Expectations.

Expectations are a funny thing. For me, they serve as a way to challenge myself. I have a lot of anxiety when it comes to meeting expectations. I have to be on time, I can't bail on people, I have to meet expectations! Failing makes me feel horrible so I tend to be everything to everybody. Taken to the logical conclusions, this is not a healthy way of living. I can not meet everyone's expectations. I don't WANT to meet everyone's expectations. I want to come to a place where I am okay with me being me. I want to be able to say no to family if that is the best choice for my personal well being. I want to be able to not feel sick if I am 5 minutes late because the baby had a dirty diaper on the way out the door. I want to be able to experience not being perfect without attaching the word "failure" to myself.

FAILURE: one of my worst fears in life. Not good enough. Useless. Worthless. Irresponsible. Bad. Things I have been taught. Things I sometimes feel in my core even though I know that logically they are not true. But I FEEL them. They are adjectives that I wallowed in for most of my life. Abandoned, Ugly, Abused, Distant, Hated, Angry... all lead me to feel like a failure. Right, I know all about self-defeating thoughts. I know I have a great husband, beautiful kids, a nice, warm home.... I know there are people who love me. How do you get from head knowledge to heart knowledge though. How do *I* get to the logical conclusions about myself becoming what I feel about myself? I am a good person. I try to treat people well and love my family the best way I know how. But I still always feel like I don't measure up. And I get stuck in the wheel of trying to be "perfect". Trying to constantly prove myself to others. Expectations are heavy for me. They bear a lot of weight and a lot of control on how I feel about myself.

And that is the messy way I deal with other people's expectations.

Expectations of others... this is one of the biggest struggles in my life right now. My husband and I have a conversation about every 3rd night or so on how I need to lower my expectations of people. Apparently trying to be perfect puts me in the mindset that other people should be willing to meet my high expectations too. But this is complicated. My expectations are not high. But they are for the people in my life? Confused yet?

My family is a big ole bag of mess. I love them. I care about them. I want relationships with them. But I can not maintain "normal" expectations of them. I can't expect my family to behave how a "normal" family behaves. We are not typical. But I desperately want a family that feels normal and safe. And I have expectations that reflect what I want out of an extended family (extended because they are not MY created nuclear family, I guess). The problem I am having is learning how to place boundaries in these relationships to help us all form something that is... functional. I have started implementing a few things my counselor has suggested. Limiting visits home, for now, seems to be something I have to do. It sucks. I miss my nephew and niece like crazy. But I have to figure some things out before I put myself in some of the more vulnerable situations that can arise with my family. I need to be surer in myself.

But back to expectations. How do I create expectations that seem functional when I really just want a different family? Well not different people. Just a different dynamic and different types of relationships. The problem is that time can never be turned back and things can not be undone so we have to try and figure it out where we are at. But I WANT a more invested family. I want a mom who calls me to see how I am doing and brothers who are honest and real with me. I want my family to get real with themselves as much as I want my own recovery and progress to happen. I want family not affected by abuse and war (literal war, Iraq style) and anger. I don't want to be an adult who is dealing with childhood abuse and I don't want my family to be the family who is dealing with me changing in ways they don't expect. I want to be perfect for them and I want them to meet my expectations. But that is fairy tale thinking.

So I have to re-evaluate my expectations. And yes, even lower them to realistic. Because, lets face it, I will never have the family I have day dreamed about. Coming to terms with that sucks but it is necessary. Allowing myself to create boundaries and stop trying to be everything to everybody is healthy. Lowering expectations so I can't be so easily hurt is OKAY. Now, to get that to sink in to more than head knowledge. Digestion is slow I guess....