When Sad is a Rabbit Hole

Sad is a rabbit hole.

For some people who experience feelings of sadness, it casts a pall over a canvas of normal, to hover for a day or so, and then it leaves.

For others, others that seem untouchable, sadness is the canvas and there are things to be done that cast a pall of normal over it.

Things like drinking cappuccinos.  Taking a walk with a friend.  Making people laugh.  Prescription drugs.  Volunteering. Things like going to work, having conversations, and coming home to go to bed.  Normal things.  Normal things that take more energy, strength, and willpower to accomplish than they should.  Because, for them, sadness is busy, so very busy, gnawing away at every molecule of goodness and light it can consume. It feasts on their energy while draining them of theirs.  Sadness is a greedy bastard.  It's obsessed.  It can never have one.  It keeps gnawing and biting and chewing until its had more than its fair share to slog around your insides like a sticky cloud.

Some people figure out a magic formula that protects them.  Their magic formula works!  It changes their chemistry for hours, days, and if they're extremely devoted to the task of meteorology, years.  They find their recipe to stave off sadness and they are euphoric.  They win their mind back before the sticky cloud makes its way to the tippy tippy top.

But then the formula changes. The cloud is back and working its way up, inch by healthy inch.  Your normal becomes warped.  So unrecognizable.  Off kilter and scary.  Unbelievably so, it is back to square one.  Back to search for things that will cast a pall of normal over their inner landscape of that dastardly cloud.

It's a never-ending cycle for those people who fight to feel "well."  They don't choose their canvas but they sure as hell try to color it pretty every single day.  To distract themselves, to fit in, to counter-attack the storm that is always brewing.  To hide it from others who might think less of them despite their heart not to do so.  Some worry if the cloud is catching.

This type of sadness doesn't have to eat you whole.  It will die trying but one day it will die.

May all of you who find yourselves in the rabbit hole give yourself more time.  More time to create another formula that wards off your storms.  More time to understand your struggles will pay off, are paying off today, are such a gift to others fighting with their heads down.  More time to feel how much you are cherished and needed on this earth.  More time to show others that it can be done.

Your rabbit hole won't spit you out.  You have to keep climbing.

In the U.S., call 1-800-273-8255

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

Post Script

You know how some people stress eat?  Pretty sure there must be a stress baking too.

Pretty sure I do that.

Something about following directions, whipping eggs in butter, and pouring a teensy bit of salt in the palm of my hand brings order where I actually have none.

Last night while seeing Grayson lull from side to side in last ditch effort to rid himself of the beast behind his forehead, I was in the kitchen clanking pans, melting butter, and measuring baking soda like it mattered.

"Mommy?"

1 tsp baking soda, 2 1/4 c. flour...where is that 1/4 cup?  "Yes, Baby?"

"I feel seasick."

ahhhhhhhh add pinch of salt, coffee granules...  "Oh Honey, I know you do.  It will pass soon, please try to drink your Gatorade and lay back down."   stir, lift, stir, lift, stir

"Mommy?  Where's Abby?"

preheat oven 375, or is it 350? 350.  This oven is so unpredict...

"Mommy!  Where is Abby?"

"Oh, sorry.  She's out walking with Daddy.  She will be back.  Are you worried?"  stir, lift, stir, lift, stir, lift

"No.  Just wanted to make sure she isn't stuck in the garage."

add 1 c. maybe a little more like 2 c. chocolate chips "Stuck in the garage?  Really?  Has that ever happened?"  fold, stir, taste mmmmm, fold, stir, taste, ahhhhhh

"Only one time."

  
text everyone on recent calls list to tell them I'm making cookies for the nation, would anyone like some?

Confession

So I haven't been completely honest with you guys. There has been a noticeable lackluster in postings lately because I am preoccupied with something. Preoccupied with someone really. It's Eric. He's okay, so we'll start there. A good place to start I think. It's just that he's been experiencing some bad symptoms, lots of pain to be exact, since his thyroid was removed a few weeks ago. Things got much worse two days ago and to protect their privacy as much as possible all I'm going to say is that some really scary stuff happened for both he and Christie and the Pecor seniors who happen to be staying in an RV just a few feet away. The other morning, when I was unaware that all this horrifying crap went down, I called Eric to see how he was feeling because he wasn't doing so great the day before. I heard something off in his voice. Something in me told me to worry. Not my OCD but the other thing. It was the same thing that tells you your kid is in imminent danger before you hear him or her cry in pain. I'm not claiming to be clairvoyant although that would be cool but I do know I couldn't stop thinking about him after talking to him on the phone the day before. Anyway, as it turned out the morning I called him, some serious scary shit ensued and he and Christie were in the hospital getting him checked out. So my inclination to worry was right on.




















Again, he is okay now and the doctors are still doing testing but this doesn't make his pain go away. And for some reason he is all I can think about because when someone you've known all your life and have loved as much as your own beating heart is hurting that much it's all you can do to go on washing dishes, folding laundry, or answering question after million question from a toddler who knows his mommy is not focused solely on him. I understand Eric's pain is probably a direct result of the dosage of thyroid medication he is on right now. The doctors probably need to tweak it a few hundred times before they find the correct recipe that will make him more comfortable. Right now, however, he sits in his house wondering what the hell just happened to his completely healthy and robust body. What kind of horrible Boogyman snuck in his room at night and stole his youth and his ability to leap tall buildings on a pogo stick?

I won't even go into detail about how unfair this is or how much can a person (and a wife) go through before hulking out because that is seriously another seventeen pages long. This one is short and to the point. The point being if you know anything about thyroid cancer, medication, symptoms of all, please email me or comment on this post. My personal email is enpecor@aol.com Thank you in advance for anything you might have to say. Maybe just maybe I can collect a few informative tidbits for Eric so he has some arsenal to bring with him to the next doctor's visit. Or at the very least some ammunition to point at that effing Boogyman who seriously needs a good asswhooping if you ask me.