Right now I am tired and fatigues all the time
A page in the diary ""
Written by keller 25. Jul 2008 12:27 PM
I am calmer now that I have been sleeping again. The last week /10 days have been emotional and exhausting and extremely confusing for me. Effectively they have told my sister her she needs to get back on the list and do the work up for a transplant. After over a week in ICU and now in the Coronary care at present it is a distressing prospect for her.
The reality is there is no more delay. The stress initially was about seeing her in ICU, dealing with all that life and death stuff and now its like the situation will just linger, until she dies and or a heart comes along.
I have never been as close to my sis as I was to my brother (if it were indeed closeness as I doubt now I have ever had this capacity, and still fight constantly with it). I value her more so than ever as she guides me in regards to my parenting and I take her advice and consider it. She never put herself in the mum role in all our hassles/institutionalisations as kids because she was pretty self centred I suppose. But she has struggled terribly over the last 17 years and whilst I have always tried to assist financially there is not much that can be done when some people make choices. I tried to offer advice counsel etc but she was incredibly pessimistic and that was hard for her to change. I leant her book “learned Optimism” one of my personal life guides (til recently I suppose) and she read it and understood it but could not see how to change in herself, she has passed this pessimism onto her children and for that I am really sad. I work at being a good auntie to my nieces and nephews and I have sound relationships with them, I would like them to be loving and with mutual support but I cant do this either, I cant let go enough.
So how I am feeling now about things is that I am very fearful that she may not get to her 2nd new heart or that her heart transplant may fail, and I say these things wth a reasoned mind, it is the fact that few transplants are successful over a long period of time. I do not want her to die, if she does it will just be my brother and I and I will feel like I have a part of me gone. That is the extent of our family siblings their partners and three children. I am almost pre grieving I think, I am not sure how to respond, and I am confused and inhibited about sharing my emotions and being upset. I am fearful for my youngest because he is very close to my sis, they have a bond that came out of nowhere and is very strong. He has been very distraught at the current hospitalisation and I guess the sombre nature of all the grown ups. We have talked about it but not in too much detail as yet, but I will need to talk to him soon.
The other huge thing that came up for me was the willingness to live and fight to live. For all her pessimistic ways when it comes to this my sister is a fighter, she wants to live. And yes they are separate points but as I struggle with how to go forth day to day in my disabled emotionally retarded way I have shame and guilt about the whole thing. I feel like I should do more to bring the positive back to my life. That despite this xyz situation I am still walking and talking and breathing. It is so very hard.
I have replayed in my head many times the last session with my psych and the need for purpose and reduced emotional intensity as ways not to consume myself in suicidal ideation but it is overwhelming still. It is exhausting convincing yourself there is value in living everyday. And it’s like a lie everyday. To myself, to my partner, the kids the DBT group to my family and friends I fake it. I just do. Because the truth is it is really hard to live everyday, my thoughts are always this is so effortful, just being and talking with people is effortful. But I go about living in spite of this. I try my best. I rarely get into “flow” but when I do it is like some sort of holiday from my thinking.
At work I get into flow. It is just like it’s some other person doing all the talking and analysing and debating and being creative. I can sit and talk to people about process/legal issues etc when they are distressed and I can do this compassionately and thoroughly and with empathy but the moment my mind is not fully engaged I am sort of sunk down again.
It is so tiring. When I am with my husband I am fearful he is going to ask me how I am and I am going to need to make up something so I don’t tell him how I am, I sort of want to protect him from my thoughts I cant have him own these things. Yes even though he loves me and I him it is too painful. So I don’t. I just offer a throw away and often he challenges that so I give a little and divert his attention again, it is a masterful skill which has absolutely no purpose at all, other than to reduce my anxiety at the thought of choosing another behaviour. I lie basically.
For the last three weeks DBT has been hard work, just getting there and then having to share. It is really hard work and I wonder of the value because whilst I try to use the skills I am finding that I am not getting to them and distress takes me over. Like the last six months I have gained little other than further insight.
I have had enough insight. I know the following facts
I am loosing my vision and it is nearly all gone
I have signifficnat hearing loss and now tinnitus.
I have depression and currently it is high I have little joy.
I have borderline personality disorder.
I had a shit childhood and it equipped me to deal with the world in a way that no longer works for me.
I am disconnected to my childhood, I have little or no emotional memory about it, only now what I infer as an adult looking back with an adults wise mind.
I am educated and still crave learning.
I have a work identity which overtook my student identity which now has and is being challenged as I adapt to a lessor or narrower working mode.
I am not close to many people excepting my children (I hope) and my husband (I hope but am not sure)
I have an extended family who love and value me but I am not sure why, I am distanced from them.
I feel like an infant when I deal in my emotional mind and like a strong independent woman when I deal in my intellectual mind
There are of course many more things I know, have insight into.
But what do I accept?
This is where I am. What is it I am willing to accept? Am I willing to accept? I think if I want to go forward this is the only way, and you know I had these discussions before and I have had them with the clin psych at hospital and DBT but in this thick head of mine I can not work out how to just let go and accept. And for that matter what is it I need to accept. Is it about blindness or disability? Is it about depression? Is it about the fact that I will need the tools of DBT to live the rest of my life? I don’t know what it is.
Right now I am tired and fatigues all the time. I am trying to plan and to get by every day, it is really hard. I want to work because I need to flow of distraction and the value it gives me and the way people respond to me being back at work gives me a sense of value.
Well if you made it this far thankyou, I can’t think straight now but I write and it sort of gets connected and a direction.
I am working nearly all of next week and the week after. Distraction. But also exhaustion. Not sure about the balance there. Not sure about getting my life into rhythm again. Perhaps this will come or perhaps it will never come, I am scared that it will never come back.