Thanks everyone for the input!
Hope you don't mind a bit of a vent to get this off my chest because some of these things I don't want to recirculate. And I don't want to bottle it up and spew it all at DH one night when I'm stressed and cranky.
Meccacos, you understand then what migraines are like and how they impact livelihood. The best treatment for them is prevention, as I'm sure you agree. A cluster headache is like a full migraine, if it could be condensed down to 1 hour and concentrated behind one eye ball. It's also called Suicide Headache, and there were times when I was tempted, and many more times I had to talk myself out of popping out my eyeball because when there's that much pain, you start having some pretty crazy thoughts. And hitting your own head, rocking and swaying are clinical symptoms which I definitely exhibited before I met my neurologist.
So I am anxious about not wanting any of those things to be triggered off with stress.
And Scorpvenus1, I'm an INFj, too! And I feel the same way about social interaction. It just sucks the life out of me and always has. There's only a few people who I don't feel that way with.
MIL knows so much about my health! And she has opposite ideas on how to deal with it--I'm at the acceptance, "let's make life work anyway
" phase and she's constantly like " you have to fight this! Look Facebook says colloidal silver is a magic cure all that the evil doctors have suppressed since Victorian times to make money on pharma" and I've given up saying things like, "actually that's poisonous." I just decided I had enough to trying to be nice and explain things to her, and I just want her out of my vagina. Because she's tried hard to go there too. Not physically, but I'm just saying I've had many less invasive pelvic exams.
Not kidding you, she knows a lot. I've scolded my husband for going into details about blood test results and what they mean and who we're seeing next. I finally told him that if he keeps passing along every detail, I'm going to stop telling him and letting him come along to doctor visits. I've told him it's ok to tell her how he's impacted, how he's feeling about things, and about the things that are obvious enough for neighbours and friends to notice, but not to relate things that can only be found in my medical record.
But MIL still asks anyway, even after I corrected DH while he was telling her my recent test results over the phone, so she knows I have boundaries and she wants there to be none at all.
Due to my parents living very rural and his parents living extremely rural, it's not like our parents can pop by for short periods. A week's visit makes the most sense. We can't live near either set of family because the jobs there don't pay enough to cover living expenses plus my medical needs and we'd have to travel a long way to reach medical attention anyway--and that is assuming that I'd be working full-time as well, which isn't a possibility at the moment. I'm a part time student and that's all I can handle for now, as far as leaving the house goes. I'm pretty proud of myself for managing to put my life back together as much as I have.
I've already had a conversation with her about why I don't want houseguests, citing health concerns. It resulted in a huge blow-up that lasted 3 days, and included somehow her getting very upset that I didn't want to be friends with her anymore. (?? Not at all what I said??) (Though honestly after that debacle...) After this she was telling me about how she'd accepted things and didn't want to make me uncomfortable and actually wanted to stay in hotels and go out and see some of the local sights.
About her insistence that I be her daughter, I've always just skirted the topic. I never quite felt like telling her that I've already got a mother and don't want another one. (And if I did I wouldn't pick her) even just stating the obvious, No you aren't my mother, seems asking for a big tiff. Is it worth it, or it is better just to ignore the occasional comment? I've not decided.
I'm perfectly, wholly ok with visits during daylight hours. Yes, it'll be tiring to have company all day for goodness knows how long, but I mean... I just want the dark hours to recoup and recover. I don't see how that's possible if I'm going to be confined to my bedroom every time I want to get away from people, especially since actually laying down puts pressure on my occipital nerve and triggers migraine. And our bedroom is just big enough for bed and wardrobe. It's not a relaxing atmosphere, just an isolating one.
The thing about people helping is that it'll only work if it's help not "help". Someone who refuses to listen to me and my needs isn't going to help me, they'll hurt me instead. Very possibly literally, if they do something like "tidy" up my oxygen supplies somewhere where I don't know where they've gone or where they aren't quickly accessible, ditto with my meds. Unfortunately my MIL is exactly the kind to do so, because she cleaned and look how pretty it is now. And was that thing important? Why was it sitting out then? (Maybe because it is important and often in use?) Well it's out with the bin men now, teehehe.
Yes I've seen her grin and giggle about throwing away things that are not easy to replace. I don't want her unsupervised in my house unless she agrees to leave it alone--which I honestly won't believe until she's proven through trial that she's capable of it.
I'd say she's free to have at the floors. Those are the real problems for me. But she doesn't like doing floors and won't and hasn't done them in the past.
She also hates our clothes washing machine. She thinks it takes too long and doesn't do this or that and why is it so tiny and she'd rather see us with these units like she has at her house instead. She doesn't understand how our machine works and would sooner throw a fit about it ruining clothes than ask about settings.
In our last house she spent the mornings in the spare room overlooking the neighbour's garden with her coffee (I asked her not to have any staining drinks on the carpeted areas because we rent. Consistently ignored. Or she claims, forgotten) muttering to herself about how nice our neighbour's garden was and wouldn't it be lovely if she could have a garden like that to enjoy her coffee in.
We RENTED. Our landlords were jerks who refused improvements. Us tidying up the hedge and getting rid of brambles was a massive feat in itself. I just felt the whole thing was very rude for her to bring up every time how lovely our neighbour's garden was every time she saw our garden or sat in our garden or had reference to our garden.
In the house we're in now, this isn't the case. We got discounted rate for doing up the garden. Its looking very nice. Because I've put a lot of effort into it as part of my recovery therapy. And she knows it looks nice. I'm just ...
Ugghhhhhhn. I feel like venting about it without risk of it getting back to her ears, that's all.
I'm planning on hiring a maid soon as I feel like I can't swifter "mop" things anymore. So the floors, kitchen and bathroom will be cleaned once a week. I've put a lot of effort into organising the house so it's easy for a maid to come in and do the work and leave without having to spend a long time here.
So if MIL wants to spend time taking care baby, fine--but do they really have to just sit about the house all day 24/7 to do that? What will they do if I get a migraine and I want the volume level turned down? Having baby noises will be enough to deal with, let alone having someone refuse to lower their voice or talk softer or talk less. Babies also won't stink up the house with chicken soup and hot water bottles and demands that I lay down. (She's told me over a over that she wishes she could do this for me and I've told her over and over that I wouldn't want that. Laying down actually makes my head hurt worse and cooking smells make me vomit, and any sort of fussing just adds to the migraine as well. And it's cold, not heat, that makes me feel better. But so far I've not been listened to.)
I sort of wonder if she actually kind of wants me to get ill so she can feel needed. She's lonely and much of her family has died because she was a late in life child without very many cousins.
I basically just don't want to really talk to her anymore. I know I'll have to deal with her for forever since there's a child involved, but I'm wondering how I personally can have the bare minimum to do with her.
I'm considering spending all day at university for as many days as I can to stay away from the in laws. I can do some volunteer work at the lab. Or go work at the library. But I don't want to exhaust myself into a relapse by doing too much in too short of a time frame.
And for what it's worth, the no houseguests thing I've applied evenly across everyone so I'm not singling people out. I still find my parents stressful particularly after two or three days. And I think they stop enjoying visits the longer they go on too.
Anyway I know much of this is in rant territory. It makes me feel better to let it out.