Select Page

I Don’t Think I Can Process This

by | Dec 1, 2010 | Anger, Depression, Grandparent Loss, Grief, Help For Grief And Grieving, How To Cope With A Suicide, Sadness, Stress, Suicide | 24 comments

Just yesterday I was reading posts at this site. Shedding sympathetic tears and yet at the same time being so grateful that I had nothing to post here. My gratefulness was premature.

For all intense and purposes, my grandfather died at 8:30 last night. He actually died at 6:20 this morning.

At 8:30 last night my grandfather shot himself in the head. Even after that and being on no life support it took the rest of his body 10 hours to die. 10 hours that my father and mother waited at the hospital all the while knowing that what they were waiting for was a pronouncement of death for my father’s father.

When my mom called me last night, I knew intelligently, that my mom calls my pop-pop “Pop”, and when she called I could tell by her tone that something had happened. Someone had died and at 91, my grandfather was – of course – the most logical answer.  But he was healthy. Healthier than most men 10 years his junior and his mind was sharp as a tack, but I knew that it had to be him. However, when I heard the words “Pop shot himself tonight.”

I was thrown immediately into an hysterical state and just started screaming, “Pop-pop or my dad?!?!?  Pop-pop or my dad?!?!?”

I’m numb. I’m at work today because I need normal. I need routine. When I actually stop and really think about it, my body shuts down and I go into a near catatonic state. My body’s defenses are too high right now. Too ready to go into flight mode. I need normal. For at least today.

But nothing will ever be normal again. My grandfather killed himself. And my aunt who lives with him was home at the time. I don’t know what to think.  I’m devastated. I’m angry. And I feel so awful for my dad. Beyond awful.

When dad called me this morning to tell me that Pop-pop had finally passed away, he broke down and asked me not to hate Pop-pop.  Which I never could.  I loved that man more than anything.  He asked to please not think less of him.  And I don’t.  Then he asked me to please not be angry at Pop-pop.  I told him I wasn’t.  I told him I didn’t understand, but that I wasn’t angry.

I hope it’s not always wrong to lie.

If you or anyone you know is feeling suicidal, please remember that suicide is never the answer.
Call the National Suicide Hotline (US): 1-800-273-8255

Empty

by | Nov 29, 2010 | Baby Loss, Coping With Baby Loss, Grief, Help For Grief And Grieving, Livng Through A Miscarriage, Loss, Miscarriage, Sadness | 7 comments

I lay curled up on the bed, looking up into my husbands’ face.

“It’s leaving me, baby. It’s leaving me…”

“I know”, he said.

He crawled in next to me, placed his hand on my belly and whispered, “Goodbye…”

And we cried.

I cried the cry that comes up from your tailbone. The cry that hurts the arches of your feet. The cry that doesn’t stop. And when my eyeballs felt like they would fall out of my face, I cried some more.

My mother was in town, thank goodness, but I could hear my son calling for me in the living room.

There is nothing more emotionally confusing than entertaining one child, while physically feeling the one you were growing leave you.

The next day, the doctor confirmed what we already knew.

“I’m sorry, your uterus is empty.”

It was a clean miscarriage, I would not need any kind of removal procedure.

I have never seen an ultrasound without a baby in it. It looked exactly how she said… empty.

“Not even two months along.”

“Not really a baby yet…”

“A collection of cells gone wrong…”

But it was a baby to us.

We made it on purpose. We made it out of hope.

My husband had already started whispering “I love you” to my belly.

My son was already patting my tummy and saying, “Baby in there.”

We made space for it in our lives.

And now that space is empty.

And I feel it. I physically feel it… missing.

My almost-baby.

We will heal.

We will try again.

But right now, I sit here…

just empty.

*****

I’ve just gotten my first period since the loss, and the sight of the blood has me reeling a little.

Thanks, Band – for being here.

My Bad

by | Nov 29, 2010 | Abuse, Adult Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse, Sadness, Stress, Trauma | 2 comments

10 years ago today…He is 10 today.

10 years ago today– body and mind split completely open. Each minute brought more pain. Each moment split my mind further away from my body.

Despair it wouldn’t happen
relief it was happening
despair it wouldn’t end
relief it was ending,
despair it was over.
Despair it was just beginning…and down I went.

I remember the feel of my grandfather’s dresser under my hands as I felt the beginning. Black cardigan sweater. Blue shirt, elastic waist black Kmart pants. Two days later they would be bagged up and handed to me much like forensic evidence of what had gone down. What had been killed. Blood soaked underwear, puke-stained shirt. How did I ever get them off of me? Who took them off? How did anyone keep track of them? Why do I want them back? How am I going to ever get them clean?

My water broke. I was still good…still in love with my husband, still believing I was going to be okay. The last image of my marriage as I had known it was my dear one walking me across the street to the hospital emergency room. It was a normal birth. I was a healthy woman. I had a healthy baby. I loved my husband, I loved my baby.

Everything was going great. I was okay. I was birthing the son I loved more than anything I had known. The son who had come to me months earlier as I walked around a lake and said “I am ready, Mama.” First time we tried, he came to me. My dear Zig. My dear one. We tried, he and I. We tried to follow the rules, follow the body, follow the doctors. I followed with some idealistic faith in store-bought images of motherhood not meaning the end of me. But I forgot something on my birth plan.

I forgot to remember to not forget she wasn’t there. My mother, any mother, was not there. No mother to see me through it, to protect me. I forgot to watch my back. So I missed it altogether. Idiot. I should have KNOWN. I wasn’t looking, too distracted by pain, and the slipping away of parts of my mind. I wasn’t aware when the dark figure of the lifelong fear of my father took its place in my birth room.

The dark cloud. Standing behind the door, behind me – lurking. I never had a chance. My bad.

On The Bad Days, I’m Alone

by | Nov 23, 2010 | Anger, Anxiety, Coping With Depression, Emotional Abuse, Infidelity, Loneliness, Major Depressive Disorder, Marriage Problems, Sadness, Self Loathing, Self-Esteem | 3 comments

I have a fairly melancholy personality, but that doesn’t mean I can’t see the good things. Most days, I do see the good things. I revel in them. But I do have bad days. Maybe more than your average chipper wonder-girl, but not enough to be a ‘bad thing.’ Problem is, there are parameters around my life that make it difficult to have any bad days at all. And so on those days, I feel very, very alone. Today is one of those days. Today, I had to write. I’m not alone if I have words to keep me company. I don’t have to be scared if I can still be coherent. But really, I am alone.

I’m married, but I have no husband. He would rather spend time with his Facebook or his phone. Or his pillow. He doesn’t love me. He says he does, sometimes, but how could I ever believe him? He doesn’t like to kiss me. He only touches me when there’s no chance of anything more. I go for sex and get excuses, or yelled at, or worse, silence. Snores. When I’m upset, he goes to sleep. The self-proclaimed night owl can’t keep his eyes awake at 8:30pm if he thinks there’s something bugging me (or I’m feeling amorous). I have one bad day in months, and it’s further proof to him that we should never have kids, that I would be a terrible mother. As if I’m the one unable to care for someone else. The best birthday present he’s ever received is an email from his ex-girlfriend. At least, that’s what he told her. He doesn’t know I know that. I asked him about his favorite birthday present, and he said it was the concert tickets I just gave him. The ones I couldn’t afford, but I rubbed two pennies together to make happen. Because for some inexplicable reason, I love him, I believe in him, and I have hope for us. And for my next act, I will jump off a bridge.

I’m a sister and a daughter, but I have no family. They don’t understand me, and they put up a facade of attempt. It fails. They fail. Or maybe I’m the failure. Either way, they’ve fenced me out. And then criticize me for it. Do I deserve to be the black sheep? My guess is that if you met all of us, you’d wonder how I ended up the way I am. You’d wonder what they have to vilify me. You might tell me I’m better off being the black sheep, but I don’t feel better off. Not today.

I have friends, too, maybe, but none are nearby. None know me. Not the real me. Most days, I like it that way. There are only so many words I can share on any given day. And how do you maintain a friendship without words? Besides, I don’t even know myself right now, so how could I possibly expect someone else to? It gets a little lonely sometimes. Then again, people are self-absorbed, and they give bad advice. Last thing I need is someone telling me how they’d like to solve their problems, under the guise of my benefit.

I’m say a Christian, but I have no real faith. Belief, sure, but in what? Who is my God? I don’t know. He’s a stranger right now (he, or she, or it, or them…). As a recovering fundamentalist, I don’t understand God at all. I’d like to try better, learn more, figure out what was and what is true, but when it comes to God, there aren’t answers, just more questions. Questions, and narcissism. Funny how God’s attributes line up so nicely with your own opinions.

All in all, I have a great life. Sure, it’s lacking in some areas, but I have no shortage of things to be happy about. Most days, I’m happy. Content and smiling and good. I want more than good, though. I want more than a decent marriage, I want an out-of-the-park one. I want to be married to someone who cares about ‘us’ as much as I do. I don’t have that. I don’t have a spendthrift cheating drunk abuser, but I don’t have a true partner either. I want a family who doesn’t just love me but accepts me. I don’t have that either. I could sure use a friend, too. Someone I didn’t have to pretend with. Someone who could point out my own childish crap without making me feel guilty or condemned. Really, though, I just want some answers. About God. I used to have them, until I saw how lacking my perspective was.

Right now, during this bad day, lack is all I can see. And that is why, today, I hate myself.

His Cancer Is Back

by | Nov 12, 2010 | Cancer and Neoplasia, Coping With Cancer, Sadness | 3 comments

I got the call last night.  It’s Stage 4 cancer this time.  It’s “everywhere.”  I don’t know what to do.  I’m half a continent away from them.

On one hand, it’s not right to mourn.  He’s not out yet, and they’re beginning chemo again next week.  But really, it doesn’t look good.  The chemo is just to “slow it down.”  And I’m a realist.  And so I mourn, if only inside.

This is the uncle that is quietly awesome.  He’s in the background, making sure everyone is okay.  He’s brilliant, and made sure his 3 kids all went wherever they wanted for college (we’re talking Ivy League Schools), despite living on a teacher’s salary.  He’s the rock.  When I drove through town on a whim, getting in late, he made sure a bed was made, dinner was left out, and then took me out for a hockey game the next day.

And he’s too young to go.

I guess I don’t really have a question.  I just need to type this out, and make it somewhat public.  Thanks.

Losing My Religion

by | Oct 24, 2010 | Anger, Breast Cancer, Cancer and Neoplasia, Coping With Cancer, Fear, Feelings, Sadness | 0 comments

Yesterday afternoon, shortly before 12:30pm, I nursed my sweet baby girl for what I can only pray was not the last time.

I sobbed silently, my tears dripping onto her curls while a swarm of my closest friends and family buzzed around the kitchen.  I was losing my religion in the living room and the day was only halfway over.

My mother is back and stayed with Nugget while Nugget’s Daddy worked from home. Barbara and Martha took me to chemo.  Despite having loaded up on Ativan, I cried most of the way there.

I wore a top that would provide easy access to my port, which had been slathered with theemla cream and covered in saran wrap for at least an hour.

Patients are only allowed to have one guest accompany them to the treatment room.  I had two, who would not take “just one” for an answer.  Marla, my oncology nurse, happily pulled up another chair to accommodate my posse.

Then a senior patient, as all the other patients seem to be, swung the treatment room door open and announced, “Well!  All the good chairs have been taken.”  I wondered if I’d gotten one of the good ones.  I hoped so!

Marla drew the curtain so she could access my port.  I told Barb and Martha that they would be watching, because I couldn’t really get a good look at the action and wanted to be sure my friends suffered along if there was indeed any suffering to be done.  There was not.  I think it was worse for them.  Then the two of them chatted about how they’d like to be nurses except for, well, all of the gross stuff.  Cute scrubs had been really, really appealing, but simply couldn’t trump dealing with blood and needles.

The dynamic duo was relentless in their efforts to keep me entertained.  As I was showing them my phone that Nugget had rendered the antenna unretractable on, Martha cracked, “Your phone has an antenna?”  I replied with a smart, “Shut your trap!” which sent senior patient #2, coughy McHacksalot, into a rage of laughter and then into a, well, fit of coughing and hacking.  Note to self – keep wiseass cracks down to a dull roar in the treatment room or suffer the wrath of coughy McHacksalot.

Treatment went fairly well.  I had no reaction to the test dose of Bleomycin.  I took the extra dose of Ativan she offered.  (duh!)  At one point I was having some pain, almost like a burning sensation when I took a deep breath.  so Marla switched my iv bags and checked my lungs.  Whatever it was, it subsided and I finished Day 1 of treatment with no real issues.