Tag: Grief

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Shitty Days

Women’s Center

September 8th, 2017


Grief Book: 

“The edifice of his life shook but withstood the emotional holocaust.”

“Many years later, Madelyn remains depressed. Her life is empty and her guilt profound. Without the consuming purpose of caring for her sick son, she is emotionally destitute.”

Boy, can I relate to that one. After Ethan died, I didn’t know what to do with myself. I got a night job when I already had a demanding full-time job, worked on a co-dependent relationship with my alcoholic sister, and got involved with an animal rights/rescue group and thus started taking in inordinate numbers of stray cats for later placement. I needed something to fill every minute of my life so I didn’t go stark raving mad, which I was terrified of, because I could feel the insanity lurking just behind my busy, productive facade.

8pm

Group: Reading: “Trust the Divine Plan”

God, one of the women in my book lost her only son after she told him he could leave rehab and she would take care of him and then he died of an accidental overdose!

Horrible.

That’s like Gert, losing a husband in a car accident and then having a son commit suicide.

Horrible.

9am

Wow this day is going slow. Last night I found out that I’m not allowed to work after waiting for two months for my work release papers.

Nice.

The Big Boss’ reasoning? My health problems aren’t resolved. WTF. I have SYSTEMIC LUPUS. MY HEALTH ISSUES ARE NEVER GOING TO BE RESOLVED!! OMG!!

And when did she turn into a doctor? This pisses me off so bad. Grrrrr…. I tried to talk to Mr. Big about it, but but that didn’t work. All he has are jokes and rhetoric. Not helpful at all. He told me I should change my attitude because I said it was difficult to talk to the Big Boss because she gets so defensive and nasty with me. I can just look at her and she gets mean! I think I intimidate her, and I don’t think that’s anything I can change. At least I get my steroids. Yay. I feel much better today.

More of my book:

“Death is loss. Death of a child is the ultimate loss.”

Group:

How to Surround Yourself with the Right People:

“If you hang around someone with a cold, you’ll eventually catch a cold. What are you catching from the people around you?”

“Don’t give up what you really want for what you want right now.”

9:40pm

Went to a meeting. Managed to get through the whole thing without crying (because I didn’t talk) and then this really sweet old lady asked me how I was, and I started crying, telling her about Ethan’s birthday. Then this Asian guy sees me crying and busts in with “DO YOU NEED A HUG?” and then I got swarmed with about eight hugs, which made me laugh through my tears. I love that group of people. 

THEN, I was leaving, and the Asian guy follows me out, running down the stairs after me (he does everything loudly and at top speed, it seems) yelling, “I give you a chip, I give you a chip!” Then he hands me an AA chip that says, “HAD A SHITTY DAY AND DIDN’T DRINK!” 

HA!! HILARIOUS! And super nice. 

What a great crowd.

Tonight’s group was about anger. I’m not mad anymore, I’m just really, really sad.

What a fucking life.

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Helping Others Helps Grief–Who Knew??

Women’s Center 

9/1/2017

Day 59 

Friday

Nine days until Ethan’s birthday. And I just realized that I missed an appointment on 8/29/17 at 11am with my psych nurse. Great. Right at the wrong time to not get my meds evaluated. 

This place is SO DISORGANIZED IT DRIVES ME CRAZY.

I don’t feel good today and it’s making me irritable.

Book:

  1. Flashbacks 

Flashbacks come automatically without warning or apparent trigger. They haunt the mourner. They fill the mind; they intrude, blocking out  the present.

  1. Health Problems

Physical symptoms persist throughout the acute mourning.

  1. Meaninglessness

“What reason is there to get up in the morning after your child has died?” Coming to terms with this vacuum of purpose is one of the important tasks of the grief-work.

  1. Adapting
  2. “If we are unable to let go when death demands it, we are often unable to hang on when life requires it.”

–Vamik Volkan

  1. Staying Connected and Letting Go

Altruism seems to be an antidote to grief when the time is right.

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Bullying, Lesbians, and Grief

Women’s Center

August 31, 2017

Day 58

Ten days until Ethan’s  13th birthday. Of course there’s a baby shower party big to-do thing that day for Preggo #1, Megan.

I finally told her today that I didn’t want to be rude, but I wouldn’t be able to make it. I already gave her a gift. I hope I’m not a mess that day. I’ll probably be fine with no booze. My normal routine is to get drunk and cry a lot. With loud music. It’s therapeutic in it’s own right, I don’t care what anyone says.

Probably this is a sign that I should read my book.

*Sigh*

Went to get some clothes at the Community Center. For winter. Going to be here for all of the holidays. 

*Sigh* again.

I talked to the boys today. Our conversations have begun to mimic each other—what did you have for lunch, did you get to play outside, I’ll see you in a couple days, bla, bla. It’s really sad.

The Sleep Nazi is picking on me today. She’s pissed because somebody called off and she had to come in at 4am. Poor her. I told her she was a bully and to knock it off.

Now we’re talking about lesbianism. Hm. Tori says she’s 80% lesbian with a side of a husband. Ha! Nice. One of the staff here is a lesbian. She talks about her girlfriend a lot. It’s kind of nice to see some diversity in Potter County. 

Ew. 

Now they’re talking about whether they would lick their own vaginas if they could. This is hilarious. And moderately disgusting. It’s amazing the questions people will answer candidly. Especially when they’re bored. I should be a reporter.

9:50pm

Omg. 

Meditation is taking FOR-FUCKING-EVER.

Unbelievable.

Everyone has to make fun of how the new woman–Elaine–reads. Fan-fucking-tastic. I’m starting to feel really bad for her. 

Even if she is a child molester, she’s still basically a mentally incapacitated child herself who deserves a basic level of human decency.

I spoke at the meeting about the fact that I’ll be in the Center for all five of my children’s birthdays  AND Ethan and Kaylee’s death anniversaries.

Ugh.

Book: The Courage to Grieve

Judy Tatelbaum

Stages of Grief

  1. Numbing–When you cut yourself with a knife, your body reacts by numbing. The pain is delayed. The psyche seems to react similarly. When assaulted with the news of a sudden death, many people appear to go on automatic pilot…This zombie-like phase can last for weeks or longer and subsides gradually. There is no real pain, just a profound immobilizing deadness. Ultimately, there is no avoiding the pain of grief. The sadness, the longing, the anger, the guilt, creep in like a tide, slowly and inevitably, in different forms, at different times, and expressed differently for each.
  2. Acute Mourning–Mourners feel a loss of control over their destiny, a sense of spinning helplessly, not knowing how to get through each day. Nothing has meaning…All of the following symptoms are common and usual during this time of active grieving:
    1. Denying
    2. Yearning
    3. Pining
    4. Symptoms of shock
    5. Depression
    6. Numbness
    7. Anger
    8. Guilt
    9. Irritability
    10. Hyperactivity
    11. Disorganized behavior
    12. Difficulty making decisions
    13. Loss of interest in personal appearance or hygiene
    14. Obsessive preoccupation with events surrounding the loss
    15. Flashbacks
    16. Repetitive day and night dreams
    17. Seeking to be reunited through spiritual connection
    18. Sleep and eating disturbances
    19. Health problems
    20. A sense of meaninglessness

These symptoms alternate in rapid succession.

  1. Denying– Denial is a shock absorber that helps us slowly absorb the truth–Vamik Volkan
  2. Yearning–The yearning was profound–”All her senses cried out for just one more sight or smell or touch of him”
  3. Obsessive Preoccupation–Almost all the parents we interviewed related in the clearest detail the events surrounding the death. It’s as if the tape of the event is indelibly etched on their souls and replays whenever something triggers it, even years and decades later.
  4. Anger–Anger is sometimes displaced onto others such as family members, doctors, hospital staff, and God, all of whom can be charged, directly or indirectly, with failing to protect the child.
  5. Irritability–The newly bereaved are impatient, have little frustration tolerance, jump out of their skins at sudden sounds, are generally keyed up or over-reactive because the adrenaline in their nervous systems is pumping…
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Nasty Mean Crackhead Daughters

Back to 2017–When I got remanded to the Potter County Women’s Recovery Center for one year for two nanograms of THC in my urine.

August 21st, 2017

Monday

Day 47

I want my kids near me so much it just hurts all of the time. 

All the time. 

Every second.

People talk a lot here about withdrawing from drugs–do it one day, one hour, one minute, one second…at a time.

That’s how I feel about withdrawal from my children. All of them. All of the time. Forever and ever.

4pm

Back in the car after my therapy appointment. Going  to the GI (liver) doctor this time. My therapist says that when things get really bad, I should just focus on the beauty in small things.

The solar eclipse was cool. The world sort of dimmed for a minute. 

Neat.

Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck!!!!! I forgot to make my phone call!! Shit!!

Freya’s been a real jerk lately to me, which is weird, because I don’t even talk to her. Like today, I was telling somebody else about my therapist appointment, and as soon as the word “therapist” came out of my mouth, she jumped in with, “Oh, did your Mommy have to hold your hand for that?” I just looked at her for a second with my brows crossed in sort of a, “Like, what are you, TWO?!” look, and then finished my story, not even looking at her. Like–I wasn’t even talking to you, bitch!! I find that people like her are either sociopaths or in reality, even if they exude confidence and are always quick with a snappy retort, they actually hate themselves inside. That’s terrible. I feel bad for her. Been there. Just MEAN. Nasty mean to everybody. 

My father told me that they did successfully enroll the boys in Head Start. It’s ironic to me–my mother’s been an elementary school teacher for almost 30 years, and is now a reading specialist, but she won’t teach them their ABCs. 

Like–what the fuck.

It’s probably because she’s not getting paid to. Speaking of money, I’m shocked that they got in at all, because the program is income-based, and I’m sure my mother would sooner die than spend one cent that she didn’t absolutely HAVE to on her worthless crackhead (or drunk or whatever she calls me) daughter.

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Life

Torture, Chief Complaints, and Bipolar 1 with Psychotic Features

Photo by Anthony Tran

This time, Clarion Psych kept me for two weeks–the longest I had ever been away from my three children.

It was torture.

On my intake paperwork, for “Chief Complaint,” it said, “None of your fucking business,” because that’s what I told the psychiatrist when he asked me why I was there.

This is where I got my diagnosis of Bipolar I with Psychotic Features and began taking antipsychotic drugs for the first time in my life. I make the mistake of telling my diagnosis to my mother, who then took Superman and King to Dr. Religious, telling her that I was a “bipolar alcoholic.”

Dr. Religious recommended that the children should be removed from my home, and then my mother started the paperwork to sue me for custody.

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Vodka and dead babies

Kaylee Marie Kenley smiles at her Mommy at 10 weeks old.

So, on November 24th, 2001, I married Bobo the Sperm Guy. Life got pretty bad. It turned out that we both had a pretty bad vodka problems at the time, made worse by the fact that he was a screamer when he got drunk.

And a thrower-of-furniture.

And a rapist, among other things.

He had Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder something fierce, and if everything in the entire apartment wasn’t just so, he would fly into a blind rage.

We stayed at our year-long lease in Scranton and then moved to Pittsburgh, where I planned to go to The Median School of Allied Health Careers and finally become a licensed veterinary technician, which I did.

We decided around November of 2003 to get a divorce. Then wonder of wonders, I found out I was pregnant immediately after finding out that I had passed the State Board Exam and would be licensed as a vet tech. 

I dumped the celebratory  bottle of vodka I had bought myself down the drain and told Bobo. We decided to stay together “for the baby’s sake.”

We did not stay together. 

I moved out when I was seven months pregnant because I could not imagine subjecting a child to our horrible relationship. I have started substitute teaching at the school I had graduated from, and would soon be working there full-time as a vet tech instructor. 

While my personal life was falling apart, my career was taking off. And I was going to have a baby! I loved my new crappy one-bedroom apartment, and I loved my life for once. I could do it, ex-husband’s-to-be be damned.

I knew I could do it. 

Until I couldn’t.

My son Ethan was born with a fatal skin condition called Junctional-Herlitz Epidermolysis Bullosa. Put simply, his skin would not stay on his body, and you can’t live without your skin. Put no-so-simply, there are protein fibers called anchoring fibrils that anchor the top layer of skin–the epidermis–to the underneath layer of skin–the dermis. People with JEB-H are missing these anchoring fibrils completely or have very few of them. This results in blisters and missing skin anywhere on the body that is subject to any mechanical friction. 

And mechanical friction can mean anything from rubbing to just picking up and holding. They call these babies “Butterfly Babies” because their skin is so fragile, it’s like butterfly wings.

They also call EB “The Worst Disease You’ve Never Heard Of,” because it’s so incredibly rare. But I am a carrier of the gene that causes EB, and so is Bobo. This means that with every pregnancy from the two of us, there is a 25% chance that the baby will have JEB-H. It should be noted that there are less severe subtypes of EB, such as Dystrophic and Simplex, that are more survivable than JEB-H, but nobody gets out of Junctional alive, and average lifespan is six months. 

Ethan lived seven.

I didn’t know how to exist after Ethan died. 

Like–how to breathe or function. He had taken up every second of my time with all of his various special needs, and I couldn’t figure out what to do with myself when he died. 

And I didn’t know this yet, but I had developed PTSD too, somewhere along the way, so I began having nightmares and flashbacks.

I got another job to fill up my time. I also joined an animal rights group called Voices for Animals and started fostering insane numbers of cats. 

I moved.

I quit my wonderful job at the school and went back into practice full-time.

I basically went bat-shit crazy.

I went back to college.

I moved again.

And then–in a supreme fit of agony/loneliness/lunacy,

three years after Ethan died, I got back together with Bobo the Sperm Guy.

Worst. 

Decision.

Ever.

Even though I was on birth control, inexplicably, we got pregnant.

Again.

My nice, sweet, Indian doctor who had delivered Ethan offered me an abortion. 

I thought long and hard about that, but after losing my only child to a horrific illness, I couldn’t give up a 75% chance at a perfectly normal, healthy baby.

There is no prenatal test for EB.

My daughter Kaylee is born.

She has JEB-H too.

I move back home with my parents to take care of her full time (Bobo and I had split at five months pregnant this time).

I spend my days changing bandages and hating myself.

Kaylee Marie Kenley dies at three months old.

* If you have any interest in knowing about the eternal torture of losing a child (or two, for that matter), I published a journal I wrote during the year that Kaylee lived and died on Amazon. It’s called Kidowed–I made up a name for people who have lost children because I was mad that there wasn’t one. Like widowed, but for kids.

Get it?