Hey y’all. It’s been a while. I don’t have high expectations for anyone even still reading this anymore, but I’m in a place where I really feel like writing about feelings and such would be a good idea.
In other words, this is what the Me vs World battle looks like right now:
When I decided to go on hiatus from this blog last year, I was having a really tough semester, partly because DOING A PHD IS HARD and partly because while I was in the field earlier in the year I let my weight get low enough that it was affecting my emotional stability and ability to deal with both hard and not-so-hard things.
So now it’s over a year later. The past 15 months in a nutshell:
September - December 2013
Had to take a break from running last fall semester due to overuse injuries. This didn’t really result in me gaining weight but did make me feel like I was literally going CRAZY and going even more nuts about food/body stuff than usual. The inside of my head felt like a full-on Jan moment:
Was able to start running again over Christmas break. Fa la la la. Between June and December regained some of the weight I’d lost earlier in the year.
January-June 2014
Left for in Tropical Research Country. Stayed for 5 months.
Changed my dissertation topic halfway through Year 2 of my PhD. I don’t recommend this, but it was the right decision.
Dealt with a good deal of emotional yo-yoing related to things beyond the scope of this post, but also loosened up enough with food stuff to actually gain weight while I was living in challenging conditions. It wasn’t a huge gain, but it did put me back at the highest weight I’d been at since around summer/fall 2012, although still not up to where I was when I started grad school in 2009. I was still exercising a LOT but have gotten better about shaking off food rules for special occasions and visits to places I know I may not ever go again. So the weight gain was the result of having a lot of fun, but still kinda freaked me out.
June-August 2014
Came back to the US. Spent the summer with my family and with Match (we celebrated our 5 year anniversary in late August. Time flies!). Felt amazing physically at the higher weight but the body anxiety/weirdness was all-consuming, and I was down to my pre-trip weight by the end of August.
Surprise surprise, dieting and running are a dangerous mix, and I managed to aggravate some old stress fractures and had to go on another fall running hiatus this year. Still easing back into it gradually; it feels like one step forward and two steps back with that.
Apparently the answer to this question is "the hospital."
August - Now 2014
This semester was a lot less stressful than Fall 2013 in some ways (I started off this year healthier, had a lighter class load, finally felt like I had a solid research project that I was making real progress with, and got the chance to teach, which I LOVE).
But this fall has been devastating in other ways. My grandmother died one month ago today. She was my mom’s mother. I still forget to use "was" when referring to her about half the time. We lived with those grandparents after my mom and I basically ran away from my biological dad, and they have been more influential in shaping my life than I can even articulate. Nana had been sick for a while and I knew the end would be soon. But I still wasn’t as prepared as I thought I would be. The last month feels like it has lasted a decade. I’m still pretty angry and bitter. Even though everyday life, on the surface, is basically back to normal routine, I feel like I’m just holding my breath every day waiting for . . . I’m not sure what.
I also feel like I learned more about people in the aftermath of losing Nana than I could even process at once. Humans are just so awkward about talking about death. We’re also uncomfortable around bereaved people. My support structure (outside of my family and Match, who are unfailing anchors for me) ended up being a lot different than I would have predicted. In one case, I feel like I just plain lost someone whom I thought was a very close friend because he couldn’t deal with talking to me when I was very low, and then wanted to take things up again like nothing and happened. Maybe I’m still too bitter and will get over it eventually. My mom says that people in my generation often don't know their grandparents well, and may not have realized what a significant loss it was. Maybe that's true. I know that the one friend that completely checked out definitely knew how close I was to Nana and how hard her illness had been for us.
Other people were disappointing in the same way to a lesser degree. Some people that I hadn’t really been in close touch with recently stepped up and have been amazing. So I guess, as Nana would say, “you never can tell about people, and never assume that you can.”
Weirdly, losing Nana temporarily seemed to magically cure my anxiety issues (temporarily). I basically quit giving a shit about anything. Who the fuck cares about the weather, or the election results, or this paper I’m supposed to read, or my research funding? Every conversation I overheard for a couple of weeks just made me angry, because it seemed so insignificant. That was me wallowing in bitterness, of course.
It’s like as soon as you bury someone, things are supposed to go back to “normal,” as if they’re “out of sight and out of mind,” rather than the loss feeling more acute and bleak than ever. My world will never be “normal” again. People ask how you are when they don't actually want to stand there in the hallway or stop on the way into departmental seminar and hear about how one of the people that was a critical block in your foundation is gone. You will never talk to her again. You will never see her smile, or hold her hand, or hear her crack a senility-induced dirty joke that has the whole room rolling in laughter.
People don't stop in the hallway and ask "how are you" so that you can tell them all of this. They don't actually want to know how you're doing, they want you to say "I'm okay" so they can check of their "showed compassion" box for the day and move along. I felt this most acutely the two weeks or so after the funeral. I'm also probably being grossly unfair, because some people actually do care and were/are extremely supportive and did very helpful things, and other people are definitely not malicious when they don't know how to do that; it just is what it is.
I think a lot of my bitterness has been partly due to the fact that none of the people physically here where I live, that I have to surround myself with day-to-day, were those supportive people, so I felt like just going to work in the morning involved a lot of facade. I don't know what I would have done if I hadn't had teaching as a distraction to take me out of my thoughts a few times a week.
But back to anxiety: when things that typically would have stressed me out just rolled off my back, I actually stopped to wonder if this is how “normal” people feel most of the time. Not the apathetically angry “why the fuck would anyone care about the departmental Christmas party” feeling but the “oh well, in the end this will get worked out and not matter” feeling.
I’m moving past much of the anger I think. Some people disappointed me, but I’m not their job, and I’m glad I know where we stand now. I think “growing up” is a euphemism for just progressively lowering expectations about everything.
And the anxiety is moving back in, which means I must be going back towards my baseline mood state, even though I still feel different. I have stopped weeping every day and have times when I feel like I’m having fun in the moment. I went to that departmental Christmas party, wore a costume for it with my labbies, and even got drunk and ate so many Christmas cookies that I felt guilty and got drunker. Life moves along I guess.
So that’s that. I am returning to Tropical Research Country in January, but pushed my departure back a few weeks to spend extra time with my family before I leave. It feels terrible to admit this, but I’m starting to regret that decision; I think I’m still in a relatively dark place and want to just withdraw and run as far away as I can. I probably feel like this because living in PhD Town I’m on my own and the only people I interact with are ones that I don’t really confide in. I’m hoping that I will feel differently when I’m back with my family and Match soon.
Things are just hard at my parents’ house and I’m so emotionally sapped already — my grandfather’s health isn’t great either, my parents seem to be avoiding a divorce that they really need (they are emotionally done and barely tolerate each other), I get stressed about balancing family vs Match time over the holidays, and then there’s also the food stuff involved in being home and then traveling. I dropped some weight really quickly without trying after Nana died, but think I made up for at least some of it over Thanksgiving. Gaining weight in the field last year made me anxious about making sure I don’t “lose control” on this trip even though I know that is the ED talking.
So I disappeared for over a year and then wrote a novel-length return post, which probably guarantees zero readers, but if you made it this far, thank you. Love y'all.
4 comments:
First, I have literally been waiting for you to come back since your blog disappeared last year. You will ALWAYS have a reader in me, so no worries there.
I am so, so sorry about your grandmother. How awful. I have never lost anyone so close to me so I won't pretend to understand how you are feeling right now, but I *hear* you and I am *with* you. Bitter is okay, it makes sense. I think the major anxiety reduction is probably also normal in some ways - nothing like a huge life shock to give some perspective, you know? My dad was a couple blocks north of the twin towers on on 9/11, and he swears he'll never be the same - stuff that used to bug him about work, his commute, the city, etc. just doesn't get to him anymore. Not saying it's entirely the same, but stuff like that will change you. Remember it's only been a month; you aren't going to feel like yourself right away, but you will - or at least, closer to your old self, since you will probably never be quite the same person. That is okay. Stuff like this is supposed to change you. And sometimes when you change, the world doesn't change with you, unfortunately.
Really happy to hear that M is still such a great support. It must be hard living so far from him and your family, so I get the loneliness and isolated-ness. But i am in awe of your traveling capacity, so at least you get back to see everyone.
And finally, as always, whenever I read your bog I worry about your health. Please be careful.
This is such a long comment it has to go in two posts...
For a really long time after you stopped writing in your blog, I still checked it regularly, on the off chance that you'd have written again :-) So glad to see you here, although I'm sorry it's because of the need for an emotional outlet. Hopefully you know what I mean.
Thank you for taking the time to write an update from the past year. I loved reading it so much I read it three times :-)
I am also beyond sorry for your loss of your nana. I have garnered over the years how much you look up to her, how much you love her, and how important she is to you. I purposely write in present tense because all those things are still true to this day. Oh, Cammy, the feeling is just awful, to lose someone, the irreversibleness of it is the worst ache. The bitterness is absolutely a normal reaction because when major life things happen like this, overhearing conversations that are anything short of deep, is angry-making. Your reactions all make perfect sense to me.
I didn't lose anyone in the past few months (and not to make this post about me, but hopefully sharing this about myself will have some helpful purpose), but about three months ago, I had a severe allergic reaction to a medication given to me by the dentist. It caused my heart rate to more than tripple, my breathing rate to do the same, and my body to shake. Paramedics were called, and eventually the medication was flushed from my system. But the experience was the scariest experience of my life. I truly felt like I was about to die. My perception of the event was such that the event really became a trauma for me. I'm not sure how it happened (trauma response? did the medication turn something on in my brain? i don't know), but it led to 2 months of such intense, daily anxiety and panic attacks. Despite what my life may look like on facebook, I've been recovering from the most horrific daily fear/anxiety. I had nightmares, lost too much weight initially, gained it back plus some thank goodness, couldn't get out of bed, and was just drowning in somatic storms, was so scared that I fainted in public a couple of times and woke up profusely sweating with a low heart rate that finally re-escalated. It was the worst time of my life. I had to quit my job temporarily and delay my graduation from school by a year. I just couldn't function. It was way worse than when I had an eating disorder. I am finally feeling near 100% again.
The point of all of that?! The point is that, during that time, sometimes I'd work up the nerve to attend a social event, or to be around people. And I heard people talk about anything - their christmas card picture, their thanksgiving plans, a deadline at work, etc., and I thought, with bitterness, "You people are so LUCKY that you can sit here and WORRY about something like a deadline! I am just trying to stay afloat and get through every day!"
Actually, my precious moments post were really attempts to help my brain to retrain itself to focus on times when I felt in the present and somatically calm instead of being in fear all the time. Surprisingly, it helped significantly. In a big way.
So I guess I share that whole story to show you a way in which I think I can relate to the feeling of just trying to get by while others are focused on things that feel like a luxury to be able to focus on.
I'm glad that your'e feeling a bit more back to baseline, but that feeling of just waiting for... you don't know what... feeling a bit hypervigilent... that's a really hard feeling to live with. In you, you have the perfect system and it will, with time, on its own, work out the reverberations of this loss.
You are on track to feeling like yourself again. You really are. You're moving in the right direction.
A quote I like that relates to loss - I'm not sure who said it - "Death is a loss of a life, but not the loss of a relationship." (And depending on your spirituality, you may or may not feel it's a loss of a life).
I don't know if you're interested in any kind of therapy, but I happen to know of a therapist in your area who likes to work with people working through grief. Let me know and I can get you the name privately.
This is a rambling, long comment. Love you, Cammy! Reach out to me anytime!
WELCOME BACK!!!! I've missed reading 4B! I'm really glad we've been catching up lately, but I'm also glad you're back to writing.
There have been so many changes going on for you on basically all levels of your life. You've been incredibly resilient, and I'm so proud of you for that. I'm so sorry about your Nana; I know how much she means to you. You're absolutely right that it changes things. There will probably always be that feeling of "before" and "after," and that's hard. I hope you can continue to heal, but I also hope that you can continue to be honest about your feelings. All of the feelings you describe make a lot of sense, even if they suck. Ya know?
I'm really glad your relationship with Match continues to be a stabilizing and comforting part of your life. I'm sorry that things at home are all-around not good. I hope you're able to spend time with Match, and do what you need to do in order to take care of yourself. Know that I'm always a text/call/email away! Take care dear!
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