Coping | Bethany Bassett

Tag: Coping

Mt. Grampie

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 8 Comments

Sweet, honest Natalie.

We had a bit of turbulence throughout our morning today. No gales or typhoons, mind you, but enough rough patches that I ended up expressing my displeasure in a rather loud way that may or may not have involved yelling into a pillow. The girls convened with each other in whispers and then tiptoed into the other room, emerging several minutes later with the above letter held in front of them like a shield. There were giggles, kisses, and plenty of “I’m sorry”s nuzzled into forgiving ears, and the girls cheerfully got back to their day. I, on the other hand, spent the next hour in mental self-flagellation.

I have never been not frustrated as long as I can remember. I don’t know how much of this is my personality and how much of it is from growing up in an environment where perfection was expected with the understanding that I would never be good enough to attain it. I still don’t get how a too-heavy sense of responsibility can coexist with utter helplessness, but the mix has stewed under my shoulder blades for nearly all of my life.

Most of the time, it’s just sort of there, not doing anything worse than fogging up my sunglasses. Other times though—for instance, if I’m tired or hungry or, God save us, both, or if I have to call any form of customer service, or if (hypothetically) it’s the second morning of post-vacation summer break and the girls and I can’t remember how to occupy the same house without sounding like screech owls—in times like those, the simmering mess bursts like lava up my throat, and the only way I can find to direct it is out. Thus the mistreated pillows and the formal requests from my kindergartners to please not be so grumpy.

There have been some Conversations around here lately about my similarity to Vesuvius, and while I’d be happy to cut back on the lava eruptions, I simply don’t know how. My coping arsenal consists of two strategies: 1) remove self from the frustrating situation, and 2) put a lid on it. The problem is that #1 is rarely an option—I often feel helpless in the face of existence, and there aren’t many socially acceptable ways to take a breather from that—and #2 usually just results in the lid rocketing out with the rest of the molten angst. All new frustration! Now with projectiles! Hard hats recommended!

Ergo my question: Which direction besides downward or outward do you channel chronic frustration?

Revised question upon realizing that you probably don’t have a stratum of helpless negativity simmering somewhere south of your clavicle: How do you deal with turbulent mornings without earning a cease and desist letter from your six-year-old?

6May

Not[with]standing

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The afternoon had started so full of promise. I had already wrapped things up at work, gone for a [reluctant] run, and picked up my favorite two offspring from school. Homemade pizza was on the agenda as was writing an insightful blog post about mothering… but first, story time. The backyard was decked out in a golden-green sunswath, newly-clustered cherries gleaming like crown jewels, so we scooped up an armful of books and the picnic blanket to go revel in the finery. I laid the blanket out on a mattress of daisies, we plumped ourselves stomach-down to read, and BAM—my old arch-nemesis the allergy swooped in for the kill.

Within twenty seconds, I was ready to take a pick axe to my inner ears, a power sander to my eyeballs, and a double-edged Microplane zester to my nose. Shortly thereafter, my brain’s functionality began shutting down as it tends to do in these situations, and by the time we finished meeting the infamous Nellie Oleson, I was only two sneezes removed from a zombie.

The blog entry was clearly not going to happen. I moped a bit about the turn of events while sifting through the brain fog for any usable scrap of intelligence, but I finally had to give up. How can a gal compete against airborne forces of darkness that simultaneously wipe out her energy and her motivation to make coffee? She simply can’t. So after a mere hour of brooding through prickly eyes at a blank page, I shut off my computer.

Instead of writing, I played Wii with Natalie and enlisted her help in the most giggle-intensive freezer defrosting ever. I snuggled Sophie and let her use her magic touch on the pizza dough. (Hint: Sophie’s magic touch involves a lot of pummeling.) We tried on hats and thoroughly ignored the house’s pleas to clean it, and the afternoon of not-so-very-productive fun with my girls ended up far better than the one I had neatly mapped out in my head, allergies notwithstanding… even if I didn’t manage to get an insightful post about motherhood out of it.

16Mar

Aftershocks

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We drank the last of the coffee this morning. That sentence appearing in “Little House on the Prairie” would send Pa on a four-day drive to Independence through a howling nor’easter during which Ma and the girls would lock themselves in the shabby safety of their cabin with candle stubs and cornbread for company. For us, it just means a stop at the grocery store after swim class. It’s not just coffee though. The crock of Cuban bean soup we’ve been dipping into the last several days is down to a few lumps of carrot and chorizo. We’ve finished all but half a liter of milk. Our choice of fruit is between lemon and lime. It’s clearly time to direct some of my attention to the kitchen.

And yet thousands of people are missing among the cracks and waves of a crumbling earth. Nuclear reactors combust. A displaced sea claims lives, livelihoods. Our planet wrenches on its axis. Three thousand miles away in Cambodia, a friend washes the feet of little girls sold by their own parents to be sex slaves. My heart wrenches on its axis, cracks, combusts. Every compassionate impulse spins like a splintered home in the current, and I’m helpless to do anything but watch and breathe through half-strangled heartbeats that I hope count as prayers.

It is hard for me to assimilate these feelings as anything other than guilt. If only I had the truckfuls of cash to fund relief organizations or the skills to join a rescue team or the strength to hold our world and the innocence of its children intact, if only I could do more… but I can’t, and leaving aspects of our everyday life undone feels like the only way to atone.

Writing it out like this helps me reassemble the pieces of my perspective. Caring for the everyday minutiae of my family is its own tender act of service. Stocking my pantry may not have any effect on a global level, but it matters to the eternal souls who fill this home, and meeting these small-scale needs in no way diminishes the big. In fact, it affirms our humanness—our ability to care for each other even as we reel in tragedy’s aftershocks.

Still, as I pull out a pen to jot down a grocery list, I would give anything to be filling the fissures and craters and raw, gaping hurts in this world rather than our coffee jar.

14Mar

Picture of [Im]perfection

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As you may have guessed, the last couple of days have been rough. I never know what might be a trigger until I’m rubbing my eyes on the other side of a long tunnel, emotions bloodshot, wondering what the hell happened. Thank goodness for work. I’ve heard distraction recommended as a coping strategy for PTSD sufferers, and it was actually a relief to have to get out the door early this morning and focus on teaching a class. It snapped my mental energies back to the here and now, and it always does my soul good to be around people and places who don’t remind me of anything. Later, an irrational translation client had me laughing (I apparently “ruined” the central Italian landscape with my un-poetic word choice and grammatical consistency; I guess it’s true that the pen is mightier than the real world?), so I think it’s safe to say I’m back to myself.

I often wonder how these episodes are going to end up affecting my girls. I worry that seeing me sad and struggling to cope will traumatize them, but at the same time, our conversations during the hard times are incredibly precious. The girls know that my sadness is only occasional and has nothing to do with them. They know their mom is human and fragile and willing to be honest with them about both. They also know love. They’re experts in it already, and their hugs and notes and daughterly concern add up to the most healing treatment plan I can imagine.

Thank you for your encouragement too. I always ricochet between feelings of stupidity and feelings of guilt whenever I let on that I might not be the picture of psychological perfection (might not, mind you). Authenticity will probably always be a struggle for me considering my background. However, Jennifer pointed out that naming something is powerful in lessening its hold, and I’d like to think that writing about it goes a step further—aims typeset floodlights into the shadow, illuminates the sniveling nightmare, and says I’m not afraid to expose you (even if I am). I’d also like to think that my honesty with the girls will help them flip the tables on their own fears one day, though hopefully with less neurotic two-stepping. More than anything, I’d like to think that my ability to write this today means that love is the one winning this struggle.

21Feb

Prompt Delay

Posted by: Bethany in Sunday Scribblings 7 Comments

Sunday Scribblings used to post writing prompts on Thursday so participants could have the whole weekend to wade in words and come up on Sunday clutching a fresh story. At least that’s how I saw it from my sporadic spot at the computer. But then Thursday turned into Friday and Friday to Saturday and Saturday to so late on Sunday that Italian calendars had already flipped to Monday… and nobody wants to read Sunday Scribblings on a Monday. However, when this week’s prompt nodded its tardy hello from my feed reader, I knew exactly what I wanted to post.

The prompt was food; the essay I had in mind was written two years ago and never published, though not for lack of trying. In fact, it won me my first honest-to-goodness rejection letter. “Thanks so much,” the magazine editor wrote, “but we don’t have a spot for this.” Cordial and blessedly succinct but rejection all the same. I’ve since realized that I employ two different ways of coping with rejection: one is to cry while plunging into a creative funk and the other is to repress while plunging into a creative funk. In this instance, I repressed. I buried the letter, typed “Rejected” at the top of my essay, and then got busy forgetting either one ever existed.

Today’s Sunday Scribblings’ prompt brought the essay back to mind though, and I decided hey, if it’s not good enough for publication, I can at least use it on my blog. No rejection letters this time, guaranteed. However, as I read over my concoction of words I had shoved to the back of the fridge two years ago, I realized it was good. Age hadn’t diluted any of its original flavor. It still brimmed with the succulence that had inspired me to submit it in the first place, and the corresponding rejection note felt as insignificant as a fly to be brushed away.

Which explains why I spent the girls’ naptime researching literary journals and why, instead of an essay on food, you now get a photograph of a dark-chocolate-salted-caramel cupcake waiting to be devoured by an overly sensitive writer.

I call it Food for Rethought.

25Oct

In Your Face!

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The Luna Park below our house resembles a wet dog, and perhaps that’s all the explanation needed about my state of motivation this morning.

We had one of those weekends that feels like seventeen in retrospect. My senses are still full of the happy clamor of house guests, the blur of wildflower lights on the girls’ favorite caterpillarcoaster, and the orchestrated clatter of fifty Perudo dice. We made new friends, including an amazing gal whose background parallels my own, and I wish we had more time together. At the same time, my batteries are so thoroughly drained that the indicator stopped blinking. As much as I don’t want to be a textbook anything, you can find an exact description of me in any psychology manual on the page about introverts. I need frequent breaks, quiet stretches of solitude, and Sunday afternoon naps in order to operate… and yesterday’s nap was trumped by a sick kiddo.

Does Murphy have a law about Monday mornings? Because I woke up this morning to rain, hormones, and an unpleasant substance tracked across the floor that was easily identified once I stepped in it, and I’m thinking Garfield was on to something. Here’s my current workup of a coping strategy: Step 1: Acknowledge that today is out to slay me and will most likely succeed. Step 2: Surrender. Step 3: Go back to bed. Step 4: Wait for someone to bring me a lasagna.

Or alternately, Step 1: Eat chocolate. Step 2: Blog. Step 3: Eat more chocolate. Step 4: Get done what I can get done today and count each accomplishment as a giant “In your face!” to Mondays everywhere.

Including mopping. Sigh.

9Sep

The Stuff of Brains

Posted by: Bethany in Uncategorized 5 Comments

I’ve never considered brainwashing to be a particularly accurate term. Brainwashing implies a cleansing, the junk drawer of thoughts replaced with a sparkling fresh emptiness. In reality, though, it involves cramming someone’s mind so full of a certain perspective that no room is left for any others. It is a form of control. It is a form of abuse. And it is a significant part of my history.

I struggle frequently with how much of my past, if any, I should share on here [ed: in addition to what I already have], and there is no easy answer. The simplest solution is to keep steering clear of the topic. This doesn’t offend anyone, it doesn’t stir up the memories I least want to revisit, and it lets dark secrets continue to sleep in peace. Hiding the ugly truth was ingrained in me a long time ago as a virtue; keeping quiet feels like the right choice. Almost.

It would feel right if I didn’t know how profoundly healing honesty can be… or how damaging silence can be. A long time ago, a loved one nearly died from causes I may have been able to prevent had I just been brave enough to tell someone. Now, an alarming number of my college classmates are starting eagerly into the same lifestyle that I barely managed to limp away from, and I wonder who else is going to speak up for their children. Am I still letting myself be victimized into silence when the truth, however incriminating, could help set others free?

As I see it, my experiences are my property to do with as I please. The things other people have done to me are not their secrets; they are mine. The dubious reward to surviving a childhood like mine is that I now have full claim to it. I have both the right to reveal it and the power to destroy reputations with it.

But that is not my goal. If I decide to bring my past into the spotlight, it would be for the dual purpose of making peace with it (a daily effort for as long as I can remember) and showing others where the trap doors are hidden. I am not interested in causing more pain… but more pain would be inevitable, and it would affect more than just myself. There is nothing fair about a childhood of abuse, and the injustice seems double in adulthood as I’m faced with the minefield of what to do about it now. I never asked for the responsibility of forgiveness, much less the one of honesty, and each requires more of me than I think I have to offer.

Perhaps the only reason I’m even daring to mention this is because of writers like Elizabeth Esther and Hillary McFarland who have been brave enough to tell their stories and whose candor spreads healing and understanding. Their courage inspires a spark of recognition in me, and I begin to think I could actually do it, I could finally give myself a voice and speak up for those who don’t feel they have one. But then the years of brainwashing—or rather, braincramming—do their work and re-convince me that the simplest solution is the right one.

Almost.

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