Dear Reader,
lots to talk about tonight. It's going on 12:00, but I'm going to have a hard time going to sleep tonight.
Hmmm. Let's talk about the good stuff first.
1. I do NOT have the Stress-Induced Anti-Diurectic Syndrome that my mother has. If you don't know what it is, it has to do with the sodium level in your blood and your cells. You don't have enough in your cells and so it flows out of your blood and into your cells. If it does this enough, it throws off your electrolites and brings on confusion and convulsions and unconsciousness and death. I was so amazed when they said there was actually something that I did not have! Yea!
2. I talked to a different physical therapist than the one I have spoken of before and have not gotten hold of. I talked to him about the possibility of doing reconditioning training with me and gave him the information to talk to my doctor. He emailed me and he has already emailed her so we'll see what happens.
3. I called and left a message to schedule a prolotherapy treatment today.
4. I talked to the endocrinologist's nurse about my lab reports and whether I need to see a nephrologist and could they refer me. She said that that has to go through my primary care doctor, so I called and left a message for his nurse. The person who answered the phone said that my lab reports had been received from the doctor.
5. I called the nephrology department and they said that, yep, it has to go through my primary care doctor.
6. I had a hard time waking up this morning and getting up, but I was able to keep myself awake and didn't fall back to sleep.
7. I called and made a hair appointment for a cut and color. My publicity pictures for the new college will be taken next week ... at 10 am! Which will be 9 am for me! Like I'm even going to be alive at that time!
8. I got a LOT done in my study with my books. It is not outside the range of possibilities that I can finish it tomorrow.
9. I had my last interaction with the chief horticulturist here at the university. She is leaving and no one is going to miss her. Literally. I'm not being mean.
10. I went to the store and bought groceries and cooked a very healthy dinner.
11. I made a healthy smoothie for breakfast this morning.
12. I was interrupted a lot by various physical plant people, but stayed focused and didn't get distracted.
13. I read my Bible and had my prayer time first thing after getting dressed and putting my makeup on.
14. I bought a York mint at the grocery store, but didn't devour it as soon as I got to the car. In fact, I only had one bite of it! The rest is still in my purse and I had actually forgotten about it.
15. I didn't have a Coke Zero with lunch because apparently dark carbonated sodas are bad for your kidneys.
I'm trying to put down everything I can think of because, when I get to the bad stuff, there's going to be SO MUCH of it!
So, here it is
1. I did not exercise at all. I meant to go to the YMCA and get in the pool, but I kept working on my study and didn't get off in time to be able to do it.
2. I didn't get anything done in my closet, though I did go through one box of summer clothes and pulled out some to give away and what I will be wearing this summer.
3. I appear to be gaining more weight each day!
4. It looks like I'll be going back to being a vegetarian since eating protein is bad on your kidneys. I wasn't sure whether to put this in the good or the bad list.
5. I got furious with my mother and really agitated badly.
I had already had a couple of interactions with her by phone and text earlier in the day. But on my way to the grocery store, I saw a young man walking along who looked rough and like he'd been put away wet. Looked like he was probably homeless or something. Seeing him brought back to me very clearly some of the terrible times we went through with our son last year. I was very afraid of him winding up on the streets and us never being able to find him again. I had a mental image of this flash in my brain and it brought some of those emotions back again. The dread, terror, anger, heartbreak, and disappointment.
I think I must have had a big surge of cortisol or adrenaline because I couldn't shake it while I went to the grocery store. When I came out, I decided to call my mother and tell her about it. I did and she talked normally about it for a few minutes. Then started in on how she is scared for my daughter to go to her apartment and to go upstairs and to walk up from her car and all these ridiculous things. Our daughter's circumstances don't even compare to what happened with our son. But, I just reassured her that she was in a very safe area, kept mace on her key ring, and was very competent.
The conversation was a little rocky then, when all of a sudden she started telling this horrible story of something she did when we were kids. She tells stories over and over and over again, always like they are the first time she's ever told it. And this started when she was still young. Its egocentrism, not age. If you interrupt her and say, yes, you know, she will later make all sorts of accusations about how nobody is even interested in her telling us anything about her life. When we know EVERY STORY BY HEART!!! And she tells them each time with the same degree of melodrama that she always uses. I may or may not have told you how, when I was a teenager, I would be with her at a store or some place and she would have an encounter with a person right there in front of me. Usually she would have done or said something pretty bad, but I think I was beyond being able to be embarrassed. Then, within about ten minutes, she would start telling me about this conversation she had had with this person at some previous time (not ten minutes ago, just sometime in the past.) And she would retell the entire encounter to me as though I had never heard it before, and she would change it just enough to put her end of the conversation in a good light. She would change the tone of voice she used while talking to this person and use a gentle, reasonable, polite voice when she had been strident and harsh.
Anyway, she started telling this story of when she went absolutely CRAZY. My oldest brother left a note that he was going to have to stay late after school for band practice and he needed to be picked up at a particular time and take to a church thing for teenagers. She saw the note and read it, but didn't register ANY of it. I don't know what she thought it said. She says that she just didn't catch the part that he had to stay late, but that doesn't really work. Anyway, I remember this happening. She just went into hysteria and started screaming and was furiously angry at him. She took my other brother, the middle one of us, in the car with her to go looking for the oldest brother. I didn't know what she had been like in the car because she hadn't told me that part before. But she did tonight and she said she was just weeping and calling out his name and yelling, "Where are you??" And I'm pretty sure she means she was yelling this out the window. She did say, "your poor brother (the middle one), in the car with me. I wonder what he thought." That's the first reflective thing she has ever said about this or any other things she's done. And then she drove home to be able to use the phone and he was there and she went berserk. Hydrogen bomb level berserk. Started screaming at him in fury, just completely out of control. He kept saying, "I left you a note telling you I was going to be later and I needed you to pick me up and take me to the church. But you never did so I finally walked home and just now go here!" She kept screaming at him, saying that he hadn't done this, that she had read his note and he said nothing of the kind. My father finally got her to read the note again and she saw that it was all spelled out right there. So then she went into hysterics for having been so horrible to him. I was around 5 or 6 when this happened. I mostly just stood in the passage way between the kitchen and the dining room, watching all of this take place in the kitchen.
Well, I don't want to hear these stories ANY MORE. EVER. I am sick of her telling them and excusing herself. This time, though, she did say at the end, "and it was all my fault." I was so angry at her. Angry to the degree of just thinking, as soon as I could get off the phone, "I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU! I HAVE TO GET AWAY FROM YOU! I CAN'T STAND YOU! I NEVER WANT TO TALK TO YOU AGAIN. GO AWAY FROM ME!!!!!!"
I had a hard time making dinner because of all this, and eventually calmed down pretty much, though I have remained disconsolate throughout the evening. I've tried to examine how strong my response was to try to understand it. I think part of it was that she was telling a story of one of her craziest times and making me live through it again; when that's the LAST thing I want to do!
I hate her attitude when she told it. Like she was mildly perplexed by what she did and doesn't understand why she didn't read his note right or why she reacted the way she did. But that's it. I mean, this should be a WTF moment for her! A realization that there is something WRONG with her and something that is HARMING us! But no, just a little perplexed by it.
But that doesn't explain the strength of my own reaction. I think part of it is it felt like being dragged back in time, back to that moment. But I was kicking and screaming and fighting and saying, "NO! YOU CAN'T TAKE ME BACK!!!" I had always felt so eternally trapped there at home, and this was like being thrust back into it after I had finally escaped.
And part of it was probably the juxtaposition of this rage and fight coming out of me emotionally; TONS of adrenaline and cortisol pumping to fight or to run ... but nothing to fight and no place to run away from. Just the emotions. I feel nothing but revulsion when I think of this part of my past. I hate to talk about it, even if talking about something inane.
I don't like being reminded of what a wretched family we were. Of how miserable and afraid we were. Of her rages. I don't want to be reminded of how broken I was and how much hard work I've done getting to the place of healing where I am now. A place that is still tenuous, as you can see.
And then, too, it upset me because she was bringing back into my consciousness this horrible story from my family's past, when I have tried so hard to write a different story for my family. I see my counselor Wednesday, so maybe she'll be able to help me sort through that huge amount of emotion I experienced. Maybe she caught me off guard. I was talking about my family and in the middle of it she starts in on this, which has nothing to do with what I was saying. I don't know, she just wears me out. I have to go to a luncheon tomorrow and she'll be there, but I think I've burned off the adrenaline by now and am feeling calmer and like I can go to sleep after all.
So, I guess that's it for today. I hope to sleep this off tonight and wake up tomorrow fresh and resigned to move forward with fresh knowledge of how fragile my ability to be inured from the horrors of my past actually is; but encouraged, on the other hand, and ready to push forward again despite it.
So, not a very cheery post, is it? Sorry! Hopefully I'll be better tomorrow. Hopefully, at least, it won't be depressing to read!
In hope,
Lisa
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