The Last Apology

We always knew this was gonna be like clawing our way out of tombs. Nails breaking on the weather scrubbed stone. Skin scraping into the light; streaked with blood and the cold of our own breath. We could tell it was going to be a shit time long before we got here to the present.

I know you're pissed at me. Please don't look at me as though I was already dead.

There is no way to apologize to myself without sounding like I have lost my mind. Who cares? Self talk has always been a slightly unhinged affair and is, ironically, the main thing that has preserved my sanity the most over the years.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry that whenever it gets especially tough I make things worse by eating more cheese and drinking more beer. I'm sorry that I have let myself drink so much beer for so long that I can drink any Russian under the table without losing my shit for a second. I'm sorry that for the last three years I have let all my self discipline degrade under the weight of this stress and this never ending crisis our life has been. I know that it has led us here to where we are today. To this point of awful self loathing.

I'm sorry that I have let us gain over 75 pounds in the past three years. I know that it was natural to gain weight after breaking the hip and not walking for months. But I could have exerted more self control to prevent the mental damage this weight gain has created. I could have prevented this amount of weight gain.

I'm sorry that I have spent so much time telling everyone I'm sorry for things that couldn't possibly be my fault and all this time I have neglected myself.

I'm sorry I couldn't protect myself without also breaking myself. I'm sorry for so much.

I slip uncomfortably between the "me"s and the "us"s and the "you"s, all me, all the time. Plurals and singulars weaving in and out with no order.

I can't change what has already passed.

Things are closer than they appear in the rear view mirror.

Can you forgive me and allow us to move ahead? Will you let this awful neglect become the past that we have overcome?

Please believe that I wish I'd saved up all my inappropriate apologies and put them by like a dowry for your spirit. I wish I'd taken each one and layered them with ivory silk in a cedar trunk so that you could see that each one of those apologies I let slip into the air between me and other people were really for you because you deserved more apologies than you ever got. I wish I'd caught them like butterflies and pinned them to your hair because I know that you were too afraid to ask for them yourself.

There is only one left and you can ask for it now. Ask.

Take this apology and pin it to your throat like the jewel it is. Let it be your winter compass, snowbird- let it lead you into spring.

I am so sorry that I couldn't be our own parent, our own friend, our own knight in shining armor, or even our own comedienne. I'm sorry that I was too young to know how to be anything but a frightened child. I'm sorry that I was never able to grow up fast enough. I've never caught up. I'm still breathless from the ride.

But you see what love motivated me? It always looked like self loathing when really I just wanted some way to deflect the real danger from our flesh, from our spirit, because I felt love for this corporeal nightmare, this little light our spirit always had. It got so hard to keep the night light lit. We wanted to die anyway. But you see that it was love and care that made me try so hard? I just didn't know how to be the person we needed.

Looking through the telescoping past you can see that it was always love we wrote.

Come, let's light the path, others follow in the dark behind us.



Note: Next up is the plan to recover my body and bring it back into a healthy fold and it may take more than one post to lay that one out. This is all coming out fast and furious but not panicked or stressed. I want to string the path out before I cross into the new year. I want to uncover as many obstacles that I may find ahead before I get to them.

I think I have passed the darkest point now and I think anyone who keeps reading will find that I am excited and also in the middle of forgiving myself. I've already forgiven everyone needing forgiving for the abuse part of my past. I truly did that a very long time ago. I've been angry with myself though and I'm feeling it slip away now.

I hope that everyone else who has been through similar experiences as I have can do the same for themselves. And any time you see words from Blaize- pay attention! She is a wise lady. So, are you ready to start feeling the warmth and light that are stirring under the snow and ice? Winter protects life by holding it still until it is time for the sap to run. People are not much different.

Anxious Bloom

A continuing discussion about anxiety

I sometimes think that no matter how often or how carefully I try to explain what anxiety is for the clinically anxious, there are always people who cannot accept that anxiety doesn't follow rules of reason nor rely on cause and effect to furrow itself deep into a nervous system. There are so many people who still, no matter how much we learn about it to the contrary, believe in their hearts that it's a choice we are making; to be depressed, or anxious.

Am I deficient in vitamins? Am I not getting enough sunshine? Have I not squared my shoulders and faced it all? Could it be that I need more meat in my diet? Do I just not assert myself enough? Do I just need to look on the bright side? If I was a stronger person would all the dark disappear? Would the emotional roller coaster ride turn out to be just a gentle bicycle ride? Is it possible that it's not anxiety I feel, but rage? Is it possible I've almost made it 39 years without being able to tell the difference? Am I angry rather than panicky? Could warm milk before bed take away the incessant buzzing in my head? Did the St. John's Wort not work because I didn't believe in it enough? Have I been choosing to hear the world around me fall apart in my head because I LIKE being crazy?

No. I spent 19 years looking for answers. All the while my anxiety growing, my depression obscuring the mushrooming panic. 19 years without help from anyone. 19 years without therapy, medication, or a diagnosis; knowing all those years that what I was going through was like "normal" on steroids. In other words: not normal. I knew when I started cutting myself that it was not a normal expression of anger or depression or anxiety. It worked, it helped, it ameliorated a terrible splintering in my head and then brought me back from complete physical numbness. It soothed when no one else had the power to sooth or even noticed the need in me.

I have tried every herbal concoction said to aid in all that ails me. Every tea. Every supplement. Multivitamins for months and months. Herb pillows, warm milk, Valerian drops, tinctures of every description, meditation, yoga, exercise, healthy food, positive visualization, creative outlets, writing, writing the brutally boring minutiae of my head just to release a valve, just to get it the hell out, talking with friends, pep talks, hot baths, discussing my problems with cockroaches that lived with me (not my choice), walking, deep breathing, spa treatments, shopping, educating myself.

And those are just the healthy things I tried.

I knew that what was wrong with me wasn't something a cup of tea could fix. The tea might help incrementally, but not nearly enough to keep me from wanting to smash my hand through a window just to distract myself from myself.

You know how when you fall down and you hear a big crack and you suddenly can't use your arm anymore and it hurts so bad you think you're going to vomit and you just know that you broke your arm, even before you get to the doctor? When you're broken in the head or nervous system you know it in the same way. You just feel it. Maybe you spend a long time denying it, but you know.

People- lots of people- probably you (because there are very few people who haven't thrown this one out there) are fond of asking "What's normal anyway?" or "No one is really normal." Or "Aren't we all a little crazy?" or "Everyone is fucked up in one way or another." Not all these statements are true, but the more important thing is that none of them are remotely helpful and when I hear people say them I feel like I've just been told that I don't know myself, that my discomfort, that the danger inherent in being me, is bogus.

It throws doubt on all the experiences I've had. It makes me question my carefully honed and honestly earned judgements. It takes all hope of help away from me. If we're all crazy then what could I possibly complain about? What could I possibly need more than what I've got? That my problems don't matter. Don't count. Aren't worth talking about. Are nothing. I'm a big baby. I'm a whining idiot. I'm not taking responsibility for myself. I'm choosing to be miserable. I'm choosing this hell for myself!

But when someone complains about having heart problems do people say "Well, don't we all?". Lots of people do have heart problems. Sometimes from their diet, sometimes from their lack of exercise...but for a lot of people with heart disease, they inherited the tendency from their family genes. Regardless, when people discuss their heart problems others don't fall into the same kind of talk that they do around people with mental illness. They don't say things like "Well, if you just exercise more it will be fine." Because, if they're wrong, a person could die.

If a thyroid stops regulating itself and a person is suffering and tells friends that they're all messed up and miserable and are going to have to take medicine to regulate it for the rest of their lives, do you hear friends saying "Well, maybe if you just meditate it will start regulating itself again!" or "Why don't you just stop eating wheat, you're probably just allergic to wheat." or "Everyone has some kind of medical condition..."? No, because if anyone talked like that to someone with a physiological condition only a complete ass would talk like that.

But when it comes to the brain and the nervous system people always want something else to be the reason a person is wanting to die, or to never leave their room again, or to pick at the skin on their heads until their scalps bleed. It must be curable and there must be some simple remedy.

But there's not. There are a lot of things a person can do to support their mental health but even if they do everything known to help, they are not ever going to be fixed. And nothing is going to change the fact that their brains don't regulate the chemical messages sent to the nervous system, or make enough of the right ones. It is what it is.

And one thing it's not: normal.

My anxiety isn't unrecognized anger. There are plenty of things I feel angry about. I know the difference. The anxiety I feel is caused by my body not making enough of the chemicals I need in order to be more balanced, or my body is making enough of the chemicals but my brain (for whatever reason) is unable to use those chemicals properly.

Basically, when I feel panicky at the sight of carolers my brain is sending my nervous system a false message, or too strong of a message. What might ordinarily be annoyance at having to deal with an uncomfortable experience and hear music I hate becomes something I would much rather run from than face just to ease the racing heart and the blipping fritzing mind. It isn't rational, or reasonable, and what's really going on isn't a thought out response to a situation but a physical reaction brought on by a physical malfunction.

Mental illness is a physiological problem.

Which explains why getting exercise, a balanced diet, plenty of sleep, and sunshine all help ease depression and anxiety. But until we understand exactly how all these chemicals work, until we can map out exactly how the brain doles out the chemical messages to the nervous system and what precise function has gone wrong when things aren't working well, nothing will really fix it.

Medications such as the one I take help a great deal. They help people like me come back to near-normal brain function. If I wasn't on Paxil I would be obsessing about imminent earthquakes*, serial killers, death of my child, wood rot, my friends not being my friends, slipping and falling again, and meteor showers destroying my house. I would not be getting any sleep. I would be worried all day long about everything I've said in the last week having caused someone offense and wondering how I might have said things differently; replaying every conversation in my head over and over until I get it just right. I would be yelling at my kid and my husband all the time just because of the crazy amount of noise that three people living together makes and constantly dreaming of floating away on a boat by myself to a little cabin where no one can find me and I can scream the primal scream on the top of my lungs until my throat bleeds.

Is this how you are without medication? Because if you find yourself saying "That's exactly how I am." then I have news for you: YOU ARE NOT NORMAL EITHER.

So today I am on the low ebb. I am feeling lonely even though there's people all around me. The snow is falling which I love, but part of me is riding around an old groove with old songs and messages and I have a hunger for something that doesn't exist. I keep reaching out and feel disconnected anyway. Maybe Internet life is unhealthy for me. Maybe constantly throwing words out there hoping it hits something or someone is like casting a net of fragile thread across the milky way.

The kid has been home for six days straight and I'm tired of the noise and filling needs and not being good enough and soothing frustrations, wiping away tears, brushing off everything I can't fix. But it's all still in my lap. I am not good at this game. I need an empty house. Empty of everyone. Of dog. Of boy. Of man. I need to not be needed all the time. Tomorrow will most likely be another school day, followed by a two week vacation from school. I feel shredded already.

But this is just how it is. There is always going to be low ebb. Like low tide. Everyone feels that rhythm in life, that part of my experience is normal. Off days and good days. It's just that they're amplified for me and people like me. I get tired faster and for longer.

There may be no Christmas cards sent out again this year.

Even as I speak the kid is combusting with his own imperiousness which is stressing out the man and they bicker and the dog is whining for something I can't give her. I need a safe empty place to curl up and not be.

Anyone have a padded cell I could borrow?







*I've been known to go on six hour crying jags over earthquakes that haven't happened yet. I've also been known to not sleep for three weeks after experiencing small ones.

How Much Is That Girl In The Window?

If I told you what just flew into my mind it would be "What if we could buy back who we used to be?". What a completely useless what if question. As so many of them are. One of the concepts heavily covered in Cognitive Behavior Therapy is the idea of core beliefs. Core beliefs are the underpinnings of everything that motivates us whether negatively or positively. Core beliefs are the underwear our spirits have on. You can hem and haw about a thousand things but ultimately you believe a few things almost incontrovertibly. To change those beliefs is like moving mountains or reshaping flesh like a plastic surgeon's knife.

I spent some time examining mine a few years ago. I don't think I was able, at the time, to recognize them all. You almost have to turn out your lights to find them because you take them so much for granted you can't see them with your conscious mind. Your subconscious knows all about them. You have to peel away at all your skin, all your rationalizations, all your behaviors, and all of your words to find them. Any thought you have, any comment you make can be traced back to some original basic belief. The foundation of everything that comes out of your life.

That's pretty big stuff. You'd think it would be easier to get at.

Exposing those beliefs can be raw. Frightening. Revealing. A relief. A revelation.

I will show you some of mine, but I can't ever show them all. This is elemental stuff. You scratch at this stuff and I could flake into a pile of ash like ancient silk.

• People are not superior to other animals, just different.

• People cannot be trusted, cause pain, and are savage.

• Sex is a violation of a woman's body.*

• Every action counts.

• We are each responsible for the experience we have in life.

I am so out of shape that riding my bicycle anywhere is quite a heaving experience. I am trying to do more of my errands on my bicycle. I went downtown to the grocery store the other day when it was cold out, crisp like icicles, misty in that soft way fall can be, and it felt so good to feel my blood moving to warm my skin. There's something so exhilarating about feeling cold air hit warm cheeks. I had my bicycle baskets full of Brussels sprout stalks and other local produce and my bike was weighted not only with my considerable heft but with the bags of groceries. I felt so pretty. It seems like the most ridiculous thing to say. But I did. Riding down the street on my old bicycle with the blood in my cheeks and the air in my lungs, I felt pretty.

I think the worst thing about being me is knowing that I used to inspire so much more chivalry in the world and now it is so much rarer. Perhaps that is not important to some people but to me it means a lot. I'm not a feminist in the modern sense of the word. I like to feel feminine, perhaps because I hated it so much when I was a teen, I like to feel pretty and I like to feel that others see that I'm not the clod-hopping old man I sometimes act like. I like to feel evidence of that.

That's another core belief but I can't actually put it to real words lest I freak myself out and cause deep and everlasting pain to myself. Interpret that how you will.

I'm a strong person but I want to be valued as a fine piece of glass.

I used to feel pretty as I walked alone on the streets of San Francisco. Not beautiful, not sexy. But pretty like a peach blossom you admire just before it drifts away from the branch into a breeze, floating like a paper lantern to some spot you haven't yet reached. I feel pretty when my body is in motion, being used like a machine, when I am pushing it towards the horizon with the wind in my sails. When my body feels flight.

I also feel pretty when no one is looking. I believe my magic fades under scrutiny.

It may be a shade of my crazy. Doesn't really matter.

I want to be in the air more often. I need to fit that in.

I want doors to open. I want protection.

It's what my dreams are of when they aren't extremely violent and dark. They are full of chivalry. Not sex, which means so little in the big scheme of life, but that protection, kindness, thoughtfulness, and --

I can't really talk about it anymore. It is too ridiculous. Something I am incredibly uncomfortable about. The fact that when I have fantasies it isn't about sex but about chivalry. Chaste chivalry. I'm not sure what it says about me but I am so uncomfortable with it.

What I do know is that this has been such a great autumn and things are falling into place. Good things. I am not how I wish to be remembered right now. I have not reclaimed myself in all the ways I need to but something is opening up that was closed before. Clamped shut with blood held back, bruising. I feel the winter coming like a mother calling to its child. I walk to winter with every happiness and a little excitement too. Coming home never felt so good.

Change takes time. To change you have to know what underwear your spirit has on. Don't fool yourself. Know what's under there before you rip the scaffolding down.




*Not a healthy or comfortable core belief.













I smell like the damned. (Totally random thought I didn't want to forget I had.)

Games

a very special hell

The sentence I most dread at any social gathering is "Hey! Let's play a little game..."

The minute I hear that sentence I know I'm going to be outed yet again.

I know I'm going to be cajoled, coerced, and looked at like a freak of nature.

It's not a secret that I don't play games.

I DON'T PLAY GAMES.

I was once accused by a friend of possibly enjoying not playing games just to be different and to make a fuss. Lord, like I need any extra ways to make a fuss, I can do that in my sleep.

What constitutes games? So glad you asked: board games, parlour games, group games, this extends into group activities that are structured to be "fun" (like games), card games, word games, any activity that comes with a set of rules to make the activity more "engaging", any activity with teams where the goal is to win, any activity in which you play against another person with the goal to win. I hate them all.

You might be asking yourself "How can anyone not like something so fun?" Believe me, this is not an original question.

You might be thinking "But, no one NORMAL hates games, surely?!" You have a point there that will surely keep me up at night.

It might occur to you to wonder "What could have happened to lead a person to such a distaste for FUN?" Truly, it's on every one's mind.

I would like to try to answer these vexing questions for you.

First of all, I would like to point out that the experience of having fun is a highly subjective one, that we all experience fun in different ways and while it's true that the majority of humans seem to thrive on competitive games between each other and find it highly entertaining, (sometimes even laughing in response to the activity), for a few of us these activities are like taking a hot little elevator to hell and not coming back until all our hair is burned off of our bodies.


What kind of people don't enjoy games? Are any of these people NORMAL? In all honesty, probably not. I know that I am a person with a clinical mental medical condition and it's entirely possible that everyone else who hates games has also got one (or a few). I think you may sooth your worries about personal safety though because these people tend not to be dangerous. More than likely they won't break your dishes in a fit of rage when they see the Scrabble board come out nor are they likely to suddenly sprout a third leg. However, don't be alarmed if you see them curl up in a ball in the corner of the room and start to drool.

As to the last question- how could this distaste for fun have come about? Was it a result of being hurt by fun? Is there a deep seated irrational fear or dark event in the past that has triggered this crippling distaste for all that is good and pure in the world along with kittens and ice cream?

I think I can only answer this question from my personal perspective. It all boils down to the fact that I am a socially retarded individual who finds nearly all group activities distressing in the same way that it would be distressing to try to swim with a group of kids if you were the only one who couldn't swim. It's like having to sing the national anthem naked in front of David Bowie. It's distressing to me on a molecular level. This equation may explain things a little more clearly:

people+rules+competition=desire to peel own skin off face.

What some people perceive as "fun" is to me like water torture.

The only card game I've ever liked was solitaire.

Because I can play it ALONE.

Yes, that's right, I'm a loner. A lone wolf. A real rebel. Oh yeah, I like to really shake things up and enjoy making everyone uncomfortable with my zany ways.

The truth is, (and Philip will back me up here), I don't like not liking games. It isn't convenient. People always want to convert me to their game playing ways, like it's a religion I need to join. I would never have to tell anyone about my game-hate if it weren't for the fact that those who like to play games can't stand it when someone doesn't want to join them. They don't understand that the activities that they find "fun" fill me with dread.

I make exceptions for my kid. I have learned to play "Chutes and Ladders" with aplomb. I can play "Uncle Wiggly" without wanting to gouge my eyes out. And I did actually enjoy the recent chess playing with Max, but mostly because I knew I wouldn't win and he was enjoying teaching his mama something new.

However, I tried to play Monopoly with him a few times and got a nasty panic attack each time and finally had to tell my boys that I can't do it ever again.

For anyone who's interested, here is a list of the games I've played and hated: Old Maid, War, Monopoly, Clue, Candy Land, Dreidel, Scrabble (except with Philip), Operation, Croquet, Blockus, Trivial Pursuit, Charades, Twister, Pin The Tail, Twenty Questions, Bingo, relay races, baby shower games (!!!), hide and seek, Battleship, card games whose names I blocked out of memory for sanity protection, ouija board, Sorry, Connect Four, UNO,Yahtzee, and many many more.

The only game I've ever really enjoyed was Chinese Checkers. But I don't want to play it with you. The only reason why I don't dread it as much as the others is because of the clacking of the marbles on the metal base. It soothes me just like a crazy person might be soothed by the sight of pretty shiny things.

Here's a break down what it is about games that I find so horrifying:

• Organized fun sucks.

• Winners and losers. Life is already full of real opportunities to win and lose and it's pretty serious stuff. I hate anything that reenacts the winner/loser dynamic.

• I loath any kind of competition. I think this made my Dad think I was broken when I was a kid. It means I not only hate all games, I hate sports too. With a passion.

• Games remind me of dusty jokes with stale punch lines that you are still expected to laugh at. They aren't fun in exactly the same way that clowns aren't funny.

• Group activities freak me out.

• Games create an air of expectation and pressure that threaten to explode my head.

• Most people don't like losing and I am acutely uncomfortable with sore losers.

• Just as much as I am uncomfortable with ungracious winners.

• Games bring out a side in people I don't like being around.

I have had a total of 38 years to become intimately familiar with my aversion to games and in that time I have been pressured into trying many many games and been coerced into a shitload of "fun" group activities that have left little scars in my head. I have come to a point where I'm very comfortable with the idea of never playing another game. I don't feel I'm missing anything in my life besides a lot of really bad feelings, dread, and the resultant panic attacks.

So how do you deal with people like me? (Some of my friends are still trying to work this one out). You leave us be. You play your games and let us sit quietly and watch. I can say that I don't resent others playing games, and I encourage my friends in their pursuit of the fun games bring to them, I simply want to be allowed to sit by and not participate. I don't want to be heckled about it or harassed.

For those who are on a quest to try and convert me into a happy game player- you will lose. How ironic is that? I know you will lose and it isn't because I'm being stubborn. I am merely trying to protect myself from activities that I know for a fact will make me panic, will make me itch from the inside of my bones out, will make me extremely miserable, and will guarantee disappointing my friends.

What I get to live with is that if I play games I will disappoint my friends, if I don't play games I disappoint everyone. It's not a good feeling and I don't enjoy having this issue with "fun". I don't enjoy being a person who doesn't like jokes with punch lines, clowns, balloons, practical jokes, games, sports, or group activities. It's something that has caused me plenty of grief, made me stand out like a sore thumb when what I really want to do is just blend in.

I forgive all my friends for not understanding this aspect of me. I forgive all the people who have tried to convert me, not understanding that it isn't a matter for conversion. I also forgive the people who aren't my friends who have looked at me like a freak when I decline a super exciting game of Twister because the idea of getting tangled up with a bunch of probably sweating bodies in uncomfortable positions didn't appeal to me.

Now all I can ask is that everyone forgive me for having an unfortunate quirk in my head and heart that make it impossible for me to be a participator. I really am human. That third leg is just left over from evolutinary change.

What?! YOU DON'T BELIEVE IN EVOLUTION?!!!!***

***Great diversionary tactic. Yeah? I am so shocked that there are still people out there who don't believe the evidence that supports the theory of evolution. There is so much evidence stacked up to support it that I didn't actually think it was still considered a theory by some people that has yet to be proved. I'd set to work to prove it to them, but wouldn't that be a little like someone trying to convince me that games are fun? I will let them be. I will let them be their own kind of freak.

Anxiety

What if you spent your entire life training for the last breath you take? What if every shadow had a face, a possible name, a criminal history, and it wanted you? What if every day you had to get up like a shot out of a hot cannon? What if you woke with your heart racing, as though you'd already been running a marathon for all the hours you were sleeping, so that, in fact, you wake up exhausted but in motion? What if every time you step out on a balcony a voice in your head compels you to see what would happen if you jumped? Right now.

What if your world was never quiet? What if every situation in life presents you with five hundred angles that require close examination before you can proceed?

And what if you hear all the people in the world crying, laughing, hacking, dying, grabbing, loving, hating, bleeding out, escaping like little whisps of natural scentless gas into the atmosphere with the smallest whoosh, the smallest exhalation before sliding away. What if you always heard the entire world all at once and could never turn it off?

What if you couldn't sleep for weeks? What if you spent every night listening, because you had no other choice, and you become exhausted with living, with breathing, with not sleeping, and you begin to see life on separate planes all at the same time? Like a clairvoyant with no answers. Like a prophet with no wisdom. You just get more tired; hungry for sleep like a wild beast in a trap, waiting and hoping for something else.

I remember the 70' tree in our yard in Santa Rosa which caused me some fairly serious "concern". We had had some pretty intense storms and I was afraid that the tree, which was absolutely tilting, was going to kill the neighbors behind our house who lived directly in the trajectory of the great tree- I had figured out which way it was going to fall by close unscientific observation. There was no question in my mind that it was going to kill some people and that there was no amount of insurance that was going to make that come out alright.

Philip did not see understand my concerns at all. He said it was solid, even if it was tilting, and no storm was just gonna blow it over. I thought he was awfully condescending to think I had no solid basis for concern. Because I'm just a person that worries. About everything. We had unresolved discussions about the tree. I would have felt a lot better just chopping it down. Because then it wouldn't be able to kill anyone. We settled for getting an arborist to make sure the tree was healthy and not about to topple.

Meanwhile, our neighbors Matt and Sue (who we loved!), were having a similar quiet unresolved disagreement about their own Douglas Fir tree which had been topped at one point and Matt thought was quite dangerous. It had dropped some branches. Sue thought Matt was just worrying too much. Being a real ninny about this stupid tree thing. We all four of us chatted about our dangerous trees and Philip and Sue rolled their eyes while Matt and I completely supported each other in the debate. I absolutely agreed with Matt that a tremendously tall (but topped) fir tree is a danger in a terrible storm. He agreed that a 70' tilting fir tree was enough of a menace to look into.

But then we were relating the very same situation over the fence with another neighbor and he said to me "You worry way too much about everything!" And I looked at him keenly, like I'd just seen my first human and thought "If this dude even knew a quarter of what was going through my brain all day he would cry like a baby and beg for shock therapy."

Some time later I was talking with Matt, Sue, and Mike again and I mentioned casually how I had never had a license to drive a car and they all became slightly more electric, but polite, and asked me why. I said that I never wanted to be the person behind the wheel that kills other people's children. I'm not sure what they expected me to say. Mike said, again, "You really worry way too much. You've got to stop worrying!"

"Yes. It's a clinical problem. I have Generalized Anxiety Disorder."

I said it very matter of factly and to do my neighbors justice they all just took it in stride and never again cajoled me for worrying too much.

You have to imagine what life would be like if everything you did, and every person you met, and even your own brain, was a dangerous entity full of constant threat. It isn't rational and that's what's maddening. I am cognizant of the irrationality of my brain but helpless to enforce more rational thought. The impulses of my brain have been reinforced by my life experiences. I was literally never in a safe environment from the place where I was born until I found myself living alone. There has never been a day in my life when I have felt protected, safe, or sheltered. I lived in a physically and emotionally dangerous place for every single year of my life until maybe it became safer, more sheltered, and calm when I lived by myself when I was nineteen years old.

Who would you be if you could never trust a soul? Who would you be if you couldn't count on love, family, or any adult in your life, to make you safe? Who would you be if your whole experience of life was that you had to protect yourself and know that when you were a very small being you couldn't protect yourself?

You carry it with you.

There is no recrimination here. I do not look back on my life with any bitterness. Truly. I save all my bitterness for the vicissitudes of fortune in the past few years. Those I've loved, those who've loved me, my family, my friends, there is no blame and no need for sorrow, digressing into those tense years of the past. I don't wish to punish, to accuse or open old wounds. I wish only to tell those who might not know, how a person gets to be like me.

How a person lives a life never once truly trusting another human being.

I have said before that I am the master at appearing alright. It is true. You will never see all my true colors. No one ever has. I attempt to show them here on my blog because in spite of its exposure to the public, it feels more safe and private than any other place I've ever been. Because I can turn everyone off here. If I feel attacked I can moderate comments. I can shut you all out if I need to.

You can't shut out the people you'd die for.

It is so difficult for me to reveal any truths that involve my family because we are a fragile group. There are secrets that aren't only mine to tell. I can't say a lot. Partly it's because I love my family more than I think they ever really know.

My mom: who I always wanted to protect more than myself because she is one of those incredible exotic rare flowers that burst wide open into the desert heat- fearless for the burns she will inevitably suffer- she is the most gorgeous human I have ever met and she lives large and is generous in her heart and unwise in every way a heart can be. She is part child and part wise woman. It is almost impossible for people to not love her on contact because she is so breathtakingly daring and when she loves she loves with all of her.

My Dad: whose enjoyment of life and whose loyalty to kin have given me a great example to live by. Our relationship is fraught with thorns, yet he has always been there like a solid wall- paying for my root canal when I was 21 years old and broker than the ocean- encouraging me to get to know my biological father though it must have cost him something to seem so casual about it. I love his laugh, his enjoyment of the silly, his simple expectation that we will continue to work things out. He has gone through transformations gorgeous.

My brother: whose tough spirit I so relate to. Whose obsessive need for control is like a second heartbeat to mine. When we were growing up I would have given up my soul to protect him from his constant malevolent harm and abuse. I think he will never know how much I saw in him a warm heart, a genius artist, and a funny brother. It broke my heart a thousand times that I could not be an effective big sister. That I was powerless to stop the abuse. That I was so paralyzed by fear that I could only watch and fall apart inside. He was my second soul.

My sister: whose sweet/tart nature I abused because I was too envious to appreciate her properly, for which I've been ashamed for years. Whose love I have been striving to earn ever since. A woman with whom I have the most piquant things in common such as our love of airports. I watch her now and see that she is as beautiful and swelling with generosity as the mother we share. I see her like a movie star and I want to be worthy of her admiration. She has grown up alone in so many ways and I wish I'd known she needed me as our brother did. I love her so much that sometimes I think I'll explode with it.

All of them have their own part in my life. Things I can't tell because it's their story too.

I have often felt invisible to them all. I've begun to feel my mother's eyes on me. I'm so damn far from perfect, her little mentally ill first born. But I have heard her speak now in ways I swear my little infant self never heard. Maybe I wasn't listening loudly enough.

There are ways that those like me become who we are. Some of it is because of the way we're wired when we're born. And then there's the rest of it. Some us can say why, some of us are bound not to. Secrets can be corrosive but sometimes just knowing why is enough. Telling others may not change a damn thing.

I have never, a single day in my life that I can remember, not felt this pressing fear. A sense of vague (or acute) danger. It has been present in my body my whole life. Getting a diagnosis was, therefore, a relief. It helps to know that it's not something I can just wish away. It's not something I can meditate away. It pulses in my blood. I will worry about the texture of the paper I'm writing on because I can hear the pen moving across the fibers as though it was a sound that everyone can hear.

There were many days of my life when the fear was a rational response to the unsafe environment I lived in. So for me it is always real. Even when it's not.

Every morning I wake up I kind of hope it's all over. The worrying. The vague dread. The panic. The sense of danger. And every day I wake up to the same anxiety about what today will bring.

Today was pretty wonderful. I got stuff done, I hung out with friends, I rode my bike with my son, I enjoyed my wonderful spouse's company, I enjoyed the setting sun on a rooftop bar in the town I've settled down in, and just enjoyed myself royally. Really, I did. But the point of this post is that in spite of all this enjoyment there is still a shadow of anxiety that lives in my flesh. It is unshakable. Like a heart defect, or a cancer. This is what my legacy is. My neurological challenge. My brain doing it's own thing.

The main thing, at the end of the day, is that I still love my family and friends, no matter what.

Suicide For Beginners

It can easily be argued that an appropriate response to losing someone to suicide is to feel anger. Not only does the bible consider suicide to be an unforgivable sin* but the law ridiculously forbids suicide and so if you attempt it you can be arrested. So why not be angry if someone you love has performed the ultimate gesture of hopelessness and exhaustion? You have God and the law on your side, not to mention the many psychologists who will say that it's perfectly natural for you to feel that way.

I strongly disagree.

Anger at a suicide is a wholly self indulgent emotion. A lot of suicides live life feeling alone, unheard, and hopeless. Their motivations for leaving this earth aren't usually** to spite the living, to thwart them, to inconvenience them, or to hurt them. Suicide itself has been thought of as a selfish act, so why not have selfish emotions around it too?

I'm not entirely sure that once you've courted death, as a suicidal person does, that you ever lose your connection to those feelings of what it's like to really not want to exist. You may come through suicidal periods in life knowing that you don't want to die if it's not your time; you may find happiness and joy in life that you never thought possible when you reeked of the end of the life tracks; covered in the grease of despair; but it leaves an imprint in your consciousness that colors how you view life no matter how strongly you wish to live.

You develop a language and an understanding that the average person doesn't have. Most people, at one time or another, go through such a hard time that they briefly entertain the thought of offing themselves. Most people don't live in that head space for long enough to spare compassion and empathy when they hear that someone has killed themselves. Instead they trot out anger, pity (not the same as empathy by a long shot), or grey indifference because they're scared of the whole subject.

In high school I had an English teacher who was reputed to be one of the hardest in the school; the kind of teacher whose name was hissed fearfully in the dark corners of long scrubbed hallways for fear of invoking the teacher beast itself. His name was Mr. Pierce. Not that that matters. I figured it didn't matter what teacher I had because I was headed for hell in a great molten basket anyway. What difference would it make if I got there with one more D on my record?

As it turned out Mr. Pierce was one of the very first English teachers to inspire in me a longing to become a better writer. His strictness, his reverence for literature, language, and words made me see in him a person whose admiration was actually worth achieving. It was one of the first times in a very long time that I found myself actually caring about my homework because this guy, Mr. Pierce, was a stickler for a well turned phrase, or at the very least a great effort towards one. He wanted to foster a better vocabulary in his hormonal students and hadn't lost his own great passion for his subject. No teen-ager's indifference could wear him down.

We had to write a creative writing paper. He gave a number of examples of the kind of story lines we could use. I could sense the great upsurge of fear and dread amongst my classmates even as I found my mind racing with a million possibilities in excitement. In the end there was only one story I had to tell at that moment.

I wrote a first person narrative about a youth locked in a bathroom preparing to kill themselves. It was something like a stream of consciousness piece of work. I honestly can't claim it was a masterpiece. Yet the teacher, bored with every student doing a riff directly off of his proffered examples, must have felt some kind of frisson of life explode from the page because after turning it in he approached me and made the first real personal contact with me of the whole semester. He said "I think you must read a lot."

I nodded in the affirmative.

He then recommended a few books to me that I might enjoy, some of which I was happy to say I'd already read.

He then had me read my piece out loud to the classroom. Which I did reluctantly. I do not enjoy public speaking or being in the limelight in that way. I was honored that he had chosen my story to be read out loud. So I did.

As I predicted, when I finished reading my story and put down the paper, the class was completely silent. They squirmed. The teacher looked at them sternly. The bell released them.

I felt exposed and icky. That was the first time I'd ever shared my most private thoughts. Out loud. The teacher knew. The other students knew. Thank god I didn't have many friends already or I might have had to experience the agony of losing a couple.

The appropriate response to hearing that someone you know has killed themselves is to feel sorrow. Sorrow is appropriate. Missing them, if you liked or loved them, is entirely appropriate. Shedding tears and wondering what you might have done to help, had you known they needed help, is appropriate. Torturing yourself with that thought is not. Wishing they could come back, that you could replay experiences you had with them, perhaps rewriting a few, is natural. In the end I want to suggest you express your love for them and give them what they sorely lacked in life- give them the ear of your spirit and remember them not as you wish they had been but as they really were. They won't mind if you remember the drool sliding down their cheeks as they slept like babies, so long as you remember it kindly.

You should know that sometimes the people in a suicide's life could have done a lot to help and didn't, and sometimes they couldn't have done anything to prevent death. Each of us knows the real answer in ourselves. No one else can tell us what we might have done different. By the time we're processing our pain over the loss of a loved one to suicide it's too late to ask what we might have done for the dead, but it's never too late to ask what we can do differently for the living.

I cannot speak for all suicides. I wish I could because lord knows someone needs to speak for the ones who have no mouths where they have gone. I remember when I was sixteen and had just found out that a poem I wrote made a friend cry. I remember thinking about the power of words. About how my spirit and my pen and paper seemed like the same entity and that if I had any power at all in using them the most meaningful thing I could do is to help another suicidal person come through the other side, as I had done. If anything I could write would help them feel less alone, more hopeful, like someone out there spoke their own language without rebuke...I would have used my gift truly well.

So if you know someone you suspect is contemplating suicide, please check out the following resources. You may get some answers, some ideas how to help, and be less afraid to stick your foot in. Think of this: if someone is determined to commit suicide, what's the worst you can do? The worst you can do is nothing. You might be concerned about making mistakes, making it worse, but the truth is, if someone is determined there may be nothing you can do to stop it. But many people contemplating or attempting suicide desperately need to be seen and heard. So even if you don't know all the right words to say or the right things to do, just listening-seeing-and most of all- hearing them can make a world of difference.

Don't let them be invisible and soundless.

And if you lose someone to suicide? If anger rises, ask yourself- NOT HOW IT'S AFFECTED YOU- but what it meant to that person to exit life. Spend some time sending them love. LOVE. They need it. Even post mortem. We all need a lot more love.

Suicide Resources:

• McMinnville Suicide Hotline: (503) 434-7465 or 1-800-560-5535

• The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is a 24-hour, toll-free suicide prevention service available to anyone in suicidal crisis. If you need help, please dial 1-800-273-TALK (8255)

• San Francisco Suicide Prevention -I checked this site out and they have some really useful information and pointers on dealing with suicidal people.

• Untied States Department of Health and Human Services while I'm not crazy about any governmental institutions, this site has some good information and doesn't mention George Bush anywhere, always encouraging.

• National Institute of Mental Health I consider this site to be a reliable source for information on mental illness and mental health. There is tons of information available here.

*I don't read the bible so I have only heard this second hand. There is no way I can believe in a God that will forgive the molestation of children but not suicide, a frequent result of those who've been molested as children.

**This may rarely be the case but isn't generally the motivating factor behind suicide.

Just You And Me Now

You lay there like a salty bride in tulle froth, waiting for your wintry groom to come and take you away. Away from this perch. From this cold beach. From these sharp cold waters. From this smoothing sand. You lay there like a salty bride smelling of almonds and oranges. Milky sweet tangy; catching on thorns. You've gone where I can only watch. And wait. You've gone untouchable. What groom takes a bride he cannot touch with corporeal hands? What groom takes a bride who has no earthly lusts?

Drink More Liquor
(you're gonna need it for this post)

This post is dedicated to: Pam, M.S.S., D.G., Lucille, Laurie, Shar, Sid, Cindy, Sue, Nicole, Vespabelle, and Riana- provided the condoms don't break!



The first thing I want to say today, because it is ceaselessly floating around in my head, is:

Jock Itch Is A Bitch.

(But I'm not going to tell you how I know this.) I can't get that sentence out of my head. Maybe now that I've said it out loud (sometimes the pen is much louder than the voice) it will fade into obscurity.

There are a number of things itching at my brain right now. One of them is an intensely personal issue I have that makes me feel like a five year old. I don't like feeling like a five year old, in case you hadn't realized that from all the times I've mentioned how much I hated being a kid. And it isn't jock itch that's making me feel like a five year old, in case you were jumping to conclusions. No no, it's much more of a hot subject than that and one that comes up here just as frequently as beer and food does.

No, I better not talk about it.

How about instead I tell you how I'm tired of being a -

No, it can't be avoided. The unsurprising fact of the matter is that I am a very contrary person. I don't particularly find this a comfortable way to exist but even with medication the edgy lines that ceaselessly rub against each other in a war for space inside my brain spark constantly, igniting little fires that I must put out, or at least contain. One of them is that whenever I find out that a friend is going to have another baby, or try to have another baby, I feel joy for them that they are achieving their family dream.

But I also feel like a five year old whose parents have just announced that they are having triplets and I am going to be elected to take care of them. I feel slightly betrayed.

This childish feeling is one I am extremely uncomfortable having. I try to erase such feelings from my head. It is so selfish and unfair to want everyone in the world to only have one child, as I have chosen to do. It isn't just friends, either. Every time I see a pregnant woman the same thoughts come into my head. "Why is everyone always having babies?!" and "Why is one never enough for anyone?!"

The thing is, it isn't about these other people really. I truly am happy for my friends to fulfill their own family needs. I realize that for most people having kids in the plural is as primal a fulfillment as hunting and killing their own dinner. (Except that very few people do that anymore.)

What it's really about is feeling lonely in my chosen path of the one child family and the defensiveness I have felt in my decision because I can tell you a million times that I made the decision intellectually and for the planet and I know every time that I am lying. The truth is that having another child would ruin mine and my family's life because I find it almost impossible to be a good mom to one child and I don't have the slightest desire to bring more chaos into our lives. I don't have one tiny pang of desire to have another child. In fact, I would rather die than have more kids. I'm not being melodramatic.

And that's how you know I'm crazy.

Even most mothers in the one kid club have more benign reasons for having only one child than I do.


So I feel alone. I feel vulnerable and stupid. Watching other women blissfully rub their growing bellies and pushing new people out of their hoo-has feels like some kind of weird happy family wonderland from which I was excluded. Being pregnant was awful for me and not because I had anything go wrong. I just didn't like it. Labor and childbirth were not beautiful, it was torturous and don't bother thinking that I would have had a different experience if I'd had a peaceful home birth. Nothing on this planet could have made it seem beautiful to push a melon sized human head out of my lady bits.

Why did life not let me experience these things as "beautiful" events? Why was I not allowed to feel joy in the disgusting and painful process of creating another human being to suffer on this earth with me? Why wasn't I issued a pair of rose colored glasses? Don't I deserve to get all soft and fuzzy about the details of labor?

The part that's so funny is that I actually enjoy hanging out with babies. I enjoy seeing them grow up. I have loved getting to be a part of my friend D's baby's life. I get a lot of joy seeing him light up with the discovery that my nose will not come off of my face. She's going to eventually try for more children. (She has mentioned a desire to have five!) Another friend of mine who has one child will be trying for another soon. And when that baby comes I will feel the same excitement for her and I will enjoy watching that baby grow up and learn about the world.

This duality is one that I loathe. Why does part of me wish everyone would just be satisfied with one child? Why does part of me always feel kind of hurt and lonely when I find out that someone who already has one child is going to have another? I'm going to end up loving their babies and being so happy for their happiness, so why do I always have to feel betrayed first? Is there no way to bypass this tricky brain tangle?

Being crazy sucks.

I have possibly made a couple of new friends* from my Master Gardening class. The two women I've met that I really enjoy talking with happen to be mothers of one like me. When I found out I instantly thought (but don't think I shared with them) "We're all in the one-kid club!" and I felt ridiculously happy. I felt instantly more comfortable and safe.

Yes, SAFE.

I can't help but wonder if some of the problem is that I don't want things to change. I make friendships and I don't want them changing. They change with more kids. The more kids you have the less time you have for friends, or when hanging out with friends the more your brain is multi-tasking on caring for your kids. It also becomes exponentially more difficult to make plans, to go places, to do things. I don't know how to be friends with someone who has five children. What would we have left in common? What could we possibly do together that wouldn't be child-centered?

I tend to adjust to change quite well once it's under way but I generally approach it with deep trepidation.

Now that I have finally alienated absolutely everyone I know- I am going to really nail the lid of my coffin on tight with something else that's on my mind:

If any parent of a truly picky eater has actually tried the method of forcing their kid to eat what they want their kid to eat based on the theory that "Kids will never starve themselves", please speak up now. Tell me how long your kid held out before eating what you wanted them to. Tell me how often you've done this and if it transformed your child into a non-picky eater?

I am absolutely tired of people saying that a child will never choose to starve. Because, so far, not a single parent who's trumpeted this line out for my benefit is the mother of a picky eater and has not apparently had to employ this strategy of force to their own children.

My child would absolutely starve himself if he could in such a battle but he would actually bleed to death first since he would be so upset at the battle over food that he would force open his capillaries and gush until he passed out. I don't know, but I suspect, that every parent who has glibly suggested I just make him eat regular food, would not be able to deal with my kid in such a situation.

My grandmother tried to force me to eat a pork chop once. I was (as you all know by now) raised as a vegetarian by my mother. I can tell you that we sat at the dinner table for hours and I would not eat that pork chop. Had she tried to get me to eat meat the next morning? After going to bed with no dinner? I would have held out. I would have rather starved than subject myself to the vomit-fest that trying to swallow meat would have provoked.

So if anyone has had a child like me or Max and managed to win the war of food through forcing the issue meal after meal, I want you to tell me all about it. Because I resent my dead grandmother to this day for trying to make me eat food that made me gag. I don't relish such a relationship with my one and only lambini. How did you do it and not have your child hate you for life? How did you apply this fabulous method of feeding your child? How many hours, days, weeks did it take?

I define picky eating as the number of items a kid will eat being ten or less.

Parents of kids who eat everything are often so smug about it. As though it's through their great parenting that their kids eat well. I say it's luck and it's the kid. (Well, in cases where good wholesome food has always been on offer. It could be a parent's fault that their kids are picky if they don't eat well themselves.)

Anyway. The next person who says a "kid won't ever starve themselves" may try working their magic on my kid for one week. Let's see their excellent good sense and strong parenting skills transform my child. We'll switch. Let me experience what it's like to feed a kid who eats like a normal kid.

Any takers?

Well, it's been nice knowing you all. So long. I understand that you can't be friends with me anymore. I'm going to miss you.

*Of course, if either of them are reading this, they may be rethinking being friends with me!