I Am Not Only the Darkness; Sometimes I Am the Light

18 April 2008

It does seem as though the darkness seeks me out. I wonder sometimes how much one woman can take at once? I know that others have taken more, but my ability to deal with things is as flimsy as the excuses I sometimes tell myself about why I can’t deal with more.

I teeter on the edge, always. It has always been my way to seek out the darkness, to know its name, and to befriend its terrible power. It is easier to deal with the enemy you know, as “they” say, than the one you do not.

I am not normal. I try to tell people that, but they seem to insist that I must be normal, as though it was required on my birth certificate, as though “normality” is something anyone can define, as though normal is something that anyone is. Everybody is slightly left or right or up or down or curlicue of the center that represents “normalcy”. The fact that I am in entirely another Universe from normalcy does not escape my attention, nor does it escape others’.

I am still trapped in that bureaucratic nightmare of doctors/pharmacies/Social Security/HEAP/help that isn’t help at all. And I instinctively at every turn try to get around the hoops they like to watch me jump through, and when I do, they get angrier.

My psychologist tells me to call this oh-so-helpful quasi-social worker I have spoken with before. She’s certain she will be able to help. So I call, and leave a message. And wait a week. And call again. And leave another message. And when we finally connect, I tell her exactly what I need help with. She sounds astounded that I would ask such things of her. So she gives me yet another phone number (do you have any idea how many phone numbers I have scrawled in how many little notebooks around here? I can’t make heads nor tails of any of them right now), and says she will call – one – just one – group that is supposed to help me with medical co-pays. The group she recommended to me the first time she talked to me. And guess what? I still have heard nothing, either from the group (who called two weeks or so ago and said they would mail me something “in a day or two”), nor from her. I just want to beat my head against a wall sometimes.

My gynecologist hates me now because I sought the advice of another gynecologist in another state. I suspect I am no longer her patient because I didn’t do things in the appropriate, expected manner in these things. Sniff.

I am sick and tired of the flotsam and jetsam of humanity that resides in the awful redneck bar down the block every night, so I call the police. Who refer me to the mayor’s office. Who refer me to a different police department. Who say it isn’t their jurisdiction, either, but, hey, they’ll pass along my complaint.

I can tell the officer thinks it amusing that I am trying to shut down a nasty redneck bar all by myself. And I won’t be able to, of course, but then, you never know.

This is what I do when I start coming out of a depression. I admit I get depressed; it’s pretty much a chronic condition for me, and I live with it. I think there is no coincidence that the use of antidepressants has risen dramatically during the Bush years. We want our women quiet and nice, you know. No drama queens, no histrionics, no weeping, no questioning. I’d rather cry and question than be the Stepford Wife. Again, this does not mean that I think no one should take antidepressants; I know they have been a godsend to many, and more power to you if they are for you. But they are oversold, and a recent study proved it. Make your own judgment.

At any rate, some time before I start coming out of a deep dance with the dark, I begin to be a bit obsessive about something or other. Usually it’s a computer game; sometimes videos (a series, in particular); sometimes genealogy. None of it is particularly harmful to me, short of wasting a bit too much time on that particular interest. But I do dive into it with something akin to passion, spending hours and hours locking horns with monsters or watching the “Homicide” staff solve another murder (or not). This time it has been genealogy. There is a reason for this period before the depression falls away, and it is not to show that I am also obsessive-compulsive; I am not.

As I have said, I am not normal. In fact, I have been called “weird” by a number of people in my life. I have math anxiety, and yet working Sudoku and logic puzzles focuses my mind. And that is the core of it.

When I start “obsessing” with something, it is always something that either requires thought, or forces focus, or both. It is a lot like working a math problem when you are very comfortable with the rules; it’s almost zen-like in its purity. This is what those things do for me. They force me mind to focus, force me to think rationally, force me to think period. And somehow, that lays the foundation for my Phoenix routine.

I am not depressed every minute, despite the way I may sound. I just don’t write as much when all the lilies are blooming and love is in the air and the babies and puppies are sooooooo cute, if you know what I mean. I tend to write when I am depressed. Or angry.

And that is the next step to my Persephone-like rebirth from Hades’ dark home. I get angry. About something. Anything. Usually something small that I – maybe, just maybe – may be able to do something about.

I have done it before. I fought City Hall and, damned if I didn’t win. Okay, so it was the Traffic and Parking Commission. Close enough. Long story I won’t go into now. But it ended with me (along with help, of course) forcing them to overturn a change in traffic that had caused innumerable problems on my street.

Give me a cause and I’m there. Although I sometimes feel like the “Rebel Without a Clue” in Bonnie Tyler’s song (“Standing on the corner in my boots and my leather/A little over the edge, a little under the weather”), getting mad and getting somebody to do the right damn thing can often pull me right out of the dark mire I so often live in.

It isn’t that I am out of that now. But you see, I don’t think it’s the depression that is the problem; I believe the problem is stress. I have marriage/divorce stress; I have financial stress; I have health stress; I have friend stress; I have cat stress; I have stress on the bus, and stress at the store, and stress on the phone. Just about every single day. And I have had it.

That’s why I wanted this one “helpful” woman to just give me some help, damn it. Make a few calls for me, make something happen for me, just get me a little de-stressed.

The only way I know how to de-stress is to stop the cause of the stress. And that’s impossible to do when I feel like I am twirling around inside a circle of doctors and pharmacies and agencies and attorneys and people, all yelling something at me I can’t hear because there are too many of them and only one of me.

I do feel like if this doesn’t stop, I am going to go over the edge. I can’t cope anymore; it’s all too much.

This week, the worst of it was my beautiful, beloved cat Cosmo. All of my cats are beautiful and beloved, of course, but Cosmo is special because he was the first of my ten to arrive. He has been with me the longest, and he is the only one who knew any of my last (much smaller) group of cats.

I went to feed him late dinner and found his ear looking like a balloon. I had no idea what was going on, but I knew it wasn’t something I could allow to go; I had to take him to the vet.

It takes me three buses, and an hour and a half to get to the vet, and the same coming home. The last thing I want to do with a sick cat is put them through that, but what choice do I have?

I latched his carrier to the “stuff” carrier I have, and went to the bus stop. Where I promptly managed to somehow fall down, including knocking Cosmo’s carrier on its side. This was the second fall in less than two weeks, and the same knee and elbow got scraped up yet again. I hit my fingers, wrist and ankle, too, judging by the pain I’ve had since then. I have decided to go back to using my cane; when I used it, I did not have these episodes. I had an MRI on Tuesday, and hopefully my neurologist will have some information for me on Monday about why I’m starting to fall down again (all she will say is “Well, it could be MS – but I don’t think it’s MS. It could be that you’ve had a lot of TIAs, although you’re awfully young for that. I can’t rule out MS, but I don’t think that’s what it is.” Just make a decision and diagnose me, please!).

At any rate, I am thinking this is an abscess on Cosmo’s ear, or something I have never dealt with before. I wish it had been an abscess.

Cosmo will be 18 years old in July. He has chronic kidney failure and a heart murmur, both of which he was diagnosed with eight years ago. I have been very lucky – he has been very lucky – to have lived this long period, much less with those diagnoses. He is probably the last good candidate in the cat world for major surgery.

It was not an abscess. He had scratched his ear to the point where he had blown a blood vessel, and had a hematoma in his ear. It was causing him a lot of pain, and the vet said they could drain it, but it would just fill back up in an hour, and the only real alternative was surgery.

I like my vets (it’s a two-guy practice). I have been going there for over 25 years. They know me; they know my situation; they know my cats. They know I am going through a divorce and have no money. They know I don’t know how I will pay them. But they have always been willing to work with me, which is one reason, among many, that I still go to them.

I felt like I turned to water as they told me he would need surgery. I knew it had to be extraordinarily risky for a cat Cosmo’s age and in his condition. It terrified me. But I could not let him suffer, and Cosmo has too much life left in him yet to let him go: it’s in his eyes, and his little nips, and his ravenous appetite for food and treats.

Crazy as it seems, I had to go with the surgery. It was the only choice I could see that gave him a chance to not be in pain and to live out his personal lifespan, whatever that will be.

I was a wreck. I sobbed until I couldn’t anymore. I’d left him at the vet (what kind of sense would it make for me to put him through that bus madness with all this going on?), and every time I looked over at his favorite place on the couch, I broke out in tears. When I fed the other cats, and had to leave his place empty, I sobbed some more. I was so afraid that this would end badly, and in most cases, it probably would have.

But Cosmo is a tough guy. And I have a wonderful cat group, that sends out purrs and prayers and white light or whatever energy each person’s individual spiritual beliefs dictate whenever one of us or our cats is in trouble. They have done studies on the power of prayer, although they have only bothered with the Christian groups. They should study our little group, mixed up of Wiccans and Sikhs, Jews and agnostics, as well as a variety of Christians. I have seen miracles from this group, and I was praying to the Goddess Bast for one more.

And I got it. Or rather, Cosmo got it. When they called me after his surgery, they told me he had come through it just fine. I was still a shaky mess, given that I had lost a cat while coming out of anesthesia, so until he was out of the anesthesia, I wasn’t sure I felt all that secure with being relieved. In fact, I wasn’t going to be relieved until he was home. Okay, so I will not be relieved until he is fully recovered.

I called, and he was out of the anesthesia, again, just fine. They kept him the night, because they inserted a drainage tube, and wanted to keep him there for a bit for that to kick in and function, and make sure there were no other problems.

Yesterday, I finally got to pick him up. My first husband is a cab driver, and I asked him the very large favor of taking a little time off work to bring his cab around, pick me up, stop at the store to pick up cat food, and then to go get Cosmo and bring him home. Did I mention my first husband is a really nice guy?

Cosmo seemed really glad to see me, and I was beside myself with joy to see him. I couldn’t stop petting and talking to him, telling him how incredibly strong and wonderful he is, and how proud I am of him.

Everyone at the vet’s seemed slightly amazed that he had done so well. The vet said (and I’m not sure how much he was joking!) “You know that cat group that sends out the purrs? They’re really good. I may need them some time in the future!”

I have to put some medicine around the tube in his ear, and also in his ear, for 10 days to two weeks, and then he will get the drainage tube removed. I am praying he leaves it alone and does not tear out the stitches; so far, so good. I am keeping my fingers crossed, too.

Today, it was beautiful and sunny, and 80 degrees outside. I took my daily walk before feeding the cats, and noticed all the buds and blossoms that weren’t there just last week. I smiled at seeing Persephone returned to the world, out of her dark place and into the light.