Clematis

I went to a meeting today and presented a 12 page paper to a couple that I had written - a psychoeducational evaluation I had done on their child. The father is a physician and the mother is also bright and well-educated. I worked really hard at doing a good and careful job of it-after all this is their precious child. On the other hand, I am just not all there. When I handed them the report I pointed out that it was 12 pages of material and if they found any mistakes, Please would they let me know so I could fix it... I hope I don't look like I am hanging by a thread, but I might...

You're right! it's 2016 now! I really am lost in space...sometimes I feel like I really am hanging by a thread...

That is really awful. Losing someone to suicide is a haunting and terrible loss no matter what the relationship; I have lost three friends to suicide, and although the shock fades, the unanswered questions remain. Losing a spouse to suicide is really tragic-it's hard to fathom what you must be going through. Marty's articles are always really helpful; I don't know how she can possibly find such a wide array of marvelous articles on diverse topics, but she does. I hope you keep coming back here. I have found the love and support to be really helpful. And generally someone gets back to you rather quickly. It is a great thing about the internet. Even at night people in some time zone are online...There really is a community here of people to reach out to for help. Our losses are all somewhat different, but there is a commonality in grief that we all feel. We're here for you. Also, you said you wish you could tell him how much you loved him-I'm sure you told him many times how much you loved him, and he no doubt knew anyway. You were together for a long long time, and I'm certain that he knew your heart!

Awww...that is very sweet. I think he knows. And his clone looks great. I bought my dad a Valentine's Day card on that holiday and read it to him several times on that day, Even though he had been gone for a month, I think he heard me. For that matter, I think it was no surprise because I think he saw it over my shoulder in the store when I bought it. It's harder to hide a secret from a spirit than from a living being.

One of the cruel cards that life frequently deals out to women is that they are not welcome alone. Married people seem to primarily socialize with other couples (unless it's a family event, of course). It doesn't seem to be a problem to have stray men at a social gathering, but single women are generally excluded, whether they have always been single, or are divorced or widowed. Sure, in the beginning (after your divorce or spouse dying), your old friends may still invite you to go here and there, but over time the invitations dry up for many women, and they find themselves alone at the times when most people get together. Since I realized rather early on that I had inadvertently married Peter Pan, I left him before having children and I never remarried. So this has been my situation for most of my adult life. But over time, I have seen a heap of other women fall into the same boat, even the same women who were doing the excluding before. I was certainly not a "couple" with my dad, but I found that this situation changed when my dad moved to town. People (especially women) were much friendlier to me than they were before, and my dad and I were invited here and there, and were included in get-togethers. Now that is over, and I am back to being alone. I've done this before and it's rough. What do you do if you have no family and no spouse/partner/significant other on holidays? Hope someone feels sorry for you and invites you? Invite someone else to do something-and brace yourself for the likely rejection? Accept that you are now supposed to be out feeding the homeless or doing something worthwhile on holidays? Or just do something radical? One year ages ago I went hiking in the mountains alone on Thanksgiving rather than stay home alone. I missed a turn and ran out of time before I figured it out. It got dark and I spent the night alone on the mountain. Fortunately we were having a bit of a warm snap, so I did not get frostbite and lose any digits at 9,000 feet. I also didn't fall in the dark, get mauled by a bear or anything else. My "safety person" wasn't worried when she called to check on me and I never called back. No one was out looking for me. No one missed me. I rescued myself early the next morning. When my dad was alive, I always had a companion for anything I had in mind unless it was hiking or camping or something that his Parkinson's would prohibit. Meals-out or at home- he was there. Movies, concerts, shopping, go for a drive, go to a festival, go on a trip or a cruise, anything I wanted to do, he was game. And now I've lost that. And my safety net is gone. I am alone with a cat. If you lose your parent and go home to your spouse and children, it's a lot different than losing the only person you really have...

Marg, this is one of the things I love about you--I see you all over the place, reaching out a hand to help others. You and Kay and a few others. It has inspired me to try to do the same and help anyone that I can. I believe that it is absolutely the thing to do. For example, I have not lost a pet in a long time, but I love my Lena so so much, the idea of someone losing their pet pulls at my heartstrings and I want to reach out to that person. Monday, I talked to THREE kids on the reservation who had lost a pet in the last few days and I felt terrible! Even though we have different losses and situations, there is a commonality that I find hard to ignore.

I am listening to a book on CD in the car called The Beginner's Goodbye; it's a man who suddenly lost his wife when an enormous tree fell on the house. He was in one part of the house and was fine, while she was crushed, along with the part of the house where she was. The book is the story of his struggle to get to where he could survive his grief, deal with the past, and learn to live in the present. He leaves his house and is unable to go back there, living with his sister nearby, where he is welcome and comfortable. But the idea of going back to where he lived-and was happy-is paralyzing. He hires a contractor to work on the house, but he cannot even look at the house; he just pays to the bills and asks about the progress. He has the contractor go get his clothes. Eventually his wife begins appearing to him in little visits, and through his contacts with her, he is able to visit the house. Sounds like me, sort of. If I had the luxury of paying someone to deal with all the stuff, I wouldn't be over there at all-just hiding out at my dad's house. If I keep listening to the book, by the end of the week I will have finished the book and he will be living there in his house, but it will be different and he will be ok living there. But I will still be far away from the time I will be able to live in my house again. I go over there every day to water my beloved flowers, but leave as soon as I can...

I keep thinking it would be a good thing to go hiking...after all Sedona is a hiker's paradise! Bit it's hard to do anything-other than the fact that I have kept working and completed my ceramics class-I have had trouble doing anything. It seems to bizarre to be so exhausted-I am used to having so much energy it made people tired to even hear about what I did in a day. I guess grief is like swimming in a riptide; there's this tremendous undertow of current no one can see. On the surface everything looks normal, but underneath the surface it's all you can do to keep breathing and minimally moving.

You are so right! A friend, Paula, told me that I should do four things every day that made me feel good. I nodded my head while thinking, "Huh? Four? Huh..." Like she was speaking Lithuanian or something. I had the picture that I should just do my work until the end of the school year and then put my nose to the grindstone of the big mess of combining my dad's house and mine, and show up when I was expected to. Ughh! Not too appealing, or even possible. But I'm starting to paint a little and I moved my electric stand light (for the music stand) so I could see well enough to play in the evening... I haven't used the light yet since I've been working hard on two reports-the last two for the year. The second one is to be presented at a meeting this afternoon...maybe it will happen tonight!

Thank you so much, Marty, ChinUp, and Kay! I really appreciate your warmth and support. No one had a perfect mother and the continuum goes from there to unbelievingly awful. I have had so many conversations with women--short ones, since it doesn't take long to get the gist--which I summed up with, "OMG-we had the same mother! We must be sisters-who knew!" This is invariably met with laughter, high-fives, and so on...relief at meeting a kindred spirit who has been down the same road. Even though we may have been isolated as children, as it turns out we had a lot of company-sometimes in the same house! Life does funny things as we go along. I did tons of therapy and have spent my adult life helping others, professionally, as a volunteer, and on a more spontaneous, casual basis to help others-survivors of scary childhoods, children still in scary childhoods, etc.. I think everyone's job in life is to make whatever corner of the world they find themselves in-to make that little corner a little brighter. I gained a tremendous amount of fortitude during that and I try to handle everything I face with integrity, strength and honesty. I often find myself in the position of saying or doing the one thing that everyone else is afraid to do or say. But I do it, regardless of what may happen, because it is what I feel is right, and I know that if I do it, I will be able to live with myself. It usually comes out ok, and overall I feel like I am doing pretty well, particularly coming from where I did. And then it all falls apart and I feel totally lost. After successfully building my career and doing better and better, I was absolutely thrilled. I bought a condo in Sedona, had a great job, balked my dad out here, had family, company, enough money to not be terrified all the time, a great place to hike, ski, camp, play music, go boating, and time to paint and play music. What a life! And then my position was eliminated in 2009, when it was impossible to find any work anywhere. I've read that the more depressive episodes one has had, the more likely one is to have subsequent ones. And there I was, lying on the floor with my cello next to me, waiting to stop breathing. It didn't work...I kept breathing and getting up the next day to play music, paint, do a little work with my LCSW doing home health care, and spend time with my dad, who had carried me financially for a couple of years. One day I looked at a painting I had done and had the shocking thought, "I am not depressed anymore-there is no way anyone who was depressed could have possibly painted something of such pure jubilation. I think part of my problem here is that I am in grief, and am overwhelmed at the prospect of going through my father's possessions, consolidating all of our stuff into my condo and moving back in there. I'm not sure why, but sometimes I can have a startling lack of insight into myself. I think that because I am crying a lot I am back in a depressive state, and because I have been so tired and sleeping a lot, it must be a vegetative depression. I also think, that many people in a depressive state, that it has always been this bad. I think that because a lot of family stuff has bee recently stirred up, that I am totally back at the beginning before I started any therapy. I think if I make a mistake at work or take a day off here and there, I'll lose all my contract work and never work again and will lose everything. I read this and think, "I sure think a lot of crazy stuff!" But grief is not depression; I know that because I read it. But I don't feel it. I feel like I'm lost and I've fallen off my path. But it may not be true. I just don't know. It's probably good that the school year is almost over and I'll have time to do what I need to do, sleep in, exercise, cook some healthy food, etc.. I should also make sure to find time to paint this summer because of its projective nature...whatever is going on in that dark mysterious pit of your unconscious comes out into the light of day... Anyway, thank you all for listening and for your support and feedback. It's so helpful...

I think that is totally true, Kay. I don't think anything can really prepare for you for what it will be like when your loved one is actually gone. I know that foe me what I anticipated feeling compared to what I have actually gone through with my dad's loss is like a pimple on a whale. And it hasn't even been five months...

Marty, that piece, Mother's Day - by Pat Schwiebert , was great-about having a much less than optimal mother. My mother was an extremely narcissistic woman, and it was hard on us as kids. But it is also true that there were some really great things about her, and we had some wonderful times growing up that were due to her. But now my dad's gone and my sisters seem to be "acting out her part" toward me, and I feel really crushed by that. I feel like I am dealing with things related to her death now, that I didn't really before. I think, like the rabbits have told me, that she really did love me, but having a narcissistic mother lover you is not going to be the same as having a healthier woman love you. Still, I have her coats, and enjoy wrapping up against the cold and the rain in them...I also have a lot of her beautiful things-that I only have because she is not here...

Kay, what movie did you see last night? That's really great that your siblings have gotten to a point where you can be there for each other. It is so painful to have my sisters be so hateful to me, especially my older sister, whom I worked so hard to help. Anyway thanks for listening and for your kind words. -Laura

My mother's most basic parenting strategy was "divide and conquer" with the three of us sisters. In other words she would keep us apart and pit us against each other. Sometimes my parents would isolate one of us down on the couch across from the two of them on the other couch to interrogate us about something what was unknowable or just petty. But my mother was actually scarier alone . She picked at us constantly-particularly me. They also assigned us roles. My younger sister was "the athletic one”, my older sister was "the creative one” (as I was a creative zero), and I was "the smart one” and "the pretty one, although the truth is we all were creative, smart, and attractive. She said some pretty awful things. She told me once that the only reason why she'd ever even had children is that when she was young she thought people with no kids were all pretty weird and she didn’t want to be a weirdo. Having had us, she made it pretty clear that we were a great disappointment to her in every way possible. She told me when she when I was up about 25 but none of the three of us had ever done anything- even a small thing- in our lives that she could be proud of or brag about to anyone. I also remember her talking about all those little crafty things that kids make in school and bring home and give to their mothers. She found it a horrible and unfair thing that she was subjected to, being expected to be enthusiastic about all of this crap when the only one that she ever liked was those little plaster handprints the kids do. But when I was younger she did this other thing; I think it started when I was about 13. She would sit me down in the living room when no one else was at home and basically interrogate me. She would start out like a prosecuting attorney trying to build a case that I had done some horrible thing-- like I got a C in some subject or maybe I had an overdue library book or maybe she heard I’d said something that was critical of her. So she would start out with trying to get me to admit that I had actually done this heinous deed. That wasn't really her point though and it was pretty easy – I would admit to it as soon as I knew what she was talking about. But her real point was that only a horrible person would do such a thing and that clearly I had created myself to be a person despicable enough to do these things to her-to make her miserable and ruin her life. What she really wanted was for me to admit that and explain why I had created myself as this terrible person. I was so confused and upset by all this, because at that age I didn't even really know who I was or why I was who I was and I certainly didn't understand that all of what she was talking about was ridiculously implausible. But it scared me and I was afraid that at some level if I admitted that I created myself as his horrible person-that somehow it would break me in half. And so I would never admit it and she would keep going after me. This would go on for an hour or two, ending only when something forced her to stop. If one of my sisters came home in the middle of it, she was just send them upstairs and continue. Sometimes she had to stop because my dad was going to come home soon. But I think what she was really going for was trying to get me to collapse into hysterical crying, and if that happened it was just proof that she was right and she would send me off to my room as being unworthy to even share the room with her. I think that's a cruel thing to do to a child and would easily be called psychological torture. So how do you grieve the person who did that to you? Probably not with crying. Maybe there was not really any grieving to be done. Maybe I just put it on the shelf. Maybe I just picked up the parts that were worth some thing, like her paintings and some of her nice things, and some of her nice clothes-like winter coats…having them kept me from having to but new coats the year I moved from the heat of the desert to the cold country in a year I was totally broke… Does that work to wrap yourself in the parts you liked, and try to forget the other parts ever existed? Or is that just delaying grief? Or maybe I was doing grief work all those years I spent in therapy crying and crying and crying?

I thought I had managed to escape the family dynamics by moving out west and spending my adult live away from them, being alone, doing therapy and developing a professional career, none of which either of my sisters ever did. But maybe the only thing I truly did was manage to be alone-except for the ten years I had with my dad, during most of which I was truly happy. I certainly never escaped the narcissistic family dynamics-they are alive and well. And here I am out here all alone to deal with it...right now I really feel like I might start crying and never stop. Except I have an OT apt for my hand injury. Maybe I'll go over there and cry...he's seen it before...but I shouldn't be late!

I think so too...I had all these experiences out on a trail where a rabbit came charging toward me and stopped rather close to me. I'm sure it was my (absolutely rabbit-obsessed) mother, but I had her totally blocked out after her death. Rabbits, like cardinals, are notoriously shy and skittish It happened quite a few times before I got the idea that it was related to my mother. I finally started talking to them like, "Mother, what are you trying to tell me?" I finally got the idea that she was telling me that she wanted me to take care of my dad, and then it stopped. Until after his death, when I received a few more of these visits, and the message seemed more like "I love you-I always loved you..." Maybe that's what she was telling me all along. A decade ago, when I was getting all the rabbit visits, everyone knew I was taking really really good care of my dad. Probably even her. Talk about something that's easy to block out- I was sure not ready to hear that 11 years ago. She treated me so despicably...as a child, teenager, and adult. It's hard to imagine what would inspire her to say this to me now. My older sister gave me a lot of credit (years ago) for the fact that my dad became a lot nicer during his last years. Maybe she's right and he did learn from me how to treat someone lovingly. Maybe he's given her some tips, now that they are both beyond the grave and in communication with each other. But dang-if that's true, why did I have to wait until my dad was gone too- to get some message that my mother might have loved me? It's just more than I can take...

You are so right! =^. .^=

That would be nice...there is a possibility that my sisters may get over whatever is going on and be "back" in some way, but in their own way they are each as narcissistic as our mother was. The younger is just mean and the older is like an adolescent, but lately has gotten rather mean herself. I don't know if people come back from that. I am primarily responsible for her house NOT foreclosing, and that she was able to fix her car, heat her house, replace PhotoShop so that she could use it to make money and so on. I put a lot of effort into helping her, and also a lot of my own money, and my dad's money that I talked him into sending her way one way or another. Also, when he died the very first thing I did was to chase down the life insurance money, because I figured out that was the fastest way I could get my hands on any money and the sheriff sale date on her house was less than two months after his death. When she came out to AZ for my father's Celebration of Life-and the house had been saved-she said to me, "You know, when my phone rings and I see that it's you I just cringe and can't decide if I should even answer the phone." And what were most of these phone calls about? How to help her and get her some money. My other sister told me that I was just "not nice" to either of them. No details or explanations. They just make up stuff. When they were out here they were staying at my house and my friend and I at my dad's, where I've been since mid-December. So we got back from the event and my younger sister said to me, "Can you drive us home?" I said, "When do you want to go?" She turned to my other sister and said, "See? I asked her for a ride and she just changed the subject". It's hard to imagine things ever being any better.

=^. .^=

I think you're right, Marty and Kay, it's a cultural thing and the story about the starfish is quite apropos. I doubt that my presentations have made an overall impact, but I think there are a number of kids who were impacted by seeing Lena in action-especially the kids that see me for counseling, and therefore had a lot more exposure to Lena. She may have had some impacted some adults as well. Here is one of my favorite Lena stories... There was a boy in the sixth grade who had been suspended several times for some serious bad behavior, and his classmates knew all about this (unfortunately). We were trying to get him to go back to his regular classroom and not an isolated one-on-one in-school suspension like where he had been. Another staff, Dee, (also a social worker) was meeting with this boy and she was talking to him and getting nowhere, so she called me to come up and help. It was a day that Lena was with me and so, everywhere I went Lena went too! He was crying and saying he was scared to go back and afraid of the other kids and so on. Dee was seated across from the boy and I sat at the end of the conference table, next to him. Lena was being very squirmy and I set her on the table in the middle of the three of us, where she strained hard to get away from him. I thought this very odd, because only an hour earlier, Lena had been eating treats out of the hand of this same boy! Suddenly I got it, and said to the boy, "I don't think you're afraid-I think you're angry that two adults more or less have you cornered. Lena also thinks you're angry.! She doesn't like it when people are angry and she is trying very hard to get away from you." I moved down the conference table a few seats away-for Lena's benefit, while Dee looked at Lena and the boy. Then Dee (not a cat lover) said to the boy, "I think that's right-why don't you tell us what is really going on?" And he did; it totally turned things around. Later in the day, I looked up Dee to see what she thought (like maybe I was nuts-crazy white woman and her cat or something). But she said, "no, Lena called it better than the two of us together, in spite of our advanced degrees and decades of clinical work." You can't fool a cat-or a dog-with fake tears and made-up stuff!

Sleather, I am so sorry to hear this story about Tucker. It is agonizing to lose a pet and have no idea what happened.You just don't know... I once had a cat named Freya whom I adored; she was the first cat I ever had on my own as an adult. She was always kind of wild and loved to be outdoors, but she didn't really wander for long. Then, she was gone for 11 months; I was moving and she got the idea that something was up and I don't know what happened, but I wasn't there for her to come home to. I kept going back to where I had lived, looking around, calling her, and asking my former neighbors, but no one ever said they saw her. She was found about 9 miles away, 11 months later. She was hanging around a trailer park, upsetting the residents because she was killing a lot of birds and so they called Animal Control to come pick her up. The only reason I got her back was that she had a collar with a tag with my work phone-not my home phone, which had changed twice since then. I had finally decided she was dead, and it was like seeing a ghost to have her back. You just never know with animals...

When I first lost my dad, a close friend was tactfully but in effect minimizing my grief and the related paralysis and so on. She told me, It's not like you've lost your spouse or a child or something. It's your father and he was 88! Sigh... And then she told me, "Oh I think I'm beginning to see the picture here-you've not only lost your dad-you've lost your entire family since your sisters aren't speaking to you and you are totally alone!" Bingo! Sometimes it's hard to tell if it's worse that I miss my dad, that my aunt is gone now as well, that I feel (an am) alone, that I miss having a family, that I'm grieving my early history (again), or if it's just that all of that is overwhelming... I thought I was feeling better, and now I feel like I'm falling down the stairs into hell again. Maybe I should listen more carefully to Lena, who always says that if I just fed the cat (and myself, I suppose), everyone would feel better...

Crying and more crying...it's like I've been on a little vacation from the grieving-is that bizarre or what! I was SO busy getting things wrapped up in several aspects of my life, It's hard to describe but it's like I felt more like myself aside from being super exhausted. I completed a semester of Ceramics class, I performed in the final orchestra concert for the season, I have almost completed my school psychology reports-and work-for the school year, I went down part of the Verde River in a canoe, Lena and I took the test to be re-certified as a pet therapy team-passed with flying colors...have plowed through a lot in the last few weeks. This is the time of year when I start to feel the load lifting, and it is, but instead of feeling happier about that, I came home from work on the reservation utterly deflated as I looked forward to being in an empty house. Looking forward to an entire summer of-being alone day after day. I feel like I'm back at the beginning. Lena felt it too, and came over, jumped into my lap, buried her face in me and purred and snuggled for awhile. It was very sweet...

Call her up on her phone, leave a message and see what happens...or just ask her out loud in the house, somewhere you feel particularly close to her...you might get an answer in a dream or something. Or you might just hear her laughing...I kind of think you get a response when you fully expect that you will...But who knows?

I work out on a reservation as a school counselor, and it grieves me to see the way animals are treated out here. Of course, this is not anyway near what I would feel if I were to lose my own beloved pet, but it bothers me. I used to bring Lena, my therapy cat out here (for two school years) but the current principal is concerned that some kids might have allergies, and so no more cat. The kids miss her and loved seeing her; they ask me frequently about her, but Lena probably doesn't miss the car ride. Very often one child or another will tell me about the death of a pet- usually by some trauma. There is a lot of trauma to the humans out here too. Anyway, a boy was telling me this morning about the loss of his cat, and he seemed a little sad but nonchalant at the same time. He'll get another cat. I hear this all the time and it mystifies me and hurts my heart. Cats do get somewhat better treatment than dogs because it's well known that they won't last long if you let them outside out here. But dogs have a pretty bad time of it as well. I thought that it would be good for the kids to see Lena, because it is obvious that she is a treasured pet and the bond of the relationship hard to miss. I would often do things like take her into a classroom-especially in the younger grades- and do a little presentation about how your pet is your friend and investing your time and love yields a better friend. Then they would all take turns petting her, and I'd give each one of them a little photo of Lena. A week or two ago, I was talking about this to a woman who lives out here and she was telling me that they think we white people are crazy, the way we "coddle" animals. I asked her if she thought it had any impact on them to be exposed to what I was trying to show them. She said, "I doubt it". Anyone have any thoughts about that?