The many flavors of pain.
I got through the first week on my own, and now that life has sort of started up again I feel like I’m somewhat approaching human status again.
The absence of Alex isn’t so new that it is physically painful any more, but it’s not so old that I’ve forgotten it. Little reminders still bring up stinging feelings – the wounds are still raw, though I no longer need Band-Aids. When I see the reflection of the curve of my car hood pulling in next to the house, for a split second I still think it’s her perky ears coming to the door to see what’s what. When I hear random noises around the house, I still somehow think it’s Alex turning over in her crate, though I got rid of the crate a week and a half ago.
There is less dog hair clinging to my pants every day.
All this makes it sound like Alex is all I think about, and I really haven’t been spending so much time in the grief any more. Ben came back after the week away, and I fell apart for a little while. Once I’d come completely unglued, I found it much easier to put myself back together again, and the second week was far better than the first.
Which is not to say that life is all peaches, though I wish that it were. This week, every day some small nagging mishap has been worming its way into my head, chiseling at my subconscious to try to get me figuring out what I did to cause it.
This is one of my most infuriating traits – when someone is displeased with me, I presume it is my fault. So when the guy yelled at me in the line at Target (I simply cannot tell the story another time, so let it suffice to say that I got thoroughly dressed down for making an unsafe assumption about something completely minor), and when the road-rage guy rolled down his windows to flip me off with BOTH hands while screaming at me out the window at 50 MPH; deep inside me these said to me that I did something wrong and need to search myself to find the problem and address it.
Eating myself alive is not perhaps the healthiest attitude I have sustained, and yet truthfully I’ve sustained it as long as I can remember being aware of how the way I act can cause other people to act and react.
But particularly unsettling and weighty on my mind today is a thoroughly controversial conversation I had with one of my dearest friends this afternoon, where I made a flippant comment about a decision that Ben and I have made for ourselves, but it was slightly misinterpreted to mean something way more offensive about way more people. And the truth of what I think is appropriate lies somewhere in between – where had I phrased it better, or had I intended to bring the topic up to be discussed head-on, I might have been able to present it more rationally.
Not going into the topic at this time because… frankly I don’t want a public shitstorm on top of the private shitstorm that’s raging in my head, or the private one I’m having on civil terms with my friend.
It all got me thinking about how strictly principled I can sometimes be. How hard it probably makes being friends with me for a normal person, who doesn’t cross-analyze every decision they make to make the most positive impact on the world at large. I really do this, and as of this afternoon I can say that it’s painful when I really think about it, and I seriously wonder, just as with the unfortunate yet minor incidents above, what is it in me that brings this out? Why do I not only choose to subjugate my own satisfaction in an effort to make the world a better place (sometimes), but then use those choices to alienate my friends and make myself even more lonely and tortured?
Obviously, the past three weeks have not been the best of times for me, though I would hate to presume that these are the worst of times. Many humans have seen and surmounted times far worse than this.
So on goes the enduring question: what is wrong with me? Why am I not just normal, in a way that allows me to enjoy while still perceiving my life? Why do I allow and/or force myself to suffer over the most minute details? Is there a cure for this, or is it something I should adjust to, and the loneliness something I should just learn to live with?
Lest this post list too far into the emo section, I’ll quit and brood offline now. But a question for my peeps out there: if you torture yourself, care to share how, why, and over what kinds of issues you do it?
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Dear friend… I do not think that you are abnormal. I think that MANY of us do this (I do this often, WAY more often than is healthy), and most of us don’t acknowledge it. I believe that the first step in moving on from it is recognizing that it’s unhealthy, and acknowledging that we do it. Once we do that, we can more clearly analyze it. I say this from my own experience, not from anything else.
I really feel it here at work, and it makes me honestly depressed and upset. I don’t like wondering what it was that I did wrong, who I wronged, why this person is upset with me, etc. In reality, chances are, the person is dealing with their own crap and has their own stuff to live in right now. BUT, with my upbringing and my history, I always go, OMG, what did I do?!?! (As I did a few years ago, if you’ll recall!) I immediately did the same thing with my very valued friend Sarah in Seattle. I wondered what I did, why it hurt her so much, what I could do to right the wrong, profusely apologized, sent her gifts, called… but it wasn’t me. It was her own stuff that she couldn’t get out of.
So, I do torture myself. Far too often for my own health & sanity. I do it over my interactions with people, friends, etc, and wish I didn’t. I do it less than I used to. But, still do it. The other way I torture myself is to always be “fine.” I’m not always fine, and that’s the way it is. It’s not healthy to never acknowledge that you’re in pain. But, again, due to the circumstances in which I was raised, I do that. I always say “fine” even when I’m so far from fine, I can’t even see straight (see the story of my kitty from 2000).
I write this response not to tell you “you’re wrong” and I hope you don’t take it that way. I commiserate, and want you to know that you’re not alone. We are works in progress, this life is a journey. If we come back for another one after, I hope that we can keep some of this knowledge. But, I’m not sure how likely that is. I think we might forget it.
Love you, really.
noelle´s last blog post..thoughts and uncertainties…
Hey Lady,
I believe we all have different levels of environmental awareness, and cope with our pains differently. Personally, I suppose I torture myself by running through all the scenarios of what it was that I could have done wrong, even when my rational mind is sure that I didn’t do anything wrong. Since I tend to be a forward looking person, I also try to figure out the ‘best’ way for me to move forward and come up with all these constantly evolving ways to react. In fact, I’ve been going through it this week–tonight included. I haven’t been able to sleep well because I’ve these thoughts running through my mind. And the time has come and I need to return a phone call tonight where absolutely none of those thoughts of how to react will actually take place, but I feel more secure and prepared to move forward.
Someone once told me that although events may have an impact on us, we control how we choose to react to those events. That was hard to swallow. It made look at how I handle emotional events in a whole new way–effectively changing a major aspect of who I am. I empowered myself to choose how to react: rage, calm rationality (which is sometimes scarier than rage), nurturing, etc. It was hard to learn to stop and consciously decide how I want to react to an event. So, when I need to be angry, I am angry; when I need to be sad, I’m sad; when I need to be happy, I’m happy. For me, the best part is later not feeling bad about myself for my feelings. It is what it is. So long as you’re not hurting yourself or anyone else, I think it’s fine to go through the emotions and thoughts that you need to in order to work through your reaction to an event.
Looking back at what I just wrote, it sounds so clinical. But I’m a creature of logic, and that’s what works for me. You, you are able to feel and experience so much more than I, so I expect that you will continue to have deeper more intense reactions to emotional events than I do. It’s who you are, and I very much appreciate that.
I hope these words help. I’m going to make that call now, and I hope I stick to my general plan of how I want to react and move forward from the event that caused my distress this week.
Take care of yourself.
Love you,
Di
You of all people know that we are kindred spirits in this self-torturing arena. I really really struggle with it on a daily (hourly, minute, second) basis. I over analyze everything I say, everything I think, everything I do, everything I feel.
Just tonight I was trying to write about -one- little word I said to someone. One. And it wasn’t a bad one. In fact, the word was “sweetie”. Imagine that. A term of endearment has whipped my mind into a frenzy. In fact, I am tearing up at the alleged consequences of that one little word. Where are the consequences? In my head, of course. As I’m sure yours are.
I look at people, and think, god, those people are assholes/bitches/horrible and they have so many friends! For me, what it boils down to is confidence. They are who they are. They don’t worry about what others think of them.
So I work on confidence. And work to find that balance between being empathetic and being a doormat. Trust me, I tend toward the “Welcome” end of that spectrum, but I try.
Today, a friend and I disagreed about a song. (She loves it; I thought it was tripe.) We bickered back and forth for a while, there was some name calling, mocking, and general questioning of the other’s sanity, but at the end of it, we were still friends. This is a good day for me. I can’t say that everyday I could have a disagreement — minor such as this one — and feel confident that the other would still like me. But when I do have days like this, I hold on to them and say, look! It’s ok!
Somewhere along the line, we got told that we are to be perfect. Perfect is never disagreeing, always cheerful, always at ease, a good person, put others first, happily ever after. I’m not sure that’s true. I mean, people tell me all the time that isn’t true, but I’m not sure that -I- believe it yet.
So, no, by far, you are not the only person that thinks this way or struggles with it.
If it helps at all, I’m astonished that you struggle with this. I’m astonished that you question for even a second that you are a good person. Take one look at your kid if you ever need proof of your grace in this world.
Jen´s last blog post..I’m thinking too much