Mum's visit

My Mum has just been down to visit me, mainly to drop of some of my old toys which are for my son (and me!) to play with, as well as some old comics and books that I hope to sell on eBay. Oh, and there were some pictures that B left with my parent because they were (wedding) gifts she gave to me and obviously have painful memories associated with them now.

The thing is though that my parents haven't seen me since June and obviously I've changed alot and obviously present a totally different image than I had before. Which is a rather clinical way of saying that this visit was always going to be awkward, emotional, painful and just downright horrible for my Mum and not too good for me.

I should say that the way I am writing this sounds detached and clinical and I think that it really how I am dealing with it at the moment.

So I spent most of the morning cleaning up, worrying, and finally making myself presentable - well not really the presentation my Mum would want I guess but I was trying to go for the new 'me' without going over-the-top. No matter what I did I was always going to be a hideous shock for my Mum and it was, she was heart-broken and in floods of tears ... and I'm really trying to write about this without thinking about it. I feel very selfish doing this and not being as upset and distraught as she was.

I guess I could reason that I've had quite a few months practice at keeping my feelings in check and just focusing on what I need to achieve in order to get treatment and progress along the transition route. I'm not suggesting that I have had any great barriers to overcome which have meant that I have had to be unfeeling and cold just to survive, but I have been very single-minded about what I am doing because that just seems to be the way to get through the minor ups and downs; concentrate on keeping my confidence up and just sorting things out.

Maybe I'm also a little defensive in my own mind about what I'm doing, how I am, act, sound, look, and progress through this transition. I kind of have to reason that I'm doing the right thing and that I'm not a horrible and selfish person otherwise I would just not be able to carry on doing anything and would just have to sit in a corner and cry about messing my life up in such a spectacular and stupid way.

Anyway, my Mum was very upset and I tried to comfort her and explain things and then just chat (I can actually talk really fast and cover lots of subjects and several tangents and before you know it anyone listening is completely confused) but just as she obviously can't understand how I feel I have no frame of reference to relate to what she is going through.

Again, I guess I feel that I'm being insensitive and just blocking out any thoughts about how hard my Mum, and my Dad, and even my sister, must be finding this. But I think from their point of view I am selfish and what I'm doing is wrong and not normal and in some ways I probably believe they are right because I don't really understand what this is all about and I've never really come across it before so I have plenty of guilt and confusion to try to control.

Really, it's just horrible. It's horrible that this can hurt the people closets to you and that you are powerless to do anything about it. It just feels like the pain and sadness sits in the pit of your stomach and sucks all the energy and life out of you (and that it probably way to many metaphors in a sentence).

I'm really just trying not to think at the moment and I'm waiting for a text or few rings on the phone to let me know that my Mum got back home okay .... and just as I wrote that she did txt!

I think I need to get something to eat, and just switch off in front of the TV and have an early night so I have a chance to, at least subconciously, try to make sense of what happened today.