I go to visit my grandmother after she gets out of rehab, following a nasty tumble down the stairs. I've talked to her, as usual, on our Friday night phone calls, but ... something seems off. She drifts, seems to forget she's talking to me, seems ready to hang up as soon as she answers the phone. I'm worried, but my uncle has assured me that it's just a medicine mix-up, and that it's all under control.
Shortly into our visit, I realize that nothing is under control. My uncle is somehow missing the fact that my grandmother is not acting lucidly, that she's easily confused, that her pain is not being managed well. As we talk, he seems to realize that things are worse than he recognized, and I can see that neither of them are sure what the hell comes next.
I have no idea what comes next, except now I am volunteering to stay on the couch, and help with meds and her PT almost before I knew I was thinking it. I was meant to stay for a few days, but - on the first free day that I went home, to shower and refill my pills and gather some supplies and whatnot - I don't make it as far as my house before I am filled with an overwhelming fear, only manage to make it to my room and close the door behind me before I am sobbing uncontrollably. The only thing I am sure of is that I need to be there, because they need me, even though I will be able to solve nothing, even though there is no possibility of fixing this.
And that was the last night I spent anywhere but my Grandmother's couch until three weeks after she passed away.
----
This time, my mother and I have planned to come down to my brother and sister-in-law's house every Thursday, and at least one other day during the week, to clean the house and distract & feed the children, and just... be supportive. The cancer is stage 4: we are hoping for miracles, but know how unlikely they are. We do not care. She does not care, and so treatment continues.
We are there two consecutive Thursdays, straightening things up and moving all their shit into neater piles, and helping the (not so) littles with their homework - basically doing the busywork of life that falls to the side when you're too sick to do anything but sleep and take your meds.
My brother slowly seems to understand that we are here to help and not to just mess with his shit, and starts confiding how scared he is, how desperately hard this is becoming, how he doesn't know if he's going to be able to do it. On Facebook, he cracks a 'joke' about Stage 4 Cancer and spousal weight loss, and I can see how tightly he is holding on to his edges, how close he is to his private apocalypse, and I ask how I can help.
He tells me he trusts me more than anyone else, and he needs someone he can trust. He needs someone. I know how to be someone, and I push aside the thoughts of how often I need a someone and can find no one, push aside all of the non-essential elements of my own brand of being sick, and transition into helper-mode. I make schedules and organize paperwork and calendars. I make sure someone else will always be here, even if that someone else usually winds up being me.
Not being able to drive, and Mom having a job now, and scarce/uneven coverage during the day, mean that it's much easier to just camp out in their comfy chair, to claim a corner of the living room as my own. Sleepover almost never-ending, for now. For today.
And here there is hope, and here there are treatments, and here there is still that irreversible diagnosis waiting for us at some end, but it isn't now.
For now, I try to coax my sister-in-law to eat more than three bites of noodles, of pizza, of absolutely anything, and lament that radiation makes everything taste like chalk. For now I keep med schedules and daily logs and ask otherwise inappropriate questions about bathroom habits, and hope that, somehow, she will forgive me. For doing her kids' homework with them and making decisions about whether they can go over their friend's houses; for camping out on her couch when she probably just wants to be alone; for following her into another room when she can't really tell that her feet are tangled in the oxygen cord.
For all the little things that piss me off the most when I'm sick, and I try so hard to avoid, but somehow, occasionally, still slip out. For poaching and nagging and making a sad face when I think she's not looking.
That's how it happens - how, piece by piece, I become a fixture in someone else's story, someone else's home, someone else's days. How I turn off my own life - just for this little while - in the hopes of helping. Just Helping. Sweet jesus, just Let Me Help.
In case you were wondering. -
And a lot of people seem to be, and aren't exactly nice when they inquire - "How can you take care of someone else, when you can barely take care of yourself?" they ask. You're right - taking care of me is a struggle. Every. Single. Day. But a lot of that struggle is sitting around, laying around, distracting myself from the pain. Turns out; it's not that much harder to do in somebody else's living room, watching over them while they rest. Waking them up every few hours to try and get them to eat. Reminding them to take their pills when your alarm goes off for you to take your own.
Not saying it isn't hard. Because it's draining as hell and I couldn't be sorer outside of a 5-alarm-flare, but ... it's worth it. To be able to make her smile when I poke fun at my brother. To make my brother be able to go to work without having a panic attack. To hug some kiddos and let them pretend during a game of War. To talk to her sister and let her know that she matters to us too, that Sister-in-law is a part of our family, and that means that her sister can cry on my shoulder any day. To learn more about her, filing away bits and pieces for tomorrows.
If it's something that winds up being too physically taxing - and it already is, it always is - then that's a thing I'll deal with. Because there are a lot of parts of my life I have had to shut down, turn away from, pretend don't matter, and this is one area I'm just not willing to do that with.
But in case you were wondering, that's how it happens.
Showing posts with label Stress. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Stress. Show all posts
Sunday, November 02, 2014
Saturday, October 06, 2012
Hi Again
I know it's been a couple of weeks ~ I'll claim the first two do to just complete exhaustion, and the last two because things are pretty fucked up here, and I'd hoped to come back and be able to say "Thank you so much for your kind thoughts" and then move on to happier things. But I don't seem to have any happier things, right now. Which is not just to say that I'm f'ed up (although I am): there's a whole bunch of family shit that's gone down that's beyond messed up, and somewhere between my grief and the situation and everybody else's grief and confusion and all of our individual issues, it feels like my family is basically coming apart at the seams. Not that those stitches were all that tight two months ago, but they just sort of burst the week of my grandmother's funeral, and I'm at a complete loss as to how to pull them back together again.
I don't even know where I am or what I'm doing, at this point, besides making it through the next fucking minute without falling apart. And I'm not always doing a bang up job on that, to be honest. I'm back at our house, but it's not home - it really never was, only maybe I was better at pretending before I watched my grandmother die and realized that I need to do more than mark my time here. I can't seem to talk to anybody without causing a secondhand fight, can't seem to get anybody to listen to me at all, can't seem to connect with the people who've offered to help, even when I want to (and I don't always want to: it seems like too much explaining, mostly). I feel like exploding just about every minute of every day, or, I feel completely absent and numb - it's one or the other, seems like.
My dad threw my sister and brother-in-law out of the house, the night before my grandmother's funeral. Nobody told me what the hell was going on, because, I don't know they thought I would be too upset to notice that people weren't talking to each other? I don't know. So I got the lowlights third and fourth hand, then when I tried to talk to people, it was a disaster and didn't make anything any clearer for them or for me.
My mom left my dad, then came back, but only because she didn't have anywhere else to go, and then, later, because she wouldn't leave my sister and brother-in-law in the house with just him. This was all in the days immediately after we had just buried my grandmother, so I will admit that I did not have all cylinders going. I mostly wanted (still want) to curl up in a ball and ignore everything, because it takes so much energy, and I am plum out.
My dad says the stress of being targeted at work (and, yes, he is being targeted at work) made him snap and... a whole load of bullshit that basically means it's not his fault, but maybe yes, he might admit that he was wrong and 'an asshole' (What he won't cop to, is that this happens All The Damn Time, and nobody feels safe around him/trusts him anymore because he's a bully). My sister & brother-in-law immediately started looking for a new place, because, hell: who wants to live like that? They've been thrown out twice in the matter of a year for Doing. Nothing. Wrong. And let's be clear - they didn't do shit, he just took it out on them. I told my mother while I was still at Grandmother's house, that I didn't want to be here either... that I would be looking for a new place as soon as I could. {Of course, that was because I forgot that I couldn't place emotional well-being above money, health and other issues without there being major sacrifices of money and health and other things, but I'm still determined to do it} My mother told him she was leaving too, although it would be better for everybody if HE just left. He refused/refuses to leave.
So today my sister and brother-in-law are signing a lease for their new place, at the worst possible time for them bc my sister is trying to wean off her meds so that they can get pregnant, and she could really use some backup (which is just when you should be forced to move away from people who can back you up). She's hurt and mad at my mom for her response to this whole ball of bullshit, which I can't seem to talk to either of them about, because their both freezing me out when it comes to that. She might even be mad at me, and since she's the one who reads this blog I'm only going to say that I hope she's not, because I feel like I'm on her side, but if she is, I hope she'll tell me so I can try to fix it.
My dad and I had a whole discussion about how mad I am at him the other day, and how it's his fault that SisterJ & B-I-L are moving and that I'm looking for a place, and that Mom is probably looking for a place too, and when my mom asked him what he got out of it he told her that he "has a big heart but doesn't use it." Which was said once, in the midst of a three hour discussion about how badly he is screwing things up and all the things he is ruining by his behavior, and how hard it's going to be once he realizes how badly he's damaged people he's supposed to care about and how I'm too old for this shit and I'm just not sticking around anymore to watch him bully people (or to be bullied) and how he's being completely selfish, but that's what we all expect him to be at this point, so that we don't even talk to him about our shit anymore and a huge rant about how he's a total hypocrite and totally ignores the people in our family and expects us to be there for him and how he never fucking listens ... anyways. What he took out of all of that was me saying he had a big heart, which just proves my point about him never listening, and that I really need to get the hell out of here.
Mom and I have talked - or sort of talked - about what she's going to do: she says she's going and she's done, and all of that. But I don't know: she still seems undecided to me, and I don't know how much of that is the fact that she's changing her meds, and she's still grieving for my grandmother, too, and she seems to be leaning waaay closer to the numb side of things than I am. Of course, complicating all of that is the fact that she's my PCA, and she does a lot more for me than the hours the state provides for her, which is pretty simple when you're living in the same house, but a hell of a lot more complicated once I find somewhere else to live.
Which doesn't even mention that moving changes everything for me, financially - I have to notify the SSI people, and Mass Health (my insurance) and the PCA program, and everybody does a whole new evaluation and yippee: more energy I don't have. Plus, I can't afford any place to actually live on what my SSI is currently, so I have to apply for housing stipends, which means that the already complicated task of finding accessible housing (and granted, I can use non-100%accessible bathrooms, which puts me a step above other househunters with disabilities) all that much more complicated, because now I have to look for accessible housing that takes waivers/stipends from the government. It's so much fun so far!
But here's the thing, as every fucking thing seems to crumble around me (which you could tell only by the fact that I've cursed like five times in this post, when I usually don't ever), I learned a lot about myself this summer, being with Grandmother during those five months. I learned that I can handle a lot more shit than I thought I could, even if I have to breakdown in tears when nobody is looking. And even if I shouldn't have to handle any of this, because it's all ridiculous and I don't want to have to deal with it, because it's hard: even though it's ridiculous and hard and stressful and I Don't Want To, I'm going to be able to do it. I'm going to drag myself and my family through it, and eventually we'll all come out the other side, having met the challenge.
Being a grown-up sure does suck, you guys.
I don't even know where I am or what I'm doing, at this point, besides making it through the next fucking minute without falling apart. And I'm not always doing a bang up job on that, to be honest. I'm back at our house, but it's not home - it really never was, only maybe I was better at pretending before I watched my grandmother die and realized that I need to do more than mark my time here. I can't seem to talk to anybody without causing a secondhand fight, can't seem to get anybody to listen to me at all, can't seem to connect with the people who've offered to help, even when I want to (and I don't always want to: it seems like too much explaining, mostly). I feel like exploding just about every minute of every day, or, I feel completely absent and numb - it's one or the other, seems like.
My dad threw my sister and brother-in-law out of the house, the night before my grandmother's funeral. Nobody told me what the hell was going on, because, I don't know they thought I would be too upset to notice that people weren't talking to each other? I don't know. So I got the lowlights third and fourth hand, then when I tried to talk to people, it was a disaster and didn't make anything any clearer for them or for me.
My mom left my dad, then came back, but only because she didn't have anywhere else to go, and then, later, because she wouldn't leave my sister and brother-in-law in the house with just him. This was all in the days immediately after we had just buried my grandmother, so I will admit that I did not have all cylinders going. I mostly wanted (still want) to curl up in a ball and ignore everything, because it takes so much energy, and I am plum out.
My dad says the stress of being targeted at work (and, yes, he is being targeted at work) made him snap and... a whole load of bullshit that basically means it's not his fault, but maybe yes, he might admit that he was wrong and 'an asshole' (What he won't cop to, is that this happens All The Damn Time, and nobody feels safe around him/trusts him anymore because he's a bully). My sister & brother-in-law immediately started looking for a new place, because, hell: who wants to live like that? They've been thrown out twice in the matter of a year for Doing. Nothing. Wrong. And let's be clear - they didn't do shit, he just took it out on them. I told my mother while I was still at Grandmother's house, that I didn't want to be here either... that I would be looking for a new place as soon as I could. {Of course, that was because I forgot that I couldn't place emotional well-being above money, health and other issues without there being major sacrifices of money and health and other things, but I'm still determined to do it} My mother told him she was leaving too, although it would be better for everybody if HE just left. He refused/refuses to leave.
So today my sister and brother-in-law are signing a lease for their new place, at the worst possible time for them bc my sister is trying to wean off her meds so that they can get pregnant, and she could really use some backup (which is just when you should be forced to move away from people who can back you up). She's hurt and mad at my mom for her response to this whole ball of bullshit, which I can't seem to talk to either of them about, because their both freezing me out when it comes to that. She might even be mad at me, and since she's the one who reads this blog I'm only going to say that I hope she's not, because I feel like I'm on her side, but if she is, I hope she'll tell me so I can try to fix it.
My dad and I had a whole discussion about how mad I am at him the other day, and how it's his fault that SisterJ & B-I-L are moving and that I'm looking for a place, and that Mom is probably looking for a place too, and when my mom asked him what he got out of it he told her that he "has a big heart but doesn't use it." Which was said once, in the midst of a three hour discussion about how badly he is screwing things up and all the things he is ruining by his behavior, and how hard it's going to be once he realizes how badly he's damaged people he's supposed to care about and how I'm too old for this shit and I'm just not sticking around anymore to watch him bully people (or to be bullied) and how he's being completely selfish, but that's what we all expect him to be at this point, so that we don't even talk to him about our shit anymore and a huge rant about how he's a total hypocrite and totally ignores the people in our family and expects us to be there for him and how he never fucking listens ... anyways. What he took out of all of that was me saying he had a big heart, which just proves my point about him never listening, and that I really need to get the hell out of here.
Mom and I have talked - or sort of talked - about what she's going to do: she says she's going and she's done, and all of that. But I don't know: she still seems undecided to me, and I don't know how much of that is the fact that she's changing her meds, and she's still grieving for my grandmother, too, and she seems to be leaning waaay closer to the numb side of things than I am. Of course, complicating all of that is the fact that she's my PCA, and she does a lot more for me than the hours the state provides for her, which is pretty simple when you're living in the same house, but a hell of a lot more complicated once I find somewhere else to live.
Which doesn't even mention that moving changes everything for me, financially - I have to notify the SSI people, and Mass Health (my insurance) and the PCA program, and everybody does a whole new evaluation and yippee: more energy I don't have. Plus, I can't afford any place to actually live on what my SSI is currently, so I have to apply for housing stipends, which means that the already complicated task of finding accessible housing (and granted, I can use non-100%accessible bathrooms, which puts me a step above other househunters with disabilities) all that much more complicated, because now I have to look for accessible housing that takes waivers/stipends from the government. It's so much fun so far!
But here's the thing, as every fucking thing seems to crumble around me (which you could tell only by the fact that I've cursed like five times in this post, when I usually don't ever), I learned a lot about myself this summer, being with Grandmother during those five months. I learned that I can handle a lot more shit than I thought I could, even if I have to breakdown in tears when nobody is looking. And even if I shouldn't have to handle any of this, because it's all ridiculous and I don't want to have to deal with it, because it's hard: even though it's ridiculous and hard and stressful and I Don't Want To, I'm going to be able to do it. I'm going to drag myself and my family through it, and eventually we'll all come out the other side, having met the challenge.
Being a grown-up sure does suck, you guys.
Friday, May 25, 2012
"Some heavy ammunition on your side..."
Just before Christmas, when everything was going
berserk with Grandmother (again) and me (as usual) and Mom (which was new) and all the usual
December craziness (birthdays and shopping and Christmas and doctors, oh my), something happened that hasn't happened to me in a long time, and I've been trying to write about it since, but the words didn't come till now.
I hope getting it out there will stop making it so important in my mind. I write about everything here, so (even though it feels raw still) it'll be worth saying it 'out loud', as it were.
----
Mom & I were driving out to see Grandmother at the rehab (like we were doing every day at that point), and I'd spent the morning chopping up all the ingredients for beef stew and thrown them in the crock pot and turned it on low before we left. And I'm sitting in the car and mom makes some random comment about leaving things on and fires, and blah blah blah, and instead of just being a piece of our normal everyday conversation, it was like SPARK! and that tiny little off-hand remark managed to ignite an instant fire in my brain.
Immediately I started to worry about the crock pot, to reanalyze ever step I'd taken in making the stew - had I really turned it on low, or had I set it to high and it would burn the meat so quickly that it would catch fire? Was it safe to turn it on and leave the house at any setting? Have we ever done this before, even though I read about it all the time on the internet, that people make crock pot stuff and then go to work with it cooking, have we ever personally tried it before? Are we too far from the house to go back and turn it off? Just a constant stampede of 'could I be setting the house of fire' thoughts tumbling around in my brain, while I'm attempting to still chat with mom and seem like everything is ok.
Meanwhile, I know that what I'm worrying about is stupid: We leave all sorts of things - computers, cable boxes, the fridge, the dryer - on at home by themselves all the time. Nothing has ever happened, nothing is going to happen. House fires are rare, and I was careful and made sure the crock pot wasn't near anything and was on low, and I know all of this, and yet, I can't stop worrying. Some fifteen minutes later, it's still in my brain, still rolling around in there, maybe even picking up speed, because it's loud enough now that I've said it out loud, trying to make it seem casual, trying to act like we're still joking. Ha ha! we laugh, as I say "but that wouldn't really happen, right?" Big laughs all around.
Still, 25 minutes into the ride, and now I've been muttering about it and obsessing about it for our entire ride, and my next deliberately casual "It's not dangerous to have left that cooking, right?" pops out of my mouth and Mom says sharply "Oh my god: just let it go already!" Which is the normal response, if a person is just being stupid about something, and it's driving you crazy. But this wasn't just normal "oh, gee: random thought - let's giggle about this some more!" comment.
Nope, by this point I was full steam ahead into my first real anxiety attack in years.
I've had minor ones here and there - during other people's drunken fights, mostly, when I would swear some sort of PTSD part of my brain kicks in and I have to excuse myself from the tension of the current screaming match to go throw up before I can wade into things (either as peacekeeper or firebrand). Sometimes just the sound of the cork popping out of the wine bottle in the kitchen is enough to have my shoulders creeping upwards with tension. But for the most part, I've managed them, and managed to avoid them (which is even better). I wouldn't even say that anxiety is one of my top 20 CFIDS symptoms, probably because I was never not a slightly apprehensive person: it's just part of my genetic make up, I'm afraid.
But these huge panic attacks - of which I've (thankfully) only had about 6 - these huge, really full blown, tornado brain of worry, hold your shit together or you'll lose it monstrosities. When those mothers come, it's so frightening, because you know you don't have to be worrying about the thing, or that worrying about it won't help the situation at all, but you just can't stop yourself. Your brain is a runaway worry train, and you're just along for the ride.
So she snaps at me, semi-facetiously, and I burst into tears. 'It doesn't help,' I tell her 'to tell me that the thing I'm worrying about is stupid. I KNOW IT'S STUPID. Now I just feel even more anxious because I'm ashamed that I'm freaking out over something so dumb."
But here's the thing that people who don't have anxiety don't get. To people without panic attacks (those lucky bastards), it's just like regular worry: "Oh I feel like maybe that wasn't the best choice," but it's not a big deal, because Oh well, shrug. People will worry. It happens. I'm a champion worrier, and that's not what a panic attack is - for me at least. Worry is one thing, panic attack is a whole 'nother level of worry, combined with an astronomical confidence level - confidence in the truth of the fear, that is.
A panic attack is not just dread, but certainty. It is an absolute conviction of doom. I may know full well that whatever has set this off is a ridiculous thing to be worried about, but I am still 1000% sure in my gut that it doesn't matter that the odds are astronomical that something could go wrong: something is telling me that it's not right, so it must be so. Something is warning me to fix the situation, and I'm not heeding the warning, and that goes against every instinct you have. In this case, all the signs are all pointing to the idea that the house will have burned down by the time we get home, and I'm supposed to blithely ignore that and continue on with our day as if nothing is wrong? Impossible: it feels WRONG.
That's when the logical part of my brain shrinks down to nothing, and instead I remember all those news stories about people who 'listened to their gut' and saved their families. Or I replay all the times my feeling that something wasn't right was an accurate representation of the situation, and try to convince myself that this time it's ok to ignore all the DANGERDANGERDANGER signals my brain is trying to send me.
I dripped tears for the remainder of our ride, playing the tapes in my head that I know work to calm me: 'This is just a panic attack, it will pass. This is SO not about the beef stew chica: you're life is feeling more than a little bit out of control right now, don't ya think? Let's just ride this one out, and things will get better. You are not psychic, and the house is not burning down while you ignore all the warning signs - this is not a real threat.' But because it feels like a real threat, it takes me the whole ride to calm down.
I'm not shaking by the time we get to the rehab, but I'm still so ashamed - of the panic attack; of the tears, of not handling things like a grown up and instead breaking down into something useless; of the fact that I've broken a streak of panic! attack! free! years! over something so ridiculous - that we cut short our visit and go home relatively early. I know that this is mom's way of apologizing for snapping at me (which, was nice but I'm not sure it was necessary), and reassuring me all at once.
We arrive home to stew - nothing more. Once I calmed down enough, 99% of me was sure that was all we'd find. But the whole ride home, there's that one percent, that one embarrassed, fear-soaked percent, that's trying to get me ready to deal with the fact that I've failed to save all of our worldly possessions, just because I didn't trust myself enough to say "let's go home and I'll shut that off, and then we'll go." And because of that one measly percent, I'm not reassured, because once that panic genie is out of the bottle, I don't know if I'll be able to stopper him up again.
-----
That's why it took me five months to write this post: because god forbid that I tried to tap back into that feeling enough to write about it, and it exploded all over me again. I had to be sure enough of where I was, emotionally, to write about that, and even that feels like a weakness to me: to be so scared of remembering how scared I was? Panic attacks are ridiculous.
And I was right, about the genie part - I've felt him trying to creep up on me a few times since, but I'm better at recognizing it than I used to be, so I've been cutting them off before the fear can blossom on me (for the most part). And some pretty stressful shit has gone down since then, so I'm feeling like I've got a handle on managing it right now, which is good.
Because the next time I let something out of a bottle, it better be granting wishes, not paralyzing me with fear. (Look: wish number one is all ready!)
I hope getting it out there will stop making it so important in my mind. I write about everything here, so (even though it feels raw still) it'll be worth saying it 'out loud', as it were.
----
Mom & I were driving out to see Grandmother at the rehab (like we were doing every day at that point), and I'd spent the morning chopping up all the ingredients for beef stew and thrown them in the crock pot and turned it on low before we left. And I'm sitting in the car and mom makes some random comment about leaving things on and fires, and blah blah blah, and instead of just being a piece of our normal everyday conversation, it was like SPARK! and that tiny little off-hand remark managed to ignite an instant fire in my brain.
Immediately I started to worry about the crock pot, to reanalyze ever step I'd taken in making the stew - had I really turned it on low, or had I set it to high and it would burn the meat so quickly that it would catch fire? Was it safe to turn it on and leave the house at any setting? Have we ever done this before, even though I read about it all the time on the internet, that people make crock pot stuff and then go to work with it cooking, have we ever personally tried it before? Are we too far from the house to go back and turn it off? Just a constant stampede of 'could I be setting the house of fire' thoughts tumbling around in my brain, while I'm attempting to still chat with mom and seem like everything is ok.
Meanwhile, I know that what I'm worrying about is stupid: We leave all sorts of things - computers, cable boxes, the fridge, the dryer - on at home by themselves all the time. Nothing has ever happened, nothing is going to happen. House fires are rare, and I was careful and made sure the crock pot wasn't near anything and was on low, and I know all of this, and yet, I can't stop worrying. Some fifteen minutes later, it's still in my brain, still rolling around in there, maybe even picking up speed, because it's loud enough now that I've said it out loud, trying to make it seem casual, trying to act like we're still joking. Ha ha! we laugh, as I say "but that wouldn't really happen, right?" Big laughs all around.
Still, 25 minutes into the ride, and now I've been muttering about it and obsessing about it for our entire ride, and my next deliberately casual "It's not dangerous to have left that cooking, right?" pops out of my mouth and Mom says sharply "Oh my god: just let it go already!" Which is the normal response, if a person is just being stupid about something, and it's driving you crazy. But this wasn't just normal "oh, gee: random thought - let's giggle about this some more!" comment.
Nope, by this point I was full steam ahead into my first real anxiety attack in years.
I've had minor ones here and there - during other people's drunken fights, mostly, when I would swear some sort of PTSD part of my brain kicks in and I have to excuse myself from the tension of the current screaming match to go throw up before I can wade into things (either as peacekeeper or firebrand). Sometimes just the sound of the cork popping out of the wine bottle in the kitchen is enough to have my shoulders creeping upwards with tension. But for the most part, I've managed them, and managed to avoid them (which is even better). I wouldn't even say that anxiety is one of my top 20 CFIDS symptoms, probably because I was never not a slightly apprehensive person: it's just part of my genetic make up, I'm afraid.
But these huge panic attacks - of which I've (thankfully) only had about 6 - these huge, really full blown, tornado brain of worry, hold your shit together or you'll lose it monstrosities. When those mothers come, it's so frightening, because you know you don't have to be worrying about the thing, or that worrying about it won't help the situation at all, but you just can't stop yourself. Your brain is a runaway worry train, and you're just along for the ride.
So she snaps at me, semi-facetiously, and I burst into tears. 'It doesn't help,' I tell her 'to tell me that the thing I'm worrying about is stupid. I KNOW IT'S STUPID. Now I just feel even more anxious because I'm ashamed that I'm freaking out over something so dumb."
But here's the thing that people who don't have anxiety don't get. To people without panic attacks (those lucky bastards), it's just like regular worry: "Oh I feel like maybe that wasn't the best choice," but it's not a big deal, because Oh well, shrug. People will worry. It happens. I'm a champion worrier, and that's not what a panic attack is - for me at least. Worry is one thing, panic attack is a whole 'nother level of worry, combined with an astronomical confidence level - confidence in the truth of the fear, that is.
A panic attack is not just dread, but certainty. It is an absolute conviction of doom. I may know full well that whatever has set this off is a ridiculous thing to be worried about, but I am still 1000% sure in my gut that it doesn't matter that the odds are astronomical that something could go wrong: something is telling me that it's not right, so it must be so. Something is warning me to fix the situation, and I'm not heeding the warning, and that goes against every instinct you have. In this case, all the signs are all pointing to the idea that the house will have burned down by the time we get home, and I'm supposed to blithely ignore that and continue on with our day as if nothing is wrong? Impossible: it feels WRONG.
That's when the logical part of my brain shrinks down to nothing, and instead I remember all those news stories about people who 'listened to their gut' and saved their families. Or I replay all the times my feeling that something wasn't right was an accurate representation of the situation, and try to convince myself that this time it's ok to ignore all the DANGERDANGERDANGER signals my brain is trying to send me.
I dripped tears for the remainder of our ride, playing the tapes in my head that I know work to calm me: 'This is just a panic attack, it will pass. This is SO not about the beef stew chica: you're life is feeling more than a little bit out of control right now, don't ya think? Let's just ride this one out, and things will get better. You are not psychic, and the house is not burning down while you ignore all the warning signs - this is not a real threat.' But because it feels like a real threat, it takes me the whole ride to calm down.
I'm not shaking by the time we get to the rehab, but I'm still so ashamed - of the panic attack; of the tears, of not handling things like a grown up and instead breaking down into something useless; of the fact that I've broken a streak of panic! attack! free! years! over something so ridiculous - that we cut short our visit and go home relatively early. I know that this is mom's way of apologizing for snapping at me (which, was nice but I'm not sure it was necessary), and reassuring me all at once.
We arrive home to stew - nothing more. Once I calmed down enough, 99% of me was sure that was all we'd find. But the whole ride home, there's that one percent, that one embarrassed, fear-soaked percent, that's trying to get me ready to deal with the fact that I've failed to save all of our worldly possessions, just because I didn't trust myself enough to say "let's go home and I'll shut that off, and then we'll go." And because of that one measly percent, I'm not reassured, because once that panic genie is out of the bottle, I don't know if I'll be able to stopper him up again.
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That's why it took me five months to write this post: because god forbid that I tried to tap back into that feeling enough to write about it, and it exploded all over me again. I had to be sure enough of where I was, emotionally, to write about that, and even that feels like a weakness to me: to be so scared of remembering how scared I was? Panic attacks are ridiculous.
And I was right, about the genie part - I've felt him trying to creep up on me a few times since, but I'm better at recognizing it than I used to be, so I've been cutting them off before the fear can blossom on me (for the most part). And some pretty stressful shit has gone down since then, so I'm feeling like I've got a handle on managing it right now, which is good.
Because the next time I let something out of a bottle, it better be granting wishes, not paralyzing me with fear. (Look: wish number one is all ready!)
Friday, January 20, 2012
In the ball pit
I do this thing where I start thinking - really thinking - about something that's important: Have you noticed this about yourself? Is there a reason why you have to run your mouth like that/act so awkward around new people/ be unbelievably cranky for no good reason? And as soon as the truth about the thing starts rushing at me - as soon as I'm starting to get to the meat of the issue, or when it starts to sort of click in my head that this is not a unique occurrence, that I sometimes act like this and maybe it is a pattern... well, when the truth starts rushing at me, I start rushing away. Is there anybody who needs tending or talking to, or playing with? Isn't there a show on right now that I can escape into, be mindless with? Isn't there a book I could read that would take me anywhere but here, facing the truth? It's such an uncomfortable feeling, this realizing things about yourself, and I would do just about anything to avoid it, I think.
When it does come, and I have seen the whole, frustrating, ill fitting truth about myself, it sticks in my brain: a large scaly burr just big enough and irritating enough to block out anything else. I have no other qualities except this uncomfortable truth - I am no longer a good person, a caring sister, a hard worker - I am only an inveterate gossip, a gigantic fraud, a loathsome individual who feels lonely until she's with people and then wants nothing more than to be left alone. Even though I know that this is not true - that all the good things I am or do are not obliterated by some newfound/newly understood flaw in my character - it is how it feels, and sometimes how it feels is how it is.
I have recently come to quite a few uncomfortable realizations about myself, and trying to integrate those things - a certain pettiness here, a confounding inability stick to the straight facts there - into my vision of who I am is proving more difficult than I'd have guessed. I have always known that I wasn't perfect ~ contrary to what others may think, I am well aware that my goody-two shoes image is just something other people see me as - I have never seen myself as such, and wouldn't really care to. But these inconsistencies in my character - the difference between who I want myself to be and who I really am, these are things I want to fix, to change. And that means recognizing them first, figuring out how deep they run and (maybe) where they come from, and how to stop doing them. It's a lot of heavy mental lifting, and, for a person who has limited reserves of any kind of energy - physical, mental, emotional - it certainly seems Sisyphean.
So I keep looking for low energy escapes - can I ever get my Google Reader below a thousand again? Is Reddit being entertaining or insulting today? Is there any way I can get my uncle to have a conversation with people so that they don't think he's an ogre? Let me organize every photo you've ever taken in your whole life! - and then condemning myself for needing these escape routes. It feels like I'm stumbling around kicking at little pebbles, all the while trying to avoid all the heavy boulders I know I have to move if I want to move forward, but just can't even look at yet.
It feels that way about everything - about all the work I have to do to manage my illnesses (and the question of when I decided that just 'managing' is enough for me), about all the things in my own behavior that I'd like to change; about all the topics in my family that need addressing, and all the ways we find of not addressing them; about not making time for friends and then wondering why they aren't making time for me; about the world as a whole and all the things spinning out of control in it. It just feels like there's too many important things that should get looked at, poked at, lifted up and examined, fixed, and I don't want to touch a single one of them.
A perfect example in the physical world is that my space is still not undecorated from Christmas - oh, the actual decorations are down, but the furniture is still all in the wrong places for every day living. Thus making it more difficult to do things like get towels, because we moved the cart that holds the towels behind the chair, so you have to climb over the chair to get ready to take a shower. It's little ridiculous things like that, but also huge life changing things like deciding to call the PT again, and see where that takes me, or actually changing my diet enough to prevent this diabetes thing from happening - and I just don't want to face any of it at all.
And here I write the necessary caveats that "we've all been sick since Christmas! - and I mean sick sick, like the flu that won't die sick" and "I've just spent two months caring for a wonderful lady, whose head is harder than the stairs she fell down!" and "blah blah blah Chronic Illness, you idiot!" but all of that - while true and real and just so much - doesn't feel like enough of a reason to let everything else pass me by. I never feel like I am juggling half of the balls I need to juggle, there's just me, standing with maybe the three or four largest, most fragile balls, throwing them up and catching them (sometimes by the skin of my teeth, but still, catching them), and all the while, the floor around me is littered with a million other smaller balls.... It's basically me, standing up to my waist in the ball pit of Chuck E Cheese, trying to catch all these biggest balls, but knowing I've let a thousand more go. And not knowing which of those thousand was the next most important - the one that needed me now, and I won't get to it for another three weeks.
I don't know what to do about all that - how to climb out of the ball pit, or juggle better, or even begin identifying the colors of all the stupid things I'm standing in. I know this feeling will pass, or fade, because it has in the past, but it never goes away... I'm always fumbling something, and I wish I knew how to stop.
When it does come, and I have seen the whole, frustrating, ill fitting truth about myself, it sticks in my brain: a large scaly burr just big enough and irritating enough to block out anything else. I have no other qualities except this uncomfortable truth - I am no longer a good person, a caring sister, a hard worker - I am only an inveterate gossip, a gigantic fraud, a loathsome individual who feels lonely until she's with people and then wants nothing more than to be left alone. Even though I know that this is not true - that all the good things I am or do are not obliterated by some newfound/newly understood flaw in my character - it is how it feels, and sometimes how it feels is how it is.
I have recently come to quite a few uncomfortable realizations about myself, and trying to integrate those things - a certain pettiness here, a confounding inability stick to the straight facts there - into my vision of who I am is proving more difficult than I'd have guessed. I have always known that I wasn't perfect ~ contrary to what others may think, I am well aware that my goody-two shoes image is just something other people see me as - I have never seen myself as such, and wouldn't really care to. But these inconsistencies in my character - the difference between who I want myself to be and who I really am, these are things I want to fix, to change. And that means recognizing them first, figuring out how deep they run and (maybe) where they come from, and how to stop doing them. It's a lot of heavy mental lifting, and, for a person who has limited reserves of any kind of energy - physical, mental, emotional - it certainly seems Sisyphean.
So I keep looking for low energy escapes - can I ever get my Google Reader below a thousand again? Is Reddit being entertaining or insulting today? Is there any way I can get my uncle to have a conversation with people so that they don't think he's an ogre? Let me organize every photo you've ever taken in your whole life! - and then condemning myself for needing these escape routes. It feels like I'm stumbling around kicking at little pebbles, all the while trying to avoid all the heavy boulders I know I have to move if I want to move forward, but just can't even look at yet.
It feels that way about everything - about all the work I have to do to manage my illnesses (and the question of when I decided that just 'managing' is enough for me), about all the things in my own behavior that I'd like to change; about all the topics in my family that need addressing, and all the ways we find of not addressing them; about not making time for friends and then wondering why they aren't making time for me; about the world as a whole and all the things spinning out of control in it. It just feels like there's too many important things that should get looked at, poked at, lifted up and examined, fixed, and I don't want to touch a single one of them.
A perfect example in the physical world is that my space is still not undecorated from Christmas - oh, the actual decorations are down, but the furniture is still all in the wrong places for every day living. Thus making it more difficult to do things like get towels, because we moved the cart that holds the towels behind the chair, so you have to climb over the chair to get ready to take a shower. It's little ridiculous things like that, but also huge life changing things like deciding to call the PT again, and see where that takes me, or actually changing my diet enough to prevent this diabetes thing from happening - and I just don't want to face any of it at all.
And here I write the necessary caveats that "we've all been sick since Christmas! - and I mean sick sick, like the flu that won't die sick" and "I've just spent two months caring for a wonderful lady, whose head is harder than the stairs she fell down!" and "blah blah blah Chronic Illness, you idiot!" but all of that - while true and real and just so much - doesn't feel like enough of a reason to let everything else pass me by. I never feel like I am juggling half of the balls I need to juggle, there's just me, standing with maybe the three or four largest, most fragile balls, throwing them up and catching them (sometimes by the skin of my teeth, but still, catching them), and all the while, the floor around me is littered with a million other smaller balls.... It's basically me, standing up to my waist in the ball pit of Chuck E Cheese, trying to catch all these biggest balls, but knowing I've let a thousand more go. And not knowing which of those thousand was the next most important - the one that needed me now, and I won't get to it for another three weeks.
I don't know what to do about all that - how to climb out of the ball pit, or juggle better, or even begin identifying the colors of all the stupid things I'm standing in. I know this feeling will pass, or fade, because it has in the past, but it never goes away... I'm always fumbling something, and I wish I knew how to stop.
Friday, April 15, 2011
(PS - Spell check? If Unreedemed is a word, why isn't unredeeming?)
I spent the week feeling like I was in the middle of an ocean, floating and bobbing along, attempting to eat crackers and drink ginger ale without having them revisit me. That's what I get for trying new drugs. And now that that is starting to truly pass (hey: I ate real, non-cracker foods today... this is a plus! Except do you know what happens to your stomach when you try to put non-cracker foods in it after a week of crackers? It does not take kindly to the intrusion, I can tell you that!), I get to have huge emotional upheavals instead! Hooray!
Seriously. Sometimes I think moving to Australia* might be the wisest choice. I'm starting to think of aliases, see which ones fit me best. I don't want to talk about it again, right now, but suffice it to say that I have both cried and cursed more in the last 8 hours then I have in the last three years. Easily. If you are guessing that the drama is somehow sister related, you would be correct. You would also be correct if you guessed that there was no actual resolution (peaceable or otherwise) /conclusion achieved in the final analysis of the day. In fact, while I think some very important things were said, I'm not sure if any of the important things that needed to be accomplished were accomplished. But I tried. God almighty, I don't think I could have tried any harder, and that's all anybody can ask of me.
By "anybody", I of course mean 'anybody but me ', since I apparently am not satisfied with having done my best, but instead am upset that I wasn't able to achieve miracles and (our little) world peace while I was at it, but that's just because I am kind of a jerk to myself.
I am going to go and find something completely unredeeming to watch on television, or some cracktastic type of book to read, or a computer game that will devour my soul for a few hours. (Or perhaps all three of those things at the exact same time.) Anything to not be me for a little bit.
I'll check back in with you all soon, and hope your weekend is full of bright spots that don't include crackers or drama (unless crackers &/or drama are your idea of happiness, in which case, have at it!)
*Bonus points for all children's lit majors who managed to find the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad portion of today's post.
Seriously. Sometimes I think moving to Australia* might be the wisest choice. I'm starting to think of aliases, see which ones fit me best. I don't want to talk about it again, right now, but suffice it to say that I have both cried and cursed more in the last 8 hours then I have in the last three years. Easily. If you are guessing that the drama is somehow sister related, you would be correct. You would also be correct if you guessed that there was no actual resolution (peaceable or otherwise) /conclusion achieved in the final analysis of the day. In fact, while I think some very important things were said, I'm not sure if any of the important things that needed to be accomplished were accomplished. But I tried. God almighty, I don't think I could have tried any harder, and that's all anybody can ask of me.
By "anybody", I of course mean 'anybody but me ', since I apparently am not satisfied with having done my best, but instead am upset that I wasn't able to achieve miracles and (our little) world peace while I was at it, but that's just because I am kind of a jerk to myself.
I am going to go and find something completely unredeeming to watch on television, or some cracktastic type of book to read, or a computer game that will devour my soul for a few hours. (Or perhaps all three of those things at the exact same time.) Anything to not be me for a little bit.
I'll check back in with you all soon, and hope your weekend is full of bright spots that don't include crackers or drama (unless crackers &/or drama are your idea of happiness, in which case, have at it!)
*Bonus points for all children's lit majors who managed to find the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad portion of today's post.
Monday, November 08, 2010
Ching-wah TSAO duh liou mahng
Day 08: Name someone who has made your life hell, or treated you like shit
You can click any of these links if you're interested in reading about the people who have done me the most wrong - my own personal demons, the PeopleUpStairs (AKA PUS). I don't recommend it because it's depressing, frustrating, and rage-inducing. (That last one really sums it up, IMO.)
TL;DR: These people are awful and horrendous, and hurray! Not In My Life ANYMORE!
Instead of dwelling in my past misery, please to enjoy these fabulous andcompletely not at all related links:
That wordy and wonderful ode to the people who have done me wrong is brought to you by BlueSwami's hate letter generator. You can click and create your own, if you'd like.
Also of interest, (if you happen to be a geek) are these inventive Chinese curses and their pronunciations, should you choose to learn them. If you'll excuse me, I have to go practice saying the title to this post, just to have it in my back pocket.
PS: If you've never seen Firefly, and it's follow-up movie Serenity, I tell you that you MUST.
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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
You can click any of these links if you're interested in reading about the people who have done me the most wrong - my own personal demons, the PeopleUpStairs (AKA PUS). I don't recommend it because it's depressing, frustrating, and rage-inducing. (That last one really sums it up, IMO.)
TL;DR: These people are awful and horrendous, and hurray! Not In My Life ANYMORE!
Instead of dwelling in my past misery, please to enjoy these fabulous and
You jaundiced jumped up, vercordiously pusillanimous piffle. Upon reading this, you are probably muttering something like "Ho ho, sour grapes." You have a point. But my rejoinder, vinegar face, is what hope did those grapes ever have while you live and breathe?
How can you be so blindly unaware of the loathing and revulsion you engender wherever you go? I have had fantasies about attacking you with a machete, but I dare not.
Have you any idea how truly offensive you are, have you any idea at all? Do you know what an idea is? Sorry. Unfair question. You have singlehandedly, completely, enthusiastically, maniacally, with gusto and lip smacking delight, stovered any advancements made in the human condition over the last six million years. Congratulations. You must be so proud. If you once had any redeeming quality, it has been strangled and garrotted by your other brutish traits.
Why is it everytime I think of you I think of pus? Sea slugs are scum sucking invertebrae. Land slugs are slimy mollusc-brained cabbage eaters. But you are just PUS.
If everything in this world has some purpose, some grand plan behind its existence, then yours surely is to show everything else, whether it be a slops bucket in a fried chicken stand, or the gunk behind the fridge, how fortunate it is not to be you. This letter has come to end. But it is to my eternal disappointment, my bitter regret, that you have not.
That wordy and wonderful ode to the people who have done me wrong is brought to you by BlueSwami's hate letter generator. You can click and create your own, if you'd like.
Also of interest, (if you happen to be a geek) are these inventive Chinese curses and their pronunciations, should you choose to learn them. If you'll excuse me, I have to go practice saying the title to this post, just to have it in my back pocket.
PS: If you've never seen Firefly, and it's follow-up movie Serenity, I tell you that you MUST.
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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
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Reasons to cancel the surgery
(via my screwed up, please let me cancel the surgery! brain)
- Because the Lost series finale is on Sunday, and it is like a total pop culture moment (that I will be totally out of it for). Also, it will make me cry, and my face will probably hurt too much for crying.
- Because 6:30 is just too damn early in the morning.
- Because I have been availing myself of Dr. Google, and neither of us are pleased with what we see there.
- Because my throat isn't even hurting right now, and that is ridiculously rare! (Also: Do not currently have sinus infection! This is beyond rare... and should be appreciated.)
- Because how the hell am I going to take my regular meds? (Note to self: call tomorrow and see if there is liquid Lyrica.)
- Because... I don't wanna do it?
No: The surgery is set (fingers crossed, and barring any news from the pre-op people who still haven't called me), for 7:30 on Friday morning. I'm the first one in, which means I should also be the first one out. Which is good, because waiting is not my strong suit. All those people who comment on my 'patience' have never had to sit in a hospital waiting room with me while my mind buzzes ahead at 732 miles an hour. (Actually, some of them have, but usually I am good at hiding the buzz from people who aren't really paying attention.)
Of course, I am now coming up with a zillion different reasons why I should not let them cut open my nose or tear out the little bumps in the back of my throat, but I realize those are just my little anxieties popping up, and I try to pop them right back down. It's like one of those Whack-a-mole games: Up - Bam! - back down. Back UP - Bam! - back Down. I just have to keep bopping them on the head long enough to get to the hospital on Friday morning, at which point Mum will make me do it whether I want to or not, because she had to leave the house at 5:45 in the fricking morning.
Although I realize that it's not - in all likelihood - a life altering procedure, I'm pretty nervous about the whole thing (in case my endless blathering on about it here hasn't made that pretty obvious), but only because ... well, if you've been reading any of the blathering over the last 4-5 years, then you know why. Because medical science and NTE's body are not friends. Because whatever reaction you say it is impossible to have, then that is the reaction I will have. Because I'm in a place right now that isn't horrid and unlivable, and I am loathe to poke the bear and wind up there. Because if I wasn't nervous, at this point in my life, with this body and all of my experiences, then I would have to be pretty ignorant.
I know there are lots of people - somewhere in the midst of all those Temporarily Able Bodied people we people with disabilities talk about - that there are people who actually get up in the morning and never give a second thought to whether or not their body will respond in the way it ought. Who never have to second (third, fourth, fifth) guess a doctor's recommendation, or worry that things might not work out for them. I don't remember it, exactly: That ignorant feeling of being in control of my own body and what it was capable of, but I know that I am not one of those people anymore.
Back when I was dancing, there came a point, in the year or two right before I got sick, where I was constantly twisting my ankles. I must have sprained the right one 4 times in the course of a year and a half. And I mean seriously sprained - and even a slight fracture once. But I was 13, 14, 15, and it meant nothing - a week, two weeks, and I would be back dancing again, good as new. It honestly didn't occur to me that there could be any other outcome.
I was more fearless then: If I sprained something now, I would probably never attempt that activity again... I avoid things that cause even the most minor of injuries, go out of my way to avoid even the tiniest bit of extra pain.
Because here's the thing: Being in pain changes who you are. It changes how you see the world, how you fit into the world, how you interact with the world. Everything is a risk now. Opening my eyes, rolling over, tying my shoe. It's all a big deal, it's all a potential threat. And that's a horrible way to live, so I suppress it as much as I can. I don't overthink the little things (at least I try not to). I try to offset the extra neck tension I'll get from sitting at the table for dinner with a little extra ice pack time, or pencil in a hot shower because I decided to sit on the floor with little girl today.
You figure most things out, because you have to live.
But asking for extra pain? Going into something that is going to hurt, no matter what - even knowing that it's probably essential in the long run, well that's just incredibly risky to me. Because I can't assume that it's going to be fine, and I can't pretend that the extra pain - and oh, boy, does everybody agree that there's going to be extra pain - isn't almost a dealbreaker for me. And I shouldn't have to pretend, but in real life, I do.
The number of people - related to me, who have been witness to my illness from the beginning people - who have played oppression Olympics with me ("It's not as if it's a tumor their taking out/you're having chemo/you're losing something important" or have asked me what the "big deal is - you'll get to have tons of ice cream"? Is frustratingly high.
"But what are your other choices?" they ask. "You're going to keep getting sick right? So just let them do the little snip here, little poke there --- maybe get your tummy tucked or your boobs shrunk a little while you're under, ha ha --- and then it'll be fine" they say. (And no: I'm not talking about you, who was actually thinking about how combining surgeries would be helpful re: not having to do anesthesia twice. I'm talking about the more thoughtless among us).
Right, because A) This is totally a joke to me. and B)You're not the one who has to live in my body, in my level of pain, now or then. So you can't really tell me whether or not it's a big deal. You just have to take my word for it - this is a big deal. I know it's not cancer or whatever the hell you think would be a big enough reason for me to worry, but I'm still worried.
Let me just say this again: Even if everything goes absolutely 100% as it should, by the book, perfect: This is still going to be a big deal for me.
Because all of those little sad faces that they give you in the ER so you can point out your pain? None of them is going to cover me anymore. Because I am already at the saddest face, I am already as high as the numbers will go, and now I'm volunteering for more: That is a hell of a big deal.
And I realize, as I am trying to find a conclusion to this very wandering post, that nobody who needs to read it will read it, because they don't know it's here. (Thank god!) But that maybe just writing it was the point, because all of the sudden I don't feel so ridiculous about being completely stressed out about this - It is a Big Deal for me, and it's something that I don't have to apologize for being a bit anxious about. So if I want to brainstorm reasons to back out of it, knowing that I won't actually back out of it, so be it.
Now, somebody give me a really good one, because "getting all the ice cream I want" is no longer on the pro side of the list: I'm an adult, and if I want ice cream, I will damn well eat it, surgery or no surgery.
Maybe I'll just add "because I'd rather go to Dairy Queen" to the list...
- Because the Lost series finale is on Sunday, and it is like a total pop culture moment (that I will be totally out of it for). Also, it will make me cry, and my face will probably hurt too much for crying.
- Because 6:30 is just too damn early in the morning.
- Because I have been availing myself of Dr. Google, and neither of us are pleased with what we see there.
- Because my throat isn't even hurting right now, and that is ridiculously rare! (Also: Do not currently have sinus infection! This is beyond rare... and should be appreciated.)
- Because how the hell am I going to take my regular meds? (Note to self: call tomorrow and see if there is liquid Lyrica.)
- Because... I don't wanna do it?
No: The surgery is set (fingers crossed, and barring any news from the pre-op people who still haven't called me), for 7:30 on Friday morning. I'm the first one in, which means I should also be the first one out. Which is good, because waiting is not my strong suit. All those people who comment on my 'patience' have never had to sit in a hospital waiting room with me while my mind buzzes ahead at 732 miles an hour. (Actually, some of them have, but usually I am good at hiding the buzz from people who aren't really paying attention.)
Of course, I am now coming up with a zillion different reasons why I should not let them cut open my nose or tear out the little bumps in the back of my throat, but I realize those are just my little anxieties popping up, and I try to pop them right back down. It's like one of those Whack-a-mole games: Up - Bam! - back down. Back UP - Bam! - back Down. I just have to keep bopping them on the head long enough to get to the hospital on Friday morning, at which point Mum will make me do it whether I want to or not, because she had to leave the house at 5:45 in the fricking morning.
Although I realize that it's not - in all likelihood - a life altering procedure, I'm pretty nervous about the whole thing (in case my endless blathering on about it here hasn't made that pretty obvious), but only because ... well, if you've been reading any of the blathering over the last 4-5 years, then you know why. Because medical science and NTE's body are not friends. Because whatever reaction you say it is impossible to have, then that is the reaction I will have. Because I'm in a place right now that isn't horrid and unlivable, and I am loathe to poke the bear and wind up there. Because if I wasn't nervous, at this point in my life, with this body and all of my experiences, then I would have to be pretty ignorant.
I know there are lots of people - somewhere in the midst of all those Temporarily Able Bodied people we people with disabilities talk about - that there are people who actually get up in the morning and never give a second thought to whether or not their body will respond in the way it ought. Who never have to second (third, fourth, fifth) guess a doctor's recommendation, or worry that things might not work out for them. I don't remember it, exactly: That ignorant feeling of being in control of my own body and what it was capable of, but I know that I am not one of those people anymore.
Back when I was dancing, there came a point, in the year or two right before I got sick, where I was constantly twisting my ankles. I must have sprained the right one 4 times in the course of a year and a half. And I mean seriously sprained - and even a slight fracture once. But I was 13, 14, 15, and it meant nothing - a week, two weeks, and I would be back dancing again, good as new. It honestly didn't occur to me that there could be any other outcome.
I was more fearless then: If I sprained something now, I would probably never attempt that activity again... I avoid things that cause even the most minor of injuries, go out of my way to avoid even the tiniest bit of extra pain.
Because here's the thing: Being in pain changes who you are. It changes how you see the world, how you fit into the world, how you interact with the world. Everything is a risk now. Opening my eyes, rolling over, tying my shoe. It's all a big deal, it's all a potential threat. And that's a horrible way to live, so I suppress it as much as I can. I don't overthink the little things (at least I try not to). I try to offset the extra neck tension I'll get from sitting at the table for dinner with a little extra ice pack time, or pencil in a hot shower because I decided to sit on the floor with little girl today.
You figure most things out, because you have to live.
But asking for extra pain? Going into something that is going to hurt, no matter what - even knowing that it's probably essential in the long run, well that's just incredibly risky to me. Because I can't assume that it's going to be fine, and I can't pretend that the extra pain - and oh, boy, does everybody agree that there's going to be extra pain - isn't almost a dealbreaker for me. And I shouldn't have to pretend, but in real life, I do.
The number of people - related to me, who have been witness to my illness from the beginning people - who have played oppression Olympics with me ("It's not as if it's a tumor their taking out/you're having chemo/you're losing something important" or have asked me what the "big deal is - you'll get to have tons of ice cream"? Is frustratingly high.
"But what are your other choices?" they ask. "You're going to keep getting sick right? So just let them do the little snip here, little poke there --- maybe get your tummy tucked or your boobs shrunk a little while you're under, ha ha --- and then it'll be fine" they say. (And no: I'm not talking about you, who was actually thinking about how combining surgeries would be helpful re: not having to do anesthesia twice. I'm talking about the more thoughtless among us).
Right, because A) This is totally a joke to me. and B)You're not the one who has to live in my body, in my level of pain, now or then. So you can't really tell me whether or not it's a big deal. You just have to take my word for it - this is a big deal. I know it's not cancer or whatever the hell you think would be a big enough reason for me to worry, but I'm still worried.
Let me just say this again: Even if everything goes absolutely 100% as it should, by the book, perfect: This is still going to be a big deal for me.
Because all of those little sad faces that they give you in the ER so you can point out your pain? None of them is going to cover me anymore. Because I am already at the saddest face, I am already as high as the numbers will go, and now I'm volunteering for more: That is a hell of a big deal.
And I realize, as I am trying to find a conclusion to this very wandering post, that nobody who needs to read it will read it, because they don't know it's here. (Thank god!) But that maybe just writing it was the point, because all of the sudden I don't feel so ridiculous about being completely stressed out about this - It is a Big Deal for me, and it's something that I don't have to apologize for being a bit anxious about. So if I want to brainstorm reasons to back out of it, knowing that I won't actually back out of it, so be it.
Now, somebody give me a really good one, because "getting all the ice cream I want" is no longer on the pro side of the list: I'm an adult, and if I want ice cream, I will damn well eat it, surgery or no surgery.
Maybe I'll just add "because I'd rather go to Dairy Queen" to the list...
Thursday, April 01, 2010
Giving myself a sticker
It's been a long week. I don't actually know why it's been a long week (and I am getting so sick of saying "I don't know why", since it's how I feel about everything lately), but I am just plum worn down.
Some of it is physical, I'm sure... I'm sifting my way through a particularly bad cycle in my FM pain, due, in part at least, to the unending wetness and yo-yo like weather we've been experiencing here in Massachusetts (Wettest. March. Ever. Literally.).
Some of it's the exhaustion of yet another horrid and unexplainable stretch of total insomnia - as compared to the light-dosing/completely unrefreshing sleep I've been living off of for the past 10 years or so, bouts of total insomnia = days with no sleep at all. At ALL. Nights of repeatedly listening to the Harry Potter books on raggedy cassette tapes (Shut up: they were free), and getting the lovely voice of Jim Dale stuck in my head. (To the point that I sometimes imagine him doing a lilting British narration of my life, and somehow managing to make it seem interesting. "The bread was moldy, and, with a shiver and averted eyes, NTE briskly opened the cupboard and tossed it into the bin. 'No luck on sandwiches today, lovey,' she called, 'How about a nice crock of soup instead?'")
Some of it's emotional - trying to get used to the idea of my Face Surgery (that's what we're calling it here... capital letters required); still being computer-less; having a to-do list that's about 3/4 of a mile long; knowing that 5 of my closest college friends & a cousin-in-law are all pregnant right now, and I am not; failing yet another drug trial, the one that Zack was convinced was going to work; knowing we've been living here for a year (well, not me, I'm about 4 months behind because of My Summer With Grandmother {again, caps required}, but we've been out of the old house for a year anyways), and I am still about 1/5 unpacked: My clothes are in drawers and my books are on the shelves, everything else, all 30 years of my stuff, are still stored in boxes, waiting for me to shuffle through them.
Let's just say that I'm feeling a little behind the 8-ball lately, like I just can't catch up, and am barely able to do anything right.
But today, today I struck gold.
Today I had a moment so right that I wanted to sing, dance, clap, cheer, and give myself a sticker.
If you've been reading here for any length of time, you probably get the gist that Lil Girl is a wonderful, crafty, extremely bright, and terribly stubborn child. Self-willed will most likely be her major in college, and she will graduate with honors with that degree, even though the college doesn't offer "self-determination" as a legitimate option for degrees, because she will just wear down the administrators until they give it to her.
Stubborn as the day is long, that's our Lil Girl. (She also comes by it naturally, as our family tends to run a little towards the mule-side, but that's another post for another day.)
For today's post, you should also know that Lil Girl is sick. She's not a miserable kind of sick, but she's got an ear infection, and a cough, and she's been battling this off and on for at least 5 months. (I'm hoping her immune system is just reacting to her new school environment, and that she inherited her mama's genes there, because ours run to crappy.)
Anyways, to finish setting the scene: Sick, Stubborn Lil Girl. Who doesn't like to be told what to eat or drink on her best day. And now has to take a Rx medicine twice a day. To show how well this process has been going, I offer two examples:
Example A: My brother calls me two nights ago, Lil Girl is wailing in the background, and he says that after 25 minutes of fighting with her to take the medicine, (which included him trying to force her to take it physically), he is giving up. I try - completely in vain - to wave some sort of long-distance magic wand to help everybody calm down, but she winds up going to bed exhausted, crying, and medicine-less, and he very curtly tells me he's "done." I spent a good three hours fuming, post-phone call, wondering what the hell I was supposed to have been able to do from so far away.
Example B: When she arrived at our house this morning, Mum asked her if she had gel in her hair, because it was kind of crunchy (and because, if her mom is doing her hair while she gets ready for work, sometime Lil Girl insists on the full treatment as well). Her mother states that no, it's actually medicine that Lil Girl spit out this morning, but there was no time left to wash her hair.
So, if I tell you that Lil Girl took her medicine for me tonight, before she went home, with only a piece of hard candy (for post-medicine taste changing) and a one song of her choice soundtrack as encouragement, you will, perhaps understand why I wanted to commemorate the occasion with a post.
It's not such a huge thing, really, and it probably had a lot more to do with her than with me (if she had been in a different mood, I have no doubt there would have been a Very different outcome), but there was no fighting, no cajoling, & no controlling (on my part); no tears, no whining, & no feeling powerless (on hers). It was just a simple "This is what we have to do," and then it was done.
And, just for a moment, I felt as if I'd saved the world. Just because one Lil Girl swallowed two teaspoons of medicine without a fuss, I managed to feel just a second's worth of that "I can actually do this" feeling.
And I'll take every second's worth of that that I can get, wherever it comes from.
Some of it is physical, I'm sure... I'm sifting my way through a particularly bad cycle in my FM pain, due, in part at least, to the unending wetness and yo-yo like weather we've been experiencing here in Massachusetts (Wettest. March. Ever. Literally.).
Some of it's the exhaustion of yet another horrid and unexplainable stretch of total insomnia - as compared to the light-dosing/completely unrefreshing sleep I've been living off of for the past 10 years or so, bouts of total insomnia = days with no sleep at all. At ALL. Nights of repeatedly listening to the Harry Potter books on raggedy cassette tapes (Shut up: they were free), and getting the lovely voice of Jim Dale stuck in my head. (To the point that I sometimes imagine him doing a lilting British narration of my life, and somehow managing to make it seem interesting. "The bread was moldy, and, with a shiver and averted eyes, NTE briskly opened the cupboard and tossed it into the bin. 'No luck on sandwiches today, lovey,' she called, 'How about a nice crock of soup instead?'")
Some of it's emotional - trying to get used to the idea of my Face Surgery (that's what we're calling it here... capital letters required); still being computer-less; having a to-do list that's about 3/4 of a mile long; knowing that 5 of my closest college friends & a cousin-in-law are all pregnant right now, and I am not; failing yet another drug trial, the one that Zack was convinced was going to work; knowing we've been living here for a year (well, not me, I'm about 4 months behind because of My Summer With Grandmother {again, caps required}, but we've been out of the old house for a year anyways), and I am still about 1/5 unpacked: My clothes are in drawers and my books are on the shelves, everything else, all 30 years of my stuff, are still stored in boxes, waiting for me to shuffle through them.
Let's just say that I'm feeling a little behind the 8-ball lately, like I just can't catch up, and am barely able to do anything right.
But today, today I struck gold.
Today I had a moment so right that I wanted to sing, dance, clap, cheer, and give myself a sticker.
If you've been reading here for any length of time, you probably get the gist that Lil Girl is a wonderful, crafty, extremely bright, and terribly stubborn child. Self-willed will most likely be her major in college, and she will graduate with honors with that degree, even though the college doesn't offer "self-determination" as a legitimate option for degrees, because she will just wear down the administrators until they give it to her.
Stubborn as the day is long, that's our Lil Girl. (She also comes by it naturally, as our family tends to run a little towards the mule-side, but that's another post for another day.)
For today's post, you should also know that Lil Girl is sick. She's not a miserable kind of sick, but she's got an ear infection, and a cough, and she's been battling this off and on for at least 5 months. (I'm hoping her immune system is just reacting to her new school environment, and that she inherited her mama's genes there, because ours run to crappy.)
Anyways, to finish setting the scene: Sick, Stubborn Lil Girl. Who doesn't like to be told what to eat or drink on her best day. And now has to take a Rx medicine twice a day. To show how well this process has been going, I offer two examples:
Example A: My brother calls me two nights ago, Lil Girl is wailing in the background, and he says that after 25 minutes of fighting with her to take the medicine, (which included him trying to force her to take it physically), he is giving up. I try - completely in vain - to wave some sort of long-distance magic wand to help everybody calm down, but she winds up going to bed exhausted, crying, and medicine-less, and he very curtly tells me he's "done." I spent a good three hours fuming, post-phone call, wondering what the hell I was supposed to have been able to do from so far away.
Example B: When she arrived at our house this morning, Mum asked her if she had gel in her hair, because it was kind of crunchy (and because, if her mom is doing her hair while she gets ready for work, sometime Lil Girl insists on the full treatment as well). Her mother states that no, it's actually medicine that Lil Girl spit out this morning, but there was no time left to wash her hair.
So, if I tell you that Lil Girl took her medicine for me tonight, before she went home, with only a piece of hard candy (for post-medicine taste changing) and a one song of her choice soundtrack as encouragement, you will, perhaps understand why I wanted to commemorate the occasion with a post.
It's not such a huge thing, really, and it probably had a lot more to do with her than with me (if she had been in a different mood, I have no doubt there would have been a Very different outcome), but there was no fighting, no cajoling, & no controlling (on my part); no tears, no whining, & no feeling powerless (on hers). It was just a simple "This is what we have to do," and then it was done.
And, just for a moment, I felt as if I'd saved the world. Just because one Lil Girl swallowed two teaspoons of medicine without a fuss, I managed to feel just a second's worth of that "I can actually do this" feeling.
And I'll take every second's worth of that that I can get, wherever it comes from.
Saturday, December 19, 2009
We're still waiting for the snow to start here,
but we're all safely wherever we are supposed to be, so I'm definitely in the "Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!" crowd. I tend to disbelieve the weather guys - as more often than not their predicted amounts are not even close - but right now they're still saying 8-15 inches in our area, although they're leaning toward the smaller amount closest to us. We shall see.
If you're buried under the snow, use it to your advantage: bake some cookies, watch some Christmas movies, wrap some presents.
That's what I'm going to try to do.
-------------------------------------
I'm sorry for the light posting - I think this must be part of the reason I do NaBloPoMo every year: so that I won't feel so guilty when I can't post all the time in December. I've been sick (shocker); Mum's been sick (so that I have to try to do more for myself); my brother and sister-in-law have been disagreeing (and dragging me into it); and our newest addition added a good 7 hours of (totally worth it) travel to my plans last weekend (which I am still kind of recuperating from). So: it's been a lot, I'm trying to cope with stress in positive ways, but I'm not really sure that I'm accomplishing that. (Fact: if my dad turns the heat down one more time, I might lock him out on the porch. Those are good coping skills, right?) I hate not writing, though, because then I get all clogged up in my head, and my mood suffers. So I'm going to try to be better this week about saying things here, so that certain members of my family don't have to go buy tents.
Deep breath. New day. Off to wait for the snow.
If you're buried under the snow, use it to your advantage: bake some cookies, watch some Christmas movies, wrap some presents.
That's what I'm going to try to do.
-------------------------------------
I'm sorry for the light posting - I think this must be part of the reason I do NaBloPoMo every year: so that I won't feel so guilty when I can't post all the time in December. I've been sick (shocker); Mum's been sick (so that I have to try to do more for myself); my brother and sister-in-law have been disagreeing (and dragging me into it); and our newest addition added a good 7 hours of (totally worth it) travel to my plans last weekend (which I am still kind of recuperating from). So: it's been a lot, I'm trying to cope with stress in positive ways, but I'm not really sure that I'm accomplishing that. (Fact: if my dad turns the heat down one more time, I might lock him out on the porch. Those are good coping skills, right?) I hate not writing, though, because then I get all clogged up in my head, and my mood suffers. So I'm going to try to be better this week about saying things here, so that certain members of my family don't have to go buy tents.
Deep breath. New day. Off to wait for the snow.
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
Speaking of fools...
**** Hey Sister of Mine - This is probably not a post you want to read, unless you feel like crying or being pumped full of rage. It's about the PUS. Feel free to skip. (This goes for anybody, of course, but my sister especially). I'd rather not write it, to be honest, but it's probably a wiser option than waiting till one of them comes by and kicking them in the face. Which is what I feel like doing. So; writing it is. ****
The PUS are just about all moved out now, with just their part of the cellar and what the realtor calls 'a few odds and ends' left upstairs to take with them. I can not fully explain how amazing it feels to be in this house and not be afraid of having to leave because of something they've done that will make me more ill. Or how it brings me peace to be able to take Lil Girl outside to draw with sidewalk chalk and not have to worry about someone pulling into the driveway and shooting us dirty looks, or worse, attempting to talk to me. It is bittersweet, to the extreme, to have this house be almost the way it always should have been - ours.
Only Nana is missing.
And she has been on heavy on my mind lately as we move into this final month of our residence here, how could she not be?
Her best friend came over to visit us yesterday. Because she's afraid that we'll move too far for her to come again, the visit was full of unnecessary goodbyes, (as we aren't moving anymore than 30 minutes away no matter what) but she also spent a good deal of time rehashing old hurts: cursing the PUS for all they did to Nana, cursing Nana for putting up with it, wishing she'd been able to convince her to do something about it. It was like listening to my own soul talking, especially when she said
"If we could've found a way, she'd probably still be alive today."
To outsiders, this statement makes no sense, I'm sure. An overreaction, perhaps, or wishful thinking to the extreme. But to me, it is a mere fact --> my grandmother, no spring chicken when she died at 84, would most likely have had a longer (and most definitely a happier) life if she hadn't had to battle everyday for just the air she breathed.
Stress, we all know, is aging. It's detrimental to your body on a cellular level. It hurts physically and emotionally. And my Nana lived in a soul crushingly stressful environment. It wasn't even just stress, it wasn't ordinary familial tension - she lived in a place where she was abused, everyday.
It takes a lot for me to write that. To know that it is true and to know that there were choices we all made - choices that I made - that enabled that abuse to continue.
I hope that in all my life, I will never do anything that I could regret more than not doing what I know was right. I hope that I would be strong enough, now, to know that having her mad at me for calling the cops - over and over again, if necessary - would be preferable to not having her at all.
"She wasn't beaten to death," you might say, "She died of cancer." And you would be right. She did. She did die of cancer, but she also died because her environment was toxic; because her son and his 'family' poisoned her everyday.
By ignoring her. By making her feel worthless and stupid and vile. By treating her as if she were little more than a bank - a bank where loans never had to be repaid and interest was never charged and you could insult the clerks at will. By hurting her heart and allowing their children to say that she wasn't their grandmother, or that they'd never really loved her. By screaming at her and calling her hideous names. By not caring for her when she was so obviously sick, and not caring enough to let anyone else have the chance to care for her either. By bullying her into believing all the wretched things they said about her (or us), and threatening her if she dared to stand up for herself (or us). By treating her as though she was invisible - by showing her that her opinion meant so little it didn't deserve to be heard, that her presence meant so little it wasn't even worth noting. By making it so that no one else could stand to come to her house, since it meant being in their presence, since it meant having to sit by seething while she was belittled or being belittled themselves.
(I would say here, in order to keep myself from becoming completely enraged, all over again, and because I am listening to the Harry Potter books on cassette tape, that she was Dobby, and they never gave her so much as a sock. If that makes sense to you, I think we should be friends:) )
They poisoned her, as sure as if they'd been feeding her arsenic, and 22 years worth is a lot of arsenic to swallow. It's a long time, and a lot of damage, and if every day you're living on a battlefield, using all your strength and energy to fight off poisons, you don't have any extra resources when you need them.
And that's really what happened to her - she just didn't have the resources she needed for that next battle, and it happened to be against a foe she couldn't best.
I'm not saying she wouldn't have had cancer. I'm not even saying she would have survived the cancer, really. I'm just saying that she would've had a better shot at doing so if she didn't have to also survive her 'son' and the rest of the PUS.
You may disagree, and I haven't written it before because, well... it sounds so stupid written down like that, even to me. But they wore her down, they wore down her spirit and her energy and her self, and when she got sick, she needed all those things and didn't have them. So yeah: I think that the damage they've done is immeasurable. And I am damn glad to see them go.
But today, alone in the house, as I heard the footsteps of Hippobeast PUS (the daughter - who's 22 now & who was one of Nana's frequent tormentors) thump on the back steps, I had a moment of "What's to stop me?"
My anger was so clear and sharp and focused that if I were capable of climbing the stairs, Ithinkknow, in that moment, I absolutely would have. I wanted to yell at her. To tell her how evil I think she really is; to tell her the truth.
We haven't talked in over 12 years, and I assume that she thinks I am as horrific as I think she is, but in that moment I just wanted to be able to look her in the face and say: "Listen, you need to hear this from somebody, and it sure as shit ain't going to be your fucked up parents that tell you because they're even more delusional than you are. So hear this clearly, and know that it is true - YOU are wrong.
All those things you did, at first because your parents did them, and then later just because you could? The hateful things you said and the punishing ways you acted? Were wrong. Were evil and hurtful and poisonous and led directly to the dissolution of our 'family' and to Nana's death. And you can never make that better.
I can't go back and do the right thing - I can't go back and call the cops when I should've or actually send that letter to the lawyer the way I wanted to, and that will always haunt me. But you can't go back either, you can't undue the harm you did, the hurt you've caused, and I can't let you leave this house without letting you know that I hope it haunts you. Because it should."
It's probably good that I can't climb the stairs, because even as I was thinking about how great it would be to deliver this truth to her in person, I didn't, for a second, imagine that she would just sit there and let me say all of that to her. And that would've pissed me off even more, and things would most likely have escalated. (Although, seriously? Giving her the chance to punch me might have been worth any increase in pain because you know I would've called the cops then, friends.)
And by the time she plodded her way back down the stairs, I had calmed down enough to return to my Harry Potter and plot about how to 'accidentally' aim a Cruciatus Curse at them all instead, but the wanting is still there. Because I know that they still think they didn't do anything wrong.
That they will never think they did anything wrong - that they were the victims of a family that turned their backs on them, as opposed to the perpetrators that caused a family to be shattered.
And that's not okay with me. But I'm just going to have to let it go.
So, even though we still don't know where we'll be, I am definitely looking forward to thirty days from today, when I won't have to see them again. Or hear their false voices again, or suffer under their hands ever again.
And then? I shall have to settle for the Obliteration Charm instead, wiping them from my life once and for all.
The PUS are just about all moved out now, with just their part of the cellar and what the realtor calls 'a few odds and ends' left upstairs to take with them. I can not fully explain how amazing it feels to be in this house and not be afraid of having to leave because of something they've done that will make me more ill. Or how it brings me peace to be able to take Lil Girl outside to draw with sidewalk chalk and not have to worry about someone pulling into the driveway and shooting us dirty looks, or worse, attempting to talk to me. It is bittersweet, to the extreme, to have this house be almost the way it always should have been - ours.
Only Nana is missing.
And she has been on heavy on my mind lately as we move into this final month of our residence here, how could she not be?
Her best friend came over to visit us yesterday. Because she's afraid that we'll move too far for her to come again, the visit was full of unnecessary goodbyes, (as we aren't moving anymore than 30 minutes away no matter what) but she also spent a good deal of time rehashing old hurts: cursing the PUS for all they did to Nana, cursing Nana for putting up with it, wishing she'd been able to convince her to do something about it. It was like listening to my own soul talking, especially when she said
"If we could've found a way, she'd probably still be alive today."
To outsiders, this statement makes no sense, I'm sure. An overreaction, perhaps, or wishful thinking to the extreme. But to me, it is a mere fact --> my grandmother, no spring chicken when she died at 84, would most likely have had a longer (and most definitely a happier) life if she hadn't had to battle everyday for just the air she breathed.
Stress, we all know, is aging. It's detrimental to your body on a cellular level. It hurts physically and emotionally. And my Nana lived in a soul crushingly stressful environment. It wasn't even just stress, it wasn't ordinary familial tension - she lived in a place where she was abused, everyday.
It takes a lot for me to write that. To know that it is true and to know that there were choices we all made - choices that I made - that enabled that abuse to continue.
I hope that in all my life, I will never do anything that I could regret more than not doing what I know was right. I hope that I would be strong enough, now, to know that having her mad at me for calling the cops - over and over again, if necessary - would be preferable to not having her at all.
"She wasn't beaten to death," you might say, "She died of cancer." And you would be right. She did. She did die of cancer, but she also died because her environment was toxic; because her son and his 'family' poisoned her everyday.
By ignoring her. By making her feel worthless and stupid and vile. By treating her as if she were little more than a bank - a bank where loans never had to be repaid and interest was never charged and you could insult the clerks at will. By hurting her heart and allowing their children to say that she wasn't their grandmother, or that they'd never really loved her. By screaming at her and calling her hideous names. By not caring for her when she was so obviously sick, and not caring enough to let anyone else have the chance to care for her either. By bullying her into believing all the wretched things they said about her (or us), and threatening her if she dared to stand up for herself (or us). By treating her as though she was invisible - by showing her that her opinion meant so little it didn't deserve to be heard, that her presence meant so little it wasn't even worth noting. By making it so that no one else could stand to come to her house, since it meant being in their presence, since it meant having to sit by seething while she was belittled or being belittled themselves.
(I would say here, in order to keep myself from becoming completely enraged, all over again, and because I am listening to the Harry Potter books on cassette tape, that she was Dobby, and they never gave her so much as a sock. If that makes sense to you, I think we should be friends:) )
They poisoned her, as sure as if they'd been feeding her arsenic, and 22 years worth is a lot of arsenic to swallow. It's a long time, and a lot of damage, and if every day you're living on a battlefield, using all your strength and energy to fight off poisons, you don't have any extra resources when you need them.
And that's really what happened to her - she just didn't have the resources she needed for that next battle, and it happened to be against a foe she couldn't best.
I'm not saying she wouldn't have had cancer. I'm not even saying she would have survived the cancer, really. I'm just saying that she would've had a better shot at doing so if she didn't have to also survive her 'son' and the rest of the PUS.
You may disagree, and I haven't written it before because, well... it sounds so stupid written down like that, even to me. But they wore her down, they wore down her spirit and her energy and her self, and when she got sick, she needed all those things and didn't have them. So yeah: I think that the damage they've done is immeasurable. And I am damn glad to see them go.
But today, alone in the house, as I heard the footsteps of Hippobeast PUS (the daughter - who's 22 now & who was one of Nana's frequent tormentors) thump on the back steps, I had a moment of "What's to stop me?"
My anger was so clear and sharp and focused that if I were capable of climbing the stairs, I
We haven't talked in over 12 years, and I assume that she thinks I am as horrific as I think she is, but in that moment I just wanted to be able to look her in the face and say: "Listen, you need to hear this from somebody, and it sure as shit ain't going to be your fucked up parents that tell you because they're even more delusional than you are. So hear this clearly, and know that it is true - YOU are wrong.
All those things you did, at first because your parents did them, and then later just because you could? The hateful things you said and the punishing ways you acted? Were wrong. Were evil and hurtful and poisonous and led directly to the dissolution of our 'family' and to Nana's death. And you can never make that better.
I can't go back and do the right thing - I can't go back and call the cops when I should've or actually send that letter to the lawyer the way I wanted to, and that will always haunt me. But you can't go back either, you can't undue the harm you did, the hurt you've caused, and I can't let you leave this house without letting you know that I hope it haunts you. Because it should."
It's probably good that I can't climb the stairs, because even as I was thinking about how great it would be to deliver this truth to her in person, I didn't, for a second, imagine that she would just sit there and let me say all of that to her. And that would've pissed me off even more, and things would most likely have escalated. (Although, seriously? Giving her the chance to punch me might have been worth any increase in pain because you know I would've called the cops then, friends.)
And by the time she plodded her way back down the stairs, I had calmed down enough to return to my Harry Potter and plot about how to 'accidentally' aim a Cruciatus Curse at them all instead, but the wanting is still there. Because I know that they still think they didn't do anything wrong.
That they will never think they did anything wrong - that they were the victims of a family that turned their backs on them, as opposed to the perpetrators that caused a family to be shattered.
And that's not okay with me. But I'm just going to have to let it go.
So, even though we still don't know where we'll be, I am definitely looking forward to thirty days from today, when I won't have to see them again. Or hear their false voices again, or suffer under their hands ever again.
And then? I shall have to settle for the Obliteration Charm instead, wiping them from my life once and for all.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Tomorrow I have to make phone calls
which I hate. I also have my 'breathing lesson' session (which I have to remember to post about, because I keep forgetting), I should try to pack up something and my parents are having a house inspected in case we want to buy it.
All this house buying is beyond stressful - for all of us - and I can't think about it anymore tonight. Tonight I'm going to watch The Amazing Race and a really geeky Family Guy and then I'm going to listen to my audiobook some more. (Am in love with audiobooks: this is very dangerous!)
Anyways, I know the posting around here has been link heavy lately, but that's just because there are so many interesting things that other people are saying that I think you should see. Hopefully, this week, I will also say interesting things my own self, which would be a nice change of pace, I'm sure.
Hope your weekend was as you wanted it to be. Talk to you tomorrow!
All this house buying is beyond stressful - for all of us - and I can't think about it anymore tonight. Tonight I'm going to watch The Amazing Race and a really geeky Family Guy and then I'm going to listen to my audiobook some more. (Am in love with audiobooks: this is very dangerous!)
Anyways, I know the posting around here has been link heavy lately, but that's just because there are so many interesting things that other people are saying that I think you should see. Hopefully, this week, I will also say interesting things my own self, which would be a nice change of pace, I'm sure.
Hope your weekend was as you wanted it to be. Talk to you tomorrow!
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