RealMental

I thought that I understood trust.  I thought: If I want to feel relaxed and safe around someone, I need to trust them.  For example, I trust my husband as much as I’ve ever trusted anyone in my life.

But I didn’t understand what it was to receive trust.

My mother never trusted me.  I was a straight A+ student, didn’t drink, didn’t smoke, and always kept her up to date on my whereabouts.  But if I was a half hour late for my curfew she’d throw a hairy fit, and yell at me that if I was going to be irresponsible she wouldn’t be surprised if I was out on the streets by this time next year, pregnant and addicted to drugs.

My first husband read my journal and then threw what he found there in my face.

I must have internalized an assumption of my basic untrustworthiness without even realizing it.  I don’t know if I’ve ever even fully trusted myself.

My husband trusts me.  He has trusted me for eight years, but I didn’t know it.  I mean, he told me that he trusted me, but I didn’t get it.  I couldn’t take it in, because I didn’t know anything about being trusted.  I thought hearing the words meant that I understood, but I didn’t understand.

Then my ex-husband contacted me and we started up an e-mail correspondence.  I told my husband about it, and he said it was OK.  I had his permission.  He trusted me.  Still, I experienced tremendous levels of anxiety.  I kept asking for more and more reassurance from my husband.  I checked in with him every time I sent an e-mail to my ex, just to make sure things hadn’t changed.  I expected him to go into my Hotmail account and read our e-mails.  I thought “I trust you” meant, you’re not getting into trouble for this today, but who knows how I’ll feel tomorrow.

But eventually, one day, it sank in.  We were having our umpteenth talk about it, and I mentioned my worry that he would read my e-mails and find them upsetting.  His brow furrowed and he asked me “Why would I waste my time doing that?  I trust you.”  And that’s when it hit me.  What trust is.  It’s not something you say to indicate that you’re willing to tolerate a behavior for the time being.  Tolerance has limits.  Trust is something else.  It’s more permanent.  It has to do with who we are at the deepest level of our relationship, not dependent on passing moods.

And the most unexpected part was how much I relaxed once I finally took in the fact that I was trusted.   I realized how exhausting it is to not be trusted, because I was constantly trying to prove my trustworthiness, just like when I used to live with my mother.  The pressure was terrible.

Now that I know he trusts me, I can finally relax.

This is the first Christmastime since I can remember that I haven’t felt depressed. 

The secret of my equanimity?  One big factor is that I cancelled my cable TV.  Not being bombarded by non-stop advertisements and Christmas specials has made an immense difference in my ability to retain equilibrium.

I also have not:

• shopped in any malls;
• struggled to wrap gifts in fancy paper;
• decorated my home;
• felt obliged to embark on ill-fated adventures in baking;
• or otherwise disrupted my comfortable, sanity-friendly routines.

The things that I have done or have planned to mark the season are all focused on human relationships, not material stuff:

• enjoying togetherness at holiday parties;
• making donations to charity in lieu of buying gifts;
• trying karaoke for the first time with friends in a growing friendship;
• celebrating as relatives who were feuding for years kiss and make up; and
• hugging.  Lots of hugging.

I’m not worried about living up to anyone else’s standards.  I don’t have a giant to-do list before me, or an over-packed schedule.  There is room for me to breathe this holiday season, and for once I’m truly enjoying it.

I bought a Korean red bean bun as an after-work snack.  According to the packaging, the first ingredient was “Bean Lump”.  For a laugh, I brought it home and showed my husband.  He patted his large belly and declared “This is my Bean Lump.”

He and I are a bit like Jack Sprat and his wife, reversed.  He struggles not to overeat.  I can’t seem to gain an ounce.  Granted, I do exercise more and snack less than he does, but in the final analysis most of the credit for my low BMI goes to luck.  I have skinny parents.  He doesn’t.  It’s not fair, but that’s life.

When I’m feeling good, it doesn’t matter.  My husband is a handsome man with smooth skin, a mischievous glint in his eye, and an alluring dimple when he smiles.  He also has very charismatic eyebrows.  And sexy hands.  Perfectly straight, white teeth;  a cool haircut.  Women flirt with him, and love it when he flirts with them.  His waistline isn’t big enough to overshadow all his attractive features.

Frankly, if you could give me a guarantee that my husband would live until at least the age of 85, I wouldn’t care about the bean lump.  It’s not an issue of insufficient superficial beauty.  I count my lucky stars every day that the wonderful man I married happens to be so good-looking.

However, when I’m anxious and under stress, I can’t ignore the bean lump.  It taunts me.  Bullet points from magazine articles about Metabolic Syndrome scroll across my mind’s eye like quotes along a stock ticker.  I’m sure he’s going to get diabetes.  I’m sure he’s going to die of a heart attack.  How selfish of him to abandon me through an early death!  He loves bacon more than he loves me!

Technically, he could be doing more.  He says he has “no time” to exercise, when I know he spends at least 4 hours every night playing on the computer or watching TV.  He swears off snacking for a while, and then I start finding wrappers in the garbage and unwashed plates in the sink when I get up in the morning.  When he orders a side of bacon with his brunch, I bite my tongue.

The thing is, I know he’s doing his best.  I’m not the only emotionally fragile person in this house.  He has his limits too.  While he may have time to exercise, I know that he doesn’t have the emotional stamina to deal with it.  He took up jogging for a few weeks two years ago.  Every time he came home, he talked about how much it sucked to be “that fat guy trying to run”.  Everyone else on the track was fast and athletic.  That was outside, at night, in the dark.  I can sure understand why he hasn’t been able to face a brightly lit gym.

Yes, he eats compulsively sometimes, but do I have any right to get on his case about that?  He doesn’t smoke, drink to excess, gamble, or get too wrapped up in online gaming.  His family has a history of alcoholism.  He’s had a rough past.  All things considered, if all he does is eat a whole big bag of potato chips at 2:00 am every once in a while, he’s doing pretty good.  In fact, he’s doing excellently, and I’m proud of him for coming as far as he has.

But when I’m down and nervous, all of that counts for nothing.  All I can see is his early death, the funeral, and an old age of loneliness and endless grief stretching before me.  The bean lump may as well be a tombstone hanging around his neck.

I always think that I’ve got myself under control.  I tell myself that I’m doing fine.  But my resistance slips.  Although I should know better, I justify to myself that I can make this comment, leave that article on exercise out for him to find, because it’s “for his own good”.  Then we fight.

“Do you think I don’t know that I’m fat?” he asks me sharply, wounded.

“I have to look at this” (he grabs his belly) “every day in the mirror.  I’m the one whose pants don’t fit.”  By the time I’ve realized my mistake, it’s too late.  I have failed to love him unconditionally.  I’ve basically told him that he’s not good enough.  And guess what happens when he feels bad about himself?  He eats for comfort.  He lies around more watching TV because the stress of fighting is exhausting.

He also gets that I’m trying to control him, and he doesn’t like being controlled.  What better way to rebel than by doing exactly what I don’t want him to do? 

Hello, self-fulfilling prophecy.

I hate the ugliness in my head when I fall down that hole.  I hate that I never learn, that I make the same mistake over and over again.  Once the words are out of my mouth I feel so stupid, like the biggest dolt that ever walked the face of the earth.  I’m a bad wife.  I’m a crappy friend.  I’m a mess.

Every day I try to live up to my ideal: take life as it comes, and leave the things I can’t control up to God.  Be grateful for what I have when I have it.  Don’t grasp.  Don’t presume that I can know what the future holds.  Anything could happen.  Life has surprised me more times than I can count, and the surprises are often good ones.

Or, let’s say that my worst fears will come true.  What then?  What if my husband is destined to have a heart attack and die at a young age?  Do I really want to spend our remaining days together fighting over whether or not he puts too much butter on his pancakes?  I can enjoy what I have while I have it, and be grateful for every second.  I can be open to uncomplicated joy.  I can be fully in this moment, with all of my heart, without conditions.

He’s doing his best.  I can see that.  He puts in 110% effort every day, and that has to be good enough. 

I love him so much.  I hope that we both live long, happy lives together.  But the only thing I can truly reach for and achieve is long, happy moments, right now, one breath at a time.

I wish getting sick only involved physical symptoms.  I would patiently and calmly lie under a blanket, drinking plenty of fluids, until my body healed and I could resume my normal life. 

But that’s not how it works.  Sickness messes with my mind and my soul.  Sickness makes me depressed, anxious, weepy, frustrated, impatient, and prone to tantrums.  I remember how I felt the day before I got sick, just last week.  If I concentrate hard enough I can step into that feeling of centeredness, just for a moment.  I was living in the flow of things, letting stress slide off my shoulders even as it poured forth like an endless river.  I was keeping all the balls in the air, in a breath-taking juggling act filled with faith and grace.

Then I got sick, and it all came tumbling down. 

When I’m sick, I become frantically insecure about canceling plans and obligations.  I’m letting people down – how could I let all these people down?  I become paranoid; everyone thinks I’m faking.  What if Phil, who invited me to his birthday party for the first time this year, never invites me again?  Why bother inviting someone who cancels at the last minute?  What if my aunt, whose dinner party I missed, yells at my mother because she thinks I’m avoiding her?  Then my mother would be hurt and it would be all my fault because I made my aunt angry.

That’s how I think when I’m sick.  And it doesn’t matter that I know, I KNOW it’s stupid and all wrong.  I can’t stop feeling the fear.  These things keep me up at night.

Being sick also messes with my homeostasis.  That nice, comfy groove I got into with my sleep schedule and my balanced mealtimes?  Gone.  Blasted to smithereens, and with it, my equilibrium.  I have to sleep more to heal, but oversleeping always depresses me.

Also, sometimes, like this time, my hormones have been completely knocked for a loop.  Today I am living in the grip of PMS the likes of which I haven’t known for many a month.  I forgot how bad it could be.  I hate this feeling of hating everything, of the answer to everything being “NO!” before I even know what my options are.

I want to bite people, and not in a sexy way.

I don’t want to do anything, but I’m too restless to do nothing.

And I can’t seem to snap out of it.