down the rabbit hole
i don’t really want to write. why’s that? it a story about how getting a few ducks in row, and how just few incidences can send me scurrying down the rabbit hole. it’s a story i have to tell because i need to get it out of me. kept inside of me, it’ll just fester and get even more ugly. even though i will feel shame telling the story, at least it will be out. i also hope that someone else will read it and benefit from it.
those of you who read my last post, know that my wife has 1x1x2 mass near her knee. think of about 1/3 of a length a regular size plump hot dog. she got the results of the mri less than three days ago. it had scary words like suspicious and liposarcoma, sarcoma meaning cancer.
mri can only look for typical patterns. just because a pattern matches doesn’t mean it “matches”. For instance, i could give you one of 100 cards with shades of green. just because i gave you one of the cards, doesn’t make it a certainty that I gave you the true green. they all look green, but there’s only one true green.
just because Mary’s mass looks like a liposarcoma doesn’t mean it is. if may be green, but not the true green. it still is very possible that even though it looks like a liposarcoma doesn’t make it liposarcoma. mri are still too imprecise.
the next day, we took as a day of distraction. we went for a sunrise hike on a local trail, went to a movies in the afternoon and took advantage of coupon our real estate friend gave us and went to dinner. We had a pretty good day, having a good and fun time at each undertaking.
then, came the next day. i came face to face with my nemesises fear, doubt, uncertainty, sadness, disappointment, just to name a few. yesterday, they kicked my ass. that started a tailspin.
the tail spin continued in a weird way.
i was passing on some math riddles to a friend with a degree in mathematics. I passed the on for fun and entertainment. my friend felt lest than because they couldn’t figure out the riddles. I didn’t like that what I did troubled my friend. i quicker felt less that myself, feeling responsible for my friends struggle. all too quicker, i called myself a “loser”. it seemed like a huge leap but pointed to inherent instability.
and who would of thought things would get worse…
taking my nightly med, i stared down the openings of a vial to one of my meds. knowing the fatal dose, i made note that there wasn’t enough there.
nothing like that for a wake up call. not, but a week ago, things weren’t perfect but nowhere near unbearable. last night i contemplated my life.
that’s a precipitous fall in a very short time, in just a day, really. It also served as a wakeup called. It was face these feelings, no matter how scary or face the alternative of them controlling me.
I spent a lot of time conversing with friends, and getting real with myself. i gave name too the scary feelings. i talked about them. i talk about my precipitous fall. i talked about where I didn’t want to be. that day sucked but far less that the previous day’s suck.
sure, i still feel fear, doubt, uncertainty, sadness, disappointment, and the anguish of waiting. now, i choose to look them in the eye and not run from them. thankfully and for reasons not completely understandable to me, that process robs them of their power.
please remember my relearned lesson that i’ve had to relearn over and over again: running for emotions makes no sense. escaping from them is an i possibility. stop, and look those scary emotions in their eyes. they are likely to flinch before you do.
in the short term, i’m having some interpersonal problems. a co-facilitator, someone i could trust, had three violations of my trust in one day. you might try to say well, it was just one day it’s okay;. it’s no biggie. it’ll blow over. don’t. they were totally uncalled for and hurtful. in an tempt to practice fairness, i got waylaid, bushwhacked, cut off at the pass, tanya harding-ed. i really want to resolve this, like by tomorrow. tomorrow is our meeting. i don’t want to go to the meeting where i’ll let here get away with some half-ass contrition that leaves me unresolved. i don’t want to go because it’s would scream there’s something wrong and i fear she may try to rush in to fix it with some half-ass contrition that will leave me feeling unresolved. i want more than an admission of wrong, i want an apology for the wrongs done, for the hurts the events have caused.
i have a support group that go to every second wednesday. today happens to be that day. i really want to go to the meeting to get support for were i am at. on the other hand, it’s my birthday; i can miss a day. on top of that, to top it off, there’s uncertainty of what Mary has planned for the day. normally, that wouldn’t be a problem if i were in a healthy state or even a depressed state. just finding myself in what feels like a transition state, takes this one tiny happening and adds it to the fires of uncertainty. i still can’t tell you what i want or will to do with this evening.
facing off with the big d 