Feeling better...

I want to say Thank You to all who left kind and helpful comments on my last post.  First, let me say... it is immensely helpful to hear of others' experiences.  At a minimum, it is validating, but there were some truly helpful things offered up.  I have such kind and thoughtful commenters.

While it is surely clear to anyone visiting my blog on a regular basis, that I'm no stranger to overthinking, I've come to realize that what I've been recently experiencing wasn't/isn't that.  Or isn't simply that.  I'm pleased to say that I am feeling better for longer stretches of time over the last week, and I think that is true for several reasons. 

First of all, I have some really great people in my life.  People who evidently do, sometimes, ask me how I'm doing.  One friend spontaneously did just that days after I published last week's post.  

The two of us were leaving an event, and the encounter wasn't long.  But it was private-ish and allowed for a bit of a conversation.  While I didn't elaborate to her all the various unsettling memories I had been dealing with, the one thing I did share received a response that was so validating, it was almost instantly healing.  My friend's response was like fresh air and light on a recently reopened wound that I had been trying (unsuccessfully) to just "get over".  

She didn't rationalize away the situation in which the wound was inflicted.  She also didn't demonize the one whose words had cut me to the quick.  All she did was see the wound for what it was and entered into my hurt for a few moments.  And she gave me a hug.  

To be clear, I know the wound hadn't been intentional.  I'm sure the one who inflicted it has no idea the damage that was done in her few words that took all of 5 seconds to say.  I'm pretty sure, if I were to write out the situation here, most people wouldn't give the exchange a second thought. In fact, I'm not sure if I hadn't been in the fragile state I was at the time (going into surgery to remove my infected port), that I would even appreciate how careless were the words that were spoken - in this case by a doctor.  It wasn't until I had permission to see my wound as valid and without trying to rationalize it away, that the shackles around that particular memory started to crumble and fall away.  And amazingly, my painful thoughts surrounding other more justifiably haunting experiences have eased - almost completely it seems.  At least for the moment.  I think, perhaps, I just needed the freedom to see my haunts without justifying/excusing why they happened in the first place.  

This experience has led me to the following thoughts - most of which I've added after publication, unfortunately, but here goes...

I'm sure this isn't the first time I've experienced this kind of healing of my emotions, but it was so profound this time, I hope I am forever changed by it.  While I think I've understood the importance of validating others' thoughts and feelings (I wrote about it in my last post), I am also prone (as many of us are, I have learned) to want to help the other person see the various sides of a situation.  I think what we're trying to do is help the hurting person's rational brain see that they don't have to suffer all the bad feelings and thoughts they may be caught up in.  

Being on the receiving end of that kind of "help", though, a few times over the last year, I now understand just how unhelpful rationalizing and advice-giving responses usually are.  And, here's why I've come to that conclusion...  

I suspect that many of us attempt to rationalize away our painful experiences. I have no idea if it's actually rational to rationalize this stuff, but for me, it's often a first-line coping mechanism.  When it happens naturally, I don't know that it's an unhealthy thing to do.  But most good things, when taken to an extreme can become very unhealthy.  A, perhaps overly simple, example:  Overlooking an offense is good, but being a doormat leads to an unhealthy mental state, and possibly abuse.

If it is a natural inclination to rationalize our painful experiences, we certainly don't need someone else to offer the same (or other) rationalizations to our already cluttered and pained minds.  

I don't know about you, but when someone does that in response to something difficult I've shared, I immediately wish I hadn't made myself vulnerable. And I learn, going forward, to be guarded.  Of course, we should be careful who we share vulnerable things with, but if we are so guarded that we ultimately decide it's safer to stuff our feelings down, instead of finding appropriate ways of airing them, the results can be unhealthy.  Toxic, even.  We may never really heal if we don't examine our painful emotions and what has brought them about.

The more helpful response we can offer to someone stuck in painful thinking, I now believe, is something that might break an unhealthy rationalizing pattern or loop a hurting person may be stuck in.  

While someone stuck in painful thinking might need professional help to truly become healthy-minded, when we're in the position of someone having shared a painful experience with us, a likely helpful first-line response is to simply validate their feelings.  Saying a sincere, "I'm sorry that happened" would probably suffice.  Enter into the pain, if I can, or just simply acknowledge it, rather than try to reshape their perception of the experience.  Entering into a person's pain most likely will make them feel better, at least in the moment.  When they feel better, they'll probably be able to think better, and will be in a better position to eventually (or maybe instantly) see the experience that caused the wound with a clearer head.  For me, clarity almost always helps my emotions heal.  

Disclaimer:  I am not a psychologist.  Not even a good armchair one.  But I am interested in learning from experience, and really do want to offer the right kind of help when someone else is struggling.  This present experience has helped me internalize, and I think see something I didn't understand before.

The only significant things that have happened in the 9 days since my last post is the above encounter, a lovely visit with another dear friend, and I've had the last appointment in my recent string of medical appointments - which seemed to be the catalyst for my recent struggling.  I feel better just having all those appointments behind me as of last Thursday.  I should add, it was also helpful when I shared that I'd been having troubling thoughts over the last few months, my oncology nurse navigator told me that was very normal.  I was pretty sure that, as dysregulated as my thinking was, I was in the range of normal, but it was helpful to hear someone with experience in this realm to tell me so.

I've also come across some things online that remind me that I have tools (mainly writing) to use to examine, dissect and treat the other painful thoughts should they rise up again to haunt me.  Just being reminded I have these tools available, and that they have been helpful to me in the past, has given me an even greater sense of well being.

If you got this far, you're the best!  Thanks for sticking with me.  

Still here...

I haven't gone anywhere.  

In fact, I wrote this post a few days ago and I've been considering whether I want to actually publish it.  I've finally decided to do it, and hope some good can come from it.  

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post titled "Ruminations and Risk Taking".  At the time my use of the word "ruminations" was simply to mean contemplations - of any sort.  At the time I wrote that, I was enjoying being outdoors, soaking in the sun, and listening to birdsong, just contemplating life, and being thankful that I was rebuilding my strength, and getting on with life.  There was some heavy stuff on my mind, but my feeling then was that all was mostly well.  And it was.  And still is, for that matter.  But recently, I've come to realize that there has been a fair amount of negative ruminating going on, too. 

In recent weeks, my brain has been revisiting stuff I'd rather not think about (explanation as to why, in a minute), but it wasn't until the third or fourth time over the last few weeks that I heard myself monologuing to my husband for 10-15 minutes at a time, reviewing (ruminating out loud about) stuff from last year - some things he already knew, some things I had never told him - I realized that I am dealing with a load of unresolved stuff that happened during the diagnostic stage of my cancer experience.  Yes, I know that was an insane run-on sentence, but I'm leaving it as is.  Welcome to my brain right now.

Last week, when I once again heard myself telling my husband something awful from last year, I stopped myself mid-sentence wondering, "Why am I doing this again?!?"  And as soon as I asked the question, I knew the answer!

Since mid-May, I've begun a series of follow-up appointments with doctors.  I had my second appointment with the endocrinologist (who works out of a different cancer center than I visited last year) to discuss results of tests she had me do.   A few days later I had my first six-month follow-up with my oncologist to discuss the ongoing endocrine therapy he has me on.  Earlier this week, I had a follow-up MRI (unrelated to breast cancer, and that came back clean - yay!)  Next week I have my annual follow-up visit with the surgeon who removed my cancer.  And, I guess, just because I was on a roll making medical appointments, I had scheduled my "Welcome to Medicare" appointment with my GP for last week.  Whew!  

All these appointments have been as good as they can be (and I anticipate next week's follow-up with my surgeon will go fine enough), but being pulled back into the world of cancer treatment, and walking back into two different cancer centers several times now in two months has caused me to revisit the trauma that happened during all the diagnostic tests a year ago.  

With a few unpleasant exceptions, most of the staff I encountered last year were the nicest and kindest medical people I've ever been treated by.  At the same time, the tests they ran me through were among the worst things I've ever experienced to date.  Truly - the stuff of nightmares. In recent weeks, I was only able to sleep for four or five hours a night.  Sometimes, not able to fall asleep until the sun came back up.  Weirdly, I was functioning fine (in spite of little sleep and a brain on overload), but there was (and maybe still is to some extent) a cloud following me around for weeks now.  And I finally called it out.  I think it's just plain old unresolved trauma. 

I'm not sure where I go with these thoughts from here - I'm pretty sure I'll figure it out, or time will resolve it, or I will find help if I need to.  But for now, somehow, calling out what's been going on with me helps me feel better.  I'm happy to say I've been sleeping somewhat better.  

And while I'm sparing you the details of the things that try to trouble me, I hope my sharing this much is helpful to someone possible going through their own "ruminating" over hard things that don't seem to have any resolution.  

As for myself, I'm sure there's value in just getting this off my chest. To give air and light to unwelcome thoughts and make them less powerful.  And to document this experience for myself.

Maybe you know someone who has experienced some sort of trauma or difficulty in the recent past, and while they look just fine on the outside - in fact, they may be very fine, life might be great - they also may have dark, troubling thoughts from time to time.  While no one wants that kind of thing to go on forever, I'm pretty sure it's normal to experience this kind of thing after any sort of trauma.

If you, personally, know someone in such shoes, don't be afraid to ask them how they're doing.  They probably won't be expecting it, and they may not know what to say.  But they will appreciate that you asked.  

And if they talk...

Just listen.  

Validate them - listening without giving advice is priceless

Appreciate their vulnerability. 

It may just mean the world to them.

And if they don't want to open up, that's okay too.  Or maybe they're feeling on top of the world at that moment - they'll tell you if they are.  Celebrate with them.

It will mean a great deal that you asked.

Spirea in bloom in May.

Soon it will be very hot here...

Billie Jo at Afternoon Coffee and Evening Tea made me smile today with her honest post about preferring the indoors as the weather heats up.  I relate completely.

And it stirred up this post in me. 

Writing recently about putting a garden in, and showing some of the pictures, while I think I've been honest about it being a bit more of a challenge for me this spring, it's easy to make gardening look and sound somewhat idyllic.  

The truth is, it's a lot of hard, sweaty and dirty work - for anyone - to put in a garden.  If the sun is shining, and the temperature is anything above, say...  68 degrees, and depending on how hard I'm working, I turn into a sweaty mess out there in fairly short order.  Because of that, if possible, I save showering for after working outside in the morning.  But that isn't possible every day. 

If I can't garden until the afternoon or early evening, presumably I've gotten myself in presentable condition for whatever I needed to do in the first part of the day.  As I change my clothes and put on "gardening shoes", I begin an internal discussion about how hot it is, how sweaty I'm going to get, and how I'm going to need to take a second shower afterwards.  The worst is actually when it's a coolish temperature outside, and I can probably work "sweat free", but if it's been rainy, it's turned buggy, and I know the smart thing to do is use a bug repellant.  Whether I'm hot and sweaty or covered with bug spray (or both), I'm going to feel compelled to take another shower when I come back in from working outside, and while I enjoy the clean feeling afterward, I hate the idea of getting wet all over again.  

In fact, I dislike it so much, on a comfortable day when I don't anticipate getting sweaty or dirty as I work outside, I sometimes forego the bug spray - just so I don't have to take a second shower.  I take my chances with the mosquitos, and almost always regret it.  Mosquito bites that turn into painful welts aren't pretty, and they are maddeningly distracting for three or four days.  The whole situation - painful welts, valiantly resisting scratching - it's pure misery.  And ridiculous.  And probably not even smart.  But I repeat this scenario over and over again.  All because I don't want to take a second shower.

I probably have a whole blog post inside me about how much I can drag my feet like an eight year-old over taking a shower - let alone two showers in one day.

But that's a post for another day - or probably not. Today, inspired by Billie Jo, I just wanted to write something I don't know that I say very often.   

One of the things I appreciate about gardening is that it gets this seriously heat-averse gal outside in the most miserably hot temperatures, when my natural bent is to stay inside where it is cool and mosquito free.  It's been a lot warmer here than normal since March, but our truly miserable heat is expected come July, August and September.  The early part of October can even be hot here, though the humidity seems to lessen by then, making the heat more tolerable.  And the promise of the first frost and falling leaves makes October's hot days kind of nostalgic feeling.

When our boys were young, I'd take them to the public pool at least a couple of times a week during the hot summer; in one town we lived, we'd visit a nearby lake.  On days we didn't go to the pool or lake, we might pull out the sprinkler, or fill up water balloons.  Oh, and water guns - those were a favorite, I'm now remembering.  It seems to me that we all enjoyed summer.

When the boys got older, and going to a crowded public pool ceased to be as much fun, I think that's when a dislike of summer started to settle into me.  Summer became something to endure.  That's been my attitude for years now.  And I've always felt kind of bad about it.  To dislike a season that is responsible for providing much of the world's sustenance seems pretty ungrateful.

I don't know how long we'll live in this place that has a nice garden spot, asparagus and strawberry patches, and a couple of fruit trees.  We may live here longer than either of us has the strength or desire to garden.  I don't know the future.  I only have today.  And today, as much as I dislike getting all sweaty, or using bug spray, and taking more than one shower in a day, I'm realizing one of the great benefits gardening is to me, is that it gets me outside - pretty much every day.  And the biggest surprise is it also has made me not dislike summer quite so much.

When the temps here get to be 90 for a stretch of time, and it hasn't rained in over a month, I may still complain. Ask me to travel south between the middle of June and the middle of October, and I'll probably groan.  And, if I absolutely have to attend an outdoor event on a hot, humid day (or evening), I'll consider it something to endure.  Yeah...  I don't think I've fully embraced summer and all its sweaty heat, but I don't seem to hate it (so much) anymore. For that, I am grateful.

And sometimes...  like today...  we get treated to a pop up rain storm that totally refreshes everything, cools things off.   In the spring, these showers are expected from time to time. In the summer, a shower like this feels like a gift.