Trapped

You wake up with a start, it has been another night filled with strange dreams. You look at the man who sleeps with you. The man who calls you different names… names that are not yours. Names perhaps from the past.

You examine him closely. His body is still warm. Still reminiscent of last night’s struggle. You move to the other room, carefully, trying not to wake him. You stand in front of the mirror. Naked. To take a close look at yourself. You look nothing like you did before. This body is not yours. It is someone else. This person who stares back at you is a stranger.

It is cold. You soft step back to the bedroom and grope in the dark to find some clothes. Once you slip something on, you quietly sneak back into the still warm quilt.

You feel a sudden sadness. The sadness that only one who is trapped inside someone else’s body could feel…

Welcome to the Mess aka my life

So life’s been in kind of a limbo… add to that a MAJOR pregnancy scare, and a job change and presto! You have me, smugly experiencing the most major acidity bout EVER.

Don’t you just envy me… the way I effortlessly glide from sickness to sickness…? Of course you do.

This sickness stuff is even more fun when you are changing jobs. What better way to leave an impression on the new company than to take a week off as soon as you join. Nothing can beat that. Really. Nothing. Also, almost like the icing of the cake, you are on probation in your new job, so you haven’t really accrued any leaves and therefore, your leave is a leave without pay. So basically, you are sick and poor. Way to go!

On a lighter note (yeah, sure!) my plans for vacations have been completely ruined by Robin Hood and his bunch of merry men (aka my husband’s family) who have decided to send some one to pick up some stuff from my place right in the middle of the week when we were not supposed to be in town. Of course, it would be insensitive of us to not anticipate them wanting certain things… right in the middle of our holidays that we get only once a year. Sacrificing our personal happiness is the least we can do for them to repay the great insults that they keep hurling at us at every opportunity.

Ok God, this would be the time you gave me a break.

It turns out… I am an Ingrid!

You Are an Ingrid!

You are an Ingrid — “I am unique”

Ingrids have sensitive feelings and are warm and perceptive.

How to Get Along with Me

* * Give me plenty of compliments. They mean a lot to me.
* * Be a supportive friend or partner. Help me to learn to love and value myself.
* * Respect me for my special gifts of intuition and vision.
* * Though I don’t always want to be cheered up when I’m feeling melancholy, I sometimes like to have someone lighten me up a little.
* * Don’t tell me I’m too sensitive or that I’m overreacting!

What I Like About Being an Ingrid

* * my ability to find meaning in life and to experience feeling at a deep level
* * my ability to establish warm connections with people
* * admiring what is noble, truthful, and beautiful in life
* * my creativity, intuition, and sense of humor
* * being unique and being seen as unique by others
* * having aesthetic sensibilities
* * being able to easily pick up the feelings of people around me

What’s Hard About Being an Ingrid

* * experiencing dark moods of emptiness and despair
* * feelings of self-hatred and shame; believing I don’t deserve to be loved
* * feeling guilty when I disappoint people
* * feeling hurt or attacked when someone misundertands me
* * expecting too much from myself and life
* * fearing being abandoned
* * obsessing over resentments
* * longing for what I don’t have

Ingrids as Children Often

* * have active imaginations: play creatively alone or organize playmates in original games
* * are very sensitive
* * feel that they don’t fit in
* * believe they are missing something that other people have
* * attach themselves to idealized teachers, heroes, artists, etc.
* * become antiauthoritarian or rebellious when criticized or not understood
* * feel lonely or abandoned (perhaps as a result of a death or their parents’ divorce)

Ingrids as Parents

* * help their children become who they really are
* * support their children’s creativity and originality
* * are good at helping their children get in touch with their feelings
* * are sometimes overly critical or overly protective
* * are usually very good with children if not too self-absorbed