It's been five months since I last blogged, on what was going to be my daily mindfulness and gratitude blog. Ha!! The only thing that I seem capable of completing at the moment is a family size cheesecake.
Just kidding. Although the cheesecake was delicious, I have managed to stay sober for a long time, to parent my kids for 10 years, and to keep living even when things seemed truly crap.
At the moment, I am recovering from having a tooth pulled. I hate dental stuff. I am slightly phobic. I had a filling about two weeks ago on a tooth that was already heavily decayed and filled. The dentist seemed sure that he could save the tooth, I thought it would need to be pulled. He numbed me up and started on his journey to save that tooth. As he started pulling out the decay, drilling and scraping, he started seeing that the tooth was almost more decay than tooth. He started saying "oh dear, this is a lot of decay". He started saying that they would do their best to fix the tooth that day and to put a filling on top of it, but that if I started experiencing pain, to come back in, as they may have to extract that tooth. It might just be too far gone to save.
So, on Easter Sunday, I started feeling intense pain and had to go to the emergency department for strong pain relief. I felt awful when I left their, such grief and sadness clung to me all day, and I couldn't think for the life of me what had happened or what I had done to make myself feel so bad. I gently probed my feelings and realised that it was the first time that I had returned to the emergency department since the burns in August that badly hurt me. That badly hurt me and my daughter, and that eventually ended my marriage. I felt the grief of travelling in an ambulance badly burned with a daughter on fentanyl to manage the extreme pain she was in and a husband who said "I'm three hours away for work, what do you want me to do about it?" I felt the pain of being with someone who didn't know how to keep on caring for me because I was too big, too loud, too much and needed him more than he was able to give. I felt the pain and shame of my daughter being hurt while I was supposed to be looking after her. I felt the pain of her dressings and my dressings and community nurses seeing my backside every three days for months as they dressed my second degree burns.
I felt the pain of knowing that my marriage (the tooth) was decayed and damaged and that we would try to put it back together, only to have it fail ultimately and have to be extracted.
After three days of intense pain, I went back to the same gentle Indian dentist at the hospital, who knew how afraid I was of this, and who gave me four shots of anaesthetic, because I kept feeling nerve pain in this damaged, deep tooth. He pulled and pulled and finally the tooth was out, but I was weeping and wailing because I felt so bloody sad. I knew that it was better to feel the pain of the tooth being gone, the soreness and sadness of where it had once been, than to keep the tooth and have the pain turn septic and destroy me.
But I am so very sad. I am grieving, not only my tooth, but my marriage. I miss my ex desperately. I know that us being apart is right, that I am dating again but only dating the wrong kind of men so that I won't possibly end up being with someone. I know that I am better off alone. That the empty socket needs time to heal. I know I have a wonderful family, wonderful friends, and that I am doing all the right things to heal. I know that it's a process, and I am doing all I can. At the moment, because of the soreness where my tooth used to be, I can't talk much. I realise how much I talk to my kids. I realise how much I don't like silence and not being able to talk to and reassure them. I realise how much I fear I have hurt my children irrecoverably and that none of the words that I say are enough to stop that. I realise how hard on myself I can be.
I will keep healing. The tooth was decayed, it couldn't hold together any longer under the pressure. It needed to come out, but it hurts as it grows over. It hurts to talk, it hurts to feel it. But I am healing, of that I am sure. <3
Just kidding. Although the cheesecake was delicious, I have managed to stay sober for a long time, to parent my kids for 10 years, and to keep living even when things seemed truly crap.
At the moment, I am recovering from having a tooth pulled. I hate dental stuff. I am slightly phobic. I had a filling about two weeks ago on a tooth that was already heavily decayed and filled. The dentist seemed sure that he could save the tooth, I thought it would need to be pulled. He numbed me up and started on his journey to save that tooth. As he started pulling out the decay, drilling and scraping, he started seeing that the tooth was almost more decay than tooth. He started saying "oh dear, this is a lot of decay". He started saying that they would do their best to fix the tooth that day and to put a filling on top of it, but that if I started experiencing pain, to come back in, as they may have to extract that tooth. It might just be too far gone to save.
So, on Easter Sunday, I started feeling intense pain and had to go to the emergency department for strong pain relief. I felt awful when I left their, such grief and sadness clung to me all day, and I couldn't think for the life of me what had happened or what I had done to make myself feel so bad. I gently probed my feelings and realised that it was the first time that I had returned to the emergency department since the burns in August that badly hurt me. That badly hurt me and my daughter, and that eventually ended my marriage. I felt the grief of travelling in an ambulance badly burned with a daughter on fentanyl to manage the extreme pain she was in and a husband who said "I'm three hours away for work, what do you want me to do about it?" I felt the pain of being with someone who didn't know how to keep on caring for me because I was too big, too loud, too much and needed him more than he was able to give. I felt the pain and shame of my daughter being hurt while I was supposed to be looking after her. I felt the pain of her dressings and my dressings and community nurses seeing my backside every three days for months as they dressed my second degree burns.
I felt the pain of knowing that my marriage (the tooth) was decayed and damaged and that we would try to put it back together, only to have it fail ultimately and have to be extracted.
After three days of intense pain, I went back to the same gentle Indian dentist at the hospital, who knew how afraid I was of this, and who gave me four shots of anaesthetic, because I kept feeling nerve pain in this damaged, deep tooth. He pulled and pulled and finally the tooth was out, but I was weeping and wailing because I felt so bloody sad. I knew that it was better to feel the pain of the tooth being gone, the soreness and sadness of where it had once been, than to keep the tooth and have the pain turn septic and destroy me.
But I am so very sad. I am grieving, not only my tooth, but my marriage. I miss my ex desperately. I know that us being apart is right, that I am dating again but only dating the wrong kind of men so that I won't possibly end up being with someone. I know that I am better off alone. That the empty socket needs time to heal. I know I have a wonderful family, wonderful friends, and that I am doing all the right things to heal. I know that it's a process, and I am doing all I can. At the moment, because of the soreness where my tooth used to be, I can't talk much. I realise how much I talk to my kids. I realise how much I don't like silence and not being able to talk to and reassure them. I realise how much I fear I have hurt my children irrecoverably and that none of the words that I say are enough to stop that. I realise how hard on myself I can be.
I will keep healing. The tooth was decayed, it couldn't hold together any longer under the pressure. It needed to come out, but it hurts as it grows over. It hurts to talk, it hurts to feel it. But I am healing, of that I am sure. <3
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