Caregiver Update: I Have To Share

Sometimes the purpose of a day is to merely feel our sadness, knowing that as we do, we allow whole layers of grief, like old skin cells to drop off us  ~ Marianne Williamson

(Note: Just after I published the post below I came across a web site called "Esdeer: Giving Comfort Hope and Inspiration; Stepping through Grief."  It's a marvelous place to discover much about grief, how to get through it, almost anything about it.  What timing.  Someone must have said a prayer for me.  Thank you.)


Knowing I need therapy to help me walk through the loss of my mother whom I was taking care of at home and hospiced until she died in my arms on Oct. 27 last year (2011), I've been fruitlessly looking for a psychologist that will take my insurance.  It's been a struggle, to say the least.  I have chosen this, my blog, to be my outlet and you to be my therapists for now because if I don't get this out from inside me I think I may end up in the hospital again.  So here goes.

Up until now grief has been normal, coming in waves, sometimes really big waves that I feel like I'm drowning in and sometimes little ones that make me cry for a moment and then I can carry on with the task at hand such as cleaning out Mom's closets or drawers.

Some days I don't want to get out of bed but I force myself to do so anyway because it's what Mom would do.  Even though she was suffering, silently, with breast cancer and had the flu at the very end, she got up out of bed every day until that last couple of days when she was just too weak to move.  I feel so weak I can hardly lift my head but then I think of Mom and her spirit and determination and I feel stronger and more capable than ever.

If you don't know already I need to tell you so you understand:  I have schizoaffective disorder which gives me symptoms like hearing voices and some rather interesting mood swings similar to being bipolar.  It's kind of like being schizophrenic and bipolar at the same time, I guess that is the easiest way to explain it.  Now that you know that, you'll better understand what has been burdening me the most for the past couple of days.

The other night I took my nighttime medication early (it includes a powerful antipsychotic that hinders the voices I hear) so I could go to sleep early and not have to deal with the way the voices were being so loud and cruel to me.  I was trying very hard to go to sleep, had my head under the covers as usual but they were still loud and mean to me.  I was upset and angry at the same time.  I was so sad, trying to figure out why they would be saying mean things that they were to me, and angry that they wouldn't stop.

This went on for quite sometime and then just when I thought I would finally drift off to sleep I heard what sounded to me like what could have been a recording of the same noises Mom made in the last moments of her life.  They were horrible gurgling noises, she was aspirating on the fluid in her lungs.  I heard it loud and clear and it was the worst thing "They" could have done to me. So cruel, knowing how upset it would make me.

As if making me re-live my mother's dying moments over and over wasn't enough, when "they" saw me get SO highly upset, sobbing uncontrollably, they said to me, "See?  You do feel guilty!"  and I couldn't believe what I was hearing!  They thought I was actually crying so hard because I felt guilty some reason for Mom's death.  That just broke me completely.  How could they think that?  What the heck would I feel guilty about?  And then I started wondering if there was something I should feel guilty about.  I questioned my actions and the way I handled everything for Mom.  I wondered if I did the right thing when in fact, at the time, I had all confidence I knew everything was done for Mom the way it should have been and the way she wanted it.  They made me question and doubt something so dear and important to me I felt as though I wanted to die myself.

That's where I am today.  That's what "They" do to me and the way I let them make me feel about myself.  Anything I used to feel comfortable in doing, whether it's playing the piano or nursing someone who is sick or dying - for which I am qualified to do - they make me question my every thought, action and in-action.  They make me doubt the things I used to hold true and dear, even my faith in God.  They don't even let me read my Bible anymore because they tease me and mock me the whole time and tell me "God spews you from His mouth, you hypocrite".  They make me feel I have no business reading the Bible and they interrupt my prayer all the time  unless I'm super sneaky about it.

I wish I were telling this to a good psychologist or psychiatrist but like I said I am looking for one that takes my insurance.  So for now you will be it.  Lucky you.  Thanks for listening.

Signing off for now, good night.

cynthia