-6
I'm exhausted. Near meltdown mode.
Woke up to find one of my cats very sick. Had to drive my mom to work early this morning--at 6 AM. Then go grocery shopping before the big crowds, which meant shopping around a bunch of dazed, barely awake people who just couldn't stay out of my way. One grocery store didn't have the right cheese I wanted, so I when another grocery store. Then I needed something from the customer service booth too and this b!tch that I've had problem with in a past was working the booth, so I had to go elsewhere for that. Then I had to go to a third store for a couple specialty items. The rushed home to rush my cat to vet before they closed early. He has another UTI. So now I have to care for two sick cats--my elderly cat is chronically ill, and despite having a lot a spunk in her still, she need daily meds and a special diet.
After the vet I had to take a short nap, so I had no time to do the other stuff I wanted to do--wrap presents, send Xmas emails to out-of-town friends, do some reading/drawing/writing--before going to get my mother. My brother came along too, because my mom wanted to go out to eat for Xmas Eve. And then for some damn reason my narcissist/borderline personality brother--who's already been getting on my nerves with his Peter Pan sense of humor and desperate need to be the center to attention (he's over 40, but emotionally he's never aged a day past the 9th grade)--has one of his psycho moodswings over something my mom said. And it was a last bleeping thing I needed. During dinner, my mom--who works in a psych hospital--had to talk about her work, which always is negative stuff about very sick people and it's just distressing and unpleasant and usually makes me anxious and agitated, which it did tonight. Then my brother and mom talked about football, with was making my brain dissolve into ooze. You see, I cannot talk about things that interest me at dinner because my brother turns into a condescending jerk , or gets angry because it's not something he wants to discuss, and and my mom just lets him behave like a brat like that. So I sit there, withdrawn into my head, staring out the restaurant window and eating my food.
Managed to get through dinner and the drive home without having a meltdown, but it wasn't easy. Now I'm sitting in my room with earplugs and the door closed trying to decompress.
I feel a little better now that I've typed this. So I'll upgrade my mood to a -3. I'm going to go stare at the wall for a little while now.