Detaching from Outcomes

During the past twenty-five years, I’ve experienced a range of ailments from minor to major. Probably all of you have too. For myself, my life went merrily on during the first fourteen years of that span. Then Meniere’s Disease demanded entry in May 2006.

Meniere’s, one moment I would be standing upright. The next nanosecond, with no warning, I’d be sprawled on the kitchen floor, with the walls and ceiling spinning round me. I never knew when I’d fall or when the room would start to spin. For nearly a year, I seldom left the house. Mostly I crawled from room to room.

        After an operation on the sac behind the mastoid bone of my left ear, the episodes subsided. I recuperated, but neglected to consider what my body was trying so desperately to teach me. I didn’t explore what I could learn from Meniere’s.

       After recuperating from the operation, I once again began producing hour-by-hour schedules, demanding that I write so much each day, exercise so much, complete a certain number of odd jobs around the house each day.

     The result? Ten more years of ill-health that culminated in a seriously major operation on my back in March of this year.

The time has come for me to examine what my body and the Universe are trying to teach me. To do that I must wander back to what’s been said to me and what’s happened in these last twenty-five years.

     I remember telling a friend that I just couldn’t figure out how to get an agent to represent my writing. Judy said, “Go with the flow. You try to control too much.”

     Quite frankly, I wasn’t sure what going “with the flow” meant. Surely I had to plan. No agent in New York would be muttering, “I need a new client. I’ll stick a straight pin in this map of the United States and that’s where I’ll start searching!” And there I’d be, pinned smack dab in Stillwater, Minnesota!

      I didn’t listen to Judy, but continued to plan and to envision the outcomes of all my planning. In fact, I became totally attached to those outcomes: an agent would be delighted with my writing; I’d be published to rave reviews; the first book would sell 50,000 copies, make $100,000, and enable me to build a four-season porch on the house; an editor would ask for another and then another manuscript to publish; I’d become both rich and famous. (Yes, I admit to that dream, wanting to be famous enough that readers would eagerly await my next book.)

      Several years after Judy’s remark—the one I ignored—I read an article in which the author encouraged readers to dream big, but to resist becoming attached to outcomes. She said that the Universe had much more to give us than our paltry desires.

      She, too, spoke of going with the flow; of entering my dream river and floating downstream to wherever it took me. I liked this image; it spoke to me.

      Here’s the summing up: I’m hoping that while I rest and nap and sleep during these months of recuperation, I will also let go of outcomes and simply embrace what my life is right now. I’m blogging, and that, as a number of you reminded me in your comments last week, is a way of being published.

      I’m also hoping that from all this musing, I’ll learn something truly new. I have no idea what. I only know that I can feel the cracks opening within me—the cracks through which the light will shine through as Leonard Cohen wrote.

      Peace.

Be Gracious to Yourself

There’s not much more to say about Dr. C. except that at our last session he gave me life-saving advice. I was leaving Dayton to attend graduate school at the University of Minnesota, and he knew my penchant for seeking perfection so as to win approval. He also, I think, knew what graduate school would demand of me.

And so he said, “Dee, do you understand the term psychic energy?”

“No. I’ve never heard it before.”

“It means the energy that comes from your spirit. A Catholic would say ‘from your soul.’”

“Okay.”

“Psychic energy is the deep-down source of your response to life. It’s the force that keeps you going.”

“Like drawing water from the well when you need it?”

“Yes. Something like that.”

I looked at him, not knowing where he was going with this new information.

“Dee, let’s say that we have this much psychic energy for each decade of our lives.” He spread his arms far apart.

“We use up our psychic energy throughout the decade. Then we start another decade and use that psychic energy. Sometimes we have some left over from one decade for another.”

“Okay.”

“The thing is, Dee, I believe you not only used up all your psychic energy for your twenties when you were in the convent, but that you’ve already used up all your psychic energy for your thirties. You’re only thirty-three now and you’ve used up everything for this decade. You’ve asked too much of yourself.”

“What do you mean?

“I mean you don’t have any psychic energy in reserve for the rest of your thirties. And you have several years to go. You’re living on the edge of your own resources. You not only have no psychic energy for the thirties, you have no reserves from the twenties.”

“So what do I do?”
         “Be gracious to yourself.”

I didn’t truly understand the import of what he was trying to tell me, but as the years passed I realized what being gracious to myself meant. I needed to cut myself some slack. To be kinder to myself. Less demanding.

Those realizations spanned years. During the years between 1969 and 1975 I became increasingly suicidal. Then, in 1975—when I was thirty-nine—I began to see a St. Paul psychiatrist and finally talked about hallucinating and suicide. She prescribed an anti-psychotic mood enhancer. That medication changed my life dramatically.

Thirty years later—when I was seventy years old—Meniere’s entered my life. It was then that I truly learned what “being gracious” to myself meant.

In her comment on my posting last Thursday, Friko noted that I seem to have lived with a lifelong loneliness and neediness. I think her assessment is accurate. But because of the help I’ve received during this journey and because I’ve worked hard to grow emotionally, I now cherish my friends but I also know—deep down in the marrow of my bones—that my acceptance of myself is more important than winning anyone else’s approval. This has led to contentment, pressed down and overflowing.

Postscript: Would you like me to continue with those early days in Dayton after I left the convent? Or would you like me to continue to post stories about other psychiatrists and counselors I saw—in New Hampshire and Minnesota?

At some point in the next months and years, I’ll cover all of this. But perhaps you’d prefer that I stick with a single subject—like re-entering the world after the convent or like the counseling that helped me on my life’s journey. Please let me know your druthers. Peace.

Well photo from Wikipedia.

The Best Laid Plans . . .

Just last week I posted the routine to which I was going to commit myself for the remainder of this year. Several of you left comments in which you encouraged me—gently—to be more realistic and not ask too much of myself.

         How wise you are. Already my three-pronged plan has become too ambitious. In less than five weeks, I’ll celebrate my 78^th birthday. And the truth is that I no longer have the energy and resilience I once took for granted.

         Moreover, I deal daily with two physical problems that leave me tired much of the time. Today, I’ll share with you the ramifications of one of them—Ménière’s Disease. Next Thursday I hope to explain the impact of Cutaneous T-Cell Lymphoma.

         I experienced my first episode of Acute Rotational Vertigo in 2002. Nothing occurred again until 2006 when my Ménière’s became, according to the specialist, progressive and intractable.

         I spent the next eighteen months experiencing ARV episodes—with the walls, ceiling, and floor rotating around me. Nausea and vomiting accompanied each episode. I couldn’t walk without falling and so I crawled from room to room.

         These episodes usually began with me suddenly pitching forward: down the steps, in the rock garden, out of bed, against windowpanes and the sharp corners of tables, toward the pot of boiling spaghetti. The pitch forward, prelude to the episode, came without warning.

         The episodes were of varying length. The longest for me was twenty-four hours. Because of Ménière’s, I couldn’t drive. Read. Watch television. Work at the computer.

         An operation in 2007 made those ARV episodes mostly a thing of the past. However, two weeks ago I experienced ten hours of simple vertigo. Not acute rotational. Just simple. And yet it had me crawling from bed to bathroom to kitchen. Mostly I kept my head on the pillow. Why? Because a boulder had lodged within my skull cavity. When I raised that heaviness off the pillow, I felt as if my head were going to tumble off my shoulders.

         But that occurrence was, I hope, simply a fluke because neither ARV nor simple vertigo happens often anymore. I do have days in which I deal with about five variations of vertigo in ascending order: tentativeness, imbalance, light-headedness, dizziness, wooziness. When I have one of those days, I do little.

         The more problematic side effect of Meniere’s is its headache. In intensity it’s like a migraine, but without light sensitivity. Precipitous barometric changes often trigger these headaches, which can last many hours. They leave me exhausted, as do vertigo episodes and wooziness. I sleep long hours after experiencing them.

         Unfortunately, I live in an area known as “Tornado Alley,” which brings with it many barometric changes. So I have headaches often. In fact, I’ve had a headache everyday for the last sixteen days. During that time, desperate to assure myself that I could get something written this year and find an agent, I wrote last week’s posting. I think that’s called “whistling in the dark”!!!

         But yesterday I read the following words written by the Buddhist monk Pema Chödrön: “Take the whole teatime just to drink your tea.” That line encourages me to live in the present and be within whatever I am experiencing. It encourages me to let go of control.

         Surely, planning schedules for the future is a form of control and yet Ménière’s has tried to teach me again and again that I have control only over the way I respond to life. As you must know by now, I’m a slow learner. Still, I may finally be slogging along the road to reality. I feel myself ready to embrace what one of you suggested: “going with the flow.”

         These are not new words to me. Other friends throughout my life have made the same suggestion. And I try. I do so try. Maybe that’s the result of the asthma with which I was born. Always there is within me a desire to achieve. To leave a mark on life.

         So here’s to going with the flow. I’ll drink—a cup of tea—to that!  

        

PS: If you’d like to know more about Ménière’s, click here. I experienced the four classic symptoms that are listed midway down the article.

Photographs from Wikipedia.

A Change in Plans

(Continuation from Tuesday of postings on random acts of kindness . . . )

Hello All, 

Today I had planned to write about the kindness and hospitality of the nuns at Mount Saint Scholastica Monastery in Atchison, Kansas, during my recent stay there for the sesquicentennial.

            However, that will have to wait until tomorrow because one of those Meniere’s headaches had settled in my brain and I need to lie low today. A friend was in a pickle this morning and I was glad to be able to listen and help her clarify her thoughts, but now I need to simply rest.

Matthew, one of the three cats with whom I live, lying on our bed.

            So tomorrow’s posting will be about the nuns at the Mount; Friday’s will be on Marge Tansley, whose kindness changed my life during our freshmen year of college; and Saturday’s will be about Sister Madonna and her graciousness toward me when I left the convent. Then no more posting until next Wednesday when I’ll return to my regular routine.

            Also, I haven’t responded yet to any of the comments that some of you wrote for Tuesday’s posting. I’ll get that done when the headache decides to lift itself and fade away.

            Peace.

                                                ( . . . to be continued tomorrow—Thursday.)

"Oh, the Weather Outside Is Frightful"

Spring is never easy for someone with Meniere’s disease. Why? Because many of us have Meniere’s headaches, which are like migraines in intensity but without the sensitivity to light. Many foods, such as chocolate, tomatoes, strawberries, and dairy, can trigger these headaches. But most often the trigger, at least for me, is a precipitous barometric change.

         I live in a part of Missouri that is known as tornado alley and so the weather here is volatile, especially in spring and the bar graph on my barometer bops up and down like a roller coaster. Then come the headaches and I toddle off to bed, chant a mantra, and try to distract myself so that I don’t think about the ache in my brain! Medication can help if I take it soon enough to nip the ache in the bud. But sometimes the headache wins the race and just assumes a life of its own within my brain.

         These headaches keep me from thinking clearly and so reading and responding to blogs become somewhat difficult. Even writing my own postings takes a number of hours just to make some sense out of what is swirling around in my mind. This posting is taking much longer than you would think.

         I haven’t visited your blogs to read and comment in a week. Moreover, the forecasters are predicting many days of rain.

         So once again I’m going to drop out of sight for a few more days. I hope to post on this blog next Wednesday, the 24^th. If all goes well, I will. I won’t be posting on my word-crafting blog this coming Sunday, but hope to return to it on the 28^th.

         I do miss reading your blogs as I find so interesting your lives and stories and this A to Z Challenge with which many of you are engaged.

         I hope all of you are enjoying spring and that those of you who have these headaches, for whatever reason, are able to take some time off and simply rest.

         Peace to you and thank you for all the empathy I know you are feeling for me right now. Blogging has surely opened up my world. Please believe me when I say that I cherish the friendship so many of you extend to me.  

Meniere's, PTSD, and Weariness

Here’s a photograph of me on my Grandmother O’Mara’s tractor.

My family was visiting her farm in Anderson, Missouri.

Hello All on this chilly day in Missouri. Today’s posting won’t be an on-line memoir story from the past. The energy to write one of those stories eludes me right now. Instead I’ll bring you up to date on the present.

         The past weeks have been problematic for three reasons. The first is that the acute form of Meniere’s Disease re-entered my life after being on vacation for about two years. The barometer has plummeted a number of times and then zoomed up erratically. Both these occurrences always bring Meniere’s headaches, which are like migraines in intensity but without the sensitivity to light.

         In the past month, those precipitous barometric changes brought, per usual, the headaches, but also brought the long-absent acute rotational vertigo episodes, which I described in a posting in 2011. Living through them, however short or long each may be, leaves me drained, and so I spend time in bed, where I sleep for long hours, or I simply, as some say, crash. Upon awakening, I’m lethargic for days.

         The second occurrence during the past month has been the visit of my friend of nearly sixty years who also came to spend some time with me after Christmas. She has been working on an important report for the college where she teaches. For five days, she and I polished that report. We spent hours and hours and more hours working to make all the data clear and accessible.

         During that time, we were somewhat hampered because I began to experience technical difficulties with the Internet. We needed to go on line to check other college documents and were unable to do so when the Internet service became sporadic.

         Willy-nilly, this led to a PTSD meltdown for me. I think I've shared with you the fact that I have PTSD. The symptoms seldom occur but when they do I figuratively fall apart. This, too, leaves me exhausted.

         In the coming weeks, I hope to post the story of that meltdown, but not today. I also want to review a book of poetry by a fellow blogger—McGuffy Ann Morris. Entitled Weeds, it already has six stellar reviews on Amazon. Reviewing it will be a pleasure as I’ve enjoyed reading her poems, but today my mind simply can’t think straight enough to write something elegant enough to do justice to her work. So I’ll close for today.

         I didn’t post on my Sunday blog and I haven’t visited any of your blogs for a week because, as the Christian scriptures say, “The spirit’s willing but the flesh is weak!” I not only have weak flesh, it’s flabby too!!!

         That’s another thing I had to let go off—attending the weekly Weight Watcher’s meeting. But I hope to get back on track in the next few days. Today, I’ll mostly rest and slowly pick up the reins of my life again. Peace.

Postscript:

If you have any interest in learning about Meniere’s please see the Label “Meniere’s Disease” on the left side of this blog. The earliest postings describe the disease, its symptoms, and how it has affected my life.

         

A "Broken Hallelujah"

Ten words on the election:

It’s time to pull together for the good of all.

Prologue to Today’s Posting

This past Monday I read a posting that ended with “Hallelujah” by Leonard Cohen. I first heard that song when k.d. lang sang it at the Vancouver Winter Olympics in 2010. It led to my writing an introduction for a memoir that I hoped would be published the traditional way.        

    

            After reading that intro, a friend suggested I write differently. “You’re a  storyteller,” she said. “Tell stories in your memoir.” Then another friend suggested a blog and the two ideas coalesced: an on-line memoir.

            Thus, this blog, begun in May 2011, has featured stories rather than musings. So many blogs I read are replete with wisdom. I’m still looking for wisdom to tap me on the shoulder and announce its presence. In the meantime, I tell stories.

            Yesterday I found that 2010 introduction. I want to share it with you today as proof that I need to stick with stories!

That Old Introduction

I am a “broken Hallelujah.” Within the deep center of myself memory and Presence meet and merge. They proclaim, “I am broken, but I have survived.” What I have survived is my own desperate need to be enough for someone. To be enough that someone would love me despite my brokenness. Only in the last few years have I recognized that what I really want is to be enough for myself.

            The first five years of my life were idyllic. My parents loved me—dearly and deeply. Yet in 1941, when I was five, they left me with friends and took my baby brother with them to Parsons, Kansas. This seeming desertion left me fearful. That fear tripled when my dad began to drink heavily and a neighbor molested me for three months.

            Then came the loss of identity in a Benedictine convent in Kansas followed by twelve years of depression and the hallucination of three different aspects of myself. I kept these hallucinations hidden for twelve years during which I became both actively and passively suicidal.

            I have known my own failure of integrity, fallen into the frigid pit of despair, lost faith, endured Meniere’s.  

            We all have a long litany of the days of our life. This was mine.

            Through it all, I, like you, survived.

            In later years, Dr. Nimlos, an astute psychiatrist in St. Paul, Minnesota, told me that I had the most highly developed sense of survival she’d ever met. It’s like the word survival is branded on my soul. It’s the incised touchstone for each experience.

            I’m only guessing that, however, because in truth much of my life still eludes me. Who is that giggly child called “Dodo”?

            Who is that shy and subdued grade-schooler known as “Dolores?

            Who is that bemused college student hailed as “Dee Ready”?

            Who is that confused nun named “Sister Innocence”?

          Who are they?

            Who is she? 

            I’m hoping that writing this memoir will help me understand her.

            Depression, despair, apathy, deep-down-bone weariness are puzzle pieces. I’ve spent my life sorting them. Looking for like colors. Shapes. Images. This memoir, I hope, will finally reveal to me the picture that is my life. The pieces will sort themselves into the who of Dee Ready. I tell you now that she has come to believe in her own resilience. That was a gift of Meniere’s.

            Had I known before my seventieth year that Meniere's awaited me in its acute, progressive, intractable form, I do not know that I would have chosen to remain alive. Yet because of Meniere’s I now know that what I have searched for all my life is my authentic and true self. This broken Hallelujah seeks wholeness. As I begin this memoir, I wonder if the hardest, the deepest, the dearest wholeness is that which bears the jagged scars of struggle.

            All my life I’ve longed to be loved. To be enough for others. I now recognize, with gratitude, that the friends who have stood by me throughout these many years have loved me in my brokenness, almost despite myself. Now I begin to love Dee. Now I am enough for myself. Or perhaps I am just closer to being that enough. For does the journey of a broken Hallelujah ever end?

Postscript

·      If you’d like to see the first story I related on this on-line memoir, click here.

·      If you’d like to know how I go about writing the on-line memoir stories, please look at the most recent posting on my second blog—the one about writing.