Mental Health

When enough is enough

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More than a year has passed since I’ve even remotely felt like writing.  That’s too bad, really, because so much has happened worth writing about.  Many psychologist, psychiatrist, therapists and others have often mentioned the cathartic power of writing, how helpful to the soul under the best of circumstances.  This past year would have to climb out of the pits of hell to reach the lowest rungs of the worst of circumstances … the best of circumstances are, as of the moment, barely a blip on the horizon.

For the past four years, I’ve held my breath, politically speaking.  Four years of being on guard, emotionally and mentally, waiting for the next repulsive thought to come pouring out of the idiot trump’s mouth.  Four years cringing in the embarrassment and shame of that man-child representing us to the world.  Four years of praying our democracy would be able to withstand the relentless onslaught of lies, invitations to meddle by foreign powers, of stacking the system with good old white boys.  Four years of watching the slow and seemingly unstoppable erosion of women’s rights, attacks on the LGBTQ community, on minorities … as though watching the Colorado River forming the Grand Canyon in fast forward.  

The echo of what I remembered as hope flickered into life when Democrats won back the House.  But I dared not relax for fear that hope would be crushed under the weight of alternative facts.

Then, finally, election time … the big one, for all the marbles … a return to sanity and adults in charge.  I dared not think of the worst case scenario.  When, some days later, the election was called for Biden/Harris … I actually ran out into the street, yelling and jumping for joy. Literally, crying and screaming Hallelujah.  Many of my neighbors joined me.  We hugged, high-fived, waved our “Biden/Harris” banners and … felt the beginnings of that long lost sensation … peace.  Calm.  Sweet relief.  Maybe it was finally over, we prayed. Four years of watching our democracy being shredded was over.

But …

No.  There would be repercussions.  I knew this for four years … like a bully towards the subjugated … any attempt for freedom would be swiftly and surely punished.  The white boy establishment having gone unchecked for four years, would not let their power go without a fight.  And fight they did.  On January 6th, they attempted a coup. Watching the invasion of the capitol, I felt sick inside.  Horrified.  Numb.  Raw.

It would only get worse. 

Sure, arrests were made.  Thanks in large part to the stunning stupidity of those involved and the lure of bragging on social media.  If the reason wasn’t so shocking, the “coming to Jesus” moment of several republicans would have been laughable.  But, the half-life of republican remorse is apparently shorter than the 5 second rule of a dropped cookie.  Not even this made a difference, not a physical attack on our nation’s capital, not a mob that beat and ultimately killed, not when there was so very little between them and violence … none of that, ultimately, mattered.  

There aren’t sufficient words to describe the depth and completeness of my disgust – that mob, the people that egged them on, the people finding excuses or justifications, and especially for the loathsome and contemptible, the pathetic and despicable shadow of a man feeding and fueling the fire burning in his repulsive honor.  

No more.  I will no longer make an attempt to understand, to meet halfway, or to catch more flies with honey.   The republican party seems hell bent to rewrite history according to the twisted mind of their equally twisted leader. They have sunk to depths unimaginable, and it’s time for everyone to choose. Regardless of your political affiliation or leanings, above all you either stand for democracy or not. You either abide by the lawful will of the people or you don’t. To stamp one’s foot and call the other side liars and cheats, to refuse anyone else as the winner is behavior usually associated with children, and not tolerated even then.  

This is not an honest mistake by the republicans, or now the party of trump.  They are attempting to overturn democracy at best and instigate a dictatorship at worst.  To be indifferent is to court acceptance and to accept is to throw away everything for which this country stands.

All in a day’s work …

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Working from home has it’s own unique set of challenges.  The refrigerator calls, I know there are Oreo cookies in the cookie jar, and the deck bathed in sunshine … but dutifully, I am glued to my office chair, two computers heating up the space around me.   The radio drones in the background and through the open window I can hear birds chirping, the occasional passing car, and every now and then the sounds of children playing.

To quote the title one of my favorite author’s (Caroline Knapp) book – I would make a “merry recluse”.  Not only does solitude not frighten me, I embrace it.  It’s my reward for having gone out into the world which is filled with all that stimuli.  All those people, conversations, phones ringing, emails flying, it can be exhausting if you’re a particular kind of person.  Some people thrive on all those extrovert buttons, but I’m not one of them.  Stress, for me, is having to go out.

This is not a fear of the outside, or agoraphobia, it’s not really a “fear” at all.  It’s just a preference, my happy place.  So, I may be dealing with this “social distancing” with a bit more enthusiasm than others.  It’s license to decline invitations and a pass to hole up.

Still, I must go out for food and other supplies … and, masked, I do.  And maybe by the time all this is over, I’ll have had my fill of hermit-hood, at least for a little while.

Stay safe everyone.

Scarred for life

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Where to start.

September 13 … a Friday night (Friday the 13th … not that I believe in that superstition … just saying) and I was preparing to attend the football game between FSU and Virginia the next evening.  There was no hint of the adventure to come.  But, for some reason, I suddenly felt nauseous.  Nothing I ate or drank stayed down and my stomach felt crampy.  These symptoms continued through to the next morning and I was forced to cancel going to the game.  Monday saw a trip to Urgent Care and Wednesday started out with a repeat visit as I hadn’t been able to keep anything down since that Friday night.  Urgent Care drew blood and sent me to the emergency room where they did more tests and prepped me for emergency surgery.  Sixteen days later, I was discharged … with several inches of large intestine removed and a scar that ran from my lower abdomen to just under my chest.  It’s a nice straight line that does a little dogleg around my belly button, and I’m damn proud of it.

Why the surgery?  At the time, no one knew what was going on … simply that there seemed to be a large mass in my abdomen. What was it?  I prepared myself for the worst.  Cancer.  A colostomy bag.  The list running through my brain until the anesthesia kicked in.

I remember hitting the morphine button.  A lot.

When I woke up enough to realize I was awake, my parents were there and soon after, the doctor walked in.  He explained my large intestine had herniated up through my diaphragm and gotten stuck.  The trapped tissue had died and released toxins into my chest cavity.  One lung was partially collapsed and there was a real danger of pneumonia.

I learned many things in those sixteen days in the hospital:  When you check into the hospital, leave your dignity at the door.  I believe I inadvertently mooned about everyone on the fourth floor at least once.  When you finally are allowed clear liquids, you’re grateful for chicken broth.  When you need help to go to the bathroom, you don’t wait until you’re sure you have to go.  When you’re as helpless as a baby, you realize superheroes aren’t born on Krypton, they are the nurses that you depend on and are there 24/7.

And you realize the true meaning of endurance, of just what the human body (and mind) are capable of surviving.  There’s a Japanese word for it, kintsugi.  It refers to vases (or anything really) broken and repaired with precious metals.  It is the essence of resilience.    It is the strength we gain from surviving trauma … it is being proud of your scars.

The Price of Friendship

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Why does it have to be so complicated?  Can’t we have any kind of relationship free from stress or tension … or are we just too emotionally intricate for that sort of thing.  Or, could it be that dangerous word “assumption” creeping into the most innocent of connections that leads us to overlook the danger signs.  What happens when we assume that, because we’re “just friends”, that a friendship will be smooth sailing.  None of the typical relationship rules apply, there’s no implied “he/she should understand me without having to explain”, or is there?  Do we exempt friendships from the heavier more intimate unspoken rules of a spouse or mate?  And if we do, what’s the worst that can happen?

Indeed, what is the worst that can happen?  I found out recently when a seemingly harmless friendship re-emerged.  The other half of the friendship happened to be a former co-worker, a nice fellow, some years my senior and a kindred spirit in our political and philosophical attitudes.  He lives in the mid-west, I live in the north east.  He has a lovely wife and two grown children.  I have an ex-husband and no children.  Having no brothers, I tend to find myself casting my male friends in that role.  This particular friend and I were quite close but, it turned out, different kinds of close.  And therein lies the problem.  

I can only speak (or write) from my perspective, guessing what someone else is thinking is akin to skipping blindly through a minefield.  But were there warning signs there, and I just didn’t recognize them?

As I said, we had a close friendship … I thought of him with the close familiarity of a dear brother.  It could be he thought of me with just a bit more closeness … but nothing suggestive of anything more than friendship.  But were there were word choices or phrases that ought to have set off warning bells?  Why, when it would never have dawned on me to be on my guard?  He was deeply in love with his wife, they’d been married for some 40-odd years.  Why would I worry?

I worried when he started to mention misgivings by his wife.  Misgivings that grew into to pointed questions, which in turn grew into accusations.  Suddenly, I’m left feeling like the other woman … caught in the act of something I didn’t even know I was doing.  And feeling the fool, the naive unsophisticated kid who took a situation at face value.

Feelings have been hurt, intentions misunderstood, and relationships strained.  Now, of course, I’m re-evaluating every male friend I have and wondering, can men and women really be friends or will there always be a hint of something more.   How do you value a friendship when you don’t know the price?

To date or not to date …

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That is indeed the question.  I’ve recently met someone online and we’ve struck up quite a friendship.  It came out of nowhere and took me completely by surprise, mostly by the speed and intensity.  I’m a fairly cautious creature, never one to dive into the pool instead I creep in inch by inch.  Evaluate, analyze, observe, those are the words I live by.  It can take months or years to make a major decision such as buying a new car or even ordering a new sofa.  Is this the absolute best choice, I ask myself.  Do I really need this thing?  Do I deserve it?  Is it worth the change?

That is the ultimate question, is it worth the change.  Every new thing or person we bring into our lives means change.  Most change is minor, barely a ripple on life’s pond while other changes reverberate.  Like a stone skipping across the water, the changes keep coming, echoing the one before until finally dying out.

Life may be change but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.  After years of upset and upheaval, of moving house and changing jobs, of being married and then being divorced, I’ve reached a plateau.  The highs and lows have leveled out and, for the first time in a long time, I’m pleasantly bored.  I work, come home, play with the dog, fix dinner, perhaps work in a nap, watch tv, go to bed and start the cycle over the next day.  Some people may find the isolation constraining and urge to break through, but I revel in it.  I am, like the title of Caroline Knapp’s last book, “A Merry Recluse”.

Cue change.

I get to chatting with a nice man online and before I know it, we’re striking up quite the conversation.  Talking about dreams and goals, what we like to do, what kind of music we listen to, what we do in our spare time … it’s all innocent and at a nice safe distance as this man is located elsewhere.

But,

He’s close to retiring and, from the tone and content of his emails, interested in more than just casual conversation.  This guy sounds like a girl’s dream come true, happily ever after material.  Trouble is, I don’t know what my dream come true looks like.  When I daydream about my happily ever after, I never picture anyone else in it.  Does this mean I’m destined to single-hood or simply that I haven’t met the right guy yet.  And is this guy the right guy?  Why do I feel like life is trying to fix something that isn’t broken?  Did I just answer my own question or should I keep this door open a little while?

…squirrel!

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IMG_7081

Inside the mind of someone with ADD … or, as we used to call it before its fancy medical term came along, BSO or bright shiny object disease.  Here’s how a typical unstructured day goes for me:

Get up, eventually … after rising at 5:30 during the week sleeping in is my first treat of the weekend.  Figure out what sweats/yoga wear to lounge around in, go downstairs and it’s like a dog distracted by a squirrel … I clean up any “presents” my geriatric pug might have left during the night which leads me to decide the rug needs cleaning which leads to vacuuming the whole room and while I’ve got the vacuum out might as well do the whole house.  While downstairs, I see some boxes that need collapsing before being recycled which I start to do, but in looking for my box cutter I come across my heat gun which I recently used to do some melted crayon art (see above).  So I put the heat gun away, forgetting the boxes as I look around at my studio, I decide I need to tidy up my mess and that leads to going through boxes of goose clothes (more about that later).  It’s fall, so I need to change my gooses outfit.  She’s now dressed like a scarecrow and the FSU cheerleading outfit she was wearing needs washing so I toss it in the wash, realizing that I have a spare FSU cheerleading outfit but the FSU patch has come off … so it’s back upstairs where I trip over the vacuum cleaner … oh, right, I was going to vacuum downstairs, but first I need to iron the patch back on.  That task done, I return the ironing board to the closet and head back downstairs to return the goose outfit to her dresser of outfits.  As I sort through various art projects, I manage to actually throw a couple out which means a trip to the garbage cans and the boxes to be recycled get stomped flat instead of neatly cut and collapsed but they make it to the recycle bin.  All this is going through my mind and I’m thinking, maybe I ought to blog about it.  Going back upstairs, moving the vacuum cleaner upstairs (my townhouse is three floors) in the vain hope I’ll get that chore done eventually.  I sit down at the computer desk which has some sheet music printed out, and I decide to hole punch it and put the music away in my book, but looking at one of the tunes – I realize it’s a Christmas tune and wonder if I can play it on my violin.  So I get out my violin, where I discover one of the strings has come almost undone so I have to tighten that peg and retune the violin, then I try and play the tune which I can almost do.  That stupid torn rotator cuff is still inhibiting proper violin playing posture.  I’m aware I’m hungry so I go into the kitchen and make myself a meal replacement shake but notice the dishes in the sink so I stop to wash them but first I have to empty the clean dishes from the dishwasher.  Eventually I end up with the dishes put away, and make my shake and now … several hours later I’ve gone from cleaning the rug to … oh, darn, I never did finish vacuuming did I?

That’s kind of what it’s like to have ADD … you barely start one task when … oh, look! Bright shiny object … and you’re drawn to something else, and something else, and the original task is likely to fade into the mists of time.  It’s a variation of “what did I come into this room for?”.

Partly it’s the way my mind works, and partly it’s an inability to deal with unstructured time.  As much as I complain about work and how much I’d rather be retired … it does force a certain structure to my day.  Left alone, with no deadlines or other requirements, I’m (to quote Carrie Fisher) like a hamster in search of a wheel.

About the geese.  All the women in my family own these big cement lawn geese.  They have a variety of clothes and are often dressed to match the season.  My goose has about 30 outfits.  I’m known in the neighborhood as “the goose lady”.

What was I talking about?  oh … was that a squirrel?