How to bounce back (again and again)
I smashed a lamp over my head. There was blood everywhere. And glass. And I took a picture.
I think my life is getting better because it used to be that I wrote everything. In order to cope. Now I can take pictures. So I have two coping mechanisms.
The best way to judge someone is not by setbacks, but by bounce-backs. I am good at judging people this way. I think this is because I’m good at bouncing back. From stuff people think no one can bounce from. I can still bounce. Here’s how:
1. Get perspective about what is big and what is small.
This is not the first time I have put a gash in my head on purpose. I did it when I had postpartum depression. The situation now is remarkably similar.
I told the farmer that he needs to take care of his hands better. That’s where the fight started.
“I hate hand cream,” he said. “It makes my hands greasy all day.”
“It’s dysfunctional to walk around with bleeding hands.”
“This isn’t normal. It’s because I was so nervous around you and your mom fighting in New York.”
“You have it all the time. All winter. You told me you do. It’s your job to fix it. You have to take care of yourself. You have to be a better model for the kids.”
He says, “I’m sorry I don’t take care of my hands how you want me to.”
I say, “Forget it. This is crazy. I don’t care about your hands.”
Then we talk about money. I spent too much money on our trip to New York. He is sick of me not being able to stick to a budget. And, to tell you the truth, I am sick of it, too. My inability to stick to a budget is like him not putting cream on his hands: Total incompetence.
The thing is that the money problems make me nuts, and they make him nuts. The hands, really, are not as big a deal.
2. Tell yourself a story of how you got to where you are, so it makes sense.
So we skip to the discussion of how I feel like I’m alone with the money problems because we agreed before I moved to the farm that he would not be responsible for the kids or the money.
Don’t tell me it was a crazy agreement to make. It’s water over the bridge. Or under. I can’t remember the saying.
So I tell him I feel alone. I tell him that for maybe five minutes straight, because he is saying nothing.
Then we do our normal routine: I say I am lonely and feel like he’s not really with me.
He gets angry because he thinks he’s given up everything for me.
My abandonment issues flare even more when he is angry at me for saying I’m lonely.
I cry.
He hates me when I cry.
I hate myself for being with someone who hates me.
You can see the spiral, right? It’s just a question of how much I hate myself.
Today it was a lot. I hate myself because I could have used the money I spent on the New York trip as a fund so that I could leave the farm. I don’t even know how I’d leave. I mean, I know I’m capable of leaving, but I don’t know what I’d leave to. What I’d go toward.
Those of you with empathy understand how it is such a short step to the lamp crashing into my head.
Then the farmer left.
3. Understand opposing points of view to your own.
People always ask how the farmer puts up with me telling our lives on the blog. What he really hates is that I get to tell the story. The story of us. Here are things he thinks you don’t know. He thinks I leave this stuff out and it’s not fair.
I am crazy. More crazy than you know from the blog.
I am very needy. I have abandonment issues and I never feel loved.
I am bad with money. Crazy bad with money. Great at earning it, terrible at managing it.
But I know you all know those things because I’ve already posted about them:
Craziness: Here’s the post where I go nuts over a tweet some guy directed to me.
Abandonment issues: Here’s the post where I describe the genesis of my neediness issues.
Money issues: Here’s the post where my electricity gets turned off.
He feels sorry for himself that he got into this mess with me. He thinks he gave up everything for me and I’m totally ungrateful.
So I spent the day trying to avoid my ex, who spends Sundays at our house with the kids. Then, when the coast is clear, I traipse over broken glass and crawl into bed and hope I sleep forever. Not forever in a way that would mean my kids have no mother. But forever in a way where it sort of approximates death in an I-need-a-break way but then I’m still a good mom.
4. Compartmentalize. For sanity’s sake.
Can you be a good mom and break a lamp over your head? Maybe that is the crux of this post. Or maybe it is “Can you be a good career advisor and still break a lamp over your head?”
Actually, I think the scary thing is that the answer to both questions is yes. Compartmentalizing in moderation is actually useful life skill. I know because I’m terrible at it.
But look at the CEOs who are never home with their kids. They are terrible parents but great at their career.
And look at the stay-at-home-baking-cookies moms who are addicted to shopping, or valium, or cheating on their husbands. It’s entirely possible that these women could be great moms. Maybe you have until 3pm to be dysfunctional: What you do before school gets out can be separate from what you do after school gets out.
Anyway, here’s some career advice: Try to keep your career on track and your personal life on track. You’ll never have both, but your career is a sort of safety net. If all you have is your personal life then if it’s going bad, everything in your life is bad. Your career isn’t as important as your personal life, but it’s a nice distraction.
See? It’s working for me right now: I’d probably be bashing another lamp against my head if I didn’t have a blog to maintain.
5. Protect the parts of your life that you can.
When the ex left, the farmer and I started fighting again. We had to fight around the kids. They watched CatDog and we argued.
He asked me if I’m cleaning up the glass. If this were a novel that you were assigned to read for school, there would be this essay question:
Compare and contrast the two knock-down-drag-out fights Penelope had with the farmer after he asked her if she is cleaning up glass.
If you were a good student, you’d remember the chapter where I break a window and end up at the police station.
Back to this time: I tell him I’m not cleaning up the glass.
I meant to tell him that I like the visual metaphor of broken glass surrounding our bed. But I didn’t say that. I said, “I don’t care. I’m tired of trying to do nice things for you.”
It’s hard to argue that cleaning up the glass is doing something nice for him. This might be supporting evidence for the farmer’s contention that I am crazy. But in fact, I know from the last argument over broken glass that he cares about it way more than I do.
So I tell him that I’m not cleaning up the glass. And then, I don’t know what happens. Well, first, the kids ask to watch another episode of CatDog and I say okay.
6. Re-use tools that have worked for you in the past. Abandon those that never work.
In the twenty minutes we gain from more CatDog, the farmer and I are able to establish that he is done with the relationship and he is going to sleep at his parents house.
I decide I have to keep him home. I don’t know why. I mean, I guess my instinct is that if he runs to his parents when we have a fight then it’s for sure that he is not really with me. I’m sort of like a fair-weather friend that he keeps around to supplement his relationship with his parents—which, I’m sure he’d say is more rewarding than his relationship with me.
Okay. So I panic that him going to his parents will solidify what I already know anyway. And I tell him I will not let him leave.
This immediately makes him want to leave more. The farmer’s biggest worry in life is that I will control him.
He tells me I can’t stop him.
I want to show him that actually, my specialty is keeping people from abandoning me.
Me: I’ll leave the house first and then if you leave, it’ll be child abandonment.
Him: I’ll take the kids to child services.
Me: What will you tell them? My wife won’t sweep up the floor in our bedroom so I can’t stay in the house and I have to give the kids away? Really? Do that. I’m dying to see that. Should I pack the kids’ clothes for them? Because if you do that, they’ll go to foster care.
I know you think I sound crazy, but the farmer’s way of dealing with me—his way to get me to shut up—is to threaten me. So I have taken to calling his bluff. I have noticed that almost every time it works. Like, just two days ago he told me he wouldn’t talk with me in the middle of a long drive home unless I want to stop and get a hotel room for the night so we have time to talk. And I said fine. Let’s get a hotel room. And he didn’t want to.
Okay. So the kids do not go to child services, but I worry that he’ll go to his parents house.
So I move my car to block in his car so he can’t leave.
He could walk though. Or take the fifty other farm vehicles. And it’s totally pathetic that I’m trying to force him to stay with me.
So the farmer is sleeping at his parents house. I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m here. With the kids. I’m in the middle of nowhere with no support system. I mean, if I wanted to sleep somewhere else I don’t even have anywhere.
But I wouldn’t want to sleep somewhere else. I traveled every week for a year. And I missed the kids. And I wanted to be attached to home and family more than my booming career. So I moved here.
But I don’t know what I’m doing here. Scaling back. Scaling back a career so that all that’s left is family time, and family values. It is not working.
I see all these new year’s resolutions people are making:
Eat dinner as a family more often.
Go out to eat less frequently.
All these things are easy to do on the farm. I need a new year’s resolution to make sure my career does not go to hell while my personal life has. I need a safety net.
The reason I started writing career advice is not because this is my dream job. I mean, who dreams of growing up and writing career advice? I became passionate about the advice, though, when it became apparent to me that each time I had a personal crisis, my career is what helped me rescue myself.
I would say just one thing!
“Stop Blaming others and realize that the best place to find a helping hand is at the end of your arm; Change yourself; it is always possible”
Best of Luck
Hm… it really seems like you’ve lost it. Happy balanced people do not smash lamps over their heads. My dad used to punch holes in the wall and that left deep scars mentally for me and my siblings. You should think about the kind of home environment you are creating for your kids.
I think the ultimate irony is that you are dispensing ADVICE of any kind to your readers. People that tries to explains away your incredibly self destructive behavior are trying to pretend their own messed up lives are OK. It’s really a pity fest all around and no one is the better for it.
In terms of the farmer wanting to leave you… perhaps you weren’t taking your own advice in managing up!
http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2006/05/22/the-importance-of-the-kiss-up/
The people “explaining away” Penelope’s behavior are the ones who are understanding of tough times. Not a single one of us rights it off as “normal,” if this thing called normalcy actually exists in the world. We are understanding because we do have messed up lives. I’m glad yours is too perfect to see outside the wall you have obviously built to shield yourself from the pain of life. I hope one day you will gain a better perspective of the world we live in and learn to generate more care for the people living in it with you. We are all in this together.
OH! One more thing. Maybe get a new therapist. I am sorry to say but the one you got simply ain’t working!
Penelope: The reason you can go to the gym everyday, but not control your temper is that one is something you DO. You know it makes you feel better. It’s soothing. It’s routine. You do it once a day, it’s done. Yea!
Those more difficult, constant things:controlling temper, dieting, being organized, watching budget, clutter control…those are things you must NOT DO (shout, eat “bad” foods, be lazy about filing, plan purchases/resist impulse buys/ save when you want to spend, find bargains at yard sales you can’t resist. that’s constant temptation.
You love your work. You love blogging… so when you SHOULD be working on those constants, you’re not, you’re doing the easier thing: blogging. You’re working on your strengths (good) but ignoring the work your weaknessess need (bad)…
I know all this because I do it too. You’re addicted to the feeling of accomplishment writing/blogging/succeeding at work gives you and you do that instead of addressing all the things that can make your personal life more peaceful. You have to set limits on yourself. Sorry if this is redundant advice that you yourself dole out. Your blog is so interesting , if I go and make sure I’m not duplicating all the advice, i’ve wasted another hour that i should be 1) turning off computer so it doesn’t supress melatonin (so that I do sleep well tonite) or 2) cleaning house. (nope no energy for that at 10:49pm) or 3) taking bath, going to bed or 4) relating w/ my husband … typing this comment is so much easier than any of those things…
in short: reap what you sow. they are his hands.
re: getting help… c’mon you KNOW what you need to do. Just do it. giving all your money (one of your problems apparently) to someone to tell you what you know won’t change you. only you will change you. eat right. exercise for endorphins. apply the business advice for conflict resolution to your own personal life. I just edited a report on workplace conflict resolution. Read it b/c it will be good ideas for career advice but also addresses your “craziness” at home. Even w/out downloading the (free) report, the advice/tips at this link will remind you what you already know you need to do…but print out the report to read at your leisure, (read yourself to sleep?) OFF the computer…so you can reengage w/ farmer man in peace, not all irritable from too much screen time and because you’re too hard on yourself and him. relationships are hard. esp for aspies. be gentle with yourself. http://www.businessmanagementdaily.com/glp/17703/Workplace-Conflict-Resolution.html
P.S. I love your hardwood floors :) really. It’s a nice picture and photography IS soothing. It’s ok. But of course you have to clean it up or your kids will get hurt. And you don’t need a visual reminder if you have a photo. that why we take photos…
Wow.
You are crazy, huh.
Seriously, why would you write stuff like intermixed with your job persona and then expect to be taken seriously as some kind of counselor…about anything?
I have read three postings so far, and each one has made me more sure that I would never ask your advice on, well, anything, unless it was how to be crazy. You seem to be really good at that.
Next time, give yourself “electroshock therapy” by dunking your head into REALLY cold water, polar bear plunge-ish. but it can be in a pool or sink or bathtub, better yet a swim. I love the cold water/waves in Maine. Promise you’ll feel better afterward (in a healthier way!!)
I find it interesting that because an individual has a bad day, an argument with their husband, takes part in harmful behavior to self and then shares the experience-they suddenly are ‘crazy’ and worthy of judgement.
Everyone has ‘crazy’ emotional days where they run the gambit of emotions, on occasion. And everyone takes part in self sabotaging behavior. No? Think again.
Tell me you haven’t done one of the following when upset: eat a quart of ice cream, though you are overweight or maybe even diabetic. Tied one on at the local bar or even at home alone. To ad to it, maybe you crashed your car, got a dui, or have done something you regret terribly as a result. Maybe you even hit someone or had a one night stand when over wrought with sadness.
Come on folks. Clinton didn’t have sex with that woman but he stayed in office and we followed his lead.
The fact is, none of us are perfect, we all have our weaknesses and we all can contribute in a positive way. At least Penelope didn’t smash a lamp over her husband’s head. Sure, it’s extreme but so are drug and alcohol overdoses.
The beauty of Penelope is she sees that ADMITS she has crazy moments, sees the lessons in them, learns from them and then has the guts to share it all with the rest of the world.
I would suspect that anyone calling her too crazy to take advice from, has some skeletons in their own closet.
Go forth Penelope! I find you refreshingly honest and candid. A quality that is hard to find in our uptight society filled with facades.
~Robbin
wow. i love that last comment by robin.
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I absolutely identified with the broken glass. When we have those big, blow-out fights, I throw things. And those things tend to leave big marks on my walls.
The Forest Path
The safest place is in the forest on a path bordering the ocean. Tall fir and cedar trees capture the breeze and fill my ears with a gentle, soothing sound; the fir needles drop from the sky and have created a soft cushion for my bare feet as I slowly walk in this familiar place. It rained in the morning and now at mid-day I choose a dry place to sit. I see the sun shine through the trees and watch rainbow sparkles through water droplets hanging on ferns for a moment before they drop heavy to the soft ground near where I am seated.
I smell cedar and indescribable scents of the forest vapors drying from the earlier rain. This place fills my senses and I am safe here in the forest on a path bordering the ocean.
Closing my eyes, I listen, smell and feel the warmth of the sun on my shoulders, the back of my head and down my spine. I notice how safe and comforted I feel, grateful that I have unlimited time to spend here in this place.
I breathe calmly in through my nose and exhale through my mouth. The calm and serenity are interrupted by a thought of a person, place or thing I lost or neglected or abused. More thoughts remove me from the safety I felt moments ago. My shoulders tighten. I am thinking now rather than sensing. I want to smoke and I fear the day will be filled with negativity, negative thinking, and remorse, a desire to escape through sleep or get so bad that I will lose all sanity and think about substance abuse. I feel panicky, my heart races and blood pressure rises. I pace and I am no longer at peace in the forest.
I can choose to return to a place of peace and safety by first making a decision that I would rather feel safety and comfort rather than fear and isolation. I just have to remember to breathe and to activate my senses. I notice all the beauty around me – and I sense how it feels in my body to be safe in the forest. I close my eyes, breathe and remember what my body senses when it is at peace in the forest. I sense, imagine and feel rather than think thoughts in my head.
When I am fully calm, when my body is calm and relaxed, I can safely hold a scary thought in my hands, wrap it in beautiful paper and ribbons, and tell it, "Not Now – But Later I Am Certain to Be Ready to Look at This – ." I carry it to my stainless steel, ¾"-thick, 55-gallon barrel drum, and place it inside, closing and locking the hatch. If, while I am still safe, other scary thoughts arise, I can do the same thing with them.
The scary thoughts and deeds are in the barrel drum. While they are there, my unconscious and a Power Greater Than Myself knows they are there and I am becoming willing to do what is necessary to heal, to work the steps, to experience, learn, and become free. When that Power Greater Than Myself knows that I am ready to take a package out of the barrel, I will be instructed to do so, or That Power will gently and miraculously place it in my path of daily living and I will know that I am ready to heal – the tools will be there and I will be ready. I will find a beautiful opportunity to grow through it. Once healed I will be free from the fear and negativity of it and have something wonderful to share with others: The Third Step Prayer says, "Take away my difficulties that victory over them will bear witness to others of thy glory, thy love and thy way of life – "
I will be healed and will assist in the healing of others by visiting the forest path bordering the ocean as often as I can.
I’m sorry but this blog isn’t helping you or anyone else. You’re over-thinking and over-sharing. Just clean up the mess and keep it simple. Do one thing at a time.
Penelope-
You are not great at earning it and bad at managing it.
You don’t make as much as you might. You don’t make all that much at all. You are great at revenue, bad at net net bottom line. If you’re even great at revenue. I’m guessing that’s not the case.
I deluded myself for ever. You are great at that. And it’s not all bad. HAving a story to telll is not all bad.
Wow. Just read this. You’re really very crazy Penelope but it’s OK. You are loved anyway. Much loved. But you have an addiction that developed by no fault of your own. An addiction to turmoil/ drama/ trauma, whatever you want to call it. It’s like any other addiction. Everyone is troubled in one way or another but how you react to that trouble in your life is what defines you. You’re addicted to wild reactivity. I’m not being at all accusatory (I have my own addictions). I’m only saying it in case it helps to see something more clearly. We’re all trying our best in this life. And I promise, lots and lots of love is flowing your way.
You should have taken pictures of the gash in your head.
About the farmer’s hands:
To give skin some moisture with something that is more medical-seeming than girly, get a 99-cent bottle of glycerin from the drugstore, mix it with water in the ratio recommended on the label, and apply to the skin a couple of times a day, especially after washing the skin & while it’s still wet.
It’s not a feminine sort of beauty product. It’s pretty much “neutral”. Glycerin is clear, it’s runny, it tastes faintly sweet but that’s all – no odor or anything, it’s safe, it’s a pharmacy kind of product, it’s old-fashioned, it’s simple, and one bottle lasts forever. It draws moisture to the skin and wards away dryness.
I use it on my lips, because my lips had become sensitive to so many things and I was having constant chelitis. The flaking problems are about 20% still there, but the glycerin-water mix twice a day does a LOT to improve their condition.
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You do realize you talk in a very violent way Penelope ?
A non violent answer to “I hate hand-cream” (me too !) might have been trying to find some non-greasy medecine together.
Ever heard about Marshall B. Rosenberg?
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Nice blog! Is your theme custom made or did you download it from somewhere?
A theme like yours with a few simple adjustements would really make my blog stand out.
Please let me know where you got your design. Cheers
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Hi Penelope, I discovered your blog this week and obsessed with it ever since. When I am reading this post, it’s like reading myself and those crazy moments I had with my boyfriend. It’s surprisingly similar situations that I will do (and did all the time) the same things you did and get more and more frustrated within myself and question why I keep doing it. I admit I have abandonment issues and especially when someone (particularly one of not so many people I have in my life) so close to you try to threaten you with leaving and you have nowhere else to go is such an horrible feeling… I support you with all my heart, and I know it’s hard for other people who do not have similar issues to understand why we stick to these frustrations. So, stay strong for your kids and hopefully you will go through this soon.
This is so sad, and not unlike some of my own situations. I just read a blog and this sounds like a great book to DIY your own marriage counseling perhaps in-between sessions w/a therapist.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0752837265/?tag=ptrunk-20
The Seven Principles to Making a Marriage Work, John Gottman
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