Isolation

[Kathy Repko]

I know all to well about the isolation. Since the illness and losing my job and moving to Pittsburgh, there is too much alone time. No friends to speak of here in this small town but it is quiet here and I have my own house now w/porches and decks now so I can enjoy the fresh air, sunshine and nature. Just the idea that I can pull into my own driveway, wake up to my own place and privacy and work in the flower garden is such a joy. Can't wait till my tomatoes are ready to harvest. One of my favorite sandwiches is just an ordinary tomato one w/lots of butter on toast. Yummo. Can you tell I enjoy food! LOL...... I luv to cook and bake. Sometimes it creates a weight problem for me since I tend to overeat but lately I've gotten into freezing leftovers and giving some or cooking meals for my daughter and her family. She is involved w/her business which is operating a Camp BowWow, a doggy day care nearby. She now owns 2 - one in Albequerque, NM; so she does a lot of traveling west these days. Certainly wish I could see more of my granddaughter, Rhiannon. Her 11th birthday is coming up on the 5th. I think I embarrassed her recently. I notice she is now wearing a bra. Sometimes I just don't think before I act or open my worth. The words and the actions just come out and I do or say embarrassing things.....mostly embarrassing to others. But, that's my residual illness. Another overcast day today but I am loving this cooler weather. The rain sure does makes the flowers and shrubs grow faster.

Still can't get over the fact that Michael Jackson is gone.....but he did it to himself. From what I've gathered from all the media coverage on his life, he was not a happy man and we all knew of his unhappy childhood b/c of his father's physical and emotional abuse. How could his mother have allowed that to happen all those years!

Lunchtime and I hear the birds chirping outside my window. Normally I feed them bread each morning. Need to run to the store to get a loaf of bread for them.

Hope you all are doing well and looking forward to the 4th. I hope to travel to Latrobe to visit one of my sisters and her family and her 9 month old granddaughter who is a pure joy to be around. Aren't babies wonderful!

[Daniel]

Hi Kathy,
May I just say that, before I undertook studying which ate my time, I used to watch the US baseball on ESPN here also : not being American, I just picked a team and followed them, so I picked the Arizona Diamondbacks because they had the coolest looking uniform, weren't the cliched big team (of 2002), and had this amazing left handed hitter, who's name I forget, think they won the comp that year also : wish I'd bet on it.

I get the whole reluctance to answer the door or phone thing which you mention above. I don't know if our reasons are similar, but I dreaded the prospect of seeing anyone of my former friends purely because I was so utterly different, and as time between visits grew more and more, so did my fabricated paranoid list of reasons why they stayed away,

'They think I'm a freak' I thought,
'I'm no good to them now' came the idea,
'Would you want to know you, you mush mouthed virtual drunkard?' I asked, and that was the back breaker, not the reasons themselves, but the labels I created and convinced myself of being what others thought as justification for their absence, all the while overlooking the underlying reality which was likely the reason for their absence :

it wasn't so much how I appeared (though that was undoubtedly a contributing factor), but more that I was so utterly self absorbed - I didn't answer the phone/text message because I saw myself as being so inferior. Rehabilitation and the gym was such an obsession because I hated what I saw in the mirror so intensely and so on and so on.

At that difficult time it was hard not overdoing the gym, studies or whatever else, because those things helped numb the absence of friends - in other words, the solution to the isolation problem was only creating more and more isolation, yet it became difficult to stop as that would have made being alone only worse, so I kept going instead.

Finally, I stopped going to rehab so regularly and cut back, while still maintaining it, and also began to do voluntary work at a local library. Study remained constant and soon the once apparent empty space in life had been filled not by one or two habits, but a bunch of things which left no time to sit and feel depressed over how others I once knew were acting.

Today, 4 years after doctors couldn't tell on initial examination whether I'd suffered a stroke or not, my symptoms are very subtle, but still problematic, though filling the social void is no longer a concern as my routine allows no time for it.

Let me ask you this : what do you enjoy gardening? Do you grow flowers or have a vegetable garden? My older brother became very keen on this also when he and my sister in law bought their first place, and I can see why : having a nice garden can make a place look a million bucks!

[Kathy Repko]

P. S. to Daniel: I now enjoy gardening and I found myself the proud owner of a shovel, spreading top soil and even manure. I'm no Martha Stewart but "it's a good thing" having all this spare time to discover and appreciate the birds chirping, gardening and getting back to basics. Just the whole idea of doing things for myself to enjoy life is the greatest treasure.

[Kathy Repko]

I totally agree with everything you said. At first, I had visits from a friend and a few relatives. After a while, I would not answer my door or my phone and did not return their phone calls. The isolation I put myself through was the worst experience. What my discovery for me (which I had found many years ago in another life-altering experience was realizing that I had to be there for myself....not to depend on someone doing "it" for me - to be self-sufficient and self-appreciative. In that, I found strength. It is when negative thoughts give way to depression and gloom. I see you are an early riser too. I noted your email was shorly after 5 am this morning. I've been up for a while. Yesterday I enjoyed a full and active day. My sister and her husband (who live in FL), along with their son who lives in NJ took me to the Pirate baseball game (they lost to the Mets,darn) and to a dinner at Buca di Pepa at Station Square. I miss having them around. I never talked so much in one day. LOL. (One of my residual traits...."motor mouth". LOL. I use to be a quiet demure person; now I can strike up a conversation with total strangers in the grocery line. Some ppl, however, aren't receptive. But, I can't worry about what other ppl think. My mother-in-law use to tell me that. Enjoy the weekend holiday!

[Daniel]

Hi Kathy. I'm not sure if we've formally met, but I'm Daniel (hi there! *waves*) and this is a subject, isolation, which ruled my life with an iron fist after the infection. I had many friends where I live, went through a large chunk of life with them, and then the virus hit, I got one or two visitations from them and their shocked and uncertain expressions and that was all she wrote : gone, apparently for good.

I spent much of 2007 *despising* them for having chosen to do that and not stick by their friend of a number of years, and I recovered with a sense of anger and hatred, almost desiring to get well just to have the satisfaction of one day seeing their jaws drop on their faces as I walked confidently past them having experienced an intense life experience of recovering and seeing them wishing they had stuck with me.

But, alas, a return of common sense is part of the recovery package, it seems, and I no longer harbour the disdain I once had and instead look to the future with the intent of changing everything for the better : negative and angry former personality first and foremost. That, I believe, has been achieved, but only through discovering/rediscovering things which take the opportunity to have too much time to dwell on such things away, and I believe that doing so, that is, finding new things to fill the time in, is an important part of improving.

If I may ask, what would you say you've discovered, in terms of things you've found you enjoy doing, post infection?

I was shocked about Michael Jackson also : I feel so sorry for the way things were for him. He seemed like a guy who had so much insecurity partnered with an amazing musical talent and iced with infinate fame and fortune. People globally made fun of and parodied him as he changed himself time and time again like constantly spreading butter over piece after piece of bread until there's no more butter left to use and it, like unfortunately his life, ran out.

I just wish he'd had a chance to change himself one last time for the better and at least go out on a positive note, rather than the way he's often portrayed on the television screen.

Still, that's just my opinion, great blog, thanks.

[Elizabeth]

I was laughing about your comment about saying stuff without thinking first....I've ALWAYS done that, but now Stephen does it too (because of 'e') Sometimes, it's funny and other times not so funny.
I hope you have a wonderful fourth of July. Enjoy your trip and stay safe.