EMDR

 I'm back to once a week with Sarah and we're going to do some EMDR to work on hitting all the places in my brain where I received the information that I was disposable, as I did last week.

That's where my brain goes to when I'm struggling - I'm bad and if I'm punished enough by someone things will get better.

Today, one of the first things I told her when I walked in was an epiphany I had on the dogwalk this morning:  Between first grade (age 7?), when my first memory of some kind of abuse occurs, and Will's death, the amount of time when I could be fully myself with the people who loved me most was FOUR MONTHS, the months between my family leaving Pocatello in 1971 and when Will yelled at me for seeing Dwight over the holidays in January 1972.  I could never tell mom what was happening to me because it would make her sad.  Will and I worked out a relationship where he didn't have to know who I was because it made him sad.

from South Denver Therapy

I've done some EMDR on the kidnap and rape but It might be useful to return it not as a violent act but as the experience of being "nothinged", especially in regards to the fact that my older sister then lied about it telling everyone I made it up and how I got absolutely no support except Will's love. 

Sarah says she wants to help me believe that I am not a terrible person who deserves to be punished whenever anybody gets upset with me.

If it's possible for this to happen, it will be amazing.

EMDR .... changing the brain.

Sarah explained to me that my reactivity is like a soldier's reactivity.   She said that when stuff like last Wednesday happens, and I'm laid low through a variety of experiential aspects, it's like when a soldier hears a backfire and falls face-down on the floor. It's reactivity to multiple and powerful messages over time.  And our work with the EMDR will be to search out the most telling moments during which I received the information that my opinion, mySelf, and my body were nothing.  The work of retraining my brain is to put chronemic space between the backfire and the response.

It's funny.  Because of the rape experience, I've always felt some connection to combat vets. This will be another link.

The Expert

 Mary Francis runs the carefully curated widow's FB group I'm in and she ran her most recent blogpost   in the group this morning. We're not allowed to share anything specific from the group but here are some paragraphs from her website.

from the Rock Hall in Cleveland

"The death of your spouse will put you into your own uniquely grief journey.  The truth is everyone’s marriage is different.  Therefore, it should come as no surprise that your grief will not necessarily be the same as another widow’s.

Your loss is influenced by your marriage, manner of their death, your emotional support, age and background.  Don’t compare your grief journey to others or make assumptions about just how long your grief will last.  Take a one-day-at-a-time approach that allows you to grieve at your own pace.

Don’t be afraid to talk about the person he was and the memories that allow for both laughter and tears.  It’s important not to ignore your grief and to talk about the death of your spouse if you need to.  It’s okay to speak from both your heart and your head.

You may feel confused, disoriented, fearful, guilty and angry all at the same time.  These emotions are all normal and healthy so permit yourself to feel and don’t be surprised if surges of grief suddenly come out of nowhere.  Seek out those people who encourage you to be yourself and are willing to acknowledge your feelings."

She ends with a peroration to go out and experience life.  Well, I've done that. I have taken three trips overseas since Will died (Deutschland, Ireland, Scotland). I've seen the opera in San Francisco four times. I've been to the Willamettte Coridor, the Oregon Beaches, Denver, Cody, Missoula, Seattle, Santa Fe, and fuckin' Cleveland (which rocks).

And I got a danged poodle puppy that completely changed my daily life. 

I have grabbed life by the proverbials and I still fall apart and cry sometimes because I'm living as half of what I once was and the cauterized edges still ooze pus. 

Will, during a time of crisis, once told me, "you do not need my approval" to live my life. Because my church has been so important to me, I've allowed myself to forget that I don't need its approval either.  Because I've felt so existentially alone, I've let critics into my brain that hadn't lived there since Will and I married and his became the most important inner voice. 

Will was like my mom (his face so like hers that a postman once thought they were siblings) in that he both appreciated my ferality and was appalled by it.  But he loved me nevertheless.  The last day I saw that love was December 24, 2021. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dark Passengers Skip the Line

Still from (c) Good Morning America interview with Michael C. Hall

 I'm really enjoying the new Dexter show.  It's actually inspirational.  Not that I'm going to become a cereal killer.  Too much mess and not really my deal. But the concept of the interior anti-social drive (and yes .... one of the medical labels I've been given by lovers in the past is "sociopath") is an interesting "healing tool". Last week I faced an existential crisis and I've been struggling to figure out how to deal with it and then ... I remembered the power I once possessed to live through the various traumas of the clusterfuck and other hard times. Turns out I still have that mind rider.  It's just not very nice so I haven't let it out in a looooong time. 

But before noting the power, I have to say I love Michael C Hall's face.  I think my face is a little similar, with its deep lines and hardness. I remember seeing him live over a decade ago in 2014's The Realistic Joneses and I assume the star power in the play (w. Tracy Letts, Marisa Tomei, and Toni Collette) was responsible for getting a surrealistic drama on Broadway.  Same reason Godot is heading there where I will see it ON MY BIRTHDAY! (I can't go on we must go on I can't go on dude!).

But I don't have star power.  What I do have is a tiny little itsy bitsy teeny weeny dark passenger who holds a power that my regular every day brain doesn't have. 

I experienced that power, in my youth, as an actual "mind switch" - as an experiential and almost physiological change in my brain when I stepped into that other self.  That self is still present, it turns out, it's strength just waiting to be called on.  Now, it's also a strength that has gotten me shit deep in trouble in the past so, like the cloak of invisibility, or a regular towel, it should be used appropriately, like any magical salvific tool.

For example.  I was walking Winston in Compass Park this morning and I saw a guy with a yardwork truck and trailer set-up putting away a mower and getting ready to get into his truck.  He was wearing a black tank top and he had every right and really, considering his build, every responsibility to be wearing that tank top.  

Still from The Realistic Joneses

So I hollered across NWXing Drive,  "Hey!  Thank you!"

He hollered back, "For what?"

"For wearing a tank top today!"

He paused a moment and then smiled.  "I'm thanking myself now too."

 

 

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.