My Son Got Laid Off And More

My middle son – the one that is the stable one and has it all together – called me Wednesday morning to tell me he lost his job.  He works for a company that depends on other companies for work and when the other companies cut back (like so many are doing now) they don’t get the work.  It’s a small company and they had to let him go.  He loved it there, was friends with the owners and all and they loved him too.  It wasn’t performance based at all.  It’s this stupid economy!  So I was the first one he called and came right over.  Everyone calls “Mom” with problems but that’s OK.  I like to be wanted and needed.  I just hate when bad things happen and I hate conflicts.    When he told me I was really upset.  My husband was a consultant and over a period of several years when the job ended, his job ended.  No severance, no benefits, nothing – just out.  This has happened to us about 10 times.  It’s so bad!  I pray every day it doesn’t happen again to us and now it’s happened to our son.  When he told me it just felt like a pit hit the bottom of my stomach.  We’ve had to go without so much in the past, no health insurance, just unemployment and then nothing.  I don’t wish this on anyone!  It would take my husband 3 – 9 months to get another job when this would happen and that was in better times – not now where it’s so difficult.    After I hung up from my son I was upset enough to call my therapist and see if by chance she was there.  That maybe she could talk to me for just a few minutes before he got here.  She wasn’t there and I just left her a short message.  I told her she didn’t need to call me back, unless it was within about 10 minutes, because he’ll be here soon.  I’m thinking it’s OK to call her when things like this happen.  She just doesn’t want it to be on a regular basis.  And, I’ve stopped that what she didn’t like.  I only call when absolutely necessary and it’s not that much.  When I came in she mentioned she got my message but no indication it wasn’t OK to do that.  So I think she was fine with it.   When my son got here I was fine.  I had stopped crying and was just here to talk and listen to him.  And, that’s what I did.  I happened to be busy with my work that day but I got to a certain point and I said to myself, “The hell with work – my family, my son is more important.”  So we went to a local park and walked and walked and talked and talked.  It was real nice.   I even had someone recognize me I hadn’t seen since I was 16 and he was about 13 or 14.  I think he had a crush on me at the time.  It was when I volunteered for an organization to help kids/teens.  I worked on the phones talking to people in need calling in.  He said I haven’t changed one bit – yeah right!  That was about 35 years ago!  Anyway it was nice he stopped to talk a bit and I would never have recognized him.   Please pray for my son to get a job very quickly – and a good job in his field.  Thank you.  I went to my therapist yesterday and had so much to talk about.  A whole weeks worth and I pointed out to her how I really do need those twice weekly sessions (we start them next week).  Sometimes so much happens in a week – just the way my life is.  Then I went home and came back in less than 2 hours to watch my little grandson during my daughter’s and her boyfriend’s appointment with her.  She sees my grandson a little, too.  He really likes her – wonder why?  She’s just very good, very nice.   You could feel the tension between my daughter and her boyfriend.  Wow – it was really bad.  They hadn’t seen her in 2-3 weeks and they needed it badly.  She was going to give them a May 5th next appointment time but my daughter said they can’t wait that long.  So she’s seeing them next Monday.  That’s when I go, too so it looks like a double for me again.  But I don’t mind.  Plus I will be doing a 10 minute chair massage after I see my therapist.  Gives me things to do and that’s nice.  I like that.  She had asked my grandson to draw a picture of his family and himself while he was waiting before she saw him.  She commented how “Nana” (myself) was the biggest.  I told her he drew me first.  She commented to him I must be special.  When my daughter came out she brought a Jenga-like game out to play.  The little rods had feeling words on them and we had the make sentences with them in them.  The 3 of us played.  It was fun, we laughed.  But my grandson made a comment about the word ‘mad’ and said he’s mad all the time.  We hated to hear that.  I told my daughter she should tell our therapist about that.  She said it’s fine with her if I do.  Guess she has more important pressing things on her mind with her boyfriend.  I don’t mind.  I don’t want him to think he’s mad all the time.  I want him to be a happy little boy.  I think he gets mad a lot at my daughter’s boyfriend.  My session went fine.  Again she let me do whatever I wanted, let me talk about whatever I wanted in whatever order I wanted.  She did say ‘no’ to me on something – she very rarely says ‘no’.  I was concerned with if I went to the massage therapist after seeing her that sometimes (if I wet my pants) I’ll have a bag with me.  I didn’t want the massage therapist to see the bag or ask what was inside.    She told me she wouldn’t and she doesn’t do that.  I laughed and told her she does.  When ever I bring a bag in she wants to know what’s inside.  She said, “Yes, I guess I do,” after thinking about it.  She first said because she knows me well enough to ask.  Then she said she never knows if it something she has to put away for me (we keep extra clothes there in her drawer) or if it’s a new product to try (you know – protection).  We laughed at that one as she actually pretended like she was putting something on over her pants.   I wanted to find a way to hide a bag if I had one.  She said no – no hiding!  A definite no!  She said hiding is like shame and she wants to get me away from the shame of this whole problem.  She wants me to tell the massage therapist about it.  She asked me if I did.  “No way!”  She figured not.  She said it would be helpful for me – especially in the healing part.  She gets healing massages as part of her cancer treatment from an oncology nurse.  I think she goes for an hour and finds them very beneficial.   We talked a little about my hesitation of wanting to take care of myself with the massages and the extra therapy sessions.  How I’ve always sacrificed for my kids and she said absolutely it’s OK.  I’m doing this to better myself.    I also told her, I thought I told her in the past but she said no, about how sometimes when my husband gives me a massage I get so relaxed I go to the bathroom.  I do feel it.  I really thought I told her before – maybe not – I thought I’ve told her everything.  She said she’s glad I told her because that’s helpful for her to know even for her treatment for me.  I’m not sure the connection.  I told her how some people fall asleep during these massages and knows I worry I don’t want to do that for fear I’ll go to the bathroom.  She said she doesn’t think I’ll do that.  I told her no, I won’t let myself fall asleep.  But, I didn’t say and do think this, what if it just happens and I can’t control it.  We are starting with short massages and not up to the 60 - 90 minutes where I told her I couldn’t last that long.   She said to make sure I go to the bathroom first and even if I have to go in the middle that it’s OK.  She told me again that that’s what that bathroom I use is for – the people getting massages, changing clothes, etc.  She didn’t say this time but she lets me use it because she knows I need to.  I think everyone else they see (the therapists) have to use the bathrooms down the hall.  Except my daughter’s boyfriend saw me go once and now he thinks it’s OK and does so himself.  I feel bad about that.  I didn’t have to nerve to tell him he’s not supposed to when I did.  I also told her how she talked longer that I thought and about half way through I started worrying that I might need to go to the bathroom.  She asked me if I was OK through it and I said I was.  I told her how to not relax too much while she was giving me the massage I just kept talking to her.  I told my therapist how normally I would have talked to her about this before seeing the massage therapist and how proud I was to do this all by myself without her.  She said it was so nice to see my smiling face when I came out the other day.    This coming weekend about 10-12 of us are going to a comedy club.  I asked her if she’s been because it’s been a while since I have.  She’s been but it’s been a while, too for her.  But she told me there are restrooms out in the hallway and to find them first.  Don’t worry – I will!  She did give me a great piece of advice.  Sometimes comedians pick out someone in the audience and pick on them.  It happened to her.  She wasn’t laughing and he asked her, in front of everyone, why she wasn’t.  She told me to be sure I don’t sit center in front knowing that if I leave to go to the bathroom he might point that out in front of everyone.  And she knows how I would hate that!  I was greatfull for the tip and told her my friends already know I like to sit on the end.  She said she’s looking forward to hearing my story.   She said that before and I think that’s very nice – like she cares.  Sometimes I don’t think people really care.  After this week we only have about 6 more weeks until my girl trip so we have to start working on that with exposure therapies and trying products and such.  She’s fine with that.  I just hope she’s going to be OK with her radiation therapy.  It’s accumulative and people feel more side effects as time goes on and she just started this week.  So it’ll be towards the end of her therapy before I go.  I hope she’s not to tired or worse, not there.  I told her what a brave person she is and she just said, “I have to do what I have to do.”  She’s so brave.  When all this is said and done she’ll have had to do just about everything there is to do to fight this nasty disease.  Please pray for her too for a complete recovery.  Thank you.  I told her I would like to start off the exposure therapies with a success.  So many of them I end up having an accident and how to deal with that.  I want to start by trying to relax, using the tappers or whatever.  She said we can do some imagery, too.  To try to imagine my bladder expanding and holding more.  I said like mind over matter?  Yes.  When we talked earlier about relaxing too much and going to the bathroom I again said how that’s why I can’t relax when I have to go so badly.  She said about learning how to relax my body but still be clenching so I don’t go to the bathroom.  Yeah.  That would be great.  So, I’d like to start out trying to do relaxing techniques in her office and then maybe go walk around somewhere.  I’m not ready yet to again go next door to the store/restaurant.  Maybe walk around outside but be close to the bathrooms so I can go and not have an accident.  Success.  She agreed that would be a great idea.  I think, though, on Monday it might be rainy and if that’s the case we’d have to walk around inside and this building is not very big to walk around very much.  So we’ll have to see.  I also want to look at the throwing up videos again which we didn’t have time to do this day.  So we will see and who knows what else we’ll have to talk about between now and then.