Feeling a Little Rough

I still seem to be descending into some deep, dark hole. It's been happening for the past few weeks. Every once in a while I think I'm leveling off, but then I start down again. Everything is coming at me at once, and I don't even dare ask if it could get any worse, because I know very well that it could. It can always be worse. Someone else might not think I have it so bad, but I'm not someone else.

A few weeks ago I mentioned my brother's accident. That weighed heavily upon me for a while, especially since it seemed like the doctors kept finding more and more wrong with him. He ended up with a collapsed lung that needed drained and nine broken ribs instead of the two they originally said. They told him if he wasn't so young and in such good shape, he probably wouldn't have lived. He will most likely have some problems for the rest of his life. He's a good example of why people doing construction should always use the safety precautions no matter how cumbersome.

As if that wasn't bad enough, his wife got in a car accident and totaled their minivan, a necessity when you have six kids. She fared very well considering she wasn't wearing a seat belt. She has a broken ankle and some other bruising. She's lucky airbags were invented.

Most recently, their youngest daughter got sick and developed pneumonia, sending her into the hospital. She failed to get better, and they actually had to sedate her and drain her lung cavity with a needle to avoid having her lung collapse. They drained twelve ounces out of her little 2 ? year old body. Hopefully that will give her body enough help to let the antibiotics do their job.

My mom is out in Nebraska to help my brother and his family, so I haven't really talked to her in weeks. I get the group email every so often, updating us on what's happening. Otherwise, I don't hear from her. I can't imagine how tired and worried she must feel. Well, I guess I can. I feel really bad that she has to go through something like this again. January and February are not good months for our family it seems.

On my own home front, I have the worries of my relationship, my health and my kid. The strain between John and me that was so tight through January has eased up a bit. We went to counseling together last Tuesday, and for the first time since we started going last April, I almost cried. We worked through a whole bunch of stuff, and before we all knew it, the doctor looked at her watch and said, "Oh! It's after seven!" Our session is supposed to end at ten 'til seven. We were really making some progress, it seemed. That has lasted throughout the week, but I have felt extra sensitive and sad too.

I started to wonder if maybe my heart feels the way it does because it is just so emotionally weighted. Has all this sadness caught up with me and caused true physical heartache? I only had a couple times where I felt palpitations again, but they weren't like the first time. I have the ache in my chest every once in a while, but as always, it comes and goes with no apparent explanation. I would like to say I'm not worried about it, but I am. I might just be hypersensitive to my physical state now, but it seems like I'm more tired, unable to concentrate and remember, occasionally lightheaded and often headachy. But that all could just be stress. I have quite a bit of that right now.

My most recent addition to the stress wagon is yet more trouble with the son. He finally got off his restrictions this Sunday after being on them for almost three weeks. So what does he do? He lies to me about something so stupid as washing his hands. It's not that he even would have gotten in trouble for not washing them. He just would have been made to do it. But he lied and told me he did. He told me he did after I felt his hands to see if they were damp, but they were bone dry. He told me he did after I smelled for the scent of hand soap that wasn't there. He told me he did after I felt the hand towel to see if it was wet, but it wasn't. He tried to say he didn't use soap. He tried to say he didn't dry his hands. Both lies might have squeaked by except for the fact that a) I'm not stupid, and b) his hands were bone dry in the matter of a minute. So not only is he lying, he's lying poorly over something so ridiculous and small as hand washing. He did the same thing earlier in the week about brushing his teeth.

But wait? there's more. Last week, he was busted for using spray paint, something he's been told on many occasions not to touch. Of course, he used the spray paint. He took it on the side porch and sprayed a penny on the floor. He actually did this a few weeks ago, and I noticed it then, but I didn't say anything at the time. I waited and watched, because he left the penny laying on the floor of the porch. One day, the penny disappeared, leaving a gold ring on the porch floor. Still I waited. Then last week, I found that not only had he used the spray paint when he wasn't supposed to, he left it out on the porch, buried under the cushions of the furniture out there. It's been freezing cold on several days since he did this; not good for spray cans. I wish I would have checked earlier, but I didn't think that he would be so stupid as to use the paint and then not put it away so as not to be noticed. But looking at the gold paint on the floor, I knew it wouldn't have mattered anyway.

I had a long talk with him about responsibility, rules, etc. He cried a lot and talked about what a bad kid he is. I reassured him that he's not inherently bad, just making some bad decisions. From that day, I saw a big improvement in him, and I thought maybe he finally settled on the right track. He was working with the guidance counselor at school, bringing his homework home and doing it like he should, doing his chores at home and being a much nicer child. So when he lied this weekend and later that same day took some body glitter I had from Halloween and scattered it all over Booie's room, I was extra disappointed. He was back to lying and not respecting other people's property or the rules.

I felt unbelievably hopeless as I went to bed last night. I cried to John as we had our nightly talk and confessed my feelings of overwhelm, even though I was scared to death of being symbolically punched in the shoulder and told to buck up, something he's known to do. I just don't have anywhere else to go to share these feelings though. My mom has her own mess of emotions to handle right now. Kay is dealing with a hard time with her own husband. I have yet to find someone here with whom I've bonded closely enough to dump such troubles. It's all left to John right now, and that can't be good for us. He was absolutely perfect last night though. He's a lot more receptive to my vulnerability than my anger.

There are other minor things that are magnified when I'm feeling low. My weight and eating trouble me. Not being able to exercise irritates me. The state of my house is a constant annoyance. I've fallen back on just about every goal I have. The worst thing is I just want to give in to despair. I don't even want to try right now. I know it will change. It always does, but that doesn't make it easier now. The more I try to force it to happen more quickly, the worse it seems to get. So maybe I do need to give in in a way, so I can relax for a little bit and stop worrying so much.

All of this is why I haven't been writing too. I haven't answered emails or written journal entries. I'm even skipping days in my fitness journal, because I just don't want to bother with anything right now. I avoided the computer most of the weekend. When I have sat down to write, nothing wants to come out. I avoid thinking about these things, and I blank out whenever I try to write about anything at all, even if it's only writing for myself. If I would write for my journal, I worry about being whiny and boring, which is all I am right now. Not very entertaining.

Today I'm going in to my FIL's office to do some work. I haven't been in there in at least a couple weeks, maybe three. I just haven't felt like it. That won't hold water if I get a real job, but since I don't have a real job, I can do that kind of crap. I'm sure it's not the best thing for me. I don't want to go today, but I am. I've put it off all morning, though part of that morning was taken by a school delay. There's no excuse now though. I'm showered, dressed and made up. I've written a journal entry just to avoid going in. There's nothing else. Maybe it will perk me up to get out and do something totally unrelated to any of this stuff.