Chapter 17: Compassion

Nov. 6th, 2018

I had several good days in a row. Yay! As they say, all good things must come to an end. It started with an increase of my internal anxiety level that had absolutely nothing to do with the external world. Nothing had changed. I was still having seizures and Aphasia and living my life. Things just started becoming harder again. Being that my condition is neurological my mood can be and often is a precursor and indicator of coming events. When I laid down last night and closed my eyes I knew I was in for it today.

One of the symptoms of migraine with aura are visual artifacts which means you see lights, patterns, or objects, in your visual field. When I’m going to get creamed I get hundreds of these flowing at my face in various colors or black and white. It can be cars, tables, numbers, balls of light (I like the blue ones) whatever my subconscious generates. I’m still waiting for boobies. Hey, if it can throw a desk it can throw a stacked blond.

Anyhow, so I woke up to seizures and strong Aphasia that went pretty much all day. You know what, life doesn’t give a shit. There’s still things that have to be done. So after I called in to work. It’s automated so I didn’t have to talk. I grabbed my cane and hobbled my ass out to the car with my wife and took care of business.

One of our Oak community contacted me yesterday and gave me a lot of information on filing for Social Security Social Security Disability. Thank you so much! One of the things I had to go do besides vote was get a regular checking account set up. I’ve been using a debit card for years.

I didn’t know this, but you can get over stimulated at a bank. When I’m having a bad day I process information (all information including sensory) slower. My wife and the bank person were going too fast and the room was too bright. I was wearing my prescription shades at the time. There were too many pieces of paper on the desk.I had to tell them they were overwhelming me.

Then I was doing the shakes. I’ve found that if I rock at the right speed the shakes will stop. So I have two ways of looking like an idiot. I can shake or I can rock. The trick is finding the right speed because each set of shakes is different. I also discovered how hard it is to write my name. That’s new. There’s this thing I have to do with my body where I have to tell it what I want to do then wait a bit before I try it then I can usually do it. So I had to decide I wanted to write my name wait a second or so then set the pen to paper and write. It’s not like that all the time but it was like that today. When we were ready to leave. I had to get my body’s permission (that’s what I call that) to get up so I wouldn’t bust my ass.

Today was fairly long. I had a realization last night. I need to be more compassionate toward my wife. She’s almost a decade younger than me. Whereas, I was forged on an anvil of pain she led a very normal life type life. She’s always had someone to protect her. First, her parents and then me. We buried her daddy a little over a year ago from dementia then a few months later I go down and my future is uncertain thus her future is uncertain. Yay, her!

I’m expecting something that her life experience has never prepared her for. She’s terrified and doesn’t know whether she’s coming or going. She’s doing the best she can with what she has. For decades I have defined love as commitment partially because I realize that feelings change, partially because I understand commitment, and last but not least I don’t understand emotions well. Compassion is an emotion that may be the force behind a commitment but it is not a commitment itself. What if she doesn’t have it in her to keep her commitment to me no matter how hard she tries?

There was a time when I once hunted a person the same way a hunter hunts a deer with the exact intention the hunter had for the deer because that person broke a commitment that made me lose face in front of the wrong people. Would that be the correct response? We all know it isn’t. Even if it was it’s not like I’m in the shape to do anything like that now, lol.

She needs all the love and support I can give her. The thing is I’m not good at it. I can do things. I give her massages and such. I can’t help her with her college homework anymore other than the occasional idea. But compassion is more than doing things it’s an emotion that flavors the things you’re doing. Something to ponder. Something to practice. Can you actually practice an emotion?