A lawyer and a senior citizen are sitting next to each other on a long flight.

The lawyer is thinking that seniors are so dumb that he could put one over on them easily.

So, the lawyer asks if the senior would like to play a fun game.

The senior is tired and just wants to take a nap, so he politely declines and tries to catch a few winks.

The lawyer persists, saying that the game is a lot of fun… “I ask you a question, and if you don’t know the answer, you pay me only $5.00. Then you
ask me one, and if I don’t know the answer, I will pay you $500.00,” he says.

This catches the senior’s attention and, to keep the lawyer quiet, he agrees to play the game.

The lawyer asks the first question. “What’s the distance from the Earth to the Moon?”

The senior doesn’t say a word, but reaches into his pocket, pulls out a five-dollar bill, and hands it to the lawyer.

Now, it’s the senior’s turn. He asks the lawyer, “What goes up a hill with three legs, and come down with four?”

The lawyer uses his laptop to search all references he could find on the Net. He sends E-mails to all the smart friends he knows; all to no avail. After an hour of searching, he finally gives up.

He wakes the senior and hands him $500.00. The senior pockets the $500.00 and goes back to sleep.

The lawyer is now going nuts not knowing the answer. He wakes the senior up and asks, “Well, so what goes up a hill with three legs and comes down with
four?”

The senior reaches into his pocket, hands the lawyer $5.00, and goes back to sleep.

Here’s our current situation. My husband’s income (not including my own which fluctuates dramatically) is about $475/week. My husband’s employer provides insurance. At about $350/week (yes WEEK not MONTH). Without telling you our actual expenses, but you can be assured that they are the same things that others pay… Rent, car insurance, utilities, food, gas, student loans, etc. We are frugal. Our truck is paid for (and 20 years old). We no longer use our credit cards, but we’re still paying one off. I coupon, use online deals, etc. Most of my clothes have holes in them, because I pay for clothes for my kids (with coupons) since they really are weeds in human disguise. In other words… We’re careful, methodical, and thoughtful with our money.

Income Approximate (as mine varies) per month: $3,500
Expenses:-$3,300
Remaining: $200 – currently put towards “extras” or extra debt, and when the debt is gone it’ll go into savings.

If we bought my husband’s employer’s insurance:
Income Approximate (as mine varies) per month: $3,500
Expenses:-$3,300
Insurance: -$1,400
Remaining: -$1,200

The math doesn’t work – needless to say, we can’t purchase my husband’s health insurance.

My kids, however, have serious medical and mental health issues. Aside from the annual/semi-annual dentist and pediatrician visit, one of my kids has an annual echocardiogram (about $1,500 a year), an electrocardiogram (about $500 a year), one of my kids has a monthly psychiatrist appointment (about $1,800 a year), and his meds ($900/month). So our medical costs NOT including regular well-child visits, OR sick kid visits, is $1,217/mo, $14,600/year. With the well child visits, vaccinations, and when they get sick, it’s obviously more. As a result, we use state subsidized medical insurance for the kids only. I do pay a premium for them, but it’s prorated based on our income. My husband and I haven’t seen a doctor, dentist, or ophthalmologist (I wear glasses), in about 4 years. We would go to the emergency room if we have to for something like a broken bone, or stitches, etc – but thank God we haven’t had to yet. It would probably bankrupt us. For everything else? We suffer. I’ve tried free clinics in our area, but it’s a first come/first served kind of thing to get an appointment, and I’ve yet to actually be able to talk to a real person to try and get an appointment. I kind of need to see a gynecologist desperately.

So. My understanding of Obamacare is… You are required to have health insurance. If you don’t, you pay taxes as a penalty. If you don’t have health insurance, you can use the government health insurance (which doesn’t exist yet). So my question is… Since it doesn’t exist, when do we start getting penalized? How much will the government health insurance cost? What will this (and when) look like for my family?

Again – I’m not looking for political opinions here. I’m looking for what this means, as it stands now, for my family. When I’ve looked into it, I’ve gotten totally confused. Does someone have a website that breaks it down into “real life” for you?

We are usually pretty good about swearing in front of the kids, but I must admit that we’re not as careful now that they’re older and not prone to repeating what we say like parrots.

Both kids recently had occassion to swear, and well? I’m kind of okay with it.

In the first instance, Poe walked out with Joseph as they were taking trash out to the barrels. Poe observed as Joseph lept about 3 feet exclaiming, “Holy shit!”

“Did you just say what I think I heard?”
Meekly, “yes?”
“Why? and why did you jump?”
“A rat ran over over the barrel when I went to put the trash in.”
“Well, okay then.”

In another instance – a little back story. We have a recent accidental addition to our family. An outside feral cat we have named, “Tink.” Yes we named it. It was a lot easier than saying, “You know, that cat outside?” Anyhoo, it has taken residence under the house next door, and I have taken to giving it a little house outside, with food and water. Why? To solve the incessant yowling. Once I started feeding it, it shut up. I can’t catch it to take it to the vet to save my life, but oh well. The thing is – Our indoor cats, Sassy and Pebbles, have caught wind of this interloper and they are having none of it. The problem is, when they see it outside, they take to growling and hissing and yowling at it. It puts them in some kind of red haze, and they instead attack each other if the other one is in sight.

In the wee hours of the morning when I was up, but it wasn’t yet time to wake the kids, one of them saw Tink. They then attacked the other indoor cat. I don’t know who the instigator was in this instance. They took off howling and screaming and biting at each other. It got pretty bad, and I couldn’t catch up to shock ‘em out of it. They made two rounds of the house, and then they ended up in Logan’s room. Unfortunately – Sassy, who was being chased, got scared/upset enough that she started piddling while she was running. Yes. I had cat pee all over the freaking house. They ran up and over Logan’s sleeping face. While peeing. I suddenly hear yelling and sputtering from Logan’s room, and this predominately happy-go-lucky child yelled “Jesus Christ!” at the top of his lungs out of a dead sleep.

I can’t say as I blamed him.

And so. Apparently my children swear. And yet, it is completely appropriate swearing. When you’re talking rats and cat pee in your face, I just can’t say, “gosh darn it.” Doesn’t roll off the tongue. Am I right?

The short version: I loved it.

The long version: I was a little worried. I’ve read everything that Jen has written. I’m used to her biographical style (and her usual footnotes). The problem came with her first fiction novel. I was so used to Jen and her husband, Fletch, that I had trouble not inserting them into her fictional characters’ persona. This time, however, the characters were different enough that I never made mental comparisons, which greatly increased my enjoyment of the book.

As for the storyline… I love time travel themes. Love them. I’m fascinated with the concept of changing something and observing the ripple effect. But the real story here is not the time travel, or what’s changed, or even the outcome, but of the heroine’s internal changes making her into a better person. Quite frankly, for the first few chapters, I couldn’t stand Lissy. At all. Over time I transferred that dislike to her mother. But by the end I was left with the universal understanding that a few tweaks here, and a few tweaks there… We can all become better and change the course of our lives.

I definitely encourage you check out all of Jen’s books, but to get you started, here’s how you can connect with her:
Facebook
Twitter
Jennsylvania, her blog

This is a paid review for BlogHer Book Club but the opinions expressed are my own.

On the one hand, of course I’m glad my family is back together. On the other hand, now that he’s home it feels like, “DON’T FUCK THIS UP MOM.” Yes, he has mental illness. Yes, we have doctors, therapists, medications, and a special school. But still, he’s only 12, so I feel like while we give him a bunch of tools for living – I still feel a lot of pressure to make sure he’s doing what he needs to do, and NOT doing what he needs to NOT do. Considering the reason for his visit to the hospital, too, I’m not exactly sleeping easy.

Next is getting him into his psychiatrist today. I know he had some qualms about the dosage on the medication, but we’ll be talking about that in the office and can make changes if we need to. Once that appointment is under our belt, we’ll need to do a re-entry IEP at school. They basically need to take this latest information and turn it into a safety plan/add it to his IEP.

Yesterday, all I wanted to do was sleep when 4pm hit. I think everything was finally hitting me, and I could barely move. I’ve done really well about not losing it until that point. But? He was home. I think my body was making it clear it was done, thank you very much.

So. Things are not at the “All Clear” point. I would put it this way. When he was at school, not feeling safe, and asking to be put somewhere safe? We’ll call that Code Red Critical. In the hospital, but safe? We’ll call that Critical. Now that he’s home, I’d call it Serious, but definitely not stable. We are so not Stable yet.

I would also like to thank two ladies who reached out personally. I’m not calling them out since they emailed me. But thank you. I really appreciate what you had to say. There have been some family issues that have been less than supportive, and I really appreciate that you took the time.

How is Joseph doing?
How are we coping?
How Logan handling it all?

But taking the time to actually write it down as I’m living it seems to take more energy than I have right now.

To top it all off, I landed a new client. But she’s a VA Firm, which means, I’ve actually landed 3 clients through her. In and of itself that’s a fabulous thing. But. It means I’m working full time now. And juggling like the best Vegas-juggler you’ve ever… EVER… seen. I landed her one week to the day before Joseph landed in the hospital. I’m giving her full disclosure and all, I can’t lose the gig. But it makes my stress level that much higher.

So. How is Logan handling it? Short answer is an influx of good boy syndrome. We’re trying to just let him be, and take him on our visits when he asks. That’s even a hard decision. I mean, he’s 10. Should he be vising his brother in a facility like that? On the other hand, he most definitely was getting curious. It’s a 4 hour round trip, so we would be disappearing for most of his awake time at night, and he’s been spending that with grandpa. We’re having all kinds of serious discussions he’s not a part of. His brother is “sick” somehow, but he doesn’t have a broken leg. Also, because he’s our accident prone child with a heart condition, he’s seen his share of hospitals for his EKGs, Echos, and stitches. He was questioning why he’s so far away. We’ve explained it as best we could. (How do you explain that someone tried to kill Joseph in the last hospital he was in, so we requested a different hospital in BFE?) So, he came to his own conclusions. The hospitals near us are for stitches. Okay. We’ll go with that. After his first visit when we were pulling into our driveway at bedtime for him, I said, “So, now you know what we’ve been doing at night.” He replied, “Now I know how much you love your kids.” I almost cried right there. He’s 10. He shouldn’t be having deep thoughts at 10. He should be arguing about cleaning his room, and trying to finagle more Legos. But – now that nothing is mysterious, he’s doing better with the situation. And Joseph likes it. When we leave, he hugs Logan, and since we all visit in the same room, he let some of his fellow patients know, proudly, “This is my little brother.”

How we’re coping? I don’t know. There’s lots of gallows humor, a lot of scheduling, and lots of breathing. There’s been a lot of laughing.

As for Joseph, he’s still in the hospital. We all want him better before he comes home. So, I’ve voluntarily committed him. Essentially, everyone seems to agree that Joseph is not suicidal, but OCD. The problem is, his current particular intrusive thoughts are of him dying. So he’s in the hospital until we figure out his correct meds, in the right dosage, and turn the obsessive thoughts to something else. I feel like the best and worst mother in the world, to be honest. But, if I were to be a sissy and not commit my “precious snowflake” so I wouldn’t have it on my conscience, they probably would force a two week hold. Two week hold means court. Court means record. Record means deleting potential opportunities from his future I have no business deleting from him at the age of 12. So – I suck up the judgement (including my own) and signed the papers.

He is having some trouble with his roommate and that sucks. The kid beat on him, and so Joseph told on him. Therefore the roommate calls him a snitch, and called me a whore.

And THANK YOU for having to make me explain “whore” to my 12 year old.

So I assured Joseph that the comments of a sick kid to not effect me. I’m a big girl, and he’s acting out. Poe explained to him that this isn’t the first time it’s going to happen. Boys (and sometimes men) have a tendency to break out the “Mamas” when they’ve got no other ammunition, and gave him some tips in handling situations like that. We also told Joseph to keep snitching – even if the other kids doesn’t like it. He’s there for a reason, and the hospital can’t help him if they don’t know the facts. Joseph seems to understand about all of that – but he’s seriously done with this kid.

Other than that, Joseph understands what’s going on, and is being proactive in his treatment. He also feels safe, so he’s not begging to come home. He wants to feel better, and had asked to be put somewhere safe, so this is most definitely partly his call. He’s going to be there until at least Monday. I’ll be talking to the doctors again on Monday. We had to switch the visits to every other day. I feel bad about that. But we have a truck. It’s our only vehicle. Poe works relatively close to home. So – one fill up per week is what the budget can tolerate. Filling up every other day due to the distance? The budget can’t handle that and we’re out of money. So, we switched to every other day. Joseph seems okay with it, as long as I tell him every time we go when he’ll next see us. And we’re there every time we say we are. He’s trusting us at out word at the moment. We’ve never let him down if we’ve said “ABC is going to happen.” We always add a “maybe” or a “this isn’t a promise” when we’re not sure – otherwise we always follow through consistently, including consequences when we’re talking behavior, so he’s been able to trust that we’ll be there, and so it’s not effecting him as much as it could, thank God. Every time we go, I also give him an update on what’s going on with the doctors, and what we think is going on with him, what we’re doing with his meds, etc. One – he has a brain, and needs to know what’s going on with him. Two – we’ve never shielded him from, well, himself. We’ve always been up front. Because his issues do not effect intelligence, cognitive functioning, or putting concepts together, we’ve felt it important that he has full knowledge. And when necessary, takes responsibility. He’s going to have to live this way. Plus, I want him to know that while he’s in there, he’s not forgotten. He hasn’t been tucked away as a “problem” and we’re proactively helping him from the outside. That’s very important.

That’s all I got for now.

But – Joseph’s in the hospital again. Suicidal ideation, with a plan. In other words, he doesn’t want to die, but can’t get the pictures out of his head (obsessive compulsive) and he was afraid he would be worn down enough to do it.

Three day hold. We’ll see how it goes.

I have to drive two hours to get to this hospital. But – it was the only one with a bed so he didn’t have to go to the previous hospital we had such a terrible experience with.

There’s a lot of good and bad in this.

Bad – compulsive thoughts
Good – he recognized them

Bad – have to call a PET team in
Good – no handcuffs, everyone’s calm, his personal psychiatric team was involved, no drama

Bad – he has to be hospitalized
Good – he recognized the need and asked to be safe

Bad – 4 hours round trip to see him for our allotted hour each day
Good – He’s not at the hospital where someone tried to kill him

I have no answers. I have no help. I have no idea what’s going to happen in the next few days. I sure as hell don’t have the money for this. I’m trying to take it day by day.

Today, we have food in the house, and he’s safe. I can’t really worry much beyond that and remain sane myself.

But he’s good. He’s kind. He’s funny and joyful. He’s an incredibly gifted artist, and has NO rhythm whatsoever. He loves to read. He’s discovered Harry Potter (the books) now that we’ve gotten past some of his reading learning disabilities. He’s discovered some other authors, and asks me to put on holds for him at the library. He gladly takes his medication, and he trusts and tries with his therapists and psychiatrist. He cooperates with his own care. He really, really tries. His little brother annoys him, and he worships his father. He has a truly close relationship with our cats (I swear animals are here to be healers sometimes). He asks for affection now. He wants hugs and kisses. And his room is perpetually filthy and smells like 12 year old boy. He likes toast for breakfast, loves ramen noodles, and asked for a Nintendo 3DS for Christmas. And for some odd reason his pants have started hanging off his butt, and I’ve started telling him to pull his pants up.

As I watched things unfold yesterday, I thought to myself, “I am Adam Lanza’s mother. And I’m all those other mothers, who’s children he stole. How, oh HOW do I keep from being Adam Lanza’s mother?” And I kept thinking about gun control. Why is the conversation about gun control? IT’S NOT ABOUT GUN CONTROL. STOP TALKING ABOUT GUN CONTROL. It’s about mental illness. For me, it’s about making sure this child, my child, my 12 year old little boy can grow up to be a functioning adult who doesn’t think “I should never have been born.” He made that statement last week. Thank God he spoke the words, though. He spoke the words and we as his parents, and his therapists, were able to help him through it so he didn’t make the statement a reality. Even a year ago, he wouldn’t have spoke the words. You see the guns don’t matter. If it’s not a gun, it’ll be a knife, or a machete, or a shovel, or pills, or a car, or or or… It’s not about the method. It’s about my son’s beautiful, beautiful brilliant tortured brain.

I don’t know what Adam Lanza’s life was like, or what his motivations were, or what his issues were. But one can logically say he must have been mentally ill to do what he did, right? But by God, I’m trying with my child to make sure that I never have to wonder. The fight is so fucking hard from every aspect.

Another mother wrote a heart-wrenching post. One that felt a little too close for comfort. But truth always is. Please read it. I’m no activist. I’m just a mom trying to her best for her son, and hoping against hope her best is good enough for him to survive. But perhaps the next time someone says “gun control” in reaction to a tragedy and senseless loss of life such as yesterday’s (God, such beautiful lives cut short… families annihilated) you’ll remember this post and think, “OK, but what about helping people cope with mental illness? Could that be a more constructive question?”

I love my son who has social phobia, ADHD (inattentive type), myriad learning disabilities, and clinical depression.
I love my mother who is bipolar (and now has Alzheimer’s).
I tried to love my biological mother who had borderline personality disorder.
I tried to love my brother, who was bipolar and hung himself at the age of 52.
I loved my aunt, who was clinically depressed, and killed herself with a shotgun at the age of 55.
And I try to love myself, I have PMD, and deal with these “episodes of thought” every blessed month, as well as depression.
There are more, but feel I can’t state their stories here. Some got help, some didn’t. None speak of it.

I got help. I got my son help. I couldn’t and can’t help my other family members. But, unlike the rest of my family, I refuse to be silent, the secret, the skeleton in the closet. I want my son to LIVE. And so here, I air my dirty laundry. Maybe it’ll help someone out there speak up, for themselves, or for their child. Maybe it’ll prevent terrible tragedies. Maybe it won’t do anything at all. But I refuse for it to be something to be ashamed of.

I learned all my stubbornness, lack of empathy, tell it like it is, and compartmentalization from her.

It can be good. I get my way because I work hard for it. If someone passes away in your life, I won’t cry with you – but your bills will be paid, your house clean, your laundry done, and food in your fridge. If you come to me for advice, I won’t coddle you. But you’ll know the truth, and you’ll get an objective opinion, you’ll know where I stand. I’m not unkind, but people don’t always see me that way. And I do care, but I don’t express it the same way as you.

I’m just like my mom.

But, it’s complicated. She turned a blind eye to some things when I was a kid. I already had abandonment issues due to Jeannette, and so I played the part of the good girl until my early twenties. But I wish she hadn’t turned a blind eye to some of the abuses I endured. Now that I’m an adult with a family, I know she knew. She has always been generous, but only if I’m doing what SHE thinks is the right thing. I never knew if her illnesses were “real” sick, or “fake” sick. She’s been sick all her life, she really has, but had the uncanny ability to get sick, and then come to whatever function I had as the martyr (“I had to be here for my daughter”). It doesn’t take a fight for her to stop speaking to me. Whatever I do wrong can be just in her head. But that doesn’t stop the silent treatment.

On the other hand, when Poe and I wanted to get married so fast, she was my biggest supporter (although, by golly, we did it her way). When I had Joseph, she drove 350 miles so she could take us home from the hospital. We actually went out to eat (I.WAS.STARVING.) and I thought she would actually really deck the waitress who asked me when I was due. When we were about to leave the hospital, and Logan was suddenly diagnosed with his heart condition, I got on the phone, “Mom, his heart…” She literally hung up on me. She was already on the way. She had no fear in scrubbing into the NICU and touching that little boy, even with all the wires. And I will say this. She trusts my parenting more than I trust it, that’s for sure. She’s never stepped over the parenting/grandparenting boundaries – although with her, that HAD to be hard. Trust me.

I had to be the one to tell her that her son, her real, biological son (I’m her biological grand-niece) had committed suicide. He hung himself. She had to be the one to tell me that my biological mother was dying and didn’t want to see me. And then tell me when she died. But she was at Jeannette’s bedside when it happened.

I have to be the one to make her mad when she won’t eat, or won’t go to the bathroom, won’t go to the doctor. Because my dad’s kindness won’t cut it. She’ll only do it if she’s mad at me, to spite me. (It works. God, that woman is stubborn.) I have to be the bad guy, ’cause when she’s pissed, she’ll fight. If she fights, she’s alive.

She has Alzheimers. Most of the time, she can’t follow a conversation, really. She tries, but she can’t. The last time she was at my house for a birthday, she said to my kids, “who’s that loudmouth bitch, and why do you want to hang out with her?” Wow. But then again – she raised this loudmouthed bitch.

Yesterday, my dad needed to have cancer removed from his back. He didn’t want to deal with her, too, and so I was checking up on her throughout the day. I had girded myself for it. She hates it when I help out. She hates the lack of privacy, and she hates that I know so much. So I had prepared myself for the abuse already. But… Yesterday? Yesterday, she was lucid. I got to have REAL conversations with her. She gave me money for Christmas for the kids, so I could shop on her behalf, ’cause she knew she couldn’t. She actually talked to me – knowing who I was, where dad was, and was okay with me being there.

She asked how Joseph’s really doing. She said, “It must be so hard for you. You must worry all the time. I have no idea what it is like. You never suffered like Joseph does.” I don’t know where that came from, and it’ll probably be the last understanding I get from her ever. But I’ll remember it. I’ll remember her coming to Logan’s bedside. I’ll remember the time she walked into a party when I was a teenager and gave the kids there what-for ’cause they ran me off saying I wasn’t invited (I was horribly horribly embarrassed, but as an adult I recognize that she was standing up for me). I’ll remember that she took me in. I’ll remember that she loved Joseph anyway. I’ll remember that she watched Logan like a hawk. I’ll remember her fighting for me (even while fighting me). I’ll remember that she loved Poe like a son, and fiercely too.

I’ll remember.

This may be our last Christmas. I’ve already made arrangements on my father’s behalf. I’ll try to continue to be the stubborn, know-it-all, can-do, tell it like it is daughter she raised me to be. I’ve learned lessons from her of what not to be, what not to do. I practice those lessons every day.

But yesterday? She understood what I go through as a mom, and she really got it. I’ll remember.

First, my parents decided to usurp my parental authority. THAT WAS FUN. That’s a new dynamic I’m not used to – they’re usually very good at letting us be parents, and letting them be grandparents, and not blurring that line. It’s a pretty significant line seeing as how they’re together with the kids a lot, and we live right next door, so boundaries in the relationship are important.

So Thanksgiving. Yeah. My parents were no-shows. So, that was fun. Because of my mother’s health issues, AND my mother’s mental health issues, I have no idea if “mom’s sick” is actually, “mom’s sick,” or if it’s “we’re pissed off at you and so we’re going to pull the martyr/passive aggressive card to punish you.” Because my emotional maturity surpassed theirs about a decade ago, I truly, truly do not know which is the case. Yes, my mother is very aggressively ill. But has been so for the last 6 years. And because of her alzheimer’s she has a tendency to revert to past behavior (ie what made my difficult childhood difficult) there’s really no telling. I feel like a total bitch for not taking “mom’s sick” at face-value, but there it is.

Topping that – I made end of life arrangements for her on behalf of my father. Nothing like saying, “Yeah, she could go tonight. Or she could go 5 years from now. What do I do?”

And then Poe didn’t get an important promotion he really wanted, and I lost a client. I didn’t totally lose it, so I’m making progress in terms of how financial security plays a role in my own anxiety. But! The person he relieves is leaving and he’s stepping into the role, so it looks like he might be getting an inadvertent promotion anyway which is a good thing. It hasn’t happened yet, so we don’t know for sure, but if it happens, that’s a good thing for us.

And finally the big one.

I don’t talk too much, anymore, about my kids on my blog. At a certain point, their stories become theirs, and my mentioning them is really an invasion of privacy. I’m not totally sure where the lines are actually drawn, so I’ve just been going with my gut. But the latest “episode” in the saga of Joseph has really effected me, and so I’m sharing. Technically, he had 3 diagnoses. ADHD Inattentive Type, Social Anxiety, and “Mood Disorder.” The mood disorder was really depression – except that he didn’t fall into the time constraints to be diagnosed as such.

Well… Until he expressed suicidal thoughts.

There’s nothing quite like the gut-punch that is a 12 year old wanting to commit suicide because he feels like he’s too much of a burden to you.

He, however, has a tremendous team around him, and quite frankly, good parents who give a shit. And so, with further talking and testing, he’s no longer diagnosed with “Mood Disorder” but with Clinical Depression. We think it was probably always there, but a more mild form. Enough that his current medication helped with it (although he’s on it for other reasons). But puberty has hit with a vengeance, and we think that’s what finally tipped the scales into full blown Clinical Depression. Since his issues are of a brain chemistry variety, and Clinical Depression has to do with brain chemistry as well, adding hormones to the mix just blew the whole thing up.

He is safe – always was between us and the team – thank God. But as his mom… Dear God. A burden? God. We are, actually, very careful with our words around here. Always honest, but always, ALWAYS with the knowledge that words wound, and especially wound people with sensitivity and anxiety issues.

I’m so glad he was born to us, as opposed to anyone else in our families. Our families are rife with mental illness ranging from anxiety to Depression to BiPolar Disorder. Our family is rife with suicides. But also – our family is rife with not speaking about it, not getting help, not medicating where actually necessary, ignoring the symptoms, and labeling as “Bad.” I thank God that Poe and I decided we were not going to continue on our families’ path. It means we’re pretty much ignored and ostracized. Too much truth telling is scary for them.

But if we weren’t who we are? If we didn’t make that decision? Would Joseph be dead?

While I’m am grateful for us and his team catching it fast, and I’m grateful there is help for him, and I’m grateful we don’t stick our heads in the sand…

Some days I just want to scream. I want to scream and bury my head and not get out of bed. I want to get drunk and forget everything. I want to be alone and not have to deal with anyone or anything.

I can’t do that.

I’m responsible.

I care.

I advocate.

And everyone else expects that from me too.

But really… At what point do I get to lose my shit?