Sick, Eiki Eiki, alone and yet trying to reach out, to get help: the better world

I am very sick, which is probably a combination of fatigue/exhaustion and some sort of opportunistic infection or spinal lock which makes the world go funny and me fall over a lot. I can’t quite understand how I could be exhausted, not when I didn’t eat until 7:00 pm today and I am tilting back and forth like on a ship focusing on the screen to make a blog (hey, I made a commitment).

The short version is that Beth is very, very sick. Really sick this time. I will have to accept bed, rest, and being taken care of.

I have spent days trying to connect to family, to anyone, as I am tired of being me, the only person I know with this particular condition. I feel a freak. I don’t want to be alone anymore. This lead to an amazingly horrific day today where I spent so much time on the phone and got, nowhere. The Canadian organization or Rare Disorders (I wanted a support group) is away, leave a message.

At A.A. (Alcoholics Anonymous) I got a rather hostile reception (though I did say I didn't want to drink when they asked!), as I was asking for support groups for self harm, and no, they don’t DO that, and gave a list of groups which included Overeaters Anonymous. I asked since I was struggling with Anorexia and both are about control, loss of control, fear of loss of control, and eating would THAT be a place for me. Absolutely not, that would be cruel to have an anorexic go to an OA meeting. They don't DO anorexia: I needed to call the mental health department.

I refrained from pointing out that ALL A.A. and groups from them like N.A. are based on a form of self harm: yet I feel that if I suggested the woman I was talking to should call a mental health ward because she goes to A.A., she would be upset (yet that is what she did to me). I openly starve and self harm and there is no where for me to try and live a better way day to day with support? I DID go to the mental health section and found that there is a program which does offer support groups....for the parents, siblings and those who live with anorexics. haha. For struggling anorexics themselves....nada. I WAS trying to not cut, or stop eating becuase I felt the loss of control (dying makes you feel a lot of loss of control). I was TRYING to be better.

Then I called the abuse line regarding abuse from caregivers (which is epidemic, two government investigations in this town alone). They had no idea, since I wasn’t a senior. We talked about my background; they were amazed at the level of abuse that was taken as ordinary. I called there because they were wheelchair accessible. No, the support groups they had wouldn't be right for me. And the person talking to me didn’t understand how it was I ended up caring instead of abusing. Or caring at all.

Then I went on to call grief centers for which there were ones for people who do care giving for a loved one who is dying, ones for people whose children were dying, one for those who spouses were dying, but none for those who were actually dying. I was trying to get better. I kept trying.

I called the BC Bereavement Helpline (toll free) for listening and resource listings of support for grief and loss, and found another recording as they are only open Monday to Friday 9:30-3:00 pm. Sigh. Linda later said, "Gee, what if you feel grief on the weekend?" Since I have ‘sundowners’ – which means I feel even more isolated as the sun goes down, to call at 4:00 pm was pretty brave of me. But no people. Lots of machines.

It was now hours later (as I was calling Akadot which had an error in my order but the system had crashed and after 6 tries or so over several hours I gave up), so I decided I just needed a HUMAN VOICE and called the Needs Hotline, the 24 hotline for those who needed listening, suicide prevention, abuse and anything else.

I got a phone message which told me that all volunteers were either busy or away and if I was being attack or abused right now please call 911, if I was committing suicide call this number and then at the end of the message it hung up. Wow, no 'wait for someone', I can’t even talk to a human on a 24 hour hotline? Harsh.

I likely have with days or weeks of reduced sleep and eating, not enough rest; driven myself into an exhausted physical breakdown of an already attacked system. Probably is it because of my disease as I can’t feel total exhaustion until it is too late, like I can’t feel temperature, I can’t feel hungry, I can feel thirsty, I can feel the need to pee, I can’t taste what I eat, I can’t feel bruising, I can’t feel muscles rip until it is too late, I can’t feel my hands or arms, I can’t feel my feet, even when they are bruised or crushed, I can’t feel my legs, I am a human zombie and I am alone. I can only feel emotional pain, like when another Anonymous wrote TODAY that my post ‘Sexual Abuse story: finally told’ to free myself of my demons was ‘this is really HOT!” piece of writing. Multiple sustained rape, abuse and torture of a prepubescent child: “Hot!”

So yes, I push myself because even as much as I push myself, I cannot seem to break through this invisable wall. Is there a person out there behind those phones, or does caring stop at 3:00 pm. Because I assure you when your nightmares are "hot" the terror and grief do not!

This is my plushie given to me ‘soon’ ago by Linda, her name is Eiki Eiki. She has a heart inside, and Linda said they told her to make a wish. What was the wish? She wanted me to live a long time.

Here is Eiki Eiki reading a manga (Uta-hime, the songstress), to one of my other plushies named...Bear. Some plushies CAN read, some plushies cannot, I can’t explain it, I try not to think to hard about it.

I did 39 postcards with Cheryl and Linda and had them sent off on Monday night, to be sorted at midnight (due to the holiday); there were many new stamps to play with, like the knight and the forest of adventure and dreams. I like those ones. And the lilies.

The woman on the abuse line couldn’t understand why I didn’t drink, why I wasn’t more..incredibly screwed up.

This weekend my parents came over, they could not remember the last time they invited me over, or when they had last been over. I asked them over to find out if we could be a family? I was turned down. Linda was told, by my father, during the discussion that she was ‘allowed’ to speak now. In the same way I was ‘allowed’ to have emotions...and sometimes not allowed. It was all somehow my fault. Their silence was the love of not wanting to disturb me. It was a farce and I was desperate. I screamed.

I was on the floor begging them to blame me for everything. PLEASE, no more fighting over who was at fault, it was ALL ME. Could they forgive me? Could he, would he, forgive me and let us be a family?

No.

The one word I needed so badly he never used: love. Today I told the woman on the abuse line that I believe that this world is going to get better and I work toward that. That cat girls and dog girls will learn to get along, as it were, and that they will find that their differences are not that much (maybe there will even be attraction?).

I know that I live a fool, I die a fool, but I continue to believe that just because I have not yet seen something does not mean it can not happen or exist. Like looking for the beauty of the moon rainbow, it seems that loving, caring, compassion to others as a norm is something to make people think there is something DIFFERENT (like wrong in the brain) about you. I believe that there is a world where the beauty of these things WILL BE SEEN; just because it hasn’t yet, and just because I will die before seeing it does not mean it is not worth believing.

One of my favorite passages of the bible, though Christians would call me an atheist, and I don’t think in this passage it matters your faith is Hebrews 11. It was about those people who believed in more: that there was a better country, a better city, a better world and though they lived and worked for it, and never saw it, they believed. “They were weak, and yet made strong.” “they were stoned, they were cut in two, they were killed...they were destitute, afflicted mistreated…” I ask the question of Linda and others, “Would you rather be right, or would you rather care about the other person?” For Linda and I, it reminds us what really matters. For others, they would rather be right.

Anyway, I will be back with something light and I hope another visit to different markets (the joy of Victoria is MANY farmers markets). I think in a world where even a 24 hour help line has a recorded message which then hangs up on you, yes, I probably have driven myself to exhaustion and beyond, over and over again in trying to make people believe that THIS corner of the world does care. Except now I must rest. Don’t worry, I will spend the time doing something constructed...oops I means doing something constructive, or maybe Eiki Eiki can help ME read a little manga.