I thought I was doing so well while my t was in Argentina. On my last session before she left, I came in quite nervous, with splotches on my neck. Not just because she was going. . .but because it triggers all my other losses too. But we prepared well, with lists of coping skills, and I felt prepared when I left her office.

After she left, I started in earnest applying the coping skills and staying extremely busy, both at work and home. I purposely did not want to give myself time to think about my t being gone, or anything it triggers, because when I give attention to my feelings of fear or pain, I have a tendency to ruminate and then spiral into a bad place. So my goal was to keep myself too busy to ruminate.

For well over 2 weeks, I did well. Being very busy at work helped, and I was also involved with my congregation. My h's disability hearing also took place during my t's absence, and my h had a lithium toxicity scare, that nearly landed him in the emergency room. So there was plenty of other things to focus on. The time went by fast.

Then those niggling feelings of missing my t tried to start sneaking through. And my h's very poor health was sparking my fears of something bad happening to him. (He has ankylosing spondylitis which is fusing his spine, rapid cycling bipolar disorder, asthma, ruptured disk in his lower back, had a heart attack last year, etc.). But I increased my pace and got more determined to stay focused and not let myself feel those scary feelings.

Then, on Saturday -- the day my t was to begin her trip home from Argentina -- I broke down. I had gotten up in the morning and began the normal routine: making coffee, reading the paper, thinking about breakfast. Instead of watching TV, like my h usually does, he put in a Duffy CD on the stereo. It's a CD that I've heard several times in the past and semi-liked. I'd never given alot of attention to some of the lyrics before, but this day, I did. Toward the end of the CD, Duffy sings a song about losing somebody you love. She says,

I'm afraid to face another day
because this fear just won't go away.
In an instant, you're gone.
And I'm so afraid.

The lyrics struck something in me, but at the time, I really didn't pick up on it. Maybe my heart lurched a little, but since I'm so sensitive, it's common for me to feel emotion when I hear music. So anyway, I finished reading the paper and then jumped in the shower.

While in the shower, I began singing the chorus above. And immediately, I began crying. The tears seemed to drop out of nowhere, and each time I would try to stifle them and get control, I could feel them prodding at the back of my eyes. Then, the emotion went away, and a slow and heavy depressive mood pushed down on me and enveloped me. All morning, I felt that numb exhaustion that I've come to associate with clinical depression (a feeling I used to have every day during the worst of my depression, but which only surfaces now when I get triggered).

All weekend, I felt terrible. Even though I wasn't ruminating or thinking about losses, I could feel the depression very much physically in my body. It stayed with me all day Saturday and Sunday. I didn't have any motivation and felt sooooo tired. I slept most of both days. Monday, I finally woke up feeling better again.

What I can't understand is (1) how could a song affect me that badly? (2) once i got triggered, why did the depression stay inside me for 2 whole days, even though I wasn't dwelling on painful stuff, and (3) why did I do so well during my t's absence, only to fall apart on the day she was coming home? It seems like that would be the day I would be happy and breathe a sigh of relief.

Sometimes, I just don't understand myself. . .