emily the clumsy

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i fell down the stairs yesterday. ridiculous. i was carrying the laptop, mouse, my cell phone and the laptop battery.. brodie was in front of me and since he’s a paranoid mama’s boy, he kept looking back to see if i was indeed coming down the stairs because, god forbid, he be alone for two seconds. as he stopped i stepped down and slipped on his gigantanormous tail and fell backwards hitting my right arm, elbow, left foot, left shin and straining several muscles. meanwhile the laptop was hurtling through the air towards the wall at the bottom of the stairs.. where it smashed into bits.. or at least that’s what i thought happened – i was so startled my imagination took over. so after catching myself with various body parts against the walls, i picked up the laptop.. low and behold.. it works just fine. sturdy little thing. i keep forgetting, then getting up and feeling the pains. oh right, i fell down the stairs. it’s really quite hilarious after the fact. falling, as an adult, is just so silly.

this fun experience, reminded me about falling down the stairs when i was little. my mother used to throw the laundry basket down the stairs to the basement on a regular basis, as the laundry room is down there.. back then, there was also a “play” room for us.. and one day my sister and brother were building lego worlds, excluding me from playing of course.. and they thought my mom had chucked the laundry basket down the stairs.. until it started screaming.. because it was me. i have no idea how that happened.. but i remember quite vividly the tumbling, bumping.. and eventual slam into the wall at the bottom. ouch. it happened again at a later date when my brother and i were fighting wrestling at the top of the stairs.. genius idea.

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so in therapy yesterday we discussed all of my “issues”.. guilt, anxiety, regret, paranoia, control, etc.. and she is basically blaming everything on my childhood. she said i live my life as if i had some sort of horrible trauma. but the trauma is actually the way i was raised. i feel guilty even thinking such horrible thoughts about my parents. they are, at the heart, good people. but the older i get the more mistakes i see. no one told me anything.. they still don’t. my mom has been in and out of the hospital my whole life.. but when i was living at home i rarely knew why. i was ignored a lot.. treated as though my life would just happen.. they were not very proactive in my life. my sister and brother are 8 & 6 years older than me.. so by the time i came around everything had already been done. of course this doesn’t mean with everything.. my parents aren’t evil or anything. but stuff like college.. i was dragged to zillions of schools for my sister & brother.. i had to beg my parents to go see the schools i wanted to go to. even my wedding was treated as a chore.. they’d already had two weddings. my parents are also very critical of anything/anyone different from them. i have been constantly subjected to their attacks my whole life.. and apparently i have internalized this and think everyone in the world will attack my like my parents did/do. and apparently this lead to my paranoia. i have a constant need to be prepared for anything. i hate to be surprised.. shocked.. caught off guard or put on the spot. i want to know the outcome as soon as possible. i like to read books i know the ending of.. same with movies.. same with daily life. obviously this causes much stress and worry. therapy lady kept asking me why i feel such a compulsive need to prepare for everything.. and it’s all about control.. especially in situations i can’t control. after therapy i come home and talk it all over with steve.. and that’s when i usually have mini-breakthroughs. with him. because he is wonderful. my breakthrough this time: i need to be prepared for whatever happens (good or bad).. so that i can have my emotions in check. so that i can react/act a certain way.. hide my true feelings, or only express censored emotions. i imagine/prepare myself for whatever, so that i react the way i want to, thereby giving myself control over a uncontrollable situation. example: when darby got sick, most recently.. i thought about all of the outcomes.. cancer, cysts, benign, malignant, etc.. prepared myself for all outcomes.. went through all the emotional responses.. so when i found out what was actually the problem i could seem as though, oh i knew that was going to happen and this is my calm, cool reaction. so that’s how i get control over a situation i have no control over.. even though i know it doesn’t actually give me real control. irrational, sure.. necessary.. probably not, but i highly doubt i’ll be able to stop any time soon. i will most likely never find joy in the unknown. and man, does this ever become clear as a huge problem with the whole TTC thing. so i guess the main point of all this is to become as self-aware as possible so that i don’t transfer my insanity to my children, if we ever have any. i know i’m not going to magically stop being this way.. my behaviors and thoughts are way too ingrained to stop being myself.. but i can make a conscious effort to try not pass on this trait.

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today is cycle day.. um.. 25.. no ovulation. gee what a surprise. all that ovary pain i felt a week or so ago has stopped.. and unless 97.5 is a normal post-ovulation temp (which it’s not, my chart looks like an ekg) then nothing is going to happen this cycle. not that i really was expecting anything to happen.. it’s just that i was kinda hoping that the high dosage of clomid would be our backup plan if the IVF doesn’t work, since we won’t be able to do IVF again for a looooong time.. so it’s just depressing that we don’t have a backup since clomid is completely worthless. sigh.

two months to go before we start IVF preparations (testing, provera, bcps). and it’s all stupid clomid’s fault.

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