Yesterday was not a good day. I found myself isolating me from my mind all day. It didn’t matter what I was doing. The point was to keep my mind busy on some task, any task, to avoid thinking about the obvious.
And therein lies the problem. This is ALWAYS on my mind. I don’t care if I am talking to you, I am thinking of this horrible event in my life in some way as I am carrying on our conversation. I think of it as I watch TV, when I laugh, as I shower. It doesn’t matter what I am doing…it is always in the background playing like a horrible movie.
You have no idea how I dread some things unless you have “been there.” When I hear the school bus drop the kid next door in the afternoon, I visibly cringe. I know I do, because I caught myself doing it. I dread getting up in the morning, and laying down at night. I dread the darkness that falls in the evening, because that would normally be the time we would gather as a family and eat and then watch our favorite TV shows, or whatever else we had planned to do for the evening. So I have to make sure the lights are on, otherwise I drop into an even deeper depression.
Perhaps part of acceptance is just that, meaning accepting that your life is shit and probably always will be. That is what I have come to accept over the past few days. I am sure there are well-meaning people, including my grief therapist, who would say things like “You need to find what makes you happy,” or maybe some other logically good advice. Which brings me to another point…even my therapist said that nothing about this makes sense except that I am grieving. So logic is not helpful, as much as I would like for it to be.
These last few days, I waver between wishing I would lose my mind completely, or retreating into it with no feeling at all. I know both of these options are unhealthy and much more than that, but it would bring relief of my suffering. I would also welcome a quick and sudden death. You know, like a piano falling on my head. I just ask that it is final and I don’t live to suffer any more. I think I have suffered enough.
A positive outcome of all of this suffering, if there is one, is that I no longer fear death or much of anything else. There are things that would be unpleasant, but honestly, not to the sensory level that they may have before. I have nothing left to lose. Yes, I still have Shaun, but for a mother who has lost her child, even the romantic love of your life doesn’t compare. Once you have a child, that love is beyond all others. It would really suck to lose him too, don’t get me wrong, but that is the only way that I can describe what I feel.
Speaking of feeling, I am also pretty certain that my “emotional responses” are very rote at this point. For instance, I can’t stand by and watch someone who needs help. It’s a natural response for me to “feel the need” to help. But do I really feel it? I don’t think so, not anymore. While I may have been moved by emotion before, now I am moved more so by what is right and what is not right. That should be governed by our emotional centers as well as our minds, so perhaps I should be thankful that my body is responding to learned ideas. Otherwise I am not sure I would care what was going on with someone else. I would care, just not very deeply. This too is hard to explain.
Oh, how I wish that my focus could change! I wish that this had never happened, but since it did I wish that I could move on with some semblance of peace. It has been nearly 3 months if you count the actual weeks, and I do not feel one ounce better than I did on August 14. The only thing that is different is that I have learned how to outwardly manage it, for the most part. I still lose my shit here and there, but most of the time if you see me you will see what appears to be composure. I have no inner peace and have lost hope that there will ever be any. What a crappy future to look forward to. I wish the world would hurry up and end, because mine has. It’s just not fair that I have to endure this. And for the rest of you out there enduring, it’s not fair for you either. How do you do it? That is a serious question. I suspect a large number of you will say Prozac or something. I am not judging you, but that is not for me. I wish I could take that leap, but I would sooner OD on a bottle of pain killers. I want to feel like me and feel good. Why is that too much to ask? Oh, because Me is now dead and gone. She died with Erin. I don’t know who this new person is but it sucks being her.
I also wish that I could write something helpful. Something other than letting my misery out on paper. Someone told me recently that I was also helping them, and I’m glad about that. But my daily dose of misery isn’t making me feel any better and I am sure it’s not all that helpful. It’s just that it’s all that will come out.
This afternoon I am taking Erin’s iPhone to a high school friend so that she can help try to get the data off. I had asked Erin to change the password months ago, and then I never asked her for it. Wish me luck on that. I really wanted to see it intact, and get a glimpse of her world without it being wiped. Had I only known, I would have done a lot of things including getting that password.
