You have such a good humor about all this...

"Look, in my life you either laugh or cry, there is nothing in between." Elizabeth Glaser

And so, I've been laughing...

I spent the first week or so after my sentencing(diagnosis) in complete shock and denial, and the next three weeks wavering between anger and feeling extremely sorry for myself. By the month mark, I thought I'd accepted things and was fine... You see up until very recently, my range of emotional vocabulary was thus: fine, not fine, and angry (I'm slowly learning to recognize and label other emotions I previously couldn't).

I've always been told/thought I had a pretty high threshold for pain, and physically I think I'm withstanding a lot right now, considering; but nothing prepared me for this overwhelming tidal wave of sadness that nearly drowned me yesterday. I knew at some point a not fine feeling would resurface, but I wasn't expecting the magnitude and sheer force I was blindsided with.

The thing is, in the past, I never managed my pain, I just disassociated myself from it. So while I may have experienced a lot of painful situations, physically, emotionally, spiritually, I never learned how to process and deal with any of that pain. I just sidestepped it.

I feel so raw and vulnerable, like an emo-chick entering menopause. A drink sounds like a really good idea right now. Two dozen donuts sound like an even better idea. Three boxes of It's-its sounds phenomenal! Something, anything, to get me away from this feeling, to get me away from me. But a drink isn't the solution. Stuffing my face full of donuts, or It's-its isn't the solution. Not feeling my emotions is not the solution. Learning to sit through and deal with pain in a healthy way is what I need to do. And I sure am doing a whole lot of sitting lately! (I sat for 3 hours and did a puzzle, start to finish, the other day. Holy cow.)



Someone recently told me that pain is beautiful... I told her she was full of shit. I do think pain is necessary for growth, though. This is a learning experience, right?

This illness is going to prove to be a good thing(it'd better!), in that it's stripping away all my defenses and pride and escape-routes.

Now, if I could just make it a day without bleeding from one of my orifices...