Fuck Positive
Life has been a motherfucker lately; it’s always a
motherfucker, but this year my mom has a lung disease that should kill her
sooner if not later. I’m not the primary
caretaker, holy no—she has insurance and a loving husband--I’ve only had to run
around doing menial last wishes chores. It took her bank I don’t know how many
resubmitted applications to get a safety deposit box transferred to my son; it
seems nothing can ever be done simply over the phone. I walked with my mom
through rows of clothes and boxes of novelty sweaters—in the end, she could
part with nothing to give to the poor because she liked it all. “You’re the poor, Debbie, so you can just come
get it after I die.”
Having a dying mom makes for a less than baseline positive
self and I’ve always been a depressive person so let’s just say I’ve been grim
lately. More anxious than usual. Other family members are probably progressing
in their respective treatments for their various illnesses, but managing all
their appointments and issues is a bitch; I’m always on the phone. I have phone
phobia to begin with—I get clammy palms and a racing heart when I talk to a
disembodied voice—and here I act like a receptionist almost every day with
medical appointments. Prioritize your own healthcare, everyone
says. Put the oxygen mask on Mommy first.
But of course, I always haven’t.
The sort of psychotherapy that dead broke Louisiana seems to
push when it can’t provide actual services for those who live in pain and
wretchedness is Let’s Focus on the Good
Stuff. I have nothing against positive thinking, but I’d rather have the 40
hours a week childcare that the state owes me for my disabled daughter. Sophie
is on a 10 year waiting list for a sitter, and I also have a disabled husband
and the world’s judgement because I’m not going out and making more money. Oh
right I have a mental illness myself but the free clinic only has so much time
to offer me so I’m not getting the proper medical attention I need. But
positive thinking works as well as the yoga and tai chi I don’t have time to do
because last week I juggled six medical appointments for the disabled members
of my family who DO have Medicaid, plus the dog got her ovaries yanked out. Meanwhile I can’t see a doctor without insurance
in this town for issues other than my bipolar--my sprained ankle won’t heal, I
have sciatica pain, and although the new governor has promised health insurance
for my income group by July, I still don’t have it, and folks at the clinic on
Government street says that unless more people are hired to handle the
applications, Medicaid for thousands ain’t happening soon. So while the water heater breaks, the plumber
comes by for his monthly visit, while various social workers call in late or
tell me they have to re-do assessments for my son or daughter they didn’t do
right the first time (my son is about to get a shiny new diagnosis of
high-functioning autism like his dad), while my mom goes around telling every
grocery clerk and bank teller that she looks great but the doctors say she
could go anytime now, I try to be positive. One thing I’ll say for myself—I try. It’s
probably my subclinical OCD and perfectionism that makes me want to report back
to the social worker at the clinic: “I TRIED BEING POSITIVE LAST WEEK.”
Being positive often involves going outside and enjoying the
yard, but yesterday it was cold and a hard thunderstorm had blown all the early
blooms off my favorite magnolia tree. My
son’s at-home therapist was late. David Bowie was still dead. I had too many
phone-calls yet to make.
I told my husband, “I feel like I’m in charge of a mental
ward when I really should be one of the patients.”
“That’s silly,” he said, “People in charge of mental wards
have more staff than you do.”
So I tried something else.
I remembered that years ago, during my first hospital stay
at Brentwood, a very nice facility in Shreveport, back when I was under my dad’s
insurance, back when I was a teenager and before there was any suspicion of
bipolar 1, I was diagnosed with major depression and an eating disorder. In
group therapy, people were asked to image the worse that could happen and to
accept it. One girl, who had an eating disorder similar to mine said that her
worst fear was getting fat—she cried and accepted getting fat if that meant she
could live and everyone congratulated her and there was much ooh wow
wonderfulness all around. Then we got around to me and my worst fear was dying,
and I said I couldn’t accept that, even though I had already tried to kill
myself, and I admitted this was a paradox, and the doctor said we’d get around
to me next week.
We didn’t. I left the hospital against medical advice soon
after. I’d been there for months, not
getting any better, and my dad was convinced I’d get better at home. I actually
did get better at home, if you consider gaining weight and going back to school
and not dying getting better. As they say, there’s always room for improvement.
So yesterday I thought about my whole worst fear ultimatum
the Brentwood psychiatrist had delivered.
I wondered if it was the same. Do I still fear death and crave it? Suicide is no longer an option when you have
family depending on you. Many times, even very recently, I’ve wanted to die
because life just sucks. But I thought harder, and no, that wasn’t at my worst
fear. My worst fear was plain just dying too soon and leaving my needy family.
Could I accept the fact that I might have a shorter life
span than 90 and that I might go out in 15 years? That like David Bowie and my
mom, I will die of some disease in a proper timely age (honestly, it’s not
gauche to die in one’s 60s) and leave my oh so dependent family? What about my
very special needs daughter? State care
for the rest of her life? Having bipolar 1 statistically shortens my life but
my grandmas lived hella long so genetically that boosts me some, but the fact
is, I’m not getting any younger and I only have maybe a decade and a half of
true vitality left. And probably more hard work ahead of me given my luck.
Could I accept that?
I did.
I felt better when I did. I figured that I would probably
whine more somewhere down the line but I didn’t cry. There was nothing else to
do but know that I would die, that I would leave my Sophie and Asher and Max to
fend for themselves, for better or worse, in that worse case scenario.
Oddly enough, I think accepting worse case scenarios, even
making them real, takes away some anxiety if not all of it. It’s not positive
thinking at ALL. But after imagining
myself only living for another 15 years, I started planning, in my squirrel
with nuts way, for a trip to California. I didn’t check Facebook. I didn’t
listen obsessively one more time to David Bowie’s creepy last album about
death. I had an afternoon cup of coffee while the plumber wrote me another bill
and I did some math (amazingly, without crying) with an eye towards that
California trip.
After all, I figured, it might be the last family trip I
might take. Not just before I die but before Max gets Alzheimer’s –or more
realistically, Asher grows up and moves out on his own. But allowing myself to
think about negative scenarios and accepting them let me calm down in my own
way. Fuck positive. Really. That’s just not me.
