Saturday, January 11, 2025

 Saturday, January 11, 2025

      My back hurt so much last night that I took two ibuprofen before going to bed. For me to take any pain medication means the situation was dire. While I slept peacefully and pain-free, getting out of bed changed all that. I was back in pain again.  My condition eliminated any possibility of getting gardening done. I did pick up some green waste from the ground. Interestingly, that made my back feel better. I also used the massage gun. That bruised my back but didn't relieve the pain.

  I didn't have any students today.  It felt okay.

   Dean and Nina came over to play Sorry.  We have a standing date. It's one of the highlights of my week.  My back bothered me while we played.  I shifted position every now and then to relieve the pain.   Before Nina left, she put a large Salon Pas on the affected area. 

   Damon called as Nina was applying it. Once I lowered my shirt, I walked away. I was out of the house before they were. I realized it was rude. I wasn't feeling well, and I had to grab Damon when he was available. I always enjoyed talking to him.

   After I got off the phone, I called Nina to apologize. Dean thanked me for 'throwing them out.'  Because I did, they made it home before the skies opened. They got home in time to get their laundry off the line. They were sweet. They were lying through their teeth, but very sweet.

   I finally tried an ice pack on my back. Bingo! The pain disappeared completely. I may be in better shape now than I was before the spasm started. My fear of spending the rest of my life in unbearable pain was over.  Wow!!

   The Grief Recovery course I'm taking is giving me major grief.  It boldly goes where every psychopathic leader has gone before: nothing else will help you; the only thing of worth is what I have to offer.   Put a program with language like that in the hands of a rigid authoritarian thinker, and you have the perfect nightmare. Of course, I'm her perfect nightmare, too.  The leader's problem isn't sociopathology anymore than it was my mother's. It results from being squashed at every turn in an authoritarian system.  The difference is that my recovery is somewhat better than hers, but not by much.  We're both reacting to systems that allow only one way to think: theirs, whomever that happens to be.  

    This program claims to be structured along the lines of AA meetings.  I've only been to one AA meeting, by invitation of a friend, and several Alanon meetings when I was dealing with my mother-in-law.  From what I've seen, the grief course bears little resemblance. 

     The AA meetings and any in that vein are large group affairs. People connect with each other not only because they all have the same problem but also because there is a stable core of connected people.   Wherever you go, you can count on a group of regulars to be sufficiently connected with each other to set the tone of the meeting.  They're a stable core. Their relationships have been forged over time.  It may be a different group each time they meet, but it is always people who have hammered out their relationships.  The grief group is a group of relative strangers.  No one has touched the core of another person. These are all superficial relationships. Howw will we connect sufficiently to be an effective healing group?