The Complaint Department
My girlfriends have a secret fb group called “The Complaint Department." I’m not really the type of girl who belongs in this particular group; I’m just there because I’m one of the girls. We range from 30-55 in age. I am probably the only person who’s never been married, and only three out of the ten+ have never been divorced, myself included.
The nature of this group is venting. It’s one of the nice things about having gal pals. When your day sucks, when your man ignores you, when your job has put you at wit’s end- you go to complain. And the ladies will comfort you or offer understanding or bitch right along.
I have bad days. I have a LOT of bad days. I suffer from bipolar depression. No. I don’t suffer from- I live with. A couple of the other ladies have emotion/mental health issues, also. The thing is- most of them are some level of "normal.” They have normal marriages. Most have normal, healthy children with normal growing-up issues. Some are housewives. Some are in school. Some work full-time like I do. So, most of these gals are pretty normal, while I have a brain disorder that makes me have super negative feels pretty often. I have to stay medicated to function properly.
My mental illness isn’t what separates me from these other ladies, though. What separates me is this- I understand that shit sucks. Guys can be pretty awful at times, kids can be aggravating, jobs don’t offer raises often enough, etc., etc., etc.. But I don’t need a therapist to tell me that a positive state of mind makes a difference in life. It’s something I have to battle with daily. I have to fight the part of my brain that’s constantly saying, “Everything sucks; let’s get the fuck outta here.” I HAVE to think about how “it could always be worse, but it’s not.”
It HAS been worse. Maybe that’s why it’s easier for me to just deal with some of the every day things that irritate the others.
They hate their relationships. Their men don’t do this and that, don’t appreciate them, don’t want to have sex, don’t help with the kids, and on and on and on. I LOVE my relationship. Do I love every little thing that goes with it? Hell no. But is it better than most of the other relationships I’ve experience? Hell yes. Is there something about my guy that’s different than theirs? I dunno. Maybe it’s because he washes the dishes.I’m not married, and a lot of days I feel like I’ve got more invested in my relationship that some of these folks who’ve put in vows. My spouse is my best friend. We’ve been through some crazy things. We’ve been through a lot of really difficult things- he helps me raise a special needs child that he didn’t take part in creating, for instance. Well, that alone is enough to make a huge difference, I suppose.
I need him. He needs me. We split the bills. We split responsibilities. We love each other. Bitching about every little thing that goes wrong will not fix those things. I figured I’d say it here because I already feel like I rub it in my gal pals’ faces that I have a rockin’ guy. Some of them do, A lot of them need to move on. It’s hard to do. It’s something I cannot help them with. I just think that we all take too many things for granted. It’s something I’ve been working diligently at ending. You take things for granted… and suddenly they’re gone.