Conversations XI

Me:  Elizabeth do you remember when I was dating?

E:  Not really.  Why?  Are you going to start dating again?

Me:  (sighing)  No, Charles won't let me date.

Charles walks in:  What won't I let you do?

Me:  You won't let me date.  Selfish bastard you are...

C:  Well, everyone has their quirks.


Me, talking to my boss:

Me:  Well, I don't see myself quitting any time soon, unless my husband decides to finally unearth his (imaginary) money he has hidden from me.

Boss:  Unless you win the lottery...

Me:  Well, that is on my to-do list.


Alexis, looking over my shoulder at my Facebook page ads:

A:  A free phone!  Wow, mom, I want a free phone!

Me:  Uh, no.

Later on, talking to Charles:

C:  Did you tell her she could take an innie-and-an-outie bath?

Me:  Yeah.

C:  Oh, I just told her she couldn't.  I'll text her and let her know...oh, wait.  You didn't get her the free phone...


Dumping some Epsom salts into Charlie's bath:

Elizabeth:  What are you doing?

Me:  Putting Epsom salts into Charlie's bath.

E:  Really, Mom?  Charlie is crazy enough without bath salts.  You are going to turn her into a zombie!

Victim

I wept today.

I heard the verdict of the much publicized Steubenville rape case and I wept.  The trial frequently made my blood boil.  The sheer amount of privilege that is present in this case burns me up.  "I didn't know what rape was".  "She has a history of lying".  "Yeah, she was puking and I thought she was dead, but she consented."

All tired lines brought on by a rape culture.  All so insidious that no one really realizes just how damaging they are.

Women are still property.  Women are still meant to be playthings for the "good kids".

I am sorry, but if they were really "good kids", there would not have been a rape.

Probably an inflammatory statement, yes.  But there is such a pervasive sense of "I am sorry I got caught..."  One of those kids even said in his statement to the victim, "I am sorry that those pictures got sent around."  Not, "I am sorry I violated you and degraded you and raped you".

The parents stood up and tried to blame alcohol.  Not ONE SINGLE PERSON tried to stop and think, "Maybe we should just NOT RAPE.  Maybe we are NOT entitled to sex.  Maybe a woman CAN and SHOULD consent."

People are still worried about the "bad light" that has been shed on Steubenville.  This frequently happens when unexamined privilege and systemic biases are yanked out from behind the curtain.  This stuff does not happen in isolated incidents.  Violence, drugs, rapes...society supports them.  It is not just Steubenville.  They just happened to have gotten caught.  Everyone needs to change.

How many more victims do we need to have before this happens?   I just hope that it is not too late to rehabilitate those boys.  I hope that the victim gets some measure of peace, though I know this is unlikely.  I hope that the community looks within itself to change.  I fear that this is also unlikely.

Emergency

On Friday, I got a call from the daycare.  Charlie had been kind of off that morning, but it wasn't enough for me to take off work (and let's be honest, if I called off every time I was cranky, I would never be at work...).  The teachers there knew this, and had called me concerned.  She hadn't eaten anything that day, which is not all that unusual given that she is a toddler and they possess a magical ability to extract nutrients from air.    What was concerning was that when she woke from her nap, she was shaking uncontrollably.  Not like seizure shaking; like she was shivering.  No temp, nothing to explain it.  Then she could not get off her cot or pick up her goldfish crackers.  Concerning, no?  I called the doc and they said to go ahead and take her to the ER.

Now, Elizabeth and Alexis, I have been to the ER a grand total of two times between the two of them.  This will make Charlie's third visit.  WTF, child?  She is a train wreck, health wise.  Hell, before she was a year old she already had had four different specialists involved in her life.

I can tell when the child is not feeling well, though.  Mostly because she isn't smiling sweetly at you while toying with the blade of the knife she keeps strapped to her ankle or throwing her toys around in a rage because you dared to suggest to her that maybe it isn't a good idea that she stick that metal hanger into the light socket.  She also tends to be more cuddly.  Now that I miss from her being an infant.  She would just snuggle into the center of your chest and look up at you and smile.  Now she will look up at you and smile, but once she figured out the key to mobility the snuggles dropped off.

She is feeling better now.  She started to have diarrhea, and the diagnosis was that it was caused by a bacteria.  The shaking was mild dehydration and low blood sugar from not eating.   Few doses of an antibiotic and the BRAT diet and she has bounced back.  She still is not 100% though.  Today, we were up in her room and she was sitting naked next to me doing puzzles (don't judge; I was picking my battles and clothing was not one I wanted to. That or I'm a lazy and inattentive parent). She then just snuggled onto my lap and wrapped her arms around my neck for a hug.  This is not something that she does spontaneously.

I kinda miss the days when it didn't take an emergency for her to want me.  When I picked her up at the daycare, the first words out of her mouth were, "Mama, I couldn't get off my cot."  I think it truly scared her.  Little Miss Independent she has always been.  I am so grateful, though, that even though she thinks she is grown, she still feels that she can come to me when she is scared or sick.

Even if she would be totally my first choice for backup in a bar fight.

Mom

Charlie has recently discovered that she likes birds.  Why, I don't know.  They are creepy as hell if you think about it.  Their beady little eyes, their beaks (really?  What kind of creature has a protruding mouth that is hard?), their unnaturally small legs and feet...CREEPY.  I hope to God she never finds out that people keep them as pets...

At any rate, she will constantly point out birds to me when we are driving.  Most of the time she gets an "Uh huh, I see..." because hello, remember I ignore my children whenever possible?  Also there is the whole I am driving and it usually does not work out so well when you turn around to look while going 60 MPH thing.  This morning, though, she was insistent and finally goes, "MOM!!!  LOOK AT THE BIRDS!!!"

Mom?  MOM?  WTF, child?  I am not Mom.  I am Mama.  Mom is entirely too grown up.  Next thing I know she will be putting on lipstick and listening to the devil's music, AKA anything sung by Katy Perry or Ke$ha, while casually trying to figure out ways to have boys shimmy up the pine tree in the front yard to sneak into her room and smoke pot that turns out to be oregano.

Mom is what a teenager calls you.  Usually accompanied by slamming doors and rolled eyes.  Sometimes both if you get a twofer that day.  Mom is not what my little Char-Rambo calls me.  She calls me Mama, ever so sweetly while looking me right in the eye and defiantly pulling her shoes off after I just fucking told her to put them on and GODDAMMIT STOP FEEDING THE FUCKING DOGS OR THEY WILL NOT LEAVE YOU ALONE WHILE EATING!!!  (For the record, I have never actually said that to her but I totally thought it.  All caps in my head, too...)

I am not ready for my baby to be grown up enough to call me Mom.  I want her to stay innocent.  Elizabeth was talking to me about prom today.  Fucking prom.  Do you know what kids DO at prom?  That is big kid stuff.  Who gave her permission to talk about prom?  Who gave Charlie permission to call me Mom?  Next thing I know, Alexis will be talking about getting her driver's license.

I think I need some oregano...

Laughter

So since I was off work this morning, I was posting a lot on Facebook.  Mostly just the random ramblings of a deranged mind, really, but I hadn't had time off during the week for a while so it felt good to make an ass out of myself during the week.  Someone posted a comment on one of them, something about always making her laugh.  This of course got me thinking about some kind of touchy-feely metaphorical bullshit that I can post here about the importance of laughter in my life.

One of the main ways that I knew something was wrong after Charlie was born was that I had no desire to laugh.  I still did, of course (given that my husband was shocked as hell when I told him what was going on) but I did not actively pursue it the way I do now.   I went through the motions on the outside, but on the inside I would have been screaming if my psyche had the motivation to get itself up out of bed and to pour the gin out.  All I really wanted to do was to crawl into a bed and fade away.  I did not want to hear my children's laughter or to joke with my husband.  I had no motivation to seek this out.

Monday through Friday during the week, I see very ill people.  I see people who actively want to end their lives, or other's lives.  I am pretty sure that I have looked into Satan's eyes a few times too.  I see people who are hearing voices telling them to do awful things.  I hear people tell me about the awful things that others have done to them.  I see misery, sadness, despair, and a kind of grim trudging through the day to go to bed to get up to see another.  Bleakness.  Pain.  Sometimes evil.  I am steeped in it.

Yes, I know I chose this.  I still love my job.  However, I would not be able to cope with it if I stopped laughing.  Any mental health professional who is reading this will be nodding their head because they know.  The laughter is the antidote to the poison of what we do.  It can truly numb your soul.

But even before I entered this field, I sought out laughter.   I tend to be a sucker for men with a sense of humor.  I strongly preferred comedies over dramas or horrors (and now I just really tolerate dramas and will not watch a horror.  Or anything with violence, really.)  Now, even more so, I have made it my mission.  There is not enough laughter.  If I can make someone laugh through my ridiculousness (and honestly, it is a little frightening how ridiculous I can be); if dropping the f-bomb at inappropriate times and engaging in hyperbole can brighten someone's day, I'm all over that like a teenager is all over news of Harry Style's most recent break up.

Desk

I realized the other day that my desk at work is strangely symbolic of my psyche.  It is for the most part, on the outside, neat and organized.  The inside is another story completely.  The top drawer of my desk is full of post it notes with important information jotted on them, mints and eye drops to address my chronically dry eyes and mouth, my phone, stickers with the hotline number on it (I hand those out like candy in my job...), paperclips, old pictures of my children that used to hang on my wall, my car keys...basically a modge podge of my life.  The drawers to my desk are crammed with papers that I need, filed in neatly labelled compartments and easily accessible...but full to over flowing.

That is how my life is.  Full to over flowing, but with things I need...work, my children, my health, my social life.  All neatly organized on the outside, but a million different things going on at once.

There is somewhat of an illusion there.  I guess I appear to have things together, but in reality there are always many different things on my mind that I worry about.  This is the curse of the anxiety that I carry.  No matter how much I am able to organize, how many lists and plans I make, it never feels like it is enough.  There is always more I should be doing, ways that I am lacking, people I have failed.

If I were to look at my life as lived by another person, I would probably be pretty impressed.  I was teenage mother.  My child that I had at that age is a pretty fucking fantastic kid.  I did not fall apart after I had her.  I fought and worked and scrambled to get my education.  I make a difference in people's lives on a daily basis.  I own a house, and (mostly :p) pay my bills.  I have a husband who loves me unconditionally, and two other children who are pretty neat as well.  My kids have not killed anyone yet, and if they have they are smart enough to know how to not get caught.  I have creative outlets that I enjoy regularly.  I have taken many steps towards becoming a more healthy person, inside and out.

Why is it that I am so hard on myself?  All of these things, when looked at in someone else, are pretty damn awesome.  All I see when I look at myself is the mess that is inside the desk.  I see all of the things that I feel I should be doing.  All the info that I can't remember;  all the reminders that I need to function.

I surely can't be the only woman who feels this way.  Society judges me in myriad ways, despite all of the successes I have.  My kids aren't learning Mandarin, my house is not spotless, my assessments at work aren't as polished as I would like.  I must not be a good enough mother, wife, worker.  I feel tremendous guilt when I drop one of the many balls I have going, and external forces that show others who appear to have it together more than I do certainly do not help.  The external "desk" that we all have is deceiving.

I need to remember this.  I am not the only one.  Should, must, have to...words I need to eliminate from my desk, and from the desks of others.  I am human.  Not a desk that can be manipulated to suit someone else's needs.

Voices

I hear voices in my head.

Not the kind that scare people and require heavy duty psychotics.  Let's not give the mentally ill a bad name by associating me with them, m'kay?  More of an internalized dialogue that carries on between some facet of my psyche and society.  And different facets of my psyche with other aspects of my psyche.  Let's face it, my brand of crazy would not be complete unless I was fighting a losing battle against myself, amiright?

The constant ebb and flow of my day to day life is fraught with examples of all the ways I have failed, at least in my mind.  Today was a perfect example.  I  had to work a bit later than usual due to some glitches with a hospitalization.  Alexis also had an extra dance class for competition because they like to see how much they can make me twitch there with last minute changes to the schedule.  I was running late.  Plus, the original plan of me bringing her dance stuff with me so I had it when I picked her up from my in-laws (due to Elizabeth having a planned after school activity and therefore not being there to get her sister off the bus) fell through because Elizabeth's activity fell through.  None of this was in my control.  Or really, anyone's control for that matter.  It's life.  Changes happen.  She got to dance, and actually on time.  (Barely on time, but still on time.)  She was even fed before hand.

I appeared cool and collected while dropping her off, but in my head is a litany of sins the voices are screaming at me.

If you were a better therapist, you would have gotten that client out the door sooner.

If you were more organized, you would not have had to worry about the dance clothes and she could have gotten dressed at home.

If you were better at managing your money, you could be a stay at home mom and be able to run your children around whenever and where ever.

If you were a better mom and if you really loved your child, you would not feel that you had to be rushed.

Over and over in my head.  Constantly belittling myself.  Constantly second guessing my decisions.  Never being good enough.  Always critical.

I am fully aware that it is illogical.  I am educated enough in therapy to know how to address that negative self-talk.  And yet, I constantly do it to myself, and sometimes to challenge it is exhausting.

You play board games with your family?  We don't do that.  I must not be dedicated to my family.

You get up at 4 AM to exercise?  I am not disciplined enough to do that.  I must be lazy.

You stay at work till 9 PM to finish your paperwork?  I won't do that.  I must be a bad employee.

 You are planning on buying a new house and going on vacation?  I can't afford that.  I must suck at managing finances.

You are going to send your child to a private school?  There aren't any around here.  I must be selfish because of where I choose to live.

You and your BFF are going to a concert together?  I barely find time to have coffee with my friend who lives around the block.  I must be a bad friend.
 
Around and around.  Not all from my internal voices.  Some from society, telling me that I need to compare myself to others and always be found lacking.  I am not thin enough, blond enough, pretty enough.  My job is scorned as weak women's work.  I am not tiger mom enough.  Hell, I don't think I qualify as a kitten mom.  I am awful as a wife because I am difficult to live with.  I am a horrible friend because I barely make time to hang out.

All at once, everything feels as though it is crashing down.  The voices are screaming at me. Most days, I can control them.  I reason that I am not superwoman; that other people's lives are filled with struggles as well; that I am keeping it together.

Just because I don't read to my children as often as others does not make me a bad mom.  Just because we have to hurry to dance does not mean I am a crappy therapist.  Just because I don't exercise at godforsaken hours of the morning does not mean I am lazy.

I am more than the sum of the epithets that my psyche throws at me.

Defenses

Getting a cold is a lot like being in denial that you have an addiction.   One tends to use a lot of defense mechanisms to attempt to convince oneself that in fact, one is not getting sick despite all evidence to the contrary.

In the early stages, one usually starts out with outright denial.  Nope, not getting sick.  This sore throat is because of dry air.  Boogers?  Must be something dusty making my allergies flare up (not allergic to dust, but hey whatevs...)  Cough?  Swallowed wrong.  Headache?  Thanks, kids.  Keep screaming.

Projection can rear it's ugly head.  "I am not sick, but holy hell you look like crap".  You can intellectualize your cold.  "This is a virus.  I can't take any medications for it.  It has to resolve on its own."   You can rationalize it to death (well not literally.  If you did that, you would get better since the virus would die...) "I must be getting sick because I am so stressed".

You then move on to regression.  You want to curl up under the covers and cry for your Mommy.  You want to whine and be cranky.  You want to be tucked into bed for a nap and spoon fed chicken noodle soup.  Essentially, you regress back to your two year old self.

Next comes the anger.  "GODDAMMIT!  We have immunizations for everything else; why not the cold!"  "I want something to fucking make me feel better RIGHT NOW!"  "Curse my great idea to have children who will go to the cesspool of germs otherwise known as school and bring back all kinds of communicable diseases!"

You get to the point where you can't remember what it felt like to be healthy.  You become firmly convinced that you will never get well again, and slowly resign yourself to the fact that you will be miserable for the rest of your life.  You frantically consult Dr. Google hoping against hope that a cure will magically appear.  Life revolves around the color of your boogers and the debate over whether you will need an antibiotic or not.

You decide that this must be bad karma for things done wrong in a previous life and resolve to go forth and sin no more.  Just when you think that you are just going to die....you get better.

Unless you are me and are taking medications to suppress your immune system.  Then secondary infections take one look at you and think "Free buffet!  All you can eat!"

Maximus

I hate that fucking dog.

I only consented to him in a moment of weakness.  That and I have a complete inability to say no to my family's reasonable requests and at the time, it seemed a reasonable request.  Perhaps I should consider getting evaluated for early dementia because my reasoning skills were really off that day.  (And for the record ELIZABETH (since I know you are reading this) a kitten is NOT a reasonable request (I have learned my lesson...(thank Charles for that one)) and I am perfectly capable of saying HELL NO to a kitten (and I wonder how many parenthetical statements I can include here (and we all know that being the extreme OCD person that I am I am going to go back and count every single fucking parenthesis (several times) to make sure they are all accounted for (and now I also have to keep typing to make sure I don't end this with a preposition because if I did the world will surely catch on fire))).)

Ahem.  Anyways.  I was thinking back to Alexis as a toddler (complete compliance with parental directives) and Spartacus as a puppy (you have a treat?  I'll do whatever the fuck you want, including and not limited to the doggie version of Gangham Style while simultaneously humping Katy Perry's leg).  I completely failed to take into consideration both the idea that the dog could have sub par intelligence and the fact that Charlie may or may not be getting command hallucinations for mischief from Beelzebub himself.

Maximus, was he human, would most likely qualify for some kind of MR/DD services.  He just doesn't fucking get it.  Or anything, really.  He lacks the ability to, say, find his way out from under a blanket.  Or listen to any command.  In his defense, I was not able to work with him the way I did the other two.  Back then, I only had two children, and in my defense, adding Charlie to that mix was similar to adding colicky triplets.  Plus I am now working full time.  But honest to God, there are some things that training can't fix and Maximus's brand of stupid is one of them.

He thinks that he is a goddamned lap dog.  I know people laughingly say that about their big dogs, but seriously, at least those other dogs get off your lap when you push on them.  He just flops over and falls right where he is.  It is like parts of his brain just spontaneously stop working.  Plus he doesn't get a hint.  I tell him to go away and to lay down and not 30 seconds later he is back, wagging his tail and being all, "Love me, love me!" At least the other two dogs will go lie down and make moon eyes across the room at me, which I can and do ignore. I really feel as though I am the abuser in this relationship because the fucker just keeps coming back for more...of course it doesn't help that I inevitably give in and pet the furry little bastard because I am a soft hearted fool.

Huh.  Maybe he is not as stupid as I thought he was.  I'll bet that little fucker is plotting with Charlie to overthrow me in my sleep at some point.  Either that or the two of them practice making me melt together, as well as laugh their asses off at how I feel badly later on when they are being assholes for mentally calling them assholes.

Together

There should be some kind of boot camp for new parents that requires them to put together toys on Christmas day while simultaneously entertaining their child(ren) who are on a Santa-induced high and have the attention span of a meth-addicted gnat.  It also should be required for Marines to have to do this as a part of their basic training.  It totally would help them to withstand torture.

First, there is the whole having to get the fucking parts out of the box.  Truly, whoever invented those stupid twist ties to hold the toy in place to look pretty and lure your child into desiring it...this person, who ever you are, you are an asshole.  Then there is the plastic encasing the toys, that when you try to cut it magically becomes razor sharp and rivals a surgeon's scalpel.  Doctor's Without Borders should investigate this as a potential source of medical equipment for them.

Once you manage to get the stupid piece of plastic out of the box, you have to read the directions.  Which really, I understand why men stereotypically skip these because I often end up more confused after reading shit like, "Take the left weight-bearing panel and insert it into the f slots of the upper upper shelf.  Insert the turnscrew and turn until it clicks into place."  And of course, the arrows that are meant to help are usually totally NOT pointing at the fucking f slots and the pictures they have of the weight bearing panels do NOT match reality.  And it NEVER clicks like it is supposed to, leaving you haunted that somehow you will be contributing to a future maiming of your child because of a poorly put together Christmas present.  Meanwhile, you have lost the fucking screwdriver that they told you you needed but you have not quite figured out for what and the kids are literally climbing up the walls.  You frantically start to search for some Xanax and/or massive quantities of alcohol.

So let's say that you actually get the fucking thing put together and it is semi-sturdy and appears somewhat functional.  Out of the bottom of the box floats a whole new form of parental torture...stickers.  Stupid, brightly colored, products of some demented bastard's imagination.  The adhesive on those things is stronger than most welds.  Seriously; you put the sticker anywhere within 1 inch of the toy and some magical force propels it to stick to it.  Unless, of course, it is where it needs to go.  And if you get the stickers in the wrong place, all sorts of wailing and gnashing of teeth will commence.

Then your kid will play with this toy for the next week, if they have not already abandoned it for the packaging it came in and/or some junk mail that is laying on the counter.