grief and loss...

this subject is not one that i have studied as such...it's more an experiential thing.

when i get something more about the subject written, i will post it here but in the interim, here are a bunch of gratuitous links to sites that deal with this issue...i haven''t checked any of these out so it's not an endorsement...if you click on any of these and would like to share your impressions of any of these sites, or have discovered any that you feel are helpful...feel free to email me

these are in no particular order either...

www.grieflossrecovery.com
www.childrensgrief.net
rites of passage
spirit grief
www.aarp.org/griefandloss
grief net

someone asked me when i was last happy...

i wouldn't have a clue when i was last 'happy?

...oh i've laughed...
'were it not for my sense of humour i'd have committed suicide long ago' - gandhi

...but the quick answer to am i unhappy? would have to be an undisputed no.
anyone who knows me would probably nod agreement.
have i ever been happy?
there are moments...particularly when zac and simon were physically in my life...when i was very happy.

but my inner sorrow predates even the birth of my children
it lay there - if not dormant - unrecognised
... undefined
...uncomfortable.

i thought i was just doing drugs cause they were cool but hindsight tells me there's more to it than that.

so when my kids came along, i thought i was happy but when my dad did what he did...

well, i began to realise that i wasn't

getting j back into my life countered the profound sadness i carried regarding my seperation from my children - quite well - for a time.

i was unable to help him through his very short seperation from his children - his wife - the weight of years away from my own was too great. and now the burden of not helping. not 'being there' in the way that i should have!

could have!

would have, had i realised he was so far gone.

i would have held his hand and sang him lullabies if that's what it took
i didn't think j capable of getting so low. so lost.

and maybe he only got lost to me.
to us
maybe he found something
i can't pretend to know

my other relationships are all kinda fucked up

are they salvageable? - i'd like to think so.

are they worth fixing? - yeah... each and every one of them.

i try every day to make a fresh start...that's part of why i stopped smoking dope every day.

i used to think i was doing it to cope with stuff but really it was stoppping me from dealing with stuff and moving on.
i'm trying to move on.

moreso than ever i have before.

playing hockey...when i played goal (road hockey) that dozen or so times in five or six weeks just prior to starting this job...i came away stoked.

playing with my children, cooking for my children, coaching their sports teams...i was truly happy.

when kera and i connected...i was very happy...it had only been a few weeks since i had last seen the boys.

i have become much less of a joy to be around over the ensuing time...i made kera's christmas a miserable event last year - that was before the 24th!

before 'that'

...............................................

and now it's several months after i wrote the previous and i realize that i never really broached the subject of being on anti depressants...

the first one i went on was 'zyban' the so-called quit smoking drug...it was supposed to make me feel better about my miserable life AND help me quit smoking...alas ...it did neither.

then it was 'effexor' which most of you would have heard of...it never felt quite right while i was on it...wierd little electric rushes and a strange taste in my mouth...i didn't much like it so i stopped taking it and the symptoms got worse...way worse!

i'm not talking about the depression symptoms but the electric rushes and the bad taste in the mouth...serious rushes that i might have paid money for about 20 years ago but had no interest in at 39.

there were some pretty hairy moments when i stopped taking effexor...it seemed that while it quelled my feelings of sadness...not to mention my sex drive ...it put it's full support behind my anger.

-whew!

i don't much like me angry-
and neither did the missus, which why she didn't make a fuss for long when i stopped taking it.

here's a point i should make...i took effexor as long as i did because i knew that if i didn't make a change i was going to drive her away...it wasn't working but it was all i knew how to do.

remeron to the rescue...this one was ok...ish

remeron has apparently been available in europe for some time (and we all know what a happy lot they are in europe - especially in eastern europe, eh) and the side effects were minimal....at first.

it has a slight sedative effect that i liked. in fact i needed it. no adverse effects on my sex drive - which i counted as a plus, though my wife might disagree...but after a while it began to feel like i was witnessing my own emotions through some sort of forcefield or something...like a condom to keep my emotional ejaculate from making a mess all over my life.

it didn't stop me from going through the process of being sad but it just didn't 'feel' the same.

in october i missed taking them a couple of days in a row...i was working midnights and my schedule had been thrown off. i decided to try going it on my own...no pills...i figured that since i had lots of them left, i could go back on them at any time if i needed to and so far...(it's july)

i'm good.

i still have a bit of a cry most days...the pain i feel in missing my children won't go away til well after i have them in my daily life again but...i dunno...other than that...

i'm good.