Spaghetti Sauce and Gaslighting

I would bet that most of you (if not all) reading this have read articles online about gaslighting. You've probably seen all the signs of it lined up neatly in bullet points, and yet felt like you still were unfamiliar with exactly what it was, and how it applied, if it even did, to your life. At least, that is how I always felt when I read articles like that. Sure, they felt familiar, but I don't generalize well. I need examples. Exactly what does it mean by gaslighting? How would that look in a real life interaction?

The other day I was making some dinner with a can of sauce. I always make my own, so I was nervous it wouldn't taste the same. That's when I recalled this story you're about to read, and realized that it is exactly what gaslighting means.

Several years ago my family went to go visit my parents. Must have been a good thirteen years, or so ago. I was in the kitchen helping my mother prepare dinner. I could tell she was in one of her strange moods, because nothing seemed prepared, and she seemed to constantly forget what she was doing. She had planned on having spaghetti, but the store had run out of the regular spaghetti sauce that she normally buys, so she bought another kind to try. She said this straight out in the kitchen in front of my husband, and I, because she was hoping she would like it. We get dinner made, and tables cleared off so we can eat.

We are all sitting there eating, and all is going great, until my father has his second bite. She knows it's coming. She has to know. We all know. He is really picky about his food. The texture, and brand, ect... It can be frustrating to deal with a grown man who has so many issues with food, and his hissy fits about it, but still....

"Is this sauce different?" he asks.

"No." she replies.

My husband looks at me as if he needs to verify what he just heard.

Finding Life's Meaning Under a Blanket

This afternoon I was laying on the couch under a fresh blanket that had just gotten out of the of the dryer. My husband had taken the kids with him for a bit, and I was alone in a quiet house.

And, I thought..."Wow, this is what life is about."

I was so relaxed, and I could feel the blanket (which is weighted) falling around my body gently, as the warmth soaked down to my joints. I was reminded of how nice it was to lay back, and do nothing while I had nowhere to be, and nothing in particular to do, but enjoy right now. I felt my thoughts tug to past where I wondered the last time I felt this way, but then I thought, does it matter?  Does it matter if I ever felt this, or when I felt this, or if I ever feel this again? Does it change how I feel this now? Well, maybe it might, because if I am thinking of another time, I can't be fully immersed into enjoying this one.

That's when I realized that (to me) life is about:

Toxic Friend? Probably Not

What kind of people should you surround yourself with? I often see memes, or even articles written to help people live better lives describing the kind of company that we might keep to achieve this. The attributes are usually something along the lines of curious, positive, grateful, exciting, and many more. The issue that I take with these quick to feel better type of advice remedies is that the qualities listed are not really describing people as much as emotional states. All of us might be all those, and then the opposite of all those things listed in one week, yet we are the same person. Somewhere along the line it has becoming unbecoming to feel, much less display, any negative emotions. As if us humans are not designed to feel the whole gamut of the emotional rainbow without worrying that we are not only failing at out own lives, but that we might be labeled as toxic by our friends. Now, don't get me wrong, there most certainly is such a thing as a toxic person, and it's likely we all know

Soothing My Loneliness Pt. 2- Autism...or...?

After hitting publish yesterday on my Soothing my Loneliness post it occurred to me that the post might come across to some as something other than I intended. As soon as the thought hit me that evening I rushed back to my computer to edit in a disclaimer, holding my breath anxiously as I typed. I needed people to be aware that my intention for sharing was not to gain reassurance, or pity, or even necessarily solutions. I hadn't thought that it might come across that way when I wrote it, but I can definitely see how it can be read that way by others, and I needed to clear that point up before any miscommunications happened.

I also don't want the friends that I do have to think that anything I wrote is somehow personally directed at them, or that they're somehow responsible for fixing any of the issues I spoke about in that blog post. While I don't have any close friends nearby, I do have close friends far away. I find the issue of me speaking about my feelings of isolation at odds with my need to not hurt their feelings. This feeling of disconnect that I feel from others is not something they can fix. No one can. It's something that I am going to have to figure out how to deal with myself.  Sometimes you meet someone that changes your life forever by clicking in a way that you never knew a person could, but for me those people have been very, very, very rare. I care deeply for other humans, and am always willing to help almost anyone in any way I can, but a I connect on a meaningful level with almost none. My constant pull to introversion, and my constant yearning for connection with others is always at odds. It's a constant push pull that I have not yet began to even come close to reconciling. How can a person be a humanitarian, and yet a loner? I don't know.

To get closer to finding the answer I have to retrace my steps to how I got to where I am. I need to peel back the layers of what I'm about.

When I was a young teenager I became fascinated with Asian porcelain dolls. In particular the ones that have painted faces. I collected several. What I liked even more than the dolls were the porcelain mask wall hangings. 

Soothing My Loneliness

Some people have the same dreams over, and over, sometimes for years. I have never done this. Not once.  I have, however had the same theme repeat, sometimes for quite some time. Lately this repeating theme for me has been dreaming of caring for a baby girl.

Sometimes, having baby dreams means starting a new project, or feeling overwhelmed with responsibility, and many more things. In the dreams that I have been having for the last 6 months or so I have a baby that is a girl, but I often forget her places, or forget to feed her. Not a lot, though in the recent dreams. In the recent dreams I seem more prepared to meet her needs, and am able to keep up with most of her feeding times. She is smiling, and most of the way happy, but not totally. There is an underlying worry of her health in most of the dreams. I worry silently about the health issue, but I never talk about it. She is solely mine, and it seems that no one else is connected to her whatsoever. Unlike other babies no one else ever holds this baby, or cares for her in any way.

Since these dreams keep repeating I am guessing that it's a sticking point for me. Somewhere, I am emotionally, or mentally stuck. From the reading, and experience that I have with dream interpretation I am thinking that the baby in the dream is me. She is part of me, either representing my inner child, or a new part of myself that is largely undiscovered, and is still in the early new stages of development. That's a general interpretation, though. Before this morning I have not been able to quite get a handle on what that means. How do I apply that general theme to life? What does this mean? Until I figure this out self-growth will be stunted, and I doubt that I will stop having these dreams. What was it that I was missing?

There has been this heavy feeling that pulls me into a mood that is hard to define. I think it's loneliness, but it is so much heavier than any generic lonely feelings that I have had before. When it strikes in full it renders me anxious, desperate, and disconnected from others. I feel bitter from the years of rejection. I feel like I have no tools, and no way to fully remedy this situation. I don't know what it is, or where it comes from. it's just here, and I have to deal with it. I feel 'other'. No other way to really explain it. It's as if the rest of the world is on a plane of mutual existence, and I'm on another, disconnected, and alone. I feel alone, and damaged. I really believe that no one really likes me much, and that I'm not really all that good of a person. I want to turn to someone to talk to, but I have no one that understands. Usually during these times I will try to start a conversation with a friend via text, and that won't go much of anywhere, which only serves to reinforce this heavy feeling of people not really liking me, and isolation. The isolation is so big.

 One thing is for certain, these feelings are much too heavy to keep carrying around with me. Sometimes it almost drives me to suicide, because I firmly believe that I will never be free of this feeling long term. I will always be the person that everyone likes from a distance, but never up close. Up close is awkward. It means accepting my quirks. It means knowing that I speak what I think, and understanding that I think in a very different way than others. It means.... well, I don't know.... It's been over a decade since I had best friends to call, and idle chat over dinner. I don't know what it is about me that is off-putting, and it's likely that if I did I would be unable to fix it, anyway How do you fix your personality? I mean, my character is good. I am honest, and a loyal friend, ect... It's my essence that bothers people.

So, what does this have to do with the baby dreams?

I know you might be thinking that I am way off track here, and rambling without an end in sight, but I promise that there is a reason I have rambled on this far.