"Point your feet in the direction you want to go, and make sure that your toes are the last thing to leave the ground." My son tried to coach me on how to walk.
Walking sounds so easy. I certainly never anticipated having any trouble walking.
Ironically, the difficulty came after surgery to repair the bone structure in my feet. I'd known that they had problems since the bunions appeared while my age was still in single digits. My big toes turned sharply toward the other toes. My big toe toenail ended up almost dead center of the foot, and the bone in the joint jutted outward in the opposite direction. The other toes were crowded. On my left foot, the big toe actually overlapped the other toes. Plus, it was turned at a 45 degree angle, with the side of the toe facing downward, and the nail facing the other toes.
Naturally, it was hard to find shoes that were wide enough. Having anything even a little tight across the bunions caused sharp pain through the whole foot, getting worse as time passed. Sandal straps were the worst offenders. I could only wear sandals if the knob of bone jutted out between the straps. High heels were horrific.
I never really understood it when people would insist that you should balance on the balls of your feet, because I couldn't. I assumed that it was just bad balance, because if I tried, I did not become stable, I became wobbly and unstable. I couldn't tiptoe more than a few steps, either. Still, I was never going to be an athlete or a dancer, so I didn't think too much about it. Some people are awkward.
I remember asking, as a child, why we had these big, long feet anyway, because the entire front half seemed like a waste. I was assured that without the front half of the foot, humans couldn't walk or balance, but that made no sense to me. I wasn't using mine, and I was walking upright. ("Of course you're using it!" people said.)
My perception was further complicated by having to rock my weight onto my left foot when I was standing. If I tried to put equal weight on my feet, I again got very wobbly and likely to fall over. This was explained in junior high school, when I was found to have scoliosis and uneven hips. Having one hip higher meant one leg was shorter, so the weight had to rest mostly on the shorter leg, with the other one just providing balance. This is also why I tend to stand with one leg out to the side. (Think of how you balance on any chair with uneven legs.)
Still, people kept telling me that I was mistaken when I said that I couldn't have decent balance with equally distributed weight. Or, like my husband, they encouraged me to get shoe lifts for the short side; I figured that would just transfer the strain to my hips and back. Besides, I functioned fine if left to my own devices.
Of course, my feet hurt more than was convenient. Still, that was to be expected, because something was wrong with them. I gritted my teeth when I'd mention pain and someone would immediately say, "Lose weight and exercise!" When I was 12 years old, 5 foot 8 and 125 pounds, they hurt, in the same ways and at the same times as they did decades later.
I became the queen of comfortable shoes, after spending my younger years trying to wear pretty ones.
When I was 28, with great insurance, I finally went to see a podiatrist about getting my feet fixed. My husband pushed me to go, after repeatedly watching me try on shoe after shoe that wouldn't fit. "There's a lot more going on in here than bunions," the doctor said.
He ran a single finger up the back of my ankles. "Does this hurt?"
"Yes."
"Mmm hmm," he said. He ran the finger up the back of my calves. "Does this hurt?"
"Yes."
I was surprised. If you had asked me if those places hurt without him touching them, I would have said "no." But he seemed to have an uncanny ability to create pain with just a touch of his index finger, zeroing in on sore spots I didn't know were there.
After several more simple touches and "How about this?" queries, all answered with "Yes," he had me stand on the x-ray machine. "I thought so," he said.
Among the revelations to me was a diagnosis of collapsed arches. I stared at my foot, looking at its lovely arch. "But I can see the arch, see the curve in my foot."
"Yes, but every time you step, it does this," he said, cupping his hand and then flattening it out. "Every step overextends your bone structure, and stretches the tendons and ligaments over the bone in your heel. That's why these," rubbing the back of my ankle and foot again, "hurt. It pulls everything out of place with every step. Pretty soon, everything is fatigued and swelling. If it's severe enough, eventually it can tear the muscles."
Holy cow; who knew?
I suddenly remembered my dad telling me that men with "flat feet" were excused from military service during the draft, because they couldn't pass the physical, and were unable to march over distances.
The bad news - fixing it would mean "a minimum of four to six weeks off your feet." I had three kids - I had a one year old. I did not have the time or capability to take a month off. My husband went to work at 3 a.m.; how would I do anything? Plus, my house is two stories; what about stairs?
He advised me to buy over the counter arch supports, and put them in my shoes. "After the surgery, you'll need custom supports, but there's no sense getting them now, before it's repaired."
I still thought that he had it wrong. This just sounded too odd. Arch supports were made of foam and plastic, and they were all of 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick - how could that little difference change anything? How could these thin little $5 items make any difference?
So, I bought some flimsy little Dr. Scholl's arch supports and put them in my flimsy canvas shoes before we headed to Disneyland.
Oh, ye of little faith.
It was like the heavens opened and angels sang. I love Disneyland, but it usually left me limping. By evening, I would be in almost blinding amounts of pain, wondering if I could make it back to the hotel room. But with these ridiculous slivers of foam, it didn't hurt. The rest of my body tired out before my feet did, something that had never, ever happened before. I became convinced that the podiatrist was a genius.
I began refusing to wear anything without arch supports. I started living in athletic shoes. Sure, they looked clunky and way too casual, but who cared? They were miraculous. I would have worn them with my dresses to church if I didn't think it would horrify my husband. Cute little ballet flats no longer looked quite so appealing. Nothing had ever mitigated the pain before; now that I knew that it was possible, I was not going to give it up.
I wasn't pain free, just agony free. Pain still happened - it just happened a lot less, and a lot less severely. Having to spend a day - or even an evening - in dress shoes still had me limping, not only that day but through the next, too. And this is with dress shoes that are plain and frankly masculine. Every now and then I can find decent Mary Janes, but usually, I'm in loafers if I have to dress up.
I photograph weddings for a living, and it's so aggravating to me that, in order to be looked at as a competent professional, I have to wear shoes that honestly make me less effective.
Years later, a PA tried to tell me that arch supports were bad for people with collapsed arches. "It'll just feel like walking on a rock." Maybe to some, but I'm not giving mine up!
Anyway, I was in my late 40s before I had the time, money and capability to have the surgery. Discovering that many of the bones in each of my feet were physically incapable of supporting weight was surprising. "Apparently, almost half of the bones in my foot were not load bearing, even though they were designed to be. My podiatrist took hold of my foot and folded it lengthwise, flapping it like a wing. "See that?" he said. "It's not supposed to do that." ("Counting Down," Dec. 2013)
The surgery recovery period kicked my butt, ("Handicapped Access," Dec. 2014) but I was sure that as soon as I was out of the cast, everything would be fabulous. I neglected to really ask myself what building new muscle memory would be like.
After nine weeks in a cast, even the muscles I was used to using were out of practice. The bigger problem was, I couldn't walk the way I was used to. I couldn't even stand the way I was used to. If I tried, my muscles screamed and my ankle burned. I was wobbly. Plus, my foot felt as though it had had hinges installed. I was used to picking up and putting down my foot pretty much as a whole, but suddenly, it wanted to bend. It was really puzzling.
Nothing was instinctive any more. My right foot had not yet been operated on and felt normal, but my left felt entirely different.
I tried to describe its functioning to my husband. "It's like it hits at the heel, then the whole foot rolls forward, and it pushes off from the toes."
He gave me a look. "Congratulations," he said drily. "That's called walking."
"Hey, I've been walking for more than 40 years, and it's never done that before!"
Muscles that had been unused for literally my entire life now screamed at me, as well, as they suddenly had to work. Everything was sore, all the time. Plus, I had to really think every time I stepped. If I got tired or distracted, I rolled to the outside, and my ankle burned. I'm not sure exactly what the support in there is made out of, but I'm assuming it's supposed to help keep me from crushing things.
I'd never been aware of rocking my weight to the outside edge of my foot, even though the soles of my shoes wore out on the outside edge, and stayed pristine on the opposite edge. Now, I very exaggeratedly rolled my weight to the inside of my foot, and tried to balance the weight on the ball of the foot, but my shoes (and the doctor) said I was still rolling to the outside.
After I had the second foot operated on, nothing felt recognizable any more.
Even two years later, my toes still surprise me. Trying to put any weight on the toes, especially the big toe, had always crunched my toes tightly together; it goes without saying that it was unstable, and hurt. Now, putting weight on the toes causes them to SPREAD. I have never, ever experienced this! My toes are misshapen from decades of crowding, and I can't believe that they spread apart now - or that the more weight they take, the farther they spread. It's amazing.
I expected this all to be easy, but I was having to actively think about how I put my feet down, pick them up, do anything, two years later. I'm doing better, continually, but it's slow. My chiropractor, working on knee pain, said, "Of course your knee hurts. You don't know how to stand on your feet." UGH!
Sometimes, I'd tackle largish goals. In Hawaii with my family, I decided to walk three and a half miles, over uneven terrain. I was slow, but I made it. Back at our rental house, I again took ruthless advantage of the fact that my son is in massage therapy school. "Can you work on my knee?" It didn't hurt in any way that made sense. It hurt right across the top of my knee, right at the connection with my thigh.
He'd press certain muscles. "Does that hurt?" After a series of answers like, "No," and, "A little," he pressed on the inside of my knee, and I shrieked like a Banshee.
Trying to discover what I was doing wrong, he asked me to walk. After watching me, he said, "Look down at your feet." I looked down. I guessed. I guessed some more. I could not figure out what was wrong. He had to point it out to me, with a sigh. "Your foot is turned sideways." Well - yeah. Is that a problem? It's only about 25 degrees. And I'm going forward.
Apparently, this is an issue.
I'm trying to correct it, but pointing my foot forward feels like I'm twisting the whole leg. Plus, with knees that bow inward and backward, it's difficult to point my leg forward without my knees hitting each other. Is walking supposed to be this complicated?
My reality is further skewed by decades of apparently unreliable perception. I recently went back to my son for help. "I must be doing something new wrong. It's really weird. Standing still for a long time hurts more than walking."
"That's actually really normal."
"IT IS? How can that be?" I mean, my whole life, FIVE DECADES, walking has been actual work, and standing just, well, standing. Not working as hard. Of course things hurt more when they're working. Right?
Apparently, wrong. Standing is more stress. Who knew? Not me.
On the other hand - go, me, something is reacting normally!
Sometimes, someone will want me to do something like dance. Are you kidding? I'm still learning to walk!
I finally got those custom inserts, though, and I'm telling you, hallelujah! You can't build new muscle memory if you don't know what to do, or do it consistently. These are helping on both counts. I no longer have to think every time I step.
If I'm in a tunnel, I think I see the proverbial light.
Showing posts with label recovery. Show all posts
Showing posts with label recovery. Show all posts
Friday, May 27, 2016
Monday, November 17, 2014
Pain Management
I was deeply overconfident.
I know what to expect, I thought. I was going in for a hysterectomy. I'd had abdominal surgeries before. I've had 3 Cesarean sections and an ectopic pregnancy. I've had bone surgeries, dental surgeries, a three hour surgery to my neck. I understand pain - broken bones, labor, strep throat that hurt so much that I couldn't swallow my own saliva. I've spent 2 1/2 days on a morphine drip. The ectopic pregnancy was the worst pain I've ever had - writhing, thrashing pain that had me wishing that I'd pass out from it.
I've got this, I thought.
I did not have it. I had nothing in my wheelhouse to even prepare me for it.
I'm not a wuss. I actually handle pain quite well. It's not unusual for me to take nothing but Tylenol after a surgery. I tend to wake up in recovery saying, "When can I go home?" I walked through ancient ruins and Disneyland with brand new surgical screws in my feet. I was still unprepared for the first, fierce 24 hours after my hysterectomy.
When I woke up in recovery, I couldn't move or open my eyes. All I knew was that my back hurt, I couldn't breathe, and I wanted my husband. I have a "restricted airway" (read: throat that's smaller than normal), and being intubated creates lots of sticky phlegm, so unless I keep clearing my throat, it closes up and feels as if I can't breathe. (My nose is no help; it's chronically swollen.) I kept clearing my throat and calling for my husband, and someone - I had no idea who, but they seemed to be handling me - kept shushing me and telling me that, "There's no Dan here."
Now, I dislike being the kind of person who tells others how to do their jobs (mostly because I hate being told how to do my job). I'm sure that the recovery nurses have handled more loopy, drugged and irrational patients than I have. But here's how I see it: those who are sick or in pain should be handled the same way that small children and the mentally ill should be. If someone's calling a name, ask who it is. "Is Dan your husband?" If I say "Yes," say, "He'll be here soon." If it turns out that, say, you find out that he's a stalker and I live in fear of him, say, "He can't get in here." The whole point is to comfort, not to panic, the subject. Just telling me that he's not there and I should hush is not comforting.
In fact, it was so panic inducing that I later had trouble with him going to the rest room, because he was out of my sight. This is very uncharacteristic for me, and it is not good. Just a heads up.
Before I could move anything, I became aware of more pains, and things began to make sense. I remembered where I was, and why, and realized that the surgery was over. Someone put something in my mouth - I still don't know if it was just a sip of water or medicine, and I said, "Can't swallow."
"Yes, you can." Well, OK, but not easily.
I tried repeatedly to form coherent thoughts, but full sentences were difficult. "Scoliosis. Back hurts. Need to sit up."
"You can do that later."
"After you get to your room, the bed will be more comfortable."
The back pain is still the worst part of the whole experience. I expected abdominal pain, but it felt like the entire three hour plus surgery had been spent in the worst possible position, and my back screamed.
After they took me to my room - and, thank heaven, my husband was allowed to come with me - the first thing I asked the nurse was, "Can I sit up?" I could. "Can I lean way forward?" Yes, I could. "Can I pull my legs up and lean up like this?"
The best thing my first nurse, Rodger, said to me was, "Well, you're going to just love me, because I'm full of all kinds of 'yes' tonight." Oh, thank heaven.
What I really wanted was to straddle the bed like a horse, or a surfboard, with my legs down either side, then lean all my weight up onto my hands or elbows, but I couldn't quite do that. I was worried about putting my weight on the incision site, but Rodger's "yes" meant that I could. I pitched forward and finally got my back to stop screaming quite so loudly. "Oh, much better. Much better."
Rodger was puzzled. "Your back must have really hurt."
"Scoliosis. Dear heaven. You have no idea."
The problem with hospital beds, beach chairs, recliners - anything made for the comfort of the average person - is that leaning back like that puts pressure on the place in my spine where it kinks to the side, and it makes everything hurt. It also cuts off circulation to my left side. I need to do what causes most people pain, and pitch forward. Sometimes, efforts to make me comfortable will have exactly the opposite effect.
The next three days were all about moving just enough to ease the pain in one part of the body in order to experience some slight relief, but it just transferred the pain to another body part, so soon I'd have to move again. The next 24 hours were a fog of frustration and pain. Every time I started to fall asleep those first few hours, the pulse oxygen monitor - the little clip with the red light that went over my index finger - set off an alarm. Apparently, my breathing slows when I sleep, and the machine shrieked if I dropped below 90% oxygen saturation. (I thought it was overreacting. I never got below 82%.) It also went off if the clip got bumped the tiniest bit off center. More than once, I found myself beating the pulse ox clip against the bed rails, wailing, "Shutupshutupshutupshutup!"
For a while, life condensed down to the 10 minutes between times that I could hit the morphine button. Keeping my eyes open was hard. Sometimes, especially if I already feel bad, any sensory input - sight, sound - will result in an overload similar to motion sickness. You can tell if I'm not feeling well when my communication becomes very staccato. My youngest two kids came to see me, and my youngest daughter kept sharing things that happened that night at youth group, and I'd find myself saying, "Sounds like fun. Now sshh. Too many words." Watching my husband walk across the room caused me to throw up.
Morphine, of course, is notorious for causing nausea and headaches, but I couldn't have oral painkillers until my digestive system started working again. My sinuses felt refrigerated from the oxygen tubes, but removing them made the oxygen monitor shriek.
In general, I hate to be touched when I'm in pain. This is hard for loved ones who try to rub my back or my arm. I tend to bark, "Don't touch me!" I can't stand to have collars ride against my throat, so I left the back of my gown untied and unsnapped. It bothered my husband that it sometimes hung, a la Flashdance, off my shoulders. He'd try to "fix" it, and I'd wrestle the fabric away from him. I'd rather wander topless down the hall than have it ride on my throat. Yeah, good times for everyone.
I try not to be, as my sister calls me, "a curmudgeon." I would hear her voice in my head as I cursed the machinery or the drugs. She'd talked to me just before I went in for surgery. "Remember, they're just trying to keep you alive!" I'm actually a usually reasonable and cooperative patient, and when I know that I won't be, I try to apologize. Having to receive shots in my stomach, I warned the nurse, "I hate to have my tummy touched even when I feel good. I will make weird noises. It's not you, and it doesn't hurt."
Asked if the urine in the catch basin in my bathroom was a normal color, I said, "I'm a woman. I normally see it mixed with water. How the heck would I know what shade it normally is?" By day three, I had a bit of a sense of humor back. My nurse made sure my gown was closed over my rear end, and my response was, "Yeah, everybody'll want one if they see mine." Waiting for me to pass gas - one of those post op milestones that every patient has to hit - I said, "I've spoken to my digestive tract about this. It just isn't listening to me right now." Luckily, my nurse found me amusing.
My nurses and aides were pretty uniformly outstanding. God bless them. My husband offered to take a photo of my last nurse, Sam, and send it to my sister "so she'll be jealous." Young, dark haired and good looking, he was also funny and efficient.
Five days later, I'm home, showering, wearing real clothes and feeling more like a human being. Life is much more pleasant and manageable. I'm stiff, slow and in pain. I'm bruised. Sometimes the abdominal gas feels like a weasel loose inside me. Still, all this is doable. Now I've got this.
After I had my youngest daughter (sixteen years ago) I said to my mother, "I tell myself that I'll never again have to be a patient in a hospital. I know that I'm lying, but it makes me feel better." She humored me. Now I just hope against hope that this was the worst it will ever get.
Because I do NOT want to have to readjust, again, what a 10 on the pain scale feels like. (I use now my friend Steven's swear phrase: "Sweet fancy Moses.")
I won't have to go back to a hospital again, right? I mean, I'm done now, aren't I?
I think I speak for many of us when I say, "I hope so."
I know what to expect, I thought. I was going in for a hysterectomy. I'd had abdominal surgeries before. I've had 3 Cesarean sections and an ectopic pregnancy. I've had bone surgeries, dental surgeries, a three hour surgery to my neck. I understand pain - broken bones, labor, strep throat that hurt so much that I couldn't swallow my own saliva. I've spent 2 1/2 days on a morphine drip. The ectopic pregnancy was the worst pain I've ever had - writhing, thrashing pain that had me wishing that I'd pass out from it.
I've got this, I thought.
I did not have it. I had nothing in my wheelhouse to even prepare me for it.
I'm not a wuss. I actually handle pain quite well. It's not unusual for me to take nothing but Tylenol after a surgery. I tend to wake up in recovery saying, "When can I go home?" I walked through ancient ruins and Disneyland with brand new surgical screws in my feet. I was still unprepared for the first, fierce 24 hours after my hysterectomy.
When I woke up in recovery, I couldn't move or open my eyes. All I knew was that my back hurt, I couldn't breathe, and I wanted my husband. I have a "restricted airway" (read: throat that's smaller than normal), and being intubated creates lots of sticky phlegm, so unless I keep clearing my throat, it closes up and feels as if I can't breathe. (My nose is no help; it's chronically swollen.) I kept clearing my throat and calling for my husband, and someone - I had no idea who, but they seemed to be handling me - kept shushing me and telling me that, "There's no Dan here."
Now, I dislike being the kind of person who tells others how to do their jobs (mostly because I hate being told how to do my job). I'm sure that the recovery nurses have handled more loopy, drugged and irrational patients than I have. But here's how I see it: those who are sick or in pain should be handled the same way that small children and the mentally ill should be. If someone's calling a name, ask who it is. "Is Dan your husband?" If I say "Yes," say, "He'll be here soon." If it turns out that, say, you find out that he's a stalker and I live in fear of him, say, "He can't get in here." The whole point is to comfort, not to panic, the subject. Just telling me that he's not there and I should hush is not comforting.
In fact, it was so panic inducing that I later had trouble with him going to the rest room, because he was out of my sight. This is very uncharacteristic for me, and it is not good. Just a heads up.
Before I could move anything, I became aware of more pains, and things began to make sense. I remembered where I was, and why, and realized that the surgery was over. Someone put something in my mouth - I still don't know if it was just a sip of water or medicine, and I said, "Can't swallow."
"Yes, you can." Well, OK, but not easily.
I tried repeatedly to form coherent thoughts, but full sentences were difficult. "Scoliosis. Back hurts. Need to sit up."
"You can do that later."
"After you get to your room, the bed will be more comfortable."
The back pain is still the worst part of the whole experience. I expected abdominal pain, but it felt like the entire three hour plus surgery had been spent in the worst possible position, and my back screamed.
After they took me to my room - and, thank heaven, my husband was allowed to come with me - the first thing I asked the nurse was, "Can I sit up?" I could. "Can I lean way forward?" Yes, I could. "Can I pull my legs up and lean up like this?"
The best thing my first nurse, Rodger, said to me was, "Well, you're going to just love me, because I'm full of all kinds of 'yes' tonight." Oh, thank heaven.
What I really wanted was to straddle the bed like a horse, or a surfboard, with my legs down either side, then lean all my weight up onto my hands or elbows, but I couldn't quite do that. I was worried about putting my weight on the incision site, but Rodger's "yes" meant that I could. I pitched forward and finally got my back to stop screaming quite so loudly. "Oh, much better. Much better."
Rodger was puzzled. "Your back must have really hurt."
"Scoliosis. Dear heaven. You have no idea."
The problem with hospital beds, beach chairs, recliners - anything made for the comfort of the average person - is that leaning back like that puts pressure on the place in my spine where it kinks to the side, and it makes everything hurt. It also cuts off circulation to my left side. I need to do what causes most people pain, and pitch forward. Sometimes, efforts to make me comfortable will have exactly the opposite effect.
The next three days were all about moving just enough to ease the pain in one part of the body in order to experience some slight relief, but it just transferred the pain to another body part, so soon I'd have to move again. The next 24 hours were a fog of frustration and pain. Every time I started to fall asleep those first few hours, the pulse oxygen monitor - the little clip with the red light that went over my index finger - set off an alarm. Apparently, my breathing slows when I sleep, and the machine shrieked if I dropped below 90% oxygen saturation. (I thought it was overreacting. I never got below 82%.) It also went off if the clip got bumped the tiniest bit off center. More than once, I found myself beating the pulse ox clip against the bed rails, wailing, "Shutupshutupshutupshutup!"
For a while, life condensed down to the 10 minutes between times that I could hit the morphine button. Keeping my eyes open was hard. Sometimes, especially if I already feel bad, any sensory input - sight, sound - will result in an overload similar to motion sickness. You can tell if I'm not feeling well when my communication becomes very staccato. My youngest two kids came to see me, and my youngest daughter kept sharing things that happened that night at youth group, and I'd find myself saying, "Sounds like fun. Now sshh. Too many words." Watching my husband walk across the room caused me to throw up.
Morphine, of course, is notorious for causing nausea and headaches, but I couldn't have oral painkillers until my digestive system started working again. My sinuses felt refrigerated from the oxygen tubes, but removing them made the oxygen monitor shriek.
In general, I hate to be touched when I'm in pain. This is hard for loved ones who try to rub my back or my arm. I tend to bark, "Don't touch me!" I can't stand to have collars ride against my throat, so I left the back of my gown untied and unsnapped. It bothered my husband that it sometimes hung, a la Flashdance, off my shoulders. He'd try to "fix" it, and I'd wrestle the fabric away from him. I'd rather wander topless down the hall than have it ride on my throat. Yeah, good times for everyone.
I try not to be, as my sister calls me, "a curmudgeon." I would hear her voice in my head as I cursed the machinery or the drugs. She'd talked to me just before I went in for surgery. "Remember, they're just trying to keep you alive!" I'm actually a usually reasonable and cooperative patient, and when I know that I won't be, I try to apologize. Having to receive shots in my stomach, I warned the nurse, "I hate to have my tummy touched even when I feel good. I will make weird noises. It's not you, and it doesn't hurt."
Asked if the urine in the catch basin in my bathroom was a normal color, I said, "I'm a woman. I normally see it mixed with water. How the heck would I know what shade it normally is?" By day three, I had a bit of a sense of humor back. My nurse made sure my gown was closed over my rear end, and my response was, "Yeah, everybody'll want one if they see mine." Waiting for me to pass gas - one of those post op milestones that every patient has to hit - I said, "I've spoken to my digestive tract about this. It just isn't listening to me right now." Luckily, my nurse found me amusing.
My nurses and aides were pretty uniformly outstanding. God bless them. My husband offered to take a photo of my last nurse, Sam, and send it to my sister "so she'll be jealous." Young, dark haired and good looking, he was also funny and efficient.
Five days later, I'm home, showering, wearing real clothes and feeling more like a human being. Life is much more pleasant and manageable. I'm stiff, slow and in pain. I'm bruised. Sometimes the abdominal gas feels like a weasel loose inside me. Still, all this is doable. Now I've got this.
After I had my youngest daughter (sixteen years ago) I said to my mother, "I tell myself that I'll never again have to be a patient in a hospital. I know that I'm lying, but it makes me feel better." She humored me. Now I just hope against hope that this was the worst it will ever get.
Because I do NOT want to have to readjust, again, what a 10 on the pain scale feels like. (I use now my friend Steven's swear phrase: "Sweet fancy Moses.")
I won't have to go back to a hospital again, right? I mean, I'm done now, aren't I?
I think I speak for many of us when I say, "I hope so."
Friday, August 2, 2013
Just Listen
I owe Leonardo DeCaprio thanks.
During the worst time of my life, I watched very little TV, and fewer movies. I just couldn't handle the emotional overload. I'd been an actor and stage technician since I was in junior high school, but I was currently doing no theater; I didn't even go to see my friends in their shows.
My husband tried to interest me in things. When our church asked for performers for our yearly Christmas program, he was chirpy and upbeat. "That sounds just like you!" he said.
"No. It doesn't. It sounds like someone I used to be. I'm not even sure if I'd recognize her if I met her."
Sometimes people don't know what to do, because I'm calm and articulate when they expect me to be weepy and incoherent. They don't understand how I process pain, and wonder how upset I could be if I'm still functional. They miss the point. The best description I can give is being on autopilot. I will keep functioning just fine, but there's no feeling behind it.
One day my husband called me into the living room and pointed out something on TV. He seemed excited, but a glance at the screen made my toes curl. It was an inner city scene, lots of graffiti, barbed wire and trash strewn lots. I do not react well to such circumstances when I'm at my best, and I could not imagine how anything that happened in such a place would be anything that I would want to see in my current state of mind. Every one of my nerves was rubbed raw.
"What makes you think that I would want to watch..."
He interrupted. "Listen!"
"I don't want to see..."
He was insistent. "Don't look. Listen."
Annoyed, I closed my eyes, only so I could do whatever I needed to do to get the TV turned off. Slowly, something penetrated.
The words.
Those words.
I knew those words, every one of them, by heart. I knew what was coming next, what had gone before - every syllable.
When you're in a show, you know the scenes that you're in best, naturally. You may sit through readings or rehearsals of the scenes you're not in, but they're not carved as deeply into your memory as your own scenes. During actual performances, when you're offstage you're most likely in the dressing room or "green room," the equivalent of an employee lounge. You might be joking, playing cards or chatting. You might be changing, doing your hair or using the restroom.
When you're in the booth, though, running the lights or sound, or stage managing and sitting on the headset calling cues, you see every moment of every performance. You hang on every word, because your job depends on responding correctly at the proper time.
Years before, I had been the light board operator for a production of Romeo and Juliet. I watched weeks of rehearsals, and then two performances a day for weeks. I knew every word of the show, every inflection, every pause. I was hearing them now.
I opened my eyes and stared at the screen. I watched Leonardo DiCaprio and John Leguizamo say the familiar words, in a very unfamiliar place. I like both of the actors, and I love the words (although this play is not one of my favorites). Could I handle the urban decay, the violence, the senselessness, the deaths?
I have seen Shakespeare performed by purists, who insist on period costumes and sets. I've seen his work updated in a variety of ways, including as a Wild West show. I've heard it in the original iambic pentameter and in modern English. I had never seen it like this, though - the original words in a modern setting, one that looked like Los Angeles or another familiar California setting.
It was director Baz Luhrmann's "William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet." I hadn't seen it in theaters, and it was then probably four years or so old. Truth be told, I'd avoided it. I'm always afraid that filmmakers will screw up the classics, and using a plus sign instead of the word "and" didn't thrill me. (I blame Prince; he started the whole business of substituting "4" for "for" and "U" for "you" in the 1980s, decades before texting. It still annoys me. And I don't text.)
I decided to watch for just a few minutes, to see how they'd handle things like the references to swords (answer: make it a brand name). I kept watching; how would Claire Danes interpret Juliet? Danes is an amazing actor, just luminous. I kept watching, and kept watching. I watched the entire movie. Moreover, I enjoyed it. That doesn't sound like much, but it was huge. It was the first time I had voluntarily chosen to sit through a movie in over a year. To have not only sat through it but also enjoyed it was a huge milestone.
So: thanks, Leo, John, Claire, Baz. I almost - almost - remembered what "normal" felt like. It was an indicator that, yes, things actually would get better.
During the worst time of my life, I watched very little TV, and fewer movies. I just couldn't handle the emotional overload. I'd been an actor and stage technician since I was in junior high school, but I was currently doing no theater; I didn't even go to see my friends in their shows.
My husband tried to interest me in things. When our church asked for performers for our yearly Christmas program, he was chirpy and upbeat. "That sounds just like you!" he said.
"No. It doesn't. It sounds like someone I used to be. I'm not even sure if I'd recognize her if I met her."
Sometimes people don't know what to do, because I'm calm and articulate when they expect me to be weepy and incoherent. They don't understand how I process pain, and wonder how upset I could be if I'm still functional. They miss the point. The best description I can give is being on autopilot. I will keep functioning just fine, but there's no feeling behind it.
One day my husband called me into the living room and pointed out something on TV. He seemed excited, but a glance at the screen made my toes curl. It was an inner city scene, lots of graffiti, barbed wire and trash strewn lots. I do not react well to such circumstances when I'm at my best, and I could not imagine how anything that happened in such a place would be anything that I would want to see in my current state of mind. Every one of my nerves was rubbed raw.
"What makes you think that I would want to watch..."
He interrupted. "Listen!"
"I don't want to see..."
He was insistent. "Don't look. Listen."
Annoyed, I closed my eyes, only so I could do whatever I needed to do to get the TV turned off. Slowly, something penetrated.
The words.
Those words.
I knew those words, every one of them, by heart. I knew what was coming next, what had gone before - every syllable.
When you're in a show, you know the scenes that you're in best, naturally. You may sit through readings or rehearsals of the scenes you're not in, but they're not carved as deeply into your memory as your own scenes. During actual performances, when you're offstage you're most likely in the dressing room or "green room," the equivalent of an employee lounge. You might be joking, playing cards or chatting. You might be changing, doing your hair or using the restroom.
When you're in the booth, though, running the lights or sound, or stage managing and sitting on the headset calling cues, you see every moment of every performance. You hang on every word, because your job depends on responding correctly at the proper time.
Years before, I had been the light board operator for a production of Romeo and Juliet. I watched weeks of rehearsals, and then two performances a day for weeks. I knew every word of the show, every inflection, every pause. I was hearing them now.
I opened my eyes and stared at the screen. I watched Leonardo DiCaprio and John Leguizamo say the familiar words, in a very unfamiliar place. I like both of the actors, and I love the words (although this play is not one of my favorites). Could I handle the urban decay, the violence, the senselessness, the deaths?
I have seen Shakespeare performed by purists, who insist on period costumes and sets. I've seen his work updated in a variety of ways, including as a Wild West show. I've heard it in the original iambic pentameter and in modern English. I had never seen it like this, though - the original words in a modern setting, one that looked like Los Angeles or another familiar California setting.
It was director Baz Luhrmann's "William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet." I hadn't seen it in theaters, and it was then probably four years or so old. Truth be told, I'd avoided it. I'm always afraid that filmmakers will screw up the classics, and using a plus sign instead of the word "and" didn't thrill me. (I blame Prince; he started the whole business of substituting "4" for "for" and "U" for "you" in the 1980s, decades before texting. It still annoys me. And I don't text.)
I decided to watch for just a few minutes, to see how they'd handle things like the references to swords (answer: make it a brand name). I kept watching; how would Claire Danes interpret Juliet? Danes is an amazing actor, just luminous. I kept watching, and kept watching. I watched the entire movie. Moreover, I enjoyed it. That doesn't sound like much, but it was huge. It was the first time I had voluntarily chosen to sit through a movie in over a year. To have not only sat through it but also enjoyed it was a huge milestone.
So: thanks, Leo, John, Claire, Baz. I almost - almost - remembered what "normal" felt like. It was an indicator that, yes, things actually would get better.
Wednesday, July 24, 2013
I Know How You Feel
My friend Linda once told me a story about learning to recognize the feeling of air on her skin again.
Linda was a teen when she got married. Her husband was older than she was - old enough that today, eyebrows would raise and judgments would be made. They were blissfully happy for approximately half a century; then he got sick. She rarely left his side during his final illness, and had no idea what to do after his death.
I met her after his death. She was 67, working and happy, but still feeling incomplete. She had, according to her own assessment, only been functional again for a year or so.
She was living with her daughter, and working in the garden. One summer day, she felt something that stopped her in her tracks. She stood in the vegetable bed, confused, unsure of whether she'd heard something, been touched, smelled smoke - all she knew was that it had reached out and grabbed her attention. Then it happened again. "It was the wind," she said, "the wind on my back, between my shoulder blades. I was wearing a tank top, and I'd been sweating, and I was feeling the wind across my skin. I realized that I had literally not felt anything for years."
I understood.
A couple of years earlier, I too had not been feeling much of anything. Well, that's not entirely accurate. Mentally, I felt both numb and like an exposed, raw nerve, all the time. Ordinary feelings and experiences were muted, like trying to pick up tiny beads while wearing thick gloves. It felt like they might be there, but I was never really sure. On the other hand, every experience felt like sandpaper over sunburned skin. Sometimes, something would cut through like a knife, with sharp, stabbing pain. Most of the chatter inside my head was single note screaming.
When I was pregnant with my youngest child, I had something truly terrible happen to me. It was one of those things that will forever divide your life into Before the Incident and After the Incident. I tend to be dismissive of people who see everyday irritation, inconvenience or disappointment as trauma, so I don't exaggerate ordinary hurts. I had already experienced Stuff That Will Turn Your Hair White in my life, but this threw me. It not only threw me, it trampled me underfoot.
I rarely reference The Event. Most people, even my friends and family, don't know that it happened. I have spoken about it with my husband, my clergyman, and the professional counselor that my husband (gently) insisted that I see. I will, very occasionally, reference the effect that it had, but the event itself is not open to discussion. Ever. This decision is not open to debate. Ever. I reference it here only to keep things in logical order; the effect had a cause.
Everybody has core needs - to be loved, to be understood, to be useful, for example. I need to feel safe. Almost everything in my life is geared toward making sure that I, and my loved ones, are safe. Naturally, anything that feels unsafe pushes my buttons. Experiencing something that made me feel profoundly unsafe in every way was a seismic event. Life crashed down around my ears, and the shock waves rumbled far into the distance. It was impossible for me to feel safe anywhere, while doing anything.
I had always believed that most people are inherently good, and that most people will do the right thing most of the time. I know, I know, it sounds staggeringly naive, but it was one of my bedrock beliefs. Losing that belief made me question everything I knew, or thought I knew. Unable to sort out whether people in general could be trusted, and how to make that determination, I chose the Fox Mulder route - trust no one.
It was beyond painful. Going out in public was awful. I'd look around at any group of people and think, if a disaster hit right now - fire, shooting, anything - all these people would happily trample or sacrifice me and my family to save themselves. I've always found large groups to be alienating, and this just made it worse.
Staying home felt safer than leaving it, but I found that I could no longer read, watch TV or listen to music. ("Well, that makes sense," my husband said. "Music is designed to evoke an emotional response, and you're fighting emotion right now.") Any outside input at all, no matter the source, was likely to rip open mental wounds that I was trying desperately to stitch closed. Even fluffy sitcoms would have references, or visuals, that brought up excruciatingly painful memories - or predictions, or philosophies, or a hundred other things.
Leaving home was like mountain climbing - I had to prepare, and it took great stamina to complete. More than once, grocery shopping reduced me to tears, and I had to flee the store. The first two times I tried to watch a movie were abject failures. Midway through, I dissolved into a puddle of pain and tears.
I stepped down as leader of my daughters' Girl Scout troops, and I stopped volunteering for community theater groups. I stopped taking photos; on holidays and birthdays I'd shove the camera into my husband's hands and say something like, "Make sure to get one with the cake in it." I continued attending church for two reasons: I couldn't tell my kids it was important if I didn't go, and if I entirely dropped out, church members would try to find out why, and I wasn't about to discuss it. Luckily, the pregnancy, and later, having a newborn, made excuses easy. "I'm just so tired" - which was true. "I'm spread a little too thin" - which was an understatement. "I need to be home with my family" - totally understandable. With four kids, it was easy to say to everyone, "Nope, sorry, I have no time to spare." It made sense. I've never been good about phone calls, but for a solid year I don't think I made a single one. Since it wasn't too out of character, it slid under people's radar, and that's how I wanted it.
Everyone needs something different when they're experiencing stress. Many people need reassurance, or consoling, or distracting. What I want most when I experience any kind of distress is for things to feel normal again, so what I want most from others is that they behave as if everything is normal. Giving me a hug, or saying, "I'm here for you" generally makes things worse. I am OK with an oblique reference as long as it's followed by completely normal behavior. Asking, "Are you OK?" is fine, as long as you will then accept my assurance that I am, or will be, and immediate move on.
As an example of what works best: I've spent most of my adult life being a stay at home mom and working for myself, taking photographs. Once, though, I worked for a small, local company part time. (It was actually part of my plan to force myself out of my home and into interaction with other humans. I met some pretty cool ones there.) One day, I got called into the boss's office, and left about 30 minutes later in tears. Not sniffling, but bawling.
My co-workers didn't know how to react. They had no idea what had happened. For all they knew, I'd just been caught stealing from the company, and the police were on their way. (Actually, it was a personal issue, and the boss reacted very well to what I had to say.) They were unsure of what to say or do, so they ignored me, which is exactly what I needed.
About an hour later, with my tissue box nearing empty and me feeling almost OK again, three or four co-workers were standing nearby discussing something. I've forgotten what. One of them may have said something about the break room being out of snacks, because what I felt compelled to say, in my best British accent, was, "And they ate Robin's minstrels. And there was much rejoicing."
Their heads all swiveled toward me, and they gave me the deer-in-the-headlights stare. One then managed to squeak, "What?" It was clear that they still didn't know what to say, or if they should speak to me at all. Plus, I hadn't so much as looked up for an hour.
I said, louder and very distinctly, "And they ate Robin's minstrels. And there was much rejoicing." They still looked slightly blank, so I said, "Oh, come on. Are none of you Monty Python fans?"
The ice broke. "Oh! Holy Grail! I love that movie!" More quotes were shared, people laughed, some of those in the neighboring desks joined in. Things were back to normal. I was happy, they were happy, and there was no need to ask if I was OK. Perfect.
My husband is more of a conventional human. When he is stressed, he wants to be surrounded by people who tell him that he's wonderful and loved, and that other people are jerks. He wants to have places to go, and things to do, that keep him from thinking too much. It makes no sense to him that I need the universe to collapse down to a space barely bigger than the inside of my head. He constantly tried to cheer me up by doing things that would cheer him up if he was down. Makes sense, right? I mean, the Golden Rule and all.
"Why don't you call So-and-so?" he'd say. "Go out to lunch." I tried to explain - the mere thought had me in tears of exhaustion. I had just enough energy to function, and none to spare. He also could not understand my insistence on avoiding mention of The Event. "Can't you just say that you're upset, and not say why?" he'd ask. NO. First, that's not how interaction works. Second, if I didn't want to discuss it, it was beyond rude to bring it up. Also, I cannot stand it when people say, "I don't want to talk about it" when what they mean is, "Please show me that you're interested. I'd love to tell you, but only if I'm sure of how you'll respond." It's manipulative twaddle. I would probably become violent if someone tried to cajole it out of me.
"Don't you think you'd feel better if you talked to your friends?" he wanted to know.
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because they'll tell me that they love me, and I'm wonderful, and it's not my fault, and it's not the end of the world, and millions of people have lived through it before, and I will too, and things will get better eventually, and I already know all of that. Why would I take the time and energy to go over something that I already know?" It just seemed like a huge waste of time and energy, and I had no energy to spare.
Even when I did talk to someone, I often seemed to baffle them. My counselor said during one visit, with genuine concern, "Do you ever think, 'Why me?'"
My response was immediate. "Never. I mean, people have had horrible things happen to them - people have been sent to concentration camps. Why would I think that I, personally, am immune to the human condition?" He stared at me for a moment, then scribbled madly in his notebook. Apparently that was not the expected response.
I don't understand people who think that nothing bad will ever happen to them. I mean, has that ever been the experience of a single person who's ever lived? Then why do you think it will be your experience?
(I also never understood people who'd say things like, "When my mother/father died, it just shook my faith to the core." I understand a tiny bit if your parent was murdered, or if they had a lingering illness, and you're not sure why people have to endure that, but the simple fact of their death? Shouldn't that be a given? If every person who ever lived has also died, chances are that everyone you know will die one day. How can that take you by surprise?
I lost my dad at 22, so I'd experienced losing a parent before most of my peers. "Wait until your mom dies," they'd say. My mom died only a few months ago, and I miss her more than I can say, but I knew that she'd leave one day. It was expected. My faith was unaffected.)
Gloom and doom people, the "everything bad always happens to me" people, also puzzle and annoy me. Usually, they're still walking, talking, sighted - the people with real hardships tend to be far more cheerful. There is no possible way that "everything bad always happens" to you, so don't even try to convince me that it does. Stuff happens, yeah - to you and to everybody else. It's always something. Great stuff happens to you, too, so pay attention to that. If you woke up today, be thankful.
Some days you're the bug, and some days you're the windshield. That's normal.
One friend of mine was around me enough during this time to notice that something was wrong, but she also knew me well enough to know that if I wanted to talk about it, I would, so she didn't ask any questions or try too hard to be helpful. I appreciated it. One day I said to her, "You know, if I was ever to start trusting people again, I think I'd start with your husband." He's a great guy, who also never tried too hard, but I knew he'd jump if I did ask for help.
She smiled. "Yeah. He's pretty great." It was a compliment, to both of them, and she accepted it. It was nice.
I remember the exact moment, and place, I had my Linda-and-the-wind experience.
There's a local park where we spend a lot of time. We photograph it, and people in it, in the spring when everything's blooming, and in the fall when the foliage changes color. We spend a lot of family nights there, walking the trails, having popsicles and looking for baby bunnies.
We were there on another family night, and my kids were playing nearby, watching another family fly kites. I looked over at a particular spot, and noticed immediately how I'd frame a photo. I wished I'd brought the camera. The thought stopped me cold - taking photos has been second nature since I was eight years old, but I hadn't actually thought about taking one for over two years.
I became excited, because I wanted to take a photo. Then I became even more excited, because, holy cow, I was excited! That was new and different and unexpected!
We came back a few days later with the camera. The photos aren't amazing because of their content, which is nice but ordinary, but they are deeply amazing because I took them, on my own, just because I wanted to. Such a little thing, and so monumental.
When Linda told me her story about the wind, I nodded enthusiastically. "I know how that feels!" I told her - and I did.
Sometimes that may be why things happen to you - so that some day, you can look another person in the eye and say, "I know how you feel" - and you will know.
Such a little thing, and so monumental.
Linda was a teen when she got married. Her husband was older than she was - old enough that today, eyebrows would raise and judgments would be made. They were blissfully happy for approximately half a century; then he got sick. She rarely left his side during his final illness, and had no idea what to do after his death.
I met her after his death. She was 67, working and happy, but still feeling incomplete. She had, according to her own assessment, only been functional again for a year or so.
She was living with her daughter, and working in the garden. One summer day, she felt something that stopped her in her tracks. She stood in the vegetable bed, confused, unsure of whether she'd heard something, been touched, smelled smoke - all she knew was that it had reached out and grabbed her attention. Then it happened again. "It was the wind," she said, "the wind on my back, between my shoulder blades. I was wearing a tank top, and I'd been sweating, and I was feeling the wind across my skin. I realized that I had literally not felt anything for years."
I understood.
A couple of years earlier, I too had not been feeling much of anything. Well, that's not entirely accurate. Mentally, I felt both numb and like an exposed, raw nerve, all the time. Ordinary feelings and experiences were muted, like trying to pick up tiny beads while wearing thick gloves. It felt like they might be there, but I was never really sure. On the other hand, every experience felt like sandpaper over sunburned skin. Sometimes, something would cut through like a knife, with sharp, stabbing pain. Most of the chatter inside my head was single note screaming.
When I was pregnant with my youngest child, I had something truly terrible happen to me. It was one of those things that will forever divide your life into Before the Incident and After the Incident. I tend to be dismissive of people who see everyday irritation, inconvenience or disappointment as trauma, so I don't exaggerate ordinary hurts. I had already experienced Stuff That Will Turn Your Hair White in my life, but this threw me. It not only threw me, it trampled me underfoot.
I rarely reference The Event. Most people, even my friends and family, don't know that it happened. I have spoken about it with my husband, my clergyman, and the professional counselor that my husband (gently) insisted that I see. I will, very occasionally, reference the effect that it had, but the event itself is not open to discussion. Ever. This decision is not open to debate. Ever. I reference it here only to keep things in logical order; the effect had a cause.
Everybody has core needs - to be loved, to be understood, to be useful, for example. I need to feel safe. Almost everything in my life is geared toward making sure that I, and my loved ones, are safe. Naturally, anything that feels unsafe pushes my buttons. Experiencing something that made me feel profoundly unsafe in every way was a seismic event. Life crashed down around my ears, and the shock waves rumbled far into the distance. It was impossible for me to feel safe anywhere, while doing anything.
I had always believed that most people are inherently good, and that most people will do the right thing most of the time. I know, I know, it sounds staggeringly naive, but it was one of my bedrock beliefs. Losing that belief made me question everything I knew, or thought I knew. Unable to sort out whether people in general could be trusted, and how to make that determination, I chose the Fox Mulder route - trust no one.
It was beyond painful. Going out in public was awful. I'd look around at any group of people and think, if a disaster hit right now - fire, shooting, anything - all these people would happily trample or sacrifice me and my family to save themselves. I've always found large groups to be alienating, and this just made it worse.
Staying home felt safer than leaving it, but I found that I could no longer read, watch TV or listen to music. ("Well, that makes sense," my husband said. "Music is designed to evoke an emotional response, and you're fighting emotion right now.") Any outside input at all, no matter the source, was likely to rip open mental wounds that I was trying desperately to stitch closed. Even fluffy sitcoms would have references, or visuals, that brought up excruciatingly painful memories - or predictions, or philosophies, or a hundred other things.
Leaving home was like mountain climbing - I had to prepare, and it took great stamina to complete. More than once, grocery shopping reduced me to tears, and I had to flee the store. The first two times I tried to watch a movie were abject failures. Midway through, I dissolved into a puddle of pain and tears.
I stepped down as leader of my daughters' Girl Scout troops, and I stopped volunteering for community theater groups. I stopped taking photos; on holidays and birthdays I'd shove the camera into my husband's hands and say something like, "Make sure to get one with the cake in it." I continued attending church for two reasons: I couldn't tell my kids it was important if I didn't go, and if I entirely dropped out, church members would try to find out why, and I wasn't about to discuss it. Luckily, the pregnancy, and later, having a newborn, made excuses easy. "I'm just so tired" - which was true. "I'm spread a little too thin" - which was an understatement. "I need to be home with my family" - totally understandable. With four kids, it was easy to say to everyone, "Nope, sorry, I have no time to spare." It made sense. I've never been good about phone calls, but for a solid year I don't think I made a single one. Since it wasn't too out of character, it slid under people's radar, and that's how I wanted it.
Everyone needs something different when they're experiencing stress. Many people need reassurance, or consoling, or distracting. What I want most when I experience any kind of distress is for things to feel normal again, so what I want most from others is that they behave as if everything is normal. Giving me a hug, or saying, "I'm here for you" generally makes things worse. I am OK with an oblique reference as long as it's followed by completely normal behavior. Asking, "Are you OK?" is fine, as long as you will then accept my assurance that I am, or will be, and immediate move on.
As an example of what works best: I've spent most of my adult life being a stay at home mom and working for myself, taking photographs. Once, though, I worked for a small, local company part time. (It was actually part of my plan to force myself out of my home and into interaction with other humans. I met some pretty cool ones there.) One day, I got called into the boss's office, and left about 30 minutes later in tears. Not sniffling, but bawling.
My co-workers didn't know how to react. They had no idea what had happened. For all they knew, I'd just been caught stealing from the company, and the police were on their way. (Actually, it was a personal issue, and the boss reacted very well to what I had to say.) They were unsure of what to say or do, so they ignored me, which is exactly what I needed.
About an hour later, with my tissue box nearing empty and me feeling almost OK again, three or four co-workers were standing nearby discussing something. I've forgotten what. One of them may have said something about the break room being out of snacks, because what I felt compelled to say, in my best British accent, was, "And they ate Robin's minstrels. And there was much rejoicing."
Their heads all swiveled toward me, and they gave me the deer-in-the-headlights stare. One then managed to squeak, "What?" It was clear that they still didn't know what to say, or if they should speak to me at all. Plus, I hadn't so much as looked up for an hour.
I said, louder and very distinctly, "And they ate Robin's minstrels. And there was much rejoicing." They still looked slightly blank, so I said, "Oh, come on. Are none of you Monty Python fans?"
The ice broke. "Oh! Holy Grail! I love that movie!" More quotes were shared, people laughed, some of those in the neighboring desks joined in. Things were back to normal. I was happy, they were happy, and there was no need to ask if I was OK. Perfect.
My husband is more of a conventional human. When he is stressed, he wants to be surrounded by people who tell him that he's wonderful and loved, and that other people are jerks. He wants to have places to go, and things to do, that keep him from thinking too much. It makes no sense to him that I need the universe to collapse down to a space barely bigger than the inside of my head. He constantly tried to cheer me up by doing things that would cheer him up if he was down. Makes sense, right? I mean, the Golden Rule and all.
"Why don't you call So-and-so?" he'd say. "Go out to lunch." I tried to explain - the mere thought had me in tears of exhaustion. I had just enough energy to function, and none to spare. He also could not understand my insistence on avoiding mention of The Event. "Can't you just say that you're upset, and not say why?" he'd ask. NO. First, that's not how interaction works. Second, if I didn't want to discuss it, it was beyond rude to bring it up. Also, I cannot stand it when people say, "I don't want to talk about it" when what they mean is, "Please show me that you're interested. I'd love to tell you, but only if I'm sure of how you'll respond." It's manipulative twaddle. I would probably become violent if someone tried to cajole it out of me.
"Don't you think you'd feel better if you talked to your friends?" he wanted to know.
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because they'll tell me that they love me, and I'm wonderful, and it's not my fault, and it's not the end of the world, and millions of people have lived through it before, and I will too, and things will get better eventually, and I already know all of that. Why would I take the time and energy to go over something that I already know?" It just seemed like a huge waste of time and energy, and I had no energy to spare.
Even when I did talk to someone, I often seemed to baffle them. My counselor said during one visit, with genuine concern, "Do you ever think, 'Why me?'"
My response was immediate. "Never. I mean, people have had horrible things happen to them - people have been sent to concentration camps. Why would I think that I, personally, am immune to the human condition?" He stared at me for a moment, then scribbled madly in his notebook. Apparently that was not the expected response.
I don't understand people who think that nothing bad will ever happen to them. I mean, has that ever been the experience of a single person who's ever lived? Then why do you think it will be your experience?
(I also never understood people who'd say things like, "When my mother/father died, it just shook my faith to the core." I understand a tiny bit if your parent was murdered, or if they had a lingering illness, and you're not sure why people have to endure that, but the simple fact of their death? Shouldn't that be a given? If every person who ever lived has also died, chances are that everyone you know will die one day. How can that take you by surprise?
I lost my dad at 22, so I'd experienced losing a parent before most of my peers. "Wait until your mom dies," they'd say. My mom died only a few months ago, and I miss her more than I can say, but I knew that she'd leave one day. It was expected. My faith was unaffected.)
Gloom and doom people, the "everything bad always happens to me" people, also puzzle and annoy me. Usually, they're still walking, talking, sighted - the people with real hardships tend to be far more cheerful. There is no possible way that "everything bad always happens" to you, so don't even try to convince me that it does. Stuff happens, yeah - to you and to everybody else. It's always something. Great stuff happens to you, too, so pay attention to that. If you woke up today, be thankful.
Some days you're the bug, and some days you're the windshield. That's normal.
One friend of mine was around me enough during this time to notice that something was wrong, but she also knew me well enough to know that if I wanted to talk about it, I would, so she didn't ask any questions or try too hard to be helpful. I appreciated it. One day I said to her, "You know, if I was ever to start trusting people again, I think I'd start with your husband." He's a great guy, who also never tried too hard, but I knew he'd jump if I did ask for help.
She smiled. "Yeah. He's pretty great." It was a compliment, to both of them, and she accepted it. It was nice.
I remember the exact moment, and place, I had my Linda-and-the-wind experience.
There's a local park where we spend a lot of time. We photograph it, and people in it, in the spring when everything's blooming, and in the fall when the foliage changes color. We spend a lot of family nights there, walking the trails, having popsicles and looking for baby bunnies.
We were there on another family night, and my kids were playing nearby, watching another family fly kites. I looked over at a particular spot, and noticed immediately how I'd frame a photo. I wished I'd brought the camera. The thought stopped me cold - taking photos has been second nature since I was eight years old, but I hadn't actually thought about taking one for over two years.
I became excited, because I wanted to take a photo. Then I became even more excited, because, holy cow, I was excited! That was new and different and unexpected!
We came back a few days later with the camera. The photos aren't amazing because of their content, which is nice but ordinary, but they are deeply amazing because I took them, on my own, just because I wanted to. Such a little thing, and so monumental.
When Linda told me her story about the wind, I nodded enthusiastically. "I know how that feels!" I told her - and I did.
Sometimes that may be why things happen to you - so that some day, you can look another person in the eye and say, "I know how you feel" - and you will know.
Such a little thing, and so monumental.
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