It seems there are still quite a few things that we need to work through when it comes to fear and paranoia. Case in point, yesterday hubbie misplaced his car keys. He couldn’t find them before he left to go somewhere so I gave him mine (he was going to be driving my car anyway) and told him I would look for the others.
This started a major panic/clean up of the house. I’d been wanting to clean up our bedroom anyway, because we have a ton of clothes over the floor again and I feel as though I’m fighting a losing battle. I suddenly understand why everyone used to make a big fuss about my room when I was growing up, though after living with my ex who was so slovenly we wound up with silver fish and mold and roaches in the sink and things like that I’ve been messy but never that bad. However, this is three times in less than a week that something hubbie needed for work has gone missing.
So, I’m done, on that score. the room is going to be tidy from now on damnit and he is going to help me.
However, the fear issue in question is the fact that I got very freaked out about the prospect of the keys being missing. We were turning the house upside down, some of this with Kore’s help trying to find the keys and it got to the point where she was going, “They keys CAN’T be in the house. They must be in his pants or in his bag or something with him. Stop looking.” and I would stop for a short while and then I would think of somewhere else to go through and check. We went through his car twice, and even through the things I had put in the shed earlier in the day.
I was freaking out because I thought he would get fired, and also because in my memory there was a time of him being really angry because I had left the keys in my purse and he could have gotten fired.
Anyway, he gets back with the keys, apparently they were on the roof his car. Some place we hadn’t thought to check and couldn’t see because it was dark out. When he pulled up in my car he’d seen them winking at him. He was concerned because I was freaked out, and I explained to him that I was worried because he would get fired, and how important the keys were because he yelled at me about them before.
He does this double-blink thing, like what? when? and I repeat and he goes, “Yeah, I remember you doing that, but when have I ever yelled at you that way? The two times I got that mad I left and came back later after I calmed down. Does that even sound like me?”
And I pause and I think and I’m going, “Did I get my wires crossed somewhere?”
And he goes, “Does it sound like me?”
And then I realize and say, “No, that sounds like the way Ami always perceived you…because she always felt like you hated her…” *head-desk* so here I was freaking out and falling into those old patterns of excess responsibility, to the point that I was ignoring my own needs (not eating dinner) because I would feel guilty if I could have found the keys and didn’t and he got in trouble. Kore tried several times to point out to me that hubbie was the one who lost the keys and should therefore find them, that it was on him, but I persisted, it became a vendetta.
I realize in the light of morning and in light of the talk that D and I had afterwards that it was partially my mis-perception. He was upset that I left the keys in my purse and left my purse outside and he did say that if they went missing he would have been fired, but angry responses from anyone that I care about have tended in the past to explode in my mind and become these huge balls of fury. There’s a tendency to dwell on the fact that I have caused this anger and it is my fault and that I should do everything in my power to avoid something like that in the future. It’s this same issue that has me constantly feeling as though I’m a lousy mother and am going to screw the munchkin up somewhere, despite all the positive experiences he has and we have together.
This also reminds me that I still and potentially always will have things I need to work on. I just have to find ways to sort them out myself.