Sometimes I want to quit

[gothiclovemonkey]

Its been a crap week for me, and im trying to keep myself sane.
Its hard sometimes....

This week has been a roller coster of emotion I am not used to dealing with. Before, I would put my emotions into my skin, and i cant do that now. Fear they would deny me a kidney if i did.... SO now im faced with actually dealing, actually crying, actually feeling something.... I dont like feeling these things, this way. How do people do it?!? I loathe crying. but i cant stop. Ive cried more in the past few days than I have in my entire life. Im not exaggerating that either. How do you deal with anger toward someone? Ive never confronted my anger in the past... how to you deal with sadness? betrayal? I never have.... Ive always done the same thing. Since I was 11 years old, any emotion I had I bottled up inside of me until i couldnt take it anymore, and I would engage in self-harm. It was better than crying, better than confronting a person, and better than feeling that emotion.
Even though I have made my decisions, and the appology seemed sincere, im left feeling like crap over everything. How can you forgive AND forget? can you? How can you learn to trust again, once that trust is broken?

Some times I feel like ending it all. Stopping dialysis and being done. I know I have my son to think of, but then I think he really would be better off without me. I feel like a constant burden on everyone in my life. Others have just completely abandon me.
Being back on hemo makes things feel worse to me. I hate it with  every fiber of my being. I try reminding myself that its giving me life, but on weeks like this, i dont want life. I dont feel well most of the time, im finding it hard to wake up every day. I have absolutely no energy to do the things i have to do on a daily basis. I struggle with taking care of myself, and my poor son is caught in the midst of all of this. He wants to play and have fun. i hold him back from that because i have no energy. i want the best for him, and i fear im not.

How do I do this? Why? If the world would only benefit from my death, why should i live? There is no purpose in life for me. What do I do?

I try to keep my mask of happy jen on, but lately i dont even have the strength for that. It really is exhausting to pretend to be happy, and normal, all the time. There is a darkness inside of me that is clawing to come out.

I know I care too much about what other people think... And I shouldnt, but i do. I feel compelled to be perfect for everyone, and i just cant do it. Ill never be up to par in my familys eyes, or my friends. Smile and pretend its all ok, pretend i have energy to do what is askked of me, what i ask of myself, and what everyone else asks of me. pretend that i feel great, when i dont.

wish there was some way to deal with these feelings without cold metal pressed to my flesh. why cant i be like you?

[monrein]

OK Jen.  We need to talk, actually what I really want to say is that I just listened to you by reading every word you wrote very carefully.  Now I want to give you a big hug and say a few things. As HARD as it is, actually feeling what we feel... the great, the hideous, the joyful and the painful...is the full measure of being present in life.  You're not used to allowing the feelings to surface, to make themselves felt, to be acknowledged as true or unfair or whatever so that you can then move beyond them to a more peaceful state.  If a feeling is pushed away before this it must come back for processing.  And often life is such that difficult feelings do appear and reappear and can take up more of our time than we want to give.  Crying is Ok wen you know that you can stop...in fact it can be a great release of emotions and energy and even toxins.  Like most things too much can make us feel worse but we will recover.  Hurting yourself because someone else has hurt you is doubly unfair to you...turning the anger inwards only makes it live longer from within.  You can learn to create boundaries around yourself and give yourself the gifts of respect and gentle consideration that others in your life have not.  You can learn to see and know and think that you are worthy of all of this. 

We on dialysis carry an extra burden and it can be very, very hard to carry on sometimes because we physically can feel like crap and then our emotions follow suit.  What we don't have to do though is wear a happy mask.  Really we don't.  It's too tiring and we're already exhausted. To those who don't know us we need only use common civility because it's too tiring to even be grumpy.  To those close to us, we need to be able to be more real, to be up when we really feel like it and to step back and take it easier when we can't.  With your son it's extra hard because he's so young but you can still pace yourself, play when you can in a limited way and then hold back until next time.  Let him know that it's not that you don't want to play, in fact there's nothing you'd like more but you don't feel well.  You hope that in an hour you can play a bit more.  What is certain is that you DO have a purpose in life and that is being his mother.  If you gave up he would always think that it was his fault, that he wasn't good enough, that he wanted to play too much, that you needed to get away from him and he would ultimately feel abandoned.  He might feel the need to push down his feelings rather than just feel and acknowledge them and so on and so on.  As for forgiving and forgetting, they are separate things.  No need to forget necessarily, the forgiving though is for yourself to gain some peace inside.  Trust once betrayed is and ought to be hard to to regain.  To do otherwise would be to disrespect yourself.
You ask "why can't I be like you?" and the answer is simply that we each only have one self to work with...none of us can really be like anyone but ourself.  We can however keep trying to find ways to live with ourself and to "feel" the best we can, when we can, and to gently remind ourself when things feel awful that we can get through to a better feeling place. 
Jen, I wish you could somehow find a caring, accepting person to talk to who could help you to manage the feelings of pain, shame and even being so monstrously "different".  Please keep expressing yourself on paper and with words (or computer) which is much healthier and kinder to yourself than cold metal.  You deserve more kindness.   

[MooseMom]

I certainly can't say it any better than monrein.  She's the best there is at giving sage and compassionate advice.

I wish you'd show yourself some mercy, some compassion.  Maybe it's something you learn with age, but the truth is that you cannot rely on others to define your value.  You can't hand over your soul like that to another person.  You also cannot abdicate; you must take your life into your own hands.  Monrein is right in telling you that you can be your own best friend or your own worst enemy; the choice is yours.  You do not have to add this burden to your already exhausted self.  No one is forcing you to deny your emotions and their natural manifestations.  That is the choice you made, and now you are having to cope with the consequences of that choice.  But to be fair, it is a natural choice to make, especially for a child who has not yet learned healthy coping mechanisms and who apparently had no one to teach them to you.

But you are an adult now, a mother.  You do not have to make the same choices because now you have true friends who care for you, even if it is through a computer.  We're better than nothing, LOL.  You can choose to take monrein's words to heart because as your life changes and you grow into an adult, you have more coping mechanisms to choose from. 

This is life in all of its glory and pain.  To deny your feelings is to deny what makes us human and unique in the world.  It's not always pretty, but it IS life.

Your son deserves a mother who can show compassion to herself as well as to others. 

It takes practice to deal with your emotions, and since you have never allowed yourself this "practice", to suddenly find yourself in such an emotional state must be quite strange and overwhelming to you.  Echoing monrein once again, I hope you will continue to post about your feelings here on IHD and will eventually find someone to whom you can talk comfortably.  Do you feel comfortable saying what you posted here to your boyfriend?

 

[jeannea]

You don't have to pretend to be happy and put together. It usually makes me feel worse to do that. And crying is good for you as long as it's not constant. Although to be honest when I was first diagnosed I cried every day for months.

Now for anger, fear, etc., there is a philosophy that you let the feeling enter your mind, you feel it, then you let it pass out of your mind again. It's not a perfect system but worth trying, esp when you're too busy to cry. But then sometimes you have to take the time to feel your feelings and cry or scream or whatever. It is always better to feel your feelings than to push them down. Trust me.

Now for the less popular suggestion. Do you have access to a therapist? Doesn't need to be a psychiatrist just a psychologist. If you need depression meds your nephrologist can prescribe them. Most of us are on them. It's nothing to be ashamed of. But seeing a therapist can be really helpful. It's really great to have someone just listening to you for an hour. But if you can't find a therapist don't be hard on yourself.

The most important thing is to be kind to yourself. I mean that. Don't feel mad at yourself or guilty or frustrated because you are having these feelings. You're incredibly normal. Hang in there.

[MooseMom]

Great post, jeannea!

[jbeany]

We've all got our crutches that we reach for when we don't feel strong enough to deal with things.  The only difference is some are more socially acceptable than others.  Eating, shopping, smoking, even drinking... plenty of people hide in these things, and until things get completely out of control and become visible to others (be it obesity, debt, drunk driving, etc), it's considered okay.  You've found a coping method that isn't socially acceptable, and you get to deal with that on top of the problems that are making you reach for a blade.  You've got to learn emotional skills now that an adult in your life should have taught you when you were eleven.  Right now, you are the only adult who can do that.  Be kind to that eleven year old girl, and give her some time to cry it all out.  Don't expect to make a decade's worth of emotional progress overnight.

Even though I have made my decisions, and the appology seemed sincere, im left feeling like crap over everything. How can you forgive AND forget? can you? How can you learn to trust again, once that trust is broken?

Forgiveness is something you give to yourself.  You forgive someone else so you can move on.  Forgetting is a gift to another person.  Give it wisely, and sparingly, and ONLY if you are positive that it is deserved.  Trust, too, is a gift, and a valuable one.  Don't give that away easily either. 

Sweetie, your son is never going to benefit from losing a mother who loves him - whether she has energy to play every minute or not.
 

[Annig83]

Jen- I feel the same way everyday.  I was diagnosed with Major Depression since age 18 and it honestly doesn't get easier, because it never goes away.  I agree with everyone on here that you don't have to put a mask on and pretend to be happy, I did that for years and it just made things worse. You will have days that are worse than others, and that's okay.  You're also in a new place, starting a "new life and family", and going through hemo.  All things combined is a lot to handle.  I feel you, every word you posted I go through daily as well.  You're son will NOT benefit with you not being here.  I think about that too, and I think of Carson, and I know that he needs me, regardless of being on dialysis or finally getting a kidney.  They may not understand all that's going on with us, but they do understand that they love us, and need us.  For me, I cried almost all day today, my boyfriend decided to move down to his mother's for a while, so we are seperated for the time being.  I thought, how can I do this by myself, on dialysis, with a 20 month old?  Is my disease what pushed him away?  What could I have done differently?  I have so much guilt for things I know in my heart are not my fault.  It's natural to grieve, to be angry, to be sad.  If you want to text me, I believe you have my number.  Jen- we have soooo much in common.  I don't feel comfortable posting it all on here, but if you need to talk I'm here.

[boswife]

words are stuck in my throat,  but i wish for a hug  sweet dear lady, you have some increadable women here giving you some pretty amazing advice/knowledge/love to you and i hope you feel that love.  Be well, prayers 

[okarol]

i have no words... just sending you some love 

[gothiclovemonkey]

Thank you all so much for your words. You are all so wonderful. I came here because I have no one else. You are my family, my friends, and i love you all.

To answer some questions that were asked,
I have been in therapy for a long time, but due to the move, I had to stop seeing her. I started therapy when I was 11, the first time i self harmed. but they saw it as suicidal attempts or attention seeking... It wasnt either. In the past, i had seen others, but none of them seemed to have any understanding of my addiction to the blade, so it made it hard to get any real help. My last therapist was amazing, understanding, and helpful. We never really got that far because other issues would arise she helped me with. I have put off finding a new one out of fear. I am terrified of starting over there, and I am afraid i will run into the same problem. Someone not understanding it. Judging it. I had done so well, i had been nearly 3 years since my last use. I relapsed. I am ashamed, but I know that it happens. I just have to start over again.

My trust was lost in the one person (offline) i felt would never hurt me. my boyfriend. I never knew love could hurt. I'd never loved a man before this, its all so new to me. And I already had limited trust for people.

Ive never learned to deal with my emotions. Ive always hid them. Ive always hid myself. My mother was sick, all of my life, and i couldnt show her that i needed her, I feared it would make her feel worse. I didnt want to cause her pain. And then she died, I went completely numb, and have been ever since. I was 12 when she passed away. I hadnt cried since before her death. I didnt even cry at her passing.... Now... I seem to be leaking all the time. I try to be strong and hide myself for the sake of my son, and my father,. I dont want them to worry.

I know that its normal to feel, but i think id rather be numb. It seemed easier to me. Dealing with sadness, and anger is the hardest thing ive ever done.
And i dont want to be like this in front of my son. Hes staying at my dads right now. He comes home tomorrow though.

I love my boyfriend, but i dont know how to move forward from this. He wants everything to be "How it was" before I found out about his lies. I do too, but how?

And just so you know, it isnt just my issue with my bf causing my wanting to quit right now, its just been the icing on the cake this week...
Seems that this one thing has opened a flood gate to all of the other miserating things happening inside me.

I know that it is me. It is my problems in myself causing my sadness and anger. It isnt him, or the other people who have hurt me that has caused this. It is me and me alone. But I feel like, if they hadnt done what they did, i wouldnt feel the way i feel.... I know that sounds stupid...

I know ill get over this, but i just dont know how yet.

[Poppylicious]

I know that it is me. It is my problems in myself causing my sadness and anger. It isnt him, or the other people who have hurt me that has caused this. It is me and me alone. But I feel like, if they hadnt done what they did, i wouldnt feel the way i feel.... I know that sounds stupid...

I think this is part of your problem.  You take on the responsibility for everything that happens to you, and those around you.  You are not (always) the reason you feel sad and angry.  Other people do, through their actions and words, contribute to the way you feel.  It is not you and you alone that cause these feelings and things that happen to you.  Let other people accept some responsibility for the bad/negative things that happen in your life.  Let your dad worry about you, if you need him to.

We are quite similar in our distrust of some people and the way we bottle our emotions up so that the face we present to the world is purely a mask.  I have never self-harmed though ... instead I've always written.  As a teenager I wrote lots of dark stories and poems and they were my release, a different form of release to self-harming but certainly one which helped me. 

You've been so happy recently and now you've stumbled and the happier you are the harder you fall.  You will be happy again, and you will stumble again.  We all go through this, kidney disease or not. It's probably a lot more common than you think ... one of my favourite quotes is Henry Miller's "The tragedy of it all is that nobody sees the look of desperation on my face. Thousands and thousands of us, and we're passing one another without a look of recognition."

Have you ever properly grieved for your mum?

You're an amazing woman and a brilliant mum.  You will get through this, as you said. 

Many *huggles* and oodles of love ... ♥

[Deanne]

I wish I had words of wisdom, but I'm not that wise. I'm glad others here are. I'm sorry you're feeling such pain. I understand being different. I understand how lonely it can be to be different and the need to try to "fake it until you make it." I know it's hard. I hope today will be a better day for you. 

[Desert Dancer]

Jen, as others have said far more eloquently than me, please show yourself the compassion you show to others. You are such a loving person and if the world needs anything it needs more love, not less. Removing yourself from the world - and from your child - would cause it to be that much harder and poorer.

I know you've been dealing (or not dealing) with these emotions for a long time. Numbness is a good retreat for a while, but it's one monotonous note. If you want to build a symphony out of your life you need all the emotional notes available to you. Have you ever tried keeping a journal? It's a good way of spilling all the notes onto the page so that you can start to make sense of them, to organize them into a pleasing melody. To me it is even more cathartic and revealing to see those words and emotions in black and white than it is to confide everything to a therapist, and it doesn't cost anything.

I think the thing you may have forgotten is that emotions are not permanent. They do not define the world, nor do they define who you are; they are transient things, not meant to last or to be grasped. I know it doesn't feel that way when you're in the middle of it; it takes a lot of practice to take the long view and it's easy to believe you'll feel bad forever. Believe me when I say I've been there.

Try to picture this: you are the sky, the clear blue sky. Your emotions - all of them - are the clouds. Some of them will block the sun - for a while. Some of them will spill rain onto your head - for a while. Others will be beautiful, gloriously reflecting the golden rays of the afternoon sun - for a while. It is your job to remember you are the sky, and all these clouds are drifting in front of you. Examine their contours, appreciate their beauty and feel their rain... then watch them drift across you and disappear. No one would try to pin down a cloud and hold onto it forever and no one would try to shoo away the clouds they don't like; it's impossible in either case and silly to try. It is the same with emotions: struggling against them will only magnify your pain, not lessen it.

Maybe I'm just babbling. In any case, please know that I wish you all the joy and happiness this world holds. Please wait for it. 

[MooseMom]

Oh DD, what a lyrical post!  I love the idea of building a symphony out of your life.  There are still so many melodies to compose!

[kitkatz]

I will tell you a secret....It just takes getting through one second at a time without going crazy!

[gothiclovemonkey]

Wow, DD, your post was pretty. I like your comparison to the sun and sky. It makes perfect sense.
And life is a syphony. music speaks to me so much. sometimes its all i have to get through things. I listen to songs to uplift me often...but your right, I need notes to make my own music.

No, Ive never properly greived for my mother, she passed away in 1998 and sometimes i still feel like shes just away and will come back. I know she wont. Im not delusional, but there was a lot to her death ive never accepted or recovered from. I am actually thankful that the IHD meetup is in october, because that month typically sucks for me, but last year it helped a lot not to think about it. Also having my surgery the day before the actual date of her passing, so I slept through that day lol I worked on it with my therapist once, but she thought it was too hard on me and didnt want me to get to upset. She was such a good therapist, but she never pushed me.

I AM feeling better, but last night I was trying to talk to my bf about how crappy D makes me feel and I said I dont want to do it anymore, and he got really upset with me. I think he thought I meant I was going to stop, but Im not, I just want to... I hate feeling like this. I know everyone here has probably thought this at least once, right? Im not the only one.... its so hard sometimes. He said I was being selfish, but I think that it would be selfless because then i wouldnt be a problem. But he pointed out that Im not a problem to my family, since they have nothing to do with me (except my dad) and I shouldnt think that way, because jareth needs me and so does he.... But what do I do for them? really? If ive had dialysis i truly am a worthless blob of existence. I dont even barely have enough energy to get up and feed the boy. I do but thats about all i do.

This whole thing with the lying has really made me so upset. I want to be over it, I want to stop having the feelings I am about it. He thinks im over reacting about it. AM i? I personally think most women would have flipped out over it. I didnt, infact I was eerily calm at first. It wasnt until the second night that I was bawling about it.

I have forgiven him for lying, but its hard to trust now. I thought he was lying to me yesterday, but he wasnt. I dont want to be like those women, like my step mom, constantly accusing and suspicious. Ive never been that way before. I dont like it.

I do write, i actually used to a lot more than i do. But I actually got into some trouble for writing how I felt once. I ended up being committed over WORDS. So that fear is there that it could happen again....

[Grumpy-1]

gothiclovemonkey   two things come to mind.  1) you need to find a way to close the grief of your mom passing away.  Everyone does that in some way or another.  There is no set way.  But you need to do that.  The suggestion of writing it down might be a good way for you.  Tell your mom how you felt before she passed away and after.  Tell her how much you miss her and tell her the frustrations of this life you are dealing with now.  And finally tell her how much you love her.

2) You need to educate your BF about how you are feeling.  Tell him just because you are tired of D doesn't mean you are going to quit. It is just your way of getting your feeling out and off your chest.  Educate him that he doesn't need to get mad if you aren't feeling good and that you are not selfish but being real. There is nothing wrong with admitting that you hate D and the way it makes you feel.  Those are normal feelings that all of us have (and will continue to have).

Sorry, but I have no thoughts on getting over his lying to you.  That is something you need to figure out yourself.  What will it take to put his lying behind you and not let it bother any longer.  Note - I didn't say forget about it, but come to grips with it.

Grumpy

[MooseMom]

GLM, I don't know the nature of the lying, and I'm not going to ask you to reveal that.  I'm sure it is very personal.  While I never condone lying, sometimes people DO lie out of a misguided desire to protect your feelings.  Was your bf trying to deceive you, or was he trying to protect you?

[gothiclovemonkey]

He said he felt i didnt need the stress of knowing what had happened. and that he feared i would break up with him. But due to his lying, many other bigger issues came forth, that could have been easily avoided had he not lied.
so i guess, to protect me, and also to keep me from dumping him? which always cracks me up, if you think what you are doing is wrong enough to get dumped over, then why in the heck would you do it? DUH.

[okarol]

That's right, don't do the crime if you can't do the time.