The Rise and Fall of Sad Keanus

Mar 9

by The Small Bow Family Orchestra

“Sometimes I just want to be a regular person shopping for new sheets, only thinking about tuna salad.”

*****

I started therapy again after a six-year break because I had a panic attack while watching John Wick 4 in theaters...I know, right? Unfortunately, my new therapist is good at that Jungian jiu-jitsu where they flip over your newfound anxiety, and the next thing you know, you have to write letters to yourself reframing childhood trauma. The thought of writing these letters makes me want to curl up in a bottle under a neon sign and blast a pack cigs. Cue Willie Nelson's "Whiskey River.” The shitty thing about being sober is I know if I feel uncomfortable about doing something good for my well-being, I probably should. Ugh.

*****

I’ve been feeling really good, so of course, I worry that I’m manic. I got one bipolar diagnosis like 17 years ago and no one else ever agreed, but of course, the most logical conclusion to me not wanting to die is worse mental illness than previously imagined. lol. I’m still enjoying this reprieve while it lasts. Contact with the program is feeling so good and all the trauma recovery shit feels like it’s actually working after like a year of slog. Idk. If I focus on all the shit I don’t have I can bum myself out real quick, but I guess one of the gifts of this moment is it’s pretty easy not to do that, and that hasn’t been the case for a while.

*****

About 5 years ago, I had stupid argument (via FB Messenger of all things) with a friend I've had since middle school (20+ years at that point). It got more heated than it should have. I reached out the next morning, promptly made an amends, and never heard anything. Still haven't talked to them since. Prior to this we would communicate at least weekly, especially during football season. We'd also get together at least a couple times a year when our "third amigo" would come back home for holidays and shit. Hell, we all took a vacation together one time to go see a rad rock show. Guy drove two hours each way to come to my fucking wedding. We were friends, not casual acquaintances.

So it was a pretty deep fucking wound when he left the group chat, and has spent the last five years ghosting me. Third amigo has tried to play peacemaker a little bit, but I let my pride get the best of me with that too. Told em the ball was in the other friend's court, and all they needed to know was that I wasn't interested in throwing away a decades-long friendship over a heated text message exchange.

Fast forward to a few days ago. I reached out to the person via text message, asking if we could meet for coffee. They left me on read. Again. So that's fucking with my pride. Again. It's been on my mind a lot, to the point where I even dreamed of this person (and our reconnecting) the night after I sent the message. Why did I reach out and make myself vulnerable in the first place? The best I can tell right now, after some reflection, is that A.) life is too short, and we're not getting any younger. B.) the timing in particular corresponds to a rather poignant anniversary in the course of our friendship (and I let nostalgia/sentimentality get ahold of my Texting Thumb). C.) Maybe I just haven't been ready to admit/let go of what ultimately was perhaps just a "seasonal" friendship, rather than a lifelong one.

*****

A lot has happened since my last check in. I was diagnosed with postpartum depression, and I got on meds for that. But if we’re being honest, how I feel postpartum is kinda how I always feel. All this to say, it’s unclear to me whether I have postpartum depression or if this is just regular-me depression. My doctor was not impressed by this analysis.

So I got on meds. And then I freaked out and took myself off the meds (I know, bad, but here we are) because I’m still nursing and it makes me nervous. And I don’t want to stop nursing because physically I can keep nursing and everyone on Instagram keeps telling me how fucking important it is that I keep nursing since I’m *lucky* enough to be able to nurse my child. And how selfish it would be to stop now, before my son turns a year old, just so I can pop a pill once a day. I’ve made it this long, what’s another 3 months?

So anyway, things have been better. But things have also been worse. Two years sober in June.

*****

A while ago I decided I would not step aside for men anymore. When I walk, I set my shoulders, look straight ahead, and prepare for collision. Yesterday, a man wearing a Dude sweater was coming at me. I prepared. We collided when I did not make room for his swinging dick. He dropped his phone on the sidewalk and called me a dumb ass. I kept walking. He followed me. He called me a CU Next Tuesday. He asked if he could buy me a drink. It was 9am, but I’m in Wisconsin where alcoholism is encouraged. I walked away, yet I keep thinking of that asshole, wondering what it’s like to live in his world where you call someone a CU Next Tuesday, then invite them for a fucking cocktail? In a Dude sweater? I don’t know how to reconcile this in my brain. I keep thinking of things I should have said.

*****

I’m beneath-the-surface afraid all the time. Still far better than I’ve been in the past few years, at least these fears are ones that I set into motion. I chose a risk and it comes with some head games I have to learn how to manage. Lots of willful ignorance going on which I don’t know is the best way to handle this. The money realities of my life are terrifying to me. The booze demon, I’ve fought long and hard enough that he seems to understand that he only gets to live in the trunk now, under the flap with the emergency car tools. The few times he’s hopped into the front seat with me, there’s been a smackdown. But! There’s still a nicotine demon I have to mindfuck myself into dealing with and that chica weighs more every day. Lots of head battling going on, the usual guilt and shame and fierce kicks for the surface. Sometimes I just want to be a regular person shopping for new sheets, only thinking about tuna salad. But maybe from the outside I look like that person to someone else who’s also fighting an internal war. I mean are we all just smiling in terror?

*****

I just found out from the university financial aid counselor that my youngest son will not receive financial aid for his junior year (and likely for his senior year, too). Why? Because I got married to a wonderful man whom I am deeply in love with, but we had to file our taxes jointly, and, therefore, because of his retirement investments, my son does not qualify for financial aid. My deadbeat ex contributes nothing. I’m responsible for paying for his tuition, rent, and food. We have separate bank accounts and bills because that is the secret to a happy marriage. For decades as a single mom I happily got along, and while poor at times, I always managed to have enough to pay the mortgage, feed the three boys, and pay for their schooling and college. Until now. And I’m cracking at this very moment, wanting to open that bottle of tequila and crack a beer and head out to the shed to smoke pot, having all of them at the same time. I’m in a fight with myself, like some baseball field brawl where teammates in my head, who usually keep me sane and sober, are holding me back from a black eye, crushed skull, broken ribs, death. Surely all of that would be better than feeling this burning pain inside me right now. This defeat. This financial disaster. This failure. All because of love?

*****

Here’s how I’m feeling.

1. My son is 29 and fighting a wicked weed addiction and, thrown out of his fiancé’s house, is now living with us. We are ‘tolerating’ his weening off weed because he’s going to meetings and doing IOP and got a job. But it’s a mess. He’s been kicked out 3 times so far and slept in his car.

2. I’m outta work now 2 months and somehow not losing it (esp with my son now in the picture). I know I’ll get more work. I just don’t know when. Letting go. Turning it over. Meditating a lot which has been hugely helpful although, I’m meditating a lot and that’s just mellowing me out in ways that are just, well, weird. Reading a lot about Buddhism and consciousness and peeling away layer after layer from inside myself and only occasionally, uh, bored. I’m gonna be 63 in a few weeks.

3. There is no 3 but I thought there might be.

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This month will be a big month for me, which makes me want to disappear I guess. I graduated with my master's a week ago, and then I'm getting married at the end of the month. And I don't feel any kind of way about these things right now. I've been in "auto-pilot" mode for the past few weeks, and it's hard to check in with my emotions when I go there. I've started remote therapy about it, and have learned a few things about how depression/borderline personality might present itself. But the self-care/meditation/reflection practices don't come naturally to me. Like what? What do you mean I can be nice to myself? Why? It just seems like my default resting state is to do nothing and disassociate — it takes energy to care about myself, and I also think I kind of take myself for granted. That I don't need anything. I'm kind of worried that I'll be like the guy in the "they don't know" meme when it comes time for the wedding. "They don't know that I'm SAD!" I do want to be mentally present with my family and friends, though.

*****

My last drunk hookup was a very fun, very raucous Christmas Eve Eve bar hop with a guy who got caught up in the Southwest flight cancellations (remember those?). I have been attempting to hold these two truths since: it was perfect, a tidy Lifetime made-for-TV holiday romance; and I never, ever want to do it again. And by “it” I mean “be that drunk and make that decision under those circumstances.” And so I stopped drinking, officially, for real. We hadn’t seen each other since—I haven’t seen anyone since—and had dinner a few nights ago. Again, two contradictory truths appeared, walking toward me hand in hand: He’s a lovely human, but there is no there there, and I really don’t want to see him again. I drove home feeling a new melancholy, flipping through my brain’s man files, thinking, goddamn, would I have entertained any of these dudes if my amygdala hadn’t been muffled with wine, beer, whiskey, whatever? What would my life look like? Who’d be in it? Who might I have let in instead?

*****

I'm tired. just burned out on doing nothing but reading a bit, playing guitar a bit, laundry. My days are full but not much gets done. I’ve lately been wondering how this gets better. I do as I'm told, follow my directions, do all the good work. use my Stutz tools, meditate, nap only when absolutely necessary. I’m eating too much, and it shows, and my life seems to be caving in around me. You wouldn't see that when you look at me. But I see it in the mirror. My face is changing. The pain I feel, inside and out, is staking a claim on my face. I see a very unhappy person with all the goodness in life a person could want. How is that possible?

*****

I understand some people's hesitancy towards medication or reasons for not wanting to go down that path. However, I think about what my everyday life was like before anti-anxiety medications. Imagine spending every single moment when you're outside and near a street or road thinking that you will be hit by a car or something else catastrophic happening. As a child my brain would have me count my steps as I walked outside and this tool was also a useful distraction as an adult when I would need to cross the street. Obsessive compulsive behaviors, a doctor diagnosed me, but not OCD with Capital Letters.

With medication, that anxiety has gone down about 80%. It is still there whenever I cross a street and is an ever-present but it's not an overwhelming dread or assumption that "it"'will happen. It's not perfect but it's a hell of a better day-to-day existence that what I lived before medication.

That and no more panic attacks. Well, fewer panic attacks. I had a lot more visits with my psych over the pandemic to tweak my doses to help with that. Medication for mental health changed my life for the better and I never want to go back.

*****

Recently got back from the best vacation of my life, a week in a beautiful city with a dear friend I haven’t seen in years. Now that I’m back home, it feels like the vacation never even happened.

Before the trip, life felt stable enough. I was keeping regular hours and mostly managing my food issues. Now I want to sleep the day away and then snack until midnight. I gave myself something I truly wanted, something expensive, and my brain’s response was “fuck you, vacation is over.” Dunno why my brain is determined to make me suffer but it is, and it sucks.

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I haven’t pulled the email up on my phone to read the “Impossible People” excerpt but have been sitting here all the same wondering if I’m impossible. And then I read about the recent death of a blogger. I feel sick referencing her but I’m hoping you’ll understand. I came of age with her. I’m sitting next to my babies grieving for hers. I hope you are ok, too.

*****

That’s all for this month.As a thank-you for your contribution we make a donation to the Katal Center each month. If you’d like to be part of July’s Check-In, email me here. And below you’ll find some old Check-Ins from recent years.