On the upswing.

I'm feeling a little better today, oddly. I say 'oddly' because today is Tuesday and I had possibly the worst day at work, volume-wise, that I've ever had in my seven months there. I jokingly say that I think I see every drug addict in D.C. on Tuesdays, but today I think it really happened. :o

Good progress on the medicine front. The absence of the Paxil doesn't seem to be affecting me too much, which is definitely very good news. Before I got on the Wellbutrin, even missing one day's worth caused me to free-fall into an attack! I've definitely felt more energetic, and the weight's dropping like you wouldn't believe. This is about as close as I've felt to 'normal' in over 3 years! However.. I'm not letting my guard down, not yet. It's still way too easy for me to feel badly when I run into certain situations and people, and I'm not counting myself out of the woods, so to speak. But I'm starting to get a better realization of just what types of sitches and people will cause that - basically, who's toxic and who isn't. I need to keep as much toxicity out of my life as possible, and so far I think I'm winning that fight. All well and good.

So much that I think I'm ready to explain what happened last night with the family. Are you ready for this? Basically... my mother told me that my brother got all pissed off when she told him "how well I was doing". Isn't that just wonderful? He's pissed off because I'm doing well in my job, because I'm going back to school for my degree, because I'm thinking about traveling later in the year, because I'm finally starting to get better. He's pissed off. How about that for brotherly love? So naturally when I got mad at that, my mother as per usual makes excuses for him. "He's stuck down in the islands, he can't sell his house because of the economy, your sister-in-law's not doing well health-wise, he's having problems, etc. etc. etc. ad nauseum, blah blah..."

Okay. Before anyone accuses me of being a heartless bitch, I want to explain my position here. Some of you might already know what it is, because I've said, but I'll say it again - and make it nice and clear. Hell, I'll even take it point by point!

Point 1: My brother has a degree from a local culinary school. When I brought this up, the excuse was, "He's too old to do that anymore, it requires a lot of bending and stooping and walking back and forth and lifting things."

Umm... and what the fuck does she think I do at my job, sit at my desk all day and play solitaire? My brother is only 44 years old. Since when did his legs break?

Point 2: My sister-in-law has a terminal illness that prevents her from walking or doing much with her hands. She needs nursing care around the clock, 24/7. That point is justified. I'll give him that one.

Point 3: My brother is currently unable to sell his house due to the economy. Basically the story is that they want to move back to "the mainland" (they live in the Caribbean at present) so that my sister-in-law can get the medical care she needs - right now they have to fly out to an outlying territory so that she can keep her appointments.

First of all... whose bright fucking idea was it to move there in the first place? They knew going in that medical care was pretty much non-existent down there. See, the situation is that they spent so much money fixing this house of theirs that they don't have it anymore - so now times are hard and they're struggling like the rest of us. Fine, I'd say - but he can work. Even if it's from home, selling on eBay or doing something. He does nothing. Not one...fucking... thing.

Now, I'm sure that everyone's about to say, "poor old brother of Carrie's, woe is him". As the guy pushing the Ginsu knives on TV says, though... "Wait! There's more!"

What people don't know is that (at least in my mind, anyway) my brother was "the favorite child". My father left our family when he was 8 and I was 1, and ever since everyone's been trying to "make it up to him" in one way or another. I feel that it's been at my expense. A case in point is that his girlfriend (at the time) moved in with us because her white-trash family neglected her or whatever - I didn't like her and she didn't like me. But I had to give up my bedroom and let her move into it, didn't I. Fine, okay, that could be just a brat speaking... but when this interloper starts beating the shit out of you, digging her fingernails into your scalp, into your arms, into your hands, flinging you against walls... well.

My family claims that they didn't know any of this had happened. Uh, right. I tried to show them, either no one ever believed me, or they just shrugged it off as "sisters fight". Only the bitch wasn't my sister, never was, never will be - ever.

I put up with this shit for almost six years. From the age of nine to almost fifteen. Six years of her beating the shit out of me. Six years of nails in my scalp, of being slammed into the bedroom wall, of screaming at me in the middle of the night. And no one ever did one fucking thing about it.

Why? Because, as my mother put it, "I was scared that your brother would run away from home".

Thanks, Mom. Thanks a lot. (end bitterness here)

And my brother is pissed off because I'm finally making strides toward healing? Well, as far as I'm concerned, fuck him with a rusty chainsaw. He will never fucking know OR understand the hell I've been through, all to make HIS life better. Fuck him, fuck him, fuck him.

Heh. Do you now see why I was upset after that conversation?

Anyway. I'm sorry to ramble on and I know this was one long fucking post tonight, but... this is like a cancer growth. You have to cut it out of you in order to begin healing from it, or to keep it from doing more damage to you than it already has.

Thanks for listening... if you've read this far, heh. I sure have been saying a lot of that recently, huh?

And please.. keep your comments coming. I may not respond to them a lot, but trust me - they're read and appreciated so much, and I take them to heart. I really do.

I may have shit for family... but I sure do have the best friends on the planet. :)

<3