RealMental

I am learning.

Very slowly, I am learning.

The very thing that I need to see the most has been the very thing that is most clouded. I said to my therapist recently, “why didn’t you just tell me this in the very beginning so I could have been working on it?”

The thing is he probably did.

He probably did, and he wasn’t alone; there have been others that tried to help me to see. The very truth that I seek is shrouded in smoke.

Like a flimsy fish, I grab hold of its slippery body hoping to hold on and it wiggles out and swims back out into the ocean of my dreams.

My psyche is like an ocean liner, which turns slowly. Unlike a speed boat, a turn is fast. Some days I wish for the speed boat, and probably some days I get the speed boat.

Those bigger, meatier issues that slither within the curves of my brain are the ones that are the most reluctant to leave. Perhaps it took more time to build them, making their dismantle more elusive.

Some days I am the speed racer running from here to there, GETTING THINGS DONE. Some days, I am the ocean liner moving slowly and gently through the currents.

On the slow days, that voice in my head likes to remind me that I suck, I am in efficient and do not stack up well with my peers.

That is the mean voice, more than likely the voice of my mother. Every thing that is wrong is her fault right? I jest as I know it is not her fault. The fault is in allowing the voice to continue its rental status in my head, free of charge.

I told you, I am learning.

And today was an ocean liner day.

I am a step mother that happens to love my step daughter as if she were my own flesh and blood. This has been a huge problem in my life over the past 8 years and I’ve made a LOT of mistakes.

My step daughter isn’t living with us now, it was decided and agreed that she needed the opportunity to live with her mother for a school year. She is coming home for Christmas and the day I made those flight arrangements, I felt the best I’d felt since she left at the beginning of the summer.

Now that the dates are even closer, I am beginning to have generalized anxiety about the visit. Worried that she won’t love me anymore, or has she changed that much?

Since she left, I don’t visit her room because the smell of her, the energy in her room, I cannot bear. Then the whole missing her, the whole fucking truck load of feelings that are there.

I have been working my ass off in therapy to try and correct, make better, and change for the betterment of myself, my daughter, and everyone else involved. Loving and taking care of her has never been the issue.

No one handed me a book to tell me how to be a step parent, and while there are books out there, I never found them to be very useful.

This is due to the fact, that EVERY situation is different. This is because EVERY child and set of parents is different. There is no magic formula for any of it.

Even the therapists of the world have no clue. You try and stick to the basics of human understanding “the things you learned in kindergarten” and do the best you can with what you have.

I have figuratively had my heart outside of my body, open and bleeding with several people stomping and chanting BURN WITCH, BURN!

As a step parent, people will lie and hate you. You will hate yourself. You will wonder 80 times a day if maybe you should just go away so everyone will be happy, including the child involved.

I am not supposed to “really” love my step child, nor am I supposed to refer to her as “daughter.” Why you may ask? Well, it bothers her bio mom. And, I can understand that completely.

Many times over the years I have tried to put myself in her mom’s shoes, we haven’t always had the best relationship, and this is not satisfying to me. I like to iron things out and move towards solutions.

I am not without fault; I have made some of the stupidest mistakes of my life in this past 8 years. I’ve often wondered if I should write a book of things NOT TO DO as a step parent.

One in particular, “Do not write about your daughter’s mother on your PERSONAL BLOG.” I should have seen that one before I even committed the crime but no, I did not.

As a step parent, I am damned if I do and damned if I don’t. I am blamed for more than my share. Step parents are easy targets, especially, loud mouth sensitive step parents like ME.

There are so many worry thoughts in my head; there are parts of the brain that wish to pounce. I can’t pounce, I must remain calm, and I must remain in my own space. I HAVE to remember that this visit is about HER and not ME, and I am to enjoy every moment with her with no worrying about the “what ifs.”

People have always said, “She’s not your real child.” What the FUCK does that even matter? I can love any child regardless of whether that child came out of my womb or not. Am I wrong to love her, I think not.

How do I please everyone in the situation, how do I love and nurture a child that has a mother?

I’ll send you twenty dollars if you have a reasonable solution for me.

Swear.

As a young child, her siblings would tie strings to her legs and exclaim, “when does the balloon take off?” At the time, she was the youngest child in the herd. She was overweight. She was born premature, only weighing four pounds.

Her real father wasn’t around much, he liked to drink. Eventually they found him dead in his home having drunk himself to death. He had been there for a couple of weeks before he was found.

Her step father had a desire for young girls. He touched her. She was abused by her older siblings, and both of her “parental units”. Once, when no one knew she spit on the step fathers pants. It wasn’t too menacing of an act but it was all she had at the time.

Soon, another child was born and she was no longer the youngest. He was the spawn of her mother and “him”. Him is how she refers to this person. He deserves no other name.

She is a good catholic woman, she tried to do all the right things, get good grades and follow the rules. Following rules means you are safe. You won’t be molested, raped or beaten. Or, so we think. This is only a part of her story.

Flash forward to 64 years old. This woman sits alone, in a chair by the door surrounded by her hoard. She’s created a safe place that only requires a few steps amongst her hoard of things she thinks she needs.

These are her walls. She is still protecting herself from bad things. She doesn’t realize those bad things are gone and she can come out.

That little girl still exists in the big woman’s body, telling the big woman that she needs these things in order to keep them both safe. I am trying to reach in and grab that little girl’s hand, to let her know that everything is ok now and that I can help her.

If only she’ll let me.

I went to a different type of recovery meeting tonight. It is for sober members that are depressed and/or have other types of mental illness.

(The meeting is kept highly confidential lest the others discover us that have to take meds to help with our derelictions other than alcoholism.)

In some (emphasis on some, not all) circles of recovery, it is frowned upon to take antidepressants, or pain medications even for surgery.

If you are unaware of recovery meetings, I ask you not to get the wrong idea about recovery, and the possibility that it is a terrible place in which people tell you how to live your life.

Recovery rooms are very much like real life, they include the general population that many of us avoid. You can find total acceptance and unconditional love in recovery rooms, you can take what you want and leave the rest.

Again, the rooms are inhabited by mere humans. The main object is for you to find a power greater than you are and whatever that power may be; you get to decide exclusively for yourself.

This meeting is a little different from most I attend. In that, you can safely discuss other mental health issues without losing sight of being an alcoholic.

I was impressed with the content of the meeting and the acknowledgement of mental illness being a worse stigma than being an addict/alcoholic. I knew this in my head but it wasn’t in perspective.

It is an alarming suggestion to me that mental illness is in fact, a bigger shortcoming than alcoholism. As if, our derelictions are in competition with one another.

People that are not educated; think that mental illness is something people can just shake off, or that they can just pull themselves up by their boot straps and stop whining already. That certainly sounds easy enough. If it were that easy, I am guessing that no one would ever commit suicide ever again.

Even larger is that mental illness and addictions have haunted humans for centuries. One would think in all of that time and with all of the lives lost, acceptance and education would have had a bigger saturation impact.

People with mental illness desire permission to speak their truth, to be accepted, and loved. We will get better. Once we begin to get better, we can pass it on. Passing it on will help ease the shame of those that will come after us.

By passing it on, someone will realize they do not have to live another day in bondage of shame and sorrow, and seek the help they need. We won’t have to hide in top secret locations or to write anonymously lest we be found out.

Our big secret is simply that we are trying to manage our mental illness with medications and other human support so we can get better.

Her message, “Please call me back as soon as you can because I need your help” her voice desperate and sad. This is the message she left on both my cell phone and my home phone. I know she needs help but I can’t help her.

She wants to die. Her pain is squeezing the very life from her soul. She tells me she is trying to withdrawal from a boy. I try to explain that it isn’t the boy, but her idea of who the boy is and what he represents to her.

We see in other people what we want them to be, not how they are. In reality, we are attracted to ourselves that we see in the other person. If you think you are not the least bit narcissistic, think again.

When relationships get rocky, we lie to ourselves. We tell ourselves “this is the only person that I’ve ever loved; there will never be another person that I will love as MUCH.”

We mistake our pain to mean that we are supposed to be together because it hurts so much. Otherwise, it wouldn’t hurt so much right?

I have to remind myself that those big huge needs that I have cannot be fulfilled by a human being. If only my husband was better at expressing his emotions, cleaning up the messes he makes, not work so much, we would be more conjoined, and I would be less crazy.

The old “if they would just do this” then “I will be OK.” It doesn’t work like that. I’ve tried hard to have it work like that and so have many people I’ve known, but it doesn’t work like that.

This is why people have affairs, why they develop shopping/food/money/drugs/alcohol addictions. They need the distractions in order to keep running from themselves.

Am I a better person because I’ve learned this about myself? Perhaps, but I do find it comforting to know WHY I do the things I do. I have found that the more I learn about myself, the easier it is to understand why others do the things that they do.

From this, I can feel empathy for people’s suffering without having to rescue them.

I tried to explain this to her, that I cannot rescue her from herself. I love her and I support her, but I cannot be her comfort cozy. As a heroin addict must lock themselves up in a room in order to kick their addiction, she must live through this without any distractions.

That is, if she really wants it to be over this time.

She emailed her grocery list to me. Walking the aisles picking out the items, I felt as if I was going to have a nervous breakdown. Or, at the very least, could I just PLEASE cry? Please, just let me cry when other people aren’t around.

Following her list very carefully, I have a hard time finding the right pork, chicken, and beef. The 79 cent frozen dinners were easy to spot. This food kills people, the 79 cent food. The pop tarts bought for emergency diabetic attacks of low blood sugar. I notice they are stashed in many different places throughout her home.

I guess it’s too late for her, she’s been eating toxic food her entire life. Her body is a vestibule of toxic waste. She doesn’t know any better. She only cares that she saves money by buying everything on sale. She is worth so much more than that.

She doesn’t know any better, it’s where she came from, and it’s her family of origin. Self worth was not an asset; you wore your self hatred and suffering like a badge of honor.

Arriving at her house with the groceries, I walk in and I look down at her swollen red feet. I’ve pleaded with her to at least elevate her feet as she sits in the chair.

Why won’t you take care of yourself anymore? “I’m old” she replies, “I just can’t do it anymore.” I tell her that is bullshit. I know a ton of people her age that did not give up and are not suffering as she is.

She lets out that sigh, long and slow and rolls her eyes and looks away from me. As if, I have no idea. Deep down, she knows I do. She knows that I know.

For the millionth time, I explain that this isn’t old age, its MENTAL ILLNESS. She won’t accept that answer, as if her current quality of life is much more honorable than to be labeled with mental illness.

She gave up a very long time ago. I have no idea what made her think that giving up was even an option. I mean, she had one more daughter that had not had kids yet. She owes me a grandmother for MY kids.

I realize, that’s selfish but it’s honest. Just because it isn’t as I think it should be, doesn’t mean it isn’t as it’s supposed to be. Good thing I am not in charge of everything.

It’s hard to watch the illness growing like a cancer. Eventually it covers your entire being like vines until the real you is barely traceable.

I love you Mom, and I’ll never forget who you are.

I’m in one of those moods. The one in which I think it might be time to come off of my medication. I seem to be odd person out amongst my fellow writers on this blog and that’s ok. In fact, it could very well be a sign from the universe.

All of these awesome and beautiful writers here know that thinking about stopping medication is a huge deal. Not only to the individual, but also to those who love you the most. The very ones that have suffered the side effects of your mental illness.

Most times, I don’t know a good idea until I’ve put action into it. When something is done, I can refer back and exclaim, “gee, that was a good idea!” It is the walking through the good idea that seems to be the hard part. The whole day, hour, minute, second aspect of a good idea all the while you are breathing innnnnnnnn and outtttttttttt.

One big motive in wanting to escape the harsh reality of medication is how it is affecting my liver. I’ve just learned that these types of medicines do bad things to your liver. How could I not know this? Perhaps I just pushed it down.

Being that I am a recovering drug and alcohol addict, my liver needs to be ok. The other motives, not as important would be to lose weight and get my body back in fighting stealth mode. There are more reasons involved (lest I sound flippant about it because I’m not) that I don’t feel like writing about.

When I first got back on medication after a long hiatus, I put up a humongous fight. People around me were suggesting it for some time. I guess the last straw was the time I called the police on my husband because he was trying to make me stay where we were physically located and not let me drive away for some quiet time away from him. Our son was about 6 months old and we were in the process of moving from one place to another.

Something set me off and I began to rage. Then he insinuated that he didn’t think me driving off with our son in tow was a good idea, seeing as I was quite angry. So I put up that “I’ll be damned if someone is going to try and boss me around” fit.

At the time, we were not legally married so I explained that I had full rights and he had none (which was a big reason WHY i didn’t marry him then). And honestly, even though I was in a rage at the time, I would never do anything to endanger my child or anyone else’s child. Ever. To his credit, I understand why he was concerned.

That was my bottom. It wasn’t post partum, it was scared shitless. I’d had it ever since I’d learned I was pregnant. I am at my absolute WORSE when I am afraid.

We had begun counseling and I asked the therapist if he thought I should go back on medication. Dude didn’t skip a beat and barely let me finish when he exclaimed, “YES!”

When I first began taking Effexor XR, I was told that I would probably lose weight and it wasn’t addictive like Paxil. I’d had a hard time with Paxil. I was not interested in revisiting anything remotely familiar.

Well, five years later and I’m beginning to research the withdrawal from Effexor and it seems that it’s very much like Paxil in the difficult weaning process. AND? It makes you gain weight. As I’m perusing the library of Google College, I think to myself “mutherfucker, not again!”

Some folks speak of separating granules from their Effexor capsules. Wish me luck, because that’s about all I can count on right now.