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.
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…)
Nerves, nervous, nerves, nervous – yikes
I’m doing this colonomy thing recommended by my wonderful and fantastic naturopath doctor. She suggested it about a month ago and in the first week I really screwed up because I was only supposed to do it every other day but I was doing it every day…and at the end of the week I even did it two times a day a couple times. Oops.
She was okay with that and I didn’t get chastized, she just said, “You’ve just put your body through an intense cleanse.” And I think I really needed to do that. I felt better that week than I had in years and years and years.
So now then I gave myself a break for a week or so doing it just once a week. My bowel movements became much more regular and that was great. It also helped to remove wheat from my diet and then I didn’t have such pain and discomfort after eating. I could see that my body certainly had a hard time digesting wheat.
The strange outcome of this process is the way my nervous system seems to have been re-awakened. When I become nervous now I can feel it all the way from the tip of my spine to the bottom and into my bowels. And when I feel that it reminds me of the way that my thoughts are thinking and my feelings are feeling and I feel more connected with my body than I have in a long time.
It’s a strange feeling and sometimes I feel like I want it to go away. When I’m constipated the sensation does go away but that is replace by cramping, pain and other discomforts.
This issue with D. has caused me so much physical stress and I realize that she has made me feel this way my whole life. I saw her photo today and had such mixed feelings. I felt anger, pain, love, hatred, fear, …and the feelings were very very strong. Mother-daughter relationships are one of the most intense, says my counsellor and when I saw that photo I could not agree more.
I feel like she is one of the most sneaky, manipulative, kaniving people that I know. She is shallow and a liar but you know I think she doesn’t even know …I think she even lies to herself. When I look at her it gives me the creeps.
But my health has created in me a new-found love for my own daughter and I’m not going to let the way that my mother treats me affect the way that I treat my daughter.
The violence stops here!
Uneventful day following a tulmultous one
Today was a great day. My god mother and god father came to our house early; hubby and gf fixed the brakes on the car while me and gm went shopping, made lunch, knitted — fun stuff.
On Friday I went to therapy and talked about how when I was 15 I felt abandoned by my mom when she left my dad and moved into a one bedroom apartment…and the counsellor told me that my mom’s perception of this event was that she gave me the “choice” and I “decided” to live with my dad and that she felt rejected and I’m still mulling that over in my mind thinking “you’ve got to be kidding me!”
But after talking about it I did feel calmer. My digestive system had been doing a lot better and I was really aware that whenever I thought about my mom, D, then this shockwave of nerves went through my body and I can feel how related to the bowels it is. I never knew until recently that there are so many nerve endings in the bowels and how responsive to nerves they are.
So I’m feeling sensations that have been all covered up and blocked for years because of constipation and wheat allergy and now that I’m healthier I’m feeling actual physcial feelings again. I don’t really remember feeling this since I was about 12.
Anyway, then yesterday D showed up at my house just “happened to be driving by” as we were all getting in the car. She stormed up to me without giving me eye contact and said, looking over at my daughter, “Can I say Hi” I said Yes and then finished packing the car and picked up something from inside. When I came back to the car D was right in my daughter’s face…and she had this mournful look on her face and then seeing that we were ready to go she just kissed her, said good by to her and then stormed away again.
Here’s what I would have liked to have said to her,
“D. You did this to yourself. Remember how you neglected me for 31 years of my life? Remember how when I let you visit my daughter you took her to see your abusive, alcoholic, sex-addict husband without telling me? Remember how I tried to work things out with you in a calm and mature manner yet you insisted on name-calling and vengeful rage? Remember how all I said is that when you want to see your grand-daughter I would prefer it to be in my house?…….”
“Remember how I am your relation too yet I am completely insignficant to you and you don’t even really care? Remember how you have not seen me my entire life because you have treated me as though I was invisible? Remember how I suffered for so long and you don’t even know who I am? Remember how I have become a teacher, a journalist, a mother, and have been alcohol free for 11 years? Remember all that?”
“Well…remember that and remember that you only have yourself to blame for the situation.”
And I would have liked to have said, “Never come on my property again!” But I dont’ say that because I care too much…but I tell you…just seeing her made me feel sick to my stomack – yuck!
She makes me sick, she does.
This flu that I have today makes me sick too…I have the feeling I’m going to be on the couch for the next few days. Boo!
