Sorry I missed your swimming comment in your previous post. You & I have a lot in common, and one of them is writing long posts! I try not to but generally fail. So sorry about the loss of your job, but congratulations on buying a house! I envy you that, but in a good way. There are legitimate psycholgical connections between the psyche and houses, especially if your dreams feature houses prominently. The house is an archetype for your very being, your ego, your most essential self.
And I was just at my eye surgery center for the millionth follow-up appointment about the cataract surgery I had more than three months ago. I've had this inflammation on my retina and my doc tells me it's a biological anomaly that can be tested for in advance of surgery, but no insurance will pay for the test. So since the 25th of September, that problem has added to my depression significantly.
Today I broke down & started crying in the exam room, in between the drops in my eyes and the doctor coming in. I just could not stop crying, and that's just a visible symptom of depression that happens. I think it's worse, though, not to cry. I've been in a nearly catatonic state since my beloved son had a complete mental collapse right here in my apartment, the night before he & I were supposed to move into a beautiful two-bedroom house. He was supposed to be paid as my live-in aide by the state because of a constellation of problems I have, including falling, but most dangerously, sleepwalking. He spent six months studying and had just passed the last test that day. Everything was going to be heavenly.
I didn't know he had been expressing his complete horror about living with me as a caretaker. It's not like I'd be difficult. I'm healthy, for the most part, and he & I have gotten along like two thieves his entire life. No one has had a better mother/son relationship than us. He was the greatest joy in my life. Now he won't speak to me, even though the episode he had was not remotely related to anything I had done. He just hadn't gotten up the nerve to tell me he didn't want that job, so he flipped out, got delusional, jumped out the bedroom window breaking the screen, and ran off to live in his Jeep.
Many other bad things happened after that, but I lost my chance to get out of this horrible apartment & into a house, with a yard where I could have a garden, and he spent weeks running me down to my exhusband and his wife, behind my back. All that is part of his mental health diagnosis, but it still hurt me on the deepest level. Every day my life gets worse because this just keeps going on and on.
Like everyone, I need love, and I never loved anyone as much as my own kid. Not having him in my life is exactly like being a widow in terms of loss, but of course, it's worse because he's still out there, not getting help, blaming me for everything he did, as if I'd driven him to it. In truth, I've been walking on eggs with him for years because I could detect certain behaviors in him that scared me, and I didn't want to be a trigger.
My depression has gotten so bad now that I've spent a lot of time--most of the time--thinking about death, wishing I would die. That's nothing new for me. I've had suicidal thoughts and made gestures for the last 51 years, though I haven't had to be hospitalized since 2005. I'm now hampster-wheeling with seeking remedies, including hospitalization with serious therapy to treat my major psychological complaint, which is PTSD.
I've already written reams of words about this to this group. But about a week after his meltdown, I fell and broke my wrist and ulna in four places. I'm having surgery a week from today to attach a transplanted ligament to my thumb, which stopped working and just hung there, flopping, after the tendon to it ruptured. I have so much pain all the time, but Percocet wouldn't help me, as it's so localized. I need a topical solution, or, of course, surgery. And then my thumb will be pulled back and casted in traction for 8 weeks while it accepts the new ligament/tendon.
My apartment is a disgrace. I have fruit flies from my compost not being emptied, or my garbage. My sink is piled with dirty dishes. Everything in my living room and bedroom is a mess. I've slept on the floor the last two nights. My obsessive thinking is in charge and with what's going on in the world right now, I feel completely helpless to find any joy.
That brings me here, as I rely on this group as if you were all my friends I meet up with for coffee. Some of my posts of late have been way out of line and reflective of my sense of futility and rage.
What is important to note, at this point, for both of us and everyone else whose been a victim of obesity is to distinguish between shame and guilt. It was like a lightbulb going on over my head the day someone told me that guilt is about something I did, and shame is about who I am. Since that day, I've happily recognized moments when it was appropriate for me to feel guilty, to apologize, make amends, learn and try to do. But shame is that thing that is such a suffocating, chained-on cloak, recognizing it doesn't help. I have to blast it with a rocket launcher and do something to make it go away.
When I left my ophthalmologist, I had three errands to run and I immediately recognized the voice in me that said, "nah, you don't need that, just go home and lay down and watch TV without answering your door or phone." I walked down the street to buy a pack of cigarettes, which is something I do sometimes when I feel stressed beyond medication. There was this lady walking her dog and she smiled at me, so we talked about her dog's hounds-tooth vest with a big red heart applique on top. I had just heard some millennial call that pattern "dog tooth," so I guess hounds-tooth is out of fashion now, and I shared that with the lady and we just laughed and laughed. It's like drip coffee, which I've been making for 40 or 50 years now, but the kids want to call it "pour over" coffee, which is just one of the stupidest modern semantic twists I've heard for a long time. It's not the pouring over that makes it coffee; it's the dripping of the brew into its container.
Anyway, it was good to laugh, so I went on to my other errands. Everyone I met was so lovely and engaging, I felt my load being lightened and happiness squeaked in a little through a crack in my angst. At my last stop, I was talking to the checker at Trader Joe's, and I said, "You know what's made me happy today, in spite of being badly depressed? People like you. Strangers on the street. Baristas. People in parking lots." God, it just felt so good. I actually cleaned up a few square feet of my living room the second I came in the door.
One of my errands was to buy stakes so I can tie up these huge split-leaf philodendrons I gave to my son, which he threw out in his rage, after loving them for at least 20 years. Brenda probably remembers a line from Codependent No More, where a woman was chronicling her depression and downhill slide. She was able to recognize it when all her houseplants died. It's a benign murder but it's also a potent symbol, if you can't even manage enough strength to water your plants so they can live and provide oxygen for you to breathe. So I bought stakes at the hardware store and am looking forward to my task today of tying up the huge branches that have gone sideways and taken up all the space on my dining room table. I did some roping yesterday, but realized I needed stakes and twist-ties to do it right.
Here are two BEFORE shots. After shots later today.
