The Darker Side of This Summer
Okay, a place to look at the darker side here...
This summer has been so difficult, and its basically just the 'straw that broke the camels back' as they say in the greater stress of life so far. My EI (environmental illness/chemical sensitivity) has just skyrocketed, and after the last chemical exposure of that spray i had thought i was getting slowly recovered from the exposure, only take a reality check recently and realize i actually have likely worsened my EI really... for one my senses, which are usually unusually strong, are unusually numb ....my sense of taste, touch, smell, all eerily mega numbed.
My system has just had it, is on toxic overload. Its hard at home and downright scary to be in public places like stores and churches and schools and post offices and even doctors offices and such at this point, i almost always get triggered by something when i go out now, its only a matter or how bad it will be, not an if but a how much it seems. Home is the only safe place, or is supposed to be at least...but even my little home has toxic problems, not only the fumes from the outside (latest joy is a boy rides his motercycle in circles in a yard right by me several times a day, i'll leave the fumes and noise to ye ol' imagination; and bbqs, lawnmovers etc) but from the inside too--as there are mold issues needing attention from the water tank leak fiasco months ago and from the wood rot under the carpet in the bathroom. Mold is nothing to mess around with especially when one is already weak from EI, but its not something i can do much about yet, i cant pull up the carpet nor can i pay someone else to . Its hard enough when you are make ill by public places, at least home should be a safe zone, but its not yet, both the inner repairs needing doing and the land needing to be found with a wide toxin buffer zone. There is also the other repair stuff, not so much connected with the EI but still needed...repairing the leak on the roof so i can 86 the roof tarp, repairing the plumbing so there is running water, better insulating, updating the elecricity ampage, etc.
So there is all that stuff. And definitely the health stuff. I have developed tinnitis too (ringing in the the ears from ear damage) pretty badly which frankly is a rather significant blow for someone who needs silence so deeply. My body is heavily toxic from the EI as mentiond above and i'm not quite sure what to do about it short of finally living someplace nontoxic (so far insanely elusive, and dont even get me started on my rant there of how screwed up our ideas of basic needs are, air that doesnt literally make you sick and simple peace and quiet are not a luxury) ; and seeing a good natural doctor would help too, but this stuff which is so core is out of of reach financially right now. So is seeing a foot doctor which is still mega needed, i have malformed feet to begin with from a childhood injury and they have gotten far worse over time and coming to a head this year, they need to be checked and treated/supported properly with orthodics etc. I also need some dental work done that i have already had to let slide over a year now for money reasons, not knowing yet how bad things have gotten in there (at one time they were cavities, now who knows).
And we have money for none of this. My partner works on the sea and such and does seasonal work, and this year part of his wages were supposed to go towards either land (we desparately need that rootedness and security, especially i do, big time), or the other plan was it would be used for the medical things needed and bill catch up if land wasnt found quite yet. But now neither of these things are happening....we had extra expenses of him needing about $1000 worth of gear (long story), some classes he neeeds to take, me needing to set aside money for an unexpected move i'll still to be doing here in Oregon once i find where, and most of all my partner broke his arm (not on the job), leading to unpaid time off, which he is still in the middle of and does not know how long it will be yet...it may even be he will be finished for the season (he was supposed to have worked solidly till mid october (seaons ends late September but he helps with the couple weeks of post seasonal stuff they need to do at the end too)...as of now though he's only worked till early august---huge huge difference). If he ends up being done for the season it could put us in such financial survival mode i don't even want to think about it. My partner has his own issues coming up here (especially having a hard time "finding the heatbeat", which is core stuff), and on my end the rather constant insecurty is core as well and has been what's been doing me in...the not having land (ie nontoxic more controlable space) and needing to move around so much usually becuase of finances or toxins; the not being able to treat the health issues i have properly; the home and health and money insecurty in general... the chronically needing to be on guard basically rather than feeling safe enough to relax due to not feeling secure and comforted and rooted.
In a nutshell, its become a rather chronic fight of flight. The problem is, you guessed it, the chronicness there. Fight or flight is fine in spurts, thats what its designed for, but we are not designed to have it happening chronically. And its is this chronicness of things that is coming to a head, now at midlife. I'm beginning to undertand the whole midlife crisis thing a bit more, its about things building to a breaking point where something has to give.
So, chronicness. In her joy series i mentioned before here, Jeanne of at a Hens Pace linked to a video, here. While i didnt agreee with all of what was in the video, some of it resonated. One thing that was said was that with most bad things that happen, if three months time goes by afterwards we are no longer made unhappy by them. Now i'm sure he's not talking about big major trauma like a horrible rape or the death of a child and the like, but with most things i think this is very true. Isolated stresses, even pretty heavy stresses, that have a few months buffer between them...no problem, we can usually handle that fine in the end. Because then the serious stress isnt your ~~life~ its just a periodic issue to deal with. Its the CHRONIC stuff that does you in, when stress is more the norm and so ~~that~~ is more your life, not just a normal life with isolated stress but a stressful life with isolated bits of normalcy. BIG difference, believe me. And so a life of pretty chronic stress has been coming to a head. I remember this old experiment we were shown in college on a film, it showed monkeys being exposed to shock. At first the monkeys reacted to the shocks, quite naturally moved away from them to avoid them, or tried to fight back. Then over time something happened. The shocks kept coming, and moving or fighting or reacting at all didnt make them go away, the pain from the shocks always seemed to come back. So eventualy when the monkeys would get shocked they would just sit there, had no will to move or fight becuase it never seemed to make a differnce anyway. Frankly, thats what i've been feeling like, whats been building up in life lately. And there needs to be a place to express this stuff...
// posted by wendybirde @ 9/02/2007 05:22:00 PM 
