-14- INTO THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH : DISPAIR The process of acceptance is a long and complex one. There are many painful things to admit to before they can be accepted. Acceptance is the end product of the grief cycle, but one which does not gaurantee serenity. It has not been easy for me to accept any part of my illness, or the ways in which my life has been changed by it. Not easy at all. I have been too much the fighter of the odds, overcoming many obsticles in my life. I held tightly onto the belief that acceptance equated with giving up, and that giving up equated with defeat and failure. I have never handled the prospect of of failure very well. I do not take failure gracefully. It covers me in a thick suffocating cloud of guilt and shame. If left unattended this shame leads to a despair more deep than that of hopelessness. I have collapsed under this despair , a despair that left me feeling unworthy of life itself. totally destroyed. Many have been the nights when the cold dark demon of shameful despair kept my body from rest. The hopeless dispair of the illness fed the shame, deepinging it's hold. This shame told me that I was worthless, invalid. I could not surmount this burden of physical illness. I had failed. I was a failure. I am worthless. I am a burden to those I love. They would be better off if I were dead. Morbid thoughts crept into every opening, every silence. Images of past mistakes detailed with a commentary of what I could have done instead. What If? What if? what if? ...If Only, ...If only, ...if only... I could not stop these thoughts. They intruded , pushed their way in. Obsessive whirling of reasons and examples of why I was not fit to live. Each time I lay to sleep I prayed I would not awaken. Each time I awoke it added to my sadness of burdening the world with my unworthy presence. I did not find an easy path to acceptance from this pit of despair. ----- SHADOWS OF DESPAIR The mind races, jumps about Morbid topics spring to mind Cut one off, another starts Round and Round Upset I get, Upset I stay. Round and Round I go Unpleasent thoughts abound Gory moments from film or drama Fiction or Fact, no matter Details of past pains in detail Cold analysis vies with strong emotion Swings and conflicts Cast one aside and another enters Aspects of torment Without mercy. P. Griffiths, 1994. ----- DIARY. TUESDAY. [afternoon] Panic time again as month end finances cause worry and despair. The bubble in my chest grows and I feel like lashing out in blind fury of my plight. As always, I don't know what to do. Once rent is paid and Don's work expenses are put aside there will be nothing left but empty cupboards. I hate my life. ----- DIARY. FRIDAY. [late pm] I don't like feeling so ill. I can't do anything at all but rest. I don't know what I want to say right now that I haven't written over and over again. I hurt and I feel sad, lonely, and empty inside. I need energy to be added to me somehow. My battery is flat. I can sit and almost sleep, sort of fade away and into nothingness without focus or thought. It hurts to breathe. Anything at all stressful and I hit panic. I'm afraid of everything. I can do nothing. Negative energy. I feel like I am in a black hole. I feel as if I am fading to the negative energy. I can't draw energy from anywhere or anything it seems. Like I am really not here at all. I have more strength in my dreams than when awake. It's shitty. There is no reserve, no repreive. Nothing at all of any thing it seems. Less than empty. How can that be? Yet that is the sensation I feel. Hallow, fading, collapsing into itself. To curl up and disappear. too weak to fight and too weak to care. Only fear in the form of panic breaks the silence, flames that cry out unheard for help. I can't even tell Don what I need so he can give it to me. I can't think of what I need. The mind is as weak as the body. Fade to gray and then to black. ----- DIARY. SATURDAY. [late pm] I am not enjoying life at all these days. All the pressures and stresses and such. I am not enjoying much of anything at all. I'm going to keep on ordering up some major miracles [in my prayers] until they happen. I need something to hang onto other than death and crisis. I do need that. I am so very afraid of the next crisis that will come, whatever it may be. Afraid I won't be able to cope with it, afraid of disaster, of helplessness. ----- DIARY. THURSDAY. [late pm] Shit. Don's unemployment benefits are finished and I don't know how on earth or in hell I can cope with the ever increasing hardships I am being buried under. I pray to God for help. Welfare is the answer? Argh! I hate welfare. I want better than that. I can't get well on welfare. Panic looms. I'm trying to keep together but not I'm not sure I can. The brave face I put on is only a front. I'm scared witless. I can only function by focusing in on the now. Otherwise I'll break and I will surely die. ----- DIARY. FRIDAY. [evening] I am not feeling very happy at all. I want to cry but don't for the sake of others. What about my sake? I hate facing welfare. I hate poverty. What good are my prayers anyways? What good is living in fear as I do? What good is living in all of the hardships and suffering? I am depressed, deeply depressed, even suicidal. I hate life for the suffering of it all. I hate being filled with so much fear and worry and dread. I feel sick all the time. ----- DIARY. SATURDAY. [evening] Life is depressing. I feel bleak and hopeless. All is but an exercise in futility and I feel useless. I sit and draw. I can't do much else. I see progress in my skills - but to what ends? I cry out my soul upon paper in colored images and lines. Simple materials. to what ends? To stay sane? Why? To continue to suffer? Madness is a retreat from suffering. Darkness fills my heart and weighs heavy on my soul. I feel that I do not matter, that nothing matters. All is for naught. I decry my suffering. I dread what the next day will dump upon my head, the added hardships and hassles to be endured. I am tired of enduring. I am tired. I cannot fight and I cannot flee. What am I to do? What can I do? ----- DIARY. SUNDAY. [evening] More dreary dull depression; dingy dreams of danger and disaster defile my sleep. Dread dogs my thoughts. I am not strong even in my fantasy's anymore. ----- DIARY. WEDNESDAY. [very early am] Being upset keeps me wide awake. But I find myself having trouble with word-forms right now. Oh well, wat's nu? I told Don off tonight and I was finally able to cry a bit. He was going on and on about HIS depression [over his mother's battle with cancer] and his anxiety and how we needed to talk about meeting the other's needs. He didn't care about my misery or despair or physical limitations. Just getting his needs met and complaining about how he had only himself to depend on. It hurt so much I couldn't handle it. I told him how wrong and selfish he is. he depends on me a great deal; always has. He won't let me depend on him for anything but he demands things of me. He dismisses my suffering as less than his own while he is far more mobile, stronger, and energetic than I am. I push myself to my limits every day trying to do as much as I can to take care of myself and the household. He doesn't, but he quotes his prissy assed putterings as equal to my struggles. He doesn't make himself ill for days to do anything on my behalf, but he doesn't think twice about dragging me about when I'm ill or pushing myself till I drop to feed HIM because He can't make use of the meager resources in the cupboards. So he and CJ make suppers for me too. Big fucking deal. They never have to pay for it with physical pain and loss of function. And then to be faced with Don's distain, disgust, avoidance, and neglect - not to mention denial and minimizing - if I complain or even try to gain recognition of how ill I am. I don't want to go on living like this. Life is too painful to endure. Why must I suffer so? -----