Pushing Through – Skiing, Family, and Mental Health

I think it’s time for a reflection on some of the things that I have been thinking about over the last week.  When I went to the emergency room in January 2024 it was January 11^th, when I started TMS therapy and upped my medication it was January 17^th.  I was asked every morning if I fell or injured my head in anyway the day before.  This was part of the everyday questions we went through.  Brant had a downhill ski trip coming up, he is in grade 3 and it was his first one.  He asked me repeatedly if I was going and I just kept saying that I wasn’t sure.  I tried to plead with him a bit that Dad could go and he didn’t need both of us.  In his mind though, he always needed both of us.  I told my TMS tech about Brant continually asking me and I felt so bad.  She had said “well if it is really important to you, wear a helmet and go.”

I think too myself, I’m going through my biggest breakdown in history, how will I actually go skiing? How could I not though? I always went on school ski trips with the girls.  Ever since he was born I have been sick with endometriosis, ischemic colitis, menopause hormonal issues, degraded mental health, etc. I would always jokingly say that God didn’t plan for women to have a 6 year old during menopause, it is a nightmare. 

I look through the pictures in my Iphone and there I am the 7^th session of TMS in one of my very worst times in my life and I am taking a selfie with the big thick snow that blanketed the trees.  It was so beautiful.  I was trying to be extra careful as I skied and I did wear a helmet.  You can probably guess that being extra careful means I will fall more than usual. Kevin and I went up the chair lift and we were so busy chatting about what I’m not sure but we left the bar restraining us down forgot until the attendant started pointing at us and we were ready to hit the landing. Kevin got off in time, I did not. As the chair lift started to go higher I realized that I have two choices, one I jump from the height I am at now and wipe out or I see what happens if you don’t get off a chairlift and you have to ride it back down or it hits some kind of kill switch and it dumps me.  In the seconds I had to think, I just jumped and sure enough my back hit the ground pretty much at the same time that my skies hit the ground.  I had managed to keep my head up from hitting the ground, knowing I was trying to protect my head.  Then sets in the panic where people are starting to get off the lift and I’m still laying in their departure way and chaos starts ensuing until I pull myself with my arms along the snow to get out of the way.  However I am still in the way and now I am causing the shut down of the lift.  I manage to get myself up and get my skis back on while the attendant yells to hurry up so they can get the lift going. 

I ski over to Kevin and he is full out laughing, I also can do nothing but laugh because I have never done something like that off the lift.  I also take a tumble later on when we hit the blue runs.  I rolled but again I kept my head up.  At this point in the afternoon I thought I had done enough runs so that I proved I could be there for Brant and I wanted to go sit in the car or the chalet.  Kevin said to me “if you are that old that you can’t finish the day of skiing, you might as well just call it quits as you won’t ski anymore passed 48.” 

He made me feel sheepish as he taunted me about being old and fragile.  We got on another chair lift with a stranger and Kevin started talking to him, sure enough, he just had started skiing when he was 55.  I could almost see Kevin’s boastful chest rising and his glare to make sure I had heard what the man had said. 

Here is the thing though, in my head I’m thinking I have gone above and beyond on more occasions then I can possibly count trying to prove I’m well enough to do something.  I felt proud for just making it out at all today and I had even kept going after the chair lift debacle.

I felt if I walked back to the chalet then I was weak and he thought less of me.  I truly though wanted to justify why what I had done so far was proof that I am strong in the darkest of times and I wouldn’t let my boy down when he wanted me on the ski hill so bad.  Of course though I gave into it and skied until night fall when Brant told us he was done, which also just happened to be closing time.

Here is where the reflection takes a turn, life on the farm is hard and it is a lot of work, in addition to regular duties like work and looking after 3 children.  Kevin is a work aholic and there are no excuses.  However I would say if I was vomiting or laying on the bathroom floor he didn’t expect me up and running around until the next day.  He has zero tolerance for any slothing.  Everyone contributes in some way to making money on this farm or they shouldn’t live here.  Since he did we all did. 

One day this week he was starting to say orders for yard work, picking up strings, cleaning the barn etc. and after he had left and I shouldn’t have said this but I said “why on earth would God pick that man for me?”

“Why would you take someone who is going to suffer from a few of the most debilitating diseases in the world and pair her with a workaholic that has never and will never, sit still or think anyone else should?”

 I covered my mouth after I said it out loud and said “never mind I’ll just go put my work clothes on and meet you guys outside after I do the dishes.”

Seriously I have still been thinking of that question and it made me think of it when I looked at the picture of me skiing a week into a mental health breakdown where I had been taken to emergency due to suicide ideation and I was getting daily zapped with magnets hitting my head to help make proper pathways as therapy for my mental health disease.  It also happened to be the very first time I was putting my secrets out there for close family, friends and co-workers.  To say that I could have said no to skiing that day and a person should still feel proud of themselves just living through the day is not what I would consider shameful. 

Then why?  Why the work aholic? Why the 6 year old during menopause and an entanglement of physical and mental diseases. 

Could it be that if I wasn’t sometimes pushed and challenged that I wouldn’t be here at all? Has having the little guy during all these illnesses made me pick my ass up off the floor because he and the girls needed me?  Has being pushed to keep going, get the work done, don’t feel sorry for yourself or think that you are too old or weak to do something, kept me alive?

I read the other day that people that have children over 40, moms or dads have a greater chance of living to 100 then the general population.  Is that because they fight really hard to be active to see their child and possible grandchildren grow up?  Is it because they won’t give up their minds or their bodies because their bond for their children supersedes all, maybe even genetics? Could the power of the mind and your beliefs change how long you will live?

Maybe it isn’t a question to God of Why he chose Kevin and the girls for me and brought me an afterthought baby with my physical and mental challenges about to soar, maybe it was the answer. Maybe without it, I wouldn’t have been able to fight so dam hard.

I think the challenges in life shape us for what is to come.  If you would be running a marathon (haha, believe me I won’t be) but it is what I’m thinking of for a challenge analogy.  When you started running you have the best intentions that things will all go well and you will be at the finish line in no time.  If you encountered something on your run, like it started lightning.  You would probably try to be even faster to try to get away from the storm.  If someone heckled you in the crowd and said “go home, you will never make it.” If you had painful shin splints and they are aching.  If the wind started pushing against you. You pushed and pushed with everything you had, your effort required ten times what a regular race would have, and you made it to the end. Does it feel any different, are you prouder of yourself then just doing the regular race? Did it make you try even harder to know that you might not make it because of your challenges?

Guess this leads me back to that saying that I said I didn’t like at all, “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”. I had fought with that saying, that I shouldn’t have to be broken to prove that I am strong.  I honestly still think that, it was your belief that made you stronger. It was the power you held in your beliefs to fight that made you stronger. What didn’t kill me, just didn’t kill me. I am the one who made me stronger.

Chat again soon,

Michelle