My father voted for Bush because he's scared shitless that gays might be able to get married someday.
My brother voted for Bush because, as he says, "Everyone in the military fucking loves Bush, because he's sending us to war. I've never heard a Marine say anything about serving their country. We just want an excuse to kill people."
My mother voted for Bush because she wants my brother to like her.
And there, you basically have all you need to know about my family.
A disturbing number of people emailed me, concerned about my anxiety. I felt the warm fuzzies. My problem is, sometimes I let a serious entry hang around too long on the top of the blog. After a few days, it's customary to assume that I'm hanging from a rafter somewhere.
I still have trouble sleeping, though less when I exercise. Too much jing means awake time, in the quiet hours when there's nothing to distract from the monsters under the bed.
So I've been better. Doing my kickboxing classes (
Steven Quadros teaches a kickass, silly class), plus tonight I went down to my apartment's little gym and put in 35 minutes on the eliptical thing. I spent the day feeling weird: I took a long ass nap from 7:00 a.m. to about noon, I didn't wash my hair, I wore jeans on a hot day, so I was a grump on that tip. But then we went to Tilly's and I tried on some stuff that reminded me that I'm thin with big nursing tits now, and I felt very
SAMUS, DESTROYER OF WORLDS. My little workout was awesome. I still felt very
SAMUS but also, in all the exertion, I achieved a nice balance. I remembered that working out often has little to do with sculpting the body. It's about creating a stillness in my mind.
One of the things my psychiatrist asked me about, ten years ago, was "racing thoughts." It surprised me to hear that not everyone's mind went from subject to subject within seconds, and on Lithium, I had one thought at a time for six months. It was incredible. After I went off the medication, my thoughts raced again, but I had also started working out, and for those grueling thirty to sixty minutes, things got quiet in my skull. I was better about it back then. I worked out every day without fail for months, even if it was a short walk. But back then, I was fighting a lot of ugly mind shit and I needed to be disciplined to get out of it.
I'm better now, but I've been letting the darkness come, and forgetting all the tools in my belt. There's so much to be said for exercise, water, vitamins, and clean eating.
***
It was more than a year ago that I wrote in this blog that I was on my way to Colorado to visit family, and now I'm gearing up to go again. I'll be there from Wednesday to Sunday. I've had some anxiety about being around my parents and the evil extendeds, but last night I gnawed on those worries like an old piece of saltwater taffy. It felt familiar and easy, to think about that old crap, instead of worrying about my son getting to grow all the way up, and I kind of had fun brewing up insults and imagining slapping the shit out of Evil Aunt. Not that either of those things will ever happen, but boy, they're great fantasies.
The anxiety is keeping me awake at night now. Laying in bed is the worst. When the kid cries, I leap out of bed, having not slept at all, happy to have something to do and a reason to be up. In the early mornings, when I tend to sleep deepest, I dream that I'm awake and trying to sleep. The only reason I know I'm dreaming is, I'm a character in an RPG or something.
In the morning, I fall asleep with The Bug next to me, and sometimes don't wake until after noon. The whole day is off-kilter then.
The anxiety is contagious. Now Mister Aran feels it, and he can't sleep either. The only difference is, he doesn't get that leisurely morning nap.
***
I inherited the problem from my father. I wish I could talk to him about it. The last time he visited, I was suffering from the worst of it, the post-partum depression, and I brought it up to him. He advised me to take the medication offered, and if it had been left at that, it would have been fine. But he couldn't leave it. He obsessed about it. He had to bring it up every day, wanted to know whether I'd filled the prescription, why I wasn't taking it, and he'd go on and on and on. Laying in bed at night, obsessing about shit, I know my father is probably in his bed in Colorado, doing the same thing, and his mother is in her bed, staring at her alarm clock, worried too. It's a disease.
***
When I finally called the doctor about the PPD, it had gotten out of hand. I don't remember if I've already written about it here, so I'll keep it brief. I wasn't functioning. I could take care of The Bug but that was it. It got progressively worse as the day went and by early evening I was in bed, sobbing, incapacitated, about nothing in particular. I couldn't eat and I couldn't sleep. I called the doctor and he was on vacation. The nurse asked me some questions. I took very deep breaths because I was not going to cry, god dammit. I made it through admitting that I cried daily, that I was unable to eat and unable to sleep, and when I did sleep I had horrible nightmares. Then she asked what my nightmares were about, and my voice got very squeaky and I cried because I had to tell her that I was dreaming of my baby dying in horrible ways.
These days, I can eat but I still can't sleep and at least I'm not crying, but the nightmares now happen while I'm awake, and all the time. If I think of taking The Bug to the grocery store, I imagine a car hitting us in the parking lot. If I think about him on the plane to Colorado next week, I think of the plane crashing, the expression on his face. Oh god, I can see his face. I know exactly what his face would look like.
In my mind, we fall down stairs, and I drop him on all manner of hard surfaces and edges. Earthquakes bring every heavy item imaginable down onto his body. People come in through windows and take him away while I put wet laundry into the dryer. He's been shot, stabbed, burned, picked up in tornadoes, drowned in floods, shaken by the babysitter at the gym. He's rolled off all kinds of high spaces while my back was turned. He's had every malady, from heart disease and cancer to acne and bad teeth. Then there's the crib death. How many times have I been absolutely certain, while watching him sleep, that he was dead? Dozens. He's only been alive sixteen weeks. There are so many ways for a person to die that I can't imagine he has a chance. I remind myself that most kids make it these days, but it doesn't help.
***
I wish I could tell my father about this but it wouldn't go well because I want the solution and he doesn't have it.
I wish I could go to a psychiatrist, but all he'd do is prescribe. I've been there before, and the drugs worked, but I don't want the drugs. I want to know how to deal with this. I want to follow steps. I want to check things off lists. I want tools to deal with this problem.
***
For now, I do what I can. I'm going to have less caffeine. I'll start weight training again, go to the gym more often. I'm going to get outside into the fresh air more and keep writing. I'm not going to watch the intense movies or listen to the sad music. I had to do that before and I'll do it again. I'll get through this.
***
Oh, I hope to god I don't pass this down to my son.
Mister Aran is out in the living room right now with The Bug. The kid refuses to sleep, especially lately, and I'm sure it's partly my fault. I belong to an online community of mothers of kids born last July and by two weeks after the births, women were triumphantly posting about their babies sleeping through the night. I usually reply to those threads with, "That's lovely. The day after I gave birth, my belly was flat." Because I hate those bitches, and I believe they deserve to still, at twenty weeks postpartum, look four months pregnant.
***
He will sleep, in bits and pieces, and only in my lap, and only when a nipple is close by. In his sleep, he finds the nipple and goes for it. I'm tired and the apartment is cold and I'm sure I'm fucking up this kid for life by not doing... whatever. There are lots of recommendations, but I'm too exhausted even to list them, much less do them.
***
Hyjal Samus lives again. She butched herself up to level 57 and two thirds and even went on a BRD run the other night. It took five hours and there were many wipes, like eight. She could've done with a bigger mana pool for heals and a more patient rogue and a more knowledgable tank. By the time she called it (and she did have to call it; everyone was crabby and wanting to continue), all her equipment was near broken and I was ready to pass out. The Bug had been on my lap the whole time and my ass was asleep. Mister Aran looked plaintively at me afterward and I thought of all the things I could've done in those five hours. I may never be a hard core raider. Which is sad, because Samus really is so kick ass.
***
Last night, I got a call from the cousin, begging us to go out so she could take care of The Bug. I'm pretty sure that if I'd married the way I was born to marry, I'd be begging other people to take the kid so I could get out.
The inlaws bring me food and then say, "We should hold him while you eat." It's all a grand ploy.
***
It's so good to see Mister Aran out there, holding the baby, to hug them both and smell them, to whisper, "My family."
I am no good at making friends. I don't have any at present writing. I have acquaintances but they live far away and if I had to have lunch with somebody tomorrow it would be a difficult task. Many of them are nothing but words on a screen to me.
It's about who I choose, or who's attracted to me, I guess. I come off loud and assured, so I get people who are quiet and needy. My last attempt was a supreme disaster, almost costing Mister Aran his job. Long story. Boring, too.
Over the years, I've gone through a lot of pain over this. I've complained and I've siphoned off Mister Aran's friends. Truth is, I'm pretty solitary. Even back in school, I stuck to one friend or one boyfriend and put my everything into that relationship, so it's no surprise that I have a fantastic marriage and no physical friends. For the most part, typing online to my acquaintances a few times a week is enough. But it sometimes gets to me, and I start down the spiral of worthlessness until I feel I have nothing to offer, that I try too hard because I'm a waste of a person.
So I'm in the bathroom with this George Saunders book. If you haven't read George Saunders, run, don't walk, to the library or bookstore now. I'm having a hard time re-reading his stuff, though, because it's tough. The people in his stories are real victims, or at least he works really hard making them appear to have no say in their situation, and that's tough on me because my personality hates bullies, wants to help the truly unfortunate, and ultimately I often become the bully and end up hating myself. I know that was a mishmash but it doesn't matter because I wasn't going to talk about George Saunders. I'm saying, I was on the toilet thinking about taking a trip down the worthless spiral and then I remembered something: I can throw a punch.
If someone asked me what I've accomplished, at least I could say, I can throw a punch.
I can also throw a roundhouse kick, and recently my left roundhouse has caught up with my right. I can throw it Thai or Savate style, even though I tend to call the Savate style Froggy-Style, which is a horrible racial slur and I'd be glad if it didn't get out that I say this.
I can write a short story and I can write a novel. I can give birth to a child.
It went on like this while I stared at the cover of the George Saunders novel.
I can be patient with that child, which is pretty amazing to a lot of people. I didn't know that about myself, that I could be very patient with a baby, but I am, unfailingly.
I can choose a good man, and I can make him laugh.
***
Last night at kickboxing class I was on the other side of a heavy bag from Mister Aran and we were kicking back and forth, both very sweaty and tired, and over the music I yelled, "Fuck this; let's quit and get fat and play video games."
He yelled something back that sounded positive so I said, "I could be level sixty if not for this crap."
He yelled, "I could..."
The music was loud.
I said, "I could be exalted by now."
His reply drowned in the music.
We kept kicking.
The Bug takes a long morning nap and that's when I get some stuff done, like my daily load of laundry and my picking up and sometimes some paperwork. In reality, I usually get the laundry and a shower done, and the rest of the time, I'm writing or slacking off at the computer, listening to his bouncy seat vibrate. It makes me feel bad, to do nothing, but for now, I will blame it on the sleepiness.
***
Tomorrow, we're driving way down south to see the folks at Sigil, just because we can. I've been looking forward to Vanguard but I'm afraid I won't fall in love with it like I did with WoW, not only because Mister Aran worked on it and his little artistic touches are everywhere, but also for all the nifty stuff you can do that has nothing to do with levelling. Like hard leather balls, dancing, picking flowers and skinning kills, pets, chattering, and on a pvp server, making night elves pay for being... night elves. Vanguard sounds so serious. I'm sure that, if it turns out to have great, difficult gameplay, FoH will go there even if it isn't as pretty or fun as WoW. We'll see.
We're leaving The Bug with his lolo. It'll be tough. I hate being away from him all day. I have horrendous guilt, not about being away from him so much as leaving the father-in-law alone with him to deal with everything.
***
On Hyjal, I've been having fun levelling and picking flowers for Taurina, who has the maddest laboratory in the guild. I don't group up at all, but I like to mail out all the herbs. It's fun for me.
I should be levelling on Bleeding Hollow, too, but it's nerve-wracking to solo there.
***
I love kickboxing class. Even though my conditioning is shit, I still get the ego boost.
...yeah.
