Helplessness

I've been in a bad way with my depression recently.  And I was struggling with a long while to pinpoint just what pieces were contributing to the problem, trying to find what needs were unmet and otherwise why I was flashing back to my trauma vortex.  Normal situations that I could write off pushed my buttons more than usual.  There was an underlying anger that I couldn't shake out of.  I wanted to sit in the basement and cry instead of nightly activities or essential house functions.  I was constantly finding myself tensing my muscles to guard myself against something invisible, preparing and protecting myself from some unseen danger. 

In analyzing what was particularly bothering me, I noticed some trends.  

TW:  discussing sexual assault.

• On the political spectrum, even though the majority of Americans were against Kavanaugh, he was ultimately confirmed.  Regardless of where you stand on his guilt or innocence, there is no good reason to have pushed this confirmation through before an actual, complete investigation was performed.  This ramming through, I feel helpless against the political machine.
• On the same subject, I whole-heartedly believe Dr. Ford.  I am disgusted by the rhetoric that implies his career is more important than her justice.  I happen to think that every rapist or attempted rapist should receive the consequences of their own actions, the same as I would for a murderer or an attempted murderer.  The cause of rape is rapists.  Full stop.  I commend the courage and resilience of those speaking about their own trauma and behalf of others.  I am reminded that I am in a culture that would question my motivations for reporting a crime rather than investigate or prosecute the crime.  This also makes me feel helpless, and I empathize with those telling their story and their pain.  
• At work, I feel as though I've been fighting an uphill battle about policy changes, making as much noise as I dare.  This also makes me feel helpless from time to time, knowing that there are channels and people I have to convince in order to affect change.  
• We've had a couple of financial goals that we're working on that have been slow-going recently, specifically paying off my student loans.  We're about 37K in the hole on those, and it's hard not to look at that number and despair.  I feel as though I'm spinning my wheels on my own future, held in place by this debt.  We talk about moving to Norway, but I struggle to see how it's feasibly financially possible, with the rate we're going at now and our other personal goals.  I feel helpless toward our future.
• This one probably takes the most explaining:  I know at least four people right now that are pregnant.  I'm excited for them, but I find that I am also blocked from feeling the full excitement for them that I feel I should.  By no means am I implying that they shouldn't have the freedom to talk about it in my presence or that they should censor themselves on my behalf.  Again, this one takes a little explaining.
  
  I have lost track of how many medical tests I have had in my life.  Colonoscopies alone are in the double digits, for sure.  Combined MRI and CT scans, I'd put myself between thirty and fifty separate events.  There have been a few exams under anesthesia, other scans, and, of course, the surgeries themselves.  Once I reached a certain age, every doctor's form and consultation somehow included asking if I was pregnant or nursing.  Several times, even answering in the negative still meant I had to pee in a cup to prove it, as part of protocol.  I remember all of those in a dense moment with this strong realization--me being sick in front of them is not as important as a cluster of cells that has no identity or viability yet.  For those who have experienced a colonoscopy prep (if you haven't, imagine your body turning into a shit firehouse for an afternoon as you violently expel literally all the matter in your digestive tract), can you picture what your reaction would be if they told you just to go home, that they wouldn't be performing the test today?
  
  I have been careful and I have been paranoid not to get pregnant because I know that I could potentially be denied the care I need if I were to test positive anywhere.  The person breathing in front of them needing treatment could be denied because of a cluster of cells that's not a person yet, something that statically frequently will abort itself in the first trimester.  The house is on fire, I'm begging for help from the window, and they won't break down the door because there might be something expensive in that room.  As the person in the burning house and in immediate danger, I cannot understand these priorities--if the whole house burns down, everything in it dies.  My very real breathing self is not as important as something that could happen.  There is a whole class of medications (called category X) that most any doctor would not allow me to take, even if that is what I need to survive my symptoms on the potential that I could be pregnant someday.  If I wasn't having sex or if Andy got a vasectomy, there are those that still wouldn't give me those medications because I might be pregnant some "other" way, they imply innocently but with all kinds of insulting undertones that I could be sleeping around, am irresponsible, or otherwise could be raped and become pregnant that way.  Even if they agreed, there would be protocols in place, where I would have to routinely come into the office to pee in a cup, prove I wasn't pregnant.  If I had a hysterectomy, then they would consider giving me category X medication that I could potentially need.  In other words, unless I had a significant and invasive permanent change to my body, I am disqualified from medications that could potentially alleviate my symptoms.  My body has been under enough stress from my symptoms before that it shut off my menstrual cycle of its own accord, thank you, so I wasn't exactly worried about childbearing when I was purely in survival mode.
  
  I am forbidden from taking category X drugs on the potential that I could become pregnant--I don't even know how to begin to quantify the limitations on tests and options if I were to actually be pregnant.  If I were to become pregnant, I lose the full ability to fight for the medical care I might need.  I don't know how to make that any clearer to people.  I have fought too fucking hard to get to the point of health that I am at now to willingly cripple my arsenal.
  
  So, yes, whenever I go into a medical test and fill out that part of the form or am asked that innocuous question, I remember all of that in one staggering moment.  I feel that my life doesn't matter while I'm actively fighting for it.  I remember that feeling very acutely, too, when someone asks me when it's going to be "my turn," implying that I should complacently ride the Relationship Escalator and get to popping out babies, tick tock.  I politely refuse to put my life at risk to meet the hypothetical rude person's ridiculous expectations about my life.  It's infuriating.  I feel invalidated.  I empathize with myself in that hypothetical position, and I feel helpless.  

So, we notice the common theme (and the name of the blog post) is helplessness.  I tense up to protect myself the best I can, bracing for impact and guarding the fragile parts of my body.  I have signed papers agreeing to let doctors approach me with knives and to thank them for the experience.  I have smiled and offered my other arm while a nurse struggles to find a vein that will work, when they were all dehydrated and brittle.  I have held my breath while the radiologist says "just one more" for the fourth time as I'm maintaining an incredibly painful position.  I have agreed to give the medicine one more week before giving up on it, even though my symptoms were out of control.  I have held perfectly still while a tube was shoved between my ribs, which I had to be awake for and thus not fully anesthetized to make sure they didn't puncture my lung.  I have stared at the particular corner of the wall, just passed the television, in my hospital room trying not to move because everything hurt but hurt unbearably when moved.  

Feeling helpless is very much a part of my trauma vortex.  Feeling helpless in other contexts still puts me back there.  The surgical drain between the ribs, that was a big one--it fucking hurt, even with a good shot of Diluadid,  and every instinct in me was to get away, but I had to fight my reptilian brain into submission and complacently stay put, breathing as specifically instructed.  In therapy, I was asked to envision a different scenario there, where I fight them off, but I cannot get myself to do it--the necessity of the situation was the only reason I did it, and I cannot take that away from myself, I cannot remove its justification or I was hurting myself for nothing.  Not wanting to return to that space, to feel helpless, is a huge instigator in why I fight back, but it doesn't go away even when I'm arguing down the nurse about what antibiotic we'll be using today or calmly but firmly insisting to my insurance company that these charges don't seem correct.  Fighting back covers up that feeling of helplessness, but it doesn't eradicate it.  So, yes, I've been on edge for a little while now, since these elements have been triggering more time in the trauma vortex than I feel safe staying.  Which, of course, reinforces itself into a fun cycle of PTSD triggers, tense muscles, and short fuses.  

I don't have a clean answer on how to counteract the pervasive helpless feeling.  The best I have for the moment is to avoid those above examples for the time being.  I'm tuning out of the news a little bit more--I don't even want to get my hopes up around the upcoming election, but I will be voting.  Andy and I have been reevaluating our financial goals and where we might make changes.  I have resigned to leave a situation that gets pushy about pregnancy, probably with a clear "Fuck off" tossed in.  I want to mentally frame shift to what I can do, when possible, recognizing that I cannot simply "logic away" all elements of this.  I'm trying to build in a couple of important distractions.  The crux of it, though, is that I need to disassociate feeling helpless with my trauma.  That's some serious uncoupling.  

But first, I need to rest.