Want to hear something funny?
May 21, 2008I actually thought I was being hilarious, with that last entry. I thought that was a return to form. Hilarity was mine again! I'm back, baby! So imagine my surprise when the comments were in the "oh, honey" and "I am inappropriately hugging you in my mind" vein. I then read the post again, and, huh, well, yeah. I guess all that talk of doldrums and not being able to dress myself appropriately said more than I meant it to. Now I feel a little silly. Silly, and odd.
To those of you who are worried that I need to seek professional help, please be assured that I have an entire army of professional helpers at my beck and call. I seek the counsel of mental health-keepers more than I talk to my friends these days. And oh, I wish I were exaggerating.
I went to see one of them today, one of those medication-prescribing types, who declared that I am more depressed than I think I am, and menacingly waved her prescription pad at me. She, like the Internet, refused to be dazzled by my hot jokes and my jazz hands. Instead she wanted to know if I've been sleeping and eating, or just entertaining thoughts of suicide. Oh, therapist! Who has the energy for suicide? All I ask is to sleep for six months or twelve years or so. Is that so crazy?
I actually don't think I'm doing all that badly, for the most part, except when I'm doing so badly I can barely breathe. I can engage in chit-chat, and play with Henry. I can go to the store, and do store things! I go about my day and no one is the wiser. There's just this niggling pain roaming about my insides, is all, and at intervals that pain will reach an intolerable level, whereupon I retreat to the bathroom and cry for a little while, or else a long while. But usually the former. These crying retreats have become less frequent, so that's encouraging. Right?
Meanwhile, my professional helpers are telling me that my grief is "normal" but also that I'm depressed. I can't quite wrap my mind around this, because as we know depression is abnormal, and if this is normal, than it can't be depression. That's logic! Then again, I seem to be unable to think clearly, so maybe there's something I'm not getting or something they said that I forgot to listen to. Next time I should take notes. Or bring a translator. Or just stay home and mail them checks.
I don't think I'm depressed as much as I am emotionally unmoored. Is there a prescription to help that? I don't know what to do, or what I'm supposed to feel, or how I'm supposed to… hmm. I can't remember how I was going to finish that sentence. I'm a solution-minded kind of person, ready to read the book or take the course or do the work that will make things better, and there's no solution for this. And I'm more than a little dissatisfied with this state of affairs.
Reader Comments (126)
Anne Lamott, one of my favorite authors, says it better than I can when writes about grief:"Don't get me wrong: grief sucks; it really does. Unfortunately, though, avoiding it robs us of life, of the now, of a sense of living spirit. Mostly I have tried to avoid it by staying very busy, working too hard, trying to achieve as much as possible. You can often avoid the pain by trying to fix other people; shopping helps in a pinch, as does romantic obsession. Martyrdom can't be beat. While too much exercise works for many people, it doesn't for me, but I have found that a stack of magazines can be numbing and even mood altering. But the bad news is that whatever you use to keep the pain at bay robs you of the flecks and nuggets of gold that feeling grief will give you. A fixation can keep you nicely defined and give you the illusion that your life has not fallen apart. But since your life may indeed have fallen apart, the illusion won't hold up forever, and if you are lucky and brave, you will be willing to bear disillusion. You begin to cry and writhe and yell and then to keep on crying; and then, finally, grief ends up giving you the two best things: softness and illumination... I figured that eventually the plates of the earth would shift in side me, and I would feel a lessening of the pain...I kept starting to cry and then falling asleep. Sometimes grief looks like narcolepsy...In 'Song of Myself,' Whitman wrote: "Sometimes touching another person is more than I can bear."
I mean, I know this comment borders on ridiculous. I don't even know if you guys know each other (I recall seeing photos of you together at some point, but that doesn't mean you're friends! I know! I'm assuming things!) and if you are friends, reminding you to talk to her is rude and presumptuous and blah de blah.
I guess I just wanted to throw it out there, because I've been where you are right now, for the same reason. What you're describing, my God, I've definitely been there. And professional help definitely made a big difference for me, but the thing that meant the absolute most was talking to a good friend who had been there herself.
Having her to talk to was like having someone there to translate what everyone else was saying because I just couldn't be bothered to make sense of anything. And I know when you're in that fog of sadness, it can be hard to see that there is someone in your immediate circle who might be able to help.
And Heather just seems like she might be able to help, having been there as well.
Anyway, I'm sorry if this comment rubbed you the wrong way. Just keep it in mind.
I know that you will be ok, but I know that it's hard now. And I'm sorry for that.
I'm not a regular commenter, but I'm here, silently rooting for you and you family. It seems that quite a few of us are.
1) You were pregnant. Your body will take longer than your brain to figure out what the hell just happened. In addition to a very normal depressive episode following this loss, you have to deal with all your hormone levels freaking out and going haywire while you wait to return to normal biorhythms. It's a mini-case of PPD, but it will almost definitely begin to calm down a little as hormone levels return to baseline.
2) If you don't feel up to facing housework and house chores every day, it's time to call in the services of a good Cleaning Lady. Even if it's just once, for a good spring cleaning, having a clean house without having to do the back-breaking work of it yourself is an amazing way to help clear out the dark corners of your brain. The depression dust bunnies love to settle there; evicting those bitches is fabulous therapy.
Hang in there, and take long walks in the sunshine. That helped me, too.
Which makes it really enjoyable to read, which is the very weird thing about reading blogs, because how can I enjoy so much reading about your pain? It's one thing to be bummed when Billy Joel gets married and happy because he stops writing the really good heartbreak songs, but it's another thing altogether when the artist producing the pain-fueled Good Work is just another woman like you, not some distant millionaire dude.
Anyway, I hope you feel a little better every day, and I hope you continue to write just as great combos of funny and happy as you do funny and sad.
It was just all the more poignant for being so heartbreaking.
That will be $150 please.
I'm sorry you're so down, and I think all these people have tons and tons of good advice. As, probably, do your mental health professionals. If you want to see another stupid ass face, which might cheer you up, you can come visit the pear and watch a silent video I made called "crab of tides." It's like Prince of Tides, but not. And could take your mind off of the dust bunnies for like three whole minutes.
In other words, I'm thinking of you. Heart.
Go ahead and grieve as much as you need to, dear. Your state of mind sounds perfectly normal to me, given what you've just been through. I don't care what your team of specialists says. Just feel what you need to feel. Get the help that you need when you need it, from whomever seems most helpful.
I am sending you virtual hugs.
I'm so sorry about your baby.
I hope you are getting what you need and I support you and accept the place you are in.
Nurture Thyself!
I've been praying for you, too.
Myself, I like to wearily proclaim when I'm annoying myself with my torment: "Water, water everywhere. And all the boards did shrink. Water, water everywhere. And not a drop to drink."
I'm a real believer in better living through chemistry, so if you are still feeling this way months down the road, then it would be time to think about that. But for now don't judge yourself and just feel what you need to feel.
Best wishes.
Feel better, x