Tags
Acceptance, Anxiety, Change, Elie Weisel, Friends & Family, Hope, Lifestyle Choices, Maya Angelou, Pain, resentment, Shift of Consciousness, Staying Positive, The Peaceable Kingdom, Understanding, Values & Beliefs, Vegan Choices, Veganism, walking on eggshells
Just as despair can come to one only from other human beings, hope, too, can be given to one only by other human beings
………………..quote by Elie Wiesel
I’ve been feeling low lately.
It is nearly 2 years since the start of a very challenging time in my relationship with Husband as I wrote about in my last post. My heart does not care to remember this moment in time, but my brain insists on recalling those dark months. I have been experiencing waves of anxiety as my head imposes these memories on me. I do not intend to, nor indeed could, erase these events from my mind. What we went through was a huge chapter in our lives and one from which many lessons were learned, however, the memories of these difficult days are making me feel uneasy and unsettled. Husbands vulnerability and fragile emotional state are still so palpable and much of the time, I feel I am walking on egg shells, watching and waiting for a relapse.
I know my anxiety is incomparable to the anxiety felt by Husband and this awareness helps me to stay strong and be emotionally accessible for my husband as this is key to his recovery. However, today I am resenting this challenge. I don’t want to have to be strong for Husband and there have been times when I want to shut down and feel sorry for myself rather than be there for Him. I want him to be strong for me and look after me.
As I wrote about in my last post, this is the selfish and jealous attitude that I am so detesting in myself. My Husband is a wonderful man who adores his family and would do just about anything for us; Of course, this is the approach to life that made him ill; Always doing everything for everyone else, always shouldering the responsibility. Never listening when I asked him to slow down and listen to his body and mind, also giving him warning signs that he needed to take a break.
The dynamics in our relationship is what has changed since Husband’s illness. Where he was always in control, I now have to share this responsibility. Where he was the strong character, who so very rarely showed any signs of weakness , so I now have to be. Where he always could make me laugh, Now I need to find the humour in difficult situations.
Husband is here for me at the moment as I experience this low mood, but I cannot project my emotions and feelings onto him. I want to be a support to him, not a burden. In turn, this realisation creates resentment which only serves to increase my low mood!
Resentment also comes from not being able to enable people to understand how it feels to be a Vegan Animal Rights campaigner in an indifferent and cruel World. This is another source of my depression at the moment. Husband, although Vegetarian, does not share all my values and beliefs although he tries so hard to understand them. When he tries to console me and pleads with me to speak to him because a problem shared is a problem halved, I don’t want to because Only someone who feels as strongly as I do can begin to understand the Pain In my heart and the screaming in my head that comes with the knowledge of Human Indifference.
These are times when I want to shut down and feel sorry for myself and want only to communicate with people who feel as I do! This presents challenges of course!
I have a responsibility first and foremost to my family, my husband and children. I have to stay strong for them. I cannot afford to become so dragged down by the hopelessness of what I know to be true. At times I feel overwhelmed by grief, but I have to find a way of not allowing those feelings to affect my role as a Vegan wife and mother because that is what I am first and foremost. This is where I am at the moment, struggling with the unbearable sadness I feel but not wanting my family to be affected by it.
There are very few people in my immediate circle who feel as I do, so there is not a lot of opportunity for immediate communication, however, being ProActive helps me to find an outlet for my frustration and sadness. Getting out and about, leafleting and sharing Delicious Vegan Food stops me from becoming a depressed recluse, at risk of alienating herself from non-vegan/vegetarian Friends, who have so many other qualities that I value and who I need in my life.
These Friends who do everything they can to avoid me talking about My Vegan Belief and Animal Rights. Somehow, It makes them uncomfortable and at times they become defensive, throwing out the same tired & boring old arguments against the Vegan Diet. Friends with whom husband and I went out recently for Dinner at an Indian Restaurant. I am the only Vegan, Husband is a Vegetarian, Everyone else is a Meat eater. These occasions happen very rarely because I find it very difficult to sit at the same table as someone who is happy eating the flesh of a dead being.
Let’s tell the truth to people. When people ask. ” How are you”? have the nerve to sometimes answer truthfully. You must know however, that people will start avoiding you because they, too have knees that pain them and heads that hurt and they don’t want to know about yours. But think of it this way: If people avoid you, you will have more time to meditate and do fine research on a cure for whatever truly afflicts you”
………………..quote by Maya Angelou
However, it was the birthday of a good friend, a friend who has been so important in the life of myself and Husband, never more so than over the past year when we have been offered so much support.
As I mentioned in my last post, Husband has changed in some ways since his Breakdown and one of these changes has been an increased Social Anxiety. Looking back, he was never really comfortable in larger social situations (another reason why occasions such as group dinner dates happen rarely) but he was good at hiding it and pretending that everything was OK
However, Husband was keen to go out with this group of friends because he Values their place in our lives so much after the Love and support they gave us during some of our darkest days. Without them we would have struggled so much more.
It is rare to see Husband look forward to going out and being with people and I wanted to support him in doing this. It is nice to see him positive. Hence I found myself surrounded by plates of dead flesh. Not Feeling hungry but needing to be polite I ordered myself Vegan Curry. Everyone thought my Vegan Curry looked Delicious, and thankfully, I was able to share most of it away! I used the opportunity to gently point out that they had all enjoyed my curry which had No Animal Products in it.
At the end of the meal, the bill came, and was divided between all of us. Husband paid our share. Since then I have carried bitterness of paying for other people to eat the flesh of tortured beings, and drink alcohol made from their body parts. It just reminds me that I live in a society that contributes to suffering on a scale that cannot be quantified, and is ignored so that Human beings can enjoy the taste, of what they call meat.
This experience has made me realise that this group of friends don’t really respect my Values and beliefs, hence making me feel alienated from them. I am in danger of cutting myself off from friends who have been important in my life and without whom, life would have been a whole lot emptier. This causes so much conflict in me because I feel so angry and disappointed towards them. It is this conflict that contributes towards the Unhelpful thought patterns I have been experiencing recently, causing Negative energy to radiate from me, risking me making my family also feel miserable
To help me process these feelings, I had a long talk with a friend who has gone Vegan because I took her to see “The Peaceable Kingdom”. She helped me to organise my feelings and gave me another way to look at it.
Helping people to open their hearts and minds to a new idea means I must open my Heart and mind and understand that I cannot change minds; But what I can do is encourage my Friends and wider Circle to explore new perspectives from which a shift in consciousness can come. Change is a process, it doesn’t happen overnight; But I need to believe and hope, that, with raised awareness, my Friends and wider Circle will be given the power to make informed and kinder choices.
When I am ready to spend time these friends again, I need to hold onto this thought and use it to guide me and give me the strength to not feel intimidated or guilty when I talk about what is important to me. I must find a way of speaking about my values which is gentle and non-confrontational and does not build resentment in either myself or my Friends.
Friendship marks a life even more deeply than love. Love risks degenerating into obsession, friendship is never anything but sharing.
………………..quote by Elie Wiesel
And Just as I must hold on to this hope for change among Friends, I must also hold onto the hope that Husband will continue to recover, and that one day soon, Life will resume an easier and more comfortable pattern filled with the laughter and carefree attitude we both enjoyed not so long ago.