Do You Realize?

Update

Hi, all... some of you have emailed to check on me. I'm just checking in long enough to let you know I will try to be back on Tuesday with a Tuesday Ten list.

Thursday night began a new and tumultuous journey for us, and it's been all-consuming, to say the least. Youngest had to be admitted to an adolescent psych unit. We didn't get home until 4:30 a.m. Friday. More paperwork & interviews Friday, family group therapies and visitations yesterday and today. We are all exhausted.

Hang in there until Tuesday; I'm determined to keep going for the friends that I've made through this blog! :-)

Talking Head

Okay, I really was not going to tell another tale about my ex-husband, C, who was a pathological liar. I'm still not. But I do want to talk about another one (liar, not ex-husband...hehehe).

I was just reading my daily dose of Internet, and a story caught my eye (mostly because it was called "Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire"). Apparently, a woman named Tania Head, who was, until a few days ago, the head of a 9/11 survivors' support group, has been lying the whole time.

Her basic story is/was/has been this: She was in one of the towers when the planes hit. She woke up on fire, and a man (who later died) saved her life. As she was then crawling out of the building, she came across a dying man who gave her an inscribed wedding ring, which she returned to his wife a few months later. She had a fiance in the other tower, named Dave, who died.

Here's all the weird stuff. She has told several versions of this story to various members of the survivors' group, and I guess no one thought to compare stories because it would seem morbid or something.
To some people, she and Dave had just returned from a trip to Hawaii, where they held a commitment ceremony. To others, they had only been seeing each other for a short time & were keeping their relationship a secret. Dave's family (he was indeed a real person, and really did die in the other tower) has never heard of her. They said his computer contained no emails or any other evidence of her existence. She will not reveal the name of the man whose wedding ring she returned, and no one has come forward to verify this story. No area hospitals have any record of anyone with her name in the days following 9/11. Merrill-Lynch, where she claims to have been working, has no record of anyone with her name ever having worked there. She claims to have gone to both Harvard and Stanford, but neither school has any record of any alumnus with her name.

This woman has been giving tours of Ground Zero, traveling to make inspirational speeches, the whole enchilada, for FOUR YEARS now. It seems to me that either: (a) this is a very emotionally disturbed, delusional individual who needs psychiatric treatment, or (b) this is a woman who maybe has some sort of amnesia and needs psychiatric treatment, or (c) this is a sad, pitiful woman so starved for attention she would construct an intricate web of lies for four years who needs psychiatric treatment. See a pattern here? Haste! Get thee to a shrink!

She kind of makes C seem kind of, you know, normal. Scary.

Another Crazy Gene Story

Another story, short but sweet this time.

C (my first husband, remember?) refused to drink milk. And he refused to admit he just didn't like milk. He was allergic to milk.

About the third time I caught him chowing on half a box of Froot Loops with soy milk poured on top, I finally asked, curious to his answer since he could really pull some interesting stuff out of his ass, "I thought you were allergic to milk. So, why is it you can eat all the kids' cereal with milk with miraculously no ill effects?"

You know what he told me?

He actually responded, "Because when the sugar in the cereal mixes with the milk, it chemically disables the lactose in the milk, and I can have it then. Swear to God, learned it in Chemistry. But not anytime else. Because I'm allergic to milk. By itself, I mean."

In Limbo

Homecoming Week with a Homecoming Nominee, and Medication & Madness Week with a Bipolar Kid are both culminating into one hell of a week to try to do anything but try furiously to stay afloat... sorry there is nothing interesting that I have time to write about. Stay tuned.

A Tuesday Ten--Funny Farm Edition (Except It's Wednesday)

I've only mentioned this once here, in passing, but one of my children is not mentally wired the same as you or I. He suffers from Early Onset Bipolar Disorder, ADHD, and Overanxious Disorder (sort of the childhood version of Generalized Anxiety Disorder). The reason I mention it now is that this is the reason for my extended absence the last few days. We've been taking a ride on the Bipolar Roller Coaster since Friday, stuck at home because we can't take this out to the general public.

Likely, some of you may know an adult who suffers from Bipolar Disorder, or someone who has ADD or ADHD, or someone who has an anxiety disorder of some sort. And this is completely different, because he is so young, and because he has all three stewing and lurking inside, just waiting for the least convenient moment to make their malignant appearance. Add all of his problems to my slight agoraphobia and my anxiety disorder, and you have a cocktail of disaster. There are many things that I am mad with God about, and this is one of them. I have lain awake countless nights furiously asking whose idea of a sick fucking joke this whole thing was.

Bipolar Disorder (as well as anxiety) manifests differently in children than in adults. He was diagnosed when he was eight. And, because we have lived with this nightmare for so long and have encountered so many people, friends and family and complete strangers, who just have no freaking clue, I offer to you Ten Signs That This is Something Other Than Just a Bratty Kid:

1. When put into his room for Time-Out at age 3, he repeatedly throws himself against the door while simultaneously wailing in complete terror.

2. She sleeps in full view of your bedroom door at all times because she still has an inexplicable case of separation anxiety at age 9.

3. When he's told no, he not only gets mad about it, he flies into a frightening rage that lasts for thirty minutes or more.

4. After hurling venomous insults at you for 45 minutes in a fitful rage, she suddenly turns into a sniveling crying mess expressing confused remorse and can't understand why you are mad or upset.

5. He tells you at age 12 that he has magical powers or that he's been visited in his bedroom by aliens, and he really believes it, no matter how you try to reason with him.

6. At a very young age (maybe 2 or 3), not getting her way sends her into an immediate uncontrollable rage that does not subside whether you stand your ground or give in to her wants.

7. He believes that every single person at school is conspiring against him in some way or hates him, including the teachers.

8. She keeps repeating phrases (usually negative, as: "it's not fair", "you're not being reasonable", I hate you", etc.) ad nauseum in the heat of an argument, as if she were a vinyl record with a long irreparable scratch.

9. After an incredibly exhausting and verbally devastating battle, he emerges from his room "recharged" as a human being and acts as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened thirty minutes ago.

10. She cann't seem to make and keep friends well because she has the social IQ of a goat, regardless of how many times you try to give her advice.

Now, let me clarify this whole post by saying that just because we know he has these illnesses, and just because we know the signs and symptoms, it doesn't make us any different than a parent of a normally-functioning child. I struggle constantly with the fact that I still yell and lose my cool and try to reason with him. I hate it that sometimes, after 45 minutes of threats and barbs and violence, I just can't muster up the strength to feel true warmth when he finally dissolves into a puddle of tears and remorse. I hate it that these things almost always manifest themselves when the child is in a place he feels comfortable in, therefore the most egregious behavior is saved for home or, even better, a family function. But, the milder, but still heinous, tantrums and under-the-breath mutterings come out in public. So, the next time you see a child older than 3 or 4 that is throwing a tantrum of epic proportions, including hitting, biting, and self-destruction (hitting head, etc.), or saying things that should be reserved to Linda Blair in "The Excorcist," try to withhold judgment for a few minutes and consider that that mother may have a child with some mental disorder that she doesn't even know about yet, and that she is likely as horrified as you (and maybe more so), and that no matter what she says or does, that tantrum is going to have to play itself out because she really didn't mean for it to happen here. Of course, it could just be that she has a fucking brat on her hands. The point is: You don't know, so don't pretend that you do; just thank God or The Flying Spaghetti Monster or whoever that it isn't you.

Clearing the air

I've been doing so much to help clean the atmosphere lately. Now I'm going to clear the air.

I'm tired. Sick & tired. Of a lot. And I'm going to kvetch about it. Just for you.

I hate having teenagers. I was going to add "sometimes," but then I realized that "most of the time" is more like it. If I had known then what I know now about parenting, those spurious hormone-ridden louts wouldn't have been able to pry apart my legs with the jaws of life, much less a bottle of Boone's Farm Strawberry Hill.

Teenagers are just like toddlers, with a dozen years of experience. They still throw tantrums, but it's called "angst" now. They're still demanding; they just demand the telephone and computer instead of a diaper change or cookies. They're just as selfish, but they have many more material possessions to hoard and withhold now. They still back-talk; they just have a larger vocabulary, and their ocular muscles have developed a perpetual counterclockwise roll.

I hate having an anxiety disorder. I was going to add "most of the time," but then I realized that "all the time" is more like it. In eight years I've been on and off seven different antidepressants, experiencing side-effects of every size and color. I've slept 14 hours a day or 2 hours a day. I've been ravenous or completely without appetite. I've been apathetic or raging mad. I've had zero libido or... well... um, zero libido.

I hate running a zoo. All six of our dogs are rescues of some sort. Three of the male dogs we got with their balls still attached, and their sprinkler systems fully engaged. If I catch another dog pissing on the corner of something in my house, I will make a small pillow with its inanimate body.

There's so much more I could bitch about tonight, but I'll contain myself. I do feel so much better for having had this sharing session. Let's do it again sometime.

Both Sides of the Coin

I would make a suck-ass politician. And the very thing that makes me a good person is the same thing that would make me a suck-ass politician: the ability to see Both Sides of the Coin.

There is rarely an instance, and only because one can never say "never", in which I cannot see and even empathize with two seemingly diametrical viewpoints. I believe that this stems from having personally lived and experienced Both Sides of the Coin.

Ten years ago, I was a divorced mother of three struggling to make ends meet. I was dependent on the welfare system of my state, unable to finish school because of bad life choices. Today I am a happily married doctor's wife, with a stable home and able to buy a pair of shoes any damn time I please. When I see a panhandler on the street, they have my empathy and I do not hold judgment; I have lived Both Sides of that Coin.

I grew up in a House With a Gun. It was a shotgun, and it was loaded. We lived in a place where poisonous snakes were many, and home invasions were nonexistent. We three kids knew where the gun was, knew it was loaded, knew how to respect it, knew not to touch it. Today, I will not have a gun in my home. I am in favor of stringent gun controls. I like to shoot my brother's 9mm when I go back east, but still wonder why the fuck he has one. I have lived Both Sides of that Coin.

I can't call heads or tails on the subject of the death penalty. I believe that the efficient dispatch of people having committed heinous crimes is a powerful means of prison population control. However, having birthed a child whose mental wiring is inexplicably and unmistakably skewed, I can empathize with those who hear voices, who cannot function on the same plane of reality as the rest of us, who knows right from wrong on one level but cannot always force that knowledge into a working relationship with life in general. I have lived Both Sides of that Coin.

There are so many others, other Coins that will be tossed in life that I will not call. I am the Great Flip-flopper. I would make a suck-ass politician. And I don't think that's such a bad thing.