2001-05-11 - 10:01 p.m.

Standing On Shaky Ground

You'll have to forgive the erratic updates. I've just been lacking the energy to post recently.

I know I shouldn't do that because, ironically, the times you need to examine yourself and your life in a journal is the time you least feel like doing it.

I've been feeling alternately tired and frantic.

Part of it has to do with my blood sugar. Thanks to a new medicine my doctor gave my blood sugars are lower than they've been in months and months. This is probably a good thing. Of course, the downside of that is I'm now having LOW blood sugar problems instead of HIGH blood sugar problems.

When my blood sugar is high, I'm fuzzy and confused, but when it is low I'm subject to food cravings and panic attacks. I'm cranky and irritable and my temper has a hair trigger. I'm usually a pretty mellow guy, but not now.

In addition to this is all the stuff that's going on with my father. It's hitting me a lot harder than I thought it would.

There's a lot going on there. I've had problems with dealing with him in the past, and it just seems to be getting more and more difficult. It's hard seeing the utter mental wreck he has become, and of course there is the very real fear that I am going to turn out like that. What am I talking about?? OF COURSE I am going to turn out like that. The only way to avoid being a used-up old person is to die young. I just hope I keep my brains for the duration.

I think that is one of the hardest things about this for me. What's happening to my father is the very image of my own personal hell. To see it happening before my eyes to someone related to me by blood is like watching a preview of the grotesque fate that might be in store for me.

Anyway, having to face all this at once feels like it's eating a hole in me. It's hard to tell what's causing my uneasiness at a particular moment - is it psychology or simply low blood sugar?

I have to say this - throughout all of this Lily has been wonderful. She's been uniformly cheerful and supportive, even though she has plenty of stressors in her own life right now: finals, college applications, etc. In addition, she seems to have access to some sort of wisdom about dealing with pain like this that is really amazing. A couple of times she's had some insights that just rocked me back on my heels.

I wish I could remember some of them now, but I can't. Is that a bad sign? However, they've given me a lot to think about and she's been a great help. It would be so much tougher going through this without her.