Living and Breathing

The world seems upside down and inside out! My mind, usually reliable for a bit of writing, feels dull witted. Wisdom is in short supply. I tilt and whirl through each day expecting one of the days to look familiar. I want to return to the days I remember years ago. What a ridiculous desire given my penchant for creating chaos and railing against society at every turn. But somehow those days now seem friendly and manageable. 

Spending time with friends of mine who are struggling to grasp the accelerated progression of dementia in their loved one is tough. Really tough! Listening as they make decisions that must be made creates an ache in my heart. No one wants these kinds of decisions to make. It is made more difficult by the cruel dementia symptom that causes their loved one to be cruel and paranoid and to transition to their "normal" self for a few hours. The decision making must be based on the darker side of the symptoms rather than the periods of clarity and that is what I call "mountain mean". No one is the winner. Moments of acceptance, moments of grief, moments of anger and frustration and moments of wanting desperately to escape the truth and pretend things will get better weave throughout the day. The stress creates mental and physical symptoms that threaten to overwhelm the family. I know. I have walked this path in my own life. Yet, here with my friends facing the horror of progressive dementia, my experience can only be shared as love and support. It is maddening to be so close and yet so far from helping. I want to rush in and slay this dragon of dementia and restore their former happy and fruitful lives. I will not get that opportunity. My contribution can be to walk beside them as they negotiate and make their decisions. Life is not fair. What is, is! I experience a flash of rage. I want to kill this awful dementia. I want to flame my anger and hurt into a vengeful sword that will destroy this hideous enemy. The flash passes and I surrender to the truth, the "what is" of this journey. I ask God to use me here in these moments. I ask Him to help me push pass this need I have to fix what I know I cannot fix. I ask Him to move through me and create in me the ability to simply love and comfort my friends. I ask to allow me to share some of their pain, to bear the heavy burden of this dreadful time. I ask Him to grant the peace that passes all understanding and then I feel the dark rage rise up in my throat. I take several sharp breaths. I surrender again and again and again. Loving God is often like showing up to get assignments that I know will break me down. If He is to use me at all I have to be broken. I have to surrender. My rage bows before Him and surrenders. Again and again and again! Please God pour out Your love through me and into the lives of my friends. And, Father, it hurts. It really, really hurts. I surrender! Again. So much surrender as I write tonight. My will does not want to bend the knee. His will, not mine, I pray!

Wow!

I just deleted an entire post that I wrote a few months ago. It was embarrassing. Wordy. Convoluted! Whatever thoughts I meant to convey were lost in the drivel I managed to write. 

I do not do well when I make an attempt to be wise and express myself with that in mind. My mind makes a mockery of the wisdom I attempt to convey. I sound more like a wino on speed. Granted that may be a comparison many people will fail to understand. I, through a stroke of incredible "luck" have personal experiences to draw on for that comparison. 

Tonight, I am free of the burden of believing I have wisdom to share. What a relief!

Childlike

 I am 70 years old. Yet, when I think of myself I envision a young person. Not a teen-ager. A young person who is timid and tries to hide behind things so as not to be seen. I am protective of that child. I avoid encouraging her to come forward and participate with life. She is timid from the ground up. I am, as an adult, tethered to her. I am unable to go on without her. 

(This is how my ptsd works) I left my bedroom door open and a breeze blew across my back and shoulders. It felt like heavy breath)  I immediately visualized a man coming up behind me with a knife and whipped around to see him. There is always relief as I realize there is no one lurking in the house waiting to hurt me. It is PTSD and, as such, can provoke short, intense moments that illicit real-time reactions. . Knowing these moments will come does, in no way, minimize the surprise.      

"Grandma, I need to know what kinds of mental health problems are inherited and are part of our family."  A brief conversation ensued between me and my 16 year old grandson about the various mental health challenges in his bloodline. "Is sleep paralysis inheritable?" Finally, the door opened into my world of mental health challenges but not in the way of inherited traits, though many exist in our family. My grandson's questions called me out! In many ways his challenges should mirror mine. Early childhood trauma, extreme and sustained lack of stability in daily life and ptsd cleverly disguised as bi-polar in some cases and, most certainly, as anxiety, chronic depression, alcoholism and drug addiction. I promised to make an account of family traits, specifically mental health traits.

His request and comments woke up the part of me that wants very much to use what I have learned about myself over many years of intense therapy sessions. I immediately drew up an inner woman.\Because of the pain and extreme emotions I experienced during many years of intense therapy, I called up an inner woman to alleviate the risk of recalling and attempting to manage the story I want my grandson to know. I pray what I have to share will encourage him to seek out professional help for his own depression and anxiety.                                                                                                                            

Not Today

Not today, I thought, not today! I thought of several things at once and none of them fit. My thinking challenges me with thoughts and actions I could take, maybe even should take, but the next thought is "Not today!" 

I have a good brain." Lots of potential", is what I have been told most of my life. You could have been this or that if you had chosen. Having lots of potential mentioned to me with silence following afterwards seems designed to draw me into a state of morbid thinking. Thinking of myself as a failure because I was born but predictably (heavy sigh) forfeited the golden ring of reaching my potential. Worse yet the silence lingering in the air leaves an undefined goal and I have missed it. What "it" is eludes me. The fact that it eludes me does not free me from a vague guilt and a hint of shame that I have somehow failed. Worse yet, the silence leaves a gaping maw of unspoken potentials, undefined yet seemingly important. 

What am I to do at that point? Shrug my shoulders in the face of potential lost? Should I convey a sense of disappointment in my own self? I could do that well with one eye on the accusers and one eye winking at the absurdity of the false pretense posture I assume.

My life is fraught with monumental mistakes in judgement. I admit it is as obvious as a wart on the end of my nose that I squandered my potential. The problem is that I do not grasp what was expected of me. Clearly it was unvoiced. What a delicious set-up! We will have a baby girl filled with potential. We agree never to mention what that means or even hint at it until that baby girl fails a few times. At some point we will approach her with disappointment in our voices as we tell her she had so much potential, but she failed to use it. Then as she forms a response of protest, we will assume the posture of resignation as we nod our heads and make little "Hmm" sounds dismissing her with impunity.

When I put it that way I see "them" as wicked little creatures bent on destroying me. Even that assumption puzzles me. I have questions. No one has answers. Evil arrives in quiet moments. Evil is a genius shape shifter. Puzzled and without a clue how to repent of the sin of not living up to my potential I hesitate. In that moment of hesitation, I see myself struggling under the burden of potential, but I don't care.

There I have said it! I don't care if I ever reach my potential. Better yet, if I should reach it, let me know. I can't imagine I will recognize it. Shocking! I am the girl who looked at her potential and shot it the bird! 

My peace has returned. My happiness flows out of me to others on this journey! When I see Jesus I am going to ask Him to explain "potential" to me. 

I Know A Man

I know a man who pushed the envelope, went to the limit, laughed in the face of possible death, had no fear when he committed to an insane thought and knew when he had gone too far and blown it out. He felt rather than knew the shifting and rearranging of brain cells brought on by years of neglect and lack of adequate nourishment. 
I know a man who faced, at a young and tender age, the abject desolation of abandonment and the carnage of a world imploding in the void that was left. Each day that passed another piece of the familiar tore loose flying off into the strength of the pull of the void. Pieces of who he was and who he could become flew side by side into the gaping darkness until the wound of being left alone closed up enough to shut off the void. The brain began a healing of sorts replacing the missing pieces with a little of this and a little of that in a random pattern.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         
I know a man who emerged from the cocoon spun of sorrows and broken dreams believing he could stave off the loneliness if he did not care at all. He did not know he left the cocoon ill prepared for loneliness and not caring at all would attract an absence of affection that, in the years to follow, would crush him.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

What I Have Learned

I have learned that all the best intentions, all the best ideas, all the love anyone can have and all the true desire to make a change in someone's life, someone you love very much, does not mean things will work out,  I naively believed I could make the difference in my grandson's life I told him I would always have his back, that he was safe with me, that I would always be there for him. I meant it. I really meant it from the bottom of my heart. I was wrong. I was powerless to keep my many promises and had no authority or power to override anyone when it came to the decisions being made in my grandson's life. I stood and watched through the years knowing full well that the dramas playing all around him were robbing him of his joy and his ability to trust and his belief that things would turn out o.k. I tried to make a safe place for him but I could not make it safe enough to protect him from the insanity of influences that took him far beyond his ability to cope with their reality. I felt it. I screamed inside and schemed to find a way to draw him closer In the end I had to stand silently and watch as his stresses and challenges rose over his head, watch while the police were called in and he was forced to the point of snapping and I saw him look to me and I could not make a dent in the system or in the pain in his mind and body. I watch now as a fifteen year old young man moves out of my world to a place emotionally where I cannot seem to reach him. I hand my fear to God and pray for my grandson. I am so terribly sorry that I could not hold up my part of the bargain and the promises and that I still am powerless. My Father who is in heaven is not powerless. I pray asking for mercy and guidance and protection of my grandson. I know, all too well, the journey ahead of him if he is to overcome the forces that have pulled at him his entire life. I beg God to forgive us for the harm we bring to children in our own brokenness and through our own slavery to self-will. I pray God will restore, heal, bless and bring peace to my grandson's body, mind and spirit. In Jesus name! Amen!

Day After Christmas 2021

 2021 seems a blur of significant events enhanced by the suffering and life changing presence of COVID 19 and it's children named collectively as variants. Waiting for 2022 to show up fresh faced and full of innocent hope without a care in the universe. I see the face of the first day of January peeking around the corner and she is not smiling. Not even a hint of a smile. I can't decide if the look I see is filled with malice or a cringing, unspoken "oops"!