ups and downs. downs and ups. I'm getting dizzy. can we get the operator to slow this ride down..
...and make it stop spinning so much?
It's been a while.
Yikes, seven months?
The summer was awful. So awful that I couldn't bring myself to relive it by writing about it in this journal.
"Awful." Such a relativistic term. There are plenty of journals I could read on DS that describe lives that make mine look like a walk in the park, so perhaps the more accurate description is "emotionally draining."
"Awful." The worst hasn't happened. Yet. That's coming.
Sigh.
Okay, I guess it's time to be specific.
Recap: Dad, 91, in nursing home for about a year and a half. Mom, 84, struggling to live in the house by herself, still more or less refuses help she is eligible for and would make her life easier. Janie (fictional name), older and only sibling, 54, major difficulty coping, and the shit just keeps hitting her fan. She is using the strategy of flinging it at me, as if somehow it's my fault. George, hubby, incredibly sweet and supportive, thank goodness. Job: one full and three part-time.
Me: currently in weekly therapy and taking an SSRI to deal with the various permutations of the stresses being generated by all of the above, mostly the parent/sibling nexus.
Hard to say what my feelings about Dad are. Been too busy coping with Mother/Sister to be able to access whatever sadness I am having about his decline. He doesn't have a specific terminal condition beyond "living human." It is clear that he is slowly fading. I'd have to say that, as a character in the play of my life, he's more or less been neutered by the fatigue of aging. At one time my worst fear was that Mom would die first and I'd have to somehow manage the spectrum behaviors of both Dad and Janie through the most difficult transition of all our lives. (Recap #2: despite the lack of an actual diagnosis, it has been Mom's and my belief that Dad is Asperger's and Janie likewise, possibly a high-functioning autistic. If we use strategy based on those assumptions it more or less works.)
I just hope that the end of Dad's life is peaceful and painless and that as he goes he knows that he is, has been, will always be, loved.
Meanwhile, back at the farm...
Ever since Dad was admitted to the nursing home Janie has been on a tear. It seems like every important conversation I have had to have with her has somehow degenerated into a reason for her to be mad at me. She expresses that anger by calling me daily to say ugly things into my voice mail. For weeks at a time until the clouds finally lift and she's able to carry on normally again.
So don't answer the phone? Okay, and I screen the calls, but the voice mail system I have doesn't allow me to see/hear who the message is from before listening. Which means that now my little cell phone is the heaviest object in the world when I am checking messages. I still get the first mega-decibel phrases before I can hit "delete."
Still that should be okay, yes?
No. Sadly no. The effect it has is to send me over the deep end. What my deep end looks like? Yelling at her in the shower, in the car, at the gym (though I haven't been in months), when I go to sleep, when I wake up (Recap #3: she lives 600 miles away) - in fact, in every waking moment I have that my mind isn't engaged in something that completely blocks her out, like when I'm at work.
Hence the weekly therapy and the SSRI.
But wait, there's more. Remembering that I was raised by Fundagelicals who believe we are in the End Times and think that Theocracy would be a Good Thing (but not one based on some other Evil False God, like Catholics or Muslims) and that Janie's belief system is VERY, CONCRETELY, LITERAL and very much Fundagelical:
Janie's pattern with George and me is that She Does Not Approve. This means that she does not speak directly to him unless absolutely necessary, will ask about the cat but not about George, gets mad at me if I mention his name. This despite the fact that he pays her monthly cell phone bill and has done so for going on six years now.
I made the idiot mistake of telling her back in June that he and I were about to celebrate our 25th anniversary. (We had a lovely few days in Provincetown.) I made the second idiot mistake of asking her not to yell at me over it. I made the third idiot mistake of telling her that it would mean a lot to me if she could say "Happy Anniversary", or even to text the two words if she couldn't say them.
Oh lord. You would have thought I called her every nasty thing I could think of and wished her dead.
For the entire summer.
The whole god-damned fucking summer.
One diatribe after another, threats, insults, victimhood (because clearly I'm brainwashing her, that was her word)...
We are now on a "phone-break." She is not to call me under any circumstances whatsoever except dire emergency. So now she thinks I don't like her.
Great.
And truth be told, at the moment, I don't. I love her with all my heart. I grieve over the pain and suffering and fear and horrible conditions she lives with that I am powerless to change. But I am finished with being her emotional punching bag.
Some of the other shit hitting her fan? New cyst on her remaining ovary, possible looming hysterectomy . Recent surgery for carpal tunnel. Landlord died and the house she lives in is being sold and there is a shortage of section 8 housing available in her area. Fear over Dad's eventual passing and that she might need to be hospitalized - she doesn't think she will have the emotional stamina to endure his funeral. Check up for possible intestinal polyps. Possible need for knee surgery. The fun (fun = misery and fear) never stops.
Then, over Labor Day, Mom resurrected her old Fundagelical Bullshit and told me outright "you're going to hell." No, not because I'm gay, she believes that I am as God made me. That and maybe the medication she took when pregnant with me to prevent miscarriage (but I don't think that is the cause). No, I'm going to hell because I'm an atheist.
Oh. Fuck. Me.
So she received the letter I typed at three in the morning, FUMING at the condemnation. The gist of it was that neither she nor Janie respect me enough to believe that I am living my life with as much integrity, dignity, kindness and compassion as I know how... and yet they both feel entitled to launch personal attacks that are based entirely on their disapproval and nothing to do with anything I have done or said, or NOT done or said to them.
So Mom is on a phone break too.
The first weekend I felt actually kind of normal? The weekend after Labor Day when they both shut the fuck up and left me alone.
Great. A moment of normalcy, but now I have no family. Can't fucking win.
Actually, Mom got over it after about a month - we patched things up a couple days ago.
With Janie, it's going to take a lot longer. I think I need to look into family counseling services in her area, because I don't think she is ever going to listen to me regardless of how perfectly I craft whatever my response is to her (I'm in the process of writing a series of social stories for her). It's not going to be a quick fix.
On the up side...
I have a fantastic student teacher working with me until the end of the month. I love watching these young people develop their teaching craft - they grow so much in such a short time. She's doing beautifully.
Subaru posted my Subaru love story:
http://www.subaru.com/dearsubaru/index.html?storyId=75280
GarageBand fun on my MacBook Air: The librarian was creating a cooking show play for three of our special needs students, found a poem for the theme song and asked me to come up with a tune for it:
http://oldbaldguy.wikispaces.com/
Techtalk - you might need a plug-in to play the tune. I can play it using Safari but not Firefox, Firefox for some reason missing something (haven't figured it out yet).
Yes, that's me singing all the parts, but not playing the piano (that's a stock GarageBand loop). What I like about it is that the voice lessons are paying off; it's the healthiest sound I've been able to produce in months (gee, could yelling at my sister having something to do with it?). The harmonies are a little clunky/dissonant, I still need to work on them, but I like the overall sound and humor.
and lastly, on the upside, Georgie is the sweetest man ever.
It's been a while.
Yikes, seven months?
The summer was awful. So awful that I couldn't bring myself to relive it by writing about it in this journal.
"Awful." Such a relativistic term. There are plenty of journals I could read on DS that describe lives that make mine look like a walk in the park, so perhaps the more accurate description is "emotionally draining."
"Awful." The worst hasn't happened. Yet. That's coming.
Sigh.
Okay, I guess it's time to be specific.
Recap: Dad, 91, in nursing home for about a year and a half. Mom, 84, struggling to live in the house by herself, still more or less refuses help she is eligible for and would make her life easier. Janie (fictional name), older and only sibling, 54, major difficulty coping, and the shit just keeps hitting her fan. She is using the strategy of flinging it at me, as if somehow it's my fault. George, hubby, incredibly sweet and supportive, thank goodness. Job: one full and three part-time.
Me: currently in weekly therapy and taking an SSRI to deal with the various permutations of the stresses being generated by all of the above, mostly the parent/sibling nexus.
Hard to say what my feelings about Dad are. Been too busy coping with Mother/Sister to be able to access whatever sadness I am having about his decline. He doesn't have a specific terminal condition beyond "living human." It is clear that he is slowly fading. I'd have to say that, as a character in the play of my life, he's more or less been neutered by the fatigue of aging. At one time my worst fear was that Mom would die first and I'd have to somehow manage the spectrum behaviors of both Dad and Janie through the most difficult transition of all our lives. (Recap #2: despite the lack of an actual diagnosis, it has been Mom's and my belief that Dad is Asperger's and Janie likewise, possibly a high-functioning autistic. If we use strategy based on those assumptions it more or less works.)
I just hope that the end of Dad's life is peaceful and painless and that as he goes he knows that he is, has been, will always be, loved.
Meanwhile, back at the farm...
Ever since Dad was admitted to the nursing home Janie has been on a tear. It seems like every important conversation I have had to have with her has somehow degenerated into a reason for her to be mad at me. She expresses that anger by calling me daily to say ugly things into my voice mail. For weeks at a time until the clouds finally lift and she's able to carry on normally again.
So don't answer the phone? Okay, and I screen the calls, but the voice mail system I have doesn't allow me to see/hear who the message is from before listening. Which means that now my little cell phone is the heaviest object in the world when I am checking messages. I still get the first mega-decibel phrases before I can hit "delete."
Still that should be okay, yes?
No. Sadly no. The effect it has is to send me over the deep end. What my deep end looks like? Yelling at her in the shower, in the car, at the gym (though I haven't been in months), when I go to sleep, when I wake up (Recap #3: she lives 600 miles away) - in fact, in every waking moment I have that my mind isn't engaged in something that completely blocks her out, like when I'm at work.
Hence the weekly therapy and the SSRI.
But wait, there's more. Remembering that I was raised by Fundagelicals who believe we are in the End Times and think that Theocracy would be a Good Thing (but not one based on some other Evil False God, like Catholics or Muslims) and that Janie's belief system is VERY, CONCRETELY, LITERAL and very much Fundagelical:
Janie's pattern with George and me is that She Does Not Approve. This means that she does not speak directly to him unless absolutely necessary, will ask about the cat but not about George, gets mad at me if I mention his name. This despite the fact that he pays her monthly cell phone bill and has done so for going on six years now.
I made the idiot mistake of telling her back in June that he and I were about to celebrate our 25th anniversary. (We had a lovely few days in Provincetown.) I made the second idiot mistake of asking her not to yell at me over it. I made the third idiot mistake of telling her that it would mean a lot to me if she could say "Happy Anniversary", or even to text the two words if she couldn't say them.
Oh lord. You would have thought I called her every nasty thing I could think of and wished her dead.
For the entire summer.
The whole god-damned fucking summer.
One diatribe after another, threats, insults, victimhood (because clearly I'm brainwashing her, that was her word)...
We are now on a "phone-break." She is not to call me under any circumstances whatsoever except dire emergency. So now she thinks I don't like her.
Great.
And truth be told, at the moment, I don't. I love her with all my heart. I grieve over the pain and suffering and fear and horrible conditions she lives with that I am powerless to change. But I am finished with being her emotional punching bag.
Some of the other shit hitting her fan? New cyst on her remaining ovary, possible looming hysterectomy . Recent surgery for carpal tunnel. Landlord died and the house she lives in is being sold and there is a shortage of section 8 housing available in her area. Fear over Dad's eventual passing and that she might need to be hospitalized - she doesn't think she will have the emotional stamina to endure his funeral. Check up for possible intestinal polyps. Possible need for knee surgery. The fun (fun = misery and fear) never stops.
Then, over Labor Day, Mom resurrected her old Fundagelical Bullshit and told me outright "you're going to hell." No, not because I'm gay, she believes that I am as God made me. That and maybe the medication she took when pregnant with me to prevent miscarriage (but I don't think that is the cause). No, I'm going to hell because I'm an atheist.
Oh. Fuck. Me.
So she received the letter I typed at three in the morning, FUMING at the condemnation. The gist of it was that neither she nor Janie respect me enough to believe that I am living my life with as much integrity, dignity, kindness and compassion as I know how... and yet they both feel entitled to launch personal attacks that are based entirely on their disapproval and nothing to do with anything I have done or said, or NOT done or said to them.
So Mom is on a phone break too.
The first weekend I felt actually kind of normal? The weekend after Labor Day when they both shut the fuck up and left me alone.
Great. A moment of normalcy, but now I have no family. Can't fucking win.
Actually, Mom got over it after about a month - we patched things up a couple days ago.
With Janie, it's going to take a lot longer. I think I need to look into family counseling services in her area, because I don't think she is ever going to listen to me regardless of how perfectly I craft whatever my response is to her (I'm in the process of writing a series of social stories for her). It's not going to be a quick fix.
On the up side...
I have a fantastic student teacher working with me until the end of the month. I love watching these young people develop their teaching craft - they grow so much in such a short time. She's doing beautifully.
Subaru posted my Subaru love story:
http://www.subaru.com/dearsubaru/index.html?storyId=75280
GarageBand fun on my MacBook Air: The librarian was creating a cooking show play for three of our special needs students, found a poem for the theme song and asked me to come up with a tune for it:
http://oldbaldguy.wikispaces.com/
Techtalk - you might need a plug-in to play the tune. I can play it using Safari but not Firefox, Firefox for some reason missing something (haven't figured it out yet).
Yes, that's me singing all the parts, but not playing the piano (that's a stock GarageBand loop). What I like about it is that the voice lessons are paying off; it's the healthiest sound I've been able to produce in months (gee, could yelling at my sister having something to do with it?). The harmonies are a little clunky/dissonant, I still need to work on them, but I like the overall sound and humor.
and lastly, on the upside, Georgie is the sweetest man ever.
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