I hate living in fear.  It seems as though I always am, in one way or another.  When we first moved back here in 2018 (due to being homeless), it was torture.  My mental health took a nosedive and I felt like we were going to be stuck in that situation forever: no money, no car, under my mother's control.  Then we bought our own car and my hubby got a job, and things got slightly better.  Then he got a better job, we bought a better car, and then things were going even better.  Now he's going to college to get a degree in something that will bring us even more income.  More income means more freedom.  I've never known what it's like to be not poor for my entire adult life.  Except for once, where my husband worked 7 days a week for a year, from open to close...which put us in a position to get our son braces, pay our bills on time, and be able to afford what we needed.  BUT the gigantic tradeoff was him working 7 days a week.  It was awful.  Then his boss hired someone else and we went back to being poor again.  And of course we stopped being able to afford my son's braces payments and we had to have them removed.  Of course this was because my mother promised to help pay for them, but then said no at the last minute.  And then last year she promised to pay for our car payments, because we couldn't afford them.  But instead she went out and bought herself a new car (which was wayyyy to small for her, and now she regrets it).  She LOVES to promise things and pull out at the last minute.  It's her favorite hobby.

When my husband found his last job before this one, I started to find Buddhism.  Not has a religion, mind you.  But as a practice.  And all of a sudden all my anxiety started fading away and my stress dissolved.  But a year has passed, and my zen-ness faded away and now I feel stressed out and anxious again.  My body is feeling the pain, too, which always acts up when I feel mentally bad.

She is the cause for 99% of my stress.   Always has been.  Her comments.  Her digs.  Her schemes.  Her thinking she has control over my life.  I am stuck again afraid to stick up for myself because of the position we are in with her.  So I keep my mouth shut.  Which stresses me out even more.  I wish I could let her crap roll off my back like I do with my kids.  I think it's easy with my kids because I know them well, and I know they love me and I don't question what they will do next.  If we get into an argument, we will always end it with a hug and an "I'm sorry" and we'll truly mean it.  I don't get that with her.  She avoids ever bringing up her bad behavior again.  And I only ever once heard an "I'm sorry" from her (in 2006, the day after my birthday, two days after she slapped me in the face when she was drunk).  There is never any making up with her, only punishment or forgetting about it.  And I always fear the punishment.  Granted, there's not much she can do anymore to me.  So most of my issues are residual fear I am used to feeling.  Even if her punishment is just being mouthy, it still drives me up a wall, because I can't say anything back to her.  Being in charge of your own life gives you all the power back, but even if they are in charge of one little thing in your life?  Even if you are stripped of a tiny bit of power?  It can feel like everything.

I know she has no power over me.  Not really.  I just fear dealing with her when I stand up to her.



I am a strong-willed, mouthy person (when I need to be).  Yet, here I am, letting this woman steal my power.  And I don't know why.  She lives in my head 24/7.  And the only reason she feels she has control over me is because I let her.  If I stood up to her, she'd back down.  Eventually.  But I have a gigantic fear of confrontation with her (and with most people).  I don't with my kids or my hubby.  I feel safe with them.  But when I am in this kind of head space, a place of extreme stress (due to something we're dealing with right now), I find myself even more afraid to stand up to her.  And she takes huge advantage of that, too.  Which stresses me out even more.  And then I have SAD in the winter months, which compounds it all into a total mess.

Take today, I forgot to take out the garbage last night.  And today I am dreading seeing her or talking to her because she probably ended up doing it (or worse, she didn't) and now I'll never hear the end of it.  I know this is my issue.  Not hers.  I mean, she's the one bullying me and my family.  BUT I am the one handling it like a child.  It's so hard not to revert to childhood behavior when you've been doing it your whole life.  But this shall be what I will work on from here on out.  I can't keep letting her control the way I feel about my day to day life.  I can't give her prime real estate in my head anymore.  I need to find a way to take charge of myself.  It won't be easy.  But I have to do it.  For my own sanity.  Running away from her won't change how she treats me, it never has.  And I can't run away from her now (she's elderly and in need of care and I am the only one who can give it...whether you agree with my reasons for being in her life or not, it doesn't matter, because this is where I am at now and my choice is valid to me).  So instead of avoiding her or hiding out from her, I need to take her head on and inform her she can't treat me like this anymore.  And if she does, I will just raise my boundaries.  This is the advice I give online to people on my Facebook page, so why not take it myself?

I know I've probably said this many times before, about standing up to her.  And I have.  But I always fall back into this "little lost girl" syndrome again with her.  Esp. when I don't have control over my own life.  But now I do.  I need to remind myself of that as much as possible, because I forget.

So, I will start today by getting ready and getting shit done.  I've been in a stasis doing nothing at all for so long due to all this stress from the situation we're dealing with.  But it's out of my hands and I have no control over it, so I will just let it do what it's going to do without my stress.  Because stressing doesn't change it.

And stressing about her doesn't change her behavior either.  It just changes mine.  I need to be in control of my own reactions and my own behavior again.  Time to get back to mindfulness and my zen mode.  Because without it, I go crazy in a downward spiral of stress and depression.


What gets you into the right headspace in life?  What gives you peace and calm?  Share below to help others reading this find their own safe spaces.