Ravings of a BiPolar Gothic Witch
     Occasional commentary, observations and tidbits as well as other random thoughts

Well as of yesterday I solidified my schedule (yea!). Ironically, it was not using any of the options I thought of in my last post. That is what happens I guess when I get manic, I feel this need to plan and fix things immediately and thus lose sight of obvious possibilities. There was another class for my physics open on T/Th afternoons which I was able to register for, and now it hits me over the head that it was the obvious choice.

It fits better for a work schedule because I’m scheduled to work most mornings anyway and now I have every morning free (not as long as without class but still early in the AM) and so my boss doesn’t have to radically alter my schedule. The teacher is a little weird, but I’ve already learned most of the material, have the basic methods down, and can do my work independently so that is ok.

Went to class yesterday, and today life is good. I like things to be nice and neat and tidy. Everything in it’s place (in my life, not in my house).

Today was a down day. Weirdly enough it felt like I was on a roller coaster ride, and I did the whole rapid cycling thing. It was the first time for me that I REALLY noticed at the time, rather than looking back and going “oh yea, so that was what was going on”. So much happened today that I feel drained and depressed.

As you can guess school is a big thing for me. It was both an easy (sort of a coin flip really) and hard (good god will I ever be able to do this or will I quit it and not finish just like everything else) sort of thing to go back to school. I’ve been talking about the craziness of trying to get the classes I need, and just when I thought I had everything in the bag, everything set, again today things rocked my world. I don’t do well with schedule changes and uncertainty. Life sucks right now. And that whole unsure feeling leads to worse feelings of depression, and questioning of the whole direction of my life, and that whole downward spiral thing.

First off, I went to see my physics advisor/professor about my gen physics class. I was on the waitlist. Every one says that people drop out like flies and not to worry about it. Well people didn’t drop like flies. The class was still full, and Monday was the last day to drop with full $$ credit. A pretty big deadline. Still didn’t make it off the wait list. There is just 2 of us hanging on there. Was still waitlisted this am, so went to see Dr. Sahami to see if he could make magic happen. Turns out if the class is full it’s full and there isn’t one thing he can do about it. So as of tonight, the waitlist was dropped, and as of Monday, (the last day to add classes at all) if there is no room I don’t get it. And of course, there’s always the uncertainty that if a spot does open up I won’t get there fast enough to be added ( a sort of race over which I really have no control at all). What does all this mean. Well I started out looking at my options and here they were:

Go with the original plan of skipping Physics I (technically I have the credit - but from 20 years ago) and going straight into physics II.

Going into the Saturday class for Physics I (which incidentally only has 1 spot left as well so if I don’t decide that one fast enough I may be screwed there as well).

Going into the T/Th class at 7-fucking-oh-clock (who makes these schedules up anyway?) in the am - which means I’d be late every day cause I can drop Mark off at before care, earliest at 6:30, AND it screws up his schedule AND I’d have to pay for before school care as well as after…

Which leaves me with option 4 which sucks rocks which is to not take physics at all this semester, and either find some stupid filler class which will have absolutely no meaning for my requirements (and thus a waste of money) or take nothing and stay at 7 hours, lose the insurance and again waste money since I’ve taken out the whole semester’s loan but will only be part time, and there is a limited amount of money at the end… Which could possibly mean I run out of money to take classes and never finish.

So for option #1, I tried to go sit in on his Physics II class (plenty of room in there - funny you’d think it’d be reversed seeing as how most people would do physics I in the fall and physics II in the spring and there is no difference in the # of classes - but just my fucking luck striking again I guess. Anyway, sat in on the class and oh boy - I’d never make it. I figured if I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about in the least in the 3rd class (still a bit of review and easier concepts) then I would be screwed trying to figure out the whole rest of the semester. That’s not being entirely fair to myself. Conceptually I totally understood - but it was the calculations that killed me. His equations were way past me… I was lost - a lot like I felt in Physics I at times last semester. I walked out of that stupid class (this is the cascading downward cycle part) feeling totally useless and stupid. I usually consider myself pretty intelligent. But I started questioning my 1) intelligence when people all around me seemed to be totally getting it and 2) my ability to get through more advanced classes if I couldn’t even just get (without much work) the basics and 3) what the hell was I trying to do anyway - it’s such a fucking hardship, I work way too hard being a single mom, trying to get as many hours and all the work I can, and then going to school fulltime - and what if I made the wrong choice what if I fail? and finally 4) is it really my dream to do this or am i totally fucked up?

Then I walked into Calculus. We’re still in algebra/trig review. I’m already questioning my decision to skip trig entirely seeing as how it’s totally used in physics, and half of calc, and even though i kind of get along, i seem to take longer to get things because instead of them being automatic, i have to think them through, but then she gives us this problem where we’re given 3 equations and 4 variables and told to solve for one of them as a function of another. To do it we had to add an equation and afterwards I could see the logic but I walked out feeling even more stupid then before. Thus the downward spiral continues.

I hate not knowing what class I’ll end up in, I hate not knowing if I’ll be skipping physics completely this spring, I hate feeling stupid and questioning my choices and living on the edge financially. I hate all of this.

So after physics I and finding out I may well not get into the class, and before sitting through physics II I felt the adrenline ruch of the mania, the absolute physical and mental reactions - speaking quickly, mind racing, shaking physically. At the same time I was so down about not getting in, and how that is such a big possibility. I don’t know if it’s better to live in ignorance or be aware of how this stupid illness affects me. I guess it still feels new to have the awareness even after 2 years. And I also guess I just need to let go and stop controlling. If I don’t get to do the 2 possible physics classes (Dr. Sahami’s which is what I want, or the Saturday one which I can stand) then I’ll just have to take physics in the summer and catch up. That way I’ll at least be able to have calculus before hand. The trick is relaxing and letting go.

Life sucks right now.

I’ve always liked watching people. I spent a lot of time in the French Quarter in New Orleans. In fact, for most of my marriage to S we spent every weekend there. We didn’t have lots of money, but we’d take the kids (Katie was probably 2-3 and Aaron just a baby) and just walk around, window shop, watch the people. Not just the street performers but all the regular people walking around.

Over the last year I’ve started to pay attention to my inner thoughts as I ride on the Light Rail to and from school, or when I’m driving by people, or walking along campus. One of the things I’ve noticed and I don’t like is that at least 1/2 of the people walking around are talking on cell phones. But other than that just irritating me in the same way that we are raising an instantaneous generation of kids who have everything NOW, it is just something I notice.

But the real thing I see is that as I walk or ride along, I notice all sorts of interesting things. People dress weird. Especially on campus, where there are all sorts of financial classes, chosen styles, nationalities, etc. And walking along hearing the buzz in the background of conversations, cars, street noises, etc it seems to me to be the background of a movie. I frequently find myself seeing the whole thing as a movie playing across my consciousness, and wondering about the people around me, who they are, what they do, where they are going. And then when the occasional louder voices speak out of the crowd drawing my attention, seemingly random bits and pieces adding color to the story. It all seems very abstract yet beautiful. Colors and sound blend together to form a moving story in my head.

The weird part about it, is doing that always makes me feel outside the picture. Like I’m watching a movie and am totally not a part of the interaction. I know that to be false both on a practical level as well as spiritual, but it is a strange experience. However, it doesn’t stop me from enjoying it.

My third child and 2nd boy child turns 14 tomorrow. In honor of the event I took him to dinner at a restaurant of his choice (TrailDust steakhouse - boy did I teach him to have expensive tastes or what?). We had the whole family there, Katie, Aaron, Mark and Spence and his friend Cameron, plus me and Mel. The place, should you have never had the opportunity, is loud, has a live band, a 2 story slide for the kids, a big fuzzy character wandering around, a balloon man and kids everywhere. You can barely hear the person next to you, forget about hearing someone across the table. We did the cake there, and Spence, in spite of hating to be in front of crowds, actually got up on his chair and was a good sport for the whole restaurant birthday thing with his cake and cow bell.

A good time seemed to be had by all. I know Spence really enjoyed it. Here are some pics from it, you can see more by following the link to see the rest.

Well sort of anyway. Haven’t been able to post as much because I had Monday off with the kids and we went to the museum - which was fun. Then starting Tuesday school is back!!! Yeah. My classes keep getting switched around. I know which classes I’m taking but the professor and section and time keep getting changed. It’s really playing havoc with my brain that likes all these things nice and neat and orderly. Here are some of the things that have happened.

Since I transferred schools very late, I got into the registration very late, and therefore classes were limited already. So I did the best I could and kept watching for classes I wanted to open up. When I went to class yesterday I thought I had it all worked out. They weren’t my first choices but they seemed to be good in terms of my work schedule and child stuff etc. So I started out the day with the following schedule:

M, W, Calculus from 1-3 pm
W Physics Lab 3-5
T, R Jazz dance from 5:30-6:45
Sat (ugg) physics 8:30-12:00

Yesterday after sitting through my very full calculus class I realized I did not like the teacher, seeing as how he was INSISTENT with absolutely no compassion for not having the money or the extra time to go to the math lab that I buy the stupid piece of software called Mathematica. Fellow physics students think it is lousy, and my TI-89 can do whatever it can. He even tried to type out this very complex calculation to prove his point and I said “I can do that on my TI-89″. He didn’t care. He didn’t care that I could print it out from my calculator - “can it do it with this much resolution”? Who the fuck cares if it does what is needed…

Anyway, then I went to visit my cosmology teacher from last semester to get my final and say hi, and he couldn’t find it (I told him he shredded it after our coffee date because he couldn’t stand looking at it - it made him laugh). When he asked who I was taking physics with he almost had a convulsion when I told him. So I ended up yet again, switching classes around. I am now on the waiting list for my advisor’s physics class and will very likely make it in (he’s told me he’d make an exception for me as a physics student). Then I switched my calculus class, and as a result had to switch my physics lab. It has increased the child care needed for Mark (unless I drive to class every day and pay gas/parking which I may) and it has totally screwed working on Mondays or Wednesdays but I’ll be able to work all day T,R, F and Sat. Hopefully my boss will pity me and give me all the hours he can.

But yes, haven’t written - got a life (for a while anyway).

And it looks like my daughter will be coming over for a movie date tonight - HOORAY!

Sometimes I really hate my thought processes. It seems like it takes a tremendous amount of time and effort to understand all the undercurrents of what is going on inside my head. Like the barrier that I put up so long ago as a child in self defense has completely severed the mechanism for understanding feelings, and so instead I have to fish for them. I don’t like that.

I’ve been writing about parenting the last few posts. Well I like closure. I think things to be said so I can let go of them. So I spent 48 hours composing an email to the stepmom of my kids about how I was sad at the change in our relationship, that I didn’t like where it had gone, that I was worried about my kids… needless to say it was a very long letter. The point is however, is that somewhere along in the process (maybe the 4th revision or so - YES I am that anal) I figured out that there were some buried resentments at the loss of control and not being included in decisions and important meetings and appointments in their lives. Sometimes the mention that something even happened is simply an after thought for both my ex and his wife. I realized that it seems like when I gave them up to go live with them, that I gave up any parenting rights whatsoever, and so I just don’t get told about anything unless I ask, and then with her, most of the time I really don’t even get relevant information either - I just hear how frustrated she is.

I don’t get it. I don’t know why it takes so much to figure out that I’m holding that resentment (or that anger, or fear or pain). I act from those feelings but have no clue that they even exist. So here for me is the question.

Am I more in tune with myself then the normal person, and thus actually realize that I have buried emotions and feelings and work to uncover them (most of the time unconsciously until they come up and bite me in the ass), or am I less in tune with myself. Meaning does the average sheep out there know exactly how they are feeling at any given moment? Alas, I am only myself and can’t step inside another. So I may never know.

Regardless I hate having sudden revelations of feelings - figuring out that I was actually motivated by something I didn’t even know was there. It feels like I’m two people, and one of them I really don’t know. And that sucks.

Last night I had a really wonderful night. I got to spend time with my daughter. Apparently all my worrying and trying to figure out what to do had at least one positive effect. In my concern I wrote an email to reach out to her. She replied and told me that things were no where as bleak as I had painted them in my head (Yeah!), but that things had happened in the last year, each of which had made her wish she could just come crawl into my lap and curl up. That she wanted her mommy.

It made me feel so much better knowing that I really was wanted. I don’t know why she kept herself back from it. I do know that she had had a recent hurt (last Wed) and that she really wanted me to help her and talk to her, and said that she had cried that night almost as much from not being able to have me with her as she did from the hurt.

The email made me cry, but also made me feel like maybe we’ve crossed a bridge. Maybe, just maybe, my heart will let in a little hope, that we can start to be close the way we were. As she said “there are somethings that you just want your mommy for”…

So I called her after the email, asked to take her to dinner that night, and went to the store and bought her any junk food she wanted, brought her home and we sat on the couch and talked about 1st loves, their joys and pain, and then watched the movie “Practical Magic”. That is definitely one of my favorites. And hers too.

After the movie, I just gathered her into my arms, tucking her head under my chin and held her. Just having her there, in my arms, holding her and smelling the wonderful smell of my daughter, so precious to me was the most beautiful gift I’ve received in months. It made me feel that all will be right with the world in its own time. I felt simple and pure joy.

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On a funny note, since I’m too lazy to write a second post for this, I had a funny thing happen tonight at a bookstore. I’m wiccan (gasp…). Anyway, my 13 year old son is going through a year of spiritual growth, both from the church (we’re Unitarians) in the “Coming of Age” program, and on his own exploration of what he believes. Of all the kids wicca resonates for him the most. He has asked for his own tarot deck as a birthday present, and so tonight we were in B&N looking at the various ones. I think I’ll probably end up taking him to a metaphysical store because as PC as B&N want’s to get, they just don’t have much to offer.

Anyway, we were sitting in the aisle, and I was explaining that the images of the deck should speak to him. When he looks at the image on a card, it should give him some sense of it’s meaning without having to look it up. When you find that deck, that is the one for you. For me that has NEVER been the Rider-Waite tarot, as I find it’s images garish and disturbing.

So there we were sitting discussing the merits of this or that deck, and a young woman who had been sort of circling us suddenly says partially to the books in front of her, “You know that stuff is part of witchcraft” very seriously.

I looked over at her and said the simple truth, which as an after thought I imagine scared the daylights out of her. “I know, I’m a witch, thank you”.

She kind of stumbled looking quite shocked, and started down the aisle with a very loud “God bless you (and something else I didn’t quite hear), to which I replied “and also to you” at which she apparently knocked a few books off one of the tables in the center of the aisles in her haste to get away because we heard a cascade of books hit the floor.

The woman who was so concerned for myself and my children and our poor hell ridden souls, did not have the decency to even stop to pick them up and left them where they lay.

We finished our discussion of the merits of the few decks, and then ourselves proceeded down the aisle she had gone down, and paused to pick up the books and set them back on the table. From what I could tell the woman apparently almost ran out of the store.

Sheesh. She was in the military. If she had stayed at all close to continue the conversation which she started, I would have been glad to direct her to her chaplain since Wicca is recognized as a valid faith within the military and chaplains are trained in it as much as any other faith to be able to minister to our pagan military folk. She didn’t give me the chance and thus yet another soul is wandering, afraid and ignorant.

I am divorced. Two times with children. For those of you not following the whole story, I have 4 kids. Three are from a first marriage that ended badly, but now that my ex has been clean for several years, I would say we have a fair relationship and work together to parent the kids. More on that later.

The second marriage produced my youngest son, and the ex and I don’t get along AT ALL, which has been written about quite a bit in this blog.

But this is about the first set. I’ve also written some about the illnesses in my kids, how it affects me etc. Well my two oldest live with their Dad. This isn’t as big a deal as it could be since he and his wife (their step mom) live only 10 or so blocks away and ideally we could see each other a lot. However we don’t and there are many reasons for that. They had a hellish childhood. My ex, their step father was a raging man. Yelling was always present in the house, things were always chaos, and certainly with an undiagnosed bipolar, I was not much help, and not much of a parent. I made many mistakes. I wrote a few posts ago about my fall of hell, but if there was a worse place that our language had a word for, then I could write about the early part of 2004 and the (insert word here of hell unimaginable) our family fell apart quite literally. My daughter was the first diagnosed with bipolar in Dec of 2003.

Shortly after that, in a fit of rage, my ex went after my oldest son when he like a normal teenager didn’t get up to do his chore of dishes when commanded. Admittedly, he was wrong for mouthing off, but had built some size, and as boys of that age do, took a swing at my ex. Up to this point, my ex had worked to contain Aaron when he was out of control until he calmed down. But this time there ensued a wrestling match on the floor with punches flying in both directions. In short, my ex descended into a level of a teenager and went after my son. Given that he weighed easily 2x my son, it was clear to see who was going to be the victor of this battle. My son, totally out of control took off, in short sleeves into the coldest night of that winter and didn’t come back for 2 hours. My mind was turmoil at that point, and after it all, I told my ex that that was it. We were done. All of this happened in full view of the other three children who were of course completely traumatized as well.

We separated right after Christmas (not a banner holiday by anyone’s standards that year). The following months, my 13 year old was diagnosed and hospitalized for a month (1 week inpatient, 3 weeks out), my daughter went into the hospital 2 times, once because she had become increasingly out of control and threatened me, and the second having tried to commit suicide, and myself twice. The first time was from an attempted suicide (coinciding with my daughter’s hospitalization and the discovery that she had been molested by the ex 7 years previous) and my son’t utter inability to deal and running away the next morning. Somewhere in the middle of all that my littlest revealed his psychosis, and I was hospitalized again for a mania attack after having been put on prozac.

During that time the father of the oldest three married and had a child while living in New Orleans. His wife is a good bit younger, and was not really prepared for having 3 teenagers as step children. When all this was happening, and I was coming to grips with all the illness in our family (including my own) I begged him to come up to help with the children. My only undiagnosed child was completely freaked at this point, and a joint decision was made for him to be pulled out of the situation and taken to New Orleans with his Dad. In retrospect this wasn’t the right choice since he had no one there for friends and had been yanked from school which he didn’t attend for the rest of the spring. My ex made plans to move here and did so in July of that summer. Meanwhile, Katie had gone to live with them as well after she finished yet another year at school, having been moved to an alternative school where she seemed to do ok.

After they all moved up here, both my oldest son and daughter stayed with my ex and his wife, mostly just because of all the crazy stuff and conflict that had happened before leaving my house. It has been a slow and painful process to rebuild relationships and while it is not what I want, it is coming along.

All of that, is of course, preamble to my real post here, which is co-parenting.

When first they moved her, my ex’s wife and I got on very well. We’ll call her L. (Who knows if she reads my blog - there are links in my email so I’m sure it’s possible but given the fact that it won’t fool her I guess it really doesn’t matter if I use her name… just makes me feel better LOL). We were good friends for a while. We even went out together for New Years eve a year ago.

But over the last year kinks in the chain have gotten stretched to breaking. My personal opinion is that dealing with 3 teens, even were they normal would be an enormous thing to walk into when you had only a 2 year old. Walking into a situation where there are 2 diagnosed with mental illness (my daughter had completely rejected her diagnosis and is supported in this by them and so thus is in the throes of deep depression right now) makes it even harder.

The main breaks at this point have been the talk I’ve heard from my kids about L talking bad about me, and about her opinion of my illness, and how it makes me incompetent and crazy. There are other things but that has really been bad. There were 2 occasions where she lied outright to me, one inconsequential and one which involved my little one and him not being at her house when he should have been after school (they were watching him for me since I watched her little boy). And then there is the last few weeks.

My daughter has slipped further and further into depression. She is to the point now where she doesn’t really get out of bed, last semester she skipped school most of the time (and failed 2 classes she had to have to graduate in her 5th year of HS), and is clearly not ok. L not only seems to totally reject that Katie has bipolar (I’ve never seen her manic - like we are manic all the time) and really doesn’t understand depression. For the last several months she has told Katie to her face constantly that “She’s done dealing with her”, “Katie needs to get off her butt and stop being lazy” and every other combination of this that can be imagined. Meanwhile Katie slips deeper and deeper into depression. I’ve tried to talk to L two times about how Katie just can’t. That she is so depressed it is not a will power thing. You don’t just decide to suddenly say “Oh my gosh, I’ve got to snap out of this”. It doesn’t work. On the one side of her mouth L says “I KNOW she’s depressed (imagine the exasperated tone here) and then on the other side, she’ll continue to say “But she has to get up and DO something”. Lately I’ve noticed that it’s become an issue of Katie “getting between L and my ex”. While that happens in every step parenting situation, in this one, her animosity towards Katie and the messages she is giving her about it being her fault, and that she is just lazy and unable to do anything from lack of motivation is driving Katie deeper and deeper. And all I can do is watch her fall.

It came to a fever pitch yesterday. I dropped my son off yesterday and went in to see Katie. As usual I listened to her rant about Katie’s current behavior after I had asked how she was, and listened without saying anything through several iterations of “she’s gotta DO xxx”. I held my tongue as long as possible. The woman is either incapable or just don’t want to understand what Katie is going through and the impossibility of her situation, and how she is continuing to get worse partially due to the constant messages that she is just lazy and the total lack of support. Now L’s even enlisting Katie’s boyfriend to give her the same “motivation”. Katie’s only ally, the only one who she turns to and feels safe with.

After several minutes of this, I finally just looked at her and said “You just don’t get it. Katie CAN’T do anything. She can’t make a choice. She’s incapacitated by her depression”. L totally went off on me. It was bad enough that my 13 year old son told me later he wanted to yell at L and tell her she had no right to talk to me that way and that she should stop (I’m glad he didn’t - it might turn her on him as well).

Some of what she said was that I had kicked her out to begin with and thus had no business telling them how to parent her, and that they were doing the best they could but she had to do something. That if she was depressed she had to get help, but it was clear there was not going to be any support or help directed for Katie to do even that. That again L “was done”. The messages I get from L are that she really doesn’t want to parent or care for either Aaron or Katie. I think she’s probably realized she stepped into a landmine and doesn’t know how to step off without blowing up her life. I imagine my ex feels caught in the middle and I know she is pushing him into dealing with Katie the way L feels, and probably threatening their marriage as well. None of this is healthy for my kids, and she has no tolerance for my input, and obviously feels that my knowledge and advice are totally worthless since I’m crazy and she doesn’t believe the kids are truly mentally ill. She thinks that they are fine and that all the doctors who work with them have been influenced by me to diagnose them, and that it is all a big push on my part to find drugs to medicate the kids when they just need something else (good parenting?). Of course they aren’t getting that from her…

Anyway, the last time my daughter was this depressed she tried to commit suicide. The only thing that makes me feel remotely better is that to my knowledge since she fears pain, there is no means (no pills which is what she used the first time) to actually do it on the spur of the moment which is also how it was done last time. This would have to be planned out, premeditated. I pray that she isn’t that far down. Of course, converting her boyfriend into an non support is not exactly going to help that either as it will make Katie feel completely alone.

I have scheduled a talk with my ex this weekend over coffee. I hope to get through to him about her illness and brain storm on ways to help her before she self destructs. I only hope it is enough.

The stuff I’m about to write about, these theories and thoughts have been rattling around in my head a long time, years in fact. But recently, I have been doing some reading and some things have started to come together, some cohesiveness has formed. I wanted to share it.

In growing up, people of my generation had all the “happy family, all problems can be solved with the family pulling together” sort of tv shows. Partridge family, Brady Bunch, reruns of Leave it to Beaver, etc. I am pretty sure most of us saw those shows as really neat, but really not reality. Our own families, even if doing well, never matched those shows. They were ideals, and as ideals totally unrealistic. So when we viewed our families, maybe a Mom or Dad passed out from booze regularly, someone doing things to us or a sibling that weren’t supposed to happen, essentially all the stuff that can happen to make a childhood hell instead of the idyllic one portrayed on tv, we didn’t blame anyone, we just dealt with it and moved on.

For example, I didn’t know my Dad. He was never talked about in my family because my mother had an affair with him, while he was married, and to save my life (apparently) he stayed with his psychotic wife who threatened to kill both my mom and me. I didn’t know the whole story until much later, but I did know that he wasn’t around and that there was some deep dark rich hidden secret about my whole beginnings and that WE JUST DIDN”T TALK ABOUT IT. My mom then died of what can in the best of terms be considered malpractice, but my family never considered suing the hospital, it just wasn’t done in a time when doctors were Gods and infallible. It would have been justified in this case, but again, it just wasn’t done by honest folk.

I moved in with my Aunt and Uncle and starting about a year later lived through molestation by him when he would drink and my Aunt wasn’t home. I learned to stay away from home at times like that. There was lots of other stuff that probably damaged me out of who I might have been, but I still went to school, hid the family dirty laundry, got good grades even though I hung with the “bad kids” and threw the wildest parties, and went on to college. When I got to college, particularly when I went into theatre, I started to see that almost all the kids in the major had problems growing up. Not all of them, but I can honestly say that the ones who had “normal” upbringings weren’t very good. They didn’t have the spark, the creativity.

All of that is preamble. The things I’ve been chewing on have to do with today’s generation of kids growing up. My kids, your kids, the kids of society. Every generation has its gap. Clearly. Every parental generation feels that there is something just wrong about the culture their kids deal with and subscribe to. But I think this one, this generational gap, is more serious. And I have to wonder. Is it the fact that by being more open about mental illness, more into therapy, into prescription drugs, more into “understanding” has led our kids a way out. An excuse? Perhaps in going where we’ve gone as a society we’ve swung so far on the pendulum that kids growing up not only subscribe to the media’s portrayal of perfection (that is for another post) but then in being “out” about all the family problems, use that as an excuse to say Fuck it. Just can’t do it. To give up before they even try?

Don’t get me wrong about wanting things to be open. I do. I don’t lie to my kids. Not about the things I’ve done, or the family’s dirty laundry. I’m not going to ignore any signs of mental illness or problems for the sake of being “normal” to others. But have we gone too far. The kids I see today are spoiled, unmotivated, and unable to cope with their world, let alone start to comprehend all the necessities that come with being an adult (job, school, marriage, etc). Not only that they completely blame their parents. The kids’ problems are because mommy and daddy didn’t do this or that, or were to something or not something enough. There is no expectation in them, or many times in the parents for these kids to reach out and excel anyway. Excel in spite of problems, in spite of issues. To overcome. In being so careful with them, have we made them unable to grow up they way we did? Is there something worthwhile (at least a bit) in the “buck up” attitude… does part of that attitude lead to self confidence? Could Martin Luther King, Jr. or any other great leaders have been born into this generation? I don’t know. Again it’s just ponderings from observations of late.

And here’s the rub for me. Are we losing creativity by our kids growing up this way? Maybe creativity and adversity/hardship are truly linked. Look at Kids with Cameras. AND PLEASE do yourself a wonderful favor and get the movie Born into Brothels, by Ross Kauffman and Zana Briski, which is the chronical of these first kids and the beginning project. The point is, these kids face horrors and hardship almost incomprehensible for us in the US to understand. But the artwork that comes from them is astounding.

Most of the lists of bipolars I have seen include the most famous politicians, scientists, and artists of their day. And I know from my own experience, that on my meds I have a harder time accessing that piece of my psyche. My muse hides her face and it is very hard to find her. Leading to the question, “Do Robin Williams and Jim Carey (not to mention tons of others) go off their meds to do their best work?” If not, how do they get to that part of themselves…

So in all this medical discovery are we making ourselves a better humanity? Is bipolar really an illness? Or is it a different brain that comes from being wired to achieve something different, something beautiful? Are there other ways to deal that don’t shut that off? Where will this all lead?

I don’t know. I just ask the questions.

Well, with whatever you stock you put into those silly quizzes and such, here is another one (but I knew it all along):

You’re a witchy woman! Chances are that you see
Morticia Addams as a role model, and your
wardrobe sports a fair amount of black. The
other mothers at school pick up may look
askance, but your kids already know that the
judgement of others isn’t what counts.

What kind of a freaky mother are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

I’m lonely. Today as I spent the day in stores, I stood in line next to a attractive man who was around the same age as me. Mark invaded his space as the man slid his card through the card reader to pay for his items. You know the personal bubble of space that gives you elbow room and some modicum of privacy while entering your ATM pin. As adults we seem to instinctively know not to invade that bubble but for children there is no bubble for others. They have their own of course which is easy to sense and violation of it is one of the worst crimes there is. For instance, making a child kiss Great Uncle Ed, when the child really doesn’t want to. But that is a topic for another rant.

However, today as Mark brushed up against the man, I apologized and commented that he wasn’t yet aware of our boundaries. As the man turned and smiled at me, he commented that few people today really did seem to have that awareness. Then as he finished paying and collected his bags, he turned to me and with a very genuine smile, say that he hoped I had a good day. As he walked away I thought that there went a man I might have liked to have known. I am in a large city, crowded with people. Every time I go out I brush up against and am surrounded with people everywhere. Normally this is not a pleasant thing for me. I don’t like crowds, I don’t like rude and/or mean people and I really don’t enjoy being ignored like a fence post. But today I got this feeling about knowing there is probably someone out there somewhere. Some one who matches me. Some one who has multipersonalities to match mine, who loves to dance all night at a goth club, who likes to dress up in black, who speaks his mind, likes card games and motorcycles and the same kind of movies and ice cream I do. Someone who can talk about string theory, and philosophy, and believes that we are here to live, learn and love. And with every person around me, who’s to say like in those silly sappy romantic movies that the man in Target who just walked out the door as I paid my bill wasn’t him? I do believe in soul mates. I don’t necessarily believe that we just have one. But I do believe that we have souls connected to others that journey together through a string of lives learning and living together. I believe my children and friends are that way, and most likely my exhusbands, and others in my life that I might not choose this life time to be around any longer. We’re connected. And even if I don’t meet him, somewhere, there is a man who matches me, with whom I can be more than whole. I hope that we don’t just meet in a grocery store and see each other walk away.