are skating through the days. I can see the cracks appearing in the ice but no major tumbles yet. Lines appear in the translucence from my path through my children's fears about going back to school, saying goodbye to me, and the necessary organisation that returning to school engenders. I am tired, not of being a mother, never that, but tired within my bones, and it is so hard to always smile, to always have the patience and calm that my children need.
Tonight, that fine thread snapped and I found myself shouting at them for asking me to wash something at 10.30 at night when they had been given an earlier deadline that day. Seems so pitiful now, so utterly pathetic, and when the tears of hurt started trailing down their cheeks, my anger slipped between the cracks in the floorboards and all I was left was the dank damp patch of guilt. We made up: I explained, and they said that they realised that it showed that I was human. But at what cost? What am I doing to them, to their frailties? They are going through so much at the moment and the one person inflicting this pain on them is the one person who should be helping them through it....
As a parent, I so want them to be blind to my faults but I am so human, so tired and so worn. My emotions are only just hidden by a thin veneer but scrape through the facade carelessly with a stray comment or aside and tears spring into my eyes, a snap lurks behind my lips and a geyser of irritation flickers through my face. What is it? What is it that seems to want to burst through this skin of mine?
I visited a homeopath on Friday and in the course of an emotional discussion, alternately talked and wept about grief; grief for the woman that I was, grief for the hair and the breast that I shall, at some point lose, and the commensurate femininity that I feel is being eroded and worn away. I feel emasculated, controlled by the cancer and the treatment, rather than in control as I was only a week ago. This is the root ball, I think, of molten magma of anger, tiredness and fatigue, that keeps bursting through my fragile crust.
It is a catharsis, but rather like nausea post chemo, please could I just vomit up these emotions and then move on? The constant churning of my feelings, like the seasick churning of my stomach after the chemo just wearies me and slows down this ship and its course. This captain needs a clear sky, following winds and a bold compass to cut through the waves ahead....
Come, pitch up anchor and let us sail free....
Minerva
11 comments:
Hey Minerva,
Sorry, I typed the message below before I spotted your new post today. I'm sorry to hear about you feeling cross and dejected, but you're human hon; not superwoman. You are such a loving Mother that I am sure if you explain to your daughters that you don't mean to be cross, but you are tired and you need them to help you, they will understand.
I think you have every right to feel anger and all those other emotions you are experiencing. I don’t mean to come across as some amateur psychologist, but from my own experience I’m thinking that you are probably mourning the (temporary) loss of health and all the changes that come with it.
Though this is your blog and I don’t want want to bore you or any of your other many supporters here, I could relate to many of the emotions you are feeling. I experienced very similar emotions when I miscarried our twins, thereby depriving us of our last chance at having children and those feelings were even more intense when my much loved Mother died suddenly and unexpectedly at 65.
I wasn’t too happy when I felt so low that my grief counsellor/therapist suggested it was time for some anti-depressants (I thought I should be able to fight off those feelings of anger and doom and gloom). But I took the prescribed meds and they did help.
It could be that you are going to have some okay days and some not so good days. We are all here for you and cheering you on from the side lines.
Love
sunburnt
Hello from michele's
I am so sorry for your struggle but pray that you come through it with spirit, strength and wholeness.
Minerva, I wish I could take away the hurt and anger that you feel; the hurt and anger trying to break through your skin.
Your children are capable of understanding some of what you are going through. You must be brave for them, but it is good to let them see you are human, that you are sensitive, that you can admit your faults when you are short with them.
I hope tomorrow is better. Take care and take heart. You will get through it eventually.
Minerva, I wish I could tell you that this wave of emotions is common and you move on. Unfortunately, studies have shown that there are cycles of depression/moodiness after chemo. Usually starting about the third or fourth day and lasting for a few days. I remember being able to clock the days after chemo and feel the swing coming. After a few rounds I knew what to expect and could prepare myself and those around me. The bright side is that this is normal. The brighter side is that it isn't forever. By the time you figure out the cycles andpatterns you will be done with this part. Hang in there. We are all rooting for you and supporting you. Be well.
Minerva...please remember..."this too shall pass". It will, I promise. And when it does you will be stronger person! This whole process is so dificcult.
You are a beautiful, amazing writer...I relate so intently to your words!
You are in my prayers...miracles happen!
Hey Min:
The first part you describe - the temper, the tears, the guilt - is what very parent experiences. Your experiences are heightened and sharpened by your own circumstances, but remember you cannot be a perfect parent - you can only be the best you can be.
The second part - the grief, the emasculation (is that a cross-gender word or is there a feminine version? Answers on a postcard....), the loss of control - is your journey, your particular challenge.
Or as another cancer sufferer wrote:
"Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum
Hoist the anchor, here we come
Ain't no room on board for the insincere
You're my witness
I'm your mutineer."
hugs to you hun...
peace...
I wish I could say something or do something that would help that feeling of emasculation go away. I can only imagine - badly I know - how it must feel...
But from here, on this blog, you sound anything but emasculated or disabled. You sound spirited and purposeful. Not necessarily even in what you say - which sometimes tackles your unhappiness, inevitably, but in how you say it. When you write of the things that are attacking you and of how depressing it is becoming, you do so with a articulate voice and an and openness and a power that speaks volumes. That voice is a clearly, indestructibly, feminine, loving, womanly one which remains untouched by the cancer and can never be touched by it.
I am so sorry about your hair, your overwhelming fatigue, your impending surgery, but I am glad you are here Minerva, writing about it. Not just because i knew little of this issue really before I came here (Though my mother had a radical mastectomy in 1976 and is still very much around to tell the tale, I was only young). But more because you write lucidly and expressively and you teach all of us who read your words something...even as you learn things yourself. Your identity, your spirit, sings through loud and clear.
Perhaps - you might say - you don't feel as strong as your words make you seem? If so consider this - having written them they become real too - expresing the feelings that accompanied the writing of them - sometimes well, sometimes less so maybe. But also telling their own story, revealing your personality in other ways beyond what they say - a kind of truth of their own that you can't hide? The way you write reveals passion and vivacity - even if you are writing of fatigue and sadness and fear. Read over how you write when you are feeling particularly down and ask yourself, 'what kind of woman writes like this?!' It's on there on the screeen in front of you. The evidence of your strength.
Don't be hard on yourself about outbursts with the girls...it's human, it's real, it's inevitable. Being asked to wash stuff at 10.30pm is annoying! That has nothing at all to do with any disease you have or not. Your chidren have a very loving mother -that much is clear from everything you have written about them. Bt they also need a real recognisable mother, and real recognisable mothers sometimes get cross about things. It's part of real family life...something you are working to sustain for them. So don't beat yourself up, hon...
Give yourself a gold star for another day conquered, another step towards that green light eh?
Hugs
I know your that shouting at your children is something you regret, but I'm sure they understand, as you explained the situation to them.
Keep on sailing, Minerva!
I agree, don't be hard on yourself for being human. Every parent goes through various things that they wish they could do over. And there is no such thing as a perfect parent, anymore than there is a perfect kid. :>)
Oh, how well I know those ups and downs and the sadness at all that you have and will be enduring. On a good note, at least you know you aren't alone with these feelings and that they are well documented to be a part of the "treatments". I would call them normal, but I am now so out of touch of "normal" I hate to even use that term anymore!
Hugzzzzzzz. Better days are ahead.
Prayers, loves and hugs I send your way Minerva.
3T
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