Fear of Judgment

There is a large stack of clothes, folded, but piled haphazardly on a table in my laundry room.  My mom is due over in about an hour with her boyfriend and her business partner, to deliver a clothes dryer, as mine went out about a month ago.  I am tied in knots about it.

Her coming over, knowing my house and yard and et cetera are not up-to-par.  Its bothering me.  I have been busy today, including making a trip the gym.  I have not thought about my pile of clean clothes, the bathroom that could use picking up, or the stack of therapy-related paperwork scattered across my desk lately because… well, I’ve been busy living my life.

Now I dread what she is going to say about it.  My priorities, in the past, have been on keeping the boyfriend-of-the-moment happy and surviving bipolar disorder and making sure Kizzie has food and water.

Now, in the present day, I am focused on making sure I exercise and take my meds and stay positive and attend appointments and do, I dunno, all kinds of other stuff, it seems.  I feel busy, even though I am not currently working.

My house is less messy than usual, than in the past, I suppose.  I still feel, in this moment, like a failure.  I feel like a failure, and like I am going to get lectured about the clothes that are not put away and the tub that could be scrubbed and so on and so forth.  I am worried, I am anxious.

I refuse to take a PRN Ativan for this ridiculousness.  Some day, I am going to have to get over concerns that my family is judging me and get over people telling me what to do, how to do it, when to do it, and so on.  Having a house that is not perfect, is not indicative of my mental stability.

Did you hear me, Rosa?  You are not crazy, just because your laundry is not put away.  Yeah, your mom might say something.  So what if she does?  Does that end the world?

No, it doesn’t.  For the past few days, I have been ALMOST happy.  When I think about interacting with ANYONE in my family, I fear judgment.  I keep people away, because I do not really think my clean laundry, tucked away inside the laundry room is harming anyone.

I really get tired of the judgmental voices in my head that tell me I am not good enough, not pretty enough, not skinny enough, not a good enough housekeeper.  I hate that those voices get reinforced, it seems to me, by whispers of my past and the condemnations of the present.

I hate that I have “been there, done that” a kazillion times with bipolar episodes and recovery periods.  That I have a strong sense of déjà vu, right in the here-and-now.  That I am starting all effing over again.