Sunday, February 27, 2022

 Sunday, February 27, 2022  

     The early morning hours were hell. I had one surge after another. I've had a few before, but this went on for hours. At first, I thought they were surges of shame. Then I realized they were surges of fear which triggered shame. These surges of fear were caused by shocks reminiscent of the shocks I constantly received from my mother. She had PTSD. She came by it honestly; she had suffered several traumas: my mom was subjected to a medical intervention during the first six months of her life that would have left most people insane, and she was a refugee from Nazi Germany, forced to emigrate from her beloved country to a place where she didn't even I know the language at the age of thirty-four.

        I was born three years after her arrival here. I was her first child. My sister did not experience her as I did. She describes my mother as excitable. I describe her as explosive. My experience of her during my infancy was more intense than my sister's. She had so many things to be frightened of, not to mention being a first-time mother when she had limited to no contact with infants before she gave birth. It had to be scary. She was always nervous about everything; it must have been intense right after I was born. I imagine her charging into the room, giving her karate cries of alarm as she responded to my cries. Scary. 

    Besides her constant excessive criticism was the explosiveness of her delivery. I modeled it in a therapy group. Everyone jumped. The therapist told me not to do that again. It was the equivalent of touching a hot stove. I've never been tasered or hit with a cattle prod, but it was on that order. She must have delivered ten to twenty of those shocks a day. At ten a day, that's 300 a month and 36,000 a year. Mike described me as someone who had been tortured. I knew it was bad as I was growing up. She was scary. Here I am now, trying to free myself of the grip of those eighteen years of shocks. 

     That said, I want to make it clear that my mom did the best she could. She wasn't dealt a good hand. It wasn't an era of introspection, and she didn't understand her impact on me. It was when people believed that children could survive anything with no consequences. She was devoted to her children. 

   My foot wasn't 100% as I started walking, but it did reasonably well. As I sat after my walk, my leg and foot throbbed. All the muscles in the back of my leg were tight. I did two MELT treatments on my neck, upper, and lower back. It helped, but the pain in my foot and leg came back. I was getting worried. Could I continue to believe that my problems came more from my back than my hip? Time would tell.

    The other day I ran into the head of the local dance school on the check-out line at Island Naturals. I recalled she had a problem a few years ago and limped. She was downright sprightly today. She told me she had a THR, the dancer's model. It was a standard posterior incision. Watching her bounce around made me reconsider my thoughts on the subject. Katie said I wouldn't like it because of my hyperkinetic awareness. Virginia must have the same problem. I have an appointment in April with the orthopedic surgeon. We'll see.

   I called Darby on one of my short walks during the day. I called when I was standing in front of her house. I continued walking. A truck stopped near me. The driver asked if I knew where a street was. No. But Darby chimed in. She had heard the name of the street, and she did know. It was a serendipity moment that brought delight. 

        I had the M & W sisters in the afternoon. We continued the work we did yesterday. It went well with both of them. Fifth grade W admitted she was beginning to enjoy our work revising her story. The test of this approach is her independent writing. At least she doesn't feel weighed down as we do this work anymore. 

   I had dinner with a new friend. Well, that was a disaster. She can be an excellent companion, full of stories. I saw another side of her before. She had difficulty abandoning a rigid point of view, and I heard her complain about others.   I had seen the warnings. On this night, she spent our whole time together complaining about what others had done. Then she asks, "Why would someone do something like that?" Me, the fool I am, rush in to explain why someone would behave differently than she thought they should. Well, forget that. 

    I see this woman as fragile. Anyone with rigid thinking has a problem. I have a family member who combines rigid thinking with arrogance. Is that ever unattractive! When I countered her complaints, she could not let go of her point of view. My stomach was roiling. Things went from bad to worse. I snapped. I spoke harshly. As I did, I heard Mike whispering, "Be gentle!" Good luck, gentle is not in my wheelhouse. The woman became pathetic. She can't stand any opposition. Oh, dear. Not a good pairing for me – or for her.