In one of my college courses, I learned the acronym for the five stages
of grief: DABDA. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.
Currently, I sit at the first A. Anger. I am mad as a hornet right now.
My denial stage ended Tuesday of this week when I tried to scale back on
my meds, hoping that all of this would have just been a fluke, a
bi-product of the antidepressants I had been taking or something. I cut back
by only a third and that night I was convulsing again. Stubborn as hell,
I decided "FINE! I'll take the meds but I'll be damned if I sit back and
let this illness take over my life!" I took the bus. I walked in the
heat. I went to coffee. I made dinner. Next day, my legs didn't want to work, but I forced it and went to farmers market, then to coffee with a
friend. I pushed and pushed and pushed because I was NOT going to sit
back and accept my limitations! A few minutes ago, I had several major
convulsions, like the ones I had before I ended up in the hospital. The
kids had to call Jason home from work and I am pissed as hell!
I missed my daughter's field trip last week, the first of my kids’ field trip I'd ever missed. James has had an incredibly poor school year because I've been so messed up with one thing or another that I haven't taken the time to figure out what's going on in his classroom and now I look back over the year and CRAP! What a mess! These stupid convulsions have taken away my ability to drive and therefore to shop by myself, or even drive around to blow off steam. I've lost friendships because the only thing that was keeping them alive was my ability to drive and now that I can't, they have fizzled into a shell of nothingness. Because I physically can't handle the demands of clothing at citp, I have left that role and the hours of social contact it was giving me, not to mention the self-esteem boost of being in a position of leadership. Yes, I do see how God is using all of these things to refine me, to point out my flaws and make me a better person, but it definitely isn't pleasant! I feel so out of control and mad, mad, mad!!! The crazy part is, what difference does all this anger make? None whatsoever. Absolutely none at all. And I despise anger with a passion! I hate the feel of it. I hate the sound of it. I hate the existence of it. I wish there were some miraculous pill they could give to take all that anger away. I can understand the appeal of drinking and drugs now, the ability to forget, to deaden the pain just for a little while. However, one of the things I also learned in college, along with the DABDA acronym, is that if a person does not work through the stages, they will get stuck somewhere in them. Sometimes people get stuck at that anger stage their entire lives, but I'm determined that I will not fit into that statistic and instead will look forward to the day when I reach the final A of acceptance.
I missed my daughter's field trip last week, the first of my kids’ field trip I'd ever missed. James has had an incredibly poor school year because I've been so messed up with one thing or another that I haven't taken the time to figure out what's going on in his classroom and now I look back over the year and CRAP! What a mess! These stupid convulsions have taken away my ability to drive and therefore to shop by myself, or even drive around to blow off steam. I've lost friendships because the only thing that was keeping them alive was my ability to drive and now that I can't, they have fizzled into a shell of nothingness. Because I physically can't handle the demands of clothing at citp, I have left that role and the hours of social contact it was giving me, not to mention the self-esteem boost of being in a position of leadership. Yes, I do see how God is using all of these things to refine me, to point out my flaws and make me a better person, but it definitely isn't pleasant! I feel so out of control and mad, mad, mad!!! The crazy part is, what difference does all this anger make? None whatsoever. Absolutely none at all. And I despise anger with a passion! I hate the feel of it. I hate the sound of it. I hate the existence of it. I wish there were some miraculous pill they could give to take all that anger away. I can understand the appeal of drinking and drugs now, the ability to forget, to deaden the pain just for a little while. However, one of the things I also learned in college, along with the DABDA acronym, is that if a person does not work through the stages, they will get stuck somewhere in them. Sometimes people get stuck at that anger stage their entire lives, but I'm determined that I will not fit into that statistic and instead will look forward to the day when I reach the final A of acceptance.
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