I'm grateful for: being restored to relative sanity; children who understand, and who love me anyway; being able to love my children, being able to act like I love my children, knwoing that my children know that they are loved.

I hurt. I am so ready for this to be over. I keep saying that over and over again, but it doesn't seem to make any difference. If there is something I'm supposed to be doing besides sitting here somewhat dumbly, and coping as best I can with the pain, I don't know what it is.

I mostly shut my door to everyone. It was hard. It was hard when S2 was cursing up a storm about something not going the way he wanted it - he's got a lot of frustrations, and any little extra thing gets quite the reaction. *sigh* I just kept the door shut and turned the music up when I could. So as to try to keep my own reactions to a minimum.

It was hard when S3 wanted to talk to me, and I had to send him away. It was hard just generally because I like spending time with my family and don't like being locked up alone in my room.

It was hard in the morning particularly as I sat here kind of wallowing in my own misery. I had that nasty recorder playing in my head, the one that says I'm not good enough, I don't try hard enough, I'm a lousy mother, nobody likes me, and so on, and so on. I know (generally, I know) that it's not true, but sometimes it would REALLY help to have someone to talk to who could reassure me. Not on shabbos when I'm cut off from everyone because I can't cope because of pain. So.

Wallowing in misery, not fun at the best of times, but I did it long enough to have worked out a quite logical rationale, and even convinced myself that I'm not *REALLY* disabled, it's all the emotional crap in my head and if only I would take better care of my emotional needs then I wouldn't need to spend all this time locked away from people ...

Crazy. Especially when I have spent so very MUCH time really believing that and finally being convinced by the reality that My Body Just Doesn't WORK! But still I go there. Raving insanity, it must be.

Sometime after noon S1 came in and sat with me for a bit. My adult children, particularly one at a time and when they are not dealing with their own problems (as S2 has been doing), can be great company at times like this. We can chat, quietly, and even talk about difficult things, because after all it is a good distraction for the pain, as long as it's not overwhelming. Better still, I don't fell anywhere near as guilty telling an adult offspring I need hin or her to go away from me when I am all worn out.

Anyway, S1 and I were talking, I can't remember about what. We talked about my marriage to his abba (father), and about the love of his life, and about some bit of history, and about Rob Roy, and this and that. After a while of chatting, I noted that I wasn't suffering from the emotional malaise - it lifted quite naturally just having a good time with my son, and not having ot pretend that I was in any state other than what I was. I also noted that the pain, rather than being reduced by my improved emotions, was quite a bit greater - in fact it was time to send S1 away so I could lie down for a bit....

And I have to laugh, although gently, and wonder at how I can still get to believe -- it's been over twenty years now - that I'm not disabled just crazy. You'd think I'd learn.

The recording - well, it's made up of all sorts of wonderful things, like things my mother said, and all those dr.s, about whom the less said the better, and 'friends' and family and social workers and other people in recovery who have all pretty much at one time or another called into question my disability, my sanity, my worth as a human being, my usefulness to society, my right to exist... So I DO consider the source. It just goes to show the power of the unconsidered things that people say. Many of them had no intention to cause harm you know, they were just, well, you can fill in a word of your choosing here.

I don't know if I've ever written it here. I have a lovely poster, engraved, in a beautiful frame and just the simplest and most charming sketch of an iris I think, or a lily - and the words "Meaning Well Is No Excuse."

'Cause it's not.

I'm listening to the rattle my fan makes. Oddly enough it sounds like rain hitting the window in our old cabin in Vermont, and keeps startling me enough to force me to be aware of it and remind myself it can't be raining, not here, not now. Too bad.

:: Yesterdays : Tomorrows ::

~~~Last Five Entries~~~
Hi and goodbye - 2010-10-15
I'll be moving on - 2010-10-10
Gold membership and stuff - 2010-10-10
Decisions, decisions - 2010-10-07
Days to go - 2010-10-06