Broken

Counseling today was good.  Although when talking about counseling, the word “good” can have different interpretations.  Actually, I am learning a lot through my counseling experiences.  Most of what I am learning I don’t usually bring up here.  Members of Bob’s and my family read this and what I am learning has everything to do with me and my perceptions.  Nothing of what I’m learning makes me go back and blame my family in any way.  I love my family and they did a great job raising me. They did the best with what they had and with what they knew how to do.  It would do none of us any good for me to share my discoveries only to have a member of my family misunderstand or misconstrue what I’ve written.  The goal is for total health, healing, and understanding.  The goal is not to blame, shift focus and attention, or to hurt anyone.  That does not mean that some of what I am learning stems back from my childhood.  Because a lot of what I’m dealing with does stem back from childhood.  However, I do not blame my family.  What I have to do is realize that whatever happened in childhood happened and I took away perceptions of myself from that time and have carried them with me.  Right or wrong, they are mine and I have to learn how to undo them…or redo them…or get over them.  Whatever.  The point is, that if I happen to share something I am learning about me and my attitudes and perceptions that may have their roots in my childhood, I am not blaming my family for how I was treated, raised, or taught.  I am sharing my discoveries about myself and am learning how to overcome the negative perceptions I have carried with me since childhood.  Is that clear as mud?  If not, maybe the people who are related to me should just stop reading now.

Interrupted to say I just found out that the condo we looked at last night would cost us just under $1500/month including the mortgage, association fees, and taxes.  Um, that is NOT affordable.  I am going out on Saturday to look at a couple of other places and Bob and I are going out tonight to see a condo his boss has for sale.  Do I need to say that I am not optimistic?

Back to topic at hand.  The big breakthrough today is that in my head, I am broken.  I believe this about myself.  It is what feels true to me about myself.  I am broken mentally, hence the need for counseling and anti-depressants.  I am broken physically, hence the infertility and obesity.  I am broken sexually, hence the lack of desire and stimulation.  I am just broken.  I am bad.  I am not normal.  This is what I have taken out of childhood.  For some reason, I picked up, learned, and brought forth that I am bad, broken, and terrible.  I grew up loved, cared for, and taken care of.  I do not know where I got this message, but for me, it feels true.  In my head I know it is not true.  Bob can tell me over and over how pretty, sexy, kind, generous, great, and fabulous I am and I can hear his compliments and thank him.  But they don’t feel true.  They don’t feel right.  They don’t feel like me.  The bad, negative, and broken stuff feels true.   I am fat.  I am crazy.  I am lazy.  I am a quitter.  I am not working up to my potential.  I am depressing to be around.  I am a cry baby.  I am selfish.  I am broken.  Maybe some of that stuff is true some of the time and I know there is positive stuff that is true some of the time, but I don’t live in the positive stuff. I live in the negative stuff.  Wouldn’t it seem logical that this is why work is so hard for me right now?  I don’t feel like I’m doing a good job because I can’t do a good job because I am broken.  I am NOT doing a good job because I am broken.

Even worse, I don’t enjoy sex because I am broken.  For some reason I cannot disassociate the act of lovemaking from the act of conception.  And every time we make love and it doesn’t amount to a baby in my womb, I am reminded that I am broken.  So I come away with what is the point of making love?  Sad, but true.  And yet, not that I realize this and know this about me, shouldn’t it be easier to fix me?   Wouldn’t it be great if there was some tool that my counselor or my doctor to take to me, adjust and ratchet and hammer in me until I am fixed?  That would be ideal. 

I just don’t feel like everyone else.  Other women can plan things in such a way that they have sex when they are ovulating and TADA they become pregnant.  I cannot. I am not normal.  I am broken.  I am the only one in my whole family who goes to counseling.  I am not normal.  I am broken.  Other people can get through 4 years of college or 2 years of back to college studies in a row without fizzling. I cannot.  I am not normal.  I am broken.  There are people who can break their addictions to caffeine, cola, chocolate, food.  I cannot.  I am not normal. I am broken.

This is what I need to work on.  This is what I need to fix.  Yeah, that should be easy.