A Recovery Blog

This blog is about my continuing recovery from severe mental illness and addiction. I celebrate this recovery by continuing to write, by sharing my music and artwork and by exploring Buddhist and 12 Step ideas and concepts. I claim that the yin/yang symbol is representative of all of us because I have found that even in the midst of acute psychosis there is still sense, method and even a kind of balance. We are more resilient than we think. We can cross beyond the edge of the sane world and return to tell the tale. A deeper kind of balance takes hold when we get honest, when we reach out for help, when we tell our stories.

Saturday, August 13, 2011

Home Alone Again

This is the first day in about three weeks that I've had free to slow the pace down.  For the most part, I have not kept up with my online friends.  I apologize for that, but I can only seem to focus on one thing at a time.  Also, before I have to do something with my family I need half a week to a week to prepare and then afterwards I need a half a week to a week to recover.  That's the nature of mental illness for many people I'm afraid.  I can appear relatively normal with my family for a week or two, but then I need to withdraw back into my solitary space.

This was probably the last trip my parents will make to visit Rob and me in New York.  From now on we will visit them only.  My father turned 85 this trip and my mother is 83 and they are visibly slowing down.  The day before I picked them up at the airport my brother had a small fire in his house; he fell trying to put it out and hurt himself and so he didn't come with me to pick up our parents.  It was very good to see them and a day and a half later to see my uncle.  My uncle recently turned 80 and yet he drove from Chicago to Western New York in a couple of days.  I thought he looked great, more energetic than my parents.  He is my mother's younger brother and she hadn't seen him in six years or so.  Despite living a long distance away from each other, they love each other and keep in touch by phone, but, as my mother has often said to me, it's not the same as seeing a loved one in person.

I arranged for my parents and uncle to stay in a B&B nearby.  It was only after a day or two of them staying there that I heard from my family that the owners were conservative Christian Republicans.  My parents and uncle are staunch liberal Democrats and confirmed atheists to boot and so it was a bit awkward for them living in such close proximity to their hosts.  Each side was certainly polite, even friendly, but my family had to restrain themselves and this made them uncomfortable.  Nonetheless, the house they stayed in was nice and safe and they didn't complain too much to me.

I discovered quickly that I had over planned the trip.  I was anxious and eager to please my mother in particular.  Both she and my father are great planners, but this time they realized that they didn't have the energy to do as much as I had anticipated.  And my uncle had the awkward responsibility of following my car with his while transporting my parents while I drove my brother because we couldn't all fit in the same small car.  And then on the birthday day (my brother was born on my father's birthday) as we were beginning the 45 minutes drive to a state park to have a nice lunch at a restaurant in an inn there, my "service engine soon" light came on.  Because we were an hour early, my uncle and I drove to the nearest service station.  It was lunch time, but the owner said that as long as the light wasn't flashing I could still drive the car to the restaurant and back.  And so I did.  The next morning I drove my car with my uncle following to my usual repair shop and dropped off my car.  It only needed a new sensor, but the part was expensive.  So I thought the car was good to go, but several days later, when we had driven to Ithaca, New York, an hour and forty minutes away to have lunch at a Thai restaurant and go to the theater there I encountered another car problem.

It was after we had eaten and after we had finished watching the play that when I tried to pull out in the parking lot, I found I could only move a couple of inches and when I did it made a terrible sound.  I immediately got out of the car and saw that the front driver's side tire was totally flat, but it didn't feel like a normal flat because normally you can still move the car a bit and I couldn't.  I sent my uncle and parents home and stayed with my brother after calling triple A to get a tow nearly 100 miles back to home territory.  Luckily I had gotten triple A plus which covers the cost of a tow up to 100 miles.  The tow truck came in an hour.  The man diagnosed the problem right away, said part of a coil in the front of the car had cracked, broken and sprung into the tire.  My brother and I quickly realized that we had averted serious injury, even death: if we had been driving at 65 miles an hour on the highway hours earlier with my uncle following close behind me who knows what might have happened to all of us?  And so, despite the inconvenience we were very grateful.

My uncle stayed an extra day and drove my parents to the airport and then headed back to Chicago while I had the work done on my car.  I prayed that they all get home safely and as it turns out, they did.  So the visit was a mixed bag, some good days and times and some not so good.  Last year, when my parents stayed at my house, we had a better time, were somewhat closer to each other than this visit.  Still generally speaking it went okay and I was very happy to see them all and spend a little over a week with them.

So here I am back to being home alone and I'm relieved, but it will still take me a couple more days to get adjusted.  A great thing that happened while my family visited was that I got a long letter from a woman I've been wanting to be friends with for several years.  She was responding to a three page type written letter that I sent to her.  She said she really enjoyed my letter and went on to write candidly to me about a few things in her life.  What's particularly cool about this woman is that she is not only a very interesting, individualistic person, but she lives close by.  In her letter she offered to do some work for me fixing my cat pen fencing so that my cats can finally go outside.  My friend Richard created a wonderful cat pen, but cut through the fence months ago to do some work on the back of the house and never got around to fixing it.  Right now he is very busy.  So I'm gearing up to ask this woman to come and visit me.  And I hesitate, not because I have any reservations about this interesting person, but because I have reservations about myself.  I'm so self protective that I don't often take chances.  Still, now is a good time to invite her over because my house is in moderately good order due to my family's visit.  Normally, I used my messy house as an excuse not to have anyone over, but right now I don't want to do that.  This woman is a private person with only a few close friends and I'm finding that I would like to become one of those friends.  So my next order of business is to write a good, long letter back to her.  I'm looking forward to doing that.

3 comments:

Karen May Sorensen said...

Good to hear that your visit went well. And I'm excited that you are reaching out to this woman. You do need flesh and blood friends! Don't hesitate in writing the return letter, if you haven't done so by now. Taking some chances makes you feel like you are living life large, it gets your adrenaline pumping.

The cat pen will mean that your cats will get fleas. There is topical flea monthly doses sold at Walmart, or you could get a better brand at a pet store, but it is extra money, every month, for each cat. We find that keeping the cats indoors keeps them flea free. We are careful to keep the dog flea free, so she doesn't infest the cats. I warn you that fleas in your bed and sofa will bite you too, it is miserable. So take arms against fleas!

You were very lucky with your car. You were right to see it in the larger picture, that a disaster was avoided rather than fuss over inconvenience.

I am like you Kate, in that I take time before an event with my family to suffer a bit of anxiety and then time after to adjust back to normal. It can't be helped. Its a bit of a rollercoaster ride.

But we endure it because being with our families is so important to the underlying sense of self. In our self imposed relative isolation of normal life we like to feel, in our minds, that our hearts are connected.

All my love,
Karen

Feminist Voice with Disabilities said...

Kate,
I am so happy that you are reaching out to this woman who you clearly want to be friends with. This is great progress for you, because I remember before you met Richard, when you had no one ever at your home much at all, and you were quite isolated. I know how hard it is to reach out. I, too, have used that excuse of a messy home to not invite people over. I have very few flesh and blood friends, really only one who I ever see, and we really don't have much in common so it's not the best relationship. I understand how hard and overwhelming it can be to reach out and meet people, but I think it is important for all of us to do that when we can.

I am glad your visit with your parents went well, and I understand the time to adjust that you need afterwards, and before they come. I'm glad that you are able to see them as they are getting older and things are getting harder for them to do. I'm sure they miss you when they are home, and it's nice that you can connect with them, when you can. I think sometimes it's hard to be around family all the time, but it's helpful to be around them some of the time. If that makes sense. You are loved, and it's important to be reminded that you matter to people, and not just people on the internet, but people who are in your offline life.

I agree with Karen about the fleas - they are a problem. If you do let your cats outside, get to a pet store or a vet and invest in some good flea killer that you can put on their necks regularly. I would do that if I were you. If you can afford it. It's worth it to avoid having a flea infestation in your home. If you do get infested, Borax works well to kill fleas. Good luck with the pen!

I wish you all the luck in the world with becoming friends with this new woman in your life. She will be lucky to know you.

Anonymous said...

I (at least these last few years) have done very little IRL reaching out. I am very happy for you that not only your family visit went well, but also that you have this new person in your life. I am new to your blog & am just reading through...~Mary