Quick update
Just as like. A warning. I'm gonna talk about abuse.
I just need to get it off my chest.
Sunday morning I had another anxiety attack that again led to a pain flare up >:(
I emailed my therapist again about it and asked hey how do I tell work I'm a hot mess and need space/time. And because she is a good therapist she gave me exactly what I would need to say and reminded me that I need to put myself first (because yes I wasn't, I was putting work first).
Most of the week went alright. I was shaky, but functioning. Dad texted me once to ask which grandmother I meant (which confused but okay. Why would I tell him to work out his issues with my maternal grandmother??) and I firmly explained what I meant (because he has unresolved issues with his mom and he told so a few months ago as a way to say 'look even I have issues with my parent, but I don't let it overcome me'). Haven't yet heard anything else.
Smartly though I took a half day on Thursday expecting that therapy this week would be fucking awful. And I was right. We talked about how the way dad was responding to my texts I felt like I needed to explain myself in full rather than hold my boundary and my therapist said that he had likely conditioned me to do so as I felt the same as I always had in the past when I told dad things. And the outcome as my therapist explained was to gas light me. Like he had conditioned me to get my thoughts out so he could gaslight me into changing my mind to his version of things.
She also walked me through the fact that I felt like I was crazy for thinking he would find me - I haven't told him where I work but given his past behavior including the time he followed me from my high school to the public library and he didn't say anything until I arrived at the library to "teach me how to be more aware of my surroundings" we can safely say that he has stalker behavior and we cannot rule out him finding out where I work. She also assured me that if I feel unsafe around him - and I do in a way that fits in with the conditioning and gas lighting because he's built himself up to be this nice person, not doing anything wrong here, I'm a safe person. It's...complicated because like. Logically obviously I know that if he does find out where I work that is a major problem. If he shows up there though in my head I keep thinking ok but he's not done anything typically abusive so what right do I have to call security on him? Or if he follows me home what right do I have to call the cops?
And she said to me several times that if I plain feel unsafe around him that is enough for him to be removed from my presence. Which got through to me better than anything else including the stalker behavior.
I'm still working on reconciling my unsafe feeling to the conditioning and gas lighting.
So now I have a plan of what to do if he texts me, calls work, shows up at work, or shows up at my home. It is saved to my phone. And she doesn't think that that is a bad thing. It is part of me feeling safe.
It took me five hours to calm the fuck down after the appointment. And Friday I took a half day again because my pain was just climbing up again because I was still off kilter when I got in and then we had to do some rearranging on one of the provider's sched since she had to work from home. Like. It was a mess.
And then me I'm chilling at home trying to be in as little pain as possible and what do I do? Yeah I cleaned the house because Pesah started Friday. I nearly threw up toward the end of the cleaning, stupid me. But I didn't think it would be that bad! I felt like I could manage an hour of a quick clean.
Argh.
Gonna have to see how this week goes. Fingers crossed.
Anyway. Yeah. Thanks for reading if you did. I'm okay in a way that obviously I'm not okay but I have a safety net and a safety plan and I have a good medical team.