Posted by leeran on May 22, 2003, at 14:49:59
In reply to Correction, posted by whiterabbit on May 22, 2003, at 11:05:55
Thank you so much for responding. I have three appointments today (gynecologist/dental/mammogram) so I don't have much time to write - but I did want to say how much your responses mean to me.
I felt (still do) so utterly alone last night. Don't get me wrong, my husband is the most supportive person I've ever had in my life, but here's the deal . . . for the last five years - since I've known him - he's been able to salve my pain. Any kind of pain. And for the first time, last night, I realized that the agony I felt wasn't something that he could "salve." And I think that feeling, coupled with being blindsided with news I NEVER expected - or suspected, almost put me over some edge where I've never been.
I don't mean suicide.
I guess I mean extraordinary grief. "Wolves pulling at the entrails" grief. That's the only way I can describe it - and I've never felt it, ever, until last night.
At 2:00 a.m. I looked out the window and wanted to run - or walk - somewhere, anywhere, fast. I'm sure it was panic. I'm pretty certain there's never been a time in my life when I've cried the better part of nine hours, and my sinuses felt like they were going to explode - yet I couldn't stop crying. And I woke up crying. And I'm crying while I write this - and I still have to make it through two dental crowns and a mammogram.
What irony. My physical health (don't know about the mammogram yet - appointment is at 5:00) has never been better. I just got back from the gynecologist and he literally wrote the letter "A" on all the blood work/urine test pages. My cholestrol has never been under 200 as an adult - until today - and it was 197. Last week my blood pressure was 102/60 (today it was 78 on the bottom number - but I'm sure it was due, in part, to the circumstances). Blood sugar 91.
And I've never felt worse.
And I have an admission to make. At 2:00 in the morning I thought "if there's something wrong with the tests tomorrow, that's okay - because I don't have the ***** to do myself in."
Isn't that sick?
And I told my husband that. Even sicker.
Not to hurt him, but because I was babbling and miserable and was trying to think of any avenue that might abbreviate the pain.
But now, more than ever, suicide is not an option. Any suicidal ideation in the past has stopped short when I've thought of what it would do to my family - especially my son and husband (and of course, parents).
And now, it would be even worse. So that door is closed forever.
More than anything, it's been that (control freak that I am) I've always thought that I had a job to do, meaning - getting him raised. I've always known that his dad doesn't have the capability. He won't do the prodding. He's too busy looking over everyone else's shoulder for the next distraction. Despite our son's 6'2" height, he'll never be able to hold his dad's attention.
One of my biggest fears: that my son would turn out to be like his father
And I thought I had dodged the bullet.
I thought, not too long ago, "whew, we've gotten this far and he's never brought it up."
With my husband, he's had an excellent example of how people who love one another should treat each other - and I hope, the same has been true from me.
But, in this vast universe of my love for him - this agape love that's always just "been there," there exists this narrow little tunnel that I've never been able to fill for him: that need for the same kind of love from his father. Something I haven't been able to provide, something I've tried to keep just beyond my peripheral vision and hoped would go away. The same little tunnel of expectation I felt with the same man, but eventually realized was never going to be there.
One thing, totally off-topic that I want to say, no, NEED to say, is that my parents have been totally supportive (I called them this morning) and they have helped me over one of the many little humps that will inevitably come up along the way.
And one last thing . . .
I've said this here before. Our family doctor once told me "Lee, your God is a punitive God."
So, here's the deal (somehow, I think you all will see where this is going and hopefully someone will understand).
It has crossed the very unreasonable part of my gray matter that my "spilling of the beans" in my post about my childhood has wrought this terrible punishment - which is the punishment of losing my son.
I know this is sick and it is obviously just one more reason I need therapy.
Will I lose him? No - not in the literal sense, but nothing will ever be the same. This is a fork in the road.
Again, I can't begin to say how much it has meant to just be able to blurt out my agony in this anonymous stream-of-consciousness manner. Thank you, thank you, thank you for listening/reading . . .
poster:leeran
thread:228259
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20030517/msgs/228366.html