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Half life

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We’ve all been living a kind of half life recently in my family. For the last few days, we’ve been waiting for a member of the family to die. What the nurses thought would be minutes or hours has turned into days.

There is no hope of a cure.

This isn’t life, and it wasn’t one before that.

Life is more than being alive. It is about being independent and about giving back. It is about being generous with your time and your talents. It is about having enough to keep yourself going and more to help others with.

Whether you are old and on your death bed, or you are in the prime of your life, the same rules apply.

I think about the story I read in “All Creatures Great and Small” about the vet who went to put down a farm dog. He’d gotten very sick and was suffering. He’d reached the end of his usefulness. The vet gave him the medicine, and after a day, he wasn’t dead. He was recovered. He needed some time to sleep deeply, and then he pulled through and was his old self again. He was back on the farm, working, in a matter of days.

I think about the person I knew in high school who was miserable and tried to kill himself. He didn’t succeed. He ended up damaging himself just enough that he had to be put into a nursing home. He never was able to take care of himself again. He required constant care. His bad situation got worse.

I think about a lady I know who is pregnant. Her belly is so big it looks like she is carrying a one year old. She should have given birth weeks ago. She’s tried everything to get the process started.

I think about the story I read in “Spiritual Midwifery” about a lady who was having a hard time giving birth. The midwives asked her if there was anything she was worried about, anything that might be preventing the baby from coming. The mother was worried about the father being a good provider. After they had a talk about it, she relaxed and opened up and the baby came. It needed to know it had a safe place to come to.

Why am I talking about birth while I am talking about death? Because they are the same in many ways. They are a transition, and they can’t be hurried. Well, you can give medicine to speed up contractions, and you can do a C-section. But generally, those happen once the labor process has already started, and that you have to wait for.

We’ve all put our lives on pause recently, some of us more than others. It has been a sort of negative holiday. Clothes aren’t being washed. Dishes aren’t being done, cooking happens in spurts. Meals are on the go. Naps take precedence over actual sleeping. Trips away from the house are short, and the phone is always on.

With a baby not coming, with a family member not dying, it is all a huge wait. It is delaying the inevitable. Waiting until the time is right just makes it harder on everybody else.

Maybe it isn’t about her, but about us. Maybe we aren’t ready for it. You never are, really. It is going to be a big mess to undo all of this once she dies. But her delaying it isn’t going to make it easier. If she somehow makes it out of the hospital, she can’t live on her own. She’s proven that in the past few months. There is only so much money to pay for caregivers. There is only so much time that can be taken away from work before they start to think about firing you.

It is selfish of her to hang on.

This sounds very mean and heartless.

In the past few days I’ve really been angry with her for not accepting that she is dying, for not accepting “what is”. Meanwhile, I’ve not been accepting “what is” – because “what is” is what is happening right now. This in between state, this flux, this not going on to the next step, is what is.

Do I want her to die for her sake, or for ours? Maybe a little of both.

Me Me Me

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My father-in-law’s dementia has progressed a lot faster than anyone could have anticipated. It has gone about five steps ahead of where it should have at this point.

I believe it is a coping mechanism. I believe that he does not want to deal with the fact that his wife is dying and so he is not dealing with it. I believe also that he is very upset that all the attention is going to her and not to him.

This is a way of drawing attention to himself. This is a way of making other people notice him and take care of him. It is quite embarrassing that this adult man is reverting to childlike behaviors.

He has always been a needy, vain, controlling person. There is one “family” picture in the house – all the other pictures of him are with famous people. He’s always talking about all the famous people he has met. He never talks about family gatherings or vacations. He always has to have the latest, best things. He bullied his wife and then his sons for years.

Outwardly, he is an old man. Inwardly, he is a little boy, always seeking approval through being associated with other people. He cannot stand on his own.

He is in a nursing home and he says he wants to go home. But he doesn’t understand or want to understand that no one is there to take care of him. The person who would take care of him is herself needing to be taken care of. She has nurtured him and put up with his tantrums and rages his whole life, it seems. But now, because of her terminal cancer, she is the one who has to be taken care of. She is the one who has a home health nurse and a hospice nurse coming to the house.

While his needs need to be acknowledged, ultimately he has to learn that it isn’t all about him. There’s some middle ground where people say you’re great and you know you are. There some place in your head where you don’t have to have other people tell you that you’re awesome. And maybe part of it is not having to think that you’re awesome. Maybe just being average is okay.

Hidden in plain sight

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I think it is interesting how there are some posts that I won’t share on my Facebook feed, but I’ll still write them and post them. There are some people and situations that I want to write about that I feel won’t be received well by my friends or my family, so I don’t share them there. But I do share them with total strangers all over the world.

Perhaps it is a sign to me that I should talk to those people privately about what I see. Sometimes family or friends are doing something that I think is dangerous or stupid or counterproductive. Sometimes I can see that the direction they are going will result in making their lives even more difficult. But instead of telling them, I vent about it here.

But then again, I’ve noticed that people are unwilling or unable to heed advice when they didn’t seek it.

For a while I had a filter, where I would share posts with certain people but not others. I could block out a group. It turned out that group was either family or friends of family. Family tends to get upset when I talk about family. My brother had a real issue with it – something about family honor and pride and name. But if he was so darned interested in family honor and pride and name, he should have acted better.

I was just reporting the facts. Is it embarrassing to be called out for your repeated violations of your own honor code? His lies and machinations finally got to me. It was either my sanity and health or his “honor”.

Then there is my married family. There is quite a bit of unsettled business there, and it is ugly to watch people act like teenagers when they are in their 70s. If lessons aren’t learned when you are young, you will continue to stay at that emotional age.

I got called out for pointing out hypocrisy and lies and maladaptive behavior in my family – birth and married. I got challenged by members, saying that I should just put up and shut up and make peace. It isn’t my place to make peace with someone who has abused me. I am not in the wrong for standing up for myself.

If someone breaks into my house and robs me, I am not the person who should apologize and make things right.

Being mentally harmed by a family member, even after I have pointed out the harm and asked him to stop, is the same as being robbed. My mental peace had been stolen. But for another family member to write me and say I should make peace for the sake of the family is even more insulting, and further harms me. It says that I am the antagonist.

I was attacked for what I wrote about the church too – by members of the parish I went to, and by strangers here who thought I was being divisive and harming the Church. I’m not. I’m showing how we are damaging it. I want it to be stronger, but it can’t be until we remove the weak parts. Like all the parts that Jesus not only didn’t tell us to do, but also all the parts that Jesus told us especially not to do.

I will not be silent anymore. I was silent for many years. But now I’ve found my voice, and I will speak. The more people who try to silence me actually strengthens me, because I see it as a sign I’m on the right path. Just like in aikido, I use my opponents’ energy in my favor.

In-laws and outlaws

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You know the difference between in-laws and outlaws? Outlaws are wanted.

In-laws are like an arranged marriage. You didn’t pick them – they were picked for you. Sometimes it works out, and sometimes it doesn’t. It is great when it does, but it is horrible when it doesn’t.

You can’t drop them like you can drop a new friend.

With a new friend, one you are trying out, things might not work out the way you both hoped. You can just stop calling and making dates with each other.

Family is different. You are stuck with them. All the major holidays, all the big celebrations, you are expected to spend with your family. Thanksgiving. Christmas. Weddings. Funerals.

The most important days of your life, and you are stuck with people you didn’t pick.

This makes no sense.

The only thing that will make bad in-laws go away is divorce. Either you leave, or they do.

Or, better yet – re-invent the idea of holidays. Don’t make it mandatory to spend time with people you don’t like. Create new traditions. Invent your own ideas.

Being stuck with people you didn’t pick doesn’t make sense.

Perhaps this is why people hate holidays so much. They are expected to spend time with people they think, by society’s rules, that they have to get along with.

Why fake it anymore?

Family honor

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My brother used to push the idea of family honor on me. He seemed to think that it was my responsibility to keep up the family name and family pride. And yet he was the one who changed his last name and who got two women pregnant without being married to them. He is the one who got divorced four times and who got himself a quarter of million dollars in debt.

So I’m not really sure why he thinks it is my responsibility to keep up with family honor and pride. Perhaps it is my responsibility because he realized that he had failed at it. Trying to make his problems my problems isn’t acceptable.

I have felt like I have failed the family for many years but I’ve gotten over it. He really did a number on me. Because he was older than me, I trusted him. He imprinted me. I finally realized that their madness isn’t my madness.

If you work for a company, everybody should work together to make a good product. But if you work really hard and no one else does, then you will lose your sense of loyalty towards the company. You feel like it doesn’t matter what you do because no one else is pitching in nearly as hard as you are.

The same is true with my family. I feel like they aren’t doing anything for me so why should I do anything for them? In fact they seem to think that it is my responsibility to care about everybody else’s feelings, when they don’t bother with mine. That is the very definition of codependency.

In “Anatomy of the Spirit, Caroline Myss talks about how our first loyalty is to our tribe – our family, our culture, our country. Whatever we are born into and is impressed upon us. Problems occur when we disagree with it and realize that its goals and values are not the same as ours.

She talks about our family of origin as being Divinely chosen. So this means we should accept it.

That isn’t so easy.

This happened with Jesus in the Garden at Gethsemane – 39 And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt.” (Matthew 26:39, RSV) He was about to be crucified, and he knew it. He was about to suffer a very painful and humiliating death, one that he didn’t deserve. He knew that he was going to be resurrected, but getting to that point was going to be ugly.

He didn’t want what was going to happen to him. He was asking God to let it not happen.

I was angry at God for letting things happen to me. I was angry at God for the abuse and neglect. I was angry at God for it all – not having a better family then and not having a better family now. I didn’t pick these people.

I felt pretty ugly for thinking these thoughts. But if even Jesus can think stuff like this, then I’m in pretty good company. And Jesus says, not my will, but yours, God. It isn’t what I want, but what You want.

I’m trying.

Myss says that problems with this area tend to manifest in the lower back and knees, and that is where my pains are. And from my prayers before I read this, I knew that I needed to let God be in control. It is good to get confirmation, but still hard to do.

There has to be a reason what has happened and is happening to me is going on. God made it happen and is making it happen. It is a way to open up, to learn, to grow. It is a test, a trial. Somehow I doubt that the world will be redeemed through my sufferings, but I might be.

Payoff

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What is the payoff?

If you are constantly stuck in a rut, doing things that you don’t want to do, there has to be a payoff. Discover what that is and address it, and you’ll fix the problem.

Say you want to get in shape, but you keep overeating and “cheating” on your exercise routine. You “forget” to walk or go to the gym. You eat three pieces of pie when really you only wanted half a piece. You eat too much at the buffet, even though you say you don’t want to, again and again.

You feel guilty after you do these things, but you keep doing them.

They are symptoms, not the source.

Dig down further.

Who first taught you what to feel about yourself? What did they say? How did they make you feel?

Perhaps your family ignored you most of the time. Perhaps the only time that they even talked to you was to complain about your size or how you “were eating them out of house and home.” You were called fat, lazy, worthless.

Negative attention is still attention.

So as an adult, you still need attention.

But you’ve been taught that the only way to get attention is to be fat, lazy, or worthless.

So you keep repeating that message to yourself.

So you’ll overeat, and skip the gym, and fail, over and over, because that is how you were taught you should be treated. Even though they aren’t telling you this message anymore, you are now telling it to yourself.

Time to learn a new message, and retrain your brain.

Time to create a different payoff – where you get happy that you have achieved a goal. Maybe the goal was only eating two plates at the buffet, instead of four. Maybe the goal was parking the car further away in the parking lot so you had to walk further to get to work.

Little goals count. They add up.

Just like coming off being addicted to a drug, relearning how to treat yourself with kindness takes a lot of work. You have to rewire your brain. New healthy habits don’t have the same kind of payoff that the old bad habits do – not yet. The old habits were wired into you for years – and the work was done by people you should have been able to trust – your family or friends.

It is hard to go against the feeling of loyalty to your family. It is hard to treat yourself differently than how they treated you, even if it is healthier.

But if they weren’t kind and loving to you, they were your family or friends in name only.

Your first and best obligation is to yourself. Your body and your mind are your first and truest homes.

It is time to remodel.

It is going to be messy.

It is worth it.

You are worth it.

Dread

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I’ve had a sense of dread for the past few days. Sometimes I know things before they happen. Or rather, sometimes I know that something is going to happen, but not exactly what. It is God’s way of saying “be on guard”. But sometimes it is just a physical thing, because I’ve gotten out of synch.

I’ve not been following my routine, certainly. I’ve not been exercising like I normally do and I’ve been eating more junk food and less vegetables. I know better, but it happens. When things are going well, it is easy to forget that all the stuff I do to get well is what got me there.

So maybe that was it. Or not. It is hard to figure out these feelings sometimes. Sometimes I feel like a big radio receiver, but I don’t know what channel I’m listening to.

As I’ve mentioned previously, things have gotten worse with my parents-in-law. She fell and got a concussion and broke her leg. She was put in the hospital, and then rehab. My father-in-law has early stages of dementia as well as Parkinson’s. He thinks he can take care of himself, and usually he can.

We all thought everything was fine for now. The kids, and by that I mean those of us in our 40s, are aware that things will get worse soon, but we didn’t think it would be this soon. The parents are playing chicken with the idea of the nursing home.

But now, my father-in-law has gone missing.

Yesterday he went to visit his wife in the rehab center and got lost. He wound up about an hour away from his home. He didn’t think to have a map with him, and his GPS needs updating apparantly. He drove around for three hours before he called for help.

We thought that was it. We knew that it was going to get worse, but not this soon.

Today he tried to visit her again, and we don’t know where he is. My husband has notified the police.

He’s very calm about it, which is unlike him. I’m grateful.

And now I know where the sense of dread was coming from.

I’ve been praying about this feeling for the past few days, while also getting back into my diet and exercise routine. I’ve come to a sense of calm about it – to accept that whatever happens is God’s will. To be thankful, even, because I need to remember that God is always in charge.

It isn’t easy.

Normally, when something difficult is going on in my life, I have had at least some small role to play. Even though I’m trusting that God is in charge, I’ve still got my little part that God wants me to do. I know it isn’t everything, or even anywhere near the majority of the work. But it is something, and that something makes me feel better.

I can’t do anything now. Well, I can pray. And trust. And breathe through it. I can’t control any of this. I have to keep reminding myself that whatever happens is whatever is supposed to happen.

UPDATE. He showed back up at home – seven hours after he left. He claims he got confused, and he had bad directions. He’s safe, for now.

Taking care of your parents when the relationship is bad

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There is nothing about being an adult child that means you want to take care of your parents. There is nothing about the situation that says you even know how to.

You didn’t enter into this relationship voluntarily. Nobody asked you if you wanted to be the child of these people, and nobody asked you if you wanted to take care of them as they got older.

Just because they raised you doesn’t mean you are obliged.

What if they did a poor job of raising you? What if they were abusive? What are your obligations and responsibilities then?

Sure, there is social pressure and Christian guilt to deal with. Society expects you to drop everything and take care of these people. Forget the fact that you barely have enough time money or energy to take care of yourself.

Getting married is a legal commitment. You swear before your friends and family and a witness that you will take care of each other, no matter what happens. You make no such commitment to your parents. It is all passive. You are born into this family. You have no choice, and you haven’t promised anybody anything.

But yet you are expected to drive them around when they can’t anymore, to cook for them, to spend the night at their house when they are afraid…the list goes on and on.

Taking care of your parents is like taking care of children, but in reverse. As they grow older, they grow more needy and less able to care for themselves. As they grow older, they grow less independent and more dependent.

The really big problem is that unlike children, they remember being independent, and they don’t know how to receive help. They certainly don’t want to get help from their children, regardless of their age. They feel that something is wrong with this situation, and that they are losing control and power. That only makes the situation more difficult.

Another problem is that nobody trains you, the adult child, how to take over responsibility. Nobody tells you that now you are the parent and they are the child. So it is hard for you and for your parents.

If there is a history of abuse or neglect it is even harder.

People who had a great relationship with their parents cannot understand this.

Fill in the blanks.

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I woke up thinking about my parents-in-law. Things aren’t going well with them, and I’ve been very distant because of that.

I’m angry with them. I’m angry about how they treated my husband, their son, as he was growing up. I’m angry about how they abused him. Their own history of being mistreated isn’t enough to excuse it. They should have known better.

I’m angry about how they haven’t listened to my advice on where to live, so they keep needing to ask for help. I was the one to suggest they move up here, closer to their sons, but that is all they have listened to. Five hours away was too far to help them, so they came closer, but they are still too far. Thirty minutes one way isn’t ten.

They should have bought a condo, or gotten an apartment. Basically they shouldn’t have gotten a yard and a place that has to be maintained. At their age, they personally need to be maintained more than their homes. I told them this, and they ignored me. I told them that my husband, their son, barely has time to take care of our house.

Now they need help. Often. Just like I foresaw. There is no need for these emergencies.

They continue to ask for my advice and input, but they continue to ignore it. They waste my time and that of my husband.

They are very needy.

They are too old to be this childish.

And then I stopped and remembered. Ask Jesus into it.

Jesus Jesus Jesus, I said. I visualized all of these problems as big blocks. I saw the light of Jesus entering them. It was like a glue, filling in all the cracks, making them stronger.

And I came to understand that the brokenness is part of the plan. The brokenness is necessary.

The poet Rumi reminds us that bread can’t become bread unless the grain is ground up. Then it is mixed with other ingredients and heated in an oven.

Clay isn’t useful unless it is shaped and heated too.

These broken bits, these hard times, these trials that we all have – these are what make us who we are.

They aren’t the bits to run away from. They are the whole story. They are it, everything.

They are what make us human. They are what make us who we are.

God isn’t the “bad guy” for letting bad things happen to us. These “bad things” are just the hard things that push us out of what we are and into who we are supposed to be.

They are what get the baby bird to get out of that shell. They are what get that same bird to jump out of the nest and fly for the first time too.

We are those birds.

Stuck in our shells, we would die.

Stuck in the nest, we would never live.

Adversity isn’t.

It is opportunity.

Jesus is the glue that holds us together, is the hand that pulls us out of the hole, is the thing that rescues is from being stuck.

Jesus is “out there” but is also “in here”. Jesus is instantly available -all you have to do is call on him. Ask and you shall receive, after all. But Jesus is also inside every person who has let him into their lives. Jesus builds houses for poor people through Habitat for Humanity. Jesus feeds people at the rescue mission. Jesus holds people’s hands when they die in hospice care. Jesus teaches children how to read.

Jesus wears a lot of faces and goes by a lot of names, and he’s here.

But he had to be broken and blessed for that to happen.

He wasn’t crucified for our sins. He was blessed and broken on that cross, just like how he blessed and broke the bread and the fish to feed thousands.

He became more, so we could become more.

Thanks be to God.

Learned helplessness – victimhood and the Siren song.

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Learned helplessness is a terrible thing.

Thinking you are a victim makes you so.

Blaming others for your sad state of affairs keeps you trapped there.

Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t, you are right.

I knew a lady who once complained that there was a roach in her house. She was concerned about how filthy and dirty they are. She said that she was so upset about it that she had to have a smoke. I told her that the cigarette would cause her far more damage to her health than the roach. She got very angry with me and then told me that my saying that made her have to smoke even more.

It has to be terrible to live your life like a puppet.

I did not make her smoke. I did not force her to do anything. That was her choice.

Look at the Nazis. They said they had to commit all those atrocities because otherwise they would be killed. But it is better to die clean than live dirty. They made their choice.

To smoke is to commit an atrocity against yourself.

I knew a guy who weighed over 500 pounds. He said that he couldn’t help it. Everybody in his family was that large. If everybody in his family was as inactive as him, it makes sense. He even had a free membership to the Y and spent his whole time either drinking coffee or floating around in the pool. There were many opportunities for him to get healthy and he chose to not take them. He ate terribly, he refused to exercise. He acted as if he had no choice in the matter. That too was his choice.

It is all about choices. Sometimes people make bad choices. Then there are repercussions. It isn’t fate. It isn’t being unlucky. It is a direct correlation to an action or inaction.

You reap what you sow. If you don’t sow anything, you don’t reap anything. Simple.

I knew a guy who said that he wanted to quit smoking. And then he took another puff of his cigarette. If you want to quit smoking, quit smoking. Really. You are the one buying the cigarettes, lighting them, and bringing them up to your mouth and inhaling. These are all conscious acts. It is all something you are doing. It isn’t something that happens to you. It is your choice.

Whatever you want to be, you have to do. If you want to be healthy, you have to do the things that healthy people do. You have to eat healthy food. You have to eat a reasonable amount of it. You have to exercise daily. You have to get enough sleep.

You can’t wish it into being. You have to do it.

To get jealous of someone who has something you don’t is to paint yourself as a victim. It is in fact why you don’t have what they do – because you have given your power away. You have said that you can’t do it. You have chosen that.

You will either find a way or find an excuse.

Look at what you can do and do it.

I used to be obese. I used to smoke pot daily. I used to smoke clove cigarettes. I wallowed in my helplessness.

I remember one time I decided to at least slow down on my pot smoking. I put the supplies in a plastic bag and sealed it with rubber bands. I put it up in my closet. I had to get a chair to pull it down. It took me quite a bit of time to get to it.

Then I’d climb up there and pull it all apart, and smoke anyway. All along I felt helpless, in the thrall of my desire for that drug. I’d feel guilty and upset and angry at myself. But I’d seal it up again, and it would slow me down a little. That step alone was a step towards getting free.

No change happens immediately. It is all made of little steps.

I even moved two hours away from the person I bought pot from so that it would be harder for me to smoke. I had to drive a long way to get pot. I did that on purpose, to make it harder for myself. That too was a step.

Lao Tzu says that the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. And then there is another step. And another. You just have to keep walking towards your goal, one step at a time.

I remember one time I was making a rosary. I worked on it a little. Then I put it aside. A lot of time went by and I didn’t work on it. But then when I came back to it I realized that all the work I had done was still there. It hadn’t lost anything. So I added to it.

Positive actions towards a goal are the same.

You don’t abuse drugs, or food, or sex, or whatever. You abuse yourself. You are insulting your soul. You are abusing the gift that God has given you.

Look at Ulysses. He wanted to hear the sound of the Sirens. He knew that hearing it might drive him insane. He told his men to put wax in their ears so they would be safe, and to tie him to the mast so he couldn’t jump into the sea and drown.

Our addictions are like the Siren song. They draw us away from our rational selves. When we are sober, when we are free of the pull, we have the chance to make a decision to make it harder on ourselves to succumb.

My putting the supply of pot further away from myself was my lashing myself to the mast. It slowed me down and made me think. Ideally, yes, I would have thrown it away. At times I did that too, and I just bought more. At that time, I thought I could control it. Just like Ulysses, I wanted to hear that Siren song, just not succumb to it. It is a dangerous game.

Jesus says in Matthew 5:29-30 (ESV)
29 If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. 30 And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.

Sometimes we have to make hard choices in order to get healthy.

It is hard to be addicted, but it is still a conscious choice. The addiction is like nothing else. It consumes you. Ideally, it is better to not start. I don’t think anybody will ever tell you that smoking cigarettes, doing drugs, and eating junk food is good for you. We all delude ourselves when we think we can do these things and not get hurt. But if we do succumb, and fall into that pit, there is a way out.

It is step, by step, by step.

But first you have to stop being a victim.

I knew a guy who abused prescription drugs. They weren’t even his drugs. It wasn’t an accident. He didn’t develop an addiction from taking a prescription drug that was for him. He voluntarily and soberly took the first pill or four. He wasn’t an addict when he started.

He knew the risks. He thought it couldn’t happen to him. He thought he was special.

He ended up going to rehab twice. His wife left him. His brother started abusing drugs along with him. His father got sick from all the stress. And then he actually had the nerve to say “Why does all this bad stuff keep happening to us?” and “Why does God hate us so much?”

This passive attitude was the reason he was in that mess. He was the cause of all that mess, not God.

We are the cause of our own problems – not others. We are the solution too, not others.