July 27, 2016

I'm doing so much worse than anyone knows. I can't find the words to express my state of mind, and even if I could, I have no known source of help for any of it.

I think I am suffering from a form of PTSD as a result of being the sole caregiver for both of my parents leading up to their deaths. I was still OK after my dad died because he was pleasantly out of his mind up through the day he died. He frequently didn't know who I was, but he was pleasant and even jovial. His death came on suddenly and there was no suffering or fear for him. Even so, it's difficult to have your father point a gun at you because he doesn't remember who you are. There was an underlying knowledge going on that I needed to keep things as light and happy as possible with him so that he wouldn't see me as a threat even when he didn't know who I was. I got that through to him, but it took a toll on me.

Dealing with my mom was a completely different story. She was angry, scared, completely out of touch with reality, in constant pain, in a state of constant panic because she couldn't breathe and didn't like me to begin with. Nothing I did was ever enough or right because she didn't like me, and she really didn't like anyone else either. Her truly debilitating agony lasted for about three years. I lived with her 24/7 for most of that time period.

Her fear and anxiety got into me. She was very capable of expressing her fears and anxieties and she had concrete, rational reasons for being afraid and constantly worried. And she raised me from her platform of fear and anxiety. I struggled with it my entire life, along with the knowledge that she simply didn't like me. She didn't like it that I ended up being the one to take care of her in her final years. Somehow, I thought I could change her opinion of me by doing that. Instead of me being able to lighten her load, she terrorized me with her fear and her battle to convince me that I should also be constantly fearful of everything and everyone " to not trust anyone or anything, even my own self.

I sit here in her house with her 14 cats, and I'm paralyzed. I force myself to get out of bed before noon, then I waste my day doing nothing. I only go out to bring in provisions and I put it off as long as possible " until there is no cat food, basically. And I'm getting worse rather than better. I'm in worse shape now than I was a month after she died. Vegetating has become the norm. People don't ever see how bad of shape I'm in because my interactions with others are brief and I refrain from burdening them as much as possible. My primary role with regard to others is still me, listening to their problems and providing empathy.

I can't talk about what's happening to me without being given some sound bite about time healing things or getting off my lazy a*s and lifting myself up by my bootstraps. It's not possible to be a victim in need of help in America. Victims are people who choose to be victims, just like homeless people choose that lifestyle. My choices are to suffer in silence or be brow-beaten because I'm suffering. I recall Hillary Clinton saying “it takes a village,” and me seeing how profound that truly is, coming from a place of having raised myself. I'm still going it alone, in many ways still a child. I can't ask for help because of those sound bites, and because my life has consisted of me being a sounding board for other people's problems. I can't even get through to my counselor how unstable I am " how close to the edge I am " even after spending hours simply crying uncontrollably, unable to explain why.

I feel this constant prodding with a stick to get on with my life. Take the cats to the pound and don't look back. Start life afresh, at 60. I spent my last 20 working years, working for criminals. Living in a place of severe economic hardship, and being a minority in that place. Knowing that I had to keep those jobs to support my family because no other jobs were available to me and there were a hundred qualified people waiting in line to take my job.

I'm locked into something quite emotionless for the sake of having health insurance. Also, in the hope that I won't end up utterly alone like my mother. I'm probably fooling myself about that being alone part. I'm alone now in terms of connection to anyone and always have been. I don't know why I should fear that, since I know it so well. Part of that is due to watching my parents die - part of it is that I stood on the brink of death myself just prior to caring for my dad, because I had no health insurance. My doctors/employers refused to acknowledge I was sick, and my husband didn't believe me because I worked for doctors who said I was fine. I waiting until my fungal pneumonia became septic with organ failure before going to the ER because I was poor without insurance, in a world where those who were supposed to care about me didn't. And there was not a thing new about that.

I need someone to help me.