I've been trying to push her nap back to 1 because she won't be able to nap before that when she starts school, but I gave in today and put her down at 12:30. She fell asleep immediately.

Steph, feelings dumps are part of what we're here for! And good for Tim on telling you that YOUR birthday is special and deserves to me celebrated. He's a good guy.

(Short version: My needs/wants "don't matter" and I shouldn't even HAVE needs/wants, let alone express them.

Therapy twinsies? I love my mom, and miss her every day, but wow, did she give me some messed-up emotional programming.

Therapy twinsies? I love my mom

I'm really naive because I didn't expect it would be so hard to be a caretaker for Mom this past week while still trying to come to grips with the idea that everything she programmed in me was wrong and a lie and damaging. Because I love her and wanted her surgery to come out okay, and I was 100% there for that. But being in a position that forced me to put her first has dragged my progress back by about a billion steps, no matter how much I've tried to logic myself through it.

And I'm sitting here telling myself that I have NO RIGHT to tell my freelance coordinator that I'm going to need a break and to take fewer articles for a couple of weeks. When people take vacations/sick days all the time. But my gut is screaming at me that *I* don't get to do that, who am I to think that I deserve that, why do I think I have it so bad that I need time off?

I want my brain to be better.

I'm even skipping improv tonight, because I cannot be around people. It's all too much.

I think if you say the words "My mom had open-heart surgery a few days ago," any decent human being would go, "Say no more, take the time you need" without any further explanation necessary.

They know about that, and I already took less work** last week so I could be at the hospital.

**"Less work" is a goddamn lie. They ask us how many articles we want to edit for the coming week; 4-5 articles is standard. I asked for 3, and they said absolutely, you need to be with your mom. But the 3 articles are so much longer than normal that they're actually a total of 35 hours of work, so it didn't fucking help a goddamn thing. So when I ask for fewer articles for the next 2 weeks, I'm going to have to mention the length of the articles, which I didn't think I'd need to say. Sure, if you give me fewer articles but they're substantially longer, it's still the same amount of work, you asses.

Well, if there were more pie charts and fewer words it would be much easier. Maybe you could suggest that??

That's some bullshit there, Teppy.

Well, I'm just taking it as a lesson that I need to say "Only 2 articles, please, and not substantially longer than average, so that my time worked is actually reduced." Fool me once.

while still trying to come to grips with the idea that everything she programmed in me was wrong and a lie and damaging.

So we are therapy twinsies. Yay? No, not yay.

You absolutely need to take some time for yourself. You need down time, and you DESERVE down time.