Living As All of Me

[HannahOne]

Thank you TheBibBlue, SanMagic7, NarcKiddo, Chart.  This is so hard and also I feel so supported.

NarcKiddo, I hate my plans being scuppered! This made me smile. I was able to do therapy virtually which is good. Came home and slept. Kids home but---each is now making their own snack. I am listening to "tink tink" and "click clack" from the kitchen. A peaceful sound. They know how to cook, there's plenty of food in the house, yummy things I didn't have access to. They know what Tzatziki is. The house is a bit of a mess but it's fine. Frank reclines amidst the recycling to go out tonight. I see he has tasted several of the cracker boxes.

TheBigBlue I had to laugh because you'r right, wolves do better! They keep the young wolf within the pack and share the kill.

Chart, What you wrote "Isolation is indistinguishable from abandonment to a child. And abandonment is death." really hit home for me. I am lying in bed after therapy and my teeth are chattering. I think it's a relaxation of long held tension against speaking. I am speaking in a new way from a new part of me. I am undoing isolation.

I have been listening to a song, maybe it's silly. It's a love song, but I'm singing it to me. Madison Malone singing Aerosmith. I was stunned just now when I looked it up to post. I had never seen the video. She is singing not to a lover but to her child. And that's how I was hearing it. To my younger self. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1299NPXPeM

I feel bleary and depleted. But not horrible. Just weakened. I can't tolerate feeling weak---I couldn't tolerate it, I always pushed through. I am tolerating it. Sinking into my flannel sheets. Listening to the kids keeping normal life going, as a child would listen to parents sleepily through the door. I am certain not one recycle box will go out, I am not deluded But they are making their own snack and that's enough, that's fine, they are settling in after school to their routine, they are peaceful, settling into their homework, the couch, resting too. They know how to rest. I am learning.

[sanmagic7]

hannah1, congrats to you for allowing yourself to feel weak, for learning how to rest.  2 things so many of us weren't taught, didn't learn, weren't allowed.  shame, guilt, humiliation - so much bad was heaped upon us    for not being strong all the time.  those are bricks of expectation to always do, do, do.  i'm so glad to hear you were able to sing a love song to your little hannah.  it brought the sweetest picture to my mind.   

and very glad your family can take care of themselves for this bit - that's the best!  keep taking care of you, ok?  you deserve it.  love and hugs

[HannahOne]

Thank you, SanMagic. I'm getting lots of practice LOL. Still sick.

When I get overwhelmed with caretaking I just go to my room and rest. No one seems to mind, they carry on their activities.

I feel so vulnerable when sick. I imagine Mr. Frank must feel that way too. He hides his illness. You can only tell because he doesn't flop stretched out when he's sick, he sits only in a "loaf" with his feet tucked under him and you can see a little tension in his cheeks. So maybe it's just a mammalian nervous system to feel scared that I'm not 100%.

[HannahOne]

Working on grief.

A year ago I unintentionally revealed a trauma to my therapist, somehow I thought she knew, and so I said something rather awful, with zero preparation. she was a little shocked although she tried not to show it. I was really upset. I was upset that I hadn't known what she knew, that I had been a bearer of bad news. I felt that I had hurt or betrayed her.

Of course, she is not my mother.

I brought her a few flowers in a little glass as an apology. She took it. The glass has remained in her office.

"Grief is only love that has no place to go."

Age 5, showing my dad a drawing. He doesn't look. A little glass in hand. A secret. "It would kill your mother." I won't tell.

"Grief is only love that has nowhere to go."

What to do when you can't use words? I spent the next day bicycling my tricycle a few doors down to a vacant lot. Picked flowers, dandelions, thistle, Queen Anne's lace, filled my basket, tricycled them back home. Piled them on the driveway. How many trips? The pile of flowers, erm, weeds, was as tall as my head as I recall. The flowers filled two trash bags. I know because when I called my mother out to see my "surprise," she stuffed them into trash bags immediately.

Grief is only love that has nowhere to go.

This week I realized that little glass is a shot glass.

This week I realized I didn't need to bring my therapist flowers. She's not betrayed that I know what I know, not hurt that I feel what I feel.

Still don't know what to do with the two trash bags of love. Or the empty glass.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0n952KsQg6M

[Marcine]

HannahOne, a reflection of your words, offered with respect:

A shot glass.
Keep the poisoned secret.
Secrets.
Tricycle.
Little you.
Piles of picked flowers in the driveway.
No surprise, they got stuffed right into garbage bags.
Not your fault.
Never was.
Truth.
Grief.

[NarcKiddo]

Still don't know what to do with the two trash bags of love.

I have no words.

 

[TheBigBlue]

 

[sanmagic7]

hannah1, i don't know of much more awful than having a gift of love from a child trashed. as said above, no words. the idea of burdening a child w/ a secret between parents is also awful - i've had that experience, and i caved in 3 days.  thought i was doing the right thing by being honest, turns out i got punished. i still don't know how to hold secrets that can be hurtful, that are full of poison, as marcine said.  those kinds of experiences can break a child, cause them to question their decisions for the rest of their life.  who to be true to when even being true to yourself brings pain.  my heart is with you.  love and hugs