I am making progress on the slow slow slow front. Selected clothing. Purchased urn. Did the final body ID. Cremation, done. Wrote the obituary, formatted a photo, and it was in the paper today (It cost a gaspingly ridiculous $500!!! Jeez. No wonder people just do death notices). Anyway, done. Thankfully, my RC priest uncle was in support of the Roman Catholic charity I selected (Pax Christi) as the least troublesome for me. The others were hospice and ASPCA, so people can have their choice and we will not be inundated with flowers for which we have no space in our house. The funeral date and church is set. The place and time for the reception following is done. The burial plot is all set. Holy cards, check. (ugh. had to design my own. she would have liked to have them.) Acknowledgment cards ordered...very cool ones, if I do say so myself. Much more "me" than the rest of the rituals around my mom's death will be. But then, that's appropriate because I am acknowledging people's condolences to me. Final bills paid to various services and agencies. Furniture and most stuff moved out of apartment (thanks to my lovely husband and brother-in-law who has a truck).
All that's left on the urgent to do list is to go through her address book to contact people I've probably forgotten about, plan the service, write the eulogy, design and print the order of service, choose the menu for the reception, and gather up the rest of her clothing to donate or re-purpose. And to write all the thank yous.
Yikes. I have little recollection of doing all this stuff after my father died 7 years ago. I did it all. I just don't remember very much of it.
Whew...there I go again with all the quotidian boringness of my life.
I am slogging along. I went to group today and I was sort of out of it, I guess, because the therapist asked me to "check-in" which is usually a voluntary thing. He's a good guy. I'm still not sure the group is going to be particularly helpful to me though. But I'm giving it a go for a few months and we'll see. Mostly because I like the therapist quite a bit. The actual "work" in the group is not particularly helpful.
I am having all sorts of "symptoms." I am working very, very hard to get my energy and attention to be inside of my body so that I can feel emotions. Because I am pretty sure that is where I am stuck and why I am living in this sort of internal hell. I cannot release trauma until I can feel emotion without dissociating. That's the real issue I guess. And I suppose I still have a long way to go, because I am really only just getting to the point of consistently acknowledging that this is all real and that I experience life in a profoundly different way than most people do. I really, truly, have no idea what it is like to "feel normal" for "me." I really don't know. And I kind of don't really know anybody at all who understands this. I hate this. I really do.
I mean, I suppose I'm glad that I am kind of coming to life as a real person, finally, after all these years. Taking a peek under the layers and layers of coverings (eeewww). I am having more moments of self-compassion. I am having occasional moments of feeling like I can experience the world from inside of my body...which is deeply wonderful and dizzyingly scary at the same time. It's these moments that are making me increasingly realize how profoundly mis-wired my brain is. Because when I have them and register them consciously, it feels really good. And I think, "Oh, wow! This is what it is supposed to be like!" But then I forget. I remember having had the experience, but I forget what it feels like. Kind of like giving birth but the opposite.
You remember that you were in pain and assuming all sorts of unmentionable positions and saying crazy things. But all that gets clouded out by the experiences that happen afterward. At least for me. But then, my deliveries were pretty traumatic.
I read the DSM-V on PTSD and on Dissociative Disorders. It was quite informative. I know I have PTSD. I'm curious what my DD diagnosis will be under the new criteria. Not that it matters at all, but I am curious. Yes. Actually, it does matter to me. Why in the world the full text of the DSM is not available online, I don't understand (I had to go to the reference area at the library and take photos of the pages with my phone, because the damned book is formatted in such a way that you cannot even photocopy it).
I suppose I ought to go up to bed. I have been averaging around 3 hours of sleep a night for a long time which really, really sucks because I am in bed for 8. This whole sleep hygiene thing doesn't seem to do anything at all for me.
I am longing for someone to untangle me because I am so very tired of all this. Patience. I must be patient. I know that. "It takes time..." is my therapist's echo in my ears. But I'm tired. I even asked at the DBT group today, what do you do when you're practicing distress tolerance skills like 20 out of 24 hours a day, including sleep time...and you are really tired of it all?
Of course, the answer is ALWAYS the same. Radical acceptance. Self-care. Self-compassion. Mindfulness. Etc. All good things.
But I feel like I am going to die trying to get better.
Ouch. That sounded grim. But yes, lots of parts feel that way. My body is crashing slowly but surely.
The good thing today...I had 45 minutes to kill between group and picking up my daughter, so I ended up at the beach where the wind and waves and gulls were loud, it was cold cold cold, and I found lots of cool rocks and took a few decent photos. It was probably not coincidental that the beach where I landed was the one where my daughter was hit last summer. I haven't been back there since. I have been wanting to go before I take her back there. I was probably sort of subconsciously motivated to end up there because I had been upset earlier on my way to the group when I passed the site where my son had the terrible auto accident two years ago. Anyway...the beach experience was good. I think what they call a "corrective experience." We'll see if it helps with the flashbacks to that little trauma.
Argh. Hyperverbalness. Will stop now.
