Posts tagged ‘grief’

Do you see all these relatively new “Depression Hurts” commercials on TV?? And the Fibromyalgia spots? Ads by drug companies that want you to take their meds. Well, I could go on a long rant about how sad it is that only those who stand to make a boatload of money have gotten on the ball with accepting and acknowledging what those of us suffering from these things have known (and tried, often unsuccessfully) to tell our doctors for years, but that’s a topic for another post.

*I wonder at this spinning, searching mind of mine. I know exactly what I want to write about when I boot. And that I need to write what is personally relevant to me right now. Is it an indication of healing that my head spins off on sub topics like sexism [yesterday], or what’s wrong with our health care, [today]?? Or are these my subconscious attempts to avoid the issue of writing about me, for me, to heal??

My concern today is my pain. I was (finally- after 2 years) diagnosed with FMS (fibromyalgia) in 2002. It has been a long haul, but over the years I have gotten it pretty much under control, and learned to live with it. I know that I have to monitor my rest and diet, my physical activity and be kinda careful or I risk a flare-up that can knock me down pretty hard.

Stress plays a major role in my pain levels, and of course depression has its nasty little hands in the pot, too. After we lost Bishop in October it was about 2-3 weeks before I noticed the elevated pain levels continuing to rise and impact my movement, but it was manageable. I wrote my NaNo novel in November, and though grieving deeply, somehow managed to get out of bed every day and function. Through the holidays my emotional and physical state grew progressively worse, but only by tiny and almost unnoticeable degrees.

With the FMS I have been accustomed to periodically spending a day a week in bed due to overexertion during high stress times, even to suffering the reasonably frequent Flare-Up that might knock me down for a few days every couple months or so. (Usually due to my choices- working too hard in the garden, staying up late too many days in a row, neglecting to take my vitamins or spending too much time in a car). But when I don’t have big stress or depression, I can go weeks without even a small flare up. This is not to say that my old back and hips don’t hurt; they do. Every day I have to get up and move around a bit before I know how bad it’s going to be, and many days my back requires a 2 hour soak in a hot bath. But I manage, and I have overall a pretty full and satisfying life despite my so called “disability”.

Today, my back is screaming and my hip joints feel like they’re full of ground glass. I’m not complaining; hehe- this is what is. It was pretty bad yesterday too, but I managed to get up and move around a bit. I did some laundry and puttered in the yard for about a half hour.

As I wend my way toward my point for today filling in backstory, I have gotten out of bed, had 2 cups of coffee, medicated and fed Grama breakfast, uncovered my birds and fed them, gotten dressed and made my bed. Grama and the birds get taken care of mornings no matter what. No matter pain, depression or the flu or whatever. But in the last months it has been too easy to let my physical pain stop me from even getting dressed or making my bed. To use pain as an excuse to “take it easy”.

I have, in spurts since the first of the year, forced myself to get dressed and do some housework, laundry and cook; to go out grocery shopping or go visit F and A, but have been unable to sustain a desire to move. It’s been sporadic at best, and I have spent days at a time in bed.

Pain, depression, fibromyalgia, stress.

I know I need to be a bit gentle with myself right now. I have a tendency to be really hard on myself, having high expectations of what/who I should be. It was really hard to learn and accept that I have physical limitations with the FMS, and my ego took a beating in the process, but I learned. Now that I’ve decided to pull myself somehow from this depression I have to be careful to do what I can, but not try to just soldier on and fake it.

Today’s pain levels beg the questions: “Am I capable of moving and doing today?” “Is my pain today an excuse to stay down and wallow in depression or escapism with a computer game or book?” These are difficult questions for me. In actuality they always have been even when I wasn’t depressed and before I had FMS. I remember after I first got sober in 1988 I discovered that I found it impossible to give myself permission to be lazy. That I would manufacture an illness, a mild one, flu or cold or stomach ache, in order to allow myself to take it easy for a day. When I recognized this it was pretty easy with a little diligence to use self talk to change this behavior.

It’s not easy now. I am currently unable to discern whether my pain is at a level to require my staying down, or whether the depression has me trying to manipulate reality to suit it. To keep me in bed with an “excuse”.

Oy to the Vey. Haha. What a pain in the ass. So here’s the deal in Thorne’s world today. During the week, when my GirlyBoi is working, I am getting up. Period. I may not be able to stay up, but I’m getting up, getting dressed and making my bed (to make it a little harder to just hide under the covers). This is a technique that I used when adjusting to the FMS pain. Just get up, get dressed and make my bed. Try to move around a little. Do one thing. If I can, do another. Hopefully this will help me identify whether it’s really that painful of a day.

But if I hurt too much, or just can’t move out of the desire to hide or rest or whatever this depression has me doing, I’m going to try to see it and be honest with myself. And I’m NOT going to beat myself up. If I can only bring myself to do one or two things, I’m going to let that be enough for now.

I’m going to go sweep the floor in the bird room now. We’ll just have to see what the rest of the day brings.

Have you ever hear that lovely old sexist observation that one can tell how well a woman takes care of herself by her feet? I’ve heard it said in both polite and vulgar language, and although it is a patriarchal construct, so are we, hard as we may resist.

I’ve always loved my feet. They are pretty. Nicely formed with high arches- an accident of nature that I’ve always been inordinately proud of, as if I could take credit for it myself. Maybe because of that old sexist belief, maybe simply because I love my feet, I’ve always taken care of them. Don’t get me wrong, they’re not tiny, petite, so-called “aristocratic” feet. I wear a size 8-1/2 shoe, and if I have my druthers I wear no shoes at all. For all that I’m a nature kinda gal, a true earth mama type, I’m damn near prissy about my feet. I love pedicures, and have been in the past accustomed to treating myself to them on a fairly regular basis. The occasional pedicure however, cannot keep up with the abuse this earth mama puts her feet through, let alone meet her standards in footiquette.

So normally I spend no small amount of time in the bath with the pedi-wand, and pumice stone and after bath with the various implements of foot care.

“And what”, you might ask, “does this have to do with anything, Thornie??” To which I respond that in my usual, rambling stream-of consciousness way, I am coming to the point. The point being that over a week ago, somewhen just before I seem to have hit an emotional bottom when I faced the fact that I had lost any real desire for continued existence outside of the need to be here for my daughter; some unremembered when a bit before that I noticed that my pumice stone, the bright purple one- my absolute favorite stone ever with the charming though unoriginal name of “Mr. Pumice” inscribed upon its surface, (and if that isn’t more evidence of sexism, what is??)- I noted that it was not in its usual niche in the tub.

The importance of the mystery of the whereabouts of the stone was not lost on me, although I can’t say that it mattered much to me at the time. It appeared that I had stopped caring for my feet some time ago. I have no idea exactly when after our Bishop died, only know without a doubt that it was indeed after his death.

I don’t think I gave it even a passing thought in the next several days, but then I’m sure I didn’t bathe during that time. My feet are not the only thing I have been neglecting, although knowing well the importance of bathing even when depressed I have managed to do that every few days. I’m sure this was an effort to delude myself as well as my partner as to the true state of my mind, but there it is.

Process.

Friday I bathed and considered the stone… my feet… gave a mental shoulder shrug and did nothing.

Sunday in the shower I again considered my feet, wondered about the whereabouts of my stone and dismissed the thought of tending to my feet in the shower as opposed to the bath, but decided it was an important thing for me to do. A small and simple, perhaps pointless but maybe not; sort of thing to do as part of my attempt to drag myself from this despair.

This morning I sought, found and used my happy purple stone. Then I tended to my feet with the implements of after-bath care. Finally I polished my toenails. A semi transparent lime green with glitter. As much as I love green in the springtime, I don’t really care for the color.

But I’m glad I did it.

When my husband, Jerry, my “soulmale” and love of my life (one of 2… I can’t seem to choose between- and why should I? I have decided that when one dies, I am allowed 2 “Loves of My Life), died in 1998 I grieved.

Of course this loss is so different. Nonetheless the mind continues to seek familiarity. (An effort, perhaps to find some experiential hint on how to proceed).

Well, I could write a book on my grief, my “breakdown” 14 months later, my process and my eventual and ultimate healing, but that’s not the point that is vexing me today. My thoughts keep circling back to what feels like an important part of my current struggle in grieving this loss, the loss of not only my beautiful grandson, Bishop; but the loss of my daughter’s (and perhaps somehow my own??) innocence and heart.

What has occurred to me over and over of late is that there seems to be no place for these losses within my personal identity that fits.

This is so difficult to articulate.

Somehow, over time after my Jerry died, “widow” became not a title or mere description, but a part of my identity.

I was a widow.

It seemed somehow to state clearly who I was and there was some odd comfort and implied strength in that for me. It became part of my identity that I grew to accept and ultimately embrace. I don’t know; perhaps it was all tied up with getting my business off the ground at the time- survival. Perhaps the designation between “widow” and “single woman” was important. I don’t know exactly why it was so; it simply was.

And in some way I think that embracing that as part of who I was at the time, and for the next many ensuing years, was part of my healing process. Somehow it gave me a very clear context within which to place the huge event in my life that was the loss of that beautiful man who meant so much to me. And strange as it may seem, somehow it was a positive thing.

Oh, I’m fumbling and bumbling to express this.

The thing is, there is no context within which to place the loss of my grandbaby and the grief for my daughter. I’m feeling/thinking (one or the other or both- these processes are inextricably enmeshed) that there is simply nothing in these losses to embrace in a positive and affirming way for my identity.

Oh, I’m sure people will mouth (or write) inanities the likes of “you’re so strong, you’ve been through so much, that’s something to embrace”, but that’s not how it feels, and that’s not enough.

Before our Bishop died, I had become pretty disillusioned with the world, politics, human beings in general after all my political activism and blogging and outrage. The stoning of that man and woman somehow seemed to be the final straw for me. It broke my heart and rather than inspire cynicism in me it invoked a sort of despair. I felt defeated. I took a hiatus from blogging to try to find a place in me from which to care, without despairing.

Bear with me.

Our Bishop’s senseless and inexplicable death (SIDS is in no way an explanation) has evoked a hopelessness and despair in me that I can’t seem to kick. It has brought home to me, on a personal level, the chaos and senselessness of a world and existence in which people are stoned to death, murdered for a few dollars, bombed at the whim of one government, starved and gassed at the whim of another, and where babies die for no apparent reason.

An existence in which it had already grown so difficult for me to see “God” (as a very generic term). Perhaps the better term here would simply be “meaning”.

“Existentialist”, “Athiest”- these are not terms that I’m willing to embrace as my identity. “Defeated”, “despairing” are not either.

I can’t seem to find a way to integrate this loss, this experience, these feelings, this grief into my personal identity.

I think that’s a problem.

Chaos reigns and I despair, lost in the void. I need to find my heart, but it seems to be MIA.

*4:03 PM editorial comment:
Writing this and then reading it here in black and white I note that it both falls far short of articulating my feelings and expresses them perfectly. Yet one more paradox of my existence. I should also note that it’s exceedingly difficult to face these feelings this way; outwardly, instead of continuing to be wantonly assaulted with them inwardly (privately). And although this; writing/blogging, is one of several courses of action I’ve decided upon in hope of some movement from this place, it feels pointless. Nonetheless I shall continue.