Mother

Why is it that our mothers still have such power over us, no matter what they have subjected us too?

Why does self preservation shrivel beneath that hothouse light of her gaze?

Why can't we cut the apron stings, stop the yearning for the bosom and safety?


My mom had hernia surgery today...yet another in the long line of procedures she has been having lately...she has good insurance and has abandoned all her kids to live in a 1 bedroom apt with dad, so she is more able than ever to focus on the thing that really matters...herself.

I had hernia surgery in March...she did not come to visit me before, during, or after. My dad called tonight to tell me what room she's in so I can visit her...

My mother is a constant bone of contention between Bryan and I. They have both gone back and forth volleying for my attention since day 1. She doesn't know what I see in him and he doesn't know how I could possibly still care about her after everything she has done, (and continues to do) to me. I told him I was going to visit her and he told me I was nuts...she never came to see me so why am I going to see her...I really don't want to per se, but I feel like if I don't she'll be mad at me and I don't want to deal with that. I hate it when she's mad at me.

The one time my mother was truly there for me was at the birth of my oldest child. It was a grueling 3 days of induced labor and she held my hand and wiped my tears...she cooed to me and made me feel safe. When it took an hour and 10 needle sticks into my spine to get my epidural in, she was there...Bryan could not handle it and left as soon as I screamed. When I went in for the C-Section for my twins and almost died on the operating table, my mother was eating at Shell's. Oh how the mighty have fallen.

I hate feeling like the rope that is used in the tug of war between Bryan and my mom. I also hate caring so much what she thinks or if she is happy with me.

I just wish that she could give me the same unconditional love I have always given her.

How Multiples Moms Really Do It...

JUST KIDDING!!!!!!

Honestly though, I have heard the query a hundred times in the last 14 months of my twins' lives..."How do you do it?"

My recurrent answer has been, "I don't know". Many people think this is sarcasm, or a pathetic stab at humor, but it honestly is the truth.

As any mom knows, you don't get handed an application or wish list before or during your pregnancy...parenting is a cross between Texas Hold'em and Russian Roulette...you take a shot in the dark (ha ha) and play the hand you're given the best you can...

My days have evolved into entities larger than myself...after the twins are in bed each night I literally breathe a sigh of relief that everyone has survived happy and unscathed, and that it's all over for another 10 hrs or so, (yes, I know how lucky I am that they are good sleepers...I never take that for granted!!)

Each day brings countless judgement calls, which one is more upset, which one is more in need, which one do I take to the car, the crib, the changing table first...which one can handle waiting a few moments longer for their needs or wants to be met...I second guess myself constantly but still know at the end of the day that I did the best I could. The guilt that assailed me in the early days, (in relation to these decisions) is largely gone now...I'm not the first mom to be outnumbered by her babies and the vast majority of those babies, (and moms) past and present, survived and thrived.

In the end, that is all that matters.

Thought For The Day

She's Up, Then She's Down, Then She's Up Again, or Mood Swings and Me...

I first wrote this a couple of months ago, before I started the particular med cocktail I am on now...but I reread it a lot and relate to it very much stillm so I thought I would share it:


UGH

I’m drinking again…

Drinking to dull the edges..drinking to reach the happy place…SLIDE and all will be well.

My life has been anti-climactic..more than I ever thought and less at the same time…I am devoted to the needs around me…questing to make everyone happier…my only self is reflected in their smiles and pleasure.

My thoughts are like a mythic Grecian monster…cut one off and two more grow back in the same place. My mind races all the time and I seek succor and release from the chaos.

Why don’t you see ME??

Why do I have to be a reflection of the world around me? Why do I NEED to make everyone at peace?

I see that I am a wasteland in myself, no real sense of who I am or where I am or what I am…just a vessel waiting to be filled..a mirror in a room with no lights.

So many times I want to curl up like a roly-poly bug..but the easy way is the coward’s way and as many labels as I have worn I have tried so so hard not to wear that one.



I'm still not in the "happy place"...I went to the head shrink wrappers today and they upped all my meds, I go back in 3 wks so they can most likely add Lithium to the mix. Psychiatric medicine is such an inexact science, it's very trial and error, you just hope that the errors are little ones!!

I decided to take a little break from slogging, (or blogging as the case may be) through the bad things...When you have spent a lifetime repressing crap, it is really not a good idea to dredge it all up in a week's time, very bad ju-ju!! I was quickly writing my own one way ticket to the loony bin. I know I have to deal with it and get it all out, but it hurts like crazy and sucks big donkey male parts!!

Validation

Now, due to my mother's personality, I was reared to NEED validation...it is as important as air, more important than food, water, or shelter...I sifted my environment for her happiness like a whale gathering plankton, spent every breath grasping for her approval, and held onto her kind words like an oasis in the Mojave.

This is not a matter of butt kissing, because it is simply bigger than that. This is a voice that grows with each year, that keeps driving you to please the people around you above all else...that tells you only with their happiness shall you truly be real.

My mother also instilled me with a need to be perfect...her particular Achilles heel was sweet tea...I have always and shall forever make the best sweet tea she has ever drank...it was something I strived for and a crown I shall not relinquish at any cost. Sad, but true.

In those molding years of my pubescence, my middle school time, my transition, she alternated between ignoring, deploring, condemning, and bringing the wrath of daddy upon me...this has resulted in wretched fear of being ignored, coupled with a desperate. all-consumimg NEED to avoid conflict. I want to stand up for myself, and talk a good talk, but am often powerless in the moment.

I strived to be the best at everything, and my high school teachers became replacements for the parental validation that simply was not forthcoming...each essay presented me with the NEED to outdo myself...I spent 60 hrs a wk at school between rehearsals, (I went to a performing arts magnet school) and classes, then another 3-6 hrs a night on homework. Mama had always said that the only way to make anything of yourself was through a college education, and we did not have enough money to "send" me to school, so I would have to do it on my own.

I started being solicited by schools in my sophomore year of high school, by my senior year I had received 150-200 solicitations...I had narrowed my desires down to 2 schools, Loyola Univ. in New Orleans, (to study music as I had focused on throughout high school) and Sarah Lawrence College in NY, (the only college in the country that offered a degree in creative writing at the time).

I spent countless hours on the applications and essays, of course I did, this was my future...I clearly recall finishing the essay for Loyola about 3am on a school night, then placing it on Mama's desk and telling her about it the next day.

I needed her signature on my apps because I was under 18. Larger than that though, I needed to file a FAFSA, Federal Application for Student Aid...this required my parent's tax information since I was under 18 and still living at home.

I assumed Mama had taken care of all this, although I did ask her also and she said she had. I went on to graduate 8th in my class with a 3.80 GPA and nearly 300 community service hours...I was an honors and AP student and Natl Honor Society Member. I was already a published poet and stage performer.

I discovered, (when the acceptance letters that I was waiting for never arrived) that my mom had never sent in the apps or the FAFSA...I had pulled all-nighters, tutored, and generally worked my butt off, for nothing.

(to be continued, again)

My Many Coloured Days

I often wonder what life is like for people without mental illness...I know everyone has their quirks and glitches, but I mean life without hallucinations, voices, and moods that turn on a dime.
Mental illness and addiction hang from my family tree like bananas, (pun COMPLETELY intended). My maternal great grandmother was a 4ft 9in firecracker with 9 kids, she begat my grandmother who used to chase my mom around and beat her with golf clubs...my mom begat me (with the spermatazoa of her 17 yr old drug dealer boyfriend who had an ongoing sexual relationship with his own sister at one time)...kooky, huh??!!
My maternal grandfather died from liver abuse due to chronic alcoholism...my entire sperm donors family was so backwards and drunk that they not only made their own moonshine, they were still using an outhouse and bathing in a creek in 1975.
My mom was the strangest blend of June Cleaver and Joan Crawford you could ever conceive... a manipulative, intelligent, kitchen goddess who could walk out of a room loving you and walk back in hating you. When I was young I have mostly good memories of her, although her own paranoia did result in intensive programming that family was all you ever had, (mom, dad, siblings, not the family you would create for yourself as an adult). I remember a HUGE lecture where I was told I had "betrayed" the family when I was 7 cause I told our babysitter (her best friends daughter) about the $2.00 bill in the dictionary...this was tantamount to a Hilton posting the safe combination on the internet!!
When she was having a good day, the sun shone brighter, the flowers smelled sweeter, and I could not imagine any better place to be...her good days got farther and farther apart as I grew older. In those early years, my mom would hug, kiss, and tell me she loved me endlessly. She would still rock me and stroke my hair as I listened to the comforting beat of her heart and the squeak , squeak, squeak of my grandmother's antique rocker. I surrounded myself with her warmth and memorized her smell. She was so dear to me that the mere thought that she would die one day brought me to tears.
When I was 11, she decided to home school my sister and I...this quickly turned into me becoming a full time mom to my 3 younger siblings, ages 9, 2 1/2, and 2 wks. I cooked, cleaned, changed diapers, and walked the floors with the baby at night. I packed my dad's lunch and faced his wrath and physical abuse regularly. My mom was working 3 jobs and my dad was working 2, trying to stave off an inevitable chapter 13 bankruptcy because my dad was fired from his good job at the phosphate mines. They were so stressed out and miserable that there was no option but for the sh!t to roll downhill. On the other hand, my mother's own relationship with her mother had changed dramatically as she entered puberty, and sometimes I think it was just fate...simply a matter of time before she was jerked away from my grasp. During this time, my mother really changed, and it hurt very badly...she would literally wake my father out of a sound sleep when she was mad at me so he could hit me.
I think back on those days and shudder still...I was terrified to have children of my own for fear that I would be like my parents...I still worry that the pubescent curse will be repeated with my oldest...although I will fight it with everything in my power.

(To Be Continued...)