Winter has passed and my dread of bi-polar breakdown has become excitement and joy moving forward. As every month passed - the habit I'd stopped in a heartbeat is gone. I was afraid in the dark cold of winter that I would slip - but I didn't. Not even once. Now, not ever.
The past is solidly in the past.
Friday, April 10, 2015
Saturday, March 14, 2015
If we'd had a brother....
I was a disappointment
Dad wanted a boy. The displeasure of having his first born be a girl flowed over me in waves until his death. I spent my life trying to please him as a son would have. But I would never be good enough. Women were meant to serve their husbands and keep house and watch children.
You were a disappointment
They thought the odds of 50/50 would certainly bring a son into the world. And even through he would not be first born, he would be the first born son. Our name would continue through his children. But you were a girl. It was as if something changed between them. There would be no more children and no sons. I could feel mom's relief that she'd not have to go through another pregnancy. I could feel dad's anger and frustration.
Positive vs Negative
It was in mom's blood. She was AB negative and dad was O positive. The chance of a "blue" baby was high so said the 1950's doctors (all men). There was a chance with me and you, but the "odd's" were that it would certainly happen in the third birth. So our parents accepted their misfortune. But was it really the blood? I've heard almost nothing about that concern in my adult life. No one said "If one parent is positive and the other negative - they should not reproduce!" Yes some children are born with complications of blood matching, but they live. So in reality, the odds were much higher that the third child would be a boy than of the child being born "blue." (I think that meant sickly to them)
If they had tried again
Dad would have felt that God, and the world, and all the goodness he'd ever done would bring him his son. The child he would have loved more than us. The golden child who could get away with much more than us. He would be taught that men are indeed better than women and should be in charge. We would have loved having a baby to play with, and a boy would have been a novelty. We would have observed the attention Dad's mom gave the boy over us. Instead of sewing us matching dresses, he would have had little suits which we would then match. From the moment they brought him home he would be held more. We would be told not to touch his toys, but to share ours. We would become even more invisible as mom came to life because she had finally given dad what he wanted most in life. We would be told to be quiet for the baby. If the baby cried when dad was studying, we would be told to keep quiet and to keep the baby quiet, a skill we would never have. We wanted him to cry. We wanted him to make them push him aside as they had us.
Growing up three
We always heard that three children would fight more. Two would gang up against the other. Sibling rivalry would always come down to our fault and be punished accordingly, even if it he'd sided with one or the other of us against the other. Your brother is younger than you. You have to be more grown up. We would have been three and five then. Children who were expected to take care of ourselves. The battles were the same between us, as it was growing up without a brother. Each of us would feel the other must be getting what little more attention there was left. We would have been wilder. And maybe, just maybe we would have formed our own tribe, working side by side create chaos. Maybe we would have teamed up to lock mom out of the house to destroy the kitchen (as I actually did) bringing mom not only anger but fear that our brother asleep in his crib might be our next target. But we would never do that. The punishment dad would inflict on us would be much worse than the spankings and swats with the belt.
Once he was walking
We would have lost interest in all the wonderful things mom and dad saw him doing, in favor our own wonderful things. A bond would have formed between us that would follow us into our adult lives. We would have stood up for each other against other kids. We would be fiercely protective of each other. Grandma would call us the twins. We would have ridden our bikes together. We would have climbed trees together. We would have used our combined influence to get real juice, and fruit and a bit more money to buy candy and comic books. Our barbie's would be friends, living together in their makeshift cardboard box home. Ken would be our gardener, cook, driver. We would dress up our Barbies for themselves, not for Ken. Sometimes we would place Ken in naughty places, posed in naughty ways and blame our brother. Certainly little girls did not have nasty thoughts. It would have been one of the only lies that mom and dad might have believed, until mom caught us mid-flush in a turd soup toilet. Even getting caught would have made us happy. Being bad was more fun than being ignored.
School
Being left behind was made so much worse for you as mom did nothing to make you feel as special as I felt - finally away from mom and our brother. I would be noticed, I would make sure by doing some of the same naughty things we'd do around mom. My teacher would be frustrated with me (as she really was) because of my bad attitude and my not playing well with others. So coming home to my sister was the best part of my days. I would spend hours teaching you what I'd learned, so when you got to kindergarten you were a rock star among idiots. Once we were both in school our bond only got stronger. Once our brother started school, we were told to look out for him which we did no do. Sometimes we would pretend we did not hear him as he called out to us. We did not share our knowledge with him, but we did put ideas in his head. Ideas like how much more fun it was to play dress up in dresses. Duh, that's why its called "DRESS UP". We would get into mom's makeup to make him pretty, and mom's heels to make him taller. We would call our parents to come see how beautiful our brother looked (and we WOULD make him feel beautiful). Our father would be furious, We would be sent to our rooms without supper (we'd have already hidden food in our rooms) and our brother would be scrubbed and defrocked and told that no son of his would dress up like a girl. But he would never quite get over the attention we gave him and playing our games was the only time we did.
Games and Dare
Don't climb the trees became how high can you climb? Don't dig in the flower bed became him officiating Barbi and Ken burial. Don't color on the walls became, Don't worry crayons wash right off! Here is one of mom's towels - just rub it around. We would cheat at the game of Life, hide his army men, If he had any tears in the knees of his pants, we would make them much bigger. And when he got his first bike, we took turns riding it out of his reach while he screamed. We would play hide and seek without the seek. When mom could not find him before dad was to get home sent her out into the neighborhood to all the houses we thought we'd seen him wonder off to, We convinced him that insects were edible. He was gullible and we felt superior until the day we realized what he had that we did not. He could pee standing with his little fire hose. We did not have a part like that. Were did our's go? Were our's cut off when we were babies because we were girls? We would perfect the art of the standing pee.
Dad wanted a boy. The displeasure of having his first born be a girl flowed over me in waves until his death. I spent my life trying to please him as a son would have. But I would never be good enough. Women were meant to serve their husbands and keep house and watch children.
You were a disappointment
They thought the odds of 50/50 would certainly bring a son into the world. And even through he would not be first born, he would be the first born son. Our name would continue through his children. But you were a girl. It was as if something changed between them. There would be no more children and no sons. I could feel mom's relief that she'd not have to go through another pregnancy. I could feel dad's anger and frustration.
Positive vs Negative
It was in mom's blood. She was AB negative and dad was O positive. The chance of a "blue" baby was high so said the 1950's doctors (all men). There was a chance with me and you, but the "odd's" were that it would certainly happen in the third birth. So our parents accepted their misfortune. But was it really the blood? I've heard almost nothing about that concern in my adult life. No one said "If one parent is positive and the other negative - they should not reproduce!" Yes some children are born with complications of blood matching, but they live. So in reality, the odds were much higher that the third child would be a boy than of the child being born "blue." (I think that meant sickly to them)
If they had tried again
Dad would have felt that God, and the world, and all the goodness he'd ever done would bring him his son. The child he would have loved more than us. The golden child who could get away with much more than us. He would be taught that men are indeed better than women and should be in charge. We would have loved having a baby to play with, and a boy would have been a novelty. We would have observed the attention Dad's mom gave the boy over us. Instead of sewing us matching dresses, he would have had little suits which we would then match. From the moment they brought him home he would be held more. We would be told not to touch his toys, but to share ours. We would become even more invisible as mom came to life because she had finally given dad what he wanted most in life. We would be told to be quiet for the baby. If the baby cried when dad was studying, we would be told to keep quiet and to keep the baby quiet, a skill we would never have. We wanted him to cry. We wanted him to make them push him aside as they had us.
Growing up three
We always heard that three children would fight more. Two would gang up against the other. Sibling rivalry would always come down to our fault and be punished accordingly, even if it he'd sided with one or the other of us against the other. Your brother is younger than you. You have to be more grown up. We would have been three and five then. Children who were expected to take care of ourselves. The battles were the same between us, as it was growing up without a brother. Each of us would feel the other must be getting what little more attention there was left. We would have been wilder. And maybe, just maybe we would have formed our own tribe, working side by side create chaos. Maybe we would have teamed up to lock mom out of the house to destroy the kitchen (as I actually did) bringing mom not only anger but fear that our brother asleep in his crib might be our next target. But we would never do that. The punishment dad would inflict on us would be much worse than the spankings and swats with the belt.
Once he was walking
We would have lost interest in all the wonderful things mom and dad saw him doing, in favor our own wonderful things. A bond would have formed between us that would follow us into our adult lives. We would have stood up for each other against other kids. We would be fiercely protective of each other. Grandma would call us the twins. We would have ridden our bikes together. We would have climbed trees together. We would have used our combined influence to get real juice, and fruit and a bit more money to buy candy and comic books. Our barbie's would be friends, living together in their makeshift cardboard box home. Ken would be our gardener, cook, driver. We would dress up our Barbies for themselves, not for Ken. Sometimes we would place Ken in naughty places, posed in naughty ways and blame our brother. Certainly little girls did not have nasty thoughts. It would have been one of the only lies that mom and dad might have believed, until mom caught us mid-flush in a turd soup toilet. Even getting caught would have made us happy. Being bad was more fun than being ignored.
School
Being left behind was made so much worse for you as mom did nothing to make you feel as special as I felt - finally away from mom and our brother. I would be noticed, I would make sure by doing some of the same naughty things we'd do around mom. My teacher would be frustrated with me (as she really was) because of my bad attitude and my not playing well with others. So coming home to my sister was the best part of my days. I would spend hours teaching you what I'd learned, so when you got to kindergarten you were a rock star among idiots. Once we were both in school our bond only got stronger. Once our brother started school, we were told to look out for him which we did no do. Sometimes we would pretend we did not hear him as he called out to us. We did not share our knowledge with him, but we did put ideas in his head. Ideas like how much more fun it was to play dress up in dresses. Duh, that's why its called "DRESS UP". We would get into mom's makeup to make him pretty, and mom's heels to make him taller. We would call our parents to come see how beautiful our brother looked (and we WOULD make him feel beautiful). Our father would be furious, We would be sent to our rooms without supper (we'd have already hidden food in our rooms) and our brother would be scrubbed and defrocked and told that no son of his would dress up like a girl. But he would never quite get over the attention we gave him and playing our games was the only time we did.
Games and Dare
Don't climb the trees became how high can you climb? Don't dig in the flower bed became him officiating Barbi and Ken burial. Don't color on the walls became, Don't worry crayons wash right off! Here is one of mom's towels - just rub it around. We would cheat at the game of Life, hide his army men, If he had any tears in the knees of his pants, we would make them much bigger. And when he got his first bike, we took turns riding it out of his reach while he screamed. We would play hide and seek without the seek. When mom could not find him before dad was to get home sent her out into the neighborhood to all the houses we thought we'd seen him wonder off to, We convinced him that insects were edible. He was gullible and we felt superior until the day we realized what he had that we did not. He could pee standing with his little fire hose. We did not have a part like that. Were did our's go? Were our's cut off when we were babies because we were girls? We would perfect the art of the standing pee.
Thursday, February 19, 2015
Stuck again
Ridiculous. Stuck again for same reason and 2 new ones. I have a mild case of Shingles and I looked through boxes of photos thrown together of my life, kids, etc.
The boxed were the worst. I know what I've never organized them, or looking at them lovingly. The boxes show a family that I choose to walk away from. My kids went from living with mommy and daddy to living some of the time with me and Ben and some of the time with their dad. I've talked with my kids now that they are adults and am hearing how sad it was for them. They love Ben. They love growing up with Ben. But they will forever wish that mom and dad raised them together. (instead of 2 blocks apart)
I can't write anymore.
I just can't.
The boxed were the worst. I know what I've never organized them, or looking at them lovingly. The boxes show a family that I choose to walk away from. My kids went from living with mommy and daddy to living some of the time with me and Ben and some of the time with their dad. I've talked with my kids now that they are adults and am hearing how sad it was for them. They love Ben. They love growing up with Ben. But they will forever wish that mom and dad raised them together. (instead of 2 blocks apart)
I can't write anymore.
I just can't.
Saturday, February 7, 2015
Tomorrow
Still Stuck.
Went out into the wet cold and tried to cross country ski. The snow has turned to mush. Not all the way to the grass, skis scrappy the ground much, just thick ick with no glide. I tried to find the tracks of another skier I'd seen a couple days ago, but they got covered by the last wet snow storm.
I fell to one side (normal for me) because I might as well have been wearing snowshoes, except skis like long thin snowshoes. Look to one side, and gravity pulls me down.
Are all these stuck days the same? Are they all my aversion to all things financially related? Do I really need to clean and organize my messy office before my mind can wrap around numbers? Do I really have to remove the top page of the list to make a new clean list? And if I spell something wrong do I really need to remove the page and start over? Does everything on my desk need to be symmetrical or at least balanced? Is this OCD anxiety?
So today is a stuck day with anxiety and a long list of self driven shoulds and must dos. Valium my friend, please help me drop my shoulders, release the muscles in my neck. Valium, let me choose to take a needed shower without negotiating other things I need to to do to EARN a shower.
Showers are another sticking point for me. I can get in my hot tub and soak even on a stuck day. But showers seem to take so much time away from my lists and my day time. But there is no way I can shower at night. I don't mind being wet. I mind staying wet. My wet wet hair will take forever to dry on it's own and will leave me shivering for hours. With my hair wet, how will I go and to the list items that are not home? (hint: none of those items really have to be done) I could dry my hair with my hair dryer but that takes me back to the time it will take out of my day time. I know it makes no sense. Here I sit, using up my daytime writing this post.
The List.
[ ] Clean and organize office
OCD Brain: There is too much to do! It' won't get done! If we start we have to finish all of it! Can't organize without cleaning first. Can't clean without organizing the clutter. Important papers are mixed randomly into all piles. Piles are all around on different surfaces and shelves. One sits in front of my keyboard under the monitor staring at me. I know most of that pile is crap, but ODC says "if you do this when you are stressed, you will loose something important!"
[ ] File items that need to be saved - set up files for 2015
OCD Brain. Oh right. Does this come before or after Clean and Organize? There is too much junk in the files that are in 8 random drawers. You need to get THOSE cleaned out first! make sure this years files are clean and organized. ODC says "if you do this when you are stressed, you will loose something important!"
[ ] Gather all materials for income 2014 income tax
OCD Brain. You CAN"T do this without the first two! And those will take forever! ODC says "if you do this when you are stressed, you will loose something important!" Or naje a huge mistake.
[ ] Everything else
Anything on this sublist is usually done before the top 3 because there is less stree in say.. washing the clothes but then pilling them onto the bed. No stress then, but later tonight it will, I could list the list, but there is no point because it never ends. Clothes always need cleaning,
What to do right now.
1. Stop typing,
Friday, February 6, 2015
Description of a stuck day
Knowing I need to gather all the tax info for our business (daunting task) and for my mom and for our trust fund has me running in the other direction. I know, if I just DO it I will feel AMAZING. But I don't. I find other things to fill my mind - other projects that could be put off. I make mistakes and gain a bit more anxiety with each one.
On a Stuck Day, I have no one to blame, so it's obvious that I am here on my own power. I'm not reacting inappropriately to teasing, or tearing my hair out for things on my list I haven't done, Instead I move them from today's list (from weeks of today) to tomorrow's list. But it reminds me of what I am doing to myself. It's a hole. I'm in it about up to my chest and there's pressure there. I am breathing to shallow. Need to relax...
I woke up from dreams where I knew what today would be. I did my best to move through with purpose and calm, but it only made the day smaller somehow.
A Stuck Day is one where I am surrounded by jello. I can only move a little and can't get out at all. There is no swimming to the top. No one can reach in and pull me out. My mind does not race like manic days, but a part of it wants to kick manic in the butt to get me out of here.
I see things I would enjoy doing and I avoid them.
I fear communicating because maybe I'll tip my hand and will forever be seen as a flake.
There is nothing left to do but zone out.
Leave the planet.
Wrap myself up in a blanket of thick soft nothing and when the day is done, go to bed and say how tomorrow will be better. I will be energetic and happy and able to breeze through all the detail stuff.
Tomorrow.
Sunday, January 25, 2015
The Scars on our Hearts
I wrote this post a year ago, give or take. I took it down because I'd been blind and believed I was crazy. Most of those months seemed so normal, filled with the same number of "I love you more than anythings" kisses and bedtime snuggling watching bad TV. But there were weeks in his basement recording music with his friends and my son. I was not included, but I wanted to give him time of his own. At first I ignored that voice in my heart. I wanted so much for there to be nothing to find, I did not think I could bear another gash across my heart. When that pain came with all the rush of missing time and misdirection I went completely info the deepest manic depressive state I've ever had, The light of my world turned off and I was left in the dark,And still I believed I was responsible and it was my crazy that put me there.That it was something that was my fault. Amplified by a horrible thing I'd done 16 years ago. It was a pain that left me empty and ready to just stop living. Thank you my sister listing to me and for not taking me to a hospital psych eval. Thank you to my mother in law for talking me down off the emotional ledge. Thank you for the tears and the flowers, and the passwords, and the posters and notes, and the begging - but mostly thank you for showing me I had not been crazy, and that you promise to forever be there for me and be the person I need you to be. You say never, ever again. You say I know that. You say that I know you love me more than anything.
It's the same time time frame as last year. Its truly gone. Our life is back normal, filled with the same number of "I love you more than anythings" kisses and bedtime snuggling watching bad TV. I'm ok, perhaps a bit more medicated But there are triggers he doesn't see. I am not the same woman that I once was but not because of the scar. It's the life that I chose.
Symbols
I ordered this heart today. My husband knew I wanted a Thomas Mann heart for my 60th birthday. The day should not be upsetting, but it is because I am afraid my feelings about always being young at HEART might be overshadowed by the feeling of being old. It does not make it easier that my husband is 22 years younger and fabulously bizarre and unique. I love him now as much as I did when I met him 19 years ago online in "The White Rose Inn" - a chat room on AOL where people role played through words in a game called the "Vampire Masquerade." I started as a cat who roamed the Inn watching and interacting remotely through inner monologue, commenting playfully on the people in the inn.
That is where I first "saw" my husband. He was bizarre and funny and completely captivating. Nym was his character's name. He had other characters he also played as did most of the people sitting at their computers, connecting with the world through a new and addicting way. You could be anyone or anything you wanted to be. As character, they interacted with other characters and their "environment." As a cat, I saw that characters and the people playing them were engaging emotionally. There were in battle, banded together as "families," and as couples. They fell in and out of love. There was passion and fear. As in life, your character could "die" and you could no longer be that person you were so invested in. With a roll of the dice your fate was determined. Nym was as the center of that. While he was funny and the darling of everyone around him, he was also powerful enough that if you had to go head to head with him, your character would die.
I wanted to be loved. To be in love. To be happier than my world beyond AOL. It was wrong. It was cheating, but I abandoned the cat and became Tink. As Tink, I was able to have feelings. Real feelings. I fell in love with Nym. He fell in love with me. What should have been pretend wasn't. I still love him the same way I did then. Completely with fierce intensity. The characters, Nym and Tink, said they had "no gaps" no space between them. And when I met him in the real world, it was obvious to us, to everyone - that we were meant to be together. Both our lives turned upside down, but we were together. Against all odds, we are likely one of the only couples that met in that world, in love, still in love, married, together...
There have been moments in time where we were torn apart. HEARTS were broken and put back together. We both remember those painful times in a heartbeat. Sometimes we let those feelings out, a weapon, hurtful, not meaning to pull us apart. We hurt each other with those words. Regretting them the moment they are said. Hoping the turmoil they cause will pass quickly, moving past and back to being as we have always been since the moment we met. We are supposed to be together and nothing feels better - more intense and wonderful.
Yes, it's complicated.
The heart, this heart, like all hearts before it represent both sides. It represents the sad times and the happy ones. I have them tattooed on me, but they are written on our beating hearts as well. I am sorry. I am always sorry for the scars I left on his heart. I know, even as a new scar is scratched next to the others that it will heal. They always do. I know he never means to hurt me and I never mean to hurt him. No matter what - we always come back to the point we started at - closing the gap till there is no gap.
This heart, though it fills me with a mix of happy and sad will heal. In time the heart always heals, so I am choosing to heal it now. I have less time than I did at the start. Less time to dwell on petty pain, a moment there, a moment unmeant. I choose to see only the love in the heart.
All any of us have is now. With a roll of the dice, we could be removed from this world and cast into another, be it dark or light. I want to pass with no regrets, no anger, nothing unfinished or unsaid. I hope for light, where there can be no gaps always and forever.
It does not have to be complicated.
I love you Ben. I will always love you. More than anything.
Thursday, January 22, 2015
Blue
Blue... the cloudy sky reflected off the melted snow. Blue... the glow of my 3 computer screen's desktop images. Blue... creativity on hold, hiatus, cold, unsure, afraid to let go and be blindsided again. Blue... that place inside me with only the light is the light I allow in. Blue... the few nights I fall asleep alone. Blue... glued to my seat, only to move to another seat, then eventually bed - wake up and repeat. Blue... glimmer of future promised. Blue... Spring...our birthdays in 2 months. Blue... Blue...imagining the sky in California. Blue... my daughter's eyes. Blue... remembering the water in Hawaii. Blue... the color of the morning glories climbing up my back trellis. Blue.. sea glass, bluebirds, hyacinths, lavender. tiny eggs, glowing light on my mouse and keyboard. Blue...a painted image I'll never look at again. Blue...the mask I bought for Christmas that was his favorite gift ever. Blue...just blue... with no reason too.
I've watched so many shows that present mental illness in it's rare form, and how the family and friends around that person cope. Not the full on crazy in the loony bin crazy. (Is there really such a place anymore... not very PC) It's images of mothers crippled by anxiety, anger, fear, and a reality that while it's absolutely real to them, is ONLY real to them. The effects run from falling to the ground screaming and crying, beating a head against a wall, running away, being inappropriate, faked happiness that looks terrifying, Each effect is tailored in the mind and reactions of the mentally ill. But more and more, I see myself in them. It's hard to face, since I don't remember it being like it must have been. It's embarrassing, selfish, hopeless. How could my family accepted and not taken me to the hospital?. I certainly was a danger to myself. At those moments, I was not rational. I was terrified. I was lost in a very very dark place. What I said I needed was impossible for anyone to give me.Often that was the trigger that pushed me off the edge... needing what was impossible to be given. It's no wonder that there have been times when he felt justified in being distant - and going in another sudo reality. But no matter how it's been explained - it was not my fault. And it's not his fault I'm crazy. It is his fault when he makes his bad choices ok because he labels me crazy.
I'm medicated now and I'm balanced most of the time. But today.. I'm blue.
I've watched so many shows that present mental illness in it's rare form, and how the family and friends around that person cope. Not the full on crazy in the loony bin crazy. (Is there really such a place anymore... not very PC) It's images of mothers crippled by anxiety, anger, fear, and a reality that while it's absolutely real to them, is ONLY real to them. The effects run from falling to the ground screaming and crying, beating a head against a wall, running away, being inappropriate, faked happiness that looks terrifying, Each effect is tailored in the mind and reactions of the mentally ill. But more and more, I see myself in them. It's hard to face, since I don't remember it being like it must have been. It's embarrassing, selfish, hopeless. How could my family accepted and not taken me to the hospital?. I certainly was a danger to myself. At those moments, I was not rational. I was terrified. I was lost in a very very dark place. What I said I needed was impossible for anyone to give me.Often that was the trigger that pushed me off the edge... needing what was impossible to be given. It's no wonder that there have been times when he felt justified in being distant - and going in another sudo reality. But no matter how it's been explained - it was not my fault. And it's not his fault I'm crazy. It is his fault when he makes his bad choices ok because he labels me crazy.
I'm medicated now and I'm balanced most of the time. But today.. I'm blue.
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