I recalled some things but set them aside. However I think I can put them together now, Bear with me and Please feel free to agree or disagree with this scenario.
From childhood to age 30 was ‘my withdrawal from life’ because of physical and emotional abuse, my parents and my siblings, except for my brother---wait for more on him. You will know what I mean but then, as my therapist said, the car accident had to be the worst trauma of my life . Age 30
First off, only family was allowed in to see me. My dad came and my eldest sister, then my second eldest sister. She cried when she saw the mess my hair was. I was in bad shape. Then I was moved to another room after 6 days of choosing between life or death and heaven or hell. Then my boss came to see me. I became very angry at his imposition into my ‘only family visitors’ life. I felt that was like ‘breaking and entering’. I have held bad feelings for him to this day. (He is the one that called to tell my about my daughter, and I told him to stop.) I missed my daughter and had no idea what was happening with her, let alone me. I didn’t cry and I didn’t show any anger. I lay there and picked the scabs from my arms and face. I was having passive therapy that caused me so much pain Then my second eldest sister’s minister came in and I felt an imposition again. Then I was moved to another room, and my lawyer’s ‘runabout’ came to see me. This is where the outsiders were allowed. Then more friends, one with a 12” TV to keep until I came home. My boss kept coming every Tuesday and Saturday and sent flowers every Friday. He was ‘making me beholden’ to him. I was angrier. He said my job was there for me no matter how long it took for me to recover. --oh Lordy--very nice but what do I owe him now? Then I had an infection in the long scar on my back and was moved to a private room. The family was dropping off at this time, and a few friends came. All the while I was writing to my younger sister who had taken my daughter. She had not yet come to see me, and bring my daughter. My brother never came to see me. He did, however, provide the storage space for all my furniture and things. My mother didn’t come for 2 weeks.
I really think at this time I was ‘choosing’ who to hate and who not to. The worst was my boss. I had all that therapy and was moved into another room, as I know from there I went to the hospital gym for exercising. One exercise was to sit on a wooden stool. I had no balance. The therapist would shove me to the left and I had to correct the fall and right myself. Then she would shove me to the right and I had to right myself. She would do this with one finger poking. Then she would poke me in the back and I had to stop myself from falling forward. Then she would poke me in the front and I had to stop from falling backward. I HATED her with a Passion!!!!! Poke poke poke poke If I could have stood up and turned around I would have slugged her one! I was so helpless.
After 3 months I went to a Rehab Hospital and had to dress every day and gym every day and other things but this was like a “home for all us angry people who never showed it, and just smoked and drank and hid our pain”.--- and Mike and Carole attempted suicide.
I had visitors still and my brother came, finally. Brought his dog and played outside. I was not mothering my daughter. I was angry because my sister brought her only once, but now I had her caregiver (the other one I told to stop feeding me stuff that I already knew) take her in, same town as my parents and between the two of them, I had a 2 hour visit, roughly every two weeks. I was still not mothering my child..
I expect that by now, even though there is so much more, you can realize the anger that I suppressed, because I was helpless and I needed what I could get. I hated being catheterized/leg bag and have my uncle feel my leg ”to see how much muscle tone I had lost” when I figure he was feeling for the leg bag! Was rid of that after 7 months.
I was a person who seemed to just take it and never show anger.. Maybe others thought I was some kind of saint but I wasn’t. I was angry. Maybe many people ‘felt’ my anger? Is this why certain ones ‘stayed away“ afterward? Maybe they were only watching their own boundaries when I had none. .I might have felt guilt about being angry because somehow I failed myself and my daughter? I gather my family was not meeting my needs, and I was left to battle the disability all alone, and repress the anger.
I recall a time in winter when my daughter was out shoveling the snow. It was SO COLD! I called my brother, said “Hi Whatchupto?” and he was home with the children, watching TV, while his wife was at Bingo or something. I said--I ordered, “Well you get your ass down here and help your niece shovel the patio.” (The snow was so deep and she might have been 11?) I looked after his kids inside. Can you understand how totally useless I felt and how angry I was at myself and how awful I felt for my daughter to have me as a mother?
I felt no one listened to me. Daughter wanted a puppy and we got Kintu. He was a wild little thing. I housebroke him and still have a scar on my arm from when his teeth grabbed my arm instead of the ‘tribble’ toy he loved. Daughter would go for a run before going to bed and take him on the leash. I told to keep his leash on, as if he ever got away in the dark…………… She took his leash off and he was killed by a car.. I cried.
We got another puppy, Jedi, and I housebroke him. (I would grab the little fellers by the tummy, put them on my lap and wheel them out the door, every hour, and sit there until they did their business then I would pick them up and wheel them back in on my lap. One day, Jedi scared the hell out of me cause he jumped straight up on my lap. I realized that that was the ‘foreplay’ to getting ride outside---that’s hoot!)
The boss took him for some reason--I was at home-- can’t remember, but I told him to leave his leash on. He took it off and Jedi has ‘fun with a skunk’ just outside my door. I grabbed 2 tins of V8 juice and handed them to him and said “Take him and bathe him at your house. I don’t want that mess in my bathroom and keep him there until he is dry” When he was dry, boss calls and I reminded him about the leash. No leash on him, again, and another encounter with a skunk. I just shook my head re the stupidity, and was it his or mine. He went to the store for tomato juice and bathed him in my bathroom and totally cleaned it after ward. Why don’t people listen? So I’m still angry useless annoyed and yet in the right company will tell these stories in a humorous way, forgetting the anger.
Now daughter had a boy friend and was gone a lot in the evenings and I couldn’t take him for a walk as every street from my house went UP--even if they went DOWN, I would have to do UP on the way back. I asked if she would please be more available for him and one day he wasn’t there. I didn’t know what happened, so I asked her where Jedi was. She said, “I gave him away--put an ad in the paper and gave him away.” I was sick! But never said anything. I couldn’t believe it! And I cried.
Maybe I feel ‘crazy’ from anger, uselessness, responsibilities, missing people, then daughter meets an N
Do you know that the N I met was fascinated with the wheelchair and it never bothered him any place we went. My disability didn't prevent our haveing a complete relationship and he loved that I was so willing to try new things, that I had a sense of humour and that I took all setbacks so well.----OOps that wasn't the N that was the facade, the puff of smoke.
The N really expected if I tried hard enough I could walk again, would yell with anger when the chair rattled in the back seat, always put thiings like 5-6 computers on the floor in my way. I would carry them to the head of the stairs and he would just leave them, jump over them and the pile just got bigger. more crap than that.
I don’t feel that anger anymore. I am alone and no one bugs me. I do what needs to be done.
Yep! I am content to live alone with no pets..
Oh yes. None of my family was available to take me home when I was released, so who does it????? The boss. After daughter was settled in new apartment and in bed and sleeping, he wanted sex. I said no. He Said
“It used to be that you could have any man you want, and now you can’t, but I want you”
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