Covid 19 – Addiction Part One

02 May 2020 2 Comments

by Denise in Addiction, alcoholism, Corona Virus, Covid-19 Tags: , , , , ,

I wish to to understand. I wish to be understood. Sometimes I think if I can explain myself enough someone will find the key to me and I will be free. I can’t seem to find it myself.

I was made for quarantine. Rainy quarantine is best. I find comfort in lockdown, moreso when the sun is hiding. The world demands too much from me. I’m content with solitude, with not having to be anywhere, no pressure to be doing, just learning how to be. It’s like being in a bubble – I feel safe. I stay home a lot anyway and I fret about it. I should be out, I should do yoga, I should exercise, I should have more friends, on and on. Suddenly Covid 19 and I’m ordered to do what I somewhat already do so the pressure’s off. I’m fortunate this has not yet affected me financially. I had no problem getting unemployment and am getting paid more than when I work. I know this can’t last and it frightens me. I don’t want to go back to pre-Covid. I don’t want to go back to my job. The main stressor in my life is work. I should be looking for a new job, but the same voice in my head that nags at me about not going out nags at me about job hunting – I’m too old, who will hire me, I’m not skilled enough, I’ll have to take a cut in pay…

Fear paralyzes me. It stops me from pushing “send” when it comes to my resume. It keeps me from writing. It even stops me from talking at the AA Zoom meetings I go to because who wants to hear what I say anyway.

Zooming AA is one of the things I do in a day. Sometimes I wonder what the hell I’m doing there, sometimes I am moved. Yesterday I was moved. Yesterday I took a chance and said something. People were talking about the different ways they tried to talk themselves into thinking they could drink normally, ways that never worked. That was not my experience. I never tried to drink “normally.” I was in pain and I drank to feel better. There was no point in having a drink if it truly was “a” drink. It took me three drinks to have that click in my head that told me everything was all right, then continuous drinking to make sure I stayed there. When I was reeling that was enough.

Yesterday I watched “Mrs. America” on Hulu with my daughter, Natalie (highly recommended). It’s about the struggle for the Equal Rights Amendment. The episode was set in 1974. I commented on something that happened in the show, to which Natalie replied, “You should know.” She meant that I was alive then. I did the math – I was 16 when this was going on and I paid no attention. All I cared about was getting high. My first drink was at 11 and I didn’t stop until I was 24. For thirteen years my attention centered on what I could get that would make me high. I stole liquor from my parents until I could buy it on my own. I took my mother’s diet pills. I went into the medicine cabinet of any house I visited. I found a crazy doctor whose mouth was cracked and dry from taking the diet pills that he freely prescribed to the line of waiting women in an apartment building in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. Liquor, amphetamines, barbiturates. Quaaludes. I loved Quaaludes. I mixed liquor and pills. I sometimes took what we called “uppers” before I went to sleep so I could wake up happy. Because only high made me happy.

I am what’s called a high-bottom drunk. Drinking did not (directly) affect school or work. I showed up every day and did what was expected of me. By the time I was 22 I moved out. I had to get away from my parents, I had to have a place where I could drink in peace. There was no way I’d let liquor keep me from work because I had to pay my rent and I had to buy my drugs and booze. I was never arrested, never had a DUI, never did anything sexually that I wouldn’t have done when I was sober. I just drank when I could and found pills when I could and by the time I walked into AA I was at a point where I carried Vodka in my handbag because it comforted me.

I walked into AA after having a moment of grace. It was New Year’s Eve, 1982, and I was out to dinner with my boyfriend John, who disapproved of my drinking and didn’t hesitate to be nasty about it. While I preferred hard liquor, I ordered a glass of wine because I thought it more respectable. Soon as I finished it I began glancing around for the waitress. I didn’t want to flag her down and be obvious – I wanted to catch her eye so she’d come over and I could casually order another. Getting it down on an empty stomach was best. John, who was watching me, wasn’t fooled. But he was kind – he asked me if I saw what happened to me when I drank, how I couldn’t have just one or two, how I changed when liquor was around. And in that moment I saw myself at 50 doing the same thing I was doing every day, spending my life in an alcoholic Ground Hog Day, misery my company. It was over. I had to do something.

Two days later, January 1983, I walked into my first AA meeting and decided that if these people weren’t drinking they weren’t alcoholics and I had nothing in common with them. Up until that New Year’s Eve dinner, I didn’t care that I was alcoholic. My world was small and I was lonely, but at least being alcoholic meant I was part of some group somewhere. At the end of the meeting Charlie came over and introduced himself, walked me over to meet some women who gave me their phone numbers. I spent the next three weeks going to meetings, getting phone numbers, not calling anyone and getting drunk. I even went to meetings stoned on Valium and not liquor because I didn’t want anyone to smell my breath. Then came the storm.

Monday, January 24th, a day I don’t remember but I know what I did. I mixed Valium with alcohol, passed out, woke up in the morning dizzy and high, managed to call work to let them know I wouldn’t be in, managed to call my aunt because I needed help, passed out again and woke up at 5:00pm. Got myself out of bed and walked downstairs to my kitchen where an intervention was waiting. My mother and father, my boyfriend, my brother, my aunt. Staring at me in my pajamas, waiting for me to say something. I remember nothing other than the horrid embarrassment I felt, but when they left I made my first AA phone call and  that was my last high for nearly 30 years.

To be continued.

© 2020 Denise Smyth

Covid 19 – This Body of Mine, Part Two

21 Apr 2020 2 Comments

by Denise in Addiction, Eating Disorders Tags: , , ,

I met my ex-husband when I first landed in AA, and three years later decided I liked him. I mean, I liked him. He seemed a normal guy to me. Steady, stable, kind and reliable. Smart and focused. Funny. I liked the way he dressed. I really wanted to date him. Have a relationship with him. But I wasn’t normal. I spent a lot of time with my head over the toilet bowl. I figured if I wanted to get involved with a guy like that I better get more normal myself. So I started going to ABOA (Anorexic, Bulimic, Overeaters Anonymous) meetings in NYC. I found lots of young women like myself. With their help, I began to learn how to eat. I got involved with the guy, got married, and did not live happily ever after.

The one thing about alcoholism and drug addiction is that there is a clear path. Do not pick up the first drink, the first narcotic. Not so with food. We have to eat, so where does that leave us? I continued to go that NYC meeting for a while, then found a few meetings closer to me in Brooklyn, where I lived. Looking back, I can’t say exactly how it happened, but I stopped binging, I stopped vomiting. I went through a short period of trying to go on a diet-for-bulimics that someone came up with, but that didn’t work. Eating, for me, is about control and I couldn’t control what I ate. But with bulimia, at least I could control what I kept in my body. Having someone tell me what to eat made me feel out of control again and I rebelled. I decided to eat my way. What I had on my side was that I knew how to eat healthy. I’d been a vegetarian for a few years (which does not necessarily mean healthy) and knew to eat whole grains, beans, fruits and vegetables. I began to be able to feel when I was full and so stop eating. I was eating to satisfy myself and my weight stabilized at 125 lbs.

Then came crisis in my marriage. By this time I had two children, ages 1 and 3, and I had a mental freak out. I couldn’t take it. I didn’t want to be married, I didn’t want this life I chose. I was trapped. I couldn’t get out – I had no job, I had kids, what was I to do? And I discovered a sort of anorexia – my anxiety was such that I had no appetite, and having no appetite I went days without eating. And after a few days when I felt hungry, I’d eat and then puke it up. Before too long I was 102 lbs.

My then-husband didn’t notice. My sister-in-law did. Knowing my history, she asked if I was vomiting, I told her no, I was going through a hard time and eating was difficult. That’s all. She didn’t look like she believed me, but what could she say?

I had an extraordinary doctor, Dr. Kokayi. Board-Certified, NYU, but who also studied homeopathy and acupuncture. I’d roll my eyes at that as soon as the next person, except when used by the right doctor they work, and I am the proof.

Like so:

-I had developed a ganglion. That’s a terribly painful cyst that made it nearly impossible to use my right hand. Dr. Kokayi gave me a remedy and in two days it disappeared.

-When Philip was 3-1/2 years old he was still in diapers. He was afraid to poo on the bowl, and yes, of course I had a mini potty just for him. No matter how much and how kindly I spoke to him, he wouldn’t use it. I took him to Dr. Kokayi who talked with him for a while, then gave me a remedy to give to him. I remember its name – Pulsatilla. Three days later Philip was using the toilet.

-And my first visit to him was quite astonishing: Seven months pregnant with Natalie and my back was torturing me. It was suggested I go see Dr. Kokayi. We met on a Friday afternoon in May. Since I was too pregnant to lie on my belly and get acupuncture in my back, he put the needles into my ears and left me to sit a while in the exam room, wondering what the hell I was doing. This baby’s only getting bigger, how could the pain possibly stop? But It did stop. Monday morning I was pain free and remained so for the rest of my pregnancy.

I brought my kids to him while we still lived in Brooklyn. They never had antibiotics – whatever they had, he cured with homeopathy.

I bring him up because I was a miserable and desperate 102 lbs. Eating/not eating was ruling my life and I could do nothing about it. We sat down in his office and he looked at me a while. “If you don’t start eating, “ he said, “I am admitting you to the hospital.”

I don’t know that he could have forced me into a hospital, but I had a vision of myself being there for what I felt a most shameful reason while someone in the family took care of my kids. He could have kicked his foot all the up my ass and it wouldn’t have had more of an impact. I went home and started eating.

Even that wasn’t the end of this. There’s the noise in my head that tells what’s okay to eat, what’s not okay, how much is enough. That voice is always telling me I eat too much dinner. That voice is proud that I never eat breakfast and that I eat salad for lunch. That voice warns me that all this not exercising and all this eating what I want is going to make me fat.

I can tell you I’ve lost the desire to binge. I don’t have food cravings, I have hunger. I had a pretty long spell of not vomiting, then Philip died. My weight had been 118 lbs. since I gave birth to him. One of my reactions to his death was to start drinking and stop eating. I could not control the universe and bring Philip home, but I could control my eating. Days I’d go without food, and when I ate, I picked at my plate. When time went by and the hunger grew too strong, I began eating and vomiting. I went back down to 102 lbs. and wanted to stay there.

During this time I was living on the top floor of my friend Nadiya’s house. One evening, I left Natalie upstairs so I could use the bathroom on the first floor. I wanted to vomit where Natalie couldn’t hear. When I was done, I felt a pain in my chest on my left side, where my heart is. I knew it was nothing but I pretended. I bent over, concentrated on the pain, told myself I was having a heart attack. Made myself believe I was have a heart attack. Stayed with that pain as long as I could and I began to panic because Natalie was upstairs and I knew how much she needed me. I couldn’t die, it wasn’t time.

And that’s how I stopped vomiting that time. I’ve probably vomited two or three times in the years since. The worst of this addiction has gone. But what’s left is the power I give to that voice in my head that leads every day to a moment of despair about this body of mine.

Truth is, I am not my body. My body is simply the vehicle through which my thoughts, my actions, my emotions, my spirit come through. It is not the most important thing about me. Love is the most important thing, always is. Shame about my body is another block to loving. It means I decide how people feel about me based on how pleasing I think they think I look. It came between K and me because I could present myself any way I wanted during the day but at night we were two naked bodies and mine was always scared and hesitant.

And that opens a whole new door of pain; I leave it here, for now.

© 2020 Denise Smyth

Covid 19 – This Body of Mine, Part One

19 Apr 2020 Leave a comment

by Denise in Addiction, Covid-19, Eating Disorders Tags: , , ,

Chinese curse: May you lead an interesting life.

Yes, these are interesting times. To say the least. But in my world things are quiet. Dull, even. There is pain and death all around me but I’m detached from it, like something about this isn’t real. That doesn’t mean I’m not doing what I’m supposed to. I don’t want to be sick – I have a friend who said her sister got the virus and it felt like she had glass in her lungs. I am in the high risk category. This could kill me and that’s frightening.

I am, so far, in the fortunate group that has no symptoms. But with so much going on around me, I feel like I’m missing something. On the one hand it’s a GOOD thing I’m missing – on the other, I want something happening here. Something different. Something new. Something interesting.

It would be good to be grateful for the calm I’m living in. What I am right now is antsy. What is this thing l’m longing for? This feeling isn’t new. I feel like this when I have down time – after work, on the weekends. Now all I have is down time.

This week, I had a root canal. Hey – I got out. I baked chocolate chip cookies, lemon cookies, caramelized onion-gruyere biscuits and Naan stuffed with cheeses and kale. And I worry that I’m gaining weight. Oh, we’re all gaining weight, some say. I take no comfort in that. While I’ve been Bulimic and Anorexic, I no longer vomit what I eat or restrict it to the point of starving. But my mind is all messed up about it. If you saw me, you’d say I could use a few more pounds. Not that I would believe you. I’d tell you my weight but I threw my scale out because my self worth fluctuated by the pound when I owned one. I’d say I weigh between 112 – 115 lbs. I am 5’5”. I wear a size two or extra small. And I still see myself as a half-chubby (that would be the bottom half).

It’s my thighs, my butt. If I gain weight that’s where it will go and I have nightmares of the body I had when I was twenty years old. 138 lbs., all in my ass. People would call me bubble butt. Thunder thighs. I was told when I turned a corner it took my ass five minutes to follow me. I was told my butt stuck out so far it was like a tray you could balance glasses on. In passing two men I heard, “She’s nice looking,” “Yeah, but her ass is so fat.” I even had a boyfriend who claimed having so much weight on my butt was a health hazard.

If this wasn’t about me, I’d be laughing. Perhaps I should learn to laugh. As I write this, I admit I am. A little. But there isn’t a day goes by that I don’t angst about my flabby butt. I don’t do anything about it – I don’t exercise. I don’t even walk. But that’s another story. This story is about body image and the inability to see what I look like. When put my pants on all I see are my thighs sticking out. And the stomach I’ve developed which had always been effortlessly flat. I am not my body, I tell myself. But my body tells me otherwise.

It’s no wonder I was a solid 138lb. By the time I was in my early twenties, I drank like a fiend and ate whatever was in sight. I was never full unless I was uncomfortably full. My pants size continued to grow while my breasts were as small as two little teardrops. Cut off my legs and I would’ve been a Weeble. My pants size grew to the point where I was struggling into size 12 and that’s when it hit me. One more size up and I’d be in the teens. And I heard the guy I had a crush on called me thunder thighs. Something had to be done, and quickly.

I am an alcoholic and an addict. I want instant gratitude. Always. I didn’t know how to lose weight without eating less and I didn’t know to do that either. But I remembered something I’d read in Cosmopolitan Magazine about women sticking their fingers down their throat and vomiting in order to lose weight. Why not?

Within a a month or so I lost 16 lbs. I was now a respectable 122 lbs., but couldn’t stop there. I would have to vomit a certain amount to maintain, and even more if I wanted to lose more weight. Which is the way my addiction works for me. When I went out to drink, I had to get the first three down as quickly as possible to get that click in my head that told me everything was all right. That wasn’t enough, of course. I had to keep drinking to ensure everything stayed “all right.” 122 lbs put me in clothes I was comfortable in, but I was out for greater glory. 122 wasn’t safe, because what if I went to 125, which wasn’t acceptable. Better to get into the teens. But the teens soon turned into 102 and then 98 because double digits were best. 88 was my next thought, but 98 was where I remained for a while.

I learned to drink a lot of water when I ate. A full glass before and as much as I could while eating. All to make it easier to hurl my food down the toilet bowl. Sometimes, right before, I’d jump up and down or put my hands on my belly to shake it to make sure the water was all mixed up with the food. In the bathroom, I’d tuck my hair back into my shirt, lean over the bowl with my finger down my throat and heave. It was always difficult at first. Sometimes nothing would come out and I’d dig deeper, heave harder. Sometime a little bit would come out, just a tease. But I always kept at it until I hit that sweet spot, where everything just burst and flowed until there was little left in my belly and I was satisfied. Clean the bowl, wash my hands, rinse my mouth and I was ready to meet the world.

I had it bad. In 1983 I joined AA but it was three years before I got help with my eating disorders. I was vomiting nearly every meal I ate, and if I was having an emotional crisis I’d binge and vomit as much as nine times a day. I lived alone, so that was easy. Going out to eat, not so much. When time came to exit the dinner table and head for the bathroom, there would often be stalls that could be occupied. The stall at the end felt safest – furthest from the door, and the chance of only one person next to me. I would often sit and wait until the room emptied. Sometimes someone would walk in anyway and disrupt the process. If I thought I could be quiet, I’d continue. If not, I’d swallow and figure out how much longer I could stay in the bathroom without someone looking for me. I was not always successful. If I wasn’t, I’d go back to my table nervous and distracted, wondering how long before I got home, would I still be able to puke up my dinner or would it have already digested and turned into fat?

And when I got home, if I was having trouble vomiting, I’d drink some water and eat some more food in the vain hope that if I could get that food up, the rest would follow.

Part 2 tomorrow

© 2020 Denise Smyth

Covid-19 – 04/10/20

10 Apr 2020 6 Comments

by Denise in Corona Virus, Covid-19 Tags: , , , , , ,

As of this moment, neither I nor anyone I know and/or love has been infected with Covid-19. That said, it’s easy for me to look at the brighter side of this pandemic as it affects me.

I am laid off and I could not be happier. I no longer wake up and wonder what I’m here for. I don’t walk around with the stress of my boss looking over my shoulder (real or imagined) or the obsessive and soul-sucking need to please him. His presence looms dark and large and while I fear it, I am freed of it.

But what do I do? How can I go back there if he reopens? I would rather stay on unemployment and look for a job – but what will the world look like when this thing calms down? Will there be jobs available? No one can answer that. Can I take that risk?

While I’ve known for a long time that I need to look for a job, I couldn’t force myself to do so. I have an absolutely crazy dynamic with my boss. He is angry and critical, I resent him for that but try desperately and foolishly to please him. Yet I also have an overpowering feeling that to leave him is to desert him and how can I do that to him?

There’s much talk of living in the now. Because now is all there is. On a simple level, paying attention to what you’re doing or who you’re with without letting thoughts distract you is living in the moment. It’s a practice, as our monkey mind chatters always. But living in the now is more than that. I am letting my past inform my present when I treat my boss the way I do. I react to him the way I learned to react to my mother.  As a child I had to figure out how to cope with her verbal abuse and active unhappiness. But my boss is not my mother and still I act as a hurt child who just wants to be seen and loved.

This is not news to me. I have known this for the three years I have worked for him. I actually thought this would be a good thing because given a replay of my childhood drama would give me a chance to work it out. I could learn to handle him like an adult, not like a child. But there’s too much in play here – he’s smart, he’s intimidating, he’s nasty, he’s demanding. He rarely misses a thing and if a mistake is made, he flips. If that weren’t enough there’s this: he’s tall, dark and handsome and he has a LOT of money. I would like to say that doesn’t matter, but if I’m honest, it does. Much as I resist, it’s difficult for me not to buy into the fact that people who have a lot of money are better than I am and people who are beautiful are better than I am and if people have both I’m invisible to them. Add it all up and I wear a mantel of darkness that is stressful and exhausting.

The answer seems simple. Get out and get a new job. Besides dealing with the drama I’ve just taken you through, I am terrified to look for a job. I am paid well for what I do and when I look at similar jobs, the pay is way lower. Okay. I might have to take a cut for my sanity. I also feel unskilled – I can use basic Word and Excel, I can use Outlook. Most jobs want proficiency in Microsoft Suite and often want Quickbooks. I took some classes in Word and Excel to help myself, but if you don’t use it, you lose it.

I am almost 62. I am not planning on retiring soon, but I’m at a point where I want a job I like that will be my last.

The difference in the way I experience life has drastically changed because I got laid off. I do not take seriously enough the effect my job has on me. I used to wake up wondering why I was still alive, how was I supposed to get through another day? No more. I just wake up. I work my way slowly into the world and at some point decide what I want to do. I’m not depressed. I’m experiencing other feelings about self quarantine, but not depression. And that is a blessing.

Part of what’s saving me is that I’m a homebody. There’s a comfort to be asked to stay inside. It gives legitimacy to all the staying in I already do. I can watch as much TV as I want without judgment. My judgment. I give myself a hard time about what I do. What I don’t do. When life was as we used to know it, I would come home from work worn out and I wouldn’t want to do anything. Some nights I’d go to an AA meeting. I always thought I should be doing something I’m wasn’t. I would envy those people who have a lot of friends who do things together and can talk about their shared experiences. What do I do? Go to work, come home, go to a meeting (sometimes) and then home. Maybe see a friend on the weekend, maybe stay alone. In this I find great shame – and it’s not so easy to tame that.

But I do get antsy at times being homebound. I’ve been cooking and baking cookies. I went to the dentist. I take trips to the grocery store with its empty shelves. I even senior-shopped once as you have to be over 60 to qualify – yikes! I go AA Zoom meetings, sometimes bored and sometimes not. I text, talk on the phone, read, FaceTime, House Party. I watch a lot of TV . On Saturday mornings I deliver food to seniors.

And I feel safe. I feel protected.* When I can slow down, when I can feel Philip’s presence, I feel okay to be alive. If you’ve read my last posts you see the struggle I have to take my part in life. But Philip is ever here, ever loving. When someone dies their love remains. Cold comfort when all you want is for them to please come home. But they won’t, so we live with what we have, what is real. And what is real is Love.

*This has nothing to do with the virus – masks and gloves are necessary.

© 2020 Denise Smyth

Background

10 Feb 2020 Leave a comment

by Denise in Addiction, alcoholism, depression, suicide Tags: , , , ,

Some background.

I had my first drink when I was 11. When my own kids turned 11, their innocence still intact from alcohol, I felt sad for the child I was that felt that much misery that she had to drink to escape it. I was too little to drink with friends or go to parties, but I found ways to sneak it into my room to drink in secret. I didn’t like the way I felt and that was my way out.

The first time I drank, my parents had gone out on a Saturday night and left me to baby-sit my seven-year-old brother. Soon as he was in his room for the night, I opened the liquor cabinet which had quite the array. Besides the hard stuff, there were cordials and liqueurs and brandies and wines. My parents did not drink alcoholically, but they kept a stocked cabinet for their dinner parties. My predilection was to go for the hard stuff that’d get the job done, but I was afraid it was going to take a lot to get me drunk so rather than drink too much from one bottle, I took a mouthful from all. Then I reeled up to my bedroom, passed out, woke in the middle of the night, threw up all over my bed, passed out again, woke up with a hangover and couldn’t wait to do it again.

I spent the next thirteen years drinking and drugging as much as I could. It was what I lived for. There are stories, of course, but I’ll tell the one that’s relevant given my last post.

Around the time I started drinking, maybe before I started drinking, I had a death wish. I think I was around twelve when I went through a short period of taking aspirin, thinking it would do something to me. I took 5 one day, then 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, up to 11. I can’t say I was looking for death, but I was looking for something to be altered. I don’t know the first time I wished I’d die but I do know the wish grew like a cancer the older I got. By the time I was 22 I was desperate. I’d bought a pack of razors and hid them, waiting for the right moment. It came the weekend my parents drove my brother to the college he’d been accepted into. I had the house to myself. That Saturday I went to a party, got drunk, took quaaludes. My boyfriend Chris was there and when he passed out at 2 in the morning I decided it was time. I went home and did what one who was about to slash her wrists was supposed to do. Ran the water in the tub, placed the razor on the tub edge and a bottle of scotch on the floor. I was already drunk but I knew I needed more to deal with the pain of slicing a vein. Into the tub I went, swallowed another mouthful of scotch, and started in.

It wasn’t easy. It hurt like hell no matter how much I drank, but I was determined. I hacked at my wrists as best I could and I don’t know if such a thing is possible but I thought I nicked a vein because suddenly blood sprayed out. Not dripped, but a thin shot of it that hit the tube walls and made a mess. And all I thought was, “I am doing this. I am really doing this.”

It wasn’t my time, though, because through the splashing of the water coming out the tub spout and the screeching in my brain, I heard my phone ringing. It was around 3am. And it was ringing and ringing and I looked down at my bloody bath and shot out of there straight to the phone where as soon as I heard Chris’ voice I started screaming, I did it I did it and he kept asking what did you do and all I could do was scream.

By answering the phone I’d chosen life and Chris came to the rescue. From his end, he’d woken from his drug-induced coma and asked where I was. I hadn’t said good night to anyone but a couple people saw me leave. He said he’d gotten a bad feeling and had been ringing the phone for ten minutes, trying to figure out how he’d break into my house if I didn’t answer soon.

He came, he saw, he left to buy bandages at the 24-hour drug store, cleaned me first, then the bathtub. I watched him from behind scrubbing and rinsing the blood away and thought I never loved him more.

Of course that wasn’t a happily-ever-after. I needed help. As far as my attempt, I was ashamed that I had tried and failed and knew I would never do it again. My reasoning at the time was I didn’t want to turn into a half-measure suicide attempter who used the act as a call for help. I chalked it up to a failure on my part and resolved never to fail in that particular way again.

I don’t believe in coincidence as random. I wasn’t supposed to die that night. And I made the choice not to. So something was there, some part of me wanted to live.

And something else, more recent. A couple days after I wrote my last post, I was at work, standing and talking to a co-worker. As we spoke, I started to get light headed. Everything shifted. I couldn’t stop it, I didn’t understand what was happening. “Spiro,” I said, “I don’t feel well.” The world felt like it was slipping away and there was nothing I could do. I am having a stroke, I thought. Or a heart attack. I don’t want to die.

I don’t know what that was but it passed in about ten minutes. And when I let myself feel I was faced with possible death, I rejected it. Can someone tell me – who the fuck am I?

To be continued.

© 2020 Denise Smyth

Impossible

29 May 2017 12 Comments

by Denise in Death, Death of a Child, Grief, Motherhood Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

I close my eyes I think of you
I take a step I think of you
I catch my breath I think of you
I cannot rest I think of you
                                  “Looking Out” by Brandi Carlile

“I know the darkness pulls on you/but it’s just a point of view,” she sings in the same song. Which is the  conversation I had with John, my grief counselor, a couple days ago, a conversation which isn’t new to me. The unbroken un-ease I live with comes first from the way I think about things, from the voice in my head. I can be forgiven for the reasons why I think life is impossible, but it’s my responsibility to step back from the facts and see if I can talk to myself differently about them.

I know it’s the way I think that makes it feel impossible to deal with the utter loss of Philip’s death. Not that I can flip a switch and just think about it with more acceptance and less despair. But the way I think informs the way I feel. And these last months I’ve felt a new kind of worse – resigned and despairing. Mostly quiet about it, except when I can get myself to write some. This has to do with work. I’m having more than a hard time there, and when things are this difficult my grief for Philip swells.

I’ve never had a job this difficult or stressful. I’ve never had a job that got me crying at my desk. There’s too much work, there’s too much I have to figure out on my own and not enough time to do that because things need to be done, not just thought about. Which makes it impossible to feel efficient. I scramble every day to keep up and am miserable because of it. We’ve hired a part-time bookkeeper to help, but she comes in in the evening, when her day job is done. Three nights a week I stay until 7 – 8:00 to train her, which is a riot because I’m training her yet she makes more per hour than I do. And if we have a problem – say there’s an issue with the software we use, or a question about a bill that needs to get paid – she can’t take care of it because the phone calls to resolve these things need to be made between 9-5, when she’s not there.

This salary issue is upsetting me more than I’ve cared to admit, because if I admit it, I have to do something about it. I’m not making enough and I’m not being an adult about it. I should talk to C, my boss. I’m terrified. It feels impossible. Because while on the one hand I think I’m worth more, on the other I’m sure C will not agree. How do I know this? Do I have a crystal ball? The only way to know is to ask.

But maybe the biggest challenge is that I don’t feel connected to anyone there. C & J own the firm, S is an interior designer, JR an architect. Whether or not it’s true – and it probably isn’t – I don’t think they see me. C is a designer, and well-known for what he does. His heart – like mine – lies in his creativity. His job – unlike mine – pays him for it. My job is full of problems that need to be solved, and some of those things I don’t care about and don’t want to know about. Not a day goes by where something doesn’t go wrong, something isn’t problematic. One thing piled on another, then another. It’s like slowly sinking into quicksand. Like I’m going down and I’m not coming back up. It’s that hard to breathe.

How melodramatic of me. I can’t shake it. I’ve no sense of humor about this, no perspective. I feel overwhelmed and inadequate. Like a child who can’t live up to her parents’ expectations. How ridiculous am I? It’s only a job, for Chrissake. A difficult job. I’m not at fault here – it is what it is, and if, after four months, I feel unsure if I can handle it, if I even want to handle it, then I should look for another job.

Which feels impossible. When I was looking to leave my last job, it took me months to get up the nerve to write my resume and finally send it out. This was the first job I applied for and I got it three days after I sent my resume. You’d think that might tell me something. But the voice in my head says I got lucky and it won’t happen again.

Once again I have a hard time with music. I play LCD Soundsystem incessantly because all four of their CDs make me want to dance. And I do. But today I decided to listen to Brandi Carlile and it broke me down. And in that sad and vulnerable place all things work rushed at me. And all the loss – my marriage, my house, my son. What now? I ask. Philip died and I am different. It’s this terrible secret I carry and I want the world to mourn with me. I want the impossible.

Here is some of what Carlile sings that wrecks me – and if you heard her sing it, you’d really know why:

“But the last thing I think of when I close my eyes/And the first thing on my mind when I arise/It is a day and you’re not really in my life.”

“I lay this suitcase on my chest so I can feel somebody’s weight/And I lay you to rest just to feel a give and take.”

“When you feel like giving in and the coming of the end/Like your heart could break in two, someone loves you.”

“How I miss you and I just want to kiss you/And I’m gonna love you till my dying day.”

“Where are you now?/Do you let me down?/Do you make me grieve for you?”

“And you, you are in my dreams/You’re underneath my skin,/How am I so weak…I can’t have you, but I have dreams.”

“Say it’s over, say I’m dreaming/Say I’m better than you left me…Learn to let it bend before it breaks.”

“If you were my boat in the deep blue sea/I probably sink you down/I know I should have thanked you for carrying me/But for you I would happily drown.”

“And you know that you’re alone/You’re not a child anymore/But you’re still scared.”

The worst is when she sings, “I was looking out for you/I was looking out for you/Someone’s looking out for you.” I wrote about this years ago (Did I really say that? When I talk about Philip’s death, is it now years ago?) when I remembered these killer words – did I look out for him? I didn’t worry, didn’t think anything was wrong. Did I not guide him enough when he was growing up? And now Natalie. Today I was overwhelmed, today I laid on the couch and cried into my pillow. It’s been a long time since I did that. Am I taking the right care of her? Is there something I’m supposed to “do” to make sure she’s okay? I take care of her, but is it enough? Is loving her enough?

Loving her is all, impossible as it feels to see – to really see – the truth of this.

© 2017 Denise Smyth

“Sixty”

07 May 2017 10 Comments

by Denise in Death, Death of a Child, Lonlieness, Motherhood Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

There are moments that the words don’t reach
There is suffering too terrible to name
You hold your child as tight as you can
And push away the unimaginable
The moments when you’re in so deep
It feels easier to just swim down…

“It’s Quiet Uptown” – sung by Angelica from Hamilton

When Philip died I couldn’t find the words to describe it. It was easier to just swim down. One year later I started a blog because I had so much to say. I am still a mother whose child has died. I have need to talk about him but I don’t know what I want to say. His name – I rarely say his name to anyone and that hurts. In the car, when I’m alone, I talk out loud to him. I say his name. I love him.

I still want to scream at the world my child has died as if the world would reach round and cover me with a big, fluffy blanket, tuck me in, stand guard. But it’s not about the world and that’s the good news. Because a world that won’t take me in its arms also won’t attack. I don’t think Philip’s death was something done to me. It is something that happened and not a day goes by that I don’t wrestle with it. “There’s a grace too powerful to name,” Angelica sings, the other side of the suffering. And I know this. How can I explain that through Philip’s death I have known grace? I would not have chosen to find it this way, but here I am.

Because of where Philip’s death brought me, what it taught me. For whatever I might give in to, I refuse to let it turn into bitterness. Sorrow, soft and quiet, yes. This might be grace. The depth of my love for Philip matches the depth of my grief. Something inside broke when he died, but that dark and terrible place has another side. There is truth in that depth, there is a way to light if I choose. Philip’s love – our love – is my light and comfort. Whatever comes and goes, love remains. So I turn to him and let myself feel that. That is the big fluffy blanket I long for.

I am lonely for love. As much as I feel Philip’s love, I want to rest my head on someone’s shoulder, be held. I am starving for it. There are times when my insides feel like they’re collapsing for want of pressing against someone I love, someone who loves me. Then I pull back — it’s easier to be alone, I think. I’ve seen too much. And I’m turning 60 next year — is it too late?

I’m reading a book called Sixty by Ian Brown, a diary of his 61st year, which I expected to laugh and commiserate with. Instead I’m horrified. Brown talks of the world having no use for the aging — but what world? Surely in his personal world his friends and family have plenty of use for him. Brown is an active guy. He bikes, hikes, skis, goes kayaking. But he talks of his aches and pains, that come with aging and maybe in part from the wear and tear of exercising. Maybe I’ve no aches and pains because I don’t exercise. This bothers me because I used to all the time, and for years now I’ve refused to move. I’m getting older and think I should take long walks, but I cannot force myself.

Brown seems to be making 60 define his life. I don’t think about it that way — I think I’ll define 60. I don’t feel so much older than those around me, including the young woman my daughter’s age whom I work with. I look good, I feel good, I have a lot of energy, all things Brown complains about. He even questions the way he dresses, while I make an art of it. That’s what scares me about the book. I work to not let the world define me. Why should age matter in terms of what the world expects of me? Yes, things change. There are adjustments coming at me that I can’t yet fathom. But to spend a year looking at my life through the lens of my age is nuts.

It’s not that I’m not aware of my age, or that I never think about it. I changed jobs three months ago. My boss is handsome. Classically tall, dark, and good-looking. He’s the kind of guy I look up on the internet so I can show my friends what he looks like and watch them swoon. The kind of guy I always considered out of my league. Two weeks ago he threw himself a fiftieth birthday bash in a house on a lake, which included fireworks that spun glittering down from the sky around us. Yes, around us. Some people ran for cover. His age, his handsomeness, makes me think I’m getting old. Sure, he is, too, but at 59, 50 feels young, and he seems to have the world by the balls. And we all know men my age are looking down the decades for women which leaves me with…

Oh, bullshit. So what if men, in fact, look for younger women? That’s about getting laid. I’ve no problem with getting laid (except for the problem of no partner), but I want something more than sex, the thing that makes the sex mean something. Not that I do anything about it. In fact, I pointedly do nothing about it, the way I stay home so much. The only guys I meet are the ones in the current TV series I’m into. And we know where those relationships lead.

Philip’s been spared the pain of this life. Yes, you say, but he also misses the beauty and wonder. Except lately those are just words to me because there’s a lot more hurt than anything else. And the constant work of trying to see the other side of the hurt is exhausting. This doesn’t mean I think he’s better off dead. Beauty and wonder come from inside. Philip had it. He was it. He took it when he died, and it’s my work to remind myself that no, he really didn’t.

© 2017 Denise Smyth

Forgotten

18 Mar 2017 13 Comments

by Denise in Death, Death of a Child, Grief, Motherhood Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

When my kids were little I used to tell them life isn’t fair, but we try to be. Life isn’t fair or unfair – it just is. We’re the ones who decide what life is by the way we think about it. We’re all going to die. What’s unfair about that? I mean, what if no one died? On the simplest level, we wouldn’t fit on the planet. Everything goes in cycles, everything changes, all things end. It’s more helpful to observe the way life is than to decide how it should be. So many people have said to me that Philip shouldn’t have died. Really? How can anyone know that? What matters “should?” That he died is my sorrow, but I can’t see the bigger picture we’re all part of. I want him to come home, but “shoulds” are not for me. He has died and I have to live with it. It’s not fair or unfair.

As for good-bye – there are things that do not have “closure.” The very idea doesn’t make sense. If the definition of closure is to bring to an end, how can you possibly have “closure” when someone you love dies? I think the yearning for closure is wanting the pain to stop. But as long as you love, you’re vulnerable to pain. Closure and acceptance are different. Acceptance is when you stop fighting what’s so – that’s all. It doesn’t mean you’re happy about it. And “moving on.” What’s that supposed to mean? I’ve said a million times, you don’t move on, you live with. I will never “move on” from Philip’s death. I don’t live in wild, crazy grief any more, but I’ve a deep, abiding sorrow. It’s quiet, and it’s always there. But that’s the other side of my love for my son. I can’t get rid of one without the other.

Facing death is our biggest challenge, and we do everything we can to avoid it. I don’t think we even realize what we do – go to the gym, stay in shape, wear the right clothes…what is it all for? It’s to prolong life, thereby avoiding death. I get just as caught up in it as anyone. Death is terrifying because we don’t know what it is. When someone we love dies it affects us deeply and irrevocably. You change a little every time. Grief doesn’t go away any more than love goes away.

Death is the last and biggest change. All the changes we go through in life can help prepare us if we stop resisting them. Every time we release an emotion, release a fear, we’re getting ready for death.

What would life be without death? What would make us stop and think and try to make sense of life if there was no death? Death shows us what’s important, time makes us forget. I have forgotten. I am too much in the world these days, too much at the whim of what’s happening instead of letting it be. My new job is a challenge. And instead of remembering I’m competent, I’m riddled with anxiety. I forget to eat because that’s what I do when I’m anxious. And if I think of eating, my throat closes down.

Such old behavior. I can’t control the work that’s thrown at me, but I can control what I eat. Not eating feels powerful – a need that I’ve turned from. And by the end of my work day, when I know I should eat something before I go home, I’ll pick on my salad or eat slow spoonfuls of yogurt. My upsets always tie into food. For years I had bulimia. On and off, but when I was on, I went full blast. When Philip died, first I whittled my 5’4″ self down to 100 lbs. And when I could no longer stand the hunger, I started eating and throwing up. Punishing myself, because when something goes wrong, that’s what I do. I did it until the violence of what I was doing to my body started to scare me. I’d shove my finger down my parted throat and strain so hard my insides felt like they were coming out the other end. I had to rid myself of what felt wrong and dirty. Until my eyes were bloodshot and my head was throbbing . Until my body felt as empty as my life did.

In the years following Philip’s death I began to see what was important. I understood – no, I knew – that whatever it was, I could put space between me and it. Like if I took a new job, my real work was not Excel spreadsheets and vendor payments. It was the way I treated what I was doing. Every situation is an opportunity to make meaning, to learn how to love. And what are we here for if not to learn how to love? How, exactly, does Excel teach love? It doesn’t. It’s what I make of it. If I remember that what I’m doing matters to my boss, if I work to give him what he needs, if I do it with care and respect, that, right there, is love. Because love is not merely a feeling, it’s a state of being.

But I’ve been panicking a lot, feeling like what I do isn’t good enough, waiting to be exposed. Drama, drama, drama. I can’t seem to get myself out of it. Then I go home and hibernate. I don’t know how to make a life I could enjoy. I would say the biggest reason is the nasty, nattering voice in my head that I goddamn can’t stop listening to.

The anxiety I feel at work turns into helplessness when I go home. I want to move but the thought overwhelms me. I want to be inside but I think I should be out. Sometimes it’s like I’m just waiting to die because what’s it for, anyway. I have forgotten. When Philip died I was plunged into a life I couldn’t scramble out of. Eventually I began to work with the void and understood why it’s called “fertile.” But my heart’s closed along the way. Along with that writing’s been tough. I can’t write when I’m shut down.

More on that later…

© 2017 Denise Smyth

“In Memory”

27 Feb 2017 10 Comments

by Denise in Death, Death of a Child, Grief, Lonlieness, Motherhood Tags: , , , , , , , ,

I watched “Outlander” recently. (SPOILER ALERT: if you’re planning on watching it, you might not want to read the next few paragraphs.) The protagonists are Claire and Jaime, who are deeply in love. At one point, the story jumps forward twenty years and we see Claire visiting Jamie’s grave. She’d just come from the wake of a reverend she’d known for many years. At the wake was a young man the reverend had taken in as a child and raised and who was grieving the reverend. He sat down to talk to Claire. “How do you say good-bye?” he asked. “I don’t know,” she answered.

Claire sat at the grave for a while. For twenty years she’d been missing Jaime. She talked to him, then told him she was going to say something she’s never said before. And what she said was,” Good-bye.”

Fuck that.

Philip once told me he was in the place of no good-byes. Why would anyone want to say good-bye to someone they love? It’s bad enough they’re dead. But you still love them and so can have a relationship with them. Not the one you want, but the one you have. To say “good-bye” is to cut off. I don’t believe one can really say “good-bye” to someone they love deeply. And a child? Can one really say that to their child? Because when someone you love dies, when your child dies, your life changes irrevocably. You can go back to your job and back to the gym and continue doing whatever you were doing before death paid a visit. But you’ve changed, you feel the loss hovering always in the background.

It is not your child you say good-bye to, it is not your child you let go of. What you stop resisting is the fact of what death has taken from you, all the pain that it makes you feel. Not at first, not all at once. But grief opens up spaces within us. Those spaces make us vulnerable not only to heartbreak, but to joy. Joy seems to have no place here. But the joy of the love between you and your child remains. Nothing, not even death, can take that away.

Would that I pay attention to my words.

“In Memory.” Words I want to run from. They, along with “Rest in Peace,” are some of the most devastatingly sad words I know. Last week, Thursday, February 23rd, was the fifth anniversary of Philip’s death. My brother and sister-in-law, who never forget, made a donation to St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital in memory of him. Those two words were on the front of the card that came to tell me. “In Memory.” No, I want to cry out. He’s not just a memory, he’s more than that. But is he? Philip is round me. He talks to me, comforts me, sends me signs every day. I try to stay there, in that grace. But then there’s the other side, the fact of sight and touch, the conversations, all the things I miss because he isn’t here the way I want him to be.

Fighting that is useless. I know this. I don’t blame anyone for Philip’s death, I don’t think “God” did this. God doesn’t meddle in people’s lives, but he sure makes a good scapegoat. I don’t fret that there’s something I could have done, if only I… There wasn’t anything I could have done. Philip’s death is something that happened to us and we are in this together. Wishing things were otherwise is a waste of time, time that could be spent in life, life that feels like forever without Philip here but will feel like a blip when I face my own death. Where did it all go, I will wonder. Am I ready? It won’t matter. Ready or not, when it’s time, it’s time. Death is the one certainty in life.

This anniversary was particularly difficult. I didn’t go to work. I spent the morning with Natalie and the rest of the day with Kirsten. But I could take no comfort, in spite of all the ways Kirsten took care of me, in spite of the fact that people reached out to say they cared. My boss, who I’ve known for two and a half weeks, reached out to me. Phil called me first thing in the morning. I could have cried. What would it be like, I wonder, if we were still together, if I had him to talk to about Philip because he is his father, because we were a family. I envy people who have each other when tragedy strikes. But we live with the choices we make, fantasies notwithstanding. Tragedies tear people apart probably as often as they bring them together.

Still, I’m lonely. I’m lonely for Philip, lonely in my grief for him. My mind goes to terrible places. It’s hard to talk about. I had a difficult childhood. For so long I wished I was dead – what other way was there to stop the pain? I tried drugs and alcohol but all that did was land me in AA. Somewhere along the line I lost any appreciation I might have had for being alive. I have not recovered. When I see my daughter, my heart springs open. She is my love. But when she’s not here, it’s almost like she doesn’t exist. When she leaves I’m back to my lonely world, the one I’ve created in my head. And Thursday, no matter who was around or who reached out, I couldn’t take it in. There was no place I wanted to be. And this is what I meant about it being hard to talk about – so often I just don’t want to be here, to be part of this. So often I feel living is hard and sorrowful more than anything else. There are people who are sick and dying and scared, and here I am, alive and well, often wishing I wouldn’t wake up in the morning. What regrets am I going to have when it’s my time to die?

Last Thursday I cried to be where Philip was, so great was my grief. I haven’t cried in a long time. I’ve felt myself going dead these last months rather than feel anything that hurts. But I can’t cut off one part of myself without affecting the whole. I can’t keep out pain without keeping out peace.

© 2017 Denise Smyth

The Leap

29 Jan 2017 20 Comments

by Denise in Death, Death of a Child, Grief, Motherhood Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

“Leap and the net will appear.”
John Burroughs

Philip’s phone line is still active. For $10 a month we get to call his phone and hear his voicemail voice. The automated  lady announces him, so all he says is his name, “Phil Smyth.” It doesn’t even sound like him. He’d started calling himself “Phil.” But he will ever be Philip to me.

His mailbox is full. I called Verizon once. “My son has died,” I cried. “I want to hear his messages.” The woman was kind. You need his phone, she told me. Call back when you have it and we’ll change the password so you can get into his phone and retrieve his messages.

I talked to Phil about it. He thought I was nuts, was reluctant to give me the phone, I didn’t push it. But now I want it. I want to do this. I want to read his texts, I want to hear what messages people left him. I don’t care if it tears me apart. These last months I’ve been so removed, so out of touch with what I feel about Philip that I’d like to be ripped open. I’d like to see if there’s something more to me than this surface life I feel I’m living.

I’ve talked about grief being a spiral, not a straight line where you start to get “better” and continue along. Grief expands and contracts, triggered by memory, triggered by love. And I’ve spiraled to the outer edges, to a place where I no longer try to make sense of Philip’s death or my life. I’m not stepping back, I make things too real, get too caught up. I am not steady. Tune into me and I’m comforted. Say something contrary and I make myself small as I can. Less of a moving target, less of me to feel pain.

I don’t write much because I have nothing to say. At least, that’s what I feel like. What am I to talk about? Can I keep telling you about Philip? I make no sense of his death now. I cry, I’m angry, I’m disconnected. Disconnected is the worst. I’d rather weep until my eyeballs fall out than be disconnected. Didn’t I say I wanted to make meaning, that what anything  meant was up to me? Didn’t I write reams about “Accept it, Leave it, Change it?” Wasn’t I in touch with the grace that is the other side of death? At least for a moment? Didn’t I believe?

I am a mother whose son has died. Every day I feel that. I don’t think about it in any useful way. I feel about it, feelings that shift with the wind. Diminished. Resigned. Angry. Bitter. Despair. Helpless. Disconnected. Then I look at his portrait for a while and know how deeply I love him and I weep.

I start a new job tomorrow. During the interview I told them Philip died. I don’t know why I said it – what did that have to do with the job? It didn’t. It had to do with me. That he died is an essential fact of my life and if I’m going to spend time with people, they have to know. That’s why I told them.

I decided months ago it was time for a new job. What angst over my resume, in spite of the fact that I had two friends willing to help. I can’t do it, I thought. Because I don’t know how to write about myself, because I don’t have a degree, because I think the world is my enemy and anyone interviewing me will shake their head and dismiss me. Because that’s the way my crazy brain works even though none of that’s true. And I have a resume – it just needed to be updated. Back in 2011 when I was looking for a job, I paid someone $500 to write my resume. She also wrote my LinkedIn profile, several cover letters, went over job-hunting strategies. I’ll put it in her hands again, I thought. Let her do what I can’t.

When I called her I found out she doesn’t update resumes. She takes you through the whole spiel for $1500. When I told her that was too expensive, she referred me to someone who charges less. For a mere $700 I could have a new resume.

I actually considered it. I wanted to pay to get this burden off me. She’ll make look good, I thought. I need someone to make me look good because I am not good at all.

God I’m sick of myself. At least, that side of myself. Not sick enough to be rid of it, though.

For several months I had anxiety about my resume. I’ll do it over Thanksgiving weekend, I said. I didn’t. I’ll do it over Christmas vacation, I said. The pressure was on. Work was getting difficult and with the new year coming I wanted to make a new start. I might  have been anxious about the resume, but the need to leave was stronger. Finally, I did it.

During my Christmas vacation I went to Kirsten’s house. Why don’t you google resumes, she suggested. Duh. So I googled exactly what I am – Construction Administrative Assistant. And there it was – a whole resume full of bullet points that said what I did more elegantly than I could have on my own. With Kirsten’s help I wrote my resume, wrote a cover letter and found a job ad on Craig’s List for an Administrative Assistant for a construction company.

After months of agonizing over all this, here’s what happened: Sunday I send the resume. Monday I get the call. Tuesday I get the interview. Wednesday I get the job.

Am I not blessed? How do I not get this?

Lately I’ve turned Philip’s death into a weapon against myself. I am damaged goods. I am angry I have to be this mom. I’m resentful because life goes on and it doesn’t care about Philip’s death. And that is not about grief as much as it’s about the way I have of talking to myself when I’m not vigilant. Let me be the voice in your head, Philip tells me. And if I did, none of this is what I’d be hearing.

I need to hold close the fact that everything passes. Life is in motion, ever changing. Every change is a little death. It’s also a chance to let go, to leap into the great unknown. One day I will pass, too, take the greatest leap of all. And when my time comes will I feel I wasted it in apathy, in anger? My life with Philip is forever changed – we will never be the way we were, but we are something different. His presence is as strong as ever – when I pay attention. You’d think I’d pay attention because that’s when I feel closest to him, this child that I need as much as I need air and food and water.

I no longer can live with his body, but I certainly can live in his love.

© 2017 Denise Smyth

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