The Wrong Life

Sometimes in therapy I learn something about myself that seems so new, or I get a brilliant new perspective or I see something I hadn't seen clearly before. I guess that's why going to therapy remains worth it. (Besides that whole life ring while I'm drowning in depression thing, of course.) Moments like that bring into sharp focus how for quite a few years I learned nothing new in therapy.

In my mind, I sometimes try to "re-do" my past, think that I can somehow "fix" things. I know it isn't rational: I'm not going to be able to make my family be alive again or change any of a number of other past traumas. But emotionally I feel as if I can do so if only I do it right.

People define themselves differently. In many places in the world, people define themselves by their place within their community. The Navaho people define themselves by their family connections. LIke the Navaho, so did I. Without my family, I feel cut off, I feel like there are huge gaping holes inside me that nothing can fill.

This is not how my life should be. I wanted to marry and have children: I would have made a terrific wife and mother. I am nurturing and loving and giving. The fact that no one ever wanted to marry me has long made me feel there is something wrong with me. I see so many people who have lifelong relationships, people who don't seem to have the qualities I have, people who are takers or who are high-maintenance, and I have to wonder what is wrong with me that no one wanted what I have to give.

My brother was supposed to be my friend when we grew up. He was supposed to be here with me after our parents died. Our children would have been friends and we would have spent a lot of time together.

Baby Steps, 3, The Null Day

So no baby steps happened yesterday. Instead, I pretty much pulled in the sidewalks and shut the curtains. It was the anniversary of my little brother's death — a long, long time ago, but it still gets me, no matter what I do. I pretty much just felt sad about that and about life in general and super anxious about the still not job thing.

I stayed up very late, trying to avoid going to bed (why? because sleep certainly is a great way to lose yourself), I woke up a few times, then today I chose to go back to sleep and slept until 1:30 pm. I don't really expect any baby steps today. Maybe I'll take a quick turn around the yard for some (really gray) sunlight.

That's all there is to say for now.

Christmas Memories: Sadness and Joy

I always loved Christmas while growing up because it was a big deal to us as a family gathering, both immediate and extended. For the first 11 years of my life, we got together with my dad's family on Christmas Eve, even at immense inconvenience to other family members, to open presents after midnight when my grandfather arrived from closing up the movie theater he managed. After that, the younger siblings (my dad's generation) rose up in protest and we began having our gatherings at a more suitable day and time and took to drawing names instead of giving gifts to everyone, another hardship on the younger families. Even with all the craziness and sometimes 35-40 people in a small, three-bedroom house, I loved the holidays. And Christmas morning was always just about the four of us: Mom, Dad, my little brother Jim, and me.

However, the year I was 16, we moved 1100 miles away from the town, and everyone, I’d known my entire life. At least that Christmas, it was still the four of us. Unfortunately, Dad died of a heart attack the following May (or March, I'm not sure after 35 years) and Mom insisted we stay where we were. So the Christmas I was 17, there was just Mom, Jim, and me. Mom wanted to make it something to remember as being different, so that it wouldn’t be a memory of loss — any more than it already was — but a new memory. So the three of us talked about it and decided to have lobster tail for Christmas Eve dinner! Mom had never cooked lobster of any sort before, but she asked the man at the fish counter where she bought the lobster. Jim and I made the salad and melted the butter and set the breakfast bar for our feast. We even had little glasses of wine with Mom's regular-sized glass. And it was a very fine meal! It was a nice way to start a new memory.

In addition, my brother and I were panic-stricken that there was no one to fill Mom’s stocking or give her gifts from Santa that year, so we did it. We bought small gifts for her stocking, and we went in together on a single gift for her from Santa. On Christmas morning, Mom quickly figured out who the 'elves' were who had surprised her by filling her stocking, but the look on her face when she found a package to her from 'Santa' was one of shock. I think she believed in Santa for a moment, or that an angel had reached down and given her a gift. Then she saw the smug looks on our faces and realized that her 'angels' were the two teenagers who were her anchor in this world.

By then, our extended families no longer extended. Our family was just the three of us.

Balancing Act

It's been an uneventful week. I went to therapy. I stayed home a lot and babied myself because I had a big bandage on my nose and a smaller one behind my right ear. I felt off, probably because of the surgery. 

Today I got the sewn-on dressing off of my nose so we could see how the nose and the graft were looking. The doctor, the nurse, and I were all very pleased with how it looks! It's a bit swollen and there are bumps from the stitches, plus smaller bumps from the dissolvable stitches still in my nose. But it looks fine. I'm very pleased, even though I have to keep putting a smaller bandage on it for another 1-2 weeks. Beats what I've been doing, though.

I've spent part of the day getting stuff ready to go to Dallas tomorrow to stay with Sierra and her boyfriend for my birthday weekend, just like last year. We'll have a blast. I'm not even stressing about the drive this time.

I'm kind of sad this afternoon. I found out that a friend had her baby yesterday evening, but the poor little guy died not long after birth. They weren't really surprised: he had a lot of things wrong with him. But they were hoping that he'd live long enough for those things to be repaired so he could have a life with them. It's so sad that she carried that baby to full-term and then lost him. My heart goes out to them.

I'm trying to find some kind of balance between feeling sorrow for my friend and her husband, and feeling happiness for my coming weekend. It feels heartless to think "well, I'm not going to let this ruin my day, much less my weekend." Yet it seems irrational to let this event do just that. So, looking for that balance where I can feel both sorrow and happiness for the separate things and appreciate that they are both a part of living life.

I've been packing my bag and folding laundry with this cloud over my head, feeling down about my friend. But that does no one any good. I, and Sierra, deserve my full and joyful attention this weekend. For my other friend, I will find a thoughtful sympathy card and tell her how much I've been thinking of them and how much sorrow I feel for them, and that will be enough I think.

Balance — in life and in thought — has been difficult for me. It's one more of the many entangled threads I am working on. Times like today make me work harder on it. But just writing about this has helped. I feel a delicate balance. And that makes me feel better.

Trapeze

Therapy was good today. Why was it so good? We went surprising places. And going to surprising places is what brings me further along on my journey.

At first we talked about my last blog post, about feeling that I'm home now. She said she thought it sounded like someone who was content with herself and where she was. Content. That is a place where a person could experience the highs and lows of life, all the happys and the sads, and still know that she is fine. Content is where a person could know she will get through the bad times and appreciate the good times for as long as they last.

Then I told her what I was thinking of writing about today: how I feel weird feeling so good, how I don't trust it, how I'm more than a little bit afraid of it. That's what connected content with surprising places. Because how and why would any person be afraid of feeling good, of feeling happy?

Well, it comes from learning experiences. Several times in my life, just when things were getting better after having been difficult, or when things were going very, very well, I have been hit by a major trauma: my father died, my brother died, my mother was diagnosed with metastasized lung cancer. There have been others, but these were, of course, the worst. My therapist said that post-trauma personalities are always prepared for the worst to happen because they know not only that it could happen but that it will happen. So how can I trust the good feelings won't just blow up into something horrible again?

In addition, there's the fact that I have struggled with anxiety and/or depression for most of my life. As I discussed in an earlier post, I have been having to work on not identifying myself with the depression or with the anxiety. But for a long time, they did become part of my identity, so this feeling good, this happiness, is something new and different (especially from the past couple of years) and it is unfamiliar.

Early Warning System

In just over a week, it will be my mom's birthday. I don't know yet how I feel; last year was really rough, as most of you know. I figured I'd tell people about it now, just in case, rather than waiting until the last minute.

I haven't been thinking about her any more than usual, but most of my thoughts revolve around her final couple of weeks. I still get very angry toward her doctors for not paying more attention to what we were telling them and for not asking more questions. I get angry that there was no one watching out for her on the medical end — I didn't know what questions to ask or what to say other than what I did ask and say. And yet no one paid enough attention to say, "Gee, that sounds like a lot more than just weakness from the radiation." And I feel resentful because I feel maybe she would have lasted longer if any of that had happened.

I have a few happier memories that pass by from time to time. Like how she spent her last Christmas and New Years with me here in Texas. How we stopped and shopped at Chico's one day and she bought me a bunch of new clothes for work (the pants don't fit because I put on weight while I was taking care of her and it's only now slowly starting to drop off). How we went out for a brunch buffet on Christmas morning at the Hilton on San Antonio's Riverwalk and it was amazing. How we went out to dinner close to home for New Years and had the most lovely meal.

But I have been cycling more through the bad memories, the sad memories, and the ones that make me feel guilty. I guess my feelings are on the down side — I'm just not staying very aware of the down-ness. It would explain why I've been feeling a little more negative about my long-term financial and job situation and why I've walked out of a perfectly wonderful therapy session the past couple of weeks, only to feel quite down soon after.

So I may need some help in the coming couple of weeks. Thanksgiving is and isn't a big deal; I'm not sure how I'll be affected by it this year. I've spent most of my adult Thanksgivings alone, but when I lived in Oregon I spent all of them with my family. So it's a mixed bag.

But I might need help with my perspective and my attitude and my feelings in general. I might need to reach out and hold a metaphorical hand.

The most positive things about this post are that I'm actually looking forward and planning for if things go badly for me, and I'm actually asking for help rather than just planning to push through it on my own. Progress has been made! Or, I guess I should say, I have made progress. It's more powerful. And I can use all the positive power I can get in the near future.

Thank you for whatever you can and will provide. Do you ask for help when you need it?

January Sucks

My boy, HS senior photo

As I wrote yesterday, my brother killed himself 29 years ago,  just days before my birthday. I always get depressed in January. I was also always used to having my family making a big deal out of my birthday, even as an adult. Mom called me every year on my birthday ever since I went away to college and sang Happy Birthday to me on the phone, even when I lived in the same city as she did. She called me with my brother, then with her second husband, then with my grandmother, then just her. But she always called and sang. So I'm feeling quite unhappy about January these days, even more than before.

My mom, HS senior photo

Because of my brother's suicide, every January hurts, but at least every year prior to last year I had my mom — whose own loss of a child was greater than I could imagine — for comfort and to take my mind off my birthday loss and pin it on birthday gains (such as all those additional years that are better than the alternative). I miss her voice.

Missing My Boy

He was born three years and almost nine months after me and he was always "my boy." He was my treasure and my gift and I'd have given my life for him. For a long time, I wished that our parents had died and at least left me him. 

But he died when he was 18; this coming week it will be 29 years since he killed himself, just days before my birthday. I always get depressed in January. 

The thing about suicide (which I conveniently chose to ignore when I was thinking hard about it, some time ago) is that you never get over that grief. It remains sharp, like a deep cut from a sharp knife. It gets better, but never entirely heals. Everyone I've ever talked to who survived a loved one's suicide tells me that. Even people who were friends, not even close, remain affected for years and years.

So every January I bleed inside. 

Speechless

I can't think of anything good or positive to say right now, so I'm probably not talking to you much. There is only so much self-pity someone else can stand.

Right now, I am miserable, my life is miserable and overly challenging and I'm making no progress. I have tried and I am trying as hard as I can. Will I keep trying? For now, that is unknown.

So if I'm not writing (and I gave up Nano ... again ... commitment issues?), it's because I have nothing to say that isn't about misery and grief and the Abyss. And there is really no point in writing about all of that.

I am positively speechless.

Oh, and yesterday was Mom's birthday.

Nano-Lame-o

I haven't written any more. I got up to 1600 words and just haven't done any more. I'm stopped on all fronts — all. No progress. No movement other than backward. The apartment is still shame-worthy (no, seriously, I wouldn't even let a maintenance guy in if I had a problem). I haven't paid the estate bills for no reason at all. No reasons for any of it. Except one.

I am sad.

I am drowning in it. I cannot even take to heart the wonderful advice and suggestions of Julie at JulieLand! Writing creatively has become like trying to claw my way out of a coffin (I've been watching MythBusters on Netflix and there are two episodes with coffin escape attempts in them, so I know of which I speak): impossible. Nothing comes.

So there we are. This is the place that is my life right now.