SUCK IT UP, BUTTERCUP!

‘If you’re sick, why are you walking?’

‘Because I’ve been sitting all day and need to move my body’, I replied as we were leaving for a short evening walk before the sun had a chance to dip below the horizon. I was tired and felt very cold. My polar suit having accompanied me to work today. I was utterly drained.

My son was tired as well. Both of us would have preferred to stayed at home, but I knew we needed to get outside to clear our minds. To detox from the emotional venom injections of yesterday.

It seemed that all of a sudden, my body let me know that enough is enough. Yesterday’s drama took a toll on both my body and mind. It drained me as it hadn’t since the last encounter with the stepmother. As it always does. That is how emotional vampires work. They feed off you, deplete all of your energies, and leave you a former shell of yourself. Unable to function as their toxicity engulfs your entire being.

The importance of staying away from such a person cannot be emphasized enough. The energy drain starts slowly. That seemingly innocent email, begging for sympathy for the great deal of responsibility she can no longer handle. As if her problems are suddenly your problems.

Somehow you have become her therapist as you listen to her going on and on about how her life is hard. How she has nobody to help her. How you should be the one to help her because you have been neglecting your responsibility to take care of your children. The ones she took away from you.

The emotional vampire goes on to complain she is tired, she works a lot. ‘I want a break’, she exclaims, as she has had to drive two of her husband’s children to their various activities, getting up early in the morning to do so. Well, suck it up, buttercup!

But here’s a novel idea… get him to do it. Make him get up and take more responsibility of his children. Stop abusing my girls with your outbursts of rage. They don’t deserve that and should really be here with me and their brother.

Most importantly…leave me out of your drama. I need to focus on myself so I can be there for my son and my daughters when they finally leave your den of toxicity.