At the end of November, and I have completed both National Novel Writing Month (#2!) and National Blog Publishing Month (#6!). Thank you for sticking around for both of those - This year's novel is still unfinished - in fact, there are a lot of parts where I just wrote such helpful things as "INSERT SCENE WITH MC AND ANGE FIGHTING VEHEMENTLY" and just skipped over the scene itself, for the sake of keeping the words flowing, even if they weren't right for that particular scene that particular day. So, there will still be some writing to be done, but the 50,000 (technically, at this point, 50,348) goal has been met, and that feels awesome.
As for publishing a post every day in November, I am so glad to have made it through another year and to help me break through the grief-word-eating-cloud a little bit. (A little bit? How about I posted more this month than I have since this time last year? Or at any cumulative point this year? Understatement.) So yay!
Now, if only I could read and write simultaneously, that would really help me out, because all of this writing has definitely curtailed my reading this month. She says as she checks the ridiculous number of posts languishing in her feed reader.
Showing posts with label Done. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Done. Show all posts
Saturday, November 30, 2013
Thursday, June 20, 2013
Plus also, my dad's been on sick leave/vacation for three weeks, and summer vacation starts Tuesday for the kids, so: totally fine!
So, one of my biggest problems with this space is that it is both awesome and pressure all at the same time. Good pressure, but still. Hoping to start up the daily blogging thing again come July, if only because it'll give me a reason to keep the door closed and the TV off. But I'm working on some things, some projects, in the meantime. Got stuff brewing. Doing a little bit of non-blog writing every now and then, even. But there's also been a bunch of family stuff (always), and a severe spoon shortage (also always), so I'm only getting through about a third of my to-do list.
Oh, and that's not even mentioning the doctor drama, wherein I (yet again) get dumped by my primary care doctor and have to scramble to find a (MassHealth accepting) replacement. (Which I have yet to do: joy of joys!) And how that screws up every single other doctor and specialist I have to see, all because, well - she don't know what to do with me anymore, and she's sick of trying and having more things go wrong? Guess who else feels exactly that same way? But doesn't have the luxury of bailing? This girl, right here! Although her official complaint was that Zack was taking over more and more of my care, and 'he's not in our network, so I don't get his notes right away and that's not a viable way to provide care.' So... because your computers don't speak the same exact language and it takes a couple of weeks for things to get filtered through to you...? Mmhmm: Not Buying It.
I knew it was coming - I am not a debutante dumpee, after all - a few months back when she started talking about how the hospital was consolidating referrals and maybe I'd have to start switching some of my specialists over to new ones. Which would mean finding at least six new specialists and starting from scratch with all of them, ON TOP OF leaving Zach, which I am just unwilling to do, instead of just, say finding a new primary care doc. She was quick to point out that it would be easier on me to find a new PCP, probably, in long run, didn't I think? Well, actually, I think the whole system is beyond asinine, because the person I see the most can't be my 'primary care' and everybody else gets pissy over the fact that I want to see him so often, even though he's the only one who, you know, actually tries to help me by doing things?
As opposed to the lot of you who say things like "It's chronic illness and you'll just have to learn to adapt better" or "If you lose a couple of pounds that might go a long way" (it did not, by the way: I have felt no better at 150 than I did at 200, I was considerable worse at 165 than I was at either of those, so .... shove it?) and "with all these new problems cropping up, it's hard to know where to start with you, so I'm not comfortable doing anything." (Seriously: that last is an exact quote. Too. Many. Things. Don't. Want. To. Help. With. Any. Of. Them. Screw You.)
So, I've got one more appt with her - my soon-to-be ex-PCP - next week, during which she will help with exactly zero things, probably google half of the things I tell her, and randomly search the network for test results that should have been back weeks ago, and then I have to hit the phones again. For the ... third time in under five years? With no guarantees that I can find anybody (in our state's primary care drought) that a) takes my non-insurance, b) understands about chronic illnesses in general, and mine specifically, c) understands that I need to see specialists pretty often and d) will not put up a fuss about Zach and his experiments, because I am not willing to stop experimenting.
All of which makes me want to spend my time digging out my West Wing DVDs just so I can watch Sam & Toby and Josh and pretend I don't hate the world for a little while.
Oh, and that's not even mentioning the doctor drama, wherein I (yet again) get dumped by my primary care doctor and have to scramble to find a (MassHealth accepting) replacement. (Which I have yet to do: joy of joys!) And how that screws up every single other doctor and specialist I have to see, all because, well - she don't know what to do with me anymore, and she's sick of trying and having more things go wrong? Guess who else feels exactly that same way? But doesn't have the luxury of bailing? This girl, right here! Although her official complaint was that Zack was taking over more and more of my care, and 'he's not in our network, so I don't get his notes right away and that's not a viable way to provide care.' So... because your computers don't speak the same exact language and it takes a couple of weeks for things to get filtered through to you...? Mmhmm: Not Buying It.
I knew it was coming - I am not a debutante dumpee, after all - a few months back when she started talking about how the hospital was consolidating referrals and maybe I'd have to start switching some of my specialists over to new ones. Which would mean finding at least six new specialists and starting from scratch with all of them, ON TOP OF leaving Zach, which I am just unwilling to do, instead of just, say finding a new primary care doc. She was quick to point out that it would be easier on me to find a new PCP, probably, in long run, didn't I think? Well, actually, I think the whole system is beyond asinine, because the person I see the most can't be my 'primary care' and everybody else gets pissy over the fact that I want to see him so often, even though he's the only one who, you know, actually tries to help me by doing things?
As opposed to the lot of you who say things like "It's chronic illness and you'll just have to learn to adapt better" or "If you lose a couple of pounds that might go a long way" (it did not, by the way: I have felt no better at 150 than I did at 200, I was considerable worse at 165 than I was at either of those, so .... shove it?) and "with all these new problems cropping up, it's hard to know where to start with you, so I'm not comfortable doing anything." (Seriously: that last is an exact quote. Too. Many. Things. Don't. Want. To. Help. With. Any. Of. Them. Screw You.)
So, I've got one more appt with her - my soon-to-be ex-PCP - next week, during which she will help with exactly zero things, probably google half of the things I tell her, and randomly search the network for test results that should have been back weeks ago, and then I have to hit the phones again. For the ... third time in under five years? With no guarantees that I can find anybody (in our state's primary care drought) that a) takes my non-insurance, b) understands about chronic illnesses in general, and mine specifically, c) understands that I need to see specialists pretty often and d) will not put up a fuss about Zach and his experiments, because I am not willing to stop experimenting.
All of which makes me want to spend my time digging out my West Wing DVDs just so I can watch Sam & Toby and Josh and pretend I don't hate the world for a little while.
Monday, June 03, 2013
According to spell check, I have invented three new words in this post*
Do you know how rare it is for me not to have something playing in my head? The radio, Pandora, YouTube; TV in the background Charlie-Brown-teacher style? Not to mention Twitter, Google Reader (now Feedly, thank you very much), whatever random selection of lists my curiosity has caused me to Google, and now Tumblr? In addition to the books on my bookshelf, floor, nightstand, and in my purse? Which doesn't even include the tapes of 9th grade history class failures that my memory dredges up, the earwig my mom was humming in the kitchen, the constant nagging of whatever social anxiety issue is rearing its ugliest head at the moment?
It's pretty damn rare, is what I'm getting at.
I don't like to sit in the quiet because then I can hear all the things I spend so much time trying to mute; feel all the pain I've devoted a large portion of my brain cells into masking. It's both a conscious thing - depending on what hurts and how badly it hurts, I have to adjust the interference, turn up the volume on one thing (a funny movie, perhaps, or a comforting re-read) in order to try to combat the intensity of the other thing (a 10+ pain day; a migraine that lasts more than a week; another birthday rolling around without much improvement to show for it) - and an unconscious thing: kind of like how, if you really concentrate on it you can control your breathing or swallowing, but if you don't it'll go on without you.
It's one of the reasons I'm so bad at meditating - sitting, in the quiet, with nothing but me and my brain? And the pain? Seems like a game of Russian roulette to me. Too much quiet and who knows what could explode, who knows if I'll find all the pieces/have all the spoons I'd need to glue it back together? Too risky.
But here's the rub - I can't write well without some semblance of quiet. I was one of those kids who did their homework without the distractions of music or TV (it wasn't allowed in the teacher's household I grew up in), and, when I got older and went to college and could decide for myself, I found it too distracting to try to write a good essay and watch Friends at the same time. Not that I didn't write M A N Y college essays in front of the TV - my friends and I liked to say (if somewhat unoriginally) that we weren't earning our BS-es for nothing - I could crank out what most of my professors wanted (their own words echoed back at them/a summary of the book to prove I had read it) without much effort at all, and many a course was completed during the commercial breaks of Mad About You .
But if I wanted to write?
Really write? And have it be good?
That's when I needed - and still need, apparently - a little bit of quiet head space.
So you can see where Goal A (constantly be distracted, so as not to focus on chronic pain and/or current unhappy life situation) might come into conflict with Goal B (try to write some things that are not completely shitty).
And the last couple of months - OK, since last summer really, when things started spiralling out of control with my grandmother and I realized that it was going to be a Summer of Suck and that I was going to have to be a freaking Grown-up and deal with Real Actual Problems even though I totally didn't want to - I've been leaning (tipping/falling over into/swimming/basking) into Goal A territory.
Since she died (and my family situation went completely, nuclearly, FUBAR in ways that have left gaping wounds that still haven't even scabbed over, let alone healed), which I can't believe was 9 months ago now, I've been sort of frozen there: emotionally numb (ish - not always) and physically hanging on by the skin of my teeth.
"You've lost weight" my doctors would say, with apparent glee: "That's great!" Mmhmm: except - I can't eat. I don't know how to anymore - I am disconnected from food and hunger and fullness and I don't know how to food. Sounds good, they said. "Let's add to that," my super-fun/fucked-up body said: "You're definitely in the early stages of diabetes (even though you've lost weight, your numbers are stable, and you barely can force yourself to eat real meals at regular intervals): Let's mess with that even more, give you some new meds and worries/complications about food, and see how you do!" (Hint: I have not done well.) "Also" said my completely-ridiculous-at-this-point-body "I think you need to be allergic to some more shit, and I know you're trying to eat healthier now, so how about some random allergic reactions to... fruit? vegetables? Fruits and vegetables? The pesticides on certain fruits and/or vegetables that you just didn't wash off cleanly enough? EVERY MOTHER FUCKING FOOD YOU ENJOY? How's that sound?" (Hint: Super fun.)
I still don't know what's causing the reactions, although I've just had another round of allergy tests. When I did them 8 years ago I was literally told not to drink the tap water, because "you are allergic to what's in it." What the hell is in tap water that I am allergic to? I don't know anymore (who remembers at this point?) but I still drink bottled, so it can't be that flaring up. (She says, as her body laughs with glee. As if I hadn't learned by now that this shit is not going to make any sense.)
Anyways, aside from the food, there's been other things - health things and family things, and personal things, and feeling sorry for myself things that I could literally rant on and on about for thousands of words - but why spoil all those other whiny posts? (I will try not to write too many whiny posts.)
The crux of it is, I feel like maybe, I'm thawing out on Goal A a little bit, and am actively hoping that that will help me pursue Goal B. Because I wrote 52,376 words last November, but that story isn't going to finish writing itself. Because I miss having a place where things are quiet. Because no matter how many times and how many different ways I have to keep writing this post - the one where I apologize for not being around as much as I'd like and recommit to carving out the words that belong here - you guys always show up, and I couldn't appreciate it more.
I don't have a ton of readers. I would estimate that a more reasonable term for the number of people whose eyeballs will scan across this post would be "smidgen". But that's ok with me. Because you're my smidgen, and you're always here when I need you.
So thanks for showing up, Smidges. I'll do my best (as always - which we know is sometimes better than others) to keep showing up too.
*But spell check is a liar because "unoriginally" and "nuclearly", while horrible adverbs, must be real words. I will claim Smidges though.
It's pretty damn rare, is what I'm getting at.
I don't like to sit in the quiet because then I can hear all the things I spend so much time trying to mute; feel all the pain I've devoted a large portion of my brain cells into masking. It's both a conscious thing - depending on what hurts and how badly it hurts, I have to adjust the interference, turn up the volume on one thing (a funny movie, perhaps, or a comforting re-read) in order to try to combat the intensity of the other thing (a 10+ pain day; a migraine that lasts more than a week; another birthday rolling around without much improvement to show for it) - and an unconscious thing: kind of like how, if you really concentrate on it you can control your breathing or swallowing, but if you don't it'll go on without you.
It's one of the reasons I'm so bad at meditating - sitting, in the quiet, with nothing but me and my brain? And the pain? Seems like a game of Russian roulette to me. Too much quiet and who knows what could explode, who knows if I'll find all the pieces/have all the spoons I'd need to glue it back together? Too risky.
But here's the rub - I can't write well without some semblance of quiet. I was one of those kids who did their homework without the distractions of music or TV (it wasn't allowed in the teacher's household I grew up in), and, when I got older and went to college and could decide for myself, I found it too distracting to try to write a good essay and watch Friends at the same time. Not that I didn't write M A N Y college essays in front of the TV - my friends and I liked to say (if somewhat unoriginally) that we weren't earning our BS-es for nothing - I could crank out what most of my professors wanted (their own words echoed back at them/a summary of the book to prove I had read it) without much effort at all, and many a course was completed during the commercial breaks of Mad About You .
But if I wanted to write?
Really write? And have it be good?
That's when I needed - and still need, apparently - a little bit of quiet head space.
So you can see where Goal A (constantly be distracted, so as not to focus on chronic pain and/or current unhappy life situation) might come into conflict with Goal B (try to write some things that are not completely shitty).
And the last couple of months - OK, since last summer really, when things started spiralling out of control with my grandmother and I realized that it was going to be a Summer of Suck and that I was going to have to be a freaking Grown-up and deal with Real Actual Problems even though I totally didn't want to - I've been leaning (tipping/falling over into/swimming/basking) into Goal A territory.
Since she died (and my family situation went completely, nuclearly, FUBAR in ways that have left gaping wounds that still haven't even scabbed over, let alone healed), which I can't believe was 9 months ago now, I've been sort of frozen there: emotionally numb (ish - not always) and physically hanging on by the skin of my teeth.
"You've lost weight" my doctors would say, with apparent glee: "That's great!" Mmhmm: except - I can't eat. I don't know how to anymore - I am disconnected from food and hunger and fullness and I don't know how to food. Sounds good, they said. "Let's add to that," my super-fun/fucked-up body said: "You're definitely in the early stages of diabetes (even though you've lost weight, your numbers are stable, and you barely can force yourself to eat real meals at regular intervals): Let's mess with that even more, give you some new meds and worries/complications about food, and see how you do!" (Hint: I have not done well.) "Also" said my completely-ridiculous-at-this-point-body "I think you need to be allergic to some more shit, and I know you're trying to eat healthier now, so how about some random allergic reactions to... fruit? vegetables? Fruits and vegetables? The pesticides on certain fruits and/or vegetables that you just didn't wash off cleanly enough? EVERY MOTHER FUCKING FOOD YOU ENJOY? How's that sound?" (Hint: Super fun.)
I still don't know what's causing the reactions, although I've just had another round of allergy tests. When I did them 8 years ago I was literally told not to drink the tap water, because "you are allergic to what's in it." What the hell is in tap water that I am allergic to? I don't know anymore (who remembers at this point?) but I still drink bottled, so it can't be that flaring up. (She says, as her body laughs with glee. As if I hadn't learned by now that this shit is not going to make any sense.)
Anyways, aside from the food, there's been other things - health things and family things, and personal things, and feeling sorry for myself things that I could literally rant on and on about for thousands of words - but why spoil all those other whiny posts? (I will try not to write too many whiny posts.)
The crux of it is, I feel like maybe, I'm thawing out on Goal A a little bit, and am actively hoping that that will help me pursue Goal B. Because I wrote 52,376 words last November, but that story isn't going to finish writing itself. Because I miss having a place where things are quiet. Because no matter how many times and how many different ways I have to keep writing this post - the one where I apologize for not being around as much as I'd like and recommit to carving out the words that belong here - you guys always show up, and I couldn't appreciate it more.
I don't have a ton of readers. I would estimate that a more reasonable term for the number of people whose eyeballs will scan across this post would be "smidgen". But that's ok with me. Because you're my smidgen, and you're always here when I need you.
So thanks for showing up, Smidges. I'll do my best (as always - which we know is sometimes better than others) to keep showing up too.
*But spell check is a liar because "unoriginally" and "nuclearly", while horrible adverbs, must be real words. I will claim Smidges though.
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Letting Other People Tell You Where I Am
“I want to think again of dangerous and noble things. I want to be light and frolicsome. I want to be improbable and beautiful and afraid of nothing as though I had wings.”- Mary Oliver
“Life’s challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they’re supposed to help you discover who you are.” - Bernice Johnson Reagon
“I want so much that is not here and do not know where to go.” - Charles Bukowski
“There is no coming to consciousness without pain. People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own soul. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.” Carl Jung
“It’s okay to feel the way you feel. You can feel angry. You can feel afraid. You can feel crushingly disappointed. You can feel bitter. AND you can feel the love.” Pace, 12-12
Mostly, I've been feeling the darkness, doing everything I can to avoid feeling the darkness (including some new obsessions which I will be back to share with you soon), and facing a whole bunch of things I'd really rather not face - about myself, my situation, and my future. It's "figuring some shit out" time, I guess, and so far, I don't much like the stuff I'm coming up with. I'm also having a super low-spoon issue - which is not news, but is particularly frustrating, because I'm used to having a set number of spoons - small but reliable - and without even those few spoons, I'm continuously frustrated with myself & my inability to get things accomplished most days. I don't know if it's new meds (I think it might be), but I do not like it. And coming at an emotionally taxing time, as well, that's not helpful.
But I haven't been completely silent. I managed to post over at The Band (the completely awesome, supportive Band Back Together) about one of my worst fears, one of the things that's most terrifying to me right this minute. I've been active on Twitter for a bit, c'mon over and chit chat with me in 140 characters if that's your thing. And I'm coming back here, because, as always, not saying things is hurting too much. So, I'm here: trying to feel the love, and hoping y'all are feeling it too. :)
Thursday, September 06, 2012
I would be a horrible circus performer (although I am quite flexible)
I didn't realize that my being here would change so many things: I mean, when I first wormed my way into an invitation to stay on the couch, I obviously didn't realize that nearly five months later I'd still be here, unshowered and mid-flare, keeping constant watch on a woman so close to death. I signed up for that, for the most part, because I had to: nobody seems to get that, really, that I feel compelled to be here, not just because I am capable of it (and, honestly, physically? I'm not capable, I'm just faking it the best I can), but because it's where I need to be. I suppose I could have made a different choice, but every other option just felt worse than this one, so here I remain, camped out on a couch with a (probably permanent) me-shaped dent in it, edging the furniture over until it gives me just the right view of her on her sickbed.
While I could not have predicted the ways that being here has altered my relationship with Grandmother - both negatively (particularly through her attacks during her dementia rants or just witnessing little character flaws that she'd previously kept hidden from me) and positively (there have been moments of extreme joy for both of us) - I'm more surprised by how being here has effected my relationships with the rest of my family, the rest of the world.
Example: I've got an aunt who lives less than an hour away, and who I generally have a good opinion of. But her lack of visits (once every three weeks, maybe) and phone calls (I know Uncle Jack is a bear on the phone, but suck it up), especially since her mother's latest downturn in health bother me. What could be more important than this? What enables you to go sit at a racetrack all day on your day off, as opposed to sitting by your mother's side? Granted, Grandmother would probably have no clue who you are, and granted you have a right to your life outside of the fact that your mother is dying, but ... it still bothers me, and I know it's put space between us.
I try not to let it hurt me that people haven't come to see her, but sometimes I resent it a whole damn lot. Cousins who send me messages about how much they care, but don't show up on the doorstep with a screwdriver and a willing hand when it's needed. I'm conflicted about it because it seems wrong and hurtful and false, but also because.... I totally get it.
I keep hearing "I don't want to see her like that" or "I don't think I could handle it if she looked at me and didn't remember me", and I understand that desire so much. I guess I'm jealous that they feel like they have the option to not come, whereas I feel like there's no choices to be made - she needs me, so I am here, even though it is one of the hardest things I will ever do. To have her look at me, with that blank stare, or worse her evil stare, when she's pissed off about something, is an experience I would love to have opted out of; it's something I wish I could forget, and something which, no matter how many times I remind myself that it's not her but the dementia that's driving it, I know has put smudges on our relationship. Deep, dark smudges I would give anything to erase.
So I understand the sentiment, and I understand not being able to face what's going on here - but I'm still disappointed that so few people have turned up, that so many of us are able to just send their warm wishes, but not put any actual effort into it. I'm jealous that they can do that, I'm confused at how they do that, and I am surprisingly more than a little hurt by how many of them can do it. I think that's part of it: that I used to be so firmly a part of the "us" of cousins, and now I feel like there's this line, a "me" and a "them", because I've done this and been here, and none of them can truly understand. They write their e-mails about how strong she is, and how much she's been through, but they don't know the half of it. They say how they hope the end comes quickly and how she doesn't suffer, and I stuff the words back into my mouth: 'She's already suffering, she's been suffering for months, maybe years, and none of you have noticed!'
It's not fair of me to think those things: I know that they are all doing what they can, and that they all do really love her: it's just that right now - living through the worry of each and every breath, each consistently lower pulse reading and oxygen level, each english muffin I put in front of her that she doesn't eat, each 4 hour battle to get her to use the Depends because she's not strong enough to get out of bed - right now, everything they say seems like a platitude, a cliche, as disconnected from her and me and our actual situation as if they were talking about how many sheep there were at this year's state fair.
It's just another barrier between me and the people I love, and it somehow grew while I wasn't looking.
Which is another thing: I've been nearly myopically focused on our situation here. I think that's understandable: death trumps pretty much everything. But there's a lot of other things going on - a lot of other things - and I'm barely on the periphery of stuff that I normally would wade right into. People are worried about losing their jobs, having their first panic attack, looking for new places to live, buying cars, getting fired, losing weight, gaining weight, dealing with depression, having birthdays, trying to embrace happiness after hardship, going back to school, moving across the country, ending longterm relationships, starting new relationships. Two of my sisters have changed life directions and are actively trying to conceive - or are moving down the path towards having children.
Two of my younger sisters. Are trying to have babies right now. Which is so exciting and awesome and terrifying, and also like an arrow straight into my chest. Because there's that baby thing again, which I have been actively avoiding (with little luck) and just do not have the mental energy to deal with right now, but there it is, everywhere I look. College Roommate/Best Friend had her third baby yesterday, after a difficult pregnancy. One of the (young stupid intern) doctors who saw her in the Emergency Room wrote the words 'advanced maternal age' on her chart. We are the same age, and while I know that 33 is not technically considered advanced maternal age, I know it's also not considered to be a time when you've got plenty of fertile years ahead of you. So there are all my own issues with TTC, and then there's all of their issues with TTC (which are varied and complicated, as they seemingly always are) and how best to support them (because I do want to support them) through their own insecurities and doubts and troubles. And how to do that effectively with the 5% of my brain that isn't focused on Grandmother and her medication schedules, stuck here in my little corner of the living room couch, while at the same time not letting the fact that I am not actively TTC be a gaping wound that grows between us.
Life is going on all around me - everywhere but in this house, in this time, in this space that I can't leave - and I don't know how to participate in any of it. Everything else seems unreal to me, everything beyond this door, everything outside the range of the Darth Vadar sounds coming out of her oxygen machine seems as if it's happening to somebody else, like I'm watching it on television, maybe. And it's interesting, and it's something I want to be involved with, but my brain just can't seem to make the leap from Here (and all that implies) to There (and all that implies).
There's a big gulf between me and the rest of the world - the part of the world that isn't changing their grandmother's diaper (and sheets - why don't those goddamn Depends do what they're supposed to do more than 1/4 of the time?) at three in the morning, or watching an old woman's chest to make sure it's still rising and falling - and I don't know how to bridge it. Phone calls and text messages seem like communiques from far off lands - someone shows me a picture of a fancy new car, someone else just says hello, there's a Facebook message from a far-away cousin, a phone call from someone I didn't even know had my number - I want to grab onto those things as if they were life preservers, use them to help keep me afloat when I feel like there's so much here that it will drag me under. And I can't decide if this is the Real World, or that is (even though I know they both are): I just know that they don't seem to exist within the same atmosphere, in the same time zones, on the same planet.
This disconnection is even harder when I do get a break, when I'm sitting face to face with someone, and there's all these awkward pauses, all these spaces and cracks in our conversation that there never used to be. I feel like I am rusty at speaking to people, even those I talk to everyday: It's as if my conversational skills have deserted me in favor of the ability to withstand the tears of a ninety-five year old woman when you tell her she can no longer walk - and there's no ease to any of my relationships right now, no settled in feeling of comfort and compatablitly, even with those that I am the closest.
Example: Mum will come over to help - most days she comes over to help - and make a misstep in her delivery - do something that pisses off Uncle Jack (which isn't hard) or say something to Grandmother that confuses her and sets off the panic train (which also isn't hard) and instead of relieved, I wind up feeling exhausted to be dealing with that, that now I not only have to deal with the repercussions of her visit, but also have to somehow not hurt her feelings while I'm repairing the damage she did by trying to help. It's often awkward and uncomfortable (mostly because Uncle Jack is a stubborn ass sometimes and he's so set in his ways that even people doing nice things - like bringing over a boatload of food for us to eat - can make him angry) and I find myself having to hold back how upset I am by it in order to smooth it over on both sides, wishing the whole time that I didn't have to play referree to supposed grown-ups, that it would be nice if, once in a while, I could get some actual HELP, that was just help - no strings, no messes to clean up afterwards, no complications - just simple help.
Most of the times I can't get up the energy to feel anything besides terrified that I am going to do something wrong here, that the last memory Grandmother will have is of a frustrated woman struggling not to yell at her to 'just pee already, goddamn it!' instead of a peaceful, loving face. And I want that for her - for her to go knowing that We All love her so much, knowing that she has so many people praying* for her and thinking of her - and I'm horrified that I might not be able to provide it.
*That's a whole 'nother area where my conflicted feelings are doing battle: she's very religious so we've had a bunch of priests come by, and she's had the last rites more than once, but I also think if the hospice people tell me that "all we can do now is pray" one more time I might punch them in the throat.
When I do get beyond that feeling, I feel guilty for wishing this were over, guilty for seeing each peak and valley as just another obstacle for us to overcome -It's especially hard to know that when she does have a 'good day' or make a small improvement, instead of rejoicing for her that she's able to eat a half a turkey sandwich, there's a part of me that wishes it wasn't happening, because it's only prolonging something that is already so difficult for all of us.
I feel guilty for that, for wishing that there would just be an end to things, knowing what that means in reality.
I feel guilty for being here, when I'm needed elsewhere. For missing out on the summer adventures the kids and I had planned, for all the hand holding I haven't been around to provide, the two a.m. phone calls I couldn't answer. I know the world doesn't revolve around me - that me not being at the house for sleepovers, for example, wasn't the end of the world or a crisis for the kids - but that's a two sided-coin: I'm glad that my absence didn't wreck everything for everybody, but at the same time I'm hurt by how (seemingly) easily I was removed. Because it feels like I'm the only one who's upset by my missing out on other things - everybody else just goes about their days and sometimes remembers that, in the ordinary scheme of things, I'd probably be involved in this particular activity too, but it doesn't do more than blip on their radar before they're off for other things.
And how selfish of me is it to admit that that hurts? That not being needed or missed in those other situations is hurting me as much as the fact that I'm missing them in the first place? I obviously want it all at the same time - people who love and miss me, but make do when I'm not there; being needed and valued for what I feel I contribute, but being able to not contribute those things for a while and still be loved and valued.
Basically, my brain is a big toxic mess right now, and I've got it all as far down as I can get it - so that it's simmering somewhere in the background for now, because I have only enough energy (and barely that) to make it through each day here, and the rest of that shit is going to have to wait its turn. And there's a very large part of me that is anxious about what will happen when I'm done focusing on the immediate crisis - how I'm going to pick up all those simmering, boiling pieces of myself and glue them back together into something that resembles a human being - but for now, all I can focus on is converting Mgs to Mls (which is stupid: doctors should write the Rx in the dosage of those little droppers and not expect me to do math every time I've got to give her meds in the middle of the night) or if the sheets are too tight around her feet and could be causing bedsores. I know that the end of that type of worry is fast approaching, and I see the train full of other worries barrelling down the track towards me (and know that it will be loaded with all of the things I'm talking about here PLUS a huge drowning dollop of grief once she passes), but I can't even pretend to deal with it yet.
I'm just going to sit here and breathe, and hope that I'm doing what I can, and that any of the balls I'm not actively juggling will not be too damaged when I get around to picking them up.
While I could not have predicted the ways that being here has altered my relationship with Grandmother - both negatively (particularly through her attacks during her dementia rants or just witnessing little character flaws that she'd previously kept hidden from me) and positively (there have been moments of extreme joy for both of us) - I'm more surprised by how being here has effected my relationships with the rest of my family, the rest of the world.
Example: I've got an aunt who lives less than an hour away, and who I generally have a good opinion of. But her lack of visits (once every three weeks, maybe) and phone calls (I know Uncle Jack is a bear on the phone, but suck it up), especially since her mother's latest downturn in health bother me. What could be more important than this? What enables you to go sit at a racetrack all day on your day off, as opposed to sitting by your mother's side? Granted, Grandmother would probably have no clue who you are, and granted you have a right to your life outside of the fact that your mother is dying, but ... it still bothers me, and I know it's put space between us.
I try not to let it hurt me that people haven't come to see her, but sometimes I resent it a whole damn lot. Cousins who send me messages about how much they care, but don't show up on the doorstep with a screwdriver and a willing hand when it's needed. I'm conflicted about it because it seems wrong and hurtful and false, but also because.... I totally get it.
I keep hearing "I don't want to see her like that" or "I don't think I could handle it if she looked at me and didn't remember me", and I understand that desire so much. I guess I'm jealous that they feel like they have the option to not come, whereas I feel like there's no choices to be made - she needs me, so I am here, even though it is one of the hardest things I will ever do. To have her look at me, with that blank stare, or worse her evil stare, when she's pissed off about something, is an experience I would love to have opted out of; it's something I wish I could forget, and something which, no matter how many times I remind myself that it's not her but the dementia that's driving it, I know has put smudges on our relationship. Deep, dark smudges I would give anything to erase.
So I understand the sentiment, and I understand not being able to face what's going on here - but I'm still disappointed that so few people have turned up, that so many of us are able to just send their warm wishes, but not put any actual effort into it. I'm jealous that they can do that, I'm confused at how they do that, and I am surprisingly more than a little hurt by how many of them can do it. I think that's part of it: that I used to be so firmly a part of the "us" of cousins, and now I feel like there's this line, a "me" and a "them", because I've done this and been here, and none of them can truly understand. They write their e-mails about how strong she is, and how much she's been through, but they don't know the half of it. They say how they hope the end comes quickly and how she doesn't suffer, and I stuff the words back into my mouth: 'She's already suffering, she's been suffering for months, maybe years, and none of you have noticed!'
It's not fair of me to think those things: I know that they are all doing what they can, and that they all do really love her: it's just that right now - living through the worry of each and every breath, each consistently lower pulse reading and oxygen level, each english muffin I put in front of her that she doesn't eat, each 4 hour battle to get her to use the Depends because she's not strong enough to get out of bed - right now, everything they say seems like a platitude, a cliche, as disconnected from her and me and our actual situation as if they were talking about how many sheep there were at this year's state fair.
It's just another barrier between me and the people I love, and it somehow grew while I wasn't looking.
Which is another thing: I've been nearly myopically focused on our situation here. I think that's understandable: death trumps pretty much everything. But there's a lot of other things going on - a lot of other things - and I'm barely on the periphery of stuff that I normally would wade right into. People are worried about losing their jobs, having their first panic attack, looking for new places to live, buying cars, getting fired, losing weight, gaining weight, dealing with depression, having birthdays, trying to embrace happiness after hardship, going back to school, moving across the country, ending longterm relationships, starting new relationships. Two of my sisters have changed life directions and are actively trying to conceive - or are moving down the path towards having children.
Two of my younger sisters. Are trying to have babies right now. Which is so exciting and awesome and terrifying, and also like an arrow straight into my chest. Because there's that baby thing again, which I have been actively avoiding (with little luck) and just do not have the mental energy to deal with right now, but there it is, everywhere I look. College Roommate/Best Friend had her third baby yesterday, after a difficult pregnancy. One of the (young stupid intern) doctors who saw her in the Emergency Room wrote the words 'advanced maternal age' on her chart. We are the same age, and while I know that 33 is not technically considered advanced maternal age, I know it's also not considered to be a time when you've got plenty of fertile years ahead of you. So there are all my own issues with TTC, and then there's all of their issues with TTC (which are varied and complicated, as they seemingly always are) and how best to support them (because I do want to support them) through their own insecurities and doubts and troubles. And how to do that effectively with the 5% of my brain that isn't focused on Grandmother and her medication schedules, stuck here in my little corner of the living room couch, while at the same time not letting the fact that I am not actively TTC be a gaping wound that grows between us.
Life is going on all around me - everywhere but in this house, in this time, in this space that I can't leave - and I don't know how to participate in any of it. Everything else seems unreal to me, everything beyond this door, everything outside the range of the Darth Vadar sounds coming out of her oxygen machine seems as if it's happening to somebody else, like I'm watching it on television, maybe. And it's interesting, and it's something I want to be involved with, but my brain just can't seem to make the leap from Here (and all that implies) to There (and all that implies).
There's a big gulf between me and the rest of the world - the part of the world that isn't changing their grandmother's diaper (and sheets - why don't those goddamn Depends do what they're supposed to do more than 1/4 of the time?) at three in the morning, or watching an old woman's chest to make sure it's still rising and falling - and I don't know how to bridge it. Phone calls and text messages seem like communiques from far off lands - someone shows me a picture of a fancy new car, someone else just says hello, there's a Facebook message from a far-away cousin, a phone call from someone I didn't even know had my number - I want to grab onto those things as if they were life preservers, use them to help keep me afloat when I feel like there's so much here that it will drag me under. And I can't decide if this is the Real World, or that is (even though I know they both are): I just know that they don't seem to exist within the same atmosphere, in the same time zones, on the same planet.
This disconnection is even harder when I do get a break, when I'm sitting face to face with someone, and there's all these awkward pauses, all these spaces and cracks in our conversation that there never used to be. I feel like I am rusty at speaking to people, even those I talk to everyday: It's as if my conversational skills have deserted me in favor of the ability to withstand the tears of a ninety-five year old woman when you tell her she can no longer walk - and there's no ease to any of my relationships right now, no settled in feeling of comfort and compatablitly, even with those that I am the closest.
Example: Mum will come over to help - most days she comes over to help - and make a misstep in her delivery - do something that pisses off Uncle Jack (which isn't hard) or say something to Grandmother that confuses her and sets off the panic train (which also isn't hard) and instead of relieved, I wind up feeling exhausted to be dealing with that, that now I not only have to deal with the repercussions of her visit, but also have to somehow not hurt her feelings while I'm repairing the damage she did by trying to help. It's often awkward and uncomfortable (mostly because Uncle Jack is a stubborn ass sometimes and he's so set in his ways that even people doing nice things - like bringing over a boatload of food for us to eat - can make him angry) and I find myself having to hold back how upset I am by it in order to smooth it over on both sides, wishing the whole time that I didn't have to play referree to supposed grown-ups, that it would be nice if, once in a while, I could get some actual HELP, that was just help - no strings, no messes to clean up afterwards, no complications - just simple help.
Most of the times I can't get up the energy to feel anything besides terrified that I am going to do something wrong here, that the last memory Grandmother will have is of a frustrated woman struggling not to yell at her to 'just pee already, goddamn it!' instead of a peaceful, loving face. And I want that for her - for her to go knowing that We All love her so much, knowing that she has so many people praying* for her and thinking of her - and I'm horrified that I might not be able to provide it.
*That's a whole 'nother area where my conflicted feelings are doing battle: she's very religious so we've had a bunch of priests come by, and she's had the last rites more than once, but I also think if the hospice people tell me that "all we can do now is pray" one more time I might punch them in the throat.
When I do get beyond that feeling, I feel guilty for wishing this were over, guilty for seeing each peak and valley as just another obstacle for us to overcome -It's especially hard to know that when she does have a 'good day' or make a small improvement, instead of rejoicing for her that she's able to eat a half a turkey sandwich, there's a part of me that wishes it wasn't happening, because it's only prolonging something that is already so difficult for all of us.
I feel guilty for that, for wishing that there would just be an end to things, knowing what that means in reality.
I feel guilty for being here, when I'm needed elsewhere. For missing out on the summer adventures the kids and I had planned, for all the hand holding I haven't been around to provide, the two a.m. phone calls I couldn't answer. I know the world doesn't revolve around me - that me not being at the house for sleepovers, for example, wasn't the end of the world or a crisis for the kids - but that's a two sided-coin: I'm glad that my absence didn't wreck everything for everybody, but at the same time I'm hurt by how (seemingly) easily I was removed. Because it feels like I'm the only one who's upset by my missing out on other things - everybody else just goes about their days and sometimes remembers that, in the ordinary scheme of things, I'd probably be involved in this particular activity too, but it doesn't do more than blip on their radar before they're off for other things.
And how selfish of me is it to admit that that hurts? That not being needed or missed in those other situations is hurting me as much as the fact that I'm missing them in the first place? I obviously want it all at the same time - people who love and miss me, but make do when I'm not there; being needed and valued for what I feel I contribute, but being able to not contribute those things for a while and still be loved and valued.
Basically, my brain is a big toxic mess right now, and I've got it all as far down as I can get it - so that it's simmering somewhere in the background for now, because I have only enough energy (and barely that) to make it through each day here, and the rest of that shit is going to have to wait its turn. And there's a very large part of me that is anxious about what will happen when I'm done focusing on the immediate crisis - how I'm going to pick up all those simmering, boiling pieces of myself and glue them back together into something that resembles a human being - but for now, all I can focus on is converting Mgs to Mls (which is stupid: doctors should write the Rx in the dosage of those little droppers and not expect me to do math every time I've got to give her meds in the middle of the night) or if the sheets are too tight around her feet and could be causing bedsores. I know that the end of that type of worry is fast approaching, and I see the train full of other worries barrelling down the track towards me (and know that it will be loaded with all of the things I'm talking about here PLUS a huge drowning dollop of grief once she passes), but I can't even pretend to deal with it yet.
I'm just going to sit here and breathe, and hope that I'm doing what I can, and that any of the balls I'm not actively juggling will not be too damaged when I get around to picking them up.
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Insomnia, Devil: same difference.
You guys? This insomnia is so massive that I'm almost impressed. I feel like this is just another example of how my chronic illnesses are combining in a manner created to drive me over the edge. It's like they all fit together just so - not interlocking and meshing like a nice puzzle, but all jagged edges and hard corners and raw spaces that rub up against one another till they bruise and bleed.
This one requires that I exercise; that one makes exercising without passing out a near impossibility.
This one says carefully plan meals & eat healthy; that one says have no energy for cooking, no brain for the math required, and a nausea so lasting you might as well be living on board a rolling ship.
This one says wow, you're super-emotional and could really use a hug; that one says a hug will cause you more pain than ripping off your own fingernails.
This one says be super exhausted for every minute of every day forever; that one says, and also don't even think about sleeping.
They just all mesh so nicely together, don't they?
What with all of the insomnia, especially since I had been making small, tiny, minute improvements in my sleep over the course of the past few months, and a pain flare up that came out of nowhere (hello, ridiculous barometer: I'm wondering if you are not a main culprit here), I am beginning to feel like I can not handle things. Easy things like getting out of bed and washing off an apple to eat it (instead I find myself sitting in the kitchen staring aimlessly into space and wondering what the hell I went out there for), harder things (go ahead and ask me when I last showered: I dare you), and impossible things (lunch tomorrow with Grandmother and some cousins I haven't seen in three years? Never going to happen!) - they're all just sort of accumulating in a little pile over here, that I'm labeling "Hell no, but thanks for asking!"
It's hard to explain what the combination of CFS & Insomnia is really like - one of those 'you have to be there' kind of things, I guess. Because everybody can't sleep sometimes - a sleepless night now and then is just a part of life - and so people think they get it. But they don't. It's like being underwater, like drowning, almost. You know you need to push up towards the surface and get air, take a breath - get more than 5 minutes of sleep at a time - but you don't have the energy too push off in the right direction and your arms and legs won't work together for some reason, and your brain says helpful things like "now is a good time to panic, only do it as slowly as possible, if you please", and you wind up just floating away again, hoping the air - the SLEEP - will come and get you on its own. Parents of newborn babies come the closest to understanding it, I think - the sheer levels of exhaustion you can reach, which you didn't even know existed until right this moment. At least, that's what they tell me.
The other day, after about 37.5 hours with no sleep, and with my FM pain level reaching "i will claw my face off now" proportions, & having tried every 'sleepytime' trick in my repertoire, I was just laying on my bed, curled up as best I could, waiting. And every minute that ticked by made me more angry, made me feel totally out of control, made me want to track down every single doctor who'd told me to 'set a sleep clock' or 'try sleeping with the windows open' or how exercise would make my pain go away and stab them somewhere vital. Not that I would, but it seemed like a good idea, just so that I could say something equally meaningless like "try not to get stabbed, because then it won't hurt so much." It's just ridiculous, the things you hear when doctors have no freaking clue what your disease is/means/feels like.
Anyways, to avoid a similar fate tonight, and because I hope some people are still reading here, even if only occasionally, here I am at 3 am typing away, hoping that my words make sense (and being eternally grateful for spell check, because holy jebus, if you could see some of these errors). I'm trying not to be angry that the rest of you are sleeping peacefully in your beds, but not angry is about all I can manage: don't be jealous is definitely asking too much of myself. But being green eyed is understandable, I think, given the circumstances. Next, I'm going to go attempt to bake cookies, because if there's anything an exhausted insomniac should do at 3 in the morning, it's play with fire, while attempting to make an edible food-type product, completely unsupervised.
Well, when I put it that way, it doesn't sound like the wisest decision I could make, so maybe I'll just open another book instead. Or order something off of the internet. Those sound like good options, right? Aw, what do you care? You're probably snoring away anyways, you lucky bastards. Well, I promise not to hate you too much, if you'll come back soon.
This one requires that I exercise; that one makes exercising without passing out a near impossibility.
This one says carefully plan meals & eat healthy; that one says have no energy for cooking, no brain for the math required, and a nausea so lasting you might as well be living on board a rolling ship.
This one says wow, you're super-emotional and could really use a hug; that one says a hug will cause you more pain than ripping off your own fingernails.
This one says be super exhausted for every minute of every day forever; that one says, and also don't even think about sleeping.
They just all mesh so nicely together, don't they?
What with all of the insomnia, especially since I had been making small, tiny, minute improvements in my sleep over the course of the past few months, and a pain flare up that came out of nowhere (hello, ridiculous barometer: I'm wondering if you are not a main culprit here), I am beginning to feel like I can not handle things. Easy things like getting out of bed and washing off an apple to eat it (instead I find myself sitting in the kitchen staring aimlessly into space and wondering what the hell I went out there for), harder things (go ahead and ask me when I last showered: I dare you), and impossible things (lunch tomorrow with Grandmother and some cousins I haven't seen in three years? Never going to happen!) - they're all just sort of accumulating in a little pile over here, that I'm labeling "Hell no, but thanks for asking!"
It's hard to explain what the combination of CFS & Insomnia is really like - one of those 'you have to be there' kind of things, I guess. Because everybody can't sleep sometimes - a sleepless night now and then is just a part of life - and so people think they get it. But they don't. It's like being underwater, like drowning, almost. You know you need to push up towards the surface and get air, take a breath - get more than 5 minutes of sleep at a time - but you don't have the energy too push off in the right direction and your arms and legs won't work together for some reason, and your brain says helpful things like "now is a good time to panic, only do it as slowly as possible, if you please", and you wind up just floating away again, hoping the air - the SLEEP - will come and get you on its own. Parents of newborn babies come the closest to understanding it, I think - the sheer levels of exhaustion you can reach, which you didn't even know existed until right this moment. At least, that's what they tell me.
The other day, after about 37.5 hours with no sleep, and with my FM pain level reaching "i will claw my face off now" proportions, & having tried every 'sleepytime' trick in my repertoire, I was just laying on my bed, curled up as best I could, waiting. And every minute that ticked by made me more angry, made me feel totally out of control, made me want to track down every single doctor who'd told me to 'set a sleep clock' or 'try sleeping with the windows open' or how exercise would make my pain go away and stab them somewhere vital. Not that I would, but it seemed like a good idea, just so that I could say something equally meaningless like "try not to get stabbed, because then it won't hurt so much." It's just ridiculous, the things you hear when doctors have no freaking clue what your disease is/means/feels like.
Anyways, to avoid a similar fate tonight, and because I hope some people are still reading here, even if only occasionally, here I am at 3 am typing away, hoping that my words make sense (and being eternally grateful for spell check, because holy jebus, if you could see some of these errors). I'm trying not to be angry that the rest of you are sleeping peacefully in your beds, but not angry is about all I can manage: don't be jealous is definitely asking too much of myself. But being green eyed is understandable, I think, given the circumstances. Next, I'm going to go attempt to bake cookies, because if there's anything an exhausted insomniac should do at 3 in the morning, it's play with fire, while attempting to make an edible food-type product, completely unsupervised.
Well, when I put it that way, it doesn't sound like the wisest decision I could make, so maybe I'll just open another book instead. Or order something off of the internet. Those sound like good options, right? Aw, what do you care? You're probably snoring away anyways, you lucky bastards. Well, I promise not to hate you too much, if you'll come back soon.
Friday, February 17, 2012
Well, that was fun
So yesterday, my dad called the cops on my sister, her husband, my mother & I.
He called the cops, and told them we were "verbally assaulting him in his own home."
By which he meant, we were telling the fucking truth, in our own homes.
The cop pretty much shrugged his shoulders when he got there - we had done nothing actionable, and it was, in fact his behavior that was out of bounds: I know I never uttered a single curse, and neither did my sister. My mom did, but that was just repeating what he'd said about her, so that doesn't really count. And my brother in law, who is the (I can't emphasize this enough, honestly) most peaceful person ever (like, I've seen him mad may three times in the past 5 years, and even when he's mad, he's still pretty calm) had to go outside and stand in the cold to keep himself from ... I don't even know what.
I know what I wanted to do, which was rage and vomit and punch his face in and break the goddamn wine bottle into a million tiny little pieces and cry and curl up into a ball and pack all my shit immediately and move into the cardboard box that is my only other option and scream in his face and drag him to a psychiatrist and tie him into a chair & force him to watch every episode of Intervention ever. (For the record, I did at least two of those things, but they weren't the fun ones.)
The cops told us "families fight" and told him "if you're an asshole when you drink" (Oh crap, I guess I did curse: I specifically told the cops that he was an asshole when he drinks, but it still doesn't count because I didn't curse at him), "then don't do that anymore." He did not get the outcome he wanted, (which was them making us leave, I guess), and then kept saying how embarrassing it was that it had happened.
It didn't just happen: You called the cops because we weren't backing down (again) about your ridiculous, abusive behavior. You were the one who reacted like an ass because someone dared to question you about your drinking. You were the one who went on the attack. I wasn't embarrassed at all, to be honest. A little let down that I couldn't say "Listen, if he opens his mouth again, I'm going to do something that is worth going to jail for" or "Honestly? He told my mother to go fuck herself, my sister that she was a pill popping control freak, and me that I was a useless piece of shit: please, just take him with you."
I know I've talked about his drinking here before - about my issues with being lucky enough to be blessed with three alcoholic parents, in particular, so if you've been around, you know it's a problem.* I probably don't talk about it as much as I should, because - no matter that I have no fault in it, and there's nothing I can do to stop it - it feels shameful, it feels like I should keep it quiet. And, to be honest, it's a little embarrassing because I can't just move out and put myself in a better environment: I am dependent upon my family, financially.
I also try not to say things that hurt people's feelings here, even though they don't read it. (And hopefully never will.) But the truth is the truth, and I'm sick of pretending that this is not a life or death, you are ruining our family type of deal.
The fight last night was vicious. He has this ability to take out the sharpest arrow in his arsenal, hone it to its finest point, and hit your most vulnerable spot dead center. Tell my mom she's a drunk (although saying "you're a worse alcoholic than I am" probably doesn't make the point you were hoping for); tell my sister that she "moved in and took over", because you know she's overly sensitive about having to live at home; tell me that I "contribute nothing but a bunch of dirty dishes", because you know it wounds me that I can't do things around the house to help out. Make sure you dip all those arrows in as much vile poison as they can hold, before you send them. That's his way.
And then, THEN, he rants and raves about how he has no place in this family, how he wants to be left the fuck alone, how there are no relationships left for him with us, and how that's all our fault.
It probably is my fault that I don't want to give you more ammunition to use against me. Probably is my fault that I can't feel safe enough in my own home to come out to the kitchen if I know you're out there drinking. Definitely is my fault that I've been locking myself in my room at night, because I don't want to be around you, because I know if I go out there I'm not going to be able to hold my tongue, and you're not going to be able to hold your temper, and we wind up right back where we are now: You got to yell and scream and curse and stab at people with your insults, and the rest of us get to wander around dazed and betrayed, stunned that we let ourselves get hurt again. Yeah: that all seems like my fault.
It's definitely my mom's fault if she's "a cold, unfeeling bitch", because everybody wants to be close to someone who makes them feel like shit. It's my sister's fault that she's not willing to "forget about what happened before", even though it was traumatizing to everyone (including you), and you made promises that you never kept. It's definitely my brother-in-law's fault that he had to start shoving all his belongings in an empty laundry basket because god forbid someone should treat him or his wife with love, courtesy or respect, even though they do so much for you.
The thing is, I know, in his mind, that he's the victim in all this. I know that because he stated it very clearly, over and over and over again last night: he was not going to be fucking apologizing for anything he said, if anything he was owed the apology from us. Because we started it, we attacked him, and all he was doing was "cooking, drinking and minding his own fucking business." Never mind that that business included doing the thing you promised us you wouldn't do: we don't have the "right" to hold you accountable for that. Never mind that once someone did call you on your bullshit you started yelling, calling people names, threatening them, using your place as "the moneymaker" to try to bully us into shutting up, trying to throw us out of the house. That's all acceptable behavior, right?
He didn't go to work today (he "didn't sleep well"), and now he's wandering around upstairs pouting, probably/I'm 99.99% sure. That's too damn bad: I don't have any answers for you - you want a place in this family you better figure out a way to fix things, because I am D O N E trying to figure it out for you. Yeah: I love you. Yeah: I'll miss you if you have to go. But you can't stay like this. Or I can't... One of us is going to have to make some real fucking changes. And, as far as I can tell, only one of us has done anything wrong.
And it sure as hell isn't me.
Sticking up for myself, my sister, my mother and my family? Not wrong.
Calling your behavior abusive when it is? Not wrong. (And not "verbal assault" either, asshole.)
Dumping your precious wine down the sink? Probably a little bit wrong, but only because I lost my cool there: should've stayed calmer. The dumping part I'm ok with, because Fuck That Shit.
Ignoring you now, even though I know you're just waiting for me to say something, anything, so you can either walk right in or stomp all over me again? Not wrong.
Let me make this 300000% clear - to myself, and to the sister who needs to hear it, and just happens to read my blog - WE DID NOTHING WRONG. It is not ok to say the things he said, no matter if we started the argument - we didn't say anything out of bounds to him, but he certainly did to us. His bullying is NOT OUR FAULT. THE END.
Of course, it feels like it could be our fault. Her fault for saying something in the first place, she says; my fault for not just walking away and letting it drop, I think. But that's just some textbook Over Developed Sense of Responsibility right there. Over time, everything feels like our fault - when people are happy, when they're not, how they act because of their mood - all of that is not in our control, but it feels like it should be.
Example: Last night's big blow out (which follows our last really big blow out by only 6 months, with about 3 less major ones in between) came immediately following his vacation, last week. That's 9 days of holding your breath, tiptoeing around, hiding yourself in your room (or at work, or in the cellar, or at someone else's house: Hell I even stayed later at the HOSPITAL so I wouldn't have to come home) so that you don't accidentally say something to set him off. He, of course, doesn't see it like that, but the rest of us do. If I'm going to keep a fight from happening I either have to a)pretend that I'm fine with the drinking and drunk him and all that comes along with that (overly affectionate fakeness, pushing food on you repeatedly, an inability to take no for an answer about anything) or b) not be in the same room with him. I chose, for as much as I was able, option b. For nine days. My sister and her husband ate with him more, choosing lite option A and a huge dose of option B (cellar time ALL NIGHT LONG). And my mom, well she usually can't get away with B, and even though she doesn't do a good job of pretending (i.e: we can all tell she's pissed off at him), he doesn't really notice, so that's the way our week went.
It was only after all that shit that my sister came home from work yesterday and called him on his drinking (A bit of an explanation first: following last ginormous traumatizing fight, he swore off drinking. That lasted a week. Since then he has told us that he won't drink at all. Then he changed it to "I won't drink when I'm cooking" Then it was "I won't have more than 1 glass/2 glasses/3 glasses a night" Last night he was at 2.5 glasses when she walked in). And then spent the rest of the night crying, saying she shouldn't have started anything.
She didn't start it, and I want her to get that. (Hi. I know you get it, but you don't feel it. That's ok, too, but just so you know: I know this wasn't your fault.) He can lay the blame at our feet - hers for daring to say something, mine for not shutting my mouth when he wanted me to, my mom's for not sticking up for him "while I was being assaulted" - but we all know the truth about where it goes. This is his fault, and that's all there is too it.
Another sister and I were talking recently, about babies. About how much we want them and don't have them, and are scared it may never happen for us. (Which, let's not talk about that right now) And she said something about never letting her kids sleep over, out of fear of what his moods would be like, and it sort of killed me (because I love my niece and nephews so much and would hate not to be able to spend time with any of them), and at the same time I understood perfectly. I want a baby more than anything, but I would never bring it into this house the way it is right now. Never.
So don't give me all this shit about how you just can just "cook, and drink, and mind my own fucking business", because it is my business. Because I love you, and because I love them, and because, god damn it I'm trying really fucking hard to love myself. And I can't love a person who lets other people walk all over them - or her family. So, I know you're going to do as you please (who knows it better than me**), but it's not going to be crushing me anymore. It's not going to be hurling abuse at the people I love anymore. And if that means that I've lost two fathers to alcohol, I'm going to say that that really sucks. And I'm going to be horribly sad. But I'm not going to lose myself just so you can be a happy drunk.
*And I'd just like to say that my Mom, whose own issues with alcohol have been pretty intense and troubling, has been sober for almost four months now, and I couldn't be prouder of her. Yes, it was a decision she made based on medical necessity, but I think every addict's decision to get sober is medically necessary, and she's working really hard on it, which is amazing.
**My biological father slipped into his alcoholism sometime before I 9, and our relationship was rocky from that point on. Eventually, 11 years ago this July, it took his life.
He called the cops, and told them we were "verbally assaulting him in his own home."
By which he meant, we were telling the fucking truth, in our own homes.
The cop pretty much shrugged his shoulders when he got there - we had done nothing actionable, and it was, in fact his behavior that was out of bounds: I know I never uttered a single curse, and neither did my sister. My mom did, but that was just repeating what he'd said about her, so that doesn't really count. And my brother in law, who is the (I can't emphasize this enough, honestly) most peaceful person ever (like, I've seen him mad may three times in the past 5 years, and even when he's mad, he's still pretty calm) had to go outside and stand in the cold to keep himself from ... I don't even know what.
I know what I wanted to do, which was rage and vomit and punch his face in and break the goddamn wine bottle into a million tiny little pieces and cry and curl up into a ball and pack all my shit immediately and move into the cardboard box that is my only other option and scream in his face and drag him to a psychiatrist and tie him into a chair & force him to watch every episode of Intervention ever. (For the record, I did at least two of those things, but they weren't the fun ones.)
The cops told us "families fight" and told him "if you're an asshole when you drink" (Oh crap, I guess I did curse: I specifically told the cops that he was an asshole when he drinks, but it still doesn't count because I didn't curse at him), "then don't do that anymore." He did not get the outcome he wanted, (which was them making us leave, I guess), and then kept saying how embarrassing it was that it had happened.
It didn't just happen: You called the cops because we weren't backing down (again) about your ridiculous, abusive behavior. You were the one who reacted like an ass because someone dared to question you about your drinking. You were the one who went on the attack. I wasn't embarrassed at all, to be honest. A little let down that I couldn't say "Listen, if he opens his mouth again, I'm going to do something that is worth going to jail for" or "Honestly? He told my mother to go fuck herself, my sister that she was a pill popping control freak, and me that I was a useless piece of shit: please, just take him with you."
I know I've talked about his drinking here before - about my issues with being lucky enough to be blessed with three alcoholic parents, in particular, so if you've been around, you know it's a problem.* I probably don't talk about it as much as I should, because - no matter that I have no fault in it, and there's nothing I can do to stop it - it feels shameful, it feels like I should keep it quiet. And, to be honest, it's a little embarrassing because I can't just move out and put myself in a better environment: I am dependent upon my family, financially.
I also try not to say things that hurt people's feelings here, even though they don't read it. (And hopefully never will.) But the truth is the truth, and I'm sick of pretending that this is not a life or death, you are ruining our family type of deal.
The fight last night was vicious. He has this ability to take out the sharpest arrow in his arsenal, hone it to its finest point, and hit your most vulnerable spot dead center. Tell my mom she's a drunk (although saying "you're a worse alcoholic than I am" probably doesn't make the point you were hoping for); tell my sister that she "moved in and took over", because you know she's overly sensitive about having to live at home; tell me that I "contribute nothing but a bunch of dirty dishes", because you know it wounds me that I can't do things around the house to help out. Make sure you dip all those arrows in as much vile poison as they can hold, before you send them. That's his way.
And then, THEN, he rants and raves about how he has no place in this family, how he wants to be left the fuck alone, how there are no relationships left for him with us, and how that's all our fault.
It probably is my fault that I don't want to give you more ammunition to use against me. Probably is my fault that I can't feel safe enough in my own home to come out to the kitchen if I know you're out there drinking. Definitely is my fault that I've been locking myself in my room at night, because I don't want to be around you, because I know if I go out there I'm not going to be able to hold my tongue, and you're not going to be able to hold your temper, and we wind up right back where we are now: You got to yell and scream and curse and stab at people with your insults, and the rest of us get to wander around dazed and betrayed, stunned that we let ourselves get hurt again. Yeah: that all seems like my fault.
It's definitely my mom's fault if she's "a cold, unfeeling bitch", because everybody wants to be close to someone who makes them feel like shit. It's my sister's fault that she's not willing to "forget about what happened before", even though it was traumatizing to everyone (including you), and you made promises that you never kept. It's definitely my brother-in-law's fault that he had to start shoving all his belongings in an empty laundry basket because god forbid someone should treat him or his wife with love, courtesy or respect, even though they do so much for you.
The thing is, I know, in his mind, that he's the victim in all this. I know that because he stated it very clearly, over and over and over again last night: he was not going to be fucking apologizing for anything he said, if anything he was owed the apology from us. Because we started it, we attacked him, and all he was doing was "cooking, drinking and minding his own fucking business." Never mind that that business included doing the thing you promised us you wouldn't do: we don't have the "right" to hold you accountable for that. Never mind that once someone did call you on your bullshit you started yelling, calling people names, threatening them, using your place as "the moneymaker" to try to bully us into shutting up, trying to throw us out of the house. That's all acceptable behavior, right?
He didn't go to work today (he "didn't sleep well"), and now he's wandering around upstairs pouting, probably/I'm 99.99% sure. That's too damn bad: I don't have any answers for you - you want a place in this family you better figure out a way to fix things, because I am D O N E trying to figure it out for you. Yeah: I love you. Yeah: I'll miss you if you have to go. But you can't stay like this. Or I can't... One of us is going to have to make some real fucking changes. And, as far as I can tell, only one of us has done anything wrong.
And it sure as hell isn't me.
Sticking up for myself, my sister, my mother and my family? Not wrong.
Calling your behavior abusive when it is? Not wrong. (And not "verbal assault" either, asshole.)
Dumping your precious wine down the sink? Probably a little bit wrong, but only because I lost my cool there: should've stayed calmer. The dumping part I'm ok with, because Fuck That Shit.
Ignoring you now, even though I know you're just waiting for me to say something, anything, so you can either walk right in or stomp all over me again? Not wrong.
Let me make this 300000% clear - to myself, and to the sister who needs to hear it, and just happens to read my blog - WE DID NOTHING WRONG. It is not ok to say the things he said, no matter if we started the argument - we didn't say anything out of bounds to him, but he certainly did to us. His bullying is NOT OUR FAULT. THE END.
Of course, it feels like it could be our fault. Her fault for saying something in the first place, she says; my fault for not just walking away and letting it drop, I think. But that's just some textbook Over Developed Sense of Responsibility right there. Over time, everything feels like our fault - when people are happy, when they're not, how they act because of their mood - all of that is not in our control, but it feels like it should be.
Example: Last night's big blow out (which follows our last really big blow out by only 6 months, with about 3 less major ones in between) came immediately following his vacation, last week. That's 9 days of holding your breath, tiptoeing around, hiding yourself in your room (or at work, or in the cellar, or at someone else's house: Hell I even stayed later at the HOSPITAL so I wouldn't have to come home) so that you don't accidentally say something to set him off. He, of course, doesn't see it like that, but the rest of us do. If I'm going to keep a fight from happening I either have to a)pretend that I'm fine with the drinking and drunk him and all that comes along with that (overly affectionate fakeness, pushing food on you repeatedly, an inability to take no for an answer about anything) or b) not be in the same room with him. I chose, for as much as I was able, option b. For nine days. My sister and her husband ate with him more, choosing lite option A and a huge dose of option B (cellar time ALL NIGHT LONG). And my mom, well she usually can't get away with B, and even though she doesn't do a good job of pretending (i.e: we can all tell she's pissed off at him), he doesn't really notice, so that's the way our week went.
It was only after all that shit that my sister came home from work yesterday and called him on his drinking (A bit of an explanation first: following last ginormous traumatizing fight, he swore off drinking. That lasted a week. Since then he has told us that he won't drink at all. Then he changed it to "I won't drink when I'm cooking" Then it was "I won't have more than 1 glass/2 glasses/3 glasses a night" Last night he was at 2.5 glasses when she walked in). And then spent the rest of the night crying, saying she shouldn't have started anything.
She didn't start it, and I want her to get that. (Hi. I know you get it, but you don't feel it. That's ok, too, but just so you know: I know this wasn't your fault.) He can lay the blame at our feet - hers for daring to say something, mine for not shutting my mouth when he wanted me to, my mom's for not sticking up for him "while I was being assaulted" - but we all know the truth about where it goes. This is his fault, and that's all there is too it.
Another sister and I were talking recently, about babies. About how much we want them and don't have them, and are scared it may never happen for us. (Which, let's not talk about that right now) And she said something about never letting her kids sleep over, out of fear of what his moods would be like, and it sort of killed me (because I love my niece and nephews so much and would hate not to be able to spend time with any of them), and at the same time I understood perfectly. I want a baby more than anything, but I would never bring it into this house the way it is right now. Never.
So don't give me all this shit about how you just can just "cook, and drink, and mind my own fucking business", because it is my business. Because I love you, and because I love them, and because, god damn it I'm trying really fucking hard to love myself. And I can't love a person who lets other people walk all over them - or her family. So, I know you're going to do as you please (who knows it better than me**), but it's not going to be crushing me anymore. It's not going to be hurling abuse at the people I love anymore. And if that means that I've lost two fathers to alcohol, I'm going to say that that really sucks. And I'm going to be horribly sad. But I'm not going to lose myself just so you can be a happy drunk.
*And I'd just like to say that my Mom, whose own issues with alcohol have been pretty intense and troubling, has been sober for almost four months now, and I couldn't be prouder of her. Yes, it was a decision she made based on medical necessity, but I think every addict's decision to get sober is medically necessary, and she's working really hard on it, which is amazing.
**My biological father slipped into his alcoholism sometime before I 9, and our relationship was rocky from that point on. Eventually, 11 years ago this July, it took his life.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Anger.
It's a simple word, but a complex emotion. Something familiar to everybody, but still absolutely unique to each individual. And, I realized quite recently, that it is the main obstacle I've been facing (for the last however long) when it comes to writing anything of substance in this space.
Sure, there's been the holiday havoc, and the shingles before that, and the family members' health crises and the three months away from my own home before that, and about a million other, tiny in comparison, issues that keep cropping up, but I've written through that kind of stuff before - I even sort of wrote through it this time. But more often then not, five years, and a gazillion stories and shared emotions into this blogging thing, lately every time I opened the little Blogger tab on my computer, I would find myself struck - and stuck - with all the things I couldn't say.
All the things I have been so angry about that I can't talk about in person - either because I can't figure out how to say them or because nobody actually hears them no matter how loudly I say it - just sort of clumped up in my brain, letting little drips and drops through here and there, but bottling up most of what could actually be said. And the thing about it was, that I didn't even realize it was anger that was keeping the words from coming until I started to let some of it out. I knew there was something: a wall, a block, a barrier between me and the world - even here in this virtual world - but I couldn't figure out where the wall had come from, or how to take it down.
And I still haven't figured it all out, but over the past few weeks something has been made abundantly clear to me (and probably to those people in my life who are paying any attention at all): I am pissed off.
I am pissed off about so many little things, and so many huge things, and just So. Many. Things. And it has shut me down.
It has turned off the flow of words from my brain to my fingers, so that when I come here to write something, all I can think to say is "Things here are busy/crazy/overwhelming, check back later." But I'm not satisfied with that, so I wind up writing nothing and hoping that you all haven't wandered away due to my inattention.
It's shut down my patience, which I'm supposed to have an unending supply of, because that's what people expect of me - To the extent that on Christmas Day I had to lock myself in my room and cry for ten minutes before I could come out and face people again because they were getting on my nerves so much. And the things they were doing would not ordinarily bother me that much, so I know it wasn't just that they were being assholes (even though they kind of were).
It's shut down my ability to put up with crap: I feel unable to take people's shit anymore, and want them to know and to see it as truth that I Am Done. Even the kids are getting a whole lot more of "does this look like my serious face or my joking face? Because I am not joking and you're going to want to stop it right now." I feel like all of my boundaries have been trampled over and over again so I'm left, walking the lines, retrenching, protecting myself - even if that means being overly sensitive and shooting anyone who comes within sight, deservedly or not.
It's closed of my sense of empathy and sympathy - particularly with myself: I am so upset with myself for being upset that I go around feeling like a heartless bitch and expecting people to treat me as if I am that. (Even though I know I'm not.)
It has also shut down my ability to express emotions with any clarity, in case you couldn't tell from that last paragraph. I keep thinking things like "I'm sad; but why?" or "I am feeling such rage right now, and it is out of proportion to the situation we are in, but I can't tell you why I'm feeling it." And it pisses me off even more when someone says something about it ("You seem tired/upset/not your usual cheery self." No, really: gee thanks.)
'So,' you might ask, if you have made it this far into this unending rant about... everything, 'NTE, why are you so angry?' And that's just the thing - I'm angry about so many things, only a quarter of which I can put an actual label on.
I'm angry with passive-aggressive commentary from my family, the kind that I'm just supposed to shrug off and pretend doesn't hurt me, and I'm angry with myself for making those same kind of remarks to them. I'm angry with my illnesses and doctors and the frustrating lack of ANYTHING that I've been confronted with, yet again, this winter. I'm angry with the ableist/racist/sexist/---ist discussions that take place around me, and that I'm not supposed to get angry at them, because that makes me "holier-than-thou." I'm angry at what a shit year 2010 turned out to be, and all the ridiculous drama that 2011 is already holding for us. I'm angry that I'm not doing more about all the things I know only I can take care of, and I'm angry at people who aren't taking the actions only they can do to fix things. I'm angry that there are situations I can't control, and yet I spend all my time trying to control them. I'm angry about things that shouldn't even enter into my life, on other people's behalf. I'm angry that no one seems to notice I am angry. I'm angry about the fact that nobody else is as angry as (I feel) they should be.
I'm angry with myself, with my body, with my family, with my doctors, with the Internet, with the world. I'm angry at my thoughts and feelings, and the fact that they buzz around in my head and heart and stomach incessantly, but when I try to get them down on paper, they become harder to grasp then vapor.
I'm just angry. Mad, frustrated, ranting, coiled, incensed, enraged, inflamed. All of those. And it's painful to be this angry, and to be keeping it all inside.
So when I finally (and I do mean FINALLY, because I have been feeling this way since, at least September, when my Grandmother had her stroke & I wound up semi-homeless again & my doctor told me that my shingles were stress-related hives instead of Listening To Me)... When I finally realized that this emotion that was bottling everything else up, that was clouding all my other emotions and dulling them to the point where I wasn't even feeling them sometimes, was anger, I decided to let it fly. I'm not keeping it to myself anymore. I'm trying not to aim it indiscriminately or disproportionately, but I'm not keeping it all bound up inside of me anymore.
Which may or may not bode entirely well for this blog and what it might become over the next little while, but I'll tell you one thing it definitely will be -
More honest.
Because part of the reason I haven't been writing all that much is because who wants to hear the ranting of an angry woman, especially if she doesn't even know what she's angry about? Would I keep reading a blog like that? I don't know for sure, and I can't answer it for you either. But I think I would, because it's true. And that's all I ever require in whatever I'm reading... that it come from a true place. And that's all I should require from what I'm writing too.
So if mad is what I'm feeling, mad may be what you get. But at least it'll still be the truth.
Welcome to 2011, everybody, let's hope it gets better from here, and if it doesn't, come join me in being righteously angry... because the only way through it is through it.*
*I can't remember which AA or Al-anon or substance abuse program pamphlet I got that from, and a Google search only shows up random religious theologies, which I know is not where I got it, but it still applies. Or, if you prefer: "If you're going through hell, keep going." Winston Churchill
Sure, there's been the holiday havoc, and the shingles before that, and the family members' health crises and the three months away from my own home before that, and about a million other, tiny in comparison, issues that keep cropping up, but I've written through that kind of stuff before - I even sort of wrote through it this time. But more often then not, five years, and a gazillion stories and shared emotions into this blogging thing, lately every time I opened the little Blogger tab on my computer, I would find myself struck - and stuck - with all the things I couldn't say.
All the things I have been so angry about that I can't talk about in person - either because I can't figure out how to say them or because nobody actually hears them no matter how loudly I say it - just sort of clumped up in my brain, letting little drips and drops through here and there, but bottling up most of what could actually be said. And the thing about it was, that I didn't even realize it was anger that was keeping the words from coming until I started to let some of it out. I knew there was something: a wall, a block, a barrier between me and the world - even here in this virtual world - but I couldn't figure out where the wall had come from, or how to take it down.
And I still haven't figured it all out, but over the past few weeks something has been made abundantly clear to me (and probably to those people in my life who are paying any attention at all): I am pissed off.
I am pissed off about so many little things, and so many huge things, and just So. Many. Things. And it has shut me down.
It has turned off the flow of words from my brain to my fingers, so that when I come here to write something, all I can think to say is "Things here are busy/crazy/overwhelming, check back later." But I'm not satisfied with that, so I wind up writing nothing and hoping that you all haven't wandered away due to my inattention.
It's shut down my patience, which I'm supposed to have an unending supply of, because that's what people expect of me - To the extent that on Christmas Day I had to lock myself in my room and cry for ten minutes before I could come out and face people again because they were getting on my nerves so much. And the things they were doing would not ordinarily bother me that much, so I know it wasn't just that they were being assholes (even though they kind of were).
It's shut down my ability to put up with crap: I feel unable to take people's shit anymore, and want them to know and to see it as truth that I Am Done. Even the kids are getting a whole lot more of "does this look like my serious face or my joking face? Because I am not joking and you're going to want to stop it right now." I feel like all of my boundaries have been trampled over and over again so I'm left, walking the lines, retrenching, protecting myself - even if that means being overly sensitive and shooting anyone who comes within sight, deservedly or not.
It's closed of my sense of empathy and sympathy - particularly with myself: I am so upset with myself for being upset that I go around feeling like a heartless bitch and expecting people to treat me as if I am that. (Even though I know I'm not.)
It has also shut down my ability to express emotions with any clarity, in case you couldn't tell from that last paragraph. I keep thinking things like "I'm sad; but why?" or "I am feeling such rage right now, and it is out of proportion to the situation we are in, but I can't tell you why I'm feeling it." And it pisses me off even more when someone says something about it ("You seem tired/upset/not your usual cheery self." No, really: gee thanks.)
'So,' you might ask, if you have made it this far into this unending rant about... everything, 'NTE, why are you so angry?' And that's just the thing - I'm angry about so many things, only a quarter of which I can put an actual label on.
I'm angry with passive-aggressive commentary from my family, the kind that I'm just supposed to shrug off and pretend doesn't hurt me, and I'm angry with myself for making those same kind of remarks to them. I'm angry with my illnesses and doctors and the frustrating lack of ANYTHING that I've been confronted with, yet again, this winter. I'm angry with the ableist/racist/sexist/---ist discussions that take place around me, and that I'm not supposed to get angry at them, because that makes me "holier-than-thou." I'm angry at what a shit year 2010 turned out to be, and all the ridiculous drama that 2011 is already holding for us. I'm angry that I'm not doing more about all the things I know only I can take care of, and I'm angry at people who aren't taking the actions only they can do to fix things. I'm angry that there are situations I can't control, and yet I spend all my time trying to control them. I'm angry about things that shouldn't even enter into my life, on other people's behalf. I'm angry that no one seems to notice I am angry. I'm angry about the fact that nobody else is as angry as (I feel) they should be.
I'm angry with myself, with my body, with my family, with my doctors, with the Internet, with the world. I'm angry at my thoughts and feelings, and the fact that they buzz around in my head and heart and stomach incessantly, but when I try to get them down on paper, they become harder to grasp then vapor.
I'm just angry. Mad, frustrated, ranting, coiled, incensed, enraged, inflamed. All of those. And it's painful to be this angry, and to be keeping it all inside.
So when I finally (and I do mean FINALLY, because I have been feeling this way since, at least September, when my Grandmother had her stroke & I wound up semi-homeless again & my doctor told me that my shingles were stress-related hives instead of Listening To Me)... When I finally realized that this emotion that was bottling everything else up, that was clouding all my other emotions and dulling them to the point where I wasn't even feeling them sometimes, was anger, I decided to let it fly. I'm not keeping it to myself anymore. I'm trying not to aim it indiscriminately or disproportionately, but I'm not keeping it all bound up inside of me anymore.
Which may or may not bode entirely well for this blog and what it might become over the next little while, but I'll tell you one thing it definitely will be -
More honest.
Because part of the reason I haven't been writing all that much is because who wants to hear the ranting of an angry woman, especially if she doesn't even know what she's angry about? Would I keep reading a blog like that? I don't know for sure, and I can't answer it for you either. But I think I would, because it's true. And that's all I ever require in whatever I'm reading... that it come from a true place. And that's all I should require from what I'm writing too.
So if mad is what I'm feeling, mad may be what you get. But at least it'll still be the truth.
Welcome to 2011, everybody, let's hope it gets better from here, and if it doesn't, come join me in being righteously angry... because the only way through it is through it.*
*I can't remember which AA or Al-anon or substance abuse program pamphlet I got that from, and a Google search only shows up random religious theologies, which I know is not where I got it, but it still applies. Or, if you prefer: "If you're going through hell, keep going." Winston Churchill
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
The I in illness is isolation, and the crucial letters in wellness are we*
Day 10: Someone you need to let go or wish you didn't know
I wish I didn't know so many doctors. Nothing personal, but I could really do with knowing less of them, (or none at all?) and, today, one in particular. One who is doing a whole lot of nuthin, and contributing such gems as "stress can cause hives, you know" or "you're so young to be in a wheelchair" but nothing, that might be considered even slightly, you know, helpful. Not a substantive suggestion in the bunch, just a lot of babbling about "if it gets worse, maybe you should come in and see me..." Even as she was implying that coming in to see her would net me absolutely nothing in the way of a result.
And after sixteen years, I think I definitely need to be quicker to let go of doctors who - while not perhaps actively doing me harm - are also not helping me. Regardless of the fact that it is ridiculous and annoying to have to start all over again with a new doctor, who wants to repeat all the tests you've already had three ways till Sunday. I need to realize that - while there might not be any answers to be have, when you've got such "mysterious" maladies as CFIDS - if you're not helping me, you're hurting me. There's a lot more that they could/should be doing, and if I have to keep searching, I'll keep searching.
So, you're on notice, current primary care "physician": If you're not more helpful the next time I call (and just a free hint for you: Saying "Well, have you tried Tylenol?" after I've already told you that I could take an entire bottle of the damn things and they might as well be M&Ms for all the good they do me is Not. Helping.), then I'm letting you go. For me.
*Mimi Guarneri, The Heart Speaks: A Cardiologist Reveals the Secret Language of Healing
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Day 01 Something you hate about yourself.
Day 02 Something you love about yourself.
Day 03 Something you have to forgive yourself for.
Day 04 Something you have to forgive someone for.
Day 05 Something you hope to do in your life.
Day 06 Something you hope you never have to do.
Day 07 Someone who has made your life worth living for.
Day 08 Someone who made your life hell, or treated you like shit.
Day 09 Someone you didn’t want to let go, but just drifted.
Day 10 Someone you need to let go, or wish you didn’t know.
Day 11 Something people seem to compliment you the most on.
Day 12 Something you never get compliments on.
Day 13 A band or artist that has gotten you through some tough ass days. (write a letter.)
Day 14 A hero that has let you down. (letter)
Day 15 Something or someone you couldn’t live without, because you’ve tried living without it.
Day 16 Someone or something you definitely could live without.
Day 17 A book you’ve read that changed your views on something.
Day 18 Your views on gay marriage.
Day 19 What do you think of religion? Or what do you think of politics?
Day 20 Your views on drugs and alcohol.
Day 21 (scenario) Your best friend is in a car accident and you two got into a fight an hour before. What do you do?
Day 22 Something you wish you hadn’t done in your life.
Day 23 Something you wish you had done in your life.
Day 24 Make a playlist to someone, and explain why you chose all the songs. (Just post the titles and artists and letter)
Day 25 The reason you believe you’re still alive today.
Day 26 Have you ever thought about giving up on life? If so, when and why?
Day 27 What’s the best thing going for you right now?
Day 28 What if you were pregnant or got someone pregnant, what would you do?
Day 29 Something you hope to change about yourself. And why.
Day 30 A letter to yourself, tell yourself EVERYTHING you love about yourself
I wish I didn't know so many doctors. Nothing personal, but I could really do with knowing less of them, (or none at all?) and, today, one in particular. One who is doing a whole lot of nuthin, and contributing such gems as "stress can cause hives, you know" or "you're so young to be in a wheelchair" but nothing, that might be considered even slightly, you know, helpful. Not a substantive suggestion in the bunch, just a lot of babbling about "if it gets worse, maybe you should come in and see me..." Even as she was implying that coming in to see her would net me absolutely nothing in the way of a result.
And after sixteen years, I think I definitely need to be quicker to let go of doctors who - while not perhaps actively doing me harm - are also not helping me. Regardless of the fact that it is ridiculous and annoying to have to start all over again with a new doctor, who wants to repeat all the tests you've already had three ways till Sunday. I need to realize that - while there might not be any answers to be have, when you've got such "mysterious" maladies as CFIDS - if you're not helping me, you're hurting me. There's a lot more that they could/should be doing, and if I have to keep searching, I'll keep searching.
So, you're on notice, current primary care "physician": If you're not more helpful the next time I call (and just a free hint for you: Saying "Well, have you tried Tylenol?" after I've already told you that I could take an entire bottle of the damn things and they might as well be M&Ms for all the good they do me is Not. Helping.), then I'm letting you go. For me.
*Mimi Guarneri, The Heart Speaks: A Cardiologist Reveals the Secret Language of Healing
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Day 01 Something you hate about yourself.
Day 02 Something you love about yourself.
Day 03 Something you have to forgive yourself for.
Day 04 Something you have to forgive someone for.
Day 05 Something you hope to do in your life.
Day 06 Something you hope you never have to do.
Day 07 Someone who has made your life worth living for.
Day 08 Someone who made your life hell, or treated you like shit.
Day 09 Someone you didn’t want to let go, but just drifted.
Day 10 Someone you need to let go, or wish you didn’t know.
Day 11 Something people seem to compliment you the most on.
Day 12 Something you never get compliments on.
Day 13 A band or artist that has gotten you through some tough ass days. (write a letter.)
Day 14 A hero that has let you down. (letter)
Day 15 Something or someone you couldn’t live without, because you’ve tried living without it.
Day 16 Someone or something you definitely could live without.
Day 17 A book you’ve read that changed your views on something.
Day 18 Your views on gay marriage.
Day 19 What do you think of religion? Or what do you think of politics?
Day 20 Your views on drugs and alcohol.
Day 21 (scenario) Your best friend is in a car accident and you two got into a fight an hour before. What do you do?
Day 22 Something you wish you hadn’t done in your life.
Day 23 Something you wish you had done in your life.
Day 24 Make a playlist to someone, and explain why you chose all the songs. (Just post the titles and artists and letter)
Day 25 The reason you believe you’re still alive today.
Day 26 Have you ever thought about giving up on life? If so, when and why?
Day 27 What’s the best thing going for you right now?
Day 28 What if you were pregnant or got someone pregnant, what would you do?
Day 29 Something you hope to change about yourself. And why.
Day 30 A letter to yourself, tell yourself EVERYTHING you love about yourself
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
I did mention, right,
that I hate doctors?
So, you may remember that I was all on board train "face surgery" as much as any person could be anyways, when last we discussed it. Well, today I had some (unrelated) blood tests, and my liver came back SNAFU. My liver is like that - sometimes, it is fine and dandy, other times it grows things named after cartoon characters from the 1980s (Looking back, I realize that I was not actually writing this blog way back when I developed my hemangioma, which is pronounced exactly as it is spelled: He-Man-Ge-Oma, but that's what I am referring to). It has been labeled fatty (which hurt both our feelings), been ruled out as a donor organ, put on (and taken off of) various medications, and sends sudden, terrifyingly high bad cholesterol numbers to scare lab techs into making the doctor call me back on the very same day. Of course, the fact that those cholesterol numbers also drop dramatically every other time doesn't seem to bother them, but for right now, I'm supposed to be impressed that they are "startlingly high" for someone so young. (I'm not impressed, or bothered, and will just wait till next time before I panic, thank you very much.)
But aside from the cholesterol, my liver enzymes are elevated, which means ... what? Something. Maybe. Nothing? They are Not Sure. They want More Tests. They are Reviewing My Records. - Or, they will be doing all of that, they promise, when they return to the office in a Week and a Half. :sigh:
Which means the sinus surgery may have to be postponed, which I am not pleased about because, well, now that I am on board the train, I would like it to leave as soon as possible, so that I can get off of it as soon as possible. I do not like waiting. I do not like new problems to pop-up when I do not have the energy to deal with them. I do not need some new Skeletor to face, and I'd rather not have to deal with a recurrence of his arch-enemy either (Because, although all that that required was monitoring, liver ultrasounds - any ultrasounds - and me of the FM pain/tender body parts, do not get along well).
I'm just having the kind of the week where things seem to be crumbling/sucking no matter what I do... things that start off with the best of intentions are suddenly horrible and poisonous, and I have no idea where they went wrong or how to fix them.
So when the doctor - my primary care, whom I do not have much faith in at all - called and said "This is a problem. But I'm not going to be here to help you figure it out for two weeks", I wanted to dissolve into a puddle. I mean, I know, in my head, that there are things I can do - like calling the surgeon or Zack in that time, just so I know what their take on the whole thing is - but right now, all I want is for all the complications to Go Away.
Or, maybe I could go away: Where is Swift Wind when you needherhim?
(Did you know he was a he? I didn't.)
So, you may remember that I was all on board train "face surgery" as much as any person could be anyways, when last we discussed it. Well, today I had some (unrelated) blood tests, and my liver came back SNAFU. My liver is like that - sometimes, it is fine and dandy, other times it grows things named after cartoon characters from the 1980s (Looking back, I realize that I was not actually writing this blog way back when I developed my hemangioma, which is pronounced exactly as it is spelled: He-Man-Ge-Oma, but that's what I am referring to). It has been labeled fatty (which hurt both our feelings), been ruled out as a donor organ, put on (and taken off of) various medications, and sends sudden, terrifyingly high bad cholesterol numbers to scare lab techs into making the doctor call me back on the very same day. Of course, the fact that those cholesterol numbers also drop dramatically every other time doesn't seem to bother them, but for right now, I'm supposed to be impressed that they are "startlingly high" for someone so young. (I'm not impressed, or bothered, and will just wait till next time before I panic, thank you very much.)
But aside from the cholesterol, my liver enzymes are elevated, which means ... what? Something. Maybe. Nothing? They are Not Sure. They want More Tests. They are Reviewing My Records. - Or, they will be doing all of that, they promise, when they return to the office in a Week and a Half. :sigh:
Which means the sinus surgery may have to be postponed, which I am not pleased about because, well, now that I am on board the train, I would like it to leave as soon as possible, so that I can get off of it as soon as possible. I do not like waiting. I do not like new problems to pop-up when I do not have the energy to deal with them. I do not need some new Skeletor to face, and I'd rather not have to deal with a recurrence of his arch-enemy either (Because, although all that that required was monitoring, liver ultrasounds - any ultrasounds - and me of the FM pain/tender body parts, do not get along well).
I'm just having the kind of the week where things seem to be crumbling/sucking no matter what I do... things that start off with the best of intentions are suddenly horrible and poisonous, and I have no idea where they went wrong or how to fix them.
So when the doctor - my primary care, whom I do not have much faith in at all - called and said "This is a problem. But I'm not going to be here to help you figure it out for two weeks", I wanted to dissolve into a puddle. I mean, I know, in my head, that there are things I can do - like calling the surgeon or Zack in that time, just so I know what their take on the whole thing is - but right now, all I want is for all the complications to Go Away.
Or, maybe I could go away: Where is Swift Wind when you need
(Did you know he was a he? I didn't.)
Sunday, October 25, 2009
The End
Final Tally!
Title of book(s) read since last update: The Areas of My Expertise
Number of books read since you started: 8 whole and two halves (of different books)
Pages read since last update:74
Running total of pages read since you started: 2282 + 74 = 2356
Amount of time spent reading since last update: 87 minutes
Running total of time spent reading since you started: 1269 + 87 = 1356 = 22.6 hours/24!
Mini-challenges completed: 8
Other participants you’ve visited: Around 24
Prize you’ve won: 1 ! T
Title of book(s) read since last update: The Areas of My Expertise
Number of books read since you started: 8 whole and two halves (of different books)
Pages read since last update:74
Running total of pages read since you started: 2282 + 74 = 2356
Amount of time spent reading since last update: 87 minutes
Running total of time spent reading since you started: 1269 + 87 = 1356 = 22.6 hours/24!
Mini-challenges completed: 8
Other participants you’ve visited: Around 24
Prize you’ve won: 1 ! T
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