I am currently experiencing the full force of The Fuckening.
Had someone asked me about it not that long ago, I would have had no idea what they were talking about.
Today, as I cried and snotted my way through a third day of what the fuck is this and who am I and why do I feel like I have no idea what I am doing and if I just yell and scream and cry at everyone and drink wine why won't it go away? A beautiful kind soul put their hand on my shoulder and said: Welcome to The Fuckening.
The Fuckening, is by is very name, the period of time that fucks you right up.
The Urban Dictionary says it's about a day that's going to well and something stuffing up and having to deal with hard stuff... I declare 'the day' might be 2017 and then dealing with The Fuckening might come in 2022 because I didn't have time to in 2018/19/20/21...
It is also apparently something that happens to lots of middle aged people when they get to a point in their lives where they realise they have no idea what they are anymore having devoted so much of themselves and their time to things like a job or marriage or children and suddenly they don't know who they are anymore.
Once upon a time it was probably referred to as a mid-life crisis...
I have been challenged so much lately about who I am and how I fit into my old world and my new life, how on Earth I continue to navigate mothering children as I enter a phase that will include 3 actual teenagers and one tween (stay tuned for 3 years time when all four of them are teens ... #sendwine ) when I am already exhausted from the years of doing it.
I don't know why it's hit now, except the kind soul who was welcoming me to The Fuckening also pointed out the fact that while I had been trying to hold everything together, I was also having curve balls pitched at me, not once, but about 100 times in the last 5 years. I probably hadn't really allowed myself to actually deal with it.
And here I was, merrily assuming this shit was going to get easier...
The Fuckening is actually fucking me up.
It's forcing me to question so much of what I thought I held as important, that turns out to not be.
And its forcing me to look hard at things I thought I knew and it hurts my head and my heart to think that I had it so wrong ... or what was right then is wrong now that I'm not the same person.
It's forcing me to realise that I invest a fucktonne more emotional energy into things that will never truly value my investment in them.
And I just thought it was a bit of not coping with change. But this seems to be deeper than that. It's forcing me to look very far inside my very self and say: Why?
For lots of the questions I'm wrangling with, the answer is stupidly: I don't know... I just always have / do.
It started for whatever reason and become habit, like my inability to say: No or I'm actually too busy for that ...
It kept going because I felt obligated once I'd started. I am very bound by obligation.
It kept going because I put my self worth in what people saw or what I delivered. Negative comments or not delivering something that was good enough or was criticised crippled my own sense of value.
It always has.
I have always known that.
However, The Fuckening has highlighted to me how, while this thinking process has become ingrained, it's not sustainable for my trauma-addled brain.
To be fair, it probably never was ...
Apparently this experience of The Fuckening is all very normal middle aged brain strain.
But as my psychologist helpfully pointed out recently, it might be normal, but not a lot of other people are doing it with 4 kids and an oppressive layer of grief.
As always, I'm not doing it on my own. My villagers would be there faster than I can say: please help me.
Except when we are having a shit day in the whole house and I have a child screaming any number of versions of: what would you know, you're Dad isn't dead ... there isn't much anyone except me can do (BTW - dealing with that usually starts with a deep breath while simultaneously feeling my heart break and trying not to take that hurtful stab personally).
And so now after the best part of 5 years trying to hold shit together, and navigate change I didn't ask for, forced situations people put me in, deal with other people's behaviour that I never should have, and accept it all ... because it was what it was ... The Fuckening has brought me unstuck.
I don't know if it wouldn't have happened now, anyway.
It might have looked less ugly than my behaviour of the last few days where I have questioned my lack of life goals, my purpose, my self worth, my value to everyone, my lack of most of those things in my own brain, coupled with a lot of self doubt and frustration over my own disorganisation and lashed out at anyone within range in bouts of rage and tears.
It might have looked the same ... but at least the people on the receiving end of it wouldn't have been dealing with their own trauma of the last 5 years.
Which probably makes my lashing out worse. And the the guilt I feel around this is crippling.
I have said sorry, a lot.
I think, like most of this shit that I've had to deal with, is that so much of it isn't my choice. I can genuinely place a finger on the years of 2016 and 2017 and say I was happy in my life. In my place in the world. I sicken myself writing that.
But this week I happened upon photos from that time and just felt such a pang of hurt that I had gone from that, to where I was right then: standing in a shed, crying, having just yelled at anyone within earshot about something at that time seemed the most monumental dismissal of the fact I had asked people to do things and having those requests either expressly ignored or argued with.
It probably wasn't that big of a thing - maybe just a pyjama'd teen on a screen at 3pm, which led to yelling at everyone else even if they were trying to placate me. And again, I take no pride in how much I have had to apologise to people in my house lately.
So my inability to control The Fuckening is completely fucking me up... well, it fucks me up a bit more. Because I know I have not dealt with a lot of this like I should have, it just seems it's all coming to a head.
Like a good zit with a pus-filled head, I just want to squeeze it, get the root out, whack some tea tree oil on it, and get back on with it.
Get back to knowing my place and understanding the world I'm living in.
Apparently it doesn't work like that.
*insert eye-roll about STILL not getting that I am not in control of this*
Apparently, like any wound (or zit post-squeezing) it takes time and effort for the swelling to go down and the new skin to grow back.
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