Momma May Be Mad

A Little Bit Gangsta

2012-01-17T15:00:00.000-08:00

January 17, 2012

Neville Bardos. That name might not mean anything to you, but he made the front page of The New York Times this week. The name of an Australian gangster. Only he’s a horse. A miraculous horse who has made an impossiblecomeback from near-certain death (almost fatally killed in a stable fire) a fewmonths ago to win the title of International Horse of the Year this week. As a writer, I am always attuned to the waysin which the stories of others—humans and non-humans alike—can show, bymetaphor, analogy, or plainspoken example, the ways to contend with suffering,to act courageously, to love without conditions, to forgive withoutresentments, to reveal the unbridled (to stick with the equestrian theme) forceof Spirit harnessed (giddy up!) with Will to Survive and Thrive.

Thus, I have been thinking a lot about NevilleBardos. It is also fortuitous thatNeville also happens to be my maiden name, so his comeback story seemsnecessarily yoked to mine. But thenagain, I’m a writer and as such, am compelled to create meaningful narrativesout of the random coincidences of living—that is the essential design ofplot. To make the ways in which theseweird connections bump up against each other significant.

Neville Bardos the Gangster Horse meet NevilleBakken the Mad Momma

Neville Bardos’ story is that of two redemptions (to use a favorite word ofDr. B.’s). He originally started off asa not-so-successful thoroughbred racehorse in Australia who was at auction,destined for dog food at the slaughterhouse until Boyd Martin, a competitiveEquestrian Eventer bought him for the grand sum of $850. Yes, you read that right. Martin saw something in Neville—beneath hisfailure as a young racehorse--that would make him a superstar at Eventing, theequivalent of an equine Triathlon: horses compete in a cross-country obstaclecourse, show-jumping, and dressage. Ittakes years of complex training to get one horse competitive in all three areas. Five years after Martin purchased Neville, hestarted winning titles, and in 2010, he was a top finisher among Americanhorses in the World Equestrian Games which meant he was well on his way to the2012 Olympics.

Then on May 31, 2011 at 12:30 a.m., Martin receiveda call that his barn was on fire. Several horses died, Neville survived, barely, and was taken to anemergency facility at The University of Pennsylvania where he was treated forburns on his body, but more significantly, placed for treatments in ahyperbaric oxygen tank as his entire open airway was burnt. A breathing tube was inserted into hisnose. Martin abandoned hope that Nevillewould ever compete again. As he says inthe Times interview, “We were happy he was alive,” and assumed his horse wasfated for a life of grazing. Neville returned back to the farm for rehab, spendingtime grazing, but as his handlers describe, getting “anxious,” pushing formore, demanding more, so they began short workouts. Within three months of the fire and hisnear-life-ending injuries, Neville placed 7^th at the Burghley HorseTrials in England, one of the world’s most prestigious equestrian events.

For some reason, LLCool J’s 1990’s “Mama Said Knock You Out,” has just strangely, andsurrealistically come to mind—maybe it’s the background beat? Maybe it’s the Rocky-esque parallel I want todraw with Neville? Neville Bardos’Australian Gangsta M-Fucker self looking Death in the eye, looking his handlersin the eye who wanted to say , “Take it gently,” but knowing that ChampionsTake IT (and I’m speaking of IT, my IT here, too) On at Full Force? So LL seems just right (If you can, try tosing it. Or better yet, YouTube it forfull effect):

Don't call it a comeback
I've been here for years
Rockin my peers and puttin suckas in fear
Makin the tears rain down like a MONsoon
Listen to the bass go BOOM
Explosion overpowerin
Over the competition I'm towerin
Wreckin shop when I drop these lyrics that'll make you call the cops
Don't you dare stare, you betta move
Don't you ever compare
Me to the rest that'll all get sliced and diced
Competition's payin the price
CHORUS:
I'm gonna knock you out! HUUUH!!!
Mama said knock you out! HUUUH!!!

I think I need to download this song to my Ipod. Lately, I've been feeling a bit put out to pasture, a little less Gangsta, a little more headed for slaughter. It's been a rough, debilitating few months. Somehow, I've managed to contract a bizarre parasite: Dientamoeba fragilis. Sounds like a lovely, exotic nosegay, something to pin to the lapel? The experts aren't sure how I picked this up, as it's associated with pig and ape contact. For months, though, everyone assumed I wasn't following my meal plan as I was vascillating between gaining weight and losing weight (an assumption that I can understand given my usual MO). For months, I've been plagued (Ha!Ha! Literally!) with intense pain after eating, and all the symptoms associated with Irritable Bowel or Colitis, so eating has become an anxious, difficult process. Lots of tests, including an Endoscopy/Colonoscopy, all negative, but then my doctor discovered that my body wasn't absorbing fat (hence my inability to gain/maintain weight), and then, like some episode of House, I was tested for parasites, and low and behold, Bingo! Dientamoeba fragilis, which accounts for nearly all my symptoms.

Unfortunately, the cure, the antibiotic Flagyl, is as wretched as the nasty, wormy buggers colonizing my insides. For the past two weeks, I've pretty much wanted to crawl into my own worm hole and die. Round the clock nausea and headaches and what feels like melodramatic taking to my bed and couch at all times of the day with extreme fatigue. What the worst of my hangovers used to feel like in college only I don't have the hazy-memory-of-the-fun-I-may-have-had-dancing-on-the-bar-the-night-before-to-console-me. And piled on top of feeling like utter and complete shit, like an incapacitated invalid, I feel guilty for feeling so sick--unable to summon up the energy for my kids, unable to summon of the energy for my husband (What does he come home to? His wife on the couch, moaning, ready to vomit at all hours of the day, gurgling stomach and rancid flatulance (Thank You! Dientamoeba flagilis and Flagyl at war), pasty face, UTI infection caused by the Flagyl. I feel like one of those gout-ridden, Rennaissance English kings, swollen-toed, splayed across his throne, belching and bemoaning his fetid self.)

And on top of this, mania escalated, so sleeplessness and irritability, so an increase in my mood stabilizer. And on top of that, a few hours last week in the ER because I thought I had a hernia, but it just turned out to be a severe muscle strain due to a chronic cough I can't shake, and on top of that, my daughter getting over pneumonia, and on top of that, we just found out from her chest x-ray she might have an issue with her heart, and on top of that, my son puked mac 'n cheese all over (my) bed again last night because we've forgotten to give him his acid reflux med the past couple of days because of the pile ups of all the "on top of that's."

Is this kvetching? Sounds like it to me. This is me at the mercy of IT, throwing my hands up in despair, defeat, and exhaustion. Okay, yes, I'm allowed to be exhausted. Anyone would be with all of these "on top of that's" coming at once. The war between parasites and Flagyl has been lengthy and exacts collateral damage, so I should give myself a break. As my husband says, "I give you permission to take it easy on yourself. You can take a nap, you know." Only I don't "know," not really, not in Gulity-Punishing-Kerry World. But of course, I broke my arm all those years ago testing out the theory that I was Wonder Woman and discovered I was NOT Wonder Woman.

But I am Neville Bakken the HorseWoman, if not Neville Bardos the Horse. But like Neville Bardos, who was redeemed once by his owner for $850, on pure discerning speculation that there was that something waiting in him that would make him a champion in the most grueling, the most challenging of Equestrian Events (and Martin gambled right!), he was redeemed a second time by whatever Spirit (yes, a deliberate use of capitalization) moved through him, pushing him from a life finished out in passive pasture (To graze or not to graze? That is the question!) to a life of flying again over fences, of feeling his lungs expand with air, of feeling his heart thrum against his chest, of feeling his sense of purpose and mission return. That is Neville Bardos, gansta, taking back his territory, eyes on the prize.

So it is for me. I feel like shit. But I get my ass out of bed or off the couch. Go see Dr. B., who is a 45 minute drive (not a negligible distance when one feels like roadkill). Keep the house clean and tidy. The laundy under control. The kids in good working order. And keep eating, each meal and snack despite wanting to hurl at every bit.e And am now going to dash off to my noon AA meeting, my own hyperbaric oxygen tank.

Neville Bakken. A Little Bit Gangsta. I'm Gonna Knock You Out. HUUUH!

Pink Snowpants and The Path to Loving Kindness

2012-01-10T10:35:00.000-08:00

January 10, 2012

A bad Momma moment this morning. The usual chaotic run through of thechecklist as I was sending the kids off to school: Did you brush your teeth? Your hair? Lunches? Backpacks? Gloves? Where are your gloves? Where didyou last see your gloves? I have oneglove. Where is the other? Where is your book report book? Snowboots? Snowpants?

Okay, Alexander checked off.

Sophia, cramming her bright pink snowpants into theextra bag she needs to bring to school to fit all the extra snowgear she needsin winter, turned to me, smiling, and said, “Yesterday, for recess I lent Morgan(not her real name) my snow pants because she didn’t have any.”

Instead of complimenting my daughter on heraltruism, my anger immediately took hold. “Absolutely NOT,” I said sternly. “You do not lend your snowpants to anyone.”

Sophia looked crushed, confused. After all, haven’t her father and I beenteaching our kids that it is important to share with those less fortunate, tobe charitable, to be kind and when possible selfless? “Why not,” she demanded, her voice taking onan anger to match my own.

“You don’t share your snowpants.” Even then, in my irrational ire, I knew howridiculous that sounded, like an absurd decree from the Monarchy of Rigid,Inane Rules.

“But WHY? WHY?” Foot stomping now.

“Because they’re expensive.” When searching for some rational reason,parents can always fall back on how much things cost, right? Because I wasn’t even sure why I was so angrythat she’d lent Morgan her snowpants at that very moment, except they wereSophia’s, except that it meant that Sophia went without her snowpants forrecess and it was pretty damn cold and Sophia isn’t exactly a hurly burly girl,so that meant for the twenty-five minutes or so, she probably froze her tinybutt off.

But why? Ihad my niggling speculations, but those didn’t surface until Sophia swept upher various bags for school, and I had to re-emphasize one more time (why didI? why couldn’t I just let it go?)—“Youdon’t lend your snowpants, Sophia!”—“I KNOW!” she shouted back—and headed downstairs to the car, kicking over thedog gate—Whack! Bam!-- for her addedemphasis, angry at me.

“Don’t you want to make up with her before sheleaves?” Christopher said, grabbing the car keys.

“Not really,” I said. “I don’t like the fact that she’s thinks sheneeds to buy friends. That’s the girlthat brought her to tears the other day.” Bingo! Niggling speculation.

“I don’t think she necessarily thought that’s whatshe was doing,” Christopher said.

I shrugged. He left. They all left, leavingme to feel like shitty Momma.

Because of course he was right. I’m sure Sophia was just being Sophia, herusual big-hearted self, compassionate to all in need, whether it be kittens orpuppies or penguins or bitchy girls who treat her like a BFF one day and thenturn on her the next. She forgives andforgets. Not like me, with my steelyheart, and despite ECT and the exception of the past year’s memory wipe-out, Iremember everything, every slight, betrayal, wound, word. I’m not proud of this; I wish I could be morelike my daughter, forgiving, letting bygones be bygones, always seeing the goodheart in everyone. For instance, the otherday, she remarked, “Even murderers in jail must have something good inthem. They can’t be all bad. And I bet somebody loves them. And they must love somebody.”

Because of all I have been through, part of me wantsto toughen her up; her vulnerability to heartbreak terrifies me. Won’t her generosity be taken advantageof? i.e., the pink snowpants? Because you see, I have been studying thetrajectory of her friendship with Morgan. And yes, I understand the nature of friendship between girls at this age(9) is complicated, fraught with gossip and the intricacies of shiftingloyalties. But I also know that the socalled “minor” hurts inflicted (and if inflicted on a regular basis) by “friends”at this age, can scar you for life. Believe me, I know.

Just four days ago, Sophia received from her teachera “change-your-seat slip.” Her teachergives these out as rewards for academic success and good behavior—you can cashit in to change your seat in order to sit next to whoever you want to in theclass. (Don’t get me started on theappropriateness of such a reward and the kinds of catty tensions this mightcreate—the evidence is forthcoming). SoSophia cashes hers in and chooses to sit near her friend Morgan! Except Morgan, too, receives a slip, andquick as lightning, cashes hers in and chooses to move away from Sophia to sitnear another girl, her “newer” BFF.

When I picked Sophia up from school, she was able towalk a half a block maintaining her composure, and then broke down insobs. “When Morgan did that,” she said, “myeyes got all teary and my legs started shaking. None of my friends want to sit near me. No one likes me anymore. I don’tknow why. Why Momma?”

I just hugged her and kissed her and cried with herand kept my ball of fury contained—wishing I could have been in the classroomwith Sophia to protect her from the heartbreak of being left behind, left out,left alone. To gather her shaking bodyagainst mine, to let her cry in my arms, to let her know that I understoodbecause it happened to me—singled out, set upon, suffering for so many years
alone. But then, magically, by chance, in 6^th grade, I found my BFF:Erin. My teacher assigned our seats randomly,and we thought, initially that we hated each other—but as it turned out, we becameinseparable. Twenty-nine years later, weare still BFF’s.

What I want to tell her is all you need is theOne. The one friend who will matter themost. Who will sit by you. Stick by you. Won’t break your heart. And ifyou lend her your pink snowpants, it will be because she truly is your BFF andyou won’t get cold anyway or you don’t care if you do because she’s colder thanyou. And if she tears a hole in theknee? Then I won’t care even if they areexpensive because I can see how happy you are because when I pick you up fromschool the two of you will be whispering about some secret I can’t know but you’llboth remember and laugh about, maybe even twenty-nine years later, too.

I know when I pick Sophia up from school I willapologize to her and try to explain some of this, and of course, tell her howproud I am of her good, kind, big heart which shows me, every day, the path toloving kindness.

Opening the Gates

2011-12-29T11:36:00.000-08:00

December 29, 2011

We spent Christmas this year at my parents’ house,something we haven’t done in years. Oneafternoon, in a brief interlude of quiet sandwiched between the more general,convivial chaos, I rummaged through the living room cabinets crammed withfamily photo albums, pulling out the one I’ve often turned to when I’m home: myearly toddler years. I’m not entirelysure what it is that draws me to this particular set of photos, except thistime around, perhaps it was because it contains pictures of my second Christmaswhich seemed somehow sadly sweet in retrospect.

I sat cross-legged on the living room floor, thealbum opened in my lap, and flipped back and forth through the pages, wonderingat the distance between then and now; as usual, searching for any signs in myexpressions, any gestures that might be significant, that might be indicativeof the turmoil of what was to come. Bipolar Disorder, and now Eating Disorders, have been proven to have agenetic basis, in situ from the moment cells start dividing in the womb, soeven in that little moppet of a two-year old, the future instability wasalready germinating.

But what, really, did I expect to see in thatblack-haired, pig-tailed, white-rabbit (faux) furred kid wailing on the jolly Macy’sSanta’s lap? Was I crying because my Momand I probably waited in line for three hours for my thirty-second photo opwith the official NYC uber-Santa? Or wasI already, with some premonition of what was to come in later years, protestingthe forced smile, the looking like all’s well for the picture; fighting the manHo-ho-hoing, hands on my arms, hands on my waist, just knowing I didn’t want tobe there but knowing, too, there was nowhere else to run; or was I, like allthe other two year olds, merely scared by the stranger with the white beard,the red suit, the booming voice, the swarming minions of elves, and the brightlights? Was I, as usual, reading toomuch into nothing at all?

Next photo: My Mom and I beneath the artificial tree. This tree, for many years, was the source ofexasperation, extreme aggravation, and “Fucking shits” between my parents. Old school artificial tree. The trunk came in four separate pieces, thethirty or so limbs had to be inserted in precise ascending size order, and theorder was known by little, barely visible smudges of different colored paint onthe metal tips of each branch. And theneach limb had to have its branches unbent, fanned out, so the artificial treemight look vaguely realistic. The set-upcould take hours. It involved a stepladder and drinks of the alcoholic variety. And then strands of lights, with the one bulb that didn’t work, orrefused to blink on and off for some unknown (but dire, fire-hazardous reason)—soback and forth to the hardware store. Silver and gold garland draped just so, and boxes and boxes of ornaments(with the usual splintered balls at the bottom of the box, so off to the storeto buy more of those).

But I digress, because none of these efforts arevisible in the photo except the artificial tree towering over my Mom and me whoare seated beneath it—glamorously, I might add. My Mom is seated in a kind of side-saddle pose and I am on her lap. She looks beautiful, dressed in a long, deep V-neck,sparkly, silver dress—my parents must have been hosting a Christmas Eve partyfor that movie star number; her dark hair in a perfect 1970’s style, straight tothe shoulders and then set with curlers at the bottom in an upturn; her lipsbright red; her eyes flashing green, happy, expectant; her smile wide, herexpression direct, full-on as she gazes at the camera, at my father behind thecamera.

I am another story altogether. Cute in my Christmas outfit: a red, woolplaid jumper, white turtleneck, bare legs, my diaper (or diaper cover) peekingout between my legs, white socks edged in lace, those sensible, sturdy whitewalking shoes they used to make toddlers wear, my black hair framing my face inwaves. But unlike my Mom, I am notsmiling. Not crying this time, but myexpression seems anxious, conflicted, even though I am surrounded by a pile ofwrapped presents. It’s not like withSanta where I very clearly wanted to escape; here it seems I seem unhappy inall the happiness, in all the sparkle and glitter, in the gold garland dippingover my head, in my role as angelic cherub. Maybe it’s my skewed adult perspective looking at the gap between my Momlit up for the camera, and my apparent unease.

And then there’s the Day After photo: In a frillypink dress, an organza bow tied extravagantly around my waist, my hair in twolittle palm frond pony tails, white tights, teeny-tiny, shiny black Mary Janes,and I am beaming! Once again, under thetree, but sprawled on my belly, intently playing with my brand new Fisher PriceFarm set. The red barn, the plastic, white,picket fence surrounding me, the cow and horse grazing on the sequined treeskirt, the little pigs huddled in fluffy fake snow mounds, my hand clenching thehorse. Mine! Mine! The farm, the acres, the animals! All mine! But maybe not justabout ownership, maybe about enclosure, feeling a part of a world of my ownmaking, a world of my imagination. Butthen the comparison, again my adult self butting in, the difference between theposed world meant for public display in a frame on the mantel and the unposedworld; the difference between myself that always feels a bit lost and alone evenwhen I am with people who love me and people I love, and when I am on my own,peaceably absorbed in my internal, creative world. Of course, that has its costs—I am cut off; Iam alone; I am inside that fence.

Of course, this is just my retrospective self tryingto seek clues, any clues, from my past, however tentative, howeverspecious. A two-year old crying on Santa’slap is a perfectly normal reaction. Atwo-year old looking crabby on Christmas Eve because she’s up past her bedtimeand is tired of having to sit still for pictures because she’s amped up on Christmascookie sugar and anticipating Santa’s sleigh-load of toys. A two-year old happily playing beneath theChristmas tree with her brand new, super cool Fisher Price Farm, alone becauseher baby sister won’t be around for another two years and then she’ll be one oftwo inside that fence, sharing Cabbage Patch dolls and playing Little House onthe Prairie school, and mock church (I was the proto-Feminist priestdistributing flattened Wonder Bread communion wafers, she the willing FirstCommunioner).

And now? OurFamily Christmas photo is a smorgasbord (thanks to one of Shutterfly’s manyoptions). No souped up tree in sight, nocreepy Santa. Just the four of us,Christopher, Sophia, Alexander, and me, being, well, us. A few snapshots in Greece where we seem to beour happiest (who can resist guaranteed sunshine after eight months of grayrain and snow?). The kids munching onoversized gyros. The kids, headstogether beneath a palm tree on the beach, Alexander’s elbow in a loving chokehold around Sophia’s neck,pulling her close, all wide, giggly smiles. Alexander wrapped around me, in a monkey hug. Sophia and Christopher dressed up to thenines, on a father-daughter date.

Maybe one day, my kids will search this very same collectionof photos seeking some sign, some clue to explain some future twist and turn,to offer some glimmer of understanding. What will Sophia or Alexander see in retrospect? I don’t know. I can’t know. Just like my Momcouldn’t know then what might have been already at work in my genetic code. But she sat beneath the tree with me, tryingto make a beautiful, memorable Christmas. And my father, behind that camera. What did he see? If I imagine(and it’s my job as a writer to try to empathize with my characters, to wigglemy way inside their thoughts) what he saw through his camera? His wife and daughter, perhaps the two peoplehe loved best in the world, in a moment of NOW he wanted to capture forever.

All I know is what I know NOW. I am here, still struggling, but loved andneeded by the very same people I loveand need. My fence gates are wide openand I am no longer alone.

Jingle Bells, Hope Not Hell

2011-12-15T14:27:00.000-08:00

December 15, 2011

Are many of you like me, seized-- in theoverwhelming, often blaring joyful tidings of the Christmas season—by sadness? Sadness seems too mild a word. Melancholia—that nineteenth century conditionseems more apt, struck by black bile, paralyzed by a pensive, brooding,interior heavy-heartedness. Oh sure, onthe outside, I am zipping around the house, setting up Christmas decorations—themini-tree, with the oh-so cutesy, diminutive ornaments and blinky lights in thewindow, the garish lit-up Snowman from Big Lots eyes me from the corner of theden, the fancy pine branch, holly berry garland swagged (I read my trendy Home Décormagazines) across the mantle--wrapping presents (which I have selected withcare, precision, and utmost surety that they WILL be perfect for the recipient)at warp speed, am baking cookies, cookies, cookies for teachers, cheerfullyreading my kids Christmas books each evening about lost reindeer, puppies whofill-in for reindeer, and stray puppies who are wrapped up in red bows and heroicallysave Christmas.

But I am pulled under it all into melancholia. On Monday, home from a very contemplativeyoga class--but for some reason, I felt close to tears during the entire ninetyminutes, despairing might not be far off. I don't really know why. Mysister's family Christmas photo certainly might have had something to do withit—a picture of their happily soon-to-be expanding family. She is expecting her third child inJanuary, so looks beautifully, wondrously pregnant. My weak, sad spot. My longing for a third child a deep,unresolved, never-to-be hope. I knowthat it is impossible to have another child. I can barely hang onto stability and health with two children and I amso blessed to have my two, a miracle that I am still able to be their motherafter all I have been through, after all I have put them through. But still. A third child was part of our dream—mine and Christopher’s. Granted, a dream we have given up—but thememory of that dream still lingers.

And then the sadness over how much of my lifehas been taken from me by IT—whether through experiences and trauma and choiceor through my own luck of the genetic draw. My siblings seem to have escaped the genetic/bio-chemical encodingfuck-ups (Maybe there are some gifts with being Bipolar and genetically programedto be more likely to have an Eating disorder? Tis’ the season right?) I knowthat they have their own struggles and entanglements to contend with, but theluck of the genetic draw often leads me to despair in this season of stockingshung from the fireplace. I think back toour stockings lined up as kids: Mine, my sister’s, my brother’s. Not that I’m complaining, or railing with the “WhyMe's?”  Okay, maybe just a little. It seems my stocking got stuffed with morethan its fair share of the biologically-based DSM diagnoses. Couldn’t I have gotten more strawberry lipgloss, My Little Ponies, and Big League Chew?

And the onslaught of forced cheer whichI actively resist? I tolerate the awfulChristmas music in stores with my lips pressed (barely tolerate in the case of music sung by current pop starsunder the age of 18, or attempted angelic arias by Mariah Carey showing off herChristmas bum). I do not wear pom-pommed holidaysweaters (even ironically or in attempts to look wittily retro). I do not indulge in sentimental Christmasmovies with their easily achieved epiphanies of redemption and family healingand often proffered sparkly engagement rings.

Really, I’m not the Grinch. I enjoy finding gifts that will bemeaningful. I watch people shop inTarget or TJ Maxx, blindly throwing sweaters and scarves and body butters andgolf ball cleaners into their carts, just to check people off the lists, justto get the shopping done. Where’s thejoy in that? Maybe it speaks to myperfectionism and my obsessive-compulsiveness, but I do derive authentic pleasure infinding what I hope is the right gift for each person.

For instance, and keep this just between us, one ofSophia’s gifts this year: You know she’s an animal lover. To put it a wee bit mildly. Pittsburgh is home to the National Aviary andat the end of December they host Penguin Camp. A day she’ll spend hanging out with live penguins, feedingand caring for them. Of course, penguinsstink, literally, but she won’t mind that given the fact that she’s a girl who has noproblem whacking an octopus twenty times against a rock to tenderize it, or hanging out inthe cat room at the Humane Society which houses the litter boxes of twentycats (try that for stink!). She’ll pee her pants when sheopens the card. Really. She pees her pants when she plays with thedogs at the shelter because she gets so excited—so a day of penguin play? Thiswasn’t a gift on her list. In fact, thisisn’t even a gift she knows exists, which is the best part. A gift straight from the North Pole. Or South Pole, or wherever penguins live.

So while I’m on the subject of gifts, I have my ownto give away. One Dr. B. has asked me togive to my loved ones this Christmas. We’vebeen talking about it this week at my sessions. He’d like me, if I’m ready, to give up what he calls my hand grenade. For too long, I have been holding on to theoption of suicide, an open-ended option that I have clung to ever since I mademy first attempt at nine with that bottle of multi-colored, candy-flavored Flintstone vitamins.

Dr. B. asked me to think about and weigh the costsand benefits of holding onto and giving up my hand grenade.

It is difficult to rationally and emotionally come upwith a good reason for keeping this option right now, even as an emergency-onlyoption, as I’m sitting in front of the fire, warm under a blanket, my giant,crazy, manic Labrador Retriever, Athena, passed out beside me, head resting onmy leg, listening to the kids runningaround upstairs—they should be in bed (my bed), but aren’t, and are now runningdownstairs to find me—which they wouldn’t be able to do if I happened to choosesuicide.

So pause—back again. Sophia wanted to show me the birds she is drawing, expertly, fromPetersen’s Field Guide: a cardinal perched on a branch. She complained the wing wasn’t to size but Ithought it was ornithologically perfect. Alexander made me a Christmas card, a tree decorated in Star Warsthemed ornaments and wrapped up a key chain he made for me this past summer atcamp—a smiley face, his. How is it possiblefor me to even imagine holding onto this option in light of this? Their loveand need for me? Their creativity andgifts?

Obviously, in moments like these, there is no need. But there are other moments when I am a motherwho wreaks damage, a wife who uses up her third and fourth and, my fear of whatis to come, her last chance. If I ampresented with permanent hospitalization. If finally I am told that I have used up all my chances. If Christopher finally tells me he hasreached his end and I have damaged him and the kids in such a way that I haveto leave. Then really, there is no reason to continue because the only reason Iam fighting IT, the only reason I keep trying, can will myself to stay afloat thesedays, is because of Christopher and the kids, not for myself. If I am left alone, which is what I fear—whereI imagine this conflagration of disorders might possibly takeme—then there is no logical, possible, arguable reason for me to continue thisfight. I alone am not worth it: atleast, that is what IT continues to argue. I alone don’t matter enough to me. And because there have been many times in the past few years whereChristopher and the kids should have mattered enough to keep me on even keel—andthat hasn’t been enough? I don’t trustthat this forward progression in recovery is iron-clad. So if I collapse again—not saying I will, butif—and I know it will be the end-of-the-line for Christopher, then I need to knowthat I won’t be left to me, myself, I and IT. I can put an end to my being that hand-grenade in other people’s lives.

The benefits of giving up this option:

I suppose the primary one is the fundamental aim whichI am trying to wrestle with: that I am inherently worthy, valuable, lovable—andthat to continue to keep suicide as an emergency option undermines this workand I will never come to believe that my life is worth saving or redeeming. If I say, “No, Not Ever, I will Never Everconsider or attempt suicide again (even inside the walls of a state hospital,even if Christopher and the kids leave me), it means that what I still haveleft is hope. Hope. That four-letter word which has been such ananathema to me for so long. I had tolook up the definitions of Hope again. It’s a word that gets tossed around, its subtleties missed.

Definition of HOPE

Intransitive verb
1: to cherish a desire with anticipation

Transitive verb
2: to desire with expectation of obtainment
3: to expect with confidence: trust
4: to hope without any basis for expectingfulfillment

Def. 1: I think I’ve lost my connection to the idea of“cherishing a desire with anticipation.” I lack so few desires these days, wait with so little anticipation foranything. This version of Hope seems tied to AA’s “Promises” where they laydown what you can expect from your life if you follow AA’s plan—all the goodthings that will be given to you if you adhere to the AA WAY. It will all just be given unto you. Like a piñata’s free-fall of candy.

Okay—another pause. I’m now writing this inbed. Kids are scared, so I’m lyingbetween them, typing. Sophia curled upagainst one side of me, Alexander against the other side. A prettygood anti-grenade defense weapon.

Def. 2: I have difficulty with this definition as well. I don’t trust that I can achieve permanentstability, that the medication cocktail for the Bipolar Disorder that is working right now will work adinfinitum, that I can achieve permanent recovery from this eating disorder,that I will ever function like a normal, healthy, sexual adult woman (i.e., allpast trauma will be healed), so I have lost the ability to desire, with anyexpectation, the obtainment of anything.

Def. 3: Again, ditto. Holding onto this option of suicide prevents mefrom expecting anything with confidence. Expectation = A Future Possibility. Suicide as an option nullifies the expectation of allowing me toanticipate future possibility

Def. 4: This definition, though, is one that seems aperfect fit. Hope without any basis of fulfillment. Hope that seems to go against my distortedreason. Hope that rails against IT(which sounds, to my screwed up logic, more truthful than actual reality). Hope that says, “Even if all seems lost, evenif it might seem like suicide is the right answer to end your pain now, even ifyou believe you have caused irreparable damage to others, you can still clingto this kind of hope—the kind that doesn’t promise anything but a single,potential, barely possible, improbable turnaround. Like the planet 22-b that the Keplertelescope just discovered 600 light years away, in the “habitable zone”—thatmay be like earth, that seems like it might support conditions like those on earth,life—maybe, maybe, maybe—but really, we’ll probably never know in our lifetime.

Other benefits? That I owe it to my children to stayhere no matter what. And to Christopher.   That “in sickness and in health” pledge wasnot just about staying by his side, but my staying here, too, in my ownsickness and health.

That I won’t have any accidental attempts—i.e., not thatthey would be unintentional, but that they wouldn’t be impulsive. I know how easily I can react when my moods startslipping and sliding.

That I might be able to trust more in my own longterm recovery, seeing and planning beyond weeks and months, to years.

By extension, those who I love and those who love meback might have less anxiety and worry for me.

What has suicide-as-an-option cost me over the years?

From my first attempt at age 9 with the bottle of Flintstonevitamins until present, holding onto the option, keeping the plans tucked awayin my head for “when the time comes”—a great deal of shame, loneliness, andisolation. If I counted all the hoursup, likely years, spent ruminating inside my head—fantasizing, planning outdifferent scenarios, arguing back and forth. The ease at which self-harm leads to suicidal thinking and thenattempts—the slippery slope. The humiliation at waking up in ICU’s severaltimes—the anger, too—at having been saved. Having to deal with the anger and incomprehension and mistrust of thosewho love me in the wake of an attempt. Concealing attempts, lying about them, never talking about them—buryingthem—holding them inside of me for years and years, feeling alone with IT, allwhich only increases the likelihood that I will try again. All the evidence of practice sessions—thescars on my arms—which beckon me to follow through the next time, to make itreal, to go all the way. The humiliation of being “saved” by security officers,police officers, hospital workers—of being locked up in safe rooms, under 24hour, round-the-clock watch. Of knowinghow much I have damaged Christopher—what must it feel like to know the personyou love has chosen death over you? The merry-go-roundeffect of the obsessional thoughts—up and down and all around—IT’s voice urgingme to hurt myself, to kill myself because I am hateful, vile, damaging,terrible, a monster—all the black curtains drawn around me, all the beauty andpossibility of the world, or my life closed off.

If suicide is an option, then what does it matter ifI am hurt by others, abused by others? Just another version of the same thing—maybe I can push them far enoughto do me in in the meantime. Just likethe eating disorder—passive (or active) suicide. No need for pills or razors or knives or thecar in the garage or the car aimed at the tree. It is costing me my life already. The grenade has already gone off and shrapnel has wounded me and thosewho love me.

So Dr. B. asked me to give away this option ofsuicide as a Christmas gift to my loved ones. To tell them that I will no longer keep this in my arsenal ofweapons. That as bad as it might get—andI know how bad it can get—I will promise to see myself through to the otherside which is life. To keep living andkeep on living. To hold on to Hope (seeDef. 4).

So you won’t see this gift on the rack at TJ Maxx,or wrapped in a tidy package under the tree. And certainly, no Christmas jingle will be accompanying it. But my gift to my loved ones and to myselfthis Christmas is this promise: I will renounce my ties to suicide, surrendermy right to this option and yield to a life of Hope. My stocking hanging from the mantle, beside Christopher's, Sophia's, and Alexander's, stuffedfrom toe to top, overflowing with Hope.

In the Inimitable Words of George Michael (and His Hot Leather Pants)...

2011-12-10T14:42:00.000-08:00

December 8, 2011I apologize in advance. I'm having technical difficulties and the paragraph breaks won't work. Makes the reading a pain, I know.My husband left for Greece yesterday to hang out with snaggle-toothed farmers to learn how to make tsipouro, a rot-gut moonshine version of ouzo, the focus of his last chapter of his book on food-adventure travels in Greece. A book dedicated to the elements of the traditional Greek table: bread, beans, honey, pasta, octopus, tsipouro. Ironic considering my struggles with anorexia, purging, and alcohol. Ironic, too, that I am married to a man who savors food; who can dip his fingers in honey and taste it on his tongue; who coddles his own sourdough starter and then bakes his own loaves, one after another, as if he is some wizened crone feeding a nation; who, out of love and concern for my own continued recovery while he is abroad, in his frenzy of pre-departure packing, takes time to cook from scratch ready-to-eat meals that I can defrost: vegetable soup, spanakopita, pomodoro sauce, and ravioli. Now the challenge is to actually defrost these meals and eat them and not cave into the ascetically skimpy bowls of yogurt, blueberries, and decorative toppings of GoLean Crunch.The bigger challenge, though, of being solo-Momma is, well, being solo-Momma. This is the first time in several years that I have been left on my own with the kids sans babysitter. A babysitter left in charge of me, not the kids. Nobody has felt that I was stable enough to be left on my own. Nobody felt that I could be trusted to be left on my own. Certainly I would use the opportunity to drink or not eat or if I ate, purge all of what went into my mouth, or cut up my arms, or disintegrate into a manic-depressive mess. And that being the case, I couldn’t be left alone with my children. Or myself, for that matter.But here I am, sitting at my computer, the kids at school, an entire empty bowl of GoLean Crunch with craisins finished, have already seen my psychiatrist who said that I am looking “healthier” and seem“good,” (no small feat) and am soon going to head out to see my therapist to continue work on body image issues related to anorexia and past sexual trauma (“No kid gloves,” I told him. “I’m a big girl. I need to work through this. I want my body back even if it means diving back down into that dark, shameful, terrifying muck. And no, that doesn’t give me an excuse to not eat or cut myself, however painful. I’m stronger now. I have an obligation to live.”) Being responsible, following my plan, trying to remember that I am not listening to IT because I want my life back. No, that’s not right. I don’t think I have ever really had a life without IT. So “back” isn’t what I’m asking for. I want my freedom from IT. In the words of the ancient, esteemed, philosophical songwriter George Michael, “All we have to see, Is that I don’t belong to you. And you don’t belong to me. Freedom!” (Try to imagine me in hot leather pants belting this out. Okay, maybe not.) But I do have an obligation to stay strong while diving into the muck. Take last week for instance. My daughter and I were at the Humane Society doing our volunteer work, which involves cuddling kittens and romping with dogs. There's a boy, I'll call Ben, who volunteers in the same hour as us, one year older than Sophia. He is terrified of dogs, so only works in the cat room. He's funny, quirky, and adorable--a mop of blonde hair, big blue eyes, and has strong opinions about the way we should be handling cats. He often takes offense at the way Sophia mishandles--manhandles--the kittens; to be fair, she's often a bit rough and tumble with them out of her exuberance; her joyful volume tends to scare them and her running pellmell around the room makes them take cover.Ben usually plays with the older cats, the ones that have been abandoned because they're "unwanted." He gets pissed off when potential adopters come into the room and only want to look at the kittens, cooing at the fluffballs. "Don't they know that the older cats need homes? Don't they know how long they've been waiting in these cages, that they need love, too?" He glares at these people, shakes his head at me. I shake my head back in solidarity. It's funny. Ben has taken a liking to me: he sits beside me on the bench with one of the adult cats in his lap, stroking it, chattering away about his week in school, about his little brother's pain-in-the-assness, about the book he's reading. But last week, nonchalantly, he said, "Kids at school think I'm weird because I only like cats and not dogs. They call me gay." he whispered the word "gay," looking off at the cats in the cages as he said it."That's stupid," I said. "Some people are dog people and some people are cat people."He shrugged. "I just like cats. But they think that's gay. And they call me gay because I don't like hunting. We live out near the woods. I like that. I get to watch the deer. But I would never want to kill them. I like to look at them, you know? But my friends, they go out hunting with their dads and shoot them. So they call me gay. And video games. I like video games, there's this one I want for Christmas, but I don't like the violent kinds. So they call me gay for that, too. But I don't care. Really, I don't."His face remained placid throughout all of this, but I could tell he did care. It must be a running theme for him and perhaps a question he struggled with. On the cusp of adolescence. Hormones. Sex. Does loving animals, cats in particular, make me gay? Does not wanting to kill animals, in this macho, back woods corner of Western Pennsylvania, where you actually get a day off from school, a holiday called Deer Day, to go hunting, make me gay? Does not wanting to kill people on video games with sub-machine guns make me gay? Maybe I am gay? I read books--am I gay? I volunteer at the animal shelter and pet cats--am I gay? You're a nice mom and I can talk to you and you seem like you don't want to kill animals or people--could you tell me if I'm gay or not?"You know, Ben, these friends who call you names? Don't listen to them. I know that's easier said than done. But they really don't matter. There's a bigger world out there waiting for you--filled with people who love cats and don't kill animals. Maybe you'll grow up to be a wildlife biologist--study animals in their natural habitat, like deer out in the woods. You are who you are and that doesn't make you gay. It just means you like cats and not dogs. That you like deer alive and not dead. So what? You just happen to live, for now, in a town where a lot of guys like their dogs and like to shoot deer, and like to bring their dogs along when they shoot deer. If cats make you happy, that's all that matters. Besides, I think you're pretty cool."I felt like the Inept Caring Adult on an after-school special. But I wanted him to know that his small town and the small town idiots in it weren't the sum total of the entire world. And I wanted him to know, too, by my "so whatness" to his gay possibility that being gay was okay, too, and that in some parts of the world, being gay was okay, too. I'm not sure I did a very good job at any of it.Ben sighed. "I hate turkey leftovers. My mom's making turkey tetrazzini tonight. I HATE turkey tetrazzini. I begged her to let me use my own money to buy a sub but she said 'No.'" And then he got up, put the cat back in its cage and reached for another.But this is why I have to stay strong. To be around for conversations like this. Maybe Ben can't talk to his mom about being teased for being gay or liking "gay" things. I'm pretty sure he can't talk to his dad about it. Maybe Ben felt safe talking to me because he recognized for some reason that I have--okay, sorry for the saccharine phrasing here--an open mind and heart. Or maybe in listening to Sophia speak her mind on any number of subjects--people who mistreat animals, girls who talk behind her back, the absolute, nonnegotiable coolness of her Chinese water dragon, the fact that she can belch freely like a sailor (though excuses herself like a lady)--maybe he understood that she lives in a home that promotes tolerance, values self-assertion, and believes in freely expressing who you are meant to be--maybe he felt that I would be able to listen to him. I don't know. I just know that it was necessary for me TO BE THERE AT THAT MOMENT, to be able to listen to him, to hear him, to offer him my ear. That is part of my purpose in staying alive. And if that is what I can offer a boy who is not even my own? By extension, I know what I can and must offer to my own children as they navigate the difficulties in becoming who they are meant to be in the years to come. they need me to be on that bench listening to them.So while Christopher is away, Momma will stay on the right and true path. Minus the hot leather pants. Those I'll save for when Christopher returns.

Secret Garden in a Box

2011-11-29T19:51:00.001-08:00

November 29, 2011

For some unknown reason, while lying in shavasana(rest pose) in yoga class this morning, with the rain drumming on the streetoutside and washing down the enormous arched windows, a memory from childhoodsurfaced. My mother was (and still is)an avid gardener. When we lived in ourattached Tudor rowhouse in Queens, she’d diligently plant dozens of flats of sunnymarigolds, red impatiens, and white begonias along the borders of clippeddecorative bushes that rimmed the front of the house and lined the beds ofpachysandra that scalloped the side of the house with flaming celosia. She filled planters with purple petunias andhappy-faced pansies and created her own hanging baskets with geraniums thatseemed to explode like fireworks. In thealleyway out back, there was a narrow strip of soil along the fence line whereshe planted tomatoes and cucumbers which were staked and labeled or grew in tangledvines along the ground.

Let me makeone thing clear. My mother is not theback-to-the-earth sort. She is a PhD’edprofessor of nursing who enjoys her bi-weekly manicure, her Starbucks, and now,in her suburban Colonial on a cul-de-sac, the landscapers who come each week tomaintain the yard. But she stilladamantly is the flower gardener. It isher escape, her retreat, bringing her, I believe, a sense of fulfillment andaccomplishment: she can sit on her patio and look out over her garden with acup of coffee in the mornings or the afternoon with the latest issue of Oprah and admire both the order of colorand the variety of flowerings and know that it was by her hand alone that itlooks so beautiful, like something out of Homeand Garden. This is in contrast toso many of the flowering tableaus at the homes surrounding hers, planted andmaintained by hired landscapers, contract workers, who are told what to plantand where to plant it, or who are shown a page from a magazine and told merely “tomake it look like this.”

But I truly digress because this is not what I wasthinking about while lying on my back, eyes closed, listening to the rain. What I was remembering were the many trips mymother and I made to Garden World, a vast gardening pantheon, a precursor toHome Depot that stocked all possible necessities for the home gardener: seeds,flowers, mulch, tools. But moreimportantly, and this was why I never protested going on the hours longexcursions as a kid (because I am not,let me reiterate, am not a gardenerin any way, shape or form), a greenhouse of exotic flowers--orchids, Venusflytraps, Birds of Paradise, cacti—and an entire room of fake flowers. (Of course, once I hit the cranky, hormonal,I-have-better-things-to-do-with-my-time years of adolescence, I refused to gowith her to spend hours debating this flat of pink petunias over that flat ofmore pink petunias; but in the age range of seven to eleven, I eagerly hoppedinto the station wagon.)

This was in thelate seventies and early eighties, a time when my mom didn’t worry aboutletting me wander the vast aisles of Garden World on my own. So she’d go off with her red wagon and I’ddilly dally first into the greenhouse to marvel at the exotic plants, run myfingertips over the cacti spines, draw a prick of blood; tease a Venus flytrapwith my forefinger; imagine the Bird of Paradise in my bedroom, beside my bed,its strange, magical orange flower taking flight over me in my sleep; hoverover the frangipani tree, breathing in its sweetness, realizing all those yardflowers—the impatiens, the petunias, the begonias smelled really, like nothingin comparison. The frangipani flowersmelled like the other side of the world, like adventure, like some secret,sweet spot deep inside of me that I had yet to discover.

And then I skulked off to the fake flowers. Racks and racks of expensive silkblooms. Cheaper, rigid plasticsprays. Ropes of ivy and weird featheryboas. But I wasn’t there merely toadmire the tempting ersatz flora; I was on a predetermined mission: to stealthe fake blossoms. New ones, if possible,each time. I drifted up and down theaisles, past clusters of velvet roses, frosted grape garlands, silky turquoisetulips and clutches of purple calla lilies, until I spied what I did not yethave: a poinsettia bloom misted in glittery silver and metallic blue; a sprayof Chinese lantern in dazzling orange; a stargazer lily with its six tongues ofpink. Quickly, I snapped the chosen bloomfrom the stem and tucked it into my coat pocket, then jotted down its name in asmall memo pad I kept in the same pocket for that exact purpose. The list was suspiciously, gloriously,thrillingly long. Who would ever suspectme of shoplifting a simple flower? Andif caught, couldn’t I claim I was just helping out, doing what I’d seen mymother doing every afternoon in her own garden, deadheading the wilted, thedying, thinning the herd, so to speak?

Eventually, I met up with my mom and her overloadedred wagon at the cash register and we drove home. I immediately raced upstairs to my bedroom,pulled my wooden box from under my bed (a horse engraved on the top), andopened it. Inside, twenty, maybe thirtysilk flowers, heads only, an explosion of colors and shapes and textures. A world’s offering of floral possibilitiescrammed into a teeny tiny box under my bed. My secret, sweet spot. Impossiblebedfellows: African violet with Bird of Paradise with cosmos with iris withhibiscus with lunaria with dahlia with peony with larkspur with pussy willowwith anemones with ranunculus with lilac with stargazer. I sat cross-legged, counting them out one byone (of course, there were some repeats, but who cared? ), trying to match themup with the scrawled names in the memo book, and then dropped them in the emptybowl of my lap, filling that space between my crossed legs—a fantastical gardenof my own making. Maybe I’d momentarilydream of being Mary in the real SecretGarden unveiling, with the rehabilitated Colin Craven, all that resurrectedrose-arbored loveliness to Archibald Craven. Or dream of my wedding bouquet, a cascade of roses—though at the time, Icouldn’t dream of any accompanying boy loving me enough to marry me.

Mine,I’d whisper. All mine. I wasn’t exactlysure what I meant by that, if I meant anything more than mine by the sheer factof my taking, my stealing. But I felt astrange embarrassment, a shameful self-consciousness in trying to imaginesomething MORE, something beautiful, something secretly, meaningfully mine inthe making--as if IT was already staking a claim: Silly, stupid girl. Just a bunchof fake flowers. Plundered heads. But there they were, all those beautiful,impossible bedfellows gathered together in my lap, in my very own dreamgarden. Star of Bethlehem. Bird of Paradise. Stargazer.

And then I’d hear voices downstairs, footstepscoming upstairs, so I’d cram the flowers back in the box, and shove the boxback under the bed. And shove IT away,too, for a few more years, a few, very few more years. That secret garden in a box was mine, allmine.

And then shavasana was over, and the memory driftedaway, and I opened my eyes and sat up in sukhasana. Cross-legged, once again my lap an emptybowl. But not empty. My impossible garden is full of wild,extraordinary blooms: my life rehabilitated; my recovery resurrected; a boy wholoves me enough not only to marry me, but to love me through all of IT and beyond;my daughter with her own secret box filled with secret dreams under her bed;and my son who has staked his claim in my heart, whispering his “I love you’s”to me day and night.

Look Into My Crystal Ball

2011-11-20T16:29:00.001-08:00

Dr. B's Assignment Part 2:

10 years into the future, what would I say to me now?

A harder assignment. No retrospective knowledge to work with, no failures or humiliations to rehash, no do-overs to imaginatively do-over. Retrospectively project knowledge I have yet to gain.

IT’s voice is loud and clear on this one: Idiot,wasting everyone’s time on you. All the chances they kept giving you, and you justfucking up over and over. Not to mentiona decade of your young, attractive, real-life-professional-life building "life"down the tubes. How could you have beenso stupid? And see how you’ve damagedyour kids? See how you’ve exhausted yourhusband? See all the fallout from allyour various mental “ills”? You are asham of a wife, mother—all the exuberant dreams, all your naïve ambitions havejust turned you into a washed up, Social Security Disability reliant hag. Why you ever believed all those people whotold you to hang on to hope? I’ll never know why.

Okay. Time toturn off IT. But that’s IT’s crystalball voice.

Excise IT with a state-of-the-art krypton laser.

10 years from now: Here I am, 49 and Christopher has stuck it out withme because he loves me. Sophia is 19 and Alexander is 16 and they are thriving—Ihave not ruined their lives; they are not swirling in my black tar, but are normal maladjusted teenagers. We all lookout for each other, have helped each other through the various stumbles andpitfalls and, likewise, have leapt over the fences together. No, not all hearts and flowers and holding hands at the dinner table, but our summers in Greece and evenings slinging pies together at our outdoor pizza oven help. Oh, and the fact that we don't lie to our kids and our kids generally feel like they can tell us the truth--even if it means they were smoking pot with friends down by the lake or that it's time to go on the Pill--that helps, too.

What I would say, free and clear of ITs butting in? It’s worth the fight. Your 40^th year can be a turningpoint (though don’t get too heavy-handed symbolic with that milestone—don’t put all theperfectionistic pressure of recovery on that equator year). You will learn to manage the storms; takeshelter when needed, have the emergency kit at hand if needed, though you willnot need it as often as you think. Sometimes, when the waves kick up, when the waves aren’t in the red zone, theywill even be surfable. Yes, you will take up surfing because you might not be inMeadville for much longer. You might be living on some sun-drenched coast with your family,small cottage on a cliff, you and Christopher teaching in a graduate Creative Writingprogram. You thought you’d neverteach again? Never say never. You’re teaching again because you finishedthat novel you started in your 40^th year, and because you stuck totruth, because you stuck to that "Fuck It and Be Real" voice and put yourself out there, thenovel meant something to a lot of people—people thatmatter in the literary world, but people that really matter, too--people out there, like you, people who are struggling with IT, people who are lonely, people who feel ashamed, people like you who believe that if they can find a glimmer of themselves in someone else's story, they might not feel so alone.

So don’t imagine that at 49, you are some washed up,on-the-verge-of-psychotic hag rummaging in dumpsters. You areloved.

But you are also loved at 39. Right now at 39, imperfect as you are andshould be. Trying to be real. Trying to be real in getting to be real. Trying to become who you really are.

Trying to remember the five year old girl whothought she was Wonder Woman and vaulted from the top of the staircase (okay andbroke her arm trying)—but who believed she had superpowers hidden inside of her.

Trying to remember the girl who believed shecould ride horses before she ever rode a horse—who checked our horseback ridingbooks by the armful from the library, memorized them—and every night, imaginedriding horses to get to sleep, to quiet anxiety, to soothe loneliness—so when,at age 9, she rode her first horse, the instructor said, “You seem like you’vebeen riding for years! You’re anatural!”

Trying to remember the girltalked to her best friend Erin for hours on the telephone about everything (What does a penis look like? Was my pimple that noticeable? I'll never get boobs! He dumped me in a fucking note.) andnothing (Should I wear the purple sweater or the blue one tomorrow? Did you finish your Chem homework? I love Eddie and the Cruisers!) after school every day for 6 years straight.

Trying to remember the now-almost woman who,despite being inside the hell of an abusive relationship, managed to write asenior honors thesis for college, a very long 80 page short story about a woman whosehusband suffers from early onset Alzheimer’s, a story about her loneliness, about herlove for him, yet I knew nothing about Alzheimer’s, but took risks withimagination and empathy and was told by my writing professor (mentor/surrogate father/writing idol), "Sit down, Kerry. I have some bad news: You're a writer."

Trying toremember the woman who moved clear across to Texas, who started her own life,who fell in love with a man who was kind andcaring and loving and loved her back.

Trying to remember the woman who loved what happened as her body grewand grew in pregnancy, who felt those miraculous kicks and jabs of her children growing inside of her body--her body giving life, instead of a body turning its back on life.

And now once again, taking risks. Trying to have integrity again. Trying to be honest.

If you stay on this path of recovery, you can stayon the path to recovery. Sounds simple,and it is ultimately simple. Your lifecan be much less complicated. Yield tothose who can help, to those who have been there and have achieved some measureof recovery. Allow you stubborn-assed self to follow at least some of their path.

Your life can be fulfilling without being overfilled with achievements. Enough can be good enough: a marriage thatlasts, children who you have seen through the tumultuous years of theiradolescence. You have made it throughyour 40's, a decade which has looked nothing like your 30's, filled with hopeand serenity because you have yielded to balance, because you have accepted thefact of your diagnosis which has placed some limitations on the"everything-all-at-once" that you thought you could do, because youunderstood that trying to be perfect at everything-all-at-once meant completean utter collapse.

You have also yielded to and accepted a realbody: one that isn't built upon rigidity, one that isn't controled by negationand starvation, one that isn't confined to bones and hollows, but is allowed tobe--to feel hunger and feed its hungers; one that has wants and needs andcan satiate its wants and needs; one that feels desire and isn't ashamed tofeel desire and can satisfy those desires; one that can revel in pleasure; onethat can enjoy the touch of her husband's hands, his body with hers, their bodiestogether--mutual desires satisfied. Abody that can yield to natural appetites of all varieties: biological,emotional, sexual, spiritual.

You believethat your place is in this world, that you belong here, with family andfriends, that you can accept and feel their love, that you are worthy of theirlove. Simultaneously, that your love doesn't damage anyone, that they need yourlove, too--that they rely on you staying alive, being here every day andnight. Your life, your being alive fromone day to the next is a given. Atnight, when you have difficulty sleeping, you no longer fantasize aboutsuicide, but about family vacations to a wildlife preserve in South Africa, orwalking along the beach with Christopher and Athena (who is now an old, calmdog, though still leaping for Frisbees in the surf), the serenity interrupted by phone calls (or texts) from the kids, or tallying up all thethings that you are grateful for that day, that moment: recovery, sobriety, hope, authenticity, integrity, your life NOW.

Hindsight Is 20/20

2011-11-15T07:05:00.001-08:00

November 15, 2011

"Of all the forms of wisdom, hindsight is by general consent the least merciful, the most unforgiving."

JOHN FLETCHER, intro, Jean-Claude Favez's Holocaust

Dr. B. recently gave me this assignment which I thought I'd share and would encourage you to attempt for yourself. No easy task, because I couldn't dodge the hard truths, but well worth the the honest appraisal.

Whatwould I say to myself 10 years in the past?

10 years ago would make me 29 and one month into mypregnancy with Sophia. Most of the previous year, I dashed between MercyhurstCollege and Allegheny College adjunct teaching, careening between mania anddesperate, catatonic depression—crying jags on the couch, burying myself underblankets in the dark months of Meadville’s winter. This continued a pattern that I suffered formost of my life—a few reprieves for a couple months here and there—most of themfloating on romantic highs with Christopher, or professional highs having to dowith my writing life and accolades received from “big-time” writers who admiredmy work, or chose my work for publication, or teaching awards I’d receivedwhile in graduate school.

Several months earlier, before getting pregnant, Iwould have been given the Bipolar diagnosis by a rather hapless localpsychiatrist who spent a grand total of 45 minutes with me and put me on acombination of Zoloft and Depakote, neither of which seemed to do muchgood. Of course, I had to drop all medsonce I got pregnant—and did so without any medical consultation—probably notthe smartest idea, but that pregnancy was, mental health-wise, relativelystable, since I seemed to float on a hormonal high (not to mention all theWinnie-the-Pooh onesies and French Provencal crib bedding I was manicallybuying)—surely I would be the BEST mother; surely I could achieve the perfectbalance between mothering and teaching and writing and well, wifing (I’d beenoffered a tenure track line at Allegheny that month because I’d shown them Iwas ALL THAT)—I was managing it all, doing it all perfectly.

And then there was the writing I was doing—andpublishing. And the classes I wasteaching, and the stellar evaluations I was getting. And the general stability I was feeling whilepregnant—happy and optimistic—this vision of perfect family, with the writer-husband and bohemian/quirky/alternative home life andthe artistic/liberal arts college life I’d dreamed for myself (the Fuck You I’dbeen silently saying all those years ago when I’d been pushed to go to lawschool and marry some investment banker and dress in Ralph Lauren suits and buysome Mock Tudor on a cul de sac on Long Island—I could chart my own path andachieve it).

And I was so, so, so healthy in this pregnancy. Everything organic. Christopher making sure all the right foodsand nutritional necessities were met. Iwas taking yoga classes up until the day Sophia was born. Seeing a midwife, not an ob/gyn, determinedto have as natural a birth as possible—sure that my body would know what it wasdoing, trusting that my body would know what to do—wouldn’t need anyunnecessary interventions—unless it was an absolute emergency. I was glowing—loving my growing belly, the roundness,the kicks and tumbles that I could feel, that body growing inside of me. I was capable of creating a life?

The ultimate sign of my strength, of mysuper-strength, of my assumption that all of this was perfectly natural? I took students (with Christopher) to Greeceduring the 8^th month of pregnancy for 3 weeks. Traveled the country—swam blissfully in theAegean—my belly rising above the water like some mystical island. Perfect peace floating out there, buoyed upby the salt water—the ease of floating, of being, of resting out there with mybaby inside of me—so SURE that all would be perfectly well, that all mytroubles were behind me.

And then that perfect birth. I was so calm, so “mindful”—five minutesbetween contractions, and we were still at home in Meadville—I made Christopherstop at CVS for skin lotion before heading up to Hamot Hospital, a 45 minuteride away. Christopher has a picture ofme in the labor tub: I look like I’m in a spa—naked (though you can only see mefrom the chest up), hanging over the side of the tub, holding a bottle ofdesigner water in one hand (all I need is one of those cocktail umbrellas), mypregnancy-bikini-Greece-tan lines in full view, smiling, even though thecontractions were in full steam—just breathing contentedly, like I’d learned inyoga. Did I mention I arrived at thehospital 8cm dilated? All the staff in aflurry, but not me. I just closed myeyes and listened to Bach. No drugs, noepisiotomy, just 20 minutes of pushing, and out popped Sophia Grace, whoimmediately nuzzled her way to my breast.

Fairy tale ends pretty much there, because thegrandmothers descended a few days later, and of course, the territorial war began—who knew more aboutbabies, about what was best, about who got to hold Sophia more, about aboutabout about. Christopher’s mom was a“practical” nurse; my mom was a “PhD’d” nurse. Christopher was playing referee—I was caught in the middle,exhausted.

So what would I tell me NOW? All that supposed perfection? A crazy, frenetic lie. It will all collapse on you. What you are learning in yoga—which you’veonly been learning for one year at this point—is to slow down, to take stock ofyour body, to inhabit your body, the space you are in, to be present in themoment, to breathe—you need to take these lessons to heart.

Instead, what you are concentrating on now (i.e., 10years ago), is on being the best in the class—the most flexible, the one whocan hold the pose the longest, the one who can stay in downward dog thelongest, the one who can balance in tree pose without wobbling the longest—atbeing the perfect yogi—in 12 months or less.

What you know now, (i.e., 10 years later?), yoga cangive you back to yourself, can make you REAL again—if you wobble while in treepose, it’s not because you failed or aren’t good enough, it’s because your mindwandered, it’s because your foot pronates from all those years of forcedballet. So what? You wobble, maybe fall out of pose, but guesswhat? You can try again. It’s in the trying that you learn something: thatyou can try. Just like in standing pose:when you reach your hands over your head, feet firmly planted in the ground—themost basic stance—easy right? Butsymbolic, feet rooted, needing balance, needing a home—but arms reaching,needing an aspiration, needing also to stretch for something, a goal.

What else? All that need to “prove” that you have achieved the FU life? Your life doesn’t have to be a life to provea point. Yes, this is the basic outlineof the life you wanted. Yes, this is thelife you do want—built on the kind of life you are happiest in—filled withcreativity, filled with books, and ideas, not built on crass, monetaryaspirations and social climbing and material things; you have a husband whoshows love, who is involved with his family, who is truly connected to hischildren (and, no small matter, is a very liberal Democrat); you live a lifefilled with travel; you fill your home with friends who are empathetic, who areall trying to improve the world (i.e., no Fox news watchers among them). You take care of animals and lost, wanderingsouls in the night. Your children arekind and generous and funny and creative and spirited and independent.

And yet—you are no longer glowing. You are gaunt. You no longer follow the laissez faire code(if, really, truly, you ever did). Thereis no real room for spontaneous joy or pleasure. Your body is a mess. Your arms? From wrists to elbows, complicated maps of scars no GPS could get anyonethrough. Despite the uncompromising loveyou have for your amazing children and almost saintly husband, you have triedto kill yourself and still contemplate it (and have urges to hurt yourself) atleast once a week. You have tried everymedication out there for depression and Bipolar Disorder. Not to mention 2 rounds of ECT—not justunilateral, but bilateral at high voltages—or pulses—or whatever the mostserious kind with the most serious memory consequences there are because of howdesperate your suicidal depressions can become.

Part of me wants to say: backtrack to 10 years andfive months, when you were sitting on that couch, suicidally depressed, beforegetting pregnant, and Christopher is off on one of his very long teaching days,and you are home alone, before you have brought anyone into this world whotruly needs you to keep yourself alive in the face of the voice of IT who saysyou really, truly should die. Now is thetime to just do it. Shake out all thepills in the house—put them in the food processor, mash them up with somebananas, swallow them all down. Get itover with. Don’t put yourfamily—families—through 10 years of the hell to come. Just put an end to it now because you willnever learn. It only gets worse fromhere on out. Can you imagine at 39 youwill be worse than you are now? Do youknow that maybe a little craziness is a little cute for a 29 year old writer—maybeeven adds to a 29 years old writer’s caché? But at 39? Pathetic, so over-it. But now it’s too late. There are two kids who need you to live inspite of IT’s increased pathological demands.

Shit. Masturbator. Fuck.

Or, as they say in Greek: Gamoto. Malaka. Skata.

I want to curse that naïve, multi-tasking, frenetic,Suicidal-Pollyanna (how’s that for Dialectical conundrum)? Shake her. Show her the road that lies ahead. Set up an emergency consultation with Dr. B.who I have not yet met. Head off thetsunami that is yet to come. Becausethere have been hurricanes all of her life—every year, hurricane season, forsure—but nothing like the total wipeout of the 6 years long tsunami to come.

I suppose I also want to tell her that she doesn’thave to wait 10 years to say Fuck It—not to life, but to all the expectationsand demands for perfection that she puts on herself—or has internalized fromothers that others have demanded of her over the years. She knows what Voice is—she’s a writer. That’s the first thing that comes to her whenshe sits down to write a story—any of the award-winning stories that fly frombrain to fingers to the page—the voices that are strong and sure and witty andsmart and vulnerable and honest on the page. Why can’t she harness some of those fictional voices and allow her ownto speak out loud for once?

Really and truly, she only has so much of thissurface self left—this perfect self left before IT will finally erupt and takeover. Trying to keep all the seamstogether is exhausting. Things arefraying. Flashbacks surface, sink theirfangs. Small, at-first-hideable,explainable cuts reappear. Drinkingescalates again. Sleep becomes animpossible afterthought.

Rest. Rest. Rest? Don’t you see that you are missingyourself? Parts have gone missing on theinside, so no one else notices. And youare mostly numb, so maybe you don’t feel that they are gone. But you are hollowing out.

What I would tell you now: Standing pose. The hardest one for you. Stand still. Arms above, reaching for the sky. Find the place where you are steady. Keep breathing. Allow the racingthoughts to dissipate. Just be for 30seconds. 1 minute. 5 minutes. Can you do that? Don’t you know yourlife depends upon it?

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?

2011-11-07T17:50:00.000-08:00

November 7, 2011

A dinner party Saturday evening with some of ourbest and oldest friends, and as you can imagine, a necessary and worthwhilechallenge for me. These are friends whohave been by our side since we first moved to this small town from Texas, whohave been teaching colleagues, late night dinner party companions, who haveseen my slides and multiple climbs back up the monkey bars, who have seen methrow myself off from the top perch into the dirt—and who now get to see me tryagain, this time, with some sobriety and hope and honesty.

I told Christopher, “No easy meal, nothing I canskate by on--no pureed squash and hummus on toast points; no mashed bananas delicatelydrizzled with chocolate syrup. Let’stest out my recovery muscles. LambBolognese and fresh pasta and I’ll make dessert.”

His eyebrows shot up. Skepticism? Honest to goodness supportive surprise? “You’re sure?”

I’d been leafing through Bon Appetite and spied arecipe for a Pumpkin Pie with a Gingersnap and Pecan Crust finished off with aFresh Cranberry Glaze. Heavy cream wasinvolved—my biceps flexed at the idea.

“I can do this,” I said. “I need to do this. Besides, I need to see my friends. It’s been too long since we were alltogether.” The fallout of an EatingDisorder—isolation, the obvious tendency to stay away from any gatheringinvolving group dining. ED likes toconjure up this exaggerated cinematic picture: I have devolved, am in a groupof Neanderthals, ravenously gathered around the bloodied carcass of some poorwooly mammoth, tearing at it with bare hands and jagged teeth, passing aroundthe bone-in-ribeye in a moment of congenial fellowship, raucously sharing some wildbarley moonshine.

Of course, Saturday evening was the exactopposite. Friendship, fellowship, foodlingered over, savored. ED was virtuallysilent, mostly because I was able to talk to one of my friends, B., at thestart of the evening about my fears, about the progress I’ve made over the pastseveral months, got it off my chest, before getting it into the gullet so tospeak.

And then, as we were finishing up the LambBolognese, scrumptious, unctuous, delicious, and yes, I kept telling myself, nutritious(anymore “ous” words out there my ECT brain can summon up without the help of aThesaurus or my Husband’s dictionary-brain?), my husband, who sat in view ofour front door, suddenly said, “There’s someone at our door!”

My whole body tensed. I don’t know why. It was late-ish. We live on a busy street, frequentlypopulated by stumbling drunks. For somereason, my anxiety-fueled brain imagined some meth-fueled, gun-toting homeinvader (too many episodes of Criminal Minds and Dexter?) about to break in,and I thought about my kids screaming like banshees in the attic and my onlydefensive weapons were a stainless steel dinner knife and an Italian potterydinner plate I could fling like a Frisbee. Panic and complete immobility took over.

But Christopher, genuine descendant of Vikings,stood up and strode over. “Can I helpyou?” he said, through the storm door. The rest of the men from the table followed him: a professorialposse-at-PhD’ed arms. And then they wereall outside on the porch talking to the stranger in the night.

Soon we all followed because it turned out thisinvader was in fact a confused old woman dressed in a housecoat, a blanket wrappedaround her shoulders, with one slipper on, the other foot naked.

“I don’t know where I am,” she said. “I was following someone, and then I justkept walking.”

“What’s your name?” S. asked.

“Henrietta,” she answered.

“Do you know where you live?” Christopher asked.

She shrugged. “My house overlooks Spencer hospital.”

Spencer hospital has not been Spencer hospital foryears. It is several blocks away and nowpart of the city hospital.

“Do you know where your other slipper is?” K. asked.

She shrugged again, smiled flirtatiously. “I had it on when I left the house, but itwas light then,” and waggled her barefoot. Her toes looked cold, the nailslong, untrimmed. It had been dark forhours.

S. ran to his car across the street and came backwith one of his slippers, a cozy, suede fleece boat which he gently put on herfoot. Why he had slippers in hiscar? A small miracle even if they were10 sizes too big. But the slipper lookedsweet on her small foot, and sad, too, a sign of how lost and helpless she was,wandering alone in the dark and cold, without any memory of how to get home,even though home could only be a few mere blocks away.

We invited her inside and sat her down on one of thedining room chairs we pulled into the hallway. She gazed around, into the dining room, at the table lit up withcandles, at the dinner plates, and the platter of pasta quickly growing cold,at the collection of empty wine bottles. Note: my green water goblet filled with sparkling water. Double note: I had ABSOLUTELY NO urges todrink AT ALL. None. Nada. Though I did smoke a few cigarettes to quell food anxiety.

“Why are you all here?” she asked.

B. smiled and knelt down by her side. “We’re having a dinner party. We’re all good friends and we haven’t seeneach other in a long time so we wanted to get together.”

Henrietta smiled wide. “That’s nice. It seems like I came to the right house.”

Christopher asked her if she knew her address or ifshe knew the telephone number of any of her friends.

She shrugged again.

Could she describe her house?

“Brick. No,White. Wood. I live upstairs.”

Christopher decided to drive down the street to seeif the nursing home, brick and across the street from the hospital might bemissing her.

While he was gone, we chatted with Henrietta. She was lively, sparkled with wit. “Never married, thank god,” she said. “Never needed that trouble.” She was 84,and worked most of her life as an “inspector, inspecting things.” Her sister, older by a year, had recentlydied, and she had a brother, but didn’t know where he lived. Every day, she walked to McDonald’s forbreakfast—the staff knew her by name andknew exactly what she wanted: Egg McMuffin, black coffee.

I offered her a brownie I had made for thekids.

“Oh! ABrownie,” she said, “I’d love one! Godled me here, that’s for sure!”

Henrietta, though snaggle-toothed, was beautiful—herwhite hair was pulled up in a 1920’s style bun, loose along the sides; her skinwas smooth, few wrinkles—I wanted to ask about her skin-care regime—did she usethe $135 La Mer that had been recently recommended to me?; her blue eyes litupon everything around her.

And yet, my heart was breaking, too. She’d carried with her an envelope with$35. For what? In the other hand, television remote controlpamphlets. And she kept talking aboutfollowing someone to somewhere—which we’d managed to work out was probablysomeone on a television program she’d been watching. She lived alone—entirely alone—and had nofriends, no family, no one looking after her. And she’d been wandering the streets in her housecoat and blanket, one slipper,one bare foot—no fairy godmother or prince charming to complete herfairytale. Lost and alone, except forus.

But she kept repeating that God had led her to us.

Thank god—or the goddess--that all the lights in ourhouse were blazing, that she could probably see us all gathered around ourdining room table from the street. Friendship and fellowship could draw her in from the cold to the warmthof my home and our help.

B. whispered to me, “We could drive her toMcDonald’s and then ask her to show us her route home. Since she walks it every day, she knows thatroute by heart….”

Logical, yes, but horrifically disquieting. This was where loneliness and the loss ofmemory lead? Being driven around by agroup of strangers in the dark of a cold November evening along the only routewedged into memory—the path from McDonald’s to home? Egg McMuffin and coffee back to the empty,silent apartment somewhere a few blocks away where no one waits for yourreturn?

Christopher opened the front door, shook his head. “No one at Hillside Home knowsHenrietta.” He turned to her. “Your sister was Catherine?’

How the heck did he know that?

While B. was chatting with Henrietta about thegratifying contentment of a life lived sans husband or children, Christopher toldus he had called the local funeral home to inquire about Henrietta’s recentlydeceased sister. We knew her last name,so it was only a matter of the funeral home checking records to find thesister’s name—maybe, on the off chance they had an address for Henrietta onfile. Catherine. They knew that much, but nothing aboutHenrietta.

But why was anyone at the funeral home at nineo’clock on a Saturday night unless, of course, there was a wake? And going by the usual obituaries in our townpaper, likely for someone not unlike Henrietta—though those obituaries wereusually packed full of descendants—children and grandchildren, and oftengreat-grandchildren, the ties that bind lives together, that announce to theworld that we have mattered and to whom.

Christopher said he had called the police; it waswhat Hillside Home staff advised. They’dhave her address on record, would be able to get her home more quickly than ourhapless detective work.

So we waited with Henrietta, whose cheerfuldismissal of her own forgetfulness was beginning to turn intoself-recriminating anger.

“I am so stupid,” she kept muttering. “I should never have left my house. What was I thinking? How could I have wound up here? How could I have gotten so far away fromhome? Why don’t I know how to getback? How could I forget how to get backhome?”

What I wanted to say, but didn’t, couldn’t find theright moment, was, “Oh, it’s so easy to forget how to get around. I just got through a round of ECT, and I’vebeen getting lost while driving around from Big Lots to Giant Eagle. So don’t feel bad.” But I also didn’t want to sound flip, didn’twant to minimize her pain, her suffering. Alzheimer’s and the brain cells which have shriveled and dried up vs.Chosen Zaps of Electricity meant to fire up the black and blue parts of mybrain. And then of course, perhaps shedidn’t even know to know that she was in a state of acutedeterioration—self-directed irony would truly be a cruel joke.

The police arrived, young, friendly, gentlemen, who,as it turned out, had escorted Henrietta home from a similar adventure earlierthat week. “We’ll be back with yourslipper,” they said. “We found her lostslipper just up the block but wanted to make sure it was a match before takingit.”

And then she was gone. For future reference, the policemen gave usher address: 999 Grove Street. Literally, one block away. Oneblock, but it might as well have been a trek to Nepal.

I saw Dr. B. this morning and told him thisstory. “Does it remind you of anyoneelse who lost a slipper?”

I stared at him blank-faced.

“C’mon,” he said. “Iconic fairytale?”

“Oh, yeah. Fairy Godmother and Prince Charming. I don’t think Henrietta had either of those waiting for her,” I said.

“But she kept telling you that God led her to yourhouse,” Dr. B. said.

“I try to stay away from the Disney fairytales andall that fairy godmother stuff. Thankfully, Sophia never bought into the princess crap either.”

“But that lost slipper. Doesn’t that remind you of anyone else?”

“Me? You meanme? I’m certainly not waiting on anyFairy Godmother or Prince Charming to fix things.”

He laughed, knowing that my feminist hackles wereraised.

“Okay. Butaren’t you also lost and trying to find your way home? What else can you take from the story ofHenrietta? How did she get home?”

“Please don’t say that God got her there.”

“No, but you did. She found her way to your house, and with a group effort—the help of youand her friends, the warmth of your house, your friend’s slipper, you all tookcare of her—you helped to get her home. You didn’t let her panic, you eased her fears, and you managed to helpher get home.”

“O yeah, I didn’t tell you, when the police cameback with my friend’s slipper, they said they couldn’t stay to chat becausethey had to go and break up a fight.”

Diversion, deflection, irony. Thou shalt not appear soft or sentimental.

“But it’s also a sign of where you could wind up ifyou keep listening to IT. Lost, alone,without anyone, wandering in the cold, following some false figure, some voicelying to you, leading you out into the dark, without your slipper, no way toget back home,” Dr. B. said, his gaze holding mine, his voice steady, clear,truthful, not lying. This is exactly whyI took the risk and decided to come back to him. His voice can help lead me back to truth andsanity.

I sit here now, writing this, on the edge of thepool watching my daughter at swim practice, swimming her countless laps, divingwith strength and ferocity off the blocks. We’ve just come back from a bathroom break where I helped her peel herwet suit back up her body.

“Momma,” she said, “I need to tell yousomething. When I was just swimming, Iwas trying to see how long I could hold my breath under water. I was trying to see what it would be like todrown. But I couldn’t. Every time, I just kept popping back up tothe surface. I needed to breathe, nomatter what.”

I arranged her straps back into place, kissed thetop of her swim cap. “It’s almostimpossible to drown yourself,” I said. “Your body has instincts. It willfight to breathe, to live. It wants youto stay alive.”

It’s why Henriettaarrived on my front porch. It’s why Iarrived back on Dr. B’s couch. It’s whyI chose the complicated, challenging meal. It’s why I chose friendship and fellowship. It’s why I found out from my nutritionisttoday that I have gained two pounds this week through deliberate, self-willedeffort. I will no longer try to drownmyself, will not let myself sink, but will swim.

Cleaning House

2011-10-31T13:47:00.000-07:00

October 31, 2011

The past few weeks, I’ve been manically cleaninghouse. Tossing decades old sheets andtowels, throwing out gym clothes I’ve been wearing since graduate school days,tearfully burying at the bottom of the garbage pile, my pretty, expensivenursing bras that I’d been hopefully holding onto, just in case things gotbetter enough to try for Bakkenaki #3. Then there have been the kitchen and breakfast room paint jobs, whichhave meant a corresponding sorting of glassware and needless-ware andchipped-ware and junk-ware andugly-wedding-present-now-thirteen-years-out-so-we-can-throw-it-out-ware. Baseboard scrubbing (years of dog hair) andshop-vacuuming the basement ceiling and floor of cobwebs, bug husks, andhibernating daddy longlegs.

All of this industrious activity is productive andcertainly makes me feel like I am accomplishing something instead of just suckingmoney from the government for being sick. See? Momma extraordinaire. Just yesterday, Alexander walked into thebreakfast room where I was repainting a cabinet, and he shouted out to hissister, “Hey, Sophia! Come see! Momma is painting! Come see what a great artist she’s being!”

Both practical proletarian and imaginative artisté. What better model of modern motherhood couldthere be?

But really, I am dodging the intended subject ofthis post. Just as all that homeimprovement is a diversionary tactic. Itkeeps the focus away from me. Literally. No time to look in themirror. No time, really, truly, cross myheart, to eat. Okay, maybe I grab ahandful of Go Lean Crunch Berry here and there. Or a half-handful of Craisins. But the days just pass. I mean, Ihave to fit in AA, and kid-crap pick-up, and general house-cleaning. So I just forget to eat.

Doth the lady protest too much?

I received a response to one of my blogs the otherday, and the writer told me how much my honesty meant to her, because I “getIT,” particularly around the matter of eating—or rather—not eating, howdifficult it is to explain why it is so hard to eat that last bite, how hard itis to stick to recovering from an Eating Disorder, even when you have everyreason to—husband, kids, people who love you. And I realized that for weeks I’ve been dodging my own struggles with ED—Ihaven’t really written about it here. I’vebeen going on and on about how I’ve been hippy-hoppy-happy. Tap dancing, patting my back, whistling, ifnot Dixie, then maybe some nostalgic Sex Pistols.

Which is not to say, some things haven’t been goingwell. I’ll just be efficient, like oneof my many Home Depot lists these days:

1.      8months sober as of October 27^th
2.      Graduatedfrom my Partial Hospitalization Program on October 26^th
3.      Dr.B. has taken me back on! (with conditions)
4.      Myyoga teacher has asked me to teach a yoga class for him next Fall! (Really?!)
5.      Nocutting since August.
6.      I’mtrying to be open and honest and courageous.
7.      I’vemade many new, authentic friends through recovery.
8.      I’maddressing my character defects and working on changing them.
9.      I’mbeginning to make amends to the people I have hurt along the way.
10. I’mlearning how to head panic, anger, escalating self-harm impulses by talking toChristopher first.

Notice what’smissing? Despite 5 inpatient stays overthe past 4 years or so at Eating Disorder Treatment programs, I’m still stuckin the quicksand.

Here are the facts: Myweight, once again, is low. Not as lowas it has been in the past, but low enough for my husband to say that I lookemaciated. Low enough for friends I trustto tell me I look “too thin,” “awful,” and “gaunt.”

Do these remarks botherme? Of course, it stings my vanity. I don’t want to look ugly. But then again, I’ve never really beeninterested in being attractive, per se. I’ve always been uncomfortable being, well, “beautiful,” something I’ve beencalled all my life. When I was ateenager and worked for my father at his law firm in the city, we’d ride thetrain and then subway together, and I’d always get stared at by men, mucholder-suited-up men, men my father’s age, and get jostled by these men. All I could do was stare at my shoes, hope myfather wouldn’t notice them looking at me, because I didn’t want to embarrass him. I hated them looking at me.

Later, my beingattractive always elicited unwelcome remarks from guys in bars, then of course,there was the abusive boyfriend in college, and then in graduate school onenight, when I was drunk, and not quite passed out in bed, but the party wasstill going on, a friend’s boyfriend came into the bedroom, and put his hand upmy skirt, then under my underwear, felt me up—or down, I guess—and I didn’tmove, didn’t say a thing—just kept my eyes closed, kept wishing him away. So all of my life, my being “pretty” has justmeant, mostly, attention I haven’t really wanted.

Besides, this losingweight isn’t about trying to be more attractive, isn’t about media influence—it’stied to trying to get rid of excess—a kind of purging. Whatever isn’t necessary can go. Whatever isn’t essential? Dump. Like what I’m doing with the house.

But okay. I know I’m in the Red Zone. Hair is a mess again. I’m bruising easily and the bruises takeforever to fade. So I took action—got bloodwork and an EKG done. Everything cameback normal—except I know it’s not, because I’m skipping meals whenever I can. And avoiding mirrors. Because whenever I catch a sideways glance ofmyself, I see what my friends and husband see—the hollowed out cheeks, theprotruding hipbones, the wan, exhausted face.

Two days ago, I got anunexpected phone call from a friend who was in my Partial program with me overthe summer and has struggled with an Eating Disorder for 13 years—anorexia andbulimia.

“I’m dying,” shesaid. “My doctor has given me at most, 1year. Even if I turn things aroundtoday. My heart has a murmur—I need openheart surgery, but they don’t think I’d survive the surgery. I have a tear in my esophagus from thepurging—I’m throwing up blood. I needsurgery for that, but they think if they put an endoscope down my throat thatwill just tear it even further and I’ll bleed out. I’m so anemic, I need a transfusion. My liver is shutting down and there’s notreatment for that. I needdialysis. So basically, 1 year, and if Igo inpatient and they’re able to help, that might extend things by a fewmonths. Oh, I have to go. My husband just walked in from work.”

Dying. No turn-around. No recovery possible.

Her husband.

No recovery possible.

Her husband.

Her friends.

Her husband alone withher dead body.

Her friends left withher death.

Her husband alone.

Her dead body.

No chance for kidsever.

Dead.

My husband.

My kids.

My body.

Recovery is stillPOSSIBLE.

Yesterday, Alexanderand I were driving home from the grocery store, jamming out to Coldplay’s “Paradise,”my new obsession song (have you seen their elephant freeing itself from the zooand taking off for Africa video? Impossible, but improbably touching,particularly in light of the recent Ohio massacre of all those lions and tigersand bears, oh my, I cry and cried)…). Right then, in front of me, on our little town highway, a beautiful,three point buck (I think I counted correctly in that flash of an instant),dashed into the road. I barely missedhitting it. In my rearview mirror, Iwatched the car behind me slam into its hindquarters. The buck toppled to the ground, its frontlegs scrambling to get up, its back legs paralyzed—momentarily, and then,miraculously, it was on all fours again, all muscles defined, propelling it attop speed, flying and weaving through the now slowed traffic.

The buck disappearedinto the woods adjacent to the bike trail. To rest. To catch itsbreath. To repair. To die? To live?

“Momma,” Alexander asked,from the backseat. “Will the deer beokay?” He was twisted around, his headand eyes following the path of the deer.

Already, I was wipingaway tears. “I don’t know, honey. But maybe. He sure is trying to be okay. Maybe he’s running home, back to his family. Maybe they’ll take care of him.”

Maybe. But that sheer, instinctual, absolute,glorious force of will to try to be okay. To leap out of the path of death.

My lessons keep comingexactly when I need them. As a teacher,I know when to listen and study and take them to heart.

Humility, Serenity, and Barbarian Joy

2011-10-23T16:09:00.000-07:00

October 23, 2011

"Pride makes us artificial and humility makes us real."
--Thomas Merton

Humility. Notmy strong suit. Because with humilitycomes its’ sister action: Yielding. Thiswas the subject of my AA meeting this morning. And coincidentally enough, the guiding subject of my week. But more on that later.

For me, in the past, humility always seemed tooclose, linguistically, to humiliation. This was something I was particularly adeptat—whether it was having my husband wake me up in the middle of the nightbecause I peed the bed (and by extension, him) from my oh-so glamorous too manyRiedel-filled glasses of wine; or having the police hover over my bed in themiddle of the night because my husband had to dial 911 as I’d slashed up myarms and threatened suicide—one officer inspecting my arm with his penlight,another writing notes in the official casebook, and all I could think aboutwere the neighbors and what they werethinking about with the squad car in our driveway; or the time in college, whendrunk beyond drunk, I agreed to a one night stand with some dumb frat boy whowas in my anthropology class, and the next day, in class, he ignored me—a studyin survival of the dumbest and drunkest?; or any of the number of timesChristopher has caught me in the act of purging, or pointed out the “leftover”that didn’t make it down the toilet in my sneaky, hasty, guilty flushes.

Humiliation. No wonder I’d wanted to die so many timesover.

But humility. AA’s Step 7 promises that with true humility comes serenity with openheart, willingness, and yielding to a higher power comes peace.

As I write this, on my porch, in the fading, raresunshine of a Northwestern Pennsylvania afternoon (all we’ve had for the past weekhas been rain, cold, and wind), I’m bombarded by the chaotic shrieks of my barbariankids and their friends biking, zooming on scooters, and catapulting leaves inthe driveway—anything but serene, but they are possessed with pure, exuberantjoy. My heart swells with envy. When was the last time I felt that wild withbeing loose and free in body and happiness and play? Truly, I don’t know, as these days, theseyears and years, I’ve been overwrought with self-consciousness, with thechurning self-criticism, the over-thinking, and the constant hovering betweenwanting to damage myself, inflict pain, and give in to suicide. Where in all that is there any room for barbarian joy?

But at the AA meetings’ opening, we went around thecircle, reading the 7^th Step. Beside me, sat Scott and Renee (not their real names), recently engaged,both in their twenties. Renee is a dualaddict, sober 2 years, the mother of three young boys, on welfare, missing allof her teeth (would I have the humility to go out in public like that or wouldmy pride, my vanity keep my inside, stuck to the bottle?), and an inspiration. Scott, a veteran, recently back from arelapse, the product of a horrendously abusive childhood, and bipolar like me,by all appearances would seem like some, well, ex-meth head dirtbag. But he is smart, and I mean, intelligentsmart, not just street smart.

When it came time for Renee to read her fewparagraphs, it soon became evident that she was barely literate, stumbling overwords more than 5 or 6 letters long, but trying them out anyway. Humility and courage and grace. Look where true recovery can lead you. Or Me. Set aside pride and vanity. Renee could have been humiliated by such anattempt. Instead, she giggled at her missteps.

And that WE I spoke about in my previous post? Scott sat right beside her and at everyhesitation, he quietly whispered the right pronunciation to her, coaching herthrough the words. Cheering at everydifficult word she managed to sound out on her own. Love and support, two heart cells beating asone.

So how have I been practicing humility this week?

That yielding I mentioned? I admitted to myself and to my psychiatristand nutritionist that I had some concerns over my nutritional status as I haven’tbeen keeping to my eating plan as I said I was; i.e., I’ve been skippingmeals. There have been some symptoms ofnutritional deficit besides the expected and evident weight loss: vitamindeficiency fueled acne and some chest pains perhaps related to plain oldanxiety, but possibly related to electrolyte imbalance. At night, I’ve been plagued by my heartpounding, chest tightening, and I don’t want my children to roll over in themorning and find me dead of a heart attack. I don’t want to burden them in that way. So, I humbled myself, told my doctors the truth, and asked for them todo bloodwork and order an EKG. All ofthis will be done this week. And, I’vecome clean with Christopher, too, in this regard—have stepped back onto anhonest eating plan. In just a few days, “miraculously,”my skin has cleared up. Amazing whatregular meals and a belly full of spinach can do!

But the more momentous turning point has beengetting back in touch with Dr. B. Thereal Dr. B. The five-years therapist Dr.B.. When I was on my spiritual retreatlast weekend, I brought along an old journal in which to take notes—a journalhalf-filled with entries from the previous few years, and so many of thoseentries contained almost verbatim conversations I’d had with Dr. B. in therapysessions. Important conversations,challenging, revealing conversations that reminded me how well he knew me, howintimately he knew my character defects, the ways in which I can lie andmanipulate and dodge, the ways in which I was/am unwilling to yield to wisecounsel. A higher power. And my higher power, generally speaking sinceI am not religious in any dogmatic way, tends to be Dr. B;, he is wise, intelligent, summons hisknowledge from a variety of sources, and ultimately, knows what is best for mein my recovery.

I just tend not to listen because I think I knowbetter.

But I know now, I don’t know better. At least when it comes to gettingbetter.

So rereading those journal entries, I realized Iwouldn’t ever find a better therapist. Thinkingback on those months when everything fell apart—December, January, February—I alsorealized I didn’t remember how itfell apart. Not in any real, clearway. My narrative? Dr. B. didn’t like the path that Psychiatrist/ECTDr. B. had chosen. HIS pride got in theway. So he dumped me. All I remembered was walking into Dr. B,’soffice and him telling me he couldn’t work with me anymore. All I remembered after that was feeling humiliated. The BIG H. Betrayed. Ashamed.

So, okay then. FU. I deleted Dr. B.’s numberfrom my cell phone and thought, “I’ll show him. I can do this recovery thing without him. I can get better without him. All I need is a few volts of electricity zappedthrough my brain—okay, maybe more than a few—and the past 39 years? All better.” This narrative allowed me to wipe my hands of any responsibility. Shift responsibility. No need for humility. That little BIG H.

But after the retreat, I wanted to know, truly, howdid all that end? Because he was not thesort of man to act in that way. He waskind and loving, a grace-filled, forgiveness-filled man, who would only severties with me if the mitigating factor was extraordinary. So a few nights ago, I turned to Christopherand asked him what happened.

“Please,” I said. “I need to know.”

His eyes widened, a look of disbelief. “I never thought this day would come. You’ve been so tied to the story that hebetrayed you all these months. I am soproud of you that you’ve come to this place, that you’re willing to considerthe truth. So here goes. Do you remember our meeting together with Dr.B.?”

I shook my head. Nothing. Nada.

“We were in his office together. You were crashing hard. Totally manic. Cutting yourself. Your eating disorder on a rampage. Suicidal. We were losing you. Dr. B. askedyou if you could pledge safety to him. You said, ‘No.’ So he wanted youto go to the hospital to go inpatient immediately. You refused. So he said he would have to 302 you (involuntary admission). You were belligerent. There was talk of police and an ambulance toescort you. So you calmed down, said you’dlet me drive you over. On the way over,you kept saying you didn’t want to go to the hospital, that you didn’t get achance to say goodbye to the kids. Whenwe got there, Dr. B. (psychiatrist/ECT Dr. B.) came down to the ER with aresident and interviewed you. He basicallysaid he didn’t think you were in crisis, that you didn’t need to beadmitted. When he asked you if you couldpledge safety to him, you said, ‘Yes, of course you could,’ because you didn’twant to be in the hospital. You lied. So that’s why Dr. B. had to stop seeingyou. Ethically, professionally, hecouldn’t be caught in the middle anymore. He couldn’t be responsible for what you might do. You betrayed his trust.”

I took all this in. Breathed a sigh of relief. The truthmade complete sense. The past 8 monthsof anger—of feeling betrayed—disappeared. What I felt, instead, was an enormous sense of empathy and compassionfor Dr. B.. How hard it must have beenfor him to end therapy with me after 5 years, because after all, he had devotedall that time to believing he could help me recover, help me turn my lifearound, and what had I done? In thespace of a few months, had impulsively “hooked up” with a new Dr. B., like someecstatic cult member, believed in his intransigent sermon that ECT was my solecure, the answer to all the ills that had plagued me for all these years, thatmy beloved Dr. B. was, in essence, akin to a time-wasting charlatan.

But like all cult leaders on the run, Psyhciatrist/ECTDr. B. has fled, left me flailing, left me to the aftershocks of ECT. Yes, I admit, ECT has its lifesavingplace. A last resort option. It kept me from throwing myself under a bus,from swallowing all the pills in my house. But, as I’ve recounted here over and over, it has stolen much of what isprecious to me. An expensive emergencymeasure.
Readjusted memory. Remembered my 7^th Step. With humility comes serenity, but humilityrequires courage, and courage means I must take a risk and open my heart, bevulnerable.

While I’d deleted Dr. B.’s number from my cellphone, my computer’s email list had perfect memory. I hit COMPOSE, and sent him an honest letter,accepting responsibility for the crash and burn, for the lying, themanipulation, and the collusion with Psychiatrist/ECT Dr. B., and mostimportantly, asked if he’d be willing to consider working with me again, as I’dbe “graduating” from my Partial Hospitalization program this Wednesday. I spent 24 hours chewing my nails, pacing,wound up.

And then my INBOX posted his response. He was willing to meet for a mutual “interview”to see if it might be possible for us to work together again and see if itmight be possible for him to help me. Wemet on Friday. I wanted to cry. I wanted to run away. I wanted to hug him. I wanted to beg for his forgiveness. I wanted I wanted I wanted I wanted….I wantedhim to simply say yes, he would take me back. All was forgiven.

“Yes,” Dr. B. said, “I’ve forgiven you long ago. Youcan’t work in this business and hold grudges. But I’ll need to take some time before I can decide whether to get intothe thick of this with you again. Because to be honest, I can’t work with you and not care deeply aboutyou. So I’ll need to think seriously andcarefully about this.”

Strangely enough, I didn’t run, didn’t panic, didn’tshut down. What I felt, instead, waswhat AA promises. Serenity. Peace. I’d already received the answer I’d been seeking. I’d been forgiven. Dr. B. wouldn’t turn me away out of a lack ofcare, but because he cared. Our worktogether had meant something to him, and to me. Regardless of what happened in the future, whether it was a ‘yes’ or a ‘no,’we’d both had our hearts touched by each other. And wasn’t that the purpose of this life together? To risk loving and caring for anotherperson? To have the humility to ask forforgiveness in order to receive grace?

Grace. Therewas a moment in our meeting when our eyes met, and it seemed to me that therewas no need for words—ironic since what we were ostensibly doing was “talktherapy”—when really, our hearts were meeting. And everything felt okay. Andeverything felt still and quiet. And itseemed as if his eyes were welling with tears. I know mine were. And there waspain in our looking into each other, over all that has happened in thepast. And there was also the need towant to say, it is love that binds us all together, in the petri dish, in thepasture. We don’t forget what we havemeant to each other. Even if you forgetbooks you have read, or words that you know, or how to drive to Big Lots. You always remember love—the people you love;the people who love you.

1 + 1 = 1

2011-10-18T10:11:00.000-07:00

October 18, 2011

I learned a compelling fact about heart cells thisweekend. If you extract a single heartcell and place it in a petri dish by itself, it will madly fibrillate,immediately experience arrhythmia, like some tweaked out methhead alone inwoods, twitching and dancing then slumping against the walls of his mobile homedown some lonely road that stretches into the dark woods.

But here’s the astonishing solution: take anotherheart cell. Any heart cell, from anyother human being. Just one. Place it in that very same petri dish andimmediately, both cells will start beating together, defibrillate, achieve alife sustaining, balanced heartbeat. Oneneeds the other to be saved from its isolating craziness. One needs the other to be brought out ofisolation and alienation back into supportive, healing companionship. Just like we need each other. Just like I need You.

I heard this and immediately was brought back to asimilar story, an encounter I witnessed a few years ago at the stables where Iused to ride. Used to, the key words. Can’t at present due to my fluctuatingbody weight. I need to have enough weightto stay on top of a horse, enough strength to keep my thighs gripped around ahorse’s barrel in order to stay on and upright, in order to convey to the horsethat I can stay with him as we trot or canter or jump. And with all the meds I’m on right now, it’suncertain I can sustain my balance for sixty minutes, that like those two heartcells, I can stay in syncopation with the horse, become and stay as one for thelength of a lesson. And then for thesake of consistency for my instructor, she needs to know I can show up forlesson after lesson, month after month instead of the interruptions of “unexpected”hospitalizations that seem possible these days.

But I digress. I was out at Hobbs Hollow, a stable that uses only rescue horses, horsesdamaged from neglect, abuse, trauma; horses that need to learn to trust theirhandlers and riders again through patient and consistent care, through a light,yet firm seat and hands; horses that are used to humans treating them likeshit; horses that now have to see that sometimes humans offer carrots, a warmblanket, and a soothing whisper.

Sophia and I stopped out at the stables just for avisit and were leaning against the fenced-in-field watching a gorgeous, blackthoroughbred trotting, cantering, galloping, and circling wildly inside thefield; she’d rush at the fence, then skid to a stop. Then start the whole cycle up again. From our position, it seemed like the horsewas having a wonderful, playful romp. The sun was out, the field full of clover, her black body gleaming asshe sped around in willy-nilly circles.

Lee, my instructor, came over and stood beside us. Her fingers were hitched in the belt loops ofher jeans and she was chewing on a stalk of hay.

Sophia, teetering on a fence beam, her polka-dottedshirt in tune with the scene, sighed, “I wish I could be out there runningaround like that!”

Lee spit the hay from her mouth. “That’s how a horse gets hurt. Running around like that. That’s Fate and she’s having a nervousbreakdown out there alone. We just gother in yesterday. She was in her stall,kicking at the walls, so we took her out here. But she’s just going nuts.”

Sophia’s face lit up, like it always does when shehas an IDEA! “Maybe she needs a friend,so she won’t be so lonely.”

Lee chuckled. “Sophia, you are a right on little horsewoman. That’s exactly what we’re about to do.”

I stood there watching Fate, taking in Lee’s words,having to realign my misinterpretation of her “play.” This beautiful, even regal trot—sudden switchto a fierce gallop, stopped suddenly by the end,the fence, then the skid, the quick turn, the canter back—this was a chaotic, disorganized shifting through paces, this wasDISTRESS, a terror at wanting to not be alone out there. Fate was trying to find a way to run off, torun out of the isolation, but was only becoming more disorganized, morefrenzied. Watching her, what could be--tothe unobservant, unschooled eye--play, a beautiful energy, an abundance ofspirit, a running loose and free, butwas only a fraying, a disintegration, acoming apart. But according to Lee, andunderstood by Sophia, Fate could be put back together merely by the comfortingpresence of another horse out there with her. Just like those heart cells.

Fate not left to Fate’s own Self.

And this was the precise cure. A stablehand led out Peppy, a calm,even-minded Quarter horse. Peppy was setloose in the field, and ambled around. Fate stopped in her tracks, gave Peppy a suspicious, long look, thenwithout much ado, trotted over to him. Soon enough, the two horses were walking serenely around the fieldtogether, side-by-side, munching on the purple clover.

This is exactly why I love horses so much, why Ilove riding them particularly Lee’s rescue horses. Damaged like me, suspicious like me,vulnerable like me, needing soft hands like me. But the miraculous, transformative feeling when I am on a horse likeFate, soft hands on the reins, connected by the slightest pressure, with theslightest movement to her mouth, my legs wrapped around her barrel, again theslightest pressure of thighs and calves and heels—no kicking, no jabbing, justan adjustment of pressure, a tightening of my muscles against her body—more likelovemaking (no, don’t go there, but you know what I mean). I can feel her breath moving against my legs,and in the trot, my body rises with hers, and in the canter, my body glideswith hers, and in jumping, we soar together. One and One become One together.

I dreamed of this before I ever was on a horse. As a child, I checked out How to Ride a Horse books from thelibrary, read them, memorized the instructions, the horse’s anatomy, the tack,and then would lie in bed for hours, eyes closed, and just imagine from startto finish an entire ride—fetching “my” horse from the stall, grooming her,tacking her up, then taking her out into an arena or out on the trail, andriding—walking, trotting, cantering, jumping. These star-filled rides sustained me during many difficult nights ofvery real self-doubt and insecurity, very real loneliness and alienation—alreadyat 7 and 8, I could feel myself rushing around in wild, desperate circles. So those imagined rides on the back of “my”horse, on a mapped out over-fences course, fences that were risky, thrilling,four-five feet high, enough to get both our heartbeats pumping fast, but stillin syncopation, that was enough. Nolonger alone in the field of my bed, no longer rushing fences.

1 + 1= 1.

So you can imagine both my surprise and my matter offactness, when at my first realriding lesson at 9, my instructor told me that she had never met a more naturalrider, that it was as if I’d been riding for years, that I made it lookeffortless. What I wanted to tell herwas that I’d been riding for years in my dreams, that I’d been one with horsesforever.

Where is all this going?

A few things have come together for me in the pastfew days. I realized the value of mygroup at the partial hospitalization program I attend. Outside of that room, many of us feel lonelyand alienated by the sheer nature of the mental illnesses we contend with on adaily basis. Many of us feel ashamed,afraid to talk about what we struggle with; feel “crazy” out there in the “normal”world. But the minute we enter our grouproom and sit down with each other, we are inside that field together. Alienation and loneliness disspate. We find that are heart cells in many waysbeat in the exact same ways—our struggles are similar and our desire for connectionand recovery is exactly the same.

I also just received an email from a friend who Ilost touch with, but with whom I’ve reconnected to via Facebook and myblog. Because of what she’s read of mystruggles on the blog, she felt like she could help me by sharing many of herown similar struggles that she’s had to contend with over the years and her ownpath to recovery. My first thought onreading her email was: If I only knew! We both could have been saved from our loneliness over all theseyears! We both could have been there foreach other over all these years! But ofcourse, for many of these years, it is quite possible we were both not ready tobe honest and vulnerable, to risk an open heart. I know in my case, I would have probablychosen to have remained alone in the field, charging the fence and any otherhorse who tried to get close. But mysecond thought was: Here we are, both ready to open our hearts to each other,to share our stories, to walk the field together, maybe even munch on theclover of happiness, share in the sunshine of our recovering selves.

Then of course, there’s the connection to myfamily. I think all I need to provideyou with is two images. One: I am in anyof the various hospitals I’ve been in, alone in my hospital bed, sometimes tiedto it, sometimes my arms wrapped in bandages, sometimes an anesthesia maskstrapped to my face and electrodes taped to my skull, shivering with cold. Two: I am in my King-sized bed at home,mashed up against Sophia and Alexander and Christopher and the forty stuffedanimals that regularly join us; we are generating enough heat between us all tomelt the polar ice cap; I lean over, before hitting the pillow and kiss thekids’ sweaty foreheads a dozen times over, and then Christopher and I mumbleour sleepy “I love you’s” before it’s lights out.

Finally, there’s you, dear Readers. And I do mean Dear. I write this blog for me. I write this because I am a writer. I write this to make meaning out of thepain. I write this with language thattries to give the pain and yes, the beauty, shape and truth. I write this to be a caretaker of memory andthe gardener of recovery. But I alsowrite this for You. I have made thispublic for You. I could have simply keptall this in my little black journal hidden away under my bed. I could have kept it in pen, gone all melodramaticand histrionic. But I have tried to behonest, tried to be vulnerable, tried to find a voice that is balanced, triedto stay hopeful even when IT presents as hopeless. But what I have hoped is that You might findyourself, or part of your story here. That you might not feel so alone and alienated. Back to the isolated heart cell. Back to Fate running crazy circles and rushingthat fence.

It is why I treasure your feedback. Okay, so maybe when I hear from you a tinypart of my ego is shouting a lá Sally Field, “They like me! They really like me!” But really, what I feel is less alone, less likethe crazy person in the isolation room at the hospital with the mattress on thefloor, given her food on the Styrofoam tray, given only a plastic spoon,watched by surveillance camera 24 hours a day. I feel like you’re in there with me in the petri dish, our heartsbeating, if only momentarily, together. Ifeel like you’re in that field with me, that we’re walking around under thesun, or sometimes, under the dark cloud together. No longer in solitary confinement.

1+ 1 + 1 + 1+ 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1+ 1 + = 1

Mad Momma Libs

2011-10-13T20:23:00.000-07:00

October 13, 2011

Lately, Alexander has been obsessing over MadLibs. In fact, he threw one of his rare,though powerful, pouty, foot-stomping, “Life isn’t fair!” tantrums when I camehome baring surprise presents for both kids last week: a Mad Libs book forSophia and an age-inappropriate Icky/Bizarro Body Book (i.e., up close andpersonal photos of how Oreos are transformed by the digestive track into poop). I thought that Alexander, at age 5, wouldprefer the poop over the more ponderous grammatical concepts of nouns, verbs,and adjectives. Apparently not.

I was the Unfair Momma.

But Sophia being Sophia, the daughter who delightedlystirs octopus brains on the beaches of Greece with her forefinger in pre-Nobelfor Science, happily traded books. I spentthe next several hours and days explaining and re-explaining the differencesbetween nouns, verbs, and adjectives.

“A noun is a thing, like dog or cat or, well, poop. A verb is a thing you do, like run or walk,”I said.

Alexander nodded, “Or poop. You can poop, too.”

Ahh, a potential linguist in the making. Already he understands the way language canbe manipulated.

“And an adjective describes something. Like red or slow or soft or tired,” Isaid. Tired. Yes, I know that only too well these days.

Again, he nodded. “Brown! Like brown poop!” So, not interested in reading about it, butcertainly fascinated in its literary composition.

Alexander’s Mad Libs have thankfully drifted awayfrom excrement and veered towards T-Rex territory, and since Halloween is fastapproaching, ghosts, pirates, zombies and blood are often repeated nouns; run,scare, and hide are the verbs; while red, bloody, scary, and dark are the go-toadjectives.

(Small digression: we went to one of those HauntedHouses last weekend, this one underground, and really meant for adults as mostof the tableaus featured fairly sadistic CSI/Dexter type scenes. I confess, I was scared, but held it togethersince I was holding Alexander’s hand. For the first few rooms, he gripped my hand, his voice quavered, and hekept saying he was scared. All of asudden, though, he decided he was some sort of brave Superhero, and he ran upto each awful incarnation—the bloody Freddy Kreuger, the Chainsaw-wieldingMadman, the creepy, man-spider crawling around on all-fours—and shouted intheir faces, “You don’t scare me! Youdon’t scare me!” And the thing was, hemeant it.)

So today, Sophia and Alexander proposed Mad LibbingMomma. I was initially hesitant. What sort of nouns, verbs, and adjectives inreference to me would they come up with?

Noun: Okay, maybe an easy given—Momma.

Verb: Leaves. Disappears. Yells. Screams. Cries.

Adjective: Sad. Mad. Scary. Crazy.

But I gave Sophia a reprieve from studying for herSocial Studies test (Regions and Weather—to be honest, a pretty hard test witha lot of vocabulary and information—not sure I could memorize it all unless Iwas hoping to get a job as a meteorologist for CNN) and this is the result.

Sophia’s Mad Momma Lib:

Mom:

Roses are red, CHIPMUNKS are blue. She PLAYS like a CAT. Mom can be fun, and loves GREECE. She wears clothes that are LIGHT BLUE everyday.

Alexander’s Mad Momma Lib:

Mom:

Roses are red, T-REXS are blue. She HOPS like a SEA SERPENT. Mom can be fun, and loves DISNEY LAND. She wears clothes that are ORANGE every day.

And my own self-referential Mad Momma Lib:

Roses are red, BIRDS are blue. She TWIRLS like a TREE. Mom can be fun, and loves GREECE. She wears clothes that are PURPLE every day.

Nothing here suggests crazy. Nothing here mentions my long absences, thehospitalizations, the manic flights of desperation, the disappearance into thedark cellar of depression over and over. They knew, and I knew, in advance the theme of this Mad Lib was me—andyet—the words that came to mind, were words of strength, of agility ofmovement, landscapes of light and innocent play.

Okay, a few roaring, coiling monsters, but my sondraws those monsters and hangs them on his wall. “You don’t scare me!” I have to remember that he runs up to thosemonsters, seeks them out. They don’tscare him. He longs for therollercoaster.

And Sophia? The curled up, serene purring cat. For instance, last night, we had what might be a typical pre-teenblow-up fight, initially mishandled by both of us, but then, we resolvedit. For most of the night, though, Icarried her words around inside me: “I’m angry at Momma! She yelled at me. I’m so angry at her!” Remembering the wounds I carried inside myown 9 year old self when I believed I was unfairly yelled at by my ownmother. But later that night, after weapologized to each other, after we hugged and made up, I overheard hertelling—no, telling isn’t a strong enough word—insisting that she was going tosleep next to me that night. “It’s mynight to sleep next to Momma. She’s minetonight.”

Mad Libs. MadLove. Momma Love.

Scars, Swallows, Serendipity, Serenity

2011-10-05T20:33:00.000-07:00

October 5, 2011

For the past few weeks (well, decades, really), I’vebeen staring down at my forearms, counting scars, ruminating on the damage, andbecause so much of that occurred in pre-ECT years, am able to remember(unfortunately? Perhaps here, memory loss might be appreciated), in vivid,tortured detail, the impulsive and predetermined scenes, all the variousimplements—those shiny, new straight-edges, the rusty ones filched from toolboxes, plastic Daisy razors snapped open, glass broken against concrete, dirtyshards of glass pocketed from gutters, kitchen scissors, sewing scissors, nailscissors, serrated knives, chef’s knives, and at my most stupidly desperate:there I was in the ICU coming back to consciousness after a desperately, deliberatemanic suicidal overdose on Lithium and Ambien, given a can of DietCoke—flip-top intact-by the attending nurse, and in an unattended few minutes,manage to cut up my arms with aforementioned flip top.

So, by now, with every shower, ever application ofhoneyed body cream, every decision to wear short sleeves or a bathing suit, Imust face what I have done and what I have too often, in my impulsive, darkmoments, continued to do.

In these past weeks, I decided it was time to dosomething different, time to inscribe hope. Is it possible to reinvent the wheel? What could I do that would change the way I see what is alreadythere? What could I do that might giveme pause in the next impulsive flash? What could I do that would remind me of what I have to keep me tied tothis world of love and joy and redemption, namely Christopher, Sophia andAlexander?

A tattoo. Onmy right wrist, superimposed on the tangle of scars, on the usual, go-to-cutting hand. I have one tattoo already,on my lower right hip-ish area. A bluejay on a cherry blossom branch—vocal bird unafraid to speak its mind; theflower of hope. This new, permanentsymbol? It would have to be Greekthemed, since so much of our lives are tied to this county—engagement,pregnancy, infancies, depressions, recoveries, our four-square made one.

Two swallows swooping at each other, an ancientarchaeological painting from a site in Santorini. Swallows: the birds of Spring, of new life,of hope. Surrounding the birds, thenames of my family written in Greek: Theintended result? I look at my arm andwill see the meaning and purpose of my life. A hopeful deterrent.

Yesterday afternoon, I took my pictures to the localtattoo parlor, and the artist, Mad Mike, told me he could sketch it out andhave it ready to go by today. Excellent. A perfect surprise formy family!

The rest of the day seemed to skyrocket. And I do mean that in the giddy, manic, uh-ohkind of way. A beginning mania that’sbeen creeping up on me the past week. 7am to Midnight, nonstop. Everyhour packed and planned, no sitting, no stopping, go go, go. My energy up, up, up but so is myirritability. The excited goodness!! Yesterdaybeginning to take a downturn with the kids’ swim practice. Alexander finishes his practice 30 minutes beforeSophia, swimming his little, determined heart out, climbing out of the pool,shivering and blue. We go to the lockerroom for a warm shower and change of clothes, and when I rummage through theswim bag, realize to my immediate, agonizing self-recrimination, that I haveforgotten his underwear and warm sweatpants, which means all I have is his wet,cold swim trunks. And why don’t I have achange of clothes? Because I wasrushing, rushing, rushing too fast, and left them right on the kitchen counter. I try as best as I can to dry his trunksunder the hand driers, but they are still damp, and he is still shivering as wesit in the bleachers for another 30 minutes waiting for Sophia to finish herpractice.

But all is not lost. I return home and head to my AA meeting, where the theme of discussionis hope. Fitting considering my tattoodecision, considering my success with Carolyn’s visit the previousweekend. As I recount that story to thegroup, talk about how I have, for the first time, come to believe that myrecovery is actually possible, that I finally have genuine hope for myselfbecause of the support I receive from my family, from my AA family, from myfamily up in my Partial Hospitalization group, I am additionally bowled over atthe end of the meeting when these two men, utterly different—one, my mentorGrandpa, the other, this big, burly Southern black man—each tell me that theylove me, are inspired by me. Me? I give other people hope? Really? As Sophia would say, crazy amazing!

I return home, gushing about the meeting toChristopher, brimming with joy and hope, almost moved to tears by my happinessand secret anticipation over the next day’s tattoo.

Until I hear Alexander hollering from upstairs abouthis booboo on his leg—another potential staff infection. For some god-awful reason, he is prone tothem. I go upstairs, apply hot compressto the pus-filled boil, then try to squeeze it to relieve the devilinside. What this means, as I know fromexperience: Alexander starts screaming, crying, tears streaming down his face,begging me to “Stop, stop, please Momma stop, please, you’re hurting me, Momma,please, Momma please!” Sobbinguncontrollably. I try to steel myselfagainst the awful pain, his and mine.

Christopher comes running up the stairs, sees mehunched over the poor boy, finally bandaging him up, leans over and whispers tome, “Kerry, don’t you remember the doctor said not to squeeze them?”

I shook my head. “No,” I said, with added, emphatic, unnecessary spite.

“You don’t remember? When we came back from Greece in July and we brought him to the doctorafter he had one and we squeezed it and the doctor said we could actuallyspread the infection through his system that way?”

I shook my head again. No memory at all. Another ECT wipeout.

“Well, you’d better give him some Ibuprofen.”

I stomped off to the bathroom, loaded up theplunger, came back into the bedroom and got ready to plunge the grape medicineinto Alexander’s mouth, opened expectantly like a little wounded bird. He was still sobbing, still moaning, stillshaking, still saying, “Momma, Momma, you hurt me, you hurt me.”

Christopher suddenly stopped me. “Are you sure that’s the right dosage? Did you check the dose?”
I glared at him, my manic, guilt-ridden hackles immediatelystanding straight up. “What? You think I can’t read now? You think I’m incompetent now? Now I’m some terrible mother, too?” Saying all this nasty, lashing out shit,directing at him, easy target, because really, I was thinking all this, alreadyat me.

He responded, in kind, with anger, bemusement, inself-defense. Then said, “It’s almost10:00. We should eat.”

I should say that he had spent a lot of time, aftera long day of teaching, making a very delicious dinner: a gratin of potatoes, kale,spinach, and 3 kinds of yummy, exotic, Frenchy-cheeses.
My response? Juvenile, eating disorder, FU bitch: “I’m not eating after this.”

I stomped downstairs, to the couch, glared at thefloor, the coffee table, then my forearms, seized suddenly by the most intensedesire to grab the nearest, most convenient sharpest object at hand—could Ipush past Christopher into the kitchen?—the chef’s knife in the sink, and cutdeeply into my arms, over and over, intending stitches at the very least.

Because all I could think is this: You are a shitty,awful, terrible, no-good mother. Youhave caused your son unnecessary, horrible pain. It is not just that you are forgetting words,forgetting names, forgetting how to drive around your small town, but you areforgetting essential medical information necessary to your children’s healthand well-being. You deserve pain. You deserve to pay. You deserve to remember this night and theonly way to remember is to make sure this night leaves its mark on you. Scars.

But I did not give into this impulse. Instead, I was seized by my body convulsingin sobs, wracking, heaving sobs. Onceagain, Christopher came running, sat beside me, his hand on my back, his voicesoothing, forgiving, loving me still, offering healing and hope.

After I caught my breath, hugged Christopher, wipedthe unattractive blobs of make-up and snot from my face, I went upstairs andsmothered Alexander in hugs and kisses and apologies, asking forforgiveness. Already, he had settleddown, already he was giving me wet smooches and insisting on myMomma-magnificence, and already Sophia was acting as Greatest Big Sister,offering him free Pokémon cards from her treasured stash to help him feelbetter. My heart swelled watching themin powwow on the bed.

Today: In the tattoo chair, forearm swabbed withalcohol, Mad Mike buzzing at my wrist with his needle. At one point, he stops, and says, “You’reawfully quiet. Usually, my clients tendto make a little more noise and move around a little more. They find things a bit more painful.”

I shrugged. “Well,I do a lot of yoga.”

He laughed. “Butyou seem so serene. But I guess I cansee you are maybe used to pain in this area?”

“That’s what the tattoo is for. Hope. My family. I look down and seebeauty and a reason to live.”

“I’m glad I can help create that for you. Not my usual Pimp Daddy or Celtic Knot.”

Nervous, nervous, nervous. Reminder: a surprise for my family. But Christopher loves it, and he thinks I gotall the names translated correctly into Greek. As I showed it to him, I started crying—over the tattoo’s beauty (it IS unequivocallybeautiful), but also because the timing was perfect, considering last night’salmost-crisis. And Sophia andAlexander?

Well, Alexander announced with his authority, “Nowyou have 3 birds! One on your bumand two your arm!”

Sophia’s eyes widened, then she smiled. “It’s so cool, Momma. How old do you have to be before you can geta tattoo?”

“18,” I said.

“Oh,” she said. “I want to get one of Thunderdust (her beloved, stuffed, bluedragon). You know what else that’s coolabout it? It’s beautiful but it alsohelps cover up all those scars! I loveit!”

Hope. I haveit. And now I have it on me.

A Syllable a Dove

2011-10-02T20:07:00.001-07:00

October 2, 2011

from, “On Earth,” by Carolyn Forché
“…between here and here
between hidden points in the soul
between hidden points in the soul born from nothing
between saying and said
beyond what one has oneself done
…bring forth what is within
bring in your whispering harvest
…that even this refuge might be taken:
that ing-ing of verbs in an eternal present
that light traveled from the eye to the world
that nothingness might not be there
that you might become one among others
that after-touching memory of relief…”

I will not subject you to a close reading of these excerpts of this poem, which are only a very, very small hopefully-slanted selection from a very, very long poem, one that often moves into an examination of atrocity and the human capacity for violence and silence, as well as for saving action and grace. But these sections, for me, reverberate throughout my body, skitter along nerves, glide along synapses, Échappé in my heart.

But this is no mere random quoting. Carolyn came to Allegheny College’s campus to give a reading the other evening at the invitation of my husband. She is one of our close friends, someone we spent a month with this past summer on Greece, someone who has inspired me as a writer—she is one of those bona fide world famous poets, and deservedly so, but also someone who inspires me as a human being. She has spent much of her life as a human rights activist, working for Amnesty International, working in such bikinied, umbrella-ed cocktailed vacation spots as El Salvador, Beirut, and South Africa, being air lifted, deported, and, on one particular occasion, a glamorous, candelabra-ed dinner party, forcibly attended, the subject of her poem, “The Colonel,” a bag of dozens of shriveled, severed human ears was ceremoniously dumped on the table—a pre-dessert, palate cleanser? Carolyn also told us a story of walking through the fields of El Salvador and coming across the murdered body of what appeared to be a pregnant woman, her arms folded, almost prayerfully, across her chest. This initial assessment was horrifically dispelled upon autopsy when it was discovered that the supposed fetus was, instead, the severed head of a man jammed into her womb-turned-sarcophagus.

And yet, here was Carolyn, sitting on my couch in front of the fire, listening with the same empathetic, respectful, interested intensity to my recounting of my latest struggles with depression and anorexia, struggles that must certainly seem paltry and superficial in comparison to auricleal laceration and rape by decapitation.

And yet. Her hand reached for mine as she asked about the memory loss I’ve been suffering from the ECT treatments. The humiliating, pride-filled blank-outs as I drive around town and am stopped short at a crossroads, unsure which way to turn in order to get to my yoga class or to the supermarket or to a friend’s house or to the coffeeshop or, most importantly, to home. Or those moments when I am stopped short in conversation, unable to summon up the word, the exact word I know that I know but cannot remember. Humbling, but more than that, really. Devastating for a writer.

Even now, when I am writing these entries, trying to find my words, I am forced to resort to the online thesaurus, something I have never in my life had to do. I have always been my own thesaurus, a devourer or language, giddy in my encounters with new, strange, long, incomprehensible words, and quickly committing their spelling and meaning to memory, then using them as quickly and pertinently as possible.

Carolyn was lovely and reassuring, reminding me that she has not only lived through large-scale, heartless brutality, but has also survived often the often overwhelming catastrophes of her own body, mind, and heart.

I whispered, then, to her, what I had not yet been able to reveal to my own husband. My new anxiety, nay, panic for my daughter, Sophia. Just this past week, she had been obsessing newly and unnecessarily about her body and weight. She has just joined the YMCA’s swim team, and absolutely loves it, which is thrilling to me as she hasn’t been able to find a sport that she’s been able to throw herself into with verve and determination. Sophia is strong-willed, forever on the move, and athletic, but not at all interested (at least yet) in any team sports—too much waiting around for a ball to be passed, too many rules, and then there’s YOUR position that you must ABSOLUTELY hold for the duration of the game.

Swimming? It’s you, your lane, and your ability to swim the laps, your determination to keep the pace, your love for speed. And just this week, Sophia took her first dives off the blocks—a beautiful thing to see. Her body poised, set, energy barely contained, then, like some impossible curved arrow, she dove off the block. Afterwards, when I asked her how her first dive felt, she said, “Oh, Momma. It was scary at first because it seemed so high up over the water. But once I took off, it was crazy amazing!”

On the way home after practice that night, the night of diving off the blocks, my daughter announced from the back seat, (still, might I remind you, strapped into a high-backed booster seat, still small enough and light enough to officially require one), “Momma, I want to move up to the next level. I want to practice 4 nights a week instead of 2. I want to win medals for the team. I want to bring home trophies.”

“You love it that much?” I asked.

“I love, love, love it. I want to be the youngest girl ever to go to the Olympics and win a gold medal for swimming. And I love swimming because it will keep me from getting chubby.”

I almost drove off the road. “Chubby? You don’t need to worry about getting chubby.”

“But swimming will keep me from getting chubby. I don’t want to get chubby.”

“Sophia, you should swim because you love swimming, you love how it makes you feel about yourself and your body. How fun it is.”

“I don’t care. I don’t want to get chubby.”

I didn’t think I was in a place where we could tackle this in any great depth—5 minutes until home and homework and to be honest, I wasn’t sure how to address it because after all, isn’t that in part why I run? My 8 miles in 40 minutes certainly keeps me exactly where I like to be, weight-wise.
What you need to know about Sophia is that she is medically in the 10% for height and weight, so obviously there is no realistic basis for her newfound worries. She’s 9, 4th grade. From what I know, the age for disordered eating and body image distortion begins around this age. What I also know, from picking her up at school, is there are many children suffering from obesity—perhaps she is afraid of becoming what she sees. What I also know is that children can be very cruel to children who are overweight—so perhaps she has heard the teasing, or perhaps, god forbid, has been a part of the teasing.

Later that week, on Thursday, gym day at school, the day Carolyn arrived, Sophia tumbled into the car, excited and garrulous. “Oh boy,” she gushed, “am I tired. We had our running time test today. I did really, really good. I was super-fast! 23 laps! One of the best times for all the girls! I love running. I think I should run more, maybe go with you, because running will also keep me from getting chubby, you know?”

Alexander was in the car with us, so there was no way to appropriately say anything more than what I had said earlier that week. “Oh Silly Sophia! You need to know that you don’t need to worry about your weight; at least you don’t need to worry right now. You eat healthy and you exercise and you have fun exercising. That’s what’s important. Try not to worry about getting chubby.”

I shook my head after I finished telling all this to Carolyn. “I don’t really know what to do. Christopher and I made the decision not to tell her why I went to all those inpatient Eating Disorder programs. She doesn’t know I have an Eating Disorder, at least I don’t think she does. I’ve tried my best to shield her from all this for precisely this reason—I didn’t want to pass on this shit, didn’t want to burden her with all this unnecessary garbage. But of course, I know what the research says—how much more likely it is she could develop an ED because she has a mother who has one. So what do I say? How do I help her with this now, before it becomes something real?”

Carolyn sighed, and then leaned toward me. “You can’t feel guilty for this. You can’t blame yourself for this. Believe me, I could blame myself for a lot of what I’ve seen and lived through, but I don’t because how else could I survive? How else could I choose to love my husband? Be a mother in the wake of all that? I think one thing you need to remember is that as women, we all suffer to some extent with a distorted body image. We all look in the mirror an see something that appears larger or isn’t there. We’re never really satisfied. But we look at ourselves and make peace and love ourselves and live with ourselves. What can you do? One thing to do is maybe ask her why she is feeling this way all of a sudden? Why is she feeling worried about being chubby? She’s a string bean, so why is she, in this sudden and compressed moment of time, feeling this intense worry about her weight or being potentially overweight? Feelings are driving this. So that’s what you need to excavate. Hard to do in a 9 year old who won’t sit still for more than 30 seconds.”

Words that were right and true.

Yesterday, on the drive down to the Pittsburgh Airport to (sadly) drop off Carolyn, I sat squashed between the kids in the back seat. Perfect, I thought. Sophia was bored, staring out the window, flipping through her Pokémon cards, literally strapped into her car seat for 95 minutes, nowhere to go, no way to move. So I asked, in a whisper, “Sophia, I’m really worried that you’ve been worried about getting chubby, because you know that you are perfectly healthy. Can you tell me why you are worried about getting chubby? Why you’re feeling worried?”

Sophia turned away from the window and shrugged nervously. “I just don’t want to get fat. I’m afraid of getting fat. I see a lot of fat kids at school. I even saw a mom at school one day who had to walk sideways through a doorway in order to get through. And once, Jordan and I were secretly making fun of **** for being, well, you know how she is. And I always hear kids making fun of other kids for being fat.”

I did know about ****, who was acutely obese, who lived on Dollar Store snacks, Gushers, and prepackaged Lunchables from Sophia’s reports over the years. But still no excuse for her to be part of the teasing, even if it was inspired by her own projected anxieties and fears about her own body—fears that could only be driven by the “chubby” bodies around her.

“Sophia, I’m really sad that you were making fun of ****. How do you think she would feel if she heard you say that about her?”

Sophia frowned. “Sad.”

“And just think. She probably doesn’t have a Daddy like you who makes her dinner from scratch every night and from scratch pancakes every morning. She probably doesn’t belong to a CSA and get organic vegetables delivered to her garage every week. And I bet her pizzas come from Dominos or are frozen. Your pizzas are handmade and baked in a wood-burning pizza oven in your own backyard.”

“So I eat healthy!”

“Exactly. And if you eat healthy and exercise and enjoy your exercise, I don’t think you have to worry about getting chubby. And there’s something else I think you need to know now that you’re old enough to wear dangly earring after all”

Her eyes got wide and she smiled and shook her head back and forth, the pink, sparkly earrings borrowed from my collection shimming at her neck. “What is it?”

“Remember when Mommy had to go away to Arizona for all those weeks in the Spring?”

She nodded.

“It was because I thought I was chubby and stopped eating enough and lost too much weight and got really sick. So I had to go to a hospital especially for people who have trouble with eating and weight and need to get better.”

“Momma, that’s so silly. You were never chubby!”

I smiled at her and kissed her on the cheek. “I know. But it can become a sickness in your mind. And I don’t want you ever to catch this sickness because it can become really, really dangerous. So if you ever feel worried again or scared about what’s happening with your body or about how you feel about it, I want you to know you can talk to me about how you feel because I’ve felt these feelings, also. Okay?”

She nodded, her earrings vigorously nodding, too.

“So I want you to swim because you love it and because it makes your body feel good and powerful.”

Sophia kissed me back. “Okay. But I also want to swim because I want to be the youngest girl ever to win a gold medal in the Olympics!”

“That’s a great goal,” I said, “and I’ll be right there cheering you on.”

from “On Earth,” by Carolyn Forché
“…”open the book of what happened”
…a steep wooden staircase
a sudden reticence that seizes the heart
a syllable a dove”

At Family Meal, Love is Real

2011-09-25T18:25:00.000-07:00

My daughter had a new friend, Jordan, over for a playdate on Friday. Jordan walked by the chicken Christopher had trussed up in a roasting pan, festooned with carrots and potatoes.

“Lucky!” Jordan exclaimed. “You’re going to have a family dinner?”

“Yes,” Christopher said. “It’s an organic chicken I got from our Amish farmer.”

“You mean you’ll all eat together?”

I nodded.

“The only kind of family dinner we ever have is at McDonald’s,” Jordan sighed, sadly, wistfully.

Sophia tugged my arm. “Please, Momma? Can Jordan stay for dinner? Can she stay the night?”

I glanced over at Christopher and shrugged. It wouldn’t be all that much extra work. And Sophia deserved to have an extra, fun night after surviving the uncertainty of my hospital absence. Besides, for weeks, she’d been gushing about Jordan, Jordan, Jordan and how much alike they were, and how quickly they’d become friends.

“Sure,” I said, “but you need to promise that you’ll go to bed at a reasonable hour.”
They both squealed in delight.

To set the mood, and make it extra special, I lit taper candles and set them in crystal holders.

At dinner, Jordan insisted that it was the best meal of her life. Absolutely the best meal of her life. Sophia and Alexander were super lucky to be able to eat dinner with their mom and dad every night; her dad lived in Texas and she hadn’t seen him in years and years. And while the chicken was delicious, wasn’t it sad to have to kill it to eat it?

Sophia shook her head. “Nope. It lived a good life. It got to run around on a farm, free, eating bugs and grass. Not like the chickens in the supermarket that live inside factories and got fed pellets. This chicken lived a happy life. That’s why it tastes so good.” With that, she slurped down a palm-sized piece of crispy skin.

For dessert? Jordan was amazed over my homemade chocolate chip cookies, and equally amazed over Christopher’s buttermilk, blueberry pancakes the next morning.

“This was the best, best sleepover ever! I wish it didn’t have to end,” Jordan said, as she left.

Listening to Jordan’s gratitude, her simple, easy thankfulness, reminded me that I am lucky not only to be married to a husband who takes pleasure in setting a table with beautiful food, who loves to feed his family with healthy, organic, from-scratch meals, but I am supremely lucky to be part of an intact family. My husband lives with me. Most nights, my husband and kids and I are all squashed together in our king-sized bed—not because we lack enough bedding, but because we’d rather feel the reliable, warm, comforting presence of each other’s sturdy, necessary bodies all in one place.

There are four in the bed and the little one says, “Roll over, roll over…into each other, loving each other.”
Despite my darkness, despite the black dogs that hound me, that nip at my heels, despite my frequent, often unexpected, inexplicable absences due to sad, desperate hospitalizations, my family is always waiting for my return to them: family dinner at the table, Christopher’s homemade loaf of sourdough warm and sliced and buttered, the kids snuggled under the covers in bed, ready for the complete family cuddle. Momma, Daddy, Sophia, and Alexander nestled together against the dark night. Love in a complete foursquare. The best, ever.

Bonkers, But Beloved

2011-09-19T19:25:00.000-07:00

September 19, 2011

Late Fragment
--Raymond Carver
And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.

Beloved. Ever since my discharge from Western Psychiatric Hospital last week, I have been inundated with convincing assertions that I am loved and needed and worth this continued, exhausting, often horrendous fight—what often feels like a fight to the death. Only this fight to recover, to regain stability and sanity, is a fight to live, a fight for life, a fight to inhabit the love that I am given on this earth. Love that keeps me tied to morning and evening, that keeps me continuing to wake and begin another day, that keeps me burying myself in forgiving release of blankets and bed and sleep surrounded by my family that loves me despite my faults and failings: Christopher at one end of our giant bed, my two children on either side of me, each fighting over who gets to sleep next to me. A problem solved by my sleeping in the middle, between Sophia and Alexander who don’t yet trust that I will stay between them, with them, will stay asleep with them and wake into a new day beside them. They are afraid I will leave again, that I will be committed, once again, to some distant hospital ward.

Alexander has anchored himself to me, following me around the house, keeping me in close proximity. “I love you, Momma. I love you, Momma.” He tells me this over and over, all day long, usually accompanied with a sloppy, gloppy mouth-to-mouth kiss. Or he tackles me, arms thrown around my legs, squeezing me tight to him, refusing to let me disappear again into the mysterious, confusing crazy hospital.

Sophia tells me how happy she is that I am home and how scared she is for me to leave for my now outpatient “procedures,” because she doesn’t believe the hospital will let me come home. My “procedure”—ECT—what Sophia only imagines as some terrifying, necessary electrocution. She doesn’t understand why electricity pulsing through my brain via electrodes doesn’t kill me. How can it possibly help me? “Please, Momma, don’t get your Procedure again,” she begs.

Tomorrow will hopefully be the last outpatient ECT treatment. Not that I am necessarily ALL BETTER, but the side effects have become intolerable. Short term memory has been decimated. I open my Kindle and can’t remember what books I’ve read. I open the book I am presently reading and don’t remember what I previously read the night before, don’t remember the plot hitherto revealed in previous chapters. I am forgetting appointments. Misplacing important paperwork. Confused by the simple act of driving around my small (literally small) town—lost in the side streets, having to rely on my GPS to navigate me around what was once easily crisscrossed.

Should I trade my memory for mental stability? Yes, the electrical shocks seem to haul me out of the abyss of hopeless depression. ECT is, as many psychiatrists have told me, the last resort option. My last resort option. But I am not willing to sacrifice my memory, my ability to make new memories, to recollect my children telling me they love me, they need me, that I am the best Momma ever. I need to remember my life with them, the small, inconsequential moments—did I tuck them into bed? Did I make their peanut butter and Nutella sandwiches? Will I remember that Tuesday is the day Sophia and I go to the Humane Society to volunteer with the dogs and cats? Will I remember that Thursday is Alexander’s kindergarten Open House, that he will be deliriously happy to show off his big boy locker, his desk crammed with his worksheets and art projects? Will I remember that my love, despite the debilitating illnesses that attempt to annihilate it—Bipolar disorder, Anorexia, Alcoholism—that my love is needed, is necessary, is EXACTLY what my children rely on to keep their world stable (even when my own world is profoundly unstable)?

And Christopher. He has remained by my side these 17 years, has remained faithful to me, his often crazy, confusing, frustrating, infuriating wife. And I don’t mean merely sexually faithful. He has wholeheartedly given his heart to me, choosing to love me, choosing to forgive me, choosing to believe in my eventual recovery despite my backsliding, despite my relapses, despite what must often seem like impossible (sustained) healing. And yet…and yet, he is willing to play SuperDad when needed, willing to take over when I am hospitalized, willing to tug me time and again out of depression’s hole, willing to hold me close, tight against his heart so I can continue to believe that I am lovable despite my often irrefutable belief that I am not lovable, forgivable, worth the trouble of maintaining faith in our meaningful, essential, crucial future together. Together, mutually beloved.

And then there are the unexpected reminders that I am beloved and needed and necessary to the world of others. All the cards I received while in the hospital from my AA groups. All the emails I receive from readers of this blog, insisting that these entries, these sentences that I string together are meaningful, are helpful to the recovery of others. The phone calls I receive from friends near and far, friends who are part of my recent life, and friends who were once part of my more distant life—all friends reminding me that I am beloved.

The fight to stay inside this life, the fight to believe that despite the absolute, horrendous craziness, the struggle is worth it. I am loved and I love. I am here and continue to survive because I am loved and I love. Love is truly the best, the most essential medicine.

STRUCK BY LIVING: Book Review

2011-09-18T17:30:00.001-07:00

In Struck by Living, Julie Hersch reveals the devastation wrought by a lifelong battle with the insidious disease of depression. She tries to outsmart it, out work it, out achieve it, out mother it, outrun it, out maneuver it across several decades, and still, depression manages to stealthily bypass the defenses and obstacles she'd erected by living in a super-accomplished, "super-happy" life, reducing her to a woman who is a grim shadow of her former self.

However, this memoir is not about tracing Ms. Hersch's descent into catatonic melancholy; instead, through her choice of narrative manipulation, we move with her back and forth across time, glimpsing the woman well on the road to recovery, while being allowed to look back with her into the confusing, isolating hell that it once was. Her recovery is not complete, she confides, there is always the chance for relapse, for the demons to return, so vigilance is always present, a crisis plan always in place. But what has changed for Ms. Hersch, by the end, is her acceptance that she does not have to be the woman confined to locked wards, but can be the woman struck back to life by an electrical charge to the brain, a small yielding to medicine, a trade off: she must allow herself to be momentarily powerless in order to regain power over her life and herself once again.

Perhaps the strongest message of this memoir is one many women who are mothers and struggle with mental illness need to hear. For many of us, we have lived with the false promise: that love can heal what wounds us. Love will be the medicine to dispel the dark storms that gather suicidal force. Love of husband and children will be enough to keep us here, will be enough to keep us from wanting to give in and give up. Surely that love will summon up enough concurrent guilt. But those of us who are mothers and wives and who love our families often desperately, in the midst of our illness, can't see or hear beyond the illness. The voice of depression is damning, is All. And so we succumb. Some succeed, some fail. How could we ever imagine leaving our spouses and children with a legacy of suicide?

But as Ms. Hersch reminds us over and over, when we are suicidally depressed we are no longer our loving selves. We are lost, empty, without hope. If only love was enough. Thank god, as Ms. Hersch realizes, a current of electricity can be enough to allow love to fill her back up again--so that life, her life, filled with love, is not just enough, but abundantly fulfilling.

Home-Going

2011-09-08T13:54:00.000-07:00

Last day in Western Psych. Last day where my napkins are inspected, my toilets are flushed for me, and my post-meal hours are monitored by ever-vigilant "melieu" therapists. Of course, I have one more inpatient ECT session tomorrow before Christopher picks me up, and then 2 outpatient ECT sessions next week that I need to get my ass down to Pittsburgh for--along with a student-stranger-chauffeur who Christopher has hired to drive me back to Meadville from Pittsburgh. The doctors don't recommend driving on a recently anesthetized, electrified brain.

To be honest, the crushing depression seems to have lifted, a least a few inches from my shoulders and soul. I no longer feel like swallowing all the bottles of prescriptions that are lined up, waiting for me, in the medicine cabinet at home. I no longer feel like taking a razor blade to my arms and hacking away at my anger and self-loathing. I feel like I am a tolerable person. I believe that I am needed on this earth--Sophia and Alexander keep demanding, on the phone every night, "when are YOU coming home? We need you. We miss you."

It feels like simple, expected, repeated mental collapse (just give in, Kerry, IT whispers to me every day. Just end all this mess. Free your family to move on, to find a momma more stable, more reliable, less bleak and grim. A momma without the hundreds of scars on her arms; a momma who can eat, without qualm, breakfast, lunch, and dinner; a momma who is sane enough to keep her Assistant Professor of English job, who can continue to contribute to the lifeblood of the family. Instead, who are they left with? A momma in and out of psych hospitals; a momma whose depression necessitates frequent zaps of electricity (yes, that bad); a momma who can no longer hold down a job, but who must rely on Disability payments and Social Security benefits.

A momma who is a failure.

No, Sophia and Alexander would argue, a momma we love; a momma whose love we need.

So after a Friday night alone with Christopher in Pittsburgh--trying to pretend like we can manage a "real" date--fancy restaurant, fancy dress and heels, and he'll have to bring along my razor so I can shave my legs before donning said dress and heels (the hospital doesn't allow anything so sharp on the premises, likely for good reason), then home to my kids and Christopher, and my insane dogs, and my own bed, and a long, hot shower, and sex--no, lovemaking (can I remember how to connect to my own body, to trust it to feel good again?)--and quadruple snuggling in our King sized bed--all four of us burrowing into each others' warmth, all toes and knees and legs mixed up in an all-family braid of bodies.

Can I attempt to explain the devastating loneliness I felt when I saw the picture of the kids' first day of school this week? Alexander off to kindergarten; Sophia to 4th grade. The two of them standing on our front porch, eager to get the walk up to school under way. Each of them looking official and fancy and lovely--Alexander in his plaid button-down shirt, his hair spiked to attention; Sophia in an adorbaly grown-up skirt, a long, flowy chiffon scarf tied loosely around her neck, proclaiming her absolute nineness.

I missed it. They were assembled on our front porch with Dad behind the camera. I was sealed inside the Psych Ward, all doors and windows locked, all movements tracked and recorded on the patient--every-fifteen--minute--check-up sheets.

But tomorrow, Christopher will pick me up, drive me away into the heart of Pittsburgh, to a fancy room at a bed-and-breakfast, to a fancy dinner at a trendy restaurant on the Strip--a dinner that maybe I can eat and enjoy and not feel pressured to restrict, to count off, to throw up afterwards. Then back to our B&B, for a leisurely roll and tumble in the bed. My body and his body a matched set

Then Saturday, home to Meadville, and the kids--who are waiting, waiting, waiting for me to walk through the door and swoop them in my arms and promise them that I will stay, I won't leave, certainly NOT for good in the way I had been planning before this latest hospitalization. What I need to remember is this small, wondrous fact: My life with my family is good, is necessary, is a magical force.

Last Time In?

2011-09-05T08:56:00.000-07:00

Sad today. Looking at all the women of various ages who surround me here in the hospital, all of them struggling with anorexia or bulimia, many of them wound tight with anxiety, many of them without a supportive family who will visit them while in the hospital, or a family to return home to after time served is up. And then there are the women who also have cuts and scars decorating their arms and legs--we're like some bizarre tribal collective, skinny-starving, manic and depressed, tattooed with cross-hatchings of self-inflicted scars.

One woman in particular--I'll call her Mimi--makes me especially sad--secret crying in my pillow at night. She must be close to seventy years old and she's still struggling with this terrible Eating Disorder, and her wrinkled arms and legs bear testimony to recent self-inflicted cuts, and her anxieties surface and wrap themselves around her, immobilizing real, healing actions. What is awful, though, is that she has no family--no one visiting her to help pass these monotonous, tedious days; no one sending her cards or books, no family that seems to want to claim her as one of their own--part of a larger group tied together by blood and history and goodwill and even, on occasion, love.

And then there's another patient--I'll call her Marion--who has been shuttled between the Eating Disorders Unit at UPMC, and more long-term "incarceration" at Warren State, the Big, Bad, State Psychiatric hospital. Back and forth and back and forth. Her entire waking and sleeping life consumed by this disease's ironic voracious ability to consume every part of your life. Of course, Warren State is the holding pen that I've been threatened with increasing frequency over the past two years. Long term, hopeless, non-rehabilitative psychiatric incarceration. That's an option that has been presented to me because I keep failing to maintain balance, keep relapsing, keep spinning towards suicidal options.

But then my kids visit me yesterday, and I am reminded that I am not yet alone, have not yet been ditched to depersonalized psychiatric care in the forbiding fortress. Sophia kept sitting in my lap, kept pressing her face into my neck and shoulder, burying herself into what is left of Momma-Love. And Alexander, drawing me pictures for my antispeptic walls--variations of the same theme: Hearts and Love for Momma. Yesterday, on his visit, he kept reaching for my hand, stroking my arm, planting determined, sloppy kisses on my mouth. My children, despite all the hell of the past few years, are still willing to claim me as Momma, as someone they love and need.

And Christopher? What I imagine: he is exhausted by me, by this never-ending re-recovering. The wedge that the Eating Disorder, the Bipolar Disorder, the Secret Self-Injury, the secret (now past) drinking. What must he see when he looks at me, wife and mother? He can no longer trust my promises to stick to recovery plans, he can no longer trust the story I tell of myself, the story that provides an autobiographical account of my days and nights. The very basic questions are suspect: Who, what, when, where, why, how? Can I be trusted to answer with integrity? Do I have any integrity left after spending the past 5 years shredding it?

I can see he is tired, can see that he might be close to giving up. And it seems I have a choice: a life behind psychiatric walls and doors and locks; a life that still promises several decades of disturbed eating, of starvation and purging, that still offers arms and legs, great swathes of skin ready under the razor.

But I don't want this life, this future. I want to return to my family, to our four-square of love. What I need, right now, is to cry--to really let myself go and cry, sob, refuse in my tears to yield to this CRAZY life that has been trying to claim me for its own, to take me from my family, and resist. Stay sane. Stay balanced. Stay still and let the love I already have inhabit me, and run riot.

Leave-Takings

2011-09-01T07:31:00.000-07:00

Land Ho! My psychiatrist told me this morning that I'll likely be inpatient for 3 more ECT treatments--tomorrow, next Tuesday and Wednesday--and then I will most likely be discharged, to continue ECT as an outpatient. While I know the assembly-line service is necessary to accomodate all the patients who need ECT in this hospital, the sardine-line-up is disconcerting; it feels closer to some sort of nefarious medical experiment testing the resiliency of one-brain-after-another to different pulses of electricity. I miss the chumminess of my treatments at Millcreek, with Dr. B. who surprised me with an all-staff-particpatory pedicure (the time I went into ECT with black toenails, and woke up with them peachy pink), the staff who knew me by name, who knew my husband, who knew which vein was best for the IV.

Now I feel like one of those life-vests statshed under an airplane seat; you know, the kind that have two little cords that you pull to inflate. That's me. A PICC line dangling from my upper-arm, easrier all around for the nurses to insert IV's into my tricky veins. Somehow, though, I feel that if I yank the lines hard enough, not only will the tube slide out of the newtwork of vein the professionals have threaded it through to reach the Vena Cava, but I will also, unceremoniously deflate. I suppose it wouldn't take all that much these days to enact that sleight-of-hand: just like a venetian mini-blind, just pull on my dangling cords, and my body--filled mostly with air as it is, would certainly just collapse and fold in on itself.

Like a fan I once had as a child, when I was obsessed with history, with knowing (or feigning to know) the hisory of antique objects. I was obsessed, and even at ten, read my father's Smithsonian Guide to American Antiquities cover-to-cover. The mystery of possession combined with the magnificence of a prior story that could etch itself into wood and metal and fabric and stone. One afternoon, I wandered into a pseudo-antique junk shop, and picked up a purple, velvet bag; I unloosened the string and shook out a white, bone, ivory fan, with intricately carved patterns, and its panels held together by several ivory-satin ribbons woven throughout the lattice-work. I imagined the woman who last held it, perhaps a girl not much older than I was, dressed in some taffeta bustled gown, flicking the fan open (when admirable suitors bowed before her) and shut (when oafish, unmannered suitors begged for a dance).

The shopowner saw how taken I was with the fan. "It's yours," he said. "It belongs with you."

My parents had their own antique "finds"--they'd gone to an estate sale one summer out on Shelter Island, and spied these 2 horrid, leather-covered wing-back chairs. They thought they'd simply recover them with some more pleasing fabric. However, when they pried off the hundreds of brass grommets that kept the red leather wedged tight around the chairs' skeletons, what they unconvered were two magnificent Queen and King Chairs, their backs carved in elaborate, regal wooden roses and turrets and sceptors; their seats covered in meticulous, painstaking needpoint covers.

But why this sudden sharp turn into antique reminiscences? Part of me wonders what sort of material legacy I will leave behind. How will my children and grandchildren and their children come to know me intimateoly, that is, beyond the staunch name on the family tree, beyond the hushed whispers explaining my sad mental predicatment and the unrelenting attacks by the various illnesses and diseases attached to "that which shall remain unnamed."

There are the obvious objects: my books and essays and scratch-filled notebooks and journals. Surely, this is the easiest, albeit messiest stepping into my life, my past. But what about the tangible objects? What is meaningful to me now?

Bits and pieces of expensive or quirky jewelry. Recipes haphazardly photocopied or torn from magazines and stuffed in the manila folder simply labelled: Food for Thought. Italian pottery. The watercoloury-mermaid bowl carried back from Chios, Greece. The fishbowl stacked with the husks of sea urchins, their delicate, spiky shells carefully balanced on each other, forming an almost impossible ziggurat.

The bits and pieces of myself that I will leave behind that MATTER; the bits and pieces that I am already leaving behind that MATTER. Yesterday, the kids had their first day of school: Alexander in kindergarten, Sophia in 4th grade. I couldn't see them off, couldn't brugh their hair, couldn't help pick out their clothes, couldn't kiss their soft cheeks goodbye or grip their hands in one last MAY-THE-FORCE-BE-WITH-YOU shake, no kiss goodbye at their classroom doors.

Nothing. Because I am locked away in a hospital in Pittsburgh and they are happily walking to school a few blocks from our home in Meadville. So what did I do? I wrote them each secret notes--love and kisses--and absolute pride--and had Christopher secret them in their lunchboxes. Both kids were surprised and ecstatic, though later, on the phone, Sophia confessed, "It made me really happy to get that note from you, Momma. But I also started crying. I just miss you so much. I just wish you could have been hiding in my lunchbox."

Good, necessary encouragement to keep my shit together in the next week, to keep my fingers crossed that the ECT treatments will kick in and level me out, that I can come to some sort of compromise in regards to the Eating Disorder--remember food isn't merely about calories in and calories out, but it is about pleasure and love taken in, swirled around the mouth, immersed in the abundant flavors, and then swallowed down--all that lovely beauty and taste now part of my whole. A whole with love to spare, a whole with tentative stability, a whole that also needs its necessary parts: Christopher, Sophia, and Alexander.

Heart and Wings

2011-08-29T15:33:00.000-07:00

Why We Must Struggle
-Kay Ryan

If we had not struggled
as hard as we can
at our strongest
how will we sense
the shape of our losses
or know what sustains
us longest or name
what change costs us,
saying how strange
it is that one sector
of the self can step in
for another in trouble,
how loss activates
a latent double, how
we can feed
as upon nectar
upon need?

I carried a copy of this poem in my wallet for years, reading it every time I pulled out a dollar bill, a constant reminder, a necessary impetus pushing me to struggle, to live, to call upon my own "latent double," the stronger, stable, life-loving, life-giving self.

That latent self might dress herself in the mystical garb of Julian of Norwich, professing the necessity of a love that fully-encompasses the senses, that loves life and limb (no self-flagellating rending of skin on the forearms); a love that floods the body and the soul, a love that weds desire with completion: Love Yourself, through and through--bony feet and knobby knees, stretch-marked thighs and flabby stomach, deflated breasts and that often-self-maligned face that stares back at you in the mirror, but most of all, the large heart concealed within, beating and beating, struggling to keep pace, to keep compensating for all the bouts of starvation, all the times it has been split in two, all the times it has been filled with lead weights, pulled down by the suicidal dive of depression to the bottom of the deepest ocean trench. But that tired, wounded heart beats on, struggles on, despite all efforts to surrender to a self-proposed end.

That latent self, too, might dress herself in the wings of a Zebra Swallowtail butterfly, swooping and diving into sticky nectar, knowing that loss, while inevitable, can be contained and delayed--flap the wings into headwinds, seek out the sweet honeysuckle, drink sustenance even with the knowledge that there will be an end to the glorious flights on the tradewinds, that one day the black-and-white striped wings will beat and beat, then flutter, then eventually fall still, but not from a lack of trying, not from having lived a strenuous, heroic life in the face of predadtors and storms and obsessed lepidopterists, but will fall still of their own natural, end-of-life accord.

Why must I struggle? I must struggle for the 8 ounces of heart that beats and beats within me, trying to sustain me, forgiving all the damage I have myself inflicted, healing all the losses I have myself hollowed out. I must struggle for the invisible wings that beat and beat on my back, lifting me time and again from the bottom of the well, flying straight for the sweet nectar of food and love and forgiveness and grace.

This morning, I did not want to struggle. I actually said a small, desperate, non-sane-mind prayer, that I wouldn't wake up from anesthesia I'd receive from this morning's ECT treatment. I was overwhelmed by the sheer exhaustion of this struggle, by the dailyness of it, by its thiry-year grip on me. I prayed my heart and wings would stop beating, that I could simply just drift off, literally, into the ether.

Thankfully, that was not to be: I woke, shocked back into my struggle, into the necessity to do my absolute best to see it through, to persevere and return home to my children and husband and dogs and cat and Chinese Water Dragon, and friends and family. To promise them all, at least in this very moment, I will struggle, anchor myself to NOW, to what the present moment offers: that I love and am loved; that I need and am needed.

Because the only alternative, is one unfolding before me right now: a fellow patient, twenty-five years old, has been in and out of Eating Disorder hospital units for the past eight years (she was here, in fact, when I was here one and one-half years ago). Now she is on a feeding tube, her body reduced to the rubble of severe, what seems to be an almost-irreversible end to her anorexia. She is trying to get admitted to hospice care: "I won't ever recover," she said. "And there is no one to recover for, least of all myself. I'd just like to be allowed to die."

So I must keep my struggle close to heart and wings, beating, beating, beating.

Notes from the Inside

2011-08-27T17:33:00.000-07:00

A quick update for those who have been following my attempts at finding cohesive treatment as my computer time is limited (for reasons which will be revealed):

After failed attempts to gain admission to the New York ECT program (I must say, I wouldn't have minded some in situ Hurricane Irene action), I have been interred (oops, wrong word), I mean, I have chosen to place myself once again in the research hospital in Pittsburgh where I spent several weeks a few years ago. I apologize in advance for my irony; a defense mechanism, surely, as I am merely exhausted and frayed by the three week process of trying to find some comparable therapeutic program to that I was receiving under my now vanished psychiatrist Dr. B.

Initially, I was told the Pittsburgh program had a waiting list weeks long; as a result of circumstances, I waited weeks. Breathable depression skidded into its black chokehold. My therapist up at the Partial Program wrung her hands, at a loss as what else she could do except to suggest that maybe the time had come for me to try to circumvent the waiting list and simply "present" at the Pittsburgh hospital's ER.

"After all," she said, in genuine concern, "I'm worried you really are at that crisis point now."

Once again, I had to climb into my big bed with my kids and explain to them that Momma had to go to a hospital in Pittsburgh for a few weeks because the doctor who had been doing her procedures up in Erie was no longer working at that hospital. I pulled Sophia and Alexander close to me, holding them as tight as possible because I could see their eyes widening, realizing that their hold on me at home was tentative once again.

"I'm so sorry," I whispered. "You know I would stay here at home with you if I could. But you also know how bad Momma has been feeling these past few weeks?"

Sophia stroked my hand. "Yeah," she said. "Like when you and Daddy are on the couch talking serious and then you start yelling and crying."

"Mommy's just having a hard time feeling like her inside feelings are okay these days. I'm tired of being sad and mad for no reason," I said, "because you are the two best reasons I have to always be happy."

Alexander, solemn and thoughtful, sighed. "Who will take me to my first day of Kindergarten?"

His first day of real school with the Harry Potter lunchbox we picked out together. "A BIG BOY lunchbox," he'd demanded.

And then Sophia, in tandem, realized, too: "That means you'll miss my first day of Fourth grade?" Sadness, but more--fear and loss. All summer long, she'd been hyping up the transition to Fourth grade--worries over friends, water bottles, hair styles, eyebrow thickness, wanting to get "perfect" grades in "every" class because she intended to study hard "every" night. And she wanted me with her, still holding her hand--not too grown up yet for that.

But then Sophia hugged me harder, and said, "Don't worry, Momma. We love you always, even when you're sad and mad. You're the best Momma ever."

Whew. How's that for suicidal antidote?

So, last Sunday, Christopher and the kids dropped me off at the pearly gates of the Pittsburgh Hospital--they couldn't come in. I didn't want them to come in--the kids didn't need to hang around a psych hospital admission intake waiting room for hours upon hours, watching me pace, wring my hands, grind my teeth, prevaricate, minimize, and attempt to be honest about where I am, body and mind.

To make a long afternoon's story short, no beds in the general psych floor, BUT, according to the staffs' evaluation (and based upon my previous admission history there), I was well-qualified for the Eating Disorders Unit again. I was assured that my ECT treatment would still be considered top priority, though. After all, the ECT team there already had all my records waiting, as those self-same records had been waiting on the official Outpatient Waiting List for the past three weeks.

Seven days under my belt. This past Friday was my first ECT treatment in the grand corridors of this ECT research facility. Very different from my experience with Dr. B.. He was not there to offer any words of comfort, anything to soothe anxiety; he was not there to reach out and, literally, hold my hand as anesthesia began to take its effects. A different ER psychiatrist for each day of the week; assembly line process: a line of patients packed, sardine-like, on gurneys, wheeled, one after another, into the ER, then wheeled back out, one after another, into recovery.

I woke up with complete and utter memory loss. Bewildering and frightening at first. Of course, I've had some minimal, occasional memory loss associated with previous ECT sessions, but nothing so pervasive, nothing that lasted for hours upon hours. I truly had no recollection of where I was or why I was there. Indeed, in retrospect, while that aspect was frightening, what I also felt was a complete absence of an inscribed self.

What do I mean by this? A blank self. A self that has not yet been written on by decades of depression, no shameful, guilt-fueled suicidal impulses or attempts, by the ravages of an eating disorder, by the grapevine of scars on her arms (or at least, no memory of how they got there), no traumatic abuse history at the hands of a former boyfriend. Nothing. Nada. Relief.

Now, two days later, as you might probably guess, I'm racing a bit from the immediate and temporary manic uptick ECT can bestow. But I also realize, that with that complete absence of the inscribed self, I lose the hieroglyphs that matter, too: the past that gives substance and meaning. And I miss the story that I am writing now with my husband and my children.

As the ECT treatments progress over the next few weeks, the memory loss should wax and wane, always, for the most part, temporary, as Friday's was: I woke from my very deep, post-ECT sleep, and my Life came rushing back. What ECT promises in the long run, is not erasure or negation of the DEPRESSED SELF. I'm not seeking do-over, just a do-better. Though, as Sophia reminded me as she kissed me goodbye before leaving me at the hospital, "You are always the best Momma, no matter what."

--typed, hastily from "the inside"

Hole or Heaven?

2011-08-15T18:54:00.000-07:00

“You can bury yourself in a hole, or walk your way to heaven.”
-James Reedy, my Yoga Master Extraordinaire

Two weeks and still no clear cut treatment direction. My now attending psychiatrist seems hopelessly hapless. Today, he tells me he will make the referral calls to the programs I’m hoping to find placement in ASAP for continued ECT treatments after his lunch break. One program in particular seems custom fit, like those elaborate, turn-of-the-century ballgowns wealthy aristocratic women were painstakingly sewn into for one evening of wear only by their maidservants: Columbia University has in inpatient research program dedicated to treatment resistant unipolar and bipolar depression with an ECT-focused approach. So the Doctor in charge wanted all my records sent by today and my referring doctor to call her by today.

Were the records sent as promised?

Non.

Did my attending psychiatrist call as promised?

Non.

Am I desperate?

Oui.

Even he knows that. In his own words? “If you continue to decompensate further in the next day or two, we’ll have to look at admitting you to the hospital.”

Decompensate. The inability to maintain good, functional working order in the face of psychological stressors. The image I always imagine when psychiatrists casually interject this word in their conversations with me is that of Mount Rushmore and all those famous, resolute, impervious, stony faces crumbling in a slow, dusty rockslide until there is nothing left but the gray impressions of what once was but never will be again.

I hate to think that I am edging toward the rockslide again. That I might have to disappear from home again, leaving my kids to wonder why I am THAT sick again, if I will be coming back, when I will be coming back, if I will ever be coming back to them again. If this program happens and admission happens soon, it probably means that I will miss Sophia’s first day of fourth grade, her BIG year, the transition year she’s been worried about all summer.

“Momma, you can’t send me to fourth grade with juice boxes anymore. It’s embarrassing. Only waterbottles.”

“Momma, do I have a monobrow?”

“Momma, can I get pregnant if I hold a boy’s hand for too long?”

“Momma, I want to study really, really hard every night so I get really, really good grades.”

“Momma, do you think my stomach is fat? Do you think I need to go on a diet?”

She needs me here, to help with all the messiness of these negotiations between the dream of dragons and the first blush of boys. Of course, the irony is she needs me HERE, alive, and for the past few weeks I’ve been vacillating about whether I should be here or burying myself in a hole in the ground.

And then there’s Alexander and his first day of kindergarten that I’ll be missing. That first walk to school with his backpack, that first kiss at the door to his classroom, that first day home with the proud, crazy energy, his breathless recitation of new friends and rules and the cafeteria and how he managed to wipe his own butt after he pooped at school and tried his best, but could I check just to make sure? Surely he needs me to kiss him goodbye in the morning and surely he needs me outside his classroom door so he can run into my waiting arms to kiss him hello? But again, if I’m burying myself in that hole in the ground, my kisses will surely be cold, without feeling.

And Christopher, beginning the new semester. The insanity of classes, of writing his book, of chauffeuring kids, of cooking breakfast, packing lunches, cooking dinner, scrounging up snacks, laundry, cleaning, dog walking, litter box cleaning, lizard feeding, bill paying, lawn mowing, loving the kids, protecting the kids, reassuring the kids, loving me, forgiving me, taking care of himself, washing, shaving, breathing, sleeping. How do I leave him with all that to take care of if I am being zapped in a New York City hospital? Of course, if I am burying myself in a hole in a ground, that is his job, without hope for relief, for good.

Bury myself in a hole or walk my way to heaven.

Tonight, tucking my kids into bed, my big king-sized bed, I held them against me, breathing them in, kissing them over and over. Their cheeks warm and soft. My son purses his lips; he wants mouth to mouth.

“I love you, Momma,” he says.

My daughter sighs. “You’re the best Momma. Now can you get me a snack? I’m hungry.”

Heaven. They are my heaven. They are why I keep walking. Even if I am crawling on hands and knees right now, breathlessly inching my way up Everest. They are why I aim for the summit.

Glaciers, Droughts, and Worms

2011-08-09T13:58:00.000-07:00

To take my mind off the uncertainty of my immediate future--my present hospital, due to a lack of foresight in their hasty termination of my doctor, has no ability to offer ECT, and the ECT alternatives they suggest, Cleveland Clinic (2 hours away), does not want my referral, and Western Psych, in Pittsburgh, has long waiting list—I have been devouring books. Is there a limit to Kindle’s storage space? If I am not happy these days, Lord knows Amazon is ecstatic at the One-Click buys I seem to be making on an almost daily basis. Perhaps a psychoanalyst would argue that my ingestion of words and images are a substitute for the ingestion of food. The alphabet rolls across my tongue; I swallow sentences whole; paragraphs quell the hunger pangs; stories stuff me silly.

Over the past few days I’ve read several intelligent murder mysteries by Scandinavian and Icelandic writers, which means they tend to be set in icy, snow-covered landscapes. Rigid, blue bodies, frozen blood. Nothing warm; all breath crystalline and jagged. Imagery that seems to run parallel to part of my internal landscape. Even though it is summer and mosquitoes and humidity persist, I feel like I’m walking naked through a barren, arctic plain, the vise of depression cranked tighter and tighter, toes and fingers aching with cold, my heart, too, aching with cold. Looking at all the people I love and believing it would be better just to turn away and continue walking into the white-out conditions ahead.

Then there is the book I’m reading right now. Rose Tremain’s TRESPASS, set in Cevennes, France, during a decimating drought, and concerning two sets of siblings: one pair, consumed by a damaging love for each other; the other pair by a vitiating hatred for each other. Here, the landscape is mountainous, craggy, windy, planted over in lavender, grape vines, and apricot trees. Once upon a time, the main village was home to a silk worm industry, so there was the background noise of millions of silkworms, chewing and chewing their way through tons of oleander leaves. This, too, seems to run parallel to the other half of my brain’s emotional hemisphere. Scorched, burned over, the dangerous bipolar landscape, up the hill and down again. Maybe depression’s drought conditions: brain parched of serotonin and dopamine. Then there are the competing forces: love the world, hate the self; love the family, hate what I do to them. And the constant background chewing-- IT chewing ITs little wormy holes through my brain’s intelligent sponge, leaving me with less resolve, less resilience, less belief that the cisterns will fill again.

But I’ll finish this book tonight. So what do I read next? Too many of the treatment programs I was in suggested the pat, sentimental, inspirational, affirmative drivel (Tell us how you really feel about “100 Ways to Heal the Ironic Woman’s Soul”). What can melt the glacier? What can end the drought? What can drown the worms, stitch the holes?

Maybe the answer is not what I should read, but what I should write. Maybe I need to start feeding the imaginative fires myself. Using my imagination = an act of hope = believing I will see tomorrow.

Maybe I need to smear rainbow paint on my cheeks, strip down naked, glue feathers to my ass and hoot and holler my own rain dance. End my own drought = fire up the synapses = my own version of ECT = write my novel.

Maybe I need to follow my own daughter’s lead and kill my own worms. Sophia has a Chinese Water dragon and feeds it a diet of superworms. One of the more disgusting things that she has to do though, is crush the head of the superworm before hand-feeding it to her lizard, otherwise the worm could chew its way out of the lizard’s stomach, thereby killing it.

Sophia, fearless daughter of mine, champion of what is necessary and practical to sustain life, takes the sharp edge of a soda can tab top, pinches the worm between her fingers, holds it still on the table, then squashes its brains flat. Couldn’t I approach IT and Its wormy ways with the selfsame unsentimental determination to make IT a mash?

Maybe I need to stitch my own holes. Language, the logic and magic of one word after another = the thread of narrative = the story unspooled, soon sewn.

Hell Week: Hazing via Head Shrinking Hospital Administrative Imbeciles

2011-08-04T19:14:00.000-07:00

Let’s just say that I am teetering on the twin edges of Fuck-It devastation and Bleak depression, the incurable smallpox varieties. I am trying to keep my stitches from unraveling, keep the hem from dragging along the floor, keep my dress on, buttoned, panties up. Because really, what I long to do, in extreme maudlin, exaggerated, hyperbolic fashion, is rend all fabric from my body, run stark naked into the nearest, deep body of water, and take a deliberate, long, head first dive.

I apologize in advance. But this has been a shitty, shitty week, and it’s not even over. Last week, I was barely hanging on, but managed to stay afloat, buoyed by my perspicacious, compassionate psychiatrist, the doctor who has served as astute manager of mood as well as empathetic therapist this past year, not to mention the careful administer of the electrical voltage to my brain circuitry. Literally, the only psychiatrist capable (and credentialed) to do all this, to understand and treat ALL of me (the Bipolar Disorder, the Eating Disorder, the Alcoholism, the Self-harm), ALL at Once, in the entire northwest Pennsylvania area. *This is an important detail that you need to have at the ready in a mere few paragraphs.

So. My psychiatrist saw the warning signs, the rapid depressive descent I was taking over the past few weeks and decided an immediate course of ECT would be effective and we would start on Monday.

“Okay,” I said. “I can hang on until then. Hope that things will get better even against my natural pessimistic inclination.”

“And no cutting? Because you know the consequences.”

“Yes,” I sighed. “I lose you as my doctor.”

“And no trying to kill yourself between now and then? And if you seriously consider it, you will call me regardless of time?”

I shrugged. “I don’t want to be a bother.”

His pointed stare.

“Okay, okay. Regardless of time.”

“And you will eat something. Protein. I need something to work with in order for ECT to work. Yogurt, granola, some fruit? And no throwing it up?”

I nodded.

“Say it,” he said.

“Okay,” I said. “I can do that for you.”

“You matter, and not just to me. You matter to a lot of people. Your family, for one. Your kids. You decided to bring your kids into the world. You’re responsible to them—you have to stay alive for them. For them, not for me.”

And then he was gone for the rest of the week at a conference and I was left to hold on to that hope and promise he offered once again. ECT worked before, last Fall, when I fell and fell and fell. Surely it could work again.

All last week, even though I struggled every day with urges to cut, with darker urges towards the implacable Furies, I held onto my doctor’s words. His words, his instructions are the first that I’ve really ever listened to, or respected, or truly acted on from a mental health professional. In part, because he calls me on my b.s., sees through my irony and defensive self-deprecation, pokes and prods and sometimes shoves in all the right (wrong) places. Generally, when he tells me to do something—not cut, eat an apple, call or email and tell him I’m still alive—I do. So I held on all last week—to my kids, to my husband, to my friends, to AA, by my fingertips.

On Sunday, a strange, late afternoon phone call from the hospital: screw-up with insurance, ECT delayed. I immediately sent my doctor a desperate text. He was equally confused as everything was in place and ready to go before he left for the conference.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “Be ready to come up in the morning. I’ll figure it out.”

7a.m., he calls. “You’re good to go.” Miracle worker.

When I get up to the hospital, with husband and kids in tow, we have a quick, but direct conversation. It would be best to admit me as inpatient as he believes I should probably receive 3 treatments, rather than 2 this week, and with the possibility of Christopher and the kids gone from home for a few days, he would feel better with me under observation, i.e., SAFE. The plan: Go home, come back up on Tuesday afternoon, check-in, stay the rest of the week.

Really. Once he said those words—SAFE here, under (his) observation, I felt relief, felt the struggle leave my body, felt like I didn’t have to be vigilant for myself for a few days—could cede the constant, anxious watchfulness over to his more capable hands. Just give up the 24 hour guard duty for a few days and close my eyes, try to turn off the thoughts, the voice of IT, yield, surrender, be literally under his trusted watch.

Tuesday: I arrive at the ER to check-in as instructed. Anxious, chewing my nails, trying to breathe. But still, absolutely certain I am doing the right and necessary thing.

“Dr. B. sent me here to check myself inpatient for ECT.”

Administrator: “Dr. B. doesn’t work here.”

“Of course, he does. He told me this yesterday. I had ECT yesterday and he decided I should do this today.”

Administrator: “No, Dr. B. doesn’t work here anymore.”

The long story short? Dr. B. came back from his conference to the “shock-and-awe” campaign of the hospital administration. Immediate termination. He was hired last summer as Head of Psychiatry to create a new vision plan for the hospital and psychiatric resident program. Apparently, the vision required re-vision, which meant pissing off the old (provincial) guard, likely getting his (better, smarter, more efficient) way most of the time, and expecting change to happened yesterday.

I can’t really imagine what this means to him, but I know that he is a conscientious, empathetic, responsible doctor, so this is not how he would have wanted to leave his many patients.

In my own selfish, narrow world?

ECT has been suspended. No one else is licensed in the hospital. No one else is licensed between here and Cleveland or Pittsburgh, cities 2 hours away.

I have not been given a contingency plan by the hospital, no substitute. They made no plan for what would happen when they couldn’t offer someone like me who had started ECT the rest of her ECT treatment. An analogy? Like starting a medication and then abruptly withdrawing it without regard to side effects, withdrawal symptoms. Not to mention, medications cannot substitute for ECT as I am medication resistant. Tried them all—the anti-depressants, the neuroleptics, the anti-psychotics, the anti-anxieties. Nothing else gets me out of the hole as effectively and quickly as the current of electricity resetting neuro-pathways. Not immediate bliss, not innocent happiness, but it provides respite, a refuge from the Furies, restful shelter from the helter skelter.

Now? Nothing. Not even a phone call from the next-in-line doctor in-charge as to what has been put into emergency placement for me. Of course, this next-in-line doctor is still in training, isn’t fully credentialed anyway, so I don’t expect real, complex help there. Nor do I expect a doctor to work with my nutritionist like Dr. B. did on a weekly basis.

Oh, there’s that issue, too. Dr. B. ordered a bone density scan and blood tests to check up on some nutritional issues he was concerned about. No one seems to know where those results are; no one seems to have the time or professional courtesy to pass them on to me so that I can pass them on to my nutritionist and perhaps gain other clinical advice.

But really, what is most devastating, and I mean truly sobbing-off-and-on-all-day devastating is the fact that I have lost the one doctor I have trusted with my life for the first time in my life. Despite however terrible, shameful, humiliating, terrifying, or self-condemning my thoughts or actions have been over the past year, I told him everything BECAUSE he listened to it all, did not humiliate or shame me, but offered clear, concise instructions as to what I could do to improve my stability, to extend the periods of a quieter mind, to change deeply entrenched and seemingly unchangeable thought patterns, to learn to choose higher cognitive functioning (“You’re smarter than that!”) over impulsive, lizard brain (“You don’t need to cut your arm over and over anymore! Just talk to me. “), to begin to imagine that I might be able to make peace with all that plagues me and find, miraculously, a cure: mind, body, and spirit pulled together; medication, ECT, therapy, balance, forgiveness, love, self-smarts, and a clinical, clear understanding of my own particular brain chemistry—its triggers, its basement of horrors, its strange proclivities and obsessions, its passions and joys, its despairs and its necessities.

And now he is gone. And I am left, bereft. I don’t know how I can do it all again: find another doctor somewhere within 150 miles that can tackle all of IT, a doctor that I can fully trust, a doctor who has his integrity and confidence, his professional brilliance and humane empathy.

U2. Me, Too. We, Two.

2011-07-30T08:35:00.000-07:00

I went to my first sober concert this week. (Me and 65,000 other Pittsburgh fans.) My first sober concert ever at 39 years old. And not just any concert, but U2. A band I’ve been waiting to see since I was 13 years old. Granted, Bono and the rest of the guys have aged and grayed a bit in the 30 plus years they’ve been playing together, but then, so have I. I have to admit (and here, my husband will just have to put up with the traces of the superficial, breathless, fluttery-eyelash, hormonal teenage self that still occupies the front-and-center of my amygdala), Bono still looks damn good in his leather pants.

My first concert? Depeche Mode. Madison Square Garden, 1987, 2nd row. Prior to the concert, my girlfriends and I got drunk off a few six-packs. I don’t remember much except a lot of flashing strobe lights, smoke machines, synthesizers, and my friend vomiting on the floor. Oh, and for some reason, one of the roadies thought it was a good idea to give a bunch of 15 year old Catholic school girls back stage passes to meet the band. I mean, this was 1987. Pre-Brittany Spears, pre-belly button, taut-tummy shirts, pre-thongs-on-teenagers, pre-super-provocative-hyper-sexualized-brazilian-wax-and-tattoo-on-my-clitoris decade. I mean, we were trying to pull off suburban-punk-wannabe: Doc Martens, short plaid skirts, black tights, red lipstick. Never mind that we would all take the Long Island Railroad home to our cul-de-sac neighborhoods post-concert.

But. Backstage we went. Shared a few very drunken beers with Depeche Mode and their opening band, Book of Love. Got autographs. Did not exchange any sexual favors. (Though at a later concert of theirs at Jones Beach, desperate for backstage passes once again, one of my once again drunken friends would desperately allow herself to be lecherously groped by their manager, a man with bleached white hair and a row of toddler-tiny teeth in their tour bus. What she really did for the passes, she’d never tell. But we all met the band again. Starry-eyed, arrogant in our bragging rights. Confident that we really didn’t belong in suburban safety. Even Depeche Mode had seen that in us!

Concert after concert. All of them involved being intoxicated. The point seemed not to remember the music, but to disappear inside of it—to be swept up in the flashing lights, in the billowing smoke, in the press of the crowd. To remember the heady intoxication. But the songs?

Once, I even attempted suicide at a concert. Lollapalooza. I was 20. Deliberately downed 17 shots of vodka in about 17 minutes. My intention was simply to disappear for good. To be swallowed up in the music, in the anonymity of the thousands of people who were there, to not be found. I came without I.D., so I did not want to be found either. But I was found, in some nearby field. Underwear on, but jean shorts gone. Who knows how I got there, or what happened to get me there. I was transported to the closest Emergency Room. I came to, completely strapped down to a gurney, wrists and ankles tied up, hooked up to an I.V. and catheter, a blood alcohol level of .39. Almost, almost, very, very close to dead. I woke up disappointed because I was still alive. I woke up having to lie to doctors and nurses and my parents. “Gosh,” I said. “I guess I drank too much.” Ooops. They all believed me. Despite the ribbons of old white scars on my arms. Despite the new red fissures that crossed them.

But all that is in the past.

This week I’ve been feeling pretty good, hooked up to a continuous I.V. of U2. They played for two and one half hours straight. New music, but a lot of their “old” music, the music that got me through my adolescence, the music I listened to when I was alone in my room, believed no one understood me, believed that I would always be an outcast, always feel empty, always feel adrift. The music I listened to when I took the bus back and forth to high school, dreading having to step into school, dreading having to walk the long manicured streets of my development towards home, my Walkman snug over my head, Bono singing to me and only to me: “With or Without You,” “Pride (In the Name of Love),” “I Will Follow,” “Sunday Bloody Sunday,” “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.” These songs kept me alive. 26 years I’ve been waiting to see this band. Maybe my Higher Power knew I needed to wait this long so that I could hear the music, so that I could remember the songs, feel them inside.
Let me not veer off into complete sentimentality here. Out of the 65,000 fans crammed into Heinz Stadium, who did I have to sit next to in the Upper West Deck? Two middle aged dads, talking very loudly, very seriously throughout the concert about one of their daughters.

Dad #1: “It started during college and she’s never gotten over it.”

Dad #2: “Like the freshmen 15, only the reverse.”

Dad #1: “She goes in for treatment, comes home, gets better, then gets worse. Anorexia is hell.”

Dad #2: “It seems like it’s everywhere.”

Dad #1: “It has the greatest mortality rate of any mental illness. Sometimes I wish she had cancer or leukemia. Then there’d be an end to all this. I keep hoping and hoping and it’s killing us all. There’s nothing her mom and I can say that helps. There’s no end to this.”

He was right. That’s what it feels like at times. No end to all this. All of it. The Bipolar Disorder. The Eating Disorder. The shame and guilt. But I turned away from him, turned towards U2 singing to me, to me, to me this night, that night, and all those many, many nights keeping me alive and hopeful. And shit, I am still alive 26 six years later, 26 more years than I expected to be, given the desperation and desolation of all the previous decades.

So I turned towards U2 singing before me, live and alive, and turned towards Christopher standing beside me—yes, the man who loves me for me, the man who I love standing beside me. I wasn’t locked away in some room alone, Walkman attached to my head, singing to myself. We were raising our hands together, singing (okay, belting out) along with Bono and the boys together, along with the 64, 999 fans, part of, not cut off. And after the concert? Driving home together, to our kids and dogs and cat and Chinese water dragon, to our imperfect, complicated life together.

“Drowning Man,” U2

Take my hand
You know I'll be there
If you can
I'll cross the sky for your love.
For I have promised
For to be with you tonight
And for the time that will come.

Take my hand
You know I'll be there
If you can
I'll cross the sky for your love.
And I understand
These winds and tides
This change of times
Won't drag you away.

Hold on, and hold on tightly.
Hold on, and don't let go of my love.
The storms will pass, it won't be long now.
This love will last, this love will last forever.

And take my hand, you know I'll be there.
If you can I'll cross the sky for your love.
Give you what I hold dear.

Hold on, hold on tightly.
Hold on, and hold on tightly.
Rise up, rise up with wings like eagles.
You run, you run.
You run and not grow weary.

Hold on, and hold on tightly.
Hold on, hold on tightly
This love, lasts forever.
Now this love lasts forever.

The Hollywood Reporter Catches Up With Everyone's Favorite Mad Momma

2011-07-25T18:13:00.000-07:00

Q: So, Kerry, besides lounging Hollywood-diva style on Grecian beaches, what else did you do on your summer vacation?

A: I’ve been hostess with the mostess, sans pitchers of Blue Mojitos, which undoubtedly led to neurotic perfectionistic tendencies, a la Martha Stewart on steroids. Case in point: hosting friends this past week, trying to make amends for a messy, sloshy, drink-sneaking, manic visit to their pad last summer. So I scoured the house, tossed voluminous bags of unnecessary clutter, brightly smiled while solo-cleaning up breakfast, lunch, and dinner dishes, effusively DID NOT mind anyone else drinking lovely, yummy bottles of wine around me (really, I didn’t as I was happy to escape inside downward spiraling self with my Kindled book in bed). I claimed better health, claimed stronger self, smiled and charmed, prattled on about recovery and optimism (all the while knowing I was collapsing, folding like a windless, hole-riddled accordion).

Q: Why, that sounds commendable. Self-sacrifice, for the happiness and contentment of others. Bravo, to that resuscitated Catholic schoolgirl penance, and add three Rosaries! Is that all you’ve been up to?

A: Well, there’s been the need to skulk about town, trying to hide from most former colleagues, slathered as I am, head to toe, in the twin sunscreen of Shame and Guilt. My first summer without an Academic Fall to return to, my first at-home office, unusable because it is in the attic which, in the heat wave that has transformed my town into the Congo’s doppelganger, is a trance-inducing sweat lodge (guaranteeing visions of totemic animals—Orca? Tarantula? Triceratops? Dead husk of Yellow jacket prostrate on windowsill?--What, really, were all those years of graduate school for? So I could write, learn from esteemed writers, make connections, blah, blah, blah. Really, so I could learn how to teach, and get a good teaching job, a tenure track job, and make a living as a writer by being a good—no, an (almost) perfect teacher. Which I was for almost a decade. Then. Then. Then. The End. I don’t even remember the end. That traumatic. Christopher tells me we had a meeting with the Dean. That I was kindly terminated due to my situational instability. The progressive health difficulties. My multiple hospitalizations. I don’t even remember cleaning out my office. Or even what I did with the six bookcases of books. But that was winter. This is summer.

Q: So, suntans, socializing, skulking, and…?

A: Slenderizing. Giving in, giving up. Losing hope of getting through this monster that is eating me alive. The clawing at my neck. The voice that says, less of me, less of me, less of me. The voice that demands, Abstinence, Abnegation, Asceticism. Anything that is unnecessary gets sheared off—of diet, of body, of wants, of needs. Anything superfluous is wasteful, gluttonous, disgusting. How little can I live on? That is the price I pay for being me, for being allowed, ironically, to live it seems. (Here, the Hollywood Diva should look out into the distance, at the cliffs, maybe the blue Aegean sea, maybe a tear trickles down her cheek, maybe then a flood of tears in self-pity or self-compassion. But I am no Diva. Just check the state of my shredded, chewed nails and cuticles. Nothing to manicure. So no tears. Just the steely gaze.)

Q: And the rest of the summer that remains? How shall you fill your time? Surely the paparazzi are waiting?

A: I despise photographs. I can only see some stranger who might be some distant relation to me, but not me. As for the rest of the summer? Next week, another unexpected round of ECT. Electro-convulsive therapy. Electrogirl returns. A brief appearance. Hard drive needs a reboot. I like to think of it as a kind of intensive spa getaway—add anesthesia and electrodes, subtract massage and sauna. A mind-full pampering, nonetheless.

Paradise: Check the Lost and Found

2011-07-08T13:47:00.000-07:00

When the storm is over and night falls and the moon is out in all its glory and all you're left with is the rhythm of the sea, of the waves, you know what God intended for the human race, you know what paradise is.
HAROLD PINTER, Party Time

Back from my Hellenic adventures, sunnier, older (39 gasp!), not sure if I am any wiser, but the first sober vacation in twenty years. I was skeptical, of course. Wouldn’t I miss the cloudy, icy cold glasses of ouzo? Or the resiny cups of wine from the barrel?

All those dissipated Spring Breaks to Caribbean islands with the sole intentions of becoming an unnatural shade of bronze, hooking up with some equally unnaturally bronzed boy from some exotic college (i.e., outside the New York-New Jersey-Connecticut triangle), and consuming as many cheap (if not free) unnaturally turquoise cocktails rimmed with sugar and umbrellas and other plastic freebie souvenirs. Thankfully, I soon graduated, met my husband-to-be, who introduced me to Greece (ouzo portside, cold Retsina poured from tin pitchers), Italy (Campari and soda with the perfect slice of orange in the late afternoon, followed by picnics in vineyards with a bottle or two of Chianti), France (and afternoons spent wine tasting, then evenings spent, well, wine tasting), and Romania (really?) with its small cramped convenience store I hit every day to buy two bottles of Italian wine—we never knew when they would run out of stock--(a weirdly good and cheap Italian Montepulciano, crammed between terrible Romanian plonk).

This trip, sober? I did not miss any of it. Instead, what I found was an unexpected gift of peace. At least, Dionysus and his cups of seductive, fermented grapes stayed far from my beach blanket. His Sirens sang their songs, wooing my fellow travelers, but not to me. Not one urge, not one desire to drink.

This is not to say that I was free of other oppressive troubles. Every day I was plagued by urges to restrict my food. How absurd! I mean, I was measuring out spoonfuls of real Greek yogurt, the kind your spoon stands straight up in, feeling guilty about eating an unintended, tree-ripened peach, going back and forth and back and forth about whether an extra olive would, calorie-wise, be worth it. And encountering my previous purge sites, a shameful archaeology. Oh, there’s the tamarisk tree I puked behind like some overheated, sick dog. And there’s the scarlet bougainvillea bush I threw up in, my head thrust through the branches like some desperately thirsty hummingbird.

Then there were the vines of scars on my arms thrown into glaring white relief by the immediately acquired tan given by the splendid, dopamine-revving Greek sun. I not only felt crazy, but looked crazy—I mean, arm-cutting might be a quasi-coolish-dramatic-mark of the angst-ridden, Plath-filled tribe of the outsider twenty-ish dangerous and deep and depressed, but on a 39 year old Momma of two kids running helter-skelter along the beach, a wife of one of the esteemed poet-prose writers serving as faculty for the writing seminar being held on this Greek island?

Wasn’t I just as bad as one of those wino hags at the local dive bar wearing the too-tight, bedazzled tank top, spelling out, “Bitch At Heart” in rhinestones across silicone enhanced boobs, sucking down the off-label Jack and Cokes, trying to pick up much younger men, believing herself still to be the seventeen year old hot hootchie she (never) was?

And yet. I’d be swimming in that glorious blue water of the Aegean, and out of nowhere, the Bipolar Furies would suddenly catch up with me, hands grabbing at my feet, trying to pull me under, voices whispering in my ears, “You will never get away from us. You will never be free. You belong to us. To this emptiness. Just let us pull you down. Give in. It will be easier just to let go.” A moment of believing this. A moment too long. Let go. Yes. The relief. The release.

But. Those snorkel maniacs on the beach waiting for me. A.K.A. My kids and husband.

So. A fast and furious paddle back to shore where I’d flop on the towel, listen to the endless, reliable lapping of the waves that whispered their own comfort--You are here, safely moored, safely shored--surrender to sun, let the light blind me, let the light edge out all that darkness.

Books saved me. A novel a day. Manic reading perhaps. Thank god for Kindle and instant download. The more benevolent Furies tugging me into lives other than my own. The logic of paragraphs, the grammar of a sentence to counteract (counterattack) the racing thoughts, the dissociative, destructive urges. One action leads reliably to another, the cause and effect of a well-developed plot, unlike my own volatile, often blind stumblings.

What else brought me back to shore, to my senses in those often senseless moments? Ironically, the thought of my return to, of all places, home. Back to my friends, back to my new friends at my Partial Hospitalization Program and its daily routine, back to my AA meetings, back to my life which isn’t paradise, but isn’t, miraculously, momentarily, momentously hell anymore.

Auschwitz, Optimism. Merci, Mercy.

2011-06-02T19:22:00.000-07:00

Optimism. Not my natural inclination, but something I’m being encouraged to practice these days. Grasp its tiny glimmers. Seize hold of its whispers with ferocity and don’t let go. Or, if that doesn’t work, AA offers a bounty of catchy slogans: act “as if,” fake it ‘til I make it. (Alternately, bake it—as in, a dozen cupcakes and I can pretend I might eat one, might lick a fingerful of chocolate frosting, might let a few rainbow sprinkles dissolve on my tongue).

There I go again. A decidedly unoptimistic tone. Retreating to know-it-all irony. Who me have genuine hope for myself? AA tells me to pray every day to a Higher Power. All I can manage to squawk out in the morning (not aloud, of course, still too self-conscious for that) is, “I’m awake and not hungover, not dead, not freshly cut, not hospitalized. Thus, intact for the moment. Merci, mercy;” and at night, while tossing and turning my way to sleep, is, “I’m still awake, and miraculously still intact. Merci for my family and friends and for AA and my ubermensch psychiatrist. Mercy, please, and let me sleep?”

Oh, just effing stop it, Kerry. Stop pretending that you don’t care, that you are impermeable, impervious, that your insides aren’t stitched together with sadness and loneliness and fear.

Optimism. A few years ago, my family moved to Romania for several months. My husband received a Fulbright fellowship. It was supposed to be a great adventure. Bucharest or Bust. Exactly how good a liar was I to pull off that bit of manipulative convincing that I was well enough to go at 109 pounds, purging the little I did eat, chomping down lithium and sleeping meds and still wildly unstable? But away I went because surely isolation in a post-Communist, graffitied, stray-dog pack laden, gypsy-haunted city would save me from myself.

But we took advantage of our proximity to other European destinations and traveled. Greece, Italy, Poland. A friend who lived in Krakow helped us find babysitting services, so Christopher and I day-tripped to Auschwitz. Day-tripped. Clearly the wrong word. Too jaunty. Too blithe since most who went there never left.

What I remember:

Outside the entrance gates, concession stands selling jumbo sodas and foot-long sausages in buns. Crass doesn’t even come close.

The entrance sign hanging over the gates: Arbeit Macht Frei (Work Makes One Free).

Rooms inside the barracks filled with different accumulated objects: Shoes. A stray red shoe. Suitcases. Artificial limbs and crutches. Piles and piles of miniature bales of hair. Or coils of braided hair. Eyeglasses and brushes. Moth-eaten baby sweaters. Jewish prayer shawls.

The small, roadside restaurant we stopped in afterwards for lunch. On our table: pierogies, meat stew, cabbage rolls, very tall, cold draft beers. I drank my beer very quickly, ate sparingly, then went to the bathroom and threw up. Not out of some dramatic, misplaced survivor’s guilt. But because I was in the stupid, pathetic throes of a common eating disorder. Believe me, the revolting irony of it was not lost on me—I was wretching into the toilet, while all those millions of people starved to death, were exterminated. I had the vain luxury to choose to throw up my lunch, to choose to throw up my life.

Okay. So I can choose to wallow in guilt and shame here. Or I can learn my lesson. Because there is another story to learn from this. A story already published. In Memory’s Kitchen: A Legacy from the Women of Terezin, a cookbook patched together from the memories of female prisoners at Terezin, a way station to Auschwitz. They wrote down their recipes for chocolate torte, plum strudel, roast goose—all the while surviving on potato peels—not because they believed they would ever cook these dishes again, but because they believed somehow, against reason, future generations might be able to claim their inheritance, find a way to cook their grandmother’s kugel. An insane, improbable, one might even say, delusional optimism.

With this before me as an exemplum, I retract all irony, all cynicism. I think I can manage “as if.” As if it will cost me all that much, anyway.

One more thought on optimism. Today, my daughter and I were driving to the Humane Society. She’s started to volunteer to help out with the animals—and since she’s only eight, she needs to be accompanied by an adult. And since I need to repair some of the damage my absence has wrought these past months, I’ve decided I’ll help her. So we’re driving to the shelter today, the first day of volunteering, and Sophia says, “I’m so excited.” Her voice is squeaky-happy. “I’m so excited that my tummy is doing flip-flops. Why would it be doing that if I'm happy?”

“That’s called anticipation,” I said.

“What’s anticipation?” she says.

“It’s like you’re so excited because you’re looking forward to something that your insides get all wiggly and squiggly.”

“That’s exactly it.”

And I realized that is exactly it. Exactly how I feel these days before I go to my AA meetings. Before I walk into my Partial Hospitalization group sessions. Before I meet with my psychiatrist. Before I tumble into bed to snuggle with my kids each night. Anticipatory excitement. Otherwise known as optimism. Merci. Mercy. Thank you.

Defenders of Sanity

2011-05-30T17:34:00.000-07:00

Last night, the discussion topic at AA was loneliness. A meaningful coincidence, considering the fact that my husband has been overseas for the past few weeks shuttling college students around Greece on a study-abroad trip, a trip I used to co-teach when I was gainfully employed as a stable, useful, necessary, and needed college professor. Now, when my husband posts pictures of himself posed with giddy students grouped in front of the ancient monuments at Delphi or happily semi-soused at tavernas, the table littered with miniature ouzo glasses and the dessicated carcasses of roasted fish, plates littered with olive pits and remnants of tzaziki, and I am no longer in those photos? I feel lonely, like I’ve lost some essential part of myself, like there was once this functioning, respectable, sort-of-happy Kerry and now, she is gone for good. I almost believe if I were to flip through those old photos from those previous trips, the only trace of me would be some ghostly shadow hovering in the corners of the negatives. No evidence that really, truly I was once there.

A few days ago, a friend and I were strolling through an old cemetery in town and she told me a story related to her by our town’s historian: a woman from the 19th century was unexpectedly widowed during her pregnancy with twins. Her husband wandered off into the woods and never returned. Suicide was speculated, but he was never found. When her children were born, she named them Loneliness and Desolation. I kid you not. What a burden to pass on. But sometimes this is the exact burden I have passed on to my own children. Loneliness and desolation. After all, these two states are the conjoined twins of Bipolar disorder, and are the damages that lay claim to those who lay in its path.

Take my daughter Sophia. In my most recent several months absence, her father and I thought it best that she receive some counseling. After all, she must be feeling some inner turmoil connected to my sudden leaving, connected to the upending of her life once again due to my illness. This past week I went with her to her therapy appointment; her therapist told me that while Sophia seems remarkably resilient, she also tends to hide her emotions, her pain, that she is able to deflect it and buries herself in books and her imagination. Exactly what I do. And then there’s Sophia’s verbalized loneliness connected to her friends, or lack there of, these days. She’s almost nine, at an age where most of the girls in her class have Bieber fever, are beginning to become pre-teen lobotomized, obsessed with bling and glitter, the catty whispers and the spiteful pushing and shoving up the nascent social ladder. Sophia is a girl obsessed with dragons and her pet lizard, Bomb, and barely sits still long enough for me to run a brush through her hair.

So when I suggested she could invite a friend over for a playdate the other day, she said, sadly, “I don’t really have any friends. No one wants to play with me. No one else believes in dragons. They just all tease me. I don’t have a true best friend.”
A fist in the gut. All I could do was hug her. Tell her she was perfect as is. Tell her that her imagination was amazing. That she was loved. Tell her that it took me a long time to find my best friend because I was wacky, too. But when I found her, my friend Erin, in 6th grade, we’ve been best friends ever since. That a best friend is worth waiting for.
Of course, I didn’t tell her about the desperate loneliness in between the wait. How, in fourth grade, because of that loneliness and desolation, I downed a bottle of Flintstone vitamins in hopes of ending that pain.

And then there’s this return to Greece in two weeks. The last time I was there, I was at the absolute bottom of the well. Drinking and purging and starving and so out-of-my-mind lonely and desolate that within a week of returning to the States, I deliberately overdosed on my meds and woke up (at the time, unfortunately) in the ICU. I was talking to my psychiatrist about this the other day, about my fear of my suicidal impulsivity. How this scene keeps replaying in my head: Christopher, the kids, and I are driving back down a mountainous cliff after some party at a church at the tippy-top of said mountain. In Greece, the roads wind perilously close to the cliff edges, no guard rails, just lucky restraint and care and sobriety keep you on the road. Except when they don’t. All along these roads, are little shrines built by family members to honor the dead (those who drove their cars or motorcycles over the cliffs and died) or the almost dead (those who almost drove their cars or motorcycles over the cliffs and managed to walk away). On this night, the kids were soundly asleep in the back seat; Christopher was driving, sober; I was beside him, decidedly not, and angry and manic and depressed and enraged and arguing and threatening to hurl myself from the car and off the side of the cliff. Determined to.

When I told this to my doctor, he said, “Well, the next time you feel like this, you climb into the back seat, get in between your kids, and hold onto their hands. Remember why you need to stick around. Remember why you need to stay alive.”

Of course, the next time, God willing, I will be sober, too, but even without alcohol in the mix, I’m still feeling the manic highs and lows and suicidal impulses. So my doctor’s advice seems both sage and sane.

And, I need to remember that I did not name my children Loneliness and Desolation, but Sophia (Wisdom) and Alexander (Defender). Taken together, my children suggest that they are the defenders of my sanity. Hold their hands and I will stay away from the cliff’s edge.

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall

2011-05-24T19:44:00.000-07:00

Today, my therapist at my Partial Hospitalization program asked me if I can see my “soul,” the “Real Kerry” when I look in the mirror.

After cringing, perhaps too visibly, at the New Agey, It’s Three O’Clock. Do You Know Where Your Inner Child Is? (Remember those 1980’s commercials?) emphasis on the word soul, I replied, “What I see, when I look, if I look, is an assembly of parts. All of it wrong. Complete detachment. Honestly, I don’t even understand how my husband can take any pleasure in touching my body when I can’t even bear to look at it. I glance in the mirror and what is reflected back is only this loathsome thing. So a soul inhabiting that? Impossible.”

I should add that the full-length mirror in the bathroom is set directly against the cat litter box. That awful ammonia spray, those litter encrusted turds perhaps too directly analogous to my feelings for myself?

The Real Kerry? Is that the Kerry with her arms full of scars? Is that the Kerry ravaged by deliberate starvation, a bony wreck? Is that the Kerry vomiting into the toilet beside the mirror and the cat box? Is that the Kerry trying to pick the lock of the liquor cabinet with a barbecue skewer, a lock put there by her husband to keep her away from the vodka, the gin, the rum, the scotch, anything with any proof at all? Is that the Kerry zooming around on the jet fumes of mania or trying to decide whether the bottle of pills or the garden hose attached to the exhaust pipe or the noose slung around the closet rod or the car aimed at the telephone pole would be the most effective way to end the black despair?

Or is the Real Kerry the one who diligently drives herself forty-five minutes each way to the Partial program five days a week, hoping that she will finally get it, that something will finally stick? Is she the one who is optimistically packing her bags for a three week family trip to Greece, departing in a mere two and one half weeks? Is she the one who, against her dysfunctional better judgment, is actually completely honest with her psychiatrist, ratting herself out for each slip, each dangerous thought? Is she the wife and mother who tentatively imagines herself, dares to project herself into the future alongside her family?

I don’t know. All I know is that I hate mirrors. Have always hated them. Even as a little kid. I would look in them and pick myself apart, zeroing in on the flaws, on the parts of me that were not right, that weren’t perfect, that were ugly, too skinny, too flat, too blemished, too much Kerry and not enough…Better. More Acceptable. More Beautiful. More Lovable. Enough. All I could see against that cold, reflective surface was Never Enough. No surprise that even now, my husband can find me in front of the mirror over the bathroom sink, not transfixed by my own beauty, but picking apart my face, picking and picking and picking until I bleed. Reality check: I am almost 39 years old. I do not have almost-pre-menopausal acne. I am seeking out the tiniest bump, the miniscule blemish, the almost imperceptible imperfection and picking at it, magnifying it, making damn sure that I am as ugly as I feel.

But then, yesterday. I walked into the bathroom to my daughter perched on the sink, her face pressed close to the mirror, her mouth open in a wide grimace.

“Momma,” she said, “How do I get my teeth as white as yours? My teeth aren’t white enough.”

“Oh my god, Sophia,” I said. “Your teeth are completely white!” And it was the truth. They are white. Not blinding white, not bleach-product white, but natural white, the white of a kid who has good dental hygiene, who hasn’t smoked cartons of cigarettes, or guzzled gallons of coffee or wine.

“No, Momma. They’re not white like yours.”

Fuck, I thought. This is how it starts. The picking, then the picking apart. Teeth then stomach then thighs then ass then breasts then then then then…

“Oh sweetheart, that’s crazy.” I leaned down, and smiled beside her. Smile beside smile. “See? Same same.” Then I turned her away from the mirror and planted a kiss on her lips. “You are perfect and perfectly beautiful and crazy to think anything different.”

Which may mean, by force of logic, that Momma may be crazy, too.

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggedy Jig

2011-05-22T11:44:00.000-07:00

Once again, Momma went mad. Hence, the long, silent absence. An almost two month stint, inpatient, at a residential program in Arizona. Dual diagnosis, designed to tackle both the Eating Disorder and the Bipolar Disorder. What I wasn’t expecting (or perhaps I should rephrase: what I wasn’t ready to admit) was that I would emerge as a Triple Diagnosis: now add Alcoholism to my list of what officially ails me.
I have to say, it is a relief to give up drinking, and liberating, too, to acknowledge the problem alcohol has played in this continuing downward tumble.

I mean, I was never an every-day-drunk, never an in the gutter, hands clutching the rot-gut handle of no-name vodka, never slumped against the dumpster, vomit dribbling down my chin. Never that, no (but sometimes close, at least, the decorous, middle-class, educated version). But certainly, I drank too, too much, and too, too often. And certainly, my drinking created problems between my husband and me, and created problems in my ability to be a good mom, and made the depression and mood instability worse. And when drunk, my cutting and purging were out-of-control. Venomous rages? Check. The occasional blackout? Check. Impulsive attempts at suicide? Check.

So. Booze be gone. Since I’ve returned home from Arizona, I’ve been going to AA meetings as often as possible, which are helping me to stay afloat because those unstable moods, the bleak, black depression have both returned. And AA’s message of hope and courage and perseverance keeps me from doing really stupid, stupid things. The big time stupid things (I still, yes, I admit, engage in the small time stupid things but I hope to learn better with time).

So yes, once again, I have to remind myself to be grateful to have made it home from yet another stint of rehab, grateful that doctors and family alike saw the grim signs of desperation, saw that I was once again teetering on the edge, knew not to take me at my dishonest, completely fucked-up word and didn’t give me any other real choice. I believe my husband said, “Either you go inpatient or you can’t come home.” So I went.

I went, got better-er, and am home. Again. Listening to my kids run riot in the backyard, playing some version of “I’ll poke your eye out with a sharpened stick-Not if I throw a handful of mulch in your eye first.” Am a few weeks away from the first real family vacation in three years: three weeks in Greece on the teeny, tiny island of Serifos. (Not without its attendant anxieties, but more on that later). But victory, nonetheless. I am actually in a place where transcontinental travel is possible: doctors and husband alike believe I’m a safe bet.

I’m traveling five days a week to a Partial Hospitalization Program run by my Psychiatrist that helps with stabilizing moods and gaining coping skills. Generally stuff I’ve learned before, but of course, I’m the expert at forgetting what could help me—what could actually make a difference in recovery. And then there’s also the benefit of being surrounded by people struggling with similar difficulties; I no longer feel like the absolute craziest person in the entire room. State. Country. Hemisphere.

I’m trying my best to follow the mealplan assigned by my treatment program, a plan meant to keep my body nutritionally sound, and my mind balanced. But it is hard. Damned hard. I look in the mirror and see all the weight I gained while away and am honestly repulsed. Can only see excess. Which is, of course, the perfect container for how I feel about all of me: Excessive. Excessive body. Excessive reactions. Excessive emotions. Excessive anger. Excessive mood swings. Excessive neediness. Excessive inexplicable pain.

But IT’s voice seems quieter, today anyway. Perhaps a result of the new meds I’m on: a new mood stabilizer which has made a significant difference in the diabolical see-saw. Quieter but not gone. As they say in AA, it’s progress not perfection I’m after.

Tiger-Momma

2011-02-01T16:37:00.000-08:00

A lazy Tuesday morning in bed thanks to the snowlocaust blanketing most of the country. Outside the window, at least six inches of snow across the neighboring roof. Inside, the kids are curled up next to me—my daughter busily playing her Nintendo DS dragon game; my son stroking my hair.

“You’re the best Momma,” he says. “I’m glad you don’t have your procedure this morning.”

Procedure: a.k.a. kid slang for ECT, the electrified details obscured in the technical abstraction; but a word vague enough, formal enough to impart seriousness to their genuine fears.

My son runs his small, warm hand along my neck, down my arm, then pauses, when he reaches my forearm, uncharacteristically bared by my nightgown sleeve pushed up to my elbow.

“What are these marks, Momma?” he asks, his finger tracing the new red scars that ladder and criss-cross my skin.

“I don’t know,” I respond, ashamed, unable to substitute an acceptable excuse.

“You’re becoming a tiger,” he says. “You’re growing stripes!” He smiles at this understanding.

“Grrrrr,” I growl, and swipe a five-fingered paw along his tummy, tickling him silly.

And then the stripes are forgotten in the pell-mell scramble out of bed in the direction of Dad’s blueberry pancakes.

If only the bitter leavings of knives and razors could be explained away by some jungle-cat metamorphosis. But these days, I am certainly no tiger. Instead of stealthy ferocity and unflagging self-composure, I am consumed by shame and dread, bereft of self-confidence, my tight, perfectionistic stitches unraveling at the seams. After all, in a three week period, I lost my teaching job, was redefined as “disabled” (accepted even 2 years after the fact into my college’s Long Term Disability Insurance Policy), and was cast adrift by the longstanding Dr. B.. And to top it all off, I find out today from my nutritionist that I have somehow gained several pounds over the past 2 weeks, despite an intensive running and weight-lifting regime. Regular meals (no restricting) and no purging have let that scale creep back up, so I am in a panic: everything feels out of control, right now, and I’m feeling alone and desperate.

But. What I need to remember: I am, at least to my son, Tiger-Momma, brave and fierce, and most importantly, loved.

Talent Show

2011-01-29T13:12:00.000-08:00

The other night, I was in my daughter’s talent show at her school. I played the voice of the dragon in the 8 stanza poem she recited, called, “I Have a Dozen Dragons.” I stayed hidden behind the stage curtain—assumed the role of the disembodied dragon, the mystical voice floating in from the imaginary world. She stood center stage, surrounded by a dozen dragon toys she’d arranged around her in a supportive semi-circle, and manipulated a dragon puppet seated on her shoulder. While she recited her portions of the poem rather quickly, she did it all from memory and, most importantly, was supremely confident. An eight-year old dynamo sure of herself, sure that she was, in fact, talented, sure that the 100+member audience would listen with rapt attention. No doubt in her mind that she was someone worth listening to.

I could learn a thing or two about self-confidence from my daughter. After all, she was the only solo act out of 20. Initially, I’d worried about hurt feelings—her friends had banded together to perform a skit: Herman the Worm. They hadn’t asked her to be a part of it. That sort of pre-teen, girl-girl, snarky exclusion had been happening a lot to her lately. She’d been coming home from school in frequent tears: “No one will play with me at recess! I ask my friends if I can play with them, but they just say, ‘no.’” So I tell her that I know how awful it is to be left out because I’d often been the one on my own at lunch and recess in elementary school. For an entire year, in fact, I was the selected victim of a ruthless assault of spiteful teasing by a group of former friends. Only I never said a word about it to my parents, to any adult for that matter because I assumed I deserved it—I believed I was worthless, unlikeable, strange, too smart for my own good, the obvious pariah.

My daughter, on the other hand, holds no such beliefs about herself. “They’re mean,” she says. “Besides, all they want to do is play stupid house. That’s why I need to bring my dragons to school, so I’ll have something to play with at recess.” Most importantly, my daughter has not felt the need to reshape herself to fit in with the pedestrian pseudo-imaginations of her compatriots.

Instead, she has found another friend, a girl one year older who goes to a different school, but who is equally enthralled with dragons and lizards and arts and crafts. (I am, in fact, in recovery from a sleepover they had at our house last night, up until all hours giggling and building pillow forts and dragon lairs.) And of equal importance, my daughter doesn’t feel it necessary to bury her feelings or hide her “failure” to fit in; she runs to me, leaps into my arms, and unloads all the emotional baggage of the day. Again, unlike me—I spent years blithely smiling, insisting all was well, hiding the intense shame I felt over rejection by my peers. I assumed my parents would blame me: it must have been something I did that earned me my status as outcast.

My daughter is resilient—headstrong, too. As I stood behind the curtain, watching her swagger out onto the stage, I felt proud, yes, immensely proud, but relieved, too. While she may be subject to some of the same growing pains as I, she is not decimated by them, does not believe she is deserving of such callous treatment. A deep sigh: it seems she is spared my agonies. After all, when I was just a year older than she is now, I swallowed several fistfuls of Flintstone vitamins in a silly (but really, not so silly was it?) attempt to put an end to my life, and never said a word about it to anyone. So even in these bleak days, flattened as I have been by having to resign from my job, go on disability, by my therapist abruptly cutting ties, I must acknowledge that I, too, have talent: even in my craziness and instability, I’ve managed to create a stable, safe world for my daughter—one in which she is the star of the show, one that is founded on creativity and imaginative daring, one in which she feels secure in my love.

The Short Fare-Thee-Well

2011-01-24T16:08:00.000-08:00

Exactly how awful a client do you have to be for your therapist to dump you? Apparently, I am, indeed, that awful. The long-patient, ever-optimistic Dr. B. walked into our session on Thursday and announced that he thought it was time for us to “take a break”—aka, end the therapeutic relationship. Granted, it seems he and my psychiatrist have not been seeing eye-to-eye, and each has a competing perspective and prospective for my recovery process:to medicate or not; to hospitalize or not. But just like that, Dr. B. decided to end our five-years' working relationship.

I am trying to be a grown-up about this. Kowtowing to suggestions from friends and family that maybe this is a good change; that a new direction is exactly what I need to give a chance; that five years was long enough for one approach. So I act appropriately angry and cynically pissed off. “After all,” I remark, “he even said it was obvious I’m in the middle of a crisis and thrashing around. What ethically-considerate professional therapist drops his client of five years in the middle of a crisis?” Of course, the counter-argument might be: when am I not in crisis these days?

But truly, the past few weeks have been exceptionally difficult. I’ve made the decision (no, this is a mis-statement, as it implies active agency—IT forced this decision) to withdraw from teaching and go on Long Term Disability. I can’t even begin to articulate how terrible this makes me feel—like a failure, like a pathetic weakling, an embarrassment to my family, ashamed, utterly, of myself. IT has come to this: I am no longer able to function according to normal expectations; I am dis-abled-- the broken-down jalopy that skidded off the road into a snowy embankment and left to rust out, deliberately abandoned. Of course, I have my tow trucks—my husband and kids, important friends, family. But this newly-defined “disabled” self feels unrepairable, unsalvageable.

Today, I snuck up to “my” office at school to return the college’s laptop and was faced with a new sign on “my” door—no longer my name on the door, but someone else’s. So not “my” office anymore. The depressing, shameful truth: I am no longer a professor; I no longer have anything worth professing. Not a teacher anymore, but someone who is filing for Social Security Disability, someone who is receiving monthly checks from a Long Term Disability Insurance Company because even the penny-pinching bureaucrats deem me sick enough, incapable enough of meaningful, self-supporting work.

Whoop, whoop. I know, maybe I’m wallowing in self-pity. But allow me that for a few moments. Because while I might publically shrug my shoulders, claim that Dr. B. got his five-years’ chance, that I’m a big girl, capable of moving on (after all, haven’t I had 5 previous therapists before him?), I am, truthfully, without irony, devastated. How do I really feel? Abandoned, rejected, wrecked. I am not, by nature, a trusting person. It took me all of those five years to get at the shameful, distressing history—to allow myself to be vulnerable and needy. Honestly, I’m not sure I have it in me to start the therapeutic process all over again. Better to turn my back on the past, better to bury the pain, better to smile and blithely say, “I’m fine, just FINE.” (Remembering, all the while, Dr. B.’s long ago translation of FINE: Fucked-up, Insecure, Neurotic, and Evasive.) But really, I’ll be fine. What other possibility is there?

Lost and Longing

2011-01-15T12:08:00.000-08:00

A brief sojourn in the hospital. Already home again. My forearms healing from the most recent savaging, though I am haunted by urges to enact further, deeper, more permanent damage. Now I have to come to terms with this new collection of angry, red scars, as well as with my decision (though “decision” sounds too rational, too much like I am at peace) to go on Long Term Disability and give up my teaching job. Of course, this has been two years in the making as I have landed in the hospital each semester, missing classes, trying, desperately, to hold myself together for my students.

Now? The great fear is that I will be faced with an empty future, flail in a great, cavernous purposelessness. I have always defined myself by my ambitions and my ability to achieve exactly what I set my mind to. After all, I was the girl who believed that she was Wonder Woman: I slid on my mother’s silver cuff bracelets, lassoed a jump rope to my hip, and vaulted off the top stair of a long, steep staircase, believing I had Wonder Woman’s magical vaulting power. Of course, I landed on my arm, fracturing it, was confronted with the obvious fact that my powers were confined to those of an ordinary, extraordinary human. Enough hard work, maintain consistently high expectations and I could achieve everything I set my mind to: straight A’s, an MA and PhD in six years (taking 3 classes a semester while teaching 4 classes and waitressing at a nightclub), tenure-track job, perfect teaching evaluations, published book, awards and accolades, exuberant children, a good marriage, world travel, dogs and cats and horseback riding and running and a perfectly skinny body, no excess, all untoward desires tamped down, controlled. Everything exactly as it should be.

And then my brain became unhinged. Or rather, it became impossible for me to conceal the instability, the craziness, the obsession that possessed me. IT hijacked my life; IT made it impossible to live peacefully, contentedly. IT demands penance, payment, pain.

All weekend I’ve been trying to stay even, trying to remember to smile, to feel joy, to be grateful that I am at home with my family. But I keep slipping, get swept up in intense, self-directed rage and loathing. Can only feel my failures, and they feel colossal. How do I recover from IT’s insanity? Can I recover from IT and reclaim my life? I need to find my way back to the surface, back into light and the healing power of love.

Thank You

2011-01-06T16:56:00.000-08:00

To All My Readers Who Sent Me Well-Wishes,

Many thanks for your support and for continuing to read this blog in an over-blogged world. I'm still here, still trying to continue on this path to recovery, still believing that my life can change and IT can be neutralized by sticking to the pursuit of health and well-being. My life is worth it. And maybe I'll believe what Dr. B. has been trying to convince me of all these years: The world needs me.

Mercy, merci,
Kerry

Cut

2011-01-05T15:45:00.000-08:00

Believe me, a glass in the kitchen and I have to contend with the tempting shards.
I can see the neat line of cuts up and down my arm, see the blood spilling over, feel the smart of pain. The only thing stopping me is the disapproval of others—if I had my way, I’d be cut 100 xs. I remember in High School, when I played competitive tennis, the welcome sting of my wrists every time I flexed for a backhand or overhead: the constant, painful reminder of how I hurt. Now? It’s a matter of who I hurt: Christopher, the kids, my doctors. But what I really long to do is tear into my arms. All I’m doing is delaying the inevitable.

Inevitable. My arms cut up and open. Where I’m headed. No point in pretending I don’t hurt. No point in pretending I’m not crazy because that I how I feel. Utterly outside myself. Trying to BE cheerful and happy and together and organized and stable. But. But. But. All a pretense. Trying, trying to be present, to be seen as stable, to be a good mom, a good wife, a good friend, a good human being.

What can I do? Feign good health, good humor? If I can pretend balance, maybe I will achieve balance. All of it bullshit? Necessary lies?

Fabula-Rasa

2010-12-31T11:32:00.000-08:00

New Year’s Eve: usually devoted to taking account of the year past, giddy revelry in a sexy black dress accessorized with a bottle of champagne, and optimistic (if unrealistic) resolutions. My biggest ambitions for this evening? A fireside game of family Connect Four, a dark chocolate double-layer cake (cooling on the racks right now), finishing my novel-of-the-day, The One Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet (which transports me to an 18th century Dutch trading post in Japan), and remembering to be grateful that I am here, with my family, and alive.

Do I dare imagine a better year ahead? One where ITs powers are diminished, if not decimated by love and hope and healing? A year where I might make peace with and make amends to my body, remembering that food is not just fuel, but an act of love and nurturance, that my body, if treated with respect and affection, might see me through another 38 years? A year when I work towards accepting my many faceted self: ambitious, loving, determined, intelligent, mother, wife, friend and despairing, selfish, complicated, crazy, willful, needy, and scared? Neither black nor white, but gray.

Dr. B. wants me to imagine what my life might look like if I was 25%, 50%, and 75% “better.” Hard to see my way to that vision—the State of the Nation of Kerry is easily revealed just by looking at the state of my hands: fingers and cuticles chewed and gnawed, ugly stumps. Or by looking inside my brain: crossed wires, mangled synapses, ITs dark tumor tentacling across all that fragile matter. But yes, 25% better might allow me to be free of the oppressive daily urges to inflict self-damage. 50% better might allow me to experience real stability, even admit lasting joy. 75% better might have me believing that IT is not the bleak custodian of my future, rather I am—and I am the one with the compass in hand, pointed at my true steady North.

Isn’t the cliché “A New Year, A New You”? Blank Slate? Tabula Rasa? But I’m not looking for a new self or for a do-over. What I’m looking for—what might actually get me to 99% better—is to accept that I am good enough as is. That I am perfectly fine and lovable, if flawed and imperfect. Loved, in fact, for my flaws and forgiven my failings. Fucked up and just fine: fabula-rasa.

Be Here

2010-12-28T14:05:00.000-08:00

The other night, Christopher and I were curled up on the couch in front of the fire watching the movie, “The Kids Are All Right,” and there’s a scene at the end where the two Moms are dropping their daughter off at college. In my head, I was practicing my very rudimentary arithmetic: in ten mere years, I’d likely be dropping my eight-year old daughter at college for her freshmen year, a mere almost-doubling of the time we’ve already had with her on this earth. An impossibly sad realization: how much longer will she allow me to towel her off after her baths, allow me to marvel at her compact, exquisite little body that is growing by leaps and bounds? How much longer will she snuggle into our bed at night, spoon up against me, her sharp knees and elbows jabbing into my back, reminding me of her warm presence? How much longer will she burst out with impromptu ‘I love you, Momma’s,’ unbidden, unasked for, entirely a result of her exuberant affection?

And then, there’s the knowledge of how my own nature suddenly darkened around her age, when self-consciousness and self-loathing came sneaking in, when I began to understand that I had to restrain myself, hold myself back in order to be acceptable and earn (or at least what I believed I had to earn) love? After all, by nine, I was climbing up counters and reaching for the Flintstone vitamin bottle to attempt an overdose because I concluded that I was unacceptable to myself. I could not bear to be me.

At the same time that I was doing my arithmetic, Christopher was calculating his own. He turned to me and said, “You know you have to be there with me when we drop our daughter off at college, don’t you?” His implication was not only that he would need emotional companionship to survive the momentously happy-sad occasion, but that, ten years from now, I needed to be there.

“You know what I mean,” he said, again. “You need to be there with me. You need to be there with us.”

The not-so-subtle subtext: I need to stay alive, not just for the next hour or day or month or year, but for the next ten, twenty, thirty—however long my natural clock might tick and tock.

His reminder was necessary because what IT (depression, the bipolar disorder, the eating disorder, cutting) refuses me is a glimpse into the future. IT is stuck in the past and is fanatically tied to this moment right now, no other moment but this, no other possible feeling but this pain in this moment, this need to hurt myself right now, this need to starve myself right now, this need to purge right now, this need to slice open my arms right now, right now, right now. IT is the oppression of RIGHT NOW; IT believes in immediate, impulsive action. No future thinking allowed, no admittance of hope, no belief in change.

His reminder was necessary, too, because of where I’ve been these past few weeks—back down in the black well. Awful, terrible, pressing urges to damage what remains of myself, to end my life—unbearable irony in this season of comfort and joy and hope. Exhaustive effort summoning up the appearance of presence amidst all the presents.

Be here. Simple instructions. Why then do they seem like the complex, utterly inscrutable instructions to some IKEA-self-assembly brain, complete with missing screws and bewildering diagrams?

Be here. More command than choice. Because really, what choice do I have when my living is essential to those tiny, fragile little lives who, despite the upheaval and craziness of me being their momma, love me with their fierce, wild abandon?

'Tis the Season

2010-12-20T16:22:00.000-08:00

‘Tis the season of twinkling white lights wrapped around the tree, the banister, the front porch columns, after, of course, unsnarling them from their knotted mess. And nostalgic ornaments: the paper-plate angel my daughter made in preschool, the clothespin Sugarplum fairy my mom bought me when I went to see my first Nutcracker in New York City, the kitschy pink and gold plastic bells once attached to an expertly-wrapped wedding present (already 12 years ago!). And the aimless wandering around Toys ‘R Us debating the merits of a $50.00 Star Wars ship (do we really need more plastic crap in the house), a (plastic) dragon, this one with glowing red eyes (to add to my daughter’s collection of several dozen), and quasi-educational video games (which might help occupy the kids on those way-too-early, wintry Saturday mornings when Christopher and I are loathe to get out of bed).

Most importantly, this is the season of joy. J-O-Y !!! Contagious, exuberant, infectious, childlike joy. My kids are amped up on joy, counting down the days until Christmas, making their gift lists over and over, refining, adding, expanding (never contracting), arguing over what they should leave for Santa—peanut butter and jelly sandwich, gingerbread cookies, spicy tuna roll? Their joy reached a new height on Saturday: my husband organized a sledding party, complete with a roaring fire in the outdoor fireplace at a nearby picnic shelter, hot chocolate and coffee, chili and ‘smores. My daughter built a sledding ramp and fearlessly soared several feet into the air, landing in snow-smacking tumblesaults; my son, a little less hardy and brave, toasted himself by the fire, marshmallow goop sticky on his face and hands and jacket; my husband, ever the generous and ambitious host, tended fire and coffeepot and chili Crockpot alike. At one point, the gang of kids tromped over a giant plowed hill of packed snow, pretending to be polar explorers in search of ice dragons. By evening, my daughter’s hair was a tangle of icy dreadlocks and my son’s feet and hands burned red from the cold. They shivered and giggled in unbridled joy.

For me? This year (scratch that—these past five years), joy is complicated as it must co-exist with the ever-present, oppressive despair, with the pervasive feeling that I am an outsider to happiness and contentment, with IT. Joy can be exhausting—how long can I smile, maintain my cheerful exterior, join in the fun and reindeer games before I begin to feel the old damning irritability, self-doubt, and self-loathing sneak back in? A few hours at best. This year is particularly problematic—the lingering fallout from this most recent hospitalization, the cancelled trip to see my family for Christmas (psychiatric stabilization travel ban in place), the dogged doubt that I can survive IT, that I can indeed get well. And then there’s the every-other day routine ECT treatments, my body purpled in bruises (I’m a near impossible IV stick), my heart wanting to hold onto the hope that this time I really will see a way clear of IT (but pervasive urges to restrict and purge and cut remind me I am in no way near free of IT).

The best that I can do is approximate joy, take my cues from my loved ones who surround me. When they laugh and tickle and snuggle, so do I. When they willy-nilly cram red-hots into misshapen gingerbread cookies (an angel or a howling ghoul?), then eat them two at a time, warm right out of the oven, so do I. When they curl up on the couch in front of the fireplace, watching for the umpteenth time “Frosty the Snowman,” so do I.

Right now? The kids have just devoured bowls of ice cream. The fire is crackling. My daughter is perched on the edge of the couch watching “A Nightmare Before Christmas”; my son is writing a story about ice dragons and snowstorms; my husband is preparing himself for a late-night hockey game, and I am feeling, momentarily, the small presence of joy: I am here, with them. I am here, not in the hospital. I am here, trying to get well. Reason enough for joy. Fa-la-la-la-la!

A Job for Life

2010-12-15T16:50:00.000-08:00

I’ve suffered a pretty serious professional setback this week. The timing couldn’t be shittier as I’ve only just found some tentative stability once again. Suffice it to say, I’ve always been achievement-driven, always defined myself by what I do. Teaching four classes while taking three classes in graduate school? PhD by 28? Writing my first book and winning awards? Tenure-track job and glowing teaching evaluations? Accomplishments and accolades serve to reinforce that surface sense that I am, despite the craziness, okay, acceptable, lovable. As long as my professional life is zooming along, as long as I continue to do and do and do (and relying on the consuming busyness to compartmentalize IT, shunt IT to the side, managing as Surface-Successful-Me), then I can allow myself to exist, to believe that it’s possible to coexist with IT.

Now? Without the external applause, without the visible, tangible signs of success, I’m thrown back on the reserves of internal me. The Self stripped of all pretenses, all costume, all fancified get-ups. For years, Dr. B. has been trying to get me to believe that I am worth fighting for—and for years, I’ve agreed that as long as I could still meet those self-imposed, excessively high expectations, than sure, yes, I deserved love, deserved to live.

Given the continued loss of all those external signifiers, it’s time to find out if I am, indeed, worth it on my own. Can I finally believe that I am lovable because I simply am? That my life is inherently rich and full and meaningful? That for now, it is more than enough that my job is recovery? As my psychiatrist reminded me, now is the time to get healthy, now is the time to hunker down, bunker down with my family and allow myself to be loved and to love. No need to earn love anymore: I have it already. I am not alone, but am surrounded on all sides by a fortress of love. Christopher and the kids. We make a four-square together and that is enough, and that is all, and that is the point and purpose of life.

Of course, with this loss of professional status, my ego and pride are decimated. Part of me wants to yield to this defeat and give up. I’m exhausted from having to try and try to maintain stability, exhausted from the minute-by-minute effort required to reign in the manic despair. And this has been part and parcel of my existence for as long as I can remember. Nine years old and I am climbing up on the counter in the kitchen, rummaging the cabinets for the bottle of Flintstone vitamins, pouring them out in my hand, swallowing one after another in hopes that I can put an end to IT’s voice--already, even then, assaulting me. Fourteen years old and sitting on the toilet in the middle of the night, carving up my arms with a razor blade. Sixteen years old and attempting a drunken, middle-of-the-night swim out into the ocean, intending not to come back. Twenty years old and submerging myself in a campus lake in late November, and against my will, fished out by security. Thirty-three years old and threatening to hurl myself from the Triborough Bridge. Thirty-six years old and overdosing on Lithium. And I’ve been telling myself all these years that I can manage IT? That co-existence is possible? IT has no interest in living side-by-side with me in my successes. IT’s only purpose (and ultimate achievement) is my death.

Now, I must allow myself to be driven—not by goals or expectations or IT—but be driven by love. And to be grateful that after all these years, I am alive, have survived, that I am able, today, to sit beside my daughter after school and run through her spelling words, and give my son a push in his sled down the snowy hill, and spend a meditative hour baking a batch of chocolate chip cookies, and curl up on the couch, in front of a toasty fire with my husband, losing myself in a few hours of uncomplicated T.V., and later, burrow into a warm bed with a complicated novel, and that I will, eventually, fall asleep, waking, blessedly into tomorrow. Into my life—which is the real, necessary, meaning-filled work.