Here's a story about my sweet husband that I really think reveals a lot about how he handles stressful situations: When Barney was in the second grade, he encountered a teacher who apparently did not take to Barney and who also apparently was just not a nice person in general (when she had Barney's little sister about ten years later, many similar instances of unkind doings occurred). I'm not sure what all this unkind woman did to make little Barney so unhappy, but apparently it was a lot. Barney internalized it all, never complaining to his parents. At the same time, he became regularly sick with an upset stomach that just would not go away, so his parents took him to the doctor. It turns out that through all of his internalized stress, he had developed some serious stomach ulcers. As a second grader.
These days he doesn't get stomach ulcers, he gets mouth ulcers. He suffers from what is known as complex canker sores, which means that he gets multiple ulcers at a time that are much deeper and more severe than traditional canker sores, and the breakouts occur at least four times per year. They show up in clusters on his tongue, gums, roof of his mouth, and the back of his throat. He has never found a medication that works, and the sores are almost incapacitating when they are at their peak. They almost always coincide with times of extreme stress, and his breakout this week is his first in a good while. I am quite positive that it is tied to our housing issues, and I feel so bad for him. He went to bed at 9:00 tonight just because he couldn't handle the pain any more.
I know that he feels like he hasn't done enough to provide for his family since we are unable to get out of a house that doesn't suit our needs to be able to get into one that does suit our needs. Of course, none of these issues are his fault, and he works very hard for the family. My challenge has become finding a way to show him that he does not need to feel guilty about this situation. (Not that that will get rid of the mouth sores, but maybe it will help relieve the stress behind the sores).
The first step is probably de-stressing about it myself. I have invested much time into prayer over this in the last 24 hours, and today I did not feel the insistent pressure over the situation that I have felt the past couple of weeks, though it did threaten to surface a couple of times. It feels too little too late at this point though in terms of preventing Barney from internalizing the situation and becoming overly stressed about it himself. There is a Curious George episode where this dog show director who has managed to lose all the dogs from the show tells the owners to be calm and not to panic, because that is his job and he is going to do just that right now. I wish I could do that for Barney somehow. I am excellent at stressing out, and it doesn't cause major mouth sores for me.
Instead, I am left trying to offer him whatever comfort I can from a drawn bath to eating bland and soft foods with him to rough housing with the kids (in as much as possible being that I am officially as big as a house) so that he can have a break.
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