This is a Really Real Extended Family post.
This is a post about being estranged from birth family.
This post contains politics, differing beliefs, pain of loss.
Today, my Facebook and photo memories were full of pictures with my niece and nephews.
Without planning it, my sister, the kids and I, tended to get together around this time every year.
I had 3 pictures in a row of me holding my first nephew. Each year around his birthday I was lucky enough to see him, and get a picture as he aged.
I had 2 pictures with my niece, a year younger than her brother.
One picture with the youngest, a year younger than his sister.
The last time I saw them was just over a year ago, before the pandemic was even a thing.
We would regularly talk over video chat. My sister lining all 3 kids up in high chairs at the table and sitting the phone where I could talk with them all.
My sister and I have very different beliefs. She is a conservative born again Christian, super into a her MLM essential oils and anti science including vaccinations, and I am super liberal and queer.
We managed to coexist. We avoided those topics. She didn’t seem to judge me for my life and the way I lived it.
As the election got closer, she began posting more and more about her beliefs.
She posted an article that someone connected queer folk to pedophiles. She posted articles against transwomen, and trans rights. She became more verbal with the beliefs that directly hurt me.
I distanced myself more and more, unfollowed her so that she would no longer show up in my feed. I’d occasionally check her page for pictures of the kids. I enjoyed watching them grow.
It’s been 6 months since a video chat. She had the kids call me shortly after my dad died, to give me something to smile about.
She posted and texted me around the time that Trump was getting banned from various social media outlets. Telling me that because of something she posted, they were shutting down her Facebook in 24 hours and I could contact her via text.
I didn’t respond, I knew that Facebook doesn’t give you warning, she was just feeding into the political bullshit.
A few weeks later she was back on Facebook, I knew because she was reacting to my posts again.
I realized I was censoring my posts, not wanting to start family drama, not wanting to alienate anyone, not wanting to call her out on her bullshit.
I added her to my restricted list, she can no longer see what I post. At the same time I did the same with my youngest sister, and made sure my mom was still on the list as well.
I’ve slowly gone no contact with the family I lived with for the first 17 years of my life.
I didn’t make some big announcement, I haven’t addressed any of it with them.
I last heard from my Mom on Christmas, we exchanged 2 or 3 mundane texts. Before that it was Birthday wishes from her.
She’s even further down that rabbit hole of QAnon. Her beliefs aren’t just against who I am as a person, they are downright scary. She jumps from one conspiracy theory to the next, I had to tell her point blank to stop sending me messages about them. It took her awhile to listen.
My youngest sister is doing well, as far as I know. She doesn’t advertise her beliefs so I have no idea where she stands, but she’s so involved with the other two that it just feels safer to distance myself there as well. Every few months she messages to see how I’m doing, but rarely responds to what I say.
It’s painful. The memories are painful. The fact that I have to sacrifice the relationship with my niece and nephews is hard, probably one of the hardest parts of this.
But, I have an amazing chosen family. I am surrounded by people who choose to love me for who I am.
And I’m thankful for that.
Grief
It catches you off guard
This is a Really Real Widow Post.
I’ve been dreaming a lot since my dad died.
Part of it is trauma, but also, one of my medications has a side effect of vivid dreams.
I remember a lot of dreams now.
Last night I had one that I kept waking up from, and then falling back to sleep into the same dream.
Over and over again.
Kidlet was still little, probably 10 or so.
Parker was there.
We didn’t really fight, but something happened and we decided it was best if we broke up.
The emptiness consumed me.
It woke me up,
and it was still there as I lay awake.
And it was waiting for me when I dozed back off.
This was a hard one.
Normally, when I dream about my dad or Parker, even within the dream I’m able to recognize that they are dead, and this is unreasonable.
But this time I didn’t.
She was still there, but was so far away.
I craved her comfort, but it wasn’t available.
It wasn’t a violent breakup, it was understood from both sides.
At one point, we were laying in bed together, talking, and I just wanted her to hold me,
I’m not sure if I asked,
but she didn’t.
She was there, but too far away.
We were both sad that it didn’t work out.
I think that made it harder.
The more I write about this, the more I see it was a grief dream.
It’s still hard to have that kind of grief.
I feel like I’m betraying the life I have now.
The love I have now.
Mostly,
being a widow is just there.
It’s far easier now than it was 4.5 years ago when she died.
It’s just another piece of the story that makes up my life.
But sometimes it comes to the forefront.
I feel tears just under the surface.
I miss her unbelievably much.
I miss that life.
Even though I don’t want to go back.
Seeing her right there,
just out of reach.
The pain is so real, and raw.
It feels so new.
Like it was awoken from within me.
Today,
being a widow,
is hard.
Starting over, again.
This is a Really Real Mental Health post.
And a Really Real Health post.
One of those ones where it’s hard to tell where health ends and mental begins. As we know, they are definitely intertwined.
This is a long one.
TW: exercise and fitness. Quick mention of past suicidal thoughts.
4.5 years ago, Parker died.
Shortly after that I went in for a minor surgery to remove an ovary that had a large, painful, cyst.
They couldn’t control my airway on the table and aborted the surgery.
It scared the shit out of everyone.
I was incredibly suicidal after the failed surgery.
I was in so much pain, and I was still in the middle of that early grief period, and it just felt like the end of the world.
At that time, my best friend was going to the gym every night.
She wasn’t willing to leave me alone, but wasn’t willing to miss the gym.
So she took me with her.
And I went for a walk on the treadmill while she was doing what she was doing.
At the time I could barely walk around the block.
When I first got on the treadmill I had to hold on for dear life because I was so unstable I couldn’t keep my balance.
I can’t remember how long I walked that first time.
But we went back the next night and I did it again.
And again.
And again.
Eventually I worked up to the elliptical and the Arc bike.
We added strength training.
My best friend and I had a great routine and we kept each other going.
I was in the best shape that I can ever remember.
And then life happened.
I stopped going to the gym.
I would start going again, and lose momentum.
Covid brought months and months of sitting in the house, afraid to go anywhere.
I fell back into old habits.
Covid kept me away from the gym, but I also wasn’t making myself walk in the neighborhood.
The concrete sidewalk hurt my joints.
The hills hurt my lungs and left me gasping.
My therapist and I have talked a lot about it.
About my lack of motivation.
About how much I wanted things to change but hadn’t figured out how to change them.
Today she asked me what would make me feel safe at the gym.
I thought about it long after the session ended.
I remembered those nights in the gym years before, going at midnight,
or later.
It was empty.
We had the whole place to ourselves.
So tonight,
I dug through my gym clothes to find ones I could still squeeze into.
I charged my headphones.
I filled up my water bottle,
I put on my mask,
and,
I drove to the gym at 11pm.
I had grand plans. I was going to warm up on the treadmill and then get on the elliptical.
But,
I felt like I was dying after 5 minutes on the treadmill.
Even at a low speed with no incline I was holding on and pulling myself along.
I felt unstable. I was out of breath. My whole body was starting to sweat.
At 10 minutes I knew there was no way I was using any other machines.
I wasn’t even sure I’d last 30 minutes where I was.
But I knew I could make it 5 more minutes.
And then, I knew I could make it 5 more.
And 5 more.
I made it to 30 minutes, just passing the mile marker during that time.
My face was red.
Sweat was pouring off of me.
My heart was pounding so hard it was giving me a headache.
And even though I’m back where I started 4.5 years ago,
I felt accomplished.
I still don’t feel like the gym is safe.
Even with a mask on and many machines shut down for distancing.
Even in a gym that had less than 10 people in it.
But I can’t just spend the rest of my life sitting in this chair.
Waiting for time to pass.
Not actively trying to die,
but not actively living either.
I almost didn’t write this tonight.
I was afraid that I might write it, and then not go back tomorrow, or the next day.
That I would say “I’m going to do this,”
and then not.
But,
I went to the gym today.
And that was a better decision than staying at home.
I don’t need to look forward too far.
I just need to make the next
right
decision.
Flashback
This is a Really Real Mental Health post.
TW: Gunshot, completed suicide, some gore, violence on TV.
This is one of my longer ones.
I’ve been having horrible flashbacks the last few days.
Remembering the moments and hours and days after he died.
Remembering that first post I wrote.
Gunshots are less of a bang and more of a pop.
And the thing is, that sound is so loud that it sucks the rest of the sound out of the air.
Like a vacuum.
Emptiness where the everyday sounds of life were existing a split second before.
That pop is no longer so loud in my head, but the silence afterwards is there.
I remember the police swabbing my hands.
Just a formality, the calm, gentle woman in front of me had said.
I’m remembering the next day,
my sister scrubbing brain matter and blood out of the carpet.
The carpet cleaner bringing in a jug of chemicals especially meant to remove blood.
I remember him asking if Dad had fell, prying for information about what happened.
The mess could have been worse.
Much worse.
And the flashbacks have been coming more and more.
Yesterday, while trying to distract myself from them, we drove to do some errands.
Some window shopping.
We went through an area of the city that smells like oil.
But in my brain the strong smell reminded me of gun powder.
The way that smell filled the entire house a few minutes after he was gone.
Wonder Woman has been watching a violent drama on TV.
We share a common space, with my back to the black square with moving pictures and loud sounds.
I mostly block it out.
Sometimes I wear headphones.
Lately I’ve been getting sucked into the drama.
I really don’t like this show.
But the storyline is interesting and it draws me in.
Yesterday there was a scene where a character was shot at close range.
The screen blacked out the moment the gunshot happened.
Luckily they didn’t show the aftermath.
And the gunshots don’t sound at all like the one that ripped through the air the last moment he was alive.
I don’t think the TV can capture that sound anyway.
Or that absence of sound after the shot rings out.
I wonder if the TV show is contributing to the violence I see in my head.
But we share a common space.
We spend a lot of time coexisting in the same area.
It’s hard to ask her to pick something else when there wouldn’t be much time to binge this particular show.
There isn’t much alone time in these covid times.
And I’m not sure I really want her to watch something else.
There’s comfort in the normality of the types of shows she watches.
In that background sound.
And I can always put on headphones.
But I feel like headphones put up a wall between us.
It’s hard.
When the flashbacks come I try to box them up,
tape them up tightly,
stick them up on the shelf inside my mind.
It helps.
Yesterday when they were particularly strong, I wrapped the boxes in brown paper.
I stuck them on the highest shelf.
I padlocked the closet door.
They stayed quiet just a little bit longer.
But in the back of my mind,
I still see that coagulated stream of blood,
hanging off of the front of the wheelchair.
Images that don’t want to leave.
Images that won’t leave me alone.
Seriously,
Fuck Him.
Chicken Caprese
This is a Really Real Mental Health post.
I made Chicken Caprese tonight.
I’ve been cooking more often but it’s been quick oven meals, slow cooker meals, or dump and go instant pot stuff.
None of the really good food that I used to make.
But this week I menu planned, and added back some of the yummier stuff that we’ve always liked.
I’m still in this weird period of flux where I’m doing
so
much
better.
But at the same time,
I’m not.
I woke up at 830 this morning,
fought and fought to get myself out of bed.
Tried to bribe myself with activities or coffee.
Pushed and pushed and pushed.
And woke up at 930 when my alarm went off, signaling an upcoming appointment.
I snoozed.
I snoozed.
I snoozed.
And then I begrudgingly rolled out of bed.
After my appointment I wanted to climb back in,
but we had other things scheduled for today.
I can’t figure out why it’s so hard for me to wake up.
I’ve cut out most of my sleeping meds.
The only one I’m still taking is my nightmare med,
which shouldn’t make me that tired.
Because I’m not taking the sleeping meds, it’s taking me a really long time to fall asleep.
I typically get up after an hour, and try again an hour later.
But I’m still not going to bed all that late.
I just need
so
much
sleep.
But tonight I cooked Chicken Caprese.
I stood at the stove and mixed the fragrant ingredients, setting timer after timer to keep myself on track.
It was hot and miserable, but still fun and enjoyable.
I miss cooking like that.
I like that I’m getting my old self back.
The one that finds enjoyment in life.
But I wish it would happen quicker.
Give me my life back, damnit.
He showed up in my dreams again last night.
I can’t remember most of it.
But I remember him standing there, rigid and stern.
The look he got when he was about to lose his shit.
The look he got when I messed up,
again.
Today when I was cooking,
and really when I do much of anything,
I fear messing up.
I fear the disappointment,
or the wrath that might come.
But it’s not coming from anyone near me anymore.
I’m surrounded by love and light.
People who accept me for me.
People who love me as I am.
People who love me,
even when I mess up.
It’s hard to internalize that love though.
It’s hard to recognize that I don’t have to be perfect to be lovable.
That sometimes, people even love me because of the times I mess up.
Unconditional love is hard to understand,
when I grew up feeling like I was only loved when I was perfect.
When I met someone else’s standard of being.
But I’m learning to give myself grace.
To love myself even when I mess up.
To love myself.
Sleep
This is a Really Real Mental Health post.
I feel so so much better.
Except I don’t.
I’m sleeping too much.
Way too much.
And I’m having a hard time getting myself into the shower.
But my dishes are done.
Meals are planned around food we already had in the freezer.
I’m cooking more often.
My kitchen still isn’t clean.
Clean pots and pans are stacked on a stove that is covered in crumbs and spills.
But the dishes are done regularly, and that’s a big deal.
The spices sit all unorganized on the counter instead of in the cabinet (where they no longer fit anyway).
The bottles are spilling over onto the stove.
The kitchen is kind of a disaster, honestly.
But I’m finding more joy in my activities.
I’m leaving the house regularly.
I’m brushing my teeth.
Things that I shouldn’t feel like I deserve an award for, but I do.
Because they are hard.
Hard, hard.
I feel like PHP is at the end of its usefulness.
But I also don’t feel,
healed.
But I’m not sure I’m going to continue healing in PHP.
I’m not sure I need that to keep moving forward anymore.
I’ve come a long way since the day the silence was broken by a gunshot.
I’ve healed so much.
And now it just feels like the
normal depression is still holding me back.
But I’m not sure what to fill my time with if I’m not doing PHP.
My boss isn’t ready to bring me back to work, he has his own stuff going on that needs to be straightened out before he can rehire me.
I don’t want to look for another job because I need the flexibility that came from working for family.
I need the level of understanding that came with that job.
The ability to take a day off here, and work extra hours there.
Or just take a day off without making the hours up.
I need the boss that checked in to make sure I was still doing okay.
That there wasn’t too much piling up
(even though there normally was).
I miss working, and I’m ready to go back.
But what do I do if I’m not working, and I’m not doing PHP.
I did that for years, and I can’t remember what it was like.
I feel like it’s existing without purpose.
It’s a big deal that I’m not ready to go back to nothingness.
It’s a big deal that I need something to occupy my time.
For years I was happy existing with no structure.
No ebb and flow to my days.
Nothing but doctors appointments that seemed to never end.
But now I’m afraid to leave the program behind without having something to take its place.
I have grown so much over the years.
And that day the silence was broken by a gunshot knocked me down a few steps.
But I feel like I’m finally climbing up to the top.
Old Houses
This is a Really Real Mental Health post.
I’ve been dreaming about my dad a lot.
The dreams always take place at his old house, the one I helped him build, the one I spent every other weekend at for most of my childhood years.
We made a lot of memories in that home.
I was sad when he sold it.
I remember climbing on the roof putting shingles on.
I remember him throwing a priced pencil set across the room because I didn’t put it away.
I remember playing in the giant hole where the foundation was dug out.
I remember being called Butch when I got my hair cut short for the first time.
I remember laying bricks, learning how to put just the right amount of mortar on.
I remember realizing Dad was racist, when he was talking about his brick layer.
I remember playing on “Mt. Tina,” the giant pile of dirt where they dug the basement out.
That’s the house I envision when I envision my father.
I only visited him a handful of times at the Florida house.
So that’s not where he is in my dreams.
I dream about him every few nights.
Dreams that take place after he shot himself, but he’s still alive.
A weird dichotomy where I know he’s dead, but I know he’s alive.
The dreams don’t really upset me, most of the time.
But, he tried to kill me in one of them and I screamed out,
scaring Wonder Woman who was sleeping beside me.
I’m pretty upset that I dream about him so often.
In the three months since he’s died, he’s shown up in my dreams more times than Parker ever has.
And she’s been dead for four and a half years.
This wasn’t what I planned to write about today.
I planned to write about pulling out an old hobby.
A friend gifted me a small diamond painting and it reminded me of how many hours I spent doing them a few years ago.
I didn’t realize I missed it until I started doing it again.
Relaxing in a meditative sort of way.
An activity that I get completely immersed in,
focusing on matching each symbol in turn as I work my way around the canvas.
It’s a silly activity.
One that will leave me with giant canvases full of plastic “diamonds.”
Art that I will never do anything with.
But it occupies my mind and my hands.
It gives me something to do on these long winter nights while Covid keeps me trapped inside.
I texted my cousin this week.
Told him I was ready to come back to work a few hours a week.
When he has something for me to do.
It feels like an achievement.
Like I’m healing.
Like I’m getting my life back.
It’s about time.
Happy Thanksgiving!
This is a Really Real Mental Health post.
I haven’t written in a few days because I just haven’t had anything to write about.
I don’t want to just post a day by day accounting of my life.
I like the posts that have substance,
meaning,
direction.
I’ve been dreaming a lot about my dad recently.
Weird dreams that take place after he died, but he’s still there talking to me.
Dreams where I’m giving him advice that I am trying to give to myself.
Telling him it will take time for his antidepressants to work.
Telling him he needs to slow down with spending money.
Also telling him how he traumatized me.
How he inconvenienced my sister and I.
How much work it’s been since he died.
I keep trying to look at the positives that will come from his death.
I no longer have to force weekly phone calls that are boring and uncomfortable.
He’s no longer making people miserable.
He’s no longer degrading me and telling me how I’m not good enough.
And, he may be buying me a house.
But that seems like such a foreign concept to me.
The idea of owning a house.
I don’t feel like I’m adult enough to own a house.
I still have a lot of research to do about my benefits,
my disability and my health insurance.
I have to make sure they won’t penalize me for actually owning something.
God forbid someone starts to pull themselves out of poverty,
I have to make sure they won’t rip the rug out from underneath me.
But at the same time I’m excited.
And it feels good to be excited about something.
It’s still months away before I can really start looking.
Probate takes forever, I’ve learned.
But I’m browsing on Zillow, looking at Real Estate websites, searching for homes within my price range that have pictures.
Starting a mental list of what’s important to me.
Of wants and needs.
I know I’m hyper-focusing,
I know it may end up never happening.
And I know I’m anxious even thinking about the idea.
Because I’m not adult enough.
But what if?
What if?
What if I don’t every have to worry about being homeless, ever again?
What if I never have to worry about someone taking my home away?
What if I never have to worry about being kicked out?
What if?
Maybe, just maybe,
something good can come out of his fucked up death.
Maybe he can give me some sort of financial stability.
Maybe he can take away some of my worries.
I remember, when I was younger, he would threaten me with taking me out of the will.
He planned, for the longest time, to give me less than he gave my sister.
And he made sure I knew.
He didn’t want me to get his money when I couldn’t take care of myself.
I didn’t deserve the help, he felt.
Well, fuck him.
Fuck him.
And it would be nice if one day I can say,
fuck him,
while I’m sitting in my own home.
Day 21
This is a Really Real Mental Health post.
TW: Mention of suicide, mention of gunshot, mention of gore.
I skipped a day again.
But missing 2 days this month isn’t really all that bad, and I don’t really have something to write about every day right now.
I slept till almost noon today.
Didn’t even do my wakeup at 7am to roll over and go back to sleep.
I just slept.
I feel bad for sleeping so much. I’m in bed by midnight at the latest, and sleeping at least 12 hours almost every night.
Partly it’s the sleeping meds.
Partly it’s depression.
Partly it’s still healing from trauma.
It feels like it’s taking so long.
I’m shaming myself for all the things I can’t do, and it’s hard to focus on what I am doing.
For all the things I can’t do, yet.
I keep trying to remind myself that it’s okay that I’m not back to where I was.
I’ll get there.
Apparently, it’s just going to take more time than I like.
My therapist said yesterday that this may not be as much depression, as it is shutting down from the trauma.
Still blocking emotions out.
I feel so flat.
Even things I normally enjoy are just,
flat.
I don’t want to get out of bed in the morning because there’s nothing to look forward to.
It’s nice not being suicidal, but I miss,
living.
I was living my best life, and now I’m just struggling to get out of bed each day.
And I’m trying to be gentle with myself, while also pushing enough that I keep progressing.
But honestly, it’s hard.
It’s hard not to feel like I’m failing.
It’s hard not to feel like I’m letting people down.
It’s hard not to feel like I’m letting myself down.
Healing is exhausting.
And I’m still angry.
Fuck him for taking my stability.
Truly, fuck him.
It’s quiet in the house right now.
I keep forgetting to turn on music but yet, the silence allows the intrusive memories to come.
Fuck him for making every memory of that week turn into a gunshot.
Into a gory image of him in a wheelchair with blood dripping from his face.
Into an image of blood caked on the front of the wheelchair.
Into an image of my sister scrubbing the remnants out of the carpet.
Fuck him.
I’m having bbq, bacon wrapped, shrimp for Thanksgiving.
Wonder Woman hates seafood, hates the smell of it, so I only really cook it when she’s out of town.
My dad used to have seafood for holiday dinners.
It was nice because I’d have a traditional holiday meal at my mom’s house,
and then I’d go to my dad’s and have a seafood feast.
He always made the bbq bacon wrapped shrimp.
I miss it.
It’s been years and years since we’ve had a meal like that.
Years and years since he said “Dad is great, dad is good, lets thank dad for this meal.”
Years and years since he screamed at me for not cleaning fast enough before my sister got there.
Years and years.
I don’t miss him.
I don’t miss the forced phone calls that I tried to make each week because he was an old lonely man who had no other contact with the outside world.
I don’t miss the overwhelming anxiety when I would go for a visit.
I don’t miss the sound of him screaming because I didn’t do things the way that he wanted.
I don’t miss him.
Fuck him.
Fuck him for setting me back so far.
Day 14
This is a Really Real Mental Health post.
I’ve been working on cards all day.
Slept in and then jumped right in finishing cards I started yesterday.
I got tired of being in the house so I left for a drive alone out to a Starbucks (duh) that was further away than my normal one.
I just wanted to be out of the house.
That’s an improvement.
Now to get myself back to walking.
But it’s getting better.
Slowly.
Too slowly.
But I need to be patient.
I don’t really have much to write about today. But I’m 14 days in and I’d hate to miss a day now.
My machine is cutting a material that has to be cut at a low speed.
Normally it’s loud and almost jarring, but right now it’s a musical rhythm. Calming, soothing.
Makes me want to go to sleep. But it’s too late for a nap, too early for bed.
I’ve been tired all day.
But also restless.
And somewhat creative, but I’m getting bored of that.
Not really sure what to work on next that will interest me.
I’m still blah.
But it’s getting better.
Slowly.
Too slowly.
But I need to be patient.
I’ve been having more flashbacks about my dad.
Memories of the week he was home.
Getting frustrated with him for making my job harder.
For being so fucking stubborn.
Fucking asshole.
And every memory ends with the gunshot.
I keep packing them away in my virtual box.
Taping it closed and putting it on the shelf.
It helps for a little while, but inevitably it comes back.
Another memory from that week.
Another gunshot.
It will get better.
Slowly.
Too slowly.
But I need to be patient.
Healing takes time.
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