Friday, October 19, 2018

Cooling Off the Calamity

Finances tight, losing home, partner stressing and angry, family drama, friends feuding, work projects stalling, debt collectors.  It can all feel like it is closing in sometimes.  Heavy clouds, lightning and thunder.  Yet when chronically ill it is vitally important to keep my own balance & health, to be an eye in the storm.  To look for solutions when I can, or to move with the storm when I cannot.  I can and must look forward and reduce the noise and drama spiralling around me.  I write this as another set of critical medical and financial supports hang in doubt and it may look like our lives are at another loose thread.  I write this not as a prescription but as a touchstone.

I do not need to avoid people and the world but to create a calm centre that cannot be hurt so that I can better help them and stay healthy.  Even when the worst of hubbies frustrations with his injuries spill over I can still be there to help him.  When we got hit by the truck and were still in shock days later I still had to get to work and carry on.  When family & friends drag us in to feuds and sides are being drawn I offer emotional support but do not engage with the drama.  If I was as ill as I am most days now those moments of drama do need to be reduced and the emotional output into them needs to be carefully controlled.

Imagine you have someone you love screaming and yelling on the other side of the door.  You know going into a room you will be subjected to insults and their expressions of frustration and pain, but they need you and are only doing so because they are at a moment of crisis.  So of course I go in to help but I need to remind myself that sometimes humans are more like hurt animals backed into a corner.  They say things because they are hurt and frustrated.  They can be their own worst enemies.  I let the words wash over and try to reduce the emotional overload.  I try to focus on the critical priorities.  Checking for serious injuries & damage control.  Is an ambulance needed?  How conscious is the person of their position?  Can they work their way out or do they need help?  Get into a safe recovery position or sitting up, help them restore emotional control.  Take rest breaks with arduous tasks e.g. offer a calming drink like a cup of tea and take a rest break before assessing whether standing was appropriate at that time.  Sleep to aid emotional stress recovery.  Tea has a well known calming & even caffeinated effect, but then each culture has their own equivalent calming drink to help steady the mind.

A UK ambulance similar to the NZ ones. Image by Owain Davies
For a while it was multiple times a week hubby would fall, have a concussion, get angry at himself, become critically depressed, or there would be a serious and taxing event.  These things were something I tried to help him through.  I would learn not to lose my own emotional control to an event, but to build up a sacrificial layer (like with metals & acidic waters).  One metal is more reactive to another so as a coating it gets eaten by acid first and thus there is less acid attacking the core metal.  Holding that core safe.  It is important to identify what effect some emotions & events have on me, to identify the reasons behind them and how to neutralise them.  When hubby was angry due to an injury he was more angry at himself and in pain even though shouts could be hurtful.  With repeated concussions the anger can spill over and likewise he would yell at himself to try to get adrenaline to stand up with help.  These are the sorts of cases where I could see his pain, even sometimes his depression and help.  I could clearly identify the emotion, the output, the reason behind it, the effect on myself and neutralise it.  Sure the some things would emotionally hurt, I would ache as well seeing someone I love in pain but this too can be recognised and understood so that the key priorities to resolve a situation are in the forefront.

Often hubby and I would have arguments, but then so does every couple under stress.  It is a key element to remember that.  If we did not argue on something we would not be different people, with varying views and emotions.  I love him with his view of the world and he loves me for mine.  We enjoy different things, we enjoy long discussions on concepts and events can have different emotional weights.  Often our arguments can even be about differing engineering and scientific approaches to take; life's little optimisations.  We could even argue on something we both agreed on but on the terminology used.  Not only that but for months with the brain injury even a simple dinner was so emotionally strenuous for hubby.  However for me my mind enjoys dinners with friends and family, they are not emotionally strenuous even while being very ill.  My body just seems to now act as a limiter, I cannot go past a certain level, time or manage to travel.  Differences can happen with family members & friends, each can act unaware of their effects on others during moments of stress.  The key I found was to identify the direction to move on in and move on.  If that person is too hurtful all the time, unapologetically so and without good reason, I create distance.  The paths people take can entwine and share the same space for a while but then they can branch out and diverge.  Part of the path of life.

A snapshot of blood on a kitchen floor. Except there were some stains and emotional effects that do not clean easily. Image by Eco Bear Biohazard Cleaning Company
Some family members & friends we had to create sufficient distance from for our own health.  One case particularly because they were causing epic levels of emotional and financial damage in our home and would not stop.  Creating multiple dramas which even at an arms length would hard to maintain calm in.  I remember coming into the kitchen one morning, seeing it covered with blood & spilt alcohol, something which was left and ignored until I stepped into it.  I often have a seizure unfortunately due to particularly bloody moments, even a small blood test.  But while I would support someone with help offering stable housing, listening, emotional support and assistance with getting medical support and counselling etc I could not countenance threats to other people of violence and would not support someone when they did not want to get better but drive further into addiction past the point of any return.  I would work on leaving on good terms, be cordial but manage expectations and identify clearly that we could not afford to continue, emotionally, physically, financially.  It is one thing to help someone out of self destruction, it is another to follow them into it.  I would always offer support in health to the point of my own detriment but I could not support & follow someone's journey into darkness.  Hubby and myself were fighting and struggling to keep our heads above water as it was.  Yet even while we tried our best we could not hold on without being dragged under as well.

I felt like I had failed at that point because I wanted to help but in the end could not.  In a situation such as that I could not help them if they did not want to help themselves.  It is also hard at that point for themselves to identify emotionally if they wanted help at all.

In comparison the outside dramas, bureaucracy and politics of the world can seem quite small and far away even though they can make critical differences to everyone's life.  They could in an instant change whether we have housing & income the next month, whether we can access medical care, to how long we can live for and what those future years are like.  When healthy we could spend time engaging more.  But now when ill we need to control & ration portions of mental energy to stay on top and engage where needed.  Engagement is difficult with a disability, that has always been a core problem.  But keeping emotions & energy in check is just as if not far more important.  Think of it like a bonsai tree or Japanese garden.  Everything in its place, controlled but it has nature's flexible expression look effortlessly driven.  It is looking and dipping toes in the water to do what is most needed and then returning to the calm centre in the chaos.  The clipping of a branch on the bonsai, letting another grow out, directing another to curl in a certain direction.

When just getting by day to day is hard, engaging with emotionally hyped people, with events and with the future can be difficult.  I try to portion a little visit into the storm to see where we are heading, engage but a little, but then I have to come back to the key goal of getting better.  This illness is by far the biggest impediment to our future.  I need to hold a mental space of calm, which sometimes can be aided by travelling to a physical space of calm or using sensory modulation.  Hubby too is recovering his mind space post injury and we look forward to picking what direction suits us both.  Even with our differences we want to share our paths together, even through the dips & swamps as much as the scenic spots.  It may feel like we have come upon some pretty big swamps already but there have been and certainly will be more peaks.


Flocking to the sea
Crowds of people wait for me
Sea gulls scavenge
Steal ice cream
Worries vanish
Within my dream

I left my soul there
Down by the sea
I lost control here
Living free

I left my soul there
Down by the sea
I lost control here
Living free

Fishing boats sail past the shore
No singing may-day any more
The sun is shining
The water's clear
Just you and I walk along the pier

I left my soul there
Down by the sea
I lost control here
Living free

I left my soul there
Down by the sea
I lost control here
Living free

A cool breeze flows but mind the wasp
Some get stung it's worth the cost
I'd love to stay
The city calls me home
More hassles fuss and lies on the phone

I left my soul there
Down by the sea
I lost control here
Living free

I left my soul there
Down by the sea
I lost control here
Living free

I left my soul there
Down by the sea
I lost control here
Living
Living

And I, living
By the sea

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