So this whole deal with learning to find how to fight my way through The Fuckening seems to be a bit taxing.
Annoyingly, I'm responsible for getting through it. That seems a bit much when I've already had to deal with so much.
But anyone who has been through The Fuckening tells me that every hurt, hard bit, devastation... is absolutely those things, and absolutely worth it at the other end.
And so, a couple of weeks after realising I'm in the midst of it all, it continues.
It now comes with added blood pressure.
Long time readers will remember that my brain and body have this super cool relationship where, when I'm most stressed, they join forces and give me an ache in my leg, which I immediately assume is DVT and will kill me with a blood clot like it killed Pete, and there will be no warning, and I'll just 'feel weird' like he told me he felt and I'll be dead in 10 minutes and our kids will be orphans...
Good old grief has given me effectively PTSD / trauma responses on an irrational (but perfectly reasonable considering my history) level ...
So in the last couple of weeks I've dealt with school holidays, work successes, returning home to an event we heavily associate with Pete, children falling off emotional bandwagons, moving furniture in and out of 2 bedrooms in the house, ending a relationship, beginning the first term 4 of a full school year on campus with kids for the first time in 3 years, not sleeping ... and my body felt the way to slow me down on top of all of that was to create a scenario to replicate my absolute worse fear.
I got to a point where I was so scared and felt so out of control, I had to ring my parents to come and help.
I think I have specifically called them asked them to come down and help because I am not coping and need their help 3 times in the last 3yrs and 9 months ... and this was the 3rd.
* insert acknowledgment of my inability to realise my need for help prior to this frantic point ... or frankly even feeling ok to ask for help despite having the most amazing villagers who I realised had begun seeing through my ' no, it's fine ... if I can jsut ...' facade I put on even for myself *
So when I trotted off to check I didn't have a blood clot I had to have my blood pressure checked.
The Dr kindly asked on seeing the reading and almost falling off her chair: Is there anything currently causing you stress?
She probably wasn't expecting an abridged version of my last 5 years at a manic speed coupled with a rendition of the issues of the last few weeks in 6 minutes flat. She smiled kindly and asked me to pop back once I'd had the scan because, maybe it was what I was talking about and me getting emotion, but my blood pressure was 'up a bit .., well, a lot ..,'
As it turns out, DVT and blood clots were not trying kill me, but high blood pressure from running on adrenalin for 5 years legitimately could.
So while I was blowing up blood pressure machines with readings of 179/120 and 166/116 when the normal level is meant to be below 140/90 there was some suggestion that maybe I needed to slow. the. fuck. down... (or at least slow my brain and heart down).
I'm going to have to work out how to do that. Apparently it should also include some more walking, less cheese, less wine, and more awareness of boundaries.
So after politely letting me know my blood pressure, BMI, stress levels, levels of manic repetition of my current life, could be an issue, I am wearing a blood pressure monitor.
I basically look like an odd-shaped Popeye.
I told the kids that and then thought they probably don't even know who Popeye is!
One piped up with a 'isn't he strong because of spinach?'
As a child of the 80s I immediately took that as a #parentingwin
Funnily enough when I googled Popeye it was his forearms that we're massive, not his biceps ... I only remember big arms in general... so I'm now basically just claiming my middle aged Bingo Wings are just super impressive.
The BP monitor means my arm puffs up every 1/2 hr during the day and every hour overnight for 24hrs to see if there's any point in the day particularly stressing me, or if it's just a general level of high anxiousness.
*this is where I am fairly certain it will peak just before school drop off when I'm in the midst of 'what do mean you DID have homework but forgot last night' and 'it's almost 9 o'clock you have to get to school!' and sometime again later in the day which coincides with statements like 'yes you do have to put your phones out of your bedrooms overnight' and 'how come you haven't done your teeth yet? You have to do it every.single.night before bed!!'
I recounted all of my last few weeks to someone today and I found myself laughing a lot while they looked at me with a facial expression that was a mix of horror, perplexion, and bewilderment... I'd like to believe it was awe.
Because as with all of this, I just have to laugh.
I might be jokingly refer to high blood pressure, but it is not lost upon me the seriousness of it.
I mean, the idea I could actually and legitimately orphan my children is just SO BIG and SO AWFUL that the only way I know how to handle it, is to make other people laugh about it. Or we might all just go: fuck - this isn't ok.
For all those people reading this thinking I am not taking it seriously - I absolutely am.
I'll sort it out - take the tablets, walk the walking, stop drinking the wine and eating the cheese - because I absolutely cannot think of any greater failure in my role as a mother and sole (not single) parent of my children, than allowing something I can do something about to ruin their lives completely.
Mostly because I have invested way too much time ensuring the death of their father didn't destroy their lives already. And I don't want that to be in vain.
Basically, it's about me being selfish.
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