Not half as tired as Carter, though.

Spring is flat lousy for some people with bipolar. No one really knows why; longer days, more sun, or some other reason (and don’t most of us feel a lift of . . . → Read More: In the Forests of the Night]]> I am tired. Tired in the extreme. Tired enough to be a little concerned about driving.

Not half as tired as Carter, though.

Spring is flat lousy for some people with bipolar. No one really knows why; longer days, more sun, or some other reason (and don’t most of us feel a lift of mood and an increase of energy this time of year?), but for many people with mood disorders, Carter included, mania comes into the house and makes itself at home in the spring.

Spring also causes a decrease in the levels of mood stabilizing medicine in Carter’s blood. Lithium is a salt, and as the weather gets warmer, he drinks more water and sweats more, thus moving lithium through his body faster and allowing his blood levels to drop below their optimum therapeutic level.

Hence, suffering.

Carter is miserable with his inability to sleep (he’s averaging 6 hours a night for the past two weeks, with a few nights as short as 2-3 hours).

We’re miserable with his inability to stop talking and spinning.

No, seriously, he talks. Constantly. Without ceasing, literally. If he runs out of actual things to say, he does nonsense rifs composed mostly of curse words and slang scatological terms. In the bathtub, he sing-songs endlessly I’m gonna poop your ass! I’m gonna fart your butt! Poopy butt! Poopy butt! I know you have a poopy butt! Which is actually kind of funny for a few minutes, until it makes me beg Brian to saw my ears off with a rusty table knife.

And what does that even mean, poop your ass? I should probably know, since he says it at least 70 times a day.

Worse is that he’s terrified to go to school because he knows he’s barely holding himself together. Except that’s not exactly true; he hasn’t been violent, or even especially destructive, but he feels out of control and his anxiety is through the roof, so he’s afraid he will hurt a classmate or (much worse in his mind), say something to hurt his favorite teacher’s feelings.

I remember all too well the horrors of 3 years ago, and I know that, while Carter’s illness is active right now and it’s nothing anyone would call fun, it’s also a far cry from the worst we’ve endured. Carter barely remembers the worst of that time (thank God for slippery memories and the ways they sometimes protect us) and doesn’t enjoy the perspective that I do.

Although if I’m being honest, I will admit that at 3 am, perspective is bullshit.

Sleep is one of the purest, simplest pleasures in life, not to mention essential for happy, healthy daytime functioning. He deserves to enjoy more of it. I’ll be calling his psychiatrist tomorrow. If you pray, feel free to say a few words in favor of his doctor having an inspired idea that will get Carter sleeping again!

Remember when I told you I was getting new eyebrows? And then, if you follow me on Facebook*, you know that some people asked me for pictures of said eyebrows and I said no no no . . . → Read More: The Big Reveal]]>

Groucho Marx couldn't even make this look good, and I'm not as funny as him by half.

Remember when I told you I was getting new eyebrows? And then, if you follow me on Facebook*, you know that some people asked me for pictures of said eyebrows and I said no no no and threatened to wear a paper bag over my head for the rest of my life?

The woman who did the eyebrows told me several times (and the Google machine confirmed) that they would be much darker at first than they would be after they healed. My sister reassured me, as did my mom and my husband. My dad was kind enough to say they looked just fine the way they were, but I remained unconvinced.

So I panicked a little and put a ton of makeup on them for a few days and wore the hugest sunglasses you have ever seen, and then I woke up on Saturday and I looked even worse, because the peeling had begun and if you’ve ever had a tattoo you know that part is always gross.

But as the peeling and flaking and general eyebrow-dandruff-on-crack phase progressed, I could see that the color underneath was much softer than it was at first, and I started to breathe a little more and freak out a little less.

Now, it turns out this eyebrow-getting business is a two-step process. I go back 30 days after the initial appointment to have them touched up and adjusted, which is good because (oh, irony, how I love you!) my eyebrows are now a little too light. That’s OK, though. It’s kind of like salting your food: you always want to err on the side of not enough. I want to adjust some things about the shape and etc., etc., etc. Because it’s my face and I guess I can be picky about my face.

But holy crap, can I just tell you that face tattoos hurt like a beast? Oh, man. I didn’t think I would have any trouble. When the cosmetician (is that a word?) left the room after she put all the numbing goop on my face, I told my sister, “This is kind of stupid. I have five tattoos and there’s no way this is going to hurt. This numbing stuff is probably for wimpy old women who paint their poodle’s toenails.”

Yes, I actually said that. Famous last words because by the time we were halfway finished I was practicing my childbirth breathing and giving myself pep talks like, you will look like a complete ass if you leave here with one eyebrow, and begging my mom and sister to rub my feet to distract me from the pain on my face.

It’s been a week now and they’re well on their way to being healed and, while they still need some fixing and they’re a little too light and it will definitely take some time for me to get used to having eyebrows when I get out of the shower, I’m kind of (OK, totally!) in love with them.

I wrote about trichotillomania at Postpartum Progress today, so come on over and say hello! Whether or not we can stop pulling, plucking, or picking, we can lay down our shame. Little by little, I’m learning to forgive myself and if you have trichotillomania or dermatillomania or another body focused repetitive disorder, I want that for you. It’s not your fault and you’re not alone.

*If you don’t follow me on FB, you can. No Points for Style has its own page, or you can follow me, the actual person. The awesomest, of course, is if you follow both.

One day, a young woman (a girl, really) had a baby. The prettiest, sunniest baby of them all, he tucked so sweetly into her shoulder that she wept with joy.

The next day, the woman saw that the baby was a man, and he had made a decision. She helped him . . . → Read More: Today, Forever]]>

One day, a young woman (a girl, really) had a baby. The prettiest, sunniest baby of them all, he tucked so sweetly into her shoulder that she wept with joy.

The next day, the woman saw that the baby was a man, and he had made a decision. She helped him pack a bag and drove him to the place where he would start a new adventure.

She hugged him goodbye and her head tucked so sweetly into his shoulder that she wept with joy.

Walking away, the spring wind lifted her hair and she gasped.

I didn’t know it would happen so fast.

When she was brand new to the world, I was responsible for her body—feeding her, bathing her, getting her medical care when she needed it, and all the rest that’s involved in keeping a body healthy.

As she has grown, she has gradually taken over . . . → Read More: A Uterus Is Not a Machine, My Daughter Is Not a Farm Animal, and I Am Not Happy]]>
This is my 16 year old daughter, Abbie.

When she was brand new to the world, I was responsible for her body—feeding her, bathing her, getting her medical care when she needed it, and all the rest that’s involved in keeping a body healthy.

As she has grown, she has gradually taken over more and more of the responsibilities involved in caring for her body. I brushed her teeth, and then I helped her brush her teeth, and then she brushed her own teeth. Nothing profound there; it’s the process of parenting. We do for, we do with, we supervise them doing, and at some point, we let go and, hopefully, our children are well prepared to take care of themselves.

Since her birth I have worked hard to help her undertand that her body is her body. She is in charge of her body—who touches her and how; what she takes into herself and what she rejects; and what to do if she feels pressured, afraid, or violated.

This is me a year or two after I had my first period. (That’s my sister in front of me and my mom behind. Never say we didn’t rock the 80s.)

Technically, the first sign of blood marked the beginning of my childbearing years.

I wasn’t ready for sex yet, but I knew that my life would someday include sexual intimacy. I expected that I would become pregnant and have a child at least once.

I also expected that I would have sex a good deal more often than I would get pregnant. In fact, I expected that most of the sex I had would not have conception as its aim. I knew that sexual intimacy would be one part of an intimate adult relationship, no matter how many children my future partner and I chose to have.

I knew that, if I became pregnant unintentionally, I would probably not terminate the pregnancy.

I also knew that the choice to carry any possible pregnancy to term belonged to me because that pregnancy would happen inside my body.

My body is my body.

I knew that, if I paid attention and took care of myself, I would probably never face an unintended pregnancy. I expected to have easy access to safe, reliable methods of birth control. (I acknowledge the privilege in that statement, but as a teenager and young adult I did not know that all young women my age did not enjoy the same access to reproductive health care that I did.)

All of those expectations were correct. When I became sexually active, I went to the Planned Parenthood nearest my home where I asked for and received inexpensive birth control pills and a paper bag filled with condoms.

For the duration of my fertile years (which ended in 2007 when I had a hysterectomy), I used a variety of birth control methods and by the miracle of modern science I never became pregnant when I didn’t want to. I never faced any issues with access; when I had insurance it paid for my birth control and when I didn’t have insurance I was able to find subsidized sources that made it affordable.

I became pregnant three times, and gave birth to 3 children. For all my failings as a parent, I know this deep in my soul: all of my kids were and are passionately, wildly desired, carefully prepared for, and deeply loved.

Every child should be born into the arms of a parent (biological or adoptive) who weeps with joy at the first sight of the new baby, and from the body of a woman who willingly, lovingly carried that baby.

I also know this: parenting is difficult. Taking care of small, helpless people is physically, emotionally, and spiritually demanding. It’s expensive, not just in terms of money but also time and energy. I have always felt fortunate that I live in a time in which medicine has changed parenthood from a biological imperative into a choice.

Some people don’t feel so fortunate.

I never would have imagined, in my early years as a sexually active woman, that I would someday have a daughter who would face a life in which she has less power over her reproductive life than I did. She is coming of age in a world in which some people in power want to force doctors to rape women seeking abortion (I have had a transvaginal ultrasound (unrelated to pregnancy and medically necessary) and if you say I’m speaking hyperbolically, I will cry bullshit.). She has heard that a certain blowhard pundit has referred to women who use birth control as sluts. She lives in a nation in which an elected representative stood on the House floor in his state and compared women to farm animals and a Republican presidential front runner has made public statements indicating that he believes we should all stop having sex unless we’re attempting to achieve a pregnancy.

Where am I? When am I?

My daughter’s body is her body. Entirely. She will share her body with the partner she chooses. She will control her fertility in the manner she and her health care provider deem appropriate. She will share her body with a fetus when and if she chooses to do so. Her body is hers. When she needs or wants input or help making decisions, she will choose who to ask for that help.

I’m pretty damn sure that these guys aren’t the kind of people she’ll be asking for that help should she decide that she needs it.

I am full of hopes and dreams for my daughter. Most of all, I hope that she is always fully herself—present in her life, living with integrity, and growing into the many gifts and talents with which she is blessed. Never, from the moment I knew she was a girl until now have I thought, “Hooray! A uterus for  growing the grandchildren!”

Someday, she may grow a baby in her body, and the person to whom she gives birth will be precious and wonderful and I will love that child in my very DNA.

But that baby will not be more precious, more worthy, more wonderful than my daughter.

That just wouldn’t be possible.

I will not be sitting idly by while a group of joyless ideologues robs my daughter of her power and dignity.

Hence, rules like this: all the babies have to move from the infant room to the . . . → Read More: That Old Arbitrary Routine]]> Many, many years ago, when I was a wee slip of a girl (18? 19?), I worked in the infant room of large daycare center whose owner was quite adept at preventing reality from intruding on her worldview.

Hence, rules like this: all the babies have to move from the infant room to the toddler room during the week of their first birthday.

Also: no babies may move from the infant room to the toddler room until they are walking.

The fact that only about half of all babies are actually walking by their first birthdays? Why, those babies who don’t walk are allowed to be lazy! Their parents carry them everywhere and they have no motivation to do the hard work of learning to walk!

See what I’m saying about reality?

My first run-in with this set of conflicting rules had to do with a baby who I’ll call Jana. She was an adorable baby, with thick, dark hair and thighs like giant slabs of beef. Oh, she was a juicy chunk. But she crossed the magical 12-month mark and she was still crawling like the lazy little slug that my boss’s worldview said she must be.

Liz (my boss) started hounding us constantly, “Teach that baby to walk!”, so although I knew it was a ridiculous thing, I started holding that baby’s hands and walking her all over the baby room until my back screamed at me to stop. Jana didn’t mind a bit, but when I let go, she crawled away, which all but enraged Liz.

Not long after her birthday, Jana’s parents asked Liz when she would move to the toddler room. They wanted her in the more stimulating environment with the other one year olds. In the baby room, there was only napping, eating, and the waving of rattles, whereas in the toddler room, there was napping, eating, and the smashing of crayons onto pieces of paper.

Liz told them that their deficient and lazy baby would not be allowed to move until she got up on her hind legs and walked there herself, at which point Jana’s parents joined in on the relentless harassment. “Walk, baby, walk over here and give me a kiss!”, they begged. We tempted Jana with cookies and shiny toys. Her parents bought some kind of harness that Jana wore while an adult held the straps. Our backs breathed a sigh of relief, but Jana did not walk.

Read the rest at Hopeful Parents.

I fold a load of laundry, make some phone calls, drink another cup of coffee, sit at my desk and write a few listless words that won’t go where I want them . . . → Read More: Behind My Eyes]]> I start a load of laundry, take the boy to school, pour a cup of coffee, put the dogs out, answer email.

I fold a load of laundry, make some phone calls, drink another cup of coffee, sit at my desk and write a few listless words that won’t go where I want them to go.

I drink more coffee, let the plumber into the house, fold more laundry, stare at the listless words.

I have little notes on my desk, reminders of the things that, if I could do them, would make me happier, or so I believe…

Tell the truth no matter what.

Give yourself a fucking break.

To thine own self be true.

I breathe.

What is the story, the first story, the one right behind my eyes, the one clogging up all the other stories?

The not-an-answer comes back: I’m tired. So tired.

On the heels of the not-an-answer comes the familiar diatribe: Other people survive. Other people live with worse traumas, larger griefs, more pain. They get the fuck on with it. They create. They work. They move on.

I breathe again.

Give yourself a fucking break.

Do something new, something that will rattle the script and force a change, anything to break the stalemate.

I walk the dogs, call a friend, eat a bowl of rice, say a prayer.

I sit at my desk and the story right behind my eyes is the same as it ever was:

I want my kids I want my kids I want my kids I want my kids I want my kids I want my kids.

I want my fucking kids.

I want them.

But here is the terrible truth: no matter what he did, no matter how terrible it was, he wins.

He has my children.

I don’t kiss my integrity goodnight, or drive it to school in the morning. I didn’t buy my integrity a prom dress or teach it how to drive.

My integrity is a cold and heavy stone when my kids’ beds are empty. Not something in which I take pride, but something I drag behind me everywhere I go.

I’m OK. Really and truly, I am mostly OK. I sing, sometimes, when I do the laundry, and I enjoy the coffee, and the little boy and the less-little boy and the husband and the dogs are lovely and warm and they make me so happy and grateful that I sometimes weep.

Until I sit down to write and the story right behind my eyes is the same as it ever was:

I want my kids I want my kids I want my kids I want my kids I want my kids I want my kids.

I want my fucking kids.

I want them.

Peek with me into a house and observe the family therein.

There’s . . . → Read More: The Transcendent Familiar 7: Choking on the Ashes]]> Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 3.1 (except it’s less of a part and more of an interlude)
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
If you haven’t read parts 1-6, that’s OK. This one stands pretty well all by itself.

Peek with me into a house and observe the family therein.

There’s the dad, young and handsome, laughing at two tiny children who are splashing and playing in the bath.

There’s the mom, also young, and she would be pretty if she didn’t look so tired and puffy, getting small jammies out of dresser drawers.

The dad lifts the older of the two children out of the bath and towels him off. The boy runs across the hall and into the bedroom where the mom is waiting. He flings his tiny body onto his bed, howling, “To infinity…and beyond!”

“Silly boy!” the mom says, and she reaches for him, pajamas at the ready, and he grabs her arms, pulling her to the bed with him.

“Read Sam, Mommy! Can we read Sam?”

“Again? Jacob, we have tons of books! Let’s read a different book, OK?”

“No,” and the little boy shakes his head firmly. “Read Sam.”

“OK,” the mom sighs, “but jammies first.”

The little girl comes in then, all pink pudge and halo of ginger hair. She climbs onto her brothers bed, imitating his shouts with her own, “Ifity! To ifity!”

They are beautiful children—healthy and exuberant and sweet. The mom puts a diaper on the little girl and helps both children with their pajamas. She reads Green Eggs and Ham while the boy sucks on two of his fingers and the girl sucks on her binky.

The mom tucks the little boy into his bed while the dad tucks the little girl into hers. They pass each other in the hall, switching rooms so that she can kiss the little girl and he can kiss the little boy.

The dad goes to the couch in the living room and turns on the television. The mom moves past him, to a desk in the den where she turns on a computer. She connects to the internet and spends an hour on UseNet, reading and responding to messages on boards about depression, marriage, politics, and parenting.

At 8:00, her husband appears in the doorway. “Hey, you wanna get it on?” he asks, and she turns to him, fear and disgust plain on her face.

“I…” she begins, but he interrupts her.

“God, you make me sick. How do you think we’ll save this marriage if you won’t give me the one thing I want? Why the fuck would I want to touch you, anyway? Look at yourself! Look at you!”

She does. She looks down at her stained shorts and sloppy t-shirt and her face is desperate and despondent for a moment. She slumps in her chair.

“Jesus, you don’t even try,” he says, shaking his head. “It’s a good thing the people in that goddamn computer can’t see you or they’d tell you to go fuck yourself.”

“Like you’re any better,” she says, standing and moving toward him. “What the hell is that? Wanna get it on? Is that… what? Romance? Love? You haven’t said two words to me since you came home from work!”

“Whatever. I’m sick of talking to you. Why don’t you just get the fuck out? If you won’t have sex with me there’s no point. Just go away.”

“Fine,” she says. “I’ll get the kids.”

“Like hell you will! You won’t take my kids out of this house!” he shouts, and one of the children cries out. He blocks the woman’s path so that she can’t go down the hall to the bedrooms.

“I’m taking the kids!” she screams at him. “Move!”

He laughs at her, shoves her backwards into a bookshelf. She looks stunned as books and photos thump to the floor. He is nearly nose to nose with her, shouting, “Those kids are mine. I’ll tell the judge you’ve been in the nut hatch and you’ll never see them again! You could just kill yourself right now and no one would give a shit. You’re crazy! Fat and crazy! You disgust me!”

There is another cry from one of the children. The woman makes another attempt to push her way past her husband and he shoves her again. This time she lands on the floor atop the books and photos.

She sees the phone amid the clutter and grabs it, running for the back door as she dials. “Dad?” she says into the phone, stepping onto the back patio. “I need you to come over right now.”

She waits on the back patio until she hears her dad’s truck in the driveway. Walking through the house she sees her husband, still standing sentry near the opening to the hallway. “My dad is here,” she says.

He shakes his head and smirks at her a little, then sits down on the couch and turns on the TV.

When her dad comes into the house, the mom picks up the children, one in each arm, and takes them to the car. She buckles them into their seats and drives the six blocks to her parents’ house. She sings the children back to sleep then lays, listening to her babies’ breath, until dawn. She does not cry.

At breakfast, her parents ask her, “What happened?”

“Just a fight,” she says.

“You should go home after we eat,” her mom says, “before it turns into a big deal.”

“Yeah,” says her dad, “the longer you wait the more uncomfortable it will be.”

And so she does.

Watch this video on YouTube.

What else could I write?
I don’t have the right.
What else should I be?
All apologies.

This was kind of a big deal for me because I’ve always sworn I would never meet any of my . . . → Read More: Pediatric Mental Illness on Parade]]> My friend Olive and her little girl came to visit us. (Her name is not really Olive, but her anonymous-for-the-web name for her daughter is Pickles, so I’m going with a whole relish-tray theme.)

This was kind of a big deal for me because I’ve always sworn I would never meet any of my online friends in real life. No way. I enjoy my online life and I was afraid that, if I met my virtual friends, we might hate each other. It seemed too risky.

But I’m also kind of a sucker, and Olive pretty much twisted my arm (not really), so here she came, Pickles in tow.

Pickles is a little younger than Carter, but they have a great deal in common. They both love dogs and they both have psychosis, for instance. They both enjoy cartoons and both can go from happy to raging (or terrified, or despondent) without warning.

Just two little kids but more, which is why Olive and I met each other online in the first place. In spite of what the media says, the community of parents whose children have serious mental illness is really quite small.

But the kids did great, for the most part. Carter was fascinated by Pickles’s medicine and eager to compare it to his own. It was all so new to him, this opportunity to be around another child whose experience of the world was similar to his. Every time he was alone with me, he talked as fast as he could, dissecting Pickles, telling me all the ways they are similar and all the ways they are different. He’s a surprisingly introspective person when he’s not screaming at people to stop looking at him.

The third day Olive and Pickles were here, I had to pick up Brian from work and everyone wanted to come along with me, so Carter and Pickles piled into the back seat and Spencer rode shotgun. Halfway to our destination, I heard Pickles say, “I don’t want to talk about that!” She was looking out the side window, away from Carter.

Carter launched into a long, impassioned explanation about how he didn’t mean to upset her, but if she would just listen he could make her understand because what he’s saying is very important and if she would just uncover her ears and listen to him he could make it all OK!

As he does. You know how some people see a problem and immediately start throwing money at it? Carter thinks that there is no problem too large to be solved if you just drown it in words.

Pickles refused to uncover her ears or turn and look at Carter, so he redoubled his efforts, increased his volume, and tried to pull one of Pickles’s hands away from her ear. “But I was just trying to tell you…”

She clamped her hands back over her ears, turned to face Carter with her face screwed up tight with fury and said, “I have to take some space and this is my only way to take some space. You have to let me take some space!”

Carter, his own face now growing stormy, responded, “I am not in your bubble!”

And they went, lobbing therapy-speak back and forth across the back seat at each other, trying to find the magic words learned from some doctor or counselor or behavior management specialist that would solve the problem. “You should use your skills to calm down!” “I already used my skills! You use your skills!” “I can’t because you won’t let me take some space!” “I would let you take some space if you would use your skills!”

Finally, Pickles turned back to the window, hands clamped tight over her ears, humming loudly. I could see Carter in the rearview mirror and I could see that he was approaching nuclear meltdown. Face bright red, jaw clenched, he hissed “I am so angry right now!”

Meanwhile, I was in the front seat doing my best drone imitation, speaking in a near monotone, “Everyone is OK. Let’s all take a deep breath. Carter, you look out your window. Pickles, you look the other way, out your own window.”

They weren’t listening to me, which is not surprising since neither of them was listening to anything except the pounding of their own anger.

Finally, we arrived at Brian’s office, and Spencer got in the backseat between Pickles and Carter. “You look out that window,” he said to Pickles, “and you look out that one,” he said to Carter.

And they did.

And all was quiet on the way home.

If you hear me refer to that dark-haired 14-year-old boy who lives in my house as Saint Spencer, you’ll never wonder why.

…and it is midnight visits from a 9-year-old who still knows how to fit into the curve I make in the bed just the way he did when he was a toddler. “Mommy, I’m so . . . → Read More: Pediatric Mental Illness? It’s Like This…]]> Pediatric mental illness is screaming and crying; raging and breaking things; cursing and swearing; ER trips and suicide attempts…

…and it is midnight visits from a 9-year-old who still knows how to fit into the curve I make in the bed just the way he did when he was a toddler. “Mommy, I’m so glad you’re the one who’s my mom.”

Pediatric mental illness is causing my marriage to become frayed and tattered by constant, unrelenting stress punctuated by terror…

Read the rest at Hopeful Parents.