The phone rang late in the afternoon on a Friday; I answered it preoccupied with what my eight year old wanted to blow up. I could hear the shaking semi-hysterical voice of my mother
“You have to help I don’t know what to do. Daddy’s trying to kill himself, No Daddy stop that!"
I will continue to ignore the fact that my parents have always strangely called each other mother and daddy. Odd not to call 911, no, not really, suicide threats and half assed attempts were fairly routine in my family.
There are many ways a person can attempt to kill themselves and my father chose one of the more original and exceedingly more difficult.
“What is he doing?”
“He’s hitting himself in the head with a brick and his head is all bloody and he won’t stop.”
I would have to call my husband; my dad would never listen to an actual blood relative. My husband was leaving for his annual fishing trip. He was not happy, but the method concerned as much as intrigued him.
We rode in silence to my parents, what do I say?
“Sorry your fishing trip is delayed because my Dad is trying to obliterate his brain”.
I outwardly tensed as the car went up the long gravel driveway and my husband saw me
“I did not run over any cats so you can unclench your fists."
The house was in disarray as always. My mother looked beyond sick. We went in the bedroom. My dad was in bed naked, methodically hitting his head with a faded red brick. Blood ran down his face and on the brick. I was too tired to be shocked, too tired to cry, too tired to explain. My husband, in his alien sensible language convinced my dad to go to the hospital.
It was one of many trips to hell I would take, guarding the doors, so he wouldn’t jump. He chanted his desire to see his farm again before he died. I wanted to punch him, but we drove by all the farmland. We bypassed the local hospital as my dad had a bit of a reputation there. He had been fired by his doctor and my dad had good insurance.
The hospital glowed in the midnight hour. When asked by the information desk what was wrong they asked me to repeat it several times. I don’t think suicide by brick was a common occurrence, even in the big city. It was a Friday night and there were many more serious and sadder events than ours. The doctor came in made some rudimentary tests and said he would ask if a social worker was available.
The social worker, a twenty-something male came to see us who was really there to comfort the grieving family of a motorcycle accident victim and solicit the propagation of his organs. He talked to us anyway and became that light shining in the sky, the angel in the background, the music swelling in the finale of all good movies. He had finagled the best facility he could find in the area and if we went there now he could be admitted.
I don’t know why my Dad did it, but he went voluntarily. We were soon driving my father to a psychiatric hospital. It was late when we got there and doors had to open from the inside. He was told to leave his wallet, watch, any pens pencils, shoelaces, all potentially lethal objects behind. I watched him, his bib overalls falling off one shoulder, the wind burned face staring as the entry gate was lifted and immediately swallowed him.
I wanted to cry, knew I should cry, but didn’t cry. They tried all the traditional methods. My father was like a skipping record that couldn’t be fixed. He had designated me his power of attorney in all ways. A few weeks later they called me for permission to authorize shock treatments, a minimum of twelve. He would be monitored because of his heart condition and diabetes, but they had no other recommendation.
This was a man, who was beating his skull with a brick to stop the pain. I signed the paper.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Some Things Cannot be Taken Away
I will always be my mother’s daughter. No one can take that away. She was my mother and I will be forever grateful. She sang while she did the dishes, her colorful bandanna bouncing along. She taught me how to pick up things on the floor with my toes. We would make Rice Krispie treats and watch the Wizard of Oz. We both wanted to go over that rainbow. She loved me when I yelled at her, when I disappointed her, when I was selfish, when I was mean, when I was impossible to love, she loved me.
I loved her when she couldn’t remember my birthday, when she didn’t bake chocolate cake or yodel anymore, when she was scared.
She was my mother and I her daughter. We would protect each other with the blinding love that is born in the womb. Her by not telling me all the pain she felt, me trying desperately to keep the pain away.
We would always laugh and not appropriately, but at life’s sense of humor. My brother and I were with her at the Emergency room as her body grew tired and the muscles spent like frayed rubber bands A doctor was manually assisting her to go the bathroom. We ignored the indignity of the procedure. My brother and I volleyed crude commentaries of the irony, fifty eight years ago she was giving birth to a baby and today giving birth to a very firm turd baby, but it’s a beautiful little turd, in fact it was twins. She laughed till tears came, clutching my hand harder as the doctor continued the delivery. She admonished us for saying turd. She hated that word, about as much as fart. We of course had to use those words as many times as possible in our own twisted George Carlin routine.
This is my life, brief flashes of extraordinary light, tangled with comic pain and the strength of my mother’s fierce heart finding my way. I will always be my mother’s daughter.
I loved her when she couldn’t remember my birthday, when she didn’t bake chocolate cake or yodel anymore, when she was scared.
She was my mother and I her daughter. We would protect each other with the blinding love that is born in the womb. Her by not telling me all the pain she felt, me trying desperately to keep the pain away.
We would always laugh and not appropriately, but at life’s sense of humor. My brother and I were with her at the Emergency room as her body grew tired and the muscles spent like frayed rubber bands A doctor was manually assisting her to go the bathroom. We ignored the indignity of the procedure. My brother and I volleyed crude commentaries of the irony, fifty eight years ago she was giving birth to a baby and today giving birth to a very firm turd baby, but it’s a beautiful little turd, in fact it was twins. She laughed till tears came, clutching my hand harder as the doctor continued the delivery. She admonished us for saying turd. She hated that word, about as much as fart. We of course had to use those words as many times as possible in our own twisted George Carlin routine.
This is my life, brief flashes of extraordinary light, tangled with comic pain and the strength of my mother’s fierce heart finding my way. I will always be my mother’s daughter.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
I only have a band-aid
So I have regurgitated my sad story, and there it will remain, now written, now real, just like the letter I received from the neurologist. I am sleeping.
My son needed the computer and seeing my blog up, just shook his head, "Who do you think reads that?
" Nobody I guess" as I hurriedly closed the page.
But that isn't true, I read it and when I do, I know I still exist. Not in the sense of a six figure career, a college degree, an adequate parent, a normal wife, but in my own small reality, where feral cats are fed and loved, where students can always have a pencil, a room to hide out during lunch, where pain, real, imagined is at least given a band-aid and the hope it will soon be better.
This world is big and easy to get lost. All I can do is try because I am always lost and cannot give directions. Maybe for a minute, the cats are safe, the band aid stops the bleeding, life is bearable.
My son needed the computer and seeing my blog up, just shook his head, "Who do you think reads that?
" Nobody I guess" as I hurriedly closed the page.
But that isn't true, I read it and when I do, I know I still exist. Not in the sense of a six figure career, a college degree, an adequate parent, a normal wife, but in my own small reality, where feral cats are fed and loved, where students can always have a pencil, a room to hide out during lunch, where pain, real, imagined is at least given a band-aid and the hope it will soon be better.
This world is big and easy to get lost. All I can do is try because I am always lost and cannot give directions. Maybe for a minute, the cats are safe, the band aid stops the bleeding, life is bearable.
Maybe it's time
I have been thinking about my reaction to the words, counseling. I knew if I marked that box while filling out paperwork for my video EEG, everything, would have new meaning, especially if there was no evidence of seizure, but, I had to check the box. I had to tell the truth. I was letting my freak flag fly. I pressed the lead onto the paper forming a black X, forever affirming the question of physical or sexual abuse. I knew. I could not lie, not anymore.
I was eleven that summer and lonely, no neighborhood friends, no vacations on the beach, just the heat, the care of younger siblings and prickly cucumbers. I was so desperate for attention and when it came in the form of a sixteen year old male, I did not run. I felt special, smart, older. He wooed me with games, and compliments. It was a secret played out in the corn crib where my sisters and I would write all the cats name in crayon and then write RIP when we lost them, one by one, in the road, from disease, when they froze.
Slowly the game changed and now it would be played with my peddle pushers around my ankles. It hurt and I didn't feel special just scared, dirty. I didn't know how to leave this game. That is when I learned how proficient I was at disappearing. No sound of farm machines, no tiger lilies snaking there way through the slatted walls, no smell of nervous sweat. I was gone and it was best that way.
The game progressed to a more secure location. I was locked in a room and I kept trying to disappear, but I couldn't. I could feel vomit coming to the surface. I had never seen a penis. I had no knowledge of how they worked, but apparently I was not a very attractive eleven year old because this one was not working. After my many years of Law and Order SVU I now know this was it, the definition of first degree criminal sexual assault.
But in my memory, this is what happened. There was yelling on the other side of the door and then the door was kicked open not by Superman, or heavenly intervention, but my skinny, be-speckled brother who shoved me out and fought with my would be rapist.
We never talked about it, but I hope he knows he saved me. I hope he knows that he was courageous. I hope he knows that I will always remember. Sometimes I worry that in saving me he had to learn how to disappear too.
I forgave the sixteen year old long ago, Things that happen can change the person you might have been and survival is the instinct you are left with. It is the eleven year old that I have not been able to absolve, maybe someday.
I was eleven that summer and lonely, no neighborhood friends, no vacations on the beach, just the heat, the care of younger siblings and prickly cucumbers. I was so desperate for attention and when it came in the form of a sixteen year old male, I did not run. I felt special, smart, older. He wooed me with games, and compliments. It was a secret played out in the corn crib where my sisters and I would write all the cats name in crayon and then write RIP when we lost them, one by one, in the road, from disease, when they froze.
Slowly the game changed and now it would be played with my peddle pushers around my ankles. It hurt and I didn't feel special just scared, dirty. I didn't know how to leave this game. That is when I learned how proficient I was at disappearing. No sound of farm machines, no tiger lilies snaking there way through the slatted walls, no smell of nervous sweat. I was gone and it was best that way.
The game progressed to a more secure location. I was locked in a room and I kept trying to disappear, but I couldn't. I could feel vomit coming to the surface. I had never seen a penis. I had no knowledge of how they worked, but apparently I was not a very attractive eleven year old because this one was not working. After my many years of Law and Order SVU I now know this was it, the definition of first degree criminal sexual assault.
But in my memory, this is what happened. There was yelling on the other side of the door and then the door was kicked open not by Superman, or heavenly intervention, but my skinny, be-speckled brother who shoved me out and fought with my would be rapist.
We never talked about it, but I hope he knows he saved me. I hope he knows that he was courageous. I hope he knows that I will always remember. Sometimes I worry that in saving me he had to learn how to disappear too.
I forgave the sixteen year old long ago, Things that happen can change the person you might have been and survival is the instinct you are left with. It is the eleven year old that I have not been able to absolve, maybe someday.
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Words
"You think that I don't even mean a single word I say. It's only words and words are all I have" I used to sing this schleppy song by the Bee Gees to my boyfriend, now husband when I was seventeen. I didn't understand the accuracy then.
I have finally had a moment of clarity, but only after I have left a crazed path of psychotic emails, dramatic weepy phone calls and a pretty fair wine drinking binge. Words are all my brain can decipher even when people talk, I translate their audible conversation to written word in my head. I may get a joke fifteen minutes later, if it's spoken, but text I can compute. So when the diagnosis I had received concretely on my hospital discharge did not match up with what the follow -up appointment with the neurologist and his conversation with Henry Ford Hospital. I just could not accept this. My mind could not process the incongruity and I stood holding out my paper proof, like Oliver Twist and his empty bowl.
"No, no, it says It was the narcolepsy." Right here, I realize hallucination is misspelled as well as sleep, but it is clearly printed under diagnosis
"She didn't mention that at all, just that there was no seizure activity". He stopped for a minute to put on his concerned doctor face. "Did they talk to you about counseling?"
"No, only the sleep doctor." I could feel the heat on my face and my red neck rash turning purple.
He calmly began searching through my records on line. "Yes, you were diagnosed with Narcolepsy in 2008" He kept reading not talking.
Good God, what does it say in that computer, but I reacted like I had rehearsed. I kept thanking him. I had felt so humbled and awed that he referred me to such a wonderful hospital. It was important to know if I really had a seizure disorder and I was very grateful for the testing. This was how I practiced it even though I could feel tears waiting backstage, never pretty in a fifty-three year old balding woman. I could only whisper thank you and reach out to shake his hand good bye. He didn't offer his hand.
THE RIDE HOME
... my brain did the transcription and every insecurity, every doubt, every bit of self-loathing engulfed my nervous system in a cataclysm of uncensored mania. I began sending out messages on the hospital web page to anywhere that I could in a blind hope someone would read them, take pity on my crazed carcass, and call me with some type of reassurance.
How ludicrous, I was responding just the way a person who was in desperate need of counseling would react. I'm taking a break from the medical world, from the pharmaceutical world, from self-medication, and back to sleeping and dreams of magical red birds welcoming me home.
I have finally had a moment of clarity, but only after I have left a crazed path of psychotic emails, dramatic weepy phone calls and a pretty fair wine drinking binge. Words are all my brain can decipher even when people talk, I translate their audible conversation to written word in my head. I may get a joke fifteen minutes later, if it's spoken, but text I can compute. So when the diagnosis I had received concretely on my hospital discharge did not match up with what the follow -up appointment with the neurologist and his conversation with Henry Ford Hospital. I just could not accept this. My mind could not process the incongruity and I stood holding out my paper proof, like Oliver Twist and his empty bowl.
"No, no, it says It was the narcolepsy." Right here, I realize hallucination is misspelled as well as sleep, but it is clearly printed under diagnosis
"She didn't mention that at all, just that there was no seizure activity". He stopped for a minute to put on his concerned doctor face. "Did they talk to you about counseling?"
"No, only the sleep doctor." I could feel the heat on my face and my red neck rash turning purple.
He calmly began searching through my records on line. "Yes, you were diagnosed with Narcolepsy in 2008" He kept reading not talking.
Good God, what does it say in that computer, but I reacted like I had rehearsed. I kept thanking him. I had felt so humbled and awed that he referred me to such a wonderful hospital. It was important to know if I really had a seizure disorder and I was very grateful for the testing. This was how I practiced it even though I could feel tears waiting backstage, never pretty in a fifty-three year old balding woman. I could only whisper thank you and reach out to shake his hand good bye. He didn't offer his hand.
THE RIDE HOME
... my brain did the transcription and every insecurity, every doubt, every bit of self-loathing engulfed my nervous system in a cataclysm of uncensored mania. I began sending out messages on the hospital web page to anywhere that I could in a blind hope someone would read them, take pity on my crazed carcass, and call me with some type of reassurance.
How ludicrous, I was responding just the way a person who was in desperate need of counseling would react. I'm taking a break from the medical world, from the pharmaceutical world, from self-medication, and back to sleeping and dreams of magical red birds welcoming me home.
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Superman and the 5th Dimension
So embracing what I cannot change is not exactly going well. Depression, obsession, insecurity, weariness are speaking much louder. My enamel has worn down and every comment pierces me like ice cream on an exposed nerve. Today was “I can’t follow you around cleaning up after you all the time” I guess my perception is skewed as I had thought the opposite. It makes me think of Superman. There was this small imp-like villain named Mr. Mxyzptlk. Superman would have to trick him into saying his name backwards to send him back to the fifth dimension, maybe I belong in the fifth dimension.
The words of a lifetime keep rolling in my head bouncing into each other, joining together in a brutal reality. The protective shell eroded no fluoride, no mother to cover the cracks, no knitted hats of explanation.
It is what it is, stark, ugly, and old. A useless irritating cog that has to be dealt with a burden, responsibility with no positive returns. Trying to appease, to bring something of value, a contribution, a unique gift of validation has become exhausting. This only multiplies the irritation my efforts bring.
When I was stronger I could battle against the verbiage of moron, worthless, unnecessary, clumsy, deaf, retarded, wasteful, ridiculous, dramatic, and always crazy, crazy, crazy…
I think of a daily greeting of my father’s, “Shit, I woke up”
To circumvent a depressive monologue I would cheerfully recount all his accomplishments and what his life means to me.
He would look at me with his rheumy eyes, and say “I see Peckerhead is still on the news. I hate Peckerhead!” ignoring everything I had said.
Pointless to continue expounding on his merits , I hum and clap, out of tune, against the beat, as he sings his Ode to Peckerhead.
Feeling better now, reminiscing about my father's bleakness makes me want to jump out of the slop bucket.
The words of a lifetime keep rolling in my head bouncing into each other, joining together in a brutal reality. The protective shell eroded no fluoride, no mother to cover the cracks, no knitted hats of explanation.
It is what it is, stark, ugly, and old. A useless irritating cog that has to be dealt with a burden, responsibility with no positive returns. Trying to appease, to bring something of value, a contribution, a unique gift of validation has become exhausting. This only multiplies the irritation my efforts bring.
When I was stronger I could battle against the verbiage of moron, worthless, unnecessary, clumsy, deaf, retarded, wasteful, ridiculous, dramatic, and always crazy, crazy, crazy…
I think of a daily greeting of my father’s, “Shit, I woke up”
To circumvent a depressive monologue I would cheerfully recount all his accomplishments and what his life means to me.
He would look at me with his rheumy eyes, and say “I see Peckerhead is still on the news. I hate Peckerhead!” ignoring everything I had said.
Pointless to continue expounding on his merits , I hum and clap, out of tune, against the beat, as he sings his Ode to Peckerhead.
Feeling better now, reminiscing about my father's bleakness makes me want to jump out of the slop bucket.
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Unworthy stitches
I am getting really tired of just moving along, getting pushed through the world, like so much excrement, just a necessary movement in life's digestive system. I miss hope.
I will keep trying and in between I will remember….
What my toes felt like in a roomful of wheat that I knew I was not supposed to enter, let alone stick my dirty ten year old feet in. The smell of grain, the dust particles sparkling in front of me, my hands buried in the golden mound. I am intoxicated by the sensations. I hear my father coming. I make my escape through the trap door, jumping to the bottom of the barn where the cattle were kept when the farm had livestock. It was dark with the water stalls still intact and an old grain box where litters of kittens were born. We had cats, sometimes twenty or more. They had a fragile existence and the many feline tragedies would be a precursor to my obsessive compulsive cat searching. There I would recreate bizarre orphanages and prisoner of war camps with Liddle Kiddles and Pee Wee dolls, cutting their hair up to the sewn heads. I made my little sister join me and tormented her with cruel stories of her adoption and the gypsies that abandoned her. We would swing from the top of the barn and beat our chest like Tarzan as we tried to land on straw and not farm implements. One day I missed and hit a collection of aluminum siding, cutting my ankle open. Bright red blood gushed forth as screams emitted from my mouth. My father assuredly not happy put me in the blue Chevy station wagon. I wailed and lamented the 10 minute ride to the hospital. They called my doctor and he trudged in with his fishing hat still on and a terse look on his face. My eyes red from crying and too scared to look up I plaintively yelped,
“I don’t want to die, even if I’m poor, please.”
My dad laughed a nervous laugh and apologized for me. The doctor seemed quiet and he assured me I wasn’t going to die, just get stitches.
I am still that little girl, a weed in the garden, the messy kid in catholic school the nuns didn’t like, the stupid one who failed driver’s education, the careless one who let the dog out, the crazy one who wasted everyone’s time. I keep trying to be normal, to understand what people are asking, to not frustrate and make them mad. It just makes me so sad.
I will keep trying and in between I will remember….
What my toes felt like in a roomful of wheat that I knew I was not supposed to enter, let alone stick my dirty ten year old feet in. The smell of grain, the dust particles sparkling in front of me, my hands buried in the golden mound. I am intoxicated by the sensations. I hear my father coming. I make my escape through the trap door, jumping to the bottom of the barn where the cattle were kept when the farm had livestock. It was dark with the water stalls still intact and an old grain box where litters of kittens were born. We had cats, sometimes twenty or more. They had a fragile existence and the many feline tragedies would be a precursor to my obsessive compulsive cat searching. There I would recreate bizarre orphanages and prisoner of war camps with Liddle Kiddles and Pee Wee dolls, cutting their hair up to the sewn heads. I made my little sister join me and tormented her with cruel stories of her adoption and the gypsies that abandoned her. We would swing from the top of the barn and beat our chest like Tarzan as we tried to land on straw and not farm implements. One day I missed and hit a collection of aluminum siding, cutting my ankle open. Bright red blood gushed forth as screams emitted from my mouth. My father assuredly not happy put me in the blue Chevy station wagon. I wailed and lamented the 10 minute ride to the hospital. They called my doctor and he trudged in with his fishing hat still on and a terse look on his face. My eyes red from crying and too scared to look up I plaintively yelped,
“I don’t want to die, even if I’m poor, please.”
My dad laughed a nervous laugh and apologized for me. The doctor seemed quiet and he assured me I wasn’t going to die, just get stitches.
I am still that little girl, a weed in the garden, the messy kid in catholic school the nuns didn’t like, the stupid one who failed driver’s education, the careless one who let the dog out, the crazy one who wasted everyone’s time. I keep trying to be normal, to understand what people are asking, to not frustrate and make them mad. It just makes me so sad.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)