My Husband Got Sick and I Cannot Feel Anything (Part 1)

I think it will require a few postings to empty myself of all this sadness.  So in my fuzzy-brained state, I am trying to measure just how depressed I am and all I can come up with is more than usual.  A lot more than usual.  And I know exactly what got me here, but I cannot tell how deep into the sadness I am.  So I’ve called this posting Part 1 because I’m pretty sure they’ll at least be a Part 2.  And maybe more

I wrote in prior posts that my husband has had to put up with a lot being married to me with all my mental health crap.  But it was a give and a take and I’ve carried my share of the burdens of building this family despite all of that.  It was a good partnership overall.  Not perfect, nothing is.  But good.  And the kids are healthy and happy and decent people.  So it seemed good.  But something happened last year.  I know in hindsight now he was probably starting to become ill, but I didn’t know then that his surly disposition and nasty temper were symptoms of anything but him being tired of me.  And so that’s what I convinced myself of and once that happens, well then things really start to disintegrate.  The respect, the caring, the sharing and then even the love are just so easy to toss over the side of the sinking ship.  Almost 17 years of marriage and in 9 months it appears to have gone to shit.  That’s all it took.

In January he started falling down from dizziness.  It took weeks to figure out he needed a triple bypass and now he’s been home recuperating for the last two months.  And the last thing we needed was to be thrown together 24/7 when we were already not getting along.  And I could be wrong.  Maybe he did just tire of being married to me.  And then I got ticked and made myself feel nothing for him.  But he did start it.  Before we learned he was ill, he said the meanest things he’d ever said to me in the 20 years I know him.  It could have all been the disease, or he could just not like me anymore.  But I cannot forget the words he said.  I’m not sure if I’ve forgiven him, but I cannot forget. Never.  Because he knows that as a Mom with Depression and PTSD from a messed up childhood, I have a few achilles heels.  There are things he knows he can’t say, yet he said them…

He told me I was being a bad mother for spending too much time in bed.  He said I was harsh and overly critical to the children.  He said I was cold.  He said I was turning into my mother.  Now I know these are things that would greatly piss off any woman, but with me he would’ve been better off shooting me that saying those words.  Those words are burned into my skin like a brand.  I can’t shake them.  And I cannot stop thinking about them every time he is here with me and the kids.  I have started to resent him watching me or trying to take over the parenting.  I am always certain he’s judging me.  And this is after only years of praise.  He never said anything unkind like this before. He was so supportive.  But then he did become unkind and at first I became despondent….and he got so mad.  At me!  Because I was making him feel bad for hurting me.  Then I got angry and he stormed out.  He told me I was being too dramatic.  Then I grew silent and he said I was being spiteful.  And this cycle of my behaving and his responding has been going on like this for months.  I am no longer allowed to have any of my feelings because they are wrong.  By his judgment they are wrong so I just have to shut up and have no feelings.

And that’s why I broke.  The spell broke.  The notion that we would be together for the rest of our days started to appear unlikely.  From certain to unlikely in just months.  And it’s gotten worse after his surgery.  We sit here for hours on end not speaking to one another because I don’t want to have any feelings.  I don’t want to give him the satisfaction.  And I don’t know what at all to do.  I am so lost.

Don’t Be a Bystander. It is One Step Away from Being a Victim

I don’t understand something. If a kid is getting bullied at school, what do we teach our children to do about it? Worse yet, if it’s your kid getting bullied? What do hope the other kids will do? Do we want our kids to say, “Hey, better him than me…” Do we want our kids to be bystanders?

Or rather, what might we say the to the kid who intervenes? Maybe it’s the most popular kid in class, the so-called best-looking kid or best athlete. And that kid has the platform on which to stand up for the bullied child and say “No! Not in my school.” Don’t we applaud that kid? We praise that child who stood up to the Bully and said No! Isn’t that what you teach your child? Isn’t that who you hope you’ve raised?

If so then why in the name of heaven do some of us then turn around and tell celebrities who stand up for immigrants and refugees and abused women to SHUT UP? It makes no sense. These are the people are kids idolize and frankly to some extent, so do we!   Meryl Streep is that popular kid saying “No, Not in my school.!” So is John Legend who said at the PGA Awards…

“Los Angeles is the home of so many immigrants, so many creative people, so many dreamers…And those of us who work in this business have the privilege of shaping how the world perceives this country we love. We are the voice, we are the face of America. Our America is big, it is free, and it is open to dreamers of all races, all countries, all religions. Our vision of America is directly antithetical to that of President Trump.   I want specifically tonight, to reject his vision, and affirm that America has to be better than that.

I love those words.

Stand up to the Bully. Because if we’ve learned nothing else, if left to his own devices long enough, eventually he comes after us too

The Mansplainers Need to Stop Telling Me to Calm Down

I’m not going to lie.  I’ve been down.  Seriously rocked over what happened these past weeks.  I took cover the day the FBI reopened the email bulls*&t and I stayed down for a while.  I hid from all news sources for two days post-election because I couldn’t stand the sound of “his” voice, gloating and threatening and making my skin crawl.  Then I read a few headlines…but still remained off social media.  I knew the haters were hating and the trollers, trolling and the spewers of filth loving it up. And I knew I couldn’t handle it. As a victim of sexual assault I cannot properly adjust my working view of this country. It does not compute. We just elected the most unqualified person ever to the Whitehouse.   But that is not the real problem for me. For me, he is a vile misogynist, who from his own lips admitted to assaulting women and who simply does not deserve to be anything but arrested. And when the women came forward to tell their stories, he tortured them. He accused them. He called them ugly liars.

For probably a week after Election Day, PTSD was still controlling my life. But because my freaking husband can’t deal with me not dealing with the world, I have to get up and get moving. He actually threatened to quit his job to stay home with me if I didn’t “get over it.” He didn’t vote for the new Grabber in Chief. But he just doesn’t think my stress over the election is warranted. Great. My own husband, my “protector” has decided how I should deal with my fear and grief over this horror show. So I’m shaking, but I’m standing. Because now I know I can’t count on anyone to protect me.   I have to get my act together and get past the debilitating fear. Drugs, biofeedback, therapy, yoga…I’m using all the tools I can find because one thing that’s happened concurrent to all of this is now I’m PISSED OFF. And that is motivating.

The anger at having my feelings dismissed in such a way is pushing me up and out of my house. I don’t know if my husband realized how much his words hurt me or how truly angry with him I am, but he sure has gotten me up. First I got into my regular routine for a few days and now into writing for the first time in weeks or maybe it’s been months, I’m not even sure. I even went on my social media accounts. And I saw all the friends out there still fighting the inevitable. Still hammering away at people for choosing a truly hateful and detestable man to lead us. But that was not all I saw. I saw the mansplaining. I saw the disgruntled white men who voted for that man, all over social media telling us (in my case victims of sexual assault, but also all the other minorities our president-elect* has abused over the last months) we need to “calm down now.” The election’s over and we need to settle down and accept the results. Kind of like what my husband said, but this time mansplaining Trump to me. And they’re telling us why, no matter what, he’s better than HER. No, NO he isn’t. HE IS WORSE IN EVERY POSSIBLE WAY, so stop telling me how I should freaking feel about it.

I’ve unfriended almost every single one of them. I actually told one of them first that he was a freaking lunatic (after he called HER the devil incarnate) and then I unfriended him. And now I WON’T CALM DOWN. I think I like being pissed off instead of scared all the time. The fear is exhausting. The anger is exhilarating and motivating. I’ve decided to start school again in the fall. I’m going to finish my degree in counseling and work with trauma survivors. Something tells me they’re going to need a lot of help the next few years. I will not allow myself to be a victim anymore. My husband is not happy with me right now. I hope we survive this. But he just doesn’t get it anymore. That’s the really awful part. He will never get it.

*Quick note:  I disrespectfully refuse to use the capitalized version of the word president, or any of its derivations when it references this person.  It’s still frigging America.

 

I got “Mean Girl’ed” by My Own Daughter

I know adolescence sucks.  I remember trying to be cool and popular and get the boys to like me, even at age 14 when I wasn’t even allowed to have a boyfriend.  I know it sucks starting 9th grade in a new school where you’re the newbie and the seniors scare you, although I honestly don’t remember why.  I do remember it sucked though.  I’m not an antique, YET…  But my husband and I do have rules and while my 14 year old daughter gets pretty much everything she wants, she just wasn’t allowed to start dating 1 on 1 yet.  That was it.  She’s really into sports so I actually believed her when she told me she didn’t yet care about boys.  And, up until this year she was a great student.  So I took her at her word on most things.  Dumb.  Very dumb.

But this Spring insanity overtook our home.  Like something from the depths of Hell, puberty broke loose from it’s normal retraints and my daughter, my beautful, loving daughter starting lying.  And lying, and lying some more and even lying about stuff she didn’t have to lie about!  She would look me straight in the eye and tell me things, like she didn’t have a date to the shool dance and oh how angelic she looked when she did it.  All the while of course she did have a date with some boy I never heard of.  And guess what, if she had come to us and told us the truth, and we met the kid and if they were going in a group, we could have worked it out.  But no…the lie was easier.

Then over the summer she lied about having a “Finsta.”  If you don’t know what that is and you are a parent, find out.  It’s a shadow Instagram account where they post what is “actually” happening in their lives.  Not the account you follow…a secret one.  And it takes some hacking to find.  I found my daughter’s on accident.  I found it because I found her best friend’s Finsta and of course with all the teenage stupidity that comes with the lying, comes my girl’s genius decision to follow her friend’s Finsta with her own Finsta, USING HER REAL NAME.  Well the good news?  There were no naked pictures and and a minimum of foul language, etc.  Somewhat all to be expected I guess.  Result:  She lost her iPhone for a week and cried like we locked her in the dungeon for a month.  But she swore up and down that was it…she would never lie again, especially about something as important as internet safety.  I begged my husband to switch her to an Android so I could sufficiently monitor the phone (iPhones are notoriously hard to mangage…just ask the FBI).  But he felt bad for her.  SuperDad wanted her to have all the cool stuff and he believed her… “she’s a good kid,” he said   “She won’t lie again.”  Can I just say LOL MOFO!!!

Then just this week it all blew up.  Since the start of the school year she’s gone from a straight A student to C’s and some B’s.  So, she lost use of her phone again.  So next, I found her on my younger daughter’s iPad.  Using an app she has been expressly forbidden to use:  SnapChat.  BTW, if you think Finsta’s bad, SnapChat is a parent’s nightmare packaged as a free app.  In that account (again my formerly brilliant child used HER OWN EMAIL ADRESS), I found that my daughter has no less than 3 different guys she “hangs” with, 2 of whom she snatched from her so-called friends who seem to not be willing to do anything about it.  She’s 14 for God’s sake.   I also found out she curses like my Dad who WAS AN ACTUAL TRUCKDRIVER.  And the worst thing of all, for me anyway…in order to get attention from one of these boys, she was bitching about me.  She was saying that because I have PTSD and depression, that I yell at her and take her phone and even though I apologize if I get very upset, it’s all just too much for her to handle.

You see,  I told her all about my illness last winter so in case she started feeling sad or anxious she’d come to me and her dad about it.  Instead I’m reading about it on the app from Hell.  I’m surprised she didn’t take pictures of me when I was being cruel by making her empty the dishwasher, which is her only damned chore.  I love my daughter, but I know depression and anxiety and she doesnt have either.    She does have a huge case of hormones though.  And she used me and my illness to get attention from this boy I never heard of, whom she’s been meeting behind our backs and from God only knows who else. Every Mom in the school probably knows I’m ill.  Given my social anxiety, this is a very bad thing for me.  The idea of spending time with any of these cliquey women (guess what… it’s the same in high school with the Moms as it is with the girls) had always caused me some anxiety but now, I’m getting panic attacks about it.   And all because my daughter is boy crazy…and a Mean Girl apparently. She Mean Girl’ed me into bed for the last few days and I feel like I’m the one in 9th grade.

Without a tear, she apologized for hurting my feelings.  You know when she did cry though?  When she heard she’ll never see that damned iPhone again.  Now I know what really matters.

My Husband Hates Me Again

Not seriously…but a little bit seriously maybe.

I cannot believe I haven’t written in 2 months and this is what I am going to write about.  But it’s the end of summer (an extremely hot August filled with grouchy and bored children), and I just couldn’t sit down and write about it.  I couldn’t put into words how much I hated going outside and driving to camp and even taking the time to water my flowers.  Yes, they are all very dead now.  No…I was too depressed.  So by Labor Day, I was no joy to be around.  I was, although, very much looking forward to school starting again.  I probably have been awfully difficult.  The heat plus the depression plus whatever is starting to “change” at my age all adds up to a truly sucky attitude.  But now to add to all of that, my husband has lost all patience with me.

Why did we have a terrible fight?  Why did we yell in front of the children, which by the way we (especially him) never do?  Why did he call me a bitch?  I wish to Hell I could tell you.  He was mad because he didn’t think I was diligent enough about the kids’ summer assignments.  He doesn’t think “anything happens around here unless HE holds it all together.” Maybe that was it.  I don’t think so.  I think he is mad because I’m depressed again.  I think he’s mad that we’ve been married what will be 16 years this month and I’m depressed AGAIN.  I think he’s mad I didn’t get better.

I don’t really think he hates me.  That’s hyperbole I’ve used to try and get you to read my blog.  I want someone out there to hear me.  Because no one in this house is hearing me.  My therapist hears me, but she always hears me.  She’s the only one.  I pay her to hear me.  If you’ve seen my other posts you know for sure my mother isn’t hearing me (and Oh, Lord save me, she’s coming next week).   But no, I don’t really think he hates me.  I just don’t think he likes me very much.  Is that possible?  That he loves me?  He thinks I’m a crappy mom and loves me anyway, but is just sick of me?  See he’s been divorced before and it was horrible on him and his other children so I think I’d literally have to Trumpishly  “shoot him in the street,” before he left me. But I just don’t think he likes me.  Maybe that’s a thing?  I don’t know.   What do you think?

I know I don’t like me so it sure seems possible to me.

I Gotta Believe…It’s Never too Late to Change the Outcome

Parenting with Depression and Anxiety

The mirror really does have two faces.  I’ve seen them both now.  Mine today and mine in 25 years, which is in fact, my Mother’s face.  And I’m not happy about it.  Don’t get me wrong, it has nothing to do with “looks” or vanity of any kind.  It’s all about what’s going on inside and there’s a whole lot to be worried about.  Mostly because there ain’t a whole lot good going on in there.  I’ve seen the future and it’s looking bleak.

If you read my last post (thank you!) you know I was curled up in the fetal position days before our family 4th of July party..dreading her arrival and praying for her departure. Well friends…it is now day 6 of our adventures here in CrazyTown and I’m still desperately awaiting her train to head out.   Because I’m sick, I’m terrifed of her saying something typically nasty and demeaning, so I’ve been avoiding her.  I try not to engage in much conversation at all.  I figured this would give her the hint.  She almost never comes here because she hates my husband (I’ll tell that story another day) so I’m not sure why my proverbial cold shoulder hasn’t sent her packing yet.  But she simply won’t go.   And it’s making me CRAZY(-er).  But I really don’t want to have a confrontation about it.  Whenever we fight I’m even more depressed than normal for days.

The only reason I have any relationship with her at all is so the rest of my family won’t hate me and so my kids don’t think of her as any stranger than she is.  But she comes here and sleeps half the day or sits in the den with them staring into space.  She doesn’t play with them or interact with them at all.  She was always like that with me.  That’s why I’m screwed up.  But for them it’s weird.  For years my husband and I made excuses and said it was because Poppy (my father) died and she was upset and lonely.  But NOW….she has a boyfriend.  Yes, someone has stepped up and been brave enough to take on the crazy and it’s like having the Wicked Witch of Southeast Florida being reborn as a 16-year old hormone.  She is still depressed and sullen, unless she is talking to him.  She says she’s exhausted and skulks off to bed at 6pm only to proceed to spend 2 hours on the phone with him.  Like we’re deaf and can’t hear her???  Isn’t that exactly like a child?  If they can’t hear you then for certain you can’t hear them?!?  And I realize all over again that I could have never made her happy..only my father could.  Oops, correction, ONLY A MAN COULD.

So this begs the question,  “Why is she still freaking here?”  I’m not sure, but she’s asked me about 20 times to go get a mani/pedi.  I refuse to ditch my kids to go hang out with her in a salon for 90 minutes.  I don’t care how long it’s been since I’ve seen her.  She’s their Grandmother and frankly shouldn’t want to ditch them either.  And it infuriates me that she wants to.  But I’m thinking, maybe she won’t leave until she can get her nails done before she goes back to see her boyfriend.  In hopes that this theory is correct, I’m going to take her to the salon today and drop her off.  Maybe I’ll pick her up too. (Just kidding).  And if I’m lucky, her next question will be, “where is the train schedule.”

Now this may all sound like a light hearted kind of nuts…and to some extent it is.  But my kids feel it.  They think, “Wow…haven’t seen grandma in awhile and she really doesn’t give a crap.”  And that makes me mad.  But I watch her drifting off into space and I think, hmmm, I do that….I have my own little world.  It isn’t one where I only exist if there’s a man around, but I do have my own “place” where it’s quiet.  And my kids can’t get in there.  And now I’m thinking I need to stay in the moment more.  Play more with them.  Stop isolating.  Clearly that’s genetic.  I want to be with my kids and should want to be with them more than be anywhere else in the world.  I’m still learning.  Never did have a role model.

The bottome line is this..I don’t want them 30 years from now praying for my departure (to Florida or the hereafter) and saying to themselves, “Why is she still here?” or  worse, saying to me, “Mom, did you want a copy of that train schedule?”

My 4th of July Fireworks Began Days Ago

My Mother is coming…

This is so typical.  Because of my depression and PTSD, I often experience unexplained physical pain.  This runs the gamut from your average nagging headache to the most incredible migraines as well as Fibromyalgia.  That’s always fun because I never know where it’s going to hit me or what part of my body might become incapacitated for hours or even days.  And most times it comes out of left field, or at least I thought it did.  It is likely my fight or flight response, which has a mind of its own and reacts to perceived threats of which my higher order brain isn’t even aware.  And that definitely happened this week.

We’ve been planning for months now our families annual 4th of July party for this Saturday the 2nd.  The party moves around and this year I’m hosting.  It’s a lot for me to take on..20 or so adults and about 18 kids.  I must feed and entertain them all Saturday and in the meantime I can barely make dinner during the week.  But I’m pushing through because that is what we do!  On Tuesday though, I started feeling it.  I couldn’t turn my head from neck pain and I started having a headache that right up until this moment feels like it is blinding me in my left eye.  I couldn’t keep dinner down two of the last few nights and just wanted sleep more than anything else.  I couldn’t understand why though.  My husband is doing a ton to help and this year we are making everyone bring a dish of food or desert.  So I have some work to do but it’s certainly not overwhelming.

Given all this, I went to my Doctor to discuss it and of course she worked it out.  She just looked at me knowingly and said, “But…your Mother is coming, isn’t she?”  Oh Dear God, Yes, my Mother is coming.  She’s coming today in fact.  She’s coming a day early to “HELP” me.  She’s helping me so much I can’t get out of bed.

My Mother is a/the trigger for my PTSD.  She is only “a” trigger because there are others.  She is “the” trigger because she and my Dad were the original triggers (he is gone now).  And because she will not accept this fact or change her behavior at all, she continues to be that trigger.  I cannot be in her presence for very long before she says something that, maybe to the outsider might sound innocuous, but to the child in my head is defeating, dismissive…even soul-crushing.  My mantra is “Your mother cannot love you, but it isn’t your fault.”  That helps.  I tried visualizing with my therapist what my Mother might say today or tomorrow that could make me fall apart.  We visualized the words just bouncing off me or running right through me with no effect.  It was great for a bit…and then I saw this look on Mother’s face in my mind’s eye.  It was a look she uses often to express her utter contempt.  A look of disgust and total disappointment.  It blew through all my imagined protections and immediately withered my spirit.  My therapist said it was the shame I carry because my Mother couldn’t love me.  I’m still blaming myself.  That is truth.  That is the ugly truth.

But it’s worse that that.  I broke into tears because I know I have used that same look with my children.  I didn’t even realize it until that moment in my Doctor’s.  All these years of therapy and all these years of swearing I’d never be like my Mother.  All these years of doing everything I possibly could to NOT be my Mother and I knew it in an instant.  I use that same look to shame my kids.  And the self-loathing was so overwhelming for a few moments that I couldn’t breathe.  I was literally swallowed by such guilt and shame I could not breathe.

My Doctor said that in the course of 3 minutes we went from what my Mother does that makes me feel depressed to beating myself up again and that I cannot keep doing that.  Easy for her to say.  I said I had to immediately start watching my every word and now my every gesture with the children…they deserve better.  The Doc said, first you have to get past this weekend with your mother.  One step at a time.  Maybe her train will break down and she won’t make it??? I couldn’t be so lucky.  Nope, I’m going to have to deal with her.  I can’t cut her off…the rest of my family would be horrified.  They don’t know, nor could I ever explain how awful she can be.  She manipulates everyone who didn’t live in our house when I was growing up.  So to keep relationships with them, I have to keep her too.  But God knows I could live a much longer, much more peaceful life if I didn’t have to deal with this.  Sick for three days before and probably a week after.  I have to get away and meditate or pray or something while she’s here.  That or they’ll be way too many cocktails in my immediate future.  If you’re read this and you pray…say one for me.   Or just send me some good thoughts.  I need all I can get.

I’ve Ruined a Rite of Passage for My Beautiful Daughter

Parenting with Depression and Anxiety

I’ve decided this will be a running theme for my page.  How can you be a good parent (or “good-enough” as my therapist keeps insisting as I forever beat myself up), when you are too depressed to be a good anything?  Maybe laying it down here for others to read will make it easier to heed the inner voice telling me not to say and do the crap to my kids that I am constantly hating myself afterwards for doing.   Just this week it happened again.  And lately it seems that it happens despite lengthy conversations with myself about how to handle a given situation properly because I do know how to do what’s right.  I’ve had enough therapy to know that much.  I go in with a plan and I manage to blow it up anyway.

Put simply I ruined my daughter’s “graduation” ceremony from Middle to High-School. She was sooooo excited the whole day and I’m afraid her “rational” exhuberance makes me edgy, to say the least.  It’s hard to be miserable in the face of such unabashed joyfulness.   It bugs me.  I KNOW…I’M AWFUL (apologies to my therapist, but this is some well-deserved self-flagellation).  The truth is, mostly thanks to her Dad, my daughter can be presumptive to say it nicely.  My parents would have called it demanding and self-centered and they were wrong to do so, my broken spirit as a child being the result.  My daughter is expecting that all her needs will be met on most days.  She’s 14!  I think all 14-year old girls are kind of like that, no?  But on the day of her 8th grade graduation, she was feeling particularly like the center of the universe.  And I, as usual, was feeling tired and grouchy and wanting to be left to wallow in my own dark mood.

When she started texting me at 2pm from school if we could go out to dinner for her special day I got annoyed because she wouldn’t take no for an answer.  It was a school night and by the time the ceremony was over it would be 8 or 8:30, I explained.  That was simply way to0 late to be going out for her younger brother and for Dad who has to get up at 5:30 am for work.  I was particularly annoyed because she just broke her iPhone for the 2nd time in three months and she was texting me and arguing with me about it from her friend’s phone.  So now, not only am I mean Mom but it’s all documented on her friend’s cell phone!  This is when I had the self-talk.  I knew she’d be a bit out of control this day and that she didn’t mean to embarrass me and that it was her special day.  I was going to remain cool.  Right. Great plan.

She comes in an hour or so later and starts for the 20th time that month to complain about what is for dinner.  No matter what I say or how much effort it’s taken, she asks if we can have pizza instead.  (Sometimes it’s even worse, that is, when the dreaded macaroni and cheese request is made).  Of course I know she doesn’t mean to hurt me by being dismissive, even though cooking when I’m depressed feels like the equivalent of having a tooth pulled. Then before 10 minutes has passed, she’s berating her brother and sister for not coming to the ceremony.  As if all these 2 young ones want to do is sit in the high school gym for 2 hours and listen to the teachers congratulate themselves and give enlightened speeches to a bunch of rowdy 8th graders who aren’t listening.  Then, moments later, she stopped speaking to her sister for taking the piece of bread that  she  wanted.  I said what I planned on saying earlier…”That’s enough now.  I know you’re excited, but you need to take it easy.”  The cliche “in one ear and out the other,” would certainly apply here.  But then the final straw came.

Twenty minutes before we were to leave I went to change.  I was told I needed to dress up. Had I known I’d have to sit in the bleachers (oh my God they are uncomfortable) I would have refused.  But I went along.  I was steaming from the ears a bit at that point and then she gets me good…she needs her outfit ironed.  Ok, I know it doesn’t sound like a big deal.  It isn’t.  What kind of mother, good, good-enough, not that great even, would complain about ironing her daughter’s outfit for a graduation ceremony.  It just came on the back of 10 other annoyances that hit me when I was in that mood.  And I lost it.  I remembered my self-chat, and I said screw that…it’s all about ME now.  I told her she needs to think about other people once in awhile and not ask me just as I’m about to get dressed to iron (God I hate ironing).  I told her if she asks me for pizza one more time instead of the of dinner I planned I will never buy pizza again.  I told her if she was rude to her younger brother and sister one more time that week, she’d be staying in all weekend.  And I got a million, “Okay’s” in repsonse.  She looked taken aback.  As if I was just completely insane to be mean to her on this day.  She looked hurt.  She, after all, was graduating from 8th grade.  A very huge deal to her and it should have been to me also.  She looked at me like I should have known all this and what the hell was wrong with Mom now….and she was 100% right.

Why is it so damned hard to do what’s right when you know what’s right?  Why does this depression have to make me be my mother?  Why, when you know these things does the illness get the better of you most of the time?  Why can’t I beat it?  If not for me, then for them?   All I can do now is apologize and try again.  I’m forever trying again.  Maybe when she’s my age grading my progress, I’ll get partial credit for effort.  It’s all I can hope for because if she feels about me when she’s my age as I do about my mother…I don’t think I’ll want to exist.  God help me.

 

 

Maybe Denial is the Way to Go

Parenting with Depression and Anxiety

I know it’s yet another sad posting and I want to write more about the positives of living with this illness.  But I am currently circling the proverbial drain here.  My depression is getting so bad I’m not sleeping and I’m becoming increasingly worse.  Sleeplessness is the thief of my peace and of my hope that tomorrow (damn it…TODAY) will be easier.  And it turns me into a snarling monster with the kids when they are acting up, which guess what?  It’s what kids do.  All kids.  I wish to hell I knew why some nights, no matter what meds I take, the sleep refuses to come.  I imagine it laughing at me.  It is the most stubborn opponent and my most vicious enemy in this illness.  I hate this feeling now…knowing it’s 4am, I have only a few hours of quiet and then my kids will be up and the day will begin and I will be dragging my sorry self through it.   And then just around time for me to make dinner and take them to their activities, I’ll be passing out on the couch.  So I’ll have to take more medecine to get up again.   What kind of special torture is this?

I wish I could say Memorial Day was a good break for this family but my mood infected the entire weekend.  The kids were especially troublesome and I can’t forget that it could be me and not them who is triggering the whole God-awful cycle. I find myself shouting and I hear my mother’s voice, her exact words even, coming from somewhere inside me…trying (G0d help me) to make my kids feel as bad as my mother made me feel.  What the hell is wrong with me?!?  I know better.  I understand my illness…yet I cannot stop myself and before I know it I’m weeping and apologizing to these young people who deserve so much more than me.  God, why is this happening?

I  used to (still) hate my mother (especially her even though my father was depressed too) for not getting help with her illness.  She was the primary care giver and she was a weepy doormat to my father most of the time. Other times she was bitchy and verbally abusive to him.  Emasculating him in every way she could.  But to us she was consistently horrible.  Nasty and yelling all the time.  Taking to her bed just to get away from us.  When she had to go back to work after a few years, she was even worse because she blamed us all for having to actually go out in the world and try to make a living.  I despise her to this day for not getting help.  Because she could have made it better.  She could have BEEN better.  She could have gotten well and treated us with kindess and a little compassion.  But no…she was in denial.  There was nothing wrong with her!  She’d never see a therapist or God forbid go on medication.  Screw us.  She was suffering, so by God, so would we all.

Now, decades later, here I sit at 4am, slamming coffee because all my meds and all my damned years of therapy ARE NOT HELPING.  All these damned doctors and opinions and weight gain and hair falling out from drugs…I am so freaking sick of it.  I want to break something! How could I be anything but sour and nasty?  All the things I said I would never do to my beautiful children, I’m doing.  I am not kind and compassionate to my kids all the time. Sometimes yes…but not enough.  And  so now the self-loathing kicks in.  The tears are coming faster and I don’t know how I’m going to drag my shit through another day like this.  I pray.  I meditate.  I beg my God to please make it stop. Let me just be normal.  The guilt is perpetuating this never-ending anxiety which leads to more depression and around and around we go.

Is it because I know what’s wrong and I’m doing something about it that I’m even angrier and more resentful that I cannot get well?  Maybe denial is the better path?  Maybe then I could continue on in some hazy ignorance that there was nothing wrong with me… and I could convince myself it is everyone else who’s screwed up.  Maybe I could just write it off to having rotten kids like my mother did.  Maybe her simple solution, and why I hate her so much, is why she’s survived this long (77 years) without changing a damned thing about herself.  Could this be true?  Could I have been so stupid for so long?  Maybe.  But I don’t think so.  Because then my kids, and especially my daughters, would have no chance of escaping this Hell.  I’d be dumping it on them same as it was dumped on me.  And I simply could not live with that.  I would end it first.  End myself first.  So I’ll keep trying.  But I am really starting to lose hope.  Days like the one I know today will be just really kill the spirit.

The Middle-Aged Under-Mothered Child

 

For the last three years I have been on an endless quest to “fix” myself so I do not hurt my children with my Depression and Anxiety.  I research, I write, I often judge myself harshly  and then I study some more and find something else to beat myself up about.  But hopefully through this process, what I absorb is changing my parenting for the better. I still see my behavior toward my children through the lens of my depression but more importantly, I see it also by the light of what I’ve learned.  And while it may be difficult in the moment, I can course adjust as needed so we’re not headed completely off the rails as a family.

Through my research, I have learned a great deal about Attachment Theory and its relationship to Depression and Anxiety in children.  First analyzed by John Bowlby decades ago, it has since been studied by many psychologists and written about by countless experts in the field of child development.  In the case of secure attachment, the primary caregiver (in our culture this is most often mom), provides a secure base from which the child can explore the world and safely return as needed.  A securely attached child feels loved and protected from the earliest stages of life by their primary caregiver.  An insecurely attached child, which sometimes results from the mother’s emotional unavailability, can have a great many resulting difficulties including a deep sense of rejection and a lack of self-worth. Often the worst outcomes include children later diagnosed with clinical depression and anxiety (Ahhh, my life in non-fiction).  Many times insecure attachment results from the child having a depressed or anxious mother.  After learning about this from my own doctors, I read a book entitled the “Emotionally Absent Mother,” by Jasmin Lee Cori, during which I simultaneously saw my own childhood unfold on her pages as well as what might happen to my own children if I didn’t change my behavior.

One of my favorite authors, who wrote a great deal about such topics, was John Bradshaw who recently passed away.  He had a traumatic early life and understood intimately the damage that could be done by ill and/or withholding parents.  He wrote:

“We need to know from the beginning that we can trust the world…If we had a primary caregiver who was mostly predictable, and who touched us and mirrored all our behaviors, we developed a sense of basic trust. When security and trust are present, we begin to develop an interpersonal bond, which forms a bridge of empathetic mutuality. Such a bridge is crucial for the development of self-worth. The only way a child can develop a sense of self-worth is through a relationship with another…In our earliest stages of life we can only know ourselves in the mirroring-eyes of our primary caregivers (Bradshaw, 2005).”

I need to be that predictable and mirroring caregiver.  But it is so hard when it was never modeled for you.  It is not innate for me like it is for some Mom’s I watch.  I despise living my life like a science experiment, but I am an observer of parenting now…always searching out the correct behaviors because I never learned them in my first family.  W0rst of all, I cannot be around my own mother for any length of time anymore because it causes me to regress.  I’m no longer the striving good mother when I’m in her presence.  I am the rejected child.  I become the middle-aged,  “under-mothered” child to borrow Jasmin Cori’s phrase and I forget how to act.  I simply react to her endless selfish behaviors.  I become angry and lash out or I withdraw completely.  I am 16 again and hate the world and everyone in it.

No matter how old you get, maternal rejection has the ability to crush your spirit and devalue your accomplishments in a manner unlike almost anything else…if you let it.  Some people stronger than I may be able to blow it off…ignore the crazy old lady.  I am so jealous of such people.  I cannot do this.  Somewhere inside me, there is still a screaming child who just wants her mommy to love her.  And the only way to calm the child is to remove my mother from the picture and re-mother that child myself.  This used to make me even more upset and resentful.  But I’ve learned…So what?  So what if I have to re-mother myself.  It’s good practice for the ones who matter most…my own kids.