Familial disturbances

I don't know what to do.  I'm having a really hard time coping with my life right now.  Between the constant pain in my back and legs, and the... familial disturbances, we'll call them, I'm about to lose my goddamned mind. 

I don't want to go over the details again, so if you aren't playing along at home, too bad.  Suffice to say that my daughter DeAnne and son Thomas are personas non grata at my house.  Things blew up about a week ago and have been tense ever since.  De has sent apologies to me and Monica.  I have accepted, Monica has not.  She wants De to give back her house key and take her off the car insurance policy.  I don't care about the house key, but removing her from the car insurance policy  will likely cause her to have her car repo'd, since she has to carry full coverage as part of her purchase agreement.  I don't want to be part of that.  Plus I feel like a traitor whenever I talk to De since I know Monica is still mad at her.

Thomas has gone dark since he went to stay with DeAnne.  No communications have been returned.

My back has been hurting worse and worse, and I can't blame it all on stress.  Before the familial disturbance even happened, I ended up missing 3 days of work because of my back and leg pain. The leg pain is newer.  It feels like I get lightning shooting down my legs, especially on my right.  If I do anything strenuous, like walking or standing for an extended period of time, it can make me hurt for days. 

I want to leave.  I want to go to where there is no pain, no stress, no family issues.  I can't say I want to die, but I probably wouldn't complain either.  I want to just Be.  Or, not Be.  I want Robin Williams' drug, Fukitol.  Of course, he might not be the best example considering how he died.

The birthday blog

I hadn't realized that it's been 6 months since I wrote.  I knew it had been a while but just not exactly how long.  I apologize to anyone who isn't family who had been following along, but don't worry, I'm going to recap things and get everyone up to speed.

So Christmas was difficult.  It happened on a Monday, so of course I had to work it.  And there was a situation involving someone else who went missing for a day but I won't go into details since it doesn't matter anymore, but at the time the situation was very tense. 

Fast forwarding a bit now, because at the moment I don't remember what, if anything happened in the intervening months.  My daughter that we had given up for adoption was graduating from college and invited my wife and I to her graduation.  Of course my wife was going.  I... had issues. Not with my daughter, not like that, I love her as much as my other children.  This took me some time to figure out, on an interrupted therapy schedule. 

Therapy was thrown off course because I got suicidal.  Like, I had a plan and everything.  I was not in a good place.  My meds weren't working well.  I was drinking more often.  My self esteem had dropped off the bottom of the chart, dug a hole in the ground, and headed for the center of the Earth.  And now this is going to be a bit graphic.  You see, since I had my spleen surgery, I have a numb spot on my belly.  And my abs right under them, I can't control them anymore.  My plan was to take my long, sharp carving knife, make it super extra sharp, and stick it in upward through my numb spot at an angle to try and skewer or at least nick my heart.  Yeah, I had so much self-loathing that I wanted to stab myself and bleed out, as opposed to just OD'ing on any of the plethora of prescription drugs at my disposal, for example. 

Needless to say, my therapist was not happy with this line of thought.  She convinced me to go the to the local crisis unit for 3 days for intensive counseling and observation.  Totally voluntary, could leave at any time.  Changed my meds a little, learned a couple of coping skills, and I was done.  For the most part I have stayed above-board emotionally since then.  My therapist and shrink are both pleased with my progress.  I even came to terms with why I didn't want to go to my daughter's graduation.

It all came down to self esteem.  I felt like a fat, ugly, unlovable mass of negative emotions.  We would meet and she would see me for the sham of a person I am.  How could she love me, for all my faults and issues?  As it turns out, this is called projection, and I was projecting my feelings about myself on her.  Evidently I do this a lot.  It contributes to my anxiety.  That's part of why I don't like going out, I don't want to see people reacting to seeing me, or at least what I perceive as that.

And then we come down to today, my birthday.  I'm 46 today.  Not a landmark birthday in any way.  I decided that I was going to take it easy today, be carefree and happy-go-lucky, not let things bother me. And my anxiety said, HELL NO MOTHERFUCKER!  LETS GET THAT HEART RATE GOING!  YOU LIKE HAVING THE SHAKES?  YEAH YOU LIKE THAT, DON'T YOU, BITCH?  REASON?  WHAT REASON?  WE DON'T NEED NO STINKING REASONS! 

So I've had these pills for anxiety since my stay in the crisis unit.  Never taken one before today.  Honestly I was a little afraid of them and what effect they might have.  They turned out to be fairly mild, made me a little dizzy but then so did the anxiety.  And I guess they work, I'm still here at work. 

Write it out, she says.

Fine, I'll write it out, I don't expect it to help.

I'm a piece of shit.  I'm so wrapped up in my own misery that I don't think of anyone else.  I have nothing for anyone for Christmas.  NOTHING.  I gave Monica the ornament I got her already so she could have something to hang on the tree.  I drive by a fucking mall every day and I've never stopped.  I wish I could say that I never thought to, but I have, but all I want to do when I leave work is go home.  I want to go home and get wrapped up in a game and not think about anything else.  And now people are going to be disappointed in me, and me in myself even more.  My throat is already sore from crying, thanks.  I'm fucking miserable and I don't know how to not be.  Sure, I have moments and times when I'm not, but those are the exceptions.  I'm trapped in my head and I don't know how to get out.  Trapped in my own head, never thinking about anyone else.

Sorry, just noticed my desk was filthy and had to clean it off.

I don't know how to be normal.  I don't know when to go shopping or how much money that I can spend.  I only have the vaguest idea of what to get anyone.  I feel terrible.  I know I'm going to get things and I'm going to feel so shitty not having anything to give back.  I hate Christmas.  That's not true.  I love Christmas but I have gift-giving.  I never feel like what I give is enough.

Great, now I'm dizzy too.  And my pills are at home, but I probably wouldn't want to take one at work.

So there it is, that's how I feel right now.

Suicide

I can now truly understand why some depressed people consider suicide.  I mean, I always knew, but you can know something without understanding it.

Imagine you have a pain.  The pain has no physical aspect, but it hurts nonetheless.  You can't rub it, you can't put a band-aid on it.  It is a chronic pain, something you feel every day of your life.  It varies in intensity.  On a good day you hardly know it's there, and on a bad day its all you can do to get out of bed.  Some days you'll be fine and then it hits you out of the blue.  Medication may or may not work.  Therapy may or may not work.

Now imagine you've lived with this pain all your life, 20, 30, 40 years or more.  All that time, and its never gotten better.  You might try alternative methods to deal with it, smoking, alcohol, drugs, food.  It might work for you at first, but it doesn't last, and can lead to other problems, making the pain worse.  You put on a happy face for the world so no one can see how miserable you feel.  You start to feel ashamed, because you don't know why you have this pain, you don't know what's causing it, you don't know how to get rid of it.  Other people don't understand, they tell you chin up, things will get better.  They think you're just going through a rough patch, only the rough patch has been your entire life.

You finally come to a breaking point.  It doesn't matter how successful you are, or how many people love you, you just want the pain GONE.  Nothing else matters.

The pain is depression.  You can't show it to anyone, so they can see how bad it is.  They can only see your actions, which are often misinterpreted as laziness, irresponsibility, or just introvertedness.

So you start to consider suicide.  People say it's a permanent solution to a temporary problem, but when you think about it, life is temporary too.  You're not going to live forever, no one is.  And at this point you'd rather feel nothing than to keep hurting.

In this analogy, I use the word you, when I really mean me, for the most part.  This my pain, this is how I feel.  And while I am not actively considering suicide, I can understand why people do.  I can feel their pain.

Crying

I cried myself to sleep last night.  Been a long time since I've done that.  I hate my life.  Everything is chaos.  DeAnne is moving out.  New furniture is moving in.  The house is a mess.  We still aren't cleaned up from Thanksgiving.  Got a new guard at work 2 weeks ago to balance out the schedule.  Now I'm losing one because she let her guard license expire.  My back always hurts.  I'm starting to have trouble sleeping.  I used to start dozing off on the couch around midnight.  Now I'm dozing off during the day and staying up later and later at night.  My video games aren't fun anymore, they're just a distraction to keep me from thinking about other things.  My doctor says I've lost weight but I don't believe it.  I'm eating everything in sight.  I keep having flashbacks to grade school and high school, when I was teased all the time about being a geek nerd wimp ugly loser weakling.  And I'm wondering if they were right all along.  I've always perceived things differently from other people.  Maybe they saw me for what I really am, and I am just lying to myself.

I don't want to go on like this.  I can't cope with anything anymore.  I wish I could find meds that work.  I wish I could turn off my brain, and just... be.  I wish I wasn't afraid to go buy a bottle of bourbon and drown myself in it.  If wishes were fishes... I'd have a lot of fish.  Probably dysfunctional, retarded ones.  I'm fucking crying at work now, great.  One of these days I'm afraid I'm going to drive myself into a tree on the way to or from work.  

Dizzy again

I really hope the Meniere's isn't making a comeback.  Today I when I got up I was really off balance and had a hard time thinking straight.  I barely got up the stairs to get my phone and had to have James bring it to me so I could call in to work.  I didn't remember the schedule and the guy I wanted to cover for me today had already worked 3rd shift, so I asked him to stay until noon and I'd try to come in then.  Called the other guy that was off but he didn't answer.  Found out later he was asleep and had already had plans anyway.  Went back to bed, woke up around 10, still dizzy, lay back down until 11, still dizzy, but didn't really have any other choice but to try and go to work.  Called the guy staying over, warned him I was still not feeling well and that I might be late.  By 11:30 I still didn't feel safe to drive so I called my boss Mason.  I explained it all to him and he said he'd call the guy working and tell him he had to stay until 4.  I feel bad about it but I didn't really have another choice, there was no one else to cover.  At least Mason was supportive of me and told me to get some rest.  Now its midnight and I still don't feel much better.  If I still feel bad in the morning I'm going to see if I can get in to the doctor. 

Breakdown

So on Sunday, the shower got fixed.

It's a simple thing to say, yet so much more went into it.  The whole process took several weeks, at least 4 people were involved, close to $100 total was spent on parts, and an emotional breakdown took place.

On Saturday, Monica bought a new shower faucet assembly so I could install it.  Sounded like a piece of cake.  All the pieces were there, it would just be a matter of taking the old faucet out and installing the new one.  Oh, how naive I am.

First off, I was in a terrible state of mind on Sunday.  I've been getting dizzy spells again, similar to when I was diagnosed with Meniere's disease.  I don't know if it's because of stress, or meds, or something else.  It's not blood pressure, I've checked it several times and its always been within normal range.  Anyway, I was dizzy and not in a great state of mind.  Monica REALLY wanted the faucet replaced, so I tried.  I tried.  Monica shut all the water off for me.  The handles and spigot came off pretty easily.  The trouble started when I realized that the shower hookups behind the wall were in the basement stairwell.  I got the wooden ladder, a rickety thing that I can't remember where we got it, from the car port and set it up at the bottom of the stairs.  It made me nervous because I couldn't set it flat on the floor because the tile in the basement doesn't run all the way to the wall, so it was half on tile, half on the concrete floor.  After adjusting the position of the ladder several times, De came and held the ladder for me.  I know I took something off, I can't remember what now, but then I got to the nuts that held the hot and cold water lines.  I could NOT get them to budge.  I used my pipe wrench, no luck.  I climb on the the step you aren't supposed to use on the ladder to get more leverage, no luck.  I put the pipe wrench on the nut and smacked the handle with a hammer, no luck.  Everything I tried, failed.  And that's when my childhood came rushing back to me.

Growing up, I was always the kid that got picked on.  I don't remember how it started, maybe I deserved some of it, I don't know.  I got teased a lot.  Relentless teasing, as only children can do.  It affected me, it stuck with me.  I am WEAK.  I am UGLY.  I am STUPID.  Those are the big three.  And I grew to believe it, true or not.  I still do.

So I'm on this rickety ladder, try to turn these damn nuts, without success.  I am WEAK.  I am a FAILURE.  I couldn't figure it out.  I am STUPID.  Maybe if I stared at them long enough, my ugly could have melted them off, but I didn't have that kind of time. (I jest. Everyone knows ugly just turns things to stone. Ask Medusa.)

I gave up.  I couldn't do it.  I got down off the ladder, went upstairs, sat down on the couch, and cried.  A middle aged man of 45, crying because he couldn't turn some bolts.  Monica remained objective, and asked her father to come over to help, then tried to ask me what I was feeling.  How do I explain that shit that happened to me 35 years ago still affects me today?  How do I explain, while I am in tears over it, that having someone else come fix my failure is just rubbing salt in my wounded pride?  How do I explain, in my current state of mind, anything?

So Monica's dad comes over, waves his masculinity around and magically removes the old faucet and puts the new one in it's place.  I put the knobs and spigot on, Monica turns the water back on and ta daa, the shower works.  What a relief.