March 2nd 2017

Grief related PTSD in People suck. Cats are awesome. Dogs are alright.

•  March 2, 2017, 12:31 a.m.
 
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• Public

It occurs to me that this might “trigger” some people, so consider this a warning.

I’ve been sleep deprived for the past two days because I’m nocturnal, and I had to be awake all day for the Fed Ex and UPS guys to deliver stuff. And now that I’m finally able to really rest again, (until Saturday, anyway), I’m reminded of why I hate going to bed.

Sometimes I remember the dreams, but usually I don’t, because I take benadryl before  go to sleep; to help me go to sleep. Without it I just lay there and think, and I don’t get to sleep until I’m just completely exhausted. (And the things I think about are the endless litany of horrors that has been my life, and I can’t keep my eyes closed because it’s too awful, so I have to open them and look at whatever I happen to have playing on the big tablet that I sleep with for distraction.) I lay here and think about death. My dead relatives, my dead pets, the Male’s inevitable death, and my own. And the fact that I willl, in all likelihood, die absolutely alone.

Yeah, I know, technically everybody dies alone. But once the Male is gone there will be no one left who really knows or loves me. I’ll be sitting in my house, crying to myself, rigging my inert gas bag, with no one to call or anything.

With the benadryl, I still have nightmares, but I don’t remember them. I just wake up after three to five hours, feeling sad and alone and absolutely pointless. Fear is there too, dread; like I just had my heart ripped out and nobody gives a sh!t. The world is a meaningless, black void, and all I really want to do is die, but I still have the Male and the cats and now a dog; and I have a sense of obligation to them.

As much as I want to strangle him sometimes, the Male doesn’t have anybody else, either, and if I asphyxiated myself, he probably would too, and then there’d be nobody to take care of the animals.

On the other hand, if I did it while he’s still alive it would be less horrible, but damn me, I still have some principles.

When I’m completely awake, I distract myself with goals. All of the things that I want to do before I’m dead. And I question why buying neat crap and having a relatively cushy life don’t make me happy. Then I remember, of course. Because it’s all empty.

The whole point of selling my art, and getting published, and buying a house, and having a little business, and whatever else was to make my mother proud. A task that I now undestand is impossible. My work is going to be in the premier issue of a small time magazine. What did she say? “Oh, are you being paid?” And when I told her how little I’m getting, a disappointed “Oh”. 

Take everyone I ever knew out of the picture, aside from the husband, and my life becomes pointless. Maybe it’s easier for people who never had a family to begin with. For kids who are abandoned early on. But I thought I had one for a long time. Then my dad died, and the rest of my family stopped lying to me about how they felt. I was left out in the cold. Very literally.

So now I have nightmares, every time I go to sleep, of going back to places that I’ve lived, where I had family, and not being able to find anyone. Sometimes I’m running down the street yelling for people who are just gone. Sometimes I get to my parent’s old house, and the lighs are all off, and my mother is standing by the counter with a night light, telling me that there’s nothing for me there any more. Sometimes I’m alone with my father’s corpse in a huge, empty, dark room, trying desperately to get someone on the phone, but nobody has time for me.

And I always, always wake up feeling like I should just wrap a cord around my neck and get it over with. Sometimes I cry a little. Usually I tell myself, out loud, “coffee!”, like a cup of coffee, all nice and warm, will chase away the meainglessness for another twelve hours, and I’ll be okay a little longer. And to be fair, coffee is nice. But nothing ever fixes it, really.

I keep waiting for the legalized medical marijuana crap to get sorted out, here in Ohio. I’m pre-approved. Maybe that’ll help. I dunno.

And I could be talking to two of my relatives. And I did try, last year, after I got my diagnosis. But they’re Trump supporters, and I just can’t do it. I just can’t rationalize away the fact that they support an administration that has vowed to take away my healthcare. The ACA is the only reason that I was even able to get a diagnosis. And I can’t pretend like losing it is okay, for the sake of two people who can’t possibly “love” me anyway. If you “love” someone you don’t cheer when they lose their healthcare.

Now I’m having some cocoa and trying to find something else to think about again, for a while.

Edited to add, for any tiny foothold towards better understading that it might later provide me: My mother often tells me that she loves me, and that she’s proud of me; but that’s not good enough for me, because I KNOW that she doesn’t see me as whole, valid, person. She never has, and she never will.

What I need to hear from her is the truth, and I don’t think she’s capable of saying it. That although she loves me, no, I will never be as close to her or as easy for her to be around as my sister. That I have always been an exceptional burden. -

What bothers me the most is the continuous LIE. You don’t “love” someone, as she says she loves me, and deny them shelter or even a kind word when they’re literally freezing and starving. You don’t “love” someone and tell them that you never want to see them again.

I cannot wrap my brain around WHY she has to constantly feed me these obviously empty words.

Just own it, already. I deserve that.