Wednesday, April 25, 2012

We had a snow/rain storm on Sunday night/Monday morning that resulted in our roof leaking worse than ever before. We have several new water stains on the ceiling and I spent the morning listening to new leaks spring up from the light fixture and running around with yoghurt containers trying to contain it all.



This is mid-morning. Not all the leaks had sprung and this also doesn't show the bathroom where we had about a gallon and a half come through the doorway. At one point, while I was peeing, I felt a droplet on my head, looked up and realised that the fan had just started leaking too. So, I had to try and dodge awful brown rain drops while also urinating.

I am still afraid to turn on the light in the kitchen because I'm worried it is still wet in there.

This has been a problem for years, but the landlord finally decided to put a new roof on this coming spring. He has promised to do it before the baby comes. Fingers crossed.

Our downstairs neighbour left us what can only be qualified as a passive-aggressive note, although it's really more passive than anything else. She left it on her door (not ours). It said,

"The fan in my bathroom is leaking. :( 4/23"

I'm not sure what she expected us to do about it. I'm not even sure why she left it. Why didn't she tell the landlord?

Ryan responded by writing the following on it:

"Ours too."

It disappeared almost immediately after he did that.

I sort of wanted to drag her upstairs and show her the ugly disaster that is my kitchen ceiling and kitchen wall and let her play dodge the droplets while she tries to urinate but I don't think that will persuade her to be more assertive in the future.

People are so strange.

***
So, as I mentioned before, I've been seeing a therapist to try and sort out a lot of mixed up things in my head. It turns out that the things I end up talking about in therapy seem to be things that have been a problem for a long time (shout-ey father, horse miseries, mother with pathological fear of any sort of confrontation, et cetera...). I had assumed that I would be more anxious/eager to talk about baby things because, after all, I feel I am at high-risk for PPD and this current bout of insurmountable depression seems to have been brought on by being pregnant. But the more I think about it, the less I think it is about the baby. I don't think my worries about the baby are unreasonable, but I do think that whatever other anxieties I have are unreasonable. 

That's really the worst part. Being so totally aware that the repetitive-thought-trains in my head are totally absurd and yet being unable to get past them or even articulate what they are or why they are so painful to other people. 

I'm a little afraid of my therapist at this point though. So far things have been going well, but I gave her an example the other day of a thing that is a constant problem for me. The example is this: I have been trying to knit a pair of socks for a year and a half now. I keep fucking up. I have somehow disallowed* myself from starting any other knitting projects until I can finish the socks. I can't finish the socks, therefore, I can't knit. Even though I really want to and I look at patterns all the time and make plans to knit things. I feel guilty and angry with myself for not finishing the socks. 

She asked me how it would feel to burn the socks. I said that I didn't think it would feel good. She said, are you sure? and I said, Yes. It would feel terrible to burn the socks. Why? 

Because it's not the socks fault I can't finish them. It seems unnecessarily punitive. 

I got the distinct feeling I was supposed to relish the idea. And that maybe she was going to tell me to go home and get rid of them. 

So, we'll see how long this goes on for. I already feel a little more "manageable".


*I do not know why.

2 comments:

Me, myself and I said...

I agree that burning the socks would be drastic. Burning the socks means you would have to lose all that yarn, and that's just wasteful.

But what is there to be gained by disallowing yourself from starting other knitting projects? Is it a fear of failure with the socks? That the failure with the socks is actually a metaphor of failing in general?

It seems to me that the only thing that is coming from not allowing yourself to start new projects is that you're punishing yourself for something that you just can't get the hang of. I think you deserve kinder treatment from yourself.

My advice would be to put the socks away in a drawer or box or something and come back to them in 6 months. Or a year. But set a date where you can't even look at them until that date. That way you haven't failed, and you can still move forward with other projects. Which would make you happy. And I think, it sounds like that is the overall point of this anyway, right?

Incident Alice said...

Oh believe me, I've done that. I've hidden them away and picked them up again 3 times. It doesn't matter, I still can't bring myself to start any other projects.

As I said, I do not know why I cannot move on. If I did, I could move on.