Overdosed on Advice

Here's the thing about grief - it's exhausting.  Physically, emotionally, deep in the gut, into the soul exhausting.  Each day that I get out of bed is a major triumph.  Making coffee, showering & going to work are major accomplishments.  Anything more is bonus.  Most days by 3 or 4 pm, I just want to go home and zone out; watch tv, play computer games, anything to not feel anymore (unfortunately those old standbys - drinking, drugging, shopping, eating & sex - just don't work for me anymore....).   Sometimes I try to make plans to go to dinner or walk with a friend, but most of the time trying to juggle schedules fries out my brain circuits.  I just don't have the energy or patience to deal with even minor frustrations.

So add to the exhaustion all of the well meaning advice and I overload.  During the best of times I have low tolerance for advice, especially of the "should" variety.  "Should" ALWAYS feels like criticism.  I'm doing it wrong and you know better.  Advice is a gentler variety of "should", but to me it feels like criticism disguised as helpfulness.  I usually feel like I have to explain myself, that I've already thought about your great idea for me and have decided not to do it for a reason.  In good times, I've learned to just say thanks and change the subject.  But these are not good times.  As people give me advice, I feel my already tight chest constricting further.  The tension rises.  If I'm lucky they leave before I hit my limit.  On several occasions, I've put my hand up and told them they need to stop immediately.

I'm struggling minute by minute to maintain my balance.  It's very fragile and precarious right now.  A friend described it perfectly; I'm standing on a disc on top of a ball.  It's a constant dance to stay on the disc.  And then someone comes along with advice.  Now I have new weight added to the disc and it's very easy to TILT.  And when I TILT, it's huge.  It's flight or fight time, baby.  Since I don't like to cause wreckage that I later have to make amends for, flight is my favorite.  In person, I bolt.  Fast.  Or on the phone I abruptly end the conversation.  And then I break down sobbing hysterically.  Or sometimes I just go for immediate hysterical sobbing.

Last Monday I ended up in the ER.  I thought I was having a stroke.  Luckily it turns out to "just" be migraines with aura.  Mostly brought about by high blood pressure.  I think I overdosed on advice.

I realize that most of the people with advice love me & care about me.  They hate seeing me in pain and/or it makes them uncomfortable.  But there's so much conflicting advice.  Exercise.  Rest.  Keep busy.  Feel your feelings.  Take antidepressants.  And on and on.  Right now I don't have the emotional fortitude to deflect the barrage of advice.  It overwhelms me.  "How can I do all of that?"  "Oh fuck.  I'm not doing it "right"." "What I'm doing isn't enough."

The people who are helping me the most right now are the ones that tell they're proud of me.  I'm doing an amazing job.  They're impressed by me.  One friend told me I'm a rock star.  And it's not people I'm trying to impress.  I pour my guts out.  I babble.  I process.  I'm raw.  When they tell me I'm doing great, it feels true & real.  It gives me the strength to continue on one more day.

My father died on Wednesday.  I think it's a bloody fucking miracle I'm at all functional right now.

I Can't Stop Crying

A couple of weeks after my husband died, an acquaintance emailed me condolences and then said "I hope everyday gets better.  I know first hand that it actually does. "  I'm glad that was her experience, but it is most definitely NOT MINE.  At that stage, the numbness & shock were wearing off and I felt worse, much worse.  It's all a rollercoaster.  Some days I'm functional, sometimes I'm actually productive, but some days I'm plunged into grief and sorrow so strong I can barely walk.  Today is one of those days.  I managed to get up, do my morning writing, take the car in for repair and go to work.  All this while crying.  In grief I've developed a new cry - the steady moan cry.  Previously I've had the silent, streaming tears and the deep hiccupy sobs.  This one is new.  And it just keeps going.  I want to stuff it down, stuff it back in, but it insists on coming out.  


I finally stopped crying enough to open my store & be personable with customers and then someone, a man, tried to tell me something I "should" do about my signage.  I crumbled.  After he left, I locked the door and fell to the floor and just wailed.  I often wish we were back in the Victorian Age with their Mourning Etiquette.    Mourning clothes as a display of inner feelings.  Plus it alerted those around to your mental and emotional state.  And while I used to think that a year or two of required mourning for the widow was excessive, today I'd love to have the luxury of that time and the patience of those around for the grieving/mourning process.  I'm raw.  I'm fragile.  I'm also strong, strong enough to make it through.  Sometimes I'm so exhausted, I don't want to go on.  What keeps me going is not wanting to inflict the pain I'm in on the ones I love.   I don't want anyone who loves me to suffer the pain of losing me one minute before it's my time to go.   So today I cry.  I cry until I wonder how many tears I have in me.  Everything hurts.  Everything aches.  I cry some more.  

One Month Ago Today

Today is especially difficult.  It's been a month since my husband died, it's the 4th of July and the Higgs  Boson particle was just discovered.

Recently I was ranting about how much the phrase "This too shall pass" pissed me off, especially as a response to my grief.  If I'm supposed to feel my feelings and be in the present, how exactly is "This too shall pass" an appropriate response?  It's not, but it allows other people a way to dismiss and avoid my pain.  A friend asked if the pain was in the future, thinking about things down the road.  I replied that grief is in the moment - more than any other feeling I've had when I feel my loss it is in the now.

Grief is a series of realizations that the person you loved is really, truly dead and gone.  The first 10 days, it was a series of shock waves.  Everything felt surreal.  I kept thinking "This is just a bad dream and I'll wake up."  And then I'd realize it was real and be struck with a tsunami of loss, pain, grief.  Every time I run across a connection and realize anew that he is dead, I'm struck with a sharp, debilitating pain.  I'll cry, I'll call someone and talk, I'll do whatever I need to do to survive it.  And then I pick myself up and move on.

So today, I woke up at 5am.  I seem to have PTSD - a month ago, I got a call at 5am that he probably wouldn't last the day.  Ever since, I wake up at 5am.  Sometimes I'm able to get back to sleep, but mostly I lie in bed in that region between wakefulness and sleep, and my brain thinks about the reality that he's no longer here and my life is irrevocably changed.  This morning I just kept thinking "It's real. It's been a month."  Holidays suck right now.  Celebration is the furthest thing from my mind.  Just getting up, working, taking care of myself is challenging enough.  Sometimes I even have moments where his death/my loss aren't at the forefront of my mind.  So tonight I'll hide out and avoid the celebrations.  As for the Higgs Boson particle - he loved science.  He would ponder gravity and black holes and share his thoughts with me and we would have lengthy discussions about science and spirituality.  When I saw the stuff about the particle, I wanted to email him links to articles, and then one more time it struck me, he's gone... forever.  There won't be any talking about the particle with him.  He won't drive me crazy talking incessantly about it for a week.  And even though it could be irritating, his enthusiasm was contagious.  He kept my mind sharp.  And I learned far more than I realized with him in my life.

So I'm crying again.  I've already cried several times this morning.  And now it's time for me to pick myself up, get ready for work and keep moving forward.