Reunion

August 24, 2014 //

My memories of high school and of my adolescence have changed over the years. I remember as a very young adult, being embarrassed at my adolescent immaturity. In most ways I was a square. It was not so much about whether I inhaled because I didn’t take drugs, smoke, or drink. Exhaling, however, was another matter. There were some not so bon mots that emerged from my big mouth. Over time, I came to appreciate that I was still pretty young with much to learn. That’s what youth is for, lots of rapid growth.

For a long time, I thought that high school, though not as horrendous as middle school, was pretty awful. Over the last two years, as I’ve reflected on my life in this blog, and further, as I’ve reconnected with old friends, I’ve questioned the accuracy of my recollection. Maybe it wasn’t so bad.

Memory is dynamic. It changes over time and I’m not just talking about the decay of memory. We also add information, without even realizing it. Our current state of mind also impacts what we remember and how we remember it. Imagine how this impacts our memory as we reflect time and time again about different events in our lives. It is a process that may or may not increase the accuracy of our memory but nonetheless solidifies our confidence in the correctness of recollection.

On Friday night, I attended my 30th high school reunion. I was on the reunion committee this time and I was in charge of the Facebook page for the reunion. It put me in the role of interacting with a wide number and variety of former classmates, not just the ones with whom I was friends.

By and large, it was a really fun thing to do. There are a number of interesting and kind people with whom I had the privilege of interacting in the months leading up to the reunion.

I received a lot of positive feedback for being active and inclusive in my handling of the Facebook page. It was gratifying because I worked very hard to do just that. And at the reunion a surprisingly big cheer emerged from the crowd when my name was announced as a member of the reunion committee.

People appeared to enjoy themselves a good deal last Friday. As the ”voice” of our reunion, I got more credit than I deserved for its success. A lot of people worked very hard on it, they just did so mostly behind the scenes.

The flip side of this is that by the next day, a few complaints started rolling in, some communicating privately and other posting publically.

I can’t speak for another person’s heart or mind, but a minority of the comments seemed rooted in pain from the past and negative memories of events from the past.

I attended my 20th reunion. At that time, I spent a lot of energy trying to remember everyone and our experiences. I was worried about people feeling forgotten and left out.

Something interesting happened this time, though. I went to a large high school and was managing a Facebook group that contained nearly two-thirds of my graduating class. There was no way I was going to remember all of those people so I focussed a lot more on learning about people as they currently are.

I found that this helped me reconnect with old friends at a somewhat deeper level and to make new friends with people with whom I shared a very important time of life, our childhood.

Today, I realize that this is something that my husband and I are trying to do. We started dating in our late adolescence and I have long believed that there is a residual of the tumultuous aspects of that time in our lives that carries forward continued challenges to our relationship.

Added to that, my cancer was scary and confusing. When I am disoriented, I deal with the lack of a coherent knowledge of reality by using my memories, even for mundane daily events, as milemarkers in my life, in order to regain my footing and direction. John and I, however remember daily events quite differently.

This has led John and I to spend a lot of time arguing about differences in our memories for even daily logistics. This disorients me. It feels like being on different pages of different books written in different languages.

But when John and I talk about our current feelings instead of rehashing unpleasantness from the past, even the recent past, we almost always connect at a deep level.

History is always important. Often it is important to reflect upon the past, even the painful past, in order to grow. I am learning more and more, however, to identify the times when this is not the case.

Sometimes in order to be on the same page of the same book, we have to put the book aside and talk to eachother

Categories Uncategorized

Lightbulb

August 23, 2014 //

With my strong reaction to the “there’s nothing wrong with you” Facebook posts, I knew that I had some thinking to do. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with my strong reactions per se, it’s just that when the intensity of my emotional reaction to things surprises me, it is often because I’ve hit a sore spot.

I have come a long way in accepting my imperfections. I am mostly okay with myself as an individual. I am aware that despite my faults and mistakes, I am a very good mother.

To be perfectly frank, I have complained a great deal in my life about my husband’s sensitivity to criticism. Although my complaints are not entirely unfounded, something else is also true. When my husband complains to me or criticizes me, it hits a very tender part of my heart. The part of my heart that wants to be a perfect wife. I’ve long thought that I am a good wife, maybe even a very good wife. But it is the role in my life in which I fall down the most frequently.

I am actually pretty good at taking critical feedback, in general. I had music teachers that poke and prodded and talked me through every note. I had writing teachers that had me change every single word. I’ve had patients and their family get quite mad at me. In my friendships, I would much rather be told that I am doing something that concerns or bothers another person than to just be left guessing. A former boss of mine actually told me that responding appropriately to specific negative feedback was one of my strengths as an employee. That was a truly horrible work situation, during which I experienced the onset of my first of two depressive episodes.

I haven’t gotten depressed in over a decade and I am a happy person. But part of me feels like my heart is about to be shot whenever my husband criticizes me. It doesn’t happen every time, or even the majority of the time, but it happens enough so that it is a problem. My perfectionism is gets in the way of solutions and communication, two things that build a healthy and close marriage. I put a lot of stress on myself to be the “better person” in a relationship, to function better, to need less, and to give more. That’s appropriate for a mother. It’s also appropriate for a psychologist. My parental and professional relationships are not supposed to be reciprocal. But my husband is my a partner and a peer. Being the “better person” is not an equal relationship, nor is being dependent.

This is a work in progress, people. I am a work in progress.

Tags Marriage, perfectionism

Categories Marriage, Mindfulness

Something’s wrong

August 19, 2014 //

It has happened so many times over the years that I don’t have a particular patient in mind as I write this. My first contact with a family is usually the mother of a patient. We usually talk on the phone for anywhere between 15-45 minutes so that she can get information from me and a sense of whether I am competent. And I get information about whether the referral is appropriate for me as well as a head start on honing the focus of my assessment. Mom usually tells me a list of concerns about her child. Things that don’t seem right. Things that seem harder than they should be. I am a child and adolescent clinical psychologist. Parents don’t want to meet with me if they think there is nothing wrong.

However, parents often tell their children, in front of me, “There’s nothing wrong with you.” It is meant to be a reassuring statement. It is not, even when it is said in all sincerity. (“There’s nothing wrong with you. The problem is that your school does not know how to teach you.”)

When a parent says this, it is damned confusing to a child or a teen. I mean little kids have fun when they come to my office. I play with them and mix in silly questions like, “If you had three empty swimming pools and could fill each with a different food or drink, what would you put in each one?” I also ask about things they would change about themselves if they could, questions about painful feelings, and other more heavy questions. Interviews with young children are not so much about questions and answers as how they interact with me and whether I can get a flavor for their personality and general cognitive level.

The other kids know. They know that they are struggling in school. They know that they are not getting invited to birthday parties. They know that they are getting yelled at by their parents. They know that their grades are bad. The older ones know which teachers actively dislike them.

This way of communicating sends the message that to have something wrong with oneself is too bad to speak of and must be avoided. It is a layer of non-acceptance that can make happiness very difficult. The confusion of being told that “nothing is wrong” when it is patently obvious plants the seeds of externalizing blame and/or internalizing shame, neither state being compatible with taking responsibility for one’s own life. Is it so bad to say something like, “Everyone has things they are good at and things they have to work on. You have a hard time making good choices sometimes. We will help you with this.”

This is part of the reason that the message I saw on Facebook the other day, “There’s nothing wrong with you” got me fired up. It is a seed that can grow into much unhappiness. I see so many wonderful people in my professional and personal life who struggle with perfectionism, never being satisfied that they are worthwhile and good people. I see very successful and outwardly happy people who I can tell, due to my own empathetic skills and life experience, seem like they are faking it. Pain has a way of bubbling to the surface, even when well hidden.

My own perfectionism, which has waned over the years, seems so unnecessary now. The part that remains is fairly stubborn but I will keep working on it. I know that parenting cannot stem the tide of the influence of our culture. But parenting matters and it matters a lot.

I try not to be preachy in my blog because I have tried to focus on my own personal experience. That tone is the most healthy for me. I was kind of preachy yesterday. But that’s okay. You can handle me being fired up every once in awhile. I also did not want to make my blog into a “psychologist’s blog” including advice. But today, I would like to share what I think is the very most important way to teach our children self-acceptance.

Work on your own self-acceptance. I have decided that not only am I not perfect but that perfection is a goal that is unworthy of me or of my family.

I deserve better. And so do you.

Tags mindfulness, Parenting, self-acceptance

Categories Mindfulness, Parenting

Nothing wrong

August 17, 2014 //

I had an entirely different idea for a post today. Then as I was closing Facebook in order to write it, I saw another one of those inspirational quotes that has come to make my skin crawl. There were examples of how potentially negative attributes have positive implications, as well. The ending of the quote was, “There’s nothing wrong with you.”

Why do so many feel it necessary to say this? I believe it is very unhealthy.

Everyone and I mean everyone has faults. Lots of personality qualities have both positive and negative implications. The positive implications don’t erase the negative or vice versa.

Why do we need to convince ourselves that we are somehow perfect?

We aren’t. It’s a lie. It’s an utter and outright lie.

The problem is not being imperfect. The problem is not accepting that we are still good and worthwhile despite imperfections.

There are lots of things wrong with me. There are mostly things right with me.

There are ugly things about me. There are mostly beautiful things about me, and I’m not talking about pretty.

There are dishonest things about me. I am mostly honest.

There are selfish things about me. I am mostly fair and generous.

If I have to tell myself that I am perfect to feel better about myself, how will I ever look at myself honestly, trust myself, value myself, and grow as a person?

Finally, let me put it this way. I am a clinical psychologist. My job is to help children and teens be happier and healthier. I know of no effective treatment that involves my telling my patients lies or teaching them to lie to themselves.

Honesty is the best policy and a keystone of self-acceptance.

Tags emotional honesty, imperfection, mindfulness, self-awareness, self-worth

Categories Mindfulness

Amen-opause

August 13, 2014 //

I had my penultimate Lupron shot. Yes, my second to last jab, on the right hip this time, with a syringe of Lupron stored in a package decorated with a photo of a smiling African American man, whom I am to assume is to represent a prostate cancer patient. Because, you know, both women and men love it when we get our hormones turned off by Lupron. It’s a party!

Lupron made me infertile by disrupting the signal between my pituitary gland and my ovaries. Yeah, I know, I talk a lot in my blog about breasts, a secondary sexual characteristic. However, the ovaries, primary sexual organs, are also commonly involved in breast cancer treatment. That’s because a lot of breast tumors, including the ones that were discovered in what was formerly my right breast, grew in response to progesterone and estrogen, two female hormones.

I could complain about the fact that a big part of my breast cancer treatment has been both a surgical and chemical warfare on my femininity. Remove my breast, then remove my lady chemicals. Go ahead, make me a man!

I’m not going to complain about this. Yes, losing a breast is a big deal. But that happens to many women, regardless of the hormone responsiveness of their tumors. Having had tumors that are progesterone or estrogen responsive is actually a positive prognostic indicator. Reducing hormonal activity is something that can be done to reduce the chance of breast cancer recurrence.

Chemically induced menopause is rough. I can tell you this first hand. Menopause symptoms, on average, are worse. I can tell you this, first hand. At the peak of my menopause symptoms misery, I had about 50 hot flashes EVERY DAY. Does that sound intensely uncomfortable? If yes, I have done an effective job in describing it. IT WAS RELENTLESS.

Currently, I experience almost no menopause symptoms. Also, I do not menstruate. And it is impossible for me to get pregnant. In other words, I am in a state of bliss.

It is likely temporary. Lupron does not permanently shut down my ovaries. In six months, my body will be adapting to the absence of Lupron. I will be 49 years old. At that time, I may become fertile again. My menopause may pause! Thanks a lot, menopause! Let me get used to you for two years and then throw a wrench into the works!

Yes, Virginia, I’m going to have to start thinking about birth control again. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

The last time I took a pregnancy test was at least five years ago. I knew it was unlikely that I was pregnant, but things were not as usual, and I wanted to be sure.

Based on my family history, I am likely to go back to a peri-menopausal state after I discontinue my Lupron shots. In other words, it unlikely that I will be able to conceive, but still possible. My last method of contraception was an I.U.D, which I loved, but then had to have removed, because it secreted female hormones, and I am not allowed to have those.

Yes, I know that I am solely responsible for contraception. And I have talked to my nearly 50 year old husband about perhaps, just perhaps, getting a vasectomy. The first time I raised the issue was when I was 37 years old. I did not raise it again until I was a breast cancer patient, nearly 10 years later. Neither conversation went particularly well. In my husband’s defense, I probably raised it too early the first time, and the second time, he was likely stressed by the prospect of his wife dying.

I may be a two time champion of menopause achievement. It is not a title that I particularly relish but I guess they are far worse things in life to bear, like CANCER!!!!

Tags Breast Cancer, contraception, Fertility, Lupron, Menopause

Categories Breast cancer

None of my business

August 12, 2014 //

As I’ve mentioned before, I am a fan of the show, RuPaul’s Drag Race. It is a comedy reality competition show. The contestants are drag performers. RuPaul Charles, who is a famous drag performer who also sings, created the show and hosts it.

RuPaul is a gay man in his early 50s. He dresses in women’s clothing when he performs. You know that he’s been called all kinds of names, been gossiped about, and beat up, many times in his life. One of the expressions he uses in his books (yes, I’ve read more than one of his autobiographies) and on the show is, “What other people think of me is none of my business.”

For those of us who are plagued with self-doubt, who feel lack of validation, who perceive and/or receive rejection from others, this is a very powerful statement.

At first, it sounds like a joke or some overly glib line.

How other people treat you is your business. These are actions.

But how many times have we read each others’ minds when we really don’t know? I know that I have done this a lot in my life, less so in recent years. But I still do it. We can’t know what another person is thinking. And if we did, pandemonium would ensue!

When I consider what people would hear if they could read my thoughts, I know that I would lose all of my friends and family. We all have careless half thoughts, mean thoughts, selfish thoughts, critical thoughts. But we have other thoughts, too. And sometimes, we may have a very nasty thought about someone, in the heat of the moment, only to soften later. I don’t want you to read my thoughts because they are private. It is my right to share them or not share them. In other words, they are my business.

And you know what else is my business? How I feel about me. Yes, I may sound like a children’s show, but think about it. What would your life be like if you worked toward accepting this in your heart?

“What someone else thinks of me is none of my business.”

Tags privacy, rejection sensitivity, RuPaul, self-criticism., self-worth

Categories Feelings, Mindfulness

Homework buddy

August 12, 2014 //

Robin Williams was my middle school homework buddy. Yes, I used to do my homework in front of the television, which is a very bad habit. (Shhhhh, don’t tell my patients or my daughter.) As I recall, Mork and Mindy was a smash hit almost as soon as it debuted. Even as a kid, I could tell that the writing on that show was not that great. And some of the characters were not funny. But Robin Williams improvised a lot of his dialogue. He was fast, charming, impish, hilarious, and able to switch from utterly naive to lascivious in a split second.

As a young teen girl it was not lost on me that he was damned cute. So cute that despite my preference for clean cut boys (remember, I was a very young girl) who were on the pubescent side, I looked past Robin’s manly mane of chest hair that could clearly be seen peaking out of the top of his rainbow colored t-shirts. Mork was a stand up guy even when he’d sneak a dirty joke into each off his lightning fast riffs on the English language, pop culture, history, and astronomy.

Robin Williams went on to be a star and a good actor. I loved him as the lead in The World According to Garp. Very funny, very sweet. This was also the first time I noticed the sadness in his eyes. There is a common image of a comedian or a comedic actor as a “sad clown”. I don’t think that all funny people have to be sad but I do know that a good deal of famous funny people are sad. Frankly, I think most celebrities are sad. There is the drive to get attention with so much rejection interspersed. The attention and recognition are so inconsistent. When they come, I imagine it is like the high of a drug and you can never get enough.

I went on to enjoy most of his films over the intervening years and then he became involved in my school work once again in March of 1997. I was living in Florida at the time for my psychology internship. I had flown back to Chapel Hill, North Carolina for a couple of days because I was defending my doctoral dissertation. The doctoral defense is a centuries old tradition going back to the Middle Ages and deserving of its own post. Let’s just say that it is the day I wore a business suit, presented my dissertation research to five professors, they peppered me with questions for an hour and a half, then made me wait in the hallway for a half an hour while they determined whether I would get my Ph.D. or not. The whole thing lasted three hours and was the culmination of 6 1/2 years of graduate school.

There was another notable occasion occurring on campus that day. Robin Williams was just a little ways away filming Patch Adams. And I missed him! My friend and fellow graduate student, Jawana did not miss him. I excitedly asked her, “What was he like?” She replied, “He’s a small hairy man.” Ha! Not very nice, Jawana! Robin probably noticed this himself. Perhaps he would have compared himself to a muppet. Hairy, funny, and adorable.

Robin Williams, the world is never going to forget you and I’m not just saying that because I’m sad that you’re gone. You were a singular sensation. I could see the sadness behind your eyes. I could see the addiction to attention as well as other substances. The mania that delighted us when it was at the right speed. Nonetheless, you shocked me. You had lived through so much and escaped alive. You were 63 and somehow even though I’d heard you’d gone back to rehab, I thought you’d keep yourself around.

I am a professional who knows better. I was naive and hopeful. I thought you had enough Mork in you to keep you alive.

To feel alone with such love around you must have been devastating. I didn’t know you but you knew how to make me smile. Rest in peace.

Tags comedy, Mental Illness, Robin Williams, suicide

Categories Not Cancer-the other part of my life

Learning my ABCD’s

August 11, 2014 //

There’s a famous developmental model in clinical psychology developed by Drs. Mark Greenberg and Carol Kusche. It is rooted in the larger cognitive behavioral model. The model is called, “ABCD”. It refers to Affect (emotion), Behavior, Cognition, and the Dynamic interplay among them. Because it is a developmental model, it refers to this interplay not only in a particular moment, but across time.

Sometimes AB and C work together in cohesion. Often they work at odds with one another. Sometimes they work in cohesion but in a way that is not healthy. “I am angry with you and I’m beating the shit out of you because I believe I am entitled to beat the shit out of anyone I don’t like for any reason.”
I know that many of us strive to live more peaceful, loving, and cohesive lives. And for extra credit, we are decent and upstanding people. I have worked hard over the years to live a life that is cohesive and healthy. I have focused on this in particular in my mindfulness practices in the last couple of years.

I am pretty happy. In general, I live a pretty balanced and cohesive life that makes sense. To be perfectly honest, I sometimes watch people I love say they want to be a certain kind of person, living by certain values, and then make choices that totally contradict their stated goals without apparent knowledge of this discrepancy. I have tried to make a habit of turning inward at these times. I am getting better at it. Bit by bit.

I decided a few weeks ago to dig deeply into the parts of myself that I try to avoid. To be honest, it is a narrow part of me but it runs very deeply, and when I hit it, it is very painful.

I know I am a good person who does mostly very good things. But there are areas in which I fail. Areas in which I let fears, irrational thoughts, and habits drive behaviors that are very much out of line with my values.

I lose my temper with my husband. I respond to situations as if they are much bigger than they really are. Sometimes, I let other people’s unhealthy behavior toward me define my own sense of worth. At times, I take on a love one’s hurt not only as if it were my own but as if it were my responsibility to fix. Sometimes these misfires of affect, behavior, cognition, and their dynamic interplay are brief. Other times, they play out over the years, like increasingly gnarled tree roots underground. I can feel them. I know they are there but I can’t see them.

I know I am not alone in this. No one is perfect. But I’m tired of feeling happy and balanced so much of the time only to find myself acting grouchy, ridiculous, and sometimes outright mean, when I pass my stress tolerance. I used to live my life very near or at capacity so I stressed very easily. It’s not so easy now so I figure this is a particularly good time to work on this.

There is a concept of “radical acceptance” in mindfulness meditation. In my understanding, it means observing our own painful thoughts and feelings and allowing them to be, instead of resisting them.

This is why my blog sometimes reads like a confessional. I am, however, not seeking reassurance or absolution. I am trying to better understand myself and be a more balanced person.

I am also trying to show that it is possible to be a happy person without being a perfect person. Over the past year, I have begun to view a lot of coping statements people use as being counterproductive for me. I don’t like telling myself “beauty is only skin deep” or “fat is beautiful” when I am not feeling good about my body. Similarly, in terms of aging, I don’t want to tell myself, “I’m only as old as I feel” or “age is only a number.” I would like to keep working to a point where I say things to myself like, “I am overweight. That may not be the greatest for my health. What do I want to do?” Or, “I am getting older. I’ve had a serious illness. I’m living a pretty healthy life now, doing the best that I can. I think I will get on with my day.”

I am working to get to a point where self-examination is objective and leads to serenity or agency. I am getting there but I still have much further to go. I am trying to take apart the mechanism, bit by bit, that turns self-examination into doubts of worth.

I used to think that having a balanced life meant almost never feeling stress and shuffling through the states of joy, bliss, serenity, faith, hope, and resolve. I actually had a friend years ago who practiced mindfulness, who seemed this way. Then there was the day I tried to say something empathetic about her stress level because we were all working hard. She quickly and somewhat sharply told me that she “never” got stressed. Then I knew. She was one of the rest of us.

People are complicated. Life is complicated. We spend our whole lives at A, B, C, & D. And thank goodness. I want to live a long life and how boring would it be to have it all figured out.

Tags ABCD model in clinical psychology, mindfulness, radical acceptance, self-examination

Categories Breast cancer, Family, Marriage, Mindfulness

Infractions

August 10, 2014 //

I am generally a patient and polite person. There are a few situations, however, that can get me fired up in a hurry. One of them is when people don’t take “no” for an answer. If you call me at home and are trying to sell me something, I will say “No, thank you.” If you keep talking, I will say, “Please put me on your do not call list” and hang up.

If you are the outreach director for a private tutoring and one-on-one school, who calls me repeatedly to set up a meeting even though I have told you I cannot do so, due to cancer treatment, I will be irritated with you and tell you that your calls aren’t welcome and to please stop. Guess what happened today? The same woman showed up to my office, uninvited. Do you know how many uninvited visitors I get in my little office with it’s discrete location? About one per year. I told her, “No, I am not able to meet with you. I know about your school. I asked you not to contact me.” She replied, “But I thought that you just didn’t want me to CALL you.”

“Coming to my office uninvited is even more intrusive than calling. Please don’t contact me again.” She apologized and left.

Keep in mind that I ordinarily accept meetings with people from private schools and tutoring businesses. But this woman happened to call when I was going through intensive cancer treatment. I told her that, also told her that I would contact her in the future if I wanted to meet. But she kept calling and today, she showed up on my doorstep. I have actually referred families to this school and I will likely continue to do so because the person who does marketing is not the same as the people who provide the educational services.

Honestly, I feel mean when I set limits like this. But I also feel justified in being firm and direct. These hard sell tactics rely on people’s inclination toward politeness and needing to be seen as “nice”. The strategy is one that takes advantage of most people’s positive nature. I know the people who are not taking my “no” for an answer are probably not thinking of it that way. But the strategy itself is extremely disrespectful.

Hmm, is it really “extremely disrespectful”? It is disrespectful for sure. But the fact that my heart rate is still slightly elevated and I still feel residual anger about this intrusion tells me that it is time for me to explore why this situation set me off so.

I am by nature, a generous and helpful person. My parents are also generous people. But I also remember growing up, thinking that they had trouble saying “no” when asked for a favor. (It doesn’t seem this way so much now, so I wonder if I remember correctly.) It was like it was bad to even ask because my parents would say “yes” unless it was a telemarketer. (When vacuum cleaner salesmen called, my mom would always say, “I have dirt floors.” Ha!)

When I am asked for something, my initial inclination is to give it. But I have learned over the years that this is not always a good idea and in some situations, it is downright unhealthy. I can take time and energy away from my family, friends, patients, and from myself. I have also learned that there are people in life who will ask over and over again, giving nothing in return. And then there are the people who don’t even ask, they just take.

When I say “no”, I have already gotten myself to do something that I am not typically inclined to do. When the “no” goes unheeded, I feel unheard. Oh dear, there’s a trigger. I hate it when I don’t think people are listening to me. When I am unheard, I start repeating myself, I get stern, I may interrupt. I don’t feel generous. I feel in need of protection. The word that keeps popping into my head but I haven’t yet written it down because it feels too strong is “violated”. I feel violated. Do I feel helpless? No, I don’t but I feel very very wronged and that I may lose something of myself, the years to building up assertiveness and confidence, if I back down.

I often used my writing on this blog as a way to figure out a puzzle. I think I have gained insight in writing this but really, I am only scratching the surface and there is much to be uncovered. I think that this triggering experience comes from some kind of combination of my personality, my experiences as an individual, and my experiences as a woman. I’m not really sure and I will never really know. I do know that my tendency toward strong reaction negatively impacts my relationship with my daughter and with my husband. With my professional life, I am able to regain external composure even if feel internal strain.

I will keep working on this.

Note: I actually wrote this post several days ago and didn’t publish it because it felt unsettled. I am currently exploring the situations that are most triggering for me, “buttons” that when pushed, elicit an irrational response. I am trying to shrink these buttons. As I say, I will keep working on this, as unfinished and unpolished as it is. But it is as it is.

Tags emotion management, emotional triggers, interpersonal boundaries, mindfulness, self-assertion

Categories Feelings, Marriage, Mindfulness, Parenting

Twinge

August 8, 2014 //

About five minutes ago, I was trying to remember why this date is important. “Is today someone’s birthday?” I looked at the calendar. August 8th. The memory came to me accompanied by a small visceral twinge. Two years ago today, I had a right side mastectomy. Last year, the date took me by surprise, too. But when I remembered, I sobbed uncontrollably, on and off, for three days.

The sensation in my pectoral muscles has returned somewhat. I can feel pressure beneath my reconstructed breast. My kittens reminded me of this yesterday when they were chasing each other around the house, tearing through the living room. They both used me as part of their race track and kept running across my chest.

My abdomen is still numb, though this continues to dissipate. The plastic surgery nurse, who had the same reconstructive surgery as me, a TRAM, told me that the numbness lasted about three years for her. I also noticed that although my body doesn’t feel the same way it did before, it feels like mine.

I’ve noticed other physical changes. Last night, my husband went out for a late dinner and a walk along Alki Point, a beautiful seaside area. Along the walk, we were able to see the downtown skyline, the water, and two mountain ranges. We walked about two miles to a restaurant on the other side of the point, ate on a balcony overlooking the Puget Sound and the Olympic Mountains, and then we walked back two miles to where our car was parked. John had to pick up our daughter from band practice, so we were in a bit of a hurry walking back.

As usual, I had my camera with me and as usual, there were interesting photo opportunities along the way. We agreed that John would just keep walking, at his normal pace and I would stop to take photos whenever I wanted as long as I could run and catch up with him. That way, he wouldn’t be late. I have a long hate-hate relationship with running. Actually, it is just strong dislike. But I thought I could probably do it.

There was one spot that was particularly photogenic, so I took several shots. Then I needed to run to catch up with my long-legged man. It took me awhile to catch up. When I did, I noted to John, “Hey, I’m not breathing hard.” After complimenting me, he said, “What’s it been, about five years since you’ve run that far?” I laughed. “John, it’s been about twenty years since I ran that far!”

Breast cancer is awful, there’s no doubt. Cancer is powerful and destructive. It is nice, however, that healing and resilience are also powerful.