According to general society, the top 3 things disability can teach a person are:
1. Perseverance
2. Patience
3. Humility
(And how to mix your medications for the optimum desired effect without killing yourself, but I was going for things that sounded a little less shady.)
Perseverance, I have down -- at least according to my new therapist. Personally I think there's a little less persevering going on than there is grumbling and doing things anyway because I can't always convince other people to do them, but whatever. Maybe that's an alternate definition.
Patience, I will never learn. Apparently I was already headed off to the next class when I should have been taking notes on the whole patience bit. They are suspiciously absent from my personal annals re: how to live respectably as a cripple. Warp speed is not fast enough for me. I have to go faster. I also expect everyone else to go faster, which has led to my own version of road rage: astride my little red scooter, I have been known to sit at crosswalks and shout things like, "Are you going to hit the gas, or do you plan on sitting there for the next year?!"
Humility, I am actually learning. Not because I want to, mind you -- truth be told, I'd rather elbow everyone else out of the way, do it myself, and be the greatest ever at it, because I really, really like knowing things and then showing them off. I can be an incredible smartass like that. Even my best friend has told me to shut up and stop correcting her before she pops me one upside the head. Intelligence -- particularly my own -- can make me just a *little* too happy sometimes. So now you know, if you didn't already: I am impatient and prideful. Maybe that's why I'm stuck in this crooked, slow, clumsy body -- because without something to take me down a notch or two, I'd go around thinking I was the greatest thing since the Big Bang. (Come to think of it, maybe this crooked, slow, clumsy body is supposed to teach me patience, too ... dammit.)
Many of you know my ambivalent relationship with Christian Scripture, but I gotta tell you: sometimes, things are right on. When you have Cerebral Palsy, pride literally does come before a literal fall quite often.
"Wait! The ground is better over here; try coming this way."
"I got this! I'm just fi --"
Crash.
The problem with disability and humility is twofold, at the very least. First, there are all those times when it appears to the able-bodied world as if you need assistance, but you don't and you know it. In such cases, attempts to explain otherwise are seen as signs of stubbornness or pride when really, it's just a matter of, "I've been doing this for over 2 decades and I really, seriously, honestly, do not need your help." And it's almost impossible to convey the other side of that coin, which is when you don't want the help not because you're prideful, but because the able-bodied person is just helping the wrong way.
Let me try to explain what I mean. Sometimes, the able-bodied are so eager to assist the disabled that they just. don't. listen. For example, when I fall and someone tries to help me up, the absolute worst way to do it is to hitch your hands around my waist or under my arms and pull me up from behind: my legs are not strong enough to push me upright from this position. I end up dangling there with my knees helplessly bent going, "Wait! Stop! Drop me right now!" It hurts, and dammit, it's embarrassing. The best way to help any disabled person with anything is to listen to them first. We will tell you what we need -- but the teaching moment so often gets lost in the surge of well-meaning, and everything turns into an ego disaster for everyone involved.
Then there are the times when you, the disabled person, genuinely don't know whether you need help or not. There follows a lot of starts and stops and inner dialogue as you wrestle with the whole Safety vs. Independence issue, i.e.: "I could probably handle this. But what if I drop it and cut myself?" and so on. And if you choose to try it on the basis of not limiting yourself any more than you absolutely must, and -- Heaven forbid -- you fail, to you, it's a lesson learned: "Note to self: Next time you are in this situation, ask for help." But to other people looking on, it can be yet another time when you let your pride go before your fall. It doesn't help that disability is fickle. I know that what I can and cannot do can vary from day to day and is dependent upon a lot of factors, like what time I took my last dose of Baclofen or if the humidity is so high my quads are turning to string cheese, or if I have an ear infection and consequently my balance is more iffy than usual, etc. Sometimes I get odd looks when I ask for help with something I did with no problem the day before, or even earlier in the same day. I suspect there are those who just think I've come down with a good ole-fashioned case of Lazy, and because I don't always know how to explain the situation with brevity, I allow them to think it and rely on social constraint to see to it that I get the assistance I need -- after all, what kind of jackass refuses to help a cripple? It may be crude, but it's the truth, and I imagine it sucks for you able-bodied people -- what if you just want to be lazy? It's not allowed. You have to help, or risk being labeled a jackass. Of course, there are those who don't care about that sort of thing. More power to you, I say. It might be kind of refreshing to be told to feck off once in awhile, just like everyone else in the world, instead of being pandered to.
And then there is the third issue: You, the cripple, really need help, and the situation is so ridiculously humiliating you really are letting pride go before your fall. In the past few years, for example, I have lost much of my ability to bend at the waist. I can do it for a few seconds at a time, usually just long enough to snatch something off the floor. I have adapted to this with reaching devices and -- when no one can see -- actually getting down onto the floor and crawling around to do stuff. If I need to straighten the living room and I'm already hurtin' and there's a lot of little things like beads or change or cat toys laying around, I just drop to all fours and the problem is solved. But last week I ran into a situation wherein bending was not possible and crawling would not have helped even if I wasn't in public at the time, which I was.
My shoe came untied. Big deal, right? Bend down and tie it. Except I can't anymore. I can only describe the effort as a series of swears brought on by severe pain and the eventual crumpling of Tif to the floor, trying to decide which of her body parts to rip off and throw across the room in frustration. And I refuse to wear those elastic laces. Those things look SO STUPID. I'm 28. I still have standards. My solution is to take the time and effort in the mornings to make sure my shoes are tied so well that undoing them practically requires a knife because you'd rather cut through the damned things than spend an hour undoing the knots. This works admirably well -- except for when it doesn't.
I went for a walk at the river. I pried off my shoes and crawled around on the rocks and then I put my shoes back on, all the while balanced precariously on the single stone I could find that was wide enough to accommodate what I affectionately call my, "ghetto booty." Then I went off to Fox's for dinner, and on the way out, exhausted, arms akimbo in crutches and everything set to make it back to Bolt outside the front door, I realized my shoelace was undone.
Inner dialogue went something like this:
"Ignore it."
"You'll break your neck."
"So sit down and tie it."
"But that would mean putting my crutches back down, and I just picked them up, and I'm so tired."
"So ask the cashier to tie it."
"But ..."
"Well?"
"I really miss the days I could tie my own [expletive deleted] shoes."
"I know. But what other choice is there?"
"Fine."
In the end, I asked for help. And I got it, and so I went back out to Bolt without having to put down, pick up, and rearrange my equipment and all the stuff on my person, and without being prideful and maybe breaking my neck. It was a big, smelly slice of humble pie, and I shut up and ate it. I hated it. Humility and I are not pals. But if there's one thing disability will do, it's humble a person. I never thought I'd ever, ever have to ask someone else to tie my shoe after I learned to tie at age five. And there I was a few months shy of 28, smiling and thanking the cashier as he tied it for me, when what I really wanted to do was curse everyone in the room for being straight where I am crooked and whole where I am broken -- as if they could help their bodies any more than I can help mine. Usually, I am nowhere near that bitter. Usually, I make it into a joke and move right on. This time it took me a few days, but I did it. I leave you with the thought that finally made me happy:
How many of you guys can basically say, "You, you right there, come over here and tie my shoe for me." and have someone actually do it?? I should not be embarrassed. I should feel like royalty. I am Tif, Queen of Not Having to Tie My Own Stupid Shoes.
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
An Argument for Why Cats are Indeed Like Kids
I always hear people -- usually mothers -- say almost derisively that cats are not like kids. And I agree with them, to a point. Last Christmas I spent a week with my 2 year-old niece and newborn nephew, and I can honestly say my cat has never made me that tired in all the 5 years we have had together. Having a toddler use you as a jungle gym is a lot different than having a cat do the same. But for the sake of argument, and --dare I say it-- truth, I'd like to point out that in many ways, cats are very much like kids, particularly to that childless faction of the population which very much wishes for human offspring, but for whatever reason has yet to be blessed with babies who aren't four-legged and covered in fur.
For those people, the fur-baby set, cats or dogs or even ferrets or rats or chinchillas can and do become children. And it's usually people who cannot understand this bond who ridicule it. After all, how could raising a cat compare to raising a human child? I don't have to sit over here and worry that if I screw something up somewhere along the line, Jude's going to become a serial killer or a narcissistic psychopath -- although even if he does become one, all he can kill is the bugs who get into the living room around the edges of the air conditioner. I don't have to worry that he'll go out and get a girl pregnant, or crash his car on Prom night and become a quadriplegic. But that doesn't mean I don't worry about him -- his mental health and his physical health -- as much as any other mother worries about her 2-legged child.
Using Jude as an example, here are some ways cats are like kids:
1. They get sick. Sometimes they get really sick. And just like parents of human kids will rush their ailing babes off to the E.R. in the middle of the night, so will the parents of furry kids. Just like the parents of human kids, the parents of furry kids would rather saw off their own limbs as payment for medical treatment than see their children suffer. And we will do unpleasant, sometimes completely disgusting things to ensure their continued health. A few years ago, Jude suffered a series of urinary tract infections. I dosed him with antibiotics even though he thrashed and bit and squalled. When I had to collect a urine sample and he refused to pee in a box full of packing peanuts -- which is the veterinarian-recommended, easiest way to collect a urine sample from a cat -- I was reduced to crawling around on the bathroom floor with an eyedropper sucking up puddles of pee. When he had to stay overnight at the vet's for a procedure, I was so worried about him I couldn't sleep. And when I was told he had a chronic problem with crystallized urine and would need a very expensive prescription diet for the rest of his life, I shelled out for it and will continue to do so, even if I have to eat Ramen and peanut butter sandwiches for 2 straight weeks to cover it. To some people -- even people with pets -- these measures are extreme and ridiculous. But pet parents are different from pet owners. The bond is different. It's love, and it will stop at nothing short of everything it can do.
2. Cats make messes. Huge messes. While it is true that they can generally be left home alone for extended periods of time, that doesn't mean you should expect your home to be in one piece when you get back. Once I came home and found Jude surrounded by 5 pounds of kibble he had ripped open and spread from corner to corner. Then there were the decimated houseplants, the unrolled and shredded toilet paper, and the time he crawled into the garbage can after some Chinese leftovers and came out with his fur matted together with sweet and sour sauce, little bits of disgusting clinging to him, and trash scattered through the living room. There followed more than an hour's fiasco of bathing the cat and restraining him to blow his fur dry so it wouldn't tangle into mats and result in a very unflattering haircut.
3. Cats get bored with their toys and bug you instead. Just like human kids, cats need to play, and just like human kids, they would rather pester their people-parents than do so quietly by themselves. This apartment is scattered with cat toys: mice with catnip and mice with bells, fuzzy things that rattle and little balls that jingle, things that dangle temptingly for doorknobs and blow in the breeze from the air conditioner. And still Jude will sit before me and whine, and still he will persist in displaying his boredom by doing things he knows he is not supposed to do. One little white paw will reach up from underneath the coffee table and send things crashing to the floor, one by one. Or he will jump up onto the dresser and saunter to and fro among my Granny Brown's antique dolls, even though he knows better. Or he will find a snag in the carpet and rip it and pull it until it becomes a run that spans several feet. This especially occurs when I'm trying to work. He'll pester the bejeezuz out of me by reaching through the slats in the back of my chair and swatting me on the ass, or he'll bite my toes or walk across the keyboard while I'm typing, all the while mrowling his version of, "Mom, Mom, Mom, I'm bored, Mom, look at me, Mom, there's nothing to do, Mom, Mom, Mom." And I can't just send him to his room till he behaves. He doesn't have one. This whole place is his room.
4. Cats need love and affection, just like kids do. Cats are capable of being afraid of things, just like any other creature that lives. Jude hates the wind. When it whistles and howls in the wintertime, he will seek me out and hide his head under my arm and shake like a leaf. And just like a parent would do for a small child, I rub his back and whisper to him in a reassuring voice until he calms down. Cats get lonely: sometimes Jude will jump up into my lap just for a hug and then saunter away again, reassured of our bond. It's not possible to keep a cat truly happy just by setting out a dish of cream -- in fact, cat's aren't supposed to have cream OR milk, because they're lactose intolerant. Just like with human kids, just because the cat kid likes it doesn't mean you should give it to him.
These are just a handful of reasons cats are like kids; I can think of a lot more. And this is by no means a slight to people who raise actual human children -- just, I don't know, a little lesson in what kids really are. Let's be honest; those of you with human kids don't just love them because they're bipedal and they look like you or call you Mommy. There's more to it than that, and it's the same way with cat kids or dog kids or ferret kids or chinchilla kids. To love someone, really love them, whether human or animal, is an investment of time and energy and emotion, and it isn't all that different from one species to another.
For those people, the fur-baby set, cats or dogs or even ferrets or rats or chinchillas can and do become children. And it's usually people who cannot understand this bond who ridicule it. After all, how could raising a cat compare to raising a human child? I don't have to sit over here and worry that if I screw something up somewhere along the line, Jude's going to become a serial killer or a narcissistic psychopath -- although even if he does become one, all he can kill is the bugs who get into the living room around the edges of the air conditioner. I don't have to worry that he'll go out and get a girl pregnant, or crash his car on Prom night and become a quadriplegic. But that doesn't mean I don't worry about him -- his mental health and his physical health -- as much as any other mother worries about her 2-legged child.
Using Jude as an example, here are some ways cats are like kids:
1. They get sick. Sometimes they get really sick. And just like parents of human kids will rush their ailing babes off to the E.R. in the middle of the night, so will the parents of furry kids. Just like the parents of human kids, the parents of furry kids would rather saw off their own limbs as payment for medical treatment than see their children suffer. And we will do unpleasant, sometimes completely disgusting things to ensure their continued health. A few years ago, Jude suffered a series of urinary tract infections. I dosed him with antibiotics even though he thrashed and bit and squalled. When I had to collect a urine sample and he refused to pee in a box full of packing peanuts -- which is the veterinarian-recommended, easiest way to collect a urine sample from a cat -- I was reduced to crawling around on the bathroom floor with an eyedropper sucking up puddles of pee. When he had to stay overnight at the vet's for a procedure, I was so worried about him I couldn't sleep. And when I was told he had a chronic problem with crystallized urine and would need a very expensive prescription diet for the rest of his life, I shelled out for it and will continue to do so, even if I have to eat Ramen and peanut butter sandwiches for 2 straight weeks to cover it. To some people -- even people with pets -- these measures are extreme and ridiculous. But pet parents are different from pet owners. The bond is different. It's love, and it will stop at nothing short of everything it can do.
2. Cats make messes. Huge messes. While it is true that they can generally be left home alone for extended periods of time, that doesn't mean you should expect your home to be in one piece when you get back. Once I came home and found Jude surrounded by 5 pounds of kibble he had ripped open and spread from corner to corner. Then there were the decimated houseplants, the unrolled and shredded toilet paper, and the time he crawled into the garbage can after some Chinese leftovers and came out with his fur matted together with sweet and sour sauce, little bits of disgusting clinging to him, and trash scattered through the living room. There followed more than an hour's fiasco of bathing the cat and restraining him to blow his fur dry so it wouldn't tangle into mats and result in a very unflattering haircut.
3. Cats get bored with their toys and bug you instead. Just like human kids, cats need to play, and just like human kids, they would rather pester their people-parents than do so quietly by themselves. This apartment is scattered with cat toys: mice with catnip and mice with bells, fuzzy things that rattle and little balls that jingle, things that dangle temptingly for doorknobs and blow in the breeze from the air conditioner. And still Jude will sit before me and whine, and still he will persist in displaying his boredom by doing things he knows he is not supposed to do. One little white paw will reach up from underneath the coffee table and send things crashing to the floor, one by one. Or he will jump up onto the dresser and saunter to and fro among my Granny Brown's antique dolls, even though he knows better. Or he will find a snag in the carpet and rip it and pull it until it becomes a run that spans several feet. This especially occurs when I'm trying to work. He'll pester the bejeezuz out of me by reaching through the slats in the back of my chair and swatting me on the ass, or he'll bite my toes or walk across the keyboard while I'm typing, all the while mrowling his version of, "Mom, Mom, Mom, I'm bored, Mom, look at me, Mom, there's nothing to do, Mom, Mom, Mom." And I can't just send him to his room till he behaves. He doesn't have one. This whole place is his room.
4. Cats need love and affection, just like kids do. Cats are capable of being afraid of things, just like any other creature that lives. Jude hates the wind. When it whistles and howls in the wintertime, he will seek me out and hide his head under my arm and shake like a leaf. And just like a parent would do for a small child, I rub his back and whisper to him in a reassuring voice until he calms down. Cats get lonely: sometimes Jude will jump up into my lap just for a hug and then saunter away again, reassured of our bond. It's not possible to keep a cat truly happy just by setting out a dish of cream -- in fact, cat's aren't supposed to have cream OR milk, because they're lactose intolerant. Just like with human kids, just because the cat kid likes it doesn't mean you should give it to him.
These are just a handful of reasons cats are like kids; I can think of a lot more. And this is by no means a slight to people who raise actual human children -- just, I don't know, a little lesson in what kids really are. Let's be honest; those of you with human kids don't just love them because they're bipedal and they look like you or call you Mommy. There's more to it than that, and it's the same way with cat kids or dog kids or ferret kids or chinchilla kids. To love someone, really love them, whether human or animal, is an investment of time and energy and emotion, and it isn't all that different from one species to another.
Friday, September 14, 2012
Little White Pills
It's no secret that I struggle with chronic depression -- anyone who knows me well knows this about me. My traumatic past and my damaged brain have conspired to make me a chemically deficient basket case. I have a lovely psychotropic regimen to right the wrongs, a little rainbow of capsules: 2 pink ones, a blue one, a white one, and a green-and-brown one, every day. These are respectively: mood stabilizer(s), long-term anti-anxiety, emergency short-term anti-anxiety, and nightmare control. Oh, and then there's the legal Speed to counteract the effects of the long-term anti-anxiety med, also known as Klonopin, which is quite effective at sending me to a state of consciousness about half a notch above comatose. It's a mess.
Two of these medicines are PRN, which means I only have to take them when I need them, as determined by me. I don't always have to take the nightmare med. I don't always have to take the Klonopin. This makes me feel slightly less of a basket case -- I'm just left with Paxil, Ativan, and Dexadrine. A 3-a-day set is damn good for someone with an Axis I diagnosis of chronic, recurrent Major Depressive Disorder. Most of my MDD peer group is drugged up past their eyeballs. It is my personal policy, however, not to take anything I don't absolutely have to take. At this point in my life, I am aware that I MUST take a mood stabilizer/antidepressant. Me without that ain't pretty. Me without that for too awful long probably ain't even alive. I only broke down and asked for something for nightmares after 3 months of vivid, hallucinatory dreams about things like the ground turning into snakes and rabid hounds chasing me through the woods like a damn deer or something. I was haggard. I was exhausted. I was terrified to close my eyes. Something had to be done.
And this leaves us with the anxiety meds. Along with my depression comes a huge amount of anxiety. It's like a 2-for-1 psychological package deal: you get your depression, and we throw the panic in for free. This is where the little blue pill comes in. If I take the little blue pill like I should, I'm a lot more chill. There is no "Tif is frozen in place because the world will crack open if she moves" anxiety. Occasionally the rogue anxiety attack of moderate severity will break through, which is where the little white pill comes in. White pill + blue pill = my nervous system is stoned, and I wouldn't care if flaming meteors started crashing through the roof and landing in my living room.
Prior to just recently, I took a little white pill AND a little blue pill together maybe once every six months. I seriously rarely ever needed the Ativan. I actually considered telling my shrink to stop prescribing it -- but oh man, I am so glad I didn't. All this stuff going on with my mother has thrown me into a state of almost constant panic. I wake up in the morning already shaking. I try to hold off on the Ativan as long as I can, I really do, because the last thing I need is to become a pill-head, but for the past 2 weeks I have needed that little white pill once, sometimes twice a day, every day. Yes. I have gone from one every six months to up to 2 per day. My anxiety is out of control. And as anyone who struggles with persistent anxiety will tell you, when you're in it, you feel like you'll be there forever. I am calmly discussing this now because white pill + blue pill are working their magic in my bloodstream, but the second the dose wears off I'll be back to waiting for the ceiling to cave in.
See, people in the midst of full-blown anxiety attacks are capable of believing impossible things, things like, "If I move, my body will literally fly apart into a million pieces," or "If I move, there will be a massive earthquake and the entire world will crumble and suck everyone down to Hell." I know this because I've experienced it firsthand. About 3 years ago, I once had an anxiety attack so severe that I spent 14 straight hours stretched out flat on the floor, digging my nails into the carpet, because I just KNEW something unspeakably horrible would happen if I dared rise. In my right mind, this is laughable. Like now. Now I'm smirking and shaking my head. But my friends, a person in panic is NOT a person in her right mind. No way. Panic is so much survival instinct gone awry, and it can literally shut you down. Stop the presses. Drop you where you stand. Honest to God. It really can. When you have a panic attack, your brain convinces you you're dying. Unless you've been there, there's really no adequate way to explain it. You will do anything, literally anything, to just make it stop -- including lying prostrate on the floor for 14 hours. Or taking a whole lot more of the little white pills on top of the little blue pills and calmly waiting for flaming meteors to appear in your living room. That's where I'm at right now. I hate being there; I really, truly hate it. But if I don't do this, somebody's gonna have to come peel me off the floor and pack me off the the psych ward, which is not a locale I care to revisit.
Hopefully, this ends soon.
Two of these medicines are PRN, which means I only have to take them when I need them, as determined by me. I don't always have to take the nightmare med. I don't always have to take the Klonopin. This makes me feel slightly less of a basket case -- I'm just left with Paxil, Ativan, and Dexadrine. A 3-a-day set is damn good for someone with an Axis I diagnosis of chronic, recurrent Major Depressive Disorder. Most of my MDD peer group is drugged up past their eyeballs. It is my personal policy, however, not to take anything I don't absolutely have to take. At this point in my life, I am aware that I MUST take a mood stabilizer/antidepressant. Me without that ain't pretty. Me without that for too awful long probably ain't even alive. I only broke down and asked for something for nightmares after 3 months of vivid, hallucinatory dreams about things like the ground turning into snakes and rabid hounds chasing me through the woods like a damn deer or something. I was haggard. I was exhausted. I was terrified to close my eyes. Something had to be done.
And this leaves us with the anxiety meds. Along with my depression comes a huge amount of anxiety. It's like a 2-for-1 psychological package deal: you get your depression, and we throw the panic in for free. This is where the little blue pill comes in. If I take the little blue pill like I should, I'm a lot more chill. There is no "Tif is frozen in place because the world will crack open if she moves" anxiety. Occasionally the rogue anxiety attack of moderate severity will break through, which is where the little white pill comes in. White pill + blue pill = my nervous system is stoned, and I wouldn't care if flaming meteors started crashing through the roof and landing in my living room.
Prior to just recently, I took a little white pill AND a little blue pill together maybe once every six months. I seriously rarely ever needed the Ativan. I actually considered telling my shrink to stop prescribing it -- but oh man, I am so glad I didn't. All this stuff going on with my mother has thrown me into a state of almost constant panic. I wake up in the morning already shaking. I try to hold off on the Ativan as long as I can, I really do, because the last thing I need is to become a pill-head, but for the past 2 weeks I have needed that little white pill once, sometimes twice a day, every day. Yes. I have gone from one every six months to up to 2 per day. My anxiety is out of control. And as anyone who struggles with persistent anxiety will tell you, when you're in it, you feel like you'll be there forever. I am calmly discussing this now because white pill + blue pill are working their magic in my bloodstream, but the second the dose wears off I'll be back to waiting for the ceiling to cave in.
See, people in the midst of full-blown anxiety attacks are capable of believing impossible things, things like, "If I move, my body will literally fly apart into a million pieces," or "If I move, there will be a massive earthquake and the entire world will crumble and suck everyone down to Hell." I know this because I've experienced it firsthand. About 3 years ago, I once had an anxiety attack so severe that I spent 14 straight hours stretched out flat on the floor, digging my nails into the carpet, because I just KNEW something unspeakably horrible would happen if I dared rise. In my right mind, this is laughable. Like now. Now I'm smirking and shaking my head. But my friends, a person in panic is NOT a person in her right mind. No way. Panic is so much survival instinct gone awry, and it can literally shut you down. Stop the presses. Drop you where you stand. Honest to God. It really can. When you have a panic attack, your brain convinces you you're dying. Unless you've been there, there's really no adequate way to explain it. You will do anything, literally anything, to just make it stop -- including lying prostrate on the floor for 14 hours. Or taking a whole lot more of the little white pills on top of the little blue pills and calmly waiting for flaming meteors to appear in your living room. That's where I'm at right now. I hate being there; I really, truly hate it. But if I don't do this, somebody's gonna have to come peel me off the floor and pack me off the the psych ward, which is not a locale I care to revisit.
Hopefully, this ends soon.
Thursday, September 13, 2012
Just Another Neurotic Disaster
Yesterday, I called my mother. I had to do it. My fear of calling her wasn't driving me half as mad as all this mother-related anxiety. It's the dreams. I had a dream about her funeral, and when they lowered her coffin into the ground I started screaming. Then I had a dream about something I can't even really remember, but she was in it, and I woke up in a cold sweat seriously considering buying a plane ticket and heading off to Indiana on the first flight out of Williamsport. Sometimes I get these feelings, these really strong urges to do a certain thing RIGHT AWAY or the whole world is going to fall apart and take me with it. Because of the anxiety, you know. In fight-or-flight, I'm a fighter *and* a flyer. If something's wrong and I need to run, I will mow down anyone and anything in my way. But this anxiety doesn't have an outlet. There's nothing I can do about the fact that my mother has cancer. There's nothing I can do about the fact that it has metastasized to her intestines. THERE IS NOTHING I CAN DO. That does not sit well with me. I'm a fixer; I have to make it better. I have to take all the wrong things and make them right again. And if I can't do that, I get scared. The panic just builds and builds until I'm so scared I can't move, because there's nowhere to run. I can't run from the way I feel right now; I can't un-feel it or undo cancer. So I become frozen in place and just stay there, shaking. I need an outlet. If I don't siphon some of this off, I'll drown in it. So I called my mother.
She was pleasant. The conversation was actually kind of nice. But see, my mother ... how do I explain this? She can't hit me anymore. I'm too big, and too far away, and I'd nail her to a wall if she did, cancer or no. She wouldn't have to worry about cancer, because I'd disembowel her and pull it out. But since she can't hit me anymore, she plays mind games. And she plays them well. So even though I actually enjoyed our conversation, I don't trust it. I don't trust HER. But part of me, a big part of me, wants to. I want to believe the games are over. I want to believe that maybe she's had a change of heart, that maybe she'll be nicer now that mortality is literally staring her in the face. And I love her. My God, do I love her. I hate her, but I love her. And I didn't realize how much until now.
She did horrible, terrible, nasty things to me that I can hardly bring myself to speak about. Torture, and pain, and blood ... there are some things that may very well stay locked inside forever, because I can't say them. My mouth won't do it. I bear scars and injuries that will be with me for the rest of my life because of my mother. She nearly killed me. And I still love her. When I get upset, when I get scared, I still want to run to my mommy and climb up into her lap and hear the lion in her tummy growl. I want to hurl myself into her arms and keen out all my pain on her shoulder, even though most of it is her fault to start with. And right now I want my mommy more than ever. But my mommy is sick. She's dying. I can't have her, because for one I never really did, and then if there's one of us who needs to be strong for the other right now, it's me and not her.
I have Momma and Dad. I do. And I love my Dad to death. He tries to help so much. He's so earnest about it. But sometimes a girl just needs a mom, and what I really want is to run crying to Momma and have her pat me on the back and tell me everything's gonna be okay. But I'm not sure how she'd handle that. We're affectionate, we care for each other a great deal, but she's not nearly as touchy-feely as I am. I think I'd just freak her out. What I need right now, what I really need, is for some wonderful woman to just sit and hold me while I cry. It makes me feel so stupid to say that, but I really think it would help. I'll take volunteers. You don't even have to say a word; just let me cry myself out and then we can pretend it never happened.
Good grief, I'm pathetic.
She was pleasant. The conversation was actually kind of nice. But see, my mother ... how do I explain this? She can't hit me anymore. I'm too big, and too far away, and I'd nail her to a wall if she did, cancer or no. She wouldn't have to worry about cancer, because I'd disembowel her and pull it out. But since she can't hit me anymore, she plays mind games. And she plays them well. So even though I actually enjoyed our conversation, I don't trust it. I don't trust HER. But part of me, a big part of me, wants to. I want to believe the games are over. I want to believe that maybe she's had a change of heart, that maybe she'll be nicer now that mortality is literally staring her in the face. And I love her. My God, do I love her. I hate her, but I love her. And I didn't realize how much until now.
She did horrible, terrible, nasty things to me that I can hardly bring myself to speak about. Torture, and pain, and blood ... there are some things that may very well stay locked inside forever, because I can't say them. My mouth won't do it. I bear scars and injuries that will be with me for the rest of my life because of my mother. She nearly killed me. And I still love her. When I get upset, when I get scared, I still want to run to my mommy and climb up into her lap and hear the lion in her tummy growl. I want to hurl myself into her arms and keen out all my pain on her shoulder, even though most of it is her fault to start with. And right now I want my mommy more than ever. But my mommy is sick. She's dying. I can't have her, because for one I never really did, and then if there's one of us who needs to be strong for the other right now, it's me and not her.
I have Momma and Dad. I do. And I love my Dad to death. He tries to help so much. He's so earnest about it. But sometimes a girl just needs a mom, and what I really want is to run crying to Momma and have her pat me on the back and tell me everything's gonna be okay. But I'm not sure how she'd handle that. We're affectionate, we care for each other a great deal, but she's not nearly as touchy-feely as I am. I think I'd just freak her out. What I need right now, what I really need, is for some wonderful woman to just sit and hold me while I cry. It makes me feel so stupid to say that, but I really think it would help. I'll take volunteers. You don't even have to say a word; just let me cry myself out and then we can pretend it never happened.
Good grief, I'm pathetic.
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
Tif, You Make Me Nervous.
I told Lindsey I'd start keeping track of my moods throughout the day, so we can tell if there's any kind of pattern to them: what's grief, what might be breakthrough depression, etc. I'm supposed to take it in next week. I have a feeling it'll look something like this:
Tuesday: Decided not to give a crap about anything and checked out of conscious thought: slept most of the day.
Wednesday: Tried to check out of conscious thought, but started worrying about winter with nothing to do and had a panic attack instead.
This moody deal is oh-so-lovely.
Thing is, I'm alright when I'm busy. I have my finger in a lot of pies right now for that very reason: there's the part-time bookkeeping, volunteering for the United Way, and trying to sponsor 25 posters for $5 apiece for Childhelp/Wings of Hope before the end of the month, which I have discovered is more difficult than it sounds. And I'd take on a couple more pies if I could find them, but then I'd run the risk of overwhelming myself and being moody for entirely different reasons. I do not handle stress well. I'm not handling much well at this particular moment.
This weekend was great: I went with Mama and Dad to Papa Bernard's farm in Slatington. I finally got over my nerves and actually started calling him "Papa," and the world didn't end. There wasn't even a minor earthquake. He just accepted it; no explanation needed. (Due to what happened right before I left Indiana, I have arguments with myself before I dub someone honorary family. I'm secretly very afraid of getting turned aside, hence the reason it took me nearly 7 years to seize the opportunity for a grandparent who lives in the same state.)
I learned how to use an apple picker this weekend, and discovered that picking tomatoes out of the garden -- particularly the smaller varieties, like cherry and grape -- is actually rather fun in a treasure-hunting sort of way. I had no less than 3 excellent, home-cooked meals, and opened a gateway to good childhood memories with all those dogs and rabbits and chickens. Papa B. even let me ride in the back of the pickup when we went to check the sunflowers and squash, though getting me in it took some doing on account of I'm not half as spry as I was when I was 10.
When we got home, I took myself down to the last day of the Regatta and spent way too much money, as usual: I got an oil burner I can't break this time, as it's made of tin, and 2 stretch bracelets from my usual booth: 3 summers back, I was at the Regatta looking for bracelets I could wear, but I can't clasp jewelry because of my hands and therefore can only wear things that stretch. I mentioned this to a lady who had a booth of beautiful jewelry, and on the spot she took apart my favorite piece, beaded it onto a stretch cord, and gave it to me for half price. She has since discovered a market for this type of jewelry and makes it routinely, and keeps back some of the prettiest ones for me to pick from every year. We keep an eye out for each other, now. I had my pulled-pork BBQ nachos and my funnel cake, and went home happy.
And then yesterday, I woke up with no plans. And it was raining. And I lost the button off one of my only good pairs of jeans. And I was facing another fruit-fly invasion. And I decelerated like it was the day after Christmas and went right back into my post-farm funk because I wasn't busy.
I tell you, sometimes I just don't know what to make of myself.
Tuesday: Decided not to give a crap about anything and checked out of conscious thought: slept most of the day.
Wednesday: Tried to check out of conscious thought, but started worrying about winter with nothing to do and had a panic attack instead.
This moody deal is oh-so-lovely.
Thing is, I'm alright when I'm busy. I have my finger in a lot of pies right now for that very reason: there's the part-time bookkeeping, volunteering for the United Way, and trying to sponsor 25 posters for $5 apiece for Childhelp/Wings of Hope before the end of the month, which I have discovered is more difficult than it sounds. And I'd take on a couple more pies if I could find them, but then I'd run the risk of overwhelming myself and being moody for entirely different reasons. I do not handle stress well. I'm not handling much well at this particular moment.
This weekend was great: I went with Mama and Dad to Papa Bernard's farm in Slatington. I finally got over my nerves and actually started calling him "Papa," and the world didn't end. There wasn't even a minor earthquake. He just accepted it; no explanation needed. (Due to what happened right before I left Indiana, I have arguments with myself before I dub someone honorary family. I'm secretly very afraid of getting turned aside, hence the reason it took me nearly 7 years to seize the opportunity for a grandparent who lives in the same state.)
I learned how to use an apple picker this weekend, and discovered that picking tomatoes out of the garden -- particularly the smaller varieties, like cherry and grape -- is actually rather fun in a treasure-hunting sort of way. I had no less than 3 excellent, home-cooked meals, and opened a gateway to good childhood memories with all those dogs and rabbits and chickens. Papa B. even let me ride in the back of the pickup when we went to check the sunflowers and squash, though getting me in it took some doing on account of I'm not half as spry as I was when I was 10.
When we got home, I took myself down to the last day of the Regatta and spent way too much money, as usual: I got an oil burner I can't break this time, as it's made of tin, and 2 stretch bracelets from my usual booth: 3 summers back, I was at the Regatta looking for bracelets I could wear, but I can't clasp jewelry because of my hands and therefore can only wear things that stretch. I mentioned this to a lady who had a booth of beautiful jewelry, and on the spot she took apart my favorite piece, beaded it onto a stretch cord, and gave it to me for half price. She has since discovered a market for this type of jewelry and makes it routinely, and keeps back some of the prettiest ones for me to pick from every year. We keep an eye out for each other, now. I had my pulled-pork BBQ nachos and my funnel cake, and went home happy.
And then yesterday, I woke up with no plans. And it was raining. And I lost the button off one of my only good pairs of jeans. And I was facing another fruit-fly invasion. And I decelerated like it was the day after Christmas and went right back into my post-farm funk because I wasn't busy.
I tell you, sometimes I just don't know what to make of myself.
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