I know I'm trapped inside. I can feel the yellow soak through my skin. There is no light no tunnel no door just suffocating. I can't breathe. I can't breathe. I can't. Breathe.
Every time I feel like I've found the crack to crawl through I only find new layer of suffocation. Bitter and numbing, high to low, painful pitches: Can't you smell the dark? I can. It's suffocating.
I try to think back to a time of true happiness. I know I've felt it. I've tasted it. I've lived it. But I can't find the memory. Mechanically I can name...a few that made me warm and fuzzy. Where have they gone? I can't breathe. I can't. Breathe.
Where am I? Who am I? Why am I? This place is terrible. I want to leave. Why won't you let me leave? I hate it here. This is no place for me. How did I get here anyway? O yeah...the rabbit brought me. Silly rabbit...tricks are for kids. Remember those days when the only concern was not being tagged "it"....remember that...damn it: I'm it.
I can see her, you know, Alice, in a big big chair, rocking. Just rocking. Her knees brought into her tiny chest, she's looking off into the distance, maybe thinking about tea. Now I'm rocking. I'm rocking. I'm rocking and I can't breathe.
I need to sleep. I need some quiet. I need for it all to go away. I need for this place to leave me be and let me go. I don't belong here. Round and round and round with a pocket full of poseys: protect me from the stench of this darkness.
What do you want? What I've always wanted. But don't you have it? And I do. Then how can I help you? It's all wrong. I'm wrong. It's wrong. What is? Ever after.
Now dasher and dancer, now prancer and vixen, on comet on cupid on donner and blitzen...but Rudolph he'll take you on a magic carpet ride. Next stop Dante's kitchen. Can you smell the suffocation? No that's just an apple.
The screaming. Where is that coming from? Stop. Stop. Fallen, every one of them. Me. Falling. I can't breathe.
23 December 2009
10 December 2009
It's just frozen milk
How many times can I call out for help and be unheard. How many times do I yell that I can't take this and still I find myself buried in tears. Sometimes an hour passes and you've forgotten. Sometimes the night turns to day and you think I'm ok. Sometimes that moment you just can't shut up and hear me and help me and at least attempt to save me.
It's darker now than before. I don't know how it happened or at what moment that light disappeared, but the fog caught up and is suffocating. I was proud and strong and capable at least for a while. I was getting out of bed and dressed with a smile. I laughed on my way to work with my morning show and even stopped for coffee every now and then. I had focus and got laundry lists of tasks complete without error. I was able to put on some makeup and run errands and make small talk. I was.
Every morning I showered and dressed and fed the kitties, gave the dogs a pat, blew my little snuggle bug a kiss and loaded into the car. I can't say I enjoyed it, but I could do it without sadness. I sat at my desk, made calls, did filing, scheduled meetings, prepared reports, attended meetings, planned events, smiled and asked how my co-workers were doing. I went visiting and cooked and got some weekend cleaning done. I rearranged rooms and made beds and shaved and shampooed, I even had my hair done. I came home and grabbed my sweetness and hugged her and kissed her and fed her and played. I could do more than sit on the couch and stare at the TV and be frustrated at lifes inperfections. I had survived the dismal grey that crept over me, at least I thought I had.
When my sweet pea was around 6 months I felt I was getting a grip, holding it together, and making the best of struggles. The pain in my hips and legs and back had subsided; I could walk and run and bend down and play on the floor without excruciating pain. I felt almost normal. I was in a routine with pumping at the office and the baby was eating so much food that her need for breastmilk was decreasing naturally. I panicked, of course, and take milk supplements every time I feel that I might be failing in the milk production business, but so far still milking - nine months strong. I was excited for the holidays and even more excited to watch each milestone come to pass. I felt like I could be a mom and a good mom.
A series of unfortunate events, as only they could be called, unraveled my delicate balance, pointing out the fragility and weakness of my facade. I hadn't really realized it was a facade to be honest. I thought I was coping and doing a good job at that. It was plaster over lattice or the first ice on the lake: just a pretty surface with nothing substantial to sustain. I felt schizophrenic again from laughter to tears and back in 60 seconds. I noticed pain in my chest and shortness of breath, but this sickness is in my head. I'm agitated and distracted and self destructive and insomnia-laden.
I'm breaking now, just teetering on the edge of broken.
Mom sold our childhood home. I knew it would happen someday, I just never realized how hard it would be. I spent every weekend over there visiting with her and being home. The closer moving day came the more desperate I was to be in the house with the baby...to instill a sense of mommy's past in her, a feeling, a smell, a shadow. I knew she would never remember having been there; that house will mean nothing to her; she'll never have known what mom's room looked like or where we had family dinners and holiday gatherings. She'll never know the yard I played kickball or hide and seek in or how close all the neighbors were. She'll never know the halls her aunts ran through or the handyman specials her grandfather did, she'll look at pictures of mommy as a little girl and have no recognition. It broke my heart.
I knew the house had to go. After my dad died my mom struggled for years to hold onto it. She went to college to get a good paying job to maintain the house that we called home. The economy foiled her plans and she had to sell. I hate thinking I'll never walk through those doors again or stop in for a pee-break while visiting old friends. I'm sad just picturing our front yard, the whole neighborhood, the memories.
Adding insult to injury she moved 300 miles away to her birth place. Her mother lives in Greece, her daughters live in Philly, but she moves to Pittsburgh where her sister lives. She left her four daughters and only grand-daughter to live in a strange house in a strange neighborhood where we can't visit without a caravan of stuff and major planning. She can't come for a few hours when we need her and she never calls unless I call her. Abandonment is the feeling. Right or not, that's the emotion. I always picture the children leaving the nest, not the parents, I suppose. Maybe I'm selfish and arrogant for feeling the way I do, but I can't just turn it off. Now that she's settled into her new house, she will only stay a couple of days for Christmas instead of a week with her grand-daughter like we had thought. I'm angry and sad.
Then our mentally (and physically) sick pooch had to be laid to rest just before Thanksgiving. Syd came to us as a rescue the spring of 2008. He was an omen as our friends and family say...if you get a second dog you'll end up pregnant. Go figure that with Syd would come a mountain of challenges above my growing belly. Syd needed special help since he was a rescue. The poor pup was a year old, never knew what a treat or toy was and was starved for affection. We trained him to walk on a leash, had play dates with his favorite neighborhood pup pals, we loved him. Many trips to the vet, a day at Penn behavioral clinic and Prozac enabled him to assimilate into his new family. Every day was work, but we were rewarded with licks and leans for our love. Little did we know that a physical illness was slowly eating away at him, by the time it was diagnosed in October 2009 it was too late.
I had never had to put down a pet. I really didn't know what to expect. We knew it was time, even our vet who was working with us to find some way to help our Syd, said it was time. Erica and I snuggled with him in the comfort room, petting him and cooing our love between tears. The unknown is horrible. Even though we knew we were doing the right thing, we would never know what Syd wanted or was there anything else we could have/should have tried. He was relaxed and seemed content. For the first time in weeks his breathing was slowed to a normal flow. The zanax given at home prevented his normal anxiety, then the sedative took the rest of the edge off. Then the final injections...it was an eternity from start to finish, but was over before we knew it. Those last moments, when his body expelled the last of its air, are unspeakable. Rest in Peace my sweet pup.
Now two big events do throw a wrench in anyone's even semi-functional life, so I expected to be off kilter. I tried to cope the best I could, but apparently I was decieving myself. I was short and testy and easily enraged. The less control I had over my life made me want any sense of control even more. I drove my husband insane with the picking and perfections and standards that I unhealthily projected upon him. He tried very hard to keep house and take care of our ever evolving little girl everyday, all the while my freaking our about our finances and his drying up unemployment. My head was running circles at lightning speed. We can't survive like this. I can't survive like this. My child deserves more. I worked too hard to get a good education and good job to end up with nothing in the end and even worse for my daughter. I resented him for being unable to support his family. I resented him for failing to do more than superficially help me with my ppd and stress. I resented him for blaming me for his not feeling like a man. I resented him for making me feel worthless, incapable, and ugly. I resented him for making me feel like I couldn't be a good mom.
At least once a week, sometimes just every other week, the inevitable fight occurrs...it's just frozen milk. Most people call breaskmilk liquid gold, even more so when it is pumped by a working mom. I would tell my husband time again, I even wrote it down, what the frozen milk rules were, and inevitably every week or so he would forget. He doesn't understand what it's like to sit in a sterile office room 3 times a day with a machine and pump milk for your baby. He doesn't get the emotional and physical response from the mom when she pumps into an empty bottle that someone else will feed her baby. He doesn't get that feeding her is the only special moment I have with her, and everyday I lose 3 of those moments to a machine. He doesn't get the pain I feel everytime I have to throw out milk that he thoughtlessly or carelessly shouldn't have thawed or pre-thawed unnecessarily.
I start out with the why and end up crying the what will it take for you to get it right. I've been back at work since she was 3 months old...she is now almost 9 months old...6 months of the same information, and he can't retain it. Then he says, but it's only frozen milk. I can't stop crying. Even more so when I realize that she is nearing the end of breastfeeding. She eats so much food during the day we are down to 3, sometimes 4 (two of which are more comfort than anything), breastfeedings and that's it. It's not just frozen milk. It is precious and special.
My other favorite argument is the we're just roommates themed one. I don't know how normal couples get back to being intimate or survive the lack of sex drive due to sleep deprivation, pain or lack of self esteem, but I can't figure it out. I try and try and on the off chance that I might be in the mood and we can actually pretent to be a married couple, it's not enough for him. He blames me all the time. I have to remind him that from when I was 5 months pregnant and the hip pain started right through til the end of August when I had the injections, I can't understand how he can even throw that time in my face. It hurts me so much, and I can't fix it. Then it just makes me want it even less. I don't feel like a woman and I don't feel attracted to a man who can't help me through this. I don't know how we can survive.
All my life I have been the peacemaker, the mender, the caretaker. I took care of my father while he was sick and dying. I have done what I could to rescue or help my sisters when they needed it. I have always been the go to, even for my mother. I have supported my husband in his wishes to be a muscian and music teacher and to deal with his own mental issues. Now, now I need help. I'm the one who is drowning. And I don't have anywhere to turn. Everyone just wants to look out for themselves. Do I blame them, not really, who cares about someone elses problems when you have enough of your own to deal with.
I'm in the dark. I'm not anywhere I want or hoped to be. I am failing my child, and I'm failing as a wife, and I don't feel human any more. I'm tired of people giving me a few short words of enouragement and expecting that to fix everything. For the first time in my life nothing seems worth it. Christmas, which should be one of the happiest since it's our first with the baby, seems like a drole meaningless bother. Family doesn't want to be family, money is painfully non-existent, and I keep getting told the baby won't remember anyways, so really what's the point.
I miss the family I grew up with. I miss the sparkle and surprise of the holidays with warm conversation and memories to be made. I miss when stupid grudges didn't exist and everyone laughed together. I miss my dad. I miss my grandparents. I miss cousins putting on plays for the grownups and being friends as well as relatives. I miss everyone being together even if it was just for the holiday. I miss a time when I was happy.
I have the beautiful, sweet, smart little princess, who I could watch and listen to all day. Yet, I'm afraid to be alone with her because I don't think I can handle it. I get frustrated and angry and lose patience because I can't cope with myself. I need sleep, I need alone time, I need the dark. She needs me to be awake and alert and focused on her, she needs the light and the love and the knowledge to grow into a wise, loving human being. I get so few hours a day to spend nurturing and loving her, and they are frought with stress and sadness. It's not fair to her. I watch her dad read her stories and play with her and she just giggles and wriggles around. I feel like she doesn't enjoy those things when I try and do them with her. She senses my emotions. I don't want to scar her with any of my pain. I want to be her mom, but my vision of mom and reality's vision of mom are two different things. I've begun to hate my life. Even my one shining star isn't breaking into this darkness.
I suppose I'm just delusional for a world that doesn't exist. Everyone is dealing with a bad economy and stress so I need to get over it. I suppose I'm my own problem. I need to wake up and just do what I gotta do. Well that just isn't working anymore. I don't even want to go home. I don't know where I want to go. Nowhere feels safe. It's horrible these palpatations and I can't catch my breath. I can't stop and I can't feel normal.
It's darker now than before. I don't know how it happened or at what moment that light disappeared, but the fog caught up and is suffocating. I was proud and strong and capable at least for a while. I was getting out of bed and dressed with a smile. I laughed on my way to work with my morning show and even stopped for coffee every now and then. I had focus and got laundry lists of tasks complete without error. I was able to put on some makeup and run errands and make small talk. I was.
Every morning I showered and dressed and fed the kitties, gave the dogs a pat, blew my little snuggle bug a kiss and loaded into the car. I can't say I enjoyed it, but I could do it without sadness. I sat at my desk, made calls, did filing, scheduled meetings, prepared reports, attended meetings, planned events, smiled and asked how my co-workers were doing. I went visiting and cooked and got some weekend cleaning done. I rearranged rooms and made beds and shaved and shampooed, I even had my hair done. I came home and grabbed my sweetness and hugged her and kissed her and fed her and played. I could do more than sit on the couch and stare at the TV and be frustrated at lifes inperfections. I had survived the dismal grey that crept over me, at least I thought I had.
When my sweet pea was around 6 months I felt I was getting a grip, holding it together, and making the best of struggles. The pain in my hips and legs and back had subsided; I could walk and run and bend down and play on the floor without excruciating pain. I felt almost normal. I was in a routine with pumping at the office and the baby was eating so much food that her need for breastmilk was decreasing naturally. I panicked, of course, and take milk supplements every time I feel that I might be failing in the milk production business, but so far still milking - nine months strong. I was excited for the holidays and even more excited to watch each milestone come to pass. I felt like I could be a mom and a good mom.
A series of unfortunate events, as only they could be called, unraveled my delicate balance, pointing out the fragility and weakness of my facade. I hadn't really realized it was a facade to be honest. I thought I was coping and doing a good job at that. It was plaster over lattice or the first ice on the lake: just a pretty surface with nothing substantial to sustain. I felt schizophrenic again from laughter to tears and back in 60 seconds. I noticed pain in my chest and shortness of breath, but this sickness is in my head. I'm agitated and distracted and self destructive and insomnia-laden.
I'm breaking now, just teetering on the edge of broken.
Mom sold our childhood home. I knew it would happen someday, I just never realized how hard it would be. I spent every weekend over there visiting with her and being home. The closer moving day came the more desperate I was to be in the house with the baby...to instill a sense of mommy's past in her, a feeling, a smell, a shadow. I knew she would never remember having been there; that house will mean nothing to her; she'll never have known what mom's room looked like or where we had family dinners and holiday gatherings. She'll never know the yard I played kickball or hide and seek in or how close all the neighbors were. She'll never know the halls her aunts ran through or the handyman specials her grandfather did, she'll look at pictures of mommy as a little girl and have no recognition. It broke my heart.
I knew the house had to go. After my dad died my mom struggled for years to hold onto it. She went to college to get a good paying job to maintain the house that we called home. The economy foiled her plans and she had to sell. I hate thinking I'll never walk through those doors again or stop in for a pee-break while visiting old friends. I'm sad just picturing our front yard, the whole neighborhood, the memories.
Adding insult to injury she moved 300 miles away to her birth place. Her mother lives in Greece, her daughters live in Philly, but she moves to Pittsburgh where her sister lives. She left her four daughters and only grand-daughter to live in a strange house in a strange neighborhood where we can't visit without a caravan of stuff and major planning. She can't come for a few hours when we need her and she never calls unless I call her. Abandonment is the feeling. Right or not, that's the emotion. I always picture the children leaving the nest, not the parents, I suppose. Maybe I'm selfish and arrogant for feeling the way I do, but I can't just turn it off. Now that she's settled into her new house, she will only stay a couple of days for Christmas instead of a week with her grand-daughter like we had thought. I'm angry and sad.
Then our mentally (and physically) sick pooch had to be laid to rest just before Thanksgiving. Syd came to us as a rescue the spring of 2008. He was an omen as our friends and family say...if you get a second dog you'll end up pregnant. Go figure that with Syd would come a mountain of challenges above my growing belly. Syd needed special help since he was a rescue. The poor pup was a year old, never knew what a treat or toy was and was starved for affection. We trained him to walk on a leash, had play dates with his favorite neighborhood pup pals, we loved him. Many trips to the vet, a day at Penn behavioral clinic and Prozac enabled him to assimilate into his new family. Every day was work, but we were rewarded with licks and leans for our love. Little did we know that a physical illness was slowly eating away at him, by the time it was diagnosed in October 2009 it was too late.
I had never had to put down a pet. I really didn't know what to expect. We knew it was time, even our vet who was working with us to find some way to help our Syd, said it was time. Erica and I snuggled with him in the comfort room, petting him and cooing our love between tears. The unknown is horrible. Even though we knew we were doing the right thing, we would never know what Syd wanted or was there anything else we could have/should have tried. He was relaxed and seemed content. For the first time in weeks his breathing was slowed to a normal flow. The zanax given at home prevented his normal anxiety, then the sedative took the rest of the edge off. Then the final injections...it was an eternity from start to finish, but was over before we knew it. Those last moments, when his body expelled the last of its air, are unspeakable. Rest in Peace my sweet pup.
Now two big events do throw a wrench in anyone's even semi-functional life, so I expected to be off kilter. I tried to cope the best I could, but apparently I was decieving myself. I was short and testy and easily enraged. The less control I had over my life made me want any sense of control even more. I drove my husband insane with the picking and perfections and standards that I unhealthily projected upon him. He tried very hard to keep house and take care of our ever evolving little girl everyday, all the while my freaking our about our finances and his drying up unemployment. My head was running circles at lightning speed. We can't survive like this. I can't survive like this. My child deserves more. I worked too hard to get a good education and good job to end up with nothing in the end and even worse for my daughter. I resented him for being unable to support his family. I resented him for failing to do more than superficially help me with my ppd and stress. I resented him for blaming me for his not feeling like a man. I resented him for making me feel worthless, incapable, and ugly. I resented him for making me feel like I couldn't be a good mom.
At least once a week, sometimes just every other week, the inevitable fight occurrs...it's just frozen milk. Most people call breaskmilk liquid gold, even more so when it is pumped by a working mom. I would tell my husband time again, I even wrote it down, what the frozen milk rules were, and inevitably every week or so he would forget. He doesn't understand what it's like to sit in a sterile office room 3 times a day with a machine and pump milk for your baby. He doesn't get the emotional and physical response from the mom when she pumps into an empty bottle that someone else will feed her baby. He doesn't get that feeding her is the only special moment I have with her, and everyday I lose 3 of those moments to a machine. He doesn't get the pain I feel everytime I have to throw out milk that he thoughtlessly or carelessly shouldn't have thawed or pre-thawed unnecessarily.
I start out with the why and end up crying the what will it take for you to get it right. I've been back at work since she was 3 months old...she is now almost 9 months old...6 months of the same information, and he can't retain it. Then he says, but it's only frozen milk. I can't stop crying. Even more so when I realize that she is nearing the end of breastfeeding. She eats so much food during the day we are down to 3, sometimes 4 (two of which are more comfort than anything), breastfeedings and that's it. It's not just frozen milk. It is precious and special.
My other favorite argument is the we're just roommates themed one. I don't know how normal couples get back to being intimate or survive the lack of sex drive due to sleep deprivation, pain or lack of self esteem, but I can't figure it out. I try and try and on the off chance that I might be in the mood and we can actually pretent to be a married couple, it's not enough for him. He blames me all the time. I have to remind him that from when I was 5 months pregnant and the hip pain started right through til the end of August when I had the injections, I can't understand how he can even throw that time in my face. It hurts me so much, and I can't fix it. Then it just makes me want it even less. I don't feel like a woman and I don't feel attracted to a man who can't help me through this. I don't know how we can survive.
All my life I have been the peacemaker, the mender, the caretaker. I took care of my father while he was sick and dying. I have done what I could to rescue or help my sisters when they needed it. I have always been the go to, even for my mother. I have supported my husband in his wishes to be a muscian and music teacher and to deal with his own mental issues. Now, now I need help. I'm the one who is drowning. And I don't have anywhere to turn. Everyone just wants to look out for themselves. Do I blame them, not really, who cares about someone elses problems when you have enough of your own to deal with.
I'm in the dark. I'm not anywhere I want or hoped to be. I am failing my child, and I'm failing as a wife, and I don't feel human any more. I'm tired of people giving me a few short words of enouragement and expecting that to fix everything. For the first time in my life nothing seems worth it. Christmas, which should be one of the happiest since it's our first with the baby, seems like a drole meaningless bother. Family doesn't want to be family, money is painfully non-existent, and I keep getting told the baby won't remember anyways, so really what's the point.
I miss the family I grew up with. I miss the sparkle and surprise of the holidays with warm conversation and memories to be made. I miss when stupid grudges didn't exist and everyone laughed together. I miss my dad. I miss my grandparents. I miss cousins putting on plays for the grownups and being friends as well as relatives. I miss everyone being together even if it was just for the holiday. I miss a time when I was happy.
I have the beautiful, sweet, smart little princess, who I could watch and listen to all day. Yet, I'm afraid to be alone with her because I don't think I can handle it. I get frustrated and angry and lose patience because I can't cope with myself. I need sleep, I need alone time, I need the dark. She needs me to be awake and alert and focused on her, she needs the light and the love and the knowledge to grow into a wise, loving human being. I get so few hours a day to spend nurturing and loving her, and they are frought with stress and sadness. It's not fair to her. I watch her dad read her stories and play with her and she just giggles and wriggles around. I feel like she doesn't enjoy those things when I try and do them with her. She senses my emotions. I don't want to scar her with any of my pain. I want to be her mom, but my vision of mom and reality's vision of mom are two different things. I've begun to hate my life. Even my one shining star isn't breaking into this darkness.
I suppose I'm just delusional for a world that doesn't exist. Everyone is dealing with a bad economy and stress so I need to get over it. I suppose I'm my own problem. I need to wake up and just do what I gotta do. Well that just isn't working anymore. I don't even want to go home. I don't know where I want to go. Nowhere feels safe. It's horrible these palpatations and I can't catch my breath. I can't stop and I can't feel normal.
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