tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20017891949969971382024-03-05T08:46:18.261-08:00Thoughts & Musings from a Cluttered MindUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger23125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2001789194996997138.post-81061048125962709862011-06-12T19:19:00.000-07:002011-06-12T19:19:36.534-07:00Many, Many More Starts The cursor blinked on the screen in front of me. I read the words that I'd taken from fragments and pieced together into a coherent whole yet again. And still the cursor blinked at me mockingly. I thought about what I should do and yet I had no answers. I read the words again - it was my life that appeared before me on the screen, but even though I'd lived it, the words shocked me a little. I discovered a tear streaking down my cheek, yet more tears in a year that was filled with them.<br />
<br />
I couldn't read those words again, so by impulse I pushed the publish button and there it was, my thoughts on a blog that with a little work anyone could find. It would take work though, and if I told no one, no one would know it was me.<br />
<br />
So now I stared at a screen that contained my first published entry and somehow I had survived that little impulse. And I read the words again as they appeared in the new format and I cried once more. I had felt myself regressing for a few weeks. I was no where near the level of the woman that appeared on the post, but I was in more than a funk, I was depressed again. All my work, all my struggle and all I'd really done was walk in a circle back to the starting line. I couldn't be that girl on the page again, I just couldn't. I wouldn't. And surprise, again there were tears. <br />
<br />
And as I cried I felt a nagging at the corners of my mind that told me what I needed to do, but I had no idea why it was telling me to do that. I couldn't do what it was telling me, no way, no how. But the mind is a mysterious machine and it kept circling back to the same answer. My stomach was in knots. The tears were endless. And yet the answer to my dilemma seemed to be the same.<br />
<br />
And so I stared again at the computer screen and I let my finger hover one last moment over the key. Should I? Could I? And then with a collective "f" it, I hit the share on facebook button. It was done, I could take it back, but not ever be entirely sure that no one would have read it. What was done, was done. I emailed a link to the blog to a few of my friends. I'd done it. I had no idea why, but I had. I'd shared the story of my breakdown and my diagnosis with the people in my world. For better or worse everyone that choose to read it would know that I was a mess. The facade was gone, the acting done - I was now a bulimic with severe depression that had sunk so low that I had at times not gotten out of bed and wondered if life was worth carrying on with any longer. Maybe no one would read it.<br />
<br />
But then the responses began and I was overwhelmed again, but not in the way that I had expected. The words were not ones I would have used: "bold," "beautiful," "well-written," "brave," "honest," "wow," "strong," "inspired," "eloquent" ... Was this really words people were using to describe me and what I'd written? I wasn't any of those things. I didn't feel like I was any of them either. My inbox kept receiving messages from people that offered their own personal stories, ones that they weren't usually sharing with the world. I was overwhelmed. I read every comment and email with tears in my eyes. I had no idea the response would be like this.<br />
<br />
And spurred on by the kind, eloquent, bold words from my honest, strong and inspired friends, I began to write about what happened next and after that and on and on it went. Talking about the experience in a coffee shop with a friend one day, I made the connection about why I needed to do what I did that day. I now understood the nagging voice. I now knew why I had to not only write, but share my story with the world. I'd talked, contemplated and preached the gospel of being real, of revealing myself to the world, of finally being me with the people that mattered and this was my way of doing that. And in the process it was the last step of my therapy to get me past this phase in my life. And in discovering that I always knew there would be an end. Eventually I'd catch up with life and a lot of my secrets would be out there for all to see. I was no longer embarrassed to be struggling - I'd learned that there were a lot of people in the world, my world, that were or did or had - I wasn't special, I was one of many.<br />
<br />
And now people know the story. They know me. They know my demons. And still after all of that they are my friends. I don't have to hide anymore.<br />
<br />
And so I face the next adventure and I get another start. I get to face the beginning ... once again.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2001789194996997138.post-25336208309182168042011-06-10T08:22:00.000-07:002011-06-10T08:22:02.329-07:00The Brain is the Most Fragile OrganOne, two, three, four times and I caught myself .<br />
<br />
"What are you doing?," I asked. "Don't let yourself go down this path again," I scolded. And then a small nagging voice in the corner of my mind said "See, you knew that you'd never be better."<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijFpjLaUwwH2iqnGBBdJuB-GTu46Eg_qVB8N_mTTrm0Y6ma1invDjNGYAPpnOcMFLI31SWJdCRUziulXxS4p9VOglRCPkz37OgMxsLbCCCE82Tn4q-AYq8NHmPJKTI12NBFAEhMjdSVyZL/s1600/blog+5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijFpjLaUwwH2iqnGBBdJuB-GTu46Eg_qVB8N_mTTrm0Y6ma1invDjNGYAPpnOcMFLI31SWJdCRUziulXxS4p9VOglRCPkz37OgMxsLbCCCE82Tn4q-AYq8NHmPJKTI12NBFAEhMjdSVyZL/s200/blog+5.jpg" style="cursor: move;" width="158" /></a>But at least this time I noticed the signs and it didn't take me so long to see them. I tried to cling to that small ray of hope - now I know where I don't want to be and the small signs that I might go down that path again. And where did I discover all this? On a gray late January day as I lay in bed still in my pajamas at 3 p.m. And what did I discover? I realized that I was again sleeping all day and evading life. If I had something to do I would dress and get out of bed and happily migrate into the world, but if the day wasn't filled with an adventure I stayed in bed and slept and slept and slept.<br />
<br />
The first day that I didn't get out of bed I figured I just wasn't feeling well. I think I used the same excuse the second instance as well. I wasn't really fooling myself that time. And after a period of insomnia I didn't dwell on the indiscretion too much, until I realized that it didn't change the fact that sleeping all day was no better than never sleeping either. <br />
<br />
So, on the fourth day, I gave myself a mental slap - "Wake up!," I said. "Don't slide down this path again."<br />
<br />
And so I drug myself from my bed, forced myself to put on some clothes and I sat my weary body on the sofa and I forced myself to write out what was distressing me. There were so many things that streamed out of my mind as my fingers tapped out the words on the keyboard. Seeing them made a difference. They helped me sort out the mess that was stirring around in my mind. The clutter took order as my thoughts crept out of my brain, through my fingertips and onto the screen of my laptop. And as it had so many times in my life, the writing made me feel better. And as I had marveled in the past, the brain really is so complicated and so fragile and so adaptable and so strong all at the same time; and in it is all the answers when we look for them.<br />
<br />
So now staring back at me were a mass of words and run-on sentences. Clearly reasoned statements stared back at me from among a rubble fragments. All of it reflective of what was keeping me in bed. All of it the remnants of my overly cluttered mind. And what I knew was that no amount of thinking or talking or musing would ever replace the writing process for me - nothing organized the thoughts that I didn't know I had in the same way as writing them down did. Nowhere else did my brain seem to make the same connections with the past, present and future as it did when it was composing my thoughts.<br />
<br />
And simple as that - my reasons for staying in bed and sleeping away my life again - were staring back at me.<br />
<br />
So much had happened to me in such a relatively short amount of time, this regression should not have been unexpected really. In six months I had had a major breakdown brought about from the bottom finally falling out of major depressive disorder that I'd suffered for more than a year. I finally faced head-on that I was more than an emotional eater - I had a full-blown eating disorder. I had finally given up all my trepidations and stereotypes about people that went through therapy and visited one myself. I'd met, lost and then restored a friendship with someone that had somehow accepted me for me. I had separated myself from an abusive relationship - my job. I had contemplated life's most difficult questions. I had started a jewelry business. I had decided what I wanted to be when I grew up. I had started to slowly let people in my life see the real me. I had publicly declared a year of me which had pressure all of it's own with which to live up. I was learning how to react productively when people said horrible things to me that in the past I would have internalized. I was looking at the beginning of a new freelancing venture which frightened me. I was financially unstable since I hadn't been working much. I had committed that I would move to a new city by the end of the summer. I had expected that I would have, even in this tough economy, to have found my dream career already. I was even sure that there was more, but looking at all I'd faced and encountered in the recent past, I realized that I had to give myself a break - I was doing the best that I could during a period of great transition in my life. <br />
<br />
But from all of that one thing stood out most in all that I had typed. I looked back at it and thought about how the mind is really a miraculous mystery that hides sometimes from us so much and yet reveals it when we are ready to see it.<br />
<br />
"I finally like myself enough to care that there was a small sign that I might be slipping back into depression."Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2001789194996997138.post-68019691553740159952011-05-25T18:15:00.000-07:002011-05-25T19:12:12.006-07:00The Year of MeI needed a plan - pure and simple.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAl-awHqmdprZaRYHc8qx7p1OS0jUv1H5D-PtyK8S_vDpkRYZLjIiQ-Emu_BHIFES3ePrUOTqAq6OmYyLYUz_tJJjsUG4uBvWKH6hg-WWIuoP5b5oUXoXDfSYUEbokbBg4vFA7OPgkS6uW/s1600/IMG_20110312_123649%255B1%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="149" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAl-awHqmdprZaRYHc8qx7p1OS0jUv1H5D-PtyK8S_vDpkRYZLjIiQ-Emu_BHIFES3ePrUOTqAq6OmYyLYUz_tJJjsUG4uBvWKH6hg-WWIuoP5b5oUXoXDfSYUEbokbBg4vFA7OPgkS6uW/s200/IMG_20110312_123649%255B1%255D.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Barely hanging on ...</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
As the weather turned cold I was starting to feel a sort of desperation about life in general again. Holidays were approaching, jobs were not materializing, a few important relationships rested on shaky ground and my mighty demons seemed poised for a resurgence. I refused to live in the sinking world I had for so long. I wasn't going to be drug back into that hole this time without a fight. So I started to devise a strategy - one that took me from where I was, where I wanted to end up and accounted for a lot of variables in between. So as a plan began to form for what I wanted to accomplish in the next year I knew that I only needed to ask and those that were important to me would help me along the path. I had such incredible people in my life, they showed me that time and again, and yet I never asked them for guidance. Help was something I gave, but didn't request. But, the more and more I contemplated what to do next, the more I knew that I needed to face some of the fears I had about leaning on people and asking for assistance. <br />
<br />
A new year always seems like a perfect time for renewal, for a chance at a clean slate, for leaving the past behind, for looking forward. The year before I'd made an attempt at the resolution game. I'd even exchanged my short, but lofty list with a few people thinking it would inspire me to stick to the game - and yet I hadn't. So I searched back in my email and found my simple list of five things <br />
<br />
<ol><li>Get Healthy; </li>
<li> Find a job I love; </li>
<li>Find my center (something that makes me happy and fulfilled and also leads to nothing but relaxation); </li>
<li>Practice spontaneity (stop over-analyzing everything, every time);</li>
<li>Don't neglect relationships. </li>
</ol><br />
That day I looked back on that list for the first time in many months. I was surprised by how in some strange ways I'd accomplished them, but not in the way or path that I would have imagined. The cliche "what a difference a year makes" was apropos. But, I still didn't know what I was going to do with that information. I started thinking about how I wanted my next year to look - if my resolutions were going to magically come true (even in unexpected or not always welcome ways), then I needed to plan out this year's list very carefully. And one of the items that I knew needed to be on the list was clear - be honest - but how to accomplish that was not as clear. I made my first small attempt by acknowledging, even before the new year, how difficult my year had been and how much I'd learned that there were some incredible people in it that I didn't recognize enough. So I wrote my own version of a holiday letter. I acknowledged the resolutions and how I arrived at them and then I did what I could with words to let people know their importance:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>For every one of you that realized, recognized and remedied my year - I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I wish more than anything that I could give you all a gift that would show you how much you all mean to me. A gift from my heart and soul, because those of you receiving this are truly some of the best, most remarkable people on earth. You all mean the world to me - maybe more than you even know. My Christmas gift to you all this year though has to be a simple one of words:<br />
This holiday my gift to you is a wish for peace, love, happiness and surprises of the best kind in the year to come. May you accomplish your list and find people with which to share in the glory of such accomplishments. I love each and every one of you for the distinct and important role in which you play in my life. <br />
-With all the love and thanks in my heart -me</blockquote>It was a small start on the path to honesty. I knew I had a lot farther to go, but it felt good to make a move in the right direction. <br />
<br />
With one week until the new year I devised my job hunting plan, I read and researched the best way to find solid, full-time employment in the tough job market of today, I contacted the few networking contacts that I had and I wrote a second letter that this time contained more honesty and my plans for the year: <br />
<blockquote>Happy New Year to the Most Incredible People in the World that every day make my life a little brighter, "funner," more tolerable, enviable and very much worth living.<br />
<br />
As you flip the calendar from 2010 to 2011 I have a few simple, but important wishes for you all:<br />
In 2011 may you experience all that you hope for, long for, wish for and want. <br />
May you always look in your mirror and see an incredible person that you want to be.<br />
May others look at you and delight in the fabulous person that they see.<br />
May you learn to love yourself faults and all.<br />
May you find or continue to delight in a person that looks beyond those faults and loves you all their heart anyway.<br />
May you see the beauty of the world and humanity all around you.<br />
May you be blind to the darkness and never experience inhumanity in the world.<br />
And most of all, I hope that you will always be an important person in my life.<br />
<br />
Much love & happiness to you for the coming year. - me<br />
<br />
P.S. I've declared 2011 my year & I hope you'll come along for the ride as I rock it!</blockquote><br />
And so as I pressed send on my computer I was petrified to share with everyone that it was the year of me. It was a lofty goal to declare. What if I didn't live up to the mission? What if it didn't turn out to be my year? What if I didn't "rock it." But in the end I realized that it was also liberating to share my thoughts, it was good to have people who would remind me in the days to come that it was my year and most of all it was a joy to know that there were people that really would be along for the ride.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2001789194996997138.post-51313067962256895932011-05-05T00:13:00.000-07:002011-05-05T17:11:36.243-07:00Coming into Focus<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKi6XUM5inQTbBMVdzIZP_gqYQ9R-8n_LwkU2UsqmC-BDs-63q9prcnmtrREaT3HyI_1hb8ouP79T4LPCiGXYEiEeUnTugGD4680UhPtmuiRfYTaypyjeJJQBHX_pSsbpZNh-IkFCfXLSG/s1600/focus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKi6XUM5inQTbBMVdzIZP_gqYQ9R-8n_LwkU2UsqmC-BDs-63q9prcnmtrREaT3HyI_1hb8ouP79T4LPCiGXYEiEeUnTugGD4680UhPtmuiRfYTaypyjeJJQBHX_pSsbpZNh-IkFCfXLSG/s320/focus.jpg" width="320" /></a>A few years ago one of my friends, knowing that she inevitably needed glasses, had asked me to go along with her to her appointment. Since I needed to go as well I scheduled an appointment for both of us and for some reason of misunderstanding on the part of staff they had separated us into different rooms. So I listened from across the hall as the optician asked "which is better 1 or 2, now a or b ..." And then I heard my friend tell her that wow that one is really bad to which the doctor replied "honey, that's your own eyes we are done with the exam." And as many times as that story has been used as a punch line it holds a more profound lesson - in the midst of things sometimes we only realize how bad things are when we are coming out on the other side. Once things begin to come into focus we look back and think "wow, my vision / life really was blurry beyond what I realized." And as I began facing the holiday season and the coming new year that's what I began to discover - I was flipping between the "a's" and "b's" and the "1's" and "2's" and I was finally seeing that my life was coming into focus again. With the new prescription for living the way I wanted to and a new attitude I was coming out on the other side of a great depression.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> </div><div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Slowly through coffees and dinners with friends, phone calls, emails and the like I was beginning to tell more and more people where I had been and I how I was pulling myself up from it to become the new, improved me. I wasn't where I needed to be yet and I wasn't selling my story to the world, but as it came up or if people asked the right questions I wasn't hiding the facts anymore. And slowly in that time I was beginning to value the people that were in my life. No matter how many mistakes I had made or how far I'd fallen into depression during the years I had done a pretty good job of surrounding myself with some very incredible people. One of the things that I'd resolved to do was to try to be one of those people that offered the option of a helping hand for anyone that needed to take it. If only once in my life I was the person that was there when someone most needed it without knowing that I had made a difference on a day they needed it I would meet my goal, but hopefully I'd do even better than that. </div><div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">So as Thanksgiving neared I decided I needed to reflect on the things that I was actually thankful for this year. And when I looked at my life - jobless, moneyless and still a little mindless - what I saw the most was a lot of incredible people that had no idea what things they had done - small and large - to help me through all of which I had been encountering. And as I thought about how special some of the things they had done were, even when they didn't realize that they were even doing what I most needed, I decided in the spirit of the day I needed to thank a lot of them. Sometimes it was as simple as a funny comment someone uttered that made me smile when I no longer realized that I could. Or it was a group rallying to my side when I'd said I had a bad day - not asking for anything in return - but just letting me know that I had a cheering section. Or it was someone sitting across from me at a table at a coffee shop exploring where are lives where going as we communicated our thoughts and fears and admiration as her kids played around us obviously bored with our longwindedness, but not abandoning me when she knew I needed the confident. Or an out-of-the-blue text that just said someone was thinking about me. And sometimes it was someone telling me without any thought or reservation that if I needed to I had a home with him, he'd never let me be homeless. </div><div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">So, as the blurriness was fading and I was reflecting more and more I went through my list of friends and thought about what each and everyone of them meant to me. And I composed a short email to share with them on Thanksgiving since it seemed the natural day to thank people. It was a small start to acknowledging where I was and how close I was to finally "seeing" again.</div><div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">And so I sent the following Thanksgiving letter to a selection of people that may or may not have known what I was experiencing. For many of them they would have no idea what was really inspiring my thoughts, but I still felt like it was the first step that I needed to take in acknowledging the gifts that people had given me and in coming clean about where I was, who I was and where I was going. And so I quickly pressed the send key before I started to focus too much and chicken out. It wasn't like I was telling the world that I was sick, even though my mind was, but it was a step to telling some people that might not guess that my life had not been easy the past year. </div><blockquote><div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="color: blue;">" It was a struggle this year when facing a day dedicated to giving thanks when there has been so much to be despondent about this year. It inspires more contemplation, more soul-searching and more digging to find something for which you can say - 'for this I am truly happy.' But in all actuality I shouldn't have had to look far, because in this time I've discovered that sometimes there are people that you would never have known could be so wonderful. New people appear in your life when you need them most, old friends decide to pick that time to reconnect and the friends that have been there all along lend more support than they realize. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;"> So, on this day of thanks, I want each of you to know that my list this year may be small, but the gift that is there is far greater than any for which I could hope. For, that inventory, well it's filled with each of you that make my days in ways that you know and may not even fathom. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;"> Thank you all for being the people that you are and for being the people that I need.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;"> I love you all for the strength, hope and support you provide me. I only hope that one day I will be able to repay the favor in even a small way.</span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"> ...</span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"> Happy Thanksgiving Everyone! "</span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div></blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">It was only a start to telling the truth - to seeing how out of focus I had been - but it was a start and sometimes just beginning to see the letters and shapes and colors and numbers with only a little blurriness around the edges has to count for something. Some days seeing how bad your vision was and how good it can be is the best gift you can be given and I was thankful that the fuzzy edges were beginning to become clear again. It was like I'd too taken an eye exam and I was just waiting for those new, perfect lenses to arrive.</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2001789194996997138.post-41065263207828819002011-04-22T18:07:00.000-07:002011-04-22T18:14:02.537-07:00The Dawn of Friendship<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuzv9W8tq9si32_TPiRPYZMGCa-XW3Ogg01PU6os8qgNejg2leRgLDxXTs78vCYUHUfPu_NIieAaFSvDyhxG3Rf68K9fbpV3OI0pU7CCRMvu_2XWNcRkOhJ013AACvj0ydb7HIL-WyECYp/s1600/friends.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuzv9W8tq9si32_TPiRPYZMGCa-XW3Ogg01PU6os8qgNejg2leRgLDxXTs78vCYUHUfPu_NIieAaFSvDyhxG3Rf68K9fbpV3OI0pU7CCRMvu_2XWNcRkOhJ013AACvj0ydb7HIL-WyECYp/s1600/friends.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"> I've often felt like I wandered through life without friends. I never had a difficult time meeting or talking with people. I was not shy. I could usually find a group in which to fit regardless of the situation. But for most of my life I have felt like I have seldom had friends. Many of the times it was my own doing - I'd shove people away, guilt them in ways that I knew would make them want to escape or I'd ignore them knowing that they would move on and not look back. Several times though I would be in a group of people and I would feel like they were humoring me and I wasn't privy to the joke. I'd often choose not to do things with people just to avoid that very sad feeling. Even the few people that I would identify as my best and closest friends were not exempt from this - I would feel like even they would take short breaks from me to spend time with friends that were less exhausting and more together. And often times these very same people would tell me their deepest darkest secrets and I'd listen and talk with them and rush to their aid, but I never felt like I could do the same. I'd stand surrounded by a group that looked very much like my friends and all I would see was that I was alone. And so I started a habit of holding back a lot of what I thought and felt - always keeping some part of me private from almost everyone.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">The first time I recall feeling like this was in the middle of a slumber party in elementary school. Somewhere in the middle of all the fun I remember looking around and thinking that no one liked me. There were no adverse words said, no overt action, but somewhere between the gossip, the 45s playing Karma Chameleon on the record player and the game of truth or dare I felt alone. That moment was so clear to me - one moment I was dancing around singing and the next I was overcome with a profound sadness. Sometimes I would exist for long periods of time where I would feel accepted by those people that I called friends, but suddenly the feelings would drift over me and again I would experience that desolate feeling. Sometimes I would go months and months without feeling this way. Other times I would shift between thinking someone may or may not be a friend from minute to minute.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">During the year I was in eighth grade I was acutely aware that no one could stand me. I felt like I had one friend and although I would express a few of these feelings to her I mostly kept them to myself - I feared that exposing the truth that no one liked me would make her question why she might and I'd lose the only person with which I felt comfortable. At lunch I'd sit in a group with my "friends," I'd bring extra staples of the same meal I'd eat day in and day out for one of the members of my group that I though only liked me for that reason. And even though I'd talk with these friends, even though they would call me on the phone or return my calls, even though one might invite me to spend the night or we'd get ready to attend a dance together I still felt friendless. It wasn't logical but to me it was true.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">This pretty much continued on throughout high school. If you had asked me a few years ago I would have told you that I didn't have any friends during those four years. I had people that I talked with in class or in the halls, I had a lunch table where I sat with people and laughed about things that I can no longer remember until tears spilled from my eyes, but I was convinced that none of them liked me all that much. And yet if you peruse my photo albums there are pictures there of me smiling in groups of people looking happy as can be. My yearbooks are signed by people that wrote personal memories and left their numbers so that we would never lose touch - they weren't simple names or generic messages scrawled on the pages out of obligation from the person that handed you their yearbook. I had a collection of senior pictures from various people. But I spent almost no time outside of school with any of these people and I'm pretty sure that no one noticed. And yet as much as I often hurt inside I never turned to any of these people and told them how scared or lonely I was feeling.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">And so during the summer between high school and college I worked and meticulously checked items off my list as I packed things to escape to college. There I told myself I would finally have friends, the kind where I wouldn't feel so lonely in their presence. I would finally have people that I wasn't so afraid of losing that I was never myself. I made friends but it took me until the middle of my freshman year to feel like I'd finally found my group. And most of the time I felt like I had friends. I could walk down the hall and hang out in someone's room and have the deep philosophical discussions that you do in college. My freshman year we established traditions - Wednesday nights we'd order pizza and watch Doogie Howser and just laugh and talk on the one night that we reserved for noting else. My sophomore year the group of us that did not study abroad lived through my roommate turning on all of us and declaring how immoral we were. They rallied to my side when I didn't get the job at the newspaper that I wanted so badly as they made me laugh through my tears at Bonnie Doon's. We took road trips and we sat to all hours of the night and talked about everything and nothing. My junior year we were a fixture in the basement smoking lounge as we played countless games of euchre to avoid studying and talked about all manner of topics. We had all countless inside jokes that I still remember to this day. A small group of us were inseparable. When we weren't together it was almost shocking to anyone that knew us. I had a still larger circle of good friends that I could turn to if needed and yet I never did - I was the together one and yet I was always on the brink of not being so even though no one knew it. My room even somehow became the party room. When I entered my senior year I did so knowing that it would be both a continuation of the fun and also bittersweet because in the end we would all part ways - hopefully forever friends but still spread out across the country. And that beginning of the year was everything I had hoped it would be. Football games, nights out at the Linebacker where I wore as many Long Island Iced Teas as I drank and long nights in the offices of the newspaper dominated my days. I suffered along with all my friends through my senior comprehensive. It holds some of my favorite stories of all time - one of mashed potatoes; one that contains Sean Astin, Vince Vaughn, Notre Dame football players and the premiere of Rudy; one with a cute boy in a blue shirt; one of a mouse, a trap and my hammer and one of the Griswold's house come to life. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">And then when I returned to school second semester of my senior year it all came crashing down. One of my roommates dropped out of school, the other was occupied with her fiance and again I was all alone in a very large room. And so the long streak of feeling like I had friends ended abruptly. And I retreated. I went to class, I went to work and I hid out in my room. I largely ignored my other friends unless they actively sought me out. I'd spend the nights when I would normally be with my friends either holed up at the newspaper working or in front of the television. And there were a few days when I wouldn't get out of bed for more than a few minutes a day. And no one noticed. All the people that I thought were my friends had no clue that for the first time in three years I was again dying inside. And I hated myself for believing that I could have friends for so long - I should have known that eventually the bottom would fall out. And I never sought anyone out to tell any of this. I figured it was a good ride and I was back to being the me that I would always be. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">And so I graduated. And again I posed on the lawn with groups of friends and smiled in pictures. And still as difficult as the second semester had been I was still sad to leave. For one of the first times in my life I had made genuine friends. Ones that I had shared some of those dark fears inside of me. Ones that saw the hurt inside of me when I wasn't even admitting it to myself. I had still held back a lot but most of the time I was me and that is why for the first time in my life I felt accepted and loved by people that were not related to me. I was sure that I would keep in touch with these friends even after we all moved away. Graduation night I went out with friends and looked around and realized that I didn't believe I'd ever have this again. College was not the world and it just seemed like it was the only environment where I would get friendship right. And as we toasted graduation and our futures and all the promise that we believed that we held I was happy for my accomplishment and sad all the same. I wasn't sure I was ready to face the real world. I didn't want to leave this group of people that knew me better than anyone ever had. And so the next day as I loaded the last box into the car and took that first ride as an alumna down The Avenue and back to the world that was always so much of a mystery to me I let the tears roll down my eyes and said goodbye to that very good chapter of my life.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">And so I entered the long stretch of my life where I isolated myself and just stopped living. I could act with the best of them, but if I let my mind wander I realized that I really didn't have anyone. And the one person that had been a constant in my life for so many years - well I even stopped talking much to her. I'd email sporadically a few friends from college but there was so little on which to catch them up that I just avoided it all together. I carried on and talked to people at work but I'd go home and escape into a book or television and not really do much of anything. It almost just seemed like it was easier to not have to worry about maintaining friendships at all since so much of the time I didn't really feel like the people liked me anyway. And so I moved from day to day to day in the loneliness and isolation with which I protected myself.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">And years and years passed. People would invite me places and I'd figure out a reason not to be there. Or I'd feign that I might make it knowing that I would never even try. Life just stretched on in front of me and none of it seemed like it was worth the effort. I would be there for any person that asked for aid from me - I'd listen, I'd rally, I'd help - but I never let them see that I needed the same in return. Life just seemed easier that way.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">So when I finally decided that I would make changes reestablishing friendships was high on my list. I wrote long emails to those that I had touched base with from time to time. And I started making an effort. And when people asked me to do things I would show up and I found myself even initiating plans. And it felt good to surround myself with people again. The more and more people that I reconnected with that more I began to realize that either we had all changed a lot or that maybe the contempt and hate that I imagined that all these people had felt for me had been just that - imaginary. I wondered if I had been wrong all along - maybe people didn't think I was as awful of a person as I did. Maybe the loneliness that I felt was more about me and my perceptions than reality. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">When I began the slide into depression I kept that fact and those feelings very private, but I didn't push away or abandon my friends this time. And even though I wasn't leaning on them when I needed them most I found that they still seemed to support me and hold me up in ways that helped me cope for as long as I had. And as much as I now felt that most of these people actually liked me and the person that I was I still was embarrassed of how they might react to my depression so I kept it pretty private from most of those closest to me. But once I began my treatment and had met someone that I was so real with and they didn't run I decided that I would begin to test the waters. And so slowly when the situation warranted it I began to share a little more about me - and no one ran. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">And I began to realize something - I had offered up the advice several times that those that really mattered, those people that were really your friends - they would be there through it all. It wouldn't matter to them that you were politically liberal if they weren't, they wouldn't be offended if your view of spirituality didn't match their own, they wouldn't care if one time you said something that seemed insensitive because they would know you well enough to know that you valued them. Those that were offended and turned away, well they weren't the people that valued you or your friendship to begin with anyway. I hadn't taken my own advice to heart, but I was beginning to do so. I finally was coming face to face with a reality that I should have discovered for myself much earlier - people don't often surround themselves with people that they don't like. They don't seek out the advice of people if they don't respect. They don't spend hours talking to someone that they can't stand. Yes, there are times and places where people pretend, but in most instances they don't carry on the guise if it is not something they don't need to do. And if you aren't really you, if you hold back from those people that you call your friends you are only damaging yourself. If you don't talk out your problems, your fears, your insecurities and your successes then you are the one responsible for not being the type of friend that you should be because friendship is a two-way street. Friends are friends - they are the people that you choose to keep in your life - they say something about the person that you are and the person that you want to be. And for so long I had surrounded myself with the best kinds of people and I had not felt worthy of being in their circle and so I felt lonely. But, as I began to accept myself, as I began to let people know me I finally felt again like I had a circle of friends - the best of the best - and if I never accomplished anything else in my life but this I was still pretty blessed. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuzv9W8tq9si32_TPiRPYZMGCa-XW3Ogg01PU6os8qgNejg2leRgLDxXTs78vCYUHUfPu_NIieAaFSvDyhxG3Rf68K9fbpV3OI0pU7CCRMvu_2XWNcRkOhJ013AACvj0ydb7HIL-WyECYp/s1600/friends.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"> </a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuzv9W8tq9si32_TPiRPYZMGCa-XW3Ogg01PU6os8qgNejg2leRgLDxXTs78vCYUHUfPu_NIieAaFSvDyhxG3Rf68K9fbpV3OI0pU7CCRMvu_2XWNcRkOhJ013AACvj0ydb7HIL-WyECYp/s1600/friends.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"> </a></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2001789194996997138.post-12306488033823986792011-04-14T19:31:00.000-07:002011-04-14T19:31:23.692-07:00Eyes Wide Open<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCVuHHIhHNv8oRPI8fxFdZZyIAUgsWSsvM5YNk5FYPOq8pEjeJepn8_E7sWFTjYDDvFDODFU83nrpptDuaVEEvp14kpyTKbq1tOlJbfd8UZv7A24dzsqK80zciq90OiMlnrNrDAKlNI4NQ/s1600/IMG_20110414_210509.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="203" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCVuHHIhHNv8oRPI8fxFdZZyIAUgsWSsvM5YNk5FYPOq8pEjeJepn8_E7sWFTjYDDvFDODFU83nrpptDuaVEEvp14kpyTKbq1tOlJbfd8UZv7A24dzsqK80zciq90OiMlnrNrDAKlNI4NQ/s320/IMG_20110414_210509.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>There is a strange world that lurks during the hours when most people sleep. I had known nothing of this world really. It's filled with people that chat on the computer during the wee hours of the morning or post on facebook about how they can't sleep only to find several friends that respond about how they too are awake. On the television it's filled with programs like ABC's World News Now where you can watch the stories of the goings on in the world peppered with the anchors joking that their demographic is mothers with nursing babies, people that work overnight shifts in hospitals and insomniacs. And now this world had a new member in its posse - me.<br />
<br />
Never in my life had I suffered sleepless nights. I was always the person that seemed to suffer more from hypersomnia if anything. But here I was - night after night - and sleep eluded me. I'd often find myself able to drift off somewhere around 6 a.m., sometimes 7 a.m. and two hours later I'd be up again for the day. I was walking through life in a fairly exhausted state but no matter what time of day I couldn't seem to find sleep for more than a few hours at a time. And so my "nightly" sleep and sometimes a short afternoon nap was pretty much the extent of what I could seem to achieve. So I was functioning each day on anywhere from two to four hours of broken sleep and it went on and on and on, day after day after day.<br />
<br />
And so every night I was left alone with only my thoughts - and the less I slept that more self-defeating they seemed to become. I'd even stopped venturing much to the confines of my bedroom. It was much better for me to pass out exhausted on my sofa watching television or staring at my laptop then it was to lie in bed with my eyes wide open as I silently cried. And the tears were numerous as I kept thinking about how hopeless the present and the future currently looked - again. <br />
<br />
I wasn't in the dark about at least part of the origin of this phenomenon - my anxiety about possibly losing an important friendship, the cancer scare of another, wondering if I'd find employment and financial apprehensions were all weighing on my mind. Add to that the side effect from my medication, that before this had only been mild sleeplessness that had robbed me of an hour or two of my normal, and I was now a walking poster child for how insomnia develops.<br />
<br />
And so here I sat again - wide awake - as the hours ticked away. My thoughts were not the best companion. I was petrified of how quickly my life had seemed to be coming together and how rapidly it now seemed to be falling back apart. Those few hours when my body would become so exhausted that it fell into a slumber were blissful. When I'd look at the clock an hour or two later, weary but awake, I would curse what was happening to me. And then again there would be new tears - this time in frustration. <br />
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Eventually I fell into some unhealthy patterns. That is more unhealthy than merely not sleeping -ever. First, I started to eat and never anything healthy. For two months I had never turned to my familiar comfort of food and the results were evident in looser clothes and a smaller number on the scale. Now the allure of things that were bad for me was too great. It was at least something to do to get through the boredom. And deep down I knew that it was really worse than I was admitting. I'd stare at my phone waiting for it to ring and when it didn't I'd find myself mindlessly eating as I cried. I felt my heart breaking in the absence of one of my best friends. I was filling the space with my long-time friend - food - which wasn't as worthy a companion, but it was the one that was there by my side at the time. And then once I'd contemplate what I had just done I'd hate myself and my weakness even more. <br />
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I needed something that would occupy me throughout the nights. I had no energy, so it had to be something non-strenuous. And I still had little concentration so it couldn't be complex. Those parameters left very few options.<br />
<br />
Eventually I found a friend to chat with that worked overnight monitoring a system server that pretty much had very little work to do other than being there to prevent a disaster and running a report in the early morning. We'd often fill the hours instant messaging until he left at 4 a.m. and I tried to find something to do to pass the rest of the night. He finished work at 6 a.m. and most of the time I'd still be awake to see him log off. We even played a somewhat risky game - where we'd tempt fate by talking about non-work friendly issues using euphemism and descriptions to fool the serve that only scanned for key words in employee correspondence. But he didn't work every night. And so as the rest of the world slept I searched for another insomniac. What I found was a graduate student up one night studying and taking a brief break. He held my interest enough in my sleep-deprived state and so I started talking to him more and more as the days passed but I wasn't really invested in it. It wasn't kind or fair of me to occupy the time of someone that I knew wouldn't turn into anything. I didn't like the person that wasn't being completely honest with herself in the situation - deep down I knew that he was thinking as more time passed that I was no longer just talking to him because I couldn't sleep and I took advantage of that. The hours that I occupied talking with him were ones that I didn't need to occupy myself. And so the guilt also began to build to join the exhaustion, the anxiety and everything else that seemed to be swirling around inside my mind.<br />
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And the less I slept the more incomplete I began to feel again. My exhaustion was robbing me of more than my energy. I was trying to fill a void in my life, but anything I found to fill it was fleeting. It would do in the moment, but it didn't last beyond that. And as much as I hated to admit it that just made everything worse. Trying to filling my life with meaninglessness made me feel hollow. Knowing that I could only find things that held little value for me made me feel worse about myself. I was recognizing the pattern.<br />
<br />
I was watching myself slide backward but I couldn't stop it.<br />
<br />
And the timing of this slide could not have been worse - I had to stop therapy because I no longer had insurance and sadly on the balance sheet it counted more as a luxury than a necessity. And then the one person in my life that had told me he didn't understand why I needed therapy - that he would always be there for me whenever I needed it no matter what time it was or how silly I thought that need might be - well, he wasn't answering my calls. I was lost and I was too tired to figure out where the path was to return to sanity. <br />
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Try as I might I didn't know how to solve any of my issues. And if I could figure out how to sleep again I might clear my mind just enough to discover some answers, but sleep would just not come. The only thing that I could seem to do was cry. I had mastered the tears.<br />
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Days turned into weeks. Then the weeks turned into a month. And soon enough it was time to turn the page one more month on the calendar. And as time continued to pass I still could not sleep. And now I couldn't even concentrate enough to count sheep if I wanted. I felt like I was heading into the territory of an entirely new type of crazy - one where my eyes were wide open but couldn't see through the fog.<br />
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Even though I was exhausted the days were easier. During the daytime hours I could make phone calls to friends, go to lunch with my mom, meet a friend for coffee or just browse through the aisles of a store. I had things to occupy and distract me. At night I was alone. And even after I'd forged the shaky treaty with my friend and learned that my loved one didn't have cancer, sleep still evaded me. I was frustrated, pure and simple, with the fact that I couldn't sleep. <br />
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I found new ways to occupy my time - I worked endlessly on jewelry and my etsy site in the wee hours of the morning. I researched and investigated marketing techniques. I read job searching blogs, googled companies that I wanted to target and filled out job applications. And still even though I felt horrible about it I kept talking to the person that I should not have. <br />
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And still - I COULD NOT SLEEP. It had now been three months since I'd really had a decent night's slumber. The first time I found myself sleeping more than two hours in a night was when I was hit with a nasty flu bug - the flu or no sleep - if someone had asked me to choose I wasn't sure that I wouldn't have chosen a few more days of the flu. But the bug passed and so did my tentative pattern of sleep. I couldn't keep living like this - I was starting to resemble the walking dead.<br />
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And then that day came when I talked again with my friend that I'd almost lost. We talked a lot that night. Words that were exchanged surprised me. There was so much misunderstanding that had taken place. I had been laying across my bed that night when we hung up the phone in the early morning hours late in January and almost immediately I fell asleep. And for the first time since the beginning of October I awoke nine hours later. I didn't believe the numbers that looked out at me from my ipod dock. I picked up my phone and checked the time on it and sure enough it was not a joke - I had slept.<br />
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I couldn't be this simple right? After months of not sleeping one phone call could not an insomniac cure - could it?<br />
<br />
With the clarity of my non-sleep depraved mind I thought that I might need to wait a few days to make sure that it wasn't just a fluke. But that night I climbed into bed at a decent hour when I felt tired and I drifted off to sleep pretty easily and woke up seven hours. And the next night - sleep. And it carried on into the next week.<br />
<br />
And now that I wasn't wading through the days and nights with weary wide open eyes I had time to really stop and examine why I had stopped sleeping. I tried on a few theories and mulled them over for days at a time before I reached my conclusion - that talk had cleared my mind. I'd said the things that I needed to say not only to him, but about me. I'd shared my proud and not so proud moments. I told him how scared I was that I hadn't really found work yet. I worked out for the first time in words the plan I'd been contemplating on the job front. I'd told him how anxious I'd been about the cancer and how worried I still was. I talked and been real and vulnerable. I'd laid everything out there, listened to the responses, discussed the possibilities and heard someone say some really kind words about me. Eventually I would learn something more from this, but for now I knew that not sleeping had been about something more than a few bad things befalling me. And for now that and actually sleeping again would have to be enough.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2001789194996997138.post-76032380220837084882011-04-06T06:10:00.000-07:002011-04-06T17:48:05.230-07:00How the Mighty Have Fallen<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj00GNx1M707mVb6URdVnE2JYn50qpPlFCTYRi8DvDL3Zn0UJXYWae9AqQp3GaatT2GsIanzJp9kadFEOvrrbLYrBFCyZPvC7s0zBBNtYrqxft9V_JaXXX7q_sI2p5p9t0O7NcELu9dova5/s1600/hand.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="194" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj00GNx1M707mVb6URdVnE2JYn50qpPlFCTYRi8DvDL3Zn0UJXYWae9AqQp3GaatT2GsIanzJp9kadFEOvrrbLYrBFCyZPvC7s0zBBNtYrqxft9V_JaXXX7q_sI2p5p9t0O7NcELu9dova5/s320/hand.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>I'd been a master at carefully packaging the person that I presented to the world including the people that I counted as my closest friends and confidants. There was usually surprise when I told someone what had been happening. No one suspected the depth of my unhappiness, despondence and depression and that I had slowly been robbed of my self-esteem and self-worth.<br />
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But then something happened and I showed a glimpse of what I had been hiding inside. From that very small lapse two very special, wonderful people noticed and sent messages to check in on me. It was one of the nicest things that anyone had ever done. Two people, that at the time were not my closest friends, saw something and they just wanted to make sure that I was both all right and that I knew they were there if I wasn't.<br />
<br />
When I first started my slide I'd been hyper-aware of putting up the front that all was fine and then once I admitted to myself that I wasn't all right I began improving and saw the value in the power of positive thinking. I'd been very careful what I posted in the world of social media to keep up the act; I didn't want to be one of "those" people that never had anything positive or humorous to say even when inside I felt neither uplifted nor funny. But then two things happened that took me by surprise and all the progress that I made was sidetracked and the cracks began to show and that was what two very astute women noticed.<br />
<br />
I was positive that I was on the right path for the first time in a long time. I was feeling good about things, including myself. I was beginning to feel like a person again. And then I had what can best be termed a misunderstanding with a very dear friend and it threw me for a loop. A few days later news was delivered that someone that I loved likely had cancer. So while I was able to disguise things for so long this is what tested my acting skills. This is what their very keen, intuitive selves were noticing in me. And when I read their emails with tears in my eyes, thinking how much it meant to me that they would take the time to offer help, all I could keep thinking was oh, how my mighty self had yet again fallen. I had let these incidents derail me. And there I was lying on the tracks trying to figure out whether or not I had survived and two hands came from out of nowhere when I was sure that I would be left for dead to help lift me up back onto my feet. There is not one part of me that won't always have a special place in my heart for those two angels of sorts that offered aid. Hit from out of nowhere with this possibility that I had destroyed one of my most important relationships, and then with the thought that I might lose yet one more person to cancer, I was right back at rock bottom wondering if it might just not be better to accept my fate that I would never figure it out or get it right or be a good enough person to deserve love and friendship; I would just never be happy. It wasn't that I felt "why me," it was more like "why bother, nothing really matters, I always end up back at start." And yet their gesture of caring was so simple and pure that I had to see that it meant something more. I had to face what was happening and figure out how to either fix it or grieve the loss and let go. <br />
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While one of my great skills is that I'm a master debater of sorts -I'd aced my college course in argumentation and I'd never faced a intellectual match in which I couldn't hold my own - I was not a fighter in anything but the academic sense. When someone chose to exit my life I pretty much let them leave. A lot of the time I pushed people away on purpose seeing if they were committed enough to try to come back. It was my greatest fear in life - to be abandoned - it was why I always held part of myself back in all my relationships so that I would never lose everything, every part of me, every time. It's so much easier to push someone to leave then it is to face the rejection if they choose to do so. I expected that people would grow bored with me. I knew that I was too much of something to really be loved by many, if any, people. I'd experienced it first in my relationship with my dad and from that time forward I'd been guarded, alone and not whole with most everyone. But this time, whether it was because I'd seen a light or that I had actually let that guard down for once, I couldn't bear to let this person go. Once those angels picked me up I wanted to battle. I couldn't pick a fight with the cancer, so I decided instead to try to win back the relationship that was at best in jeopardy. When out of nowhere they offered to care needed to mean something to me, it needed to mean that I had to care about myself at least as much as they had.<br />
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And so, I wouldn't let this person go this time without making a valiant attempt to recover the relationship. I could take responsibility for any mistake I'd committed, but I wouldn't allow myself to not try. And for the first time I saw something deep within me that I rarely experienced - I wanted to be a person that was worthy of those that were in my life and for this one particular person I wanted to face all my fears. For once I could see the value in saving something important to me. I loved what this person represented, but there was also much more. I loved who this person was, faults and all, without question and that was possible because I was for once all me with someone. I loved myself and the person that I was in his presence and the person that he made me want to be. Without him and the support of those two special women I wouldn't have wanted to or needed to fight - I would just have carried on like I had in the past, finding a way to live that really didn't involve much living at all. I would have just given up on him and in turn on me. And so if I was going to make it past my depression once and for all I had to fight this time - it was more than just keeping someone near and dear to me in my life, it was also a fight for me - the person that I wanted to be. I no longer wanted to be someone that didn't care about herself or her life. I didn't want to be content to just get by any longer. I wanted to be a person that could find those few simple things in life that would fill my heart's desires. I think that deep down I knew these things - I had made progress - but seeing that caring gesture from my two friends helped me arrive at the conclusion when I could still do something about it. <br />
<br />
And so I fought - and sadly I admit that because I had never tried before I made some mistakes and landed some punches that I never should have taken. I threw out some guilt- of which I am not proud and wish I could retract even today. I didn't know how to do this and I know that I went about it all wrong, I was embarrassed by the level of desperation that I was feeling and in turn knew I was displaying. When the mighty fall they don't always fight back in the best possible way, but I was hoping that something, anything would work. It was this important to me. I wish that I could be more proud of how I executed my battle plan but I wasn't sorry that I was making an effort. I wasn't sorry for wanting what I knew was the right thing for me and being determined to achieve it if I could. <br />
<br />
And each time that I pushed the call button on my contact list next to the name I waited with hopeful anticipation as I listened to the ringing and then felt my heart sink lower again when the phone flipped to voice mail. When I sent a few emails or text messages with no reply I wondered how long I would be able to keep up the plan before I folded. I tried to walk a thin line between acceptable contact and overdoing it but I had no idea if I was accomplishing my goal or not. I just kept hoping that losing a friend was not the price I was going to have to pay to learn a lesson.<br />
<br />
Eventually after weeks of no response I finally sent a text where I basically was admitting defeat "So I'm never going to hear from you again am I?" About 45 minutes later when I heard my text message alert I wasn't positive that my ears weren't playing tricks on me. Sitting in a restaurant at a table with a friend, I glanced at the screen and saw a response and I did everything that I could to hold back my tears of relief. I hoped that for once I wasn't reading too much into someone's words. That night I waited anxiously for the phone to ring. I knew that this was not going to be an easy conversation but I was just happy that I would have another chance. A few hours after the phone rang a very tenuous treaty was reached. It wasn't until three months later, when we stumbled into a conversation again about the incident, with time and distance giving it some clarity, that I finally felt like we were once again friends. That night I silently breathed a large sigh of relief. I finally felt less trepidation. <br />
<br />
But even before that I'd learned a great deal about me. I learned that when something mattered, when someone mattered, there was nothing wrong with thinking that just letting it go was not the answer. I might not always win like I had this time, but sometimes I could and that made it worth the effort to save something important. And I learned that I wasn't perfect but I liked this person that was afraid and vulnerable but willing to put herself on the line a whole lot more than the person that just let life pass her by without much thought. And I liked that for the first time in my memory I had let two people help me when I needed it most - I didn't try to say I was fine and rebuke their offer. I learned that even when I was facing the wrath of what could happen when you let someone know you I was still willing to take the chance. And I was learning that I had a tremendous network around me of good people that I failed to appreciate or recognize. And so grabbing onto those hands wasn't easy or comfortable for me but I am so happy that I did.<br />
<br />
Now I was moving forward with three people in my life that had at various times all offered me an incredible gift of caring and that was why they were monumental in my life. They saw value in the person that I was when I was seeing none. For whatever reason it might be, they were willing to take a chance on friendship with a person that couldn't understand why anyone would bother. There simple words "I'd like to talk, I'm looking forward to it actually," "You seemed a little down last week about your goals and not meeting them ... just thought I'd try to get in touch" and "what's getting you down?" were bigger and more important then they will ever understand. When people see you and look past the exterior facade to discover the truth about a person - that realness that you don't always like and rarely love - and still see value in you, well those are the people that you grab hold of and don't let go. You hope that they will never have to endure the depth of suffering that you just had, but you know that that you would jump to their rescue without a thought to make a small repayment for all they had done for you. And yet again that is the important stuff of life - the stuff that matters and these three mattered to me. They will always be important people in my life if I have any say. They are three remarkable people that each came into my life at a time when I needed them most. If the people with which you surround yourself say something about who you are as a person then I knew that no one would ever again question my worth as long as those three were in my life. And so for those special and simple words, that caring hand that they offered and that worth that they saw in me I am forever grateful. The world would be a better place if there were more of these kind of angels in it.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2001789194996997138.post-25984301425519440162011-04-01T04:26:00.000-07:002011-04-01T18:35:03.513-07:00When I Grow Up<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgESugKs493tcsK0SL_L1rFNHcXdraKnsC9GDX6eIJdcvER1Ima3lD2IblV1xwc4-u9LiWTO4HY0hkyBnpzIJl7uVMgWGX5i0Tew7m49Flp5u7GQfnSKQjXDuWfu6FJAG9ieDetklF3Pmb_/s1600/tree_growth_chart.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgESugKs493tcsK0SL_L1rFNHcXdraKnsC9GDX6eIJdcvER1Ima3lD2IblV1xwc4-u9LiWTO4HY0hkyBnpzIJl7uVMgWGX5i0Tew7m49Flp5u7GQfnSKQjXDuWfu6FJAG9ieDetklF3Pmb_/s320/tree_growth_chart.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> There were very few moments in my life when I questioned what I wanted to be. The list of careers I'd envisioned was very small. At various times I'd wanted to be a mommy, a teacher, a pediatrician and then a journalist. That was it. The first one could go hand-in-hand with any of the other three. I wanted to be a teacher in my very first years of school as I imagine a lot of children do. By about age seven I'd changed to the doctor route of thinking which lasted until my sophomore year in high school when I sat in a journalism class and then I knew within moments of composing my first piece that I wanted to be a writer. And being a journalist fit with my natural curiosity - I could get paid to dig, research and ask people invasive questions and that was perfect. <br />
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Throughout college I studied communication and political science in a liberal arts environment while outside of class I worked for four years at my college newspaper. I was always driven with a single-minded purpose of what I wanted to do and how I was going to accomplish that. And then I graduated and entered the very real world of small-town journalism - and for the first time ever I hated what I was doing. Pleasing advertisers was now paramount. Quantity of stories trumped quality. And one day when I stared at the flats and found a glaring error in the content of a headline that didn't match what it said in a story I pointed it out to the editor only to be told that "you are too concerned with accuracy." And that was that. I found myself crying on the phone to my mom that this job was never going to get better. And for the first time in my life I didn't have a plan. I applied for more journalism jobs but eventually I found a fit for myself in the world of public relations and event planning. It was the natural flip side of what I had trained to do in life.<br />
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And then fifteen years later I was sitting here facing the same question - now what? Did I just hate my job or did I hate what I did? Was I even a good public relations professional? Could I do this for the rest of my life? And fundamentally I was again staring at the question of <i>What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up?</i> even though I'd given it very little thought in the past. I had been applying furiously during the past month for employment in the same field in which I was working, but somehow now that I no longer had a job I felt the need to examine if it was even what I wanted to do.<br />
<br />
In my misery at work I'd often dreamed and talked about doing other things. I'd investigated graduate schools as a means to a career change a few times. But now I was thinking this was my last chance to really get it right. If I wanted to make a major leap this was the time. And because I'd been robbed of so much of myself and my esteem the last few years a lot of my questioning had to do with whether or not I was even capable of finding a career in my field. Was I good with people? Did I communicate well? Could I construct a sentence? Should I be calling myself a public relations professional? Should I be calling myself a writer? Was everyone laughing secretly when I said any of those things? I was petrified of the future all of a sudden and it was because I no longer knew what I was good at doing or what would make me happy. I'd been so wrapped up in hearing my faults and failures that I knew that the image I was seeing was warped, but I didn't know to what extent. What did I want to be when I grew up? <br />
<br />
On the first morning that I was jobless I applied for several positions online. I investigated and viewed various stories about finding a career in the "new" world. I applied a lot of the advice I found but I still wondered about the questions that I was asking myself. The one thing that I knew in that moment was that never again could I work in the type of environment from which I had just escaped. Everyone has bad days at work but I had just had three bad years. I knew that since I was finding myself jobless that I just didn't want to settle for anything, I wanted to settle for something that I loved. I wanted to finally be able to tell people what I did with pride. And when someone told me how incredible what I did sounded, as they often had with my previous job, I wanted to nod my head and agree but really mean it.<br />
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So I spent time trying to extract my feelings about the tasks I actually performed in my job from how I felt about where I had worked. It was a very carefully executed surgery. I wanted to do this right. I wanted to have a clearly thought-out plan that made sense in light of the person I wanted to be and the talents that I possessed. I wanted to be one of those people that loved what I did for a living. I also wanted to be one of those people that used the talents that I had to excel. Now I just had to figure out what those things were.<br />
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The first thing that I discovered when I voiced some of these issues that were troubling me was that I had an incredible cheering section in my corner. There were people that believed in me when my faith in myself was faltering at best. I also knew that I was not a reliable source when it came to determining anything that related to my self-worth, identity or abilities in my current state; I was better but I was still wallowing in the depths of depression to which I had slowly sunk and getting out of that was not something that just happened overnight. I loved and trusted people that were in my life and I needed to lean on them for guidance when it came to determining what I might be able to do with my future and what things I could list as my talents. I had to do what was most uncomfortable to me - that which never came naturally - that which I wasn't sure I wanted to know the answer - I had to ask people about me and their perceptions about the person that I was. Did I want to know how the world viewed me? I knew what I'd been hearing for the past few years and none of it was good or solicited, was I ready to hear what people that I cared about thought? If any one of the people whose advice I sought didn't think that I was good at the things that I would need to start the career path that I wanted to take then what?<br />
<br />
And I hated that I was looking at questions in front of me that most people struggle with when they are much younger but I never had, and now I couldn't even put voice to them. <i>When I grow up what do I want to be? </i>And the one answer that kept appearing was happy - when I grow up I want to be happy. I was pretty sure that it wasn't a category that I could search for on careerbuilder.com or within the pages of <i>What Color is Your Parachute</i>. Happy is not really something that you get paid to be. How did I find that place within a career? And what profession? How did I once again become that girl that sat in class her sophomore year in high school who just knew in an instant what she wanted to do? That girl was one that trusted her gut-instinct and then investigated the way to make that career path happen. She was the same girl that applied to one college, and one college only, early decision because when she went to her first (and again only) college visit she just knew it was the right place for her to be at that time. She was a girl that was so full of confidence in her academic abilities and what she wanted to be that when she wrote her admission essay she crafted her answer to the topic <i>Tell us about a woman that you admire and why</i> by writing about herself as she envisionied the accomplished person that she was twenty years in the future. And sadly the twenty year mark was a mere three years away and that girl had become none of those things.<br />
<br />
I wondered how I'd fallen so far from the path of what I'd always wanted to be. And when I really thought about it - when I admitted it to myself - I'd given up. That girl had faced the world, found it difficult, took an easy route with a job that didn't challenge her and then trapped herself in it for fifteen years. How easy it had been for my employer to steal my self-worth when I'd left it at the door years before for the taking. In all those years when I was struggling with my past and hiding from the world I'd given up on what I wanted to be the first moment things weren't so easy. So I was still nagged by the notion of what I wanted to be when I grew up because at some point I'd stopped growing. When I had implemented all the changes in my life for those few adult years when I'd been happy there were only two areas where I hadn't gotten it right and one of those was my career path. I'd never really delved into the depths of the question of what I wanted to do when I stopped wanting to be what I decided as my future at age sixteen.<br />
<br />
So I was back at the basic questions now - <i>What am I good at? What do I want to do? What do I want to be when I grow up?</i><br />
<br />
And after much thinking and musing and questioning and talking and asking those questions of people that I was frightened to ask I finally discovered that I pretty much wanted to be doing the same kind of things that I had been with a few key differences. I wanted to work somewhere where I would get constructive criticism that would help me improve. I wanted to be good at what I did but never have it be something that was static or boring. I wanted to be challenged. I had the talents to do what I'd been doing but they weren't being fostered - I was going it alone. At the end of the day it wasn't going to matter to me that my check totaled any more than what I needed it to to cover my expenses of living with a little extra here and there to buy clothes I didn't need or go out with friends for some fun times. I was never going to be driven by money as much as passion. I needed to feel like I was making a difference in the world. I needed to leave my place of employment most days feeling good about what I was doing with my life. I needed to be able to tell people where I worked and what I did without feeling embarrassed. I just genuinely wanted to like what I was doing and I wanted to do it well.<br />
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So finally I had an idea of what kind of career "happy" was and I just needed to figure out a way and path to make it happen. Never again was I going to settle for just a job. I wasn't going to stunt my growth on the path to what I wanted to be when I grew up.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2001789194996997138.post-51260940855883856422011-03-23T16:28:00.000-07:002011-03-23T21:14:46.305-07:00The Not-So-Sad Goodbye<div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhL2vlMOpe24mkjeupYL2vD6imFVmtXXBfhWoj8k_lZPN-KbtuMZQZb9iypk5N65dHn-gn-HcK_iC9RM1QSZIccyMhCbMXPn9hfLNUXGiXePOOeQ9FyUeyyNjAs6KXyGtyzQN5NL1TeldZ/s1600/goodbye.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhL2vlMOpe24mkjeupYL2vD6imFVmtXXBfhWoj8k_lZPN-KbtuMZQZb9iypk5N65dHn-gn-HcK_iC9RM1QSZIccyMhCbMXPn9hfLNUXGiXePOOeQ9FyUeyyNjAs6KXyGtyzQN5NL1TeldZ/s320/goodbye.bmp" width="320" /></a></div>There was no doubt about it, I was getting better. I thought it, I felt it, I looked it, there was no denying this truth. For the first time in more than a year I didn't always hate my life or myself. I was twenty pounds lighter and who knows how much that number would be if you added in the emotional weight that I'd shed. People that I had not seen much in the six weeks that I had been on my "improvement retreat" noticed the transformation instantly. And so I knew that as much as I hated to I was going to have to return to my regularly scheduled life. <br />
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One of my friends had expressed her concern, because while I had changed it was very clear from the phone calls, emails and text messages that I received while away that where I had to return to had not. I was beyond petrified of being drug back down again. I was armed with my stress-busting and anti-anxiety techniques. I had a sane strategy for how I would deal with difficult encounters. I had anticipated and practiced conversations with my therapist and several times in my head with the person that was my nemesis. I was visualizing how the "changed" me would fit back into the world. But, I was still scared of what could happen. What if I started to slide a little, didn't notice and then slid some more until I was right back in that deep, dark hole? <br />
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When I visited the doctor, three weeks after I'd collapsed in the midst of an anxiety attack in her presence, I knew that there would be no breakdown this time. So as I filled out the same form that I had before I looked carefully at the questions that faced me - "How much do you feel like your normal self?" I contemplated the answer for several minutes. I was better, but I wasn't whole. I opted for a number that indicated progress, but not perfection - 70 percent. And faced with the question of what still needed treatment, what was still making it difficult for me to live everyday life the answers were the same as before - lack of concentration, anxiety and inability to face work. <br />
<br />
When the doctor appeared at the door to the lobby and called my name I actually smiled genuinely at her. Life was finally starting to feel like less work. We talked about medications, side effects, what I had done during the past three weeks and when she said "I think you are ready to return to work," I told her reluctantly that I did not want to, but I knew it was something which I had to do. I needed to face down my fears and my "enemy." So this time she wrote my prescription, talked about when she wanted to see me again and wrote a note that said I could return to work on a part-time basis. We were going to test the waters and help me acclimate. <br />
<br />
I went home, looked around my house and saw physical evidence of all my progress. I had filled countless trash bags with things that I should have thrown away ages before, I'd hauled numerous collected items to goodwill, I had organized a good portion of my life again. The progress wasn't complete, just like I wasn't, but it was evident. I still had a list of things that I knew needed to be done, but now they were smaller tasks, ones that wouldn't be as obvious to anyone, ones that didn't feel so daunting. And my mind had begun to feel less cluttered too. The medications had taken hold, the therapy was working, and I was finally making connections that were helping me heal. Everything was less foggy. But none of that meant that I didn't have trepidation about what I had to face. <br />
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The next day, when I walked though that door into my place of employment, on time for the first time in ages, I did so with my head held high - I could do this I told myself. I smiled and greeted people, I answered questions when asked and in general I heard a lot of "welcome back." In my pocket was a smooth rock - my worry stone. In my purse I carried a piece of cloth scented with lavender oil. And on the outside of the monitor of my computer I placed a small note that I could look at as a reminder to breathe and focus. I was armed with all that had been given to me the past six weeks to face the inevitable. The first thing that I noticed was it seemed that nothing had changed outside of me, this was not going to be easy and if I stayed for any length of time it would be even more difficult. I was a changed woman living in a world that was static. <br />
<br />
In the end I made it through the day my half day of work and the next one. Two half days of work and I was exhausted. The weekend was a welcome friend, two whole days of peace. I wasn't sure that after working only two half days that I should have looked forward to a break as much as I had. <br />
<br />
On Friday afternoon I went to lunch with one of my two colleagues that actually knew what was going on with me. I could sense her caution when the conversation turned to work. I told her it was fine, I needed to talk about things, I needed to be able to face reality and start again. But that conversation was so important and telling, when it came to my place of employment - I was right in my snap assessment nothing had changed, people were still feeling miserable and everyone was just waiting for the day when the house of cards would collapse. So, while I didn't suffer an anxiety attack of any sort, I did suffer a reality one - if I stayed I wasn't sure that I would make it for very long without slipping back into old patterns, without feeling the heaviness of all that surrounded me. When everyone around you at work is despondent too it's pretty difficult to rise above and remain the only vestige of positivity. How much of yourself do you compromise before it becomes too much? In the back of my mind as I listened and talked with this very dear friend I knew that I wouldn't last long. I didn't want to go back to where I had been. Coming out of the darkness I'd become fond of the light no matter how faint it was. <br />
<br />
And so questions and contemplations riddled my mind throughout the weekend. So much of what you do to make a living defines you as a person, but should it? What if the definition is one that you never want to hear in relation to your name? During our weeks we spend more of our life working and with our coworkers than we do with the people that we love - what does it mean when that place where you reside is making you suffer? We'd never tell a woman to stay with the man that beats her, so why don't we say the same to people that work in a world where the abuse, manipulation and esteem-stealing is just as damaging and degrading? And as a single woman, not a wife or a mother, what else do you have when you don't have those societal norms with which to gauge yourself besides what you do? No one says she's single, has no kids and is currently working to find herself, until then, well she's a woman - what would that even mean? You're a person with no point of reference. <br />
<br />
When you hear stories of people assessing their lives before death I've never heard of anyone saying "I wish I'd worked more." In the end your job doesn't love you back. It's the people that we keep close, they way that we live, how we face adversity, how we support others and so much more that really is the important stuff of life. It's the stuff of truly living. There's no denying that unfortunately you need money to survive, but what are you surviving for if you've sacrificed everything that you are or want to be to earn a check? So that's how I spent my time, trying to figure out what was important, who I wanted to be and how did I chart a path there. I was seriously trying to find the best answers to some of life's greatest questions.<br />
<br />
On Monday I returned again ready to face another reality. Before I had left I knew that my work hadn't been my best anymore, and really how could it have been with the depth of depression and anxiety that I was suffering? I had completed what I needed to, but when it came to crossing t's and dotting i's I knew that I had been negligent at times. I knew that at some point there would be a discussion about the past and the future. That day arrived on Thursday.<br />
<br />
Behind closed doors I chose to only face what had made me so miserable for so long. The one conclusion that was most clear to me was it wouldn't have mattered in the least the level of my work, I would still be sitting in this same place with these same questions. Work was really that bad. I looked at the abuse, the lack of integrity surrounding me, the manipulation and all the other things that were my reality for too long. I was pretty positive that the goal of most of it was to get me to quietly leave, destroying my self worth and my self-esteem in the process was just an added bonus. And when I opened the door to that office again after very little discussion I had parted ways with the place that I had called my employer for one month shy of fifteen years. That passage of my life, for all the good, the bad and the ugly was complete. And the only emotion that I really felt was relief. <br />
<br />
Even facing the fear of poverty and failure and uncertainty and homelessness there was not one part of me that was anxious or regretful about the decision. I was liberated. Free. Dare I say happy? And this time there were no tears. And to this day I have not waivered in that emotion. Do I miss the very meager paycheck? Sure. Do I miss all that I had to endure and all the compromises of myself that I had to make for that small sum? Not in the least. I had learned a lot in six weeks about the woman that I was and the woman that I still wanted to be and now I could actually see myself being able to get there. <br />
<br />
When I sat in my car and took a very deep breath before pulling out of the parking lot I said goodbye to my old life. I had no idea what the future would hold but I only knew that it didn't hold this and for that I was most grateful. I started my car and drove away. And never once did I look back with regret.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2001789194996997138.post-7078625818784363052011-03-20T18:33:00.000-07:002011-03-20T18:33:56.438-07:00Artistic Endeavors<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIwIkMmOHj3ky7fUPdQrHU1spnj5hyQ7rsvB3ccJk6IMBoJpsNxj6dEZhZAonkZJ1vKVfYb3AcLXTw-lvt8CmdiWDM2KWKL3wH3S0VBijdQiyy0eYIylFMqoZ5JcA299yiBZsk6I9J42Eu/s1600/tree+for+blog.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" q6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIwIkMmOHj3ky7fUPdQrHU1spnj5hyQ7rsvB3ccJk6IMBoJpsNxj6dEZhZAonkZJ1vKVfYb3AcLXTw-lvt8CmdiWDM2KWKL3wH3S0VBijdQiyy0eYIylFMqoZ5JcA299yiBZsk6I9J42Eu/s320/tree+for+blog.jpg" width="320" /></a>There are things that you begin doing that you never know have meaning or significance. It seems so simple, but later you look back and see how the mind was really several steps ahead of your comprehension. It's the hindsight phenomenon. </div><br />
It started pretty simply. In January I was in a craft store and I saw a necklace on one of their displays and thought I'd try making one myself. I bought the beads and chain and then a few weeks later I purchased a set of jewelry-making tools. I stared one evening at these components in front of me and tried to make a simple necklace. The result was a disaster. I had no idea what I was doing. I threw the supplies back in the bag and hid them in a closet and didn't really think of them again. This artistic endeavor was pretty similar to the direction my life was taking. Everything was daunting. <br />
<br />
Fast forward now several months and while cleaning and purging my space I stumbled upon that bag. Now that I was faced with three more weeks off work I had time and so even though the first attempt had been unsuccessful I purchased more supplies. I actually bought a lot of beads. It was a pretty large outlay of money for something that I really had no confidence in completing. I still had no idea what I was doing. I browsed through some magazines looking at designs but I couldn't focus on the directions. So on Sunday I hauled out all my supplies, sat on the floor and spread them all out in front of me. I picked up three rose-colored flower beads and two pink butterflies. I stared at them for a while. And then I just sort of saw what I wanted to do with them. And this time I made it happen. I still really didn't know what I was doing, I just made it work. And then I was on a role. In a few hours I had made four necklaces and I was happy with each one of them. I was amazed. The other surprise - I had spent an afternoon creating and not once had I cried, or thought about all that was going on around me or in my head. I was in the moment, not distracted, but really living and creating, I was even concentrating on something. I was elated when I thought about what I had done. I sat down a few days later and produced four more as I watched television. And again I didn't really know where I was starting, where I was going or what I was doing, but the end result was the same - four new pieces that I loved. <br />
<br />
And so making jewelry became the thing I did when my hands and mind would normally have been idle. It was simply a project to do in the evenings when I needed something besides mindlessly watching television or blindly eating to fill a void. Each night I was making something new and none of them looked the same. I'd layout combinations on the bead board and move them again and again until I was happy with the pattern and arrangement and then I'd string the beads on, attach a clasp and voila - another creation. And at the end of night I'd have one more thing to add to my collection. I found myself searching for beads to match every color in my wardrobe. My affinity for cheap, costume jewelry was no longer a shopping experience, now it was a creative one. <br />
<br />
And in the background as I shared and showed off my work, scared each time that I did, people began to tell me I should do more than craft pieces for myself. I couldn't do that. This was a hobby and one that I didn't believe I was really all that good at. I still really had no idea what I was doing. I knew nothing about beading or stringing techniques. I just figured out a way to make it work. For me it was easy and mindless. Every time I would wear something that I made and would get a compliment on it I would be taken by surprise and then shyly say "thank you." And then one time someone asked me where I had purchased it and reluctantly I quietly said "I made it myself." And here a stranger - not one of my friends that would encourage me even if the work was poor - thought that this was something that came from a store. I was blown away.<br />
<br />
But, beading was not that impressive to me. A lot of people strung beads. I didn't feel like there was any art or talent involved on my part. If I could make something without really knowing what I was doing anyone could. <br />
<br />
So finally I tackled a new project that I'd been contemplating for a while. I took some wire and began bending it into a design. I know that the inspiration was coming from a lot of things that I'd looked at in print and in stores, but again, I was really winging it. And when I was done I had a pendant that encircled a tree. Twisted branches with beads covering them. I looked at it for a long time. I couldn't decide what I thought of it. I took a picture on my cell phone and texted it to three people. I wanted some honest opinions. Would they even know what it was? The response was encouraging, but again these were my friends and I knew that the piece wasn't exactly what I was aiming to create. Well, at least they knew it was a tree So looking at my prototype I tried again. I was a little happier with the result this time and bravely wore this one out in public. I solicited more opinions. And every time I shared a picture of something that I made I was scared beyond belief. I was convinced that I was seeing beauty that no one else would see. But each and every time I would get a positive response. And more and more people kept telling me that I needed to do something more with my craft. I wasn't sure that would happen, but it was nice to hear. <br />
<br />
And so I started creating more and making pieces for gifts and I was perfecting my tree. I can't even tell you why I was attracted to this design. I'd never loved trees before. I never really even thought about them. Trees were trees and yet I felt so connected to what I was doing. And as the art evolved so did the therapeutic nature of it. I had created my own version of art therapy for myself without even being aware of it. I was gaining confidence again in my abilities to do something - anything - and do it in a way that people recognized. But still even I couldn't figure out why I was drawn to the tree. <br />
<br />
It wasn't until much later when hindsight came into play that I figured out that the mind is a mysterious machine. It makes connections that you aren't even aware that you are seeing until one day it finally hits you what you've been missing.<br />
<br />
So here I was creating tree pendants - trees of life - and I had no idea why. So when I made the leap that I was pretty sure I would fail at and I started my jewelry site I did some research to add to the description page and looking back now I'm amazed that I still kept asking why trees, what is it about this design that keeps me coming back again and again?. When I look now at what I wrote in the description it's so clear why the tree was important to me. <br />
<blockquote><em>"The tree of life is branched tree illustrating the idea of life's interconnectedness. Some have referred to it as a metaphor for the whimsy of the spirit. Depictions and allusions to the tree of life appear throughout science, religion, philosophy, mythology and art. It's also been described as a cosmic tree, mystic tree or the tree of knowledge."</em></blockquote><br />
Life's interconnectedness.<br />
<br />
My mind hadn't made the connection then. The tree was really about my transformation. Art imitating life. My life was changing and so was everything connected to it. I was evolving and so was the tree that represented my life. All of life is connected to what surrounds us and I was depicting this realization with wire and beads long before I let myself soak in the reality of what it meant. I was creating a tree of knowledge that would hopefully in the end lead me to a better understanding of myself, the people that I let near me and the world that surrounds me. And so my art and craft was therapy, but I had also created a touchstone for myself and it was one that was full of hope and growth and knowledge - the tree of life, the tree of my life. Maybe there was hope for a beautiful life after all.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2001789194996997138.post-47157457951321200212011-03-18T04:04:00.000-07:002011-03-18T04:04:47.484-07:00The Anger Game<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUWOQuyTlc7LXp1OprsLM_ip0NZuKSfNmhHTfHsrYbK8HqlVlMoq61iTgS664y-B-UJre0mfg8Ja53WTLfZEDhfWNKipPHW_9ZyRGWxPbY3VeaxCr3HVn7rG9hUvOJxZXtmiCaFGdIt0rq/s1600/pendulum.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUWOQuyTlc7LXp1OprsLM_ip0NZuKSfNmhHTfHsrYbK8HqlVlMoq61iTgS664y-B-UJre0mfg8Ja53WTLfZEDhfWNKipPHW_9ZyRGWxPbY3VeaxCr3HVn7rG9hUvOJxZXtmiCaFGdIt0rq/s320/pendulum.jpg" width="213" /></a>For more than a year I walked a very thin line. I would vacillate from tears to anger back to tears again. The pendulum of my emotions would swing from deep desperation to fury in a manner of seconds. At home I would wallow in the dark sadness, but when I finally garnered enough energy to travel in the world for yet another day the person that walked out of my house tended to be on the verge of needing anger management. And the more and more depressed I became the more and more the anger reared its ugly head in all directions.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Every time I was faced with the option I would choose the anger game instead of the crying game. Somewhere in my psyche that just seemed more acceptable and sane. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div>It was inevitable that I would begin playing a real game at work that directed some of my rage at the person that I was so angry at for dragging me down so much of the time. And again fury kept me from tears. And so as the abuse escalated and I began to question myself and my abilities and everything else more and more, I also knew deep down that I was by far the more intelligent one in the equation. And since that was my only advantage and no one could really fault you in your work for being smart, a game evolved where for a few seconds I felt some control over my thoughts, emotions and esteem. It started simply one day when I watched the wheels turn and come up empty as I used a seemingly simple word that wasn't comprehended. Oh, this was fun - game on. So I would find ways whenever I could to use my vocabulary and channel my anger into the game. I didn't have to even be a master linguist to win this one. One day I questioned why a qualitative answer was used when it was clear that the analysis we were to provide should be quantitative. Blank stare - score. So, a second attempt was made. "Hmmm," I said. "That's a qualitative statement too. The question says to keep it measurable." It was clear that the person staring back at me had no idea what I was saying but would never admit it - win number one for me. And so the game continued, any time I could work in a word that wouldn't be understood I didn't contain myself. One day I would say that a statement was risible, the next I said that an author was resplendent. I could have won the game using much "smaller" words even, but this just made it more fun for me. So one day near the time of my inevitable point of needing and seeking help I had to write something. The result was brillant if I did say so myself. I handed it over and watched the confusion take hold. So later when a co-worker walked in and saw my competitor with my statement in one hand and a dictionary in the other I had scored the ultimate coupe - game, set, match! <br />
<br />
And yet no matter how many rounds I won I never really felt any better. The anger game didn't really accomplish anything in the end. It didn't change anything. Here I thought it was a competition that I was playing in and really it was just one more thing that pointed to how far I had fallen. And the person that was evolving before me was someone that I didn't even really like that much. This wasn't the woman that I had ever imagined being. This wasn't the woman that I was. This wasn't the type of person that I admired. And all of this anger was not in line with the way I would have described myself in the past. It was always there though. I fought it and noticed that more and more I was seeming to lose out to it. I may have played the game well sometimes but when it was me against the game I was losing in a big way. When I let myself in the privacy of my mind think I wished that I wasn't always enraged all the time. Why in the world was I always ready to either fight or cry? Why was there just no longer any middle ground?<br />
<br />
But the anger game wasn't contained to only work. It was creeping into and invading every facet of my life. I found myself always irritable and on edge. Always ready to pounce or break. On the phone with a customer service rep I would move through the spectrum of emotions lashing out only to ask for their supervisor that found me sobbing and telling her how being treated so poorly had upset me this much. I found myself using my car horn more than ever. Curse words seemed to always be on the tip of my tongue. Every life encounter was either the most infuriating experience or the most miserable one. I was on a roller coaster of two emotions and I just kept riding and riding thinking that somehow maybe one time the cars would take a different course, but knowing that it was impossible for it to do so. Being furious all the time was no less exhausting than be sorrowful, but the whirling between the two was down right crippling. <br />
<br />
For some reason that anger made it feel like I was controlling the sadness, but in the end the misery was still there. It was the most uncomfortable feeling I ever encountered. And the anger fueled depression's fire because the more and more I exploded the worse and worse I felt about the person that I now was and that added to the self-loathing, the sadness, the powerlessness. Freud was right in his description, so much of depression is anger turned inward.<br />
<br />
I felt the same way around my family. Any time they mentioned things in a way that I felt slighted me or called into question my life choices or "teased" me I would feel the anger boiling up inside. I would often leave the room and silently scream. Tension would manifest itself into knots in the muscles the ran across my shoulder blades. As I pushed away the tears, I'd ball up my fists tightly and push my nails into the palms of my hands until I felt the slight pinch of pain that I could focus on to tamp down the anger. In situations where I couldn't escape I would say things under my breath or bite down on the inside of my cheeks to control myself. Sometimes I would draw blood from the constant force of my teeth on the tender skin inside mouth. In really bad moments I would also pick under my fingernails where the nail met the skin, clawing and peeling until it bled. But turning the anger into pain at least felt like something. Sadly it was nice to feel anything other than the two emotions that I was constantly living between. I would vent my frustrations to my mom later asking her why everyone thought so little of me? Why couldn't once something that I did be good enough? Why was my time and the person that I was so invaluable to everyone? All the venom and ire that I had focused into the physical pain would pour out of me and just when the anger would dissipate the tears would begin. What was wrong with me? How did this happen? Who was this girl?<br />
<br />
Anger - despair - rage - tears - exasperation - desperation - fury - listlessness - outraged - inconsolable - storming - sinking ...<br />
<br />
And so it continued on and on, the pendulum swinging faster and faster until it and I broke. I had lost the battle, I hadn't won the game.<br />
<br />
It wasn't until weeks after my breakdown as I sat on the sofa in my therapist's office that I noticed that the anger was largely gone even though the sadness was not. This realization was delivered to me as I was giving her an example of something that was said to me. I knew that the intent had not been meant to hurt me, but I had been furious at the time all the same. I had let a few people in my life say awful things to me and yet I didn't know how to stop them and when my life spun out of control those things were just magnified by the anger that I felt and then later added to my feelings of worthlessness. If the people that claimed to love you felt this way then how in the world would anyone else possibly even like you? It didn't matter that intellectually I knew that those that uttered the statement didn't mean to inflict pain, but how do you start to gain control of a situation like that? <br />
<br />
And so for the first time I thought to really mention all the anger and rage that I had felt during the previous months. And again I learned how much I didn't understand about depression. Anger was a classic symptom. When I thought of the illness I recognized the sadness, the hopelessness, the exhaustion, the feelings of worthlessness, the hypersomnia, the inability to any longer care about the simplest of things, but the irrational degree of negative thinking and the anger that flowed forth because of it I had never contemplated. But when I lost control of everything around me, my emotions and feelings and my inability to function in everyday life, the anger was inevitable. No one that crossed my path was really safe from it. It's just another emotion that I could not harness. I was angry at myself for being so angry and depressed, which then made me even angrier. I had been cycling in that pattern for quite some time digging myself in deeper and deeper.<br />
<br />
And as I learned more and more about me and my disease I began to feel some small amount of control return. I could finally see the anger game for what it was, just another sign that I had needed help. I closed the lid on that box and hid it away. Hopefully I would never feel the need to play again.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2001789194996997138.post-91170412428391349882011-03-16T04:37:00.000-07:002011-03-16T06:51:50.455-07:00The Scarlet D<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjovlGUlgllxasmGX0f1Y8fVhPRxzDicxPCNlQwZHwjYOFHCyzDV2Xfd-gqX98-aI2uySMSI62-eUTY79S7qw8MKeYcCgWo92X715DlLI_svWk5NU96oxYfybH_cFO1PCx37q3IRUVhusbx/s1600/letter_D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: right; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" q6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjovlGUlgllxasmGX0f1Y8fVhPRxzDicxPCNlQwZHwjYOFHCyzDV2Xfd-gqX98-aI2uySMSI62-eUTY79S7qw8MKeYcCgWo92X715DlLI_svWk5NU96oxYfybH_cFO1PCx37q3IRUVhusbx/s200/letter_D.jpg" width="150" /></a>I wore a badge of shame and secrecy. The scrap of red cloth for all to see in the form of a letter. The letter "D" signified my "sin" of depression which I kept largely hidden from most in the world. But sometimes I would feel the looks and stares boring into me and I would think that person can see the letter, they know.</div></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">The world of mental heath is hush - hush. There is a social stigma. Few people want to admit that they live in a world where they can't control their feelings or emotions. No one wants to be perceived as abnormal, scarred, crazy, weak or any of the other adjectives that are linked to the description of those that live with mental illness. No one wants to be dismissed as unworthy based on their brain. No one wants to face rejection or discrimination based on a sickness. And so someone with cancer can talk openly about the pain and the treatment and people rally to their side, but someone that suffers from depression often hides in shame and fear. They watch people avert their eyes as the wheels in their brain turn judging the person before them when they do reveal. The stigma is so pervasive that the practice where I was receiving treatment and therapy was virtually unmarked. There is no sign advertising it and the name plate on the door simply reads the doctor's name, minus the doctor and associates. When you walk in anyone passing the office has no idea what occurs behind those doors.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">So as I sauntered into my place of employment the next day I felt like all eyes were on me - judging. I had lied to most people saying that I was off work because of something that I had done to my foot. But when I walked in to drop off my doctor's note I watched the first co-worker's eyes move to the flip-flops I was wearing. I felt the eyes and the questioning and the talking that was going on when I turned my back. Everyone was wondering why I needed more time to recover when I seemed to be walking pretty well. I tried as much as possible to tell the "story", I didn't really say anything if I could avoid it, but I felt like those really looking could see the outline of the "D" that I wore on my chest whether I liked it or not. I felt the eyes follow. I knew that even if they weren't looking close enough to see they were looking close enough to know that something wasn't right with my cover story. And so now on top of a major depressive disorder, anxiety attacks and an eating disorder I thought I might need to add paranoia to the plethora of issues. How much of the looks and stares were a product of my vivid imagination and how many of them were real?</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">So I had the privilege of walking through my own version of the town square shaming ceremony. I again surrendered the note that said I needed to be off for a "biological disorder." Even the note was coded to lessen the stigma. The doctor knew what it was like for someone to walk in the world with depression. She knew the scorn and judgement that people issued without really understanding that it too was a disease, it was just one where the marks are borne inside and they evolve so slowly that it's difficult to easily notice the change. And even in the vernacular the word depression is thrown around to describe a bad day or week or a little sadness; and that too creates more issues because for someone that hasn't been there they just think "well I was depressed a few months ago for a week and you just need to get over it." I had been that person once, but now I knew how the depression invades your brain, washes over you and slowly cripples the person that you are so that you can no longer function in everyday life. You smile and you act, but you aren't well. And when someone is truly depressed they are so afraid that anyone will know and see that it's difficult to imagine the clinically depressed would use that word so casually. People are afraid to be that person made to stand before all her peers as they stare at that red letter and judge.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">And with even those that you are confidant you have fooled you are left to contemplate what the response would be if they did know. How would they look at you differently? How would their thoughts and perceptions of you change? How much judgement would they levy? Which ones in your circle of friends, co-workers, acquaintances and confidants would be the one to sew the letter and pin it to your chest for all the world to see - that red letter always present every time they looked at you? Life is so much easier when you don't have to have the answers to those questions and yet it also perpetuates the shame and stigma that you cannot be that honest about something that permeates your life so profoundly. It's a striking reality when you realize that you are a participant in the novel of your life as both shamer and shamee. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">What a lesson there is in how Hester wore her badge of shame. She wore it proudly and definitely. She owned her sin. And she was the one that learned to live with and accept herself by doing so. If only I was brave enough to wear that "D" the same way. But instead I walked with my fear and shame and hoped that no one noticed, that no one saw, that no one had been there that afternoon when I appeared in front of my audience with that big red scrap of cloth in the shape of a letter. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">I walked out of the door and let the paranoia dissipate. Maybe one day I could be that brave, but today was not the day. Today I would still suffer silently, telling no one and living a lie. I wasn't ready for the ridicule that I had handed out before to anyone that said that they were suffering. For one more day I would hide my pain from most everyone I knew for fear that I would lose what little I had. But if you looked closely you could see that scarlet letter branded on me as it screamed out to the world - depressed, diseased, disturbed, degenerate ...</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2001789194996997138.post-36854452655319716192011-03-09T15:14:00.000-08:002011-03-15T10:21:51.303-07:00Ticking Time Bomb<div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3A9ALxjgPaaL2hBcEhe2-dU6eSVwKJY3rXb9Fk6R486xP9x8IPY2upMpM_CuemIs6ikHDe_2MR9m-ftYFhy0Hc4wPqKOcpow7wDWdCcK6IW-9kjjnTWKQjva3leIRMF8H9N_GJDd0i2yo/s1600/clock.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" q6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3A9ALxjgPaaL2hBcEhe2-dU6eSVwKJY3rXb9Fk6R486xP9x8IPY2upMpM_CuemIs6ikHDe_2MR9m-ftYFhy0Hc4wPqKOcpow7wDWdCcK6IW-9kjjnTWKQjva3leIRMF8H9N_GJDd0i2yo/s1600/clock.jpg" /></a></div>Inside my head I could hear the tick getting louder and louder. The sound bore resemblance to one of those old-style clocks where you could hear the mechanism that moved the second hand around the face and then the even bigger click when the minute hand made the jump forward 60 ticks later. After a while the sound blends into the background and you only notice it once in a while and when you do it leaves you wondering how you can tune out such noise so much of the time. Tick - tick - tick - tick ... Every morning in what was usually those peaceful minutes when you move from sleep to awareness I would hear the clock. Tick - tick - tick ... It wasn't something I could turn off - it just ticked incessantly gaining volume and intensity. There was no ignoring it's existence and yet I would turn away and pretend that it wasn't there until it became so loud and persistent that I had to look at it head on and face what it would mean - my return to work was nearing.<br />
<br />
Tick - tick - tick ...<br />
<br />
The first day I awoke thinking I have three weeks, but then every day after I would think I only have two weeks and six days left. This just wasn't one of those countdowns that ended in a blissful event. Instead my countdown felt like one to doom. <br />
<br />
Each day I felt myself getting a little better. I was dealing with every day life and surprisingly I was doing it pretty well. Even though my energy and concentration were still lagging I would easily wake, shower and dress and face the agenda of the day. There were even parts of the routine to which I looked forward with anticipation instead of dread. The medication and the therapy were doing their jobs. But when I let my mind wander it would often think of how many more days. I had accomplished a lot in such a short time but not enough to quell the anxiety about returning to the madness.<br />
<br />
Tick (ten days) - tick (nine days) - tick (eight days) ...<br />
<br />
I wasn't looking forward to this development and yet I could no more stop the progression of days then I could the ticking or the countdown. It was inevitable, but I didn't have to like idea. <br />
<br />
When I went to my last therapy appointment before I returned to the doctor to see if she would release me back work, my therapist and I talked about dealing with the return. I felt the tears well up in my eyes. I tried to breathe and blink them away, but they spilled down my cheeks anyway. We talked about using coping techniques, we discussed how to deal with manipulation and underhandedness when I faced it again, we ran through an imaginary conversation for my first conversation with my abuser. None of it made me feel more prepared for the inevitable. All I could envision was that time bomb exploding and me being blown right back to where I had started. <br />
<br />
So still every morning I awoke, looked at my mental countdown calendar of days, heard the ticking and then took a deep breath and pushed my anxiety away until at some point the thought crept back in again later in the day. It was always lurking in the corner. I would tackle a project and I'd look and think how much of this am I going to actually get done in four more days. And then it was there - the ticking, the countdown and the anxiety would wash over me. <br />
<br />
On Tuesday I received a call from the human resources department. The person was inquiring about my return to work on Thursday. I told her I had an appointment the following day and that's when I would know if the doctor released me. She was kind and told me to call her back as soon as I knew and she enumerated what I would need and how to report any accommodations I might need for my return. That's when it all fell apart. The poor woman on the other end of the phone heard me sob as I asked questions about how you do accommodate an inept, abusive boss? Can a doctor actually order her to make accommodations to be more intelligent or fair? Can I get a note that says you can't take out your psychosis on the people that you manage? Was asking for a non-hostile work environment a reasonable accommodation? I choked the questions out between my sobs. I could barely even catch my breath. And here I was again facing not only the clock but the realization that for all my work nothing had changed. <br />
<br />
When I took a break to hyperventilate the woman on the other end of the phone said so simply, "maybe you aren't ready to return to work yet." It was the understatement of the day. All those ticks that I heard and all those numbers counting down caught up with me. I had been the ticking time bomb and I had just detonated. Eventually once I hung up the phone I composed myself but the breakdown had exhausted me, so for the first time since I began my sabbatical I took a nap to sleep off the exhaustion, the headache and the anxiety. When you aren't awake you don't have to face things and for the time being that was my short-term solution. I awoke feeling better, but I knew that the anxiety was creeping along the edges and it wouldn't take much to bring it front and center again. <br />
<br />
The rest of the day I distracted myself and survived. I tossed and turned and woke up several times throughout the night in a sweat that had nothing to do with the temperature of the room. My heart beating quickly I would breathe taking large gulps of air to fill my lungs. And then I would feel the tears that I'd been crying in my sleep. Slowly I'd calm myself down. I'd turn on my ipod and listen to music and think happy thoughts until I fell asleep again, only to wake up again in the same state a few hours later. And soon enough it was morning. I faced the countdown and sound of the clock. Tick (one day). My last day of peace and sanity was here. <br />
<br />
When I arrived at the doctor that afternoon I looked like a much improved woman. And for the most part I was. But I knew what was hiding just below the surface. I sat in the lobby, cast side glances around the room and assessed those sitting here. How close were these people to falling apart? What was just below the surface of their exterior? I liked to guess which of these people were the temporary insane and which ones were lifers. It helped pass the time while I waited. I would wonder what facade I presented to those here? People were called back to individual therapy appointments, my therapist appeared and smiled at me as she called her patient for the hour back and eventually as the lobby began to clear the doctor appeared at the door and said my name. <br />
<br />
I followed her into her office and took a seat while she looked over my therapy notes and the intake sheet that I'd filled out that day. I'd answered questions like how close are you to your normal self (40 percent) and what every day activities and relationships are problematic (concentration, exhaustion, work). As she looked over the notes I started to feel the anxiety build. It started in the pit of my stomach and I felt instantly nauseous. It became more and more difficult to breathe no matter how hard I tried to take deep calming breaths. I stared ahead at her bookcase that sat directly across the room from me and all the titles on the spines blurred. The room seemed all of a sudden very warm but as I felt myself begin to sweat a chill came over me and I felt cold down to my core. I shivered and folded my arms and rubbed my hands up and down over them trying to warm up. I focused on her looking through my chart. Finally she turned to me, smiled and began to ask how I felt since I'd begun taking my medication. She asked about side effects. I was freezing, but I was holding it together as I talked with her. But she only needed to ask me how I felt about returning to work for the anxiety to rear its ugly head. It made my breakdown on the phone the day before look like amateur hour. And maybe it was because I'd been doing so well, but even I was surprised by the intensity of what came to the surface. As I had an anxiety attack and sobbed she sat by and waited until I could at least focus on her words and then she said simply "You aren't ready to go back to work." <br />
<br />
I could reset the clock with a new three week countdown. Hopefully this time the ticking wouldn't be so loud or omnipresent.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2001789194996997138.post-39683622686173141202011-03-03T07:12:00.000-08:002011-03-03T09:38:38.867-08:00Connect the Dots<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4_dXCKKIVXXlCBa0mbGCNfd69UdWyspLTzjqrriOq2HNQL-gv-3Fs1EoTLp4l55E03c9NVZz_wDBHmqXvYp4WgZBIs1yAx7X0eLjkKG6SUeVUPyw62ewKUPEilm27zTo7RI84UtM4Qakd/s1600/dots.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" l6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4_dXCKKIVXXlCBa0mbGCNfd69UdWyspLTzjqrriOq2HNQL-gv-3Fs1EoTLp4l55E03c9NVZz_wDBHmqXvYp4WgZBIs1yAx7X0eLjkKG6SUeVUPyw62ewKUPEilm27zTo7RI84UtM4Qakd/s1600/dots.jpg" /></a>I remember the puzzles in the middle of my coloring books when I was young where there were a series of dots and until I knew the alphabet or my numbers I had to rely on someone else to show me where the lines should connect to develop the picture that I could then fill in with colors. At this point that's how I felt. I was looking at a series of dots manifesting themselves as antidotes from my past and present, but the symbols that appeared above them so that I could make the bigger picture were again foreign to me. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div>As I sat in my therapist's office after the weekend this is where I was: I knew that life had fallen apart, I knew that I'd asked for help, I knew that there were things that had started to feel more and more unmanageable throughout the last year and I knew that I had a past that complicated all my thoughts and feelings, but what I didn't know was how to connect all those dots. What I didn't know was how in the world I ended up here, in this place.<br />
<br />
During my intake I'd been asked more questions then I ever imagined, but a few things stood out. In one section she'd asked me about whether or not I'd been diagnosed with depression in the past. Well, no, but I'd also never made the leap to go to therapy before. Looking back I told her I could see times and places where I was very likely clinically depressed but it had never been this bad and it had never persisted this long. In another she asked me what had been the single biggest stressor in my life as of late and that was a simple one - work. <br />
<br />
At the end of that session she gave me a homework assignment; I was to write about three times in my life when I was happy and comfortable with myself. The thing was it hadn't been that long since that had happened. After I figured things out a few years back about my past, all my fears and anxieties, the accumulation of all my life experiences and how it had shaped me into the person that I was, I had made a lot of changes in my life. I'd started exercising, I was eating right, I had lost weight, I felt healthy, I bought a new, nicer wardrobe of clothes that I actually felt good in, I'd ventured out on dates and I was genuinely happy with the person that evolving both physically and mentally. <br />
<br />
It seemed too simple to think that a bad boss, a family death and a few other incidents could unravel me in the way they had even if there was a biological basis that underscored it. But my therapist had stared at those dots and connected a pattern and so that day we started our first of many conversations about work. I suppose that in some ways it was essential that we discuss the place that I wasn't even capable of going to anymore. There had to be a reason that I had to take doctor-ordered time off. So, we started the conversation and it wasn't enough to say simply that work sucked. For years I'd vacillated between loving my job and being dissatisfied with it. It was never my passion to be doing what I was, so that played into me never being all that happy, but most of the time I didn't hate it and I certainly was never on the verge of a nervous breakdown because of it. Before that it was just that I wanted to be doing something different, something better, something that was challenging, something that mattered, something that I would be proud to tell people I did, but it was all too easy to stay in the comfort zone - another part of the coasting through life and taking the easiest route. <br />
<br />
But slowly for the past three years work had become pretty miserable and the last year had been excruciating. For anyone that hadn't worked in the situation it's pretty difficult to capture what was happening within the walls of that building. When she asked me to describe my boss the simplest phrase was to say that on a good day she was incompetent, on a bad day, well it was worse. There was manipulation at play, outright lies and so much more. And as the stress and pressure built and I began to fall deeper and deeper into depression, I started to make mistakes, I overlooked small details and I found it difficult to concentrate on tasks that were second nature to me. And as those small things were exploited my concentration and everything else became worse. Everything just seemed to be adding more fuel to the fire and it became more and more intolerable as the flames rose up around me. And then I began to stop caring - what did it matter anyway? Nothing was changing and whether your work was good, bad or somewhere in between the response was all the same. And then it was more and more difficult to get out of bed to face a day filled with so much dysfunction, deceit and despair. <br />
<br />
We talked about this and strategies to figure out how to deal with it when I returned to work, but what was very clear was that since the situation was not going to change I needed to start a job search to get out of the hell. I could learn to manage the work world I was in but for my long-term health and sanity I needed to get out and find something suitable. <br />
<br />
Looking into my eyes she told me, "I've been in a situation like this, your boss is your abuser. You now know what it feels like to be in an abusive relationship, it's just not the kind that most people label as one." And at some point she also told me "You realize that even if I only believed half of what you told me, which is not the case, I've diagnosed your boss with two or three types of psychosis. Those take years of therapy to even attempt to correct. You are not psychotic but being around someone that is leads to feeling pretty manic yourself. She isn't going to change so we need to get you on a path to get out of that environment." So now, in addition to my cleaning checklist I needed to do some research on jobs to share with her for the next time. <br />
<br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">At the end of that session we discussed aromatherapy as a way to deal with anxiety. I left with a piece of paper scented with pure lavender oil. I was to add it to my worry stone that she'd given me on my last visit that I was to hold and rub when anxiety overtook me. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">And every appointment we would discuss more and more about work, what it had done to me, how it had destroyed my confidence and identity and at the end of every session I would get one more coping mechanism for dealing with the stress and anxiety of life. When I was off work I didn't need to employ these techniques, but I was sure that I would have to when I returned to my job. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">What she had connected and I hadn't yet was that while work was an issue, how I dealt with it and the abusive treatment I received and the stress then generated from it was where I'd begun to fall apart. She was pointing me from dot to dot but I still didn't clearly see the picture she was helping me make. It took me a while to put it together and I didn't arrive there after a few appointments. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Here I kept thinking how did I make all these life changes and yet I still ended right back where I started? How did I go from finally living life to being at a place where I didn't really want to live at all anymore? How had the woman that never would have contemplated ending her life begin to think it might not be the worst solution if it didn't take so much energy?</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"> Eventually though I saw what she knew and I had to figure out for myself with some gentle pushes - once I'd let myself finally live things mattered - they were no longer just something to get past on the way to another mundane day of sameness. And I had learned to live when things were going well, but I didn't know how to live with things when they didn't. If I had never started living I wouldn't be in the hole I was because none of the things would really have mattered - I would have coasted right by them as just another crappy part of life. I might have had the mild, short-lived depressions of the past, but I wouldn't have fallen to the lowest point in my life. But once I'd been happy when things turned a little dark I didn't know how to make them light again. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">So all the strategies she would teach me - the worry stone, the aromatherapy, the deep belly breathing, the visualization, the touchstone, the journaling - they were all ways to deal when the going got tough again because if I let myself live there would be times when things were not always sunshine and roses. She was looking at this pretty picture ready to be colored, but it was taking me a while to catch up to her. And who knew what the end result would be when I finally connected them all and stood ready with my crayons to fill in the dotted frame.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
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</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2001789194996997138.post-8021477583323967362011-02-28T01:50:00.000-08:002011-03-01T08:40:50.309-08:00Flying Solo<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCr6VoifVXv7gK78DpvWitpTGn6_zr7LzG-_RvNyFxLqeEDBy2BzKgjjDBzmy-qfqDkipP2krwp9ZNFJK5Fs2J7z2VV4DhJoQx4Ye8vXQmy9Y5yY5JKpfMv_PdQl40W2VcRfeRI9hSvJdA/s1600/alone.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="314" l6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCr6VoifVXv7gK78DpvWitpTGn6_zr7LzG-_RvNyFxLqeEDBy2BzKgjjDBzmy-qfqDkipP2krwp9ZNFJK5Fs2J7z2VV4DhJoQx4Ye8vXQmy9Y5yY5JKpfMv_PdQl40W2VcRfeRI9hSvJdA/s320/alone.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">For years I'd developed a test of sorts for the people that I knew even though I myself didn't realize I was quizzing them. I'd push and push and push people away waiting to see if they would return. The few ones that did were my friends. For those that didn't I'd lament the faded relationships trying to figure out how things went poorly without even realizing that it was me that was at fault. And deep down in my heart I always wished that everyone would like me enough to come back. And no matter how many did choose me, it was never enough because I'd stand among them and still feel all alone.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Testing the loyalties of the male species was particularly fierce. I'd always either had anxieties about men or bad luck with them. As I aged I developed a fear that I saw as more and more likely - I would end up alone and that was the thing in life I wanted least to happen. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Less than two months before I broke down my great-uncle died. While people in my life recognized that it was a difficult event they really didn't understand the significance of how that played in my mind. This event more than any other brought up all those fears and anxieties about being alone.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">When my grandma learned she was sick she issued a gentle reminder that we would need to take care of him when she gone. He was a bachelor and had lived with my grandparents most of his adult life. Just another in the parade of family members that my grandparents took in, including my mom and I, in the home that I would joke was "the halfway house - all stray family members welcome." But my grandparents lived by the philosophy that family takes care of family and they expected that we would carry that tradition onward.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Shortly after my grandma's funeral I noticed that my uncle had a cough and other symptoms still persisting long after they should have. I asked him if he wanted me to take him to the doctor and he suggested that we go to the emergency room. So, I grabbed a book for the wait and drove him there.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"> I was in the waiting room for hours. I was beginning to think that one book might not have been enough when a doctor and a nurse appeared in the lobby and called my name. The nurse didn't scare me, but the doctor accompaniment did. Instead of taking me back into the halls that lead to the ER, they directed me into one of those small consultation rooms. This couldn't be a good thing. They asked me a few questions about who was around to take care of him and a few similar things. I was relaxing sure now that they just wanted to determine there was someone around for him since he was alone. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">But no, then they delivered the whammy. He had cancer. I'm sure they weren't anticipating my reaction. After the word cancer I pretty much told them to stop. I couldn't go through this again I said. My grandma had just died of pancreatic cancer eleven days ago. I was just a great-niece that thought she was being nice by driving him. I couldn't do this. There was no way in the world that I could carry him the way I had my grandma. I couldn't take him to the bathroom. I couldn't do any of those kind of things I did just weeks before and I certainly couldn't listen to this. And silently I thought about how I didn't want to have to do those things for him either. I'm sure they hear all sorts of things in that consultation room, but in this case they heard the rant of a very selfish girl that was not at all sympathetic to a man that was alone in the world. We were his closest family. I hadn't been raised this way. But, I still hadn't figured out how to deal with what I was going through, I couldn't add on more. They calmed me down and talked to me some more. I called my mom and then her sisters. We'd have to yet again figure this out. Family didn't let family be alone - I had to keep remembering that.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">After a hormone drug treatment was started he improved and things were pretty normal for a while. And then two years later the cancer metastasized and things were tougher. At some point we had to make new arrangements and we divvied up days to make sure that he had visitors. And as I listened to the slight complaints of how it was interfering with every one's daily lives, I realized that this could be me one day. It would be me one day. As an only child without any husband or children random family members could be complaining about how they felt they had to come and visit me so that I wouldn't be alone all the time. Family might not let family be alone, but they certainly didn't have to be happy about the burden either. I felt instantly sick as bile rose from the pit of my stomach into my throat. I was looking at my future. This is what it would be like when I was alone. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">As the cancer progressed we moved onto hospice care. The nurses that work in palliative care will tell you there are random small cues, markers, that hint that the end of life is no longer days, but hours away instead. That day the hospice nurses called in two families to their facility because of markers, but ours was not one of them. When my aunt arrived for a visit something wasn't right. She called the nurse who stepped to the side of the bed and then looked back in shock. Less than a half hour earlier she had helped my uncle with his lunch. Now, he was gone. And for those last few moments of his life, he was alone. No one, not even a nurse, was in his room. And he had not one marker that would make them think that he didn't have days, if not weeks or months, remaining. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">There were a lot of things that people said to try to make this all seem better. My aunt thought that he had made a sound as she walked in and determined that he was waiting for family to be there and that had to be his last breath. The nurse told us that the only food he was interested in eating that afternoon was his desserts, which we all thought was an appropriate last act for a man who loved his sweets. No matter how many of these things were said I knew that here I was staring at my truth - this is what would happen to me. People in my extended family were going to sit around and try to justify how it was not as bad as it was that I was alone at the end. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">When we gathered a few days later for a small funeral service the deacon delivered a homily saying that for someone that had no children of his own you could see his life had value by the number of people present at the service. I looked around and knew that the funerals in my family had never been this small. He talked a little about his love of sports and then paused and asked one of my aunts his favorite team and she answered Notre Dame. I sat there amazed because I knew that the answer was Ohio State. For some reason the fact that something so simple wasn't even known by some of the "closest" family made me even sadder. What lies would they say about me that they thought were true?</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Through this whole experience I knew I was being rather self-absorbed. Here I should be grieving and celebrating the life of my uncle, but all I could think about was how alone I was and how alone I'd always be. Outwardly I said and did all the right things, but inside all I thought about was how sad I was and would continue to be. I didn't like this person that sat here thinking more of herself. I wanted to care more, I wanted to be a good person, I just couldn't. Most of my tears were shed for myself. And staring at a future that looked so bleak made it even more difficult to get up and face each day. <br />
<br />
And that simple word, alone, rolled around and around in my head - alone - alone -alone - that's what I would be. I couldn't make the feeling or the word go away.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Just another layer of feelings, fears and anxieties that I would add to a miserable year. Just one more layer that made it more and more difficult to see if there was even a way out. The well I'd dug was very, very deep and there I was at the bottom of it now facing my future - all alone.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
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</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2001789194996997138.post-10083560058109152622011-02-25T14:08:00.000-08:002011-02-27T19:40:40.778-08:00The Promise<div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqFRfAEBe25hU3LkDeK2oej99MLzdin1QbfQxgCRzl07sVNUJYv7sIeDgogp2joktt8MbzsGi1P9rTt9as_vF3hYllmGuTkkzO7wpVr8-zaL2vQ-nAL9pIf_3jVHRnK1tO_kHJ1jenh7Dm/s1600/gift.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" l6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqFRfAEBe25hU3LkDeK2oej99MLzdin1QbfQxgCRzl07sVNUJYv7sIeDgogp2joktt8MbzsGi1P9rTt9as_vF3hYllmGuTkkzO7wpVr8-zaL2vQ-nAL9pIf_3jVHRnK1tO_kHJ1jenh7Dm/s1600/gift.jpg" /></a></div>In today's version of the "modern family" the living environment of my youth wouldn't be all that unusual, but in the perfect little world of private schools I was the only one that I ever knew that lived like I did. In her effort to give me the best that she could my mom and my grandparents had come to some resolution before I was born that we would live with them. So, while they were still my grandparents they really were much closer than that.<br />
<br />
While I loved my mom and my grandpa my relationship with my grandma was my closest one. She and I rarely fought and our personalities didn't seem to clash in the same way as mine did with my other "parents." I stayed home all day with my grandma and then once I started school, she was the one that greeted me when I came home. I remember climbing into my grandma's bed when I didn't feel well and she would sing me this litany of songs and nursery rhymes. Cuddled up with her I would relax and feel better as she recited the words in her perfect, off-key pitch. She's the one with which I remember discussing some of the momentous news stories of my young lifetime. Watching the special reports of the hostages being freed, the attempted assassination of Reagan and the Pope and the space shuttle explosion she would sit behind her ironing board pressing clothes, discussing with me what I saw on the TV. And I remember joining her on Friday nights, sprawling across her bed and watching Dallas when I didn't always fully understand what was happening. Nothing changed as I aged - if I had a fight with my mom or my grandpa, it was my grandma that would talk to me and smooth things over as I cried to her. She was always the person that I would turn to when I needed kindness and compassion the most.<br />
<br />
In my late 20s and early 30s I'd taken a ten-year hiatus from really living life. I would go to work, read books, watch TV, do things with my family and very, very occasionally I'd do things with friends. I'd effectively pushed most of the people in my life away, lost touch others or would figure out an excuse to not go to this or that event with those that invited me. I was coasting through adulthood. And during this time I spent a lot of time with my grandma - eating dinners, watching television or movies, shopping and talking. <br />
<br />
So, on that August day when she called and wanted us all at her house I started crying before I even hung up the phone. I didn't know what it was, but I knew that there was no good news that was going to be delivered. Since about January she'd had a sore back. Therapy hadn't worked and that morning she'd been at the doctor's office after he had ordered some x-rays. This ache turned out to be the only symptom of pancreatic cancer. It was stage four, there was no treatment and she had three to six months to live. Even though I was trying to be strong for her, I couldn't stop crying for weeks. She told me that she'd had a good life - 83 years where she felt blessed by her family and friends. It sounds logical, but it didn't matter, there is really never enough years with the people most important to you. Knowing that someone lived a full, good life is no consolation when you know that you have to keep living without them. <br />
<br />
For the first few months you wouldn't have known how sick she was. The pain medications kept her going, even if it was at a slower pace. I spent even more time at her house. The last week in October was the beginning of the end. A small surgical procedure that was a comfort measure lead to an infection and that lead to more weakness. She wanted to stay at home, so arrangements were made with schedules and hospice care to make this possible. Everyday after work I'd visit her and help and on the rare occasions when I couldn't make it to her house I'd talk to her on the phone checking in on her throughout the day.<br />
<br />
Eventually I went to my apartment gathered a bunch of clothes and essentials and moved in with her to help. And as difficult as those days were, I cherish a lot of the moments from them. In the early evenings when she would head up the stairs to her bedroom for the night, I'd follow her providing physical support as she navigated the steep stairs. I'd help her with anything she needed and then I'd sit with her and most of the time we would just talk and talk. I'd hold her hand before she drifted off to sleep and say prayers with her that I didn't believe in anymore. And when she'd fall asleep, I'd cry silent tears before I'd get up and waste a few hours and then go to sleep myself. <br />
<br />
There are many, many things that were said during these conversations, but one of them stands out more than others. One night, seemingly out of the blue she looked at me and told me I was such a beautiful girl, she wished that I could be happy. I never talked about not being so, but she knew. For me, that was her dying wish - be happy, begin to live the life that I wanted and should be living and find out how to get those few things that she knew that I was longing for even though I didn't really admit them to myself. She wanted me to promise that I would discover how to do this and I made that promise, not only because she was sick and it felt like the wrong place to argue, but also because deep down I knew that I wanted to figure out myself how to do those things.When I was facing the end of my days I wanted to be able to look back and see something, anything, that really mattered that I'd accomplished.<br />
<br />
The days got tougher and tougher. During those months I learned much about how the heart and mind prepares when it knows the end of life is near. I found myself doing things that no one imagines they can ever do in the care for a loved one. Anyone that's lived through something like this knows how emotional and physically draining it is. It was by far the most arduous experience that I've ever lived through, but I would never not make that same choice to take care of her if faced with it again. During the second week of January my grandma died after a long, beautiful life that really wasn't long enough.<br />
<br />
For the next six months I made it to work and then drove home as I cried and grieved. I would sit on my sofa every night and read just to keep from thinking too much. I was on a book-a-day pace for months. At first if I let my mind drift I could only remember the painful moments that no one talks about; those things that you see at the end as the horror of the cancer wrecks havoc on a body. Those times at the end when as much as I didn't want to let her go, I knew that I couldn't keep seeing her go through that pain. <br />
<br />
After a few months I could see beyond the suffering and would remember those conversations. And I kept thinking of that promise that I made to her. I wanted to keep it, but I couldn't figure out how to get there. And now I had to figure it all out without her guidance. How do you get to the life where you have all the simple things that your heart desires? My mind was a blank. Any time in my past when I'd tried to make a start toward what I thought I wanted. I stumbled, fell and found myself deeper and deeper in a hole of darkness. Eventually it was easier to stop dreaming, stop hoping and just carry on existing - it hurt less.<br />
<br />
In June, engrossed in one of my books, something happened. In this novel the girl protagonist, two years following her father's sudden death was facing the task of figuring out how to move on through her grief. She was so afraid of not being perfect that she stopped trying to be anything at all. In the course of her journey, she meets a new group of friends that she finally connects with and learns how to begin facing her future.<br />
<br />
With tears in my eyes, I finished this book not knowing that in a few short minutes, I too would have a breakthrough moment. Almost without thinking I looked around the room, and my eyes stopped on a notebook on my nightstand. I picked it up and fished around for a pen and then I began to write and the words about my dad and feeling unloved and abandoned were out on the page. Thoughts that I didn't even know I had were now staring back at me. If anyone had told me these revelations before this moment I wouldn't have believed them. For years I'd been blase when anyone would suggest that my upbringing may have effected me. This was a deep secret pain that I had to unearth myself. <br />
<br />
And slowly, staring at that secret that I'd scratched on the page that was now doted with my tears, the heavy burden of my grief and of my past lifted. Staring at the key to so many reasons that I'd ceased living was a gift. Now, how to take that gift and apply it to my life. Staring at my barrier and my demons I now would be able to try to figure out how to keep that promise that I'd made that one night - now, I could see how one day I might be happy. <br />
<br />
So after my grandma had given me so much in my life she delivered me one final gift that day - she guided me down a path that helped me see clearly for the first time the woman that I wanted, needed and desired to become.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2001789194996997138.post-43700455642135633812011-02-23T16:26:00.000-08:002011-02-23T16:40:33.656-08:00Kissing Frogs<div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi364jQO2j_WiU8Sw-lD9kR0Ak5GKncT8MDRi3i09vKSwdMORXWhR9_D3R3BxaEZk5uiEUoyt6KEWDB_CCgz1EVtDuFUKUVXSBlMGx0ZiUwiIGBioZQLyNbrCJ0P8GzJf0NQ37vrkA2xVLW/s1600/froggy+kiss.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="256" j6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi364jQO2j_WiU8Sw-lD9kR0Ak5GKncT8MDRi3i09vKSwdMORXWhR9_D3R3BxaEZk5uiEUoyt6KEWDB_CCgz1EVtDuFUKUVXSBlMGx0ZiUwiIGBioZQLyNbrCJ0P8GzJf0NQ37vrkA2xVLW/s320/froggy+kiss.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">During the year as I slowly spiraled out of control the loneliness was palpable. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">The one place where I would go to escape my mind and be myself was the fairy tale world that resided in cyberspace. In this virtual playground you could always find some stranger willing to chat from some corner of the world. </div><br />
I'd talk to some for a few hours, some lasted days or weeks, but I'd grow tired of some and others would grow tired of me and that was that. With a few there would be phone calls putting a voice to the words, but those were saved for the most sane and interesting of the lot. <br />
<br />
Contained within my computer was a microcosm of society and during the year I met almost any type that you can imagine. Some were kind and generous, some were perverts, some were insane, some were nice, some were lonely, some were mourning, some were trapped in bad marriages, some were nursing emotional wounds, but they were all frogs - not a prince in the virtual pond.<br />
<br />
I was never really looking to meet someone but in the back of my mind I always left open the possibility that maybe that could happen - maybe in the vast world of the Internet I'd be one of those crazy stories you hear where two people meet and it just works. Call it the Disney-effect but I kept looking for that prince on horseback that would spot me, sing a few catchy tunes, fight my evil nemesis, marry me in his castle with all the royal subjects looking on and then we'd live happily ever after, the end. That fairy tale was just as likely as me meeting anyone in real life so I figured I might as well dream big.<br />
<br />
After a crazy week where I'd started a sabbatical from work, went to therapy, let a few people in on my diagnosis, started my list that would shape my future life and ingested happy pills there was nothing that I wanted more than to escape my reality with a little jump in the pond. <br />
<br />
I logged in and began my short journey via a few clicks into the fray. <br />
<br />
Now I only needed to pick my poison for where I'd travel this night. Tonight I chose a dating site. I entered some search parameters that included "online now" and waited for the results to return. I scanned down the list and about the fourth one down jumped out at me. I read the short digest version of the profile that appeared and it was promising. I clicked to the larger profile and found someone that appeared to have the gift of being verbose just like I did. And not only that, but he was cute and interesting. <br />
<br />
I sent a very simple instant message asking if he'd care to chat. While most times I'd try to find something interesting in the profile for a starting line there was something about the honesty in this one I'd just read that said I didn't need to play the pick-up line game.<br />
<br />
My ""I'd love to chat with you if you are open to it" sent around 8:30 p.m. August 7 was met with an almost instant response of "right now? :)" Perfect! Already I was beginning to feel the value of the escape capturing me. While I chatted I didn't have to live within my mind. <br />
<br />
I couldn't believe it when I glanced down at the time in the corner of my laptop. How in the world had this guy captured my attention for three hours without it feeling like it at all? Soon after I pointed this out we switched to the phone. When he asked for my number I didn't hesitate or tell him I'd prefer to call as I had every time before so that I could block my number. Something in my gut told me that this guy was everything he appeared and everything he appeared was wonderful. He was perfect. <br />
<br />
At some point my phone beeped alerting me that I needed to plug into the charger which elicited a glance at the clock - it was now nearly 3 a.m. Not only was I wide awake and not exhausted for the first time in a year, but I was enthralled and time seemed to have ceased. I mentioned the time, it was noted and neither of us made a move to end the call. I made my next mention of the time somewhere around 5 a.m. and then again around 7 a.m. <br />
<br />
We talked and talked and talked. <br />
<br />
We covered a broad range of topics and there just never seemed to be an awkward moment or lull in the conversation. It was after 9 a.m. when we finally decided that we did need to hang up the phone. I didn't want to, but I even knew that more than 12 hours of talking was enough of me for anyone. <br />
<br />
As I laid in bed waiting for sleep to overtake me I replayed parts of the conversation, but unlike my usual self I didn't over-analyze it, I didn't even analyze it. I just wanted to commit it to memory, relive it and cherish it.<br />
<br />
It was like the best high I'd ever had. For twelve blissful hours happiness had overcome me. And more curious than anything was that this guy - this very interesting, good looking, charming, real guy - seemed to genuinely like the person on the other end of the phone and that person for once was all me with no acting. Nothing that I told him appeared to scare him away. We laughed, we had serious moments, I expressed every thought when I thought it without over-thinking or holding back. And now after all that realness he still seemed to mean it when he asked if we could talk again. I didn't know when he would grow bored with me but I knew that there was no chance that I would grow tired of him. I was sure that at some point being me would topple whatever this was, the clock would strike midnight and my coach would turn into a pumpkin, but until then I was going to enjoy every minute of the attention he gave me and ride the fairy tale high. <br />
<br />
I slept and after I woke and showered without thinking or calculating I sent a text. It was promptly answered. So I hadn't imagined that he hadn't hated me. Back and forth we went via text only a few hours after we'd stopped talking. Later that night more texts. The next day a phone call that lasted nearly five hours. I wanted to think that this guy was crazy for seeming to find me - the real me - interesting but I knew with every once of my being that he was normal and wonderful. <br />
<br />
Somehow in that pond of frogs I'd found a prince. <br />
<br />
The first few weeks we didn't talk every day but as the weeks went on it became every night. I looked forward to every evening as I hadn't anything for a long, long time. Talking to him was better than any pill. I was alive, I was happy, I looked forward to things, I was no longer exhausted, I was living and it was all because this knight in shining armor has rescued me when he didn't even know I was drowning. <br />
<br />
Only two secrets I kept from him - that I was in treatment for depression and that I was off of work because of it. I even hated those small white lies of omission, but while he liked everything else I didn't want to risk having it all taken away from me. <br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">So essential to my recovery had he become; so essential to my life. I didn't need the castle or the ball gown or the noble steed or the fairy godmother - all I needed was the conversation with my hero and life was brighter and making the effort to recover made sense to me in the context of knowing him. </div><br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">So many times I've tried to express what he has meant to me. Even now it's not adequate. He made my life make sense. I was drowning and he helped me surface. And for once in my life someone had accepted me for me - all of me - with my warts and all. </div><br />
Poor prince didn't meet a princess that night but I'm thankful that this one is a fan of frogs.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2001789194996997138.post-56051899024770747142011-02-20T09:51:00.000-08:002011-02-20T16:30:34.224-08:00Filling in the Blanks<div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXO11SNsLTkpn1mezLBK1Mmm55v6rGORnk0Uw1UEmx7yM_LNM70Uq1J8LY-6mo81hw8qTnkCJNqZY1qPHO1PnWhA5O-r2hvyvg1jF5tVHjaAcPh4skgvUddd3ruZFCTydSDR0pTRVb8Y5U/s1600/379469_broken_mirror_2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a>Throughout life I've watched girls and women utter "I'm not pretty" or "I feel fat" or any other assortment of phrases looking to their friends to tell them "No way, you're pretty" or "You're so not fat" or some other validating statement. I've always thought that most of them don't really believe what they are saying, they just want to hear someone else tell them what they already know. But I'd say "I'm ugly" time and time again and deep down in my soul I understood this was true. No matter how many times my friends would deny it, I never felt anything different. I'd dismiss their support rationalizing that they were my friends so of course they would say that even though inside their head they were agreeing with me. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhW6hkPp3CDlBcJgbeDtuCetY_mbk0H9VbDvlO3PuQLxPy3WjApC7ystSmLNxqisqE3wln3Yjhauw2ir1s0KpKY4pbfws3-wDJa-m42809uq9LtnaaqIncUAA6Hz0pxzqC-kldQtb3U3-ju/s1600/dogbook.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" j6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhW6hkPp3CDlBcJgbeDtuCetY_mbk0H9VbDvlO3PuQLxPy3WjApC7ystSmLNxqisqE3wln3Yjhauw2ir1s0KpKY4pbfws3-wDJa-m42809uq9LtnaaqIncUAA6Hz0pxzqC-kldQtb3U3-ju/s320/dogbook.jpg" width="238" /></a>The summer before I began college we were asked to send in a picture, our intended major and two interests. I mailed in the form and one of my senior pictures and didn't think much about it. So when the freshman register, or as it was more affectionately called <em>the dogbook</em>, was delivered to my dorm room I had a dull ache in the pit of my stomach - here in book form was one of my biggest nightmares. </div><br />
The dogbook, although I'm sure every administrator would deny it, was a place to troll for dates - a locale were one picture and two interests would define your worthiness to the opposite sex during the early phases of college. The tradition was that you or your friends would look through the book before one of the school's dances and call and ask for dates. It had evolved to a bunch of girls sitting in a dorm room with dogbook in one hand and a campus phone book in the other. Skimming the pages targets would be identified, phone calls to guys no one had met were made and invites to be the date of you or a friend to whatever dance was looming were extended. You could sometimes hear the guy on the other end of the phone rummaging for and then flipping through the pages to find the name and evaluate the picture and decide in an instant if you were worthy of his time. This, was my biggest nightmare that I didn't know I'd ever had come to life. I never dated in high school - attending an all girls high school made it easy to avoid it since you'd have to actively seek out guys at other schools. When I dreamed of going away to college I added meeting the perfect guy - one that would probably have to be blind - into the mythical world where somehow all my fears of men would just magically disappear. <br />
<br />
So when they announced our first hall dance - "The Sweetest Thing" (theme chosen by it's relation to Sweetest Day) I desperately wanted to join my friends, but I had no joy in the idea that somehow I'd have to find a date. I left it up to my friends - they could pick someone and make the calls. I scurried off saying I needed to go to a study group and let them have their fun. There was no way in the world I wanted to sit by and watch them giggle and make calls as guys rejected me based on my looks. I knew that my best bet for ever dating was my personality and the dogbook was not going to aid in that pursuit. <br />
<br />
When I arrived home my friends announced that they found someone and proudly displayed the page with his picture. I was pretty astounded - staring back at me from the page was a cute guy and his interests didn't include reading in braille. How in the world did he agree to this? Did my friends offer to pay him? They gave me his number and told me he wanted me to call. He'd been confused that I wasn't with them at the time they called. Most people didn't let their friends go through this process without sitting by and witnessing it. I dialed the phone - this I could do because talking was easy for me. Everything went well. We talked for more than an hour, he showed up that weekend and didn't run away. After drinking at a pre-party in someones room we headed to the dance and had a fantastic time. We hung out afterward and when he left he kissed me in the lobby of my dorm. All was good. But it did nothing to make me feel any better the next time a dance arrived. <br />
<br />
The dogbook was my secret hell. No matter what amount of guys said yes when my friends asked them out for me made me feel any different about it. And when the process took more than a few phone calls it just affirmed my opinion of myself - no guy wanted to even spend one evening as my date even when I was buying the beers. For an ugly girl this tradition was torture. <br />
<br />
When I started looking back on the years I discovered something very interesting about this - it coincided with a weight gain. Just as finding out that my dad abandoned me had. So I searched the database in my brain and scanned my life. First time I remember a boy in elementary school looking at me in a way that I knew meant something - I went home and binged. Anytime I felt a guy getting closer as anything more than a friend - a weight gain. And when I'd go out and no guy would come within 10 feet of me, even though I was wearing what one of my friends affectionately labeled my "fuck off" face, I'd go home and eat. When I let myself date anyone - I'd push them away waiting to see if they came back and then when they didn't I filled the space they left with food. Wow, there was a pattern here. My fear of abandonment, being judged on appearance and food were all wrapped up in one pretty little picture called an eating disorder, my own special version that involved binging but never purging. I imagine that somewhere in that lovely subconscious I'd combined seeking comfort from food with binging enough to gain weight to make myself unattractive to any guy that was blind to my ugliness. For a very smart girl and then woman I'd done a pretty good job of not unraveling this one for a while. <br />
<br />
So as this realization dawned I started to look back at other memories - maybe they held more answers. And then I thought of a constant refrain in my life: "You'd be pretty if _________" the blank being filled in with "lost weight," "didn't talk so much," "weren't so opinionated," blah, blah, blah, and I'm sure it hadn't helped my self-esteem. No wonder I had the urge to argue with anyone when they paid me a compliment that had to do with anything other than my intellect. It became very clear to me from an early age that I was a "smart girl" and there was no room in my life for any other label to stick. No matter how much I would stare in the mirror the reflection that looked back at me was never "something" enough to appear pretty.<br />
<br />
I'd look at childhood pictures and someone would say "You were so cute, what happened?" and what was really gentle teasing became the truth to me. So later in life when I'd sit around with my friends and we played the game of "I'm not _____" or "I'm too ____," I wasn't looking for validation of myself, I really believed what I was saying. My negative self-image was off the charts. <br />
<br />
So once the origin of how these blanks had been filled in was revealed I decided that the first thing I needed to work on was accepting a compliment. I didn't have to agree with the person, I only needed to thank them for their kindness. I wasn't pulling off this facade though. I was once told "That 'thank you' would be more convincing if you didn't make that 'this guy is crazy face' as you said it." So, this act needed practice. I'd bite my tongue time and time again when I wanted to say the person was wrong. I still haven't perfected it. And, there are still a few times when I can't resist the argument. Not so long ago I was talking to someone and he told me "you're gorgeous." My response "let's not get carried away, we both know that isn't true." Discussion ensued and when I told him the "You'd be pretty if, fill in the blank," story he told me that he didn't care who said that or if they were teasing or not, "It's a pretty shitty thing to say." I know that the people in my life never intended to create this issue for me, but it's amazing what words can do - sometimes they do speak louder. <br />
<br />
But, toppling a belief system so ingrained in the psyche can't be done just by identifying it. And so now, after all these years I need to learn to fill in my own blanks even when I still believe the answers that were inserted earlier. I'd taken the test and the teacher had marked which answers were wrong, but I couldn't seem to find what answer was supposed to fit in there. Maybe one day I'll discover that magical right answer to complete the sentence "You'd be pretty if _________."Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2001789194996997138.post-88787326610599688142011-02-18T07:24:00.000-08:002011-02-19T07:53:21.873-08:00The ChecklistLife rarely spirals out of control at a break-neck pace. Instead it's a slow, gradual evolution of despair. And if you look closely you can sometimes see the cracks in corners of the life of someone that is appearing to hold it together. <br />
<br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5yB46F84DKwJ0v9HT7AnHbT-Sx6QSEFbhfkZiG1hi4QBpzXxKM1p0NkOIXZQzkQK2JTxe05O12zCmLPnF32o98ahRqsedcjku5vEjtPwMJOxy_0NJFujbNaow9goFGul2SyDChlKrk2XU/s1600/clutter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" j6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5yB46F84DKwJ0v9HT7AnHbT-Sx6QSEFbhfkZiG1hi4QBpzXxKM1p0NkOIXZQzkQK2JTxe05O12zCmLPnF32o98ahRqsedcjku5vEjtPwMJOxy_0NJFujbNaow9goFGul2SyDChlKrk2XU/s1600/clutter.jpg" /></a>During my depression outward appearance was very important to me. I carefully chose nice clothing, added accessories, applied make-up and tried to look nice for the world. Back home I had another big secret that I would be embarrassed for anyone to discover.</div><br />
After I found myself facing time off work with only therapy appointments in sight, I knew that I needed to have a plan. Somehow getting up, showering and putting on clothes didn't seem like enough even though it really was all that I had the energy to handle. The sad thing was that I knew one of the big things that needed to be done, I just couldn't figure out how to start. That journey of a thousand miles might start with a single step but I didn't know what direction to even face.<br />
<br />
So, that morning after I'd been granted one of the greatest gifts ever given me - time to repair myself - the three weeks loomed large. I'd been so focused on just getting through the hours and days that three weeks might as well have been an eternity. And yet, it really wasn't much time at all to unravel the damage that was at least a year in the making. <br />
<br />
I prepared my checklist for the day: wake up, shower, get dressed, go to therapy. That seemed like a pretty full day to my weary mind. <br />
<br />
I waited in the lobby and then followed my therapist back to her office. Taking a seat on her sofa, I kicked off my flip flops, folded my legs under me and put one of her pillows on my lap. I had worn a nice pair of jeans, a tank with beading near the neckline, a summer-style sweater, earrings, a necklace and carefully applied make-up. Next to outward appearance of caring and sanity I put a big check. <br />
<br />
I stared down at my nails, took a deep breath and waited. Somehow I knew that I was going to have to admit another secret today and I wasn't looking forward to unveiling another crazy part of myself to the world. <br />
<br />
She looked at me and asked how I was. "OK," I lied. <br />
<br />
So I'm sure to break the ice, she told me was that I was the first of her patients in the three years she'd been at the practice that the doctor had written out of work. Great - so I was clearly a mess and now it was affirmed. Maybe I needed to put the task of appearance back on my list.<br />
<br />
Now, she said "What are you going to do with this gift? What would you like your life to start looking like again in three weeks? What will make going back to work and life easier?" I knew the answer but I was, if possible, more embarrassed to say what I wanted to do then I was admitting that I needed help in the first place.<br />
<br />
So my therapist and I had a battle of silence as I averted my eyes, picked at the pillow and took some deep breaths.<br />
<br />
Finally I caved. "I need to clean my apartment." My life and mind were a mess and so was my place. <br />
<br />
Somehow during the year of indifference and despair I'd stopped caring about not only how I was living, but the environment that I lived in too. To anyone else I'm sure this would be disturbing and I'm sure that cleaning seemed like a sad use of time. I mean I knew that I wasn't the kind of person that would be accepted for an episode of Hoarders - there were no stacks of used butter containers or folded paper towels saved in bags or any other weird assortment of things. I could walk from room to room without having to turn this way or that way, but there was clutter. <br />
<br />
The origin was simple. One day I'd come home from work and I just didn't want to do anything so I'd throw the mail on the table and veg-out in front of the television. Soon enough the pile of mail that needed to be sorted and shredded was toppling over onto a chair. So when I couldn't look at it anymore I'd shove it under the sofa or throw it in a drawer. It's not like I didn't know it was there, but I no longer had to stare at my failings. Tired from another day of work I threw my clothes on the chair in my bedroom and soon enough the chair housed more clothing than my closet. I'd look at a stack of folded laundry and then never put it away, picking clean clothes from the pile until I had to wash it and start the process again. <br />
<br />
All parts of my life were becoming overwhelming and the more I didn't do, the more overwhelming it became. And knowing how many things I'd hidden away or thrown in a closet and shut the door on, I knew that the mess wasn't easily unraveled. And much like everything in my life I didn't know where to start so I just didn't.<br />
<br />
There had been many failed attempts during the past year to take care of this. I'd deal with one small part of my mess and then be overwhelmed by how little difference it made or simply the act itself would exhaust me. So, I eventually I only cleaned what I had to. But after having clean dishes, a clean bathroom, clean clothes and taking out the trash, I didn't see the point in much else. <br />
<br />
To give her credit she seemed to have expected that I might have been ignoring things. She told me that it was a common part of depression to stop caring, to not have the energy for everyday tasks and to have let things that others wouldn't easily see (the inside of my house where I was inviting no one) to go to hell. <br />
<br />
I needed to look at this rationally and appropriately. The goal was to have made a major dent in this when I returned to work. Set small, attainable goals. Maybe the first day only meant dealing with a stack of mail. We developed a list. So now, thanks to a handy app on my phone I had a place to type in my list, my start on the road back to sanity. <br />
<br />
First up I'd clean my living room since it was the first room I entered when I came home. That way when I entered my apartment I could look forward to a clean, orderly space that inspired serenity instead of panic.I had a week to do it. Such a small space but I was still overwhelmed by the idea. <br />
<br />
I was going to unclutter my mind by literally sweeping and shredding and putting things in their place. For every bag of garbage I threw out I'd be cleaning a small corner of my brain. What I had to admit to myself is that I could do it, that I needed to not beat myself up if I didn't accomplish as much as I wanted in a day and I needed to celebrate small victories. My life, mind and apartment didn't get this way in a day and they weren't going to be fixed in one. <br />
<br />
For the next three weeks this was how I would spend my work day and then after the work was done I could rest, relax, connect with friends and let myself learn to be me again. Small baby steps with a checklist to guide them. And as I put digital check-marks next to seemingly simple tasks I slowly felt some of the weight of the clutter and my life lift.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2001789194996997138.post-10866871110901784152011-02-13T22:07:00.000-08:002011-02-15T05:46:19.533-08:00The Sponge Bread Barbie Doll Puzzle<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">I don't really like food all that much. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">I'm sure that statement would surprise many that have looked at me, but I really don't enjoy much of it at all. I'm one of the pickiest eaters I know and most of the time I could care less if I even ate at all. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">So how does someone that doesn't even really like food struggle with her weight most of her life? How does that girl get diagnosed with an eating disorder that is unclassified in the DSM-IV? It's pretty simple - in my world food equals comfort, not sustenance. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Until a few years ago my life was a puzzle. I had all the pieces and the pretty picture on the box top for how it was supposed to turn out, but I didn't know how to put them together. In one moment of clarity I started writing (which I never did) and the words on the page surprised me. Everything fell into place. </div></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">So I can now clearly trace my food issues back to one crucial moment in my life at the age of 7. </div></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">It was also the same age that I first became acquainted with the wonder of Wonder Bread. While other kids liked chocolate, candy, chips and other various kid foods my favorite food for snacking was contained in that happily decorated polka dot sleeve. I would come home from school, open the bag and take out the sponge bread. In between my palms I'd crush the bread and then peel off the crusts and eat them. I'd do the same to the other piece. And then I'd take the squished pieces of bread, roll them into a ball and eat them that way. I'm not sure how the ritual developed but everyday I'd do the same thing. Sometimes I'd even have a third. If I wanted an after dinner snack it was the same thing. I had always been the tallest girl my age but this was also coincidentally the age when my growth seemed to take on hyper-acceleration and my mom used to joke that the Wonder Bread commercial said "builds bodies 12 ways" and mine were all up. </div></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">The other event - the life-altering one - wouldn't have looked like one to anyone else but me. I was in a friend's bedroom playing Barbies. The three of us present had played Barbies for years. The girls were two years older than me and nearing the end of the doll-playing days, but until then we gathered as often as we could. <br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo2yDG1V9aNjmfY7ZGod1BLAETy8v2CKM8GmlLngbUNOpciPPPCIQ1V8fx6N4uzfgl2B8MGo_BrrXEcMb5cTD8aYiPL-GMxQz3EY4oIqMVfNT5I_3XJfHa6zYdHV8aQExu3L6Er-5judKm/s1600/%2521CBv-E4Q%25212k%257E%2524%2528KGrHqJ%252C%2521j%2521E0GWuSRTtBNI31S3is%2521%257E%257E_3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" h5="true" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo2yDG1V9aNjmfY7ZGod1BLAETy8v2CKM8GmlLngbUNOpciPPPCIQ1V8fx6N4uzfgl2B8MGo_BrrXEcMb5cTD8aYiPL-GMxQz3EY4oIqMVfNT5I_3XJfHa6zYdHV8aQExu3L6Er-5judKm/s200/%2521CBv-E4Q%25212k%257E%2524%2528KGrHqJ%252C%2521j%2521E0GWuSRTtBNI31S3is%2521%257E%257E_3.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">That day I'd innocently carried my plastic yellow Barbie case that had room for dolls on one side and a hanging rod for clothes on the other across the street ready for another adventure. </div></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">After elaborately setting up our "houses" and dressing our dolls we began to play. Our dolls visited each other, dressed for work and then one of the Barbies had a date with Ken. It must have been the "infamous" third date because at the end of this one clothes were removed and Barbie and Ken were doing something that I didn't quite understand. I'm pretty sure it was with horror that I gasped and asked what she was doing. My friend proceeded to explain to me that was how babies were made and then described how that happened in the most graphic of 9-year-old detail. No way! That was not at all what happened I retorted. This debate went back and forth but I wasn't willing to give up my fight. <br />
</div></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Years later I figured out what I had internalized from that day where Barbie and I both lost a little innocence - if this is <em>really</em> how babies are made that means that somewhere out in the world I had a dad that I'd never met and he, the first man that should have loved me, didn't. </div></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">In the world of 20-20 hindsight I wish I would have marched back home with my plastic case of plastic dolls and asked some questions. Instead, since it had always been a hush-hush topic, I took my cue and didn't say a word. </div></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Up until that point I'd flitted around my neighborhood and blended into any group. Now, something was different. <br />
<br />
I stopped playing with the boys down the street that would give me quick kisses in the garage as we got a game out of my toy cabinet or unearthed my bike to take on a new adventure. That could be explained away by how most boys and girls get the dreaded "cooties" at some point and stop interacting for a while. I grew apart from my Barbie playing friends but that was just explained by how they were a few years older and moving on from the days of dolls. I had friends, I functioned, but I wasn't the same and looking back I can see all that now.</div></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">At school I felt different. It was like I was finally let in on the joke that everyone had been saying behind my back. I felt like an outsider. No one was living the kind of existence I was. No one I knew didn't have a dad. No one else I knew wasn't good enough to be loved. No one else had been abandoned before they were even born. Before this I'd never really thought anything about my different living situation, now it was everything. So, even though I played and laughed and managed in the midst of all my friends I would stand surrounded by people and still I would feel I was alone. </div></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">And thus, the habit of coming home from the crowded room and eating Wonder Bread evolved. It was a comfortable routine that greeted me with open arms after a long day. And the skinny girl that never had a butt to hold up her pants began to have a shape as the weight came on from eating so many refined carbohydrates, or whatever really is in Wonder Bread. When I look back at pictures I wasn't really big at all, but the few extra pounds I'd put on after having been stick thin for so long was shocking. Now I was not the tall skinny girl, but the tall big girl that was packing a few extra pounds.</div></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">My relationship with food since that day has always been difficult. Different routines and different foods eventually evolved into a full-blown eating disorder. And always food was the answer to feeling better after I stood surrounded by friends and people and put on the happy face, laughed until I cried and then died a little inside. No matter how many people you packed into a room, I was still always alone.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2001789194996997138.post-70860557176110024382011-02-12T11:39:00.000-08:002011-02-13T11:11:42.113-08:00The Battlefield<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">I waited 24-hours to fill my prescription. </div></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8QaapL58P17ukcQJZkjv6pR-vyYVGYnJlQW-rj19q7FEXO6Y4k_OLI6hg7IRG9jfP2_Tf0vToleaapZWxpEePh8zpn6trVGNgzksb9bGQEMdbjyvb3hXpEmEe6GNRI23GwSWyi16YBIGP/s1600/battle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" h5="true" height="227" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8QaapL58P17ukcQJZkjv6pR-vyYVGYnJlQW-rj19q7FEXO6Y4k_OLI6hg7IRG9jfP2_Tf0vToleaapZWxpEePh8zpn6trVGNgzksb9bGQEMdbjyvb3hXpEmEe6GNRI23GwSWyi16YBIGP/s320/battle.jpg" width="320" /></a>Handing the slip to the pharmacist was letting someone else in on the secret, it was another admission to the world that I was sick, it was another admission that this was really my life. </div></div></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div>I didn't like needing help whether it be from a person or a drug. I was a strong, independent woman and everyone agreed and strong, independent women didn't need help. I was the help giver. The shoulder to cry upon. The one everyone else told secrets to without me ever having to reveal too much of myself to be considered a dear friend. That woman didn't need help.<br />
<br />
I certainly didn't want to think of what the person behind the counter might be thinking when they filled the script.<br />
<br />
Letting go of that piece of paper in exchange for a bottle of pills was also the height of my hypocrisy. So often I would think that people just needed to get their shit together and be done with it. In some ways it didn't surprise me that the judgement that I'd cast for the "weak" was one of things that terrified me most.<br />
<br />
Parts of me wondered if I could just keep walking into my appointments and pretend that I was taking my meds - I mean I'd already proved that I could act what was one more performance? <br />
<br />
I drove up to the pharmacy's drive-thru window and put that small white piece of paper in and watched the person on the other side take it and my insurance card out and tell me that I could pick it up in an hour. <br />
<br />
I like to think that I imagined the disdain that I saw in his expression. Just another crazy person in the world in his eyes. I knew those eyes. I'd peered through those eyes and judged the person that I saw. Now I'd have to look into my own and see that person that so long I thought was weak. I was weak. <br />
<br />
An hour later I picked up the script, signed the forms, dismissed the pharmacist when he asked if I had any questions about the medication and drove home. <br />
<br />
I sat the pill bottle on the coffee table and stared at it. I waited and then waited some more. Finally I threw caution to the wind and swallowed a pill. My first half-dose of medicine was in my system. There was no turning back now.<br />
<br />
I laid on the sofa and stared at the TV and wondered "when will I begin to feel them working"? My answer would come within the hour only not in the way that I anticipated. <br />
<br />
Mindlessly watching some show and dozing on and off I awoke to a headache like none I'd ever experienced. I've had a few migraines in my life but this was not like one of them. It didn't build slowly it just arrived as the sharpest stabbing pain I'd ever experienced. It was attacking from all sides of my head. It radiated in a strange pattern that I envision was following the blood flow through my brain. <br />
<br />
Something was attacking my mind and the game that it was playing with it was not a fun one at all. Stabbing myself repeatedly with a sharp object would have felt better than this.<br />
<br />
Posted very clearly on the bottle was a bold neon yellow label warning that taking ibuprofen with this medication could cause a severe reaction. I wondered if the reaction would be worse then this pain? If I thought I could drive through the blinding, intense bolts of stabbing pain I might have returned to the pharmacy to see if there was anything I could take or if this was normal. <br />
<br />
And then the headache tried to cure itself by taking every bit of moisture from my mouth. I drank a glass of water. It was no help. I filled the glass again and downed the contents. Still the same. I repeated the process. Four glasses of water later and I still felt like I was walking through a sandstorm for hours with my mouth open. I took another sip and this time I didn't swallow. I swished the water around my mouth and even then with a mouth full of water my mouth still felt dry.<br />
<br />
A knife stabbed through my head again. I envisioned that this might be what it feels like if a bullet passed through the back of your head and exited through the forehead. I couldn't anticipate where the next burst of pain would come from, what path it would travel or where it would exit. And when there weren't these arrows and bullets flying they only yielded way to a constant throbbing pain that never left.<br />
<br />
I endured hours of this. I'd be surprised by a few bolts here and there but for the most part it was now a more consistent, albeit constant pain. What would it have felt like if they started you off with a full dose of medication and was it always going to be this way?<br />
<br />
If it were possible my mouth became drier. No telling how much water I'd consumed. I think I could feel the blood traveling through my body. As the medication coursed through my veins I'd feel dull aches where it passed. <br />
<br />
Never in my life had I wanted out of physical misery more than this one. Misery and happiness (via pharmaceuticals) were battling for possession of my mind and I had no choice but to sit back and watch the fight. Not really an innocent victim, but a victim of the battle no less. <br />
<br />
The headache lasted almost 24 hours. It left around the time I was due for my next half dose. The dry mouth had not ceased. <br />
<br />
Who knows how or why I did it, but I took a second pill. And I went through the same reaction. Arrows of pain flew through my head. And well, I might as well have been drinking glasses of dust. <br />
<br />
Somewhere in the midst of this I'd looked at the papers that accompanied the script; dry mouth and migraines were listed as possible and probable side effects. So this was what I had to look forward to every day? Was I just replacing my mental anguish with a physical one? <br />
<br />
The next day the headache was duller until I took my first full dose. The battle was not as intense, but it was still there. Less bullets exchanged between the depression side and the sane one, but gun fire was still present.<br />
<br />
I could still feel the medicine course through my blood stream. I could feel it traveling. Maybe I was replacing depression with psychosis. Who feels their blood moving that isn't full-blown batshit crazy? <br />
<br />
It took three and a half days for me to feel normal - and by that I mean my own version of depressed normal. It took a few more days for the dry mouth to cease. <br />
<br />
I kept waiting for the pain to yield happy thoughts along with sunshine and roses. It didn't deliver. It's power to heal was apparently going to be more subtle. <br />
<br />
I'd endured the entry of this chemical compound into my system. The medicine had won the battle. In it's aftermath I waited for the healing and better life begin.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2001789194996997138.post-3711787378769780462011-02-10T01:11:00.000-08:002011-02-10T15:37:43.927-08:00And the Oscar Goes to ...I'd never fancied myself the theatre type, but it turned out I was one of the best actresses on the planet. <br />
<br />
Never had someone taken on the starring role of themselves and played it with more conviction and authority then me. <br />
<br />
If I'd thought to film the last year of my life when I'd left my home the gold statute would be mine without a doubt. That smile that I pasted on my face had fooled everyone including the people closest to me. No one had looked at the cracks that were hiding under my stage make-up. The few people that I told about what was going on with me appeared shocked. Either I was as good as I believed I was or they were even better and nods for best supporting actor and actress in my life were theirs. <br />
<br />
Never had my act been more convincing then the week that followed that first phone call I'd made for help. Four people in my life knew of my diagnosis. Not one of them would be around that next week when I headed out on vacation with my family to the Smokies. Somehow I was on top of my game. For an entire week I was on from almost the moment I woke to when I went to sleep at night. I was never alone. I couldn't break. It was the performance of a lifetime.<br />
<br />
During the nights I'd wake and find some refuge in the hotel's bathroom, my dressing room of sorts. There I'd sit on the side of the tub and let the flood gates open. Quietly sobbing and alone with my thoughts. Funny thing is that as much as I can recall a lot of moments from that trip I can't tell you what I was thinking sitting there alone in the middle of the night, I know that I had thoughts but I can't recall a single one. <br />
<br />
When I exhausted myself enough I'd splash my face with water, down some advil (because for that week I think all the inner pain that I couldn't show because of my extended performance times manifested itself in headaches) and then wander back to bed. I'd lay there staring at the wall until sleep overtook me knowing that the next time I'd open my eyes I'd have to wake up in character. <br />
<br />
I admit that I did have times that week when I didn't need to act. There were moments when I was surrounded by the serenity of the mountains or by the laughter of my cousins that I didn't have to perform. There were genuine smiles and laughs. The hardest thing was knowing that even then, just below the surface was a very fragile person and the smallest of things could break her. <br />
<br />
I had a few moments where I lost control of my performance. There were times when everything frazzled me so that I lashed out angrily at those around me using words as my weapon to protect myself. I almost ruined my performance on the last day when I overreacted to several things that didn't matter to me really in the least. I knew the cracks were showing and I was silently thankful that the curtain call was in sight. <br />
<br />
The trip home was tense for a while. My anger seemed to be the only emotion that would keep the tears away. I barely spoke. And I ate pretzel sticks saying that I needed them to help me stay focused and awake as I drove, but really it was just something to focus on to keep me from thinking. It wasn't the first time that I'd used food to cope and I certainly wasn't going to tackle that demon that day. <br />
<br />
About an hour into the drive I pulled myself together so that I could be the person that I was supposed to be again. Call it my intermission. <br />
<br />
It felt as if I'd driven about a week before we arrived in Toledo. My concentration, which I could barely summon since even before the crash, left me and I mistakenly exited the highway about six exits early - it was like forgetting my lines until someone cued me. And then in the shadow of the now-missing old Jeep plant rubble I couldn't figure out how to get back to the highway. I, the person that never gets lost and always gives other directions in the city, couldn't find the way a block. I was sure that it would be a tip-off but I'd played the role so long no one noticed that I was acting anymore thanks to my convincing dialogue. <br />
<br />
When I'd dropped the last family member home and was finally alone in the safety of my car I navigated home through a wall of tears. <br />
<br />
I'd done it. The award for best performance by a leading actress was mine. <br />
<br />
I made it through Friday at home, Saturday at work, Sunday at home, Monday at work camera-ready for all my close-ups. <br />
<br />
I'd made it to Tuesday. I worked the morning and then took a long lunch for my appointment. This time I was seeing the psychiatrist - the producer of the next small portion of my life.<br />
<br />
The script she wrote for me was two pages long: page one a note saying that under her care I couldn't work because of a biological disorder and page two detailed the special effects that would be available me though the wonders of chemical enhancement. <br />
<br />
I woke the next morning more refreshed then ever thinking that the day would not involve my acting skills. I went to therapy. I talked. I cried.<br />
<br />
That afternoon I gave an unanticipated curtain call after a text came across my phone.<br />
Mom: "Lunch?" <br />
Me: "Yes, but pick me up at my house, I'm home."<br />
<br />
She questioned this unanticipated plot twist. She hadn't anticipated where the story was going. She'd bought my act. She'd been part of my target demographic. <br />
<br />
For the first time in a very long time I didn't act in front of the most important person in my life. As much as I wasn't acting anymore I really wasn't ready to give even a digest version of my script. And my mom, wonder woman that she is, didn't pry, she was content to wait for me outside the stage door. <br />
<br />
She let me be what I needed that day - no longer an actress - just a woman, just a daughter, just a broken, mute soul.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2001789194996997138.post-48741783816787855092011-02-08T17:25:00.000-08:002011-02-08T22:45:38.982-08:00Many, Many StartsSeven months ago I set up this blog and then abandoned it like I had so many things.<br />
<br />
Nearly a month later came the crash. <br />
<br />
Little did I know how apropos the title of the blog would be. <br />
<br />
Since then I've stopped and started many posts that I felt I could not share with most of my friends. The cluttered mind musings became more like a personal online journal. But I decided a few days ago that sharing might just be what I need to do to complete my journey. <br />
<br />
So here it goes (drawing from and expanding upon a few journal postings)...<br />
<br />
The crash, Monday, July 19, 2010<br />
<br />
Much like I had for months and months on end I started my day by being late for work. It's difficult to explain to someone that's never been there but there was a certain level of me that just no longer cared. I had no energy, all I wanted to do was sleep and given the option I wouldn't have left my house if I didn't have to do so. Often times I would sleep through my alarm somehow turning it off and not caring or bothering to hit snooze. It no longer mattered, I didn't care, I didn't want to care and I didn't have the energy to care. It was the same every day save for a few and those few were never on a work day. <br />
<br />
Never in my life had I felt so lifeless. I had no control of my thoughts or emotions and I certainly had no control of my life. I was just getting by - existing but not living. <br />
<br />
So, on this day I did the same - overslept and then laid in bed just thinking "you need to get up and go to work." I'd think it, repeat it and then move nary a muscle. Different day, same story. <br />
<br />
Eventually, like every day I'd lay there some more and think "what has happened to you?" And then like many, many other days I'd silently cry my thoughts being that this was what every day was going to be like for years and years to come. I was miserable, but I couldn't change it. Getting up meant I'd have to pretend to be OK again and pretending was becoming exhausting. So instead I'd lay in bed and cry and then I'd look at the clock and think if you get up and hurry you can make it almost on time. I'd even started setting my alarm an hour early with the hope that it would be enough time to get my shit together, but all I found was that every day I needed more and more time to face the world. <br />
<br />
Eventually I'd know that it was too late to be on time, so I'd get out of bed, walk to my sofa, pull open my laptop and check facebook and then my blogroll and then yahoo news and then Huffington Post and then sometimes I'd start the pattern again. Soon enough I'd notice that Good Morning America, on in the background, was signing off for the morning and well that meant that I should have been arriving at work. <br />
<br />
So I'd gather all my energy and then go shower. And then I'd be exhausted again. I'd lay on my bed, glance at the clock and close my eyes. I was already late, what would a few more minutes matter. I had a mantra almost where I'd tell myself to get up and get moving. But I couldn't move.<br />
<br />
Eventually I'd move again even though every ounce of me didn't want to so. Some days it took longer than others. <br />
<br />
I'd dry my hair, put on make-up, dress and then look at the person in the mirror that looked presentable on the outside, but on the inside was a disaster. <br />
<br />
This was the same day I'd lived over and over again for months. I was stuck on a very slow version of repeat.<br />
<br />
Somehow I made it to work that day like I had many others. Smile pasted on my face I did the best job that I could. To the outside world I was fine. Once I could finally drag myself from the depths of the doldrums I functioned. I smiled. I pretended. <br />
<br />
But that day I broke.<br />
<br />
When I look back I suppose that I could see that the days were getting worse. One after the other I was falling deeper and deeper into despair. I was on a very, very fragile string and today was the day that I didn't know it would unravel. <br />
<br />
At some point during the day I sat at my desk and tears began to roll down my cheeks. I couldn't stop them. I don't know why they began. I couldn't stop them. The last vestige of control was gone. I wasn't holding it together. My only thought was "what am I going to do now?," because I was no longer holding up the good face once I left the house. So I did something that I did not usually do - I went to my car and took a break (because I pretended that skipping all my breaks made up for my constant tardiness). <br />
<br />
I pulled out my phone, hit the browser button for google and typed. I took out a pen, paper and hit the number link so that it would dial the number. <br />
<br />
I was at of the lowest points in my life - I felt weak and out-of-control in a way I never had before. <br />
<br />
When the person on the other end answered at Saint Vincent Hospital's referral line I told her I needed the number for psychiatrists in the area. I wrote down the two numbers and asked her to transfer me to that department at the hospital. I spoke with a very nice person on the phone and told her I'm on the edge of a cliff here and I don't know what to do - I was ready to drive myself to the hospital, but she advised me to try the private route first, telling me that unfortunately most in-patient programs are so full of drug-addicts and those with psychotic disorders that they would be able to offer me little help.<br />
<br />
Through my now constant stream of tears I dialed the first number - disconnected. I dialed the second and was asked if I could hold and then promptly placed on hold before I could even answer. My ears were assaulted with what I could only mildly describe as "circus" music. I hung up hoping that these were not going to be my only options. The lock-down ward in the hospital was beginning to look preferable. <br />
<br />
I redialed Saint V's. I spoke with the same, very patient woman and told her that the first number was disconnected, the second didn't look like a viable option and pretty much pleaded with her for another number. The third number was the charm, the first glimmer of hope that I'd had in months. The woman that answered the phone had a voice that soothed me from the moment she began to speak. I told her that I needed to see someone. There was no way that she couldn't hear in my voice that I was sobbing. She didn't have an appointment for a month. My heart sank. I'd finally made the move and yet, it wasn't going to help. She told me the hours and offered that I should come in and fill out the paperwork and that she'd put me on the cancellation list. <br />
<br />
Somehow I made it through the rest of the day. There is something to it when they tell you that taking a step really does help. I took another break that day with a very dear, understanding friend and I told her that I'd made a call, I needed help, I was falling apart. It was the first time I'd even thought of admitting my weakness to someone else. And again I cried. She was perfect, understanding and I thought surprised, but maybe it was my hopeful interpretation that my disguise had worked. <br />
<br />
I left work that day and drove to the doctor's office. The walk from my car to the door terrified me. I didn't know what to expect. I felt like I shouldn't need help. I felt more weak and broken then I had earlier in the day. <br />
<br />
With a deep intake of breath I opened the inner office door and walked to the window. Before I even finished telling her that I'd talked to her today the woman behind the window put me at ease. She handed me the stack of papers and alone in the waiting room I filled in the easy ones first - name, age ... Then came the difficult ones - admitting why I was there. <br />
<br />
There I was sitting in a nice black skirt, white and red shirt with decorative lace, a summer weight black crocheted sweater, black necklace, silver hoop earrings, black ballet flats - looking every bit the put-together woman, but as I filled out question after question the veneer of being put-together was washed away by the tears that ran down my face. I couldn't breath. I was doing this. I was admitting that I was sick on paper when I hadn't really even admitted it to myself. The receptionist took one look at me and said "we need to find an appointment for you this week." I told her that I'd make it to whatever she could find. She told me that I'd love Kelly and found a middle of the day appointment on Wednesday. <br />
<br />
When I left I actually did feel better. I'd done it. And I lived through it. I took a step, albeit a very tiny one, but it was the first step I'd taken in many, many months. <br />
<br />
Two days later I walked into the office again at 2:15 p.m. - a few minutes early for something, which is clearly something that had not happened in a long, long time. <br />
<br />
After an hour and a half of questioning I left there with a diagnosis of "major depressive disorder", the most severe degree of depression (one that is categorized by an inability to work and difficulty dealing with family or friends among other things) and "eating disorder, not otherwise specified / bulimia." <br />
<br />
It was a start.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1