Long and Honest as it gets

Caution: Don't read this if you can't deal with raw emotion!

I am very angry right now. I am sad and my feelings are hurt. I just want to be happy and feel loved.

Since David's funeral has been over and all of our family has been gone, my mom has been impossible to live with. I know that the death of her son is a big deal and that she is grieving and adjusting to a new way of life. I understand that everyone has a different way to grieve and I am trying to be understand the way that she needs to grieve. My family has never been one that expresses emotions at all, and this has been no different. When we were younger my mom and dad never encouraged us to express emotions or let us cry. We were sent to our rooms or spanked more for crying. In my opinion, this one of the worse dysfunctions of a family. How can you do life with out expressing and acknowledging feelings? Well, I am sure that we are not the only ones.

So here are the events that lead us to why I am feeling like I am tonight...

1. I have spent the last 7 months on an emotional roller coaster. I resigned from a ministry position and left that church in September. The thoughts and emotions that come along with this are numerous. I have felt great sadness for the friendships lost, for the sins committed, and for the lack of intimacy with Christ. I have felt rejection and disappointment. I have felt like a failure and a quitter. I have felt beat up by people and myself. I have been angry. I have felt relieved. I have been anxious and scared. I could go on and on and on... My family (none of them are Believers) doesn't understand this. They have no idea what it is to have a relationship with Christ or with a church body. The don't understand how God' calling works and what it is like to know. So as you can expect, they have no idea of the strong feelings that I have been going through and therefore I don't really feel like they care. I also haven't been able to or wanted to share much of that with anyone else either. I have a few awesome friends who know as much as I have been able to tell them, but because of my family and the hurt I have felt in the past with friends I don't feel like I can be as honest as I would like to.

2. Home has been so crazy. We moved to a new house in September (my mom, David and I). I did most, if not all of the packing, cleaning and preparing the old house to move out. I also did 98% of the unpacking at our new house. My mom was working 2 jobs and much of David's care became my responsibility. I did all of the house cleaning, laundry, cooking, cleaning, phone calls, and caring for David (when we didn't have a nurse here). My mom was either gone form home or sleeping. On December 26 David was hospitalized for the first time in 3 years. After that he spent the month of January in the hospital. He was very sick. I spent every waking moment and many asleep moments at the hospital taking care of him. My mom and I didn't leave him there alone very much, just a hour or two now and then. She was still working 2 jobs and gone all of the time. In the middle of January she was fired from her job at the hospital because she had missed and afternoon of work and called in sick 2 times because of David's illnesses. Anyway, his hospitalizations were some of the most stressful weeks I have ever had in my life. One day specifically stands out as hell. I was the main care giver and my mom remained busy and emotional detached.

I have a few things around the house that make me crazy. OK, its more than a few, but let's focus on the the kitchen. Stuff all over the table and counters makes me so anxious. My mom could care less and always piles things in both places. We have created an office for her in David's room, but she still leaves her work stuff all over the kitchen. I am at the point now where I don't want to even help keep it clean. Laundry had been the catalysis for about 3 arguments this week. I won't even go into the details, but this is what finally put my over the edge.

Tonight I asked her not to put my clothes in the dryer, because I am going to put them in the dryer in the morning when I can get them out and fold them, thus preventing wrinkles in my work pants. She yelled at me to "Get off of her" Now I understand that this has been an issue all week, but I asked very calmly and respectfully as I went to get ready for bed.
She continued to yell at me and belittle the things I have done in the past week at the house.

3. My mom has continually hurt me with her words and lack of words for several months now. I don't think she has once said thank you for all of the things I have given up for our family. She never since said thank you for the hours and hours that I spent with David at the hospital so that he wouldn't be alone. I spent night after night awake and caring for David, while she slept. I still did all of the stuff around the house, while she came home and undid in 5 minutes what took me hours. Now, I never did those things for praise, but a little acknowledgement would kill her, but the lack of it is killing me. My mom has never said thank you or told me that I was doing a good job. In fact quite the opposite...

My mom has spent months making comments about me being a quitter, and that I "got fired by God". She talks about how I never had a "real job" or that I don't know what real work is. She has continually called me a college drop out and made other hurtful comments about me not finishing school. She rarely tells me that I have done a good job or that she is proud of anything I have done. I have just started a new job that I love and that I am good at. All she can say about it is that it is not a real job and that I only like it because it is new and that is how I am. She makes fun of me because I come home tired after 6 or 7 hours. In general everything she says hurts my feelings. Again I could go on...

4. My brother has died. I miss him. Everyone I talk to always asks me how my mom is and that's all, don't they understand that I lost a sibling..one of the closest bonds that there is? He has always been around and now he is just gone. In a matter of 2 hours, he is not coming home from the hospital ever again. Its over.

5. All of these things have me in a place of loneliness and doubt. Who really cares about me except me? I think that everyone needs to feel love, appreciated, and cared for. Who is that for me? When will I feel good again and not so tired? How have all of these thing happened to me? Who will read this and will anyone care?

All of these things have led me to tonight. I am angry. I am sad. I am hurt. I have been for a long time. I feel like a trainwreck, an emotional disaster, a lost cause. I will even go as far to share that I feel like God has forgotten me.