Day Twenty-nine: Night of Silence

"Cold are the people/Winter of life/We tremble in shadows/This cold endless night/Frozen in the snow lie roses, sleeping/Flowers that will echo the sunrise/Fire of hope is our only warmth/Weary, its flame will be dying soon." -- from Night of Silence by Daniel Kantor

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Thanksgiving has passed and for the first time in my life, I have not been with any extended family. Because of this, the preparation for Thanksgiving dinner has fallen completely to me. I have never done this before, but have manage to pull it off with a precooked ham, boxed stuffing, homemade cranberry sauce, sweet potato casserole, broccoli casserole, store bought rolls, and a homemade pumpkin pie. It takes a lot of planning and a fair amount of effort on the day of, but everything comes out really tasty and is well-received by everyone, even my sometimes unpredictably picky big girls. It is the first time in a long time that I've felt a bit more like myself. Even so, I find that the effort of cooking and baking drains me and I am much more irritable than I have any right to be. 

Day Twenty-four (extra content) - Five Minute Friday: Dare

Note: The following is my weekly five minute long contribution to the Five Minute Friday community. For more information on Five Minute Friday and how to join in this incredible community, click here to learn more at Kate Motaung's blog Heading Home. If you want to join in the fun and link up with all of this week's FMF based on the prompt below, click here.

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~Dare~ 

 

I dared to believe that the partial hospitalisation program at Green Tree could help me one more time.
I dared to hope that it would render the same results that it had the first time almost four years ago.
I dared to hope that God would help me through it.
I dared to trust in the people who run the program and in their abilities to help me.
I dared to trust in the therapist who I spoke with when I had that awful horrible no good day.
I dared to think that the worst of it was over after speaking with her.
I dared to feel "cautiously optimistic" when I returned to the program the following morning.
I dared to believe that it would all be okay.

I was wrong. I was horribly, horribly, irrevocably wrong.

But still, I dared.
I dared to believe after the trauma of being inpatient at Pine View that I could get past my anger.
I dared to believe that I could force myself to come face to face with those who betrayed me and ignore that betrayal.
I dared to believe that I could still get everything that the partial hospitalisation program had to offer and use to for my benefit.
I dared to tell the doctor exactly how angry I was at the prospect of coming back to that place.
I dared to fight for the opportunity to return to a place where I had been betrayed just so I could prove that I was stronger than that betrayal.
I dared to come back to that program and endure the entire three weeks of it.
I dared to do all of these things in an effort to get better, to recover, to move out of the darkness.

I dared to hope that through all the writing of this painful dark journey that things might be getting better.

I was wrong and foolish to have dared.

Five Minute Friday

Day Nineteen: Dearest Gray

18 October 2014

Saturday

Dearest Gray,

As you know, today hasn't been the easiest of days for me and that what I'm feeling as I type this and try not to cry (not that I don't feel that I can, I just don't want to have to stop now that I've finally started to get a tissue from the bathroom and wipe my nose) is the weight of all of this that I've been writing about of late. These memories that I've been sharing with the world have been even more sharply in my dreams the last several days which, as you also know, has caused you to waken me from nightmares. I told you today that I don't want to continue this writing of this. It hurts so much and I've cried so many tears over it. I told you too that I was starting to feel something akin to hope, only to have it smashed to bits this afternoon and evening. That is the way of this disease though and why I have learned that it is an exercise in frustration and pain to tell myself that I might be getting better or that things might be changing in some way because there is something about saying it aloud (or writing it) that seems to signal an ill wind to come and knock me back down into the darkness again. Two steps forward, two steps back again. Maybe not a whole two steps back, but enough that whatever infinitesimal amount of progress I am making is so miniscule as to be completely unrecognizable to my senses. All that said, my darling, you have encouraged me and lent me your strength and I am trying. As I said, today, I am writing this for you.

Day Eighteen: Playing the Game

I return to the ward following Gray's and the girls' visit and discover that there are snacks to be had at the nurse's station. I can't really recall when I last ate and although I'm not starving, something about the offering of juice and plain potato chips looks at least a little appealing. I take a bag of chips and a little container of juice and return to my room. As I sit down on my bed across from my roommate who is straightening her bed sheets, I realise that although I have tears still moist on my face, the need to cry has lessened. I open the chips and the juice and start to eat and drink. It isn't milk and honey from the promised land, but it isn't horrible either.

Day Seventeen (part 1): Early Morning Blurred Lines

My unconscious mind is roused by a voice calling my name, but I can't put a face to it. "Therese? Therese?...." I am still somewhere betwixt dreams and wakefulness and the heavy sort of confusion of that state clouds my senses. "Therese? Therese, wake up. Wake up, Therese." The voice is insistent and somewhere in my half awake brain, I realise that whoever it belongs to must know me, so I roll over in the bed and automatically reach to turn my CPAP off. My hand grapples with empty air beside the bed and suddenly, a realization hits me. I am not at home. Oh God, it wasn't a dream. Despite my inability to see anything clearly without my glasses, I suddenly know exactly where I am. The voice says, "Therese, you need to go down to the nurse's station for a blood draw." I bristle. My CPAP continues to hum quietly and whoosh with each breath I take. The person belonging to that voice is standing in the doorway of my room and although she is less than ten feet away, I cannot tell that she is a she except for the pitch of her voice. Apparently satisfied that I am awake enough to have heard her message, she disappears. I am not getting out of this bed to go give them any of my blood. Too fucking bad. I lay back down and turn over on the hard foam mattress and refold the thin pillow beneath my head, hearing it crinkle as I lay my head down. I pull the thin waffle weave blanket over my head, close my eyes, and go back to sleep.

Day Seventeen (part 2): Rules and A Visit

I go back to sleep for a while and finally wake up around 10:00am, decide to get dressed, and walk around a bit to see the rest of this prison. As I consider dressing, I realise that there is only one tiny corner of my room where I can dress that is mostly out of sight of the wide open door. I would just close the door, but we are not allowed to close it and if we do, it will lock us inside the room. Ditto for closing the bathroom door. There is absolutely no privacy. Anyone and I mean absolutely anyone -- doctor, nurse, staff, or fellow patient -- could walk by and see me dressing or undressing. It is a degrading, humiliating feeling to be cowering in the corner, looking over my shoulder every other second to make sure the coast is clear and that no one is walking in unannounced.

Day Sixteen: Flood

The door clangs shut behind me and I am howling through my tears, barely able to see the orderly who is walking just ahead of me, carrying my two bags and leading the way to the place where I will be until....who knows when? The drive here and saying goodbye to Gray have taken all the fight out of me and now I am just a heartbroken shell. I cannot think of anything. All I can do is cry and I cry continuously as we get on the elevator, ride upstairs, and walk down the hall of the ward toward the nurse's station. I am bawling like a baby who is starving, cold, tired, and in pain. It is less cry and more wail and by all rights, I ought to be completely humiliated but I just don't care anymore. The pain of what I am feeling is so great that I am beyond caring about anything except leaving this place and being reunited with Gray and my children.

Day Fourteen: Down the Rabbit Hole

Note: This entry is particularly long. I started to separate it into multiple entries, but I could not find a good place to split it that made sense to me. I am going to insert some pauses, if you will, in the form of asterisks, so that if you need to grab another cup of coffee, change a diaper, make a phone call or just take a break, you'll have some way of finding your place again. I apologize in advance for the length of it and offer my sincere gratitude to all of you who are reading. Thank you.

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It is Wednesday morning and I am on my way to Mass for the third day in a row. This morning though, there is a healthy lunch packed in my insulated bag and although I'm not what I'd call really happy, my overall mood is definitely lighter as I drive along. Yesterday on my daily assessment, I rated the intensity of my depression at a 9 out of a possible 10, although in all honesty, it was probably closer to a 10. I know I was trying to hide it a little bit though. Today though, I feel like it is sitting somewhere around a 6 or 7. It's not a complete 180 degree difference, but definitely a step in the right direction. With any luck, by the end of the partial hospitalisation program, I will be able to get that number down to nearly 0.