I think I understand what you mean, Hops. No matter how many words... LOL... you might forget: I'm the verbose one. Instead of anger at myself first, more often, I set up a spiral into a crisis of self-confidence; practically an existential crisis. Then the anger at self, sets in. That fear we spoke of... to me relates to a fear that I'm just so messed up; damaged so completely (despite all the work to the contrary) - that I've become an untethered soul desperately in search of.... something... to anchor it and give it meaning and purpose. Sort of the "need to be needed" thing.
When I'm centered in my head all the time (because of that fear) - that logic/rationality center - I tend to intentionally (try to) tune out all the emotional stuff going on, that is certainly valid proof of my existence (ie, a lot of times it hurts) and I think after a time, all that emotion builds up into a small, second "being" or manifestation of me. It has it's own voice. My emotional being is like a tornado of shit; a shitstorm that I hide from everyone (it's embarrassing; and I've been told many ways that's it's also immature and somehow not appropriate for an experienced, educated person, and no one wants to be around that storm - they don't want to get any on them). It's raw, primal & unmodulated. When I am able to shift my attention-center out of my head toward the emotions, I feel the primal force of them... the being swept away by the whirlwind... see: fear above. It's hard for me to look at emotion from the "outside" to try to perceive it from somewhere other than being the helpless one at the center of the storm, at the mercy of the emotions.
Only thing I got in the toolbox right now, is to name the emotion and acknowledge it without getting sucked into it. That does work, but we're humans and we forget; get caught up in the moment; get carried away. I tend to not have much compassion for myself under those circumstances. The perfectionism thing; only this time... instead of the "not good enough" associated with Mom; it's a "don't ever give up, my kid isn't going to ever turn tail & run" associated with my Dad. The redneck, viking, good old scotch-irish appalachian genes that are famous for primal emotional outbursts. LOL. Slight conflict there.
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So, a friend suggested I work on heart chi gong. Even go so far, as to have acupuncture along with it for awhile. One, is something that I would do for myself... and the other is trusting the doc enough to do things that may help me smooth out the emotional storms. WTH? I've tried everything else so far - and if I don't see some results after giving it a fair shot - what have I lost?
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In April, Mike & I would've been together 17 years. I have FINALLY gotten the stuff that has been taking up space in the house; never used - just sitting there, because it a) old or b) cool or c) might do that "someday" - stuff that neither of us even remembered we had - GONE. And I may be able to fit the latest of his collecting obsessions into the space remaining open (and have no problem reducing the amount of that either) while still leaving me some (more) space for my stuff.
In the process, yesterday, I found letters I'd written him back then. Including a hand-written one, that explained "me" to him as accurately as if I'd written it after therapy or today. I was kinda afraid to read them, for fear of waves of emotion. Which didn't really happen. What hit me instead, was that years before therapy; years before I went through life-experiences that triggered the old fears associated with the traumatic shit-storm I survived at 12 - I already had myself pretty well pegged. Now, that was a gift of sorts. Continuity. Maybe, essence?
If I look along a timeline of my life, it's as if on some kind of cycle... I have one of these massive confidence crises, and being just slightly perfectionistic and self-critical (LOL)... I typically start picking on myself; picking myself apart for a thorough navel gazing tune-up because the problem SURELY lies with me. It HAS to be my fault; I'm not doing it right; I'm not working at it hard enough; I'm giving up and letting emotions just wash me away. And I even have all the physical stress symptoms of going through one of those trauma-reminders. Different triggers, each time...
... and this time, was Michael dying. For 2 months, I've been trying really, really hard to blame myself for this. I got close to making it stick, last week. Except it simply can't be true. I didn't make him sick; I did my BEST to get him healthy; to try to get him to go to a doc; he'd had a severe case of pneumonia and had just returned to work, right before the spark got lit between us. I think he knew he was sick - and something a nap wouldn't cure - long before we even moved here. A guy friend suggested that he pretended there was nothing wrong, to try to spare me the worry. I can't live in fairy tales. As ugly as the truth is sometimes, I would much rather deal with that. I need to deal with truth instead.
I think we both knew, that first 12 hr ordeal that separated us at the ER. It was a dark & stormy night... literally. We were both exhausted; I'd had little to eat - he'd had nothing at all; and because of all the tests would only eat 2 days out of the next week. The ER doc insisted on transferring him by ambulance that very moment and I knew I had to go home and try to sleep. I didn't sleep much. The 3 hr round trip to the big city hospital didn't help much and he said from that evening on, he just felt so alone. Even after coming home and being surrounded by us - his daughter & grandbabies, his brother; me.
NONE of the docs would call it like it was. Instead, they kept throwing out this hope and then that - while putting him through tests & biopsies where he couldn't eat or drink, thus accellerating the cahexia - weight loss syndrome - he was going through. Each and every possible treatment he was referred to, he was subsequently disqualified for, mostly because of the weight loss... and yet, you'd think I'd mentioned lawyers and malpractice and press releases... when I tried to bring up the topic of dealing with impending death or the % of weight loss over a short period of time.
I don't know if it would've helped to have everyone on the same page dealing with the truth; maybe some. That guy friend I mentioned above had just retired from 30+ years as a GP, and was a military doc before that. He let me talk a lot of that reality out. And he didn't mince words or try to put a pretty bow on the situation. He pretty much called it accurately, just from what I was able to describe to him. What that let me do, was pre-grieve a bit. Start to emotionally accept the inevitability of the reality and manage the uncertainty -- so I didn't get blindsided by that emotional tornado, by letting myself cling to the false hope from the docs. (I have compassion for them, amazingly enough - there literally wasn't anything they could do; they themselves are affected by so many patients they see at this stage every day; and there wasn't any point in trying to shake Mike out of his denial, for them.) At the same time, there was a serious disconnect between them and me - the primary caregiver and what I needed; I was a patient too, in a way. There was a lot of difference between the big-city docs and how I was treated by them - and the locals.
And Mike was different after that first ER trip; he never really came back. Just ambled on down his path of departure and everything he wanted, I couldn't give him - like a simple drink of water, because of the reality of aspiration. He'd lost so much muscle, that he couldn't swallow correctly. Talk about a conflict: denying him the simple comfort of an ounce of water... because to give it to him, would only up the probability and date with death. And being as it was pretty clear to me, the inevitability, why deny him? I denied him out of selfish reasons. I couldn't help him just let go. I didn't want to let go.
Our relationship was like the fairy-tales and something I consider myself very fortunate to have had in my life, it was real right up to the end. Even his "stuff" - he was trying to teach me how to play; have fun sometimes. He was exactly the right kind of opposite to counter my fear of being swept away (nothing bad ever happened from being swept into the relationship) and to let me explore what love really is, in the simplest terms. And when we love, no two ways around it, a person becomes dependent within that relationship; we just call that trust in that situation. Taking turns, caring for the other. He's the one who told me, boundaries should be like fences: they have gates in them. We invite some people in through the gate. So, to try to blame myself for something I didn't do... because we had the opportunity to balance each other for a good 15-16 years... is just bullshit. It is so not fair - to him, to me, to us.
And I want that particular mental tic, emotional reflex... permanently, surgically, removed. Human or not, it needs an exorcism.
And compassion might be the only way to accomplish that.
