A long way away
I haven’t written in many months now and today I found there were two comments awaiting approval. Seeing that others have read my blog even when I’ve only written a few short entries, and furthermore that my path has inspired and encouraged other women who have been down the same path as I have has inspired me to write more on this blog.
A brief update: counselling sessions did help to mend the immediate wounds. But what I found was that all she was concerned about was being able to visit her grand-daughter. Once I allowed her to visit again, she didn’t make any more appointments or do any othe follow up with me. I feel hurt about that but haven’t thought about it much until I wrote it out here. I’m going to ask her if we can go back to the therapist and continue what we started as there is more I’d like to say to her and hear from her and more healing that needs to be done.
As for dear father, he checked himself into rehab and attended for a week then went to AA meetings every night for three weeks. He told my mom and sister at the time but didn’t tell me until 3 weeks after the fact! He said, “I know you’re busy and I didnt’ want to bother you” and that made me angry. I think the truth is that he knows that I already knew he was an alcoholic and he didnt’ want to talk to me about it. Mom and sister act like “Oh you poor, poor man you. Are you okay? Oh my goodness it must have been so hard being in there. How are you feeling.” Blah blah blah.
When he told me on MSN I said, “Oh good for you. ” And then a bunch of hogwash about how proud I am of him. OKay I am proud really but I was angry that he didnt’ tell me and I really dont’ know what was up there.
Anyway, then I’ve been working 2 jobs trying to catch up financially after being sick all winter. This week I have a colonoscopy and yuck yuck yuck.
I’m really glad that something I’ve written has had a positive influence on at least one reader and I will do more to write more often and share my journey of recovery.
But for tonight, that is all, because I’m tired and off to bed.
Exposure Therapy
WARNING: Some explicit material here that is relevant and directed toward healing…
This is what my counsellor called it when I said I wanted to heal from the damage done from an abusive boyfriend when I was 17. I thought we were just making out but he took it too far and “stole my virginity.” (Let’s say it that way because I’m having a hard time with writing the “R” word) They call it “Date Rape” now.
Anyway, I told her the details and she may have been the first person I’ve ever told. Perhaps I’ve told my husband but I can’t remember. And she listened and cared and called him a jerk and it felt good to call him that. Shame on him, she said and it felt good to put that on him. I’ve been carrying it around for so long.
So we talked about it for an hour, and then I concluded that I wanted to write a letter to him and then burn it. Ohhh…that felt good for me: the idea of letting it out, letting it go. The writing a letter part, errr, not so easy to do…the burning part, I will enjoy that.
And so that is my task within the next couple weeks. I’ll do that and it’ll be one step towards letting go of all this grief that I am carrying around.
How is this situation related to my alcoholic/co-dependant parents? They didnt’ protect me before or after it happened and when my behaviour changed and I was really suffering with no one to turn to, they just let me fall and fall and fall. I blame them. Surely, they would blame their parents, and on and on and on…but still…all we parents make choices and I chose not to be a negligent parent. They could have chosen the same.
My father’s admission
Last week my father told me that he was in detox/rehab for a week last month. He said he is an alcoholic and that he has been sober for 20 days.
He was saying it to me as though it was a big revalation and that I would be surprised, but of course I’ve known he struggled with this disease (as did both of his parents) and I just felt great to have him acknowedge it.
So now, when I go to support groups for children who are parents of alcoholics I don’t feel like I”m making something up. He has admitted to it and now the healing can begin.
I’m going to keep going to the support group and continue my own healing.
Funny thing: He told my sister and my mom as soon as he got out and didn’t tell me for a month. They never said anything to me and we still haven’t talked about it. Interesting how family secrets live long and prosper.
Stuck in the middle with you
This indecision is driving me nuts.
I was going to move with my family to a bigger city, get a better job, live in a cleaner place. And then last week when I got sick I missed a week of work and need to see a doctor here before I can even return to work and I can’t be left alone in the city while my family stays here as we had originally planned and I just feel totally disappointed.
Stay or Go? Now or Later?
I’m not very good at moving because it brings up feelings of choas and external choas triggers internal choas and then I get all messed up.
But under the surface of these decisions is this other thing nagging at me…my scribe. And I don’t have the peaceful kind of scribe that likes to retreat into the wilderness and write for years on end, smoking cigarettes and eating berries. No, my scribe likes to write for the public, immediately, (thus my enjoyment of this anonymous diary blog) and…and…and..not just that…but my scribe co-exists with this passionate activist and with all this internal activity going on it’s amazing that I ever get anything done.
And the feeling that I have reminds me of the feeling I had when I was 7 years old. The teacher asked us to write about “What do you want to be when you grow up.” I wrote on the front and back of a legal-sized paper about how I wanted to be a teacher. But I didn’t say an elementary teacher…I said I wanted to teach everything “soccor, gymnastics, reading, camping” etc….Everything that I knew of I wanted to teach others.
And by golly isn’t that still exactly how I am! As soon as I learn something I’m thinking about how this information can help those around me. It absalutely drives me crazy to know something and to have others around me not know. Crazy.
So, what do I want to do with my life now that I am all grown up? LOL…teach, coach, lead, guide, support, help, build, heal, nourish, develop, produce, write, advocate, fix, solve, resolve, change, grow, nurture, encourage, inspire…yeah, all that stuff.
Do you see the problem?
The last time I looked in the Job Bank I didn’t see any job descriptions that were for “teacher, coach, leader, guide…blah blah blah!” Damn it!
So what I am is an entrepenuer and what I sell is hope. Well, in an economy that is struggling the way ours is, I think people are buying milk instead…and if there are some few who want inspiration…can they pay for it? Will they trade for it? Will they barter for it? At this point I’d be willing to do anything.
I can’t ignore this feeling inside to follow this passion but I also can’t understand the bustling colour of emotion. I dont’ know what the path is. I dont’ know what I”m supposed to do. I want to help people –yes, I feel it. But how? I don’t know. I just don’t know.
I want to be a writer, author, coach…but to whom? How? Where? How much?
Do I want to work with drug addicted kids, really? Can I handle it when it is so close to home?
Do I want to work with developmentally challenged children? Can I really derive enjoyment working with people that can’t “get” me intellectually?
Do I want to teach in a classroom? Can I deal with the restrictions and rules?
Do I want to work in a prison, group home, addiction centre, not-for-profit?
I just never saw myself in that role…before now. And now that I see it, I don’t know what else would be as fulfilling.
But how many years can one person go to school? How many degrees do I have to get before I’m working in my field? Doing what I love to do? And that is where I am falling short right now.
I want to be actively involved in making a difference NOW! Not in 6 months, not in 18 months or 3 years. I just want to. I’ve waited for 5 years. 5 years. I’m about to explode with anticipation.
But what path is it I am going to take? Crossroads like never before.
I’ll tell you what. I do feel like I know myself more now than I have ever known myself before. And when I went to college and university I was following a whim. And then I had no control over becoming a mother…and now… precious now…do I have a choice?
Are there open doors for me to finally walk through, to finally give to the community the way that I’ve wanted to for my entire life. And how, oh please how, does one do it?
I’ll be narrowing my field, narrowing my vision, for the first time — I was always broad to keep doors open, but now I see that there is wisdom in having a speciality and I am ready to become a specialist. And I know in my heart that I want to help families who suffer from addictions and abuse. I know that is what I want to do, need to do, feel compelled to do. That is what I must do.
But when I read the course notes for families and abuse I felt like “oh boy! do I really want to do this?” ANd on the one hand I’m crazy to want to spend any more time with the topic…but I’ll tell you what, nothing stirs me like that does. Nothing gets the fight going in me like that does. And anything else feels like periphery.
So my mission statement is this:
I am working in the path of service with all my energies bent towards teaching, healing, inspiring, leading, guiding, and helping children, youth, parents and families to recover from violence, abuse and addictions so that they may come to see themselves as noble beings, to know their own selves, and to find fulfillment of their talents and capacities.
That sounds really good, right?
I”m still not sure I”m ready.
Better talk it over with my own counsellor and coach. They’ll know what to say. 
A river of tears
A river of tears
wells up just inside
so close to the surface
i can barely hide.
Today sucked.
Why?
Because I’ve been sick for the past week with norwalk virus and today is the first day that I’ve been up and moving and able to eat and I feel like crap. After having had the digestive rest for the week I am acutely aware of how my system is failing me. I’m craving sugars and that’s either because I’m not getting enough nutrition from the food I’m eating (because of the damage to my intestine) or because I’m PMSing.
Tylonal helped, and my daughter playing with her friend outside gave me a small reprieve. I spent an hour scrubbing the stove and got it all shiny and nice. I was thinking to myself, “Well, this is definitely something I can control. I can clean the stove. I have control over that.” And it felt a little nice in a world surrounded by things I have no control over.
I feel so crappy today and I know that it’s not because of my surroundings. It’s because of my health and I just don’t know what to do about that.
I have nothing good to say but I”m just making it through the day. That’s all.
No more “better tomorrows”
Today is the first time all week that I’ve felt “normal” and I’m still not 100% because I did come into contact with some hidden gluten somewhere in my kitchen today and it knocked me down for several hours. But for the past 2 hours I’ve been feeling happy-go-lucky me and I’m relieved.
Being glutenized is terrible and when I felt it today I couldn’t help but think about how I’ve felt this way my entire life and how my own mother labeled me as “moody” instead of looking to see what was wrong with me. So many times in my life I had these outrageous reactions…I would say and do things reactivly and didn’t really know what was going on and now I see so clearly that all along I was glutenized and was reacting to the toxic environment within me.
What I feel a loss about today is that before I knew I had celiac and when I had a bad day I would say to myself “It’ll be better tomorrow”…that’s how I got through the worst of my illness and trials. “Tomorrow will be better….tomorrow will be better.”
I always knew something was “off” but didn’t know what and I knew I would figure out what it was and then everything would be better. I never dreamed it would be a life-long autoimmune disease that would affect me every waking minute of my life for the rest of my life.
And I’m bummed out about it today. Because not only have I lost my favourite foods and a life of freedom to eat anything I want any time I want…I have lost the idea that “it will someday get better.” Now all I have to hope for is that I remain gluten-free more days than not and that I will more often than not enjoy relative well-being. I have no more hope that I will be “normal” be healthy that it will get better.
And that sucks. Big time. I hate it. Today I hate it. Later, I’ll get all passionate about it and I’ll make it my life-long campaign to make celiac disease a household name and to advocate for more options at more stores and more restaurants. And to educate doctors and therapists so that maybe diagnosis can be discovered in one year rather than in 10…or better yet 6 months…
Anyway, I’ll advocate later and I’ll p0ut now because it sucks. It sucks that this will affect my parenting, my career, my marriage, my everything. And only one life we get and I get one with disease…allergies…food intolerances….and aren’t there those who have health and abuse it? Waste it? Take it for granted. And then there’s me…I get the irony of it all…that I’ve been this big health “freak” for years and now I know why…now I know why I was so different than everyone else; why I was so passionate about it when others weren’t.
Here’s my best idea so far…that I become a child and youth therapist specializing in advocating for and supporting those with celiac. It’s the same way some specialize in autism, or alcoholism. Celiac’s have a unique problem and the feelings and the sickness is different for everyone.
For me, it affects my hormones and my emotions. It makes me feel like a dragon. It makes me feel angry and irritable. It makes me feel frustrated and like I’m fighting. Maybe once my hormones are more balanced that reaction will decrease. Maybe there are things that will get better. But in the condition that I’m in right now that is what happens. And that is the worst part because I it takes away my “feeling good” and leaves me with feeling bad…and always feeling bad is how I’ve lived my entire life.
The goodness that i feel right now…body peaceful and without pain. Eyes and mind clear-headed and light…the way I feel right now is awesome. And then here’s the worst part, my daughter is being a pain right now.
So here’s my torment — I feel physically better right now than I have all week and I just want to savour it, drink it in, cherish it, love it, savour it…and then instead of peacefulness, I have a girl that’s bawling her head off because her friend had to go home, because she has to clean room, because she isn’t getting her own way every single minute of every single day.
So, it’s not peaceful. It’s terrible. And that’s what sucks about my life right now.
But that’ll change next week. Next week it’ll be me all by myself me. And I’ll miss DD like crazy and think back to this day and think it wasn’t so bad afterall. So I just take it one day at a time.
Celiac Attack
I went to a fancy catered dinner the other night and have been suffering ever since. Here’s the symptoms as they occured.
As I was eating — my stomack hurt and ached.
20 min-2 hours after eating — major pain and bloating in my stomack and intentines.
2 – 4 hours — more bloating, some gas (which helped relieve the pain) and then fatigue.
5 hours after eating — I just conked out with major fatigue so strong I couldn’t keep my eyes open and passed out as soon as I got home.
While sleeping that night — many bad dreams…with cops, and drugs, and fearful images…a restless sleep.
Woke up — feeling draggy, tired, bloated, grumpy, itchy skin, lathargic.
By noon — fatigue so strong I had to sleep, itchy skin, foggy brain
After nap — feeling blue, sad, a little weepy, (for no external reason) irritable, minor asthma attack sensation
At dinner — hungry but no appetite (ate well anyways)…felt bloated and just layed down on the couch for an hour
By 10:00 — itchy and irritablity relieved…lungs still sore…but mood lifted too…a burst of energy and I stayed awake until about 2-3:30 am. (Insomnia)
The next morning (today, right now) I feel frustrated at having lost my day yesterday. My stomack feels malnurished, bowels feel bloated, and I feel “cavish.” I’m irritable and don’t have patience for my daughter’s “issues” and I just want to curl up in a ball and avoid the world. I feel anxious about going to L. instead of excited and stress-free the way I felt when I was gluten free.
……………………………………………………………………………………………..
I’m beginning to think that my entire identity that I built around “trying to improve myself” was all a reaction to gluten. What I mean is…when I’m gluten free, I just am peaceful, relaxed, happy, energetic and creative…when I’m glutenized then I’m on this mission to “overcome”…to “strive and struggle” to find “peacefulness’…….
The blue that I felt yesterday was not emotional or mental…it was physical. I could tell this time since I was paying attention to the symptoms. And here I have spent my entire life feeling that way, taking anti-depressants, doing meditation, reading, writing, going to therapy, all that…all that and all I had to do was stop eating gluten.
If I would have come from a peaceful and supportive family then I would have not had any emotional issues to talk about and no senerios to blame for me feeling that way and it would have been more easy to diagnosis or to identify. But since I did have all these senerios of neglect, anxiety and fear, it always seemed to me that my past was affecting me and I needed to “get help.”
Last night I drempt I was adopted. In the dream I was telling someone that I always suspected but now I know for real and it’s so good to have the answer. And in the dream it did feel so good to know that this was not my real family. It was a burden lifted. And I told a friend how I always wondered because when people would say my mom looks like me she would become withdrawn and it made me think something was up. (p.s. Everyone I ever meet tells me how much I look like her…but she doesn’t see it!! Does she not want to?…..and it makes me wonder why my mom doesn’t like me.)
She said in therapy that she would never say “I don’t like you” that she would say “I don’t like your behaviour”…..but by not saying “I love you” and by pushing me away it says I don’t like you.
I don’t feel good today about her. Today I wish I was adopted. Today I wish I wasn’t a friggen gluten-zoid. I feel like a freak. And I just want to wallow in it. I’m still greiving it. I feel depressed about it. I feel depressed about all my wasted years.
But, I have to say that all those therapy sessions did help…so that now when I’m gluten free I do feel, finally, the results of all the work I did. So at last I have mind-body connection.
Therapy session with Mom
Finally the dreaded and highly anticipated day arrived. Yesterday. The two of us who haven’t had a decent conversation with each other since November sat together in a room with our mutally trusted therapist while she guided us through a conversation in which I shared how it felt to not have my own mother “catch me” when I was 17 and needing help to get off of the drugs and alcohol that I had been involved in.
Her response was “I didn’t really think you were doing that stuff” and “I just believed in your goodness that you would get through it.” And I just feel like she was making excuses for being naive and careless.
But nonetheless it did feel good to say to her how much it hurt to be ignored by her in that time and to say directly to her that I needed her and she wasn’t there for me and that is why now I can’t trust her.
The reason she doesn’t trust me is that she thinks I’m lying about my father sexually abusing me in my childhood. So it was good to have that revealed and to finally name that black clowd that has been hovering over us for 13 years.
I feel sad that she doesn’t see me. But it felt good to say to her “you don’t see me”…and today I feel lighter because of it.
Now onto my taxes, and packing boxes, and going to my God mother’s house to learn to make spagetti sauce and nuckies (whatever that is …it is not “nookie” as you may think it reads….nuckies are some sort of little something made of potatoes and spinach…)
Attacked by my daughter’s ice cream
The day was going along great and then I made my daughter an ice cream cone. I forgot to use a different spoon after scooping her ice cream onto the cone and then used the same spoon to get my ice cream…well, before I had even finished eating my ice cream I could feel my stomack reacting to the miniscule wheat particles that had gone from the spoon to my bowl.
First came a wave of shakiness and when I felt my hands trembling I knew there was going to be trouble. Next came an irritablity and a snappiness and an impatience with my daughter. That’s when I definitely knew something was up because when I’m not “gluten-ized” I have the utmost patience for her.
Then came a fuzzy feeling in my pores and blood and then pressure in my sinues and a post-nasal drip. We went for a walk for fresh air but I felt groggy and tired, lethargic.
I came home and just dropped on the couch. I slept for an hour. After waking I feel better…but drained. And a bit annoyed that the day had to go like this.
It’s now 6 and I lost my afternoon all because of a damn little crumb!!
At this moment I hate this disease. I’ll get used to it. It’ll get better. But right now, I hate it.
And that’s all I’m going to say about that.
I was in a police chace but didn’t know it!
You’re never going to believe what happened to me the other day!
I woke up on Tuesday morning and went along as usual with breakfast and things and suddenly it occured to me that my therapy session was this morning so I call and leave a message for my counsellor saying I’m running late but on my way and I rush out the door.
Driving the speed limit, she lives about 15-20 minutes away from me. But since I was driving my husband’s Grand Prix that has major “umph!” I put the petal to the metal and practically flew there hoping to get there on time.
I took the back roads and some of these are back, back roads. There were no cars, no people, no animals in sight on this really long stretch of country road with nothing but trees, driveways and ditches. At one point I thought, “Wow, I’m going fast” and I looked down and saw I was going 120. I think it was a 60 zone. (Not good!)
I never do this sort of thing but I was just in this little happy space, singing some prayers I knew from childhood, imagining getting there nearly on time and how I could say “Oh, turns out I wasn’t that late after all.” I was in La La Land.
So, I turn onto her street and glance in the rearview mirror and to my surprise there is a police car with it’s lights flashing. Oh Crap, I think. Crap. I wonder how long he’s been there. I know I was driving fast. And I hope he’s going to say he didn’t see me going 120 down that back road.
The cop gets out and walks really slowly to the car. He’s checking out the plates, the wheels, and seems to be looking under the car — something is very different about this, I have the feeling, but I don’t know what.
I’m all set to hand him my licence and registration when he gets to the window but instead he says, “Step out of the car.” And I’m thinking, “Oh Crap…that’s not good.”
Now I’ve never, ever been pulled over by a cop before. And I’ve never ever been speeding the way I just had been. But from my experience, when you get pulled over for speeding they don’t ask you to step out of the car. Now my nerves are starting to shake and I’m thinking something is definitely up.
And the cop loses it! He starts yelling at me about how fast I was going in an area where kids are on their way to school and did I know that he had to drive 160 to catch up with me! (Me thinking: oh *^%*# He did see me going 120) And he is pissed. I mean pissed. He’s red in the face and has eyes bugging out. I”m so godsmacked I don’t know what to say. I’m just standing there, holding my license feeling like the biggest idiot on the planet.
I try to say things like, “I’m sorry” and I just know that it doesn’t matter to him that I”m sorry. But eventually he starts to calm down and I’m able to get a few words in but I intuitively know it’s not the time to say “I never do this, officer, it’s the first time…or I’ll never do it again.” He’s too pissed to hear anything…So I just keep saying, “I understand…I understand.”
Finally he asks for my licence and registration and I give it to him saying that I’m a mother and a teacher and I don’t usually drive like this. He asks me where I was going and I tell him to an appointment. He grunts and walks to his car to check out my licence.
As I sit there in the driver’s seat waiting for him to return I’m thinking: how did this happen? I can’t believe that I was singing along and all the while a cop is following me. He thought I was trying to outrun him. He thought I might have a gun. He thought I saw him and just kept on going. And I was surprised that my intuition didn’t warn me all that time and there was no little voice saying “look behind you”…and I was thinking, “why didn’t the voice say look behind you”….and I was hoping to God that he wasn’t going to fine me and take my car away for 3 months like he said he could for a person driving as fast as I was.
So then he comes back and he’s much, much calmer. He’s humble even. He tells me he’s glad to see that I have a clean driving record and I can see he believes me that I am usually a responsible driver who just made a mistake (The only thing my record would show is a parking ticket for $20 that I just paid last month). I tell him now that I don’t usually drive this fast, that I won’t ever again, and that I am sorry. He tells me that he doesn’t usually yell like that and that he is sorry too. He tells me sincerely that he thought there was a guy driving this car, and that when I didn’t stop that he was in “pursuit” and his adreniline got up and he was thinking about the confrontation and how he’d have to “take this guy down.” He told me that he was thinking about all that he had to lose, his family, his reputation, ….etc” He tells me he was really surprised to see a woman step out of the car. And I’m thinking, “Holy Crap!”
So he asks where my appointment is at and I point to the house (as I’m just 3 houses away) and that is it a counselling appointment “I’m under a lot of stress right now” I tell him bashfully. And he says that I am lucky and he is letting me go without penatly but that there is a note on my record now because he had to report it during the chase. (Me thinking: I still can’t believe I was in a police chase!”)
I say thank you. He says have a good day and hands me back my licence. I get in the car and go to my appointment.
The icing on the cake is that when I get to her house, I find the door is locked and realize that the appointment was not today it is tomorrow!!
So I go home and as I”m driving I”m thinking how life is so strange and what is the lesson in this for me…lots of lessons on lots of levels….here’s what I learned.
-It is not safe or legal to speed even when you think no one else in on the road anywhere
-The universe is watching me…as soon as I stepped close to the bounds of “breaking a law” the “enforcer” was there to remind me and put me back into line (good thing, really!)
-God has a sense of humour (I’m singing prayers…and meanwhile I’m in a police chase!)
-Reality is relative…and this one is the biggest….here’s the question, “Was it a police chase if I didn’t know I was participating?”
- For the officer, he experienced (apparently) the first chase of his career and as he was “chasing” me was probably mentally going through all the procedures and policies to follow (for example, he didn’t park behind me on the side of the road, he parked his car slanted in the middle of the road creating a barrier that I would not be able to escape from!)
- He went through the emotional experience of chasing someone and experienced the fear and adrenaline of that event…even though it had a happy ending without having to confront and “take someone down”
– I was chased by a police car for about 5 minutes but didn’t know until it was over that it had just happened…but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen…for the police officer it happened…for me, I participated even though I wasn’t aware…..
– But my intention was not to “run away from this officer”….but my actions where “keep driving fast even though an officer is chasing you!!”….so it was a chase even though that was not my intention and it not being my intention did not make it not happen!!!!
I actually love this story! I am going to use it in my coaching and in my teaching because I think it is very metaphysical and interesting and can give people something to really think about.
What do you think? Was it a car chase even though I didn’t know it?
The moral of the story is: Don’t pray while driving — it is a major distraction….and also…having a clean driving record and “usually” playing by the rules really will turn in your favour when you do make a big, big mistake.
