A Line

Just had a dream about getting a beauty tip from someone to use chapstick between my eyebrows to fill in the worry line.

That was weird, and I'm too generally fried to bother with meaning.

Lexie and Kyd got into a spat two nights ago. Kyd was acting childish over not having done a chore he's been asked to do while staying here and in his irritation started verbally attacking me and Lexie by saying we were both lazy. Lexie is anything but lazy, and she's been walking away from his comments for weeks and she snapped. 

When these two start going at it, there's no telling them to "cool it" and walk away. One or the other always has to say one more thing, which leads to them coming right back. 

I've been dealing, or trying to deal, with the fall-out since. I've decided to take a harder line than usual and I have no idea if it's working but they're both mad as hell at me. Both of them are right about some things, and both are wrong about some things. Lexie is blaming Kyd for her life going "back to the way it was" but this isn't really true. She's reacting with old patterns, but Kyd is significantly different. He still throws little tantrums over small things, but he reigns himself in now when he's told to. It may take a few times telling him, but he does. And as far as I can tell, he's sober. 

Sober doesn't mean he's stopped black and white thinking processes, but I've realized how much Lexie is stuck in that too when she's angry. So the hard line I've set is that everyone (including me) has to show a change in our thinking, a shift from blame to solution-focused. Until such time that everyone is willing to  make the shift long enough for us to sit down together and come up with some solutions that work for everyone, they are not allowed to have guests and I will not give rides or gas money for pleasure. 

They've each come at me separately to kvetch and moan about how unfair I'm being, that if SHE or HE would just stop XYZ, everything in their life would be dandy. 

Sounds like me. 

Holding this line is excruciatingly difficult. No matter how many times I say I'm doing this for the benefit of everyone, they each feel like I'm not listening and not caring. Lexie especially is being terrifically dramatic. She cries, and then she attacks viciously. I ask her what she needs and she tells me and I let her know I'm willing to give her that, but it doesn't make her happy. Her face tightens up and she shoots another cruel barb in my direction. 

I've prayed for the answer and hear nothing. I have no idea if I'm doing the right thing. Knowing my own thinking is faulty and has probably led to this dynamic, I'm clinging to this line desperately hoping I'm at least on the right track. All the while, yes, still depressed and feeling weak and how can I keep standing strong in the face of repeated attack. I feel so unwell, but life isn't stopping, and it's not getting easier.

Fantasies of driving myself to the ER and checking myself in, handing it all over to someone else -- it's strong.