Oh, Hi!

So I haven't posted in a long time. Granted, I've had a pretty good excuse...I've been in a pretty major depressive phase since Christmas. I'm just coming out of it and am starting to see things a little brighter, but I'm not nearly at the end of it. It always amazes me how long it can take to come out of these things.

There really isn't anything I can compare it to, being at the bottom of that pit...not even being able to see the light at the top...clawing at the sides trying to get out, but just (in the words of Simon and Garfunkel) "slip-slidin' away." But, it's also the biggest comfort in the world to know that there's my husband, waiting for me, giving me a helping hand when I'll accept it, and always at my side no matter what. And add a tremendous psychiatrist to the mix...one who shows honest compassion and feeling...and I don't think I could have a better support network.

My only real worry is what my depression does to my kids. They are the center of my universe, but when my world is closing in on me, the universe is sometimes blocked out. That is also compounded by the fact that depression has such a huge genetic link...it makes me especially worried about my daughter, who already shows a propensity to be an emotional and "dramarific" little person.

But, with the help of a pretty good medication adjustment, I'm on my way up. The sides of the pit aren't slippery slopes anymore, I'm enjoying my life again, and those everyday tasks no longer seem overwhelming.

Now, I would've liked to have written a little more, but it's a "snow" day here -- meaning we got a little bit of sleet and everything shut down -- and I'm taking the kids to my parents' house to do a little slippin' and slidin' on their ice-covered front porch.

Rejection

I'm a pretty sensitive person and often have to convince myself that something said to me was not out of spite, or mean, or mean-hearted. Not always, but sometimes I feel like the whole world is out to bring me down and I spend days, like today, dealing with it in my own messed-up way. Part of my sensitivity is due to an over-stimulated sense of rejection I get when people push me aside...even if it isn't meant to hurt my feelings. I'm also especially sensitive to how my parents and I interact, and today I'm going to write about that.

The wonderful holiday that I had hoped for has not gone according to my plan and I know that, partly, it's my fault for feeling the way I do right now. My aunts and uncle came in the day after Christmas, were here for a day, and then they all went down to visit my brother, 6 hours away in Houma. No big deal...we had a couple of days to just be quiet and enjoy each others' company while everyone was gone. On Friday, I prepared red beans and rice and cabbage for them...to celebrate the New Year...after they got back. It was a wonderful dinner and we talked about Saturday (today) and dinner again. Well, my Mom decided that they would invite their friends over for dinner and told me around noon today that Frank, the kids, and I were not invited. Why she didn't tell me this last night when we were talking of tonight is beyond my comprehension; but, the intense feeling of rejection I got from that exchange on the phone today threw all my New-Year-optimism right out the window. I spent the rest of the day wondering why I couldn't escape the feeling of shame and embarrassment I felt, and wondering why I couldn't be accepted by my family when they were so willing to run off to visit my brother.

Perhaps I shouldn't be so sensitive. I know they just want an adult evening, but I will not get to see my aunts and uncle again before they leave tomorrow, and I may not see them again for years (this is the first time in 4 years I've seen them). It was so important for me to have them here during the holiday season and now, while I'll enjoy the few hours I did get to spend with them, I cannot lose this feeling of not being wanted...something that's haunted me my entire life. It's the raw area in my soul that festers.

I told Frank this afternoon that a mother is the well-spring. It's where all things start...the beginning of a person's being. I already am very attune to that raw feeling of rejection in my heart, and while my Mom did not maliciously try to hurt me, I cannot invalidate the feelings I had today. What remains to be seen is whether I can pick myself up from my hurt and continue on...regain that feeling of optimism I had this morning. I feel guilty and ashamed of feeling this way and I'm not sure that there will ever be a sense of trust there again, between my Mom and me. It was a tenuous, though always courteous, relationship in the best of times. We've never been incredibly close and I've always desired that closeness that other mother/daughter relationships seem to have. Perhaps it's time for me to realize that what I desire will never become actualized and that I should accept what relationship we do have.

I've always been a dreamer, perhaps I need to come down to Earth for a change.

I'm awake again...

at 3 AM. It seems a pattern has emerged where I wake up every morning at 3 AM. I'm not liking this early wake-up call because I generally can't sleep well after I get up. So, I'm going to do something useful and then try and go back to sleep for a while.

I've been in a pretty major funk for the last few weeks. I managed to slide through Christmas with a pasted smile on my face, but it was hard. It takes all my energy to get up in the morning, get the kids off to wherever they need to be, and get myself to school or work. Luckily, I'm off work this week, so I've mostly just sat on the couch eating peanut butter M&Ms and watching TV (anything that makes me cry is a plus). This is the first Christmas season that this has ever happened to me.

You see, I'm haunted by memories. I dream about old friends and old family, then I wake up at 3 AM and can't shake the dream and the people stick in my mind for the rest of the night/morning. It started with my Grandpa Walf, who died during my first leave from my ship in 1996. That's freakin' 14 years ago and he still haunts my dreams as if I saw him yesterday. It's gone on to other people that are out of my life now and I spend the hours of 3-7 AM thinking about those I've dreamed about and not going back to sleep.

I'm not kidding you -- this has been one of the worst down periods of my life. I literally have to force myself out of bed and I worry that one day I won't be able to do that, either.

The good news? I started back on Pristiq about a week ago and I've been feeling slightly more confident as the days go on. Hopefully, within another week, the effect will be more pronounced and I'll be able to get out and about with more vigor, instead of doing the basics just to get through the day. Like Frank said last night, I've been on "auto pilot" for the last couple of weeks, and it sucks. I want to do so much more, but lack the energy to do anything. Pristiq worked wonders before and I trust that it'll do it again and I just have to give it time to work.

I know from experience that these periods won't last forever, though it often feels like forever at the time. And it does feel like forever now...

Manual Dexterity

Continuing with my Mad House commitment, here's this week's post.

I can crochet. Well, let me step back a bit. I could crochet, if I so chose to; however, I rarely get more than four or five rows in and, by then, I have usually lost my hook. So the project gets shoved to the side where it either stays, or I eventually donate it to Goodwill in hopes that some poor crocheter out there is looking for a lot project.

I can scrapbook. Well, I've only ever finished two, both of which were dedications to my 2 babies that never made it into this world.

I can make wood do what I want it to do and have made two beautiful pieces of furniture, with more on the way. You definitely need manual dexterity for that job...carpentry.

I'm a writer, but my hands don't do as much writing as they do other things; specifically, the "thing" I will focus on tonight that is much on my mind as of late.

It's getting close to 11 years since the tumor on my spine was found. Right there, a bright white spot on the x-ray, right at the L2 transverse process. Not hanging off like a berry, but muddled in right at the base, the pedicle, of the bone. I was given two options, both based on a biopsy I hadn't yet had. I could wait it out and see if it would grow, requiring monthly scans; or, I could have it immediately removed. Once the biopsy results were in, my choice was down to immediate removal. On April 13th, 2000, I went in for a looooong surgery to remove a piece of my spine and, hopefully along with it, an osteoblastoma. They had to remove the transverse process, there was no way to get the darn thing out without cutting through it. They sent it off to Walter Reed's lab to be labelled as an "Unknown cyst of unknown origin." Classically, it's been labelled an osteblastoma, functionally, it's been labelled the end of my life as I knew it.

Few people know this about me, but I was a runner. Running was very, very hard for me, but I loved it. I also loved walking, hiking, biking, and pretty much anything else that required extensive use of my back. I was also, at one point, a very heavy drinker but, having quit drinking, I had gotten back into running. I even ran a 5K a few months before the tumor was found.

The surgeon who did the surgey "nicked" my sciatic nerve and I have had years of pain from that. The inbalance that comes with the loss of a piece of vertebrae has degenerated my back into that of an 80-year-old. At this point, I have one ruptured disk and 2 bulging discs. If I could lose 80 pounds, my back may not bother me so much, but I'm at a point in my depression where I just can't get myself to expend the energy.

The tumor destroyed a piece of me that I have not, in my depression, been able to get back...that manual dexterity that goes along with broad, strong body movements like running and hiking. I do walk, but it's slow going in the weight department. I have an awesome trainer, but I'm too caught up in my depression to work with him. I have sacrificed my dexterity to a back that is unsuitable to large movements. I've been told time and time again not to pick up anything over 10pounds, that I risk bursting the other two discs...but how can I not jump up, run to my screaming child, and then NOT pick him, or her, up?

My next step is a spinal fusion coming up, most likely, sometime in the new year. I've made my decision after living through years of pain...pain that haunts every waking and sleeping moment and movement. I'm making this choice to get away from the pain meds in hopes that the fusion does the trick.

Manual dexterity...I know what I'll give up for it.

Holiday Bonus

I'm continuing my commitment to "Mad House" -- a sort of group posting on a topic of the day -- with this post.

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Growing up, the entire family spent Christmases in Florida at my Grandma and Grandpa's house. My Aunt and Uncle flew in from Oregon, my Aunt and cousin flew in from Boston, and we, my parents, brother and I, drove from N. Louisiana. It was a 3-day trip because my Mom gets gruesomely carsick, so we would stop each night at a hotel to give her a break. We always knew we were getting close when we started seeing nothing but orange trees for miles and miles. We knew that when those orange groves stopped, we'd be at Stuart, Florida and ready for the big Christmas that we loved so much.

My Grandpa was the son of poor Swedish immigrants and spoke Swedish fluently, though spoke English just as well having been born in this country. He was the man who taught us how to laugh, as he was the most humor-filled man I have ever met. I think, like many immigrant sons, he needed that humor to balance his home life with the life outside. He was a brilliant pianist and I have no shortage of memories of standing around the piano singing Christmas carols. Uncle David played the flute and would join in, as well as my brother, Tony, who played the trombone. The year I played French Horn, I played along as well. Grandma believed in hot lunches, with the occasional sandwich lunch thrown in. Everyone brought a treat of some kind, and we never, EVER missed cocktail hour.

The memories of Christmases past is filled with laughter, music, and the smell of food.

So, it's appropriate this year that these memories, my holiday bonus, overwhelm me as we get closer to Christmas because this is the first Christmas in close to 20 years that we will gather together again -- this time here in my town -- and celebrate with each other. After my grandparents died, and my brother and I went to build our own families, we stopped our yearly Christmas gathering. Frank and I celebrated on our own, and then got together at either my parents' house or my brothers' house on the way to his family Christmas. Tony celebrated with his in-laws, and my parents would have a small Christmas here before heading to Tony's, followed by flying out to Oregon to meet up with my aunts and uncle. We've gone our separate ways, for the most part, in the last 20 years, creating new traditions and mingling the old within, but this year will be a throwback to the old, sans piano and sans Grandma and Grandpa. But I long to give my kids a taste of a big family Christmas. Because they're the only grandchildren, they will get to revel in the attention and the presents, while I get to relive childhood memories. A holiday bonus, indeed.

No Strings

"No Strings Attached" is an historical term referring to the strings attached to puppets and means that there are no conditions or terms. Another "source" of the saying, though, could come from the cloth industry where from the cloth industry, where a small flaw in a fabric would be marked by a string so it could easily be spotted. This suggests a meaning of "without flaws." Also, and totally copied/pasted from Wiktionary, "in ancient times, documents that were written on parchment had strings that were used to tie them shut, after they were rolled up. The Babylonian Talmud in Tractate Bava Metzi'a[2] mentions an example of a man who gives his wife a get (bill of divorce) with a string attached, but holds on to the string, so that he can snatch it back (apparently because he is unwilling to actually give her a divorce). According to Jewish law, this is not a valid divorce, because the man has not properly delivered the get, by freely giving it to his wife." Whatever the etymology of the term, it is accepted that the general meaning is one of getting something with no conditions attached to it, be it flaws or control by others. It's a great term, often underused, I think.

I definitely came with some strings attached. Frank and I discussed some of the ways, just the other night, in which I came to this family flawed. A general mistrust of people, incurable insomnia (except in the case where cats puke in my hair in the middle of the night -- that's definitely not incurable insomnia but a far, far darker thing), and an ability to drop people at the least infraction and turn my back and walk away. These, to me, are the darker side of MY adoption and I have my feeling that I'm not the only adoptee who has felt this way. I've often wondered how a person can trust other and subsequent people in their life when the one person they should've been able to trust the most, was not able to provide it. For whatever reason, the voice we got to know over 9+ months was gone, or the person you knew as "mommy" would not show up for much-looked-forward to visitation. That disappearance of trust has been my biggest string attached.

I've also suffered lifelong insomnia because of my inability to trust mixed in with a healthy dose of being transferred from place to place sleeping. I would wake up in new places, abandoned or just going out to eat (it was still waking up in a new place with a non-existent trust system) and all of those times added up equaled the inability to sleep.

Lastly, I have the ability to just turn my back and walk away from things that hurt me. I close myself off to those things and "banish" them from my life. This is perhaps the one string I also consider a little of a gift. As long as it's there, I also know that I accept NOT to do that to my family...especially during the hardest of times when it would be easiest to just run away. The very thing that could take me away, I use to tie myself to them.

We all have our own flaws, our own conditions, and our own terms. We all allow some amount of control of our lives to be passed into the hands of others. It's what we do with those things that shows the quality of who we are.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to all my readers (all 1 of you)! I hope you have a wonderfully filling day!