Mikhala. 26. Married. Mommy to an angel baby. Mommy to Max. Homebirth-having, babywearing, breastfeeding, cloth diapering kinda crunchy mom. Virginia Living. Married to my high school sweetheart.
Shout out to people like me who have parents who are loving but are black holes of emotional labor… It took me a long time to realize that it’s okay to have mixed feelings about your parents, about your relationship with them.
Sometimes parents can love you but be somewhat toxic to you and your growth, and that’s a very hard realization to come to if you, like me, grew up extremely close to them.
Sometimes parents can love you genuinely but lack emotional maturity, forcing you to perform disproportionate amounts of emotional labor. Some parents manifest symptoms of their mental illness in ways that are toxic to your mental illness.
Some parents, like mine, try so hard to be good parents but fall back on habits of emotional manipulation because they haven’t processed their own traumas and are modeling behavior they grew up with. That doesn’t make their behavior acceptable, and it’s okay to feel exhausted and hurt when they betray you. You don’t have to forgive every mistake.
I want you to know that it’s okay to protect yourself, to need some space apart from them. The love you have for your parents is still valid, and you are making the right decision.
Placing a safe emotional distance between myself and my parents has been one of the most difficult, heartbreaking processes I’ve ever gone through… it hurts to try to curb the strength of your own natural empathy around people you love. It feels disingenuous to your heart’s natural state.
But I promise you, you are not hard-hearted or ungrateful, and you are not abandoning them. You are making a decision about your own emotional, mental, and spiritual health.
I know what it’s like in that confusing grey area of love mixed with guilt and anxiety, of exhaustion and quasi-manipulation and unreciprocated emotional labor, and I promise you, you are not alone.
Your mixed feelings about your parents are valid.
wow.
I so needed this after spending three days with my mom.
Wow, this is basically 100% me and my parents.
I need to print this out and frame it I think. Especially the “haven’t processed trauma/modeling behaviors” part. Woo. That is dead fucking on.
After 41 weeks and 5 days, we decided to nudge the baby to come out.
A dose of castor eggs followed by a nap was prescribed. I took the eggs at 1pm, and had lots of diarrhea but no contraction. At 450, I was discussing with my midwife if I would or should take another dose, and we decided to wait another hour. At 4:59, my water broke. I was on the phone with my midwife for ten minutes and I had my first contraction. We hung up, and said we’d be in touch. After that, I had steady contractions, one right after another. I started throwing up and I knew I had hit transition. My midwife started my way at 5:20.
Evan called our friend to get Max, and she came and picked him up. I had called my doula and photographer around 515. Everyone was on their way. I had Evan call the midwife to see if we could start filling up the pool. They said heat but DONT GET IN YET. I got in the shower and used the shower head with cold water to massage my stomach. My contractions were slamming one right after another. All of a sudden, I felt the urge to push. I instinctively put my hand down and I felt him crowning. I was still pushing and Evan called the midwife. His head came out. I leaned forward a bit, then the rest of his body. He was born at 5:45pm. So from water breaking to full blown birth, 45 minutes had passed. From the first real contraction, 30-35 minutes had passed.
Evan helped guide him out and catch him. He passed him to me, and I instinctively sucked the stuff out of his nose and mouth with my mouth. We were on the phone with the midwife And then He cried immediately and was very pink by the time the midwife arrived. He was and still is extremely healthy!
To anyone who is feeling sad or anxious about the deadly virus going around or the indefinite break in taking college classes at your university as a necessary precaution, here is a video of my idiot cat
I just had to explain what I was cackling at to my roommate. It automatically passes the Laugh Rule.
She found her reluctant fiance, Erstad, brooding out on the rainy moors.Â
âIs that a baby rabbit?â she asked, observing his huddled form.Â
âITâS SIX BABY RABBITS AND YOU CANâT TOUCH THEM,â replied Ernstad, contriving to look twice his usual size and at least three times his usual fierceness.Â
âWhoah okay damn,â she said, and backed away.Â
iâd read the gothic romance novel of ernstad and his baby rabbits like right now
This means that Batman, obsessive hoarder of orphans, is the only dark mysterious character that can be accurately described as âbroodingâ.
Now, with that image firmly in your head, go back and read Wuthering Heights.
