Author’s Note… The Peach is growing up. And her blog moniker is no longer fitting. She is a goofy, insanely intelligent, hyperactive, caring, creative and all-around amazing kiddo. I love her dearly and I cannot think of a word to sum all that up so I’ll just use one of my nicknames for her (she has several, some not particularly nice) and she will henceforth be known in the blog as Jellybean.
Jellybean is OBSESSED with my blog. I am trying super hard not to be a complete narcissist about it. We were sitting around laughing about some word thing I said that no reasonable adult would ever imagine ever coming out of their mouth and I started talking about my blog and found a blog post about weird shit you find yourself saying when you become a parent. She laughed. And because she makes me laugh when she laughs, I read another one. And another one. And then it was late and WAY past bedtime and I stopped reading.
Then it started…
Mom, would you read your blog tonight?
Mom, your blog is SO FUNNY! When I grow up, can I make a comic using your blog? It’s funnier than Baby Blues! (she freaking loves those comics, and can you blame her? They’re hilarious)
You should write your blog again.
I’m reluctant to read it to her. I’m tickled she likes it. But it feels weird when I read it to her. Because I get into it. And I chortle while I’m reading the funny posts and I cried when I read a more serious one. I feel like that asshole on Facebook who likes their own wall posts. And also… some of this shit is VERY personal. Which seems absolutely ridiculous to say because this has been out there on the internet for the entire world to see for 12 years. But it’s raw. It’s me, at my core, laid bare and sometimes it’s not so funny. And I’m not sure I’m ready for her to see all that.
So here I am. It’s 1:51 in the morning on Sunday. I woke up to pee (for the second time, there will be at least 1 more trip tonight… welcome to your 40’s) and got back into bed and lay there amused while Miss Thang (more about her and her sister in the future) spent 15 minutes tromping around in a circle on my stomach, purring and demanding to be scritched until she finally decided she was tired and curled into me and immediately started quietly kitty-snoring. I am NOT a cat person, I swear. Anyway… see? I still get easily sidetracked… I started thinking about writing. And how I really do love to write but I just don’t feel like I have anything witty or otherwise entertaining to say. And then… then it started flowing through my brain. Words. Lots and lots of words. This post. Other posts. Other topics I’d like to write about. And I couldn’t shut it down.
So I decided not to shut it down. What the hell? I’m not going to get back to sleep until I get some of this shit out anyway.
Naturally, My Mom has my computer. She borrowed it because she can’t use her cross stitch pattern creator program on her kindle or tablet. It figures that the first time I’ve been inclined to write in YEARS, I am forced to use my cell phone whose predictive text replaces “remember” with “fermenter” EVERY TIME. I don’t make beer. However my phone is absolutely convinced that I have a brewery in my basement.
So here I am. Writing this awkwardly on my phone, FREQUENTLY going back to replace words that autocorrect completely fucked up. It just replaced frequently with 6 different words including “DeWitt”. What. The. Actual. Fuck. Samsung.
I think I might start writing again. Thanks for the inspiration Jellybean.
The Zen Master’s Mom (who will be referred to henceforth as Bonus Mom), age 69, passed away in her sleep on May 4, 2021. She married his Dad on March 3, 1976. They remained happily married for 40 years until Dad’s passing in 2016.
Bonus Mom studied photography at the Fashion Institute of Technology and worked as a dog groomer and handler, winning multiple ribbons and trophies. Later in life, she was a breakfast cook, until her retirement. She loved giraffes, the phoenix and dragons and had a passion for horse racing. She took beautiful photographs and spent much of her time gardening. Bonus Mom was a devoted fan of National Public Radio and Free Speech TV.
She is survived by us, SIL, 5 grandchildren, and her sister.
Bonus Mom was positive and optimistic and believed that you can’t control what happens but you can control how you respond. She loved unconditionally and welcomed people into her heart without hesitation. She is greatly missed by everyone that had the good fortune to know this remarkable woman.
The family would like to thank Nice Nurse, RN of the Medical Examiner’s office and Hospital for her kind words and assistance.
A date for the celebration of Bonus Mom’s life is to be determined. The celebration will be held at the home of the Newlife family.
In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made in her memory to Free Speech TV by going to https://freespeech.org/donate/ or by sending it to Free Speech TV, P.O. Box 44099, Denver, CO 80201.
This was her obituary. I wrote it. I’m so numb. I’ve never lost anyone so close before. I’ve had family members pass and Zen Master’s Dad. But I didn’t spend as much time with them. I wasn’t close enough to them. I loved them all and I grieved when they passed, but it wasn’t so close to my heart. Or so sudden. I was close to Bonus Mom. She wasn’t my mother-in-law. She was my Bonus Mom. My friend. I really can’t think of anything else to say. I loved her. She’s gone.
I take selfies. Like… A lot. I take more selfies than a 14yo with their first phone. I post my selfies on my story on facebook and I send them to The Zen Master and my friends. Some of them just sit there in my phone for ages. I must have thousands.
Here’s the thing…
I feel pretty. I feel cute and beautiful and dare I say it… even sexy. And I’ve NEVER felt like that before. I grew up hating myself. I hated what I looked like. I had a pretty smile. That’s about the only thing I liked about my looks. And even then I didn’t like it sometimes because when I smiled my big grin, I was so large that my cheeks would push up and my eyes became all squinty. I know… we’re all our own worst critics. But it wasn’t just internal. I was teased. I was ridiculed. I was insulted.
My mom told me I was beautiful. And when I got older, some other people did too. But I never felt it. I always thought they were just being nice. Or perhaps they DID think I looked good but then there was something wrong with them because really, what normal person would think I was hot? Some men treated me like a fetish. I was wanted because I was FAT, not because I was sexy. Or at least that’s how I felt.
Then I had surgery.
Then I lost ~250lb.
My self-esteem started to blossom. I started to like the way my clothes fit. I wasn’t afraid of seeing myself in the mirror. People treated me like a person and not something disgusting they needed to avert their eyes from. Did you know that a lot of people don’t make eye contact with people who are morbidly obese? I think it makes them uncomfortable. I had been a non-person. And all of a sudden, here I was, getting hit on by a guy in the grocery store and being told by a woman who looked like a model that I was “killing it”. People started to notice me in a good way.
Then I met The Zen Master. Who incidentally had his eye on me PRIOR to the surgery, but I was unaware of that at the time. He’s shy.
The Zen Master adores me. He treats me like a Goddess. And he looks at me like I am the most perfect, beautiful, sexy and fierce woman he has ever met. I can FEEL it when he looks at me. I owe at least some of my current self-confidence to him.
And now I like how I look, at least with clothes on. You do NOT want to know what 2 kids and a ~250lb weight loss will do to your skin.
Do you know what it’s like to spend at least 30 years of your life feeling repulsive then find that you actually feel beautiful?
It’s fascinating.
I don’t really think I’m conceited. I think I am fascinated. I’m fascinated by how I’ve changed. I’m fascinated by how I feel about myself. Feeling beautiful? Cute? Sexy? It’s a novel idea. So I take pictures. I think part of me knows that I’m not going to feel like this forever. That I’ll get older and the natural effects of aging will bring my self-esteem issues back to the surface and I’ll start feeling crappy about myself again. So I am taking advantage of this. I’m appreciating myself. This confidence. This beauty. I’m taking pictures to celebrate myself and what I’ve accomplished. And the compliments I get from said pictures don’t hurt either… So maybe it IS a little conceited.
I am mixed race. My skin is light and I could “pass” if I chose to. I do not choose to. My Father can’t. Big Bro can’t. Princess Punk can’t. Nor would THEY want to if they could. We are proud of our heritage. Big Bro hasn’t traced his roots and I’m not sure if he even can, but he is a proud, strong Black Man and is not ashamed of the color of his skin or that he dresses “hood” because that’s the culture he grew up in. The rest of us? We can trace our history back to Ghana. Our family is the longest documented Black family in the US. Half of our family tree (not the half we’re on though) was hanging in the Smithsonian at an exhibit on African American Families at Mount Vernon. Do you know what Mount Vernon was? Mount Vernon was the plantation of George Washington, the first President of the United States, and his wife, Martha Washington. MY ancestors were SLAVES of the first president of the US. That’s important shit.
I experienced racism from an early age. I was first called a Nigger when I was 5. And the sad thing is, at age 5, I knew what that was because my parents had to warn me about racism before I started school. As an interracial child, I got it from both sides. I was never dark enough to be black and never light enough to be white. I don’t really care either way now, but when I was in middle school and high school, my school in Florida was highly segregated as was my town and I didn’t fit in anywhere. I ended up hanging out with the black kids in school more because although they were racist too, even among themselves, it wasn’t half as bad as the white kids. This school was in a nice suburb in Florida and was considered a really good school. The neighborhood surrounding the school was predominately white and upper middle class. Most of the black kids came from the poor part of town or were bused in from the next town over. So there was class disparity too. White privilege there had just as much to do with money as skin color at that school.
As I got older, I began to experience racism in new ways. People forgot that I was of Black heritage. As a result, I got to hear some of the nastiest bigoted comments from people who would swear up and down they bore no prejudices or racism. I recall a coworker once saying something nasty about Puerto Ricans then looking at me only marginally embarrassed and saying, “Oh, I didn’t mean YOU Newlife…” This simple, ignorant statement hurt me deeply. It hurt me that she was okay to say something asshole-y about another race. And it hurt me that even though I had worked with this woman for 6 years and had told her several times about my ethnic background, she couldn’t even show me the respect to acknowledge my race as something other than brown. I’ve heard the terms “those people” and “the Black community as a whole” and “Blacks” and even just “They” prefacing a negative statement so many damn times it makes me sick. Do you realize that grouping a entire race together under “They” is pretty much the definition of racism? Here. This definition is from Merriam-Webster. Look.
Definition of racism 1: a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race 2a: a doctrine or political program based on the assumption of racism and designed to execute its principles b: a political or social system founded on racism 3: racial prejudice or discrimination
If you start a statement of opinion or an argument putting an entire race of people under the heading “They” or anything else implying that, you are making a racist statement. Period.
Let me explain why some of the statements made in recent weeks all support the idea of systemic racism in this country.
Blacks kill each other more than the police kill Blacks.
This is a fact. I won’t dispute it. But there is a reason behind it. Because in this country, people of color have been marginalized and segregated and oppressed since the times of slavery. Yup. I’m playing the slavery card. Because you know what? We STILL haven’t healed that scar. Because after slavery ended, blacks were still treated like second class citizens. Blacks were denied the right to vote. Jim Crow laws segregated communities and schools. Blacks only schools were poorly funded and did not provide as quality education as white schools. Additionally, the higher education opportunities for Blacks were limited to a few Historically Black Colleges. Add to that hiring practices that favored White Men over Black Men (yes, women were oppressed too and I recognize that, I’m not saying POC were the only ones who had a hard time) and you get generations of people of color living in poverty without the education and opportunities of their white counterparts. Because segregation ended on paper, but it still exists in a frightening amount in this country. Don’t believe me? Go to St. Petersburg, Florida and cross over Central Avenue into the South Side. Melanin in the skin increases and property values and median income decrease. Dramatically. Of course the crime rate is higher. If you can’t get a job that pays enough to feed yourself and your family, it’s easy to fall into crime and the culture of poverty with generations of people on welfare. Because that’s how you grew up. That’s who your role models were. Because when you go to school, all the heroes in the history books don’t look anything like you. And you start to accept that you’re a second-class citizen. And some people just give up. Perpetuate the stereotype because that’s what they know. Historically, POC have had to fight harder and overcome more obstacles to make it in this country. That’s not rhetoric. That’s a fact. Shit like that doesn’t change overnight. Or even in a couple of hundred years. It’s been changing bit by bit since The Emancipation Proclamation, but it is hard-wired into our society and no, we’re not there yet. Or anywhere even close.
There are plenty of White People that are poor and underprivileged.
Again, Fact. I don’t dispute that there are people of every race and cultural background in this country that live in poverty and face tremendous obstacles in life. I’m not negating their struggles. Shit, look at the ingenuous people in this country. Poverty is a real problem in this country, across the board. People mired in it find it nearly impossible to escape. But if you were to take a White Man (again, gender has its own bullshit that I’m not even going to get into today) from the Appalachian Mountains, living in poverty with minimal education (and seriously, I’m not singling anyone out, I just know there is a lot of serious poverty there so I’m using this as an example) and a well-to-do, well-educated Black Man from pretty much anywhere, cleaned them up, put them both in suits and ties, handed an employer two unidentified resumes and asked them which one they would hire, there is a VERY good chance the employer will attribute the better resume to the White Man and not hire the Black Man. Because Black people are ALWAYS Black. Even Blacks that are not living below the poverty line, those that HAVE overcome the hurdles and are making it in the world have to deal with racism and inequality every day. For God’s sake, someone called the former First Lady of the US an “Ape in heels.” A strong, intelligent, accomplished Black Woman was defined and insulted based on the color of her skin. Honestly, if this woman had posted something about Michelle Obama’s political views or her agenda and passions as First Lady, I may have disagreed but I wouldn’t have gotten too angry. What pissed me off, was that criticism focused on the fact that Michelle Obama was Black. It didn’t say anything about her views, her ideas, her background, it was solely based on the color of her skin. Trump gets his fair share of insults. Which are usually IMO well-deserved. And I’m sure there are comments out there about his “White-ness,” but I can bet you that none of any racial comments directed at him marginalized him and his beliefs and actions in such a way. Or at least not any that people actually paid attention to.
I see everyone the same, we’re all people.
You don’t. No one does. I can assure you of this growing up as an interracial individual. Even those who professed themselves to be “colorblind” would make statements and assumptions about my hair, my skin color, my upbringing. Innocent statements like, “Wow, I’ve heard hair like yours is really hard to deal with” and “You must tan so easily!” are statements that acknowledge that I am a different race from you. They’re not negative. Racial differences exist just as differences between genders exists. Most of these differences are external. There are medical issues that affect those of European descent in larger percentages than those of African descent and vice versa. Blacks are more likely to develop Type 2 Diabetes. Whites are more susceptible to skin cancers. Saying that everyone is the same is a blind statement that marginalizes the importance of heritage and history and our differences. Of knowing where you come from and the struggles you have had and those you have yet to face. And that goes for everyone, not just people of color. You have to know where you came from. To acknowledge that others came from a different place and because of that has different life experiences and that’s okay. No, that’s cool. Everyone has a different story. No one is the same. That’s one of the awesome things about being human. It doesn’t make anyone better than anyone else. Maybe someday, it won’t mean anything. Maybe someday people will see color only as a cosmetic difference and histories and experiences will merge so our life stories are the same. But that sounds pretty boring to me.
Here’s the big one…
All Lives Matter.
Duh. I mean seriously, if you think that the majority (not all) of the people who are saying Black Lives Matter are saying ONLY Black Lives Matter, you are uniformed and have your head stuck in the sand (or somewhere else). Black Lives Matter TOO. Because they haven’t. To too many people for TOO LONG. Black Lives Matter is a reminder. A reminder of where we’ve been and how not so far we’ve come. A reminder that Black Men shouldn’t be afraid to go jogging in their own neighborhood without being suspected of a crime. A reminder that a Black Man shouldn’t have to be careful about how they dress lest they be seen as a criminal. A reminder that a Black Woman shouldn’t have to prove her worth because she “got in because of affirmative action.” A reminder that a Black Woman does not have to be 20 years old with 6 kids a welfare check. A reminder that Black Children do not all live in the ghetto and grow up to be drug dealers. It’s a reminder that White Privilege DOES exist and affects different people in different ways.
It hurt.
So that’s why I went to a protest in Montpelier with Princess Punk and one of her White friends. Vermont is SUPER White and while there were 5000 people at the protest, only a small percentage of them were Black. But it was great. And powerful. And heartbreaking. Princess Punk got up in front of all those people and read the following poem she wrote in High School.
The Skin I Live In…
The skin I live in is mine. It’s not something you can claim as yours. It’s not something for sale, Not something to fight over. The skin I live in is black. Not as dark as my brothers and sisters in Jamaica Nigeria Or Africa. Not as dark as the night sky That my ancestors crawled under In order to be free. The skin I live in is mysterious. Bewitching, Tough, Something to be proud of. The skin I live in is a mixture of peace. A mixture of love, Rebelion, And history. The skin I live in is tough. As tough as Rosa Parks, As smart as MLK, As strong as Francis Harper, All mixed into one being. The skin I live in is beautiful. A solid creme. Proof of the past. A library filled with it’s own history. A history of people with the same skin as me. It’s not something you can claim as yours. It’s not something for sale, It is my own layer of strength My own layer of power My own layer of skin. The colored skin that I live in.
My Father’s Life Matters. My Daughter’s Life Matters. My Brother’s Life Matters. My Life Matters.
You know, My Mom said Trump would bring about the apocalypse and look what’s happening now.
Ok, I’m exaggerating. But doesn’t this feel like some epic goddamn movie? Like I’m just waiting to see what’s going to happen next. Because there’s really nothing else to do but wait. Because what’s still coming down the pike? A whole helluva a lot more of a shitstorm.
Here are my predictions for the next few months.
First, this is not going to be over by April 6. Or April 15. Or whatever magical April date they’re talking about today. This is not going to be over in May either. This is a fucking pandemic. These things don’t fizzle out
in a couple of weeks. They take months to run their course. The quarantine measures put into effect will not shorten the amount of time it will take for COVID-19 to rage through our population, in fact it will likely lengthen it. What does the quarantine do you ask? It makes the bell curve that marks the course of the disease spread a lot lower. This makes it easier for our hospitals and clinics to accommodate all the people who are now coming down with this shit. Many of our hospitals in harder hit areas are already at capacity and anticipating even more sick. The problem with this virus isn’t that it’s deadly. I mean, yeah, obviously we don’t want our most vulnerable populations to die, but the virus doesn’t appear to have a high mortality rate in healthy individuals. The problem? It’s in the infrastructure. It’s the fact that we don’t have the capacity within our healthcare system to accommodate a need like this. So without quarantine measures, the height of that bell curve means a lot more sick at the same time. Which means hospitals are going to start having to decide who gets admitted and gets a bed. Who among the admitted gets a ventilator. THAT is what is going to raise the death toll in this massive COVID-19 clusterfuck. The fact that we don’t have the capacity to care for our ill.
I couldn’t resist…
Second, people are going to start hoarding more than toilet paper. Canned goods, gasoline and medicine are going to be the next impossible to find items. Face masks and sterile gloves are already gone. I use non-latex exam gloves in the kitchen when handling raw meat. Making fried chicken the other night was messy gross without them. And people are just fucking crazy about it. Which is making ME want to hoard because I feel like if I don’t, my family is going to get screwed and end up without toilet paper when shit really gets bad (pardon the pun).
Third… We are going to lose our shit. Staying at home, working from home. Yes, I’m one of the lucky who is still managing to stay employed, although both The Zen Master and Princess Punk are collectingtrying to collect unemployment. The phone number was so busy that for days you couldn’t even get on hold, the number just disconnected the circuits were so busy. The Zen Master got his deposit when he was supposed to because they already had most of his info since he files every off season. Princess Punk’s claim is on hold for God knows how long. She’s gotten several emails and a letter basically saying, “We’ll get to it when we get to it.”
Shit. Side-tracked, sorry. Where was I? Right. Third. Home. Stuck at home. Princess Punk is driving me batshit because she’s isolated, grumpy and stressed about getting kicked out of her apartment (they shut down the school completely, she couldn’t even get all her stuff) and doing all her schoolwork online. The Peach is so full of unspent energy that she is literally bouncing off the walls. Like she ran through the house, hit a wall, bounced off and kept going. The Zen Master is incredibly anxious which is making it difficult for me because he’s my port in a storm. And I don’t know how to reassure him because shit is just that fucked up. My Mom is taking on the home-schooling thing with both hands and I’m scared that she’s going to burn out pretty quickly. She spends plenty of time caring for The Peach but now she’s teaching her for 8h a day as well. I know I couldn’t do it. We’re actually managing fairly well at the moment despite all that, The Zen Master and I even managed to have a “date night” last night, consisting of a picnic of takeout on the bed and a couple of action movies. However, I’m anticipating that the proverbial shit is going to hit the proverbial fan in about 5 days and one of us is going to completely lose their shit. Because although everyone is coexisting fairly well right now, it’s a delicate balance.
I’m not really sure why I’m not writing. There are 2 reasons that come to mind immediately though.
1. I’m lazy. I work really hard at a very mentally taxing job. And when I get home, I am physically and emotionally drained. On the weekends, I barely can get the kitchen clean. To be honest, more often than not, I am not even capable of that and The Zen Master does my dishes days (Saturday and Sunday) for me. Today I actually managed to pick up my disgusting bedroom some. But it’s 3:40pm and I still haven’t done the dishes. I go stir crazy at home. I sit in my bed and play computer games all day long. I get bored. And I feel horribly guilty about not getting anything done in my house. And yet? I still do nothing. I felt good about picking up my room. I feel accomplished after I clean the kitchen. But I still can’t seem to get my ass up and do anything. I can stay sitting in my bed at my computer but I can’t bring myself to write and stimulate my brain some. I don’t think I’m depressed. Emotionally I’m fine. Kinda tired, but that’s a baseline for me. Just unmotivated. For anything.
Except maybe eating. I seem to be able to do that just fine. I eat out of boredom most of the time and sometimes as a procrastination technique. “I’ll start the kitchen as soon as I have something to eat.” Yeah. Ok. Not likely.
I have no problems at work. I work hard and I meet deadlines. Without (much) complaint. But at home? I might as well be in a coma for all the housework I actually get done. Writing is the same apparently. It just takes too much effort?
2. I can’t think of anything to write. I sit down at my computer with good intentions, eager to get out some great thoughts and be all witty and brilliant and I come up with… nothing. I have a lot to say. Just ask The Zen Master. Or My Mom. Or really anyone else who has ever met me. But when it comes down to write it all down in a way that makes sense and is maybe even entertaining? Nope. And now I’m at a loss for words again. Maybe I’ll clean the kitchen now.
I have struggled with depression for so long that happiness, especially in the face of a headache or grumpiness or worse, a combination of the two, is absolutely alien to me.
Thing is, I’ve been happy. For a while now. 18 months at least. (which IS a while for me) And the thing about being bipolar? Happiness is scary. Because happiness is a short fall from mania and while mania can feel great while you’re riding it, the crash that follows is devastating. I’ve ended up hospitalized three times following crashes like that.
Mania is deceptive. It starts off just feeling good. Maybe talking a little too fast, maybe being a tiny bit more irritable than usual. And then I’m shopping compulsively or spending the entire night awake clearing out my closet, throwing out anything and everything and thinking I’m being productive. When I was younger, I was also… slutty indiscriminate about my intimate partners? Sometimes I wish for mania. For the racing feeling that I can get ANYTHING done and the tremendous energy boost I get. But then I remember that I’m also severely irritable and am completely unable to make a rational choice. Oh, and I talk so fast and so disjointedly that most people can’t understand WTF I’m talking about. It’s fast and exhilarating and intoxicating and awesome. It’s also uncontrollable and overwhelming and frantic and hysterical. I always feel super productive, energetic and witty but then I end up doing things wrong or starting 18 different things and finishing none or babbling at someone so fast my own tongue can’t catch up and I fumble over my words. Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmm… Actually, to be completely honest, the babbling so fast my tongue can’t keep up thing is kinda an all-the-time sort of thing. Regardless, I’m a mess when I’m manic. I think that’s when I come off the most batshit. I’m moderately crazy all the time, but when I’m manic, people start to distance themselves from the mental tornado I become enveloped in.
And then comes the crash.
The higher the high, the lower the low. Last time I was hospitalized I had spent 3 days on a cumulative 6 hours of sleep. I can’t even remember what all I did, I just remember I felt amazing. And then I didn’t. And then the world crashed on my head and I drowned in a thick soup of depression for which I thought the only escape was to leave. Permanently. I ended up in the ER getting my stomach pumped and close to liver failure. I had to drink this disgusting stuff that smelled like rotten eggs for 3 days so my liver function would return to normal. Princess Punk was a baby. The first time I saw her walk was through the small window in the door to the psych ward because they wouldn’t let children come to visit.
And then I got treatment. LOTS of treatment. Long-term, medication and therapy for the rest of my life treatment. With some extra, more intensive treatment once or twice. I’ll talk about that another day. Maybe.
And now I’m happy. I have an amazing family. I have real friends that love me despite my quirky ways. I have a job I (most of the time) love. I’m writing again. I’ve worked through trauma and I can sit with my back to the door without flinching every time someone walks behind me. I sleep through the night. I don’t have nightmares very often anymore and when I do, they’re usually the normal, naked in public, late for a test kind of nightmares (except the ones about The Princess) that everyone deals with. And while I had plenty to make me happy all along, my vision was cloudy and I was stuck in a black hole that I couldn’t escape. It was hard to get free. But I did. I got some more treatment and I got better. And I’m pretty stable at the moment. Bad days are not uncommon in my life. But the feeling of stability and just plain goodness still creates a soft net around my heart and my brain and a bad day just doesn’t bring me to my knees like it did a year or two ago. My story almost ended. A couple times. And even though happiness is a struggle, I will go on.
Princess Punk is 20. She is still struggling with her compliance and is not doing well. Her numbers are high most of the time and as a result, she feels like crap most of the time. Also, because her numbers are so high most of the time, when she’s in a normal range, she starts to feel low. Normal blood sugar for her is between 70 and 150. Below 70 is a low that she needs to treat, above 150 is a high that she needs to treat. When she’s low, she gets shaky, loses any color in her skin, gets dizzy and cognitively she slows down a bit. She’s kind of spacy? When she’s high, she’s grouchy, nauseous, thirsty and has to pee all the time. If she gets too low she could pass out or even go into a coma. If she gets too high, she could go into what’s called diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA).
I try not to talk about work on my blog. But I will say that one of the aspects of my job is to read medical records of people with serious health issues. Like the 32yo poorly-controlled diabetic that has to be on dialysis due to kidney failure. Or the 23yo who is in the ER several times a month due to DKA and gastroparesis (persistent vomiting due to the stomach being unable to empty completely – also a potential consequence of high blood sugar). So I frequently see the end-result of poorly controlled type I diabetes.
It is terrifying. Especially since The Princess’s numbers are just as bad, if not WORSE than some of the records I read.
Her endocrinologist is flummoxed. As I mentioned in my last D-Monster post, there are a number of things besides in addition to poor compliance that could result in numbers like hers. Problem is, there’s no way to figure out what that might be until she can provide the doctor with some data so he can check out her actual response to insulin at different times of the day. The amount of insulin The Princess needs over the course of a day varies wildly, but since she hasn’t been testing or bolusing (when she gives herself insulin for a high blood sugar or for the carbs she eats) reliably, there’s no real way to figure out what she needs and when.
Here’s the thing… Princess Punk doesn’t want any help. Or at least, not from me. And I know why. I use most of my breath while harassing her about testing her blood sugar and covering her carbs talking about all the horrible things that are going to happen to her if she doesn’t get her shit together.
I’m doing it wrong.
She had a couple of pieces of pizza the other night. When I asked her if she covered it, she said yeah and then I asked her how much she was counting (she takes a certain amount of insulin for every carbohydrate she eats). She said, “I dunno, I think 40.” She had eaten 2 1/2 pieces of an 18″ pizza. I spluttered and told her I was going to look it up. She was in fact, incorrect and 40 grams of carbs was about half the amount she ate and therefore she administered only half the amount of insulin she was supposed to get. When I told her this she got huffy with me and went into My Mom’s room. I stood in the kitchen and cried for a minute. Then I got my bag, walked into My Mom’s room and announced,
“I’m going to bed because I can’t sit here and watch you kill yourself anymore.”
And I went upstairs. Several minutes later, I hear The Princess downstairs sobbing to My Mom about how she couldn’t believe I said that and that she was trying.
And I came downstairs. The ensuing screaming match can not be repeated, only to say that I said some really horrible things that came down to me blaming her (or at least sounding like I was blaming her) for her diabetes. I believe the words, “I’m not going to outlive my child!” were expelled from my mouth more than once. After the screaming came a furious text message argument in which The Princess maintained that she needed to deal with this herself and she didn’t want my help.
She was right.
A little later, My Mom says, “You know, she is absolutely terrified.”
I didn’t.
I got so caught up in my own fears that I completely neglected to think that Princess Punk, the one who has to deal with this disease face-to-face, every single day, might be a little scared too. And I told her she’s killing herself. I told my daughter, my 20-year-old daughter that she was going to die and it was her fault.
She’s still a kid. But she’s also an adult. And I can’t do this for her. I have to trust that she will get it together and do it for herself. And I shouldn’t butt in. Because she doesn’t need me telling her what to do and that if she doesn’t she’s going to die. I’ve been doing that for ten years, that’s obviously not the way to go. What she needs me to be is a mom she can go to and tell she’s scared without me making it worse. She needs support. She needs love. She needs understanding. She needs me to be there for her not do it for her. A co-worker likened it to being the parent of an addict. Your child is in a life-threatening situation and only they can get themselves out of it. While you stand by helplessly and hope they will. To me, that’s the worst feeling in the world.
Despite how I’m feeling, she is objectively not in immediate danger. Dr. Gruff did not freak out. He did not advise her to check herself in to the hospital. He did not advise her what the signs of kidney failure are. He didn’t even think lab work was necessary at this visit. While it’s likely she HAS experienced some damage to her body (eyes, kidneys, heart, nerves, etc.), if she can deal with this and, with the help of trained medical professionals (i.e. not me), start getting it under control, any damage is reversible.
I still dream about going to her funeral.
This is HER disease. I need to let HER deal with it.
Mania is deceptive. It starts off just feeling good. Maybe talking a little too fast, maybe being a tiny bit more irritable than usual. And then I’m shopping compulsively or spending the entire night awake clearing out my closet, throwing out anything and everything and thinking I’m being productive. When I was younger, I was also… 
newlifeinvermont 