Pushed Over the Edge, I Am Struggling to Hoist Myself Up Again

I can only reason that breaking point had to come, finally…

The ongoing saga of my having opened my home to additional family members has been a major challenge for the last year.

Do you know that feeling when you realise that something has shifted yet you can’t quite put your finger on it? Well that’s what I have been feeling. So I did a bit of delving into the recent events and it didn’t take me long at all to uncover the root of it.

I didn’t realise how precariously balanced on a narrow precipice my jovial self was until my daughter, feeling mad at me for being a bossy parent, said some words to me.

She was talking about her two cousins — the ones whom we have opened our home to and made as comfortable as we possibly could. When I said that they needed to make an effort to make things easier for me while they were living with us, she retorted that they didn’t even want to be living here with us, but they didn’t have any choice.

I was a little taken aback. And there were things I almost said but, more sensibly, bit my tongue and swallowed them back down.

What could I have said? Well, I could have said that they did actually have a choice and that was to be living back in their isolated home in France with their father, with whom they both have fractious relationships of varying degrees. With no friends, no educational opportunities, no way of earning money, and no way of even getting out of the place.

But that felt bitchy and I wasn’t going to go there. So I said little except a few words merely to challenge my daughter.

Still, she was having none of it and, probably for other reasons too, she left in a huff with barely a goodbye before heading off to visit her grandparents for a few days.

Those few days away should have healed things a little but I was seething from her little outburst. In particular, those words kept repeating themselves over and over, nagging at me.

They made me furious and I couldn’t let that go.

Not that I even think her cousins said that to her specifically. It was her way of getting at me, and it worked.

Because even though I didn’t take those words so seriously, they still left me with a sense of being totally unappreciated.

And now, no matter how much I try to rationalise, I cannot shake that feeling.

In short, I feel like I have, finally, reached breaking point. And there’s no returning.

Since that day, some time has passed. I have had distractions. I went away for two days. I’ve had my own things to be working on.

But nothing is really working at distracting me sufficiently. A shadow has fallen over me and I can no longer keep up the farce of a functioning and happy home. I can no longer feel like it’s a nourishing space where I can rest, work, and stretch myself out in, both literally and figuratively.

I can no longer focus properly on anything. I feel tired as heck. And even though I have mostly slept solidly due to this exhaustion, I still feel exhausted again the next day.

Tonight (or is it this morning?) is an exception. I fell asleep but woke myself up by coughing, and felt compelled to do something about it all. Namely, writing. It’s now 1:11 am and I am feeling more alive here on Medium than I have for some days.

I realised that my niceness really hasn’t paid. I also happened to read something by Michele Maize before I went to sleep that has preyed on my mind, in which she shares how damaging being a “yes woman” was and how powerful saying “no” has been for her. And I realised, damn it, I need to be yelling NOOOOO at the top of my voice.

NOOOOO, my life isn’t here to put on hold for everyone who needs something from me.

NOOOOO, my home isn’t somewhere without boundaries and respect.

NOOOOO, I’m not going to just bide my time here indefinitely.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I love my sister and her family dearly. And I love my dad dearly.

There was one day recently when I had the whole day cleared for work. But my dad had problems checking in for his flight to go on a little vacation, so he turned up at my house just one hour into my work day for me to help him. So, of course I did. And then I made him some lunch.

A few hours later, he wanted a lift to catch the bus to the airport. I obliged.

I was barely back an hour when my sister, fresh off the plane from a weekend in Barcelona, was calling me up asking for a lift from the bus. I arrived to pick her up to discover that she was about to cancel an appointment to see a house, to which I said, “not on my watch,” and so I drove her there as well, and we viewed the house together.

By which time, the day was pretty much over.

I got around two broken hours in which to focus on my own shit.

And there have been many similar kinds of days to that over the last year, especially in the last six months.

And, as you can imagine, it’s unsustainable to keep going like that.

And yet, perhaps I can’t blame anyone else for treating me like I’m everyone’s bitch, because I’ve allowed it by always being a “yes” woman.

Yet, since that day when I felt the sting of my daughter’s words, I haven’t been such a “yes” woman. I have said “no” and felt good about it, and it’s been a revelation. But I haven’t said “no” enough.

When I woke up from that coughing incident and my now-awake mind flicked back onto Michele’s piece, it suddenly hit me how I could say “no” to everything. Right now, I have every good reason to do so. And I know I could do so and not feel guilty.

Other people do have choices. It’s not my responsibility to save them from having to make those choices.

I reached breaking point. Slipped over the edge.

And once over the edge, there’s no coming back from that.

We don’t need to try to restore harmony in the home. It’s too late for that. And, in any case, I’m done with harmony.

Right now, I’m in meltdown mode and if that means I snap and breakdown in tears, then that’s okay. I’d much rather do that than feign any pretence at harmony. Time to be real.

So yes, breaking point had to come eventually. And I feel so glad it did.