Band Back Together

A Victim In The Crossfire

Mon, 27 Feb 2012 16:00:00 -0600

Did you know that after we broke up, I made 15... yes...15 pumpkin cheesecakes? Like I promised for your birthday, but never did? For two weeks straight, I made pumpkin cheesecakes.

Did you know how I wished that the night you turned 20 I'd have stayed, been there for you instead of being selfish and going out? When your dad was telling you what a horrible, selfish son you were on the day you were born, I should have stayed with you, talked to you, instead of leaving you.

I wish I hadn't ruined your birthday by getting so drunk, literally shoving you away from me. I was scared; you were getting too close.

I wish I'd been there for you more.

Helped you through your parents' divorce.

Made you dinner.

Took you out.

Did everything you did for me.

Told you how much you really meant to me.

I am sorry the chemicals in my brain ruined everything.

I am sorry my disease scared you away.

I am sorry that Borderline Personality Disorder was the final breaking point.

I am sorry you will never understand.

I am so sorry.

Monster No More

Mon, 27 Feb 2012 12:00:00 -0600

Child sexual abuse is reported 90,000 times a year - the number of unreported cases is much higher as most children are afraid to come forward.

This is her experience.

I don't remember exactly when it happened anymore. Memories of my childhood come in spurts and pieces, little instances of time here and there that have no meaning alone, yet all the meaning in the world at the same time. I do remember the scene itself, and I remember how I felt when it ended. It began with an apology absent of remorse.

I hadn't wanted to step foot in that house ever again. The call to visit was too great, though, as I still needed the validation that I never received. It was my parents' home and had been mine until I left in the quiet of the moonlight a few weeks after I turned 18. The things that happened in that home were largely left unspoken, CPS and the judge being the only ones outside the family who knew the darkness that lurked there.

How did I ever muster up the strength to approach him? He controlled so much of my life. He still has too much control over me.

"I'm sorry. Just wanted to tell you that." There's no emotion crossing his face. Just the words hanging in the empty space, waiting for me to accept them. I remained silent for a few moments, letting the words marinate in my mind.

He is afraid. Afraid of a small ten-year old only seeking to receive love from her uncles. Afraid of her warm embrace. Afraid of her willingly given heart. Afraid of himself, perhaps?

"Why did you do it? Why did you think it was okay? I am your daughter. Why?" My voice calm as I questioned, the lump in my throat forming in the uncertainty that I wanted an answer. I needed an answer more than I wanted one, but I knew in the depth of my core that it would not be an answer I wanted to hear.

Our battle of wills is going to cost us both my mother. She was mine first. I will not be pushed out of her life. He tries, regularly, but I am learning to let it go. Learning that he can only control me if I let him.

"You are not my flesh and blood." The answer was so very simple, yet so very wrong. "Not my flesh and blood." No, this is not good enough. Unacceptable. The words echoed throughout my being, chilling me, breaking me, terrifying me.

Whoever said that words can't hurt you was wrong. Sometimes words can slice so thickly through you they leave you cut in half, moldering and festering in the gaping wounds. These words were like that. The wound is still festering, but it is finally healing. I don't look back with the same pain I used to.

Sorry wasn't good enough. "I will never forgive you," I told him that day, watching his eyes closely for any sign of emotion that it mattered to him. There was no flicker of regret in his eyes, not even a tiny glimmer that it hurt him at all. I was not validated.

When I visit now, the man I see is not a monster anymore. I see a man so desperately out of control of himself that his need to control someone is amplified. I see a man without strength. I see a man incapable of emotion. I limit our time around him now to hugs and kisses, unless my husband is with us, so he can have no more control over me.

Despite my resolve to never forgive him, I have peace. Somehow, as I grew up, the forgiveness came.

Dose of Happy Monday: Fresh Haircuts

Mon, 27 Feb 2012 10:50:58 -0600

Mon, 27 Feb 2012 10:50:58 -0600http://bandbacktogether.com/post/2668/A Dose of Happy

Good morning!

Happy Monday, y'all!

Sometimes I look at your kid and he looks all grown up and I can't believe it. I think there's no way that my 7 year old looks like he's 10. He's growing up right before my eyes and it hurts.

But then I realize his hair is really really shaggy and make an appointment for him to get his hair cut.

And just like that? Within a few minutes of cutting and thinning, he looks like my little 7 year old again. Young and innocent.

My baby. My happy.

**************************

What's your Happy?

Don't think you have one? Look harder. Something will make you smile today.

We want to know!

Share it with the world on your blog and then link up below, tweet it out (hashtag #DOHMonday #WithTheBand) or share it on Facebook. Whatever you want to do, do it. Just find a bit of happy in this Monday!

BB2G World Tour: I Love - One Year Ends And Another Begins

Mon, 27 Feb 2012 08:00:00 -0600

In this month of love and hearts and all thinks pink and sparkly, as a part of our quest for Internet Domination, we want to know: What is Love? What do you Love? Have you felt Love?

Join us as we celebrate Love.

Today, my youngest son, you turn 4. I am not even sure what to say about that. It feels like you have been 3 for a century now. Most parents see the years flying by, and that has always been true. Except this year. This year has lasted a lifetime. And now that we are at the end of it, I am so ready for it to be over.

The thing is, you are the full embodiment of 3 and redhead in one small, temperamental package. You can out-curse a sailor, know no boundaries or limits set for you, and can explode better than any volcano.

But then I turn on classical music, and your interpretive dance is unlike any other. You know no shame or humiliation, and that is how dance should be. You hug with the fierceness of the passion your personality is known for. You love your little sister in a way that could inspire Aphrodite. If anyone could love that baby to death, it would be you.

You are an inspiration of a big brother, which is the exact opposite of your goals as a little brother. We need to work on that. Though you are not alone in your faults there.

This year has been the year of the monster. I want so desperately to be angry at your inability to consistently sleep in your own bed. But the fear in your eyes is true and pathetic. And my will is not strong. I am your momma and, as such, it is my job to protect you, even if your own imagination is what you need protecting from.

This year will also be known as the year of the dog. You fell in love with Max, got bitten by Max, and then had your heart broken more than anyone when Max could no longer live with us. You've met a "pickle" dog and I will terminate anyone who corrects you in what type of dog that actually is.

For as big as you may be in size and wisdom, every so often your little, little boy shows through, and when he does, I embrace him with all my being. For you are my 4-year old, and I love you with all that I am.

Here is to hoping the terror that is 3 is over and a step towards self-control is taken. But while I may wish away the passion to your temper, I hope the passion of your love never leaves you.

For that love is what makes you my Lucas, and my Lucas is the fire in my heart.

heartburn

Sun, 26 Feb 2012 16:00:00 -0600

Sun, 26 Feb 2012 16:00:00 -0600http://bandbacktogether.com/post/2661/Special Needs ParentingAutismRunaways

Ben ran away last week.

I didn’t tell you about it because it’s hard to talk about autism on my blog because there’s always someone whose best friend’s sister’s boyfriend’s girlfriend knows this guy who knows this girl who knows this kid who has this brother who has autism, too. And SHE heard that removing gluten AND standing on his head for sixteen hours a day made him normal again.

That’s awesome for that family, truly, I’m happy. But like any other condition, there’s a million different variations and this is MY kid we’re talking about here and this is our story. And, I should add, I DO want to hear about your children and your stories, The Band. I do. I promise.

Why, Aunt Becky, did your son run away? I can hear you practically screaming at the computer monitor, cup of coffee clenched in your hand as you shiver with antici…..

….pation.

The answer is: I don’t know. HE doesn’t know. All I know is that he decided, upon returning from my mother’s house where he had been spending the morning while I worked, that my (technically also his) house was bullshit and he’d rather not come home and so he took off.

His brother informed me, “Ben ran away,” and assuming Ben had just stomped off to his room, I wasn’t terribly worried.

Until I couldn’t find him in his room, slouched petulantly in either car, holed up in the basement reading a book or lurking around the exterior of my house.

It was then that the blind panic set in. I drove down the street, the bitter taste of adrenaline coating the back of my tongue, as I looked left and right, hoping to spot my son somewhere; anywhere.

I found him, his mop of dark hair a stark contrast to the white snow, a body all elbows and knees, trying to cross a busy road at the edge of my subdivision.

I pulled over and hollered at him to get into the car, and he did. He peered sheepishly at me through eyelashes as long as his sisters as he buckled his seat belt.

For once, I was at a loss for words. I just gaped at him.

I drove us home and still, I said nothing. I didn’t even know what to say any more. I knew where he was going and why. I know my son well.

Rejection started when he was born. I waddled into the birthing room as one and a mere twenty-four hours later, we were two. The nurse helped me get him to my breast, and I swear I’ve never seen a more pissed off baby. He launched his gigantic head atop that tiny neck backwards, nearly toppling off me, clearly disgusted that someone might even SUGGEST such an uncivilized thing as BREASTFEEDING.

Breastfeeding didn’t work. Bottle-feeding only worked if I didn’t hold him. I’d put him in his bouncy seat and sit next to him, holding his bottle as he watched anything but me. The guilt was tremendous. Maybe Ben sensed my inherent evil or something.

My mother didn’t help. “I’d NEVER let a baby sit on the floor while taking a bottle,” she’d say to me as I fed my child. But I’d already tried to cuddle him closely, only to have him scream like I’d poured molten steel on him. Maybe she’d never let her baby lay on the floor to feed him, but Ben was not her baby.

The older he got, the worse I felt. The pain was exquisite. It was compounded when I enrolled in school full-time to earn my nursing degree while working part-time as a waitress/bartender over the weekends as I didn’t see my son much.

He didn’t care.

I, however, cared very, very much.

My heart shattered each time I’d stop and think about The Situation With My Son Ben. I was rearranging my life for this tiny boy with a shock of black hair so thick it looked like a wig and he hated me.

These were the days, you must remember, that autism was not commonly discussed. No one walked, ran, drove, pledged, or otherwise attempted a “cure.” ASD, PDD, SPD weren’t on the lips of every mini-van driving soccer mom. In 2003, when Ben was diagnosed at age two, I was on my own.

I was also relieved by that diagnosis. Autism.

The concept of autism didn’t send me reeling, I guess, because I’d already been reeling for so long. Knowing all that rejection wasn’t because I was an evil soul-sucking wench of a mother was such a relief that I cried. Then I stopped making it about me and got my kid into therapy. Loads of it.

Autism is, after all, just a diagnosis. And a diagnosis is just a word. I wasn’t going to let that word rule my life.

And I haven’t.

The pain of rejection, though, that never seems to go away. I love my son just as he is with every inch of my heart. I always will.

I sat there, my heart hurting and my hands numb from the cold as I drove the two of us home last week. I sat at my computer trying to eek out a half-hearted Christmas post, forcing jollity out of my fingertips. I sat there trying to pretend I was okay, that the pangs of rejection didn’t burn brightly in my chest, and I remembered that sometimes, as my throat burned with threatened tears, it’s okay not to know how I feel.

It’s okay to wish that it was all different somehow.

Then, my first son, Ben, without whom I would be nothing, approaches me with open arms and says, “I love you, Mom,” and I know that even if I never understand any of it, it’s all just as it should be. And that has to be enough.

Remembrance

Sun, 26 Feb 2012 14:00:00 -0600

This is the hardest thing I’ve ever written, containing my darkest secret. The thing no one dares admit to.

While you were remembering the ten year anniversary of 9/11 last year, I was holding a ten-years-later moment of silence for something else. Maybe I’m selfish, or maybe I’m human, but the Twin Towers weren’t the worst thing to happen to me that week.

That was the week I lost my father. Oh, he survived the suicide attempt, just barely, but things have never been the same. The thing is that while in my heart and soul I know I don’t really mean this, sometimes I wish he hadn’t failed. I would never wish that upon my Daddy, but my Daddy didn’t survive that attempt. I was left with the broken, bitter shell of what used to be my father.

He is angry at me because he survived, and he’s angry that my sister made him promise he’d never try it again. He's angry at me because I didn’t send money I didn’t even have to help him pay his mortgage. He’s angry at me because my sister hauled him up here when his home was being foreclosed on and dropped him into my home with my family. He would much rather live with her, since she is the special one and none of this is her fault. She doesn’t want him.

Ever.

His only choices were my home, a retirement home or the streets. He has lived with us for five years now, never paying a dime in rent, utilities, or even towards toilet paper. Yet he keeps a running total of every unasked-for apple and quart of ice cream he buys "for the household.” His mother sends him money a few times a year to cover his food and car insurance. She can’t afford it, but we can’t either. I guess she feels like she is the one most obligated to give him that money. I’m somehow the most obligated to keep the roof over his head. I can't complain about that though, that wasn't her choice. She isn't the bad guy in this whole mess.

He refuses to live with his mother, saying that she can’t afford him. My family is on government assistance and at times, only a few steps from the streets ourselves, but somehow we can afford to house him.

And I do, gladly. Or I would be glad if he was just a little bit grateful and didn’t undermine my authority with my children. But somehow it’s my fault he had no income, was losing his home, and on the brink of starvation.

It’s my fault my sister decided what was best was to drive across the country, haul him from his home, and drop him off at mine. It’s my fault he survived taking enough morphine to down a nation. It’s my fault that my Daddy - the world’s most giving, though slightly oblivious man - passed on and this broken shell is what was left behind. Though, it really is my fault that I wish…

...well, I can’t say those words again.

The Day I Got Busted Saying "One"

Sun, 26 Feb 2012 12:00:00 -0600

Sun, 26 Feb 2012 12:00:00 -0600http://bandbacktogether.com/post/2660/Baby LossChild LossExplaining Death To ChildrenI Am The Face Of LossHow To Help Someone Who Has Lost A BabyGroup Beta Strep

I've talked about the dilemma many times. The dreaded question when you've had a child die.

"How many children do you have?"

"Is he your only child?"

There are two different answers.

One is the answer I give in passing to people who don't really need to know. You know, the grocery bagger, the waitress, the lady sitting by you in the airport. They are people you'll never see again so you don't want to bring down the room by being all Debbie-Downer on them.

But then there is the other answer. This is the one reserved for people you will see again, possibly socialize with and who will get to know you better. (Or the ones who might stumble across your blog or Twitter and go OMG YOU DIDN'T TELL ME THAT.)

Those people get the answer that goes like this: "No. Henry's our second child. Our first son died when he was 24 days old from Late Onset Group Beta Strep. So I have two children, but only one I have to run after."

That's my stock answer. And yes, they usually get flustered and I have to calm them down by saying, "It's okay. We're okay. It was a very rare thing and even though it sucks, it's made us who we are today."

I took Henry for a haircut on his birthday because he was starting to look like Shaggy on Scooby Doo.

Anyway, he was getting his hair washed and the girl was talking to him.

Girl: So how old are you?

HL: I'm 7. Today's my birthday.

Girl: {getting all excited} Really? That's so cool! Happy birthday! What are you going to do tonight?

HL: We're going to go have a birthday dinner at Cheeseburger in Paradise.

Girl: Oh, what are you going to get?

HL: A cheeseburger. But without cheese. Just meat.

Girl: {giggling} That sounds delicious.

HL: I love it. Have you been?

Girl: No. {looks at me} He's so cute. Is he your only child?

Me: He is.

HL: {gives me the crooked-head whatchu talkin' bout Willis look} MoooOOOom

HL: {tells the girl} No. I have a brother. Mom, teeeeeell her.

Me: {feeling myself blush and my heart start to race} He's right. He does have a brother. Our first son died when he was only a few weeks old. {to Henry because he got the hurt feelings look on his face} Sorry, Buddy, I should have said you do have a brother.

HL: {adamantly} Yeah, you should have. Charlie is my brother.

Girl: {looking stunned} I'm so sorry. I don't know what to say. I had a miscarriage last week.

Me: {equally as stunned and flustered} I'm so sorry. That's just terrible.

HL: I think I'll get fries and ice cream with my cheeseburger without cheese tonight. Is that okay, Mom?

So there you have it.

It was interesting to see his facial expression when he looked at me that way. It was as if he was trying to telepathically send me a message saying "Why didn't you tell her?"

I think it hurt his feelings which makes me smile a little inside. Strange, huh?

Let me explain.

We talk about Charlie a good bit. Not a lot. Not every day. But we make a point to talk about him often. Henry knows he would be his friend Meg's age, older than him. He knows he got very sick and died. He KNOWS he has a brother. He's known that for a long time.

But now I think, in his heart, he understands what that means. He gets it now. He HAS a brother. He will never know him, but I know that he will always feel that a piece of his heart belongs to his brother.

I just hope he never has to know what it feels like to have a piece of your heart missing like his Daddy and I do.

Not What I Expected...

Sun, 26 Feb 2012 10:46:23 -0600

Before I became a Mom, I had a certain expectation of what motherhood would be like. We would have a healthy baby - she'd have so much in common with Lance, my husband, and I. She would be an avid reader, unable to put a book down. She would be well-spoken, and involved in theater and maybe even debate club. She would be musical, marching in the band or playing in the orchestra. She would have a regular spot on the honor roll.

When Anna was born, she was healthy. The fact that she scored 9 on the Apgar scale was a point of pride. Then, after a few days, our world slowly started to turn upside down.

When she was diagnosed with Maple Syrup Urine Disease at eight days old, a whole new definition of motherhood was thrust upon me. I had a very sick baby, with a disease with a weird name about which I knew very little, and who was potentially brain damaged. I was introduced to a world that I never knew existed.

I never knew what leucine, isoleucine and valine were, or how much my daughter would be allowed to have within a day.

I never thought I'd be in an emergency room watching a doctor and a group of medical students smell my daughter's diaper.

I never knew how terrifying a simple stomach bug could be.

I never thought I'd have to use my entire body weight to hold down a screaming child so the nurse can insert an IV that will save her life.

I expected to use our blender to occasionally make margaritas. Not to blend a foul smelling medical formula at least once a day, every single day, for almost 13 years.

I never expected to burn out 3 blenders during those almost 13 years.

I never thought I'd have to poke my daughter's heel/toe/finger to bleed it out on filter paper, or check urine samples to see how cloudy they are when mixed with DNPH chemicals.

I never expected to have to explain my daughter's disorder to everyone.

I never thought I'd have to patiently re-explain when someone would say "she can't eat meat... but she can eat chicken, right?"

I never thought I'd throw my "what to expect' book against the wall because she was not meeting developmental milestones like the experts "expected"

I never thought I'd know what an IEP is.

I never expected to be cheering for her as she competed in the Special Olympics.

My version of motherhood never included all of these challenges. This was not what I signed up for. Yet, despite all of these challenges I've faced as a Mom, I wouldn't trade one of them. I will face all of those, plus whatever else MUD throws at me, because that is what it means to be Anna's mom.

And that is a blessing I thank God for every day.

Bunnies, Huh?

Sun, 26 Feb 2012 08:00:00 -0600

When I think back through my life, I feel pretty sad. It's been a kinda sad life - at least I think it's been. You know, childhood can be pretty rough when you're the Outsider. No friends to speak of - token or otherwise. You're just alone. Your folks send you out to play every day, but there's no one to play with. No one you get along with. Sure, you made attempts, tried to make friends, but it never happened.

That's how my childhood went. I just couldn't make a single friend, not for the life of me. So I focused on alternatives to social activity. Being alone all the time, books and video games quickly became my consolation. But I clung onto my anger at a world where I couldn't have even one friend.

I thought, "Maybe when I grow up, I'll be a librarian or a scholar." None of that ever came to pass, though. It was like I couldn't muster enthusiasm for living after I gave up on the world around me. I never really thought about it at the time, however, I was caught up in myself. I was really, truly lonely, all the time. I didn't think that would ever change.

Even today, I often can't shake that feeling.

Have you ever thought about what animal best represents you? I think most of us have. Maybe most people would think about the animals they like best and choose one of those: a lion, tiger, wolf, bear, fox, horse; something cool. I think I'm most like a bunny: shy, nervous, and looking for social attention, cuddling, and friends. I'm more prone to flee than fight.

Earlier tonight I was feeling alone, frustrated, like my existence and struggles were all pretty futile and pointless. What I really wanted at the time - and even now - was just someone to hug me, hold me close, and be soothing and calm. To know someone was nearby who cared. What I have right now is not at all like that.

Part of the downside is that I don't have good coping mechanisms. Talking - hoping people care, or listen - is the closest thing I have to someone being here and holding me so I feel safe. I feel like a nuisance because of my lack of coping mechanisms and because being held isn't something that I only need a few times a month.

It's a few times a week, at least. My anti-suicide mantra has been: "Why bother rushing what'll come soon enough anyways? Maybe I can use the rest of my life to be helpful, and if I'm really lucky, find some value in myself."

I lean towards a belief in rebirth, that I have lived innumerable incarnations before this life and will continue to do so after this life. Going forward or backward doesn't seem particularly important, it's just a point in a stream. It's what we do in the present that has more relevance, our planning for the future that matters.

I tend to ramble, sometimes I don't make a lot of sense; I'm not even sure why I'm writing right now. A friend linked me here to Band Back Together, and I've held onto the link for a few days.

Today I felt like I needed to do something. And I didn't want to log into a suicide chat room or contemplate means of suicide.

Even knowing I have a few folks who care about me, I just hate that feeling of being alone.

Bullying Me

Sat, 25 Feb 2012 08:00:00 -0600

Hello The Band,

My name is Simone; I am a 19-year old, happily married lady. I’ve been asked to write about my experiences with bullying.

I've been bullied throughout my life. Some of it was intentional; others didn’t even know they were doing it. There’s no doubt that bullies have their own problems; it must be hellish to feel good about yourself by hurting other people. Bullies hide behind the mask of bullying.

I wasn’t the most attractive of little girls. Overweight, bushy eyebrows, big front teeth; but as a child, you don’t really notice - until others do. I was called a freak in primary school; made fun of for being different. I didn’t know why I was different, but others did. My family's mental health problems were another thing. I didn’t know my house was different until my friends weren’t allowed to come over because of my crazy family.

At twelve, my friends and I moved up to secondary school. I wasn't alone but I still noticed that I wasn’t one of the pretty girls, which made me self-conscious. Some of my friends had boyfriends while every boy I liked avoided me when they found out I liked them.

I was even mocked at church. Girls were supposed to wear pretty dresses, but I liked wearing black and dyeing my hair. I wasn’t like the others and they noticed.

At 15, I was targeted in my English class by a boy and a girl. My teacher was a little senile, so people just wandered around the class.

One day, the boy came over to my desk, stared at me, and laughed, saying, “you’re disgusting! Ergh!” I turned my face away until he went away. Then the girl joined in. Those two laughed at me, threw things at me and stole my stuff. Then, they'd toss it around the room.

My self-esteem low, I began staying home - saying I was sick. I became depressed and started harming myself. I was scared of those two bullies - I'd probably still panic if I saw them.

I was unattractive, and they played on that. I was mocked for wearing all black and dressing Gothic, but I refused to change.

Looking back, I don't feel sorry for myself, I remember that I was different enough that people felt the need to attack me. How wonderful to be that different!

Being bullied made me fragile, but also more compassionate. I never inflict pain upon another, never speak ill of others, because I wouldn’t want anyone else to feel hurt. I'm strongly against violence and while others would say I’m weak, I’d say I’m stronger for not feeling the need to hurt someone physically.

When someone hurts me, my initial reaction isn’t to hate them, it’s to wonder how they may be suffering to lash out like that. If you are compassionate or nice to someone who hurts you, it confuses them because you don’t give them the reaction they want. It may even end the conflict.

Bullies are made when people are hurt. Bullies hurt others to feel better about themselves. It doesn’t last, though, because it leads to self-hatred.

I now suffer from mental health problems - Borderline Personality Disorder, Depression, Anxiety, PTSD. It’s not fun, but it’s another experience. And without my experiences, I wouldn’t be able to help and understand others in the same situation. While I don't blame bullying for all of my mental health issues (my family members are mentally ill), they may have exacerbated them.

Thanks to being bullied, I feel I look at things differently. Most people think of the bully's victim, yet I often think of the bully - I wonder what has happened to them. It’s hard for me to imagine someone being bad unless they have been made to be that way.

I've managed to be a great student. I’m due to start an English Literature degree in February of this year. I believe it’s the negative experiences that help us to see how strong we are. I could have ended my life many times, but I didn’t.

I wish my problems with bullies were over, but they're not. I bully myself - I have low self-esteem and self-harm. When I can escape my inner bully, I can start to recover.

Now that I have left home and school, things are better for me. I'm proud of myself - regardless of how much people ridiculed me for the way I looked or the things I did, I have stuck with how I want to look or dress. There's no way I am going to let people bully me into not being me.

I’m always going to be odd because I don’t want to be boring.

Relapse

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 16:00:00 -0600

I had a bulimic relapse on Friday, February 3rd. It had been 44 days since my last purge. That's not a record, by any means, but it was a good streak. And as proud as I am that I made it that long, I am crushed to have fallen into that bad habit again.

It's the stress.

I am taking a full course-load here at school, and while on their own none of the classes are unmanageable, there is a lot to handle. I'm also working 10-20 hours a week at a job with real actual adult responsibilities. I love the job itself, but right now there's sort of this sense of being overwhelmed. And I don't even know if it's all the "stuff" right now so much as it is just an overarching unhappiness.

My bipolar disorder is so much more unstable at college. My confidence is lower, I'm significantly less outgoing, I feel out of my league and as if I don't belong.

I don't think the relapse itself is a problem. I think that I've been consistently unhappy for quite a while now is. There are moments of happiness, yes ... but even when I feel "good" (or "too good" because of the high ends of my cycle), I'm not even that happy. It isn't a regularly occurring mood these days, rather than a brief pause in the ongoing restlessness, malcontent, dark prison that is college.

Most of all, I feel trapped.

I relapsed. I'm ashamed of myself. I try to keep perspective that I haven't purged again since that one slip-up on Friday, but that doesn't seem to matter.

It's just another reason to hate my situation.

I Couldn't Save Her

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 12:00:00 -0600

When I was 15, my childhood best friend tried to kill herself.

My family had moved away two years before, so I wasn’t there. I wasn’t the one in school who she told that she’d swallowed all the Tylenol. I wasn’t there to watch her life fall apart and hold her hand through it all. I wasn’t there to see her slow descent into that darkness.

But the truth is, I knew.

I knew from her letters, from the sporadic phone calls. I knew from other people’s letters. I had been waiting for that phone call telling me she’d done it. Honestly, I’d been afraid no one would call me. I was afraid to send her a Christmas card in case something had already happened.

But when it finally happened, she was okay.

She had her stomach pumped and was admitted to an in-patient adolescent psych facility. She came out with dyed black hair, a teen bipolar diagnosis, and a cigarette habit.

She came out unrecognizable.

The next summer, I went to stay with her for a week, as I had the summer before. It was different. It was scary. Everything was just a little bit off. I sat in the waiting room of her psychiatrist’s office while she went for a check-in.

At the end of the week, her mother took me aside and asked if she’d been acting weird. I kind of shrugged and half laughed, but her mother asked again, telling me she was serious. That was when I realized something I hadn’t quite gotten before.

I was supposed to be watching her.

She stayed with me for a week after that. We went to the boardwalk. She flirted with the 20-year old ride attendant, and skipped down the boardwalk singing American Pie at the top of her lungs. She listened to the Beatles constantly, flipping the cassette of Abby Road over in the player whenever it ended, the music running all night long.

I was afraid. I was sad. I wasn’t strong enough to keep her from slipping out of control.

After that summer, there weren’t any more letters. I got a Christmas card from her a few years later, but I didn’t answer it. I didn’t call on her birthday anymore.

I’ve never really forgiven myself for that. If I could see her again, I would tell her I’m sorry, that I wish I could have been there for her, that I wish I had known how to be present and accepting of everything she was going through.

But I was 15.

I taught high school for 5 years, and if 15 year old me had been in one of my classes? I would have hugged her. I would tell her that it was a lot to handle. I would tell her that it wasn’t her responsibility to keep someone else from slipping.

I would tell her that it wasn’t her fault.

I guess I’m just not ready to tell myself that yet.

BB2G World Tour: I Love - The Love In My Life

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 10:00:00 -0600

February, especially Valentine's Day, is an unfortunate month for me. It's the month that anything that can go wrong, does so. My beloved grandfather passed away near Valentine's Day.

This year, I watched my best friend get showered in love from her boy; it could've been so easy to get angry and jealous over what I don't have. Instead, I laughed with her. I focused on the love I do have.

Growing up, family love was always the most important. We are here for each other, no matter what, and will never abandon or leave one of us behind. In my immediate family, (Mum, Dad, me) it was an even tighter bond. We were best friends and family all in one.

My parents had the type of true love you always read about in story books, and that love was shared with me. This powerful, true, unconditional love was tested by fire last year, but I know that it's still here.

True love is not waking up and facing all the tiny details of life day in-and-day-out: it's holding the hand of someone you love more than anything, watching as they slowly slip away until they are gone.

Now, Dad and I are all we have left, but our love and strength as a family continues. He has stood by my side as I made a horrible decision that hurt so many others, never turning his back. Instead, he held me as I cried.

He's still helping us put back the pieces of our lives.

I'm lucky to have found a source of love I had no idea would be so important. I found unconditional love in a six-pound ball of fur (a guinea pig) and in a half-ton ball of fur (a horse).

Both of these animals came into my life in very unexpected ways, but without them I would be lost.

The guinea pig is the only reason I keep waking up and getting out of bed some days. My adorable guinea pig was my main comfort as my Mum died.

The horse was abused before he ended up at the barn where I work. I am the only one he trusts completely, which took months and months of careful work to gain.

Now, when I start to have a negative moment or feel that I don't even deserve sun anymore, I go see him. I just rest on his back and everything is okay again. He is my support and keeps me on a straight path.

I'm also lucky to have the love of my college girl (we have been through hell and back together), my other college friends, a guy I met two years ago, a barn full of people who took me in as their own, families of friends who I know are always here for me, and most of all, my best friend.

We've been friends for eight years now, and we've never failed to be there for each other. She held my hand as I cried, and I held her when she came from across the nation in time to say goodbye to my Mum. Her family is mine and mine is hers and nothing can change this.

I'm lucky to still feel love. I've done terrible things in my life; things I don't think I deserve forgiveness for, but I still love all of those I hurt and wish them the best.

I'm also lucky to have my Dad. Wherever he is, I know I'm safe and loved no matter what.

So this year, I will focus on what I do have in my life. I focus on the love I have shared with some and the love I still share with others. Life might not be what I hoped it would be, and everything might still feel like it's one breath away from collapsing, but I am loved unconditionally, and I love back with the same force.

I might have given up the fight, feeling for the first time not at war with two lovely women I have hurt, but I still have love.

This is the love that my Mum raised me with; it can never be taken away from me.

Spotlight Series: Tribute

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 08:00:00 -0600

Each month, The Band is choosing to focus our spotlight on a particular subject.

This February, we're focusing upon "hearts." Do you have a heart defect? Has a heart problem affected you? We want to hear more about your hearts and the hearts you love, The Band. Please send us any and all stories you have about hearts, heart defects, heart problems, heart disease, well, anything!This month, we're throwing the spotlight squarely upon hearts, one of the most important parts of our bodies.

What's your story?

To know her was to love her.

Although I have several nieces and nephews on my husband's side of the family, on March 22nd, 2011, my sister gave birth to the first niece I was related to by blood, Delaney Rose.

I was a very proud Aunt.

Four days after Delaney Rose was born, my family of four traveled across the state to meet our niece/cousin for the first time.

I could hardly contain my excitement! My girls were also excited to meet and hold another baby cousin.

Delaney was wide awake for the first couple hours we visited; she looked directly into our eyes and I felt in my heart that she was an old soul. The depth of emotions in such a new life was surreal.

A few hours after we arrived, Delaney fell asleep on my husband's chest.

As we left my sister's home that day, we felt so lucky that we could spend those hours together. Little did we know that day was the only time we would have with the sweet, bright baby girl we knew.

That phenomenal day left a baby-sized hand print on my heart I will always carry with me, just like the day I experienced connecting with my baby nephew 8 1/2 years ago.

Three weeks later, Delaney went into cardiac arrest due to three (two undetected) defects in her heart and suffered massive brain damage.

After ten days in the NICU, Delaney was released from the hospital and placed on home-care hospice. There was nothing more the hospital could do for my niece. Among so many other challenges, Delaney could not suck, spit-up, swallow, see, or hear. My sister and brother-in-law's life changed dramatically.

We had no idea what the next week, month, or even the next day would bring, but my little niece didn't give up without a fight.

In light of my sister and brother-in-law calling each other by their first initials, I started calling my niece "Tenacious D." Yes, I'm a big fan of the band, but my niece fit this nickname so perfectly, it was indeed a tribute in more ways that one.

Over the next eight months, my niece taught us just how extraordinary the gift of tenacity could be, as well as the importance of:

love

health

patience

strength

empathy

kindness

peace

friendship

family

community

and embracing every moment of life we have with our whole heart.

On January 15th, our little Tenacious D's fight on earth ended.

As tragic as this situation is, Delaney touched the lives of so many people over her short life. I truly believe that my niece has been given the most radiant wings as she is greeted by angels, young and old, I already know are in heaven.

My little Tenacious D will always remain a part of my soul and in my heart. Delaney's life will be a constant reminder to embrace my own children as well as the people I love: family, old friends, new friends and even people I never would've known without my niece - a little tighter.

I hope my niece's short life can inspire you to do the same.

Peace.

You Will Not Know Peace - I Can't Fix You: I Am Broken

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 16:00:00 -0600

I’ve tried to write this so many times. There are at least three handwritten versions in notebooks that have never made it to the laptop. I sometimes wish that I blogged anonymously because while this is my story to tell, it’s also my mother’s story.

I’ve spent my life obeying her order: "don’t tell." What Mom is referring to is the constant, endless fighting between my parents, and that dad’s an alcoholic. He's now twenty-eight years sober.

Growing up, we had two states of existence in our house: all-out-war or tense, terrifying silence. I grew up anxious and afraid. In addition to, or perhaps because of this, Mom suffers from anxiety and depression. Ask my grandmother, and she'll say Mom wasn’t always like this. Ask Mom and she'll say she was. I was born when she was thirty-nine, so I only have those years to go on.

I have a strong personality - I’m a doer and a fixer. You know how they say sometimes you just need to sit, listen and not offer any advice? I can’t do that - I physically can’t manage it. I want to help. I need to make things better. I’m a control freak.

I sat drowning in my own tears yesterday as I watched the Fixing Alice video on The Bloggess’s website. The words “You will know peace,” were my undoing. I've long suspected that Mom will only know peace once she’s gone from this earth, but she’s so afraid of dying that I don't know she'll have a peaceful death.

I’m almost forty, and I’ve spent my whole life trying to make Mom better. She made me her confidant, telling me things I’m sure young children shouldn’t hear: Dad drank whole paychecks away, my brother begged her just to keep walking and not go home.

On more than one occasion, she told me that by the time I came along, abortion was legal so she didn’t have to have me. I’ve never quite known what to do with that knowledge: Am I supposed to feel guilty for my existence? I am a “happy” accident. My brother was two years from graduating high school when I was born. I don’t know the answers, but I do know that no child should ever have to ponder it.

Mom’s anxiety manifested as being incredibly overprotective of both of her children. She didn’t want us out after school, so we couldn't join clubs or be on the newspaper or stop for sodas after school. If you weren’t in the door every day at the same time, it sent her into fits of anxiety. As an adult, I often wonder if that was more a way to exert control than real and actual worry. Maybe it was both, but in our world you defaulted to Mom’s wishes lest you upset her and make her worry.

It breaks my heart that I’m quite sure I’ve never seen her smile or have a moment of genuine happiness. Every day occurrences send her to pieces. During snowstorms or big rain storms, she paces the house running up and down the basement steps watching, waiting for the chimney to leak or the basement to get water in it. She has to check the backyard drain before and during rain storms for fear the yard will flood.

The older she gets, the worse the depression gets. She has, on several occasions over the years, talked about just taking her bottle of pills and ending it.

I’ve begged her to change medications because what she's been taking no longer works. I’ve tried talking to her doctor, but due to HIPAA, she’s not allowed to talk to me without Mom’s consent. I’ve tried to get the rest of the family to intervene; to tell her that if she doesn’t see a psychiatrist, we won’t help her, but they were not on board. I went with her the one and only time she went to the psychiatrist because her doctor wasn’t going to prescribe to her if she didn’t go. Mom went once and never again, and her doctor didn’t stick to her ultimatum.

The anxiety is so bad that, for the last twenty years, her head shakes constantly. It’s not a tremor; it’s actually her head shaking with anxiety. The depression is so bad that I can’t remember the last time that our daily phone conversations didn’t end with her too choked up with tears to say goodbye. Physically and mentally, she is never still. The fact of the matter is Mom will never know peace, and I don’t know how to be okay with that.

I’m tired. I’ve had my own battles over the last year and a half: cancer, four surgeries with the fifth scheduled for next week, endless doctor appointments, endless uncertainty. There are days when I’m barely keeping my head above water, but each morning I feign happiness and peacefulness, and I tell Mom I’m okay because to do otherwise would upset her.

In my life, I’ve never had a Mom to tell my troubles, because seeing one of us upset further upsets her, so I end up consoling her about my problems. The year of my wedding, she had a nervous breakdown and told my grandmother that I may as well be dead because I was gone from her life. I live twenty minutes away from her, I call home everyday.

I’m older now and gearing up for the hysterics is more exhausting, God forgive me. There are days I don’t want to pick up the phone when Mom calls, but then I know a) there will come a time when I’ll wish desperately to talk to her again, and b) she’ll call repeatedly and frantically for fear something has happened to me.

At family events, we spend our time making sure she’s happy, looking over at her strained face. Worrying how to make the experience more enjoyable for her and never succeeding. I’m the one she looks to to make things okay, and I just can’t. I never could make things better, and now that Mom’s almost eighty and still refusing to change medications or talk to a psychiatrist, the realization that I will never be able to make Mom better leaves me feeling defeated and bitter. I couldn’t make Mom better with good grades or by being obedient. I couldn’t make her better by giving up a social life and the freedom to lolly-gag so she wouldn’t worry.

I refused to give up a married life to keep her company, and she made sure I knew she was miserable and that I was selfish for choosing my own happiness. I can’t make her better, and she refuses to help herself.

And here I sit at this keyboard angry, bitter, tired and broken.