The difficulty of doing nothing...

I’ve spent so many years doing what is expected of me or what I believe is expected of me. It’s what I am good at: it keeps me on track, keeps me motivated, and gets me out of bed every morning. I would go to the gym four days a week for a total of about 8 hours. I would go to school two days a week. I would help out in Jalie’s class on Fridays, go grocery shopping every other Monday, and go to church on Sunday. I had to get up, I had to keep moving, I always had somewhere to be. However this fact irritates my husband. He has been on me for the past year to do what I want and screw what everyone else thinks. So I tried it this week…BAD IDEA.

This miscarriage wasn’t just a huge emotional and physical blow. Over the last four months, that schedule that got me out of bed has been hacked to bits. I haven’t been to the gym in weeks. I just took an incomplete in my favorite class. I haven’t been in my daughter’s classroom for more than 10 minutes. Everything seemed to be falling apart. I no longer had my precious schedule to keep me going. My husband thought this would be the perfect time for me to stop worrying about my schedule and what I felt like I had to do, the perfect time to just do “what Jakota wants!” Well, what does anyone in the midst of a major depression want to do? NOTHING.

Yup, for the last week I’ve done nothing. Well, not exactly. I’ve done as little as humanly possible. I stopped getting up in the morning to help get the kids ready for school. I wore mostly pajamas or loose non-descript clothes. I pulled my hair back right out of the shower and didn’t put on a drop of makeup. I left the house only for appointments that could not be canceled. I created a permanent divot in my couch; it’s the exact shape of my ass. And I watched almost every episode of the 10 seasons of JAG. And guess what? It made me feel worse.

Jason insists this is normal; I needed time to grieve and recover, etc. For most people this may be true, but unfortunately for my well-meaning and very loving husband, not for me. His good intentions blew up in his face this morning when I dragged my lazy ass out of bed and got in the shower before 10 am. He asked why I was in the shower so early. I rewarded his well-meaning question with 20 minutes of snapping, yelling, accusing, and basic bitching. Poor guy…

Basically, I cannot do what I want to do right now because I am depressed and what I want to do is nothing but do nothing makes me more depressed. Confused? I just have to do what I think I’m supposed to do otherwise my ingrained Catholic guilt (you can convert all you want but it never seems to go away) drives me insane. So I’ve decided from now on I am going through the motions: getting out of bed, going where I’m supposed to go, doing what I am supposed to do, and spending limited time in my ass divot. I’m sure it will miss me!

The day after yesterday

You’d think I’d feel better today…

The D&C was yesterday. I had to be at the hospital by 6 am, but had to take an antibacterial shower first and leave my house with no lotion on my skin, no conditioner or product in my hair, no carmex, and no deodorant! This is what I refer to as pre-surgery torture. Once I was admitted, I was dressed appropriately in my beautiful gown (complete with vacuum-bag-like hole for heating tube), hair accessory (of the netted variety), and stylish footwear (with no-slip bottoms). BTW I have had nothing to eat or drink since the previous night. So when they checked my hands for the IV all the veins were too small from dehydration. My wonderful nurse proceeded to shove a giant catheter in my forearm while repeating “I’m so sorry” every time I said “OW!” They wheeled me in, placed me on a small table (still not sure how my wide hips fit on something so decidedly un-wide!), and the anesthesiologist said he would give me something to help me relax. That was 7:40. Last thing I remember. I came to at 8:50 and it was done…

Jason had to go to work so my mom stayed with me and the kids: great for the kids, not so great for me. But that is a completely different blog… Needless to say I probably did more than I should have after coming home from surgery. So today my throat hurts, my neck is achy as hell, and my abdomen is unbelievably sore. I’m off all the good drugs and I feel like ass. Can I say that here? I hope so, ‘cause I just did! I’m physically now as screwed up as I have felt mentally for the last 4 months. I haven’t even had a chance to contemplate my mental state or the effect this procedure has had on it.

Here is what I do know: I cannot take a bath, go swimming, or have sex for 2 weeks. So of course I really want to take a bath right now! That’s all I’ve got, seriously. I want a bath and I feel like ass. Now what?

Rock Bottom

I feel better than I have in years.

I feel worse than I have in years.

Its rock bottom: knowing at least it’s not going to get any worse. I’ve been hurting and suffering and fighting things for so long now that there is some relief in knowing this is a bad as it gets. Maybe because I’m still alive, maybe because I have faith that God will pull me through: that which does not kill us makes us stronger. Well, crap! Then I’m a freaking super-heavy-weight champ of something… The point is it has not killed me; therefore it will not kill me. Since this is as bad as it gets I must be able to handle it…

Handling it? I’m not sure that describes what I’m doing at the moment though. It’s after midnight; I’m lying in bed in a hotel room on vacation with my family and I’m typing, holding back tears, unraveling inside, coming apart at the seams, and trying to figure how in the hell I am supposed to get up at 7 a.m. and take care of 3 kids all day. I’m trying to figure out how to make it through about 10 homework assignments, 2 videos, 1 paper, 2 classes, 9 appointments, and a D&C in the next 7 days while my head spins and my heart races and my palms sweat and the tears flood my eyes, threatening to break away and stream down my face thus destroying any semblance of composure I’ve convinced myself I’m maintaining. Is that handling it?

Flashbacks started almost two weeks ago…Sunday in a dorm room in Napa feeling unsafe and vulnerable. They continue tonight as the base booms 3 floors above me and my safety is threatened again by things that occurred years ago, things I never even associated with the original trauma until now. I feel like I’m actually feeling it all for the first time, as though what happened 10 ½ years ago has just now sunk in and everything that has happened as a result clicks into place.

And then my youngest stirs and cries from his bed. I’m torn away from my grief and pain momentarily, autopilot kicks in automatically pushing everything back down where it bubbled up from while I tend to him. Is this why I haven’t really dealt with it? Burying it for years to take care of everyone else? I’ve been told several times over the past 7 years that I neglect myself to care for others. I guess I see that now,

So here and now, I make a vow (rhyme unintentional) to care for myself first so that I am better able to care for those who need me. I need me too. I need help, of the professional sort, preferably not the prescription sort. I will get that help as soon as I get home. I will ask for it and I will accept it. No more Super Woman. And I will not allow myself to push it all back down when the sun rises.

Thus begins my blog, my online journal of accountability. Here I will keep myself honest and trudge through the mess that is my psyche until all that has been tangled and twisted and spun has been unraveled, so that I may pick up the end of that tattered and scrawny yarn and knit my life back together…or make a helluva sweater! We’ll see…