emotional recovery from being a covid caregiver...

 

woke up the other day feeling more like myself than i have for ages. it was good.  good to know i'm still in there somewhere.  at times it does feel like i'm a little lost. motivation is low. 

watched a clip about allowing ourselves to heal. that often after a trauma of some level we will feel unmotivated and depressed and that really this is just our body resting and recovering. 

one thing i have added to the prayers i occasionally say (usually on the way to work), is to help me be more kind to myself. i think care givers and females especially are hard on themselves. we have very high expectations for ourselves and set for us by others. we do break though...we can only bend so far.

we trash the way we look, we trash the amount of stuff we get done, we trash how well we do the things that we do get done. females are terrible at lifting ourselves up. there is a lot of pressure to fit in boxes that we will never fit in.  we are given horribly high expectations that we can never meet. 

we need to give ourselves a break and we need to stand up for ourselves and each other. 

watching the women of iran at this time. they were actually ahead of the women in many parts of this earth back in the 1970's. they had freedoms, education, power...but that all changed suddenly. in the late 70's the religion of the land took over the government and morality police became a thing. suddenly women were not to be as educated, they were not to have power, they were to dress a certain way. they were to wear a hijab. they were to stay at home and have children. a woman was killed recently while being held by these morality police for her hijab not totally covering her hair. 

the population has risen up and several more have been killed as they burn their hijabs and cut their hair off. not everyone believes the same despite the demand that they are all follow the most strict rules of Islam. i keep returning to this thought that they lost freedoms in the late 70's and it's now been decades.  it took decades for them to really be ready to risk their own lives to fight for increased freedoms.  humans will tolerate a lot is the sad truth. 

they are rising in russia as well. not when their leaders were killing innocents in Syria and Ukraine, torturing them, using chemical weapons...it's really starting to build because they themselves may be sent to Ukraine to fight a war they have been informed isn't really a war. humans, again, will tolerate a lot before they fight back out of fear of their own loss.  tough to blame the individuals but it is scary.  

here we are on the verge of losing more and more rights here, as the extreme christians want to make this a "christian state". they want it to be an extreme christian state though...that is what the regular christians are not comprehending. they will never be christian enough for these extremists, just like the regular islamists were not extreme enough for the radicals there.

how many rights will we accept losing, how many others lives will be lost before we are really ready to fight back. right now it's just votes and protests...in 50 years what will it be? will it be like iran? things change quickly. 

sending more troops to Ukraine with less training and still less then optimal equipment will not win the war. it could prolong it.  putin is looking more and more desperate. he keeps threatening nuclear. it's all he has really. will he, won't he? no idea.  is there anyone there that will take him out before that happens?  

i am hearing that china is also dealing with it's own issues. people are getting fed up with being forced to live these lives under extremism. how fed up do they have to be to make a change?  how much can they do? n.korea...not sure how much they can do their.  they have little to no access to what other options exist. that isn't true anywhere else. it's a tough thing to do in this world. 

this little guy turned 1 yesterday.  i think that is his official Birthday.  that is when we celebrated. dogs don't really know it's their Birthday but still fun for the humans to mark it. Ivy opened most of his prezzies. he's still not clear on it. we just hit the dog park.  he loves it there.  i've had a headache these past few days.

part of my healing has been to allow myself to listen to my body.  i called out.  i was feeling nauseated with this headache. i really only had 5 minutes to call off as we have to call off for night shift by 4pm and it was nearly 4 when the headache was getting worse, not better. in years past i would have just forced myself to go to work.  our work ethic demanded that we work unless we were incapable of getting ourselves out of bed. fevers, vomiting.  all acceptable. other than that, you went to work. 

i err on the side of me and my mental/physical and emotional health now. our bodies will tell us what we need. i have the benefit of being in a place in life that allows me that.  many across the earth are forced to work no matter how broken they are. i do still have that nagging voice in my head that fears i'll be disciplined or fired for calling out.  so far the world hasn't ended when i get called out for calling out. 

when i put in my pto time yesterday it said i had none when i did so perhaps i'm at too many sick days and i'll get docked without pay, not sure. maybe it will all work out. it is what it is. i won't starve and i won't be homeless this week.  as a nurse, i suspect i could find a job if i needed to. if it came to that. 

work for me is going better and better again.  i can't say i'm excited when my work stretch comes up but i am feeling much less anxiety about work.  even when we have covid patients, we have a way of dealing with them and protecting ourselves. it no longer feels like the crisis it was last year. now it's just allowing myself the time to heal from the stress of the past few years dealing with this unknown and stressful virus. 

we do not just heal overnight.  at least i don't.  i'm sure some roll with things much better than others. for me this was more than just a crisis at work. it was an awakening of who is there for us and who isn't there for us. the politics were also wrapped up in it all. what people actually are willing to believe was eye opening and damaging.  things and people you had faith in turned out to be less than what you had previously believed. 

it wasn't just believing different or being on a different side politically/religiously/medically...it was a complete breakdown of morals/ethics/values...it was people willing to look away from facts, truth, experience, expertise...people willing to buy into crazy conspiracies. so it was more than just a different opinion.  i lost respect for people. 

i found that many had little or no interest in me as a person.  they were not at all people i could count on.  it was the whole, "he's just not that in to you" but it was people who you had convinced yourself were in to you.  you were blood or had just been friends for decades...but at some point it just became too much to accept the world views they had chosen.  their world views, in my views, meant cruelty to others. their world views meant hate and loathing and finding ways to legally destroy others. 

as  far as medicine. the rug was pulled out from under us. things we had been told and made to do for years was tossed aside because we just didn't have enough supplies.  so they fudged the rules because they had to.  then they just hoped that it would work out.  that the supplies they gave us would suffice.  they played loose with our lives because nobody knew what else to do. we were expendable.  i mean, staff was always a bit expendable.  if a patient hits us or hits on us, it was always what could we have done differently. 

it all felt unstable to me.  work, family, government, day to day life.  now, it feels like things are getting more back to some normalcy and yet we are still dealing with the fall out from an over 2 year long pandemic.  the economy will take time globally to recover. many lives were lost and many will have long term effects. it's starting to be more like hiv/aids.  initially, it was they have hiv/aids, that was why they were there. now it's like, they are here for this and that, and oh, by the way, they also have hiv/aids. 

normalcy of some sort will come.  relationships, will they ever recover? i have no idea. it's still the same.  there is a hatred of others and desire for others to be belittled and how do you just accept that in people you once respected. how do you respect them when they have this  hate for those who aren't like them or don't fit in their  box...their impossibly tiny box. not many fit in there...hell, they don't fit in those boxes, they just want to so badly, they convince themselves that they do fit there. 

these are Spencer and Kennicott

with the occasional mushroom tossed in. 

on the glacier.  not an unusual thing for me at this point but still pretty dang cool.  

gotta hop in the shower and then walk the dogs. the sun is out there. no headache at this time.  i did wake up again with one.  that does happen, but there are times when it sticks around for a few days. 

i had some crazy headache dreams this stretch.  can't really remember last nights except that there was someone trying to get in the house or in the house? scary. the night before there was a 8-10 inch diameter spider crawling around the bed.  i eventually killed it...i am a warrior in my sleep apparently, no way i'd be able to do that awake. of course, once it was dead i feared that there was a huge nest somewhere

love this one below of the fall colors and the glacier.  our fall colors are still out but they are quickly turning to brown. the leaves are falling and the snow is creeping down the mountains.  we are past termination dust now. 

i really need to get to the to do list these next few days. not sure why it feels impossible to make appointments. i put it off.  i suspect it means that i will have to follow through and deal with other humans at this appointments. i prefer my days to have zero plan. it's time to start having plans again.  getting my life back to some normalcy, some schedule. time to get things done and to strive for things beyond the basics. 

time to watch less and read more. time to seek out friends and adventures again.  time to allow the life i used to enjoy be enjoyed again. 

i deserve to enjoy this gift of life again.  to get myself off this covid ride we were all forced on. 

restart monday walks, plan for another pumpkin massacre, get WARIS kick started. train the dog...there is much to do and so much i am capable of.  i need to allow myself to shine and glow. allow others to see the person i can be and have been.  

it feels too much like i have  been forgotten. i have to put myself out there again and mix with the other humans.  i still think due to the politics/religion there will  be some limits until that all gets sorted out somehow. 

not everyone i grew up with would be willing to take off their "hijabs and cut off their hair".  i cut off 4-5 inches the other day.  many, most really, are happy to just follow in line.  that is how horrible governments control people for decades. we are passive...but some of us are less passive than others. some of us are more willing to speak out and speak up.  

some one was talking about old souls.  they said perhaps there are also young souls.  those are the ones who are less willing to leave a mark or make a mark. less likely to standup and scream. perhaps i'm just an older soul.  i am willing to get mad and speak out. i'm less concerned with saying the wrong thing. 

better to scream than to sit back and accept the hell that is thrown at you, or watch others suffer because you were too scared to speak out for them. better to fight for others than cower and protect yourself. 

the to do list will get moved on this week.  i will write about all the things i got done in my next post. 

memorial with a view.  i like to imagine my dogs on the past going on the journey with these slow moving glaciers. people were taking photo's of this before i was off the glacier. i saw when i glanced back. doubt the rock stayed out there too long. 

perhaps some therapeutic painting this evening. 

take care of yourself.  allow yourself time to recovery from these past years and whatever things you need to recover from.  we are all doing the best we can with the situations we find ourselves in. look at others and reach out.  there are many who are suffering alone these days. many who have found themselves disconnected from people who they never imagined they would be disconnected from. 

there is beauty out there.  seek it out and let it fill you up. look for the helpers and be a helper. 

thankful for: A. the lessons learned from the difficult times, we are always stronger than we thought and can conquer the things we are faced with B. watching those who are oppressed standing up, being supported and hopefully, finding success in their fight for freedom. C. the furs who have buoyed me up these past few years and given me reasons to get up and out.