I now find myself having to find my way back to health so I could go back to work. Here are my thoughts in real time.
In this new adventure, I find myself having to talk about myself, to figure out how to make things better.
It is something I have never felt comfortable doing. I have to find a way to do it without overdoing it. (Is that a real danger or is it just in my head?)
Let us start at the beginning. I was born number four of five children, all of who saw the light of day within six and a half years. This might have affected how I used my voice. Some of us were quiet and others, not so much.
You might have guessed, I am, in a strange way, a quiet one. (Some would laugh at the thought…but I wonder how well they know me or of our ride, especially while it was happening…)
Being uncomfortable about sharing (odd isn’t it that I blog…) may stem from something as simple as being an army brat. For those who don’t know, it means you don’t belong. You are careful about getting close or cutting up a space for yourself because you know you are leaving just around the corner and the pain it will involve. It also means, you adapt.
The other reason is sometimes my struggles were simply so odd.
By the time I was an adolescent, illness found our circle. Sadly, it was mental illness, which was a taboo subject back in the day. Being young and living in a kind of emergency situation, I wouldn’t have known what to say. The family ended up moving not long after the situation and I stayed behind to finish high school.
Living away from the family so young in itself was odd. (I was 15 at the time.) The school principal saw me one day and as he gave me an awkward side-hug, he said I was the temporary orphan. It had thrown me a little. I wasn’t rreally alone at the time. Though I was three hours away from my family, I lived with a lovely family I babysat for.
I jumped from the ship of a loved one suffering from episodes of mental illness to the one involving a cute guy who would eventually bring in a new level of strangeness into my life. In his case, it was progressively worsening seizures. The seizures were not an issue for me. Where the stress started was when he faced his first brain surgery… not that typical a pathway for an epileptic. Then the statuses hit…
I then had to learn to hold my tongue when my husband lost his ability to talk after his last brain surgery and last status. The surprise was not that he would have trouble speaking but that people would reproach me my ability to do so. I was not to speak so as to give my hubby the chance to say whatever he wanted as he was relearning to talk.
With the craziness of my ride, who would understand it?
Here comes the importance of speaking. One day I took a chance and made a comment at work. The simple comment brought me to one of my angels. He understood the different levels and fears that I may not even have identified. He knew because he had been there. These angels are amazingly supportive just by being. (To read this story, you can find it here. )
Here is the hard part… to find your angels, you have to speak up.