awesomeousity

My son's dad just sent him a box of stuff for Christmas. He misspelled his son's own name. He named him. He even was very specific about the spelling on the birth certificate. Anal, even.
I guess when you don't bother to be involved in their lives for nine years, you kinda forget.
Fucking lame.

puny me

I've been sick, sleeping all day on the couch with short breaks to fetch my son some food and then fall back asleep again. He could care less, since he got some new X-box games for Christmas (video games- the sick parents best friend). In between video games, while we're snacking, we've been watching endless episodes of Invader Zim, since The Christmas Kraken brought us all 3 volumes of Invader Zim episodes.

I woke up to hear Invader Zim yelling in my head, although it wasn't on. And soon I expect to hear some more, as I happily look forward to another day of hacking up a lung and sleeping for ridiculous periods of time. Oh, and that cherry flavored spray crapola that numbs your throat- fucking awesome.

That's where I'll be.

Christmas Kraken 2.0

If you don't know what a Christmas Kraken is, you need a wee bit of the history, first.

This year we got a little crazy. Ok, last year was crazy, but when you're up to your eyeballs in creating new mythologies, you have to think outside of the box. Way, way outside of the box.

So this year we made (by that I mean me, with a little wiring help from dear hubby) a new Kraken. A smaller Kraken, but a far more labor intensive Kraken. This was no mere Kraken that hangs limply from the ceiling, no! This Kraken can FLY...

Building materials...



A finished flying Kraken...



A close up of the beasties that make it fly...



Kraken in his Christmas Eve glory...



And let's not forget The Original Kraken. He was redecorated this year, complete with jaunty cap and bells, and had a prime location in the living room for the festivities...



And now I'm off to make food and maybe sleep and play with all my new toys. I've seen "The Christmas Story" twice on TBS today so far and all is well in the world. At least in our little world.

Ahhh.

The Yearly Christmas Letter, Oh Joy!

Every year my mom sends out a Christmas letter to every freaking person she knows, so it's always a bit frightening opening it when it comes to me to see what in the hell she wrote about me this year.

It's always weird. Without fail. I really don't know if she's trying to insult me, because it always seems that way. I don't think she is, but damn if she doesn't always seem like she's trying SO HARD to do so.

In years past, I've had reason to be afraid; what was she going to write? "Jill is with an abusive alcoholic and looks forward to her upcoming graduation from The School of Hard Knocks" or "I have a daughter, but there's nothing good to say, so never mind." These I would actually understand, honestly. Don't sugar coat it, woman, you never have. It's not your strong point.

What she usually writes is about my son, and (shrugs) that's ok. He's cute, he makes for good photo ops in the letter, what bad can you say about him?

Then again...what good can you say about him? Oh yah... a lot! Which she fails to mention. Honor roll, principals list, first prize at karate tournaments, gee, I don't know. Any of those would be good things to mention.

Then there's my husband. My rapidly climbing the corporate ladder husband, the image of youthful success, the sole provider of the family, the faithful and loving and attentive man by my side, there's plenty good to be said about him.

And me? Well, it's been an eventful year, to say the least. Talking about my physical therapy isn't exactly the happiest news in the world, but it has been a major part of my life.

Did she mention any of those things? No. What she wrote was this:

"Jill stood up in a good friends wedding in June and (my son) was asked to be the ring bearer. Jack, Jill, and (my son) all went to Philadelphia (I've never been to Philadelphia in my life) for the event. The bridesmaid's dresses were a soft pink and I'm sure looked good on most of the ladies, but Jill's dress was ordered two sizes too large (it was a size sixteen, I believe. I wear an eight in dresses) and alterations were a nightmare. I suggested she try to sell the dress on E-bay."



That's it. That's all that's mentioned about us in her two page letter, except for the cute picture of my son in the tux he wore. I was never in Philadelphia, the dress was twice my size, and I DID A LOT OF IMPORTANT THINGS THIS YEAR OTHER THAN LOOK LIKE CRAP IN A FUCKING DRESS, thank you.

(shrug) As far as any distant friends and family of my mother might know, whenever I'm not in some ridiculous dress I spent the rest of my year living in a dumpster, referring to myself as Coffee Pot Titty Bitch and mumbling to strangers about how I've been to Philadelphia. My husband may as well be flipping burgers at McDonald's and aspiring to be bumped up to fry cook. That salt is tricky business. Not too much, not too little. You gotta work up to a job like that, you know.

But hey, at least my son looked cute. You know, for a kid who lives in a dumpster.

God, I hate that damn letter.

A Merry Little Christmas: I'm Not With You Anymore

It's been crazy here. So crazy busy, in fact, that I think my blogging joints are creaky with lack of use.

Christmas is coming.

And with Christmas comes Baggage. You know, the antithesis of Presents. The things that are not Gifts, but sheer Shittery.

No, not that stupid crap your weird relatives give you every year without fail, but the memories of Christmases past. All those moments over the years...why are they so loaded?

For me, Christmas has always been a weird holiday. When I was little, we were a fucked up family and I don't remember that far back anyway. Then my parents divorced and we were really poor. Christmas was hard, but not for us (the kids). We never knew. I thank my mother for that.

After I grew up, my mom and I were talking about Christmases of the past, and she mentioned getting us presents from the Toys for Tots program. I was aghast. I mean, I knew we were poor, but we were THAT poor? I didn't know. She told me she used to gather up my old toys each year and sell them to get money to buy new stuff for Christmas. I never knew, I told her. I know, she said.

She wanted the magic to remain intact, at least for that day of my life, every year, without fail. And she did, for a long time.

My most memorable Christmas of all was waking up to find the Barbie Doll Dream House sitting in front of the tree. I will never forget that glorious moment, ever. It was expensive as hell, and I never even dreamed that I would actually get it. I wanted it, bad, but I didn't even have my hopes set on actually GETTING it.



I fully confess to just spending the last thirty minutes scrolling through page after page on the web, looking at Barbie crap from 1978 and getting awfully teary eyed. *sigh* Christmas...

My mom told me she had spent almost the whole night putting the thing together, cramming each tiny flower into the flower boxes (the only picture I could find on the web doesn't have the flower boxes, you'll notice). Being a parent myself, I now understand just how much we put into making it magical for our kids.

This year I've been pulling so much magic out of my ass I've made myself sick, I swear. I almost never get sick, and for me to be up typing at 4am with a hideously sore throat, you know that's bad. I've been baking and shopping and wrapping and card writing and boxing and sending and researching...and spending a whole hell of a lot of time in traffic.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Random sickly 4am note: Why in the bloody hell do people drive like shit around Christmas? The roads are packed, the stores are packed, it's bumper to bumper and yet people are honking their horns and driving all Nascar-wanna-be just to move ten feet ahead in traffic.

Tangent from the random sickly 4am note: Today I had some bitch in one very nice car repeatedly cut me off in traffic. Just doing stupid shit, you know... and perhaps my impending sickliness kept my middle finger down, I don't know. What I do know is that I WAS giving her the "Holy Shit, Aren't YOU An Awesome Driver!" sarcastic look into her rear view mirror every time she did it, which was quite a lot in a matter of a mile, at which point she pulled into the same place I did: our children's school. I had to laugh. I pulled in behind her and she did yet another stupid ass maneuver that I'm far too tired to explain, and managed to cut me off again. Even her passenger turned to look at me from the sizzling heat of my X-ray I Will Beat Your Ass In The Parking Lot Of Our Kids School, Bitch super vision. She parked. I parked. She took off at a near run into the school, and I laughed some more. No, her kid wasn't sick. They were having class parties. I know because everyone has to sign in, so I looked at the sheet to see why she signed in, and it said, "classroom party". Awesome reason to drive like an asshole. Good job. (shakes head) Why do people act like that? Geez...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Anyway...

Christmas does weird things to people. For me, it's a dredging of every Christmas past, and some of those have been really fucking awful. And even though last year didn't seem to faze me too much, this year has been hellacious. I couldn't figure out why. I thought maybe it was the physical therapy. Maybe the recent bullshit with my step dad. I don't know. It was my husband that figured it out.

We were sitting at the table the other night and I was sobbing, exhausted, miserable. We talked about this and that and back and forth, around and around, till finally he said, "You want to know what I think it is? The years you spent with (my last ex). You're looking at all the other things, but I think it's actually the most recent trauma and because of that, you're overlooking it."

It didn't take a moment before all the bells starting going off in my head, the puzzle pieces falling into place, lightbulbs going off and exploding over my head as I realized exactly WHY X+Y=misery. And I started to list it off, rapid fire:

I hate Christmas for it's insinuation that I should spend it with relatives, with a big extended family, and we should all sit around the fire and smile at one another. I don't have that. I never have. I've always hated Christmas, other than when it was still magical, when I was a kid. Once it lost it's magic, I have forever been nonplussed about the whole hullabaloo.

Then I had a child, and the urge to make Christmas a beautiful time of year threw my petty grudges aside to make way for the dreams and wonderful memories that my own child should have.

It was during five of those years that I spent with my ex. He was around for most of my son's Christmases. He, too, had a loathing of Christmas, but after the first few years of getting to experience it again through the eyes of a child, he was getting the hang of it.

And he had family. A whole lot of family. Big huge Southern family get-togethers, chock full of disgusting Southern foods that this born Yankee could never get used to, not even after eleven years in the South. Blech. But no matter- it was a houseful of people, overflowing with people, bumping into people at every turn, laughter, children running happily underfoot and old folks reminiscing. It was the stuff I had dreamed of. Oh, it was no greeting card, hell no. There was the usual family bullshit, the various tensions and what have you, but at least they were all there, and for the time being, it was ok.

My ex hated going to the family gatherings. I couldn't get enough of them. He thought of himself of the black sheep of the family, and in many ways, he was. His dad's side of the family were strict (and insane) Southern Baptists, and my ex was so NOT. But despite all of it, they loved me to smithereens, accepted my son as part of the family, and I reveled in it.

Then came the day that I fell down the stairs. The day that started all the shit that I am currently in physical therapy for. The day I fell down the stairs was on Halloween, 2003. My ex couldn't be bothered to take care of me. He was a selfish alcoholic asshole, no doubt. But I loved the selfish alcoholic asshole, curse me. And the day I fell down the stairs inconveniently collided with his favorite holiday of the year, so he spent the whole goddamn weekend going to parties and costume contests, hanging out with friends and getting trashed. I spent the weekend in agony, not just from the physical pain of somersaulting down concrete steps but the emotional pain of wondering HOW it was that my boyfriend could care so little about me to spend the weekend partying. It's not like their wouldn't be more Halloween's. Of course there were, but not one we would ever spend together.

That was the weekend he met The Girl.

While I was all fucked up and bruised and agonized at home, my boyfriend was partying with the people from work, and one of them included the new girl. The new girl that would take a fancy to my shmuck of a boyfriend, the new girl that would always suggest they get a beer after work, the new girl who lured him away with the ease of...well, with the ease that any cute woman can lure away a stupid man. It wasn't hard.

Those next few months were hell. He spent more and more time with her, he and I fought about it, and Thanksgiving and Christmas came and went. The family gatherings... at Thanksgiving I still had hope. By Christmas I did not.

That was a miserable Christmas. We both knew it was over, but he wouldn't actually leave or break up with me. He hung out with The Girl all the fucking time, even passing out at her house a few times, but never actually cheating on me. I, fool that I was, tried desperately to reel him in before it was too late. In the meantime, I watched the last five years of our lives together unravel, but it was Christmas! It was time to be merry! Happy! Joyful!

The family get togethers were fucking awful. We pretended everything was ok, and I secretly knew in my heart of hearts that I would never see those people again. They hugged my child, his mother referred to him as her grandson, and no matter how badly I wanted to believe it was going to be ok, I knew it was not. It was devastating to watch. It was heartbreaking to experience. I really loved his family. I was very attached to them. As a matter of fact, when he tried to break up with me, the first person I called was his mother. Fucked up, yah, ok, but I thought maybe she might have some wisdom to impart. I would have called MY mother but we weren't close. I called the mom I knew I could count on. (shrugs)

A month later, it was over. I found out two weeks later, through mutual friends. I don't know what it is with me and holidays, but I found out that he had finally slept with The Girl when my friends told me on Valentine's Day.

Let's not even get into all that...this isn't about my blood boiling, this is about Christmas, and why I am having such trouble with THIS one.

That brings us back to the physical therapy.

Throughout these past months of physical therapy I have felt more than the pain of the original fall. I have felt far, far worse. What I suddenly realized the other night was that being in this much pain is reminding me of that Christmas three years ago.

Really...three years is not so long of a time. In that time I've met the man of my dreams, moved five hundred miles away and gotten married, started a whole new life and worked hard at healing the wounds of my past, but it's still a fresh wound. Not just that, but it's one I haven't really ever finished bandaging. I just got back up, brushed myself off and kept going.

Now I'm knocked back down on my ass (through therapy) and it's giving me a bizarre sort of flashback to that Christmas three years ago. I didn't realize how strong that was until Thursday.

On Thursday I went to therapy and got my ass kicked, as I like to phrase it. I doubt my therapist would say it like that, but that's the gist of it. She pulled things, pushed things, and it felt like both my stomach and back were ripping apart. It was excruciating, and I started to sob. Once I started, I couldn't stop.

I've had these extreme reactions to physical therapy on a few other occasions, where I would start to cry and shake and all the muscles in my body go stiff, most noticeably my legs. From my waist down, I turn into stone. My therapist (sometimes using help from an assistant, even) will have to pick my leg up and bend it at the knee, then wiggle it back and forth until the muscles relax, which is no easy task when my legs are responding as if they are in an advanced stage of rigor mortis. I mean she has to PICK UP my leg, which doesn't want to bend at the hip, either. Whenever that happens, I always start howling. I don't know why. She's tried to explain it, something about the nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system, I don't really understand. What I do understand is that I am VERY emotional.

When this happened on Thursday, the assistant doing traction on my neck kept talking me down, essentially. She was telling me to let go of the pain, acknowledge what it was and let it go. All I could think of was the ex boyfriends face and me silently screaming at him in my pain, "I'M NOT WITH YOU ANYMORE", just that, over and over and over... as if it were some kind of magic spell to dismiss him, negate him, relinquish any power he has to hurt me and dispel him from my life forever.

I sobbed for a good twenty minutes before I calmed down enough for them to be able to move me to get the hot packs on me. It took multiple people to roll me on my side and back, and then I continued to sob in the wonderful heat, the wonderful comforting heat.

I'M NOT WITH YOU ANYMORE. I don't feel like I could possibly say it enough. The break up was sloppy, horrible, drawn out and incomplete. We clung to each other, even afterwards, in some kind of hideous dance of death, some slow spiral towards the oblivion of our relationship. I still spoke to him, still saw him around, right up until I moved here to be with Jack. Granted, the last few months were barely any contact at all, but the first few months after we split up were a mess. I didn't let go, not even after we broke up, not even after he cheated on me, not even after we both moved out to separate apartments. We'd been together so long, our lives so entwined, it was like ripping off my evil Siamese twin.

But...I'm not with you anymore. And... I miss his family, I miss the showering of love they offered to me, so freely and without reserve... I miss them far more than I miss him. But I'm not with him anymore, as my physical therapist so painfully pointed out to me the other day.

(pause for a long drawn out yawn as I realize the sun is about to come up and I'm still typing, throat still sore as a bitch...)

So I don't have the big family to revel in anymore. I do, however, have the pure and untainted love of my son and my husband, the man who has fostered my healing and stood by me every painful step of the way. The man who would never have left me home alone after I had fallen down the stairs. I married the man who would never leave me home alone, in agony and sobbing, while he went out drinking with some chick he doesn't know.

I'm not with you anymore, and I don't want to be. I wouldn't trade your big happy family for the small and loving one I have now. Not for all the tea in China. I may not have a large network of support, but I have a small one that is far more meaningful.

I think, perhaps, I might just have myself a merry little Christmas now.

Congrats to The New York Times (?)

For their stellar performance in coming up with an absolutely correct title to an article, and then washing it out completely with a question mark at the end.

To answer their questionable question: YES.

At least, in my questionable opinionated opinion.

THERE'S a fucking shocker...

You Are Best Described By...

The Scream By Edvard Munch

What Famous Work of Art Are You?

bizarre Christmas mythogy in the making....

It's that time again. The holidays.

I've had a few of you write in and wish me "a Happy...whatever it is you celebrate...."

So, to clear the air, I thought I would explain exactly what we're celebrating.

The Christmas Kraken.

You can scratch your head all you want, but that won't give you answers, silly. Just read on.

Here's how it came about. Santa took a dive and my son was heartbroken. A mother will do anything to cheer her child up, at least THIS one will!

Here is where it developed into a solid idea.

And then came the shining glory: The Kraken Himself.

If you wonder why there's very little posting going on, I'm just busy with my usual insanity but also trying to get ready for the holidays.

Oh yeah. I'm also trying to build a sleigh driven by sharks for the Kraken this year. It was my husband's brilliant idea. I think I may have his individual tentacles hold our stockings as well. I haven't decided yet...

For those of you that haven't seen the show Catscratch, I'm sorry. It's rather amusing. Alas, all that YouTube offers that's worthy enough is the intro, but it does have the Kraken in it. Enjoy.

Will Wonders Never Cease:

(cue: "It's A Small World After All")

I got this e-mail from a friend of mine the other day. I couldn't believe it.

OK, small effing world alert. A picture of you has been snagged on Flickr and posted on another blog I frequent! Here's the link:

Labor of Love

The author, Michael (also the singer on this post), is collecting Xmas songs sung by blog members (ah, if only I had recording gear), and this is his offering. And you, my dear, have officially been chosen to be a visual aid for a song about The Virgin Mary's difficult time at Christmas. Congratulations. It actually works beautifully and, as you can see in the comments, they are quite taken with you. I hope you're OK with the whole thing...


I've been likened to the Virgin Mary. I even sent it to my mom. She was flabbergasted and rather proud, actually.

In my defense, that was day TWO of all natural tree huggin' labor, folks. I had a hospital, but I hope dear Mary at least had a shorter birthing time.

And Michael? Your voice is an absolute GEM. I cried. Thanks...

On The Top 10 Cutest Moment Ever List:

The other morning I was still feeling shredded by a nearly week long migraine, and was slumped over the table trying to eat my bowl of cereal. Unfortunately, the migraine makes me nauseas, among other things, so that's no easy task.

My husband was sitting in the chair next to me, and my son came over between us and started a little huggy-kissy battle, then suddenly pulled all three of us close together, looked up in my eyes and said, "All Your Love Are Belong To Us."

My husband and I broke out laughing.

(For those of you non-geeks who don't get the joke, here's the background story. For additional shits and giggles, you can listen to comedian Ernest Cline using the phrase to describe nerd porn.)

hovering

I'm here, coming out of a four or five day migraine....I'll be back soon, just waiting till the evil cloud of knives lift from my brain...

hold on...

No matter how bad a state of mind you may get into, if you keep strong and hold out, eventually the floating clouds must vanish and the withering wind must cease.

-Dogen

devastated

Pulled, rather hideously, from the sex blog. Fuck.

Still lost for words. My step dad wrote to me to comment on the post I sent him, about him. Apparently he came in here to read it, even though I already SENT it to him, and read through the comments that people left. I know this because he mentioned that people assume he's trying to be religious and he's not, and you know what?

What the fuck ever.

I sent him back an e-mail expressing the fact that I was pissed that he came in here after I asked him not to. And then I've spent the last four hours freaking the fuck out trying to figure out what else he's read and looked at while he was here. Fuck! I even specifically told him that if curiosity ever got the better of him and he looked at the site to NOT TELL ME ABOUT IT.

He sent me one back saying he had only come in to read the one post about him, the one I sent him. He said he was sorry, since I'd sent it to him he didn't think I would be upset.

My response:

I don't know whether to believe you or not. Why you would go back in there to read the responses? I sent the damn blog, you'd already READ it. For your information, that same post is in the REGULAR blog, you sure as hell didn't need to go back into the sex blog to read it, especially after I'd already asked you not to. How do you think your wife would feel to know you're in the sex blog of her daughter? After YOU went looking for it? And after I asked you to please not go back in there?
You called me the other day to apologize about some stupid shit that happened over twenty years ago, and I got my hopes up that maybe I might have a real father figure. Then you went looking for my blogs even without an invitation, admit to me you found me out, went back in and read them after I asked you not to, and then told me about it! What in the hell is wrong with you? How can you not see that that would rip me apart? Trust? Hello?
You say that's the only thing you read, but I doubt that. Maybe I'm wrong and it really was. I hope so, for your sake and mine. Because if not, I don't want you to come down at all.
Did you even stop to think what your actions would do? At all?
J

I've spent the last hour sobbing on the floor. I don't know if I'm crying because I feel violated, because he's so self centered he didn't bother to think how much that would upset me, or if my new budding dream of actually having a real dad just got crushed. I'm pissed that he started some fucking drama, because NOW what? When Jack comes home he's going to go through the logs and see if he did just come in a read the one post or if he spent some time cruising around, in which case an all out war will have been officially declared. And if so, what am I supposed to tell my mom? (sobs) What the hell am I supposed to tell her? "I don't want you to come visit...." She'll ask why.

Fucking jerk. Why couldn't he just leave well enough alone?

Text Message Break Up

I don't know how in the world this has slipped past me until now, but now I must send you all over to visit my little lovebug, who has one of the most bizarre and hilarious videos of all time posted for your viewing pleasure.

Stormtroopers! Douchebags! If I laugh any harder I'll hurt myself....

Mr. Grinch: Head of The Homeowners Asso-see-i-a-tion

When saying, "BAH HUMBUG" just isn't enough.

"The Herald said Kearns had declined to describe the complaints he had received about Jensen's wreath, but expressed his own opinion.

'The peace sign has a lot of negativity associated with it,' he said. 'It's also an anti-Christ sign. That's how it started.'"

In the timeless words of Ace Ventura, "Ooooh, REEEEEEEEAAAAALLLLLY?"

I got to keep on moving

I just got the strangest call from my step dad. Not a week after posting I Don't Wanna, a post about how I'm dealing with a lot of the sorrow surrounding my father and the ways we've interacted with each other throughout life, my step dad suddenly called me up out of the blue. This is very unusual.

He told me he's been reading some of the stuff (blog posts) I've sent my mom and he's worried about my mental health. I just kind of laughed and said, "Yah, well, that's why I have a shrink." He told me he and my mom want to come visit around Christmas. There's some stuff he wants to talk to me about, he said. He thinks perhaps some of the things that are wrong with me might be his fault and maybe he can help.

Completely perplexed, not knowing which post he's read or what gave him that idea, I had to ask him. I mean, I've mentioned in other posts that his having porn in the house scared the crap out of me when I was younger, because no one in my family EVER talked about sex, at ALL, and so he married my mom, I got date raped, and my brother pointed out all my step dads dirty magazines and pornos shortly thereafter. It all jumbled together to create a fear of him. But I am fairly certain that I have NEVER, NEVER sent them any posts about that. I wasn't ready.

And so I told him about all of that. For the first time, ever.

We talked for probably well over an hour, about all kinds of stuff, all kinds of issues and I found out that my parents had mistakenly thought one of my brothers friends had raped me. I was shocked, and quickly set him straight. How horrible to have someone innocent be treated harshly by my parents when he never did anything of the sort! Not that they necessarily did, but I had to be sure his name was clear. I told him who it was, and asked that he please inform my mother so my brothers innocent friend could not ever be the target of any evil gazes or worse.

One of the things my step dad said really stuck with me. He told me he's bringing me some religious video (to which I secretly cringed) that really changed his life. It's about receiving "The Gift", and how Jesus died so that He could carry our burdens if only we let Him. Even though I am not remotely interested in thinking Jesus can save me from the burdens of my past, the very thought that faith itself could lift the weight from my shoulders was a fascinating thought. Faith itself...taking something (my past) that is intangible and letting something else intangible carry it for me (Jesus, Buddha, The Flying Spaghetti Monster...) The very thought made something inside me shift. I could FEEL it.

He said, "I see you as having had three seperate lives. The one when you lived here (in Michigan), the one when you lived in Asheville, and now the new life you live in Virginia with your husband. This is a new life for you, and although I don't want to use a phrase as cheesy as "being reborn", that's what I'm getting at. It's time to let it go."

I was crying. I had started crying as soon as he told me he wanted to come down to visit so we could talk, and I could lay my head on his shoulder and just cry if I wanted to. If I wanted to? That's all I've EVER wanted. Didn't he read my post? Oh...right. No.

So I'm going to send it to him. I told him I would, because "I want you to know what you're getting yourself into before you come down." In other words, he and I have never been very emotional with each other, and the sheer strength of my emotion may come as a bit of a shock. Then again, he told me that he was pretty shocked reading a lot of the stories of my past. "We knew you were upset about things...but we had no idea how deeply those things went. We didn't know just how much you were really dealing with. I wish you had told us, but I can understand why you didn't. We weren't on the best of terms..." which was one hell of an understatement but we both just let it rest.

And now I'm stuck with this song in my head...

"You're on a roll and now you pray it lasts
The road behind was rocky
But now you're feeling cocky
You look at me and you see your past
Is that the reason why you're runnin' so fast
And she said

Ain't nothin' gonna break my stride
Nobody's gonna slow me down, oh-no
I got to keep on moving
Ain't nothin' gonna break my stride
I'm running and I won't touch ground
Oh-no, I got to keep on moving..."

Matthew Wilder, Break My Stride



The video is so freaking cheesy, but it's the only way I could get the song on here. You get the idea...

the bitch in the mirror

It's that time again... and a very interesting thing has developed right at the same time. Coincidence? Methinks not.

I recently had an editor over at The Huffington Post ask if she could reprint my book review of The Female Brain in a section called Fearless Voices. I was thrilled and told her to go ahead. She said she's had the author of the book blogging on the site, and since I feel an incredible debt of gratitude to the woman, promoting her book some more is the very least I could do.

And so my review was posted. People started commenting. And that's where it gets rather baffling to me...

A lot of people attacked me, telling me I was "no feminist" (have I EVER claimed to be? Certainly not!), telling me I was pitiful to try to excuse my bad behavior on hormones (which is something I never said), telling me I was fueling the fire for men to keep women down by writing something that fed into the mind set that women are somehow the lesser sex and my post could only support such a twisted assumption. One guy even stated that "Now you know why that last guy left you."

Are people insane? I mean, really. I feel like somehow a bunch of people read what I wrote and managed to completely twist my words around into some sort of mangled mess that they could find fault with.

I even returned a few comments, clarifying that I was THRILLED to have found an answer to something doctors have misdiagnosed for years, and that I'm not using hormones as an excuse for jack shit. The point of the post was that I've finally realized what was causing all the inner turmoil and now I can do something about it. I can be proactive instead of reactive.

How is that negative, exactly?

What's amazing is the effect that the information in that book has had on my mindset this time around (meaning this PMS cycle). My husband and I are are getting along MUCH better, now that I am more aware of what triggers set me off. He has been observing my behavior to be a sort of reality check for me when he can see that I'm off balance, because frequently I don't realize it until I'm bawling.

He can tell now that when I talk to him but don't look at him that something is wrong and he will repeatedly tell me to look him in the eye when I speak to him. These are all things I've read in the book, little bits of knowledge that are serving us VERY well. Those moments of eye avoidance seem to be the first clue that I'm off balance, and am pulling myself into my shell. Something as simple as being reminded to look him in the eye pulls me back out.

How is that negative, exactly?

It is the epitome of cognitive behavioral training therapy. And it's WORKING.

We've come up with a nickname for it (because I nickname everything, I'm just a nut like that): Face Time. I need Face Time. I need to have his undivided attention. This sends a flood of feel good hormones coursing through my system, correcting the imbalance.

He and I have talked about how I need to expand my repertoire of friends. Being at home alone a lot means that he is solely responsible for providing me with Face Time, and that isn't fair. Alas, most of my friends live hundreds of miles away, but even phone calls can help. In the meantime, I'm working on making new friends, new gals I can sit and yap with, feel connected to and feel nourished by the chemical cascade that those connections invoke.

We've talked about why it is that I hate the weekends so much. Each weekend usually involves both my husband and son on their separate computers, and so I meander about the house doing housework and looking at their backs. This has loooong been a point of contention in our house, and it bothers me for more than my own selfish reasons. I WANT to be a good wife and mother, and I WANT to let them both have time to relax and pursue their own goals and interests without feeling as if the Pissy Beast of Eventual Meltdown is hovering around behind them. Sometimes my husband will talk to me while we watch TV, or say, "Come talk to me while I do this thing," while he's working on the computer. We haven't been able to figure out WHY that doesn't satiate this need I have UNTIL NOW. Now I get it. It's not just time together, it's feeling as if, even for a few minutes at a time, that I am the center of his universe and have his undivided attention. After that, I feel secure and contented and we can both go back to doing whatever we were separately doing.

Yes, I can hear someone saying, "Go out and get a life, make some friends" and yes, I'm working on that. I know "working on that" seems like a massive cop out, but it's harder for me than you might realize. With a severe anxiety disorder, meeting new people and going new places is a rather horrible ordeal. I am a creature of habit, because the familiar does not set off any panic attacks. The thought of meeting someone, even a WONDERFUL new friend, makes me queasy. And it's just something I'm going to have to suck up and do anyway. I know for those of you who don't have anxiety that sounds absolutely ridiculous, but you can suck it up too, got it? Just because you don't understand what it feels like doesn't mean it isn't real.

I get really angry when people treat an anxiety disorder as something that's ridiculous. You know, if I had cancer, well THAT would be a real thing, right? Or even schizophrenia, that has the respect (and fear) of most people. But people tend to dismiss an anxiety disorder as some feeling of nervousness that they have experienced and think it's as simple as that. It's NOT, so shut the fuck up if you have some judgment about it.

What's even more interesting to me is that my anxiety disorder started the same year or shortly after my first menstrual cycle. I realized this yesterday. My first migraine was around twelve, my first panic attack was at twelve (although I'd forgotten that one episode until recently), and my the age of thirteen my behavior was growing increasingly erratic and more dangerous.

Looking back, I wonder how much of that bad behavior was due to a screaming need for Face Time? My mother kept me grounded through most of my childhood, not just in youth but childhood, and when I hit my teens I started sneaking out and skipping school with my friends. I didn't want to do bad stuff, I just wanted to hang out. What I wanted, I suspect, was to feel connected. I'm not saying I'm positive that can be traced back to it, but I do wonder. In addition, one of the examples in The Female Brain is a teenage girl who suddenly became very erratic in HER behavior. The author, and M.D. had the girl tested and realized that she had an extreme hormone fluctuation. She put her on a continual birth control method to even out her hormones.

I am looking into this now. As my husband and I have discussed, if it means surgery and permanent hormone replacement therapy, so be it. I would go to that extreme to be able to live a normal life, assuming that the hormone fluctuations are largely responsible for the problems I've been having all these years.

When my husband and I got married, we wrote our own vows. Part of mine read as follows:

"I promise to not remain the same woman you fell in love with- instead, I will grow stronger, wiser, more joyful and trusting, and better able to express my love for you with each passing day.

I promise to put in the effort it takes to keep our lives and our relationship healthy and strong.

I promise to make our love and happiness as a family my utmost priority."

Does figuring out what makes me such a emotionally tumultuous woman fall under those promises? You bet your sweet ass it does.

There are many really unpleasant things I do to make our marriage better, mostly in the form of improving myself. Going through physical therapy is fucking horrible, but being a wife who isn't in too much pain to do things with her husband and son is worth it. Going to EMDR (of which I have an appointment within the hour) is fucking heart wrenching, but I have to get the trauma out of my system and be able to move forward instead of being so damned reactionary. You long time blog readers know first hand what a struggle that's been and how far I've come. I'm not done...

And now this. If my hormonal system is imbalanced, why in the bloody hell would I not seek every possible solution to what is clearly a problem? It's not that I'm trying to be some kind of perfectly happy passive and pliable doormat as the angry feminists mistakenly think I'm aiming for. If they bothered to do their homework and find anything out about me at ALL, they could easily have read the vast amount of work I've done in the past year to become more assertive and stand up for myself (which helps with the anxiety, added bonus!).

The problem is not my changing emotions, but the fact that I am incapacitated by them. I don't just get a little weepy and bloated and have my period, oh hell no. I have a two to five day migraine (starting the week before my period, although it has happened even in the week AFTER, damn it all to hell). The only medication I've found that works on my migraines also eats a hole in my ulcer prone stomach, which adds a whole world of misery on top of what is already a shitty problem. That starts my back cramping, I'm nauseous, more so than the migraine leaves me, I can barely eat but have to force food down my throat. I will actually gag while desperately trying to swallow it.

Add that to me being a squinty eyed, sleep deprived, noise intolerant basket case who can barely move without groaning and holding onto walls (the migraine).

Factor in the physical therapy, which often leaves me sobbing in pain.

Add to that the psychological therapy which leaves me emotionally shredded.

I want to eat comfort foods but can't because of the ulcer. I want to get rid of the migraine but can't because of the ulcer. I will usually take the medicine anyway, in desperation, and just suffer through the pain of the ulcer because what the fuck kind of choice is there? After the third day of a migraine I can barely speak coherently, much less make a wise decision.

My clothes are hideously tight (from the bloating), I'm crying over everything because it feels to me as if I'm trapped in some traitorous body that is trying to drive me insane, and my anxiety level skyrockets, throwing my body into one panic attack after another.

That's the week BEFORE my period. Once my period starts, all of those things start to lessen a bit, but then that's when the menstrual cramps start, flaring up my back into spasms because of the physical therapy.

Tell me, do I sound like a great person to be around? Would you want to be my husband? My son? Would you like to be me, perhaps?

Or maybe you'd just like to glaze over my own personal experience because you're too goddamn busy trying to prove some point about something else that HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ME.

I wrote the book review because I'm sick of feeling this way, sick of making my husband and son go through this every month, and if there is even ONE other woman out there who is suffering like I am and can find some help through that book, than hallelujah.

I have no political agenda and I don't give a crap about yours. I'm sure I could find a nicer way to say that, but since the migraine is already kicking in, I frankly don't give a fuck. For those of you who wanted me to take responsibility for my emotions and behavior and whatever else you bitched about, so be it:

Let's say it's not my hormones. Let's just say I'm a fucking bitch who doesn't give a rats ass about your opinion.

Now, does that help your cause? Is womankind better off with me just accepting the fact that I'm a miserable pain in the ass to be around? Is that helping anything at all? Do you like me pissed off and angry, because then I can be more like you? Are you enjoying feeding on my anger? Because if so, maybe you need to take a long look at the bitch in the mirror.

I don't want to be anything like you.

I want to be a loving and assertive woman who is able to give her all to everything she endeavors to do, and not be held back by pain or anything else.

How is that negative, exactly?