Posted by Kath on August 28, 2008, at 13:50:07
In reply to Struggling, posted by Partlycloudy on August 4, 2008, at 10:15:25
My Gosh PC - that sounds awful. How are you feeling now?
I'm sorry you had to go through it. How is your step-daughter doing? What a horrendous thing for her to have to go through!! Yikes.
I send my love, Kath (somehow I missed this post)
> What a tough weekend. Combined some difficult tasks and feel that I've paid a high price for having tried to do too much. (And my T is on vacation - I'm considering calling the on-call person but that prospect scares the crap outta me. I dunno.)
>
> We worked this weekend, but did a show we were unfamiliar with and chose poorly. We were out of our league - our merchandise did not fit in with the caliber of the other vendors and we did not do well at all. I didn't want to do this show, partly for this reason, also because it was expensive. Comes under the category of Live And Learn.
>
> We stayed with my in-laws to save money. I find them to be challenging to my sobriety at the best of times. At the moment, my father in law is facing a life threatening illness, is in a great deal of pain, and has swiftly developed an addiction to a potent pain medication. All he could talk about was how wonderful he felt while taking those pills. Oh, and he's sneaking his regular cocktails on the side.
>
> My step daughter came with us to spend time with her grandparents - it was important to her to do this as she recently lost her other grandmother and hadn't had a good relationship with her. By a horrible twist, though, she's in recovery from an addiction to the same pain medication that her grandfather is presently heartily abusing. He spent Saturday quizzing her about how many pills she used to take, what strength they were, how much they cost, where she would get them. Mostly he went on and on about how good the pills were making him feel - jeez, you think maybe that's why she became addicted in the first place??!! Poor young woman looked like she was ready to tear her hair out by the time we got home that evening, but she made it - she looked downright haunted, though. No one should have to go through that.
>
> So by Sunday I decided to take one for the team and swapped places with her - I would stay with the in laws (her grandparents), and she would work at the unsuccessful show. I read the babble boards compulsively, played solitaire on my palm pilot, and watched crappy TV while my father in law kept nodding out beside me (it's a small apartment and there was no place for me to be by myself).
>
> Instead of staying the night, last night after frantically packing up the showing (and running out of materials to pack with and things to pack them into - inexplicably), we beat a hasty retreat and drove for hours, across the state, until we got back home.
>
> What an awful weekend, on several fronts. As is my usual custom, I seem to have weathered the storms at the time, and the aftermath has left me quivering and terribly anxious, and depressed. I can get through these situations, but am weary, terribly sad, and panic stricken the next day. I know my T would say that this is my PTSD being triggered, but knowing what it is doesn't make it feel any better, not one bit.
>
> And that's my Monday morning.
poster:Kath
thread:844084
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20080816/msgs/848783.html