musings, life lessons & poetry from Theresa Jarosz Alberti

Warning: Detours and Crisis Ahead…

A lot has changed for me in the last 6 months. Spring and summer are known as road construction season in Minnesota, and I find I’m on a long detour now, off-road from where I thought I was going. It’s not horrible — I know some people going through really horrific detours in their life. Mine is challenging and difficult, but really just AFGO (Another Fucking Growth Opportunity, or as we writers say: more material).

In the previous post, I wrote about my efforts to go from temping jobs to pursuing freelance business writing full time. Just as I was putting the final touches on my planning and research, I started to get hit by some things that threw me off track….

The first was Chronic Pain from my poor degenerating knees. After 5 years, cortisone shots stopped working, and as the pain increased, my life got much more difficult. All my daily activities hurt, walking and standing made my legs and back ache, sleeping was difficult, and I couldn’t do my usual exercise. Stairs, I avoided. Walking meant hobbling and limping.

My ortho doc sent me to a surgeon, and after waiting 6 weeks for my appointment, he denied me surgery because of my weight. I sought a second opinion and this surgeon informed me that his whole network of Twin Cities Orthopedics refuses to operate on someone my size. I I had been counting on new knees to be my Shining Golden Solution, so this was a huge disappointment, as well as a frustrating and shaming experience.

Now I was stuck with the daily reality of pain —  limiting, disabling, depressing, frustrating pain. And no clear-cut answers for getting better anytime soon.

About the same time came another detour:  people started dying. First in March was my 97 year old Grandma. Two weeks later was my aunt, diagnosed in January with pancreatic cancer. She opted for no treatment, and was gone by April. Just a few weeks after that, a younger friend of ours was killed on his birthday in a senseless road-rage car accident, shortly after buying a house. He left behind a young wife whose life was now devastatingly changed.

Death is always difficult, but death in multiples is wearying and unsettling and exhausting — it’s a lot to process. I found myself sad and super-anxious, unsure about life in the face of it all.

However, the first two deaths had another complication for me. They involved dealing with my family of origin.  I hadn’t spoken to my parents or my sisters or brother in 8 years. Long story, but suffice to say that the alcoholic family system I grew up in does not deal well with conflict or feelings, prefers to avoid talking about issues rather than work them out, and I’m the black sheep.  There was conflict, there were feelings, and this meant years of avoiding contact or communication (which includes Bob and the kids, whose only crime was their attachment to me).  I have done a TON of therapy about all this, but I still had fear and anxiety about this eventuality:   someday, someone in my family would die and I’d have to decide if I would go to the funeral. Neither option felt good to me — facing my family, or avoiding that and staying home.

I decided to go. I have 14 cousins, so Grandma’s funeral was like a big family reunion, and that part was great, getting to see everyone (I’m in contact with many of my relatives on Facebook). It wasn’t easy to see my parents or siblings, but I tried to be as open as I could, greeting all of them and expressing a desire to talk and work things out sometime (none of them responded much or indicated a desire to talk). I got to see my 7 young nieces and nephews, who I’ve missed watching grow up — they were all sweet and open, willing to talk and engage with me. On the whole, it felt like a victory, to face the fear of this situation I’d dreaded for so long, to be myself and honor my values of kindness and courage.

Just a few weeks later at my aunt’s funeral, I again had to face my family. This time, I held back to see if anything had changed– would they respond to me? Or have any interest in some conversation or changing this dynamic? I won’t go into detail, but the lack of response or acknowledgement was obvious. I am on the outs, and that seems to be where they want to keep me. This wasn’t really a surprise, I’d kind of expected it, but still, on a deeper level, it hurts. Who really wants to be rejected by their family?  I am comforted that I have built my own family and have a community of friends who do love and respect me. But yeah, the alcoholic family system kinda sucks.

The last leg of this story involves the eating disorder I’ve had since I was 11.  Diet-obsession and food were the coping tools I used to survive the chaos of my childhood, to numb out all the intense and confusing emotions when there were no examples around me of how to handle feelings. I have gone through my whole life trying to deal with this on my own —  reading about it and trying various things, my weight swinging up and down as I thought it was just a dieting problem (it’s not). In the past few years since all the divorce stuff, I’ve made a lot of progress in being able to feel and express my emotions without using food, but I found that dealing with my family sent me into eating disorder behavior (E.D.) again. When I started to feel like a failure for falling back into my E.D., and shame for all the weight gain, I realized that I needed professional  help. I just couldn’t deal with it on my own anymore. I wanted to recover from this E.D. and heal my body and mind.

Age 18, well into my E.D. by then, no one knew

enrolled in the Intensive Outpatient Program at The Emily Program. This was 3 hours a day, 4 days a week, for 7 weeks, and it was hard deep work. I really wanted to face my issues with food, eating and my body straight on, digging into my behaviors and beliefs and questioning everything. I have made a lot of progress, but my recovery is in process. I am still working with my dietitian and therapist, and I’m in several kinds of group therapy at Emily. There are a lot of insidious beliefs about food and my body to dismantle, and behaviors to replace –I want to make leaps forward in feeling good about my body, but our diet-mentality culture really makes it hard for women of any size to feel body positive.

So… Unemployed. Chronic pain. Deaths. Facing my family. Intensive eating disorder work… none of these were the path I thought I’d be on this year. But you know? Stuff like this really helps you to re-prioritize your life. I am learning so much. Yeah, it’s a detour and I’m not really sure where it’s all going, but if I keep doing my best, I’m hoping it will all lead to someplace good.


 

I highly recommend this book on chronic pain–  author Jennifer Kane has researched so many options and gives so much information on this topic, it is definitely making my life better.

13 Comments

  1. Mary DesJarlais

    You are smart and determined and that will serve you well. Lean on the support of the family that you choose.
    ??Mary

    • Theresa Alberti

      Thanks, Mary…I count my blessings about all the good people surrounding me, including you!

  2. Barbara Moffett

    Wow, this sucks, Theresa! And, having no choice, you are doing some great things to improve your future and, it sounds like in some ways, treasuring the learning and hope that your work brings you. (If only becoming a better person was valued for the contribution it is to society… in $$$)
    I miss your company!

    • Theresa Alberti

      So good to hear from you Barb– I miss you too! And yes, it certainly would be great if self-evolution was seen as beneficial enough to make some money… I guess that’s where writing our books can come in. Someday!

  3. Simone Cooper

    I love this post and see so much positive in it, and as always your writing is inspirational and conveys such great openness.

    Your attempts at reconciliation with family in ways that were protective of yourself but still allowed for some contact with those few who might reach past their conditioning were really brave. It may seem like they didn’t pay off, but I think they did–not just for you, internalizing better that the stone has no blood to give, but for the younger generations of your family. They saw in you, for a little while, that there is life and kindness outside their dynamic.

    • Theresa Alberti

      Thanks so much for this, Simone! I appreciate your perspective. It’s so true that my lack of success in connecting with my family of origin was really a personal victory, as I had to climb over many of my own hurdles to do it, and felt good about the way I handled it. “The stone has nob blood to give”– how apt! I do have a lot of hope for the next generation, who don’t seem to be spoiled by the evils of this system.

      • Simone Cooper

        *hugs*

  4. Don MacLeod

    I have faith in you. I watched my wife go through this and it is not easy, but it is doable. She went from around 260 pounds down to about 140 over several years and kept it off.
    Family drama was a big issue for her, but she was able to put it behind her and I know you can too. You deserve it and you deserve to be able to love yourself and be loved and know it’s OK to feel emotions.
    If you ever want to talk, I am on your side and know a lot about what it takes.

    • Theresa Alberti

      Thanks for sharing this, Don– it is so hopeful to hear about your wife’s journey and victories! I look forward to getting more chances to talk to you in the future. That would be great!

  5. SherriH

    T —
    As usual, reading one of your posts puts things in perspective for me. It motivates me to take stock and see where I can make positive changes in my own life. For starters, to get more clients and thus, more work, since my biggest problems right now are financial — ugh. But reading this reminds me that I am also lucky to have a solid relationship with my family of origin, and blessed to have friends like you, and thus, a wider family that lifts me up.
    xo
    sherri

    • Theresa Alberti

      So good to hear from you, Sherri, and glad that my post helps motivate you. You can do it… you are already tackling much in your life and making changes. I hope we are both on a steady trajectory upward to where we want to be! I’m so glad you have a good family to rely on, too.

  6. Olivia Brown

    Good for you for writing about this Theresa. AFGO’s–they are something we’ve all been through but rarely are transparent about. There is nothing to do but to keep on keeping on…Cheering you on, xoO

    • Theresa Alberti

      Thanks Olivia– it does help me to write it out and get it out there, in some weird way! I will cheer you on in working through yours as well.

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