Grief and My (Longest) Season of Uncertainty

It’s been almost one year since my dad got sick with encephalitis and subsequently was diagnosed with dementia. One year since coming back to Denver for the first time and putting our lives, goals, and dreams on hold. One year of survival, mental breakdowns, experiencing some of the deepest levels of anxiety and depression, churning family dynamics, grief, housing insecurity, and complete uncertainty.

Yes, it’s been a destabilizing year for most of us, but when I put my losses into words I can see their magnitude and feel the full weight of it all. I put this post down and pick it up again weeks apart because it’s hard to look at. Maybe you’ve lost some things too, welcome. There is space for all of us to hold each other’s grief.

I didn’t want to quantify my grief this way, but it was a suggestion from my sponsor. See, grief and I have this tricky past, culminating with the loss of my mom over ten years ago. When I went into that depression I had very few tools or knowledge of how to get out. The trauma of that experience has made it hard for me to want to get reacquainted with grief this time around. Like I mentioned in my last post, I’ve been reading a lot of sad memoirs and I think it’s a way for me to get adjacent to grief without going to the deep end.

I think I’m done camping out adjacent to and am finally able to dive into my own grief experience. (Also, if you’re not into this sort of sad stuff or if it triggers you in any way, skip past this post – I promise I’ll eventually get back happier times in my writing, this too shall pass)

So in no particular order, here are my Covid losses:

Community, leaving Denver by choice but then getting stuck in this sort of nomad hell with no lifeline or way out. Loss of income about six months ago that complicated things immensely and made our lives get really small. It’s dehumanizing and demoralizing. It makes people uncomfortable so my community got smaller.

Loss of a dream, a life in Guatemala, other dreams on hold, loss of the capacity to dream because sometimes that is just too tiring to think of. Loss of creative energy or the ability to “figure it out” on the fly like I once did.

Loss of a business and a business partner, I did not get a say in this matter and that still stings a lot.

Loss of a parent. Yes my dad is still here and I am making the best of it, no I can’t call him up and say what I sometimes need to say to my father. I’ve gained a toddler in some respects with regard to his mental capacity. (Fun AND challenging)

Loss of autonomy. Choices got whittled down, decisions were made from a perspective of loss and lack. While I’m so grateful to have the closest circle to fall on and hold me back up, I also want to be able to make my own decisions again, have my own space again, sleep in my own bed again, do things my quirky way without needing an explanation.

Loss of sanity, security, health, stress weight and hair, I’m putting it all down so yeah, hair gets listed too.

This is another one of those posts that can’t get wrapped up with a bow. Grief is messy, unfolding, sometimes all encompassing. I will say that I’m getting a lot of support from the following; therapy, being outside and walking everyday (even when it’s dark and cold and I don’t want to), from daily CBD use, from moving my body with Pilates and with toddlers (real ones, not my dad), drinking water, making dinner, and asking for what I need from my people. I’m not done with my grief, but saying it out loud and sharing it like this helps me move through it, explore it in a less scary way. Thanks for coming along with me.

Some of my sad reads for the year so far. Maybe I’ll pick up some light fiction in the coming months…

Stop Being the Frontal Lobe for the Entire Family

I read this as a headline to a course workshop last week and it struck me deeply. Same with a very strong avalanche metaphor I poured over with others in a recent Alanon meeting. Hi, I’m Breanne and I’m a recovering codependent.

If you’re unfamiliar with the term codependent there is a vast and current collection of writers and experts on the topic as well as 12 step meetings for codependents. I personally find hope in the 12step rooms of Alanon which is full of codependents like me because a lot of us get there with the concern of trying to stop somebody else’s drinking. If you substitute the word ‘thinking’ for ‘drinking’ in a reading of the 12 steps you will get what I’m trying to describe here.

I am a chronic Overthinker for YOUR life, I have big ideas, visionary goals, can scheme up any number of ways out of a predicament, and it’s made me very adaptable person and a person not afraid to dream big dreams. But I spend entirely too much time trying to overthink these things in YOUR life or co-dependently with YOU, and that often leaves me with very little energy to dream or think of what I actually want for MY life and I lose sight of what goals I want to achieve.

Thankfully, I haven’t spent a lot of time in the last five years around active alcoholism. However, the cunning baffling and confusing part of recovery even if I’m not around alcoholics or the behavior of disordered drinking is that I can still fall into codependent states of being and overthinking.

Now, don’t get me wrong, co-creating something with a partner or as a family can be a beautiful thing as our first year in this pandemic demonstrated. Maybe you sit down with your partner or family every year and track out a five-year plan or future cast together, and that is great if everyone gets a voice and has provisions to make those dreams a reality.

We haven’t done that kind of long term planning as a family since leaving Denver mid-2020 and survival mode kicked in for me quite some time ago. We also don’t live in an echo chamber of a single family unit, so extended family needs took center stage. When I’m in survival mode, my defects of character re-surface and my executive functions quickly diminish. Now we’re back to my avalanche analogy. What would you do if faced with an avalanche of someone else’s creation? You’d get the fu*k out of the way! But in my disease of overthinking, I think I can come up with a better plan and often jump right into that cascading snow. Right now I’m sitting or suffocating under the pile of snow that I helped create. It’s unbearable, it’s dark, and it’s freezing, and creative as I am, I can’t think my way out of it.

My only way out is to surrender to it. My next step is to accept. This is essentially steps one and two in the 12 Steps, admitting I’m powerless and coming to believe that a power greater than myself can restore me to sanity.

Today I’m at a step three place, made a decision to turn my life over to the power of God as I see God. She looks like a lot of women surrounding me with comfort and encouragement today. Because after a decade + in recovery, a pandemic, zoom meetings, and a nomadic life can’t take away the power of getting together and sharing these things in a roomful (or virtual roomful) of people who overthink like me. I’m diving back into working the steps with a sponsor and to attending more meetings. This is how I find my way back to me. (Also, antidepressants and therapy, but that’s coming later and the timing is beyond my control.)

A very insidious part of codependency is a lack of boundaries between myself and the people surrounding me. Living in a 20’ travel trailer for 18 months really eroded my boundaries and sense of self.

The people often most offended by carving out new boundaries for oneself are the ones who benefitted most from my lack of them before. I will not make decisions for the rest of my family beyond what constitutes their immediate safety and security (and that really only applies for my own two kids). I will not future plan until I can firmly stand back on the foundation of my own recovery so that I can dream things that I want for MY future. Does this sound selfish? I know it does to me for various reasons including societal conditioning saying women have to do it all and be it all for others, so I take it several dysfunctional steps too far to the benefit of those around me who don’t have to think for themselves. I had a mother who martyred herself because of similar conditioning and because of her own disease of codependency. Maybe you too are suffering from the effects of codependency, just know there is help and that you are not alone.

I write these things as part of my process, it’s the same reason I share in rooms of recovery. If it serves you or resonates, great! I’d love to hear about it. If not, you can always take what you like and leave the rest.

In Solidarity

Wow, all of your words, suggestions, and encouragement in my last post were truly touching. I’m hanging in there. Once we got back to Denver, a small weight of this season was lifted. Evidently, it may be awhile before I can be seen by a therapist … like, February. I mean, what the actual?! But by your comments and the general shit show that is our country right now I’m not even remotely surprised. We’re all falling apart at the same(ish) time, and there are not enough supports to keep these systems running in their current state. There’s solidarity in that, but also a lot of pain coming to the surface that must be realized both individually as a collective.

We can smile and laugh even amidst hard pain

Last week, I somewhat wallowed in this frustrating reality, having a significant need yet being denied or stalled when that need is acute. But I have a lot of tools and have been fully employing them. Not surprisingly, they all revolve around community.

Living simply and nomadically for 18 months, we established the foundations like sleeping well, eating two to three from scratch and nourishing meals together everyday, and by being outside and moving our bodies a lot.

Coming back to Denver I have only built on that foundation, I went to meetings and talked to my sponsor more, I got a haircut (how humanizing!), went to my chiropractor, said yes to dog sitting and baby holding – two of my favorite things. This week I will bake bread and brew kombucha. I’m trying to read and write more and scroll less, (probably the hardest bad habit for me to break).

I’m far from where I want to be, and it’s still hard. But hard is not good or bad, it just is. I’m settling into this season of hard with both kicking and screaming and grace, they take turns. For now that is enough and it is okay.

Family Caregiving

I have developed a longing to do some deeper work with regard to care for my father since dementia has so quickly sapped away his memory. He probably won’t always remember us, yet we are away. I’m jealous that his memory care facility is getting the best parts of him right now as he is generally quite jolly, helpful, easily makes friends, and is very affectionate. This is not the same dad I had, especially the last decade or so since mom died. I knew his love was there, have always known that, but it was marred by addiction and the narcissistic personality that centers their own doom on all the things that happened to them and doesn’t take responsibility for any part they may have had to play in that. I stayed away for most of the last decade out of a means of self preservation and while seeking recovery. That means my kids never really got to know their papa, aside from stories, and now he doesn’t know who they are. (We did have a big family lunch last time we were all together and my kids remarked, “Wow, Papa is funny, he was never like that before.”)

I miss my dad and will ferociously fight for his needs now until he dies, but I wish there was a way to do what we’re doing closer to him or with his participation, I know he would love the hands on work and outside nature of our living situation, but I also know the burden this would create wherever we went because he would require near constant supervision and, admittedly it’s not exactly the most stable environment.

I was recently accepted into a fellowship around caring that meets weekly for the next six months, we talk about all of these issues and more from the perspectives of caregivers, people receiving care, activists, and more. Caringacross.org

It’s giving me greater insight into this journey as well as much needed camaraderie. There are so many people involved in care everywhere in our country, but we do caregiving in a bubble, often feeling isolated and devoid of resources. A perfectly good example where I saw this play out was in selecting my dad’s future home. (as referenced here) https://breannemashek.com/2021/05/11/well-i-hit-the-wall/

Never did the option of care at home or care given by a family member come up, definitely not by the VA who wanted dad in a more institutional environment, so we sold dad’s house and moved on. How else would we pay the thousands a month required for his care? But what if he could indeed receive care from one of his family members? What if that caregiving paid a living wage and the role was truly valued by society as a whole? I saw this in the courts too, where it was assumed a family member would sign up to voluntarily become a conservator and guardian with very little knowledge of the time and expenditure of resources to muddle through the whole process. Yet, if a family member wasn’t willing, they’d gladly appoint someone to you that you would then pay. So many of our systems are so broken, and this is addressing just a small cross section of America highlighting those deficits.

I feel like we’re in a phase of this journey where yes, we are all fed and are functioning well, but it’s still not ideal and nobody is getting what is the best for themselves. The caregiving role is a full time endeavor, where emergencies pop up all of the time and dad’s care takes precedence. Just this week we had to go to the VA for a tooth infection followed by having four teeth extracted. This is all out of pocket and out of our convenience until he qualifies for Medicaid. What if we hadn’t had a return to Denver trip already planned? His neglect for his care over much of his life is suddenly my emergency and there’s no passing the dime on to someone else to handle it. I could just talk circles around it all day. The intersections of care, poverty, lack of organized support, dysfunctional systems, how this disproportionately affects women and people of color, all of it. I’ll probably need some therapy once we’re out of the weeds and more stable, but for now I’ll keep writing to chronicle the journey and shed more light on our reality.

We’re still waiting, so let’s make some new memories.

I’ve laughed at myself a lot as these weeks have slowly turned into months and I’ve fought this unfair marching on of time almost the entire way. The latest came early last week when after having a favorable hearing for permanent Guardianship and Conservatorship over my dad on the 24th, I thought we’d get written orders from the court by week’s end, maybe this week at the latest. Once we have orders we can finally move forward with closing on the house, we can also get all of my dad’s outstanding bills paid, and make plans for all of our next chapters. Wouldn’t you know it, the magistrate took the week off, so yet another week setback. 🤣🤣🤣 (if I don’t laugh about it I cry, so this is better.)

So after all of the resisting and whining, I decided to finally surrender. It’s been a slow surrender as I’ve realized how dug in I was with my plan of only wanting to be back in Colorado for two months (I know, how cute and naïve of me). Surrender has looked like giving ourselves mountain breaks for two weeks in a row, (despite the guilt that I’ll likely always carry anytime we go anywhere forever now, especially when dad’s care facility is calling me as we head out of service).

Back to the mountains for some camping on my sweet friend Betsy’s land

Surrender also looks like soul filling convos with friends, impromptu drop ins, celebrating G-Pa’s 70th birthday with family we haven’t seen in over a year, random errands to look for bus inspiration, planting flowers and veggies at the memory care facility and tending to our tiny plants. We may as well settle in and make new memories here while we can. The timeframe will play out as it is supposed to, and there is absolutely nothing I can do in my power to move that along. There’s a lightness and levity in surrender. There’s clarity in stepping back, not trying to force solutions, there’s laughter and love to be shared in the here and now. Just like always. Now is all we have, having a dad with dementia shows me that in every conversation or moment shared with him. I have a choice in how I want to spend my now. Do I do it with anger and fear or with ease and serenity? When it’s posed that way the choice seems very clear to me. Let me remember this next time I slip back into trying to control any situation.