Acceptance

I hardly know what to write anymore.   I feel like I keep going over the same territory; the terrain of my pain and it’s gritty, clinging, pulsating insistence on being with me like an appendage that has no purpose other than to cause frequent trips to the abyss that once was my heart.   I’m lying here right now, counting down the hours until a friend gets here for a movie.   I feel like all I do is complain.  I feel angry that people are unable to “get it” but the anger is caused by the knowledge that there is no way for them to get it.  No way at all.  Like I don’t know what it means to raise a family, have a career, support myself, and contribute.  I can’t know that because it isn’t my life, just as pain isn’t theirs.  That they have stuck by me is beyond amazing to me.  For that, I am grateful.

But whatever test this is (and what life isn’t a test?) I really, really want it to be over.  It’s not like I have any control over changing the progression of my disorder or the direction that progression is going.  The only control I have is acceptance.  But the child in me is screaming at the top of her lungs for someone to save me, to understand, to make it all go away or to help me go away.  Forever.  If I don’t get to that place of peace and acceptance, is that another in the long list of my failures?  It’s a question, not a pathetic “poor me” question.  Because I HAVE had a long list of failures; connected to NF?  Partially. 

But my anger is boiling over right now.  Anger at not being able to stop being angry.  I was able to stop for a while but that was before I went into the hospital a year ago to get off the methadone which wasn’t working and I was really, really contemplating taking my life.  But the part of me that doesn’t want to take my life took over and I called for help from my pain doc, took an ambulance to the ER and stayed in the hospital for five days to try something else.  I’ve written about that experience, no need for a re-run.   I think the new plan has stopped working as well.  It all stops working, eventually.   So we are back to the one thing I can control: Acceptance.

How does one do that?  I can make a declaration to myself when I listen to my drumming or BioLateral CD’s.  I’m thinking I’d have to make that declaration over and over again, many times each day whether the pain is excruciating or manageable.  When it’s manageable, I know it’s lurking around, waiting for a weak moment to leap in and take control once more.  Even though I spend the manageable moments thanking G-d for them, I know excruciating wants to express itself.  It wants to laugh at me, to torment me and to make fun of me.  “She’s thinking she has the upper hand, isn’t that hysterical?” I hear it say.

And the truth is, I DO have the upper hand.  I can choose to be long suffering or I can choose to accept this.  Everyone who loves me knows I’m in pain and yet I have this sick need to bitch and moan because otherwise….otherwise everyone will think it’s not true, that I’ve been faking it or it’s not as bad as all that and I should be working (even though I know I rarely get out of the house and when I do, it’s only for an hour at best).  It’s crazy making thinking.  And in the end, who cares what people think?

Man, I need to work on this.

Many rivers to cross
But I can't seem to find my way over
Wandering I am lost as I travel along
The white cliffs of Dover
Many rivers to cross and it's only my will
That keeps me alive
I've been licked, washed up for years and,
I merely survive because of my pride.

And this loneliness won't leave me alone
It's such a drag to be on your own
My woman left and she didn't say why
Well I guess, I gotta try.
Many rivers to cross but where to begin,
I'm playing for time
There'll be times when I find myself thinking
Of committing some dreadful crime.

I've got many rivers to cross
But I can't seem to find my way over
Wandering I am lost as I travel along
The white cliffs of Dover
Many rivers to cross and it's only my will
That keeps me alive
I've been licked, washed up for years and,
I merely survive because of my pride.