October 6, 2012

On Anonymity, a face and a name, and a revelation

There’s a question of whether you can truly believe what a blogger’s saying if you don’t know his or her real name, or see his or her face, of whether there’s disingenuity in hiding behind a pseudonym online.

I’ve been thinking, lightly treading, one moment to the next, about whether or not there’s any point, a benefit, to considering shedding my pseudonymity, whether, if I wanted to take a new, fresh step in my writing, that would be the right step.

Bloggers are doing brave writing, soulful pieces about their journeys; Clare and her discovery process with alcohol: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3; Andrea’s recent revelation about her PTSD.  They’re able to write in the open, under their names and I admire that.

But having always been an anonymous blogger, an open identity looks like open and perhaps treacherous waters from here. Many PF bloggers have come out into the open and seem to have enjoyed the process; why not consider it?

Would it enrich my writing? Would it enrich the experience of blogging?

It’s an interesting thought exercise.  On the one hand, I haven’t had the experience of people caring enough to want to be open and honest with people in my real life about my health, my thoughts about my health, and experiences stemming therein.  I certainly couldn’t have been this open about my family’s life with money with, well, anyone. More of you know that genuine and authentic side of me than anyone in my real life.

On the other hand, of those who care, there’s nothing they can do and I chose not to enlighten them to the depths of my health journey and the related life choices.  Mostly, it was years of knowing that if I added one more thing to the list of things for my parents to worry over, that they couldn’t fix and had to feel guilty about not being able to fix, I couldn’t live with myself. So the encroaching, progressing and overwhelming chronic pain and fatigue issues were all safely tucked away under the hood. They were never to know that it was more than just a bit of pain I just couldn’t shake, that it’d ever gotten worse than the pain they knew about, the pain that started when I was 13.  Not the chest pains, not the vertigo, not the breathing problems, not the weekends of being flat out steamrollered, unable to lift limbs for the exhaustion, nor the parade of pharmaceuticals that wouldn’t breach my crushing defeat.  They were to know nothing about it.  Not when just the fact that I worked incredibly long hours with the little pain they knew about was so distressing.

I kept up a facade for so long that I’d forgotten it was there.

It was a sharp shock remembering this past week that knowing me, my name or my face or even knowing me since birth don’t lend itself to knowing much about me.

I got into a tiff with my dad over, of all things, weddings.

PiC and I had a very quiet courthouse wedding last year with only a handful of people. My side was represented by my parents and very close friends. The rest of the extended family saw the engagement ring at the funeral soon after and then the lying started.

It’s ironclad tradition to have an engagement party, oh well, Mom was so ill we just had to have a quick and small one. They all, of course, felt left out, but what could they say during funeral arrangements?

Then the questions, because, it’s my family and if we did a formal engagement, the date must already have been set.

Oh, well we can’t possibly think about planning anything now, obviously.

We have to wait a while, now, we thought we’d have Mom around for a while…
Oh, I hear someone calling my name, gotta go.

We never got around to planning the reception. Life and grief and work and everything got in the way. I still can’t really bring myself to want to plan one, yet.  I had the worst times thinking about planning it while Mom was struggling with losing her very self.

He brought the subject up the last time we were back home and my throat closed up.

It came up again, this time with the “your aunt and I will take care of all the arrangements,” “you don’t need to worry about the guest list, I’ll deal with it,” and after several attempts to put on the brakes gently, to interject some sense into the runaway train that leads to the 18-hours of Miserable Asian Wedding, trying to compromise before it turned into the Scary Vision of Stress, he said “well, everyone just has to suck it up and deal with it.”

He didn’t know. He doesn’t know how deep my wells of grief are intertwined with my helplessness to save her and my helplessness to save myself.

I lost it.

“NO. No, because if I ‘just deal with it, I will DIE. I can’t even do normal stuff because I’m sick. I can’t even live a normal life now, get dressed, cook meals, eat meals, drive a car, walk to and from the garage without planning which things I can do in a day without falling over, so no, I Can’t. Just. Deal. With. It.”

I shouldn’t have. I really really shouldn’t have. I was tired, I was short-tempered, I had completely forgotten how much I had hidden even from him.  Because in all these long years of chronic pain, fatigue and mystery illness, I hadn’t even told him that it wasn’t just the initial joint pain that he knew of in one isolated area anymore. That it was everywhere, that it was fatigue, and shortness of breath, and chest pain, and dizziness, and and and.

And he didn’t know that my years powering through work and school and work and moving and taking care of everything and more work, that was all on the Scholarship of Faking It. He had no idea that I’ve been slowly falling apart for nearly 20 years.

Because I deliberately didn’t tell him, in case he let it slip and Mom found out and worried herself into an earlier grave.  /Sigh.  And now I feel horrible for telling him because he’s been having survivor guilt, guilt for making my life difficult all these years, guilt for being dependent on me. And I know that. But I just ran right over him.

And of course he felt terrible over it.

So now that’s out and we both feel worse for having it out there in the open just making us both feel bad.

It’s more complicated, of course, than just a secret held too long, grief clouding judgment, guilt clouding judgment, a father feeling he’s neglected his duties. It’s all of that and more.

At the end of this, I don’t think I see a way for me to be a better blogger when I haven’t even figured out how to be a better, more open person yet.

April 23, 2010

A sure sign I’ve started a new job

Another pair of pants are in the mending pile.  Because, apparently, I can never start a new job without breaking my pants some way in the first week.

Years ago…..
[First week of work.] Thank goodness for scrubs covering the relevant anatomy, I tore out the seat of my jeans, kneeling.

Next job……
[First week of work.] Tore out the seat of my jeans, picking up a pen. Tied a sweatshirt around my waist. Not too high school or anything.

Same as above job….
[Four year work.] Tore the knee out of my jeans chasing after the puppy. And the seat of my jeans.

This job…..
[Second day of work.] Ripped the hem out of the right pant leg.

I guess it’s an improvement that my tuchus wasn’t threatening to hang out this time, eh?  And I can probably repair the hem instead of having to buy a new pair of pants.  I think.

February 9, 2010

Blessed pain relief

When you’re in pain, the world needs to know.  Sorry loves, I’m updating you on the weird developments in my dental world.

All last week, as my Tweeple might have heard, I was in excruciating pain.  Purportedly stress-related, it was agonizing and frustrating that the pain kept coherent thought at bay and kept me at that high level of stress. Almost as upsetting was the foggy realization that I was spending money on things I a) would normally avoid, or b) had to buy for convenience’s sake.  Adding up the numbers is fairly well horrifying. 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Category A
Repeat or unnecessary medications:  My dad offered to make what would have been my third trip out to the hospital to pick up medications. The pharmacy filled one too many and sent him home with Naproxen, the OTC version of which I already had.  
Processed foods: At best I was gumming my meals and even that hurt. I couldn’t take one more day of liquids-only or scrambled eggs so I bought packaged mashed potatoes (just add water!) and Top Ramen.  I could just microwave the one, and overcook the other into mush. [Yeech!] 
Category B
Ordered in food: I paid a premium for high-calorie, high-sodium soup because I desperately needed extra calories and my dad can’t handle non-Asian cooking. He means well but he’s only cooks Asian-style and recipes make no sense to them. *sigh*  OTOH, French onion soup.  Oh yes…. 
Category C – luxuries, unbudgeted
One of my close friends, a massage therapist, called me on Saturday at noon with instructions to nap, drink plenty of water and drive 50 miles to see her.  She took me to an acquaintance whose background includes physical therapy among other homeopathic disciplines, and we spent an hour and a half working on postural analysis and some exercises.  My good ole narcotic had worn off before we crossed his threshold, and the pain level didn’t spike during our session. For five days, pain has exploded as soon as a med wore off… this was nothing short of breathtaking. 
She bundled me off and gave me a good long massage (she insists it was only an hour, but I suspect she fudged the time a bit.)  I insisted on paying her because her partner is on disability right now and money is tight, but she also insists that the next massage is free.  Who am I to argue?  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I can think again.

I could drive, I could talk on the phone for short bursts, I can remember things.  (Not everything, but it wasn’t a certified miracle.) Pain management is incredible.  

The eagle-eyed might notice that, above, my dentist, for the pleasure of making me cry when he thwacked my already smarting teeth with his instrument, gave me a 10% discount on the nightguard.  Actually, he noted the discount when he found out that I was paying cash.  But still. They both discounted the total price and didn’t charge to expedite the order.  (I’d told them there was a chance I had to be out of town the following week for an interview.)  Good folks.  
We’re not all the way there yet, but lots of deep breathing and judicious use of the painkillers makes an enormous difference. There really seems to be something to this alignment business.  If I can, I’d like to see him one more time to help winnow the pain down to less than a daily occurrence and work on my own from there. 

March 7, 2008

Defeated, addendum

Apparently, the bad day wasn’t going to end with the overdraft fees.

Coworker 3 got really sick yesterday and didn’t have a ride home, so I left the office at the same time to give him a lift from the train station.

An hour after I’d dropped him off at home and my dad off at work, I headed to Wamu to deposit some checks that I’d just gotten. And I was using the additional ATM around a dark corner of the bank building, which is creepy enough, when some guy came and stood directly behind me where I couldn’t see him, instead of standing in line where you’re supposed to around the corner. And the Wamu card in my wallet was expired. I took that, and the creepy guy behind me, as a sign to just get out of there.

Only to discover that my mom had gotten another flat tire driving my car. This is the second one in two weeks, the SIXTH one in two years.

Had to go home, pick up the right card, and head back out to other Wamu in town.

And at the less creepy drive-up ATM, the first of my three checks were deposited, and the other two were rejected because I’d “reached my daily limit.” ???? There’s a limit on how many deposits I can make??? I got really hot, but it was almost 8 pm by then, and there was nothing I could do except yell at the machine. So I did. At least I’d deposited the checks in order from greatest to smallest amounts, so it covered the overdrafted amounts and then some.

Finally, upon getting home, I discovered that my old puppy is just failing. He’s not eating anymore, and I’m going to have to make the appointment to take him in to the vet. For you know what. Just thinking it is breaking my heart.

I know I’m not defeated, but it sure feels like it.

At least today’s another day.

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