I just got off the phone with my uncle who lost his wife (my aunt and godmother) back in December.  Why is it so hard to work through this?  Why do I suppress the grief so much that when it breaks through it's so painful?  I know there are positive ways to work through loss and that he's made huge strides compared to where he could be now, which I have enormous respect for him considering they were married 63 years.

I feel paralyzed by so many things happening at once and not in a productive dealing way.  I want to run and hide to process all of this since obviously I haven't dealt with it when she died and a lot of other things went to hell within the past 6 months.  I want things to be better, please.

I suppose it went as best as it could.  Despite protestations that "there will never be more supportive people than the four of us," it was business as usual.  My dad immediately blames the medications.  My sister comes up with reams of alternative and nutritional therapies to try.  My mom is the only one who takes it at face value and doesn't try to fix or blame me for this.

Most of my life this has been the pattern.  During adolescence, when things started going wrong (although thankfully with my academics and now my research I've never had any mental confusion interfering with my work from the depression), it was very intimidating to deal with my father.  He always wants me to be perfect and is disappointed that I'm not.  There's a lot of lip service to accepting me as I am, but the truth is evident in the constant back-handed compliments and sometimes flat-out statements that I'm not living up to his imagined potential. Despite having done the best I possibly could in my profession, I'm besieged often with his offer to pay me to go back for another degree, change my life and career, and generally make him proud doing something that he approves of and can brag about  to others instead of the library/research world I chose which (granted) is chronically underappreciated and underpaid.

Having mental and physical health problems on top of career disappointment also has him searching for a way to "fix" me in those areas too.  Having minimal experience with mental illness himself, he feels that this is a temporary problem that I've chosen to make permanent, since the only depression he's been through was precipitated by a particularly hard time in his life and resolved itself.  He got through it, so why can't I?  Why do I accept it as a lifelong diagnosis?  I've been honest with him and let him know that for people who truly have depression like mine I've known from when I was 14 there was something very wrong. This is not normal; in fact it's a pretty clear indication that this really is the textbook lifelong struggle that indicates a biochemical imbalance.

I've called him on his bullshit support many times in the past and we've been in quite a few arguments, but none of it has changed this dance we do.  I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and see how it works out, but given past experience I'm not very hopeful.  Still, I was honest, and if he can't appreciate that, and appreciate me for who I am, flawed and human, then it is just another thing to absorb and try to filter his criticisms through the lens of how he sees things.

Sometimes I wish I had a truly supportive parental relationship but you play life with the hand you're dealt, and try to remember that not everyone can be as accepting as you'd like.  Even the ones who love you.

So here it is.  Apparently (and I was not aware this was even possible), I've managed to precipitate a movement disorder that may or may not be permanent.  It's not Parkinson's, actually it's kind of the opposite of Parkinson's since my tremors are gone when totally at rest but worsen as I try to use my hands. That basically means that writing Christmas cards, as well as going out for coffee or to eat with others is kind of off the table unless they know what the deal is, or unless I want a lot of uncomfortable glances or questions.

It's been months of dealing with this, and I've been to Columbia's Neurology Institute twice, so it's pretty much a reliable diagnosis.  The rub here is Easter.  I have to go home since that's normal, and then explain the abnormal.

In the past, with anything physical like my appendicitis or hernias, my family is basically supportive, if sometimes in the wrong way.  When it comes to possibly permanent conditions, they deny.  I've read up on this condition and it can be temporary, intermittently affect me the rest of my life, or be permanent for the rest of my life depending on how I respond to treatment, which is very unreliable for this condition.

It seems like for the past few years every time I've turned one positive corner a brick wall slams me in the face and knocks me back. I want something to go right, I want something positive to happen, I want to be recognized for what I've given up, what I struggle against daily, weekly, monthly, and what I still manage to push and live through despite how relatively terrible the past 6 years have been.

I just hope my family will support me; I already know that my friends do, which is why they're my first confidants.  It's going to be an interesting weekend.