Time Passes Anyway

There is so much rolling around in my brain that I do not know where to start unloading it so I feel better.

My Boys

I miss them all more than words can say. Realizing that they could be toxic to my well-being were they to decide to be part of my life felt like a physical blow.

Xavier

My darling grandson. I am sorry that I am not the grandma I always thought I would be. I have disappointed myself and feel strongly that I have disappointed you, too.

Henry

I thought filing for divorce would end me. Instead, I feel, it has brought us closer together. I no longer thought that was possible. What a pleasant surprise.

Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)

A lot has changed internally since my last post on November 20, 2020, and those changes have been GOOD. When I started Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) in the spring of 2020, I had zero expectations of coming out the other side feeling so...different. In a good way. While each member of my DBT team said it wouldn't be easy, and it would get incredibly harder before it got easier (they were not exaggerating). I didn't know what the other side of that mountain would (or could) look like, and I had difficulty imagining it. I had no idea just how much trauma I had endured, how deeply that trauma affected me, and how pervasive the trauma was in my life.

    Marsha M. Linehan, Ph.D., ABPP, the developer of DBT, a Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Director Emeritus of the Behavioral Research and Therapy Clinics at the University of Washington, focused her research on the development and evaluation of evidence-based treatments for populations with high suicide risk and multiple, severe mental disorders. Her book, DBT Skills Training Handouts, and Worksheets, 2nd Edition, became my lifeline. Dr. Linehan is also the author or co-author of several books and DVDs. 

    Life. Line. 

---------

I started this post on September 25, 2022, and today is October 21, 2022. I can't remember where I was going with the original post, so I will add my thoughts as of this moment.

I feel enormously sad and like a rudderless boat swiftly sailing to the edge of the universe. My sleep is disorganized and fitful, and nightmares are once again becoming the norm. I had thought my sleep was so restless because my two kittens, Sissy and Stella Bella, come to life after the lights go out, so they have been banished from the bedroom at bedtime. (They are NOT happy about that, and I have to drown out their cries with the Calm app.)

The summer sped relatively uneventfully even though my dad was diagnosed with Parkinson's. While we were already sure that was the cause of his tremors, having an official diagnosis still felt like a punch in the gut. On the day the diagnosis was handed down, I asked him what he thought about it, and he said he was okay with it and that it "is what it is." Physically and mentally, he is reacting positively to the medication for it, which makes me feel better. 

The past six weeks have been all over the place for me health-wise. In the past two months, I have fainted three times. I talked with my primary care physician, and she ordered a 14-day holter (cardiac) monitor for me. Right upper quadrant pain sent me to the emergency department twice, two days after the holter monitor was applied, yet the battery of tests has failed to pinpoint the cause. "Incidental" findings from a CT angiogram, to rule out a pulmonary embolism, showed a couple of wonky things with my heart and tiny nodules in both lungs. In the midst of all of this fun stuff, I am trying to schedule surgery to replace my vagus nerve stimulator, rotator cuff repair, and tenodesis. Those plans came to an abrupt halt when cardiology and pulmonology got involved. (Pulmonology has since cleared me.) Cardiology referred me for a work-up, and the recent echocardiogram, chemical stress test, and nuclear medicine scans appear normal. Yet, I am wearing a holter monitor for another 14 days because the first one didn't provide enough data to analyze. (Meaning, no luxurious bubble baths for the next two weeks.)

That's all for now.

Enough I Am

Tumbling

Faster than

His brain

Can pull

To his lips

Words

Zigzag and fall

All at once.

"Will I be afraid of bugs when I'm all grown up, mom?"

Return to Innocence

This song

Sucks the breath

Out of my lungs

Tears burn my eyes

My heart breaks 

All over again

For Alexander Lee

Hurdle Hurdled

I didn't know what to expect. Well, I did, on a high level: take your ID, money/card for vending, dress appropriately, blah blah blah. Now that my first visit with Matthew, in prison, is over I'm trying to take inventory of my feelings and thoughts and everything just slams together in a big pile of mashed potatoes. I can say this: in the past six weeks, this is the closest I've been to crying. I just can't seem to drop the floodgates...

Matthew looked good. He's put on a few pounds around the midsection and he is sporting "mutton chops" and the closest I've ever seen him have what looks like a beard. He still has his wit and humor and he was genuinely surprised to see me. The block he is housed on has been on lock down for more than a week due to the death of an inmate, having been beaten to death with a lock, so he hadn't seen the emails I sent to him letting him know I would be visiting today. Seeing him smile when I walked into the visiting room -- there are no words. None.

Matthew and I spent the better part of four hours talking, laughing, reminiscing...healing. We talked about prison gangs, terrible prison food, brutal nicotine withdrawal, and Xavier. I told Matthew about taking Xavier to his first semi-pro soccer game, his missing teeth and how much he's grown. There was a sadness in Matthew then that I tread lightly on. It's the first time I saw remorse in Matthew, and it surprised me. I had hoped and prayed that Matthew felt remorse for his actions...

It's been such a long day and I didn't sleep much the past two nights so I will close out this post, and this glass of wine, with...

...hurdle...hurdled...

...tears falling...

Said You

Sometimes you don't know what it is you need until after it has been given to you. In my case it was an hour-long telephone conversation with my first best friend/cousin, Melissa, who is one month younger than I am.

The recent conviction of my son for child molestation brought all of my own molestation memories slamming back into my brain. It's been a rough few months and talking with Melissa reminded me that my eldest brother molested her too.

'nuff said.

Resting Pines

I checked myself into a psych hospital on December 13th and was discharged today - 21 days later.

Thinking

I can't help but wonder when I will wake up from this hellish nightmare. The days keep stacking up on top of me and there is no place safe for me to run to. It's just me. Friends I thought were friends really weren't friends at all.

Too many years of stuffing down my feelings has made me emotionally numb. Until today I didn't know what to call it - emotionally numb - it fits like a glove.

An excerpt from a Psych Central blog about Childhood Emotional Neglect:

7 Signs That You are Emotionally Numb (Jonice Webb PhD)

1. At times, you feel experience a physical sensation, especially in your belly, chest or throat (but can be anywhere in your body, of emptiness.
2. You sometimes watch yourself going through the motions in a situation, perhaps even when you know you should be feeling happy, sad, connected or angry. Yet you feel nothing.
3. You frequently question the meaning or purpose of your life.
4. You have suicidal thoughts that seem to come out of nowhere.
5. You are a thrill-seeker. Thrill-seeking is often an attempt to feel something.
6. You feel mystifyingly different from other people. The lack of connection to your feelings does set you apart. You may feel like other people are living a more vivid life than you are.
7. You often feel like you’re on the outside looking in. Your emotions should be connecting you to others, and instead, they are holding you separate.

FINALLY a person has summed up these things I have been thinking about for years.

Emotionally Numb. Feeling Nothing. Thinking Everything. Hating myself more and more every day.

Playing the victim? Nope. Everything, every decision, every act, every word belong to me and me alone. I blame ME, hands down. Did other people contribute to the hatred I have for myself? Only inasmuch I internalized everything going on around me. 

I am by far my worst enemy.

My stepmom likes to tell me to stop blaming my mother for everything wrong in my life. If it didn't piss me off so badly to hear her say that - it turns into something laughable later on - I would tell her this:

I don't blame my mother for ANYTHING wrong in my life. She's a lying whore and she didn't factor in my life at all because she wasn't around enough to bother with me. End of story.

My mother will spend the rest of her pathetic life knowing what my brothers did to me and because she refuses to believe it, she will NEVER have any sort of relationship with me. Ever.

I called her a few weeks ago to tell her what was going on with Matthew so she heard it from me first and not my pathetic siblings. She thought, at first, that it was a social call. "Oh, honey, it's SOOO GOOD to hear your voice! How are you doing?" I shut that shit down right quick.

Instead of hearing what I was saying to her she was asking me questions about my life. I kept steering her back to the topic at hand. I finally hung up on her. Fucking. Clueless. 

Decision

I have finally hit bottom. That's not true. I have been on the bottom for quite some time, I am just finally admitting it out loud.

I am going to go away for awhile.