2008-03-28
3/28/08
I woke up at 3am this morning. WIDE awake, having a panic attack. Very frustrating and more than a little weird.
I can understand having a panic attack on Monday...but today? I have no plans today. Other than to clean the house. I laid there for a while, trying to go back to sleep, but my mind wouldn't stop with the running of what if's. When this happens, I've found that the best thing to do is just get up. Get up and pretend that it's time to get up. So I pottied the dogs (they're not particularly happy with me) and brewed a pot of coffee. When I have these "for no apparent reason" panic attacks, the easiest way to get through them is to try to follow my regular routine.
I've read the entries from my buddy list, sipped a bit of my coffee. Even now, I can feel the panic subsiding.
My birthday celebration at work was great. Della had drawn my name. This is funny because I traded names with two people last fall to get her name.
She made my favorite lemon cake. I make a good lemon cake, but HERS is much better. She's offered several times to give me the recipe, but I don't dare take it. I could eat the entire cake by myself. Literally. I could just roll around and cover myself with it's lemony goodness.
She also made another of my favorites (that I'd forgotten about...that's the great thing about real friends, they remember what you forget) Moon Cake. It's like a 13"x9" chocolate eclair. The crust is eclair like, covered with vanilla custard, whipped cream and chocolate syrup. It doesn't seem too appealing from the description, and doesn't really look very good, but it is delicious.
I came home and got Bill settled with his heating pads, frozen peas and pain meds. Then I headed out for my session with Regina.
Sometimes when I have a session with Regina, it's so hard emotionally, that I swear I'm never going back.
Sometimes though, it's so good to say out loud all of my fears (rational and irrational) that I feel like a new person when I leave and wish I could go every day. Yesterday was one of those days.
We talked mostly about Bill. Or rather, my fears about Bill.
I told her something I've thought many times in the last two years, but never actually said out loud to anyone before.
My belief in God has always been strong. I remember when, as a child, someone explained God to me...it was like a lightbulb went off in my head "Ah! Now I get it." I've always believed that God could do anything, that He could protect my family. I still do. But since Jeff died, I no longer believe that He will.
I have very little time for people who claim to be Christians. The ones who hate everyone but those exactly like them. I used to pity them, now I resent them.
When Jeff died, so many of these "Christians" shunned us. Not ONE of the women from the Sunday School class I'd attended for almost 5 years came to his funeral. Barely a handful of other church members attended. Because Jeff wasn't like them. You know what? Jeff was a much better person than any of them. Because Jeff loved...period. He didn't care if you were Gay, Straight, Black, White, Hispanic, Middle Eastern, Christian, Jewish, Muslim...whatever. I've said before, you could be covered in polka dots, and if you'd let him, he'd love you. That is the love I believe God tells us to have.
I still pray every day. I tell God often how angry I am at him for taking Jeff. His shoulders are big...He can take it.
But the hope, the pure faith I used to have that God's will was best for myself and my family...that's gone. And it leaves me sad and afraid.
Wow! That wasn't what I intended to write...didn't see that coming at all.
Anyway, after we'd talked about that, we talked about Bill and how frustrating it is for me to watch him in pain. How it seems this has dragged on and on (almost 3 months.) She made a few suggestions of ACTIONS I can take to ease my frustration.
One of them I didn't think I would do. She suggested that I explain to Bill AGAIN how it makes me feel helpless when I know he's in pain and he refuses to take the meds to ease it. But when I got home, I made my lunch and went downstairs to sit with Bill. Out of the blue he asked me how my session went. Then he did something he's never done before. He asked me what we talked about. "You and my worries about you", I said. "You don't need to worry about me" he said. I told him it's MY session, I'll talk about whatever I want to. Then I said him "Put yourself in my shoes. If I were the one that was hurt...how would you feel if I were in constant pain and refused to do anything about it? How would you feel, if all you had to do was look at my face and see that I was miserable, yet I refused to let you do anything to ease it?"
He got quiet for a bit, then we had a VERY GOOD talk. He told me that he'd always known that I loved him, but until this accident, he'd never known how DEEP my love for him is (those were his actual words.)
For the first time, he agreed to take his pain meds without argument and I sat downstairs with him for the rest of day. Usually he sends me upstairs because he thinks that way I won't see his pain and "nag" him about it.
I don't know if things will be any different today. I don't know if he'll go back to being hard headed.
But I do know that yesterday's conversation was the most open and honest one we've had about our feelings and fears in 18 years of marriage.
I wouldn't trade that for all the lemon cakes in the world.