pitmom said...
nate, yes, I feel loss. It was worse than I had anticipated. It's more than just 'not working', not earning a paycheck. It's the loss of human contact, which I combat with coming here and to another support site. It's the loss of schedule, which I combat by having the dog. It's the loss of accomplishment, which I combat with my garden regardless of season.
I feel anger. That my 'plan' for my life was side tracked. That some people look at me as though I were a 'leech' on society. My disability is not 'visable'. Most of my scars get covered by clothing. But, I get angry about them. I get angry with my limitations. I get angry with the lawyers and the insurance companies, etc. I get angry with the doctors that treat me like a 'drug seeker'.
It's what to do with that anger? If I internalize it, I get depressed. If I don't direct it properly, it damages relationships. I've learned that I have a choice about it. I direct it into cleaning. My house is never so clean as when I am pissed off about something!
I'm bigger than my pain. Bigger than my limitations. I can become very creative when I must find a way to get something done when there seems no way.
For me, it's all about the choices I DO have. I did not choose to have injuries. I did not get to choose my surgeons. I did not get to choose which type of surgery to have. I can, however, choose whether or not to get dressed today. Whether or not to leave the house today. (I'm choosing to stay in because it is bitter cold out!) I can choose to shower or not. To eat or not. To watch tv or sleep or post. I can choose to let go of the anger, if only for a moment. I can choose to focus on what I Have and not what I have lost.
It's all there, for sure. Just how much attention I pay to it is up to me.
Thank you Pitmom, you understand what I was bringing up. I too find some ways to combat my feeling of loss every day, but I was wondering about
the feeling that still keeps surfacing, no matter how much you do the best you can.
I've gone through my entire life not feeling bigger than my pain, because as a child, I had no power to decide what I would or would not be put through. Parents and doctors constantly told me that it was 'to help me', but every procedure only led to more complications, and it was all so much more humiliating and painful than helpful, and it did terrible prolonged damage to my sense of self, something that, as my parents finally told me, no-one took the time to think through. It was a case of the costs being way, way more than the benefits (yes, even more than the benefit of survival).
Now I am at the age where I can take control, but I've felt so powerless for so long that it's very difficult. Also, as you pointed out, the loss of human interaction can be devastating. In early elementary school, I was teased by both other kids and by adults for being small, jaundiced, and weak, and what it led to was me cutting myself off from peers entirely until late high school. I had a couple of good years after that, but then the pain and bodily troubles began all over again, so I feel I never went through the usual developments that a young person does, and now I'm trying to claw my way back to some measure of health all over again.
At what point, when do you get to say "enough of this!"