Melvin & Me, Part 16: Word Vomit

I'm still rolling that phrase around in my head from the last post, "The wound is designed to be open."  It's not expected for me to find closure.  It's not expected for me to "get over it" and focus on everything else.  This truly applies to grief as a whole, that with people that we love and miss the scar remains.  It may or may not ever close--and even if it does, life cannot simply go back to the way it was.  We adapt.  We measure time differently.  I tend to think that this understanding is more encouraging than it seems.  I know I will find better ways to adjust and adapt to my circumstances, and I'm never truly expected to pretend it never happened.  That's freeing, to be out of the social obligation to put on a smile when I need to feel upset or be angry.  I've stood on the soapbox before--there's no manual for how to grieve.  Provided it's not destructive, you feel what you need to feel when you need to feel it.

#truth

Also, image used without permission--genuinely 

could not find the original artist to credit with a reverse image search

I cope in part by talking about it here, digesting all of the large feelings by attempting to order them into sentences and blocks of text.  There are two great compliments that I have received in this endeavor--one I will generalize to "wow, I have a better understanding of what X is really like for someone that I care about" and the other is "I didn't have the words to say this; thank you for posting it."  I am asking for empathy at times, but I am also hoping to make it easier for others to ask in their own way and otherwise normalize different facets of life (colostomies, depression, grieving, and embracing ones own ridiculousness).  

And yet even in acknowledging that it is healthy for me to talk and explore these things, I still struggle with something that I've struggled with for years--when do I bring these things up?  When is it "appropriate" to talk about tough subjects and grief?  And at what points do I choose not to care and talk about it anyway?  

When I am in a really bad place in my depression, where I feel seconds away from tears at any given moment, I've been a passenger to my own mouth launching into heavy topics when there was a sufficient pause.  There was a lot of grief, negativity, and all else that I needed to process that could no longer be swallowed.  Suddenly the dam bursts and all the negative emotions and despairing thoughts come rolling out.  It starts with something like "I'm hyper aware of the hole in my abdomen" or "my butt is sewn shut" with only the vaguest connection to the conversation.  I've known I was derailing the conversation, words flowing unbidden, unwanted, and continuous.  I have even considered limiting social interactions at times specifically to avoid the word vomit situation, as I've grown to read the signs better, so at least it's less likely to sneak up on me.  Still, sometimes a good word vomit is therapeutic.  I've felt I was saying the same things about my situation in different words, as if maybe hitting the right threshold of word vomit might suddenly make the horror of it digestible, feel less impossible, or at least dull my own senses enough to it to move on.

I've learned that swallowing every negative thought and emotion isn't the right answer.  A small thing that I stomach seems to take about ten times as much effort to clear out.  But I think this is part of it, now.  I envision the space as a dark, green cavern, carved out through containing all of the old trauma, but the words are a pus-colored mess.  The space has granulated, but it's still there.  I've been excavating it in sections, but anything I swallow reacts to that environment, immediately feeding off of the existing infection.  On the surface, this looks like I'm not able to hold as much.  It's not that I have less tolerance for negative emotions:  I have less tolerance in allowing myself to carry around as much of it, when it's easier to deal with it before we reach the point where I can no longer gauge when it's going to come out.  I've felt out of control of my body enough as it is--I don't want to allow an unbidden eruption of trauma.  There is some residual fear that once I start talking, I will lose control of how much comes out.  It's not wrong--I've mostly given up feeling guilty about a word vomit situation-- but I recognize that it's a bit gauche and otherwise maybe not what I want to feel in that moment.

Huh.  Speaking of word vomit, I'm not even sure how to rearrange elements of that section.  I feel disjointed in this piece, but also that it is its own example to how those emotions roll out and around.  Today is a day to embrace it.

When I meet someone new and we're getting to know each other, when do I drop this very important part of my life into the conversation?  My disease and my ostomy do not define me, but I affirm that they have shaped me in the choices I have made in response to it.  It's an important part in understanding who I am.  This is true of others, too, that we are defined by where we have struggled and how we have reacted to those elements in our lives.  At what point, whether it's a stranger or a new friend or an old friend catching up, do we decide to tell the truth?

I'm very open about Melvin, both on a clinical and emotional perspective.  But I'm still not sure when to bring it up.  Even to people that are aware of my situation, when do I remind people that its still there?  When is it necessary?  How do I respect the gross-out meter while still being authentic to what I need to talk about in the moment?

At work the other day, I was making a recording of explanations of certain parts of the software, during the middle of which Melvin happily burbled its own input.  I immediately threw my body forward, hoping that putting the desk between Melvin and the microphone might mitigate some of the noise.  I have no idea if the recording has obvious farting sounds or not, and I have no intention of finding out.  Sometimes I'm on the phone with a client and Melvin makes a loud series of blorps--I'm still not sure whether I should acknowledge these.  I don't know if they can hear it, since I normally can't see their faces.  And I don't really want to ask, if that brings attention to something that might have gone unnoticed until I mentioned it.  Maybe they can't hear it; maybe they think I have a phone on vibrate close to the microphone; maybe it sounds like construction nearby or some kind of interference with the phone.  Even when I'm in person with a client, Melvin has done what Melvin does at least at some point over the six hours I'm there and mostly I've calmly continued like I didn't hear anything.

I'm not sure what I feel in those moments.  I suppose it's a little bit of embarrassment but definitely a healthy mix of uncertainty, wondering if I should explain, if this is an appropriate time to have that conversation, particularly as I'm open to the conversation and appreciate teachable moments as they happen, but at work I'm definitely there to teach them something else.  I may never talk to these individuals again, and in any case I don't owe anyone an explanation.  Yet I do feel a small compulsion to explain that I'm not just ripping ass in front of them to be rude, that I'm aware of social constructs regarding farting but have special circumstances (i.e. no ass to rip).  So, mostly, I tend to land on a small level of embarrassment and then some quick oscillations between not caring and caring and landing on mostly not caring, ignoring it in the moment unless they want to open that door.  In the office itself, I do acknowledge it, mostly with a "Good morning to you, too, Melvin" or something similar.  I know that my coworkers know, but I do this as a courtesy to help diffuse any potential awkwardness--I acknowledge it so that we can all cleanly ignore it and move along.  I suppose this has the added benefit, though, of reminding others that this is there, in case I need empathy later.  But mostly, I want to normalize random noises coming from my cube and my body where I can, even if its only for myself. 

The following are simultaneously true:  I don't owe anyone an explanation; sometimes I need to talk about it; sometimes I would rather ignore it, let it be invisible; I don't want to make it awkward; I only have enough umph to normalize so much of it at a time, where I don't give a damn how awkward I made the situation; I don't have a good guideline for what parts are okay to joke about and what are not; I don't want to take up empathy space that someone else might need more.  

In other words, it's a calculated risk to talk about anything that's important, but sometimes it's worth the risk.  I read the room as best as I can and answer questions honestly.  I pack an extra dress with my emergency supplies when I'm going to be presenting to a large group and carry on.  Most of the time, I think it's fair to say that I wait for an invitation to talk about important things or look for empathy, but I've gotten more comfortable asking for it as necessary.  There is no easy answer. I elect to take risks where they make sense, finding those moments of human connection or shrugging off the awkwardness.  I let Melvin be what it is.  I recognize that I am writing some of my own rules.  And I grieve as I need to, occasional word vomit included.