Not my best side-*updated at the bottom.
Motherfucking hell I thought in my head when I left my Doctor’s office. My thyroid levels are worse, not better.
He doubles the dosage, then I come back in two months to repeat the process of getting blood work, followed up a week later with another appointment with him to check the levels again. When I left his office, I was feeling very low, maybe even depressed.
There are so many disturbing eruptions happening in my life that I can barely piece myself together to be present for my son. Can I just tell you that these issues are not of my own making?
See, I have my shit together. I have scraped and clawed my way into life, I overcame and rose above. Then I fucking got married. Do I sound resentful? You bet, I am very fucking resentful.
The side effects of dealing with grown ups that have no idea how to be a mature and independent adult. A person with a grandchild, still being spoon fed by her mommy and her third husband, a person with such severe mental illness I fear she can never recover from all the damage she’s created. A person that has severely damaged her very own child with her undiagnosed mental illness.
The effexor, armour thyroid, hormone creams, and the supplements that stare at me each morning as I go from bottle to bottle taking the amount prescribed and wonder if this is any kind of life for a person to live. It really isn’t any kind of life for me to live, or you for that matter.
I often wonder how long I will be able to function like this, knowing that things are not improving and the burdens becoming much too heavy to bare. I suited up for my life and showed up, I can support myself, I am a survivor that doesn’t need bleed other people dry like a fucking vampire.
I struggle with reaching out to others based on the severity of my personal conditions. No one really wants to hear it after five or eight years of hearing it. In fact, I’m beyond hearing about it, or living it.
Similar to when a person dies, people are very helpful for the first few months, but soon after they stop calling as much and god forbid if you shed a tear. They want to just get over it, stop wallowing in the past. I too, want to just get over it.
They don’t know what else to say, they cannot be shouted at or cursed.
Something inside of me is screaming very loudly, it’s like a trapped animal in a cage suffering innumerable pain and discomforts. Part of me would like to try and figure out what is being said, so that I can respond in kind to the violent screaming. Eventually, trying to figure it out becomes much too hard and I try and distract myself with activities that I know I must perform in order to put that whole one foot in front of the other.
This is what I keep doing, one foot in front of the other. Just like the big snow monster in that old Christmas movie.
**After re-reading this, I very much wanted to delete the post, to pretend like it never happened. I struggled with removing it, lest you think bad of me. Embarrassed with my immature ramblings in the middle of an attack of my ego. (Or, as my therapist would say, “lack of ego”.)
Instead, I’ll leave it here and tell you what bothers me most, “See, I have my shit together.” Not that I expected anyone to believe me, but this is the crap that I try to tell myself when in the middle of an attack.
Then I remembered one of the reasons that Real Mental exists, to allow me a safe writing place. My hope is that I do not offend, nor to have a person take this personally. I struggle with how much to reveal sometimes, I question myself, I do the whole second guessing game, and generally make myself sick over it when that isn’t why I wanted to be a part of this to begin with.
Don’t let my anger, (or is it passion?) scare you, we all have the right to say and write “ugly” things, if only to use it as a tool to get to what is really underneath it all. It’s just another layer. Not one I am proud of but one that must be acknowledged in order to move on.
August 27th, 2008 at 7:33 pm
I still have days where grief ovverwhelms me and my son’s been gone 12 years. It doesn’t happen often but it can still knock me to my knees in pain.
August 28th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
This is a safe place for you, and you shouldn’t worry about our reactions. When I read your post yesterday, my only reaction, was, “shoot, I don’t have anything to say that can help, but I wish I did.” So, I will just send my warm, hopeful wishes to you, as ineffective as they seem to me to be.
August 29th, 2008 at 12:45 am
Hi Moonflower,
Don’t be so hard on yourself. You’ve got your shit together but others haven’t, and that sucks. They’re supposed to be there for you, not sucking your energy. The medical system is letting you down, your family is letting you down, you’re on your own & nobody gives a damn. It’s bad enough having a dis(ease) when everyone else around you is sane & supportive…you don’t need this.
Everything you wrote I can relate to sooo well. I have bipolar disorder & I’m the only one in my family who is actually dealing with my shit (medication, therapy, self-acceptance etc.) I suffer hurtful comments from family like, “you’re not still going to see that therapist are you? What a waste of money.” (This coming from an undiagnosed bipolar parent who refuses to go into therapy.) Like you, I’ve clawed my way out & carved out a life for myself, not because of the support of family, but in spite of their resistance & dyfunctional attitudes. My parents are in so much denial they’re buried alive. They are undiagnosed bipolars, workaholics, selfish & abusive. My siblings are great, so that’s cool. Some people are so ignorant it makes me livid. And I’m the crazy one.
August 29th, 2008 at 1:56 am
Damn it. I think I know exactly how you feel. The reason I come here is to hear it all as it really is. I wish I could write here. Instead I put it on my own blog, often to complete silence, like in real life. This is a completely safe place for you to write just as it is a safe place for me to come to be who I am.
You DO have your shit together. Unfortunately not everyone does.
It may not be an ideal life to live, facing the medications every day, but all I have to do is remind myself of how it was before them and there is not doubt in my mind that my life is much improved by them. Now I just wish I could get my spouse to get the help he needs.
Anyway- There is no “getting over it” because it’s just like having a heart condition that no doctors can help, just manage. If you had a heart condition would anyone expect you to “just get over it!”? no. So keep showing up with your shit together and know that it’s worth it for your own sake. For your son’s sake.
I think there’s lots more to say but I’m tired and not feeling particularly eloquent.
Keep showing up.
August 30th, 2008 at 9:04 pm
Hi Moonflower,
I haven’t read you before – not sure if you are a man or a woman? Your pain was well written. I have been there. Lots of us have been there. MY thoughts –
As a shrink once said to someone I knew – “usually the people who really need us don’t come to us … ”
You are putting one foot in front of the other – that is the only thing that counts in my book anyway. Keep putting…
Everybody IS crazy but me an thee! My father used to quote someone as saying that the man who dies with 5 friends is a very lucky man. Now that I am 74 I know what he means!
Be glad you are a person that doesn’t “need to bleed other people dry like a fucking vampire.”
The older you get the easier it gets. Honest. Even our hormones level out. Every Monday I wipe the slate clean and start a new week.
take care and keep stepping forward.
Betty
August 31st, 2008 at 3:25 pm
I always admire you for your honesty and ability to put it all out there, and that’s the way I saw this post. Just keep being you, Moonflower, and writing what you need to write in the moment, even if you don’t feel the same way in a different moment. It’s all real and it’s all valid and we can relate.
September 2nd, 2008 at 12:17 pm
I’m glad you didn’t delete it. Nothing you wrote was unfamiliar- we all have times we need to let it all out.