So Long...

I’ve made a decision to stop with this blog, at least for now. I feel like I have said the same things so many times and in so many ways, and now I feel it is time to take a break. I will pick it up again if and when I feel like I have something new to say instead of once again rehashing it all. It isn’t something I enjoy right now. I feel like I am forcing myself. What was once relaxing, fun, therapeutic or whatever, has just become a chore.

Thanks to everyone who has been reading my ramblings and for all the comments and words of encouragement. I really appreciate it. It has all meant a lot to me.

Thanks,

Robb

July 5, 2014

It is no secret that I am at a point where I am really treading some pretty choppy waters in life right now. When I wrote my last post, I was in a place where I really could not see a way out and well, there wasn’t one. At least not if I was going to go it alone. I won’t go into details or mention names, but once again I am learning there is always a path through, sometimes we just need someone to point it out or clear the brush that is hiding it.

I am still going through and dealing with a lot of things I really wish I didn’t have in my life and while I can’t see much of a path right now, I can see where the next few steps may lead and hopefully from there, see a little further.

Asking for help, being vulnerable and letting people see just how much things suck is not an easy thing at all. When I write, there are times I have to force it out. I cried through a lot of that last blog post. Thinking about it hurt enough. Walking on the emotional broken glass was even worse. I don’t want to bring people into my problems and at the same time, I don’t want to hide. Yes, I am dealing with depression and I know that it is not something just one person deals with. I know there are people around me affected by what I do and don’t do. I haven’t spent much time with my niece and nephews. I have been voiding my sister, avoiding Ulco and hiding out. I have been lying to people saying that things are great or ok when really, they just suck.

One of the things I have hated since the stroke is the need I feel to put others at ease. Anyone who has had a major illness or tragedy knows what I mean. You share something with someone just because you need to talk about it and next thing you know, you are telling them that everything will be ok and that they shouldn’t worry. I can’t do that anymore. What you see is what you get and what you see is where I am. I’m not trying to get responses or anything, I just want to get things out and maybe in the process someone will relate a little to what I write or what I am going through. A big part of depression and major life changes is the feeling of being alone. The feeling that nobody understands. The feeling that I am bringing everyone around me down.

My therapist asked me how I felt about the strokes and the depression. I told her I was angry, ashamed and embarrassed. I am. I grew up with a mom that talked about killing herself, that kept herself drugged up on over-the-counter medications. She numbed herself and in doing so, isolated herself from everyone and everything. I am trying to do the opposite. I want to feel it, to deal with it, to get through it and beyond it. I am trying to silence the voices that constantly say I’m not ____________ enough. Or perhaps worse, that I am just simply not enough.

Sometimes it is hard to believe and have faith in something that just seems so impossible. I just have to approach it the way I approached learning to walk again. Taking it one step at a time and then taking the next step. Not worrying about how far I get, just trying to get one step further than the day before. Some days went great and some days were torture, but they all finally came together and before too long, I was hiking in mountains and canyons. I was nervous and scared, but I did it. And I am trying now to do it again. 

July 2, 2014

Over the past few years, one of the things I have had to come to terms with, is accepting the help of others. It was and is an extremely difficult thing that I have never really adjusted to. Since coming back to the US two years ago, I feel less like I am accepting help and more like I am a burden on so many people.

All I have wanted to do, really, is be able to take care of myself and just when it seems I have it figured out, everything goes awry. This constant restarting and then stopping is exhausting and I’m tired, I’m frustrated and have just had enough of it. I’m tired of not being able to take care of myself, tired of feeling depressed and less than a person. I’m tired of making people around me feel comfortable with my situation. I’m tired of holding on, waiting for just a few days, weeks or whenever until things turn around. I no longer feel like things are going to turn around.

Over the course of the next week, there will be a lot of things happening in my life, lots of changes and not one of them is for the better. It’s so impossibly overwhelming, I can’t really wrap my head around it all.  I can only see that there seems to be no real way out. Just a couple of months ago, I thought I had it figured out. I had a plan. Then I had another stroke. Then I had nothing figured out. No plans.

I don’t know what to do. I really don’t. I’ve spent years going this way, going that way, running into wall after wall and I don’t know what else to do, where to look, or what even to think. I keep it myself because people get uncomfortable, don’t know what to say. I can’t expect anything more. I’m uncomfortable and I don’t know what to say.

I was reading some of my old blog posts a week or so ago. All the trips, the clothes, the dinners, the adventures and then I look at things as they are now and I don’t understand any of it. And I’m tired of trying to figure it all out. I gave up looking for meaning it a long time ago, I just want to find a way through.

One thing I have found so odd is how people can say I have been inspiring or anything like that. It is a word that makes me cringe most of the time. I really don’t want to be inspiring, I just want to be ok. And I am a long way off from ok. Inspiring is pressure, it’s a strange word to hear directed toward me and something I can’t live up to.

I have no idea what the next week and beyond will hold. Not even the slightest bit of a hint. I just have this feeling, the knowledge that I am going to have to go it alone. I can’t be a burden anymore. To anyone.

So that is where I am today, in this moment. Next week, who knows.