I have been away for awhile and I think it has become a chicken or the egg type scenario.  Did the depression cause me to stop writing or did not writing help the depression get stronger?  Both?

I am exhausted emotionally and tired of fighting to keep the fighting away.  It is a careful balance of trying to focus on the positive while working through the trauma of the past.  I know that I am my own worst enemy.  I have had two doctors at Mayo look at me in the last month like I had a screw loose, while indicating that I shouldn’t be feeling like myself.  That it has not nearly been enough time to move past the insulinomas and for my body and mind to be completely balanced and healed.  Yet, here I am thinking it has been a good six months and beating myself up for not reaching some perfectionistic version of what I think I am supposed to be by now.  What the fuck is that shit?  I mean, honestly.  If I weren’t in me, I would hate me for being such a condescending bitch to my self with all of the unrealistic expectations.

I wish I could find a support group for people who had rare blood sugar disorders and insulinomas.  What are you supposed to do when the people who treat the rare cases look at you and exclaim how rare you are?

However, I know I’m not unique.  I know there are people with far worse problems and when I feel upset or angry or frustrated at my circumstances and my level of functioning ability, then I begin to feel ungrateful for all the miracles and blessings in my life.  What in the actual fuck happens in the movie months after the incredibly sick person heals and doesn’t die?  Why doesn’t anyone make a movie about how hard it is to transition into a new you because the old you is dead and gone?  It would be the most boring movie ever and incredibly long.  Can you imagine watching life being anticlimactic daily after all of the drama and climax?

I would love to be old me and feeling smug about wearing thongs (because it is a necessity…panty lines are the devil).  I remember looking at women before and thinking I would never go out in public like that with panty lines (gasp).  I was a twit.  I wear giant old-lady-cotton underwear folded down now.  Mostly because I’m in denial about the weight I’ve lost, wanting to lose more, dealing with the stomach that is left over post 3 stomach surgeries and shopping seems like a joke.

I am just getting used to the fact that I can go out in public with GG, and that I can drive myself to places.  Sometimes, going out seems like an actual insurmountable task.  My secret private shame now?  Going to the grocery store or shopping for clothes seems worse than the mammogram I just had.

I know everyone will go through this to some extent, although I really thought I would be like 80 before I had these kinds of medical issues.  Note: my dad just turned 85 and sometimes he seems medically better than me.

And now that I am partially coming out of the extreme amount of self-interested that comes with being incredibly sick, I am noticing Hubband.  Hubband who went to hell and back and is currently processing through the last 3 years.  Hubband who internalizes things (do most men do this)?  Is that a generalization that is pretty much accurate because of our societal expectations?  I feel angry for him, angry and resentful at the people in our community and fellowship who didn’t step up and check on him really at all.  And then I realize, we didn’t reach out either.  It was like we were strapped in on this careening train and if you weren’t on the train we just hunkered down and hoped we wouldn’t go off the tracks.  Seeking more outside support to help ensure the train didn’t derail just didn’t seem like an option.

To be fair, it is a difficult thing to ask for help with.  Umm…dear friend….my wife is super emotionally and physically unstable and there is nothing we can do until we get through the testing but keep giving her sugar so she doesn’t crash even more and try to help her wide the waves of extreme anger, hopelessness, feeling faint, throwing up all the time, being suicidally depressed and sobbing.  I’ll be back, I gotta go to work or be somewhere by myself for ten minutes so I don’t kill people.  Thanks, byeeeee.

Not sure that all this rambling made complete sense, but I hope me exposing my vulnerabilities makes someone else feel a little less “less than”.  I leave you with this very Dadaist image of princess with construction hat (let’s see if you can mentally and congruently thread that into this post).

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