Forever Tainted

The month-long headache I’ve endured is a migraine. There’s no increased pressure in my eyes, nothing else to explain it. It’s most-likely stress induced and appears to be the cause of my spontaneous blurred vision. Since birth control is known to increase migraine symptoms, I’ve been taken off the pill. My sleeping pill prescription has been renewed and I’ve been warned to take it for up to 5 or 6 nights in a row to get into a good sleeping pattern and then to leave it be as it’s a highly addictive drug.

The doctor offered me a stress leave note and I told him it wasn’t necessary. I won’t be that person and we’ve kind of moved beyond that now anyway. It sure wasn’t hard to have him offer though – he couldn’t do much to diagnose stress so I was pretty much offered a free ticket to E.I. based on my word. I can’t help but wonder if it being so easy is a huge part of the reason so many people in this society are given free tickets. It’s a little food for thought, that is…

Anyway, instead of a free ticket to vacation supported by Unemployment Insurance he offered me a counselor’s name and suggested if I could afford it I went ahead and made an appointment or two. He also asked me to read two books, Full Catastrophe Living, and Feeling Good. Full Catastrophe Living is meant to guide you through how to deal with and manage stress better and Feeling Good is meant to enhance your cognitive abilities to deal with negative emotions. I’ve bought Full Catastrophe Living for my iPad, and intend to start reading it tonight. It cannot hurt at this point. Once done, I’ll find the other and read it too. Can’t help but like a doctor who prescribes reading!

Instead of spending a few hundred dollars a visit to a counselor, I think I’ll spend a hundred or so dollars a month on Yoga. I’ll stop eating all the crap I’ve been eating of late and I’ll start spending time in my gym again. And I’ll start treating myself better in general, too! (Even if that means I have to say no to others every now and then). All of these things can only help me feel better. And just knowing I’ve made these choices, is already a great start.

My head still hurts… but at least I know I’ll sleep tonight.

It’s that feeling you get when your brain takes over and says you need to let go of something you love. I felt it when I left the UAE; left my son, 4 years ago. I feel it now, as I explained (as best I could without turning into a blubbering idiot) to my boss that I was resigning.

The night before last I lay in bed tossing and turning so thoroughly upset over the day’s professional events, I realized I couldn’t spend another night without sleep because of this stress. I got up and sent off a thoughtless email asking for a demotion. ‘I don’t want to be responsible for other people,’ was the gist of it, though I admittedly rambled on about other responsibilities that aren’t near the stressors that this one has been lately.

“I want to serve drinks,” I stated today. I know it’s not really true and said so soon after. I could never be happy with such a job. I need to think, and face mental challenges. If only my emotions could grow with the same gust.

I realized while exhausted yesterday and as I woke this morning, a demotion just isn’t feasible – for the company or for me. So instead, I quit. And my heart is sincerely broken and I so wish there was another way. I’ve tried over the last few months to find a way to better manage, better deal with the stress I am faced with. I have thought about yoga and excessive exercise, and I’ve considered counseling. None of them have stuck, and the stress is now adversely affecting my health and life in general. There’s a problem when you can’t enjoy fucking the one you love, let alone fall asleep because frustrated thoughts of work are getting in the way.

I feel like crap. I feel like I’m taking the pansy’s way out. Once again I’m not strong enough to face life, so instead I’m running away. And this time, I’m letting people down. Just like leaving let my son down. I know they don’t want me to go. I know it is a disadvantage for them for the moment, even if they will be fine without me. I love them. I love my job. And I love my company. I certainly don’t want to bring any negativity or bad their way.

My heart hurts. But I need a nights' rest. I intend to start the New Year on a positive note and I have a few days to get into that frame of mind!

People like you are able to tell me things about me that I don’t know, thanks to this crappy memory of mine. In fact, most of my childhood friends are. The ones who I still communicate with casually on facebook or elsewhere all seem to remember things we did together that I don’t recall in the faintest. I wish so many of us didn’t live so far apart these days… I’d love to catch up, be reminded of the things we got into. Perhaps it’d help explain why few of people I view as friends from way back then, seem so contently distant today? Or… maybe that’s just what grown ups do; get busy with life.

At 7:27am my son gave me a missed call this morning. I called him back right away and he answered. He sounded miserable. The most I got out of him was a ‘fine’. When I asked him why he seemed so down, he said he was tired and when he told me he loved me, he mumbled so that his words were almost inaudible. It would have been 7:27pm his time, so I suppose him being tired makes sense.

Trish explained that she’s seen the same thing with her young daughter as she talks to her dad on the phone. She’ll sound like dooms approaching, then hangs up and skips away merrily. I’m glad she shared this, as it makes me feel a little more like everything is as it should be and everything will turn out just how it’s meant to be – and I know in the end that will bring my baby boy to me. He wasn’t miserable to talk to me, just doing what a kid does on the phone. I just need to be patient is all.

As Lars mentioned earlier, it was lovely to hear his voice anyway. His dad has promised to send me photos by email soon too. I can’t wait.

My father left this morning for Ontario again. He’s gone for 7 – 10 days (with luck). On the 17th, Lars and I have the ‘Something like Christmas Dinner’ with Lars family in Langley and from there, I’m off to Squamish for a week of work – coming home just in time for Christmas. Lars will be coming with me to Squamish, if my dad’s back by then.

We’ve been having lots of fun getting ready for Christmas around here. The tree is up (and lopsided the way I like it), and there are gifts under it, in the closet and then others hiding from each of us in places unknown. Though with Lars giving me diamonds last week, I can’t imagine what in the world there still is hiding…

It’ll be a busy little while around here. In the meantime, I really need all of you who reached out to me after that last entry to know that I appreciate you. Thank you. Your kind words really did do me some good – they did matter. <3

I find myself browsing the UAE classifieds looking for potential positions and feel my eyes swell up with tears, my throat tighten and my stomach turn itself inside out until there’s a hollow tugging pull in all directions. I am terrified of that place. I’m terrified of what it once made me and has the potential to make me again. I’m terrified of how dangerous it really is, with its ass backwards laws and consequences and unexplained actions. I half fear that customs will grab me at the airport as I enter for some unknown, unseen crime I’ve committed (or even just been accused of committing) and been charged with in absence, without ever being made aware of it.

I’m stuck between a rock and a real hard place right now.

It’s literally been months since I’ve spoken to my son. No one ever answers any of the telephone numbers I have for him and his father is useless at encouraging him to call me. After a night of dreaming about my baby boy being in my arms again, I woke this morning knowing I’ve about had enough of this.

Sometimes I curse my own morals and the fact that I couldn’t, wouldn’t and didn’t kidnap him and somehow bring him home with me.

I called Dubai Police. It took four or five different telephone numbers I’d found online before I finally found one that didn’t just ring and ring. The man who answered was kind and gentle, but about as useless as I recall the majority of the UAE population to be. He told me to contact the UAE Embassy in Ottawa as they should help me. I explained I have tried to contact the UAE Embassy in Canada multiple times in the past for various reasons and I am never able to get through (as like most government offices in UAE, no one answers their Embassy phone here, either). He asked me to hold then came back with a local Dubai telephone number for me. After making me take it down, he explained it was the Canadian Consulate’s number in Dubai. They should help me. Of course, I’d have to wait until their tomorrow morning, or our current evening, to get an answer.

So I called the Canadian Consulate this evening. The man who answered the phone spoke with a thick Arabic accent and was so rude I called him out on it. He transferred me to a kind lady, who again couldn’t help me at all. Apparently, the only way I can get the UAE authorities to look into this, is to go back to the UAE myself and file a complaint with Dubai Courts. The only other possible option I have is to somehow give someone who is there, who is willing and able to help me fight for this, power or attorney. Of course, to give power or attorney to someone there, I have to do it in the UAE Embassy in Ottawa – or go to the UAE again.

Dealing with this country is spinning round and round, as fast as you can, in place. You don’t get anywhere and every now and then you find yourself so fucking dizzy you are left with a combination of severe pain and nausea.

So for now, I think I’m going to tuck myself into bed where I’ll cry myself to sleep. I’ll wake up tomorrow and hope being this far from my baby is less hard on me, than it is every other day. And I know it won’t be. So I’ll hope that the days will pass quickly and soon he’ll be old enough to come to me on his own, that he chooses to, and that when he does, he forgives me the choices I’d had to make that have kept us apart for so long.