Parent and Child

A Facebook friend's poem made me think, and this is what I thought.

It makes me think of a bit of my relationship with my son. I have lived with mental illness (bipolar disorder, incorrectly diagnosed until I was 38) and although I tried to be a good mother when he was younger my problems were often overwhelming. I think I'm a good mother now but my troubles put me behind where I should be. We live in a rather marginalized fashion and are trying to both do things to improve our lot in life. My hope is that his kids, should he have them, will not have the kind of chaotic life he did in his childhood. He can talk about it with me and he isn't angry any more, but he says he feels he didn't have much of a childhood, which is heartbreaking. His father (whom I've been divorced from since 1994, but who in some fashion I've often ended up having to take care of in one way or another) has mental problems too and I've always been the more mature parent--which is scary, since for most of my life I didn't feel like a functioning adult!

Wow, that was a rant--hope you don't mind. The poem brought things out.

Fathers Day

I was touched by the words and photo with this post about fathers and wanted to make mention about some of the fathers in my life, both past and present.

My father is still alive. He is 74 years old. He had a major hemorrhagic stroke 6 years ago on June 6. We are sure he has had other smaller strokes since then because his cognitive function has declined. In the beautiful photo in the post that I have linked to there is a 78 year old man holding his great grandson. I doubt that my father will be alive when his great grandchildren are born. My son is 20 and is not currently involved, nor is he in any hurry to have children. 

My great grandfathers had all died before I was born. I got to know two great grandmothers, one on my mother's side and one on my father's. One of my paternal great grandfathers was a lieutenant in the Czar's army before coming to the United States, where he would work as a butcher. During the Depression he would give people meat and tell them to pay him back when they could. According to my father, every single one of them made good.

One of my maternal great grandfathers was a farmer in upstate New York. He ended up developing septicemia after gouging his arm on a nail, and this killed him. 

My paternal grandfather was a veterinarian, working primarily with large animals. He worked for many of the racetracks around the New York area. He is the grandfather that I knew best. He died when I was twelve from a heart attack. He was 64. He had scarlet fever in childhood, which weakened his heart at an early age.

I did not know my maternal grandfather well. I mostly remember him sending me things from his vacation home in Florida, which would become his permanent home in the last years of his life. He sent me shark's teeth and other such things. He was somewhat estranged from his own children and thus not very close to his grandchildren either. He left my grandmother for another woman while my mother and aunt were still in high school. My grandmother had a nervous breakdown, and so the household tasks fell to my mother, who was the eldest. My aunt rebelled and ran wild. She recalls my mother locking her in her room and my aunt sneaked out the window to go driving around with her boyfriend.

My father has a good soul but a propensity for driving other people crazy with his obsessiveness. I always felt like I could never do well enough to please him. The truth is that nobody, including himself, can ever do well enough. Unlike me, he would not, and at this point probably cannot, acknowledge that he has a psychiatric issue: obsessive-compulsive disorder. My father used to come into my house unannounced and start picking things up and throwing things out. The one positive to the stroke, I'm sorry to say, is he can't just come over any more. I hated when he would do this and I would end up screaming at him. This was also in the days before I knew I was bipolar and began taking Lithium, so I would really lose it. I have some fond memories of my father, but this is not one of them.

My ex husband is creating a huge chasm between himself and our son by his behavior. I have warned him that his actions are having negative consequences on his relationship with his son, but he won't listen. My ex husband quit his job near to 8 years ago now. I told him not to quit unless he had another job, but he did. He hasn't worked since then. For a while he was helping his aunt and uncle in Montana and then he came back here. He had noplace to live. He asked if he could stay in the spare room "for a couple of months." This was back in December. He is due to go back to Montana in July because we can no longer tolerate his presence. Our son at this point refers to his father as "a whacko," and says that when he has kids he doesn't think he wants them to meet their grandfather. He is ashamed of the fact that his father really hasn't worked in 8 years. He says that when he was in high school and people asked what his parents did, he would say "my mother works night shift at a nursing home." If they pursued and asked, "what does your father do?" he would say "he work(ed) at the newspaper," not enunciating the "ed" part of "worked" clearly. The thing is, we have tried to get him to go into counseling, and if he lifted a finger to help around the house it would be different. He doesn't. And while I may be Oscar Madison's spiritual daughter, this man is more than a slob, he is the most socially inappropriate individual you could ever imagine: scratching, farting, belching, spitting...

I can't wait till he leaves. And I did warn him that unless he cleaned up his act, his relationship with his son would suffer.

My brother never had any kids, but I feel the need to mention him. Because of him, there are people whose kids are still in this world with them. He is a firefighter/paramedic and he has saved a lot of lives. So in a sense when we celebrate father's day, we should give thanks to those people who allow fathers to have more time with their kids--whether those people are fathers or not.

Hopefully your relationships with your fathers are more good than bad, or if not, hopefully there has been a decent surrogate father figure in your life. If neither of these are true, then I salute you for having had to parent yourself. You did a better job than you could imagine, I'll wager.

Cheers.

negligent

Sorry folks--I use a few different online personas: Bloomingpsycho, Cheesemeister, and Tempestletrope, so it is sometimes a while before I check my comments. I just need to make my sub-personalities into individual functioning beings. Problem is, we'd all probably kill each other.

In darker news, it seems that a friendship I had for about a year has ended. All in all I don't think this friendship was healthy for either party, so its probably a good thing it ended. The sad thing is, this person emailed me about every day and pathetically enough, I miss the attention. FYI, this was not a romantic thing, it was a platonic friendship. 

So I keep checking my inbox and my FB and my blogger, hoping that someone has had something to say.

I guess I need to learn to be a bit more self reliant.

In very trivial news, I have a new pair of shoes which I'm going to take for a test drive.

My son and his father are in Arizona for 10 days. I tend to have trouble being alone, so the losing the friend timing is particularly bad.

Me and the Universe really need to work on this timing thing.

Improvement

Psycho is doing a little better and appreciates those who have stood by me and not judged me. This sort of thing lets me know who my true friends are.

In sad news, my online friend Wanda's son died unexpectedly. I know she is hurting a lot. I can't imagine the horror. If any of you know Wanda, or if you just want to drop by and show her some support, I know it is like putting a band aid on a gushing wound. But knowing she is loved may bring her a little peace.

My own son is struggling with depression/anxiety and agoraphobia. The legacy of mental illness did not pass him by, sadly. The difference became apparent when he turned thirteen. He has a great counselor and I will be taking him to see a psychiatrist about trying some medication. This is his decision, I would never force it on him. My own parents are clueless. They keep coming up with ideas like "he could come live with us for the summer and work as a caretaker in the cemetery." So not going to happen! I might suggest a similar job in the city we live in or the city his best friend lives in, which is just 10 miles from here. The outdoor work might be good for him.

I understand what is wrong with my son and do all I can to support him. His father makes me nuts, though. I know he also has problems but sometimes I feel like he is a freeloading albatross. He lives here--NOT A ROMANTIC SITUATION, LET ME MAKE THAT CLEAR! We have been divorced since 1994. We have always been family, though. I played my own part in the divorce, I am not an innocent victim. I am a person with borderline personality disorder and, at the time, undiagnosed bipolar disorder. He has depression but the worst thing is if I tell him I need him to do something I get the hang dog look and then he takes to his bed for ten hours like I just beat him with sticks. It is very hard to deal with. I am the only one in this family that works. My son wants to go to college and to work, but his agoraphobia stops him. When he was at college he found it difficult to get out of his room and go to class, which is why he had to come home. It is beyond tragic because he has a sub-genius IQ and is very creative. Sadly, he spends most of his days playing computer games. This is what his father does too. 

Then there are my parents. No, they don't live here, or believe me, I would be boozin'! They live about 25 miles away. My father had a stroke in June of 2004. He is very dependent. My mother is his 24-7 caretaker. She is very stressed out and tired. It is not a good situation.

Now maybe the reasons can be seen why I need a miracle!

All the love in the world to Wanda. She did not need what happened to her--nobody needs that. But she has already been through so much hell. Sometimes this world seems so cruel.

I do not believe in the Fundamentalist Christian concept of God--or at least I don't worship that God because I don't like his style. Meting out punishment on people who may not see fit to worship you seems pretty damn egotistical. I do believe in a variety of gods and goddesses, which in my view are very powerful spirits, and I believe in something like the American Indian concept of a "Great Spirit," which created all things. The Great Spirit does not need for people to worship it, but communing with it can bring peace. Animals do this naturally. Modern people have lost the ability and have to concentrate deliberately.

The Great Spirit doesn't interfere in the affairs of the world. But communing with the energy of creation can increase one's own abilities, and creating with some of the other deities, who are personifications of natural energies, can cause great things to be accomplished and bring peace to one's life.

Anyway, that's my opinion.

Psycho Suicide Barometer

Suicide Ideation: 9 out of 10 razor blades
Suicide Planning: 5 out of 10 razor blades

This has been one unholy motherfucker of a month! Shit is not working--in spades. Medications have never worked for me, but I wonder if I need to go to the doctor and find something that can temporarily numb me out, at least until I'm done with this damn nursing program. If I were fully in control of the situation I would just withdraw myself. Evidently, it is bad for me. But since my family is still in control of my life because they are helping pay some of my bills AND NO I CAN'T JUST NOT DO THIS OR I WILL BE HOMELESS AND SO WILL MY SON AND ALL MY ANIMALS!!!!!! I have no choice.

I am so fucking depressed. In the past there was always a glimmer of hope for the future. Now I don't even have that much and I am wondering what is the sense of continuing on this way.

Having children is NOT an imperative

This was my response to a post at Boing Boing

My only child (now almost 20 years old) was unplanned, but in my defense, I was 24 years old, had been married for six years, and had been told that I could never have children. So he was a surprise, but a good one.
Due to history of psychiatric illness from both his father's and my families (I have bipolar disorder, my ex husband deals with major depression) and his own experiences (my son has major depression and social anxiety disorder) my son has expressed that he is not certain that he ever wants to have his own biological children. I told them that I fully support whatever choice he makes in this matter. There are plenty of children who need to be adopted, and an adopted child is just as much a part of the family as a biological one.