Actual conversation Ben and I had over dinner the other night.
Me: So I had a really weird dream last night.
Ben: What was it about?
Me: I don’t want to tell you because you’ll make that face.
Ben: *laughing* Just tell me.
Me: Okay, so for whatever reason we were visiting your sister’s house but it was, like, HUGE. Like 4 stories. And she had extra kids. Babies. A lot of them. This isn’t really relevant but I’m setting the scene. So I know that we’re leaving soon to go visit my family in Pennsylvania so I am COMPLETELY packed because I’m responsible and you REFUSE to pack and keep getting annoyed when I try and suggest that YOU NEED TO PACK.
Ben: *laughing and MAKING THE FACE*
Me: This is EXACTLY WHY I didn’t want to tell you this. This is not a CONTROL thing!
Ben: Whatever you say, honey! Continue.
Me: So then suddenly it’s time to go and you are fully packed and MY SHIT IS EVERYWHERE. Like four stories, all over the place, there is no way that I’m getting all my stuff packed up in time to go so I ask you to help me and YOU WON’T.
Ben: *laughing more*
Me: AND THEN! When I ask you to help, YOU LEAVE ME THERE. At your sisters. You leave to go visit MY FAMILY that you have never met and are just like, “OH WELL YOU SHOULD HAVE PACKED SOONER?”
Ben: So what do you think this dream meant?
Me: I think it means you’re a jerk and that’s why when you asked me to go have breakfast with you I told you I wasn’t getting out of bed and you didn’t care. And you were SUPPOSED to care because I WAS MAD AT YOU AND YOU DIDN’T EVEN NOTICE.
Ben: This is exactly the kind of thing you need to be blogging.
Me: I think the internet is well aware of The Crazy, thanks.
And yes, Ben has a point. I’m a bit of a control freak but it’s something that I have worked SO HARD on for the last few years. My counselor and I spent many a session discussing why exactly I felt the need to micromanage everybody in the house and it boiled down to not dealing with the ferocious anxiety I’d have when things were not how they should be. I’ve learned coping mechanisms to deal with it and I am getting better but there are definitely still days where it gets the better of me and maybe this dream was just a reminder that I need to focus on those for awhile because I can feel those bad habits creeping back up.
BUT! I recognize it now. Ben and I can laugh about it over dinner and he can trust that, given time to think about it, I’ll deal with it rather than just letting it boil up inside me till one day I explode in a ball of rage. And I can trust that if he sees it getting the better of me, he’s there to ground me and help me see that it’s not that he’s not packing for a trip that’s bothering me, but something else in the wide Metal Health Spectrum that I might need to address.
But don’t turn my cans facing the wrong direction in the pantry and don’t hang a red shirt in the blue shirt section. Because some things are just UNFORGIVABLE. That’s not control, that’s COMMON DECENCY, MAN.