Maybe This Ain’t Your Mama’s Stress

Originally, I had planned this particular post to come after “Maybe She’s Going Through It.” Then everyone was sick, and I just wasn’t feeling the writing vibe. And then I got carried away in watching my son doing so well with some of his goals the first week we were back at school, and I just wasn’t sure I wanted to take my next post into more negative territory. As I thought about it though, I feel like it is a fine line to walk between toxic positivity and optimism, and I feel strongly that some truths about what the experience can feel like for individuals in a family with an individual who has severe developmental delays, a history of extreme behaviors, or high levels of needed support should be talked about more. I have a lot of hopes, true…but I also have absorbed a lot of hurts.

Recently, in response to a statement I made about how intensely stressful my life has been the past year, a nurse for one of my medical providers said basically well, that’s just life and you have to find a way to deal with it. I want to tread as delicately as I can with this. To be clear before I go any further, I would never want to see this person shamed for having said that, so what I say is more in the spirit of hoping to see my perspective understood. I chat on-line with another blogger whose view is that the toughest thing a person has been through is the toughest thing they’ve been through. And I think that is a lovely and gracious way to interact and think about the struggles of others, because some times the comparison filters between two people just don’t help.

That being said, I’m going to compare within my own life. I used to have what many people considered to be a “normal” high-stress life, more or less, except for the part about how my brother died. Pretty common stress and trauma themes that can be had in this life.

I had no idea, literally no idea how good I had it. None. Zero.

Even when I feel like the need to “go and fix [my] makeup” because other people are telling me that as I cope with my own broken heart moments “don’t matter how you feel, it only matters how you look,” the truth is sometimes like Sia “I may cry ruinin’ my makeup…and I don’t care if I don’t look pretty, big girls cry when their hearts are breaking.”

I now look back on those days with longing for how easy they were in comparison. There’s so much I’ve never written about on this blog because it’s just not in the best interest of one or more of our family members to do so. And even when some people say that they couldn’t be me and do what I do, I wonder if they realize that I feel like I’m living out a whole bunch of moments like it were a songbook of stress, singing with Chloe about how “no matter how many times I break, I put myself back together every damn time…yeah, I make it look easy, but there’s so much I’m needing” as I’m rushing towards a bag of Hershey’s truffles trying not to “loose control,” except unlike Teddy Swims, my codependency for unhealthy stress management has become dark chocolate- though we apparently do share the common ground of having tried everything but therapy (at least for me not in the past 12 years). Literally, for every person who thinks it would help manage all of what’s been going on this past year better, I’ve got this to say:

I. Don’t. Have. Time. My schedule is far too packed, I can’t even get 8 hours of sleep a night.

I’m too busy getting my hands dirty taking care of things that need to be done around the house, or doing therapy as one of Tony’s providers, or working my second job as has one-to-one aid.

And, I’ve been through therapy before for other things. Trust me on this one, even when you know the techniques that can come from therapy, there can be times when it’s just not enough to fix everything that has been going on. Therapy is not a magic wand that will dematerialize the happenings in one’s life, and for some things, I think it’s completely normal for a person to find it stressful and struggle to manage that at times. Those moments can leave me hoping and praying I don’t start feeling like Jelly Roll when he’s singing “I’m so damaged beyond repair, life has shattered my hopes and my dreams.” But like him, people tell me that at my level of stress, “I’ve spent so long living in Hell, they say my lifestyle is bad for my health.”

But I can’t do anything more than I am doing to help or change things. I do what I do because it is the best path towards the light at the end of the tunnel for me and our family.

So to anyone who has maybe felt uncomfortable listening to me mention something stressful, forgive me my leaks. But sometimes, the truth is, there’s just no such thing as emotional Depend (TM Kimberly-Clark) that can soak up my reactions to things that are happening to make sure everyone around me is always comfortable with what they are seeing or hearing. So may I gently recommend to avoid tell someone walking a similar path to mine to “run and hide [their] crazy and start actin’ like a lady.” (a la Miranda Lambert)

Because what they are going through might not be anything like your mama’s stress. Or your stress.

Maybe just give them a hug if you don’t have time to do anything else. Maybe tell them you see them, you see their struggles, and yeah they are tough and anybody would be having a hard time in their shoes. And if you don’t see them and you have time, ask them if there’s anything they’d feel comfortable sharing so that you can see them.

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*P.S. If you’d like a deeper dive into my thoughts and feelings as I wrote this post, and you have the time, may I recommend listening to the songs I listed or looking up their lyrics. The full list is as follows:

“Make it Look Easy,” by Chloe

“Lose Control,” by Teddy Swims from his Album I’ve Tried Everything But Therapy (Part 1)

“Save Me,” by Jelly Roll with Lainey Wilson

“Mama’s Broken Heart,” by Miranda Lambert

“Big Girls Cry,” by Sia