So.
Yeah, things are really rough and difficult right now. Meds are hard to manage and remember why it's so important to take them, when they don't feel like they're helping manage or balance my emotions. But at the same time... You know I had a really terrible day yesterday. Really terrible. But last night, I saw something a friend posted on their blog asking, 'someone write this', and.
I did?
I just sat down and wrote a short story for her, for this friend I've never met but who has been there for me during some of the worst moment of my life. The first author I ever properly collaborated with on anything, let alone the hundred small projects we've debated and considered and brainstormed. Most of those will never come to fruition, but for once writing isn't the point, thinking together is. I had an authoress friend once before, also online, and somehow she vanished a little after a year talking to one another. I still don't know if she had some kind of problem with me or if something bad happened. I really, genuinely hope she's okay.
I thought this newer friendship would end the same way. We stopped talking, we had some distance. But eventually, every so often, we'd talk again. Brief little discussions or jokes. Sometimes that's enough to keep a relationship going. It's enough to be able to say, yes, I still know you and we still get along. We've been talking much more regularly since last week, when she contacted me out of the blue to ask if I'd been watching a new show on Netflix. I hadn't, but I did that day, and it was funny, cute, and clever. Not a lot of internal coherency, but that's alright. There's foreshadowing and theories and a new season coming out at the end of the year. We're both looking forward to it.
Last night, while in the middle of a bad fit of depression, I saw that she wanted someone to write something funny, so I did. I finished up and notified her, then posted it online. I haven't posted a story in more than a year, but for her I did. And she loved it! I was so glad.
Bad things are everywhere, and Bad Thoughts haunt us. But there's an astounding amount of pleasure and joy to be found in giving someone else a little of your time, a little of your energy, a little of your thought. It's very, very rewarding.
I have a lot to do today, and i the next few days I hope I can hold onto this feeling.
Ja na!
Showing posts with label medication. Show all posts
Showing posts with label medication. Show all posts
Thursday, July 28, 2016
Sunday, March 20, 2016
"I couldn't stick around, so text me in the morning,"--Text Me In The Morning by Neon Trees
It has been a terrible year. It will continue to be so, because things have not yet settled and won't in the next several months. I don't just mean 2016, either--but really, from whatever day you're reading this to a year in the past, I promise, it's been awful.
There have been break-ups, panic attacks, abandonments, child development evaluations, hospital visits, deaths, lost jobs, quit jobs, stolen jobs, lost money, lost homes, massive financial debts--
I could scream. I'd like to. I'd really like to, but I live in an apartment with three roommates and that would be super disrespectful of the time--currently three past twin in the morning. I'm not that far gone, yet: I still have more than enough reason to understand panicked and-or frustrated screaming at two AM is generally considered a bad thing. It's a bad thing most of the time actually, however necessary it seems.
Right now, though, I'd like to talk about medication again. ADHD medication. Mine, in fact.
My father lost his job, which means I lost my health insurance, which means I lost my ability to purchase my Concerta. Which means I've stopped taking it again, sort of, or at least I did this week and most of last week, because hey, isn't it better to have later if I need it than to run out because I kept taking it?
Well... not necessarily. I'm an adult and I function, and I'm moderately used to being off my medicine because I do this often: not falling off the belief in medication bandwagon, but falling off the taking medication train. I get distracted, panicked, depressed, frustrated. I want help, I want attention, sometimes I even want the suffocating despair for reasons I can't fully articulate but occasionally borderline dangerously self-destructive--and before you get too concerned, yes I've notified my family, roommates, and health providers that I'm currently at that level of depressed and frightened and desperate to run away from everything bad, which most of my major daily life concerns currently registers as. It's not like I'm unsupervised or ever going to, y'know, do anything about it.
I'm too practical for that. Mostly I consider that a good thing, though there are of course intense moment of frantic--
Frantic whatever. I'm trying to avoid using the world we all know I'm thinking because this is maybe sort of a supposed to be a family-friendly-type blog. But here, let me fail spectacularly at that avoidance for the sake of saying: No, I don't consider suicide a valid option. I think about it, but I'm not going to do anything. More specifically, when the urges and thoughts come, I refuse them.
Medication, though. I'm not sure, this was a very spur-of-the-moment post so it's not exactly polished--not as though any of them truly have been, ever. I was thinking about the blog out of the blue when I really should be asleep but instead intended to work on a story, and, well, here I am. Ha ha ha, impulse control, not a thing right now. I'm tired and my foot's asleep and if you say 'stream of consciousness' I might just, I don't know, my thoughts aren't exactly making sense right now. I'm part thinking about what I'm writing and part thinking about Mrs. Potato Head from Toy Story. So.
... Yeah. I mentioned I'm not on my ADD pills and this is generally what happens when that is the case: some focus, bursts of creativity, lots of panic over not understanding what's happening in my own head. As someone who has extensively trained myself ot analyze my own mind, that can be a very frightening situation to find myself, and for years now I've characterized my 'extremely ADHD moments' as those during which my thoughts skid to a halt and I urgently think to myself I don't know what I'm thinking about.
There will be words, a complete sentence or paragraph or rant in my head, and I will not know where it came from or what it's actually about. Abstract thought, in that sense, is actually not my friend and never has been: it's more a source of anxiety.
When I work on this blog, I think about Dan. From CHADD, which I haven't attended in a very long time. I miss it. I miss the familiarity of the conversations, even the ones that annoyed me because it was the same stories or questions over and over, repeated every few months. That bothered me eventually, and now I miss them because I could anticipate what was going to happen next. I didn't need to have control to feel in control or comfortable; things were familiar. Now, even if I go back, it wouldn't even be to the same place, let alone the same people. Maybe. Probably. I can hope, but I'm also frightened of the prospect.
I'm frightened of a great deal these days, and I really detest that.
I am not afraid of fear, but I guess I am afraid of the impact fear has on my life. It can tear it, or me, apart. That's an intimidating prospect. I don't like going through my days and having seemingly random, entirely paralyzing and panic-inducing thoughts like "Oh yeah he starts preschool next month I need to have another job by June" and "Should I move out when the lease is up in September even though I should be able to live here another year" and "If I do stay then I'm wasting my sister and Red's staying where they are until September to wait for me".
Adults. Actually honest to god grown-ups out there, reading this right now. I would really, really love someone to talk to about this who isn't my age. I feel very overwhelmed, and most people I can talk to about it have their own problems right now that I am too close to or preoccupied with by half. I'm 23 and feeling alone and abandoned, helpless and hopeless, scared and dumber than I have in a long time, and I don't know what to do. Sorry. I know it's not your problem. I know that'll hurt my parents to read, but right now I'm too close to tears just writing this to pull my punches any more than I am--
And make no mistake, I am. There is so much I spend my time and energies holding back.
Help? Help. Help me.
Sorry.
Ja na.
There have been break-ups, panic attacks, abandonments, child development evaluations, hospital visits, deaths, lost jobs, quit jobs, stolen jobs, lost money, lost homes, massive financial debts--
I could scream. I'd like to. I'd really like to, but I live in an apartment with three roommates and that would be super disrespectful of the time--currently three past twin in the morning. I'm not that far gone, yet: I still have more than enough reason to understand panicked and-or frustrated screaming at two AM is generally considered a bad thing. It's a bad thing most of the time actually, however necessary it seems.
Right now, though, I'd like to talk about medication again. ADHD medication. Mine, in fact.
My father lost his job, which means I lost my health insurance, which means I lost my ability to purchase my Concerta. Which means I've stopped taking it again, sort of, or at least I did this week and most of last week, because hey, isn't it better to have later if I need it than to run out because I kept taking it?
Well... not necessarily. I'm an adult and I function, and I'm moderately used to being off my medicine because I do this often: not falling off the belief in medication bandwagon, but falling off the taking medication train. I get distracted, panicked, depressed, frustrated. I want help, I want attention, sometimes I even want the suffocating despair for reasons I can't fully articulate but occasionally borderline dangerously self-destructive--and before you get too concerned, yes I've notified my family, roommates, and health providers that I'm currently at that level of depressed and frightened and desperate to run away from everything bad, which most of my major daily life concerns currently registers as. It's not like I'm unsupervised or ever going to, y'know, do anything about it.
I'm too practical for that. Mostly I consider that a good thing, though there are of course intense moment of frantic--
Frantic whatever. I'm trying to avoid using the world we all know I'm thinking because this is maybe sort of a supposed to be a family-friendly-type blog. But here, let me fail spectacularly at that avoidance for the sake of saying: No, I don't consider suicide a valid option. I think about it, but I'm not going to do anything. More specifically, when the urges and thoughts come, I refuse them.
Medication, though. I'm not sure, this was a very spur-of-the-moment post so it's not exactly polished--not as though any of them truly have been, ever. I was thinking about the blog out of the blue when I really should be asleep but instead intended to work on a story, and, well, here I am. Ha ha ha, impulse control, not a thing right now. I'm tired and my foot's asleep and if you say 'stream of consciousness' I might just, I don't know, my thoughts aren't exactly making sense right now. I'm part thinking about what I'm writing and part thinking about Mrs. Potato Head from Toy Story. So.
... Yeah. I mentioned I'm not on my ADD pills and this is generally what happens when that is the case: some focus, bursts of creativity, lots of panic over not understanding what's happening in my own head. As someone who has extensively trained myself ot analyze my own mind, that can be a very frightening situation to find myself, and for years now I've characterized my 'extremely ADHD moments' as those during which my thoughts skid to a halt and I urgently think to myself I don't know what I'm thinking about.
There will be words, a complete sentence or paragraph or rant in my head, and I will not know where it came from or what it's actually about. Abstract thought, in that sense, is actually not my friend and never has been: it's more a source of anxiety.
When I work on this blog, I think about Dan. From CHADD, which I haven't attended in a very long time. I miss it. I miss the familiarity of the conversations, even the ones that annoyed me because it was the same stories or questions over and over, repeated every few months. That bothered me eventually, and now I miss them because I could anticipate what was going to happen next. I didn't need to have control to feel in control or comfortable; things were familiar. Now, even if I go back, it wouldn't even be to the same place, let alone the same people. Maybe. Probably. I can hope, but I'm also frightened of the prospect.
I'm frightened of a great deal these days, and I really detest that.
I am not afraid of fear, but I guess I am afraid of the impact fear has on my life. It can tear it, or me, apart. That's an intimidating prospect. I don't like going through my days and having seemingly random, entirely paralyzing and panic-inducing thoughts like "Oh yeah he starts preschool next month I need to have another job by June" and "Should I move out when the lease is up in September even though I should be able to live here another year" and "If I do stay then I'm wasting my sister and Red's staying where they are until September to wait for me".
Adults. Actually honest to god grown-ups out there, reading this right now. I would really, really love someone to talk to about this who isn't my age. I feel very overwhelmed, and most people I can talk to about it have their own problems right now that I am too close to or preoccupied with by half. I'm 23 and feeling alone and abandoned, helpless and hopeless, scared and dumber than I have in a long time, and I don't know what to do. Sorry. I know it's not your problem. I know that'll hurt my parents to read, but right now I'm too close to tears just writing this to pull my punches any more than I am--
And make no mistake, I am. There is so much I spend my time and energies holding back.
Help? Help. Help me.
Sorry.
Ja na.
Thursday, October 17, 2013
Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated.
Hi guys.
Been a while, huh? I'm sorry. Life happened, and this blog became one of the things I would think of and then flinch under the weight of my guilt. I liked doing it, and felt productive when I did so. I thought I was contributing something, maybe even helping people.
Who knows? Maybe I did. EDBBSO (wow) isn't... dead. Not really. It just became less than what I had hoped. But I'm still going to tell the truth. Not the whole truth--but nothing but.
So, um. To catch you up on things. My trip went well. I got a boyfriend out of it! That October I worked in a costume shop and became a sound tech for another, amazing play. Seriously, everything I've done and that was my favorite. Woman In Black. That is some scary stuff right there, man. And I got to make about a third of it happen. I'm still so proud of that show. Just before Halloween, my long-distance boyfriend of five months called, and we mutually broke up with each other. Then we didn't talk for almost two years.
That doesn't matter though.
Not really.
Umm, what else happened? I worked for an in-home daycare for awhile Spring 2012. That sort of gave me a wonderful opportunity--I spent just over a year working for an Indian family, which was a wonderfully enriching experience. I didn't really do much else. But my mom lost her job around the same time, so that was scary. I ended up going more than a year without my Concerta, which was even scarier. There were times when I didn't even know what I was thinking. I would be having a thought and suddenly realize I didn't know where it came from. Which was unpleasant to say the least.
I got a lot of ideas, though. For writing.
There was awhile somewhere in there that I had to live out of my sister's room, because mine was infested with ants. Considering my crippling fear of insects, that was... kind of a problem. Eventually things got better. I didn't realize my mother was steadily draining her retirement fund to pay our rent. At this point, there's pretty much nothing left of it at all. Illogically, I feel like it's my fault. I should have tried harder I shoulder have worked more. I should have gotten a day job. I should have grown the hell up, faced my demons, and spit in their faces.
I didn't.
I carry a lot of guilt over that, I guess.
I carry a lot of guilt for a lot of things.
It's stupid.
I ignore it whenever I can.
(To me, by the way, guilt feels like the prickle of gooseflesh across the backs of my shoulders, the itching sting that follows the planes of my nose down to my cheeks, and the sickening hollow-heavy feeling you sometimes get in your stomach. Yeah. That one.)
I've... been working to improve myself.
I got a watch.
I got my meds back.
I kept my job with that family.
I went to therapy.
Didn't do much else. (What a waste of time. I wonder--in seven, ten, twenty years will I look back at this time in my life and remember how awful it feels to do nothing for daysweeksmonthsyears on end? Or will I envy my younger self for having so much time?)
Pottermore came out! I joined. Got through the entire first book in one sitting. Before you ask: Hufflepuff. (I always identified with them. It wasn't a surprise.)
I was able to get 'my' kids presents. That was nice. I won't be able to do it this year.
I haven't even seen four of them in months. My fault, all my fault--I haven't contacted them since they moved away, I keep telling myself to, I keep composing the message I want to send and just... never... writing it. I've missed two birthdays. I felt awful on each of them. I should call, I would think. I should send them a message. But because I didn't on the first, I was afraid to do so on the second. They're siblings--what if the former thinks I like the latter better? I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, I don't want to interrupt their life, so I just keep to myself and hurt like hell over it.
I ignore it whenever I can.
I got a wicked cool new laptop for Xmas. It's a life saver and now I'm just putting off sending it in for repairs--which it needs, the power cord keeps slipping loose which is BAD. I really love my little computer.
The last thing I needed was a way to spend every day in my room.
I tried dieting--lost some weight. Gained it back when when my Grandmother died this last February. The eighth. Feels like that should be in caps now. The Eighth. My dad's mom, who lives... lived... In Maine. (I spoke to her while she was in the hospital. Just once. Why didn't I say anything? I couldn't think of what to say. Her last memory--if in fact she remembered my, at the end, would be of me essentially speechless. Stumbling and awkward and uncomfortable. I should have said something. Something meaningful. I thought I knew what regret was. I thought I was familiar with that bitter, coppery, bloody emotion that creeps up my throat and tries to fight its way past my tongue, my teeth, my lips. At least I saw her on my trip. At least she got to know me, the real me, the me who is a person not a child... But I was invited to stay with her a few days. I didn't, I didn't because I enjoyed my aunt't house and company more--it didn't smell bad there, like piss and disease. Not like Grammy's.)
I found out my favorite uncle has cancer eleven days later. Stage 4, incurable, no-doubts-about-it-he's-going-to-die-soon cancer. I didn't even know he was my favorite uncle. I hadn't realized it, hadn't examined my feelings or our relationship. Not until I called that ex-boyfriend of mine, whose younger brother has had cancer. Twice. He asked if we were close and I started crying at the sudden, club-like realization. My employer told me to believe in miracles and his strength. I secretly wrestled with the fact that if I saved enough money to visit Maine like I had wanted, to see my aunt to see my cousins to see my uncle to visit my dead grandmother, God, I would be too late anyway, she is dead... that I would have to give the money to my mom. Because getting to see her baby brother is more important then me getting to see my uncle. (At least I saw him on my trip. At least we had a chance to talk, for him to see how I've grown, into me, the person who is not a child. We didn't get enough time, he was going to work every day, he had the cancer while I was there I should have known, done something, changed things somehow. Damn. It was like I'd swallowed a serrated penny.)
Plans were concocted. Of visitations, of trips to Florida, or him here. Wonderful! I would get to see him before he died! (Three months, they said. Three months to five years. With treatment, and only if he took to the chemo. Then they found more, all over his body. Going towards his brain? I didn't ask. I don't like details.
I'm a writer.
I have a very vivid imagination. So I don't want to know, I don't, I don't, I don't. But I do, because this is what's taking my uncle. My uncle. It can't have him, no, he's Superman. He was my Superman. And this was his Kryptonite.)
This hurts. Writing this hurts. That was in February.
My employers told me they were moving to India. They didn't want to, but her father's health was failing and his were getting older every year, ha ha, and they felt the very strong need to be with family. I could relate, so I smiled for them. Helped them pack. Watched the kids. Cleaned their house. The normal stuff. We promised to stay in touch. They said to call them if I ever go to India. But my god, they had become such an integral part of my live. I was devastated when they left. (Their two year old wouldn't hug me. He didn't understand what was happening. Didn't know he'd never see me again. I miss him, the annoying little shit.) And I didn't hug either of them good-bye, because we'd never hugged. We were friends by that point, but we never hugged. I should have done it. I should have. I should have messaged her on facebook. I should have done it. I should have. They said I could call. I should have done it. I should have. I still should. Bitter, coppery, bloody.
I got another job at the same daycare. Under the table, below minimum wage, but still work. Still money, when my family was in such need. I should have quit there and interviewed other places. I had done it once and nearly gotten the job. I was one of two people they seriously considered. The other won out because of experience. But as my Indian friend regularly said, "How can I get experience if I do not get this job?". I suppose that's too logical though. Still, at least I tried. I tried. The job I did end up working wasn't what I had been told to expect. I did not get the hours I was told I would. More children came. One of my favorites left. I was devastated. Again.Why do I keep losing people? Our oldest dog collapsed and couldn't stand up; she was dying. Bitter.
My uncle did manage to visit. He brought my cousin, his eldest son, who is older than me by a few weeks and never lets me forget it. I spent some time with them. But I had to work. I hadn't known they were coming with any advanced warning, and besides, with that many kids at the daycare she needed somebody else to be there. Legally. (For some reason her husband didn't count?) The time I spent with them was.. minimized. Diluted, I guess. I didn't get to talk to my uncle alone. They went to the beach without me, I remember that clearly. I made me start sobbing: I got home from work to find them and my grandmother in the car, and my mom walking towards it. She said they were going to the beach, and they just left. They just left me standing there in the yard without a second's thought for how that might effect me because Mom was too distracted by her brother being there to remember her kids. Or at least me. Copper.
She didn't say goodbye to my dad either. All I could think was how hurt I was, how much I would have wanted to go with them, how I hadn't gotten so much as fifteen minutes with my dying uncle when they'd spent days and days and days together already by that point. And if they got in a car wreck or something and all died... But they didn't, and it didn't matter, and my mother apologized, and I forgave her. (That doesn't mean I've forgotten how much it hurt. I have abandonment issues, okay?) Apparently, a plan had been made for my uncle and cousin to spend time with my sister and I--together--that Friday. I worked Fridays. I didn't know my mother being emotional also meant her being stupidly cruel. Because, you know, it never had before. I took the day off.
(While they were here--or rather while they and my grandmother were visiting Seattle when they were supposed to be here visiting us--I finally got the second piercings in my ears I'd planned to get before leaving for my trip. Hurt like a mofo, but worth it. I've had a few scares with them though. Like having to be held in place by my father while I screamed and sobbed as my mother pushed the piercing earrings back through closing holes. Apparently I have a metahuman healing factor? And wow, can you tell I'm a DC girl, not Marvel? Metahuman. Not mutant. Ha. Funny, the things that occur to you. The way little things come up in the oddest of circumstances. I went with my dad, and we ran a few errands, and he held my hand because I hate quick pain. I hate stabbings, I hate splinters, I hate water running over a bloody cut when I shave).
My sister, cousin, uncle, and I went to Multnomah Falls. I got an overwhelming sense of deja vu as I'm pretty sure we went there the last time he'd visited with his younger son my sophomore year. (Bad memories, bad memories, go away, go away!) The three younger of us started to climb up. Please note that my cousin attends a military academy and has for several years, and I... have asthma, weak ankles, and am 200+ pounds. I don't look it, thankfully, but I am--which is, hahahanotfunnystoplaughing--a heavy weight for me to carry because I decided long ago I would never be... well, I would never be obese. Like my parents. (Tell me a fat joke and I'll punch you in the face, I swear to God I will.) I didn't get very far. I felt horrible, but had a nice chat with this nice old lady who visited the falls regularly since she was a little girl. I got to know the history of the area, which was nice. The next day, or maybe the day after that, my sister, cousin, and I went to Oaks Park. We had a really, really great time. Laughs, songs, jokes, exhilarations galore. They went home a few days later.
I still hadn't really gotten time with my uncle. A few vague comments, thinly veiled as jokes to disguise my pain, and his solemn responses don't count. (Tell me everybody dies as much as you want, that doesn't mean you can.)
The dog recovered. I wished to God my uncle had instead. Blood.
I worked more. A lot, really. Visited my best friend, her hubby, their amazing son. Turned twenty-one in July. Got drunk a week or so later. That was fun. I... don't really see what the fuss is about, so that's good I guess: I missed out on the alcoholism gene. (I'm afraid sometimes that my sister didn't.)
Months passed. Life resumed, with the new addition of regularly getting updates on how close my uncle was to death. He needs surgery, gets it, gets infected and nearly dies from that, falls ill, keeps going with chemo, goes back to work. He's a cop! By all rights he should have been given a desk job, I don't know what the hell they were thinking letting a terminally ill man back into the field. The school. Whatever. Whatever. Bitter.
When school started the number of the kids at the daycare went back down to manageable levels. I lost my job. I'm so done with unsatisfying everything. And I'm so done being a burden on my family and sometimes, sometimes I think about how it would be so much less painful if I just--But no.
No.
I won't. I won't. For everyone. For everything. Life is beautiful. Life is kind. Life is worthwhile, and it will get better. It will get better. It will get better. It will get better. It... it might. It might. It might get better, but I don't see how, I don't see when. Copper.
I got a boyfriend. He's... pretty wonderful. We don't live close--in fact we live pretty far from each other. And neither of us drives as of yet. We talk on facebook, but... not as often as I'd like. He has a heart condition. The last time I dated someone with a "heart condition" he was lying to me. I lost nine months of my life to that boy. And they have the same first name. And I still miss my last boyfriend. It's been two full years since we broke up, he and I, and I still miss him. We were... really in tune. Unusually in tune. Too in tune: we didn't need to talk because we knew how the other would react. We held conversations with the other in our heads, and didn't talk for weeks. I'm just having issues with being in a relationship again. Ignore me, I'm being silly. (That doesn't meant I'm not still scared, I don't want this ignored I want answers. I want to know where I stand with the first boy I ever truly imagined a life with.) Blood.
The second of my four grandmothers died. Completely out of the blue. My grandpa walked into her room in the morning and found her dead on the floor. I don't have that day marked in my calender like I do the other things. I started crying. I cried for... I don't know. Probably half an hour? I just exhausted myself. I couldn't--can't--understand why people keep dying. Why do I keep losing people? At least I saw her on my trip. We spent the evenings together watching funny, silly reality shows. When I realized I forgot my deodorant at the last place I'd stayed (my uncle's, the same uncle, the dying uncle) she gave me some unused ones she'd gotten from various hospital stays. She was totally cool with it and helped me not be so mortified. She teased me for having a new boyfriend. We talked books. She made breakfast for me every day I was there. She... we had apple pie for breakfast before I left, they said it was my birthday pie. I hugged her before I went out the door. I remember clearly how I felt when Grampy kissed her goodbye--because they had split up but were still married, still lived on the same land, I was so surprised and so happy--and that I thought, When I get home, I'm going to call her. Just on some random day. I'm going to call and chat with her, and Grampy. But this is me we're talking about here, and I didn't. I just... didn't.
I missed the convention I got to every year. I've missed plays at the theater. I've missed chances to see my friends, my boyfriend, my kids. I keep not contacting my psychiatrist. The dog is going back downhill. And again, again, that feeling.
Bitter
copper
blood.
Regret.
Cory Monteith died.
I didn't realize he'd had any effect on my life until he was gone. It wasn't much, but he still... still reached me, you know? With music, with his acting. I was sad to realize he was gone. Is gone. Why do I have such a problem with changing tenses after a person I've seen waking, talking, moving, is dead. It doesn't matter. A part of me cheers up with the thought that at least I have firsthand experience writing grief now. Another, louder parts wishes I didn't. Most of me... Well.
I ignore it whenever I can.
I learned what explosive, devastating relief feels like. Seeing people you love safe after their house catches fire. Being told that yes, we can make the rent this month after all. Coming clean to your family about that one, huge, ugly lie you've kept hidden under smiles and pain and misdirection after five years of hiding the truth... having them accept and forgive you your own, personal deadly sin. Learning that your uncle has reacted to well to the experimental chemo that his cancer is for all intents and purposes gone. My Indian employers told me to believe in miracles. I do.
I ignore a lot of things. I live in fantasy worlds of my own making or choosing, until reality slams home--in my dreams. I've never had dreams relevant to my life and worries, not really, but a month or so ago I had one that the youngest of my kids, the ones who aren't really mine and I haven't seen since spring--I had a dream, a nightmare, where he couldn't remember me. I was devastated. And I have these waking moments where I stand stock-still, frozen by the fact that I remember picking up a little blonde bundle of joy and smelling smoke in her hair. I guess I learned more about fear this year, too.
I ignore it whenever I can.
One thing I can't ignore, though: I thought I knew what regret was. This year I learned I was wrong. I mistook shame for regret.
But none of that is what I actually came here to tell you about. I came here because I need somewhere to talk about this... incredibly traumatic experience that I've gone through. It was last night, just last night and--God. It brings tear to my eyes just to remember it.
Rewind.
Basic fact about me: I don't like sleeping until I know my whole family is in the house. Shut up, yes, I know it's stupid. But my brain is wired to jump to the worst possible conclusion of any scenario I'm presented with. My sister is going to be an alcoholic. I am never going to learn to drive. I will never publish a novel. We are going to be evicted. Our dog is going to die and I will be the one to find her corpse. My relationship is going to fail.
My dad worked the closing shift last night. She should have been home around midnight. But he didn't, when he's promised--he'd promised--to call home on the nights he had to work late after closing, because I stay up when I don't know where someone is. (I have stayed up until ten in the morning waiting for my sister. Turns out she had an impromptu sleepover with a friend from work after drinking.) And I hadn't been told of any such call. So I called him. I expected to have a snippy conversation with him about how he didn't call when he should have to let me know he'd be late.
The first call happened--in my room with my Superman nightlight on, sitting on my bed, with only a few of my numerous blankets to keep me warm--probably somewhere between 3:30 and 3:45. I got his message box. Hang up. Redial.
By the fifth call--each of which was exactly 25 seconds of ringing and the first few words of his message--I was no longer angry. I was worried.
By the tenth I was frightened.
By the fourteenth or so I was calling by rote. It was automatic. I decided to keep calling until he came home, in case his phone was dead. I quickly squashed the thought Or he is. I left a message. I composed it in my head, very calm-like. I manged to almost say it right, only my voice was raspy as I tried not to cry and I mixed the order of two of the sentences.
"Daddy, this is ridiculous. It's ten to four in the morning--where are you? I've called at least a dozen times."
It was supposed to be "Where are you? It's ten to four in the morning." What a stupid mistake. Really. I couldn't do anything right. Sure he was okay--and then that vivid imagination I mentioned before? Kicked into full gear.
The problem with entertainment today is that there's too much blood, gore, and violence. There are too many movies with cars crashing and flipping and tumbling down mountainsides. To many advertisements with horrible things in the background, whether played straight or for laughs. It's too much. Much too much. You don't like gore, skip the next paragraph.
I was able to--or rather unable to stop myself from--visualize with big-screen hi-definition clarity my father driving home. A deer standing in the street. Whether he swerved and went over an edge or couldn't stop from hitting it and it slammed through the windshield and crushed his head the result was the same. A crash with a drunk driver; his car flipping and landing top-down. My dad suspended from the seat belt, blood leaking from his body in the various places where the car had contorted and crushed his limbs, and pouring where the various things he keeps in the back had struck or impaled him. His phone laying on the roof of the car, flashing at him as I called and called and called. Maybe he was conscious. Maybe he wasn't. Maybe he was in the hospital, rushed to the ER. Maybe they wouldn't find him in time. Maybe the phone was in the street, lights blinking, and he could only watch it as life drained from his torn body. Maybe my calls would be how the cops tell us he's gone. My dad, laying on the side of the road. From attack. From freak accident. From falling asleep at the wheel. From getting distracted.
(People can't understand why I don't drive. I can't understand why they do.)
Because the worst possible, frighteningly logical conclusion of someone being hours late and not picking up the phone is because they are cheating, or they are dead. And I cannot, will not believe my father would do the former. So: I was left with the latter. After so much loss, death, and fear in the last ten months, is it really a surprise I immediately believed?
Last night, I thought my father was dead.
My dad.
Dead.
My dad.
Impossible.
I was going to keep calling until he came home. I had to. Trying to get to him was the only thing I could do. I felt five years old. Terrified and alone.
The thirty-third time I called he answered. Or at least, I think so. I didn't count. Couldn't count. First thing I heard was him saying something to someone--a male voice, a coworker. He said, "... my daughter."
Then he asked what I wanted, and I started sobbing. Understandably he panicked.
My dad has years and years of experience understanding me when I cry and try to explain why I'm crying at the same time. He got angry--because he had called home. He had told my mother he would be late. And she hadn't told me, so I'd stayed up hours after I should have, with the back door unlocked for him to come in through, fighting the sleeping pill I take to counteract my insomnia every second of every minute of those hours, waiting for him to come home. So I could lecture him on needing to call home to let us(me) know he would be late and not to worry, like my sister never does, and make sure he got the dinner we set aside for him, and lecture him about needing to take care of himself, and listen to him tell me about whatever thing had kept him this time, and I would sympathize, send him off to bed, drop into my own and be out like a light in thirty seconds.
He had been cutting lumber with a buzz saw with his iPod playing. He didn't even know his phone was ringing, or vibrating, or whatever. (I imagine that coworker saw the number of missed calls just as I was calling again. He got Dad's attention too late, but then I called again and Dad answered. That's all she wrote.
But there's more to the story.
Of course there is. (Every story has three sides: yours, mine, and the truth.) He said it was okay to lock up the house. After crying for a few more minutes I did so. But I didn't change into my nightclothes, I didn't get into bed properly, and when I got back to my room the first thing I did was step onto the foot of my bed and start digging though the boxes and piles of stuff there, looking for something, anything, that my dad had given me. But really I'd already made up my mind, and I was still crying and fighting crying, and as I searched I must have really lost it because I was whispering, begging for my Ty stuffed leopard--named Nathaniel--to just be found already because I needed him.
I found him, sat on my bed, pulled my top top covers back over me, curled into a ball with my face buried between two pillows, started rocking myself, and stopped fighting that sort of truly agonizing, gut-wrenching crying you never see on TV. Where every breath is like a gasp after drowning and every sob is that deep, throaty, wet, ugly sound of pain and fear and despair and relief and exhaustion all at the same time. True to ADHD form, I was rapidly, insistently, stroking the very softest part of Nathaniel, and pulling the covers tighter and the pillows nearer as I tried to just disappear. Eventually the tears stopped.
A minute or so later I got another flash of that--of Dad, hanging upside down by his seat belt, with the phone just out of his reach and blinking while I called and he couldn't answer and there was blood everywhere, and a cop picking up the phone. The tears started again. I remembering noticing that I could actually feel the individual tears sliding across my face, over my nose and down my cheek. I usually can't. But I could last night.
Last night, when I honest-to-God went though some sort of twisted, rapid, intensely painful and frightening form of mourning for my father.
Last night, when I thought my dad was dead.
He woke me up when he got home--for which I'm grateful. I shot up and hugged him, and eventually found my way into bed properly.
This morning was... awkward. Because I was really mad at my mom, and didn't want my dad to leave my sight. And when I say morning I mean 12:10pm when I was woken by my sister. Or my mother. Or father. I don't remember. Whatever.
It doesn't matter. Not really.
It happened. "We all learned from it," I said to Mom today.
Yeah. Well. What I learned was that I had to make a goddamn iron-clad indisputable rule that if Dad calls home to say he's gonna be late, he can't hang up until he talks to me directly. Like what happened tonight, a few hours ago. We spoke for about ten seconds, it seems like. That's all I needed. Just... to make sure he knew, and she knew, that I knew he would be late. 'Cause guess what? My parents finally got it. Finally understood, through guilt, and pain, and empathy.
I don't like sleeping until I know my entire family is in the house.
Shut up.
Yes.
I know it's stupid.
I'll ignore it whenever I can.
Ja na.
Been a while, huh? I'm sorry. Life happened, and this blog became one of the things I would think of and then flinch under the weight of my guilt. I liked doing it, and felt productive when I did so. I thought I was contributing something, maybe even helping people.
Who knows? Maybe I did. EDBBSO (wow) isn't... dead. Not really. It just became less than what I had hoped. But I'm still going to tell the truth. Not the whole truth--but nothing but.
So, um. To catch you up on things. My trip went well. I got a boyfriend out of it! That October I worked in a costume shop and became a sound tech for another, amazing play. Seriously, everything I've done and that was my favorite. Woman In Black. That is some scary stuff right there, man. And I got to make about a third of it happen. I'm still so proud of that show. Just before Halloween, my long-distance boyfriend of five months called, and we mutually broke up with each other. Then we didn't talk for almost two years.
That doesn't matter though.
Not really.
Umm, what else happened? I worked for an in-home daycare for awhile Spring 2012. That sort of gave me a wonderful opportunity--I spent just over a year working for an Indian family, which was a wonderfully enriching experience. I didn't really do much else. But my mom lost her job around the same time, so that was scary. I ended up going more than a year without my Concerta, which was even scarier. There were times when I didn't even know what I was thinking. I would be having a thought and suddenly realize I didn't know where it came from. Which was unpleasant to say the least.
I got a lot of ideas, though. For writing.
There was awhile somewhere in there that I had to live out of my sister's room, because mine was infested with ants. Considering my crippling fear of insects, that was... kind of a problem. Eventually things got better. I didn't realize my mother was steadily draining her retirement fund to pay our rent. At this point, there's pretty much nothing left of it at all. Illogically, I feel like it's my fault. I should have tried harder I shoulder have worked more. I should have gotten a day job. I should have grown the hell up, faced my demons, and spit in their faces.
I didn't.
I carry a lot of guilt over that, I guess.
I carry a lot of guilt for a lot of things.
It's stupid.
I ignore it whenever I can.
(To me, by the way, guilt feels like the prickle of gooseflesh across the backs of my shoulders, the itching sting that follows the planes of my nose down to my cheeks, and the sickening hollow-heavy feeling you sometimes get in your stomach. Yeah. That one.)
I've... been working to improve myself.
I got a watch.
I got my meds back.
I kept my job with that family.
I went to therapy.
Didn't do much else. (What a waste of time. I wonder--in seven, ten, twenty years will I look back at this time in my life and remember how awful it feels to do nothing for daysweeksmonthsyears on end? Or will I envy my younger self for having so much time?)
Pottermore came out! I joined. Got through the entire first book in one sitting. Before you ask: Hufflepuff. (I always identified with them. It wasn't a surprise.)
I was able to get 'my' kids presents. That was nice. I won't be able to do it this year.
I haven't even seen four of them in months. My fault, all my fault--I haven't contacted them since they moved away, I keep telling myself to, I keep composing the message I want to send and just... never... writing it. I've missed two birthdays. I felt awful on each of them. I should call, I would think. I should send them a message. But because I didn't on the first, I was afraid to do so on the second. They're siblings--what if the former thinks I like the latter better? I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, I don't want to interrupt their life, so I just keep to myself and hurt like hell over it.
I ignore it whenever I can.
I got a wicked cool new laptop for Xmas. It's a life saver and now I'm just putting off sending it in for repairs--which it needs, the power cord keeps slipping loose which is BAD. I really love my little computer.
The last thing I needed was a way to spend every day in my room.
I tried dieting--lost some weight. Gained it back when when my Grandmother died this last February. The eighth. Feels like that should be in caps now. The Eighth. My dad's mom, who lives... lived... In Maine. (I spoke to her while she was in the hospital. Just once. Why didn't I say anything? I couldn't think of what to say. Her last memory--if in fact she remembered my, at the end, would be of me essentially speechless. Stumbling and awkward and uncomfortable. I should have said something. Something meaningful. I thought I knew what regret was. I thought I was familiar with that bitter, coppery, bloody emotion that creeps up my throat and tries to fight its way past my tongue, my teeth, my lips. At least I saw her on my trip. At least she got to know me, the real me, the me who is a person not a child... But I was invited to stay with her a few days. I didn't, I didn't because I enjoyed my aunt't house and company more--it didn't smell bad there, like piss and disease. Not like Grammy's.)
I found out my favorite uncle has cancer eleven days later. Stage 4, incurable, no-doubts-about-it-he's-going-to-die-soon cancer. I didn't even know he was my favorite uncle. I hadn't realized it, hadn't examined my feelings or our relationship. Not until I called that ex-boyfriend of mine, whose younger brother has had cancer. Twice. He asked if we were close and I started crying at the sudden, club-like realization. My employer told me to believe in miracles and his strength. I secretly wrestled with the fact that if I saved enough money to visit Maine like I had wanted, to see my aunt to see my cousins to see my uncle to visit my dead grandmother, God, I would be too late anyway, she is dead... that I would have to give the money to my mom. Because getting to see her baby brother is more important then me getting to see my uncle. (At least I saw him on my trip. At least we had a chance to talk, for him to see how I've grown, into me, the person who is not a child. We didn't get enough time, he was going to work every day, he had the cancer while I was there I should have known, done something, changed things somehow. Damn. It was like I'd swallowed a serrated penny.)
Plans were concocted. Of visitations, of trips to Florida, or him here. Wonderful! I would get to see him before he died! (Three months, they said. Three months to five years. With treatment, and only if he took to the chemo. Then they found more, all over his body. Going towards his brain? I didn't ask. I don't like details.
I'm a writer.
I have a very vivid imagination. So I don't want to know, I don't, I don't, I don't. But I do, because this is what's taking my uncle. My uncle. It can't have him, no, he's Superman. He was my Superman. And this was his Kryptonite.)
This hurts. Writing this hurts. That was in February.
My employers told me they were moving to India. They didn't want to, but her father's health was failing and his were getting older every year, ha ha, and they felt the very strong need to be with family. I could relate, so I smiled for them. Helped them pack. Watched the kids. Cleaned their house. The normal stuff. We promised to stay in touch. They said to call them if I ever go to India. But my god, they had become such an integral part of my live. I was devastated when they left. (Their two year old wouldn't hug me. He didn't understand what was happening. Didn't know he'd never see me again. I miss him, the annoying little shit.) And I didn't hug either of them good-bye, because we'd never hugged. We were friends by that point, but we never hugged. I should have done it. I should have. I should have messaged her on facebook. I should have done it. I should have. They said I could call. I should have done it. I should have. I still should. Bitter, coppery, bloody.
I got another job at the same daycare. Under the table, below minimum wage, but still work. Still money, when my family was in such need. I should have quit there and interviewed other places. I had done it once and nearly gotten the job. I was one of two people they seriously considered. The other won out because of experience. But as my Indian friend regularly said, "How can I get experience if I do not get this job?". I suppose that's too logical though. Still, at least I tried. I tried. The job I did end up working wasn't what I had been told to expect. I did not get the hours I was told I would. More children came. One of my favorites left. I was devastated. Again.Why do I keep losing people? Our oldest dog collapsed and couldn't stand up; she was dying. Bitter.
My uncle did manage to visit. He brought my cousin, his eldest son, who is older than me by a few weeks and never lets me forget it. I spent some time with them. But I had to work. I hadn't known they were coming with any advanced warning, and besides, with that many kids at the daycare she needed somebody else to be there. Legally. (For some reason her husband didn't count?) The time I spent with them was.. minimized. Diluted, I guess. I didn't get to talk to my uncle alone. They went to the beach without me, I remember that clearly. I made me start sobbing: I got home from work to find them and my grandmother in the car, and my mom walking towards it. She said they were going to the beach, and they just left. They just left me standing there in the yard without a second's thought for how that might effect me because Mom was too distracted by her brother being there to remember her kids. Or at least me. Copper.
She didn't say goodbye to my dad either. All I could think was how hurt I was, how much I would have wanted to go with them, how I hadn't gotten so much as fifteen minutes with my dying uncle when they'd spent days and days and days together already by that point. And if they got in a car wreck or something and all died... But they didn't, and it didn't matter, and my mother apologized, and I forgave her. (That doesn't mean I've forgotten how much it hurt. I have abandonment issues, okay?) Apparently, a plan had been made for my uncle and cousin to spend time with my sister and I--together--that Friday. I worked Fridays. I didn't know my mother being emotional also meant her being stupidly cruel. Because, you know, it never had before. I took the day off.
(While they were here--or rather while they and my grandmother were visiting Seattle when they were supposed to be here visiting us--I finally got the second piercings in my ears I'd planned to get before leaving for my trip. Hurt like a mofo, but worth it. I've had a few scares with them though. Like having to be held in place by my father while I screamed and sobbed as my mother pushed the piercing earrings back through closing holes. Apparently I have a metahuman healing factor? And wow, can you tell I'm a DC girl, not Marvel? Metahuman. Not mutant. Ha. Funny, the things that occur to you. The way little things come up in the oddest of circumstances. I went with my dad, and we ran a few errands, and he held my hand because I hate quick pain. I hate stabbings, I hate splinters, I hate water running over a bloody cut when I shave).
My sister, cousin, uncle, and I went to Multnomah Falls. I got an overwhelming sense of deja vu as I'm pretty sure we went there the last time he'd visited with his younger son my sophomore year. (Bad memories, bad memories, go away, go away!) The three younger of us started to climb up. Please note that my cousin attends a military academy and has for several years, and I... have asthma, weak ankles, and am 200+ pounds. I don't look it, thankfully, but I am--which is, hahahanotfunnystoplaughing--a heavy weight for me to carry because I decided long ago I would never be... well, I would never be obese. Like my parents. (Tell me a fat joke and I'll punch you in the face, I swear to God I will.) I didn't get very far. I felt horrible, but had a nice chat with this nice old lady who visited the falls regularly since she was a little girl. I got to know the history of the area, which was nice. The next day, or maybe the day after that, my sister, cousin, and I went to Oaks Park. We had a really, really great time. Laughs, songs, jokes, exhilarations galore. They went home a few days later.
I still hadn't really gotten time with my uncle. A few vague comments, thinly veiled as jokes to disguise my pain, and his solemn responses don't count. (Tell me everybody dies as much as you want, that doesn't mean you can.)
The dog recovered. I wished to God my uncle had instead. Blood.
I worked more. A lot, really. Visited my best friend, her hubby, their amazing son. Turned twenty-one in July. Got drunk a week or so later. That was fun. I... don't really see what the fuss is about, so that's good I guess: I missed out on the alcoholism gene. (I'm afraid sometimes that my sister didn't.)
Months passed. Life resumed, with the new addition of regularly getting updates on how close my uncle was to death. He needs surgery, gets it, gets infected and nearly dies from that, falls ill, keeps going with chemo, goes back to work. He's a cop! By all rights he should have been given a desk job, I don't know what the hell they were thinking letting a terminally ill man back into the field. The school. Whatever. Whatever. Bitter.
When school started the number of the kids at the daycare went back down to manageable levels. I lost my job. I'm so done with unsatisfying everything. And I'm so done being a burden on my family and sometimes, sometimes I think about how it would be so much less painful if I just--But no.
No.
I won't. I won't. For everyone. For everything. Life is beautiful. Life is kind. Life is worthwhile, and it will get better. It will get better. It will get better. It will get better. It... it might. It might. It might get better, but I don't see how, I don't see when. Copper.
I got a boyfriend. He's... pretty wonderful. We don't live close--in fact we live pretty far from each other. And neither of us drives as of yet. We talk on facebook, but... not as often as I'd like. He has a heart condition. The last time I dated someone with a "heart condition" he was lying to me. I lost nine months of my life to that boy. And they have the same first name. And I still miss my last boyfriend. It's been two full years since we broke up, he and I, and I still miss him. We were... really in tune. Unusually in tune. Too in tune: we didn't need to talk because we knew how the other would react. We held conversations with the other in our heads, and didn't talk for weeks. I'm just having issues with being in a relationship again. Ignore me, I'm being silly. (That doesn't meant I'm not still scared, I don't want this ignored I want answers. I want to know where I stand with the first boy I ever truly imagined a life with.) Blood.
The second of my four grandmothers died. Completely out of the blue. My grandpa walked into her room in the morning and found her dead on the floor. I don't have that day marked in my calender like I do the other things. I started crying. I cried for... I don't know. Probably half an hour? I just exhausted myself. I couldn't--can't--understand why people keep dying. Why do I keep losing people? At least I saw her on my trip. We spent the evenings together watching funny, silly reality shows. When I realized I forgot my deodorant at the last place I'd stayed (my uncle's, the same uncle, the dying uncle) she gave me some unused ones she'd gotten from various hospital stays. She was totally cool with it and helped me not be so mortified. She teased me for having a new boyfriend. We talked books. She made breakfast for me every day I was there. She... we had apple pie for breakfast before I left, they said it was my birthday pie. I hugged her before I went out the door. I remember clearly how I felt when Grampy kissed her goodbye--because they had split up but were still married, still lived on the same land, I was so surprised and so happy--and that I thought, When I get home, I'm going to call her. Just on some random day. I'm going to call and chat with her, and Grampy. But this is me we're talking about here, and I didn't. I just... didn't.
I missed the convention I got to every year. I've missed plays at the theater. I've missed chances to see my friends, my boyfriend, my kids. I keep not contacting my psychiatrist. The dog is going back downhill. And again, again, that feeling.
Bitter
copper
blood.
Regret.
Cory Monteith died.
I didn't realize he'd had any effect on my life until he was gone. It wasn't much, but he still... still reached me, you know? With music, with his acting. I was sad to realize he was gone. Is gone. Why do I have such a problem with changing tenses after a person I've seen waking, talking, moving, is dead. It doesn't matter. A part of me cheers up with the thought that at least I have firsthand experience writing grief now. Another, louder parts wishes I didn't. Most of me... Well.
I ignore it whenever I can.
I learned what explosive, devastating relief feels like. Seeing people you love safe after their house catches fire. Being told that yes, we can make the rent this month after all. Coming clean to your family about that one, huge, ugly lie you've kept hidden under smiles and pain and misdirection after five years of hiding the truth... having them accept and forgive you your own, personal deadly sin. Learning that your uncle has reacted to well to the experimental chemo that his cancer is for all intents and purposes gone. My Indian employers told me to believe in miracles. I do.
I ignore a lot of things. I live in fantasy worlds of my own making or choosing, until reality slams home--in my dreams. I've never had dreams relevant to my life and worries, not really, but a month or so ago I had one that the youngest of my kids, the ones who aren't really mine and I haven't seen since spring--I had a dream, a nightmare, where he couldn't remember me. I was devastated. And I have these waking moments where I stand stock-still, frozen by the fact that I remember picking up a little blonde bundle of joy and smelling smoke in her hair. I guess I learned more about fear this year, too.
I ignore it whenever I can.
One thing I can't ignore, though: I thought I knew what regret was. This year I learned I was wrong. I mistook shame for regret.
But none of that is what I actually came here to tell you about. I came here because I need somewhere to talk about this... incredibly traumatic experience that I've gone through. It was last night, just last night and--God. It brings tear to my eyes just to remember it.
Rewind.
Basic fact about me: I don't like sleeping until I know my whole family is in the house. Shut up, yes, I know it's stupid. But my brain is wired to jump to the worst possible conclusion of any scenario I'm presented with. My sister is going to be an alcoholic. I am never going to learn to drive. I will never publish a novel. We are going to be evicted. Our dog is going to die and I will be the one to find her corpse. My relationship is going to fail.
My dad worked the closing shift last night. She should have been home around midnight. But he didn't, when he's promised--he'd promised--to call home on the nights he had to work late after closing, because I stay up when I don't know where someone is. (I have stayed up until ten in the morning waiting for my sister. Turns out she had an impromptu sleepover with a friend from work after drinking.) And I hadn't been told of any such call. So I called him. I expected to have a snippy conversation with him about how he didn't call when he should have to let me know he'd be late.
The first call happened--in my room with my Superman nightlight on, sitting on my bed, with only a few of my numerous blankets to keep me warm--probably somewhere between 3:30 and 3:45. I got his message box. Hang up. Redial.
By the fifth call--each of which was exactly 25 seconds of ringing and the first few words of his message--I was no longer angry. I was worried.
By the tenth I was frightened.
By the fourteenth or so I was calling by rote. It was automatic. I decided to keep calling until he came home, in case his phone was dead. I quickly squashed the thought Or he is. I left a message. I composed it in my head, very calm-like. I manged to almost say it right, only my voice was raspy as I tried not to cry and I mixed the order of two of the sentences.
"Daddy, this is ridiculous. It's ten to four in the morning--where are you? I've called at least a dozen times."
It was supposed to be "Where are you? It's ten to four in the morning." What a stupid mistake. Really. I couldn't do anything right. Sure he was okay--and then that vivid imagination I mentioned before? Kicked into full gear.
The problem with entertainment today is that there's too much blood, gore, and violence. There are too many movies with cars crashing and flipping and tumbling down mountainsides. To many advertisements with horrible things in the background, whether played straight or for laughs. It's too much. Much too much. You don't like gore, skip the next paragraph.
I was able to--or rather unable to stop myself from--visualize with big-screen hi-definition clarity my father driving home. A deer standing in the street. Whether he swerved and went over an edge or couldn't stop from hitting it and it slammed through the windshield and crushed his head the result was the same. A crash with a drunk driver; his car flipping and landing top-down. My dad suspended from the seat belt, blood leaking from his body in the various places where the car had contorted and crushed his limbs, and pouring where the various things he keeps in the back had struck or impaled him. His phone laying on the roof of the car, flashing at him as I called and called and called. Maybe he was conscious. Maybe he wasn't. Maybe he was in the hospital, rushed to the ER. Maybe they wouldn't find him in time. Maybe the phone was in the street, lights blinking, and he could only watch it as life drained from his torn body. Maybe my calls would be how the cops tell us he's gone. My dad, laying on the side of the road. From attack. From freak accident. From falling asleep at the wheel. From getting distracted.
(People can't understand why I don't drive. I can't understand why they do.)
Because the worst possible, frighteningly logical conclusion of someone being hours late and not picking up the phone is because they are cheating, or they are dead. And I cannot, will not believe my father would do the former. So: I was left with the latter. After so much loss, death, and fear in the last ten months, is it really a surprise I immediately believed?
Last night, I thought my father was dead.
My dad.
Dead.
My dad.
Impossible.
I was going to keep calling until he came home. I had to. Trying to get to him was the only thing I could do. I felt five years old. Terrified and alone.
The thirty-third time I called he answered. Or at least, I think so. I didn't count. Couldn't count. First thing I heard was him saying something to someone--a male voice, a coworker. He said, "... my daughter."
Then he asked what I wanted, and I started sobbing. Understandably he panicked.
My dad has years and years of experience understanding me when I cry and try to explain why I'm crying at the same time. He got angry--because he had called home. He had told my mother he would be late. And she hadn't told me, so I'd stayed up hours after I should have, with the back door unlocked for him to come in through, fighting the sleeping pill I take to counteract my insomnia every second of every minute of those hours, waiting for him to come home. So I could lecture him on needing to call home to let us(me) know he would be late and not to worry, like my sister never does, and make sure he got the dinner we set aside for him, and lecture him about needing to take care of himself, and listen to him tell me about whatever thing had kept him this time, and I would sympathize, send him off to bed, drop into my own and be out like a light in thirty seconds.
He had been cutting lumber with a buzz saw with his iPod playing. He didn't even know his phone was ringing, or vibrating, or whatever. (I imagine that coworker saw the number of missed calls just as I was calling again. He got Dad's attention too late, but then I called again and Dad answered. That's all she wrote.
But there's more to the story.
Of course there is. (Every story has three sides: yours, mine, and the truth.) He said it was okay to lock up the house. After crying for a few more minutes I did so. But I didn't change into my nightclothes, I didn't get into bed properly, and when I got back to my room the first thing I did was step onto the foot of my bed and start digging though the boxes and piles of stuff there, looking for something, anything, that my dad had given me. But really I'd already made up my mind, and I was still crying and fighting crying, and as I searched I must have really lost it because I was whispering, begging for my Ty stuffed leopard--named Nathaniel--to just be found already because I needed him.
I found him, sat on my bed, pulled my top top covers back over me, curled into a ball with my face buried between two pillows, started rocking myself, and stopped fighting that sort of truly agonizing, gut-wrenching crying you never see on TV. Where every breath is like a gasp after drowning and every sob is that deep, throaty, wet, ugly sound of pain and fear and despair and relief and exhaustion all at the same time. True to ADHD form, I was rapidly, insistently, stroking the very softest part of Nathaniel, and pulling the covers tighter and the pillows nearer as I tried to just disappear. Eventually the tears stopped.
A minute or so later I got another flash of that--of Dad, hanging upside down by his seat belt, with the phone just out of his reach and blinking while I called and he couldn't answer and there was blood everywhere, and a cop picking up the phone. The tears started again. I remembering noticing that I could actually feel the individual tears sliding across my face, over my nose and down my cheek. I usually can't. But I could last night.
Last night, when I honest-to-God went though some sort of twisted, rapid, intensely painful and frightening form of mourning for my father.
Last night, when I thought my dad was dead.
He woke me up when he got home--for which I'm grateful. I shot up and hugged him, and eventually found my way into bed properly.
This morning was... awkward. Because I was really mad at my mom, and didn't want my dad to leave my sight. And when I say morning I mean 12:10pm when I was woken by my sister. Or my mother. Or father. I don't remember. Whatever.
It doesn't matter. Not really.
It happened. "We all learned from it," I said to Mom today.
Yeah. Well. What I learned was that I had to make a goddamn iron-clad indisputable rule that if Dad calls home to say he's gonna be late, he can't hang up until he talks to me directly. Like what happened tonight, a few hours ago. We spoke for about ten seconds, it seems like. That's all I needed. Just... to make sure he knew, and she knew, that I knew he would be late. 'Cause guess what? My parents finally got it. Finally understood, through guilt, and pain, and empathy.
I don't like sleeping until I know my entire family is in the house.
Shut up.
Yes.
I know it's stupid.
I'll ignore it whenever I can.
Ja na.
Thursday, June 02, 2011
"There's more to life than trying to survive"—Annie, Vanessa Carlton
SO, when D at the the CHADD meetings found out about my trip (I'm in New York at the moment) he essentially told me to blog while I was gone. The problem with that, I have found, is that while doing things worth blogging about, I am, well, busy. Doing them. And when I'm not, when I have a minute, I'm not blogging because I'm taking that minute for myself. So I haven't really managed my time well enough to blog. I've only gone online twice before this, to email my family. I haven't even texted my friend like I said I would. I need to get on that...
But I digress. The only reason I'm (the following no longer applies as it is several hours after I first put pen to paper today; right now I'm at the computer. Duh.) sitting here right now, by myself in the basement apartment of my aunt and uncle's house with a blanket wrapped around me, scribbling away in a borrowed-without-permission-but-with-FULL-intent-of-returning binder is that, for once—or rather, for the first time this trip—the words came into my head and I couldn't stop them. Clear words, when I often think initially in intentions and impressions. The words were:
"I'm so overwhelmed right now. I'm so overwhelmed..." Completely and totally overwhelmed by what is going on with/to/for me. I had to "take a minute. Just a minute. Just a minute. A minute, a minute, a minute. A minute, I need a minute. Just a minute, a minute, a minute..."
Which I did, curling up with a blanket that doesn't smell like home wrapped loosely around me.
...
...
That reads, to those who don't speak panic-attack-ese: I took a blanket off 'my' bed, wrapped it around my shoulders, debated over bringing a stuffed animal with me, walked over my suitcase very carefully wihout looking at it as tears gathered in my eyes. It means that I sat down on the part of the couch I've spent the most time on, brought my legs up, and fell slowly over into the fetal position as I adjusted the blanket so it was over my head, still muttering (maybe, I'm not sure, I may just have been thinking it with increasing anxiety and decreasing coherence, as is often the case in such circumstances, about needing a minute, just a minute, a minute, a minute, a minute, a minute.
(Sounds poetic, doesn't it? It isn't.)
It means that I gave myself over to helpless, hopeless (I wasn't sure which so I went with both) shuddering as near-scalding tears rand across my face to my temple. It means I was listening to the sporadic pouding of feet over my head as my second cousins ran around and my aunt talking to my dad on the phone, and it means that I was hoping, vaguely but sincerely, that someone (Jen) would come downstairs and find me and hold me or something. But that, of course, didn't happen.
It hardly ever does.
And then it means, if you read very carefully and think about your own experiences in such things, that I stopped listening to them and started feeling the heat of my own frantic-ish breaths against my face, and that I realized somewhat that I did not, in fact, want to get up and walk over to my bed for my inhaler so I had to calm down. I started feeling, slightly, the pulsing pf blood through my veins as I started, perhaps, to regulate my breathing. Which of course got me thinking about runnings laps outside in the winter in my seventh grade year, and the female eighth grade Phys. Ed. teacher telling me/us to breathe in through our noses and out through our mouths. I did that for a bit, then shifted slightly and the blanket moved an inch or so and I could see light, which I didn't want, and smell fresh air, which I realized I kind of did.
I moved the blanket back to darkness and realized acutely that the blanket did NOT smell like home, or dreams, or anything familiar, not even, really, the house I was staying in, so likely it was the smell of the last person to use the blanket before me, which was weird. Then I rememberd, I think, that the teacher had actually said in through the mouth, out through the nose (so as not to harm the sinuses or somesuch thing) and started doing that instead.
That was about when I realized that there wasn't much difference between having my eyes open or closed. And no, that thought didn't lead to some for of epiphany. In fact, I'm not sure what I thought about then, but it wasn't long before the tears dried on my face, at that time proving I had taken several minutes, not one, and I sat up.
And started thinking about how D had said I should keep blogging while I'm gone. That was when I got the binder off the bookshelf. Then I sat back down and started writing.
As of now I'm starting (again, not true present tense as I'm on the computer, but whatever) my fourth front-side-only sheet of paper, and my hand is cramping because I've written so much in so short a period of time.
Yay me.
And Jen has come downstairs, though that was just to find out if I would prefer she drive me to the bus stop tomorrow, or her husband, my cousin. (I picked her because we get along really well, whereas I've never been all that close to my second-eldest cousin. [Hah, funny story: my eldest cousin was born on the due date of the aforementioned second-eldest, and vice versa—one was early, the other late, just enough so they switched birthdays.] )
I'm suddenly realizing I haven't eaten yet today, and that I should try to finish the "DEEP JUNGLE" level of Kingdom Hearts today AND that I need to pack up down here because my "jast murried" cousin and his wife are going to crash here tonight. Probably. And I'm leaving this place. Tomorrow. Not never-to-return or something—I'll be back in about two weeks—but I have to go and get on a bus at about one A.M. on Saturday to go to Maine.
Which is what started all of this, by the way. Talking about bus tickets and the buying thereof, and getting to the bus stop. And I'm proud of myself; I never once mentioned that I HATE BUSES.
I really do.
But, yeah. So, hmm, let's see... a quick (HA!) run-down of events since the night before I left.
I was supposed to have started packing the day before (Saturday) but I went and got my hair cut and then spent a few hours with my mom talking to my hairdresser, as apparently I now have one, and I'm not realy clear on what happened then, but I only got around to packing my new $60 purple suitcase on Sunday, late-afternoon at best. Then the Secoind Degree Sunburn for HELL that I got on Friday started acting up and giving me incredible amounts of pain. At which point I became essentially uselkess in the matter of packing my own luggage. I could and did, however, prove the case I've been making agains cleaning my room: I know almost precisely where nearly everything in my room is, even if you can't find it, thankyouverymuch.
In fact, there's a Marvel Universe character, Dr. Modern (not a superheo) who deals with things so case-sensitive that he doesn't use a filing system—he names folders things like "Weird" because he thinks the contents are weird, and leaves all the oddly labeled folders stacked around his place of residence/employment, I'm not sure which. And he can find anything he needs to because he memorizes the information and where he put it. No one would ever be able to be all in-steal/copy the file in question-out because they would have to look through everything!
So, yeah. Just because my room is terribly disorganized doesn't mean I don't know where things are. And a good portion of the tisme I can't find something it's because someone else touched it since last I did. So there! (Can't you just imagine someone stamping their foot and sticking their tongue out immediately after saying that? I can. But I didn't.)
Anyway, I proved my case, and after hours of intense discomfort I passed out on my mom's shoulder, my arms (where I was burned) wrapped in a towel or something with an ice pack and calami lotion, doped up in Benedryl. And they still hurt when I woke up.
But whatever. Dad drove me to the airport, and having already gotten special permission to come with me past security due to my anxiety issues, came in with me. He helped me with my bags, felt triumph over the fact that my larger bag weighed in at exactly 49 pounds... and got chosen for a 'random' search. Grr. And my bag was searched too, my carry-on! Apparently my tube of toothpaste was too big. I had to let them throw it away!!! I mean, this was a totally new package of Aquafresh, bought just for me, for my trip, and they threw it away! I felt horrible, terrible. That was money, that was mine, that was... in the garbage can. I could've killed somebody. I swear, if I weren't so anxious... And my arms, which had calmed down as I had? (My body has this neat history of having actual, legitimate physical problems crop up when I am uncomfortable with something. Like, I would be panicky-nervous about a class before school and I would throw up, thus ensuring I couldn't go to school for 24 hours.)
But back to my arms. Yeah, they started acting up again. Just like that. A tube of toothpaste, a theoretically "...entirely random, I promise. A lot of people think it isn't true, but the system really does just select random people..." search, and I was almost back to full-blown agony. And I still had to repack my carry-on ! Then, of course, as we were looking for my departure gate, this announcement comes on both the speakers and the TV screens that we don't pay attention to. Then we realize that it mentions my flight number and includes the words 'about to depart without you'. My dad and I looked at the nearest screen.
Yep, that's my last name, but... "Victor", it said. My first impression was more or less, I hate it when my name has too many characters. as my whole eighth grade year my name in teh school system was Victor. My second impression was more along the lines of oh my god no way.
There are four and a half more pages that I wrote earlier this afternoon, and I'll post that tommorrow or the day after, but I'm burning time and, frankly, sick of transcribing things from paper to screen right now. I mean, I already wrote this once today! And, yeah, okay, I figured this point made a nice cliffhanger.
If your nervous, however, I suggest you go back and read the first sentence.
I obviously made it here.
But thanks for the concern.
Ja na!
But I digress. The only reason I'm (the following no longer applies as it is several hours after I first put pen to paper today; right now I'm at the computer. Duh.) sitting here right now, by myself in the basement apartment of my aunt and uncle's house with a blanket wrapped around me, scribbling away in a borrowed-without-permission-but-with-FULL-intent-of-returning binder is that, for once—or rather, for the first time this trip—the words came into my head and I couldn't stop them. Clear words, when I often think initially in intentions and impressions. The words were:
"I'm so overwhelmed right now. I'm so overwhelmed..." Completely and totally overwhelmed by what is going on with/to/for me. I had to "take a minute. Just a minute. Just a minute. A minute, a minute, a minute. A minute, I need a minute. Just a minute, a minute, a minute..."
Which I did, curling up with a blanket that doesn't smell like home wrapped loosely around me.
...
...
That reads, to those who don't speak panic-attack-ese: I took a blanket off 'my' bed, wrapped it around my shoulders, debated over bringing a stuffed animal with me, walked over my suitcase very carefully wihout looking at it as tears gathered in my eyes. It means that I sat down on the part of the couch I've spent the most time on, brought my legs up, and fell slowly over into the fetal position as I adjusted the blanket so it was over my head, still muttering (maybe, I'm not sure, I may just have been thinking it with increasing anxiety and decreasing coherence, as is often the case in such circumstances, about needing a minute, just a minute, a minute, a minute, a minute, a minute.
(Sounds poetic, doesn't it? It isn't.)
It means that I gave myself over to helpless, hopeless (I wasn't sure which so I went with both) shuddering as near-scalding tears rand across my face to my temple. It means I was listening to the sporadic pouding of feet over my head as my second cousins ran around and my aunt talking to my dad on the phone, and it means that I was hoping, vaguely but sincerely, that someone (Jen) would come downstairs and find me and hold me or something. But that, of course, didn't happen.
It hardly ever does.
And then it means, if you read very carefully and think about your own experiences in such things, that I stopped listening to them and started feeling the heat of my own frantic-ish breaths against my face, and that I realized somewhat that I did not, in fact, want to get up and walk over to my bed for my inhaler so I had to calm down. I started feeling, slightly, the pulsing pf blood through my veins as I started, perhaps, to regulate my breathing. Which of course got me thinking about runnings laps outside in the winter in my seventh grade year, and the female eighth grade Phys. Ed. teacher telling me/us to breathe in through our noses and out through our mouths. I did that for a bit, then shifted slightly and the blanket moved an inch or so and I could see light, which I didn't want, and smell fresh air, which I realized I kind of did.
I moved the blanket back to darkness and realized acutely that the blanket did NOT smell like home, or dreams, or anything familiar, not even, really, the house I was staying in, so likely it was the smell of the last person to use the blanket before me, which was weird. Then I rememberd, I think, that the teacher had actually said in through the mouth, out through the nose (so as not to harm the sinuses or somesuch thing) and started doing that instead.
That was about when I realized that there wasn't much difference between having my eyes open or closed. And no, that thought didn't lead to some for of epiphany. In fact, I'm not sure what I thought about then, but it wasn't long before the tears dried on my face, at that time proving I had taken several minutes, not one, and I sat up.
And started thinking about how D had said I should keep blogging while I'm gone. That was when I got the binder off the bookshelf. Then I sat back down and started writing.
As of now I'm starting (again, not true present tense as I'm on the computer, but whatever) my fourth front-side-only sheet of paper, and my hand is cramping because I've written so much in so short a period of time.
Yay me.
And Jen has come downstairs, though that was just to find out if I would prefer she drive me to the bus stop tomorrow, or her husband, my cousin. (I picked her because we get along really well, whereas I've never been all that close to my second-eldest cousin. [Hah, funny story: my eldest cousin was born on the due date of the aforementioned second-eldest, and vice versa—one was early, the other late, just enough so they switched birthdays.] )
I'm suddenly realizing I haven't eaten yet today, and that I should try to finish the "DEEP JUNGLE" level of Kingdom Hearts today AND that I need to pack up down here because my "jast murried" cousin and his wife are going to crash here tonight. Probably. And I'm leaving this place. Tomorrow. Not never-to-return or something—I'll be back in about two weeks—but I have to go and get on a bus at about one A.M. on Saturday to go to Maine.
Which is what started all of this, by the way. Talking about bus tickets and the buying thereof, and getting to the bus stop. And I'm proud of myself; I never once mentioned that I HATE BUSES.
I really do.
But, yeah. So, hmm, let's see... a quick (HA!) run-down of events since the night before I left.
I was supposed to have started packing the day before (Saturday) but I went and got my hair cut and then spent a few hours with my mom talking to my hairdresser, as apparently I now have one, and I'm not realy clear on what happened then, but I only got around to packing my new $60 purple suitcase on Sunday, late-afternoon at best. Then the Secoind Degree Sunburn for HELL that I got on Friday started acting up and giving me incredible amounts of pain. At which point I became essentially uselkess in the matter of packing my own luggage. I could and did, however, prove the case I've been making agains cleaning my room: I know almost precisely where nearly everything in my room is, even if you can't find it, thankyouverymuch.
In fact, there's a Marvel Universe character, Dr. Modern (not a superheo) who deals with things so case-sensitive that he doesn't use a filing system—he names folders things like "Weird" because he thinks the contents are weird, and leaves all the oddly labeled folders stacked around his place of residence/employment, I'm not sure which. And he can find anything he needs to because he memorizes the information and where he put it. No one would ever be able to be all in-steal/copy the file in question-out because they would have to look through everything!
So, yeah. Just because my room is terribly disorganized doesn't mean I don't know where things are. And a good portion of the tisme I can't find something it's because someone else touched it since last I did. So there! (Can't you just imagine someone stamping their foot and sticking their tongue out immediately after saying that? I can. But I didn't.)
Anyway, I proved my case, and after hours of intense discomfort I passed out on my mom's shoulder, my arms (where I was burned) wrapped in a towel or something with an ice pack and calami lotion, doped up in Benedryl. And they still hurt when I woke up.
But whatever. Dad drove me to the airport, and having already gotten special permission to come with me past security due to my anxiety issues, came in with me. He helped me with my bags, felt triumph over the fact that my larger bag weighed in at exactly 49 pounds... and got chosen for a 'random' search. Grr. And my bag was searched too, my carry-on! Apparently my tube of toothpaste was too big. I had to let them throw it away!!! I mean, this was a totally new package of Aquafresh, bought just for me, for my trip, and they threw it away! I felt horrible, terrible. That was money, that was mine, that was... in the garbage can. I could've killed somebody. I swear, if I weren't so anxious... And my arms, which had calmed down as I had? (My body has this neat history of having actual, legitimate physical problems crop up when I am uncomfortable with something. Like, I would be panicky-nervous about a class before school and I would throw up, thus ensuring I couldn't go to school for 24 hours.)
But back to my arms. Yeah, they started acting up again. Just like that. A tube of toothpaste, a theoretically "...entirely random, I promise. A lot of people think it isn't true, but the system really does just select random people..." search, and I was almost back to full-blown agony. And I still had to repack my carry-on ! Then, of course, as we were looking for my departure gate, this announcement comes on both the speakers and the TV screens that we don't pay attention to. Then we realize that it mentions my flight number and includes the words 'about to depart without you'. My dad and I looked at the nearest screen.
Yep, that's my last name, but... "Victor", it said. My first impression was more or less, I hate it when my name has too many characters. as my whole eighth grade year my name in teh school system was Victor. My second impression was more along the lines of oh my god no way.
There are four and a half more pages that I wrote earlier this afternoon, and I'll post that tommorrow or the day after, but I'm burning time and, frankly, sick of transcribing things from paper to screen right now. I mean, I already wrote this once today! And, yeah, okay, I figured this point made a nice cliffhanger.
If your nervous, however, I suggest you go back and read the first sentence.
I obviously made it here.
But thanks for the concern.
Ja na!
Sunday, September 26, 2010
"It was like somebody else had the remote to my brain and they kept changing the channel before I wanted them to."—Canada Gold, 'The Thousand' by Kevin Guifoile
Apparently there's a book that features a character suffering from extreme ADHD. She uses the above statement to describe it, or so I gather. it seems,to me, an apt description of the condition that so many human beings possess or, as the case may be, are possessed by.
Having not read the book and possessed of no overpowering urge to do so puts me in the interesting situation of having something to say, a way to say it, a starting point for the conversation... and, perhaps, no one to listen. This is going to jump around a bit, but I trust that you'll be able to keep up with me. Here I go, regardless.
In this apparently Dan Brown-esque novel, The Thousand, there is a treatment used for ADHD that has numerous negative side effects. Well, okay. Welcome to the real world. Whether you medicate via prescriptions from doctors, recreational drugs, natural vitamins, sugar, laissez-faire, or universe juice, there will be both benefits and drawbacks. When I was on Ritalin, I had very little appetite. In fact, I was around 13 before I weighed more than 80 pounds. That isn't healthy. But during that time, I could focus like nobody's business.
It's a trade-off. There are many methods, styles, combinations, words of wisdom, whatever, that you can use when it comes to dealing with ADD, ADHD, and any number of other things. I would advise neither recreational drugs nor laissez-faire—"let alone"—personally, but to each their own. When a condition manifests in as many ways as ADHD does, there is no definitive answer.
I was once told, in fewer words, that I was weak for using medication. Extremely unsettled by this accusation, I spoke to a few people about it. Through those conversations I came to a conclusion and formed a strong opinion on the matter. Speaking concisely, my opinion is this:
I disagree.
To elaborate on that... I don't think that having what society seems to see as a handicap and doing something about it is weakness. I don't think I've ever seen a truly weak person admit that they need help, because it takes strength to admit that. I believe that finding a method that helps you is strength. You aren't weak if you can gather the courage and determination to pick up the tools that are so readily available to you, and that includes everything from Ritalin to the aforementioned universe juice.
Think of it this way: there are two houses that are across the street from each other. In each house, a person is sitting down, watching TV during a rainstorm. Each person notices that water is dripping from the ceiling. In each household, there is a storage room containing miscellaneous tools and supplies. In fact, that room is only a few steps from the TV room. One of the people gets up, walks over, and takes a bucket out of the supply room. They put that bucket under the dripping water. Their neighbor, however, simply ignored the leak. The next time it rains, the first person gets the bucket again, and the second leaves the room so they don't have to deal with the dripping sound. Eventually both the roof and the floor will need to be fixed, whereas across the street, only the roof needs repair.
Which person do you think did the more practical thing?
Now assume that both individuals grabbed buckets to catch the dripping rainwater. The next day, the sun is shining and one of the two picks up the phone and calls a local roofing company to get the roof patched up before the next rain. Their neighbor puts the problem from his or her mind, instead choosing to go about their lives with no interruption, trusting that the good weather will hold. Well, a few days later it rains again. One roof is fixed, and the other is... leaking. Time for the bucket again.
That bucket doesn't get any lighter between when it is set down under the leak and when it is picked up and dumped out. Every drop of water adds up until that bucket weighs a substantial amount. Carrying it is awkward, cumbersome, and it grows ever more so as time wears on. Yes, carrying the bucket time and time again may make you stronger. But stronger for what? For the next rainstorm? The next time you have to haul that bucket from your living room to your back door? Well, at least their floor isn't rotting this time.
Now, there is obviously a metaphor there, whether or not what the metaphor is about is obvious. Let me spell it you for you: There is something that is either irritating, depressing, frustrating, embarrassing, problematic, and any other number of things. That is your situation. You can either choose to ignore it and end up with bigger problems than you started out with, or do something about it and minimize the damage your situation can do to your life. And no, the first solution may not be the right one for you.
Alternately, if the fence around your house is broken, and your neighbor's dog keep sneaking onto your property and knocking over your trash can, which of the following is more practical: A) digging through your garage until you find a hammer, nails, and wood,and fixing the fence, or B) expecting your neighbor to teach their dog to know better?
There are innumerable kinds of people in this world, any way you look at it. But they come in pairs—you are either proactive, or you are reactive. Your motivations are either intrinsic, or you are extrinsic. And as I am aware that those words are not typically used in such a fashion, I will explain. Intrinsic, in this case, means not just part of the whole, but from inside. You inspire yourself, while being being extrinsic means externally—other have to motivate you. To quote a very wise man I'm lucky enough to know, "If you're intrinsic, what's right propels you. If you're extrinsic, you think 'If only someone would have...' Most of the men and women in jail today are extrinsic."
Are you going to let the floor rot under you or will you minimize the damage? Will you try one thing and hope that, eventually, it will work, or will you find an alternative solution? Will you be proactive in improving the things you are unsatisfied with, or will you leave it up to someone else, whose work may never meet your standards?
You are the only one who can make these decisions for you. And if it's your child... which person do you want them to be? The person who is willing to use a hammer and make a little noise, or the one with trash all over their lawn?
Ja na!
Having not read the book and possessed of no overpowering urge to do so puts me in the interesting situation of having something to say, a way to say it, a starting point for the conversation... and, perhaps, no one to listen. This is going to jump around a bit, but I trust that you'll be able to keep up with me. Here I go, regardless.
In this apparently Dan Brown-esque novel, The Thousand, there is a treatment used for ADHD that has numerous negative side effects. Well, okay. Welcome to the real world. Whether you medicate via prescriptions from doctors, recreational drugs, natural vitamins, sugar, laissez-faire, or universe juice, there will be both benefits and drawbacks. When I was on Ritalin, I had very little appetite. In fact, I was around 13 before I weighed more than 80 pounds. That isn't healthy. But during that time, I could focus like nobody's business.
It's a trade-off. There are many methods, styles, combinations, words of wisdom, whatever, that you can use when it comes to dealing with ADD, ADHD, and any number of other things. I would advise neither recreational drugs nor laissez-faire—"let alone"—personally, but to each their own. When a condition manifests in as many ways as ADHD does, there is no definitive answer.
I was once told, in fewer words, that I was weak for using medication. Extremely unsettled by this accusation, I spoke to a few people about it. Through those conversations I came to a conclusion and formed a strong opinion on the matter. Speaking concisely, my opinion is this:
I disagree.
To elaborate on that... I don't think that having what society seems to see as a handicap and doing something about it is weakness. I don't think I've ever seen a truly weak person admit that they need help, because it takes strength to admit that. I believe that finding a method that helps you is strength. You aren't weak if you can gather the courage and determination to pick up the tools that are so readily available to you, and that includes everything from Ritalin to the aforementioned universe juice.
Think of it this way: there are two houses that are across the street from each other. In each house, a person is sitting down, watching TV during a rainstorm. Each person notices that water is dripping from the ceiling. In each household, there is a storage room containing miscellaneous tools and supplies. In fact, that room is only a few steps from the TV room. One of the people gets up, walks over, and takes a bucket out of the supply room. They put that bucket under the dripping water. Their neighbor, however, simply ignored the leak. The next time it rains, the first person gets the bucket again, and the second leaves the room so they don't have to deal with the dripping sound. Eventually both the roof and the floor will need to be fixed, whereas across the street, only the roof needs repair.
Which person do you think did the more practical thing?
Now assume that both individuals grabbed buckets to catch the dripping rainwater. The next day, the sun is shining and one of the two picks up the phone and calls a local roofing company to get the roof patched up before the next rain. Their neighbor puts the problem from his or her mind, instead choosing to go about their lives with no interruption, trusting that the good weather will hold. Well, a few days later it rains again. One roof is fixed, and the other is... leaking. Time for the bucket again.
That bucket doesn't get any lighter between when it is set down under the leak and when it is picked up and dumped out. Every drop of water adds up until that bucket weighs a substantial amount. Carrying it is awkward, cumbersome, and it grows ever more so as time wears on. Yes, carrying the bucket time and time again may make you stronger. But stronger for what? For the next rainstorm? The next time you have to haul that bucket from your living room to your back door? Well, at least their floor isn't rotting this time.
Now, there is obviously a metaphor there, whether or not what the metaphor is about is obvious. Let me spell it you for you: There is something that is either irritating, depressing, frustrating, embarrassing, problematic, and any other number of things. That is your situation. You can either choose to ignore it and end up with bigger problems than you started out with, or do something about it and minimize the damage your situation can do to your life. And no, the first solution may not be the right one for you.
Alternately, if the fence around your house is broken, and your neighbor's dog keep sneaking onto your property and knocking over your trash can, which of the following is more practical: A) digging through your garage until you find a hammer, nails, and wood,and fixing the fence, or B) expecting your neighbor to teach their dog to know better?
There are innumerable kinds of people in this world, any way you look at it. But they come in pairs—you are either proactive, or you are reactive. Your motivations are either intrinsic, or you are extrinsic. And as I am aware that those words are not typically used in such a fashion, I will explain. Intrinsic, in this case, means not just part of the whole, but from inside. You inspire yourself, while being being extrinsic means externally—other have to motivate you. To quote a very wise man I'm lucky enough to know, "If you're intrinsic, what's right propels you. If you're extrinsic, you think 'If only someone would have...' Most of the men and women in jail today are extrinsic."
Are you going to let the floor rot under you or will you minimize the damage? Will you try one thing and hope that, eventually, it will work, or will you find an alternative solution? Will you be proactive in improving the things you are unsatisfied with, or will you leave it up to someone else, whose work may never meet your standards?
You are the only one who can make these decisions for you. And if it's your child... which person do you want them to be? The person who is willing to use a hammer and make a little noise, or the one with trash all over their lawn?
Ja na!
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