This blog was born in the hours following my older son’s MD diagnosis. As he’s moved into adulthood, I’ve come to think it would be a violation of his right to privacy to discuss his health with the big, wide world here. When I talk about him now, it’s from my maternal driver’s seat, the wider view of being a parent of a college student, not the anguished ramblings regarding my child newly diagnosed with a progressive, disabling disease.
I’d always found solace in song, so writing under Greater Than Gravity, a lyric from my favorite song, boosted me over and through an airplane hangar’s worth of emotional baggage. I wrote with my happy song in mind because I needed to offload some of the mental freight I carried and this platform perfectly suited that emotional dump. I continued writing because people said nice things about how and what I wrote and that feedback made me feel really good. Writing was my therapy. Writing told me how I felt.
I haven’t written regularly in a long, long time. I haven’t felt really good in a long, long time.
Maybe there’s a nexus I’d be foolish to ignore.
I can’t ignore my history with words having given me wings. So here’s me at my laptop, writing with the renewed hope that words will help me break the surface of this depth of profound sadness I’m swimming in.
To see me in the real world, I don’t think you’d immediately know how broken my brain feels. I still crack wise, I laugh when something’s funny, I do my hair and makeup and get to work every day, I’m eating and drinking too much so I appear hale and robust. Most outward indicators signal a functional adult. I don’t think functional adults are near to tears a good majority of their waking hours each day though. I don’t think functional adults delay responses to texts and phone messages because the effort in formulating a “normal” response can feel demanding to a point of paralysis.
Thus, therapy.
I’m trying therapy, but I can’t say I have much faith in the therapist I was matched with. The methodology, though research-based, doesn’t feel like the fit I’d hoped to find; it feels more like being poured into a too-tight dress and there’s me standing up tall, sucking in my gut for all I’m worth thinking, well, it doesn’t look that ridiculous (everyone else knowing it looks exactly that ridiculous). At our first appointment, the therapist shared the professional opinion that talk therapy would not work for me. Wait. . . what. . . Talking wouldn’t work?? I’m a speech-language pathologist. . . In whose world do words not lead me toward solutions?
I kept my next few appointments and I kept an open mind. Until I didn’t.
Last week, my therapist forgot my appointment. The therapist was on the phone when I arrived. I’m new at this game, so I backed out of the therapy room and took a seat in the tiny waiting area, belly-rubbing and “good girl”-ing the ever-present therapy dog as I sat. I don’t know what protocol dictates in this type of scenario, but I knew eavesdropping was wrong. My therapist was on speaker phone and it was all I could do to avoid tuning in. I assumed the good doctor was helping a patient manage a crisis situation so I didn’t barge in or announce myself loudly or even clear my throat in that “HELLO????” kind of way. I wasn’t silent as I sat there but I wasn’t raising a stink either. Working as a different type of therapist myself, I wanted to respect everyone’s privacy and right to full attention.
After ten minutes distant college memories surfaced. Do you remember in college, how when a professor was late to class, you and your classmates began to share the class-is-canceled-after-ten-minutes-if-the-prof-no-shows dream? Nevermind that you’re paying top dollar for the professor’s time by way of your tuition, but after ten minutes you felt like you were getting a rare gift and you bolted from the lecture hall at 10:01! That was me last week. How long do I wait? Is there an expectation for the way this is done? What’s the socially accepted contract here?
Google suggested a ten minute cushion was sufficient, but I gave it fifteen before checking out. You might be wondering why I didn’t make more noise or directly interrupt the phone call and the answer is simple: it just felt wrong to do so. I’m not at an acute crisis level, but I’ve experienced mental health crises with others. If the therapist was dealing with someone in crisis, I’d want that individual to get the attention they’ve sought.
I felt good leaving. In fact, I felt a measure of control, knowing I’d done the right thing for me.
Turns out the therapist simply failed to write me into the schedule. I’m not raising holy hell over it; I’m not asking you all to join me in burning an effigy or anything. It was a mistake. But good thing my self-esteem is mostly secure, ’cause a therapist confirming you’re not worth remembering could cut a person pretty deep if one were so inclined. I need help, but not in this area.
The quest for a new, better-matched therapist is underway. I haven’t necessarily balked at the process itself and I recognize that this therapist just wasn’t a match for me. Everyone has their specialty, and it felt like this therapist’s specialty clouded their perception of me. I was the square peg fitted into a round hole. Maybe that round hole fits others beautifully and productively, but I’m not others.
It has been one year since my husband’s employer unseated him from his job. After nearly killing him, saying how they’ll always watch out for “their brother” and our family, after being returned to work so damn quickly after the accident and DOING THE JOB capably, they suddenly decided it wasn’t “safe” for him to be at work. Funny, huh? It was safe for him to be at work when his buddy backed up over him–THAT was safe. Yeah. But working indoors, performing a task necessary to help keep the city safe while providing him a safe work environment was a bridge too far.
You cannot imagine the anger, the disgust, the frustration I feel at my husband’s employer for what their cold, calculated cruelty has done to him and to us. You really can’t imagine the rage inside me. I can’t find a way to dial it down to a simmer. I need help. I’ve needed help the whole time, but everything has ramped up (ramped down?) since his employer did the worst thing they could do. And they did a pretty fucking terrible thing in having run over him in the first place.
I’ll close this post with some thoughts well-meaning people have given me this last year. When you see me and are inclined to provide counsel, know that a helpful thing to say falls along the lines of, “I’m sorry this is a difficult time.” People are concerned and kind and that means a great deal, but sharing sentiments like those below may have good intention at their root, but are ultimately unhelpful:
- You should get a lawyer (we’ve retained one)
- At least you’ll be rich when it’s settled (no, we won’t–the notion of monetary “damages” or “pain and suffering” settlements do not exist under workers compensation in my state–we are a one-income family and I work in public education, so yeah. . .)
- Just don’t worry about it (any statement qualified with just implies you think there is a simple solution)
- At least he didn’t die (you just don’t know how dismissive this is
- Can’t he just get another job? (yes and no and there are parameters)
- God will provide (that may work in your belief system and I am glad it does for you but it doesn’t pay my bills)
- Depression isn’t really a thing (OK, sure)
- You’re lucky it’ll probably help with financial aid for college (super lucky, yeah and actually probably not)
- You’re so strong (no argument here)
Off this forum I’m writing about our nightmare experience of 2023, and I hope to be able to engage in some talk therapy about it as well. If writing helped me deal with my son’s diagnosis, maybe it can help with this mess.
Five cents, please.
Greater Than Gravity 