Skip to main content

Check! Check! and Double Check!

 When I set my mind to achieving something, I have almost always succeeded.  At my core, I believe that it is just a matter of knowing what the expectation is and working hard. So it is only natural that I would apply this same philosophy my recovery.
 
Me at home: How can I be this sick after all this bed rest? What is going ON with my breathing and where is this pain coming from? I can't afford to be away from work --there is so much going on and these e-mails just keep coming so it is good I am answering them from home.  The laundry is piling up and there is no milk and geeze the toilet needs a good scrub.  I didn't get the muffins made and I didn't take those items to the donation box and I was going to clean out the fridge and pantry today --OMG I am such a loser! I can't do anything right even when I have all day?  I can't even GET BETTER. I feel like I would rather just pack it all in..what's the use anyway....
 
Expectation of doctor: Go to hospital because nerve pain will not cease after 3 weeks and mental status has deteriorated. CHECK!
Message to myself - I will be fixed!
 
Learned and followed: "Handbook of Expectations for Patients in Adult Mental Health 'Gen B'".  (ie. do not: have pointy things, ropey things or drugs --do: attend and participate in all groups/meals/exercise, take all meds, be considerate of others, see your psychiatrist ever day, etc.) CHECK!
Message to myself - I will be fixed!
 
Attend 8 week adult day treatment program from 9-2 or 3 every day and see therapist once a week and psychiatrist when requested! Participate! Take notes! Learn! CHECK, CHECK, CHECK, CHECK!
Message to myself - Wow I have a lot more issues than I thought ....but I have 8 weeks to get my shit together. Who wouldn't kill for 8 weeks of self-reflection?  Don't waste it! FOCUS!!!  Tick-Tock for goodness sake!!!
 
Attend 8 week aftercare program once a week and see therapist every other week. CHECK! 
Message to myself:  Sheesh really? This once a week thing is really getting in the way of my housecleaning, gardening, knitting, more cleaning, painting, grocery shopping, relaxing, baking, cooking, running errands, checking my e-mail, making lunches---how did I ever have a job and do all this stuff?  I can't have a job and do all this stuff!!! I can barely get all this stuff done as it is???  And I am not really even doing any of it all that well--I mean after all I didn't get the muffins made and I didn't take those items to the donation box and I was going to clean out the fridge and pantry today --OMG I am such a loser! I can't do anything right even when I have all day?  I can't even GET BETTER ---even with all the help I have had I feel like I would rather just pack it all in..what's the use anyway....
 
So here I am.  I have overscheduled my "recovery time" in an attempt to appear: successful (after all you don't want to look like a failure after all that time and help); valuable (my spouse goes to work each day--I "should" be able to handle absolutely everything else --along with new projects without any hiccups); useful (when I was working I had a purpose---what exactly is my purpose now?  what am I supposed to be doing each day? There has to be a "right" answer!
 
And this Monday, when I saw for the first time since November, the psychiatrist who treated me while in hospital five months earlier, I acknowledged my "failure" to be "fixed" between bouts of sobbing and hyperventilating.  Six weeks ago I thought this was going to be an appointment where I set my "back to work" schedule.....
 
I will spend some time trying to understand the high expectations I put on myself and read some from the books on my nightstand.  I still find it very difficult to take in and retain anything I read (including fiction and simple instructions) so it will be slow going. (There it is again, that belief that if I just this is just a matter of applying myself---but I have to apply myself right? I'm not magically going to wake up being able to balance it all?)    
 
Maybe the concept of  balance is the real problem.  Maybe it is like a  juggling act---a small--non-professional juggling act where you only have 2 or 3 balls going...not my usual 12 or 14. 
Is balance realistic today or is it a bygone concept? 
 
 
 
 
 
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Keeping Afloat in Darkness - When Robin Williams is Gone

A few weeks ago Robin Williams was everywhere you looked. People were desperate for details; to find the one thing that assured them that his situation was so different from theirs that they are safe; that it could never be them. But if you suffer from depression, the suicide of such a brilliant, successful, individual; part of our lives for so many years and responsible for so many laughs; looks like a leak in your boat. A friend asked me, "Ok but no one knows what the future holds.  Could he not see that?" For someone drowning in the dark spiral of depression, there is no future. There is only now. There is only nothing.  The boat is gone.  You are under. It is not about your spouse or your friends or your kids or career or fans or dogs or anything.  When the darkness squeezes it is all about now.  And now is nothing.  It is bleak and empty and so dark, you cannot see a bottom, or edges or surface ---just darkness. "Some...
4 comments
There is more good stuff--keep reading»

The Four Agreements - The Baseline

  So I bought the book.  It's smaller than I thought it would be.  Since I am always hoping that the solution to an problem can be found if you just look long and hard enough, I'm still not sure if short means it's an easy solution, or no solution at all. The book itself has some singing endorsements from many self-help gurus who I don't know other than by name.   It's disheartening to me to realize that there are thousands of folks out there preaching their brand of "if you just knew this, did this and continued to strive for excellence every day" because if any of them had the real secret (ah yes, then there is "The Secret") we would only really need one book/podcast/app etc. Thirty years ago the self help section at Chapters filled one rack top to bottom.  Looking for this book, I had to wander through ISLES of self-help, wellness and  spirituality before I found what I was looking for. How Chapters has evolved into a pillow/candle/water bottl...
Post a Comment
There is more good stuff--keep reading»

Putting the Personality Puzzle Together

Youngest is 11 now and has grown a new appendage.  It's called his phone, which in reality is just an alternative gaming device in his eyes.   Good news is, he is usually quick to answer it if I call him because he usually has it in his hand.   Bad news, his "clashing of clans"  or "dashing of geometry" prompt radical mood changes on the success or failure of little armies and racing cogs. Spouse and I are as much to blame in some ways.  Sometimes it is easy to just let them quietly be........so I can quietly be. However, as last Christmas approached, we all had a discussion about family and finding more balance between games, reading, tv, movies, etc.    Santa Clause must have heard us and brought us a few puzzles for Christmas. So in early January, with a week before school was back in and Middle at his mom's and Oldest back at school, I busted out one of the puzzles, poured some hot cocoa and started the long task of fl...
Post a Comment
There is more good stuff--keep reading»