Saturday, June 12, 2010

Playing the Victim

The past week has been an emotional one, with exhaustion and heat and a baby inside me that is weighing on my body and soul. I have cried a lot and blamed everyone I can think of for not being more supportive.

In saying it is everyone else's fault, I know that I give up my power and play the role of victim. From some things I recently read about "conscious living," the victim roll is an comfortable place to sit, when you want to drift along and do nothing. There is a sense that you give yourself over to others and let go of choices. It is hard for me to know how to shift back into my own sense of self! I question my role in staying at home with kids, being dependent on others financially and forever having to justify my work and my time. Did I do anything today, because I know at least one person who would say, no. Did I cook, clean, nurture my son, manage everything and if I did something outside of that role, was that selfish. I guess the bottom line is what is my value? Ouch, this one makes me cry, because I don't feel very valued in the eyes of others, which I suppose means I don't value myself much right now.

In my attempt to gain my power back, I have made some demands of others. I am lousy at it, in that I come across as ungrateful and controlling. I think this week I need to be clear in saying what I want. I want to have this baby. I want to write. I want to have Internet access at all times. I want sympathy for being 38 weeks pregnant. I want to let go of household chores. I want to let people's opinions be theirs and not mine. I want to pamper myself, even if I can't think of how. I want to take the entire day off on Monday. This list all feels selfish, but I am not going to delete it.  Deep breath!

1 comment:

Melissa Jenks said...

I'm so sorry I missed this emotional period! I wish I could have been more supportive as you waited for your new, beautiful baby. After reading this post, I definitely feel like you made the right decision with your midwife, even if it made labor more painful. You needed the baby out!

I know exactly what you mean about how easy it is to blame everyone else for decisions that are my own. When I'm alone, I make all of my decisions by myself, which means I have no one to blame but myself. When I have other people around, it's so easy to just blame them for decisions that are really mine. Anyway, I just wanted to say that you deserve your own sense of self and I love you for it.