TOO HARD TO BEAR

Looking back on this it seems impossible that I could have had so little awareness of what was actually happening in my life. The only thing I can conclude is that the loss of a loved one was too great for me to bear. Therefore, I simply transferred my suffering to something more manageable which in all three of my greatest losses was my job. The sad thing is that this approach kept me disassociated from my actual loss, but did not reduce my suffering, which in all three cases, my mom, my dad and Andrew became so unbearable that I questioned how I could keep going.  

With my mother and dad’s death, the keep going part was manic driven. I would pursue whatever I was doing with energy, persistence and with an enormous need for productivity. I judged my days by what I had done. As I mentioned, during my mother’s last days and death, I was working full time at Wharton, commuting 200 miles round trip to graduate school once a week, taking care of a toddler, writing my graduate thesis, and studying and taking my comprehensive exams for my masters and planning and attending to my mother’s funeral. The manic episode for me did not end with her death. I left Wharton with unbelievably high anxiety related to going to work. I knew I had to quit my job. 

By now, John was back at work, and he wanted to get on with our life, which for him included having more children. Somehow, that seemed like an okay idea to me.