The mess...

Becky and I have been streaming a show and playing games and cooking tasty things non-stop.  This has been such a gloriously restful visit, although I am still really tired.  Too, it has been a langorious one that is creeping by instead of speeding so fast it is over before we know it!  We fetched a few groceries on the way home from the airport on Tuesday and have been enjoying each other's company ever since, with many days of good food, good fun, and good company yet to come.

Right away, Becky took a photo of my Fluffernutter and texted it to me.
So sweet!
Right away, Becky started beating me at games.
Not so sweet!

I love having brilliant friends ... just not so much when I am losing to them.

Anyway, Wednesday, I became quite ill because of stool pressing against my vagus nerve.  Sitting with Becky playing a game, I had to eventually lay down and then after tending to my business, I was still weak and ill and wanting most to be on the floor than the couch.  Becky wouldn't have minded my moving to the floor. But I wanted to not be the sick person.

Early this morning, really not long after I fell asleep, I awoke incredibly nauseous.  I knew, immediately, that I needed to go to the bathroom again, so I hastened there and swallowed Zofran, but it was not enough.  This was going to be one of those times where I was vomiting and going to the bathroom at the same time.

Really, you cannot do all that together.  You can choose to go to the bathroom and spew vomit all over the floor or you can try to vomit in the toilet or tub or sink and choose to mess yourself.  I couldn't think because I was so ill and quite frantic and afraid.  Shortly, I was a mess.  The bathroom was a mess.  And I wished for the sun to go super nova.

I was whimpering and mouthing Becky's name, for I very much wanted to not be alone.  Only being in such a state is humiliating and shameful and not anything I would wish for someone else to have to face.  I think, should I have cried out, Becky would have come to help me.  Instead ... eventually ... I got myself cleaned up and the bathroom cleaned up and moved a quilt in there so I could stay safely on the floor for a while.  Later, I dragged myself back into bed with Amos and fell asleep for a few hours.

In a way, I felt as if I was being punished.
I still do.
A bit.

The show we have been streaming has a scene that reminded me of something that I would rather forget.  Something that I just do not talk about is the fact that the pit bull attack was not the genesis of the PTSD so much as it was a physical and overwhelming reminder of the incident that is the onset of my PTSD.  The wound.  It happened months earlier and felled me for a long time, though I worked very hard to hide the trauma and my poor response to it.  What happened and how much it felled me was (and remains) my deepest shame and greatest horror.

It struck me that I have not and cannot forgive those who were responsible for what happened to me.  What happened never should have happened and was terribly wrong on many levels.  A contrivance that was speciously cloaked and steadfastly ignored led to a horrific experience for me.  One that, to this day, I cannot stop reliving if I even touch on the moment.  So I avoid it. And, when I talk about the PTSD, I talk about the violence and the trauma of the pit bull attack that was the death knell for me because I cannot bear the thought of the other.

In the silence of my heart is the abject fear that I cannot possibly have the Holy Spirit or faith or salvation because I have absolutely no forgiveness for those people, for their actions, for that day.  Even now, I am not fully aware of just how irrevocably changed I am because of the wound and the ensuing PTSD.  I suppose you could say it is the proverbial onion that I have unconsciously, but steadfastly ignored.  And yet I cannot, in part, forgive what happened because I will never—with regards to having PTSD—escape it.

And it didn't have to happen.

Becky and I ended up talking a bit on Wednesday, because how the scene struck and took ahold of me, and I admitted my lack of forgiveness and the fear that strikes within me.  Then, hours later, in the wee hours of this morning, I was ill and humiliated and ashamed.  All I could think is that the wretchedness of messing myself and my home is exactly what I deserve.

I was up before Becky and ended up calling Mary, because I was (and still am) rather upset.  I have, thankfully, stepped back from the moment of seeing the scene that triggered me ... for Mary helped me realize it was a trigger ... that I was triggered, but I remain deeply troubled.  I told Mary the words that I had found when talking with Becky because she knows my shame.  It was then she noted that I was reliving that moment.  Just Mary pointing that out brought me a significant measure of respite, because I instantly knew that she was right.  And knowing I was reliving that moment, was caught up inside it, helped me cope a bit with just how much I did not (and do not) like how I was (and am) feeling.

No, I have not yet studied the emotions chart to see if I can identify those feelings.
The thought of doing so is too much at the moment.

Mary and I talked for a while, as Amos "watered" most of my bushes and then came to curl up in my lap.  Then,  I went back inside to start cooking the next meal Becky and I had planned.  All those thoughts and feelings were pushed away from me just enough to return to savoring the visit I am having with Becky. Though ... deep within ... they still lurk.

I am hoping that, after two days of illness because of bodily malfunctions, I do not have to battle that in front of or near Becky again.  However, most days, I do.  Most days I am felled by the need to poop.  And there is nothing that I can do about that.  The best days, I am wildly nauseous, have great pain, and am incredibly ill and weak afterwards.  The worst days, I and the bathroom are a mess and I can barely bring myself to clean up and move on from the shame.

I hate my body.
I hate dysautonomia.
I hate my mind.

One of the meals from today is a meal that I absolutely and utterly ruined when Becky and her mother visited last.  I somehow managed to make the Thai Honey Peanut Chicken inedible when they were here.  I remain unsure of what happened, but it was so salty that even washed clean of all the sauce the chicken was inedible.  Today, it was marvelous!

Tonight, we had roasted broccoli, wild leaf salad, and Bacon Cheddar Puffs, another first for Becky.  Last night, Becky let me pursue a taste I had been longing to have.  I have been hankering for sausage cooked in something so long that it practically falls apart in your mouth.  I had both lentils and 15-beans to choose from as far as the base for the sausage; Becky chose lentils.  So, we followed my All-But-The-Kitchen-Sink Lentils recipe and sliced up two packages of sausage into slanted ovals (in order to expose the most meat possible) instead of using chicken.

Oh, my!

The taste ... the sausage ... was exactly what I was craving.  I didn't take a photo of the finished dish because I literally had my bowl emptied before Becky had more than a few bites.  I was in culinary heaven!  When I was packing up the other six portions into mason jars, Becky told me that I didn't have to freeze all of them.  Being a bit slow on the uptake, I protested that freezing them was the only way to make them last and that it makes the lentils even more tasty, too.  Becky was trying to tell this Nutter that she wanting more servings of the lentils and sausage whilst she was here!

I could note that Becky also liked the Peanut Butter Oatmeal Bars, but really I shouldn't have questioned that possibility.

I am not remembering what other tastiness we have had, but on the morrow we shall be having the lemon chicken gyros.  And I want to make more Texas Flour Tortillas, so we can have Spicy Dr Pepper Pulled Pork tacos.  I told Becky she could have whatever tastiness in my house that she wants (other than the Honey Nut Chex).  It just occurred to me that maybe I should go hunting up a new recipe that we could try together.  I would like that.  Cooking for her has been fairly easy because she helps me with both the cooking and the clean-up.

From the moment she walked in the door, Becky has also been helping me maintain my visual rest.  She worked immediately to get the groceries put away and the things that we would have out, such as the extra TV tables for playing games and the games themselves, in places that work for me.  [I remain convinced that it is a providence of God that I have a house with a deacon's bench where visitors' stuff can reside, available yet visually restful.]  Each night, she has also helped with the 15-minute clean-up so that I can come down to a straightened first floor the next morning.  It is helpful ... more than I can say ... to have someone visiting me and yet minimizing the impact of that visit at the same time.

Becky has also  been gracious about my being such a poor loser and has turned a blind eye and deaf ear to my effusive displays of victory and chortles of glee whenever I win (so far only at Skipbo).

Becky's graciousness even extended to the fact that, tonight, I neglected my host duties in walking her upstairs and ensuring she had all she needed because I had let my FitBit die and refused to take another undocumented step (refused to move until it finished charging).  Silly Myrtle!

Just writing of the joys of this visit has cheered me, as has posting that adorable photo of my puppy dog.  However, the mess of this morning ... and that of my being ... remains a weight upon me.  Even though I actually ate far more than usual today, each bite was laced with a bit of fear and trepidation tucked in the corner of my mind, wondering how the next spate of elimination will find me.

Nauseous?
Unconscious?
Vomiting?
Covered in my own mess?

Most certainly it will find me deeply ashamed.