What I Did For The Past Two Days Instead of Writing
Have you ever been in a stressful situation and held it together until the stressful pay was over?
Like, coming across someone who wasn't breathing but still had a pulse and doing CPR until they started breathing again or the ambulance showed up (whichever came first).
And when the emergency is over or being taken care of by others, when you ought to be able to breathe a sigh of relief, you can't because then you fall apart?
So that's exactly what's happened to me over the past few days.
You may know I've had an already stressed psyche from my suppressed past rearing it's ugly head, along with some physical health issues before then.
And you also may know already about the being torn from sleep in the middle of the night by the cops (again) to be told my son, who lives 1790 something miles away, had attempted suicide (again) and is in the hospital.
So... yeah... stressed!
I was able to speak very briefly with the ICU nurse who asked my kid if he wanted to talk to me, but he was too out of it. I later learned he was given a lot of Ativan. On top of whatever meds he ingested to overdose.
I was able to briefly text with him while he was on a gurney waiting for a room in the mental ward. He wasn't making a lot of sense, but at least I heard from him.
He doesn't remember either situation. He remembers getting dragged out of his house and getting his wrists stitched and that's about it.
He'd been out of the hospital for a few days before I texted his bio-mom to find out where he was. She told me he was out. Nice of her to text me.
So, I was finally able to talk to my son. I found out a bit more about his situation. He was getting kicked out of his bio-mom's house. Which is fine. I'm sure he doesn't feel fine about it. I'm sure he feels abandoned and unwanted. Still it's for the best. He doesn't need to be in that situation. At. All!
He'll be moving in with my eldest daughter. There he will feel welcome, wanted, and loved.
He doesn't want to move back to teeny tiny town where the average age of it's citizens in 70 something. And the population is only 2000. The entire county is only population 3000.
And we're an hour away from everything.
So.
I felt an immediate sense of relief. But then I fell apart.
Are you familiar with the 4Fs trauma responses?
Fight
Flight
Freeze
Fawn
I have experienced all 4 at one time or another. But the last few days have been a solid 3.
I was frozen.
I started an article but couldn't bring myself to finish it.
In the midst of my freeze response, I also did my typical number 2. No. I didn't go poop. I fled. I escaped into reading.
I'm on my 10th book in less than a week. I've been frozen in my chair, reading. Occasionally getting up to clean. To do dishes or sweep or do laundry.
But then it's right back to reading.
My trauma response has as much to do with me and my past as it does with my son and his present.
I've done my time on gurneys. in 4 point restraints, having my stomach pumped, getting my arm stitched up. I've done my time in hospitals and on mental wards.
The worst thing about mental hospitals in my country are that instead of giving you care, you get treated as if you've committed a crime. You get punished. You get spoken to exactly the same way you get spoken to in jail. Only, if you're in jail, the expectation is you did something wrong. If you're in hospital, the expectation is you are there for care.
And in the U.S. the stigma of mental illness is SO strong. So, not only are you feeling punished, are you treated like a failure, there is also a great deal of shame attached.
You aren't treated like someone who is sick, who had an illness. You are treated like someone who chose a chemical imbalance or chose to be traumatised.
Nobody teaches mental health hygiene. We barely get physical hygiene lessons in school. "Health" classes pretty much show pictures of smoker's lungs, and very briefly, go over reproduction, pregnancy, and STDs.
Those of us born with chemical imbalances or have early childhood trauma, including long lasting trauma, are thrown into a pool full of sharks and piranhas and told we have to sink or swim.
And if we can't do either, we get punished.
My son's depression and early childhood trauma left him with chemical imbalances (on top of the raging teenage hormones) that make his feelings, his emotions, so big he had nowhere to put them. But society has left him without the skills or wherewithal to figure it all out on his own. And society shames him for his inability.
I don't mean to take away his pain or diminish his situation at all. Unfortunately, his depression triggers my PTSD.
What have I done for the past two days instead of writing?
I've done fuck all. I've frozen and I've fled.
I hope to get back to it sooner than later. The "it" being productive. Earning a few dollars. Helping people to learn about blogging. Figuring out some prompts. Editing The Bad Influence.
Meanwhile, bare with me a bit longer. And thank you for all of your kind words and support.
We're all in this together and I appreciate you more than words can describe.
Image license free from Unsplash
Mental illness is always a tough thing for me to grasp and fully comprehend. But that is of course because I don't suffer it, and therefore have a hard time understanding it.
My life has given me perspective which I have always found useful and enlightening. I never see the worst moment as THE worst moment, and the older I get I also fully understand that things generally work themselves out—even when horrible things happen.
I live by a simple principle. "Even the WORST day is a GOOD day if I spend it above ground."
Life is short. It's tough. People in it can make OUR lives miserable. God knows some people made your own life miserable. But being alive is the greatest gift we can ever have, and of course, we only get one shot at it. There is NO second chance. NO second round. NO do overs.
So even as difficult as it can be sometimes you make the most of it. You accept the challenges and you move on. You find ways to build strength out of disaster. You tend to accept that some things in life, no matter how damned hard you try will NEVER be in your control. You just determine yourself to be MORE than what others and what life dishes out. You command to be in control of any happiness you can find, and solace you can muster, and you look for things that you CAN control and let those things consume you.
The past is the past. You can do nothing to change it. The future is yours and you CAN make each minute better than the last.
You can either choose to consume yourself with sorrow or you can say FUCK YOU and not let ANYONE or ANYTHING stand in the way of YOUR life. A life that is worthy. A life that is precious. A life that DESERVES to be lived and enjoyed. Every second, every minute, every day.
I realize, again, that might be easier said than done if the mind's wires are all screwed up.
In the case of your step-son, which is a very tragic and horrifying situation, I sure in the hell hope someone is looking beyond what he DID, and looking into what he is SEEKING. Because the only thing in someone's mind when they decide to end their life is an emptiness. A void. A cry to FILL it.
If no one looks to fill in what is missing, then the only conclusion is that ultimately he will succeed in ending trying to find it.