I know It's All Relative: I Cheer for the Chilean Miners, but Me? I'm Angry and Icky and Bookless!

Twelve days ago I got hit with my first migraine ever. Knocked me on my ass...hard. I drove myself to the hospital. Not the smartest move ever.  I don't remember much but some honking, so am assuming I drove really slow. Cause that's how I was feeling...sloooowwwwwww, distorted, like a off-kilter sound-wave.

I got to one hospital and got transfered to another and then spent five days on Dilauded (sp?) ...lots of it. Dreamy. I gotta say that for the first time I understand the whole addiction thing.

Got sent home cause I was "healed"...but unfortunately still have migraine. Saw some new doctors and they want me to wait for their new meds to take effect--up to two weeks. This makes me angry...I'm taking notes on how their meds are affecting me and I've got some suggestions, but no....I'm just the tottering, squinting, slow-talker they will see next Tuesday. 

There are a lot of sucky things about this...first is the fact that I don't know when this is going to end.  Everyone says it won't last much longer.  Everone else says they can't believe it's lasted this long.  So, I'm trying to stay on the edge of curious, but I don't do well when I can't see what's out in front of me. At all.

I guess it's not all bad.  My son did get some laughs telling the story about how Mommy projectile vomited all over herself and the passenger seat of the car when we were all stuck in rush-hour traffic on the way home from the doctor. He did not like giving up his shirt to me so I could wipe my face off, but that's the price you pay for funny.

Everyone, and I do mean everyone tells me to not worry, about anything. Is that possible?  Seriously?  How do I not worry about how the pressure is affecting my husband who is disabled and about how tired he looks, that my son has suddenly developed a lot of tummy aches, my daughter is suddenly obsessed about fairness in terms of good and bad people, about falling behind at work and putting pressure on an already understaffed department.  I am not the type of person who can lie still in a dark room not worrying about stuff even though her head would feel better if I smashed my hand in a car door.  Twice.  Hard.

Along with the pain in my head, my body feels gross.  I'm eating less because chewing hurts.  I can't stand the taste of my elixir of life, Diet Pepsi anymore, so I'm drinking more water than is possibly good for you.  Yet my skin is blah, my nails are cracky, my hair is so-so.   I find myself getting weepy when shows like Criminal Minds and NCIS use emotional quotes.  So you can see I'm a disaster.

Personally I think it's because of two things...First, I got no 'purpose'...it's not like I'm taking time off to "be at home" or anything, so short of trying not to puke when I move, or playing my new favorite game, "guess which of the double-vision objects is real", there's not a lot of reason in my life right now. I do NOT do that well. 

The second thing is that I can't read right now---I have multiple books just waiting for me to read them..and not just books, magazine articles, web articles, etc.  They are calling to me...all of that knowledge, all of those ideas that are waiting for me to find them. All of those wonderful phrases, sentences...the tempo of a beautifully written paragraph.  Sigh.  All of those bits of information that I put aside until they are ready to be useful for a friend, a client, my family.  It's driving me batty!!!!  More importantly, I feel lost without them on some level.  I do get to listen to my daughter read to me from "Alex and the Ironic Gentleman" by Adrienne Kress.  A really fantastic book for girls of all ages.

So, three hours later, I finish this one tiny blog...more than twice what it usually takes.  Mainly because brain is slow and cranky and double vision typing sucks...and I'm still without...without an end in sight, without an answer as to what to do and dammit all, without a book to read. 

But the fantastic news is that tonight when I totter off to bed, I will quietly kiss my kids goodnight, both of each of them

Me, Myself and I: A Trigger Happy Wife or Bookless in Austin

There is a giant gaping hole in my bookshelf.  Right between Truman and Tryst...right about the place books on Trust would be.  I figure that Karma, who is a big fat beeeyatch, is laughing her ass of right about now.  Har-fucking-Har.  But I digress.

Here's the deal...my husband is a recovering addict and alchoholic.  Almost 4 years clean and sober.  I'm proud of him.  I love him.  I adore him.  I crave him.  But there are many times during the week that I don't Trust him.  These moments, these seemingly tiny, insignificant moments slay me...they turn my fucking world upside down--wobbly knees, nausea and all.

It used to be, during the years sub duco, when I finally realized what was going on, or the moments of crises that followed, my famed fight or flight mechanism would be flooded with adrenaline and I would fight, fight and fight again to get him back.  The idea of, or issues of Trust, oddly enough, weren't present in those moments as it related to us as a couple....maybe as it related to him as a driver or a parent, sure...but those were moments I had to solve for...moments I could solve for very easily in fact.

Now that we are in the years tersus quod siccus I find myself trusting him less, or rather, I find myself able to trust him less.  I know, it sounds crazy, but here is the deal:   Before, when all of this was happening, I was in "fix-it" mode...get him help, sell the house, find a house, take care of the kids, work, pay the bills...the moments I had to myself to think were spent doing things or, pathetically enough, spent sobbing in the shower, yes, sometimes with ice cream (I don't recommend it...messy and unsatisfying) and feeling sorry for myself.

Now, that I have the time because I have him back full-time as a partner, I find myself studying him and being hyper aware of "the triggers".  It's incredibly complicated with all of the medical issues he has, but there are four triggers that immediately put me in "OMG HDA" mode.  They are, in no particular order:

1. Increased level of smoking:  For two reasons....he smokes when he's anxious and anxious leads to the need to medicate, and he has to smoke outside...where he would previously hide 'the bad stuff'.

2. Increased Telephone time:  When he was using he was practically giddy with talk...given that he's rarely giddy and not a really talkative guy outside a small group of people, all of those hours on the phone to my mother should have been a big frickin' clue.
3. Long Walks:  To the liquor store...but hidden by the need for exercise for his Type II diabetes. Good and Bad at the same time.  Diabolical.
4. Droopy Eyes/Asleep in the Chair: The worst...because he rarely gets enough sleep because of his chronic pain and neurological issues, and all of the meds they have him on do make him somewhat droopy...but I tell, ya, that eyelid slips a centimeter and I am on red alert.

Looking at this list I want to punch myself in the head.  He can't win.  And therein lies the rub...he can't.  Not until I've worked it all through for myself.  It so sucks to be him right now.

And here is rub number 2--there are no good books on this!  I had/have counseling and that is very helpful.  But I like to read, study, re-read...and have real life examples....and yet, nothing, nil, nada in book form.  I am, like an anchorless boat, bobbing here and there with nothing to grab onto to stablize me.

But there is a silver lining--there always is you know.  Without a book to fall back on I am forced to turn to people...my friends, my family and most of to him, my husband...where trust is being built one conversation at a time.