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.
Therapy
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 11
This is a Really Real Mental Health post.
I forgot about my therapy appointment tonight.
She messaged me when I was 15 minutes late, but I didn’t see it until I was almost 30 minutes late.
She saw me anyway.
In the 6ish years I’ve been seeing this therapist, I think this is the first time I’ve forgotten and been late.
I’m thankful that she checked on me so that I didn’t miss it completely.
There wasn’t a lot to talk about. Life has been pretty uneventful.
I’m flip flopping back and forth between depressed, and functional. Things are getting better.
Slowly.
I’m crafting.
Slowly.
My sink is empty, but tonight we ordered out because I didn’t have the energy left over to cook.
My machine is cutting an intricate project that will take me hours to weed (removing the negative space).
I’m looking forward to the meditative process.
I’m enjoying writing every day, but I don’t have anything major to write about.
Just random ramblings about my day.
Random thoughts.
Random.
I’m tired today, but I’m avoiding a nap.
I want to sleep tonight.
I slept well last night, waking up this morning fully rested for a change.
But I still slept too much. I had told myself if I woke up early, I could get Starbucks before PHP.
I didn’t get Starbucks.
I’ll try again tomorrow.
Creepy Dreams
This is a Really Real Trauma post.
TW: Mention of Completed Suicide. Mention of Suicidal Thoughts. Mention of a Gory Dream.
After a pretty good day or so, last night and this morning were rough.
Yesterday my therapist had to cancel on me. I totally understood why, her dog is sick and ended up in the pet ER. While I wasn’t mad at her, I was mad at the situation. The anger, which is becoming familiar, boiled up inside me. It’s likely that she won’t be able to see me until I get back from vacation, and it had already been almost 2 weeks since she had seen me.
This was just crappy timing.
I laid in bed for awhile, suicidal thoughts running in and out of my brain.
I felt ridiculous. There was no reason for this sort of reaction to such a minor thing. I have group therapy as part of the partial hospitalization program, almost daily. It doesn’t bother me that I’ll be missing THAT during vacation, why did it bother me so much to go an extra week without my individual therapy.
But anger is just part of my response to almost everything right now. And judging myself for the anger was part of what brought along the suicidal thoughts.
After calming down some I went for a walk with my friend. It was a short walk, after taking a few days off due to my stomach issues, I had no stamina again. But it helped.
Being active always helps.
I cooked Pho for dinner. We used boxed broth and pre-sliced meat which made it a super easy meal, but right now it’s one of my favorites.
I went to bed early, I was so tired and couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore.
Even with the nightmare medication, the nightmare started almost immediately. It wasn’t about my dad this time. However, it was weird and twisting and reminded me of an episode of Dexter, a show that I never really watched but heard in the background for months as Parker worked her way through the seasons.
I woke up, and when I fell back to sleep I was in the middle of the same series of events.
People being killed and different ways to hide their bodies. Graphic visions of dismembering bodies and removing fingerprints. It was so gory and every time it felt like it would end, someone else would end up dead.
I woke myself up a few times, falling back into the same dream as soon as I closed my eyes.
I woke up at 2 am with a blinding headache. I got up and took some meds, staying awake until Wonder Woman was ready to go to bed, I couldn’t handle being alone with that nightmare anymore.
I think I got a couple of hours of decent sleep before the nightmare started again. I would toss and turn and fall back asleep right into the same dream, over and over and over again.
At least it wasn’t about my dad.
This morning when I woke up to use the restroom I was panicked. Alone felt horrifying, the bathroom was filled with the sound of gunshots.
I went back to bed, at least Wonder Woman was there and I wouldn’t be alone.
Every time I dozed I was back in the same nightmare, but laying awake was panicky and filled with anxiety. I couldn’t bring myself to get out of bed to come to the living room. I felt again like I’d be blindsided from every angle.
It was rough.
Finally I woke Wonder Woman up and asked if she would get up with me, I couldn’t handle being alone anymore.
I felt so guilty for disturbing her sleep but the alternative was seemingly impossible.
We cuddled for awhile before getting up and leaving the house. Lunch at a new-to-me restaurant, outside on their patio. Stopping into a few stores looking for a longer leash for the dog on our vacation.
Of course we went for coffee.
Now we are back home. Going into the bedroom to get changed back into my around the house clothes was anxiety provoking. And the bathroom seems to be the perfect place for flashbacks.
I still have a headache, the same one from last night. It is just below the surface, peeking up occasionally to remind me that it’s there.
But it felt good to be out of the house for a bit. Writing has helped me get more of the anxiety out. Hopefully I can catch a nap today without the same dream coming back to haunt my sleep.
Some days are good, other days are hard, and I’m just here riding the waves.
Even the bad days aren’t quite as bad as they were.
And at this point I’m 2 sleeps from vacation. I’m looking forward to mountain views and animals that roam the property where we’ll be staying. I’m looking forward to walking back to the waterfall we saw last time we stayed in that area.
I’m looking forward to getting away.
Hopefully I can leave all of this behind for a few days as well.
So Sleepy
This is a Really Real Mental Health post.
TW: Mention of gun violence and gore. Mention of suicide.
Apparently my posts are just going to keep being long for awhile. Thanks for hanging in there. And thanks for all of the kind words and support.
Sleeping at night is hard. Even with the new nightmare medication they started me on, I’m still awake constantly, tossing and turning and barely dozing off before tossing and turning again.
At least with the medications I’m not dreaming and ruminating of shots going off and bloody faces.
When the sun starts to come up I settle into sleep, which is broken when my alarm goes off to get ready for PHP.
I yawn with heavy eyes all through the first group, trying to catch a quick nap during the thirty minute break, before yawning through the second group.
I drink coffee, made at home. And some days I run out for a treat at Starbucks, to celebrate another day that I have survived.
I still yawn.
And the afternoon I often nap. Planned one hour naps that turn into two or three hours. It’s so much easier to sleep when the sun is up to keep me safe.
Of course, I know this is just perpetuating the problem. Sleeping during the day makes it harder to sleep at night, which makes it easier to sleep during the day.
I’m so so sleepy. Even writing this I’m yawning with eyes watering, wanting to climb in back in bed again.
And it’s not just the fact that I’m not sleeping at night.
Living with fresh trauma is exhausting. Working through trauma is exhausting.
With the addition of the Abilify to my medication I’m much less reactive, which is nice, but I’m still exhausted.
And still irritable. The smallest thing making me grumpy and agitated.
But that irritation is no longer filled with rage.
I talk in group therapy and others who follow me often say “What I’m going through doesn’t compare at all to your situation but . . . “
And that bothers me.
This isn’t a competition, anyone who is struggling is struggling for their own reasons, their fight isn’t less important or less strenuous than mine.
We talk about the underlying emotions that connect all of us. Fear, Sadness, Anger, Guilt, Shame.
Those emotions are the ties that connect each of our stories.
Sometimes, when we’re telling the story of our situation, the therapist will have us focus on the emotion that’s underneath of it. While someone may not be able to relate to their father shooting himself while they were in the next room, they may be able to relate to the guilt I feel for leaving him alone. Or the sadness I feel because I’ve experienced yet another trauma.
Often they relate to the shame of feeling like I’m too much, like my emotions and my tragedies take up too much room.
That’s a common theme in my therapy. Being too much. The group therapist in PHP is the same on that runs my once a week group, and is also a therapist I saw individually for a short time.
She can pick up immediately when the theme of my emotions is that shame of being too much.
She doesn’t try to fix it, neither does anyone else in the group, but just pointing out that the thread underneath it all is that feeling. That core belief.
It’s enough to show me that it’s still there, still something for me to work on.
Today, I was told by someone that they hope I can put this behind me and get on with my life.
I wish it was that simple.
I spent a lot of time after Parker’s death talking about how I will always move forward, but I will never move on.
And I think that stands true for most trauma as well. I will keep moving forward, I will keep healing, but there will never be a finish line, a line where I say, this is behind me.
The trauma of my abuse growing up still shows up when I make myself smaller after hearing harsh words or a violent scene in a movie. The trauma of poverty shows up when I spend money incorrectly, and then panic at a low balance or overdrawn bank account. The trauma of hearing my son scream in the back of an ambulance shows up when I recoil at the sound of a siren. The trauma of the house fire shows up when I strongly react to an unplanned smell of smoke, or panic when a smoke alarm goes off.
The trauma of Parker’s death is there when I check that a loved one is still breathing.
And the trauma of my father’s death will live on in its own way.
My reaction will decrease, my tolerance will gain traction.
And I will forever be resilient.
But I will never get over all of these scars, and so many more.
It’s no wonder that I’m tired. This trauma just brings with it, the rest. Just like a new grief will bring up the old ones.
I wonder why these difficult things always find me. Always land at my feet.
I don’t think there’s some grand reason, but it’s hard not to think that I’ve done something wrong to deserve it.
People talk of my resilience as one of my biggest strengths. But my resilience was forged out of necessity. I have to stand up one more time than I get knocked down, no matter how often I get knocked down.
And each time it’s both a little harder, and a little easier to stand back up.
It’s harder because I’m exhausted from repeating this same pattern, through no fault of my own.
But it’s easier because I’m just using muscles that I’ve already used. I know how to stand back up, I know what help to reach for, I know which parts I have to do on my own.
I know that the sleepless nights and the napping all day will pass.
I know I’ll get back to work eventually.
And I know I’m strong enough to do this again.
And there may be an again after this.
And after that.
And I will never be ready for it when it comes, it will always catch me off guard as trauma often does.
But I will always stand back up.
Silence
This is a Really Real Trauma post.
TW: Mention of a gunshot and completed suicide.
This is another long winding one as I get my late night thoughts out.
Night time is hard. I feel like something is going to jump out from behind every corner. Daytime makes things seem a little more open, but in the dark there are shadows and I feel like I won’t see what’s coming.
It was daytime and I was sitting at my computer, in my dad’s house. I didn’t have any music on. I was listening to him in the kitchen through my ipad. The occasional shuffle of something on the table where he always had a stack of snacks.
Wheelchairs move absolutely silently, I didn’t hear him move from the table, around the counter, through the door separating the kitchen from the dining room.
I didn’t hear him open the drawer and retrieve the gun.
I was just at my computer, which was sitting on the end table that I had spun around to use as a desk off of the side of the bed.
I was responding to an email from Wonder Woman. We were discussing the best way to work our couple’s therapy schedule since the therapist wouldn’t see us while I was out of state. I was detailing what schedule had been worked out for Draven and I to switch off. Flipping between my email window and the calendar, typing up exact dates so that we could have 2 weeks on, 2 weeks off with the therapist.
I was proofreading the email, making sure I had the dates right, and checking for grammar.
It was silent.
And then it wasn’t.
The gunshot echoed repeatedly. It took a long while for it to become totally silent again. At about the same time the room filled with the smell of gun powder.
I knew I didn’t need to look, I knew exactly what had happened, but I just had to look, something made me check.
“I wish you didn’t look.” Aimee has said to me a few times now, in person and in text.
I’m not sure what made me look.
Tonight Wonder Woman has the TV playing in the background, we just ate dinner together. Behind me, or off to my left, depending on which way I’m facing, is the rest of our tiny apartment. A small hallway, a bathroom, 2 bedrooms. I can feel the darkness coming from those rooms. I could just leave the lights on, but then there would still be shadows and I’m not sure what’s worse, total darkness, or the hidden shadows.
I reach far out in front of me to hit the light switches as I move throughout the house. I don’t want to step into the dark.
But back to the TV playing. I still feel the silence underneath. The silence that could be broken at any second. I feel like I haven’t fully relaxed since that shot rang out.
I’m waiting, waiting, waiting.
My Partial Hospitalization Program is done through video chat. One of the people in our group participates from her car, probably because it’s the only place she can have privacy. Today she had to sit her phone down get out of the car for a minute. She didn’t turn off her video. I could see her steering wheel, a bit of her seat, and her drivers side window.
I kept waiting for the loud pop and her window to be splattered with blood. I couldn’t take my eyes off of her little square on my screen. I was frozen with panic for absolutely no logical reason. Nothing she had said would have lead me to worry about that. Eventually she came back and I could breathe again.
But I’m waiting to be blindsided. If I worry about every potential trauma, then I won’t be caught off guard next time.
Of course that isn’t how this works.
Kidlet asked me this afternoon, “Hey ma, can I ask you a potentially insensitive question?”
“Of course.”
“Have you made popcorn since you’ve been home?”
Popcorn is my all time favorite snack. I had just made some earlier today, before he asked his question. I commented out loud to Wonder Woman that each pop sounded like a tiny quiet gunshot.
She rattled off a few other things that sound like popcorn.
Popcorn doesn’t scare me. The sudden sound of the blender does, even when I’m the one turning it on.
This afternoon Wonder Woman opened a door slightly differently than normal. The towel rack that hangs from it popped back against it. It wasn’t all that loud, but it was sudden and it caught me off guard.
I was too frozen to yell out and ask if it was her.
A few moments later I heard her feet shuffle towards me and I released the breath I had been holding.
I’ve mentioned before all of this, how thankful I am that Wonder Woman goes out of her way not to startle me. She shuffles her feet whenever she walks throughout the apartment. And now, when something makes an odd sound she lets me know what it was.
I’m lucky to have someone who is so trauma aware and so thoughtful.
She just went to the bathroom and paused the TV. The silence is deafening.
I’m exhausted all of the time now. Being tense and on edge will do that.
After Parker died I found myself checking that people were breathing whenever they were still. Slowly, over time, that need faded. I trusted that someone could be still and alive. However, even now, 4 years later, I still have those odd moments where I stand absolutely still and watch a sleeping Wonder Woman, waking her up if I don’t see the rise and fall of her chest.
I wonder what this new anxiety will be like in 4 years. I’m sure it will slowly become part of my new normal. I’m sure I won’t need to turn on lights ahead of me, and I won’t hold my body tightly whenever it is quiet. I’m sure I’ll stop clenching my jaw.
But that time can’t come quick enough.
This trauma is new, exactly a week old today, I need to cut myself some slack, but I expect myself to heal immediately. I know, logically, this isn’t likely to happen again. Not this exact trauma in this exact way.
But I’m still holding my breath.
Still waiting for the next gunshot to break the silence.
Side Effects
This is a Really Real Mental Health post.
And a Really Real Medical Health post.
TW: Talk of weight, mention of suicidal thoughts, talk of marijuana use, talk of narcotic pain medications. (Also, side note, sorry I haven’t been as good about TW, I will go back to using them more frequently.)
This is super long, way longer than most of my posts (twice the length it seems), but, writing helps, and I have a lot to say this time. I totally understand if it’s too long to get through, thanks for reading this far.
I need medications to stay stable.
Medications come with side effects.
Side effects make it difficult to continue taking the medications.
I need medications to stay stable.
The Abilify really really helped me. It kept the suicidal thoughts tame enough that I could handle them most of the time. An extra 50 lbs later (more than 50, who am I kidding), I couldn’t continue taking it anymore because my weight and the fact that I gained it all back, was making me suicidal. It seemed dumb to stay on a medication to control my suicidal thoughts when the side effects were making me suicidal.
Around the time we were taking me off of Abilify, I started using medical marijuana. A few different doctors and my therapist had mentioned that it might help with this and that, and I figured it wouldn’t hurt to try.
It helped a lot once I found the right strains, I found that keeping a very low buzz was just enough to make me able to focus on work, I got more done in that few weeks than I had in awhile. It was easier to do the things that needed to be done, but at the same time I was facing a lack of motivation. I felt less anxious. I was sleeping better. My pain was almost completely controlled.
And I was eating the house again, because, munchies are a real side effect of marijuana. What’s the point of stopping a med that makes me eat too much, just to replace it with a med that makes me eat too much.
So I stopped it.
But now the lack of focus is back, the anxiety is back, the difficulty sleeping is back. My pain is back, too.
I’m on a few different medications for pain. The one I take every day is an anti-inflammatory. It helps, but not enough.
Earlier this year my primary put me back on Oxycodone, not necessarily daily, but on an as needed basis. It helps, a lot, but also I’m hesitant to take it. I didn’t need it at all when I was using marijuana. But now that I’m not using that, I’m instead falling back on the Oxycodone. It scares me. I was on it daily (actually, multiple times a day) a few years ago. I absolutely feel like dependency on medication isn’t always a bad thing (I’m dependent on my psych meds), and I absolutely feel that withdraw is something that happens with a lot of meds (stop taking a psych med cold turkey and you’ll see what I mean . . .actually, don’t do that.) Dependency on narcotics feels like a whole different ballgame. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. I don’t really want to go there, so I use it super sparingly.
I’m falling back on my Ativan more often, because it controls the overwhelming anxiety. Ativan is another one I’m super careful with. A thirty day script will often last me 6 months or more. But right now, because of the whole 2020 thing, I need it more often, and I don’t like that.
Oh, and I should mention my antidepressant and those side effects. It causes nausea. It’s bad enough that some nights I actually get sick a few hours after taking it. We’d like to increase it because it could probably work a bit better. But increased doses cause more nausea. What is worse, living with low grade depression constantly, or being miserable after taking the medication to treat it.
I’m stuck in this trap. All of the medications have side effects. Figuring out which side effects are worse than the ailment they’re treating is a constant conversation within myself and with my doctors.
I’m frustrated. I want solutions that don’t cause more problems.
I need medications to stay stable.
Medications come with side effects.
Side effects make it difficult to continue taking the medications.
I need medications to stay stable.
Where’s My Roller Coaster?
This is a Really Real Mental Health Post.
It’s been 2 weeks since I’ve written. Now granted, time is going super fast, so it feels like less than that, but it really has been 2 weeks. I wrote daily for a long time, I wrote at least twice a week for a long time. Now I’m lucky if I write every couple of weeks.
Part of it is Covid. Nothing exciting is happening in my life. It’s the same shit, different day, different week, different month.
But a bigger part of it is that I’m just stuck in this low grade, constant, depression.
I miss my roller coaster. The monotony of day to day life with mental illness was broken up by constantly changing levels of mania and depression.
Good news: we stopped the rapid cycling.
Bad news: we stopped the rapid cycling.
Mental health was an obstacle course before. Making it through this episode just long enough for the next one to kick in. It was exhausting, but it was interesting.
Now my mental health is a long marathon. Just keep functioning at some constant level, reserving energy for the long haul.
The benefit to the obstacle course was that the adrenaline, kept me going, The hypomania and the influx of serotonin that it brought, kept me going.
That said, I read the posts I made in years past and I know that it wasn’t all that comfortable riding the roller coaster either. The suicidal thoughts were worse (and more dangerous) during mixed episodes. The hypomania brought along poor decision making. The lows were so dark, so so dark.
But, this version of stability is its own type of difficult.
I mean, I should be thankful that I’m stable. The suicidal thoughts are fleeting. I’ve held a job for close to 6 months. I’m not constantly in crisis.
But I’m also depressed enough that I’m often doing the bare minimum. Just enough to get me through to the next day. I can’t seem to find the will or the energy to do more.
I have enough work available to easily pull 20-30 hours a week. Yet, some weeks I’m lucky if I do half that.
And it isn’t that I don’t want to. I sit here stuck. I want to work, I know what I want to work on, but I just can’t find the energy to actually do it.
And it’s not just work, so it’s not just that I’m avoiding that.
I have a list of cards to make for friends. The list was made in April and May. It’s July. I’m still only part way through this list.
Side note for those that requested cards, they will make it to you eventually, I promise.
I sit here, aimlessly scrolling facebook. I want to craft, I want to game, I want to do SOMETHING, but I can’t find the will or the energy to start.
This is hard. A different kind of hard than constant crisis.
I miss my roller coaster.
Four Years Ago Today
This is a Really Real Widow Post.
TW: Talk of Suicide including method and post death graphic stuff.
Four years ago today.
Four years.
My new normal started 4 years ago today.
I still replay the movies in my head. I remember waking up earlier than her.
I remember going in to wake her up so that I could bring her something back for breakfast.
I remember the way her skin felt, that eerie cold that didn’t feel quite right. I knew the second I touched her that she was gone.
I remember the rigidness of her limbs.
I just knew.
I remembered hearing the rustling of her pills the night before. I thought she was just taking her night time meds. The bag that held her medications was empty. She took every last one of them.
I remember sending a message to my closest friend and neighbor, asking her to get Draven out of the house while I was on the phone with 911. I didn’t want him waking up to the chaos. I wanted him safe from the new reality.
I remember making phone calls that changed lives forever.
I remember sitting in my desk chair lost, numb, unsure of how to process the way my life was changing.
I remember my mother sitting here, strangely she was up from Florida, strangely she was going to take me to breakfast that morning, strangely she came into the house as the first wave of paramedics did.
I was so thankful she was here.
I remember taking a drive, to Burger King, to get us out of the house as the coroner took Parker’s body out.
I remember ordering food that went uneaten.
I remember being thankful that Draven already had therapy that day, and that I was able to get in for my own appointment.
I remember crying more tears then I ever thought possible. The feeling of my eyes being so raw from wiping them.
I remember.
Four years.
Four years ago today.
Adding to the Sea
This is a Really Real Mental Health Post.
I’m going to add to the sea of posts about it.
I process through writing and if I’m thinking about it this way, someone else is too, and if someone else is too, they need to know they’re not alone.
I’m trying so hard not to get swept up in the panic. I’m trying to find that fine line between reacting out of fear and doing my part.
And I feel that panic under the surface. Partly because I’m surrounded by posts about it, constant conversation about it, constant warnings about it, constant talk about statistics, flattening the curve, do this, don’t do that.
Toilet Paper.
I’ve started to panic a few times. I even got stuck in bed over it. Completely consumed by emotions that overwhelmed me. I reached out and got some advice from logic minded, calm, people in my life.
I decided instead of panicking, I’d be prepared if I get this. I got some cough meds and refilled my inhaler. I made sure we had some soup. I’m looking into getting some extra refills of my regular meds.
And, now I’m questioning every activity I have in my life. Do I keep going to therapy, group therapy? What about support groups? How about Physical Therapy?
In what ways can I minimize my contact with the outside world, while still doing self care.
Therapy is a hard, hard choice. It’s a necessary part of my week. But my therapist spends all day in a hospital setting with a large group of people.
Group therapy is a another hard call. It’s a helpful part of my week. The therapists in the program are amazing. The group I meet with is amazing. But group settings are not ideal right now, and those same therapists are involved. They are in a large hospital group, all day, every day.
Support groups, I think are an easy call. I can avoid them. I even hope they put the groups on hold for a few weeks (NAMI has), but that’s not my call to make.
And my knee hurts like a bitch. But it’s hurt for months, and there are lots of older people at PT who are recovering from surgeries and have to be there. I can minimize my contact with them by holding off for a month or two. Maybe, if I get it, I’ll keep from spreading it. Maybe I’ll avoid exposure.
I feel like most of us are going to get this as some point. But as everyone says, flattening the curve.
Flattening the curve gives medical personnel a better chance at keeping up.
Because I have friends who stand to get really, really sick. I have friends who will likely end up hospitalized.
I have friends who might break the number one rule. (#1. Don’t die.)
Flattening the curve gives them a fighting chance.
And if I can minimize their risk, I feel like it’s my job to do so.
Really Real Blog 