u/Depersonalizedma

He died of a stroke no one expected, and doctors didn’t even catch or treat the stroke for several days. That’s my first issue. He just struggled and they didn’t identify why. My poor father suffered for so long. I don’t know what he felt, but if I was in his shoes I’d want to be totally knocked out. He must have been so scared.

Eliquis was the secondary cause of death on his death certificate. The folks assessing his body in the morgue knew about the effect of Eliquis well enough to put it down in ink for a death certificate. For everything I could have braced for, this was never it. Why isn’t there a black box warning on Eliquis? If you haven’t seen your dad dying, stroked out and unresponsive with his mouth agape, you wouldn’t get it. It was a horror I know he definitely didn’t want us to see.

Drug folk can come at me. I have no dog in your fight, I just miss my dad. The medical examiner said what he said. My dad could still be here now, so please tread gently.

I have cEDS diagnosed by a geneticist at 40 years old, backed up by bloodwork showing the specific gene that went wonky. I let this parent read my doctor’s report describing a severe case of cEDS. It’s really real and couldn’t be more clear. In spite of that and neurological and mental health issues that have gone on for decades, I have failed to convince my parent, sibling, and child that I’m really not okay. I struggle every day, but they keep pushing bootstraps. Letting them down makes me hate myself. Everyone treats me like I’m stupid trash making excuses. I think I am too, but I didn’t used to. I used to have confidence in my boundaries. Now I think I’m asking too much.

Today I’m running around with a bandaged leg because last night I tried to stand from a seated position and heard a loud snap from the back of my knee. Idk why it happened or what is wrong, but I don’t have insurance so I’m just wrapping it and putting it on ice. Even with how much I try to make it a non-issue, I’m afraid if I don’t use a crutch I’ll fully dislocate it, and it’ll be a whole thing. So I hide the crutch behind doorways and don’t let them know I’m using it.

They all expect me to perform better than I can. I’m also grieving my dad’s death, but my dad is their ex husband and my kid’s grandparent that that same kid barely talked to, so they were already healed enough to expect me to get over it a couple months ago. I’m getting judged from them and myself, and I’m so tired. I can’t walk right today but I feel like they think I’m an ass to wrap my knee or use a crutch to walk through the household chores. I feel like a trash person letting everyone down. I can’t complain bc this person keeps the roof over me, but everyone they know thinks I should do more. I don’t really want to keep going. I’m a minute from quitting. The little bit of energy that remains before calling it is why I posted this.

The worst part is that grief is unexpectedly getting worse with time. I’m coping worse every day. It just so happens that EDS reacts to strained muscles in my body, and grief causes muscle and joint tension. My heart and brain and body are all freaking out, and I can’t even get visible physical stuff taken seriously. How on earth can any of the rest of it be?

Every weekend when I was small my parents loaded us in the car to visit the grandparents for Sunday dinner. The sucrets tin was waiting in the glove box with a joint. Other times we got in the car to visit their college friends, where the young ones were told to go away so the adults could play. I saw my parents fully out of it so much it alarmed me and I felt unsafe. Over and over for years. I can’t remember how many times I was hotboxed as a very young kid. I remember feeling the depersonalization though. It was the 80’s. There were uppers and downers and all manner of things everywhere. I was like 5-10 years old. I just didn’t understand.

Because of that early start, I avoided all drugs for decades, but am so familiar with the panic from the hotbox. The very smell put me into a panic attack for years after. I nearly threw up in my dad’s car from the smell freaking me out. I held it back bc I didn’t want to bother him with his car being dirtied.

As a young adult, I was diagnosed with depersonalization/ derealization disorder. I still have a hard time with it and I’m 50 now. It’s hard to drive or leave the house at all without a panic attack from feeling unreal. Certain angles of the sun, certain times of day…I’m fainting in panic attack.

My dad is gone and his ashes sit on my kitchen table for me to pass by and talk to several times a day. I like that for my own reasons. But it still catches me in the gut.

Am I alone with this? I now drink too much, and in the 5 months since my dad died I’ve been smoking his weed from his pipe every other night (his stash of weed and pipes were given to me by my stepmom when he died). It’s so weird. I suspect they wanted this for me so I’d hold space for them to continue their habit. I’m angry and sad but still responsible to do better and be better. I have one parent I love so much, but she still encourages me to numb out on alcohol and weed. This is NOT who I was for my first 30 years - I rejected all of it so much ppl might have thought I was a snob. I wasn’t, I was just so uncomfortable losing my senses to any substance. But it became my every day habit in midlife, and everywhere I look there are enablers. My kid hates me now. This is going to kill me. I’m only 50.

Does anyone else have boomer parents encouraging addiction they know will hurt or kill you, and take your kids out too?

I’ve been to rehab 4 times. They acted concerned for me, but if I’m being real they were more concerned for how it made them look to have their youngest kid struggle so much.

I’m making better choices now, in small increments, but I’m having the hardest time thinking I’ll ever recover enough to live to 51, let alone find my way to a better long term path. I feel like my days are numbered. My poor kid…

To be clear: I’m talking about being hotboxed with weed, not cigs. Cigs were there too, but that is not the issue im raising in this post.