I need help. We’re established that.
Where the bullet hits the bone (ow) is the question of who the heck can I get to help me.
The sort of help I was talking about yesterday – intensive and ongoing, with real effort and commitment involved – does not come cheap.
Ain’t nobody doing that shit for free.
And I would be willing to pay someone to play that part but I doubt I could afford to pay someone enough to convince them to do it.
On the other hand, it could be that once they help me get my poop in a group – CPAP and glucometer up and running smoothly, my sugars and my REM sleep level healthy, and me presumably feeling a whole lot better – I would be able to keep it going on my own from that point on.
I would not count on it, though. Become what is making me feel better would not just be the being physically healthier but thje nurturing I am receiving.
I haven’t had people paying attention to me and investing time and energy into my wellbeing much in my life. Not even as a child. My family pretty much emotionally abandoned their unplanned and unwanted kid when I stopped being cute and as a result I have a massive nurturing deficit on the books.
Still don’t know what to do about that. Spend a year at a spa?
Because the thing is, abandoned children abandon themselves. By default, children assume they deserve however they are treated and thereafter that becomes the foundation of how they see themselves in the world.
So when you are treated like you are less than worthless and should never have existed in the first place, you believe it.
And that’s not an easy setting to change. It’s hardwired pretty deep. All the logic and evidence and emotion in the world can do no more than fight it to a standstill.
At least, so far.
I know it’s not rational. I know it makes no sense. I have no actual sensible reason for feeling like I make life worse for everyone just by drawing breath.
And I would purge my mind and heart and soul of these toxic influence from my childhood if I could. I don’t deserve any of this self-loathing and my family was deeply and horribly wrong to teach me – um, I mean TREAT me – the way they did.
The way you treat your kids has a much bigger influence than anything you say to them.
And it’s good that I consciously acknowledge and recognize this before I get any professional caretakers involved in my life.
Because they could end up in the middle of a very complicated minefield of issues that neither of us are ready to handle.
It’s been so cold for so long in this little heart of mine, Papa. But we’re going to start thawing it out in earnest now.
And it’s going to hurt. Lord, will it hurt. Frostbite of the aorta is not cured easily.
But at the end of it all, I will be alive again.
Hallelujah and amen.
More after the break.
It gets worse
Because of course it does.
So today I get up to go to my antibiotics infusion at the hospital and note in passing that I seem to be quite dizzy.
Oh well, I thought, I’m about to sit in a nice comfy chair for 45 mins or so and surely this dizziness will have passed by then. I probably just stood up too fast again.
The session ends and nope, just as dizzy was I was before. O shit.
And to be honest, I probably should have just gone right back to the admitting desk and told them about how dizzy I was.
But I was eager to get home, and I will be going back for another infusion tomorrow, so what the hell.
At that point, I thought maybe I was just dehydrated and all I would need to do is get some fluids into me and everything would be right as rain (or at least no suckier than usual) and I could go do shopping and Denny’s like normal.
Nope. Two very large glasses of water later and I feel, at most, only marginally better.
So no shopping and Denny’s for me tonight. Looking back, I probably would have been fine for Denny’s because it’s not too bad when I am not moving, but I was not thinking straight at the time.
And patient readers know this brand of dizziness. I’ve had it before. It’s the kind that makes it feel like I am on a ship in rough seas, or like there’s something really wrong with gravity. Every motion I make wants to just keep going past where I want it to stop.
Pretty sure it has something to do with my eustachian tubes, my sinuses, and my inner ears getting all clogged up. But I could be wrong.
So yay, vertigo. Takes controlled effort just to stay sitting upright. Like I said last time (probably), just sitting here, I am involuntarily doing the Triangle Wave thing the actors on Star Trek TNG did to convey that the ship was taking hits.
I think I conveyed that rather well. And here I was worried.
I think it’s getting better over time, though, which brings up the possibility that the problem will have vanished by the time I go back to the hospital tomorrow.
So do I still tell them about it?
Or should I stick with the plan to tell them about this infection on my shoulder, which seems to be going Cronenberg on me?
I know it should be both regardless but avoidant personality syndrome is a harsh mistress and social anxiety is making me worry that I will be asking too much of them, or that they will think I am super gross for having all these issues.
I’m telling you, being crazy is enough to drive you nuts.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.