do you believe you can walk on water?

Recovering from abuse is bad enough but recovering and healing from narcissistic abuse is an entirely different ballgame.

One might say it's a completely different type of sport. And I'm not entirely sure what kind of sport it even is, but I don't have any of the proper equipment or it's all cobbled together from cardboard and duct tape. I certainly have enough of the former to build a fort but I'm already inside of one that I made myself ages ago.

So what happened at the Wegmans last night?
I had a mini breakdown in Frozen right in front of the door to the tater tots and other prepared potato products (and things like onion rings). I did not choose to have this mini breakdown in the section I did, it just happened. Thing is I was already on edge before we even got to the Wegmans, to say nothing of how I was inside the store itself.

On the ride to the store I was convinced we were going to crash into something. Why? I don't know, I have no idea why. I know I've been kind of weird in cars ever since end of 2020 when Aleks crashed (and totalled) the Versa. The car making any sudden movements especially if they're kind of swervy? Immediate panic—I am going to die—we're all going to die—

My central nervous system is in complete shambles because, you know, things are calm. Things are okay. There's no yelling or screaming or having to be on edge that I am going to have to be of service to someone. Narcissistic abuse not only deregulates your CNS it completely decimates it. The result is CPTSD (complex post-traumatic stress disorder). The result of that: DID.

Aleks thinks I'm becoming agoraphobic but that isn't the case at all. The problem is emotionally everything is incredibly raw and I am like a crab without a shell okay? I am liable to be preyed upon and I've always kind of been like that to start. It's worse now. I am functional—but barely. And that's okay, because before all of this I wasn't even functional. So it's progress.

When we got into Wegs I was fine. Barely anybody there at 19:45. We looked at all sorts of produce. Bought a package of plum tomatoes because I'd talked about wanting tomatoes the next time I have grilled cheese... Saw bananas were 49 cents a pound and contemplated getting a small bunch of them because I haven't have bananas in forever... We laughed over a 5lbs bag of potatoes and ended up getting it so we could make our own mashed potates...and baked potates...and boiled YOU GET THE POINT.

We got bread. They were out of a lot of bread but they had rye which was good because rye bread is my fave type of yeasty goodness. The deli was closed (because of the time of night) so we shopped the pre-sliced. Picked up some lacey swiss cheese, some london broil roast beef, some chicken breast... I saw an endcap display of paper towels by pharmacy so I grabbed that because we needed paper towels... I got excited looking at the energy drinks because not only does Wegmans have all the brands I like (Monster, Alani, a couple of others I can't think of right now), I can get the Alani in a multipack and I can get a variety pack of the Monster...things I can't get at ShopRite (or at least not the one I worked at). Everything was fine!

Until it wasn't.

We ended up in paper goods where things like sandwich bags and the like are. We need more ziplock bags, we're running low (though I think I found the box of them I'd misplaced). Serena asked, "What size do you wanna get?"

Someone asked in r/raisedbynarcissists, "What perfectly normal things give you anxiety or make you uncomfortable because you were raised by narcissists?" and someone else answered:

Making decisions. I feel like no matter what I choose it will be the wrong thing.

This is exactly my problem.

What happened: sheer panic set in for this exact reason - I will undoubtedly pick the "wrong" answer and end up getting yelled at for it. If I picked the gallon: "oh why would you pick the biggest size? We don't need bags so big, you should pick the small!" and vice-versa. Because with narcs there is no such thing as winning against them.

Now Serena doesn't give a shit what size I picked. We could've picked a small and a large for all it mattered. But it was the fact that I was faced with this decision where my brain considered there being a "right" and a "wrong"...yeah. We ended up skipping the ziplock bags simply because Serena could tell it was stressing me out. Which is an absurd sounding thing to type, I know.

(To see my response to this person's comment, you can go right here.)

I skipped getting yoghurt for the same fucking reason. Serena encourages me to pick things out that I want because it's not like anything is going to break the bank—things are so much cheaper up this way. But still.

We ended up in Frozen, where I was looking at pizza and thinking of maybe buying more pierogies and more fried tempura pickles. Serena asked, "Do you want anything? You can just grab it if you want it."
My brain: Is this a trap? What's the catch behind this "free for all"? There's no way we can just grab the food we want, we have to consider the consensus of everyone else eating this food. Do they want these things?

I did not grab either of those things. I said, "Nah, I'm good, I don't want anything." More like I can't want anything. Aleks was losing his shit the whole time this was going on.
"What are you doing? Serena asked because she is genuinely asking for you to participate in grocery shopping!" He's upset; I'm even more upset—at myself, at the situation that I've been put in because of my incubator, how fucked up this all is and how it all sounds and certainly looks. Can I function out in public? Am I able to do so successfully?

Sometimes I honestly feel like a little kid except I've been left completely unattended and I have no idea where Mommy and Daddy are in the store and oh yeah no one is going to call a Code Adam overhead for someone in their 30s who shouldn't need to be led around the store like a scared and overwhelmed 5 year old.

That's arrested development for you.

We get to the tater tots. Serena happily points out the 5lb bag of tater tots and then the smaller bag on the shelf above it. I would've gotten the big bag because I love tater tots and could eat them all day every day. Potatoes is a safe/comfort food for me. Again, Brain says, "No, you can't have them. Who tf do you think you are??? And Ore-Ida no less?? The big bag is almost $6! Are you mad??? Trying to make us go broke??"

I am Struggling mentally between wanting the tater tots and just screaming "are you fucking nuts???" and not being sure if I'm yelling at myself or my wife or that voice inside my head unrelated to my alters telling me what I can and can't have or want.

I end up saying, "No I don't want them anymore." A placating answer. I was the one who really wanted the tater tots, which is why they were even on the list. I wanted to see how they would be in the air fryer. We could have them with chicken tendies (which we also got). It would be great! But no. Brain says I can't have them. So I can't.

Serena understandably questions this and I would have done the same if she'd done something like this to me. I am on the verge of sobbing in the frozen section of Wegmans because now I am stressing the fuck out and practically panicking over fucking POTATO NUGGETS. I walk away because that's what I do when something stresses me out, the fight-flight-freeze-fawn response kicks in and usually I pick flight because it's so much easier. I have the urge to run but I don't and I can't do that physically anyway because lol chronic fatigue!

Serena is typing on her phone and I am mentally screaming as Aleks tries to hold me together long enough for me to leave the front. Like arms wrapped around me. He has to pull me from the front and switching like that is disorienting to both of us but especially him. All Serena typed was basically "I can come back later or tomorrow to get the tater tots and the baking stuff if you don't want to buy them now." She thought I was freaking out about the cost because she left her wallet in the car and I offered to use my card instead. Had nothing to do with cost it's just the fact that the narcissist doesn't leave you just because you removed yourself from their life and refuse to partake in their bullshit anymore. I have been conditioned to obey the narcissist.

Breaking free of that conditioning will take a long time. It's certainly not going to happen in five seconds in the Wegmans frozen foods department.

Serena asks again when we've rejoined her if we want the tater tots and Aleks is the one who responds with, "No, I don't want them" with more force than he wanted and then immediately after thought, Why did I say that? Aleks wanted me to get them but instead of correcting himself he just left it as is because by this point I'm sobbing and he's trying to hold everything together and Serena is probably stressed out because her spouse is having a fucking meltdown in fucking Wegmans.

It doesn't help that as we traversed the different aisles the layout was reminding me of the old ShopRite in Montague and that made me think of my former coworkers and how I was basically forced to quit a job where I loved the people I worked with because I had to fucking escape my abusive egg donor and how unfair it was to me to have to do that.

I don't regret moving to Elmira or buying a house but I really wish I didn't have to do it under the circumstances I did. If I had a normal family I would've been allowed to move out without there being unnecessary drama and problems. Most parents want their kids to move out and live their own lives but my female parental unit is a narcissist so I was the "chosen one" to be the "retirement plan" for her. I was never supposed to have my own life to live or my own identity.

I've met a lot of people in the RBN and related subreddits and a decent amount of them have DID. Is it any wonder why this is seemingly so pervasive in people who were raised by narcissistic abusers???

We came to this realisation months ago that the entire reason we are this fucked up is because of how fucked up Egg is and how fucked up her treatment of us was/is.

The circumstances of our birth basically is the reason why I am where I am right now.

People ask how they can help me, if there is a way to "make me better" quicker. The answer is no. I need time. To adjust, to grieve, to just be.

Aleks said he thought I was becoming agoraphobic but like. If that were the case I wouldn't be able to leave the house at all without panicking and that's not the case. I don't mind going places. I don't mind going to Wegmans or Target or wherever the fuck else. Like. This is a lot for me right now, I have gone through a lot in a short amount of time. We closed on the house in October and then not even a month later Sadie went onto her next journey by crossing the Bridge and this is after uprooting my entire life again. Like.

I need time. Most of the time I'm okay but when I'm not it's hard.

~*~
A friend Serena's known forever messaged her on FB congratulating us on our house and getting out of the shit situation we found ourselves in... The real reason she messaged though was to ask a question:

We took in a beautiful kitty about 2 months ago. She was pregnant when we brought her in, and now we have 5 gorgeous kittens, but have only found homes for 3. By any chance would you guys be interested in a new baby? They'll be ready to go home with ppl next week after they get their first shots. We want the best homes for them.

The kittens are grey tabbies and voids.

Grey tabbies...like Sadie. They say that your next cat is sent from the last one. The cat Serena had before Sadie was a chonky orange boy named Elijah... We ended up with our chonky ginger girl Saru. Now we have the opportunity to have a new kitten (or two) not even a month after Sadie crossed over when we weren't even seriously looking because we wanted the Cat Distribution System and Sadie to send us our next cat.

No cat will ever replace Sadie and I know this. I'm not looking for another Sadie. There is only one Her Meowjesty, and that's our Grey Lady Sadie. But Saru needs a playmate and she's not really doing well as a solo purr. She stopped eating canned wet food after Sadie passed because Wet Food Time was a meal time where Sadie led the charge and stole all the leftovers.

We didn't get to experience Sadie's kittenhood. Watching Saru go from a ~7 month old kitten to a 3 year old cat has been so rewarding, watching her go from disproportionate and clumsy to proportionate and slightly less clumsy lol (she's Orange she will never be beauty and grace). Watching her go from not knowing how to jump onto things to being able to jump onto anything...

Serena and I decided to keep this all a secret from Aleks. We were all devastated by losing Sadie but he took it extra hard—Sadie was a Mama Girl sure but she loved her papa slightly more. He was completely bereft. Not only that but we're going to have him name the new kitten if we end up with a tabby.

~*~
So on Saturday (the 7th) I discovered I had a phone call from Bon Secours Medical Center that was missed due to the phone being on Do Not Disturb...at 04:15.

Why the hell was Bon trying to call me? I initially thought maybe it was my doctor's office until I saw the time (because it sometimes comes up that way). Gears shifted to Ah, it's probably a scammer spoofing an area number so they can tell me my car's extended warranty is expired. I mentioned it to my wife but thought nothing more about it. Later that day we went downstate to get more of our things and everything was fine.

Today Serena came in and said, "Remember that call you got from Westchester Medical?"
"Yeah...?" Vaguely.
"At 4 in the morning?"
"Oh, yeah, that."
"There was an incident."

Here I was thinking like, a cybersecurity breach of some kind which maybe would've explained the phone call? It could've been someone spoofing the number to try and collect personal information by having you answer questions or something.

She came into the bathroom (where I was), phone in hand.
"I just got a text from 'Independent Living' looking for Egg and asking her to call back this number or text. They have questions about 'the incident on 12/07'."
What incident? We'd literally gone down there that day and nothing seemed off. She asked if we got snow and how much, if we needed more rock salt, etc. (She's convinced we've moved up by Rochester and we've done nothing to correct her.)

Serena texted the number back with, "Hello, we don't live with [Egg] anymore and are no longer in contact. If you need to speak with her she can be reached at [phone number]. Thank you!" I have no idea if she heard anything further but like. What incident? Nothing was even mentioned to us when we were down there and this was hours later.

I figured I'd text the only person she's still in contact with. Rob had no idea what I was talking about because he'd not heard anything either, but suggested that she likely had a breakdown because of her TV or the cable not working "since she's completely obsessed with it." Apparently that's all she went on about during his time at her house right after we left. (I can only imagine how the rest of Wednesday, all of Thanksgiving, and part of Friday went lol.) When I mentioned something to Michael about it he offered, "She probably tried to off herself again" as a theory.

"Would they have let her leave if she tried to do something like that?"
I mean, the last time she pulled that, she was out the next day; the last time she "had a breakdown" she was out a few hours later with a referral to the lone mental health clinic in Port...that they dropped her off at...only for her to discover it was closed for the day... So...

It is what it is, it's none of my business so. Egg isn't going to accept help from social workers who would more than likely push for some sort of assisted living place or one of those senior communities where you can live independently and everything is more or less on-site with shuttle buses to take you to places that aren't on the grounds (like food shopping). But all she sees are price tags. She should've been planning for this since she retired, but instead she was banking on me being her income, her caregiver, her shuttle car, Door Dash, etc. not factoring in things like "what if Karu moves out and away?" or "what if Karu meets an untimely demise?"

So she's stuck in that house. In Port Jervis. Where in the not-so-distant future most doctors will have moved out of or retired from Westchester Medical, especially specialists. This would create a "medical desert" with the nearest specialists being in Suffern, NY or else somewhere in the Five Boroughs...almost 100 miles away. And if you don't have access to a car and can't take the train...you're stuck. Because the ones in PA aren't all in Milford, either. I wouldn't be surprised if in 5 years Bon Secours is closed and there are no doctors in the area outside of ones that travel around to the disadvantaged areas...

That house is too big for her but I doubt she'll sell it. She will hold onto it until the state takes it from her to pay for her long term care facility. She could've avoided a lot of this by planning better. You don't bank on your kids taking care of you when you're older and this is the reason why. Even the ones who do have a good relationship with you will still put you in some sort of facility, it'll just be nicer than Shady Pines.

She's probably hoping she can move in with Rob, Jenny, and the kid; hoping beyond all hopes that she can manipulate who she needs to into letting her take up residence in their house. But even Rob is tired of her bullshit. Her obsession with the most trivial things; her obsession with the TV and cable... So he gets it.

In the end Egg drove everyone away. She is reaping what she's sown.