I feel like I am coming apart.
I seriously think I have been having a low-grade anxiety attack for the last six hours or so. I know I didn't double up on my thyroid meds in an attempt to get more pep (learned that lesson the first time) and am pretty sure I didn't over do it with the coffee this morning, so what's the cause?
I have a feeling it's short-term scanxiety coupled with longer-term Otherness, the plain fact fear that I will never again be Normal.
Now, I know no one is normal. That, or normal is relative, subjective. Everyone's got their Something to make them feel Apart.
But my Something...fuck.
I feel like I was pulled out of my life, spun around for a year, and then dropped back into something that was a copy of a copy of my life; similar but lacking. Pieces missing. Pieces of me.
I miss knowing where I fit in the grand scheme of things. I miss not taking things seriously. I miss taking things for granted.
And while I want to get back to that place and people are sometimes hoping, sometimes pushing me to get back to that place, I don't know how to get there, or if it even exists any more.
I don't know how to be that person anymore. I feel like for every step I take towards Normal, I take two steps back and then get knocked back another half block by one speeding crisis or another, real or imagined.
I say too much and do too little and then spend the time between hitting the pillow and actually falling asleep alternating between mentally reviewing the highlight reel of the day's perceived faults and missteps and feeling sorry for myself.
Which I know I shouldn't: beautiful daughter, loving [and employed] husband, No [Current] Evidence of Disease, roof over head, etc.
I just don't know how to get on with my life when this life is so unfamiliar to me: unemployed for the first time since I was 12 yet no career to go back to, stay at home mom of a toddler that is becoming less familiar to me with each passing day, living far from friends and family [that know the old me] in a wonderful city that will turn its back on us in a matter of months, trapped in a body that looks old and feels older.
I am writing all of this here, not for pity, but to get it out of my system. The people close to me have got to be sick of hearing my shit (I know I sure am), I don't want to irrevocably fuck up the perceptions that people not so close to me have of me (apologies if you fall in the latter category and real this blog), I don't see my therapist for another week, and I'm pretty sure that the ER doesn't give out anti-anxiety meds.
Which brings me to the scanxiety. The year follow-up CT is a week from tomorrow. As you can tell, I'm already freaking the fuck out, which means I am going to be totally tailspun when they run me through the tube. I am fucking terrified. And I feel like the world wants me to keep it to myself.
I'm terrible at keeping secrets, so I have to lay it all out here. Get it out of my system. Start feeling better. Normal.
Start.
Feeling.
---
The kid's up from her nap. Better will have to wait.
And so I go...
2 years ago
6 comments:
Gah, sister I hear you. Reading this was like drinking a big glass of wine. Ahh... I'm not completely crazy! :)
While our journeys have been different, sometimes our emotions and the way our psyche tries to handle it must be similar.
While I'm sorry you are dealing with this, thank you for blogging it. If nothing else, it made little ole me feel less alone.
I haven't read your blog in awhile, but I'm glad I came back...and today, I'll be linking it to mine.
'Normal' is what we are on the way to what we want to be.
Strong thoughts!
I am always here for you. I will never tire of listening to what is going on with you. If you need an ear......You are always helping me with my BS, let me return the favor.
Take care of You, love you,
Me
We will never be Normal again. And I'm not sure we will EVER be able to get used to that or accept it as fact.
Reading your post was very moving and I, too, haven't visited in a long time. For that I am sorry. But also, I'm glad because in this one single post I can see you digging deep (or the is the deepness rearing its head involuntarily?) and how you REALLY TRULY are instead of "fine" or "day by day" or "okay for now."
It's all true. All of it. I don't say this to make you feel less alone but I say it because it's true: what you wrote here is exactly how I feel, too. But being grateful is not what it's all about, right? And if you don't take just a little bit for granted all of the time, what more do you have to offer the world?
Just be glad you're standing on your own two feet for now. That's a big enough task in and of itself. Look at what hell you've been through to get to this point! Who says you're supposed to have it all figured out?!
In fact, I sort of wish I were you, in your shoes and not in mine. I'm still in the middle of Not Knowing Anything For Sure. And I relate whole-heartedly to your "scanxiety" and I love that name, I've never heard/read it before!
I was just as terrified as you sound about my last scan two months ago. My shrink prescribed me an extra anti-anxiety just to take for the entire trip (we had to fly out of town) and that really helped. I know you may be thinking, "oh great just another colorful drug to add to the mix!" but really, they work if you need them to, right? I don't know what you're on now but the one I took is common (just not to me) and it helped me recognize that the fear was still there but more like behind me, carrying it like on the end of a limp leash, instead of strangling me to death on said leash! It gave me a chance to BREATHE and take it as it came. IT wasn't pretty but it got me through. Contact me if you want to know what I took (and am now still taking to continue that feeling). Otherwise, I wish you the best. It's still one fucking day at a time for the rest of your life, you know? Above all, strive for patience.
There's nothing like the particular "something" that we've been through. And it's not just that it's the big, scary C-word, the truth is that the side effects (physical, mental, emotional, spiritual) last for soooooo much longer than anyone (including myself) would have expected.
Yesterday, I was wondering if I'd really known what the side effects of chemo are, if I'd have made the same choice to go through it. They only found 1 or 2 cancer cells in the lymph nodes they removed and basically gave me the choice of whether I wanted chemo. At the time, I was in my "fight, fight. fight! Screw you , cancer!" mode and went into it whole hog. But I was under the mistaken assumption that when the treatment was over, I'd get back to normal. Two years later, and I'm still exhausted, still not feeling myself, and still can't hold my liquor. Sometimes you just want to get drunk, god damn it! Sheesh.
Anyway....back to you. I think the best thing to do is just accept where ever you are. There is no right place to be. If you really respect your present self, and be angry, sad, happy, confused, in limbo -- what ever you are at this moment--then you will be going through exactly what you need to be experiencing right now. And that's the only way to move forward from this, to learn from this, to get to the new "normal".
I wish there was a magic pill. An existential lorazepam. But there's not, so we just have to help each other. Be good to yourself! and patient, and kind and all that shit.
honey sista gurl...
Read one of my posts from this past may:
http://thecolonchronicles.blogspot.com/2009/05/i-am-just-visitor-in-your-world.html
I think we have parallel lines of thinking. I agree wholeheartedly.
Post a Comment