The Fish Pond

I Hope They Can Help Her

I was going to post about Uncle Orca, and the fact that he's a musician, and he has a CD out now through Cafe Press, and you should all go and buy it, but that will have to wait, because I have to talk about Lisa Nowak.

My father is bipolar.

Seems like a non-sequitur, doesn't it?  But it isn't.  As soon as I heard about her trip from Houston to Florida, and that she had recently separated from her husband, and how "not like her" her behavior was, I immediately thought about my father.  I immediately thought about where I've been, about a time when I went to LaLa Land. 

A while ago, ten years now, my heart problem appeared, but it is a very difficult problem to catch and diagnose, and frequently people with the problem, but women especially, are diagnosed with mental health problems first.  I was given a medication to slow my heart rate down below 100 bpm, and that caused depression as a side effect, but I was not given that information and not adequately warned or prepared for that possibility.  I had an extreme, overly sensitive reaction, and I went to LaLa Land.  I was off the charts psycho.  I couldn't do anything except cry.  Well, not cry really, more like wail, sob, writhe in agony, and I couldn't figure out what the hell was happening to me, but I knew, from my experiences with my father, that it wasn't right.  I was scared to death that I had become bipolar, a legacy left to me by my father, and I wanted it fixed.  I also recognized that the onset of my problems coincided with the taking of the drug to slow my heart down, so I kept demanding the drug be discontinued (I couldn't stop it abruptly because of the possible cardiac arrest that could result).  Eventually I checked myself in to the psychiatric ward at a local hospital because I wanted so badly for someone to help me - I wanted ME back.

While there I was doped up on more drugs, accused of "not participating in my own recovery" when I begged for the drugs to be discontinued.  I was put on antidepressants that caused anxiety as a side effect, and antianxiety drugs that cause depression as a side effect.  I was a mess, and I kept begging for the drugs to go away, while the "caregivers" I had piled on more and more drugs.  While there, though, I listened, and I learned a lot.  I was able to offer some of my experiences with dealing with my father to help others, and I learned more about bipolar episodes, especially manics, and about the paranoia that goes along with it.  Stories about "waking up" walking down the middle of the street stark naked in the rain because you thought you were Jesus were fairly commonplace.  Delusions about secret plots to overthrow the government and thinking you were the only one who knew about it and had the key to protect the president were also prevalent (my own father is in this category).  And then there were the romantic entanglements - crazy things that soap opera writers couldn't dream up.

Eventually I got out of the hospital, and I was taken off all the drugs, and with a little bit of therapy needed because of the trauma of what I had been through, I was fine, and I have been for 10 years.  A few years later, my heart problem was correctly diagnosed and treated, using a different drug without the side effects.  But I didn't forget that time, and how unhelpful and uncaring people were, about the assumptions that people made about those with some sort of mental illness, and what those who "went bipolar" went through to get diagnosed and successfully treated.*

The minute I heard about Lisa Nowak I thought to myself "Sounds like she went bipolar."  I talked to my father tonight; unsurprisingly, he thought the same thing.

It's just so sad.  A brilliant, strong woman at the height of her career completely wigs out.  This woman was a role model to my daughter; indeed, many girls throughout the world.  She got to fly the Space Shuttle - how cool is that?  And now, she and her family are humiliated and worried and will go through hell before all this is over.  She is the butt of all kinds of jokes, and in all the media talk about it I have yet to really see any concern for her and what might have caused this to happen, and concern for her family and what they are going through.  Can you imagine what her teenage son must be going through right now?  Or her younger kids, who can't really understand?  She may not be able to understand it herself.

It is worrisome to me that the mental health screening within NASA isn't good enough to catch something like this.  I would be extremely surprised if she isn't bipolar, though it is possible that even if she is we will never know about it, because a detail like letting someone who isn't fully in control of all their faculties fly a billion dollar space shuttle isn't going to sit well with the government and will probably be hushed up.  Unless her lawyer uses it in her defense. 

Maybe it's because I grew up in Rockville, where she did, but...I can't help but feel like -- it could have been me.  Or you.  Or your next door neighbor.  Or your sister.  Or your mother.  And we need to remember that and examine the situation accordingly.  We need to be concerned that she and her family are getting the help they need to get through this, rather than joke about it.  And we need to take care of each other, with compassion and understanding.  Is she mentally ill?  I don't know.  Probably.  I just don't know how to deal with the nagging little voice in my head that somebody knew something and should have reached out and didn't, and that we all have something we're supposed to learn from this.

*Incidentally, my father is a success story for those with mental illness everywhere.  He takes his medication religiously and has for almost 30 years now.  He once said to me that he couldn't understand why some people took drugs to make their brains do what he takes drugs to keep his from doing, and I think that had a lot to do with why I never went that route when offered.  He holds down a job and lives his life and unless he told you, you would never know he had a mental illness.  He has an odd personality, but that's just him, he's always been that way. 

In a Dark Place

Right now I'm in a pretty dark place, and I'm not sure why.  Oh, I know my hormones are part of it, but really, I've never been this bad when pregnant before.  Last night I only got about 4 hours of sleep; I wasn't able to go to sleep until about 2:30 am.  Instead I stayed up reading and watching tv and crying.  The really sucky thing is that I wanted to enjoy this last pregnancy, and I can't.  I just can't.  And I hate that.  And I keep contracting and nothing is happening.  And some asshole did a google search on "naked 7 year old girls" and got to my blog, and while I know that sick motherfuckers like that exist, I hate when my world collides with them, even tangentially.  At least he got nowhere here.

Just having a spot of trouble seeing the beauty in my world right now, so I'll just shut up for a while.

The BandAid Story, Life and Death, and a Really Long Post

When I was seven years old, we lived with my grandparents in this beautiful monstrosity of a house down in Bethesda with 6 bedrooms, I don't remember how many bathrooms, but a lot, two family rooms, two dens, plus basement space, table space kitchen, separate dining and living rooms, you get the idea (what I wouldn't give for that house now, but alas, it has been out of the family for over 20 years and would cost well over a million dollars to buy it back).  Along with it was the appropriately sized backyard, in which my parents set up a good sized above ground (I think - my memory of the time is a bit hazy on that part) pool for my sister and I to play in.  Being the 1970's, supervision was lax at best, so my sister, who was 4 at the time, and I had the run of the place.  Drowning?  Kidnapping?  Broken bones?  Bah.  Not there, not then.  My mother was in the house doing whatever it was she was doing (probably just enjoying the peace and quiet, I now recognize), with only occasional glances outside to see what we were up to.  Everyone else was at work.

One lovely bright summer day, I believe in either late July or early August 1977, my sister and I were playing outside in the pool, and we had a bunch of non-pool-toy items that we were playing with, like cups, bowls, squirt bottles, empty shampoo bottles, and some pill bottles.  Back then, they still made some of these items out of glass, and, being the 1970's when supervision was lax, we had those precious glass items to play with.  Good times, they were.  Anyway, in the course of our play one of those lovely glass pill bottles got broken.  Being the responsible, intelligent older sister that I am, I told my sister to put it someplace so nobody would cut themselves on it, seeing as how I didn't want to stop playing to do it myself (what?  it was a lazy summer day, and I was seven).  Remember, she was four.  Four years old.  She put it someplace else, but I was too busy and having too much fun to actually see where that was.

The day wore on, and sometime in early afternoon I went back in the house to find more stuff for us to play with in the pool.  For some reason, and to this day I still have no idea why, I went around to the front of the house to go inside.  I gathered up a bunch of sand toys, buckets, shovels, scoops, and other stuff we usually used at the beach, and went back out the back door with a stack of this stuff chin-high.  I couldn't see where I was going, and I was in a hurry.  It took only three steps to find out exactly where my sister had left the broken pill bottle.  I launched a battery of pool toys across the yard, whirled around, and ran back in the house, leaving a tell-tale crimson trail of footprints behind me.

I burst into the house, shouting "Mom!  I need a BandAid!"  My mother looked at me and my trail, turned a little bit green, and ran out of the house for a second.  She came back in, grabbed me, and wrapped a towel and some ice around my foot.  She then proceeded to call my father to come home from work.  Now.  I didn't understand all the hullaballoo, and kept saying "But Mom!  Just gimme a BandAid and I'll go back outside and play."

My father got home, and we piled in the car, with my mom driving and my dad in the back holding me on his lap with probably the fourth towel wrapped around my foot.  I think my sister was with us, but I am not sure, because I kept asking for a BandAid.  I kept saying it didn't even hurt, just give me a bandaid and I'll go outside and play.  My dad gently explained that I had nearly cut the last two toes on my left foot off, they were just hanging on by a little bit of skin, and that we had to go get them sewed back on.  It never occurred to me what that might involve.

Back then, family doctors that lived in the neighborhood and practiced out of their houses were commonplace around there.  Our doctor lived just a couple of miles away, and he had his office space set up in the basement of his house.  We were whisked right in to the examining room.  I was still asking for my BandAid, but I was starting to get nervous at this point.  My dad put me in the chair, and my doctor quickly looked at my foot, then turned around and started doing something with his back toward me; I couldn't see what.  I asked one more time for a BandAid.

The doctor turned around with a needle that to me in my seven-year-old not really understanding what's going on brain looked to be about a foot long.  I quickly decided that was going to hurt.  Really hurt.  I screamed, yanked my foot back, and kicked the doctor squarely in the face with my bloody foot.  My mother turned positively emerald and ducked back out into the waiting room, while my father sat on me and put me in a wrestling hold that would have made Hulk Hogan proud.  The doctor stuck me in the leg to numb me up (it hurt), I screamed holy terror, my dad kept up the good work, and the doctor sewed up my foot.  I got seven stitches.  And I got my BandAid.  I wonder what the people in the waiting room thought - it was very much like the scene in Finding Nemo when Darla is in the dentist's office and Nemo and Gil are executing their grand escape plan as Marlin and Dory fly around in the pelican's mouth trying to rescue Nemo - lots of screaming and noise and thumping.

It turned out that I did nearly sever the toes.  The reason they didn't hurt to me was because the nerves were completely severed and thus the pain messages to my brain just weren't getting there.  I only needed seven stitches because my toes were quite small (still are), but realistically I should have been taken to the hospital to have a surgeon sew them up.  The nerves ended up being crossed, so to this day when I point my toes, those three flex, and vice versa.  I've forgiven them for that now, but it took a while.

Two weeks later, we returned to the doctor's office to get the stitches out.  I asked my father if it was going to hurt, and he told me no, it wouldn't.  So I practically flounced into the office and up into the chair.  The doctor cut the stitches and yanked them out with a pair of pliers.  I screamed - it hurt almost as much as the damn needle did when I got stitched up.  When we got into the car, I looked at my dad and said "Daddy, you lied to me."  And then I proceeded to not even acknowledge his presence with anything except a steely glare for at least a couple of weeks.  It was the first time I had direct evidence my parents had lied to me about anything significant - I still believed in Santa and the Easter Bunny at that point.  (Note to parents:  do not ever give the There Is No Santa/Easter Bunny and the Big Sex Talk at the same time)

I try now to be careful about the white lies I tell my kids, but I frequently don't do a very good job.  We do believe in Santa/Easter Bunny/Tooth Fairy here.  I hate battery powered toys that make noise at about a million decibels, so I frequently remove the batteries and say the toys are broken, or "forget" to buy the right size batteries that we need (Little Man is now on to me here, though, as he can use a screwdriver and get his own batteries, the little shit.  Now he needs a job to afford those batteries).  For a while I would tell my kids Barney wasn't on when they wanted to watch it, but now they all know I just can't stand that doofus purple dinosaur.  But when they ask me the big questions, I try to always tell them the truth to the best of my ability and their understanding.

Yesterday we were having breakfast at our favorite coffee shop/train station and went to the museum next door.  There was a little boy there, a little smaller in size than Little Man, who was running and playing and putting his nose against the glass to watch the model trains run around the layout.  He was covered in some sort of red splotches on his body that I couldn't identify, and he wore a baseball cap, but when the hat was pushed back a couple of times it was clear his hair was thin and he had a few weird bald spots, almost like mange on a dog.  I was worried about my kids and what they would say/do, but apparently I shouldn't have.  Little Man latched on to this boy as though he were the last on earth, eagerly grabbing the boy's hand and dragging him around to watch the trains from different angles, pulling him out to go through the caboose they could play in, and asking him "Do you wanna be my friend?"

BigDaddyFish got a call from work, so while he dealt with that I went and sat in the caboose while the kids played and ran around.  The little boy talked to both the kids and adults readily and easily, using a vocabulary and manner that showed he was really older than he looked.  There was something else odd about his appearance, but at that time I couldn't put my finger on it.  I was a little concerned that maybe he might have something contagious that might be a concern for me, because of the pregnancy, but I mulled it over and ultimately decided that his father wouldn't have brought him out to that place if he was contagious (I know, this was probably stupid, but worked out okay).  The kids had a great time playing.

While they played, the father came in and talked to me.  I had been asking the boy about school, trying to figure out how old he really was, and finally asked the boy how old he was.  He told me he was four, but his father reminded him he is actually six.  He said the boy just started school this year, because he has had leukemia since he was one and a half, and has been in and out of treatment since then.  He had a bone marrow transplant a year ago and the cancer has been gone since then.  However, his little body is reacting to the marrow, effectively rejecting it, but the boy is healthy enough right now to go to school, and he is going to NIH to get it treated.  That's what caused the weird marks on his body, and his lack of hair (he doesn't have eyelashes, eyebrows, or finger/toe nails, due to the chemo/radiation treatments - that's the thing that looked odd that I couldn't place).  I immediately felt like shit, both out of sorrow for what this poor, sweet little kid had been going through, but also for my earlier concern about his skin marks and my selfish thoughts about my pregnancy.  I commented to the father how sorry I was, but also how impressed I was with the child's strength, and noted how happy he and Little Man were and how well they were playing.  The father took a picture of all the kids playing together, and asked for my email address so he could send it to me.  I gave it to him and also said we could set up playdates for Little Boy and Little Man to play, and he said we would.  The little boy said he was tired and thirsty and told his dad he wanted to go, so everyone said warm goodbye's, and Little Man hugged the little boy.

We got in our car to leave shortly after they did.  As soon as we were in the car, Little Man asked what the red marks were on Little Boy's skin.  I told him, and the other kids, everything, about how he had cancer called leukemia, and he had been sick, and all about what a bone marrow transplant is, and how he is still a little bit sick, but he has good doctors helping him.  We also explained about the medications given for leukemia, how they kill the cancer but also do damage to healthy parts sometimes.  I dreaded the next question, thinking they would ask if he was going to die, because the truthful answer is probably.  But they surprised me - they only asked if they could catch it, and if he was feeling better.   BDF and I both explained that it wasn't contagious and said he was feeling better right now.  We then told them we will try and set up a playdate when the little boy's father emails me, and that was the end of the discussion.

But I can't help wondering if the lack of conversation about what the future holds is to them as big a lie as my father telling me getting the stitches out wouldn't hurt (he honestly thought they wouldn't hurt that much, but he also knew that he'd never get me in that office without a total hysterical breakdown if he told me the truth - he told me this much later).  So far the father hasn't emailed me, but I hope he does, and I fully intend to follow through on the promise of playdates.  Am I setting Little Man up for a huge kick in the gut if they do have playdates, and the little boy ultimately dies because his body fully rejects the marrow?  We've already talked about death a lot here, because my mother died so long ago, but also because my grandmother died back in January.  We've also had the loss of a pet.  We've talked about how we don't definitely know what happens after you die, but that we believe in Heaven and life with God.  So they know everyone dies eventually.  But realistically, I recognize that this boy and Little Man could become quite close, and if this happens and he dies, this person will be the closest person to Little Man to die, and the first child death he knows about.  Will he be able to handle it?  Will I?  I just pray that I do the right thing, and that Little Man knows that I meant the best when I ultimately screw up, no matter what I do, and that he forgives me later.  Just like I forgave my dad.

There But for the Grace of God...

I wanted to take a few minutes to post a little bit about the Andrea Yates verdict.  BigDaddyFish is having a little trouble with the idea that I sympathize so much with this woman; I feel the verdict in the trial was the correct one, and I really have trouble with the idea that the other people involved in this horrible tragedy are not being held accountable.

Yes, the others.  Rusty Yates in particular.

You see, I've been in a situation similar enough to be able to identify with this poor woman.  No, I never killed any kids, or did them any harm.  I wouldn't ever.  But I AM able to recognize getting close to the line more times than I can count; I've yelled too loud and too often, been rougher with them than I should have, spanked them.  I've had to put MYSELF in time out to make sure no one got hurt, so that I could calm down and be rational.  I've dealt with the awful guilt I felt every time I didn't get myself into time out fast enough.  I recognized before I stayed at home with my kids that dealing with the emotional isolation, the overwhelming nature of dealing with small irrational people all day long with few breaks and few interactions with other adult, rational people would be the biggest challenge I would face, and did what I needed to to address that.

I've also been depressed.  Horribly, awfully, wish I would die depressed.  I still had the wherewithall to recognize I was in trouble, and to get help.  I had a supportive spouse who did what he could to help.  It stressed our marriage; we are blessed that we made it.  But he helped.

But Rusty Yates not only didn't help, he made the situation worse.  Both Yates' were warned that Andrea shouldn't have any more children because of her unstable mental condition.  She had attempted suicide.  She had been institutionalized.  Yet he not only told her she needed to have as many kids as God would allow, but encouraged her to homeschool them, too!  He, and the mental health system and child protection system in Texas, failed Andrea.  More importantly, they failed those 5 innocent children.

Since we don't have a "Guilty, but insane" defense in this country (do we?  I would be happy if we did), I believe the verdict is the right one.  Andrea Yates didn't have depression like I did.  She had psychosis.  She thought she was protecting her children from Satan and Hell by killing them while they were children.  In a peculiar way that most of us can't identify with, isn't this just her maternal insticts working?  If we thought a predator was after our children, wouldn't we rational people do everything we could to protect our kids?  My father is bipolar, and I know from dealing with his illness for more than 25 years that the mentally ill can no more turn their illness on and off at their convenience, as some have suggested that the Post Partum Psychosis is simply a convenient excuse for Andrea, than they can stop a heart attack or make their bodies thinner or make an inactive thyroid make the right amount of hormone just by willing it to do so.  Andrea Yates was not in control and did not understand what she did was wrong. Period.  So she will be where she needs to be.

The jury in this case needed to override their emotions about the horrible end these children faced, and arrive at the true and just verdict.  It is right and just that they did not let feelings of revenge or retribution over the loss of those five innocents prevent them from making the right decision about their mother.  IF she ever "gets well" she will have to live with the fact of what she did for the rest of her life, and that is punishment enough.  I just hope Rusty Yates has an active imagination.  I wonder how he sleeps at night.

On Reluctance

Okay, I want to preface this by saying I'm not trying to complain, merely explain.  I want to give a real picture of what life is sometimes like as a stay at home mom, or SAHM.  I recognize that not every SAHM feels this way, and I also recognize that a great number of mothers, maybe most, don't have the choice to stay at home or not.  I'm not here to debate any of that - only to relate my experience and thoughts.  I also want to make clear that I am in no way judging anyone else's choices - being a mother is hard, no matter what your career/life balance is.  What works for you isn't what necessarily works for me, and vice versa, and I feel strongly that we all need to support each other, no matter what our choices are.

I always spent my life believing I would be a SAHM, just like my mother before me.  This is in spite of the fact that until my first was born, I was the primary breadwinner in the family.  I worked as a technical writer/emergency planning and management consultant at a large "Beltway Bandit" scientific company for six years before my first child was born.  It was a very fulfilling job, and I was very, very good at it.  I was willing to sacrifice for the company, putting in the long hours typical of washington, DC consultants.  I had a few health problems and some depression a couple of years before my daughter was born, and my work was an integral part, if not the most important part, of my coping and support.  I was happy.

When I unexpectedly became pregnant (I was told I would need medical intervention for that), my DH was unemployed due to a company relocation that granted him a generous severance package, so he was taking his sweet time finding another job.  He got one within a month of finding out, but I was still earning more than he was, though not by much.  It was clear pretty early that I was going to have to work after our baby was born.  So, after much struggle finding a child care arrangement that worked for us, I went back to work part time, and it seemed like the right balance.  Enough time that I wasn't going stir crazy at home, enough time that I didn't feel like someone else was raising my child for me.  Oddly enough, it became clear to me during my maternity leave that I was really missing my job.  I recognize now that I was probably a touch depressed, but we muddled through, in part I think because I did go back.  I worked part time until I was 7 months pregnant with TheBoy, when I was put on bedrest, a unique torture and misery all its own.

I managed to make it through bedrest, mostly with the help of friends who came by to visit, mostly from work.  They would bring lunch and sit with me; my hairdresser even came once and cut my hair for me.  I didn't feel isolated.  Then TheBoy was born.  He was born 9-12-01, and when he was born, at 39 weeks, his lungs weren't ready and he was very sick.  We didn't know if he was going to live or die for at least a week, and he was in the NICU for 15 days.  Due to the turmoil around our country at the time, I couldn't escape it; but even though I was overwhelmingly sad, so was everyone else, even if our reasons differed slightly, so again, I had support to get through it.  (Incidently, TheBoy is healthy as an ox now, even though he was the sickest, biggest baby in the NICU at the time.  I'll post his birth story sometime later.  I also mourned more for our country's tragedy on 9/11/02, since by that time I had a healthy boy and could emotionally handle grieving the attacks.)  I again went back to work part time.

Then, we had Sunny.  She was unexpected, so unexpected that when I took the positive test, I cried to DH on the phone "I'm pregnant, what are we going to do????" and he simply answered, "Uh, hon, you're gonna have another baby."  He took it in stride; I panicked.  What was I going to do?  Well, I did what I did before - went back to work part time.  This time was different, though.  In order to make it work financially, I couldn't afford to put all 3 kids in paid daycare all the time, so my father in law came twice a week to watch them.  He's a great grandfather, but not the greatest babysitter in the world, especially with babies.  Certainly with a baby that refused to take a bottle.  I would have to run home and nurse her.  She never did take a bottle, and nursed nearly two years.  Eventually the strain of trying to work part time got to me, and I knew I had to do something, but didn't know what.

I knew, from my maternity leave with RT, what being at home would be like.  First, the housework.  I HATE housework.  I don't care who you are, or how happy you are with the result, but housework, the endless laundry, the cleaning of the constant messes, is absolute drudgery.  I've been doing laundry since my mom died when I was 15; I've had enough, but if DH does it, he does it all mixed together in hot water, and I really like my clothes in different colors and in the same size they were when they went in, so I have to do it.  Plus, with 3 kids under the age of 5 (at that time), they aren't much help, and are pretty much a mess machine all on their own.  The big two would wait until I was nursing and then wreak havoc on the house - they did this when I was home, so I knew it would just get worse.

Second, was the sense of identity that my job gave me.  It meant I was someone more than just my kids' mommy.  That I was still FishyGirl.  I liked the job, and while I didn't like the politics that usually went with it, being part time meant I could usually keep my head down and avoid the worst of the trouble.  I liked the sense of accomplishment that making my clients happy gave me, when I knew I'd done a great job on a project.  I never got that sense of satisfaction from having a clean house or a perfectly folded pile of laundry.

Most importantly, was the social aspect of being at work, and the overwhelming isolation that SAHM's in Suburbia can experience.  My townhouse development is a ghost town during the day, because everone worked.  That left me to make friends with nanny's who can't speak english (I"m not knocking that, it is just hard to make friends if you have trouble talking about the weather), and a couple of fundamentalist Christian mothers who homeschooled their kids and really didn't want to have anything to do with anyone who wasn't just like them.  Most of my friends were friends from work.  I was reasonably certain that our friendship would suffer when I was no longer "easily accessible."  It had already broken down since I'd had the kids, and I knew it would get worse.

Finally, there was also the perception of "What do you do all day?" that my DH has never really understood.  He complains the kids behave better for him than they do for me, so I must be doing something wrong, and doing nothing all day.  I've tried to explain that if he stayed home all day they would behave the same for him, but he doesn't get it.  His salary has gone up dramatically, so when Sunny was about a year old, we had the option of me staying home.  He told me to do whatever I wanted to do, but it was clear he thought I needed to be at home.

Really, I thought so too.  I just didn't know how to do it without losing my mind.

We talked it out, and we figured I could find a way to make it work.  So, I quit my job.  And took on the hardest one of my life.

And here I am.  Largely isolated.  My friends, as I suspected, have slowly drifted away.  They never call me, and only call me back once I've left several messages for them.  The housework sucks.  The house looks like a bomb hit it all the time, because I can't keep up.  I haven't been able to make friends (where are all the normal people, anyway?) beyond acquaintances.  My oldest is the only one in local school; TheBoy goes to preschool a suburb away, so bonding with other moms has been a challenge - you have to drive so far away to do anything.  I'm in the minority with the number of kids I have, most have only 1 or 2, and with #4 coming, well, it's just hard to link up with people with similar outlooks.

Don't get me wrong, there are times I am so grateful I get to be here with them.  I am blessed to have been able to nurse them for so long, and that was supported by being at home.  They are funny, and loving, and so close to one another, and I love being here to watch their relationship with one another blossom.  I am very close to them, and I think it is important to make sure the foundation of our relationships are strong now, before the tough teenage times hit.  But the constant noise, and fighting, and messes, and the difficulty in going anywhere (why the hell does it take an hour to get out the door to go to the post office, anyway?), and the laundry....well, I could do without it.  And I don't get much me time.  And I'm lonely.

And I know it is only going to get worse.

So this blog, this is my lifeline.  This, and all the mommy blogs I read.  I will be adding to my list soon; there are amazing women out there, with lives not unlike mine, who are struggling just like me, and yet write so much more eloquently than I can, who can capture the poignancy of these days, while they are little, so much better than I can.  I know it will get better; this one will be my last child (unless the OB botches the fixing), and they will grow up, and I will go back to work.  One day I will look back and treasure this time with them, more than I already do, because it will be too soon over.  But for now, enmeshed in it, I feel like I'm just treading water.

So I just keep swimming.

Good Enough

This post by dooce struck such a huge chord with me that I had to think about it for a while before I could post about it, but I feel compelled to post.

I am not good enough.

I have to give a little background about this.  I am the oldest of two daughters, daughters of a manic-depressive alcoholic and what I now recognize to be a depressed mother.  My mother died when I was 15, suddenly, from a heart attack.  For most of my life, my parents were too caught up in themselves to really give me what I needed from them - they really just didn't know how.  I always did well in school, but I am inherently lazy and school just came easy to me.  My sister, on the other hand, was slow, and needed extra help.  Trying to help her, my parents utilized the special education resources available in our affluent DC suburb.  But according to my parents, help consisted of sending her to the resource room, when really she needed more specialized attention in the classroom.  Since my mother died, and my father's memory is clouded by his emotions, I don't really know the real story, but I do know that

1.  My parents were unable to extract my sister from "the system" once she was in it, even when they decided she didn't need it or that it wasn't helping her.

2.  The school was closed when I finished fourth grade, the main administrators fired, and a big investigation hushed up regarding government fraud pertaining to Federal special education funding.

3.  My mother became my sister's constant companion and chief teacher when my sister wasn't in school.

Because school was easy for me, when I brought home a report card with 3As and 2Bs, the best I could do with the least amount of work, instead of "Hey, that's great" I got "How come it isn't straight A's?"  or else I was completely ignored.  Then, my mom died, and the one who was less wrapped up in my sister or herself was gone.  My father gave me "You don't know how hard I have it, my wife died, oh woe is me" and never, ever dealt with my sister or me or our grief.  We just lost our mother; to him, that wasn't that big a deal.  He crawled into the bottle and didn't come out for many years.  It was as if we had lost both parents.

We weren't good enough to motivate him to want to live once my mother died.  For the record, it is now 21 years later, he never remarried, barely dated, and still doesn't recognize that our grief was just as big as his was.

When I was a child, my father saw something in me that he decided was arrogance - something I don't think I've ever seen in a child younger than 2, but he saw that in me.  He decided that wasn't how I should be, and he set out to "drive it out of me."  I was never praised for my achievements; instead, they were barely recognized, or I was treated as if it was expected of me. 

When mom died, I was the one who had to pick up the slack.  I did the housework.  I kept up with school.  I had a social life.  I had extracurriculars at school, active in marching band, jazz band, and choir.  I called people on the phone to tell them my mom died.  I did all the thank you notes after the funeral.  I was 15.

I took up with the first guy who showed an interest in me.  We were engaged at 16 years old.  I tried to spend as little time at home as possible - my dad worked, but he drank every second he wasn't working.  I spend time at the boyfriend's house.  Absorbed myself in his family.  Eventually broke up with him over something stupid, ended up sleeping with his best friend, dating him for a year, and him breaking up with me because he was sleeping with someone else, and wanted her.  I wasn't good enough.

I took up with the first guy to show an interest in me in college.  I went to junior college on scholarship, because the years had finally taken their toll and my dad was laid off when I was a senior in HS.  I earned straight A's.  I spent all my time studying or with the boyfriend.  I graduated with honors in 2 years, and transferred to a four-year-school.  For the first time in my life, I felt good enough.

My dad went through rehab when I was a junior in college.  I handled all of his finances for the 60 days he was in residential, and kept up with my school work.  I lived with a roommate in our own one-bedroom apartment to save money.  The boyfriend started sleeping with much of the music department at the college - we went to the same school.  It had been assumed that we would get married, not just by me but by everyone else we knew, so the breakup was bad, very bad - I threw furniture out the window bad - and I fell into depression, what I now recognize as a nervous breakdown.  I wasn't good enough.

My roommate kept me alive - she made me eat.  I found a therapist on campus - he helped me work things out.  I was diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder, triggered by the boyfriend but tracking back to my home life growing up.  I worked out of it with their help.

Dad met a woman at rehab, and when I was home on break, I talked to her on the phone one day.  She told me how my dad talked about me all the time and how proud of me he was.  I started to cry, and I told her that he never told me that.

I spent some time just working on myself.  I dated around, not being exclusive (there were issues here but this is already a long story, so another day), and was asked out by a guy that looked just like Tom Cruise (a big deal then though now I think he's nuts).  At a school where girls outnumbered guys 5 to one, he could have had his pick of half the campus.  He picked me.  I was good enough.

Life happens and goes on, and in the intervening years I graduated with honors, met, dated, and married my husband, and had 3 beautiful children, two of them daughters.  I still struggle every day with not being good enough.  Good enough housekeeper (I have clutter issues), good enough cook (I like to do it but am usually too tired), good enough wife, good enough mom, good enough me.  I never, ever felt that unconditional love that is so evident in dooce's posts - I still don't.  I make sure I tell my kids every day, especially on those days that they drive me nuts, that no matter what - NO matter what - I love them.  Not because they are beautiful, even though they are; not because they are smart, even though they are; in spite of the fact that they are becoming slobs, like me, and they can be mouthy and crazy and they hit each other sometimes, because that really doesn't matter.  Because they are them.

And they are good enough.

So how come I can't be?