Last month I started a microwave fire. It wasn’t the first microwave fire I’ve started. As the door slid open and a flame shot up, I stood in shock for a second before I turned to a few people and said, “Help.” It wasn’t an exclamation, so much as statement. “Help,” I said. “Help. What do I do?” Someone said there had just been a fire drill and she knew what to do. She disappeared for a minute. In the meantime, I debated whether it was electrical fire that shouldn’t have water on it. I closed the door because I remembered oxygen feeds the flames. (That actually put it out.)
I told friends later that week what had happened and acknowledged that’s how I am in a crisis. I call for help. Someone should do something. I’m not one to jump into action though. I look for a responsible party.
In personal crisis, I’m not sure if I’m the same way. I’m supposed to take care of that stuff. Someone should do something.
Luckily, so many people have jumped in to help without me asking much outright. Maybe I send out a silent signal. Help. Help. Help.
Since Thursday evening, I’ve been silently screaming. I’ve had trouble sleeping, aside from Saturday night. When I can’t sleep my neuropathy flares up, so the medication for that helps me sleep. Exhaustion will find me again and bring sleep, overtaking heartbreak and worry. This morning, I woke up at 4:45 to start my IV drip and have been staring at the guest bedroom ceiling at my friends’ house, with a short and welcome interruption from their sweet tabby.
Big, terrifying changes are on the horizon.
I am going to have to swallow my pride and ask for help. A lot of help. More help than I’ve ever asked for before. I feel guilty because people have helped me so much, but I hope that if I cast a wide net in asking that everyone can help a little bit and I won’t feel like such a burden to anyone. To everyone who’s asked me if I need anything, I probably will in the coming months. I might need to ask people to come and help take care of me. I don’t need much right now. (And when the end-of-life care is needed, there are people for that.) I’m really scared but I’m also optimistic as I currently have so many offers of help in the form of listening ears I am behind on phone calls.
I don’t know if I like the person I’ve become. I’m afraid I’ve become a bad person to people close to me and haven’t acknowledged their needs. The thing is, I feel like I’ve tried and yet I failed and what does that mean when my best isn’t good enough? I feel like a terrible person almost all the time. I am a ghost of my former self and sometimes I am haunting my life. Sometimes I feel like I’m not supposed to be here or wanted here, like a guest that’s overstayed her welcome.
I have thought about ending things myself during dark times. Now that I always feel sick and I’m losing people close to me and I’m dying anyway, I still obviously think about it. I won’t do it. I find something to latch onto. Sometimes it’s something as innocuous as an upcoming deadline or a task I’m supposed to complete. It’s also because I don’t want to hurt people who love me or leave them with guilt.
I know a lot of people can’t understand what it is like to think about taking that way out. When someone does, from the outside it doesn’t make sense. They have so much to live for. Even me, even though I am dying and everything seems like it’s falling apart. I have things to live for.
You have to genuinely believe everyone would be better off without you. It feels that way to me sometimes, I admit. Even though everyone has been so kind, it really sometimes feels like if I were gone, the world would be a better place. Also, sometimes it seems like it hurts so much to go on, it’s impossible. It’s too painful.
Everyone has various survival mechanisms. As someone who’s struggled with depression sometimes, it’s as though sometimes mine is broken. Or maybe I’m too sensitive and I don’t have a cover for my survival mechanism and it gets rusted or shorts when its exposed to pressure or sadness. Then you look at other people dealing with similar things or worse things and you feel broken and sad and more depressed and it makes you feel worse. It makes you want to run for an exit. I won’t. I’ve also learned to ask for help.
I didn’t mean to get that heavy there. Lack of sleep and rainy days have made me melodramatic.
The help that I’m going to be asking for in the coming months, however, is hopefully less emotional and mostly logistical. Staying with me sometimes. Coming with me to doctors’ appointments. Maybe taking care of the cats. Things people have already done like bring me my glasses when I am unexpectedly whisked off to the hospital (though I try to carry my glasses with me now.)
I’m trying very hard not to be bitter and angry and sad about so much because no good can come of it. Well, the sadness I can’t help. There are still some positives, hopefully, ahead of me somewhere along the way. Within the past five minutes, for instance: I just got an inbox message from a friend and it’s a YouTube clip of a large crowd in Dublin wishing her a happy birthday. I have a purring tabby on my lap. No, wait. A purring tabby on my laptop who just erased some things. I must go attend to this cat and stop indulging in sadness.