Things have been better. I got a new entertainment system in my sewing room, which helps a LOT. And between my hobbies and daily duties things are going well. David and Usha have been teaching me BJJ to help with keeping me with exercises. And Dante's been extra sweet to me, in that special way that he does when he knows I'm stressed or upset. (This involves him petting me. No, he doesn't realize he has nails on those huge paws of his).
I've been trying to take a closer look at what exactly has me so stressed lately, and most of it just seems to be a lot of PTSD triggers. The worst involving my father, who like my brother I've cut out of my life completely. I do still contact my mother though. And for a while my father had been making sure he picked up the phone whenever I called deliberately because he knew it would bother me to speak to him (they have call display). I tried to act like it didn't bother me, and I'd just simply ask to speak to my mother whenever he did this. He'd say "hold on" then my mom would be on the phone. But I guess that wasn't enough for him. When I tried to call my mom a couple of weeks ago, he answered, then after he said "hold on" he proceeded to call for my mother and began using those stupid names to refer to me. Like, "Pat, your "bad thing" is on the phone." "Hurry, your "bad things" is waiting to talk to you.", and he made sure I could hear all of this.
A lot of people who know me know I've had a lot of mental abuse growing up. Especially when it came to the way I looked. "Sonia's so dark and ugly" "Sonia's the ugly one" This was from family members. I even remember them crowding around one of my pics as a child and they had a big discussion on how ugly I was in comparison to my sister. My parents were no better. My father went out of his way to call me everything evil nasty and ugly he could think of to get me to cry (he really loves to make girls cry), or making comments like how I was so ugly I broke his camera. My mother, although now she knows what she did was wrong, didn't help, saying she didn't want to be seen with me because people would laugh at her because she had such an ugly daughter.
After I left Canada it took years before I could actually look at my reflection and be comfortable with it. But I worked through it, and after a while, I was ok. But then after that call, I can't look at my reflection anymore, and when I am, I'm horrified and disgusted at what I see. Wonderful how one stupid bad incident just wipes out years of working through trauma.
I REALLY don't want my father having this huge of an effect on me. And I know he's full of crap. Some triggers are just so deep sometimes that they affect you on levels so intense its hard to know that their even happening, let alone trying to control them.
Now, whenever I call and he answers the phone, I don't say a word and hang up. So he obviously knows what he did ended up hurting me. And I know he's pleased with himself. It confirms what he did bothered me.