Fear And Loathing

Yesterday I went on my weekly visit to see my mother in the physical rehabilitation center. On the elevator trip to the fourth floor my father complained he felt dizzy; as we left the elevator, he collapsed. I tried to hold him up, but I was holding onto my laptop and my mother's weekly order of coffee and two Boston Creme donuts. As we later discovered, his blood sugar was 84 and had dipped in the elevator. I thought his fall would be the worst thing that happened. It wasn't.

I actually stood frozen as members of the rehab center's medical team helped him to a chair, secretly grateful the incident had happened so close to a hospital instead of out in a parking lot somewhere (which has happened.) Memories of my father's collapse in December, followed by a diagnosis of brain cancer, came flooding back in horrific detail. Tears started flowing immediately thereafter, and I found a lot of the nurses asking me if I was all right.

The truth was, I hated myself for reacting the way I did. Not just chagrined, and it went way beyond embarrassed. I hated myself for letting my father see how strongly my fear of his condition runs. There's precious little else in this world that will reduce me to a quivering, unintelligible mass of tears in an instant other than the death (or threat therein) of someone close to me. I suppose I never really got used to the idea because I didn't lose anyone in my life until I was a teenager, but since then it's been far more frequent.

All my life I've been the "strong, silent type". I guess I have a sort of easily approachable personality that lets my friends and family know I care about their problems, and I'm always willing to listen and/or help where I can. After all, humanity is a rough road, and when that journey is shared with others, the inherent pains associated with the human condition are lessened considerably.

But when it comes to my problems, some part of me feels like I don't have the right to let anything show. No, I don't know why, and for 26 years it hasn't been an issue. But in the course of two years I've been repeatedly confronted by horrors and deep-rooted fears I had never before considered or given a second glance to, and because of my own Goddamn pride/fear/hatred/whatever, I can't even talk to anyone about it. Not "I don't want to", "I have trouble with it", I am physically incapable of letting the people in my life see any type of pain without immediately hating myself for it. Where did that come from?

Truth be told, I did speak to a friend last night--but not about what had happened earlier. Still, just the act of speaking with a friend about anything--not necessarily problem related--helped me more than I think he'll ever know. I was grateful for this nod to the normalcy that seems to be lacking in my life at the moment.

I used to think I would come out the other side of turning points in my life largely unaffected, unscathed. Now I'm beginning to see that, even if I do come out the other side of this ever-lengthening tunnel, I won't by any means be unscathed.

I bet a psychiatrist would just have a field day with me...or quit their practice.