Anger brewing #8,9, 10 one million.

Who in their right mind, holds on to their stupid conversation when something like that happens?! someone who is a manipulative demon with a goal! Anyone else would have either hung up.  Or when I came back said “oh it seems like there is a lot going on at work for you – let’s talk later.” The best part of this all, is that my father himself is a medical doctor.  That’s what disgusts me the most.

Take too much stress at work?! So you don’t think emotionally harassing your daughter at work falls into this category? nope you don’t. because he is just being a nice caring parent.  Nope, that’s what all parents do – they just want to look out for their kids.  Just like when they get worried sometimes and in mistake call their kids up at 2 am with fake chest pain.  Just like how they almost send their daughter to jail. Just like they harass their future son in law so much for 2 years that he know has a major anxiety disorder.  Yup, all okay.  Just good ole parents with a nice life insurance plan for their kids.

So I leave work around 7 pm, and that deep pain was of course worse, and worse, eating away, blaring it’s red alarm: no more no more.

On my one hour drive home, I literally felt like I wanted to jump out of my skin.  Not to the point that I felt suicidal thoughts of wanting to crash the car, but I felt this intense need to just scream and “run myself off a cliff to a floating safe land.”  Run away from it all Anita, stop the insanity, stop the emotional trauma cancer brewing in my body.

When this happened in the past, I often then projected onto my husband – i would often have found things in him to blame for a lot of this such as: “see maybe we shouldn’t move, look how upset it would make my parents.” etc.  Obviously now i understand none of this is above a move, or anything, it is about the  fact that they are emotional vampires.  Their only job is to abuse, have power over, and be toxic.  Whether you are near far, young old, happy sad, nothing.  The monsters operate in one dimension.

My husband calls me on the way home and asks what’s wrong as he could tell something was “extra off” (considering something always is wrong baseline these days because of all this – what a shame!).  I start trying to explain how I feel.  It feels 1% better, but I know all of it is still “stuck inside me.”  He mentions how crazy it is that my parents hated his, and were so jealous and angry – and now are trying to use them as bait for us to live closer – that they are the people that will go to any depth to get what they want and it’s scary.  I said i agree.  I also noticed a sense of defeat in his voice.  A year ago, hearing all of this would have made him angry, it would have made him say: well cali chica I don’t think we can have a life with these kind of people.  It scares me that this would be my future family.  But he says none of it .  He just sounds plain defeated.

I get home, and feel even worse.  my husband says why don’t you go lay down I’ll warm up this dinner for us.  I see in his eyes, defeat – a feelling of hopelessness: eyes that say, this is my life, I have obtained, a wife that is never really okay (although functional externally) because her parents abuse her..  Never an ounce of peace or relaxation because there is always another earthquake from her parents pending.  What was the most upsetting part is how defeated and hopeless it had made not only me, but him.  It was apparent.

I feel more angry during my 20 mins I lay down before dinner.  I think about how we are only 30 something years old, an married for 5 MONTHS.  This is what he and I come home to – this is the REALITY of our life – look it straight into its face.  It is not a bad day Anita, this is reality of life with my parents in it.  I said to myself this can not be.

I lose my appetite and slowly eat dinner  – he says to me, is there something you don’t like? and i snap.

I say: i like it fine, just let me eat it at my pace, all of this has just really gotten to me.

And that’s it – I see him beaten down.  He has tears in his eyes and says – I don’t know what other man, let alone surgeon, can live this life..  I come home and I am supportive, I operated all day, I want to help you – I make dinner I try to do things around the house since you hardly feel up to it – but I dunno…”

Of course what he says is not profound in the sense of a life shattering commment.  But what I saw was.  He has been saying this for some time Anita, but I haven’t been listening.  You know what i have been listening to: my inner cancer.  It controls me, it does not allow me to have a moment of mental rest,peace, sanity.  Thus, I am unable to be that for anyone else.

Moreover, I see him standing in front of me saying that and I look to myself and think.  What is the point of this all.  Living in self imposed terror, cancer, fear.

I go take some time to myself.  I hear him cleaning up the dishes.  The ever resilient man.  He too wants to break down, lay down, scream cry.  But life must go on.  So he breaks, and he builds up. This is his baseline now.

I thought  about how 3 times in 3 years i have had pain so bad that I actually seeked medical help last year, I thought about how my parents were so terrible and toxic during that India trip last year that I was down to 98 lbs with no appetite.  I thought about how I felt so hopeless half the times a zombie floating through life during that time that I went on anti-depressants for a few months (not that there is anything wrong with that for people) but I know for me it was an act of desperation, I didn’t actually feel that the medicine helped or that was my last resort because I was so dysfunctional, I had no idea – I just didn’t know anymore.  I thought about how my husband when we met was the happiest, most easy going, relaxed person I ever met..  I see him now and he is wound up, and has sleeping issues just like me.  They broke him too Anita..they did.  They were successful in it.

I thought to myself that a life like this is not worth living.  A life like this is not a life at all.  In fact someone with true cancer that has a few years left with optimism and hope, has a better quality of mental life than someone like me with no physical cancer, but daily mental cancer like a vice grip on the brain and body allowing for no breathing.

That living one more day like this is a shame and curse.  That I learned, from you, just because a parent gives birth to you – that does not mean you are indebted to them for life, or that you are then supposed to take every punch in the battlefield that comes my way.

So then I asked myself something similar last night, to what you then wrote this morning (ironic):

“is it a sane person who plans on being in the company of insane people who throw punches, planning on being there for those punches? And what good is your understanding so well expressed in the last few posts, if your choice is to still avail yourself and your family of choice to abuse and harm.”

The answer is no good.  Wisdom but continued harm and abuse is nothing, no point in this good understanding.

My headache pounded my  body felt as though it was dying even more.  and i said that’s it.  My husband was in the kitchen, I was in the bedroom.

I called my parents up, I told them a list of things that they have caused me immense pain in over the last 2 years (of course lots of back and forth screaming tears)

I said, and MEANT more importantly (as saying means nothing to people who don’t  hear).  I realize that I no longer have respect for you.

of course they lash back at how they never respected me, and that i’m a terrible daughter, and the whole community knows how bad I am.  That I wasn’t even there for a severe medical incident for my father – that what bad have they done in this life to deserve this,  that God always helps them, and they will also get help from a terrible daughter – and that God will punish me for this, because torturing parents is an ultimate sin – and so forth.

I tell them not to contact me any longer, my husband, not to harass  my sister about this, or call my in laws about this

-from this they don’t take away, oh why don’t you want us to call.  nope, they say your in laws are evil people, go leave us and go with them, enjoy, but don’t think we don’t know how evil they are and how miserable you are going to me – you’re a fool for cursing your own parents because you can’t stand up to your husband or them.  and it went on.

one of the last things i heard is my mother screaming: i was saying to your father, if I knew that having a daughter would have been like this…we would have been better off having an abortion.

Then I hung up.

And I do not wish to be in contact with them Anita.  I know this.  I know 2 years I didn’t – I know it was brewing in my posts for the last month or so.  I know my most recent wisdom and posts were outwardly blatantly asking me for freedom.  I know..

And last night, when my body and mind could not take any more pain – I said no more.