1056PM. Christmas night.

When I write my journal entries down on paper, though I'm not supposed to be writing due to the injury, I always timestamp them.

It lends an odd sort of reality to things.

We're home again tonight.

I did not expect to be here. I expected my father was going to lose it again and I would be spending this evening in the lobby of a mental institution, or exercising as much control as I could muster and not crying my eyes out while a police car drove him away, holding my mother, telling her not to look, that she did not need that image seared into her brain.

But... it was okay.

It was not great. Things are barely stabilized. He wavers back and forth between the man he was weeks ago and the man he became. Walking around on eggshells, doing odd requests, listening to his rants and responding in a supportive manner.

I can't get my hopes up. I can't.

Things will not go back to normal.

I can't imagine this settling so I can go back to school this coming semester. I can't see it. Out of the four of us, my income is second highest. And the disparity between my paycheck and my father's paycheck is high. Planning finances, knowing that I would have to, at least temporarily, support my mother. Find her an apartment. Pay the bills. Continue couchsurfing and find a way to make it work.

And that still might happen.

She snapped at me today.

I went up for a nap, exhausted. Exhausted like I am now. My father was flipping a bit, looking for an item I borrowed for C. I hadn't brought it back yet. She woke me and asked for it, when I told her I left it at C's, she snapped at me.

I lost it.

One of the major ways I've been keeping sane is by burying myself into my mother. By ceasing my identity as much as I can, by ignoring my needs, my wants, my fears, and being everything for her, much like I do when I enter sub-state. Her happiness, her lack of stress, her lack of pain, is mine.

When she became angry at me, my mind cracked a little.

It reminded me of a time, years ago, when I was watching a BDSM performance at a favorite club of mine. The dom, someone I've had a crush on for years, was deep in session with one of his many subs. She was far gone off into sub-state. For some reason, a security guard came by and started yelling in her face... I don't know what for.

She broke. She bolted off the stage, ran outside, and hid in a corner, shivering, until her dom was able to calm her down. You don't do that to someone when they're that vunerable.

I couldn't keep it together after that. The stress of the last few days caught up to me and, this time, my mother held me while I cried. I felt awful because she immediately regretted snapping at me. I had been taking care of her, doing everything for her, and she lost her temper for a moment and I cracked and she felt so bad.

I'm supposed to be the strong one. I'm always the strong one. She relies on me not to be weak, relies on me to be her emotional rock. When I lose it, she knows that it is bad, and that makes her lose it more.

Of course, then I called GV8.

And, yeah, he was mad.

Great.

Because, last night, when I called him and asked him to come down, and he told me no, that he was too tired, I suddenly told him I had to go and hung up on him. Because my mother and sister had rounded the corner with the information on the decision they had to make: to declare my father 5150 and have him restrained and moved to a psych ward or not.

He felt I had been short with him.

And then, to top that all off, I did not call or text him after we decided what was going to happen. So he was worrying.

Yes, I did not text him. Purposefully. Because I was hurt and exhausted. Because I felt let down and rejected. Trust betrayed. If he wasn't going to be there for me when I asked, then he could call me if he wanted to know what was going on. I wasn't going to make him do something he did not want to do.

So he was mad about that.

And then, when I told him how hurt I was about him not coming down, about how that damaged my trust in him and I wanted to talk about it so I could get over that emotional hump, he got upset because he felt I was being irrational in expecting him to do the impossible. His schedule was not permitting him to drive across town to hold me while I cried if my father did end up in the mental hospital. He got upset because he feels that I should trust him absolutely. Hadn't he shown he was worthy of it by now?

I tried to explain how I felt. How difficult it is for me to trust someone. How hard it is for me to ask for help when it inconveniences another person. How he constantly pulls all-nighters working, or only gets 20 minutes of sleep and brags about his productivity, and he couldn't do that for me. How he's so good at doing the impossible.

The conversation ended up with me apologizing a lot and crying a lot.

Then realizing that I was simply terrified that I would piss him off with what I was saying and he'd disappear, which was why I was apologizing so much. Me, being the open communicator that I am, told him this.

Which simply served, of course, to piss him off more.

He said he'd call me.

He didn't.

I texted him a couple hours later, wishing him a Merry Christmas, that I was thankful for all of his patiences and support. He sent me back a one word response.

I called him several hours later, because I said I would call him if I did not hear from him.

He didn't pick up his phone.


Typical. He hasn't been this pissed at me since I asked for contracts if I was going to be working for him, so many months ago. And he still brings that up whenever he's going after me.

I don't know why I bother with this. Trying so hard to trust, to have faith. Trying to believe in people when they say they'll be there. They'll only be there to a point. A level of inconvenience reached, they step away.

GV8 can't stand that I don't fully trust him. It angers him. It shoves him away from me.

And that behavior is supposed to make me want to trust him more??

We're not even sleeping together, much less in a relationship. How much trust can he expect me to have and maintain?

He says he's disappointed in me. I hate that. I'm pissed at how he's acting. I hate how, assuming we remain friends, whenever he gets pissed at me he's going to bring this up, just like he brings the work contracts up, even though he says he has forgiven me for that, that he understands, he still brings it up.

He was supposed to be my rock. He said to call him anytime, that he would be there for me.

So here I am. Sitting in bed. A phone full of Christmas messages sent en masse. GV8 has yet to wish me a happy holidays, a merry Christmas, whatever.

Who am I supposed to turn to when I want to feel someone's arms around me, when I want to feel safe, protected, for just a little bit so I can gather myself and dive back into this shitstorm that my life has become?

He's fucking AWOL. Pissed that I don't trust him to be there. Pissed that I think he'll disappear if I annoy him too much. Disappointed in my behavior for not texting him before I passed out at 330AM this morning.

How the hell am I ever supposed to trust? What man is ever going to step into my life and want to do battle with my epic trust issues and win me over? It's a hell of a lot of work, and as the years go by, it just gets harder.

I suppose I should get used to it. Suppose I should just get myself together so I can do for myself, so I don't have to worry about trusting my partner. Strong, capable, needing no one. Pulling hard.

Hurt. Annoyed. Sad. Disappointed. Expecting it.

Self-fulfilling prophecy?

Probably.