It’s really a wonder that I haven’t dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.
—Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl
Mextures Formula: CLABPXZ
I have spent a lot of time thinking about this in the last couple of days: At this time in my life it’s not even about ups or downs or moods…it’s about bad days and good days. People say that you can choose to have a good day just by having a positive thought when you wake up, or by praying or meditating when you wake up – all sorts of different things like that, usually involving gratitude for something, even just life itself. I find that extremely difficult some days, and completely untrue on those days, as witnessed by my past couple of posts.
I don’t think that the power of positive thinking is always enough. There is nothing I can EVER do to change things with my mother. I can not cure dementia. I can not change her. I can not change the situation as it is at this time. Same thing with grief – I can not change the fact that my father and my best friend are dead. They are not coming back. In those instances, people will say it’s down to acceptance and that is true. I can get behind that, to some extent, although as most of you know I don’t believe in such a thing as an end to grief…
I was listening to music earlier while I was folding laundry and this song came on called, “Breathe Me,” by Sia. It hit me in my gut like a bad piece of chicken. We can take responsibility all we want to, we can take action all we want to, but sometimes it just hurts. Sometimes we are just lost. Sometimes we are just hurt. Sometimes we are just afraid. Sometimes we are all of those things and more, all at once, and we are completely overwhelmed. That’s where I’ve been.
Yesterday a friend of mine told me, “Now I’m gonna say this and I just want you to listen to me. I don’t want you to use (anything) as a crutch. You’re STRONG. You walk around with a shaved head because you want to! You don’t care what people think…” She went on… So last night I laid in bed, in my pitch black and freezing cold bedroom trying to stave off an impending migraine (unsuccessful, by the way), and I let all she’d said float around in my head. And ultimately, two things stood out to me.
I do have a crutch. It is alcohol. And it is a waste of time – it doesn’t accomplish anything positive, except momentary lapses in the ability to feel things. And, strength is relative. People see different things as examples of strength. The fact this person, who has been through more than I ever imagined when I first met her, completely rebuilt her life and walks around with such an air of confidence even my shaved head is in awe – for this person to say to me, “you are stronger than this. You ARE STRONG,” humbled me in a way that I couldn’t understand. Of course, that led to more thoughts and more considerations and a whole lot of writing in my journal…but I fell asleep knowing that I did not want to drink today.
And I didn’t.
And I don’t know why. I don’t know what changed.
I do know that by lunch time tomorrow I’ll be craving alcohol like the drought ridden fields crave rain…and I don’t know what I’ll do about that. Probably text or call her, or my cousin, or my therapist…maybe go to the feed store and hang out. I don’t know. But I do know this much – if you really want to make a change, you will do it.
I haven’t smoked in over 24 hours, haven’t had a drink in over 24 hours, and the only reason is because I just wanted to see if I could. I didn’t tell anyone until later in the day today, when I was at the feed store. I didn’t keep it to myself because I was afraid I would fail. I kept it to myself because I only wanted it to be about me and what I wanted.
I don’t know what tomorrow will bring. But I do know that I don’t feel the same way I felt a few days ago when I was battling the suicidal ideation and the complete lack of regard for my life, my health, or my Be-ing. I don’t know what changed… I think mostly, it was being seen, and being cared for, and being spoken to in a way that wasn’t at all what I expected.
I always said I would never allow another “Dorie” into my life – or at least that there would never be another her. I think I may have changed my mind…or my heart… You never know who is going to walk into your life, or when.
Therapy used to be the bane of my existence. Now that I have the best therapist on the planet (for me) via BetterHelp, it’s not so bad. The whole thing revolves around my time schedule – which can be pretty chaotic – and finally finding (or being gifted by the universe?) a therapist who GETS ME is priceless.
That said, it doesn’t change my thoughts or feelings. It helps me to express them in a safer environment than any other, but the reality is that my kind of depression doesn’t ever really go away. It’s up and down, it doesn’t flip but it rises and falls. And with my mom? It’s basically a pit of hell.
I think the thing that brings me down the most is watching this all play out and not being able to do a damned thing about it. Dementia is like that. No matter what you do, it’s gonna progress. Maybe slowly, maybe quickly. Maybe meds help. They don’t if you’re fighting with the person to even take them.
Mostly, the whole situation makes me both miss AND respect my dad so much more. Sometimes I am so angry that he is gone. Most of the time time I’m just sad. Sad at a level that isn’t just melancholy or blue, but at a level that is a thunderstorm – dark clouds and pouring rain, raging winds and thunder in my head. Sad at a level that I can barely breathe through these days.
But here I am. That counts for something, I suppose. Even still, I feel so useless to everyone around me. I feel useless to my mom because she won’t LET me be useful to her. I feel useless to everyone else because, well, depression. I just stay in my room, and read. I cry but I don’t know why as it doesn’t really let anything out. I wish that someday I would be able to find the words to describe this experience just in case I make it past it and have an opportunity to help someone else.
I hope you all have a pleasant weekend. I appreciate your correspondences and your kindness more than you know. You help me more than you know.
All the love,
C.
Today someone asked me a whole lot of questions about different things. The one that stuck out the most for me was about how I felt about dealing with the situation with my mother, and if I felt like a bad daughter. It didn’t take more than a nano second for me to yell, “HELL NO I don’t feel like I’m being a bad daughter – I think what’s going on is that I’m sick and tired of being treated like one.”
It’s triggering many things, from depression and hurt in general, to bad dreams and weird memories from my childhood… Not that life isn’t difficult for all of us at some point in time, and all the time for some people, but that’s the thing I’m feeling the most. It’s just all so difficult. I told my mother’s doctor just last week I no longer wanted to be her guardian (something I’ve been fighting to be named as for over a year) and that I was willing to lose the land and even my horses at this point if it meant that she was cared for. I feel like I just can’t deal with it anymore.
As far as drinking – I shared a while back that I was concerned about how much I was drinking. Truth be told I’ve been using alcohol as a sort of escape for a long time, just not to this level. I had quit for a while but I just picked it right back up because, well, in the simplest of terms, fuck it. I know it’s not the answer and I know it’s not healthy (at a number of levels) but right now I really just don’t care.
I really don’t care about anything right now… I feel very much like I could hide away and stay gone for a very long time and be perfectly OK with that. I really can’t even find my words today – which is also unusual.
I’m angry. I’m depressed. I’m not well. And honestly, I don’t care. I’m ok with not being ok. And right now I’m ok with drinking myself to death. I don’t care if that sounds selfish to some, or if it’s something others can’t understand. Raw me here. I don’t want to walk in these shoes anymore. I don’t really want to walk at all. And I’m not even writing this under the influence of alcohol. I’m also not writing it for attention. I write. That’s it.
This past week or so has been so crazy. I know – I’ve already written about that more than once. But tonight I want to write about how old I feel, and it’s BECAUSE of not just this past week (while the majority of it is) but of being my mother’s caregiver in general for the past few years.
In itself, caregiving gets old. But the way it makes you FEEL… Argghh! There are days when it doesn’t feel “like a gift to be able to care for one who once cared for you.” There are days that I don’t feel “grateful for the chance to give back.” Pfft. Let’s be real – it’s emotionally nasty. It’s a nasty, dirty, wreck of an emotional job and it SUCKS a LOT, a lot of the time.
That said, I still push on. As of now, as you all know, I don’t have any other choice.
In updates to my lasts posts about my mom, I’ve gone in to check on her and twice found her in the floor since those posts. There have been a couple of other issues that have come up (financial issues), and all she wants to talk about is going to buy a new computer. She doesn’t even have the Internet right now. She has an iPad. I explained this. She doesn’t NEED a computer, she needs to worry about us getting other issues sorted – namely her CARE. It’s just like she doesn’t NEED, nor can she have, her car.
She doesn’t – she can’t, or she refuses to even meet me halfway and try to – live in the reality that, as sad and frustrating and angering and annoying and depressing and ridiculous as it all is, especially for her, her life is not, can not, and will never be again what it used to be. I know that is awful for her…but it’s emotionally exhausting for me, too…
And you can’t ever make that make sense to them. You just can’t. It’s a losing battle to try, so you lie to them. You tell them, “maybe when you heal from this fall.” Then you say, “maybe we should give it just a couple more months.” Then you say, “maybe once we get the car fixed,” even though the car is not even broken. You make shit up. You LIE to your parent, even though as a child you were beaten for such nonsense. Like, BEATEN. With a hickory switch.
The role reversals are hard. They make no sense to my brain some days. Some days, despite the fact that my mother was never in my life like this for me, I want her to be my mother and hug me and tell me it will be OK and say comforting things like, “we’ll get through this,” or, “your daddy would be so proud of how much you’ve done here, and that you’ve worked so hard to get this back to a working farm.” It’ll never happen. It wouldn’t happen even if my mother didn’t have dementia/mental health issues. But as a child, I DO wish it would.
My life exhausts me. I get up early in the mornings, I take care of mama and the horses and chickens and everything. I come home and take care of my kiddo, we do things, whether it’s school or playing outside or whatever. I do housework and yard work at the neighborhood house. Then, after whatever other running around I’ve done all day (bank, post office, etc.), it’s back to the rinky dinky little farm I’m trying to build and mama’s, to either bring her home or to make sure she still IS at home.
By the time I sit down at dark, I feel like a little old lady who can hardly crochet anymore because of her aching, arthritic hands – and I only have slight arthritis/carpal tunnel – when I try to write or type these things out of myself. I feel like a firefighter who has been battling a blaze all day long in the hot summer sun. I feel like a marathon runner who has been training all day. I feel like a doctor who has been running all day long to go from this patient to that, this hospital to that office to this building to that, trying to make sure everyone is being cared for and check to see how they are and what they need and what changes need to be made, etc.
Yet, I’m nothing so achieved as a firefighter or marathon runner or doctor. I’m just little old me, wearing myself down to the core of my sanity and watching it start to spindle apart backward, one twist at a time coming off the spool and piling up in a big ball at my feet. Then I get tangled up in that ball, and start tripping over my own delusions and disillusionment and exhaustion and the anxiety and panic start to build and then the depression grabs on, you know, just for kicks, and I end up sitting in the pile of sanity that I used to have, having a complete come apart.
Does any of this make any sense? I don’t know if it does or not, if you’ve never been in a situation like this or at least somewhat similar to this. But I have a hunch that most of us have felt this way at least once – maybe more than once – just because…well, LIFE.
Life is a gift. Yes, it is. And I am so grateful to be alive. I just wish I felt it. I do, sometimes…but I fear I’m wearing that escape thin, as well. Perhaps I should just dwell on writing about the life I wish to live rather than chasing after one I can’t have right now…and another one I know I never will have (because some things are just not meant to be and not gonna happen…you know?). I’ll keep making music, and sometimes sharing it. I’ll keep playing with photos. I’ll keep hugging my son and my doggos and my gentle giants. Playing with my chickens, and with fire.
I’ll stay on the outskirts of my own chaos for as long as I can before I let it suck me in. I will make no promises on how long that will be.
Sometimes,
a thing needs to get lost,
never to be found again,
before I realize just how much
it really meant to me while I had it.
Her laugh,
her smile,
her scent,
her softness,
the sparkle in her eyes
when I’d tell her the secrets of my heart…
and the fire in them
when I’d tell her the pain in it.
I never expected to have a “her”
in my life.
I never expected “her”
to last twenty years…
Then, cancer.
Three years later,
three years since the end,
I’m more convinced than ever I
never will again.
Sometimes a thing,
like this one,
doesn’t get lost.
It is taken.
Stolen away,
for what seems like no reason at all.
That pain never heals.
Never.
~C.
Everything feels so upside down. Today’s doctor’s visit with my mother didn’t go well. I’ve just about gone crazy, and I’m pretty sure that trend is going to continue until I do.
People will tell you not to worry and that things happen as they are meant to but when nearly your whole life is at risk, plus the literal life of someone else if you don’t risk your own situation (in my case, my little farm), it’s really hard to keep your sanity.
It’s really hard to keep your faith in a Creator that doesn’t seem to be paying attention and in a system that has proven over and over again it doesn’t give a single fuck.
It is becoming very clear to me just how emotionally draining caring for someone can be when you’re doing it on your own – and by that I mean not a finger of help from anyone else being lifted, including so called medical professionals.
Caregiver depression is a very real thing, made much more difficult by being invisible not only to those who know you but also by the one you are caring for. I truly don’t know how long I can continue on like this mentally…
Whatever it is you’re going through right now I want you to know you aren’t alone. And it might feel like you are. It might feel like a million things are piling up on you and you don’t know if it’ll get heavier or how much more you can bear.
And you might not know who to turn to or even where to start.
Because suddenly all of this just hit you at once.
It’s like you’re floating on the surface but below no one can see you are flustered and kicking for your life just to stay afloat.
You look fine.
You smile when you have to.
When someone asks, “how you are?” you say, “good.”
But part of you wishes you weren’t so good at faking it. Part of you wishes someone would call your bluff and say, “I know you’re lying, what’s wrong?”
We’ve been told the best thing to do is lie. So we lie to ourselves saying everything is fine. We lie to everyone else saying we can handle it. Whatever that it is.
Then it just becomes too much.
I’m here to tell you it’s okay if things aren’t going well right now. It’s okay if you’re hurting. It’s okay if you want to fall apart and scream at the top of your lungs because things outside your control are happening that you don’t understand. You’re trying to find clarity in moments of confusion. You are trying to put a band-aid on the pain you’re repressing hoping it heals, but you know you’re just covering it up. Then something else comes out of left field only to hurt you more.
You go to bed at night and you’re just laying there not sleeping, and you don’t want to play the pity card of “why me?” or “why did this happen?” How much worse can things get, only to watch it play out even more?
You’re trying to piece yourself back together but you’re cutting your fingers in the process, and honestly, you don’t even remember what it feels like to be whole or completely happy.
You hate that being happy is so hard to achieve right now.
But more than that you hate that no one sees it.
You’re holding back tears and putting on a brave face because it isn’t socially acceptable to start crying in the middle of a workday. Not when people need you. Not when people look up to you. Not when people are watching your every move like your life is a show for their entertainment.
Just when something starts to shift and there’s even a little bit of light, someone has to come and ruin your day. It’s a snide comment. It’s criticism. It’s one little thing or conversation that almost puts you over the edge.
Like everyone in the universe is out to get you. And it isn’t like you to be this negative or pessimistic. But everyone has those days that turn to weeks and sometimes months where nothing seems to work in their favor.
Despite being given every reason to be mean to others and treat them the way they have treated you, you don’t. You replace their unkindness with silence. You replace disrespect with being the bigger person. You replace someone going after you with keeping your head down and mouth shut.
And they judge you for the things you do and they judge you for the things you don’t.
It’s like they have a target on your back, watching your every move waiting for you to mess up. So every step you take is a little more cautious. How quick everyone is to judge you for the little things you do wrong and they forget what you did right.
I know what it’s like to feel that way.
I know what it’s like to not understand any of it.
And you just keep trying. Trying to make them happy as well as yourself only to learn whichever way you change, someone isn’t going to like it.
You want to trust people but every time you have, every time you’ve let your guard down, they’ve gotten close enough to hurt you. So you learn to expect the worst of people, while still trying your best and giving your best to those who don’t deserve it.
Caring deeply about others is both your greatest strength and weakness.
It’s that strength that everyone seems to rely on, even though you don’t know where it’s even coming from.
It’s the energy to never let people down and constantly say “yes” even though you’re tired.
It’s the light you shine in other’s lives and the compassion to look at someone and you can tell when they’re having a tough day because you know what faking it looks like. You ask them how they are doing, even though no one has asked you lately.
It’s keeping it together when someone else is falling apart even when you want to, you still manage to be the arms holding them.
It’s admirable to be like that.
And even though people don’t give you the credit you deserve or even utter the words “thank you,” you keep being exactly how you are and you don’t change.
As hard as it is to be someone like you, you realize how rare it is too.
So when the world gives you every reason to change – every reason to treat others the way they treat you, every reason to hurt others because maybe someone broke your heart – you don’t. I want to thank you for being that type of person.
It’s people like you we need most in the world. So whatever pain or confusion or difficult life situations you’re going through, I want you to know you’ve made it through everything leading up to this and there’s strength within you, you don’t even realize.
Don’t be afraid to fall apart if you have to.
Don’t be afraid to cry if you need that.
Don’t be afraid of any of this.
Because it will get better. Sometimes though, things get worse before they get better. But on the other end of that is something really great waiting for you.
Keep fighting for everything you know you deserve because you will get it.
via Wary Faith.
