It's odd how myself and my dad talk late on the phone for hours yet we barely talk when face to face. It might have something to do with the fact he can't get stoned at my place and I can't go to his.
Today's topic of conversation: privatisation within the NHS, government legislation, Tory government being generally awful when it comes to work and jobs, labour becoming more Tory as time went on and various other Tory bashing expected from working class citizens of not so great at the moment Britain.
Sub topics due to various sidetracks and frustrations: middle class feel hard done by, private companies/management, retail and the economy, 4x4 cars, rail fares, racism and the person who made us homeless.
All in all a 3 hour conversation which I doubt many could follow logically but my dad gets how I work by now!
He will come up tomorrow, play with dinky for a bit, play Xbox with me, barely talk, almost fall asleep after dinner, and then go home. In this time conversation is limited to football and dinky's attempts at getting a conversation out of him. Which I sit back and smile at, why? Because she will have to wait until she is old enough for a mobile phone to have any quality conversation with him. Sad but true.
Don't get me wrong I love my dad, we have an odd relationship in the sense that both of us are not exactly sure who is the parent and regularly go through periods of trying to establish our roles. He will go through phases of only being able to feel like a parent if he is buying me things or taking care of something I am quite capable of doing myself and would prefer to do myself. I will go through phases of asking for his help on a number of occasions when I'm pretty sure I already have the answers but I either need confirmation from a parent figure that I have the right ideas. Or if I feel like I've been the parent for a while and need a break... someone to tell me the right thing to do and then rebel against it almost like a teenager.
This (in his words) all stems back from him walking out when I was 5, which meant I was very young and dependant, and him coming back into my life when I was 13 and independent from years of having to be. I get that but feel he sort of missed out the central bit and sometimes doesn't realise that I grew up in that time, he keeps trying to recreate opportunities to be involved in my becoming independent. I try not to remind him that that particular ship sailed about 15-20 years ago.
I find our relationship is also difficult because of the guilt and blame game. Not that either of us make it into a game but he feels guilty for leaving me in the house with a woman he knew full well to have a violent nature and that I was always getting the blame for things when he was there. And I still hold that little bit of blame for him leaving for those exact reasons. I try not to let it get in the way of the here and now but it is like we both know it is there. He knows that is why I don't trust him implicitly. I suppose it's been better since I had dinky but I don't think our relationship can evolve past this. I'm ok with the way things are, he isn't, and we are both aware that it is a little odd the way things work. Obviously there are many more factors that haven't been mentioned when it comes to the dynamics of a parent/ grown up child relationship. I suppose what clouds that more is the fact that I was almost like a grown up at 13 and apart from being a little more confident and being a parent myself and the responsibilities that entails, I haven't really changed (and I look about 15/16 which doesn't help) 13 years later.
All of this conversation and the one thing on my mind more than else was a letter I received today. My breast clinic appointment is for Monday.
I am surprisingly quite calm about it at the moment. I was shocked that the letter came today and the appointment is in 3 days. I'm sure Sunday when it is just me and dinky and when dinky goes to bed I will start to get anxious about it. I have been trying to prepare myself for it the best I can. I know they will want to examine me and I'm prepared in the knowledge that it might be more than once if I have to go for tests same day. I am aware that no results will be given same day. So there is no need to focus on that. I have already come to conclusions about the outcomes. I have plans for every eventuality, including what is most likely and the opposite of what is worst case scenario.
I have told one online friend and the mum at the school I have been friendly with about the lump.
Both times to begin with I got the impression they thought my most immediate fear was that I had cancer. No, actually I haven't been too concerned and only made a plan because it is one of the possibilities. Both seemed quite taken aback. One understood the other didn't. Why? One knows I was sexually abused the other doesn't. It is odd how that one piece of information changes the same conversation. I got some great practical advice for the examinations by the online friend. And some great outcome advice from the mum especially seeing as she has been through all this before but actually had breast cancer. I should have asked her more about what happens in the appointment and had been meaning to but I only found out about the referral just before the Christmas break and the first week was christmas and the day after boxing day she was admitted to hospital for pneumonia and only got out of hospital last night. I might ask her tomorrow or Sunday evening so that I can prepare fully and know what is likely to happen.
The unknown is what generates so much fear in most situations that people find fearful. The most common fear is of the death, naturally. The fear isn't necessarily dying itself it is not knowing how, or when, or what happens when you die. Is that it lights out? Is there really a god? Are there such things as ghosts or the afterlife, or reincarnation. It's the questions we can't answer. The other big fear.. The dark. Again fear of the unknown. Anything can be in the dark, oh can't see and you don't know what is coming or what is going to happen. Unknown=fear.
I had a conversation in which the brain not liking being unable to have answers for its questions. Our brains are so amazing it fill in the gaps for us. Normally it does what it needs to survive and it is not always the most well thought out as it is doing this work on its own. In this context the brain will make the unknown scary so that we stay away from it. The darkness means monsters and isolation. Death means pain and suffering. So we avoid the situations for survival purposes. Anxiety leads the way in these scenarios. It makes sure we don't do anything to put ourselves at risk of (further) damage, by creating symptoms that make us extremely uncomfortable.
I almost forgot the point about fear and anxiety there.
So this anxiety that will no doubt build up over the weekend is about the unknown, not just about how the appointment works but also will I or won't I see those who abused me in my mind during or after the examination. My brain is creating anxiety in self protection.
I have to battle this anxiety by being clear about the appointment and how it works and preparing myself to block out even the very beginnings of intrusive thoughts or memories. I have to be strict and have an alternative in mind. Eminem songs normally keep me grounded. So I will be picking a song in the next day so that I don't get too bored by it. Listen to it over and over again and learn the words back to front. I know most of the words to most of his songs but to know every word will help me recreate it in my mind and listen to it while the examination takes place. I might have to practice on dinky and try to recall the song while she is talking to me and answer her without losing focus on the song.
So we will see how it goes....
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