I have entered one of the loneliest periods of my life. It’s as if all of the bad things ever wished on me by someone have come true. I don’t want to feel this way. I’m trying to change things to a more positive point of view, but it is so hard. There’s such a tsunami of things to deal with right now that I’m just overwhelmed. It’s such a combination of things that each need their own support group, that I feel like I definitely don’t have the time for and that make a unique combination that nobody else will understand. They’ll understand the individual issues, but not the overarching overwhelming magnitude of all the things combined. It’s at such a level that I don’t hardly even care anymore about my husband’s addiction or whether he’s staying in recovery. I’m just preoccupied with keeping my head above the water and not drowning when my head goes under for a moment.
It’s so much that I feel overwhelmed just thinking about trying to enumerate everything here. And every time I start trying to talk to anyone about things, I feel like I just sound whiny and unappreciative. Any feelings I have I just try to push them down and not think about them because I’m just falling behind and they take up too much space. I was in such a happy place just a few years ago before everything happened. I know that sometimes these cycles happen and with time things will go round again. It’s getting through the muck of it though that’s hard. I’m in the Swamps of Sadness and like Artax, it is dragging at me.
I have a son. He’s beautiful and brilliant and about to turn four. He also has cerebral palsy and a rare recessive genetic disorder called congenital adrenal hyperplasia, which means that he doesn’t make cortisol and is at risk of adrenal crisis whenever he’s stressed in any way. He doesn’t walk or stand without assistance because of the CP. It’s a particular combination that’s a little hard to manage because CP causes stress and pain in the body. He falls over and injures himself easily. He was born 9 weeks early because I had preeclampsia, which probably led to the CP. On the other hand, if he had been born on time, he wouldn’t have been in the hospital on all the monitors and had his life saved when he became hyperkalemic and had a ventricular tachycardia. He takes multiple medications multiple times a day and has to see so many doctors it’s nearly a part time job.
I’m working on my dissertation, but I was finishing my prospectus at my son’s NICU bedside and seven months later the pandemic started, so that has languished and I’m having a hard time moving forward.
My mom died last year very suddenly from lung cancer. Nobody but her and her doctors knew she had it. She never had the chance to meet my son. We didn’t have the best relationship and I barely had contact with her but a little more time would have been nice.
My mother-in-law‘s dementia deteriorated so quickly that now she lives with us. Her relationship with us has never been very loving and all of the burden of her illness now just seems unbearable. She fights and argues about everything. She’s stubborn and narcissistic. She can sometimes be cruel and abusive towards my son.
I work full time and earn a fair living but we have so many expenses that we always feel broke. My husband works full time too but isn’t being paid nearly what he’s worth.
We had to sell our old house and buy a bigger one to fit everyone and we’re still not unpacked a full year later. All of the extra funds that I hd put aside have been spent.
And I have my lifelong battle with depression to deal with. Sometimes I wish I could just give up and I feel like the only thing that’s keeping me alive is my son. I don’t want to abandon him or to ever hurt him like that.
I need a vacation and some time to recharge but I don’t know when I’ll have time for that ever again. Right now it’s take care of people who can’t be left alone and work a job that’s completely burning me out and try to fit in time to write and research. There is nothing else. And I just don’t know if I can keep going like this.