So I got pregnant. I had high hopes about what my pregnancy experiences would be this time around. I'd had such a rough time physically when I was pregnant the first time, but I had also been so young and scared and unprepared. I had to work full time and ride around on a bike in the Charleston summer muck and didn't really have much of an immediate support system, and I also was soooo, soooo sick every day. I also hadn't had a fantastic kid to hang out with and to be a bright spot in my life.
The circumstances surrounding my second pregnancy were much different from the first. The second time around, I was already married, I was of a much more appropriate age to have a baby (though now it seems like it was still pretty young), I was surrounded by family and friends, I had a car, I had a husband I really liked being around, and I did not have to work outside of the home.
I thought that maybe since my circumstances were so much more positive, I would not be so sick this time.
I was wrong.
I'm not going to go into all of the details, but here is the bottom line: I am NOT a breeder. My mind and my body simply are not compatible with human reproduction. I am very grateful for my kids, but I don't think I could handle another pregnancy.
It wasn't just the physical sickness that was so difficult, it was the way my emotions just spiraled up and down and all over the place. I had a very difficult time interacting with people in a way I could believe was positive. It was lonely.
There was something very unique for me during that time, though. After I had Wes (the first baby) I had begun to take meds for ADHD again. My dad had insisted on it as a condition of my employment in his company. I had not stopped taking those meds in the years that followed - it did not occur to me that I should, or even could.
But when I got pregnant again, the meds stopped. And it was like I woke up. To life.
I began to have periods of time in which I enjoyed being around other people, such as my mom and neighbors and acquaintances.
I LAUGHED. The reason I put that word in all caps is because I had never laughed like that before - it was like a big laugh would just jump out of my mouth without my even realizing it was happening. I still laugh like that. It has taken some getting used to, and can be a little embarrassing at times, because it is just so spontaneous. And loud. My mom actually calls it a cackle.
I definitely cannot complain about my laugh. It feels really good, even if it catches me off guard, to have that kind of joy in my own body and mind.
So let me reiterate: I had a really hard time with my 2nd pregnancy, but I also gained a new sense of who I am - and I liked it. I have not resumed taking those ADHD meds, and I plan to never do so.
A big part of this is because of the way the meds made me feel, and another big part of it is that I don't have ADHD. It turns out that kids with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder exhibit similar behaviors to those typically associated with ADHD.
I don't remember if I had written about this before (anybody wanna be my editor?), but I will bring it up regardless. My mom has talked about how she knew something was wrong with me ever since I was really little. She described searching and searching for an answer to my behaviors and thought processes. When a teacher recommended I be tested for ADD when I was in the 5th grade, my mom felt a big sense of relief and poured herself into learning about the disorder and what she could do to help me cope.
I remember being tested for ADD, but I don't remember what the exact diagnosis may have been. I do know that I did not see a psychiatrist regarding any type of behavior-altering meds until I was 16 and went on Prozac for the first time. I just know that I started taking Ritalin in the 5th grade and began being very absorbed in my school work, or any other work I happened to be doing.
Anyway, before my 2nd pregnancy, I had been on some sort of medication that altered my mind and behaviors for over half of my life. I took Ritalin for years, and then insisted on stopping in high school, but began doing recreational drugs. Then I began doing Ritalin recreationally, which eventually led to meth. I did not do any type of drugs during my 1st pregnancy, but circumstances and whatever really exacerbated my depression, which was exacerbated by pregnancy hormone-type stuff to begin with.
There were also a lot of other factors affecting my mental and physical and emotional states during pregnancy that I would not even be aware of for years afterward. But that is getting ahead of myself a bit.
I have received at least two very substantial and positive gifts as a result of each of my pregnancies. From my 1st, I received a definite knowledge that I was worth something in this world, and of course, Wesley. From my second, I received a definite knowledge that I was - on some level - a human being who could have real and vivid positive feelings and experiences in a social environment, and of course, Jonah.
The significance of these gifts, as applied to my view of my self, is that I had never before really even been aware that I could have these beliefs about myself. It wasn't just that I did not believe I was worth something or that I could have positive relationships with others, it was that it had not even occurred to me that these were possibilities.
I had very literally accepted that I would just be a lonely and misunderstood person, that the relationships I had with Jonny and my kids were unique in that they were the closest I would ever get to just feeling comfortable around other human beings.
The discovery of this underlying personality consisting of distinctly positive human traits and feelings that I could actually feel were part of me, of my being, was very, very nice. It gave me a lot of hope, simply for my existence.
It amazes me the things human beings take for granted. The ability to live among other people and simply enjoy breathing in and out and being awake and having interactions that are not, at the very least a mind fuck, and at the very most devastating, is truly a gift.
I would like to point out that I had been able to have fun and experience joy and happiness and benefit from relationships - there are actually quite a few relationships I can think of right now that included a feeling of being loved.
However, I cannot think of any relationships in which I felt I was - just me, all by myself - capable of loving, just for who I am. I still have a difficult time accepting that people can just love me because I am me - I am constantly trying to figure out the benefits others may get from being around me in order to prove to myself that I am genuinely liked.
For most of my life - and even today - I struggle with the fundamental belief that my value as a person is contingent upon the level of shit I am willing to suffer at the hands of others. For example, with guys especially, what can I let them to do with my body - give them the right to have and control and manipulate - that will make it worth it for them to have anything to do with me.
It has just now occurred to me that I never really believed I had any genuine relationships with females. I mean, I do today, but there is a big difference between the befores and afters of remembering all of that horrendous shit that I may some day bring myself to share in this blog.
The process of my healing - of my living, really - began with the death of much of whom I believed myself to be. And that started, very definitively, three years ago. I'm 34 years old. That's 31 years of unrecognized and unaddressed self-loathing and fear and shame to contend with.
It's a lot. For today, though, I'm doing really good. So good, in fact, that I think I will stop writing for now and go enjoy me some coffee and pandora radio.
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Part 13 (wow! this is becoming a whole book)
People have been saying good things about this blog – that is why I keep at it. I do not like thinking of these things or writing about them. However, it really is time to get it all out, and what better way to do that than blogging publicly for admiring readers?
I feel very much like rushing ahead in the story, ahead to the part where all the shit hit the fan (the shit and the fan in my head, anyway). I will try to just keep writing it in relatively chronological order, though…
After I moved back in to my mom’s house (it was now “my mom’s house,” no longer “my parents’ house”), I had a string of short-lived jobs. I don’t know if I was looking for something better each time I quit a job, or just wasn’t able to handle the responsibility of normalcy and reliability, or I had problems with authority, or what. Probably all of that. It seems as though I had good reasons each time I left a job, though.
I left my temp work in Atlanta because I wanted something closer to Peachtree City. I left my job as an assistant pre-school teacher because I needed to be making more money. I left my job as a cashier because the manager wouldn’t let me train in a different department on account of my vagina – or more specifically, my lack of a penis. I quit my job as a bartender because I kept forgetting to go when I was scheduled, and they were going to fire me anyway.
Before I quit the bar tending job, though, a monumental event happened. I got arrested. Technically, it was for not having auto insurance, but in reality, it was because I was a big smart-ass bitch to the cops. I have had a lot of resentment about that over the years, because being a big smart-ass bitch is not illegal. In retrospect, I suppose I could have reserved my right to be a big smart-ass bitch for a time when I was not actually doing something legitimately illegal, like driving without insurance.
Ahhh, the clarity of hindsight…and maturity. I was only 22 years old when that arrest happened. As much as I might have ever thought I would hate saying this, I have really grown up a lot – A LOT – since then, which is a good thing, as it was over ten years ago. Anyway, back to the trials of youth, or some shit like that.
I was outraged at my arrest. I was a lot of other things, too – it changed how I fundamentally looked at the world. I’m not even exaggerating. It shook my sense of security, which was shaky to begin with, to the core. I asked for a jury trial, and being unable to afford (or want) an attorney, became obsessed with criminal law and procedure.
There’s an Ok Go song that has the lyric, “Could’ve been a genius if you had an axe to grind.” The arrest and subsequent legal battle together composed my axe. And I was grinding it hard.
I became ridiculously knowledgeable about laws, which the judge apparently found obnoxious, and was appointed a court-ordered attorney. As a result of all of the law-learning, though, I was offered a job at the law office my attorney worked at. Since I had left the bar tending job, I had not been employed, so I was like, “ok.”
It was AWESOME! I LOVED it! And I was really, really good at it. The attorney I worked for pretty much gave me carte blanche and I researched all of his cases, ranging from petty marijuana cases to death penalty cases. I filed all the papers and worked with the clients and started writing motions on my own, and it wasn’t long before the lawyer was allowing me to write his motions to dismiss illegally obtained evidence, which was my specialty, and he would just read it and sign it.
The stuff I wrote for him was good, and it almost always won, resulting in criminal cases getting dismissed and other things an attorney is happy about adding to his record. I also loved writing appeals, and just generally loved arguing via strongly worded letters (which is basically all legal pleadings are).
Like I said, I was GOOD. I was also OBSESSED. I was working 12-14 hour days, then taking my work home with me. It was absolutely consuming. Keep in mind I was still dating Jonny, and in fact had become engaged during this time. I also still had a son.
That Erin Brockovich movie came out during that time, too, and people kept saying, “oh my god, you have to see that movie, it’s just like you!” This made me uncomfortable, as I had no idea who Erin Brockovich was, and when I finally saw the movie, I was jolted into reality.
I did not want to be Erin Brockovich. I mean, she’s pretty badass and everything, and she’s helped a lot of people, which are at least two things I would like to attribute to myself. However, the OBSESSION with her work to the point of ignoring everything else around her, including her kids, hit me hard – because that really is how I was.
I didn’t have to be concerned about that for too much longer, because soon after that Jonny and I bought a house and got married, and then my kid went to his first day of kindergarten at the same elementary school I had attended. This was way too much reality for me to handle all at once, and I had a pretty hearty little breakdown.
I quit my job with no notice to my boss or to my husband. I began spending all of my time inside the house, still researching criminal law and things of that nature, even though I had nothing to do with the information once I’d obtained it.
The house was filled with tons and tons of piles of paper from my research – I had kept it all from the job, and didn’t want to let it go, and continued accumulating it from home. I was certain I would need it at some point in my life, and I didn’t have access to all of that information without a law office or library or online database.
I had to keep it, I had to have all of this knowledge and information and proof that I was smart and capable and exceptionally good at something that most people could not do at all. It was what distinguished me from all the other trashy rednecks from the south who never finished high school and had gotten into drugs and had babies as teenagers.
That was how I felt at the time anyway. I didn’t realize it then, that what I was doing was trying to prove to myself that I was not trashy and crazy and all of the others labels that come with all of the other things I had done that were not socially exemplary, especially in Peachtree City, Georgia. While I do not have the same views and perceptions at the current date, that was definitely how I felt at that time.
It was a very difficult time for me, but also a beautiful time of being with my new husband and my growing son. I LOVED being married to Jonny – I still do. I LOVED being my kid’s mom – I still do. I had never had so much time to spend with both of them before, and truly enjoyed being with them – I still do.
All around, it was a period of time in my life in which I experienced a lot of intense things in a short amount of time. Not necessarily good things, and not necessarily bad things – just really intense things. It was difficult for me to be forced to sit with it all.
And then I got pregnant. You know what happens when you get pregnant, right? EVERYTHING changes.
To be continued…
I feel very much like rushing ahead in the story, ahead to the part where all the shit hit the fan (the shit and the fan in my head, anyway). I will try to just keep writing it in relatively chronological order, though…
After I moved back in to my mom’s house (it was now “my mom’s house,” no longer “my parents’ house”), I had a string of short-lived jobs. I don’t know if I was looking for something better each time I quit a job, or just wasn’t able to handle the responsibility of normalcy and reliability, or I had problems with authority, or what. Probably all of that. It seems as though I had good reasons each time I left a job, though.
I left my temp work in Atlanta because I wanted something closer to Peachtree City. I left my job as an assistant pre-school teacher because I needed to be making more money. I left my job as a cashier because the manager wouldn’t let me train in a different department on account of my vagina – or more specifically, my lack of a penis. I quit my job as a bartender because I kept forgetting to go when I was scheduled, and they were going to fire me anyway.
Before I quit the bar tending job, though, a monumental event happened. I got arrested. Technically, it was for not having auto insurance, but in reality, it was because I was a big smart-ass bitch to the cops. I have had a lot of resentment about that over the years, because being a big smart-ass bitch is not illegal. In retrospect, I suppose I could have reserved my right to be a big smart-ass bitch for a time when I was not actually doing something legitimately illegal, like driving without insurance.
Ahhh, the clarity of hindsight…and maturity. I was only 22 years old when that arrest happened. As much as I might have ever thought I would hate saying this, I have really grown up a lot – A LOT – since then, which is a good thing, as it was over ten years ago. Anyway, back to the trials of youth, or some shit like that.
I was outraged at my arrest. I was a lot of other things, too – it changed how I fundamentally looked at the world. I’m not even exaggerating. It shook my sense of security, which was shaky to begin with, to the core. I asked for a jury trial, and being unable to afford (or want) an attorney, became obsessed with criminal law and procedure.
There’s an Ok Go song that has the lyric, “Could’ve been a genius if you had an axe to grind.” The arrest and subsequent legal battle together composed my axe. And I was grinding it hard.
I became ridiculously knowledgeable about laws, which the judge apparently found obnoxious, and was appointed a court-ordered attorney. As a result of all of the law-learning, though, I was offered a job at the law office my attorney worked at. Since I had left the bar tending job, I had not been employed, so I was like, “ok.”
It was AWESOME! I LOVED it! And I was really, really good at it. The attorney I worked for pretty much gave me carte blanche and I researched all of his cases, ranging from petty marijuana cases to death penalty cases. I filed all the papers and worked with the clients and started writing motions on my own, and it wasn’t long before the lawyer was allowing me to write his motions to dismiss illegally obtained evidence, which was my specialty, and he would just read it and sign it.
The stuff I wrote for him was good, and it almost always won, resulting in criminal cases getting dismissed and other things an attorney is happy about adding to his record. I also loved writing appeals, and just generally loved arguing via strongly worded letters (which is basically all legal pleadings are).
Like I said, I was GOOD. I was also OBSESSED. I was working 12-14 hour days, then taking my work home with me. It was absolutely consuming. Keep in mind I was still dating Jonny, and in fact had become engaged during this time. I also still had a son.
That Erin Brockovich movie came out during that time, too, and people kept saying, “oh my god, you have to see that movie, it’s just like you!” This made me uncomfortable, as I had no idea who Erin Brockovich was, and when I finally saw the movie, I was jolted into reality.
I did not want to be Erin Brockovich. I mean, she’s pretty badass and everything, and she’s helped a lot of people, which are at least two things I would like to attribute to myself. However, the OBSESSION with her work to the point of ignoring everything else around her, including her kids, hit me hard – because that really is how I was.
I didn’t have to be concerned about that for too much longer, because soon after that Jonny and I bought a house and got married, and then my kid went to his first day of kindergarten at the same elementary school I had attended. This was way too much reality for me to handle all at once, and I had a pretty hearty little breakdown.
I quit my job with no notice to my boss or to my husband. I began spending all of my time inside the house, still researching criminal law and things of that nature, even though I had nothing to do with the information once I’d obtained it.
The house was filled with tons and tons of piles of paper from my research – I had kept it all from the job, and didn’t want to let it go, and continued accumulating it from home. I was certain I would need it at some point in my life, and I didn’t have access to all of that information without a law office or library or online database.
I had to keep it, I had to have all of this knowledge and information and proof that I was smart and capable and exceptionally good at something that most people could not do at all. It was what distinguished me from all the other trashy rednecks from the south who never finished high school and had gotten into drugs and had babies as teenagers.
That was how I felt at the time anyway. I didn’t realize it then, that what I was doing was trying to prove to myself that I was not trashy and crazy and all of the others labels that come with all of the other things I had done that were not socially exemplary, especially in Peachtree City, Georgia. While I do not have the same views and perceptions at the current date, that was definitely how I felt at that time.
It was a very difficult time for me, but also a beautiful time of being with my new husband and my growing son. I LOVED being married to Jonny – I still do. I LOVED being my kid’s mom – I still do. I had never had so much time to spend with both of them before, and truly enjoyed being with them – I still do.
All around, it was a period of time in my life in which I experienced a lot of intense things in a short amount of time. Not necessarily good things, and not necessarily bad things – just really intense things. It was difficult for me to be forced to sit with it all.
And then I got pregnant. You know what happens when you get pregnant, right? EVERYTHING changes.
To be continued…
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