Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Brain thaw

Yesterday's emotional fluctuations were quite severe and I can mainly put it down to being overtired. At one point I was sat here in the office typing away at yesterday's post with tears in my eyes feeling really sorry for myself and letting my mind race off in search of negativity and failure, something I haven't done for a long time. It just reinforces the importance of good sleep routine and I've spent two of the past three nights in bed at eight and asleep by nine.

When I'm less tired, I'm much more capable of balancing my logical, pragmatic side with my crazy, depressive side. When I'm too tired, I'm prone to making bad judgements and being so unable to process rational thoughts I managed to tell my daughter to 'shut up' the other day, even though she was trying to be nice. Bad daddy! Of course, I apologised as I always will if I think I've done something wrong, but that's an extreme example of how lack of sleep can effect me.

Many of yesterday's fears were allayed when daughter came back from her meeting with her mum. As I said, it'd been adjusted from an afternoon Christmas shopping in the city to less than an hour wandering around our town before her mum found something more important to do. Daughter was quite disappointed that plans were changed but not surprised, because these plans always, always get changed. They're supposed to be meeting for nine hours on Boxing Day - I can guarantee that'll change in one way or another. It'll most likely be two hours, or it'll have to start later, or something... something will have to change. I often think she gets a kick out of changing plans at the last minute because it puts her in complete control of people's destinies. We'll see, anyway.

Daughter wasn't particularly complimentary after their meeting. I'm not blind to the fact that daughter occasionally tells me things she thinks will please me or shift my view somewhat, and I think yesterday was no exception. She said her mum kept referring to her 'new flat' as 'our flat' and 'perfect for us' and said that disturbed her a bit. She said she didn't want to upset her mum by telling her she's not coming back - the words she used were 'It's all going to go wrong again'. She was unsure whether she'd consider going back even if I'd let her, and didn't want to upset me by moving out. This might all be fantasy anyway, if I can muster the balls to follow through with my intention of obtaining full custody. She also said her mum kept telling her what she'd bought her for Christmas, which was seen as an attempt to score Brownie points. All in all, while daughter seemed to enjoy this brief meeting with her mum, it showed me that daughter sees things more clearly than I give her credit for and hopefully knows that I'm trying to do what's best for her.

I also learned that in times of severe overtiredness, I should avoid emotional issues and try to keep a rein on negative trains of thought, lest the trains leave their tracks.

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