Armadillo's Not So Trigger Filled Journal

[Armee]

*****TWs for upsetting content****

Reading responses to my post in "death of an abusive parent" is making me feel...stuff. Cared for I guess, and understood. Things that make me cry.

As I read these I also remembered a painful story a neighbor told me during our casual backyard memorial. That whenever they would hear an ambulance they would all think "oh no, is that [mom's name]?" And they'd start a text chain and then someone would write "yep, it's [mom's name]. She fell again." That story just broke my heart.

She just flagrantly ignored all safety precautions and fell with abandon. Out of bed, down her interior stairs over and over, backwards down her cement front steps. The last fall she took, the one that sent her to the hospital a couple weeks ago, was the backwards down her cement front steps one, which came on the heels of an exact same incident, hospital trip and all, just 3 weeks earlier. I learned she did not have her cane or her glasses on and she is pretty much blind without them.

Two days prior she had fallen out of bed (or something) in the middle of the night and refused to tell the lifeline alert system she needed help. Turns out she had broken a rib. So while I was caring for her on hospice, every time I had to turn her to change her or to prevent bed sores I had to roll her onto a painful broken rib.

Another story from a neighbor that same night...the one who would come over and pick her up off the floor and hide falls from me so my mom would keep trusting her to pick her up off the floor...my mom was apparently falling partially from nightmares that she would sleep run from, running/falling down her stairs. So the neighbor had suggested she put a lock on the inside of her bedroom door so she couldn't open it and run around the house in her sleep. But then when my mom fell a few weeks ago she couldn't get in to help her up.

I don't know what happened to my mom, other than her abusive first husband (my dad).

Oh. Gosh there's something else welling up now.

For those of you who read my first journal...there was a story about how she would write in her therapy journal about how she would commit suicide in front of her therapist's house and about a time me and my sister were dragged to an appointment with her therapist and grilled on how we felt about her suicidality while my mom was right there in the room and I was terrified and dissociated (didn't know what happened at the time, just that I wailed like an animal, felt like my head had been split open by lightening, and then everything went black).

Well, one day when I was at my mom's house a woman came by and was visibly shaken seeing my mom in the hospital bed. Turns out she is the person I knew as my mom's cleaner. Also turns out she is the person who replaced me giving my mom rides to appointments and bringing her lattes the last few months when my mom froze me out. That I found out before my mom died.

What I found out from her after she died was that this woman is also the daughter of that therapist. That she and my mom became friends because my mom loved her dad so much. I don't know what compelled this woman to share any of that. It was highly inappropriate. And also just weird.

Ok that's enough. Sorry for the deluge. Ugh. I need to shake it off.

[rainydiary]

Armee, I appreciate you sharing this.   

[sanmagic7]

all those boundaries being crossed sounds weird to me as well.

i think it's amazing how one event can open a door behind which are so many stories, memories, situations, feelings, and discoveries.  just want to let you know we're here for you, we've got you while you make your way thru all this aftermath.  sending love and a hug filled with a big safety net, just in case you need it.   

[Armee]

Thank you San. I may need that safety net at times.

TW

In cleaning out her house....her instrument of s.h. is all over the house multiples in every room and i keep finding them in unexpected places. I don't know why some bother me more than others. Like I had already gone through her whole house and had found probably 50 of them but then when i was sorting through the desk I found a pack of them a little different than the others and it just hit me really weird and hard. All are unused and I saw no evidence of her harming herself in her old age other than thru self neglect. So I don't know why it was so hard. It was not as gruesome as what I'd see as a kid. But it clearly brought me back there mentally.

EMDR will be good to get this stuff to the surface and then in the past.

[BeeKeeper]

Armee,

that is hard to confront and process. I suspect I know exactly what you are talking about. Even when they might be used for practical useful purposes, the loaded context remains. If I'm wrong, disregard.

The fact that you've gone through this and have come out the "other side" is to inspiring and admirable to me. It takes a special kind of courage to endure.

[sanmagic7]

 

[owl25]

Armee, I'm sorry for what you went through with your mom. It all sounds very overwhelming. The aftermath is a lot too. I hope the EMDR helps. 

[Armee]

I'm done with her house. I have a few big things I couldn't get rid of that I had hubby help me move into the garage and the junk haulers will come pick that stuff up Tuesday morning. Everything else is ready for the real estate agents to swoop in.

I met a couple close friend/colleagues for drinks outdoors today. They know a bit more than thumbnail versions of my life but today I was able to summarize some of it all at once (like tell a narrative about it all). I usually mention things here or there but glossing over the details. Like "what about your dad?" would get answered with "I never met him, they separated before I was born." Today I answered "um well he was an abusive alcoholic and drug addict who tried to kill my mom when she was pregnant with me." What was more different was tears formed at my eyes as I spoke about things. Normally I would laugh like it was a joke. It's interesting...I'm feeling my sadness more and feeling tears starting to come, but I'm less sad in terms of how I actually carry myself and look to others.

[rainydiary]

Armee, When I was reading your entry I noticed that it seems like you are able to release some of what you have carried.  I will be thinking of you as you take steps into this time. 

[sanmagic7]

hey, armee,  a T once told me that people who laugh at terrible things in their lives are holding the tears in their smiles.  it's only when we stop smiling that the tears can finally fall.  it sounds like you reached that point, and, as sad/ possibly painful, as that might be, i believe those are healing tears.  i glad for you.  seems to me that you are truly moving on from this whole situation.  what a wonderful gift you're giving yourself.  love and a hug filled with progress.

[Armee]

Oh my goodness I am so so so tired.

So I finished emptying my mom's  house yesterday and while I was driving home my husband informed me that he found cockroaches in our daughter's bedroom in broad daylight and mouse poop in our basement. Uuuuuggghhh.

Their rooms are kids rooms and kinda gross but like not THAT bad and I clean my kitchen every day. My theory is that a spot opened up when we did our foundation work and lifted the house as we have new cracks and gaps all over. So now I've been going on a mad rampage cleaning every square inch of the kids room's and that is taking forever and there's no rest.

My feet hurt so bad. Its been 3 weeks of absolute nonstop. First round the clock caretaking, then cleaning out my mom's house at warp speed and now pest control central.

Not to mention the rest of my house is normally neat but right now looks like a disaster zone because I've brought a bunch of stuff from my mom's house and haven't had time to organize and find a spot for it.

😭😭😭😭😭😭

[sanmagic7]

ugh!  and another ugh!  i've had to deal w/ that kind of thing as well and it really is no fun.  it is exhausting, stressful, and might even be maddening.

wishing you some peace, and soon.  love and a hug filled with rest.

[owl25]

That sounds absolutely exhausting and the last thing you need right now. Maybe the best thing to do is to focus on the essentials, and worry about the rest later (as best as one can when dealing with pests)? I would be totally overwhelmed as well. 

[BeeKeeper]

Armee,

Kr@p! No pun intended about the mice and cockroaches. This comes at the absolute worst, worst time. 

I'm so sorry. If I could, I'd suit up, bring a bucket, mop, gloves and mask to join in the efforts.

I instinctively know this is not "funny" per se; but am so glad you were able to voice reality, even if it was prefaced with "um. well"   

"um well he was an abusive alcoholic and drug addict who tried to kill my mom when she was pregnant with me."

[Armee]

Thanks for the pest control empathy! I haven't seen any today at least. Maybe they already poisoned themselves!

The junk hauler came today and took the last of the furniture and garbage from my mom's house. 

I've continued to feel more emotions, not about her passing, but about the past.

And I start EMDR tomorrow afternoon and am so anxious. Not so much about the EMDR itself but the part where you are supposed to come up with 3 target memories.  I have always frozen when my T asks me something about my past like "and does that remind you of something that happened before?" type questions. My dissociation keeps me from being able to get in there and answer the question, and when I do have memories , all but a few are extremely sparse. And I feel a little stupid because I asked my T to get EMDR training but I don't even know what to work on. We'll work through it, I know. I just hate the freeze response in reaction to any question about memories.