Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Mental Illness

I realize I haven't spoken of the girl's story in a while. Robin William's death, with the subsequent talk of depression and mental illness, brought it to my mind. More about that soon.

The girl has a new diagnosis. Bi-polar II. It is different from Bi-Polar I in that the manic stages tend to be hypomanic and depression is the more frequent pole of the two poles.

It took the girl decades to get this correct diagnosis. Some doctors and counselors suspected it before but didn't ask the girl the exact right combination of questions to sift through all the depression episodes and find what lied between.  What lied between was that for all her beautiful life and loving family,  beyond her smile and laughter, despite her sense of humor, her life passed in stages of behavior.  Her love of writing only showed up every couple of months, thundering like a waterfall before drying up to dust. Her days of laughter were limited to a week before turning bitter and fake. Her sleep requirements ranged from 6 hours one week to 11 hours the next month. Her passionate obsessions that people found smart and endearing could just as quickly turn to apathy.

For the girl, the hardest question on a silly internet quiz was always "Do you consider yourself an introvert or an extrovert?"  She could never answer that question because the answer depended on the week, day, hour, second. Perhaps if a therapist had asked,"Do you have trouble answering introvert/extrovert questions on silly internet quizzes?" she could have shouted "YES!  I feel crazy because I have no idea what kind of person I am. I love and hate people all at the same time!  I am a walking, talking, writing contradiction!  To compensate for this, I put on a happy face. Overly happy. Overly friendly. I play the part of the extrovert at all times because it is so easy to fake a behavior that I truly have occasionally...I mean when the mood strikes just right.  And I make people laugh. But shit, I'm really fake.  I'm all over the place and I don't know why."  (New medication has worked wonders for the girl. Those that know her best see the most improvement.)

It is no one's fault technically. She didn't know what to say and therapists were doing the best they could with the information she gave them. But what about society?  Does society make it easier or harder for people like the girl and Robin Williams?  People who are suffering mentally, but are outwardly so happy and gregarious?  It is so hard to believe, isn't it, that a person so full of life and talent and humor was also miserable enough to seek death? Perhaps that is what society needs to understand about mental illness. It does not play favorites. The people that seem the happiest may be among the sickest.

Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Reincarnation, in a movie.

I'll admit right off that I know very little detail about reincarnation, nor how differs in each religion that believes in it.  I plan to learn more for the sake of knowledge and because the movie Cafe' de Flores has not left my mind since watching it two days ago. 

Without giving away to many spoilers, in 1969 Paris, a mother of a child with Down syndrome loves him fiercely.  Almost obsessively; he is her entire life.  She bucks society's rule about placing him in an institution.  Instead, she places him in music, speech, boxing, any class and activity that will help his cognitive ability.  He attends a general education school. One day, a girl with Down syndrome begins attending the same school.  The children fall in innocent love immediately.  Their parents have to literally pry them apart at the end of the day.  In the end, the mother makes a drastic, horrible decision because love has become too painful for all three of them.  
(There is something about the love portrayed between the mom and son that tore at my heart, but that is a post for another day. Or not.  It is complicated.)

In present day Montreal, a man deals with his guilt over leaving his wife and children for another woman.  After so many happy years with his ex-wife, he didn't mean for the marriage to fail, but he and the other woman feel fated for each other.  He wonders if a person can have two soul mates at a time.  The ex-wife begins having nightmares and sleepwalking.  The love triangle is too painful for all of them, and there is a clear chaotic spiral taking place.  

At the end of the film, the reincarnation is revealed.  Forgiveness is asked for and given.  Peace comes for all. 

So, I have no idea if that is the classic theory behind reincarnation or not, but I like it:  That the people we love, really love, and who really love us, form this continuous circle where all involved must make peace before the soul is allowed to move on.  Or maybe not move on, but then perhaps stop meeting the same loved ones' souls in the next life. 

It is a beautiful thought.  That perhaps the people I love the most, and subsequently hurt the most, will be there next time.  We can perfect our love and take out the hurt.  We move from being the mother and son, father and daughter, whatever to being siblings.  Or husband and wife.  Or best friends.  We just circle each other life after life until we get it right.  

It is a beautiful thought, but I don't believe it.  

I believe we have this one time, this one life. No afterlife, no karma, and not much time to get it right.  

The chances for peace, forgiveness, getting it right, are unlimited. Until death. 

Saturday, May 17, 2014

No Longer Needing

When my mother died at 42 years old, I was 16.  The anger, fear, and sadness carried me only so far.  
I began looking for a mother substitute to replace that void.  

I really wasn't picky.  Pretty much any older woman that showed me attention and affection was elevated to a pedestal rather quickly. Of course, I connected with some better than others just on the basis of personality.  
Looking back, I'm sure these connections served a purpose, but I can also see where there was an element of unhealthiness surrounding it all.

I forced intimacy.  
Yearning for love and a mother figure, I forced women to try to fill that role. When they couldn't fill it to the deepness that I craved, I became angry with them, as though it was their fault that they couldn't love me the way my mom had.  The expectations were always too high, which always led to a crash.  

I had an epiphany this morning.  
I no longer have the need for a replacement mom.
I tried to pinpoint when I stopped needing it but can't.  
The need just....cured itself?  Vanished?  Was outgrown?  
I don't think it really matters when.  There was subconscious freedom in the loss of the need and even more freedom in the realization that the need is gone.  

I thought long and hard why the need left, and I think the reason is that I have finally become the mom I needed.  
I have found what I needed in myself.  
There is still pain, still insecurities in most areas of my life, but I know no one can fill those voids except for me. 
I can certainly accept love from relatives and friends, but the ultimate love must be the love I have for myself. 

There is a peace that was not there before.



Dedicated to the women, who through no fault of their own, could not be a mother to me, but so lovingly tried:

Becky Miller (RIP)
 Karen Olivier
Carole Fuselier (RIP)
 Karen Smith
Debbie Young
 Donna Fontenot 
 Darla Brown (RIP)
 Marilyn Johnson
Linda Miller
 Cynthia Hollier 
Lynn Hall
Rose Mary Miller
 Ann Michel

Saturday, March 15, 2014

Showers

Hi Trent, you doing good? Yeah?  Good to hear.

Listen, you are fully aware that Mommy adores you. 
But know what else Mommy adores?  
Her showers.  
Scalding water, steam filled room, which-Bath-and-Body-Works-do-I-use-today, 15 minute I-don't-care-about-the-environment-at-this-moment, wonderful showers. 

If the door is locked, you bang, kick, scream, and say my name a million times.  Because of that, I no longer lock the door, and when your brother and sister are available, they can entertain you. 

 But lately Trent, things are not working out right. 
I'm standing in the scalding water, relaxing my shoulders, and you open the door.  Then you move the shower curtain to the side, and there you are, as naked as the moment you were born.  You flash my favorite smile. 

"Mama, bath please."

Before I can say no, you are climbing in the tub.  I have to rush to turn the cold knob.  Once you are in the shower, you seem shocked that you accomplished your goal.  You look down, look back up, give me that smile again and theatrically raise your arms while shouting "Ta da!!"  

Trent, I know how long it took you to learn how to undress yourself, and I'm so proud of you, but perhaps "Ta da!!" for a skill you have been doing for so long now is a bit dramatic.
Whatever floats your boat though, right? 

Even though Mommy gives you a big laugh and tells you that you are so stinkin' cute (I'm trying to stop that), I am slightly annoyed that I'm losing the solitude of my shower, and the room to shampoo, condition, and shave without you playing with all your foam letters at my feet.  

Here is the deal Trent.  I bathe you at least once a day.  Always have, always will.  Let's see if you can wait until Mommy is done with her own shower, ok? 
 I promise, promise, promise that you will get your own, and when Mommy makes a promise, it is good as gold.

Wednesday, January 8, 2014

The Day After Our Anniversary, Two and Half Days Before I See You Again

I already told you that I daydreamed about you today.  I'm surprised I didn't write my name several times on my Post-Its, just to see my first name mingled with your last name, like a girl in middle school.  Perhaps I didn't only because I had already signed my name, with that lovely mingling, several times that morning. 
 But that is how I feel lately, giddy on love.

The daydreaming was both innocent and not.  Too much information for a blog.  

9 years of marriage, almost 15 years together.  1000's of memories.  There are two songs that I can think of off the top of my head with lyrics about love being incompatible with mathematical equations and logic.  As a person that prefers logic, I certainly enjoy knowing the exact chemicals stimulated in the human brain that help people bond in what we call love, but that is just knowledge for science's sake.  
The love I have for you moves beyond that.   

Since you've been away on another continent and the mundane chores of my day threaten my sanity, I have invented this way of thinking of our love as an epic love story from a novel.  Not deadly like Romeo and Juliet, dreary like Heathcliff and Catherine, cold like Pip and Estella, or terribly cheesy (and poorly written) like Edward and Bella.  I think of us more like Jamie and Claire, with much less war, farming, and time travel.  A constantly maturing love, full of devotion, where we both acknowledge our previous and present faults while forgiving perceived faults in each other. 

There is an ebb and flow to us that we used to struggle against, swimming when we should have floated, treading water when we should have swam like mad.  But we understand it now.  I have an angry, passionate, depressing streak in my life that flares from time to time, but you understand it, validate it, and help me give it purpose.  You profess not to understand me, but I'm telling you that you do.

We have not been married 50+ years so no, I do not consider us experts on marriage.  I think it is fair to say most people consider the following as ingredients for a happy relationship:  Communication, respect, sacrifice, willingness to improve, trust earned and trust given, loyalty....so many of these types of concepts......that are meaningless until both people in the relationship really mean and practice them.....

I like our story. Even the bad parts.  

It can be broken down easily.  I first saw you when you were working at a Subway.   
Make me a sammach boy.  
Who is this overly skinny chick with a shaved head? 
Then we got a job working together.  We flirted.  We had a date. We became infatuated with each other. Our teeth hit on the first kiss.  We got pregnant soon after.  (Oh crap!)  We moved in together.  We grew apart.  We saw other people.  We came back together.  We got pregnant again.  

Up until that point, I think we were "in love" but we were rarely practicing the ingredients.   

We got married before Hurricane Katrina.  When I said the vows, I meant them completely...but....but I was not yet ready to completely let you behind the walls I keep.  It was the hurricane that did it.  Amidst the terror, there was a moment that I knew, where knowing is no longer a conscious thought, that you would protect me and our children with your own life, always.  I no longer needed to carry so much fear because you had become my fortress.  It shook me to the core to know the extent of your love for me.  I knew/know it, I trusted/trust it, and I wanted/want to keep it for always.  
And I want you to feel the same from me, always.  

That core shaking moment happened again when Trent was born.  We looked at each and knew that we were forging ahead, together.  The words didn't even need to be said.  

It doesn't matter that sometimes we argue (though very maturely,) that sometimes we feel boring, run down by the ordinary demands, and very less than epic, our foundation is the knowing that took place during those moments, and those moments were epic.  
The way you being on another continent makes me miss, respect, trust, adore, and appreciate you with an all-consuming excitability is epic.  It is all so freaking epic. 

 But "I love you" was simply not expressive or epic enough for what I needed to tell you today.   Neither is "Thank you, thank you, thank you!"  

I could not go to sleep tonight until I said it better.    

I hope you read this over and over before your long flight home.  I hope it permeates your dreams, both day and night.