I've had more than a few dreams of my own shattered in my relationship -- and for every one of them that someone might point to and say "That's because you are a CD/TG!", I can point out how my being not being CD/TG would not have stopped the situation from happening, or I can point to significant disappointments from before I even had any idea I was CD let alone TG.Originally Posted by Kolokea GG
For example, those dreams I had of continuing indefinitely to be "young" and vital and self-confident and being world-class in my professional skills: they came crashing down when I was hit by a serious (clinical) Depression (which is a biomedical problem with consequences far beyond a vague dissatisfaction with the course of one's life.) I used to be high on knowing how much I was contributing to the world, and I used to be free, knowing that I could get a job (or do contracts) nearly anywhere in the developed world. Now instead I fear losing my job, and I look at how long until I can retire with a full pension and I say "Oh God, so so long from now!"
You looking for some dream-shards? I got a bunch of them right here. Like seeing the fear and hurt in my wife's eyes this morning when, for the first time, she admitted that she doesn't know how she is going to be able to survive another 2 or more years of having her mother living with us, deteriorating from Alzheimer's... it was only about 6 months ago that my wife was so strongly committed to having her mother stay as long as was physically possible that if I had insisted to her "No, your mother must go into care!" then my wife would have moved out -- she told me as much. By now, the things my wife finds herself saying to her mother break my wife's spirit... all the more so because the words are true.
Last night, the chain-locks we recently installed to keep her mother locked inside did their duty, kept her mother from wandering outside in her payjamas in sub-freezing temperatures; all of the doors were tried, which only happens when her mother goes irrational in her desire to GO!... her mother will attack anyone who gets in her way when she's like that, and she has absolutely no sense of where she is or where she is going or how to get back, so the chains effectively kept her from going out and getting lost and probably getting injured by exposure to the cold. We know intellectually that we did the right thing, that we may have saved her mother's life -- but it is a terrible thing to lock someone in, an act that emotionally scars us.
I should go home now and help my wife sweep up some those broken dreams.
