I have had an anxiety reaction recently. This is difficult to talk about, as I have always considered myself such a “together” person, especially since I began conscientiously practicing recovery from alcoholism in 1987. Right now, I have a tight throat, and I am a bit dizzy, and easily irritated (totally foreign to me when I am whole).
I called my family physician this morning, and when Caroline (receptionist that I have known for decades) offered her condolences to me for dad’s death, I broke into uncontrollable tears. Prior to that call, I was sitting down, and wanted to close my eyes, but when I started to, I felt like I was about to fall into an infinitely deep, dark pit, where I would just disappear. That created its own fearful, almost panic based response from me.
Anyway, I have been using herbal anti-anxiety drops, to little avail. I just picked up a small prescription of anti-anxiety medication, which is not something that I take lightly. I prided myself on being able to maintain control under all circumstances, even when it might have appeared to others that I was not maintaining good conscious control.
I am humbled by this anxiety reaction. I started having it several days ago, and it just has continued to build in new, uncertain ways. I am seeing that unresolved grief issues with the loss of my parents and my good friend Marty has impacted me on unexpected levels of my consciousness. I had a similar reaction in early October, when I was at the beach with Sharon,June, and Michael. I had hoped that all of the issues had been resolved after writing a treatise on it, but no such spiritual luck for me.
I have already talked about my experience with the deaths of my family, friends, and dogs till I am almost blue in the face. Apparently, there exists an “inner story” that remains to be told, which will release me from the grip of this sometimes almost paralyzing anxiety. There is a part of me that still needs to die, so that I can become whole again. Stay tuned for what that part might be.
Well, just last week, Jo informed me that Eddy thought that Marty and I were “having a gay affair” or something to that effect, since there were elements of “secrecy” involved with how Marty and I communicated with each other. I was not welcomed by Eddy, but was requested by Marty to be involved more fully into his life during his “dying days” of late July, August, and early September. Marty had been reading my writings, with interest, and he tried to practice one or two “experiments in consciousness” that I had designed, based on my own experience of spiritual growth. Up to this time Eddy and Marty were joined at the hip, and Marty had not been allowed to explore ideas that Eddy and Marty had agreed to, in advance, to explore together. My process was to give Marty an opportunity to “free himself from himself” so that a new order of understanding and healing might become possible for him.
During the days when I provided care and companionship for Marty, and tended to his mundane needs of bathroom care and transportation, as well as fixing things around their house that Marty could no longer accomplish, I developed a deep love and sense of compassion for Marty. I also trusted in that love, to bring forth the best of Marty while he was in physical presence with me. This resulted in less than one minute of car entry and exit times for him, versus a 15-20 minute struggle for Eddy, each time she had to help him with transportation. I won’t go into any more details on this, other than to state that Eddy had a third grade understanding of the power of love, thinking that if Marty shared love with others (including pets) there would be less love for her.
The end result is that I felt an incredible betrayal by both Marty and Eddy at the end of Marty’s life process. Marty “cut me off” with less than 10 days to go before his death, not wanting for me to even know that he was about to take his own life through Death With Dignity process.
I am saving myself
