On Friday the 5th, went to the hospital for a kidney stone that had been sticking around for the past two months. I had gone to the hospital (a different hospital) on February 9th for the same evil little jerk, then visited the urologist who said “yup, kidney stone” and then did nothing else. I kept trying to get in touch with their office to get its removal scheduled because it wasn’t budging on its own and they kept just… not calling me back. For almost two months.
So I marched myself into the emergency room and politely asked that the urologist on call take the fucker out. He obliged. I was well taken care of, given the good drugs, a tube was put in my left ureter to let stuff drain, and I was sent home.
It turns out that recovering from this surgery is equally as unpleasant as having a kidney stone. Who knew? I sure didn’t. The past week has sucked. But I’m finally healing up and getting better and not having to bolster myself with medication so much.
When I woke up from the surgery, I induced that I’d been intubated because my throat was sore. When I got home, I started eatin’ bananas. Lots of bananas! So many bananas! Bananas are soft and easy on the throat! Bananas are easy on the stomach! Bananas are good for diarrhea and nausea! Bananas! But then I started wondering… why is my throat still swollen…? Why does everything taste weird and muted? Why does my mouth feel funny? Why does even salt feel spicy on my tongue? WHY DO BANANAS FEEL LIKE ACID?
On Thursday, friends and neighbors, I realized I’m allergic to bananas.
This is a sudden allergy. I was never allergic to bananas before last week. I have eaten bananas my whole life. I love bananas. But, my dearest darlings, bananas make my lips and tongue burn. Bananas make my throat swell to a teensy widdle tube that it is hard to breathe through. I am real fuckin allergic to bananas.
I’m so pissed.
You know what I’m also suddenly allergic to? Avocados. Figured that one out yesterday when I ate some sushi for science because I’d read that if you’re allergic to bananas you’re probably allergic to avocados.
I’m not sure life is worth living without guacamole. Or sushi. Don’t tell me sushi can come without avocado, I know that. BUT WHY WOULD I WANT SUSHI WITHOUT AVOCADO, AVOCADO IS INCREDIBLE IN SUSHI.
So now I’m sitting here with my lips and tongue still all fucked up from the April 2024 Banana Extravaganza, I’m hosting a birthday party for myself in an hour and a half, and I’m pretty sure I can deal with no more bananas but I want to cry thinking about no more avocados. I’m going to visit an allergist to see if there’s anything we can do about this.
Tuesday the 9th, I saw a skunk in the back yard! He was an adorable little dude, and I kept my distance. This is the skunk! I love him.
Some people were like, “oh no, skunk!” That is the wrong response. Skunks are peaceful little dudes! Skunks aren’t aggressive! They just want to dig around and eat bugs. They don’t want to spray you. They want to be left alone. If you leave them alone, they will leave you alone. If you see them doing a hand-stand, you should run away because that means they’re going to spray and you don’t want to stick around for that. But for the most part, skunks aren’t any trouble at all. They are adorable buddies who you should not try to pet even though they are friend-shaped. Love your skunk buddies from a distance.
I hope the skunk buddy visits again sometime. One of the best things about living on the outskirts of town is our proximity to wildlife. We get bald eagles and frogs, coyotes and ducks, skunks and dragonflies! It turns out I aspire to be a trashier version of Snow White.
I guess I should wash my hair before the party. Peace out, my dudes.
Love,
Kate and Backyard Skunk
p.s.
Come by if you want some free bananas. I have, like, six.
Have you ever had your car broken into? Or your house? There’s this sense that this space is not entirely your own anymore.
Worse, have you ever been touched by someone you didn’t want touching you? Have you ever been raped?
Now imagine that, but it’s your brain.
Waking up from anesthesia with a brain injury is like having your brain invaded. Someone rifled through the glove compartment of my mind. Someone squeezed the ass of my cerebellum on a crowded train. Someone didn’t want to stop at heavy petting and now my amygdala is feeling used and dirty.
Lately I’ve been having these weird tremors in my spine and the backs of my thighs– they don’t hurt. They don’t really do anything. Just shake shake shake for about 60 seconds. Like being on a vibrating bed. A 5.0 on the Richter scale but only for a square foot of my body. And then it stops.
Sometimes my hands work like those claw machines in the foyers of shitty restaurants. When part of my job was to open incoming mail, it was a challenge to get letters out of envelopes and unfolded. It took a lot of focus to do. I could do it, but concentrating so hard on each and every one meant that after 25 or 50 letters I was so spent that I could barely walk. And every day was like this.
My vision goes blurry. Sometimes it doubles. I have migraines almost all the time. I suffer from terrible insomnia and only one pill treats it effectively, but the side effects are worsening to the point that it is absolutely not worth taking anymore. I am terrified of not sleeping, but I’m not really sleeping anymore anyway.
I am in pain all the time. I am dizzy all the time. There are so many things wrong that if I tried to explain all of the things that are wrong you would think I was making shit up. My life is, in many ways, hell.
When I tell you that this injury ruined my life, I am not lying. Could things be worse? Absolutely. I know that I am very, very lucky that my injury was not worse. I work in government social services. I have had many opportunities to interact with people whose brain injuries were far more devastating than my own.
I am still employed, although that was really fucking touch-and-go for awhile. I am still married, but my marriage is under some serious strain. The cats are fine. I am not currently bleeding from the eyeballs. I am getting along with my parents. I am loved. I have friends. Shit could be worse.
But I didn’t know humans could be this tired, this stressed, this close to falling apart for so long, and not just scream and scream and scream until they had no voice left.
I have learned how strong I am, yes, but no one should have to be this strong.
I know about the holocaust, I know about Cambodia and Russia under Stalin and the American slave trade and the fucking Crusades, and man’s inhumanity to man. I know about comfort women in Japan and Ed Gein’s human lampshades and what Ted Bundy did to those poor women in Florida and Colorado and Utah and Washington. I know about the clients I’ve served here in Oregon and the horrific abuse they suffered that brought them to the attention of the government services I worked for. I know I am very lucky to have the support I have.
But I also know that my brain chemistry was already fucked up enough before this injury happened to me, that I was already in physical pain before this happened to me, that I had already fought hard enough before this happened to me, and that I didn’t deserve what happened to me.
I am an optimist. I have always been an optimist, I think. It is really hard to keep being an optimist after all of this. I continue to take my medication– so much fucking medication these days. My husband, bless him, has so many suggestions for things I should try to do to feel better– walk around the block! Enjoy the weather in the back yard! Drink more water! Cardio! And I just want to lob things at his noggin. Sure, those things could help. But in the face of all this hopelessness, it just sounds so pointless.
Today I’m trying caffeine. I have a bunch of caffeinated tea and also some Mtn Dew I stocked up on because at least it’ll keep me from falling asleep on the job. Looks like it’s sunny outside so maybe I’ll go squint with disapproval at the backyard on my lunch in a few minutes. T will approve.
Two years, eight months, and four days ago, I went to the oral surgeon. They put me under. I woke up. I was terrified. I was crying. I asked, did something go wrong? They said nothing happened. One of the assistants seemed angry with me. I didn’t know why. I couldn’t stop crying. My friend Jordan was my ride. He was waiting in the parking lot. They wanted to go get him. I wouldn’t let them. I wanted to calm down first. I didn’t want him to see me like that. I couldn’t stop crying. I didn’t know why I couldn’t stop crying. I didn’t know why I was terrified. No one would tell me anything. Eventually I calmed down a bit. I was still pretty out of it. I don’t know how long it took, but if I had to guess, I’d say maybe twenty minutes. Jordan came in. They walked me to the car. Jordan drove me home. Jordan got my husband and they put me to bed. I slept and slept and slept. I was a mess. I had gauze in my mouth, and stitches, and I just wanted to rest.
That was on March 15th, 2021, which was a Monday. I think I worked that Tuesday. I can’t imagine how I worked Tuesday. Force of habit, I guess. I know I can’t have been feeling 100%. I haven’t felt 100% since before March 15th, 2021.
Tuesday night was when we found the bruises
These were obviously fingerprints pressed into my arm.
We were laying in bed. And The Husband-Bot said Oh My God Your Arm. And I was like What Are You Talking About. And he said “Look.” and I Looked. And I was like, T, those are fingerprints. And he said “Yes, they are.” And we marveled.
I had a knot on the back of my head. I had bruising under my jaw. It hurt to swallow. It hurt to put even featherweight pressure under my chin. Someone had obviously restrained me with great force. Multiple someones. Someone had obviously slammed me back in the chair. I had been injured. But I didn’t know yet how injured I was.
March 15th, I went to the oral surgeon.
March 16th, we found the bruises.
March 17th, I emailed the oral surgeon to ask what the hell had happened.
And on March 18th, I figured out that there was something really wrong with me.
That’s when I knew I had a concussion.
Today is November 19th 2023. It has been two years, eight months, and four days since my most recent traumatic brain injury, and I have been well and truly fucked by it.
I saw my amazing doctor on March 23rd. She verified that I had a concussion, which at that point was a mere formality. By this point I had
been bucked from a horse in 1985
attempted (and very much failed) to pop a wheelie in 1987
fainted and smacked my head against a wall in 1995
gotten t-boned by a truck in 2011
I knew what a fucking concussion felt like.
On April 8th I facilitated a staff meeting but then started hallucinating like I’d eaten some excellent shrooms. It was then that I decided to take the rest of the day off and not to facilitate meetings for awhile.
Work was very understanding, if by understanding we mean that they said that they understood while actually making everything much harder and tilting their head like confused dogs when confronted with the fact that, yes, I still had a TBI and, yes, that actually did change some things and no, that wasn’t something I could just kinda, y’know, opt out of on weekdays or anything…
(fuck you kristin)
(I have a new job now)
The first three months after my injury I tried to behave as normal. I tried not to miss work, not to make excuses, not to slow down or change my routine in any way, and it almost killed me. I was getting worse instead of better. I couldn’t really sleep– it’s a sick irony of TBIs and that they can cause insomnia when what you need more than anything else is rest. So I was working eight hour days and sleeping about 4.5 hours a night and experiencing ungodly migraines, dizziness, ataxia, paraphasia, hallucinations, issues with word-finding, short-term memory loss, and a host of other issues that made me feel like I was going senile at 40. I was worried that I was losing myself. In June I broke down and ended up taking three weeks of leave out of desperation and sleeping as much as I could.
Part of the reason it felt imperative to take leave right then was that things had come to a head with my mother about her continuing pressure on me to have a relationship with my brother which I did not (and do not) want to do. I had to really break that down with her and put her on a time out, and this was very difficult for me emotionally. I wrote a rather lengthy blog post about this at the time if you feel like hunting it down. It’s not hard to find.
In September I received a two day unpaid suspension for goofing around on my work computer on the clock. When I pled that a lot of the things they cited were work-related, that in many cases I was trying to stay awake and alert when I ran out of tasks, and that my judgement and awareness of time were affected by my traumatic brain injury it fell on deaf ears. This is when I started to seriously believe that management was trying to get rid of me.
So at that point I was six months into my TBI adventure!
Throughout all of that I was trying very hard to be upbeat! Hopeful! To maintain my belief that healing was just! around! the corner!
Spoiler: no.
I got a new therapist around that time who was awesome! Her name was Jacey! And she was very good at helping me see the bright side of things. She felt like a friend. Our weekly sessions really helped keep me going. So that was great. My work situation still sucked ass, but at least I had someone to talk to about it.
And now I’m sitting here trying to think of other things that were happening in autumn 2021 and I can’t think of a fucking thing… I think I was just in survival mode, you know? Waiting for the good things I was sure were just right around the corner. I know I wrote a Christmas letter that year?
So I guess we can pick back up in Spring 2022.
MARCH: A year after my injury. I threaten to sue oral surgeon. He sends money. It isn’t a ton of money, but it’s all I’m going to get. I had to sign a NDA. We start shopping for a house in earnest. [We did not have “buy a house” money. We have “Oregon has great first time home-buying programs and we had hubris and now have SO MUCH DEBT OH MY GOD WHY DID WE DO THIS” money.] I hired the first realtors I met up with because I got a good feeling. They were a team who I’ll call Carrie and Fiona. I only meet Carrie the once, Fiona was our point of contact from then on.
APRIL: Jacey the therapist decides to leave the practice she’s at but super super pinkie swears she’ll totally for sure going to start up somewhere else to continue the super important work we were doing. I never see her again. This devastates me. I go into a terrible depression. The depression goes way past April. I am still in the depression. I do have a therapist currently, though.
MAY: HOUSE HUNT! We find a great-looking house and are about to bid on it when we discover that it was pretty much the site of a gun battle the year before and decide “nope.” We decide to confine our search to a certain part of town where we really want to live, which limits our options but makes us focus more.
JUNE/JULY: More house hunting. I have become obsessed. Travis keeps telling me to chill. I MUST HAVE A REWARD FOR ALL THE BULLSHIT I AM GOING THROUGH. ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES KATE A DULL PSYCHOTIC MESS. We find a house which is MEH but for some reason Carrie the realtor (who T has never even MET) really wants us to buy it. It is dark and dank and a homeless dude lives in the shed and it isn’t at all what we want and there is no driveway and no back yard (and an awesome back yard is on our MUSTS list) but for some reason Carrie is like THIS IS YOUR HOME BUY IT. We do not buy it. There’s this other house that we wanted to look at but the residents got Covid so we couldn’t. But then a couple weeks pass and we’re like what about that one…….
So it’s July 27th and we go and we look at it and T is like DO NOT GET HOPES UP DO NOT FALL IN LOVE and we drag our friend Dan along like we usually do and I’m just walking through this house like uh-huh…. uh-huh……. hmmmm……. uh-huh….. and then I go in the back yard and I sit in this Adirondack chair and Dan walks out and we make eye contact and we just, like, nod.
So we bid. And they came back a little higher. And we said Mmhmm okay. And then and then and then we have a house. We moved in September 21st, 2022.
Dan does not live here. We just rely on him to be rational and see things we don’t. It’s good to have a friend like that. I fall in love with everything. T is a ball of cynical anxiety. Dan is level-headed.
So I fucking love our house. Original 1958 oak floors. Not pristine, but solid shape. Central heating, no AC but we can dream. It’s in great shape for its age, good foundation, new roof, new huge deck. It’s charming as hell. We love our neighborhood. Quiet. Great Mexican restaurant a few blocks away. Friendly people. It’s just… nice. We’re still learning how to be homeowners. But it’s great.
But there’s nothing, nothing, nothing that can compensate for the TBI. $10k wasn’t enough. $10mil wouldn’t be enough. Nothing would be enough. Nothing.
We’ve been in the house for 14 months. We wouldn’t have the house without the catastrophic head bonk. And I think I was so obsessed with finding a house because I thought it would make up for the head bonk. And it doesn’t. It couldn’t. It was stupid to think that it could. It’s a great house. But nothing could.
I am mostly “back.”
I am doing way better than I was a year ago. I am doing immeasurably better than I was two years ago.
But I will never be like I was before I was injured. Looking at me you might not know that. But I know it. Every day I know it. I feel it. And it bloody kills me.
I spent the first, like, 29 years of my life in the pits of despair, man. Agony. I had good days and bad days. I had good years and bad years. And when I was 29 I had to move out of my rental house in Portland and I had nowhere to go so I went to my mom’s house in California because I was out of fucking options. And I got a job and I got a nice boyfriend and everything was temporary but it was sunny and it was tolerable and I was happy for just a little while, and I knew then that it was possible to be happy.
And everything went to shit again, and everything stayed shit for quite some time, but I knew it was possible to be happy so I fought like hell and I eventually got to a good place, a stable place, what felt like a really sustainable place, and by the time I was 39 I was married and I was on the right pills and I was employed and I was fucking healthy and everything was coming up Milhouse.
I guess I still believed in the American dream, that with enough sweat, luck, and bootstrappin’, you can do anything, you can be happy. You can succeed. I believed that I was away from the yawning chasm I’d camped next to for most of my life and I’d never get that close to it again. Suicidal? Not me! Not anymore, not ever again.
I thought I’d fought hard, and I’d won. I thought I could stop fighting.
I guess you’re the new Office Assistant. Welcome to the team! Okay, that’s a weird thing to say since I’m not on the team anymore, and I’m sure everyone else is making you feel very welcome– they’re a great bunch! The dedication and skill of the people you’ll be working with might knock your socks off. Gary and Keith are(almost) endlessly patient and will be very kind about explaining things if you get confused. There’s a lot to learn, so don’t feel bad if you need to ask a lot of questions! I still had to ask questions three years in! It’s fine! It’s expected.
I think you’ll find that the job is very challenging but also very rewarding. Getting to help people in the ways that you’ll get to help people will probably be as great for you as it was for me. Everyone will be very supportive while you’re learning, and soon I’m sure you’ll fit in wonderfully.
You’ll get to know our clients’ quirks over time. Some of them you’ll groan when you see their names on caller ID, but others you’ll be excited to talk to. One of my favorite things is getting to shop for people– sometimes you’ll bear back how much Joe liked his winter coat or Jane liked the poster you got for her. That feels great. Other times, you’ll be drafting correspondence from templates, making calls to Comcast, or filing. Those things are less fun, but if you keep in mind that it’s all in service to the clients, it makes it easier.
Just never get injured. Never get sick.
I don’t mean “don’t sprain your ankle.” Or “don’t catch a cold.” I mean don’t ever get anything chronic. Don’t ever get hurt hurt. Because if you get hurt you’ll be told that you shouldn’t talk to the team about it because it makes your coworkers uncomfortable. You’ll be told that it’s not a good excuse for fucking up. You’ll be reminded about how hard it’s been on the team that you got your life messed up by something out of your control. Management will make it very clear to you what a problem you are now. And they will push you out like they pushed me out.
They’ll act like every ADA accommodation is a favor they’re personally doing for you. They’ll tell you how hard it is on the team when you need to take time off because you can’t walk straight or feel like someone’s hammering a nail into your forehead. They’ll celebrate your birthday and your work anniversary but you’ll never get a “get well” card. You won’t be able to mention your illness in your yearly review, because “that’s not what they’re for.” If you make a mistake, they will condescend. If you make a real fuck-up, they’ll punish you as much as they can without the union making them stop. You’ll be told over and over that what happened to you, the limitations you have now, don’t matter, aren’t a factor, why can’t you perform like you did before the horrible thing happened to you and liquefied parts of your brain.
They will treat you with pity and call it compassion.
They will make it hell for you to stay.
So enjoy your time here and never, never get hurt or sick.
My husband and I toured a house yesterday. Immediately when we got inside, I smelled mildew and fresh paint. That was not a good sign. We walked through a few times and told the realtor we’d think about it. On the way back home, we impulsively stopped at a Japanese restaurant and got a light lunch. We decided at that table that we would not buy the house (which did have some lovely features, but several more ticks in the “no” column than in the “yes.”)
And while we were sitting there, me noshing on edamame and sipping water, I told T that I think I’m spiraling a little bit. I’m impulsive. I don’t have a lot of control over my emotions, and I hate it. I have worked very hard to have control over myself, but lately I am snappish, mercurial, sullen. I speak without thinking and am overly friendly with people who (it seems to me) give me weird looks and then try to go back to what they were doing. I ache for connection but shrink away from it, full of doubt.
My normally pretty-damned-good self-esteem is faltering. I don’t think I’m a worthless pile of crap or anything, but I do have my moments of intense self-doubt and calling myself weird, stupid, or crazy, even if it’s only in my head. I can usually manage to push those feelings aside and move onto something else. But yesterday, I felt a sort of melancholy that I haven’t felt in quite awhile– this feeling that the ground was falling away from underneath me and I was in freefall toward… I don’t know. Some sort of emotional doom.
I know myself pretty well, so when I was telling T about all of this I said “I’ll probably feel better tomorrow, because I usually do feel better after a good night’s sleep.” And I was right, I do feel better today. Not all the way better, but no longer like the abyss is looming.
The past 14 months have been one of the most difficult periods of my whole life– and if you know me, you know that my life has had a lot of difficult periods. Already plagued with health issues, I did not need the addition of a traumatic brain injury. But that’s what I got, and I am doing what I can to make the best of it. In a life that’s probably about half over, I’ve learned that often that’s the best thing we can do.
I’m still employed and getting straight A’s in school. But it’s dragging. I’m dragging. My verve and enthusiasm that I worked so hard to cultivate are failing me right now. When we got married, T said he wanted to buy a house within five years, so I fixed my abysmal credit score, paid off debts, and started trying to save. When I enrolled in school, I decided I was going to kick ass and I have. I have done so much with hope and willpower, but now there are things in my life I can’t just power through. There are things, like buying a house, that are in many ways out of my control. Knowing that my goals are years away from being achieved is really taking a toll on my psyche. And I just don’t have the energy to go fast fast fast all the time like I always have. I get tired so easily. I can’t coast by with intelligence and willpower, I have to utilize that skill that I’m still trying to build and has never come naturally to me: patience. I hate patience.
Things have been better, and I’ve gotten stronger. But eventually strength isn’t enough. Smarts aren’t enough. Humor and pretty green eyes, unfortunately, don’t mean much in an insane housing market. They won’t give me a Masters degree for being cute. Work doesn’t accept “well, I’m trying” as a substitute for getting stuff done or answering the phone. And there are some days when the effort of just getting through is so exhausting that I sort of cease to function by 5pm. For awhile, grit, determination, and my eternal/infernal optimism were carrying me. But those things aren’t inexhaustible. I am so, so tired.
I have this image pinned to my cubicle wall at work. It amused me but now I’m seeing through the gaslighting! What’s step 2?
The despair I felt yesterday was something I used to feel much of the time. And I kind of marveled at it, like how did I live this way for so long? Because for a most of my life I saw myself standing next to a vast canyon, feeling the wind try to push me over the edge. Feeling parts of my brain telling me to just jump and get it over with. And for the past few years, even after my injury, I sensed that the cliff was still there, but that I was no longer standing at the edge. I’d moved into a clearing several dozen paces away, and I could not gaze into the bottom any longer, contemplating, wondering, tempted.
Yesterday I was closer to the edge again. The wind was whipping. The canyon loomed. And as I always have, I turned my back away. I looked toward the clearing. I kept my eyes on the hope, the potential, life. Because some days, that really is all you can do.
I haven’t blogged in awhile. It’s not because there’s nothing going on. There’s a LOT going on, it’s just that none of it is super interesting.
I’m still recovering from my stupid head injury. I got some money for it, which is nice. Started watching a bunch of The People’s Court on YouTube and realized that I could do a small claims suit. To sue someone in small claims court in Oregon you need to notify them first of your intent and give them time to respond. So I did that and the bastard surgeon just sent me money so we wouldn’t have to go through the whole nonsense of court.
T and I, with our newfound riches, started looking into buying a home and have quickly realized that we are not going to be able to do so without a miracle– or the cooling of the market, which will hopefully happen soon. 10 years ago we would have been able to afford something awesome, but Portland is very hot right now when it comes to real estate, so we need patience and probably to save more money. Or a miracle. If anyone would like to lend us a few tens of thousands of dollars, that’d be swell.
I had an evil coworker who left in the middle of last month, and that makes me happy because she’s terrible.
The cats are fine, we’re both basically fine, everything is FINE. I’ve gotten good at doing subtle makeup. So that’s nice.
I’m still in school, still gettin’ A’s, still plugging away at everything in hopes of a brighter future. I turned 41. I’m tired all the time.
I’m working toward a degree in social work, and my union is paying for me to get my associate’s. After that I’ll probably transfer to the local university (which I dropped out of 12 years ago because I was not a stable person back then) and get my bachelor’s and master’s from there.
You can do a lot with a Master’s in Social Work. You can do so many fucking things.
Education means choices. I’ve worked for the same employer for over 4 years now, and I’ve been in my current job for just over two years. I was really in love with my job for the first year and a half. I get to help people. Isn’t that cool?
And then I got hurt.
I started seeing a new therapist today. My longtime therapist, who I saw for about 9 years but has since moved on to the more administrative side of things and in fact now runs the practice, recommended her. And we just clicked immediately. I like her a lot. I talked about a lot of things, because, y’know, first session with a new therapist. Instead of feeling exhausted afterward, I felt energized and excited.
And one of the things I told her is that I’m doing really well in school. I know I already said that, but it’s important.
My brain injury really fucked up my life. Most of my symptoms have finally abated, but some are sticking around and might be permanent. I can deal with those, I think. They suck, but I can figure it out.
My work performance has suffered. My overall health has suffered. My personal life was affected. I have terrible memory now. I have trouble focusing. My spelling and typing have gone to shit. I have frequent, sometimes debilitating headaches. I often feel despair, which passes, but it’s not fun.
Through all this, my GPA stayed fucking solid. For the last two terms I’ve gotten all A’s. This term I’m taking statistics, and as someone who hasn’t done any math above arithmetic for about 24 years, stats is a fucking challenge. But I’m acing it. I’m acing everything. I started college again at 39, and it seems I was finally ready to do it right. I’m a good student. I’m wicked smart. I’m doing it. It feels like I’m learning to ride a bike without training wheels. Look at me goooooooooooo.
But when it comes to work, I just feel so trapped. My husband and I have great insurance because of my work. I am getting an associates degree for free because of my work. I have stability because of my work. And it fucking beats a lot of other jobs I’ve had.
It’s just really hard to come back from what I’ve seen. It’s hard to know that if I get sick again, I’m kind of on my own. Leave and benefits won’t give me clear instructions. My short term disability insurance, which I opted into and comes right out of my paycheck, seems fucking useless. They’re still processing my claim and sending me forms saying that they’re still processing my claim. And my team, who I gave so much of myself to not let down, doesn’t really seem to care. I think they’re all sick of me being sick.
As if I’m not.
So I’m in school. And my grades are very good. And I’m going to get my degree, and then get the next degree, and get the NEXT degree, and then… then I will have leverage. I will have choices. I will be able to decide where I want to go next. I won’t have to worry quite as much, I hope. I won’t have to be an Office Assistant anymore, at the bottom of the totem pole, replaceable and negligible and treated like a liability because I had the audacity to get a fucking TBI.
So, according to the title of this post and the song that inspired it, “everybody’s working for the weekend.”
You know what I do on my weekends?
Statistics. And whatever other courses are required for my major. And I like it.
School means choices. I’m not going to fuck it up this time.
I used to be someone who cried a lot. Happy or sad scenes in movies, frustration or sadness in my own life. I used to cry probably more than was healthy. But it was good to cry.
Something changed. It started when I was 20, during a very difficult summer. I dropped acid and slept with my friend’s 33-year-old boyfriend while she was away on a trip. Then I went on a 40-day vacation to Boston, Vermont, and London– and on my second-to-last day in London, I fell down the stairs and sprained my ankle. Later that summer, I found out my parents were divorcing. I was a mess. Everything I thought I knew to be stable was suddenly shaky. A lot of the drama was self-created, but a lot of it wasn’t. These are just the highlights.
I had always been an exploder. I became an imploder. Instead of striking out at others I mostly punished myself. I guess I still blew up at people from time to time, and even before this I tended to take things out on myself– and I have the scars to prove it. But one thing that changed was that I stopped really being able to cry, no matter how sad I was.
I took an Eastern Philosophy class at the local community college (My Pretend College, for my hometown readers.) I don’t remember it being a very good class, but it certainly wasn’t the sort of thing that makes one silently sob behind their hands. But one night, when I was 21, that’s what I did. I started crying and I just couldn’t stop. I wasn’t making any noise. I don’t think anyone even really noticed at first. But I just could. not. stop leaking water from my eyes. I wasn’t really sad about anything in particular; I was sad about everything. And at this point it had been about six months since I’d been able to cry, so this one night I just couldn’t stop. I had friends in the class, and someone had to drive me home because the leaking would not stop.
Over time, and because of an abusive relationship that made me cry a whole fucking lot, I eventually regained the use of my tear ducts. But because my ex was so awful, I stopped fighting back because I’d learned it didn’t do a whole lot of good. The times I did strike out, it was mostly physical. He got in my face one day, mocking me when I said “you won’t let me have any friends.” He said it back sneeringly, “you won’t let me have any friiieeends.” And I scratched his face so hard that he bled. Another time I whipped him in the face with my leather jacket when he had me cornered and was screaming at me. But I did not tend to yell. And when I hit him, he tended to stop. The day I made him bleed, he told his shocked coworkers “you didn’t hear what I said to her.” You’d think that would have made him reexamine his treatment of me, but it didn’t.
When my brother did the bad thing when I was 30, I didn’t yell back at him. I collapsed into a heap of tears, because I’d learned that’s what we do with abusers. We make ourselves at pathetic and small as possible so that maybe they’ll stop.
Anyway. I can yell now. I have regained that ability. But I usually have my temper under control, and I tend to write letters when I’m really pissed off. So I can yell, if I have to. I just can’t cry.
As I’ve said in previous posts, this year has been really damned hard for me. Health issues, family issues, work issues, oh my.
I can’t remember the last time I had a good cry. And holy hell, I need one.
I still feel like things are mostly good, or will be mostly good soon. My marriage is astonishingly stable. My cats are astonishingly cute. I’m pretty good at my job. The head injury is finally loosening its grip on my brain. I had oral surgery and was in pain for longer than seemed reasonable, but that’s getting better too. I have a little more energy now. I feel less defeated.
I don’t know why my tear factory laid off all its workers. I don’t know how I can be profoundly sad and not shed a single tear. I well up sometimes, but my cheeks stay dry.
I feel emotionally constipated. This is not my usual state. Maybe it’s because of the vast number of pills I have to take to be a functional adult. Maybe it’s because I’ve grown up. I don’t know.
I don’t have a good ending for this. It’s just on my mind today.
Song in title is from a musical called Brownstone, but I’m familiar with it from Bette Midler’s cover.
In March, I got a concussion. The story behind it is pretty incredible.
I had some Major Dental Drama in 2019 when I decided to get dental implants done in Mexico. They were not done well, and what I went through was traumatizing and horrible and I would recommend that you don’t get dental implants in Mexico, because in my case (even seeing a well-reviewed doc) it made my oral cavity situation so so so so so so much worse. Unremitting pain for weeks. Don’t do it. So I’m already pretty fucked-up by/about dentists and oral surgeons.
But I need to get all this shitty shit repaired. So I’ve been seeing specialists in my area to get this whole thing managed and get some pretty new teefs put in my head. An important step was taking the old implants out. And that’s why I went to the oral surgeon in March– after much preparation and many visits with this surgeon and other specialists, I was finally ready to have that hardware yanked out of my jaw.
Let me back up a bit here: in 2004, I had my wisdom teeth out. I was 23, which is pretty late, but it was time. And the oral surgeon gave me Versed, which is a drug they use to knock you the fuck out. I did not react well to it. I apparently got combative, my heartrate got above 200bpm, and they almost had to call 911. But they got the teeth out, yay, hooray. That was a long time ago, but I have mentioned to anyone else who wants to render me unconscious that Versed is not a good idea.
I mentioned my paradoxical reaction to Versed to my (erstwhile) oral surgeon during our first visit, and he said “oh, we use Propofol.” So I was assured.
Well, readers, he fucking used Versed.
My last memory is of him placing the IV (on the second try, and I have great veins) and then YANKING my left arm before I passed out. No announcement that they were injecting me. Just POKE YANK BLACKNESS. I woke up about an hour later. Crying. Hysterical. Terrified. I asked one of the women in the room “Did something happen?” and she was like oh of course not you’re fine it’s totally normal to wake from anesthesia terrified and unable to stop crying for 20 minutes. They wanted to get my friend/driver Jay, to come in, but I told them not to. I was embarrassed and confused and altogether very, very upset.
Eventually they walked me out to Jay’s car and he drove me home. I had gauze stuffed in my face-hole so I couldn’t tell him what had happened, but I was obviously a mess.
Jay gets me home. My husband puts me to bed. I couldn’t really walk on my own. I spent the day sleeping it off.
It wasn’t until the next day that I was laying in bed with my husband and he noticed significant bruising on my left arm. Lemme show ya:
This was a few days after. It was bad.
Those are obvious finger-marks on my arm. I was black and blue for a couple of weeks. I also discovered muscle strains in both of my forearms, which weren’t visible but were very, uh, feel-able. As the days went on, I found a lump on my head. I felt like I had whiplash, my neck and shoulders were all messed up (still are!) And a few days after the surgery, I figured out that I most likely had a concussion. So I went to see my primary doctor, who is amazing, and she said “yup, that seems like a concussion.” And then a week or so later I realized that I was obviously suffering from Post Concussion Syndrome, because the dizziness, confusion, lack of concentration and other AMAZING! FUN! SYMPTOMS! were not going away. This was also confirmed by my doctor. This isn’t my first concussion, nor is it my first Post Concussion Bullshit rodeo. It’s bullshit, in case you were wondering.
Sooooo I filled out FMLA paperwork, which was approved. I got referred for a CT scan, which thankfully is clear. And I was referred to brain injury rehab, which I’m being evaluated for on June 1st.
During the course of all this unneeded bullshit, I emailed my surgeon’s office. I wanted to know what happened. I wanted to know if they’d given me Versed. After a lot of hemming and hawing and “why don’t you just call?” and “I’ll have to get back to you on that” I got a 2000+ word screed from the surgeon, in the middle of which he sheepishly admitted he’d given me Versed. He had reasons, of course. It’s a very safe drug! Complications aren’t unheard of! Other drugs can also cause bad reactions! And to counteract the Versed, they pumped me full of Ketamine, which made it worse. Then they finally, finally gave me FUCKING PROPOFOL which is what I had told them I tolerated well, had experience with, was comfortable with– a drug that, without prompting, the surgeon had told me was the standard drug they used for such procedures. And they had to give me such massive amounts of Propofol to counteract the Versed and the Ketamine that I stopped breathing several times.
I was livid. I remain livid. Obviously, he’s fucking fired– which I decided after I went to a follow-up visit and he fucking POKED my healing mouth-wounds with a POKEY THING and it HURT and I swear the man is a fucking sadist. This wasn’t the first or even second time he was way too rough with me, but it was definitely the last time.
It’s over two months later, and the symptoms of the concussion are still affecting my work. It’s affecting my home life. I can’t reliably concentrate, keep track of time, retain information, or not fuck up everything all the time because of this. I have to go to rehab because of this. It has put a strain on my professional and personal relationships. It is the opposite of good. I can drive most days, because that only requires 10-20 minutes of concentration at a stretch. I can usually do that. I can make simple recipes, but I’m likely to skip steps or mess up if I try to do anything that isn’t super familiar. I can’t make decisions or figure out what the right course of action is. It has made me dependent on my husband in ways I don’t want to be. It has made me dependent on my coworkers in ways that cause me to feel shame.
The words that keep coming to mind are awful and devastating.
But Kate, you’re writing! It seems like you can still write! Yeah, I can do that. It’s one of the things I can do. Which is good, because I’m in college right now in addition to working 40 hours a week. My essays aren’t brilliant, but they’re adequate, and my grades haven’t really suffered.
But I’m exhausted all the time. And if I push myself too hard, all I can do is sleep. And “too hard” means “the way I expect to be able to perform, and how my job expects me to perform.” So it’s been problematic. They’ve been pretty great about it, but it sucks.
Ever since I started my Fitness Quest last year, I’d been feeling a lot better. I’ve had chronic pain my whole life, depression and other mental health issues for as long as I can remember. Walking around my neighborhood helped with that. Along with the pills I take every day to keep me on a relatively even keel, walking made me more emotionally healthy, gave me energy, and helped me lose over 40 lbs.
But now I don’t have enough energy to walk.
I’m used to being sick, is my point. Except, for almost a year, I wasn’t really sick. I wasn’t depressed most of the time. I wasn’t in a lot of pain. And this health crisis has put me back in the position of being feeble, of needing help, of being a fucking invalid.
I hates it, my precioussesssss.
PART TWO:
Keep on Keepin’ On
But here’s the reason I titled this post the way I did:
I take my pills every night. I’m on Lexapro for the crazy and Yaz (birth control) for the really crazy, because I suffer from Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder so severe that, when unmedicated, I’m suicidally depressed for over half the days out of every month. Everyone hates me, is out to get me, isn’t doing their share, and I might as well just die because nothing is ever going to get better.
I’ve been on Lexapro for a few years and Yaz for about as long. And they’ve been miraculous.
You know what else is miraculous? I’ve been employed steadily for almost 5 years, first through a temp agency, and then I got hired permanently (because of a temp placement!) by the county in which I reside. I went from being on food stamps to working for a place that administers them!
The steady income, the feeling of usefulness, and just the stability of it all has also had a miraculous effect on my mental health. My longest period of unemployment in those 5 years is two weeks in between temp gigs. AND my union has a free college program, and through that I’m working on getting my AAS in Social Work. Then I’ll transfer to Portland State, which has an excellent Social Work program, to do my Bachelors and Masters degrees. This is already in the works! Do you know how much shit you can do with an MSW? A lot! A lot of shit!
It took until I was 35 to be able to show up to an office and not quit within a year or mess up so badly that I got fired. It took until I was about 37 to find the combination of drugs that keeps me relatively sane and healthy. And now I’m 40 and I have good hair, a husband I genuinely love and like, wonderful/diabolical cats, and a steady job. I don’t have trouble making rent. I have retirement benefits and good health insurance. I’m the breadwinner in my relationship. I don’t have to worry that I’m going to have to choose between food and gas. I have a car that hasn’t exploded yet. It’s all good, and a lot of it is better than good. A lot of things are great.
And I’m grateful. So incredibly grateful.
My mental illness was so bad for so long that my brain spent most of my life, from the age of 10 or 11, intermittently trying to kill me. I had calmer, better times, but they were short. And it always came back to the depression and the borderline and all the havoc they caused in my relationships and the inability to keep a job and the kinda-sorta being homeless and the calls to my Mom that scared the shit out of her because her daughter just wanted to die and couldn’t think of a good reason to keep going.
I kept going. But it took until I was 29 to learn what it felt like to not wake up and immediately feel overwhelmed with dread, and that little peaceful little meadow in the dark forest was a place I only stayed in for about nine months. Other than that, my life was pretty fucking awful from the time I was 11 until I was in my late thirties. It took a couple stays in the loony bin, going through (and this is not an exaggeration) at least 20 therapists, trying more medications than I can count, and fucking up a whole lot for me to get here. I wrecked friendships, relationships, people, myself. Oh, and a few cars.
Looking back on all that, it’s hard to tell anyone else that they should go through what I went through because eventually! you might!?! be happy!!! but goddamnit, I’m so glad I didn’t die. Because things right now, other than the head injury and the stupidity that it entails, are awesome.
Did I mention that I have good hair?
I long suspected that if you could just remove all the nasty mental illness shit, I’d be a pretty happy person. And it’s true! Isn’t that a trip?
This might not be the message of hope that Hallmark wants to sell you, but let me repeat it. I am so glad I didn’t die.
I might have to start wearing a helmet, though. Concussions are a bitch.
I turned 35 two days ago. I was pretty freaked-out by that number, but I’m feeling okay about it now. I still feel about 16, deep down. I’m trying to treat this birthday like a New Year, in that I’m making resolutions and trying to just… make my life better. You know?
It’s been months and months of sitting on my ass, feeling decrepit and sorry for myself, and I’m sick of it. I’m not back to 100% and there are things I can’t reasonably do, but there are a lot of things I can do and should at least try.
So I’m visiting doctors to try to get better, and taking my pills to try to stay sane, and I still feel like crap and kind of like dying, but there’s hope here as well, and that’s keeping me going.
When I turned 30, I freaked the hell out. I’m glad I’m not doing that now. Getting older is so weird. I don’t feel different, except in the ways that I do. Older, wiser maybe, a lot more exhausted. Today I’m swinging between panic and excitement.
So this post is just checking in, I guess. Hello, Internet. I’m still here.
Self-Indulgent Drivel 