9/06/2005

Damn his eyes and drive-bys

I have a lot of venting to do, please bear with me while I work through this on my blog to save me from shouting and stomping my feet. First of all, I am not a shouter, and secondly, the guy beneath us probably won't appreciate either outburst.

Let's start at the beginning -- I had a bad weekend. I have a habit of dealing with things in an odd fashion. I do not cry right away when things go wrong, I seethe. Seething then, after a day or two of festering, turns into sadness and depression, which usually incorporates crying at some point. Friday night I was angry, but able to push it aside enough to go out and have dinner with The Dude. Saturday I realised how shit things are for me at the moment and I confined myself to the bed, crying and snotting over myself. The Dude was less impressed; cue lengthy talks at me whereby I should "Cheer up." and "Not let things get me so down." or, or, my personal favourite: "If you want things to change, change them! Don't sit here feeling sorry for yourself!" Haha! Ha! I've married fucking Dr Phil!

In his (barely sustainable) defense, he was not referring to the infertility that I should "just" cheer up about. Unfortunately I am the type of miserable bitch that once I am depressed about one thing, I am depressed about EVERYTHING. At the moment I am choosing to focus on my overwhelming corpulence and the paper that I have due in two weeks that I have barely started. I sometimes throw a little bit of IF in there just to mix things up a bit.

So after I voiced my displeasure with his little Mary fucking sunshine, pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps shit, he chose to ignore me until Sunday afternoon. Yes, the best treatment for a depressed and inconsolable wife is to give her the silent treatment. I would advise partners against utilising this measure in future, as rather than making me apologetic for my ever-so-selfish actions, it made me detest him. Not that I would actually do it, but I was daydreaming of hopping on a plane to visit my Mom and leaving this life behind. See, that's the danger in being an ex-pat. If it all goes tits up you feel like this was a play life, an experiment. You can ditch it and forget those three years of your life existed in the first place.

Late Sunday afternoon The Dude shuffled up to me and said, "I don't like fighting." Ah ha, say I, patiently awaiting his apology and promise that I can carve out his eyes with a blunt butter knife if he goes all Dr Phil on me again. It was not to be, as he follows this attempt of extending the olive branch with: "You can be such a bitch sometimes." Uh, eh? So then I cried a little more, flailed, shouted, clutched tissues angrily...the usual. He never really took back that comment, but I hope he felt just a tiny bit guilty.

Onto my next issue...also involving marital strife. As mentioned, I have a final project due in two weeks. Due to my mystery illness whose effects I have only just fully shaken in the past week (touch wood), I have not been up to much of anything at work, let alone after work. Additionally, I have had overall malaise, pumped full of medications, and dealt with another failed cycle. I've got a lot on my plate.

Yesterday the urgency of the project situation dawned on me and I broke down. My stress breakdowns are different than my bad news breakdowns. Stress breakdowns also involve tears, but in addition I shake and get weird tics. I started in the bathtub, trying to wash my hair while gasping for air, my hands trembling, and my head jerking to the side every few seconds. I told The Dude how I felt I was in way over my head and how I wished that I had never decided to do so much at one time knowing my predisposition to depression. Rather than trying to convince me that not completing the project or failing it would not be the end of the world, he was insistent that I could get all the work done in this limited amount of time and quickly changed the subject.

The Dude could not be any more of a Type A personality if he tried, and in his world everyone else deals with life just like he does. Stressed about life? Face all of your problems head on and work hard until they are sorted. Depressed? There is no such thing! It's just a behaviour constructed by the evil liberal psychologists to convince us we are weak! Pick yourself up woman, be strong!

Unfortunately this is not me and I do not live in his world. All I wanted was his acceptance that things are a bit rough and hectic for me at the moment, and for me to make it as far as I have without losing my mind is a motherfucking miracle. It will never happen. For once I want to surrender and admit that it is all too much. I want him to acknowledge that I graduated from college with a 3.8 GPA despite dealing with clinical depression, working 30 hours a week, and more or less supporting myself financially. I left college to enter the :::ahem::: "real world" which brought me more depression, infertility, a full-time job and a part-time postgraduate programme. In all of this I have not faltered once to the extent that it affected my school work or professional life. Not once have I submitted a late assignment or missed a day of work for anything other than genuine physical illness. I want to be weak just this once and not push myself into insanity for the sake of not failing.

Speaking of failure...I was subject to a drive-by pregnancy announcement yesterday. I've spoken about this former co-worker before, both here and here. She's pregnant again, 16 weeks along. The silly smug fertile has learned something now though, as she has kept the pregnancy until she thought she was out of the danger zone. Not to minimise miscarriage of course, but when I was supposed to feign concern for the blip on her otherwise flawless conception record I failed. Sorry, I wish miscarriage on no one but I cannot drum up too much sympathy for her given my rather lacklustre reproductive history. The fact remains she will have two children in the time that I have been attempting to conceive one. This is the first time I have been lapped, and if that don't beat all...I've been lapped twice.

I had a vision of my future today. A colleague of mine was telling me about her excitement surrounding a friend's new house purchase. Innocuous enough, yes. Until..."I'm just so happy for her, having this beautiful new house. She has tried and failed to have children over the years and I'm pleased that this can fill that void." Meh. Will I be this woman in 15 years' time? "Pru and The Dude just moved into a lovely house. I hope the prospect of a large house with character features and fancy new appliances is enough to compensate for their prolonged barrenness." I'll be the IFer's version of the crazy old spinster with 40 cats. The future is indeed bright.

19 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sorry about Dr. Phil. You've been through a lot and you DO have a lot on your plate and it IS amazing you've gotten this far. Depression is nothing to sneeze at. My mother has the same opinion as the Dude leading none of us (my siblings and I) to get properly treated until we able to make those appointments ourselves. It makes a tough situation that much tougher. *hugs*

Anonymous said...

Yeah, a house. THAT takes the place of a child.

Why don't men understand that sometimes we just want to be comforted? My husband does that too -- he feels like he needs to solve my problems for me rather than just listen and be compassionate. Men. Seriously.

So sorry you feel crappy -- and give The Dude a swift kick to the ass for me for that "bitch" comment. Dude -- what the HELL were you thinking?!

Eggs Akimbo said...

I expect to be lapped by every fertile I know. I have also thought about the possibility that I will have to 'fill the void'. I tossed and turned all last night filled with the dark thoughts that can only come in the middle of the night and to us IF girls.
I think you are coping amazingly well with everything Pru. Look at all that you've got on your plate. I have mini-stress breakdowns where I just get bogged down by everything. And when I get depressed by one thing, everything comes down around me.

Anonymous said...

Did we marry the same man? I think one of those "disagreements" occured at my home this past weekend as well.

Men always want to solve the problem, bar none. Well, I'm sure not EVERY man is like that but, you know, the vast majority are. Just let us talk it out. That's how we deal.

I'm sorry about The Dude. Maybe he'll shape up, at least I hope he does. Especially if you are thinking that depression is what you're dealing with right now. You deserve all the support you can get.

Anonymous said...

Apparently the Dude and Mr Limboparty attended the same assbackwards seminar on how to treat women when they're depressed. Why is it that just when you think you have them trained or that they at least know you well enough not to even think of uttering the word "bitch" in your presence when you're feeling like a piece of gum that's been chewed to death, men always seem to be far more insensitive than you ever thought possible? Urgh. So sorry things seem overwhelming right now. Hoping that the universe and the Dude get a clue.

Anonymous said...

I'm quite convinced this is the stock response of ALL men... everywhere... even my sweet Attila... peppers me with, "Just don't think about it!", "Don't let it get to you.", "Cheer up!"

Oh! Of COURSE! I just hadn't thought of that... thank you so much for making it all go away by telling me what to do!

Fuckers.

Anonymous said...

1. Unfortunately I am the type of miserable bitch that once I am depressed about one thing, I am depressed about EVERYTHING. Yes ma'am and there's absolutely NOTHING wrong with that.

2. I DESPISE "cheer up" - I'd prefer fuck you - as a matter of fact, they're quite closely related as in - when someone says the one, I say (or at the very least think) the other.

3. A house. Yeah. And she's procreating easily?

Nico said...

In a way the whole feminist revolution has fucked us. We're supposed to be superstars all the time. A full time job, 2.5 kids (ha), a spotless house, meals on the table, blah blah blah. And do it all with a smile on our faces. Well you know what? It's impossible. It IS overwhelming. It sounds like you've done a fricking amazing job of keeping it all together. But you don't have to do everything. It's okay to step back and say that there are parts you can't handle right now. And you have our collective shoulders to snot on at your leisure.

Linda said...

Ah, Pru...many hugs going your way. I will never, for the life of me, understand why men don't get that all we need is a hug, some soup and a foot rub...some TLC to make us feel as though not everyone in the world is out to run us over.

As for a house, unless you can nurture it through various stages of growth, kiss its skinned knees and finally send it off to college to make you proud, well, it probably won't "fill the void."

Anonymous said...

Oh Pru, I'm sorry. Sometimes I'm married to Dr. Phil too and I react exactly like you do.

xxoo,
Emily

Anonymous said...

Sorry about the Dude. Why can't they be more like us? Why do they have to FIX everything?! Just LISTEN TO ME!!!! Anyway...A house instead of a child? Yes, the house can sit on my lap and listen to stories and I can help the house with its homework. And I look forward to all the nature hikes the house and I will go on. Oh, the memories we will build!

OvaGirl said...

I'm sorry Pru. You are doing a great job in very trying times. Maybe the Dude needs a sort of action plan for such ocasions - hot chocolate, massage,cook dinner, foot rubs, cuddles etc. When things get stressed you can say Go To Plan A etc and that way he need not speak at all, just Do Something Useful.

More hugs to you.

Anonymous said...

I'm sorry you're having such a crappy week. Would a kick in the Dude's knees help at all?

Anonymous said...

An extension on the paper sounds like exactly the right way to go. And kick the dude from me. I do think that when they do this fix-it stuff it's because they feel so helpless in the face of our misery. It's not that they're unfeeling bastards, it's that they desparately want us to be ok, and they can't figure out how to help us get there.

Poor things. In the meantime, kneeing him in the short and curlies always makes me feel better.

Anonymous said...

Well, that house comment pretty much takes the cake. I think Pru wins the driveby award.

"Here, these bricks and mortar should make you fulfilled." Yuck.

Unknown said...

You know, I never realised it before, but those 47million termites I purchsed 5 years ago really have been like children to me...

Asshats.

zhl said...

Well, as long as the house has a Viking grill and a Subzero that will fill the void. Yeah, right.
Sorry about the dude. I just yelled at mine that he really needed to learn how to be more empathetic.

Sorry you're having a rough time.

cat said...

Gotta love that "grab your balls" attitude from the boys. It's so attractive ain't it? I've been lapped twice as well, the 2nd one just boils. Wishing you some peace from the storm.

Anonymous said...

Is hubby a Pottery Barn person?