A Bundle of Contradictions

That's me.

I have conflicting feelings about so many things in my life right now.

I love being home with my son, and I am privileged to be able to watch him learning and growing full time, but I wish it was by choice. I'm home not because we decided it would be the best thing for our family, but because I was home anyway. Because I am disabled and can't work. It's getting harder and harder for me to physically cope with my growing toddler, and I am constantly worried about what my limitations are, and how much of a price I pay in pain for exceeding them.

Since I settled my lawsuit concerning The Accident, it feels like there is a tremendous expectation that 11 years of spinal problems and PTSD should magically end. People in my life must have thought I was faking it on some level to now think that everything should be all hunky dory just because the lawsuit is settled.

Settling itself is a huge source of mixed emotions. Yeah, the battle is over, I can look forward to one major trigger being eliminated, and a bit less ambient level stress in the future. That's definitely a good thing.

But it will forever irk me that I let them off the hook, that I settled because of some legal fuckups that made it just too risky to go to trial -- as in, possibly not being able to call a single expert witness because certain deadlines were not met-- not because the offer on the table bore even a ghostly resemblence to what my actual losses were. I am not a quitter. I wanted to go the distance and have a jury tell the people who hurt me that it was NOT alright, and that they would NOT get away with it. I didn't get that satisfaction.

By settling for the pittance I could get, rather than risking walking away with nothing, I let them off easy. I did not put a big enough dent in their checkbook that they will think twice about doing this to someone else. The idea that they will just conduct business as usual, and let other innocent people pay the price of their reckless indifference, their greed, their refusal to take even de minimus safety precautions, just makes me sick.

Yes, I am stupid and naieve for ever thinking this was about justice. I should know better.

But some visceral sense of justice, of vindication, mattered far more to me than any sum of money, because cash is not going to restore me, physically or mentally, to the young, healthy person I was before The Accident. It is cold comfort. Yes, it is nice to not be living completely hand to mouth, husband's paycheck to husband's paycheck, as we have for the past ten years. It's nice that there is a cushion if another disaster befalls us. But it doesn't make up for the fact that I am in excruciating pain every day, that I feel like a freak, that I feel useless because I can't work anymore. It isn't a magic cure for what ails me. Not by a long shot.

I'm angry at people who think that it should be.

I'm angry at my doctors, for pretty much deciding not to do anything to help me while I am breastfeeding, and for pressuring me to stop, so I can get back on my medication. I am frightened about changes in medication that have been proposed for the future, and wondering if just going without and being in pain and horrifically anxious is better than the alternative.

I'm angry at myself, for getting PTSD in the first place, because I know the judgment that other people make is that I must be weak or have some character flaw to have let this affect me so terribly, and part of me thinks they must be right.

I'm angry at the people who judge me for being angry.

Most of all, I'm angry at the people who caused The Accident, and I just don't know how to get over that, to forgive and forget, when every day that I wake up in pain is a reminder of what they did to me, of the fact that they valued my life so cheaply.

All in all, I'm dealing with alot of things I'd rather just try to avoid.

That is my dysfuctional, but generally effective, PTSD coping technique. Obsess about something trivial, and avoid the overwhelming stuff. Only at this point, it has stopped working. Compulsive shopping, insanely addicted escapist reading binges, surfing the net, none of that is providing even temporary relief from the tightness in my chest, the flashback or panic attack lurking on the fringes waiting to assault me.

And the Boy just will not let me paint, so that outlet is closed for the time being.

On top of all this, I wish my husband and I were not going round and round about the same old problems, without ever getting to a resolution. We love each other, but we are very different. Sometimes that is just hard.