Vent
I’m writing today, not to inspire with the uplifting objective to overcome my woes, but to vent on my emotional state that’s often hard to put into words. My mother has been in the hospital for about a week. She’s frail with dementia and Alzheimer’s and her body is wanting to give up. And my major depressive disorder isn’t helping.
Maybe in an empathetic way, I’m feeling physical sympathy for her; or maybe it is just me subconsciously wanting to give up also. I’ve been dealing with pain for a while. And I’ve been struggling to want to be better. Mental health issues are thick in my family. I’ve been wanting to be more active, but my weakness is riddled with booby traps. I get up and try something – then there’s severe anxiety and pain and frailty that tells me to sit back down. I overcome it sometimes then there is conversion disorder. I go into a dizzy spell with vertigo or I start to feel as if my back is being split in two. Sometimes times I feel it in my gut with ulcers and gallstones. I’ve been grinding my teeth to the point where they have broken or wore down. I then realize the state my mother is in.
Seeing her in the hospital is very difficult. But not as difficult as her stubbornness. She’s an old goat and as long as she’s got her wits about her, she’s still got some fight in her. I think she will pull through.
A Little History
Before dementia and Alzheimer’s took hold of my mom, her mental health concern was bipolar disorder and a touch of schizophrenia. Both undiagnosed. She too had vertigo and profuse amounts of fear. She had a fear of water, heights, bridges and was even afraid of living her life. Except when she was manic. At times she was manic, she was fearless and unapologetic. Especially financially. She had some crazy purchases. But during these times, she was fun to be around.
In spite of my mother’s fears, I lived my life facing hers and my own. Carelessly and without regard for stability. That is both literal and figurative. In a way, I disregarded the signs of security as a means to control the limits of humanity. I say control based on the statistics of others in similar circumstances. As I would sometimes have to learn the hard way. And for the most part, it has been blind faith that has gotten me this far. It’s been a journey. More on that here.
After experience, comes regret when I’ve made poor choices. Turns out, that has caused the symptoms of “coulda, shoulda, woulda”, “if I hadda done this, then I would have had that..” or something else like that.
You Can Quote Me
It’s a bizarre feeling knowing we are born alone and die alone, but expected to live for others.
– Yes, I said that.
Faith
My faith in God is unshakable. I know God is real. I know God is Just. But one thing that I question God about is “His Plan”. That… That… I don’t have much faith in. But I trust it anyway. I often times question why I do, but I just do.
I may be sitting my life away in my recliner, sulking and basking in my own filth, depressed like a flat tire, anxious like a telephone ringing off-the-hook, in a time of constant evolution in technology and within a society of unrest and uncertainty, but I feel like this is what I’m supposed to be doing right now.
If you haven’t been following along, I’ve loved, hard. When I was young, I got married, had a baby and joined the military. I went to college. Had another baby, then another by someone else during a separation. Was divorced. I moved away. I flipped a motorcycle. I have traveled.. I have children. I’ve had several intimate relationships. I’ve published music. I’ve started my own online business. And yet… I have not found the place where God wants me… but I believe that in this recliner is where I am supposed to be. Of course, that may be pain and comfort telling me these things.
What Is Love?
I’ve been injured. In fact, I have mishandled this meat bag that is my body and nothing else about my being wants more from this Earth. Except love. And that is ever elusive. It is said that real love is not an emotion. It is something you do. I call bullshit. Because real love should not be subjective to something you do. As real love is unconditional. Expressing that to others without words is a difficult task if the feeling that often goes with it is absent. Sharing and enjoying time together, I suppose, is the value of love. For more on my thoughts of love, click here.
Faith in the Lord above. Faith that it will all work out in the end, or faith that it will get better. Faith in the unknown. Faith in others and faith in ourselves is what allows us to endure and keep enduring. It is this to me, that keeps my own mental disorders from taking control.
May our faiths remain strong and our will to carry on in this world be of iron. And please keep my mom in your prayers. As I will pray for you. Thanks for reading.
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