You Don't Say

Suicide. It's a shocking, frightening word. Say it and you will catch your listeners' attention, but not in a good way. Say it and you might lose something you value.

Suicide. My brother committed it and I seriously considered it as recently as last month. But even when writing about it or talking about it, I tend to use other words and phrases: end my life; took his own life; hurt myself; stop living. Even in the psych ward, the professionals would say "do you want to hurt/injure yourself or others?" Suicide is a bit beyond 'hurt/injure', don't you think?

Depression. This one is slightly okay. I can say "I was so depressed I couldn't stop crying" and that's non-threatening. Adding "I was looking for ways to kill myself" filters my listeners and readers: some immediately want to call me and make sure I'm alright and get together with me. They want to talk to me and listen to me talk and tell them how I got that depressed, how I'm going to keep from getting that depressed, and I'd damn-well better call them if I feel that depressed again. And let's go have lunch next week.

The other people freak out. I lost a freelance gig I loved (but it was beyond my abilities), the present opportunity to even work for them for free, and the trust of the friend who was also my supervisor (plus, I think he really freaked out); and I may have lost a second gig and friend; she hasn't written back so I don't know yet. But the lack of response doesn't look good. I really love that gig, too.

So unless you want to separate the wheat from the chaff in your life in a quick and unflinching manner, say 'depressed' but don't say 'suicide' or any euphemism for it. It's bad enough to be sad in our culture; contemplating ending your life is possibly the most offensive and disturbing thought you can introduce to some people. I suppose it should be disturbing, but telling someone "I thought of killing myself" shouldn't be a reason to be cast aside. Imagine — if enough people did that, a sad and suffering person could end up feeling all his pain was valid, and he could go ahead and end his life, commit his suicide, feeling he had made the right choice. Think about it. 

(Not me. I now have enough people threatening me with bodily and spiritual harm if I so much as seriously consider this unspeakable act. I have no desire to fail if I tried it, but even worse would be succeeding and spending several eternities being punished by the spirits of my friends and family!)

Back

Well, for those of you playing along at home, you may have picked up on "Quitter" that I wasn't only referring to Camp Fire Girls and Job's Daughters but about my life. Raise a hand if you caught the barely veiled references to suicide. Anyone?

If you don't know it yet, I brought that bit of prose to my therapist and, on her very strong urging, I checked myself into a psychiatric hospital for Thanksgiving. 

I was in there for a week. The first two days I spent most of my time in my room. I came out to the Day Room for meals and meds, I was examined by a physician, and I went to a couple of group sessions. While the group sessions were fine, they were nothing earth-shaking. The meds were supposed to be what I brought, but the pharmacy apparently would rather bend me over provide me with their meds rather than use what I brought and somehow everything got messed up and I was off my two primary meds for three days, and off one of them for another two after that! So I was experiencing weird withdrawal symptoms as well as being in a strange place both spatially and mentally. 

Quitter

My parents used to call me a quitter.

• After a year or so of Campfire Girls, I didn't go back. It wasn't any fun and I have some very bad memories of it.
• I was in Honor Choir in 5th grade and I quit it to play softball. Because our lives revolved around my brother's sports, I thought I'd get some of the attention if I played a sport. (There is a whole, ugly story around this, but now isn't the time.) I wish I hadn't done this. I'd have been happier in Choir. But I was only 10 or 11.
• In 6th grade, I joined Girl Scouts. After about five months, all we had done were a handful of crafts. We didn't go anywhere or do anything. I had joined with two other girls, and they were also bored and unhappy. They made me the spokesman to tell the leader we were quitting. She cried. I was 11. My folk began calling me a quitter to my face.
• I was forced to join Job's Daughters when I was in 7th grade. Didn't want to, but the family had promised my dying grandfather (and given several things, I certainly felt no compulsion to follow that promise). I stayed for a year and a half before being able to leave it. My parents again accused me of quitting, of never being able to stick with a thing.

Not Enough

Today was my mother's birthday. She would have been 72.

I'm doing particularly badly today, but have been doing generally badly for weeks. I've done virtually nothing on one of my jobs; I'm sure they are just so glad they asked me to do it.

I'm so miserable and I don't know what to do about it that I'm not already doing. I think it wouldn't be a bad thing to be dead on almost a daily basis. I hurt and there is nothing that gives me any reason to think I'm going to become appreciably better. I have no family. What friends I do have are really just friends: none of them will ever come to visit me here or make me truly part of their family. And I haven't made any constant friends since I moved here. Given my experience, that's likely to remain the case.

Anyone who's reading this is already thinking "oh you should have hope" and "you don't really mean that" and "you don't know that's the case" and all that other optimistic stuff. And I wouldn't be able to convince such people — even if I bothered trying — that I have done and thought and felt all the hopeful, positive, productive things anyone has ever told me about, asked me about, or that I've read about or even thought of independently and none of it has worked.  But nobody ever believes me about that anyway. Just call me Cassandra.

Pecked to Death By Chickens

A good friend of mine has a plaque on one of the walls of her house that says "Having children is like being pecked to death by chickens." (The sign hasn't seemed to have done any lasting harm to her children.) They all understood the concept: they had chickens.

Readers of this blog have some idea of how my life has gone in the past year and some. I haven't blogged much in the last couple of months, what with dealing with the estate, having surgery, finding work that is low-paying but gratifying (and anxiety-producing), and now getting a fairly solid respiratory infection that may have also endangered or even ended another work situation before it started. In fact, it feels a lot like being pecked to death by chickens, Universe-style.

I'm just trying to make progress. All I want is a life of health, financial stability, and the chance to pursue my happiness and my dreams. Given all my fortunate advantages — white, from a middle-class family, well-educated, and highly experienced in my field of endeavor — getting the life I want shouldn't be so hard. But every time I think I have my feet under me, things beyond my control knock them out from under me again: Mom, overwhelming grief and depression, unemployment, emergency surgery for god's sake!, illness, and timing.

Good things have happened: friends have helped and supported me in some places, I found a great therapist (and a mediocre psychiatric nurse), I got the one project. I know that life is hard. I also know that life was simpler and easier for my parents; it wasn't a painful struggle. We were all very happy and content (until my dad died and our lives completely fell apart, but that's a separate story). I just think that continually having to try and shovel myself out of a hole full of mud is harder than it needs to be. Add to that the continuous and uneven peck-peck-peck of my life's disasters — small and large — prevents me from making progress. And it wears me out completely.

You'll notice I haven't given up. I keep trying through some, potentially foolish, belief that I can grasp that life I want, one where I can withstand the difficulties because I have enough of the good to cushion my falls. Or maybe I keep on because, really, what else is there to do?

Only keep trying to dig myself out of the mud and avoid the damned chickens at the same time.

I'm not that fond of chicken.

Something Else Tonight

No actual post. I'm doing my homework tonight and tomorrow morning. I'm at the point in the story where Mom dies, so that's going to kind of take up all I have to give for now.

Sometimes

Ya know, sometimes it's just not possible to be positive. And sometimes I want to be negative, or at least not-positive. This has been an ungodly shitty year, the latest in a life punctuated by unexpected and tragic losses and other traumas. (I am the poster child for fibromyalgia, which is thought to develop as a result of one major physical or emotional trauma, or repeated ones. I'm in on all counts.) Sometimes I need to acknowledge the shit.

I need to acknowledge that my life sucks right now and that the non-sucky part is still somewhere past the horizon and that it's quite possible that my life is going to suck even more in the very near future unless a series of miracles occur.

To me, being positive in the face of these things or, even worse, about these things is like saying they don't matter or they aren't real. It's unrealistic and irrational. Bad stuff must be acknowledged. Pain and fear and the very real possibly of going stone broke — even having spent my jars of coins on food — is right before my eyes. I can see it. That's not being pessimistic, that's being rational.

Acknowledging the bad doesn't give it extra power. I think that ignoring it gives it power; the power to overwhelm you because you were so busy positively ignoring it that all the realistic things you might have done you didn't.

Sometimes, when I'm trying to be all bright and hopeful and positive, I'm really on the edge of tears.

This has been my life. This is my life. If things entirely out of your control repeat in your life, is that a lesson? If so, mine appears to be that life is about pain and helplessness that slowly whittle you down to nothing over time.

I guess the main thing I'm trying to say is this: sometimes being positive and pushing the bad stuff aside invalidates the very reality of the bad stuff and the pain that has been happening and that is happening right now. And just because something good happens or I have a good day does not negate everything else that continues to be Not Good in my life. I've been doing all that I am able to do, from when all I could do is crawl out of bed in the morning and back into it in the evening until now when I can wash my breakfast dishes as well. I have not been capable of looking for a job in an organized or energetic or even useful manner if at all, so no money is coming in. All the affirmations and visualizations in the world have not brought me money through other means (bequests, lottery tickets, philanthropy, whatever). Reality says that if I don't become stone broke in the next 6 weeks, then I'm going to miss it by only a hair and that missing it might as well be luck.

So, this being positive thing. Don't take it to extremes. Doing so feels disrespectful and invalidating. I rather need some validation now and then throughout this terribly shitty time. I need some now. Just because I can manage a smile doesn't mean I'm not in hell.

Not Dying

On the one hand, I think the folate/folic acid is working as an add-on to handle my depression. On the other hand, I think my anxiety has moved into stealth mode. It perks up when I start thinking about paying bills, but because I am in a very quiet mode where I'm focused on dealing with the house sale and the estate sale and having to go back to Oregon — many logistic details — I think my anxiety is simply being quiet, too. As long as I don't disturb it.

I'm glad that we're getting a chemical handle on the depression; I should be able to begin getting a personal handle on it, too. I'm also becoming more functional on some fronts — I'm not crying so much. But I wish we had a national short-term disability program, or at least have a disability program that didn't take years to get covered under, because I'm not fully functional yet and don't know when I will be.

I feel completely submerged by my current focus. It's like swimming in dark water with a flashlight: I can focus on only one section at a time. There are some other logistic issues that I've simply had to throw up my hands at and walk away from because I can't handle them right now.

Most folks handle all this stuff plus work a job plus handle a family. I don't think I could care for a cat.

I know everyone has been telling me I can handle it all and cheering me on and saying that the Universe/God/whatever never gives us what we/I cannot handle, but I've seen otherwise. I am experiencing otherwise. My anxiety is sitting there like an undetonated bomb — will it go off; how much vibration will set it off? I'm coping because I'm ignoring a lot of it and I'm desperately hoping that the bomb isn't triggered. If you judge that simply staying alive is "handling" what the Universe sends us, well that's no big deal; there are many reasons for not offing yourself that have nothing to do with indicating one is "handling" what the Universe has "given" you. Being a zombie for months or years, shutting off large sections of yourself or your life, living inside a very tiny virtual cocoon: I don't consider these ways of "handling" it. These are ways of not dying.

I look like I'm doing well to those outside my home. I probably look like I'm handling things better to those of you who read this. But for the most part, I'm really just not dying.

I'm going to do what I can do with the house and all. I can handle certain responsibilities and the pain/fear of not doing this stuff is greater than the pain/fear of doing it. There's a motivator for you. I'm terrified of dealing with my own storage unit, which is completely necessary to keep me from having to pay for two storage units with my own money.

Progress? It's been almost a year since Mom died. I can now wash my dishes after each meal (altho' today I am four meals behind) and I make my bed 75% of the time. Before you start cheering me on for these positive steps, please note that I haven't completely cleaned my bathroom or vacuumed since I moved in in December. I haven't finished unpacking. I haven't paid bills in a couple of months. When I venture out of my apartment it is notable. There are still a lot of things for me to trip and fall over on the floor. And I still don't shower every day (you really need to down here, what with the sweating and all).

Yeah, sure, celebrate the little steps I suppose. But they are like throwing pebbles in the ocean. So far, I'm just not dying. Now you're going to go and make that into some big positive thing, aren't you.

Homework

I finished my homework for tomorrow: four hand-written pages of memories from last summer. I hand write it to make it more personal and immediate. For some reason, while I can write faster using a keyboard, I feel a distance between me and what I write. I am also more prone to edit as I write when I'm on a keyboard. I'll have to address this when I begin writing my own stuff again; I don't want to be distant from that.

In case you're wondering, I wrote about the end of Mom's radiation through her first fall --- a total of 2-3 weeks. I am constantly surprised at the amount of information I can bring up when I am writing about it. There is a lot of worry and fear in this part of the story. We were both still hopeful and optimistic at this point.

There is less than four weeks from the end of this week's homework until Mom died. I want to make that homework end the Sunday before an appointment, not on a week I don't have an appointment. It's going to be hard.

I've been thinking about the anniversary of Mom's death. I don't want to just hang out alone in my apartment here. I think that would be very bad. A friend suggested I do a peaceful ritual, which sounds nice. But I think I also need some people for the rest of the time around it, to help me not completely drown in grief. I'm just not sure what. I used to be a very decisive person.

So accomplishments today. Not too bad. And leaves me in an emotionally vulnerable place, just right for therapy tomorrow. Sigh. Yippee.

Who goes there?

Ah, the proverbial military security phrase, usually preceded by "Halt!" Movies and books have shown simple ways to get past guards: throwing gravel, pebbles, rocks. Making the guard jump, look, even go investigate. In a way, movies and books were telling us a bit about the PTSD a soldier can get. Hypervigilance — jumping at noises, seeing shadows.

It doesn't take declared war — or military action of whatever name politics calls it — to create PTSD. Just trauma, being placed in a situation (often repeatedly, but sometimes just once) where showing extreme vigilance was a survival mechanism. It means being hyperaware of sights, sounds, smells. And it means assuming, and mentally preparing for, the worst-case scenario.

A laundry list of sadness

I'm still feeling good, and waiting for the hammer to come down. (Sorry, Mable, I haven't read your link yet.) I know I have to change that way of thinking. There is also the quote that you can view the Universe as either friendly or hostile, and whichever one you view it as is what you get. Of course, the writer didn't mention neutral.  :)  I've felt it was hostile since I was very little.

I'm not sure if it's more useful for me to talk about my issues in the order that I'm doing them in therapy, or just as they come to my head. I'm OCD enough that I want order. I'm an Air sign, which means spontaneity. It's very confusing.

Okay, why I think the hammer will always come down and destroy my happiness. The facts:

I was molested by a cousin starting when I was 2; the first time it was him, age 5, and another cousin age 8. My mom and aunts found us in a closet and laughed it off as playing doctor, as if a 2-year-old had any choice in the matter. 

My cousin continued off and on until I was 11. His final act was to say he wouldn't bother me again until I was 17. Way to keep me in fear. That 3 year difference was always a huge power differential, and since the first, I was completely in his control, and knowing it was wrong and uncomfortable. My parents had told me, in front of him: do what he says. He knows more than you. I was to always do what anyone older than me said. Way to go with the protection, Mom and Dad.

He wasn't happy just touching me and stuff. He also had to terrorize me with terrible things that would happen to me. Monsters, when we were little. Psychopaths when we were older. I think my cousin was a sociopath.

My grandfather molested me once when I was 11 or 12. I was glad he died the next year.

I never told anyone about any of this until I went to therapy at 23. Then I eventually told my mom. She didn't take it well at first and it took her a year or so to be able to talk to me about it without making it kind of my fault for not telling her and Dad.

There's some less horrific stuff in between.

When I was 16, we moved 1100 miles away from everything I'd ever known. Nine months later my father died. He had a major heart attack while playing catch with my little brother in the backyard. Our neighbor had CPR instructions on a card and tried to do compressions. I'd had first aid two year previously and I did mouth-to-mouth. He died anyway.

Five years later, just before my mom remarried, to a guy I disliked from the first, my little brother, my treasure, committed suicide five days before my 22nd birthday.

The rest is fairly basic, and then there is Mom from last year. When things start going well, something horrible or simply bad happens. I have very little trust, for good reason, even in myself.  So it's an uphill battle in sand.

Now you know more. Ah, so much work to do, it can be daunting. It tires me out. And that's all I can manage to write tonight.

Wow. I used to be able to do this like it was a news report. Apparently no longer. My stomach hurts now and I'm feeling very emotional. Such a major change for me, and I think this is supposed to be a good one. Wish it felt good.

I hold my breath

I found out, only within the past decade, that I shared a rather odd trait with my mother: I hold my breath when I am stressed. Given how much stress I've experienced the past several years, I seem to spend much of my life suffering from oxygen deprivation.

When I'm emotionally tense — which is most of the time — my muscles are tense. All of them. It's probably the only reason I have any muscle tone at all. If I'm going to die of asphyxiation, at least my core muscles have enough structure to keep me upright until rigor mortis sets in.

I don't notice when I stop breathing; I notice when I start breathing again, or when I need to start breathing again. This goes on all day, off and on. I have no idea if it happens at night, but I wouldn't be surprised. 

When I was little, I had nightmares fairly often. Sometimes they were about monsters, but one repeated for years. Each time, I would wake up, my heart beating so hard and fast I thought I could see it against my chest. My room was dark and my covers were over my head. I was absolutely convinced that a huge black dog was sitting next to my bed, waiting for some movement, some sound, that showed I was awake. Once that happened, I knew it would pounce on me aand rip my throat out. So I would breathe as shallowly as I could and I would hold myself absolutely still. I probably didn't fall back asleep so much as pass out.

When I grew older, the big black dog changed into home invaders, but the concept was the same: any indication I was awake would result in a horrible death.

By the time I was in my mid- to late-30s those nightmares were infrequent, and I rarely have them now. But the feeling is the same: if I don't succeed in whatever I think I need to do, whether it's act like I'm asleep or make enough money to support myself, I will die a horrible death. I have to make the macabre observation that now it appears my nightmare occurs in the daylight.

I'll admit that dying doesn't seem like such a big deal anymore, now that Mom is gone, but that might simply be because I'm not staring into the eyes of Death at the moment. A horrible death, however, is still to be avoided.

It's easier to tell someone else to breathe. To tell myself to breathe, I first have to be aware that I am not doing so. Maybe I need a small looped recording, some sound chip I can wear in an earring or a necklace. Over and over will be a voice, a calm and relaxed voice, saying "Breathe, honey. Just breathe."