Loss Can Bring Us Together

There’s this almost honeymoon-like period after a loss, wherein you’re so focused on your grief and comforting your partner, everyday difficulties and discussions are tabled until it’s over.  My family recently suffered a loss (two, actually, within the past month-and-change), and today was our day to ease back into “real life” after the devastation.

As we muddled through our morning, I felt a reluctance to move forward. This reluctance, plus the lingering fatigue and other heightened emotions meant there were a couple of snappish or impatient moments.  I noticed them at the time, acknowledged them, and moved on.  Now, though, I realize that they were significant. They, too, marked a shift back to “normal life” because when we are grieving, we are often so caught up in our – or our significant others’ – feelings and immediate emotions, there is simply no room for criticism, impatience, or arguments.

This leads me to wonder, how can we hold on to a piece of that?  How can we keep from losing sight of the feeling that our need to be close is more important than the mundane things which crop up and create distance?

Perhaps that is the purpose of grief and loss – to remind us of the important things.  Love, closeness, family.  And to allow us to put aside petty squabbles, differences, and frustrations while the important things are highlighted.  Yet I’m sure there is a way in daily life to hold those priorities dear, as well.  I’m going to work to try to find it because these things are more important.  Always.

It Is What It Is

Let me just state, first and foremost, I kind of … well, I don’t want to use ‘hate’ in light of my last post, so let’s instead say that my feathers are ruffled by the expression I used in my title. My distaste for it started on July 4th, 2009, when someone I was with that day had to have used the phrase about 100 times in the course of an afternoon.

And yet, I find myself coming back to it quite often these days. I’ve adopted a much more “living in the moment” stance on my life, and on my relationships with people, and it lands me in a place of acceptance for what is. A year ago, I was very much stuck in a rut of “I wish,” regarding my geographical location, my career-goals, my body, my family… and it really, really brought me down to a dark and difficult place. Through the help of my minister, my husband, and a monthly workshop with some newfound friends, I am learning to accept that what is, is.

There is a certain negative connotation to the phrase, though, which may (in addition to the repetition mentioned in my first paragraph) be part of what has turned me off from it. In a way, it felt to me like settling. “Well, I can’t have what I want, so… I’ll settle for what I’ve got.” It felt like blowing off one’s current circumstance and taking a “whatever,” sort of attitude. Now that I’m able to come at it from a point of acceptance of my own life situation, I can see its positive side as well.

It still is overused, though. I’m not conceding that point!

Quotes About Depression

I’m always hesitant to write (especially publicly) about depression because it often gives people the wrong impression.  It reminds me of being an angsty teenager, writing out her sorrows in poesy, and having everyone act all sympathetic as they read it.  To me, what I’d written was uplifting; I was pouring the negativity out of me and onto the page.

On the other hand, I’ve also had plenty of experience with people assuming the opposite.  That’s why I want to break out of the discomfort and write about a quote I found on Facebook this morning:

“Depression is not a sign of weakness, it is just a sign that we have been strong for too long.”

I am a generally strong person, at least on the outside.  I inherited my Gramma’s tendency of being The Strong One, and letting others lean on her.  The problem with being strong, though… is that everyone therefore assumes you are Just Fine.  A few years ago, I was crashing with a friend.  This friend was very wrapped up in helping another friend through a depressive episode, and never even knew that I, too, was going through something very difficult.  I don’t blame my friend; there were no outward signs.  I saved my tears for late at night, when I was in my own room and trying to go to sleep.  That’s the way I am: I hold in my tears, my fears, my worries, and my vulnerability, until I’m either alone or in a “safe-space” (or until I just can’t, anymore), and only then do I let myself fall apart.  Another quote I found recently puts it in a different light:

“The one who seems the strongest is sometimes the one who is in most need of a hug.”

In the end, it’s all about assumptions.  One can’t necessarily assume that someone writing about depression is currently drowning; writing may be their way of coping.  Conversely, someone who seems strong and stoic may really be hurting inside.  Depression – and emotion, for that matter – is a tricky subject, and there’s often more to the situation than can be seen.

The Cascade of Negatives

Several people have mentioned to me Rhonda Byrne’s book, The Secret, which deals with the Law of Attraction, and how negative thoughts breed more negative thoughts, and positive breeds positive.  I have not yet actually read this book, so perhaps all the answers I need would be within its pages.  It’s on my reading list, I promise.

In the meantime, though, I’m noticing its presence in my day-to-day life.  When I am grumpy, I frequently find myself inside what I’ve taken to calling a “cascade of negatives.”  I’d noticed this in arguments before now, but only recently did I realize that it’s actually something I do even when I’m not in the thick of it.

As an example, yesterday I was sitting on our couch, talking to my husband. I started out complaining about some minor detail or other about our son’s preschool, but before I knew it, I had spent probably 10 minutes ranting about one topic after another – just bouncing from one topic to the next without any pause. Sure, there were segues from one to the next, but the place I ended up was nowhere near the place I had started. Each negative communication led into the next, carrying me down the slippery slope further into grumpiness.

Generally speaking, I’m a pretty self-aware kind of person, so this realization took me rather by surprise. All the more so when I realized this pattern is something I’ve done for as long as I can remember, and is probably the driving force behind the vast majority of the arguments I’ve had with, well, everyone with whom I’ve ever argued. Point A leads to Point B, etc., until we’re tumbling down that hill together. And there’s nothing at the bottom of that hill but more anger, resentment, and negativity!

So … how do I break that cycle? I don’t want to ignore or bury the negative feelings. I just want to keep them from sweeping me up into their currents. Anyone have any suggestions (beyond, of course, “Read Byrne’s book.)? What works for you? And how do you tell yourself, when you’re already grumpy, to snap of it and be rational?

I’m anxious for your feedback!

“Life is the Cookie”

“…If you had the cookie, things were good. If you didn’t have the cookie, life wasn’t worth a damn. Unfortunately, the cookie kept changing. Some of the time it was money, sometimes power, sometimes sex. At other times, it was the new car, the biggest contract, the most prestigious address. …you have to give up a lot of things to take care of the cookie, to keep it from crumbling and be sure that no one takes it away from you. You may not even get a chance to eat it because you are so busy just trying not to lose it. Having the cookie is not what life is about.

My patient laughs and says cancer has changed him. For the first time he is happy. No matter if his business is doing well or not, no matter if he wins or loses at golf. “Two years ago, cancer asked ne, ‘Okay, what’s important? What is really important?’ Well, life is important. Life. Life any way you can have it. Life with the cookie. Life without the cookie. Happiness does not have anything to do with the cookie, it has to do with being alive. Before, who made the time?” He pauses thoughtfully. “Damn, I guess life is the cookie.” — Rachel Naomi Remen

2009 took a lot away from me, from my family.  In the space of one afternoon, we went from having financial security and a house-purchase underway, to having no kind of security whatsoever.  That afternoon began numerous changes in our lives, ultimately ending in our move out of state, away from all of our family and friends in New York.  This has been the source of a lot of sadness for me, and an ongoing theme in both my blog posts and in my daily thoughts.  I’ve been focusing a lot of energy and thought on looking back at all the “cookies” I’d had to give up.  I held resentment towards my husband’s former employer, and I lost many nights’ sleep to homesickness and depression.

The year turned over, and I began to realize how much of my energies were tied up in negative thoughts.  My former minister, Rev. George Tyger, told us a Buddhist story about holding on to negativity, the moral of which was to “put down the raft,” lest we spend our lives carrying around old burdens.  That was exactly what I was doing, and I told myself as the ball dropped at midnight that I was leaving 2009 behind me.  “It’s in the past,” I told my husband, “It can’t hurt us anymore.”  Instead, I am choosing to focus now on the positive.

The fact is, we have a lot going for us.  We are very lucky, in so many ways.  We have a roof over our heads, and money in the bank.  Both of those things are more than so many people can say.  We are healthy, and most of all, we have each other.  We have life; we have “cookies.”

Maybe that was what we were to gain from this experience.  Perhaps it was a reminder that life is not its trappings.  Life is not the house, the job, and the stuff.  I used to say that my life got turned upside down, courtesy of Xerox.  But no, it wasn’t my life – it was just the temporary cookies, the ones that can crumble or break.

I’ve taken to calling 2010 The Year of Hope and Good Things.  I’ve changed my outlook, and am leaving the past (and the negativity contained therein) behind me.  More positivity can only lead to a better and more satisfying cookie.

How Do You Hold Onto Hope?

I admit it; I’m feeling discouraged.  I am feeling as though nothing ever changes, no matter the amount of effort I expend.  This is true of my weight-loss goals, my job hunt, the quest for health insurance coverage… It feels like life itself is just stagnant, even in the areas in which I seek change.

Bathroom Scale, image from http://www.care2.com/

My weight has been stuck at the same place, give or take no more than 2 pounds, for probably close to a year now.  I’d dropped to about 7 pounds above my pre-pregnancy weight at one point, then gained a few pounds back… and there it stayed.  Since we moved to Florida, I’ve tried calorie-reduction and increased activity, and still it remained.  Whether I’m being “good” or not, the scale doesn’t seem to care.  I’m still going to the gym nearly every day, but recently I’ve stopped religiously counting my calories.  I’ve also stopped weighing myself because what’s the point?  It just leads to more discouragement.  (Of course, not weighing in leaves me with this fear in the back of my mind that I’m steadily gaining now, instead of continuing to plateau.)

Now Hiring, Must Have Clue. photo from http://www.carteworld.com

Obviously I can’t do the same with my job-hunt. I can’t scale it back out of frustration. The only thing I can do is to soldier on in the face of the incoming rejection letters and lack of interviews. The only change I can see making is to slowly reduce my pickiness and increase my desperation. I can look for jobs I don’t really want, jobs that are more likely to leave me miserable and tired at the end of the day, instead of leaving me feeling like I’ve done a good thing with my day. I don’t want to get to that point… but I am losing hope of finding the kind of job I actually want. And it’s not like I’m asking that much – I just want an office job with an area (or, really, anywhere in FL) university.

How, in the face of all of this negativity, do I hold on to my hope? How do I keep myself from drowning in all the rejections and letting it hammer away at my self-worth? I can write, and I can concentrate on the positives. But some days it feels like that is just staving off the inevitable.

I want a job, and I am more than qualified for the kind of job I want.
I want to lose weight, and 10-15 pounds doesn’t seem unreasonable.
I want health insurance I can afford, and everyone deserves that, I believe.
And most of all, I want to feel hope that all of the above can be achieved.

Writing As Therapy

It’s no secret to anyone that things are a little bit stressful here in the SJ household.  We’re in a new location, not even in our own home, and we’re both job hunting.  With so much up in the air, yes, anxiety levels are sometimes a little bit high.

So how am I, a woman with a mild-to-moderate case of GAD, coping with the extra stressors that have been piled on since July?  You know, other than resenting the ever-loving crap out of my husband’s former employer.  There are definitely better, more productive ways to manage my stress.

One such method is something I had started back in the dark, dark days of PPD hell – a focus on the positive.  My therapist at the time urged me to try to find positive things about each day and write them down.  I kept with it for a while, and I did notice a difference.  I’ve done it sporadically since then, when things felt particularly bleak, but it never became a real, solid routine.

A week and a half ago, though, one of my dearest friends started posting Daily Positives in her journal, and urged her readers to do the same for a period of eight days.  I latched right on to that bait, and immediately started to notice a difference.  In so doing, I determined that it was something I should keep doing.  Not just for eight days, but for as long as it feels right.  I’m starting with a month (today is day #11), but it may well continue after that as well.

In this time of recession, job loss, and personal turmoil, it is really easy to get lost in negatives.  Every day is NOT all sunshine and roses, even here in tropical Florida, where it’s hard to even remember that it’s autumn.  But every day does have at least a few rays of hope.  No, those rays don’t take away the worries.  They don’t stop my brain from obsessing about finding work, missing loved ones, or trivialities like Christmas plans or something someone said to me in passing.  But remembering the positives forces me to shift my focus, at least for the length of the journal entry (and usually quite a while beyond), onto something good and away from anything negative.  That can only be a good thing, as far as I’m concerned.

Coping Quiet

Buggie with his favorite "uncle"

This morning I woke up to startling news about a dear friend’s health.  It’s one of those situations which could be nothing, or could be very serious.  Only time (and likely a barrage of tests) will tell which it will be.  This man is the husband of one of my best friends, and has slowly become a friend of mine in his own right over the years.  He is also incredibly close to Buggie.

I told O about it as I was driving him to work today.  The rest of the drive passed in relative silence – a rarity around these parts, let me assure you.  When questioned, O said he was thinking about M.  It made me realize that I … mostly wasn’t.  Not because I don’t care, but because I do. That’s how I cope with things – I put them to the back of my mind until I can fully process how to cope with it.  I skip immediately into denial/distraction, moving along with life as if I hadn’t heard what I heard, until I can’t any longer.

My Gramma

This actually seems to be something of a family trait.  It’s not only a matter of self-preservation and pride, but also of strength.  There are a couple of us in the family – most notably myself and my Gramma – who have taken it upon ourselves to be The Strong Ones.  It isn’t a matter of stoicism, nor of hiding our emotions.  I’m absolutely no good at that; my face and eyes betray me, every time.  It’s just a matter of putting our own feelings on the back burner while others may need us to be strong.  For example, when my mother calls me with any kind of difficult news, I tend not to react right away.  I get through the phone call, hang up, and only then do the tears come.  She doesn’t need my pain to make hers all the worse.

Mind you, it’s not by any means a conscious decision.  Sometimes, I wish it didn’t work the way it does for me.  I would be able to heal faster, if I didn’t delay my pain.  I know this, but my brain seems to not be wired that way.  Instead, I grieve after the fact.  I panic when the danger has gone.  I cry when everyone else’s tears have dried.