Struggling
Have kind of fallen apart the last few days on the eating. Monday I was doing really well all day but I went to a course in the evening about retirement planning. It was really quite boring, not very helpful and I found the instructor really annoying (she acted out everything she was saying, bouncing back and forth across the room; I think she secretly wants to be a stage actor!). And it meant that I stayed at work late ('cause the course started an hour and a half after I finish work and is much closer to my workplace than to home) and got home later, at least for me. Because I try to get up so early for a workout, I try to get into bed by 9:30 and I was just walking in the door at 9:30.
Now, the SMART thing to do would have been to go straight to bed! But I notice that this is a big danger time for me--it is when I go out to see Mum after work and get home at around 8:00. Whenever I am doing something in the evening that is not a really good or fun thing, something that brings up some sort of negative feelings for me (sadness and guilt with Mum, boredom and frustration with the course), I want to stay up later and eat. I think it is because on some subconscious level, I think I need a treat after getting through whatever it was. And I head straight to the starches and simple carbos, which completely fits it seeing as they produce the seratonin reaction.
Same thing happened last night. I had a meeting at the facility where Mum lives, a once a year meeting with all the people involved in her care. I TRY to go in there with a good attitude, to be open, to listen to what they have to tell me. They are there with her a lot more than I am and I know I need to hear what they have to say. But, arrrrggghhhh!! It is SO hard for me to sit and listen to veritable strangers talk about my mother, about what she is like, about what she is doing, everything to do with her. The care they have to give her is of the MOST intimate kind and I feel absolutely violated on her behalf. I think about how I would feel to have strangers hands on me, moving me here, pushing me there, feeding me, clothing me, telling me I have to do this or that. None of it is unreasonable but it is just that she has no choice. She is so utterly helpless. And so she strikes out at them sometimes, her elderly feeble attempt at some autonomy.
I am torn. I know what it is like to try to help her when she resists because she doesn't understand what that I am really trying to help her. I can imagine myself acting out against her when she clutches at the glass of orange juice that I am trying to hold for her to drink and spills it all over me. I can imagine myself doing that so I can imagine the caregivers in the place doing it. And that haunts me. The truly horrible thing about all of this is that there really is no way to know if they are taking good care of her or not. I think there would be signs if they were completely ignoring her or if there was active abuse but there is no way to know if the care is good. I have even considered, at times, the remote possibility of putting in a hidden camera. The horrible truth about that is I am afraid of what I might see. And then, should I see something unacceptable, what, in the name of God, would I be able to do about it? Where would Mum go? What could I do?
I think I am probably overthinking this a bit too. There are lots of signs in this facility that they are proactive, that they are trying to involve the patients and the families in improving service and quality. I don't find the workers really unpleasant, just a bit harried at times. And because it is government controlled, there is very little I can do to influence staffing levels. If there are unpleasant moments, I think it's reasonable to assume that they are fleeting ones. And I suppose, it is about the same as people sending their children to school and hoping that they are not being bullied and knowing, deep down inside, that they may be bullied a bit and they (the parents) will never know it.
And of course, the whole meeting and seeing Mum afterward took a lot longer out of my work day than I had intended and I didn't get much done so then I am feeling overwhelmed at work again!
Sigh. I know I think too much sometimes. And it results in binges, one last night, one the night before. No exercise either day. And a heavy, heavy feeling in my heart this morning which makes me ever more lethargic. I did have a really good, long talk with a dear friend of mine yesterday. He works in the health care field so he gets it. But I do feel that kind of downward spiral starting that I have experienced before--some kind of emotion leading to overeating, feeling rotten and hopeless about the overeating leading to lethargy, leading to less exercise, on and on.
I guess the good thing is, I just read this over and I am reminded of that scene in the movie Moonstruck when Nicholas Cage first tells Cher that he loves her and she looks at him like he's nuts, gives him an almighty smack across the face and kind of yells, "Snap out of it!!" I am actually laughing a bit at myself right now and saying the same thing. For heaven's sake, is it going to help, sitting here drowning in my sob story? Is it going to help Mum? Is it going to get work done? Is it going to make me feel any better? No? Well, then Snap Out Of It!!
So I'm going to sign off now and head outside with the dog. It may not be the most intense or longest workout but I can at least take him for a walk and that, really, is what it's all about. Putting one foot in front of the other. No matter what.