They broke up!

First, thank you for all the advice on the last post.  It was some very useful advice and I will it use no matter what the future holds for my daughters.

Meanwhile, Beaner and the BF flew to Indianapolis Wednesday for a wedding in his family.  But she discovered he was texting another girl there about getting together and then worse, lying about it.  Much drama ensued at his family home shortly before the wedding and Beaner called to say she wanted to come home.  So we made arrangements for her,and BF’s mother, sobbing, said she would get her to the airport, and then we had to drive 3 hours to pick her up at the closest airport we could get her to on such short notice.   It’s been quite the weekend.

The story actually gets much more bizarre and she has gone from hurt to anger.  Four of her college roommates have called to say they are coming this weekend to be with her.  And we will sit her her until she heals a little.  

But Martha and I are secretly doing a happy dance.  And I think Beaner will be too.  Eventually.

Thanks again for all your help.

Opinions requested

I am throwing this question out into my blogging world in hopes of getting some feedback on this dilemma.

Many, many years ago my sister happened to say to me “wow, two daughters. That’s two weddings you’ll have to pay for.”  Our girls were babies at the time but as the fiscally responsible parent I started savings accounts, earmarked for weddings.

My daughters are now in their early 20s and both have serious boyfriends.  I have been able to save a substantial amount for each of them and they have each been told that there will be a tidy sum they can use for their weddings, honeymoon, a down payment on a house, or a nice nest egg should they choose not to marry.

BUT

We do not like Beaner’s boyfriend. Well that is not entirely true.  We like him.  He

s gentle and treats her well. But he often forgets commitments and stands her up. And it is quite obvious to everyone, except Beaner, that this is not a healthy relationship.  It is very out of balance with him being a needy little boy in need of a mother rather than being a life partner.  My daughter, do-gooder that she is, may not mind taking constant care of him now, but we are quite sure that it will get old very fast.

And so here is the dilemma:

Should she choose to marry this man (and we sincerely hope she won’t but she is always talking about it) do I still give all this money, knowing (okay assuming) that it will not last long?  To me it seems like throwing 20 years of savings away, or blessing a marriage that is not healthy.  But on the other hand, I don’t think its right to say that such a gift has strings.  

What say you?

Full of Grace

• My niece sent me a link called “Cate Blanchett is A Fucking Flawless Queen”.  Great link and also nice to know that even my extended family recognizes my alternate universe relationship with Cate.

• Everybody agreeing to adjust their schedules to be able to go apple picking.  It is something we have done as a family since we were carrying the girls in pouches and although I know there will come a time when we will no longer go all together, I am grateful to eke out another year.

• Then Martha made her “best I’ve ever had” apple pie and batches of applesauce.  I wish my phone would record smells like it can record pictures, because I would love to keep that apple pie baking smell with me wherever I go.

• Survived a 10 mile Habitat for Humanity bike ride with my daughter without too much damage to my body or my pride.  It doesn’t seem that long ago that I could easily do a 50 mile ride.  I’m still not sure what happened to my body.

• Celebrating 26 mostly wonderful years, together with Martha.   I really can’t imagine where I would be if she hadn’t stepped into my life.  She is always first on my list of gratitudes when I close my eyes at night and again when she is still there in the morning.  I am incredibly blessed.

After Thoughts

As I am prone to do, I analyze, and often over analyze, my PTSD reactions and relapses.  These are just some random thoughts I am putting to paper to help me sort out how I feel about this last trip down the rabbit hole.

• First, thank you to everyone who commented so kindly on my last posts.  It never ceases to amaze me how therapeutic writing can be and to get such wonderful support and feedback is very humbling and very appreciated.

• In response to those posts a friend sent me this:

• But the reality is, life did break me.  I was broken for a very long time.  And sometimes it’s easier to go back to that place of brokenness than to keep trying to get up.  I think this was the case this time.  It was easier to withdraw than to do the work.

• I am very aware of how easy it is to just withdraw and isolate myself, even when I know I need to do the opposite to get out the hole.  Like going to the gym - it always feels good to go and you know you are doing something good for yourself and maintaining your health, but then something temporarily keeps you from going.  And it becomes easier and easier just not to go. And then really hard to get back going.

• When I fall down the hole and don’t bother to do the work, I always feel like a failure.  Mostly I feel that I’ve let Lauren (my former therapist) down.   She would never let me be that lazy.

• The weird thing about my scars is that the one major scar I had from that assault was removed when I had a mastectomy. It used to be very triggering.  Now I miss it.  

• For all my work, I know there is a place inside me that is still broken.  The screams still inhabit me. They remind me that I am still bruised and vulnerable. And I sometimes feel that I need to visit that place.

• Somehow I need to reconcile my very strong desire to be healed and healthy with my equally strong desire not to forget, which I am often afraid I am doing . . . until something reminds me. Sometimes I wonder if my regressions aren’t self inflicted.

• Even at my emotionally strongest, I continue to have issues with memory and control.  But they are a subject for a different post.

There is no neat and tidy way to wrap this train of thought up so I will end by asking a favor. A very dear friend of mine’s partner is having a double mastectomy today.  Any prayers, thoughts, healing energy or good mojo you could send up into the universe on her behalf would be greatly appreciated.

Full of Grace

• Waking up.  Both literally and figuratively.

• I bought this bush at the end of the season because it was on sale.  I had no idea that it would bloom daisies.  Daisies in October!  In upstate New York!  While everything else in my yard is brown and dying. It is making me smile, enormously.

• Going to New York City to see this.

            James Earl Jones is 84.  Cicely Tyson is 81.  

Together they were both powerful and charming and awesome.

• And very thankful that my mom gave me a huge love of live theater and that I still live close enough to NYC to take advantage of it’s incredible cultural offerings.

• Breast cancer awareness month.  I am grateful for any effort that might help women get screened because I know that early detection saved my life. (Please keep up on your screenings)  Still, I’m not sure how I feel about this:

Part 2 - The Rape Van

After a summer of sadness and stress that had me totally worn out, Martha and I headed to our lake house for some much needed peace and quiet.  Our little camp is located at the end of a mile long, narrow, roller coaster hilly, dead end road.  Most camps are barely visible from the road, tucked into the woods and closer to the water.  Visitor’s cars are often parked along the road, especially on weekends, since most camps don’t have much on-site parking.  This summer a large black van was sporadically parked on the side of the road, seemingly not associated with anyone’s camp.  My daughters labelled it the ‘rape van’ because of it’s size and the rear windows being blacked out.  They would say this and make comments whenever we drove past it but I would just let the phrase pass as I have been well trained to do.

At the lake I always take my dog for a walk, up and down this entrance road.  Early one morning I put her leash on and started our morning power walk.  I was paying attention to the changing light and morning bird songs and did not even notice the van.  As I walked a couple feet next to it,  a dog suddenly stuck its head out the half opened window and barked, which scared the crap out of dog. She bolted in the opposite direction in front of me which caused me to be upended over her leash.  I landed hard on my head, sending my glasses flying and opening a huge gash over my right eye. I lay on my belly stunned for a moment and then panicked when a man’s face appeared in the window.

All my anxiety calming training disappeared as I scrambled to get up and away.  Blood was blinding my right eye and when I could taste it I was in full panic attack mode.   I limped home as fast as I could, elbow and knee also ripped open, and then lost another couple of weeks in the PTSD black hole - sad, withdrawn, and lethargic.

I am better now and trying to look back to understand what happened.  I am aware that a man’s face appeared at the window but I have no memory of him being at all threatening. Was it the power of suggestion (the rape van)?   Was I just emotionally exhausted from the previous weeks of sadness and stress?  Was it finding myself suddenly face down and hurt, struggling to get up?   I really don’t know.

What I do know is that even with an extraordinary therapist who got me through the worst of it, and trained me relentlessly on how to cope with trauma anxiety, there will apparently always be some circumstance that will trigger fear and memories far greater than my ability to manage them.  

It is unsettling to say the least.

It is a common debate among PTSD therapists whether PTSD can be cured or just managed.  As much I hope that there is a cure, I am generally of the belief that it can only be managed.  There are times when I have breezed through situations that previously would have knocked me down for a long, long time and I feel cured.  And then there are times that I feel those black dogs lurking behind unseen corners waiting for the slightest letting down of my guard.

(I don't think I will ever be able to stop pushing that effing boulder up the hill)

Yesterday was the anniversary of the assault.  Knowing how fragile I've been lately, I forced myself into my management routines.  And I did get through the day, melancholy but relatively okay.  

I'm finding it interesting as I age, how clearly I can see my journey with the benefit of time and distance. Only weeks ago I was paralyzed with fear and anxiety and my reaction was to withdraw and check out. Then I turned a corner and life is calm and beautiful again.  They say that time stops at the point of trauma, but you can’t live in a place where time has stopped.  

You can only wait.  

Absence explained - Part 1

My dear friend’s email gently reminded me just how long it has been since I posted anything or even commented on other posts.  I have had a difficult month but her email reminded me that writing is a big part of my continual therapy and so I will catch up on what’s been happening during my internet absence.

Part I

This summer has been hard for everyone in my family as there has been a lot of illness and death in friend’s families.  One of Martha’s coaches, 38, died suddenly and unexpectedly from an aneurysm,  a man I work with, 52, died of complications from a colon issue, a friend 58, had some back pain and found out he is filled with cancer, Peachie’s best friend’s grandmother passed, not unexpectedly but certainly heart wrenching for those of us who were privileged to know her, one of Beaner’s friends from college died of an overdose  And the list goes on and on.  It seems we spent the summer either at wakes and funerals or running food to extended families.

And then I had a few delightful days when my sister and her daughter spent several days at the lake. Always a little melancholy without my mom there who loved this annual women’s week but still we had days filled with love and laughter and way too much junk food.

But during the visit my sister got a call that her husband’s brother’s son, Justin, was in the hospital because of some strange debilitating infection that no one could diagnose.  Justin lives a couple of hours from me in what we call “the north country”, a sparsely populated mountainous part of the state.  He was in a small community hospital more suited to birthing babies and setting broken bones than dealing with rare infectious diseases.  Everyone kept asking why he wasn’t moved to the bigger hospital near me.  His parents had flown up from Virginia to be with him and apparently they have very little monetary resources and were able to stay at Justin’s apartment, saving a considerable amount of money.  We of course invited them to stay with us if they decided to move Justin to a better hospital.  They declined.  But then apparently the infection spread to Justin’s heart and he required open heart surgery.   And so Justin was medi-vacced to a major medical center and his parents came to stay with us.

I have known both of them since high school so it wasn't like inviting strangers, although I hadn’t seen them since my nephew’s wedding years ago.  What I didn’t know was that they were in the midst of an ugly, ugly divorce.  So instead of being able to put them in one bedroom, they needed two.  We have a very small house (about 800 sq. ft) with 3 tiny bedrooms, one bathroom, and a futon in the basement. This created quite an imposition for everyone but hey, their son was literally fighting for his life so you do what you’ve got to do.  

For sixteen days we lived like this.  They were at the hospital most of the day but when they came back to the house the tension was thick.  They were both sick with worry and they would argue about everything, which was impossible not to hear in our house, and their anger and stress started to spread throughout my family.  My normal nightly routine of calming was shot to hell and I couldn’t sleep.  My daughters started staying other places but we were still stretched to the max just trying to get to our clothes or move in our tiny kitchen or just to take a shower.   Nerves were becoming exposed and extremely raw.  

Finally Justine recovered enough to go home to recuperate.  His mother went with him and his father flew home.  But the summer of loss and the stress and lack of sleep of those couple of weeks lingered for quite a while and was probably the reason my emotional reserves were so low when I was sucked back into that black hole of PTSD and the past . . .