Living As All of Me

[HannahOne]

Principles that are important to me:
Fairness, if not equity then some measure of reasoning
Equality of power if not equity, shared power
Status: not to feel one down in an uneven way, shared status
Power: autonomy and agency to make choices without fear of punishment (while accepting consequences)
Role: flexibility of roles, division of labor
Appreciation: gratitude, recognizing contributions, validating perspectives of others, goodwill

At work: worry about "low status" of role, my fear of the supervisor's power over me---even though it's a volunteer job LOL!

With friends: often feeling "one down" in simple negotiations like where to go for lunch, when to meet, etc.

With young adult kids/partner: Fairness around balancing needs, division of labor. Status gets triggered if I feel I'm doing more for others than they do for me. Then I get unhappy in my role.

Within my kids/partner family the position I was always fixated on was getting a bigger job that made more equal amount of money. Before kids we made equal amounts of money. Every time I was pregnant I didn't get the promotion and every time I had a baby he got promoted. We had a loss and one kid had special needs. Because I Was discouraged about harassment and sexism in the workplace, because he can't do much of the physical labor and because of the needs over time I worked less and he worked more. Until he made more money than me.

I'll never get an equal job, because one child still needs me and I have no backup although I could pay for some help, because my health is an issue now, because I can't make up for the decade mostly out of the workforce just doing my own side business, and because mentally I don't think I could withstand the strain, I would need not to have child responsibilities and to have more support.

So that position has never worked. But if my interests are role and fairness, I can ask for other things. IE,
-put more of "our" money into "my" retirement account in my name even though if we split the entire pie would be split
-spend some of "our" money hiring "help" ie doing the things partner would/should do if we had a more fair division of labor
-spending more of my energy on my own status/role/power in the world outside the family roles
-all committing to appreciating each other's contributions (balances out resentment about inevitable inequalities)

Thinking this way makes me feel much more adult and empowered.

Status, power, role and fairness are all extremely triggering ideas. Growing up life felt SO UNFAIR and it was unfair. My role was scapegoat and punching bag. I had very little power. My status was very poor and I always felt insecure, one down, ashamed. My paradigm was "winner takes it all." Loser standing small. It was hopeless. I was always playing a losing hand. It was so enraging. I couldn't fight. Face pressed into the snow. I always froze.

Now I can feel my anger and know it's a sign that one of these values feels like it's being violated---and that's what matters is how I feel. I don have to objectively defend or prove that it's unfair, it's enough that I just don't like it, and that I'd like to revisit the negotiations.

I can see more clearly that these are all basic human values, things everyone wants. Everyone wants status, power, a role with some flexibility, everyone wants to feel things are reasonably fair, everyone wants to be appreciated.

So I can use that knowledge to work in a more coordinated and candid way with people n my life at work, friends and my partner/kids to negotiate situations that feel better for EVERYONE. That's what win-win means. Fight isn't needed, nor is freeze. I don't need to flee the situation.

As my children graduate out of being minors I am also feeling a lot of EFs. When I was graduating out of being a minor I hit the road and never looked back. I feel a strong need to run. I feel it in my legs, my heart races, my thoughts say I have to get out of here I have to get out of here.... so much urgency. I left with nothing much, a suitcase, I left everything I loved behind, I cut off everything. I lost a lot, including losing much of myself.

And, I don't have to get out of here. Yes there are some things that are unfair, imbalanced, I feel one down without my own equal salary, I feel disempowered at a certain level of caretaking of other adults. And, I'm not 18 and I don't have to run, leave everything behind, start over with nothing. If I DO leave, it'll be with my equal and fair share. And I'll be taking All of Me with me.

I am going to keep noting what is triggering and seeing how much is from the past and what really has gone wonky in the last few years. Some things need to change. It's important that I notice and change them. Everyone needs power, status, appreciation, fairness. I'm an everyone, too.

[HannahOne]

How does all of the above affect my choices?

By being fixated on a position, "I need a bigger equal job in order to feel safe, empowered, equality, fairness, appreciation and like my role" I was trapped and stuck. Because I can't get a bigger job.

Even if I left my family tomorrow, my physical health, mental health would make it very difficult and it would be all that I could do. And importantly many parts of me do not want to work 40-50 hours a week plus commute. There are reasons beyond the limits of my situation, beyond my family members why I don't do that. And it's so easy for me to blame them and feel disempowered. I punished myself for getting into a situation where I don't make equal money. I felt unsafe. I felt I had let myself (and the revolution!) down. I sometimes felt like I was reliving my mother's life in some way, too.

If instead I focus on my interests I have so many more choices. And I don't need to punish myself or tell a story about how/why things are the way they are. I can feel much safer. I know I am making choices for myself, I'm not helpless. Even if things don't look like my imagined ideal where everything is obviously 50=50, perfectly square. Life just isn't like that. If I Can appreciate my contributions and those of my partner more, the differences start to fade.

Many of those choices involve prioritizing my own needs, wants, while taking into account partner and kids.

This fairness and power issue has kept me very stuck and been a source of unhappiness. It was retraumatzing me many times a day, every time I went into the kitchen, had to sweep the floor  

HannahOne, HannahOne. Sigh.

This would trigger thoughts of recrimination, running away, what I would have should have could have done, imagining other lives, just a hopeless waste of time, rumination.

If my activities of daily life can not trigger this hot button life overall might be easier. I may spend less time triggered into obsessing over past choices, imagining alternate futures and feeling like a failure with what I have actually achieved. Which is a lot. Stability, a safe relationship, reasonably happy kids, sanity, security, a resume to fall back on, a lot of life experience. There's no actual problem other than my unhappiness, and my health. 

That's pretty good.

[NarcKiddo]

There's no actual problem other than my unhappiness, and my health. 

And of course these are actual, big and important problems. They need and deserve your time and attention and it is good that you are giving that to them.

I am familiar with the need to run. Like you I physically got away from FOO the minute I could. It never really worked because I had not got away from them emotionally, but the need to run as soon as I had the power was there, and I have felt it since. I actively contemplated leaving my marriage about ten years ago. The best thing I ever did was tell FOO I was planning this. Their joyful reaction told me everything I needed to know. I talked about things properly with H and stayed. We are much happier, and more so since I realised the CPTSD problem and started working on that. I'm saying this because the primal need to run can feel overwhelming, and it can feel like leaving everything behind is a sacrifice that has to be made for safety. I'm glad you are not responding to the need that feels urgent, and that you are instead thinking about it.

I also have experience of how one can get stuck in a rut in a long relationship. What seemed to work, or be tolerable, or be something that just had to be put up with because 'that's how things are' suddenly becoming unreasonable and intolerable. My H behaved in certain ways because we had just fallen into those habits. He didn't know what I felt about it (heck, even I didn't!) so it seemed to work. Until it didn't. I assumed he would be like FOO if I complained, which is why I was preparing to run. But he was not like FOO and he did not want me to be unhappy. He was willing to put in work to make things better. I had no idea. I'm glad I spoke up. A lot of it was a fairness and power issue for me, too.

It's really hard to keep a calm, rational view of how to proceed when your tectonic plates are all shifting. Standing with you as you deal with this. 

[sanmagic7]

hannah1, i have run, and i do believe it saved my life and sanity.  i don't push that idea on anyone else - i moved to another country where i had a few friends and they helped me make it.  i've run from 3 marriages.  run from FOO by going away to college.  run back here to where i'd originally run from.  i've been called a vagabond - maybe i am.  but i had real reasons for running, and in each case i'm glad i did it.  my problems were unsolvable at the time. 

now i'm here again and i'm glad, and i don't feel like running anymore.  i've got no FOO to contend w/, my H's are out of the picture, and i've got a good teammate in my D.  too old to work, no young kids or grandkids, only my own necessities.  it's a much different picture from what you have.  but, please, don't underestimate your worth and value based on money.  i think your ideas of how to divvy up that paycheck make a lot of sense.  i also hope you can find something you love to do to fulfill the empty space.  love and hugs

[HannahOne]

SanMagic7, "please, don't underestimate your worth and value based on money." Thank you for saying this. It's something I've been thinking about. All the unpaid labor involved that I have done and do. There's a part of me that discounts it entirely. Was fixated on my own career and money, for good reason, for safety and independence. And, in a relationship there is dependence, interdependence and independence. I need to find the balance that feels right for me NOW. The fact is I'm very free now, in part because of the work I did earlier in life and in part because now I have someone to depend on financially, we built something sustainable. But I can only depend on him because he depends on me, he couldn't go to work if I weren't doing the other stuff...

I come from a background of poverty. My parent had no running water growing up, not enough food, lived on turnips for a summer. So all this is kinda strange, to be able to pay all the bills each month with a little bit left over. To be ok. To not have to hustle and scrape. It's tight, but we're making it.

I am very restless inside. I notice constant hyper vigilance, searching, scanning. Some of it is me, I have an active mind, I'm sensitive. Some of it is trauma. Anxiety. I want to learn to notice that more instead of fall right into it.

I want even more structure and I think I'm ready for it this fall. I will fight the structure, and, that's a better use of my time than fretting, worrying what I "should" be doing, or starting every day from scratch.

It's good to not have too much necessity. To not be desperate and scraping, running, fighting. And, not having enough necessity can be a bit of a pit for me. I don't know how to be without surviving, but I'm learning.

[zen_racer]

I relate to a good portion of what you wrote here, HannahOne.  My family was not that poor while I was growing up, but they treated me like we were.  And life at home was bad enough that as soon as I was 18, I moved out and never went back.  I've lived almost all of my life paycheck to paycheck and having to choose which bills to pay or which ones to not pay, choosing not to eat, or racking up huge amounts of credit card debt just to make up for not getting raises when the economy went crazy with inflation.

I'm finally in a decent place, though only just starting out in a decent place financially.  I agree with the line you quoted from SanMagic, and I agree that the unpaid labor in a family/relationship structure is valuable.

I have not yet seen or made a distinction on why I'm hyper vigilant.  That's an interesting concept, but I think I need to learn more about what my identity is outside of the trauma reactions before I'll know where it's coming from.  Thank you for mentioning that.