Reconnecting with a Dear Friend

Eleven years ago, I stopped seeing my therapist - and yesterday, I started again.  It was just like old times - and I gave her the 15 minute summary of the last eleven years - primarily focused on events with H. since it's him that has prompted me to add back a third party objective listener - to only me.

She was able to see me at 8:30 yesterday and I was thrilled to have a Saturday appointment.  It's at least 3.5 hours out of a day and that's pretty hard to do on a work day.  We've booked again for four weeks from yesterday - she's leaving for Europe this week and four weeks feels about right.

The drive to/from Hayward (our old home town) was easy and not too long on an early Saturday and I arrived with time to procure an iced tea and easily refresh my memory on the 'where's' of Hayward.

I came to a startling realization this past couple weeks:  H. is me 30 years ago.  He's having some pretty serious emotional and mental health issues - and like I did at his age, he's doing a good amount of 'tamping down' everything.  Trying his best to appear 'normal' - like everything's fine.  Which only makes all the insanely absurd, stupid things that have happened (and keep happening) even harder to deal with.  Turns out?  He's not that 'ok' at all and he is finally coming out of a long, long battle with a lot of conditions that have necessitated him to see professionals and take medications to manage it all. Sounds familiar - right?  Except unlike me, he isn't functioning much at all - and it's a constant struggle these days for every.little.thing.

Upon realizing that I've been threatening repeatedly to kick an emotionally fragile person out into the streets, I told him 'as long as we have a roof, you have a roof'.  And I meant it.  He cried.  Relief just swept over him.

Relief did not exactly sweep over me - because again, this could be a while and while I am OK with it, it's still frickin' hard having him here.  The same issues crop up - lack of communication; failure to get the initiative to do the simplest thing.  And the manipulation continues.  He misinterprets conversations and then relays a wrong conversation to the other parent which allows him to do whatever it is he intended to do in the first place...and this pattern repeats over and over.  He doesn't connect the two conversations and the mispresentations - I'm really coming to understand that he isn't connecting much of anything.  And it's easy to think he's just some kind of pathological liar or a complete and total flake - but I think it's all a lot more complicated than any of those complexly simple answers.

So we work on being (more) patient and I work on not beating myself up about how hard I've been on him - and kicking myself for not understanding that surely all the ridiculously stupid things that have transpired with him were related to a condition (several conditions, actually) vs. choices he's making. Yes, choices are a part of it - his conditions don't absolve him from responsibility - but connecting the dots of cause and effect is not a natural thing for him - and it may never be.

While it's all a little raw and new and fresh, it's also been a relief to be able to finally 'get' what in the hell is up with him.  Now we just have to work on what do we do to help him.  And for now, the biggest thing we can do is to take off the pressure of having him leave.

Oddly, while he was opening up to us for the first time in a long time - he credits his medications with kicking in so that (he says) he's finally able to be verbal vs. just plodding through every day 'hoping it's better than yesterday - really just trying to get through another day realizing that I'm not getting through it well at all' - he brought up the opportunity to get in on a 3 bedroom house rental that would be around $500 a month.  I sort of did a 'stop for a minute' - when did you moving out somewhere enter back in 'cuz we just confirmed you don't have to worry about that anymore.  Not to mention that he has no way to contribute the $500 a month on his own and we've said 'no' to doing that.  We could - we could afford it - by giving up saving much in any given month - but we're not doing it.

Those odd 'jumps' are the things that make my head hurt - and make me (again) question his motives.

Speaking of head hurts - as I was sitting with J. last night binge watching Season 3 of "Alone".....we totally missed Season 3 and have no idea how that happened - only realized it when we started watching Season 4 and Googled the show and realized 'hey, here's contestants we've never seen before that aren't in Season 4  - my head felt weird.  Sort of hard to describe - not pain, really - but a sensation of 'heaviness' and weirdness.  I thought for a moment 'am I having some kind of TIA?' and I almost said to J. 'something is wrong with my head'.  Around midnight last night, that strange feeling had grown into a monstrous headache - so, so bad, I once again thought 'hmmm...should I get to a hospital'.  But a couple hours later, I started throwing up and realized it was most likely a migraine.  It manifested itself with that weird feeling (an aura but not visual) and went into high gear.  Up all night so, so sick until there was nothing left to toss and then just dry heaves.  J. brought me some Excedrin (I had taken Tylenol in the night but tossed it shortly after) and I curled up in a ball and did not move an inch, praying I could keep it down long enough for it to absorb.  And an hour later, I was feeling better.  Still headachy but I was able to sit up and not throw up for the first time all night.  I've been down stairs for about 1/2 the day (still in my PJs) and ate some saltines with light peanut butter and jelly and drank a couple 8oz cans of regular, sugary Coke - my go to stomach soother from days of morning sickness.

I have a friend at work who's been out a lot with migraines and I've been gently nudging her on 'you've got to identify your triggers - once you know what sets it off, you can often preempt it before it starts'.  I have no idea what triggered mine 'cuz I haven't had one like that in over 12 years (at least). I did take a long nap yesterday so maybe that amount of sleep was just too much - who knows?  I rarely nap so....and I sure won't risk napping again anytime soon.

I'm relieved because I have a board meeting tomorrow night and if I had been suffering from flu, I'd be toying with missing the day tomorrow - and as it stands now, I think I will make it.  J. is going to make me a hamburger and tater tots for dinner and I'm going to head to bed super early tonight.  I'll keep the bucket and wet wash cloth nearby just in case but I'm pretty sure I'm over the worst of it. The makers of Excedrin are miracle workers, in my opinion.

The hotel-like safe we ordered arrived so we have to figure out where to put it - then set it - then fill it.  This time next week, we'll be in Reno - can't wait.

And we applied for the Safe Traveler Global Entry designation to (hopefully) make our travel easier. Guarantees TSA precheck (so no taking off shoes, etc.) and should make clearing customs easier as well.  We're world travelers so we're acting like it!

Happy Father's Day to the only person on this earth I can imagine parenting with.  Thanks for all you did for me today, sweetie.  You are simply the best - and our kids are very blessed to call you Dad.