Janice M Cali
Life and Mind Upside Down
Life Upside down
Today wasn't too bad. I was up and down because of the weather, or so I thought. I went shopping with a friend, bought feathers for my wall hanging, and yes I will eventually post a picture, anyway, bought feathers, they cost three times more than I thought they would, but that was all right.
Then headed for my therapists. Laura and I have been working on my malfunctioning mind for a little over 10 years now and we take small steps forward and sometimes big ones backward, but the overall results seem to be forward, except when I start sliding down into a depression and manic episodes. That's when I get a little worried, it is becoming a major habit, not a good one either, because from what I've learned, a lot from Laura, is that eventually I will slide into a depression that will have no exit, and might, just might, tend to cause me to be unable to function on any level except as a total recluse, I've been close before, and yeah, that's a little scary.
So, today I walk into Laura's and she has a somewhat grim look on her face, something unusual, Laura is usually an upbeat person, even when she isn't necessarily feeling that way. So I walk into her office, sit in my usual chair, have her dog, a natural therapy dog, greet me with her usual enthusiasm and start to be somewhat light about what I'm willing to talk about. Laura isn't having any of that today. Nope no easy day for me, we have an hour and she has every intention of filling it with “work.” By work I mean, we are going to take my mind apart, the work I've done and the work I avoid as often as possible.
First, she explains that my mood swings are starting to scare her! Can you imagine hearing this from your therapist? She went on stating that I need to stop looking outside of myself for a solution, she means different drugs, different projects, different everything, moving, my dreams of a farm, animals, everything that I think will be what I need to make my life complete.. I need to start looking inside to find what is missing.
I tell her we have pretty much covered everything that caused trauma, like my childhood, my conflicts with my parents as a child, adult, and now about their aging and all that means. So what else is there? I mean if she insists, I'd figured out what was wrong with me a long time ago, there is a huge empty place inside me, a void if you will, and all I've been doing is searching for whatever it takes to fill that void. And frankly that void, emptiness, is more scary to me than searching inside to fix it. There has to be something, some solution for this problem. Something that will fill the emptiness I've felt for so long.
Laura suggests I stop looking, the hunt is become cyclical, I hunt, I find something I think will help, it doesn't help, it doesn't fill the void, I become depressed. Then my creative mind finds something else to try something else, something else that doesn't work, I become more depressed, and on and on, and so the cycle is destructive. I need to stop looking, just live for a while.
Now, this is a foreign concept to me, how do I stop looking for the one thing that might make me the person I want to be, that complete individual? I just don't know how and I can't quite see how that is the solution. She explains in great detail that I need to stop trying to see, look, hunt, and just stop. Live life, do the things I want to do, need to do, finish some projects I gave up ages ago, that sort of thing, but quit hunting. Just live, accept whatever comes my way.
Yeah, I know what part of that void is, I can't love, not in the sense most people do. I can love my immediate family, my animals, and somewhat my friends, but not a lot. Like I love Jerry, as I usually say, "in my own different and warped way". Meaning, not “in love” with him, but I love him, but how would I feel if he died tomorrow? Sad, surely, heartbroken, probably not, lost, only a little, probably. Mostly, like other people I loved, my Uncle and Aunt, I'd feel sad, but I'd put it behind me, I wouldn't feel much. I'm really good at not feeling much. I think that's why I never, but once, fell in love with anyone, and tried really hard not to love my animals. But you see animals are nonjudgmental, they love unconditionally and it's forever with them. They never stop loving you and all they ask is that you feed them, pat them sometimes, and, with dogs especially, just return their love, just a little, and if you don't well, they'll love you anyway.
People don't love that way, maybe your family might, like my sister, she accepts my faults, flaws, and more than a few quirks. They may exhaust her, they may even frustrate and sometimes scare her because some are so self destructive, but she loves me as I am, always.
My parents, I wish I could say the same for them, but I'm not sure. I've never heard my father say he was proud of me, yeah, I've heard him say he loves me, lots of time. But I don't feel it is unconditional, not with my father. My mother, I think she loves me for who I am, and as I am. She worries about my health, but she loves me whether I'm overweight or not, whether I dress in junky/grungy clothes or very nice clothes. She doesn't care if my hair is well kept or a mess, although she prefers neat, but she'll accept me and how I look regardless. Unfortunately, she is the first to critize me, the first to find flaws, the first to find fault. She doesn't mean to hurt me, usually, but it does, because is that unconditional? Not to me.
You see my father wanted a son, and as the youngest, I wanted to make him happy, I wanted to be as smart as I could, I wanted to achieve everything and anything my father wanted, but I tended to fall short. I was too independent and too willful to fill the rolls that I thought my father wanted for me and my sister. I know he wanted me to go to college, but I didn't want to go to college, I knew he wanted both of us to be smart, Carol had no trouble living up to his expectations, throughout her school years, me, once I hit high school, I'd had enough, I didn't care anymore about grades, making my father happy nor my mother. I was unhappy, I was miserable, my depression had become full blown by then, and I was bored with school, teachers and expectations. I wasn't capable of living up to anything, so I disappointed my father, my mother, my teachers, but mostly myself. But by then I believed the label put on me by people who barely knew me, I was stupid. It would take years to find out that I was anything but stupid, but by then most of the damage had been done.
Then when I was 19 I met the one man I've ever honestly loved. It turned out he was an abusive alcoholic, not a great combination. He was the first man I'd run into that worshiped me, completely, I liked that, but I also adored him. It didn't take all that long for my parents, my physican and even me, to realize this was a self defeating relationship. Oh, we eloped, but my inner voice, which I'd learned to ignore, so it turned my body against me, I got sick as a dog. We came home. We saw each other a few more times, but mostly, I was a wreck, and my mother asked my doctor to if there was anywhere I could go to help me get well. There were two choices, one I'd be bored in in three days the other would take about seven, I chose seven, not knowing what I was getting into. Yes, it was a “rest home” and it was called that because some of the biggest names, best known social family names, of the city were frequent residents there, when I was there I met several people who were only names to me on large buildings, large corporations, that sort of thing, but they were as messed up as I was, with the exception that I was the youngest. Until last month that was my only hospitalization.
Now, I learn that if I can't let the emptiness go, ignore it, and just do things, regardless of what they are, I could begin an endless cycle of hospitalizations or worse, end up curled up in bed, refusing to see anyone, family included, depending more and more on aides to help me cope with life.. Shop for me, clean for me, do everything for me as long as it didn't require me going outside and have contact with people other than my sister, although my nurse and my therapist would come here and see me. I probably would divest myself of others, any friends, any contacts, maybe on the internet, but never, ever in person.
This was not an easy thing to deal with, and tonight I'm still trying to deal with it, but it's hard. I've been searching for whatever I need to fill that void since I was a little over three, I didn't know that that was what drove me into all types of behaviors, good, bad and indifferent, but it was.
I can even trace the incident that triggered the void, the emptiness in my soul, mind, wherever it might be, it was the loss of my beloved Nanny, my grandmother, and not knowing where she went or why. It wasn't explained to me that she had gone to heaven, it wasn't explained to me why she was gone only that she was gone and not coming back. This was a little much for a three year old to understand, because if she left it had to be my fault.
She may actually have been the last person, with the exception of my sister, who loved me unconditionally and with her whole heart. I miss her still, but she will not come back even now, I know that, but the love she gave me was magical. Yes, my parents loved and love me, but something about Nanny's was so special. And it's gone forever.
She was a gentle, giving, educated, welcoming and loving woman, who lost her husband with three young children to care for, during the depression, and had few roads to take, she took the ones that seemed best to her, but today would be considered cruel, if not even child abuse, but in those days was deemed by her family and everyone around her as necessary. I'm not going into those steps she took except to say, she returned to teaching school so she would have a profession with which she could support her children. My father, the youngest was three, his sister was about four and his big brother was probably six. And my grandmother had married late in life, her first child was born when she was in her thirties. My grandfather was in his forties when he died, by medical accident, which today would be called malpractice, he had a severe kidney infection, that the doctors deemed needed an operation, so they went in and removed the infected kidney, without checking to see if the remaining one was functioning, it wasn't.
This was horrific to my grandmother, incredibly painful for my grandfather and devastating to my father, aunt and uncle. And it came to cause a major player in my life, at the age of three. Because the hardship of her life, my grandmother had a stroke at about 60, died and turned my young life upsde down and inside out.
Now, even after 60 years, I find myself with that emptiness within me that has never gone away, and may never. And my therapist thinks that I need to stop trying to fill it for a while. Just do the things I've wanted to do, not try to find a project that will fill that void, but do whatever comes to mind, and try accepting the person I am instead of trying to find the person I want to be, I thought I should be, give up the shoulds, accept the now.
OK, of course, because it's Laura and she's rarely been wrong, and if I ever remember when she was I'll point it out, I'll do what she suggests, or at least I'll try. Wish me luck, this is a new route for me, and pretty damn scary. Oh, yeah, it pissed me off when she suggested this, it made me angry, and scared the bejeepers out of me, and I pray that I can manage. Then, what does she go and do? She goes to visit her mother for two weeks starting tomorrow, but she'll be available until Thursday, right, dump me with this and then leave. Who does that remind me of? No, Laura, is not my grandmother, she does not mean that to me, but people leave me, their unreliable that way. Always, or as I got older, I left them before they had the chance to leave me. I don't let that happen very much anymore, I leave firs, or even more I don't let anyone get close enough to hurt me if they do leave.
Now I have to find somewhere inside me why, and yes I know why. But what I really have to do is STOP TRYING TO FILL THE VOID, THE EMPTY SPOT INSIDE MY SOUL. Right, easy, I can do it with my eyes closed (note the touch of sarcasm?). Wish me luck.
By the way, I used a picture of my first greyhound, Colt, in his favorite position, upside down, called cockroaching by greyhound people, because it pretty much explains how I feel, upside down both my life and my mind..
Photograph “Colt Cockroaching” copyright 2001 Janice M. Cali
