So tired

O tempora, o mores!

 of all this.  

My senior year in high school, a year during which I was often depressed and suicidal, this was my favorite song on the White Album.

The friends who love me don't want me to be still grieving, even though I've told them over and over that it will take at least 4 1/2 years for the deep grief to end.  They want me to be better right now. I know they want the best for me but they have no idea who I am or what is to live in my mind from day to day.

I've decided it will be easier just to lie from now on. 

Many of the widows in the FB group do that.  They've given up being honest with the people around them in their desire to spare their friends suffering. Maybe lying to my friends from now on will be my way of showing them love, not making them have to deal with a crazy person. As Kathy Walsh and Mel Robbins  suggest, treat having friends as a job, not a natural source of affection and salvation.

It's interesting that both my parents AND Will refused to let me get decent mental health therapy when I was young and poor and they could have paid for it.  When I finally was able to afford a psychologist, my second year at COCC, she told me maybe I should leave Will.

How many therapists have I had since high school, starting with Mr. Anderson? (Who told me sex was like ice cream -- delicious, but you didn't want it all the time.)

Let's see ... I tried the ISU free student therapists, when Will wouldn't pay for help, but just got angry when they judged me right out of the gate because my view of sex was wrong.

I went to the free shrinks at Utah for a bit, just to get anti-depressants (which I no longer use). After taking the MMPI the lead psychiatrist there told me I had serious anger issues, that I had schizo-affective disorder, and that graduate school was worsening, not bettering my mental health.

When I got to Bend I started off with group therapy through one school year. (Several years later one of the other people in that group would turn up in my interpersonal communication class.) At that point I believed I had multiple personalities because there was such a gigantic switch between what I would consider my workaday mind and my personal relationship mind. I often experienced my thinking as coming from two different places. 

After that, Susan Dragovich was my first psychologist to see regularly.  I quit her when I thought she started repeating herself.

And this is it. Once I feel a therapist has done everything they possibly can for me I act like I'm well (and I will be well enough to function for awhile going forward) even if I'm not.

Since 1990 I think I've had 10 different therapists over the 38 years I've been here.

One of the ladies in the Widows group said she uses therapy like her friends get pedicures -- as a form of self care.  

Another lady made the excellent comment that when she and her spouse, who both came out of abusive backgrounds, they created a world of two so when she lost him there was no one else.  And that's kind of how I feel. Maybe I should talk with Sarah about "trauma informed grief therapy".

I am so grateful to have friends who care about me.  

And I am grateful to have enough money to buy the intimacy and support that my friends can't give me.   

I've been asking Jesus to take the wheel but He's been acting like he lost his license.

 

Whiny Middle Class Wyte Person

Let me start this by saying I have everything in the world I could possibly need and have absolutely no right to be as anxious and sad as I am. 

So I asked the widow's FB group about it.

Photo by Ahmet Kurt on Unsplash

I'll ask Sarah next week if she thinks another therapist would be more effective for me.

It's all too much. 

I'm fine in the day to day.  I have money. I have my house.  I have art.  I'm just also grieving and unhappy while being fine.  I need nothing but rescue and I know I need to rescue myself. 

Here's the deal.  As I told the person who wanted to get me a social worker at the hospital, I know all the things about how to relieve my suffering. I just can't do it. Finding friends, asking for help, eating healthy -- all are pretty damn heavy lifting.

So, another whiny middle class white person is sad.  Who gives an actual fuck. 

Wheeless Bus

 My friend Diana messaged me to say that it looked like yesterday the wheels fell off the bus.

And yes, indeed, yesterday was a terrible, horrible, very bad day, all because of MY EMOTIONS. If I didn't feel so much, if I weren't such a fucking typical EType4, it would actually have been a breeze.  All my life I've wanted to be someone else, someone who wasn't so reactive, who didn't have so many feelings. Yesterday was a great example of why. I could have been as cool as Steve Irwin petting a crocodile and taken it all in stride.  But oh no.  I had an emotional breakdown.

The bad day was partially in response to a medical scare but was mostly a grief burst.  I've been struggling lately as this summer, when I'm not traveling, I've been reminded more of Will and how much I miss having someone to hold me and love me.

Leftovers the morning after an EKG

Anyway, this is what happened.

I woke up early (2:30 ish) Wednesday morning to deal with the puppy's upset guts.  I took her outside.  She needed to go out one more time before I finally got up at 3:30.  The morning continued (coffee, weed, protein drink) and I took Sequel for her 45 minute walk and also got her to the dog park for a run and rassle.  I also got Mr. Winston out for a short walk.

Then I went to the Exercise Coach at 9:40, for some reason crying on the way there.  I was just feeling sad and tired.  Sherri asked how I felt and I told her, not good, and that I'd been having chest pains for three days.  She suggested strongly that I go to the doctor or to an emergency room. 

Now, here we have the "mom or dad" option.  If I was working with my mom genes, I would have just got on with everything and not worried about it and not even mentioned the 3 days of chest pains and the 3 hours of sleep.  But no, my dad genes were at work and a got all panicky that the pain, which I felt at the same place on my back, was heart trouble.  

So I called Fall Creek and told them about the pain.  They said come in at 11:00.  So I went home, made sure the dogs were empty of pee, and went to my doctors.  There, a tattooed tech gave me the EKG and a Dr. Jessica explained my next options where were going to the emergency room or getting some tests taken care of on my own feet.

So even though they sent the info through cyberspace, I also had Zach at the Doc's office print out the orders my doc wanted -- to CORA for a chest xray and  then to St. Charles for bloodwork.  It all actually went quite fast.  CORA is in a construction mess but was VERY fast. Sadly, the chest x-ray does not make up for my missing booby squishings.

The blood work was very busy ... so many findings. I finally was able to go home for a little while but almost as soon as I got home and got the dogs out once more I got a call that I had to go to the emergency room for a CT Scan because I had an elevated D-Dimer. So I went back to the hospital and the tears just kept coming.

I felt so much fear and loneliness.  I wanted Will so bad. As an EType4, when I am at my lowest I am rescue-seeking.  This is one reason I won't ask for help because to me it's a sign of mental weakness.  Also, I'm a fucking Boomer. Boomers don't ask for help. So anyway, I was also getting triggered big time as the last time I was in the emergency room it was when I spent 8 hours there with a bloody towel around my sliced wrist, waiting for surgery. So as crazy and whiny as I was yesterday, I did my best to make wisecracks with every tech, doctor, and nurse I met while also falling apart.

Everybody was really nice to me.  Some even laughed at my jokes (the old, corny, routine of repeating the person's self description as though it's their last name, as in, "Hi, I'm Stuart, phlebotomist". "Hi, Stuart Phlebotomist".  The importance of the oral comma.

I was asked twice if I wanted to see a social worker and I said "yes" the second time but they never got to me.  I did, however, get a printout of ideas for dealing with adult anxiety. I was home by 5:30.

After I got home I texted Sarah and she texted right back, saying she'd call me in 15 minutes. which she did.  She helped me right away by reminding me of the profound work we've done together and reminding me that I'm not the outlier I often think I am.  I also got texts from Stacy and Betsy expressing their concern.  

So, all in all, in hindsight the worst part of the day was my anxiety, grief, and fear, not what was actually happening. Everyone was caring.  No one hurt me. The phlebotomist who made a mistake didn't hurt me when he did it. The other phlebotomist was perfect.

 

 

The Social Conundrum

Photo by Spencer Sembrat on Unsplash

A week ago I posted this to an FB widows group:

 "So here's a core issue for me and I'm wondering if anyone else is feeling this: I am terribly lonely AND I don't like most people very much. So I'm kinda stuck between "I'm so sad and alone" and "gosh, these people are boring." 

Some women wrote "ditto," "same," or "every day."

Others mentioned experiences they had in which they had been invited someplace and just wanted to leave once they got there. One lady says that after her daughter invited her to a gathering which proved unhappy, "I find most people annoying." Another notes that she thinks she "should socialize but I don't want to."  And another, "I feel so alone but I don’t want people around I just want the one person that can’t be here."  And another, "Thank you for this post! Thanks also for all of you who have agreed! I thought it was just me! Now I feel one less thing to wonder how odd I am about."

I got over 40 comments on this, all of them saying that they are in the same place,  so I later added this 

"EDIT: I've turned off commenting so this post doesn't get too long. Thanks to all of you who helped me feel not so alone in my stuckness." 

 And there ya go.  I'm not special.  My misery loves finding out others feel the same way I do so I can stop adding, "I'm worse than everybody else" to my sad thoughtstack.

Jesus tells me to love everyone. To me, love means treating people with respect and caring when one is confronted with them.  Of course, Jesus  also wants me to go out and find people to love and I don't have the energy to do that at this point in time and if my current introversion adds to my time in purgatory, so be it.

I had a dream when I was in fifth or sixth grade that god talked to me and told me that after I died I would spend time in purgatory.   It felt like a relief to learn that.

Church pictures

 

FB Post and Responses

 I've been having trouble "getting anywhere" so I posted this note to the Widows FB group I follow:

 3 1/2 years in and I'm having trouble getting going again. I'm very lucky to be financially secure so I don't work. But I don't know what I care about. I used to do art and write but without my spouse there to show drafts and pictures to, I don't anymore. I'm very "other directed" and have no "others" that I care about enough to show stuff to so I don't make stuff. There's nothing productive that I want to do just for myself. All I do when I'm not traveling, is smoke weed, watch TV, and walk my dogs. I can't write except for blog posts. I can't do art anymore. I see other people to talk to for about 5 hours each week and the rest of the time I'm by myself. Having read "Let Them", I now know what it takes to have friends as an adult and I think that someday I'll have the energy to make friends again but right now it looks like too much work. I have a grief therapist who says it goes as it goes and to experience what I'm experiencing. Does anyone have any idea how to care about being productive again when there's not a financial incentive? 

 I got great responses including from women who have been grieving for longer than I and are having the same problem. The primary idea is that I need to "make myself" and "push myself" to get out of the house and I realize that that's right. It doesn't come naturally. I largely just don't want to do stuff and the only way to get stuff done is to give myself a stern talking to and get off my but and do it. I was gratified to note that a couple of women said that even when they push themselves to go out they don't feel connected and whole anymore.  Misery lovesa da company.

Tomorrow, maybe. I think Allan Sherman had a song about doing things tomorrow because "tomorrow never comes."

Coming in to The Haven is helpful. It reminds me that at times I've cared about being a writer, about creating things and maybe I will again.

I've been working, a sentence or bullet point at a time, on a memoir of our marriage. Are we still married? For time and eternity? He is in the house, or his spirit is, but Matthew's Jesus is very clear that there is no "giving in marriage" in the afterlife. Were we together in a past life and will we be together in the next? I wonder about these things.

Will I understand our life if I write about it?

Will I understand myself if I write about it? 

 

That Gosh Darn Rage

I am now going to The Haven in the afternoon, hoping that the free beer will make up for not being here in the early morning. I look at the river full of boaters and feel anger.  I drive through town and see all the new buildings and feel anger. I forget things and feel anger. My computer doesn't work right and I feel anger. 

And the inner violence since September.  That's been interesting. 

The world is a terrible beautiful place. I feel so much sadness for Texas and Gaza and Ukraine. All this horror in the world.  I'm am lucky to be safe.  Then why am I so sad and angry so much of the time?  Because I'm a crazy asshole.

I'm just as sad and angry and violent as any MAGA -- but I'm not stupid, so I guess that's the difference.  

I'm angry in part because I'm sober right now.  I really should get off weed because it's super bad for my health but really, who cares?  I just hope the heart attack that takes me out does it quickly and completely.  I hope I don't stroke out. But I've got enough $$ to pay people to take care of me since I don't have children or a young wife. I've fixed my will so that Lilli Ann will get some money and take control of the animals when I go.  It cost me $380 to change one name to another name in my will. Fuck lawyers.

Dear Will:

Do you remember when we joked about this Shakespearean sonnet? 

We're all cracked!

Sonnet 135: Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy Will

Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy Will,

And Will to boot, and Will in overplus;

More than enough am I that vex thee still,

To thy sweet will making addition thus.

Wilt thou, whose will is large and spacious,

Not once vouchsafe to hide my will in thine?

Shall will in others seem right gracious,

And in my will no fair acceptance shine?

The sea, all water, yet receives rain still,

And in abundance addeth to his store;

So thou being rich in Will add to thy Will

One will of mine, to make thy large Will more.

   Let no unkind, no fair beseechers kill;

   Think all but one, and me in that one Will.

 You were sexy smart when we first got together. I wonder how much of my own rage you carried for me in your crankiness?

I think about you every time I'm at the dog park and a pup comes over for one of my dog's treats and I say to them, "Is yo name Miss Sequel?" I remember you quoting Louise Beavers' line from Holiday Inn ("Is yo name Miss Linda?") to the kitties when they were complaining. So I quote her and think of you.

I feel like the famous joke, 

    "Dr., after my hand surgery, will I be able to play the violin?"
     "Why, of course" 
    "That's funny, I never could before."

I wasn't mentally healthy before you died, there's no reason to assume I'm going to be mentally healthy in the future, no matter how much therapy I get.  It's just not something I ever was. As you know.

Thanks for playing with the light again. Thanks for continuing to care about me.

You know, as I work on my memoir, I'm reminded that it might have saved both of us from a lot of pain if you'd ever told me that I was attractive to you or that you were in love with me.

But, that's blood under the bridge.

Miss you terribly,

Kake