Shameful Sharing Part 1:
Every time I hear about anything medically serious with someone, I am secretly jealous. When I read about any kind of disaster with fatalities in the news, I feel jilted, like someone else won the lottery and here I am, buying tickets everyday and never winning.
This makes me feel like an asshole. Because these are asshole-y thoughts. But they seem to be normal for someone who feels trapped in an exhausting dance with Grief as her partner. I want the dance to end.
I try to keep these thoughts to myself. I'm ashamed of them, and they're disturbing for others to hear. They can also be misinterpreted as suicidal thoughts, which pre-grief I would have thought, too. But they're not. They're something in their own category- one in which other grievers seem to understand completely, but the rest of us find incredibly unsettling. And I get that.
I've explained before that I'm not suicidal. When I follow that up by sharing detailed visions of all the ways in which I wish I would die- like RIGHT NOW die, it can send a bit of a mixed message.
And I get that, too.
I think if I were a drinker, I'd have a few on a regular basis to mellow out the discomfort of constant missing, revisiting guilt, and waking up each day with that same shock and devastation. But I don't. Smoking's out, too. I do binge watch the occasional show on tv or go down the rabbit hole of Youtube cat videos until the wee hours of the morning, but a real easing up of this incredibly intense sadness hasn't been experienced.
Yes, I can feel joy. Yes, I can laugh. And those were two things I couldn't do in the beginning. ("See! You're getting better! There it is! Evidence! Let's all just move on then!") Not so fast. It's like this- the joy is felt and then I get hit with a double-whammy of grief right afterwards. Or the laughter is there and what people don't see is I'm also about a millisecond away from crying, and I mean
hard, because he would have found this funny, too, or because it reminds me of how much he made me laugh, or a myriad of other things in my head that serve as a constant push to the head underwater.
I can't breathe down here, people.
So...what does my brain do? It gives me moments of escape. Most of the scenarios have to be creative because the normal litany of suicidal thoughts are out of the question for me. I won't. I refuse. And I witness up close the unraveling of the ones left behind after the loss of my sweet cousin Jessica.
I'd have to be a double-asshole to even consider suicide as an option. It's just not. Not for me.
So...in that case, I'm fucked. I am to wait it out. To hope to have a wall collapse as I'm just walking down the sidewalk (like the clip I just saw on CNN- 2 dead), or a plane land on me while I'm walking on the beach (like the news story from Florida last year). I rode the new monorail in Daegu this weekend and as I looked down while we floated above the city, I hoped for a structural failure.
I drive down the street and will various pieces of steel to slide off trucks and crash through my windshield.
I try visualization as a tool to create a bubble in my veins which will travel to my heart and burst in the night while I'm sleeping.
I listen through my bedroom window to the night trains pass over the tracks and wonder what that would be like. How does one lay down on the tracks? How terrible for the conductor. It's hard to create a scenario where someone is not left reeling from trauma. I refuse to be a gifter of trauma. What a shitty gift.
I have little scenes that play out in my head- all of which work like a little sedative. My heart stills. My breathing slows. My muscles relax. For a moment, for one fucking moment I am not thinking about his death. Because I'm thinking of mine.
This is how it is different from being suicidal: none of these are plans. They're wishes. I don't plan to go into a rough neighborhood late at night and ask someone to shoot me. I do, however, picture walking down a dark street and getting caught in the crossfire of a long-standing feud.
I have zero plans of flinging myself from a tall building. I do, however, wish when I am on the roof of my apartment, that a freak gust of wind knocks me down or a deranged tenant pushes me off. This is what I'm thinking as I'm hanging my clean, white sheets up there on the roof to dry. This is what's playing in my head even as I'm smiling about something that happened earlier that day or singing a bit of "The Girl from Ipanema." I am thinking about dying. I am thinking about not being here.
I don't want it anymore, and I know that makes people sad. It makes me feel like I'm telling the truth. A truth that has zero effect on me being alive or dead, because I will not do anything to speed the process. I am not suicidal. I will not kill myself. Read and repeat those lines as many times as you need to let it sink in, because they are also words of truth.
"But Bridget, hang on...it gets better." And it has. It's downgraded from Hurricane Holy Fuck I Just Watched the Man I Love Quickly Lose It and Die a Tragic Death to Tropical Storm Worst Breakup You've Ever Known. Most of us have felt that- a terrible, terrible breakup with the crying and the trouble eating and the friends trying to cheer you up but sometimes you just need to watch three movies in a row and cry through all of them. We've all had that. And it lasts about, oh, 2 months for the worst part, and then we start to kind of come out of it. A year later, we often can't even remember what it was to feel such sadness for a person we're now kind of grateful we're no longer dating. We see how it was "a gift" and we're stronger for it.
I've progressed from 24-hour bursting of the vessels in the eye sobbing to just a constant state of feeling like I've just had a terrible breakup. That feeling. The one we've all had. But unlike an actual breakup, this state is going on. And on. And on. For months. "It gets better" is starting to feel like the biggest crock of shit I've ever been served.
And I'm sick at the thought that there may be a part of me who thinks I don't deserve for it to get better. That this is the penance of abandoning a love in need. I'm not conscious of this feeling- as it seems one I worked through and worked through and got to a place of understanding about. But it's possible. It's hard to say. It's just not. getting. better. And "it will" is little consolation when I wake up every morning wearing this wet, woolen coat of sadness.
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Shameful Sharing, Part Two: Humor in the Ridiculousness of it All
The other night I was lying on my couch, staring at the ceiling. I had just binge-watched season 3 of "Girls" and was taking advantage of the fumes of someone else's creative thoughts put into television to keep me from going through my own. This lasted about 5 minutes and, bam, swift descent into grief. I'm used to this. I usually experience it after I've held it off for hours or even (when I'm really skilled/busy) for days.
Now I'm on my couch, staring at the ceiling, and I'm wishing I were dead. Shameful scenarios play out again, and this time, almost out of desperation, I google "when will I die."
It was ridiculous.
Just as ridiculous is the fact I found plenty of links to sites claiming to determine an accurate number of years left one has on this earth depending on their lifestyle. I clicked on one, excited to get the news like the departure date for a long-awaited vacation.
Do I smoke? No.
Do I drink? No.
Do I eat healthy food? Yes.
Do I exercise? Yes.
Has anyone died of disease in my family. No.
I could see where this was going, and it wasn't looking good for me.
I clicked the submit button and....
"Congratulations! You will live to be 91 years old!"
And I began sobbing. Not just regular sobbing, but the kind where my hands cover my face and I roll back and forth to the right and the left and scream out, "I can't do it! I can't do it that long! Noooooo!"
And, that, my friends, is irony.
I tried another site after that, hoping for another number. Perhaps in the 40s. Or even 50s, if I had to. But the second one only shaved 5 years off, having me die at a ripe age of 86. The wails were audible to my neighbors, I'm sure.
Can anyone else see the humor in this? Some part of me, floating above this reality, could. This is fucking hilarious, Bridget. Give it up.
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Shameful Sharing, Part Three: I Want Your Cancer
I was recently at a birthday party for the 2-year-old son of friends of mine. Several of us were chatting it up on the patio as the meat was grilling.
Friend 1 (to Friend 2): So, how's it going with the spot on your nose? I see a little patch there. Is it going to smooth over?
Old Me:
Oh...I hadn't noticed that. What happened there?
Friend 2: Oh, I had a spot removed. It was cancerous, actually.
Grief Me:
I want nose cancer.
Old Me:
For FUCK'S SAKE, Bridget. That's a terrible thing to think.
Grief Me:
Well, I do.
Old Me: That's scary. How did you find out about it?
Grief Me:
Yeah, tell me how to get nose cancer.
Old Me:
There's not even such a thing as NOSE cancer. It's SKIN cancer, you idiot. And I'm trying to have a serious conversation here.
Friend 2: Well, I had this thing...like a little scab...except it wasn't going away. And it would fall off but a new scab would just appear.
Old Me: And so you just went in and had them take a look at it?
Friend 2: Uh-huh.
Grief Me:
That settles it. If I find a reappearing scab on my body, I'm not going in to have it checked out. I'll just leave it there.
Old Me:
Knock it off. Seriously. I'm trying to be present to this guy. That's a scary thing for him.
Grief Me:
But not for me. I'll take his nose cancer.
Old Me:
Do you even hear what you're saying? You KNOW people with cancer.
Grief Me:
Yeah, and I want it.
Old Me:
That's disgusting. Seriously. Shameful. How do you think they would feel if they knew you thought this way? Maud? Who'd give anything to be promised the rest of her life will be cancer-free?
Grief Me:
That's just the thing, though. I'm over here. Volunteering. My hand is up. Choose me, Universe. Choose me! Leave Maud and Chris and all those who had it and all those who will be diagnosed with it later alone. I want it. The big kind. The fast or slow kind. The one that kills you.
Old Me:
You'd feel differently if it actually happened to you.
Grief Me:
Maybe. Maybe not.
Old Me (to Friend 2): I'm glad you're ok.
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Shameful Sharing, Part Four: Please, Let This Mole Be Trouble
So, I have this small mole on my right thigh. It gets covered with what seems like dry skin bordering on a scab, which is delightfully gratifying to scratch off. I came home from the birthday party (above) with a new sense of glee. Leg cancer. And, boy, did this make me feel like a super-asshole (see shameful sharing part 1). My double-cancer-fighting dear friend will revoke my friendship card. My newly-diagnosed friend in my grief group will block me from facebook so she doesn't have to be reminded that such an insensitive jerk is alive out here on the internet.
That's me. Insensitive jerk. And I really don't want to be. It's just the loud chatter of my head. The escape hatch constantly being pulled back and I'm invited to look inside. Sometimes a gun's in there. Sometimes it's a highrise building. Sometimes it's cancer. These thoughts, the please let me get cancer thoughts, are the most shameful of them all. That's like someone saying to me, "Man, my boyfriend's such an asshole. I wish
he'd fall out of a window." Or saying to someone with an eating disorder, "Man, I wish
I could have an eating disorder! I need to lose weight!" (I've actually heard this.)
People are assholes. And I'm afraid I'm no better.
I want leg cancer. I want this little mole to be currently marking the spot where bad cells are dividing and burrowing their way into my bone. I want advancement of this like no body's business and I don't want any "Oh, you're so lucky they caught that when they did!" I don't want it to get caught.
"But you don't mean that."
Oh, but I do. And I said it. Delete button and blinking cursor be damned. You love me? I'm glad. I love you, too. And the reality is by loving me, you love someone who doesn't want to be alive anymore. That's sucky. I know. It feels sucky to me, too.
And the fact that I just stared at that last paragraph and kept repeating "Don't delete it. Don't delete it. Don't delete it" means that at least- and this is kind of a huge thing- I want to live authentically if I'm meant to live here. Right now. With all of you.
This is exactly where I am. The uncomfortable reality of it. And I appreciate how uncomfortable it is for you. And for me. None of this is easy.
But, when I hit "publish" on this post, I will have not a single thing to hide. Somewhere, in the deepest part of me, I am putting myself before you and saying, "If this isn't horrible enough for you to dismiss me as a friend, a person, someone you love, then how about you and I stick this thing out? Together."
