Dear Mother

Posted by Anonymous.

Dear Mother,

I am furious at you, and at the same time, have the urge to hold you until it's all better. Our relationship is over because of you and your mental illness. You need help. But I can't help you. None of us can anymore. It is time to help yourself. For the sake of our family, and most of all, for yourself.

I am slowly realizing that I will never be your child. Never be held close, never be comforted, never be allowed to be the weak one. Because you believe it is your right to have these things, even though you are my mother. You should have mothered me and asked for nothing in return. I am so angry that you would choose to adopt a child when you couldn't manage to care for my brother who had already been given to you by grace. To say that you feel your own son is a disappointment to you is shameful, because you created him that way. You raised him that way. And he still loves you. How? I don't know. Why adopt a child you can't care for? I would never say it to you, or perhaps to anyone face-to-face, but there are many times I have wished another family had the chance to adopt me, and not you. The lies you must have created, and the people you must have manipulated, so that you could adopt me, is a shameful part of you I just can't understand. One day you may be able to face the truth about yourself: that some things are entirely your fault, you caused them, and you deserve the outcome of your behaviour.

I am sad that now you will miss the birth of my second child. But what choice is there? You have tortured our family over the past 12 months with your pathetic attempts at seeking justice for your abusive childhood, and taking it out on your family who has, up until now, stood by you. You wonder why people have left you now? Because the truth is my father was holding it all together for you. He spent 30 years making excuses for you, covering up for you, and lying to protect you. And now that you have pushed him away, and are on your own, you can't cope. Surprise!

I have thought many times over the past few months that it would be easier if you had died than become estranged to us. It would be easier to grieve for you, and all that you never were to me, than it is to know you are just a short drive away, and dreading the next contact you might make with me.

I wanted a mother who was wise, tolerant, strong, educated, patient and could teach me how to be a great mother to my own children. But you can't do it. I have to teach myself, and learn from other strong, wonderful women in my life, how to go about it. I am determined to give my children all of myself, but unlike you, I plan to also protect them from the problems of adults around them, because they are CHILDREN. And not my counsellors, social workers, doctors or friends.

Please, please get the help you need. Even if we never see you again- just for yourself and to be healed from the pain you are suffering. I hope the people in your life who have hurt you so badly will one day say sorry to you. And mean it. But for now, please stay away from me, and contact me when you are ready to admit responsibility for what you have done. Yes, much of this is your fault. And it is time to take control.

I wish I had the courage to tell you this myself, and I wish that you were able to respond in the way that is needed. But we can't.

All my love.

Anonymous

Resenting The Leech

Posted by Anonymous.

My husband and I have a "leech" in our family. This person is grown up and college educated, but can not seem to live independently. My husband and I are both in our sixties and have worked hard and saved money. Now this younger family member is draining us to support her. A few months ago, she needed a new car, so she called us. We are currently contributing to the cost of her new car. We just found out that our 1998 model car is going to have to be replaced. But... can we afford it? Now she is moving to a new apartment that costs more per month than our mortgage payment, and she wants help with that. My husband has even co-signed on the lease. We were thinking of paying off our mortgage... but can we do that now? Doubtful.

We were thinking of retiring in the not too distant future. My husband has a good job, but his company recently merged with another company and they had to let some people go. He still has his job, but his assignments have been cut way back. I am worried about his job. I know he is too, but he won't admit it. Now I am wondering how we be able to retire. The recent economy has devastated our 401K accounts. On top of all that, we have this family member expecting us to help support her. We have never been extravagant spenders. The younger generation doesn't understand how we lived when we were their age. We lived in crummy apartments without all the "bells and whistles". We didn't eat out and take trips. They want it all and they want it now. And we are being asked to support their way of life. It makes me angry.

Frozen With Fear

Posted by Anonymous.

I am a mother. A blissfully happy mother to an amazing, brilliant, beautiful boy.

But I am also infertile. I was lucky enough to get a diagnosis quickly—after only a year. Premature ovarian failure. My eggs were shot at age 29. At that point I had undergone a laparoscopy and a single IVF cycle with my own eggs. The reproductive endocrinologist recommended donor eggs. He listed the likelihood of success of another IVF cycle with my eggs (5%), and the chance of miscarriage if I did conceive (greater than 50%) and the risk of chromosomal abnormalities if I didn’t miscarry (greater than 50%), and the right decision was clear and, well, easy.

Yes, I grieved the loss of a genetic child. I still do, sometimes. I’m sad that my son will not be able to go to my family’s ancestral home and recognize his nose the in the portraits on the wall. I’m angry that having a baby was such an emotionally difficult, lengthy, and frightfully expensive process for me, when it is free—and often accidental!—for most people. But the very fact of my son eases those pains. Now that he is here, I cannot imagine having had any other baby, and the pain, the anger, of infertility, has faded. Sometimes I think about how miserable I was during my first year of trying to conceive, and how I was consumed with jealousy of pregnant women and new mothers during the two years that followed, years that I had to wait in order to save enough money to try donor egg IVF. Years that one friend after another got—surprise!—pregnant. But now that’s in the past, and I am someone to be envied. I am a mother. I was pregnant. Those experiences are no longer out of my reach.

But the pregnancy! Infertility laid the groundwork of fear before I got pregnant, and my pregnancy built that fear into a monolithic tower. From the beginning, I qualified every statement about my pregnancy with an “if.” IF this pregnancy continues. IF I actually have a baby. IF my baby survives. I didn’t call to schedule a childbirth class until after they were all booked up, because I was so uncertain that I would actually need one. I didn’t plan for the baby the way other women do, because the last thing I wanted was to come home to a house full of baby stuff after losing the pregnancy. I couldn’t believe that he would actually be born, full term (barely) and healthy.

I started bleeding at 5 weeks. From 5 weeks through 15 weeks, I had regular episodes of heavy bleeding. Really heavy bleeding; heavier than any period I’ve ever had. Then, after a few weeks of blessed relief from the bleeding, I started having contractions. Regular ones, 7 minutes apart, that sent me to L&D first at 22 weeks, then again at 24 weeks. “Yes, those are real contractions,” they told me at the hospital. “You should lie down and drink lots of water.” “If they get closer together, 5 minutes apart or less, we’ll think about putting you on terbutaline.” Cervical ultrasounds, fetal fibronectin tests, contraction and fetal heartrate monitors. Intermittent bedrest. The first time I went to L&D, the security guard asked if I was in labor. “I certainly hope not,” I said. Did I really look like I was ready to deliver? I was barely showing!

So for the second half of my pregnancy, I listened to my contractions. Even walking for a few minutes could set them off. Here comes a contraction . . . here’s another one, 6 minutes later . . . and 6 minutes again. Every day. Lie down, drink water, time the contractions. Do I need to go to the hospital? Are these contractions causing cervical change? Am I in labor? What are the chances, at 24 weeks 3 days, that my baby will survive if he is delivered today? That he’ll be disabled? At 26 weeks 6 days?

I spent a lot of time working from home, lying on the couch. I breathed huge sighs of relief as I hit the milestones. 28 weeks. 30 weeks. 32 weeks. 34 weeks. By 36 weeks I was convinced that all the worry was for naught and that I would go overdue. So I was ridiculously surprised by his birth at 37 weeks exactly. It was fine. He was fine. I was (mostly) fine. Normal labor experience, just a few annoying complications for me afterward. All fine.

And he was here. And I was happy. And everything was OK.

And it was, for a while.

Now he’s 15 months old. People are asking when I’m going to have another. I wonder that, too. How could I not want another? The first is so delicious! Sometimes I convince myself that I don’t want another, that my family is complete, that I am happy with things just as they are. But the fact that I get viscerally upset when my husband expresses reservations about having a second tells me otherwise. I do want another baby. I want another baby.

But I don’t want another pregnancy. Well, I kind of want a “do-over,” a normal pregnancy experience, but I don’t think it’s really possible for me to have pregnancy without fear. A couple of months ago I had a moment where I thought the impossible had happened and I was pregnant, naturally. I wasn’t happy. Instead, I had an honest-to-god panic attack. Racing heart, nausea, panting, sweating, shaking, the works. My husband: “wow, you really don’t want to be pregnant right now!” Me: “Duh.”

I feel melodramatic even saying this, but my therapist says I have pregnancy PTSD. Have you ever heard of such a thing? Even though everything turned out fine. The very fact of my fear has traumatized me. And that is why I still find pregnancy announcements upsetting. Even from my very good friends. Those reactions made me feel guilty enough when I was waiting to become a mother, but now it’s even worse. How can I begrudge people the experiences that I’ve already had? How come I can’t just be happy for my friends? Why do I react physically to pregnancy announcements, shaking and feeling sick? Why do they leave me feeling unsettled for days afterward? I am just so sick of pregnancy being such a thing for me. I want to just not care anymore. Been there, done that.

Adoption isn’t an option for me for a number of reasons. So that leaves another pregnancy, if I really want another child. I can even face the idea of another donor egg IVF cycle. I’m not thrilled about it; not looking forward to finding a donor, to making all those appointments, to injecting myself in the ass every day for 10 weeks if I’m lucky enough to get pregnant again. But I can do it. I’m not even—may the gods forgive me—that worried about getting pregnant. I think I probably can get pregnant again, with enough perseverance.

But what I can’t face, can’t even really think about without starting to panic, is actually being pregnant. The day-to-day worry about whether I will lose the pregnancy, whether my water will break early, whether I will go into preterm labor. It lasts a long time, pregnancy. Or at least one hopes it will. It stretched out before me like an eternity, even when I felt like I must have already completed 24 months of gestation. And I don’t know if I can face that eternity again.

But I want another baby.

So here I am. Lucky. Unlucky. And frozen with fear.

Last Year

Posted by Anonymous.

December 10 2008 was the date grandma was transferred from the hospital to home hospice care. Friday December 12 I didn't go into work because at 3:00 in the morning I received a phone call from my mother that things didn't look good. I had to be there. I HAD to be there. My grandmother was always there for me no matter what. She was the one person who no matter what loved me. She was my refuge when I needed to escape. She was there to listen to me struggle through the new music I was learning on piano. She was always there for me. So I was there for her.

I stayed all night, I called into work and told them I wouldn't be in that morning because I was at my mothers all night. I went home and showered and made sure the kids and my fiance were ok. Then I would go back. I was there. I was there to administer her morphine and other medications to ease her breathing as much as possible. I was there. I was there to talk to her or listen to her talk. I was there when she was talking to people who weren't there. I was there the entire weekend. With daily shower breaks.

My brother never dealt with things as well as I do. He showed up but wasn't sure he could be in the same room as grandma. I went outside with him to have a smoke. I talked to him. We hugged, I got him to go into the same room as her, that was on Sunday. He also was good enough to come back Monday night as well. I know it was hard on him but he was there too.

Monday morning around 4 am, she told us it was her last night. She told us the running guy told her it was her last night. (and me being the folklore/mythology drenched person I am immediately thought of Hermes, the messenger, the god who guided people into death) I asked who the running man was, because she had spent the last few days talking to relatives or people we recognized by name. She responded, a god. This was one of the most odd moments of her last few days with us. However she was right.

She passed away on Monday night December 15 around 10:00. It was her last night. The running man, whoever he was, he was right.

I did everything I had to do. I did everything I could do. Yet to this very day I still feel like I didn't do enough. I still get upset when my mother or anyone says how much I did. Or how they couldn't have done what I did for her. It makes me angry. What do you mean you couldn't do what I did? I did what had to be done. I did it out of love. They couldn't do what I did? What? They couldn't do what she needed? I loved her, and now she's gone. I made her as comfortable as I could. I did everything I could.

So, this was my second Christmas without her. Last year I was still numb, but I can't hear O Holy Night, because it was her favorite Christmas Carol, and it makes me cry. Tonight I will go shopping with my daughter and hope like hell the noise of the stores drowns out any music. I don't want to hear it.

I miss her, I love her, I'm not sure what else can be said. I know eventually I'll feel better about it. But for now I'm still hurting. But I'll do what I have to do, and make sure the kids and everyone have a good holiday. I know that my nights, when I want to let loose and cry, my fiance is there to hold me.

I'm thankful that people see me as a strong person, I just wish that they would stop telling me I'm strong, because inside I feel weak.

The Upside Of Anger

Posted By Anonymous.

You're selfish.

It's what I've been dying to tell you since July 2008, when what you did came out: how you lied to investors and your family and your friends, lost millions of dollars but kept on collecting your fees, behaving like you were making a fortune for them. The first thing I thought of was the $500 check that arrived with a letter the week before my wedding, the letter that made me cry. It was the first thing I thought of when I found out, that check: he stole that money.

You're my cousin, but you've been more like my brother. I'm named after your mother and you were just a kid when she died, eight or nine maybe? You were the youngest of three brothers. Your oldest brother was a golden boy who never touched anything that didn't immediately turn to gold. Middle brother was so sweet; everyone loved him. It broke everyone's heart when he died at 18.

You moved to Hawaii and married your high school sweetheart and started having babies with her and I don't think anybody thought you'd come back to Michigan, but you did, determined to be a success right here in front of your family, be the success story that you always thought you should be. You started a hedge fund and you really hustled, you wanted to make it fly worse than anyone, more than the people who were giving you their money to invest. It was 1999 and it seemed like a sure thing.

And then. And then September 11th. And then the economy. And then your dad started to get sick and moved in with you. And then your wife had an affair. And then, and then, and then.

You ran for city commission, and it was a close race but you lost. You and your wife split up and you fought her for custody of your kids. We all wished you'd won. She let you have the older two boys and she took the twins and that wasn't okay with anybody, least of all you, but it was what it was and you did the best you could do. You met a woman and started dating her; it got serious fast because you'd never been alone but we all liked her. Stephanie was bright and independent and had a gift for drawing people out.

You and your middle son came out to Washington D.C. and we had a great time with you. We went to the zoo and to Georgetown and when your flight was cancelled that night, I came to Reagan in the middle of the night to rescue you and brought you back to my apartment.

A couple years later and your hedge fund was floundering and Stephanie broke it off with you. She said she couldn't see an up side to marrying you, and I know that reinforced all of your worst feelings about yourself. It was an awful thing to say and we were all furious when you told us what she'd said. She kept stringing you along though, kept seeing you. You did things like back out of obligations you'd made to your kids to spend time with her and as someone whose father abandoned her, I was pretty disgusted with you then, but I swallowed it. You convinced your elderly, nursing-home-ridden father to buy you a house, said that you'd pay the mortgage on it and eventually put it in your name. You picked that house because Stephanie loved it and you thought if you had that house she'd see an up side.

The day the house closed, you were indicted on multiple counts of wire fraud and securities fraud.

You told my mother, your aunt, and she kept it quiet from the whole family. She didn't tell me until the day you were sentenced to 19 months in minium security federal prison, and then she called me at work. "I have some bad news," she said. She was crying. It was such a burden to her to have kept it quiet--she'd been going to court with you, quietly persuading people to write letters on your behalf, trying to minimize the impact of what was crashing into you.

You pled guilty and were taking responsibility for what you'd done, she said. The sentence was less than half of the 40 months that the federal prosecuters asked for and everyone was grateful for that. You'd be out in time to see your oldest son graduate from high school in 2010. That was what passed for an up side in this sorry-ass case.

I was devastated, for you, for your kids, for me. When my parents drove you down to West Virginia to begin your prison term, I almost drove the two hours to West Virginia, but couldn't do it. It was too sad. It was too hard to imagine. I didn't want to see you like that, in that place. But I was disappointed in you when my mother told me that you'd spent the weekend before you left in some bed and breakfast on the beach with Stephanie instead of with your kids--an interesting turn of affairs since you were, apparently, too destitute to pay child support.

I got your emails, and I watched you turning into a selfish, self-centered person. The person who was accountable, who took responsibility for what he did was gone. You blamed other people. You shrugged off responsibility. When I told you that we'd decided to move back to Michigan after the baby was born last summer, you were the only person who was negative about it. Don't you want to live somewhere warm? you asked. Well, no, and I never did, but it's not really about that, I said, we want our kids to know their family. It was a mistake, you announced, it was what you'd done when you came back and look what had happened.

I'm not you. I would never steal from people who trusted me. And what we were doing was hard enough without your vote of no confidence. The economy in Michigan stinks, and my husband's a teacher. We knew it was a calculated risk to come back. Everything you said just made it scarier and harder.

We came back, and my husband got a job in your youngest kids' school. We rented a house a few blocks away from where you grew up. We were thrilled; our kids would grow up knowing your kids. We could be there for them. My husband, who isn't their teacher, keeps tabs. When they were writing about not having enough food in the house, their English teacher came to him, knowing they were family, wanting to know what was going on. When your daughter was having anger management issues, he came back. We've gone to their swim meets, invited them over for dinner and game night. We've stretched ourselves thin to be there for them.

Your father died on Monday, five weeks before you were scheduled to be released. And now, it's all about you and a 48 hour furlough and who's going to drive from Michigan to West Virginia in a snowstorm to pick you up and who's going to take you back after the funeral. The federal bureau of corrections is funny about letting people out on furloughs, they want to know where you'll be and what you'll be doing and where you'll be staying.

You want to stay in your house with your kids. Well, first and foremost, it's not your house. It belongs to the estate. And at the moment it happens to be occupied by your ex-wife and your children, where she moved so that they could stay in their school. She's been paying rent to your father for the last year and a half, even though she has a house of her own. I'm no big fan of hers and I never have been, I think she's a flake and a lousy parent. But she's got a good reputation in the community and she's doing her best, which is more than anyone could say about you.

Don't come barreling into their lives for 48 hours and turning it upside down again, just to have to turn around and go back to prison. Don't you know what it would mean to have you in their house again? They're finally getting used to you not being there. Your brother generously offered to wait to hold a memorial service until next month, when you come home, but you insisted on the expense and inconvenience of being flown home now.

You're like a spoiled child, and everyone in this family bends to your will and I am sick to death of it. I'm sick of watching my mother torn to pieces by what's happening to you. I'm sick of watching her endlessly playing referee between you and your brother. I'm sick of watching your kids break into a thousand pieces at the thought of how much they miss their father. And I'm sick of how disappointed I am in you and what you've become, because you were my hero growing up.

Mostly I'm sick of your completely deluded spin about what your life will be like when you come home. Stephanie hasn't written, called, or visited you. You haven't heard from her once. And why should she? She's not like your ex-wife: she's educated and ambitious, doesn't need anyone to take care of her (and if she did, God knows you wouldn't be capable of it), and if there was no up side before, I guarantee you there's less than no up side now. She's just not that into you. Your kids are pissed, and rightfully so. You didn't get drafted into miltary service, you went to prison, and rightfully so. Don't think they didn't notice that, or that you didn't pay any attention to them for the three months before you went.

You need a job, a real one, not some "lead-generating" half-assed thing that one of your friends has made up for you, one that will allow you to take some responsibility for your obligations--like the $700,000 you owe in restitution, like the child support you need to sack up and pay. I'm sorry you're not the success story you thought you would be, but you've lost my respect in trying to steal someone else's success and you're verging on ridiculous. You're selfish, and for the first time in my life, I can say that I'm disappointed in you.

Yes-Mom

Posted by Anonymous.

I wonder if my entire relationship with my son has been based on my saying yes to everything.

He's 17, a high school senior, successful student and generally a good guy, except I learned he's not so nice and we're not so close when I say no. When he was 9, he was diagnosed as having an Autism Spectrum Disorder, Asperger's, but was "highly functioning" which meant that he was intelligent, oppositional, argumentative, sweet, loving and exhausting to raise. We sought all kinds of social and occupational therapy for him in order to help him develop the social skills he did not intuitively have. We indulged him when he found an interest in the video arcade game, Dance Dance Revolution, and we drove him to tournaments up and down the East Coast just like other parents drive their kids all over the place when they are on travelling soccer teams. He formed friendships, built confidence, and figured out how to deal with his quirks. He became popular. His dad and I indulged him by taking him on these trips to visit his friends and to participate in DDR tournaments. We permitted him to sleep over at friends' houses in the city where the tournament was held. We hung out in the town and got a hotel room, so we could be close by.

This started when he was 13. As he got older, he told us there was drinking sometimes but he did not participate. Then last New Year's we let him go to North Carolina with a friend, without us, to visit friends. Yes, there was drinking and yes, he drank. He concluded that because we allowed him to go, we approved of his drinking. Then over the summer while his father and I were on vacation, he begged us to stay home and we let him. His response was to have his friends over for a party, with alcohol, purchased with the spending money we left for him.

Since then we have had many conversations about drinking. He tells us that we're punishing him for being honest. We tell him that we worry about him making bad choices. Now, he asked to go away with friends to a New Year's party this year out of state, and we said no. He's angry and is acting out. He says that he's much more honest with us than his friends are, and that we need to trust him to make good decisions, since he is going to college next year and will be on his own. We tell him that there are so many bad things that could happen, like getting into a car accident or having a run in with the police and getting charged with underage drinking. We won't be anywhere nearby to help him if there is a problem. He said he's not handling his anger better because we have modeled bad behavior when we're angry. He says we're being inconsistent and arbitrary. He's saying whatever comes to mind.

He's being so unkind and so impolite that I don't recognize this rude person. Or rather, I see him clearly for the first time. I've been far too worried about being his friend and not being his parent. I did not think that is what I was doing but now I see it all more clearly. And it's too late to change it. He's leaving home in less than a year. He's 17 -- a know it all and barely listens to me. He's grown up thinking that we'll always say yes and he's hardly ever heard us say no. I thought I was teaching him and I see that by indulging him, I failed him. It feels like our relationship is a sham. We are not close because he loves me; we're close because I always said yes.

Even Shady Pasts Can Lead to Bright Futures

Posted by Erin W.

This post has been a long time in the making. The story is hard for me to look back on and harder to tell, so please bare with me and be gentle in judgment.

In a lot of ways I'm like a first time mom with Kairi. There are a lot of very public ways, like that I breastfeed Kairi and I didn't with Gracie, I babywear, I co-sleep... There are a lot of very different mothering techniques (I guess) that I am using this time round. But there is also one very big, very private way that I am a first time mom...

When I was in high school I liked to party. I skipped school to go smoke pot until the principal threatened to suspend me for skipping one more time. Even then I still left campus to get high at lunch. Just after I got out of school Jason and I got together. I was 17 at the time and still smoking. He smoked then too. It wasn't a huge part of our relationship, but it was there. We moved in together after 8 months with no savings and crap jobs.

After a few months of living together, things were getting rough financially. The job Jason had been working for the past 6 years (on and off, mostly on though) refused to give him a raise. When the state raised the minimum wage from $5.15 to $5.85 his boss told him to consider that his raise. One day, Jason found an easy fix to our money situation. He had bought an ounce of pot off a friend for $80 and had another friend who wanted to buy half of it from him for $50. This friend had another friend who wanted to buy the other half for $50 as well. Jason made $20 out of the deal and went back for another. And that's how it started.

At first Jason and I both kept our jobs. Over time I traded up jobs and was making more money, and over time he was making bigger deals - eventually quitting his job and becoming a full time pot dealer. For a time it was fun. We constantly had friends coming over, we always had money, and we were always partying. But over time I began to develop an allergy to THC, so smoking was no longer fun for me. And the constant flow of people coming over was no longer close friends, but distant strangers who didn't want to visit and have fun - they wanted what they came for and then wanted to leave. Not only that, but they had no respect for any kind of house rules. Looking back, I don't know how I expected them to, but at the time I was pretty worked up over it. But we still always had money and I still enjoyed spending it. After a while Jason was making enough selling that I was able to quit my job and never look back. This went on for 3 years.

When I was 20 I got pregnant with Gracie. During my pregnancy I tried to talk Jason into quitting and getting a job. He kept saying that he was trying to save up enough money that we could make due on it for a while before having to go back to work, but the money kept getting stolen, or a deal would go bad and we'd be out $500 for it. It was always 1 step forward and 2 back where the saving was concerned.

Gracie was born in the end of January '05. While I was in the hospital my family asked me how we were going to make due. They didn't come right out and say it, but the urged me to try to get Jason to find a job, and for me to do the same once I was able to. I talked to Jason until I was blue in the face about it, but he had just lost a big chunk of the savings in a bad deal and thought he could for sure get it back within a couple of months.

I know what everyone must be thinking. I know what I am thinking in hindsight: Why didn't I just leave? Take Gracie and flee? It's not that I didn't love her enough - I just kept believing that Jason would quit after "this next deal." Finally one night in April I made a decision: if he doesn't get a job within 2 weeks, I'm gone. That's it.

10:00 am, April 12, 2005 - The next morning....

BANG BANG BANG BANG!

The loud, hard knocks at the door shot my out of my bed like a bullet from a gun. I had had it up to here with all these inconsiderate druggies waking me up! I didn't even put on my glasses. I looked out the window in the door and saw several people standing on the porch. As I went to unlock the deadbolt the banging on the door started again, this time shaking the house. I stepped back just in time to see the door fly open sending splinters from the door frame across my living room, one slicing my hand open as it flew through the air.

"Get on the ground! Get on the ground NOW!," screamed the 6'5" 300 lb policeman in the front. Immediately I was on my stomach with his knee hard in my back as he was putting handcuffs on me. I had just barely missed the swing where Gracie, then 2 months, was sleeping when I hurled myself to the ground. Within seconds there were 8 men in black in my house rummaging through my things. One policeman went to the bedroom and gently and politely asked Jason to roll over onto his belly on the bed so he could cuff him.

Almost right off the bat they took Jason to the police station. I stayed behind to stay with Gracie until a Child Protection agent could come get her. I begged the officer in charge to remove my cuffs so I could feed her and change her diaper. He said he was already doing more than he should by letting me do those things in cuffs, so it was definitely a no-go on taking them off.

You know those movies where there is an explosion and everything goes in slow motion? The ones where you see everything slightly blurred, debris flying everywhere, blinding light bending your perception on things? That's what those moments felt like to me. The only completely clear thing I remember from that whole morning was sitting in my rocking chair, holding my daughter who through the whole thing did nothing but smile at me. She had the biggest smile on her face the whole time, even as I handed her off to the social worker. The memory of that beautiful, bright, toothless grin will always be tainted by the hazy memories of that morning.

Immediately my mother made arrangements to move back to town so that she could become the guardian of her granddaughter. I thank my lucky stars every single day that my mother dropped everything in her life and spent her entire retirement to get here so Gracie wouldn't have to be in a foster home with strangers.

Gracie lived with my mom, her Mimi, for 10 months while Jason and I worked hard to complete the treatment plan laid out by the social worker assigned to our case. Jason had to go to rehab for a month, we both had to go to group counseling for drug addicts and abusers, I had to go to counseling to work through my enabling issues, we went to parenting classes and additionally attended Narcotics Anonymous meetings every night we were able. We worked hard to turn our lives around.

But our social worker was new - we were her first case. Prior to becoming a social worker she was a foster parent. She got the kids who were in the worst conditions and as such was out for blood on her first run. She needed to make an example out of someone, and we were that someone. Now, I'm not trying to play the victim here. We wouldn't have had to deal with her like we did had we not gotten ourselves in the position in the first place, and I will be the first one to admit that. That being said, the woman really was out for blood. She kept our case open for 2 years. After the initial 10 months of work we had to do to get Gracie back home with us, we were subjected to another 14 months of hoop jumping. She even removed Gracie from our house for a month again because we had it sprayed for bugs.

One night we were at a friend's house eating dinner when I got a call on my cell phone. It was Carol, our worker. She called to tell me that a woman within CPS, but not in her department had audited her cases and told her that our case was to be closed effective the following week. When we went to court to close the case Carol was not there, but her supervisor was there in her place. She apologized on behalf of CPS for keeping our case open so long (it is customary to keep cases open once the child returns home for 6 months. Some have to stay open longer, but only those who aren't cooperating.)

Since then we've been working hard to keep turning our lives in the right direction. We got a foot up in the process of getting Gracie back, but that was only the beginning. Since then Jason has stayed at the same job for 4 years, a job that gives him raises as deserved (for the most part). I got the first job I could get my hands on while we were trying to get Gracie back. I worked for over a year and a half at McDonald's, working to become a manager. Then I went to work at Chili's where I stayed for 2 years until I started school and found out I was pregnant with Kairi.

It's been a long, hard road and we missed a lot of the parenting experience with Gracie as a baby. She lived with my mom from the time she was 2 months old until the week after her first birthday and then for a month the following summer. A friend of mine is constantly laughing at me on Facebook because I'm always making comments about what new things Kairi is doing. "You sound like such a new mom!" she tells me.

And in a lot of ways I am. But I am loving the experiences I am going through with my kids. I have learned from my mistakes and because of them I know that I will never take my children for granted like so many parents do. I am cherishing every single moment I have with them because I know what it's like to go without. A friend of mine told me throughout the whole ordeal, "I don't know how you do it. If that happened to me, if I was separated from my daughter, I'd go crazy. I'd either be in a mental facility or I'd kill myself." At the time all I could tell her was that I knew I had to be strong for my daughter so I could get her back. Recently someone sent me an email with a picture in it. The picture said, "You never know how strong you are until being strong is the only choice you have."

In my life I have few regrets. In a way I don't regret what happened because the change made us better parents and better partners to one another. I think that we are amazing now. (Not to be cocky or anything, but I really do.) But the most heartbreaking regret I have is how the change came about.

I realize that my story will turn some people away. Some people just can't get past what we did to get where we are or how we've lived our lives. I would love to say that it's fine with me, that I don't care. But I do. In a lot of ways it makes it feel like all the work we've done to better ourselves for our family has been in vain, that we're still nothing but a couple of pot-peddling druggies. But in the same respect I can understand. A lot of people have not walked in the same neighborhood as what I've gone through, let alone the same path or shoes and it is hard for them to see what motivated me at the time. I'm in no way defending my actions at the time or trying to say that I had the right motivations, but I have always ALWAYS loved my daughters and so has Jason. We have lived through one of the most heartbreaking, life-altering experiences we will probably ever go through (fingers crossed) and we are better parents for it.

I appreciate you taking the time to read my story. I've tried writing this out time and time again and just have never found the right words. Even now I'm hesitant. But I over the past few years I have met families that have been in the same type of situation and sharing my story has seemed to help, to give hope or if nothing else to give a sense that they're not alone in the battle. I hope that maybe someone in need of help will see this and see that it can be done, it's not a never ending battle (even when your social worker has a personal vendetta against you) and in the end there is hope for change and strength.

Living With The Hurt

Posted by Anonymous.

You hurt me and the hurt has not gone away. I can't seem to push it down or pull it out of my mind. You, my "mother" for more years than my real mother was able to spend with me, lied about me. It was several years ago that you sent out a vicious email in response to an innocent question from me. The saying "ripped me a new one" came alive for me as I read your diatribe. I felt physically ill. I felt a deep rage. I go for months without thinking of it and then it pops up in my head. It still can make me sick to my stomach.

You, you go on later as though you are the kindly Christian woman you'd like all of us to believe you are... no apology because you are right no matter how horribly you act. You think you deserve an apology. I won't give it. I go along with your stupid game only for the sake of my siblings and my poor Alzheimer's father. Without them you would have been the recipient of a hard slap and then I would be gone. Forever, never to be hurt by you again.

I don't know where your anger came from exactly but I can be fairly certain it has something to do with the fact I won't kowtow to you. I won't leap to the rescue with every crisis. You don't seem to be able to live without a crisis. You make everything all about you. Someone's mother-in-law dies and you talk endlessly about the guilt you feel for not praying a specific prayer over her. WTF? I am pretty sure that God would have heard your prayer regardless of where you said it. What in the world does that poor woman's death have to do with you?

Everything revolves around your little bank book of pluses and minuses - You did X for me, so I need to let you treat me like shit and be at your beck and call. It took me a long time to realize that no matter what I did it would not be enough. I would never be good enough. Never. And then to wonder why, why would I care? All I wanted after my mother's death was someone to love me and encourage me. Instead I got you. Lucky f**king me.

I try not to hate you because that hate will just hurt me.

Out From Under The Table

Posted by Anonymous.

Many years ago I used to build forts under the kitchen table. It was my safe spot in a home life that was hell. My mother was in an abusive relationship. He was an angry mean drunk. He started abusing me when I was 10. At first the abuse was just physical and then it turned worse. I was dragged from under the table one night and raped. I would be raped again and again for some time until my mother finally got the courage to leave him when I was 13.

This past week my mom went back to that street, that house where her daughter was raped to see it. When I asked why she would want to do that I was met with don't you remember the good memories and from my sister you should concentrate on the good times we had growing up.

My memories of childhood are of a fleeting number of good times but most lets just say I could write a best selling horror novel based on my tween years. After leaving the drunk my mom got involved with men who ran drugs and my mom was a mule into the prison system, what is worse she took me and my sister with her. She never got caught. I have few good memories and those I do have are not of times with her or that house but when my father would come and take us away from it all for a fleeting moment.

I don't think I am crazy when I say why in the hell would you want to visit a place where you almost died and where your child had their childhood stolen from them! I think visiting that place brings back nothing but bad memories at least for me even hearing of her visit I was brought back to that moment when I was dragged from under the table and raped.

Then when I blogged about being a childhood rape survivor my mother and sister got after me and said some things should remain private. Some things should not be talked about. My mother dared to say to me, "What kind of mother will people think I was?" You see, even at her old age she is in a new relationship unfettered by past choices. She doesn't want to acknowledge the hell we lived through and survived. My sister wanted to just bury it.

Me --the survivor-- needs to talk about it and share because maybe just maybe I can help someone else. I did survive and there is life out from the under the table and it needs to be shared and cherished but with that said the past needs to be remembered or it will be repeated and I will not let that happen as long as I have a voice.

Keep Away, Revisited

Posted by Anonymous: an update to Keep Away.

An update to the post that I published here earlier this year: I've ended the relationship with this man. It was honestly the hardest thing I've ever had to do, and it didn't come without a lot of heartache, tears and pain from both of us. I now know that it was not only the right decision for me, it was the right one for him and his family. I realize that he and his kids deserve better than me, and I also deserve better and a situation that I am comfortable with. I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who took the time to comment on my post, whether I wanted to hear it or not at the time, it's what I needed to hear. Since the time this post was published, I went back and read your comments time and time again, and believe it or not, your words gave me the strength I needed to end this. Sometimes, the words of strangers who don't care about you, are not invested in your life and are just being brutally honest is just what you need to thrust you into reality.

I really miss my old boyfriend, but I'm also really excited about finding a new relationship where I can start from scratch with someone and plan our lives the way that both of us want to. I realize that in my previous post I sounded selfish, immature and self-centered. I don't apologize for these things. You have to be selfish when trying to come to terms with what YOU want. So, again, thank you for your honesty, you never know when your words (no matter how hurtful they may seem at the time) will help someone. And thank you to HerBadMother for giving us this forum!

What She Said

Posted by Anonymous.

“That’s great, but you are going to have to pay for cheerleading camp on your own” was her response when I told her I made the cheerleading team.

“Why can’t you be like your sister?” was what she said when she came home from a parent teacher conference and was told that I was a “social butterfly”.

“You deserve all of the pain you are going through” was what she said when I cried after giving my daughter up for adoption when I was 16 years old.

“I guess you can't go to church tonight” was her response when I had my stomach pumped.

“Are you on drugs? What is wrong with you” was what she said to me when my ex-husband and I went through a devastating divorce.

“Your children will never experience true blessings unless you have them baptized” was how she replied when I told her my son was being bullied at school.

Why can’t I ever find the words? Why can’t I say… “Isn’t a mom supposed to love her child unconditionally? Aren’t Mom’s here to celebrate with us when we have a moment of joy, and cry with us in times of sorrow?”

How do I move on from this? How do I forgive and let go when it continues? How do I fill the awkward silences, after her words have hurt me and I can’t find the strength to respond?

I would give anything to feel her arms around me and her voice telling me that I am good enough, to hear her say that I am a good mom and a good wife.

And that she is sorry.

You Don't Know How Good You Have It

Posted by Anonymous.

Dear Husband,

You don't know how good you have it. I cook, clean and care for you. I drive you to the doctor's, I pay for your insurance, your life. For over 2 years now you have been actively seeking out women to cheat on me with. I am not sure if and how many times you have actually succeeded in this. I know why I stay but I don't know if you know why I am still here.

I am here because you are disabled and I promised "in sickness and in health". While I don't think anyone would blame me for leaving you, I don't know if I can be that woman - the one who leaves the physically and mentally disabled man.

And yet I wonder what you tell these women you email. I wonder if every time I go out of town for a day or a few days if you are meeting someone for a tryst? I wonder if I should start having my OB/GYN check me for STD's? I wonder how you can sit in church on Sunday morning without the guilt eating you alive?

If you were not disabled I would have divorced you in 2007 when this first came to light. If it were not for you I would not have left the job I liked to take the one I didn't but paid more. If it were not for me spending far too much time on personal things (like your disability applications) at work I wouldn't have lost the job I hated.

The thing that kills me is I met someone else, someone who is kind, caring, sweet, someone who I have an almost electric attraction with. We both feel it, one night in a moment of weakness I spent some time alone with him, he held my hand, he stroked my knee, he told me I did not deserve what was happening to me. I resisted temptation. I will not be THAT WOMAN. I will not be the one to cheat. And yet I think when I find out more and more about your ridiculous sex site accounts and the things you say you want from these women - I think if only you were gone maybe just maybe I could develop a relationship with a man that knows what it means to be faithful.

I have to remind myself frequently that your disability is not just physical. That mentally you are incapable of making logical decisions. And I'm so sad that I am tied to you by vows I guess I never thought I'd have to keep even though I know you are not keeping up your end of the bargain.

It sucks. I cook, clean, care for you, and yes I still love you. And day in and day out you betray me in the worst possible way while I have to pretend I know nothing about it. I'm 39 years old and feel trapped by all of this responsibility and duty. Trapped is no way to live.

I'm Angry

Posted by Anonymous.

I'm angry. I've been angry for three years, five months and ten days. That was the day you called me in the middle of the night (afternoon in your time zone) to tell me that you are an alcoholic and suicidal and you needed my help to come home. We spent so long on the phone and for the first time in my life I used my social work skills on a family member to make a contract with you that you would not kill yourself that night. When I hung up with you, and then with our parents, I collapsed into bed and sobbed into my husband's arms for hours. And the entire time there was a little voice nudging me from the far corners of my consciousness saying "what is all this stress doing to the baby?" You see, this was my first child, and I was new at this, and I was worried that all this stress on that poor little five-month-old fetus might cause some negative effects.

A few weeks later you arrived home. Against my advice (and all my training), you chose to stop drinking cold turkey. I warned you about the side effects, but you thought you would be fine. At 6 months pregnant I found myself trying to roll your stiff body onto your side so you wouldn't choke on any potential vomit while you were in the middle of a seizure (recommendation of the 911 operator). I was the one who tearfully convinced you to ride to the hospital in the ambulance instead of me driving you (terrified that you might seize again on the way). The entire time, that little voice in my head kept worrying "what about the baby?"

My second and third trimesters were filled with phone calls and planning sessions with you and our parents. Despite the fact that I had worked with countless families over the years with very similar situations, my suggestions were rarely heard or followed. I always knew when you had a particularly bad spell because the daily emails from our mother would stop. Then, a few days later I would hear about how you tried to slit your wrists in the shower, or how you were arrested for a DWI - twice (the second time after sideswiping a tractor trailer truck).

I'm angry that my entire pregnancy - my first child, our parent's very first grandchild, was overshadowed with your illness. I'm angry that our mother began to get hives every day when leaving work because she never knew what to expect when she arrived home. I'm angry that you showed up to my son's birth drunk (and you drove there!) I'm angry that our grandmother used her fixed income to pay your DWI fines. I'm angry that I start to worry when three days go by without hearing from our mother because that almost always means you've relapsed again. I'm angry that you've mooched off our parents for over three years now, giving little if anything in return. I'm angry that you were sober for so long, and I trusted you to watch our son for an afternoon, and you got drunk. I'm indescribably grateful that a friend happened to stop by and notice something off with you and call us so that we could race home to find our 8 month old scared and upset but not injured. You irrevocably damaged our relationship that day. Nearly two years later, I still haven't been able to forgive you for that incident. I have of course never trusted you to be alone with my children again either.

I'm angry that three years into your "recovery" you're still having relapses. You (finally!) found a part-time job, and with your very first paycheck you bought alcohol, hid it and drank for weeks. Now you want to get your license back and somehow I'm supposed to believe that your very first trip out of the house won't be to the liquor store.

I'm angry that you were often treated differently by our parents. You were the one who could crawl into bed with them after a bad dream while I was sent back to my room. You were the one who got a kitten for your birthday where my pleas fell on deaf ears for years. I didn't get a car until you were old enough to drive and "share" it with me. In high school and college I always worked 2-3 jobs. You just started your first part time job at the age of 26. Our parents always paid your rent and food and tuition bills. I still hear about the one month when I was a junior that I didn't have quite enough money for rent (despite working 30 hours a week and maintaining a full course load). Did our parents somehow always suspect that you were the "weaker" sibling? Did their special treatment help to contribute to your addictive personality?

I can't tell anyone in our family that I'm angry at you, because I'll sound mean and unsympathetic. They won't understand my anger and frustration. I have no where else to go with these feelings, so I write them here (yes, I know about ALANON. I've been before, but it feels like I'm sacrificing my already scarce free time to address your disease, and that just makes me more frustrated). I know that alcoholism is a disease. I know that you don't have control over this disease, that it controls you (and the family around you). I know that you don't want to be this way. Despite all of that, I'm still angry. I'm angry at the disease, and at what it's done to you. I'm angry that we've talked about this exact hazard for years. You've known and understood that our mother is an alcoholic since you were in middle school. I know you were a little lost when I left for college - you were stuck in the house with the drunk mother with very few opportunities to talk, but I tried to make myself available to you - I called often, and we emailed when we could and I visited regularly. You know and understand the genetics and the science, and you knew the risks involved when you started to drink in college. We were so very close for so very long. I'm angry that you didn't come to me, didn't talk to me, didn't ask for help before it was too late.

I'm angry that I've lost my sister. I don't think I'll ever see her again.

A Common Problem

Posted By Anonymous.

I suffer an involuntary pang of jealously at every pregnant woman I see. Of course I’m jealous of the stay at home wife with a six-figure earning husband who has an decorator design the baby room and gets mommy massages and has her prenatal yoga class before her appointment with the midwife at the private birthing center, not that I know any of those in real life. I’m also jealous of the young unwed mothers in the grocery store with their pimply baby-daddies dragging sullenly behind, of the cute girl I used to like until she married some ugly “godly” dude and went crazy and moved to the Middle East to live in a mud hut, and of the friend who can’t afford the two kids she has with her good-for-nothing husband and who deliberately got pregnant again on welfare. I don’t envy these people’s lifestyles, I am really grateful for my own husband over any of theirs, and I don’t want to be them, but why do they get to have kids and I don’t? Don’t bother telling me the problems and stress that their ill-timed pregnancies will bring, don’t tell me how smart it is to wait until you are financially stable to have children, don’t give me statistics about how waiting a few years can make all the difference. I want babies. I am really getting obsessed with this, experiencing feelings of longing and anger several times a day as I think about or see pregnant women or moms with young kids.

My husband wants to have children, and more than just one or two, or I wouldn’t have married him. But he wants to wait until we are more financially secure (i.e. have a house, not just renting) before we do. I understand the wisdom in that. He wants to have some time to ourselves (we’ve been married a year and a half), to be free to sleep in on weekends, to be able to buy tools and furniture and such, and have two incomes. I understand the wisdom in that. These are good things, and a lot of that does stop or at least slow down when you have kids. His thoughts make sense and his plan is designed to bring us and our children the best. But I don’t care, because I want them now. In addition, my PCOS could make getting pregnant take longer, so I worry that waiting even a few years will impair my fertility and reduce our chances of having our own. If that happens, I will be mad. Like marriage counseling mad. I’ve told him all this.

Bottom line, I don’t trust my husband and I don’t trust God to give me good things. I’m so selfish, but if I don’t try to fulfill my desires, who will?

Sadness

Posted by Anonymous.

I’m so sad.

I’m scared. I’m scared that in this instance hindsight has totally burned me.

In the summer of 2007 I found out I was pregnant. My husband and I made the decision to terminate that pregnancy. That decision was the hardest decision that I have had to make in my life so far. This was not a decision that was made lightly. We talked and talked and when we thought we couldn’t talk anymore about it we talked some more. In those talks he told me that of course he wanted to have another child with me but that at that time in our lives it was not a good time for us to have another baby. I agreed with him. I still agree with him. At that point in our life it was really not a good time to have another baby.

Here I am today a little over two years after the termination that I was and still am ok with it. My husband has made up his mind that he doesn’t want anymore children. We have one child that I love with so much completeness it makes me ache. But I never pictured myself as someone that would have only one child. In a perfect world I would have a lot of children but the reality is that I definitely wanted two. I feel like we talked about this all through our marriage and before we had kids but maybe we didn’t agree then either. I don’t know.

The point is, here I am wanting, like the kind of wanting that oozes through every cell of your body type of wanting, another child. My husband does not want another child. He’s done. What hurts is not just this impass. We will work through this; we’ve worked through much larger things than this. What is breaking my heart is that at the time when we were faced with one of the most difficult decisions ever, I was under the impression that he did want to have more children. At the time that was a very comforting thought. Because to me it meant that it was ok to think that it wasn’t the right time, that we would in fact have another child at some point and that the decision (we) I was making was really going to be ok.

Now it just feels like he lied to me to get his way.

I don’t know how much of that I truly believe. He was very much torn up over all of this. As was I, obviously. I just feel betrayed.

Yes we’ve talked about this since the termination and his response is that he was not lying to me then but that he’s just happy with the way things are now and doesn’t want to change that. I can respect that. I really can. It doesn’t make the hurt go away or make it feel any less painful.

So here I am now wondering if I knew then what I know now would I have made the same decision. I just don’t know.

What I do know is that I’m hurt. I’m sad. I feel betrayed. I feel like a part of me is missing and unfulfilled. I also know that in order to stay as the family unit of three that we currently are I will feel these things for a lifetime.

I refuse to guilt him into having another child with me. That notion is just too far away from who I am for me to be ok with.

I will continue to cry silently at night when I know he’s asleep. I will continue to wonder at all the what ifs. I will continue to be scared of the questions that will come from our child when she gets older.

For now I will put on my brave face and go forward. For now that’s all I can think to do.

A Little Piece Of God

Posted by Anonymous.

I have an autistic son who is truly a bit of God broken off and fallen to this earth. I am fortunate in a a million ways that he is oh... let's say autism-lite. He has none of the most challenging behavioral and cognitive elements of the disorder and his therapy is moving faster than anyone could have imagined. I am in no way brave about this, and his diagnosis did very nearly turn me to dust, but recently someone asked that I write a letter to her friend, a stranger, who is struggling with her daughter's recent diagnosis. So I gave it my best shot.

This diagnosis is a pointing finger and nothing more. And now it’s my turn to whisper the important words--words that flicker just brightly enough to keep you from falling the whole hard way down: Your beautiful child remains your beautiful child, regardless of where a finger points. Mothers of auties pass those words down to new mothers of auties like some families pass down silver, and it may well be that this one act and these few words are the single speck of autism that we mothers hold in common.

Autism is so many things, so many different ways of being. People will ask you “what is autism?” Believe me, they’ll ask you all sorts of things, but when they ask this particular question, they may as well ask, “what is skin?” How do you answer? How can you? But since no mother begins this trip with answers and since you cannot give what you don’t yet have, leave it, just leave it. . Also, it’s very important right now that you pack lightly, so you must leave other people’s stuff behind. This is your trip and that pointing finger is where you start.

Take this road through whatever terrain you must--anger, grief, frustration--and know that you will come out the other side a changed and stronger mother. Go ahead and take the long road with all the hills and muddy spots. Stop where you feel the need, think a lot about turning around, and understand that you will always bitch about why you have to do all the damned driving. But you will drive and drive. And then drive some more. You will keep moving forward, I promise.

Claim your place now among like-minded mothers and know that we are tough. We will stand with you shoulder-to-shoulder, stretch mark- to-stretch mark because we have all done the drive, in our own way, at our own speed with our own stretch of muddy spots.

My autie is a million kinds of magic to me. Just as he had no words for the first five-ish years of his life, nor do I have words to explain our bond. His everyday obstacles show up on time every day, but they loom only as large as we allow. So often, too often, we show off those obstacles—we set them apart and make absolutely certain that we can say, “That’s my kid there, and wow, will you just look at the size of his obstacles ? They are RIGHT THERE and THEY ARE HUGE.”
Let me be very clear now, that those same obstacles have no power over the magic, not the least little bit. Say that outloud to yourself right now. Good. This child sits closest to my heart and I can tell you that even in his worst moments, I can see tiny bits of my best self. He is unbridled joy. He has a lightness that comes in quite handy during the darks. And while my chaos is just boring mommy chaos, his chaos is—well, he’s often quite glorious in his chaos. My own road is occasionally strewn with his gifts of glory wrapped in sticky chaos Now, understand that these gifts are rare and precious, mostly unexpected and sometimes quite sticky. Some days you will have to look long and hard to find even the dullest one. Some days you’ll give up looking altogether. Again, please know that giving up on today can never, ever forfeit the gifts scheduled for tomorrow. Keep looking. You’ll see.

Daniel’s diagnosis shattered me like a rock hitting glass--a big ugly hard thing hitting a not very sturdy at all thing. We sat in that tiny room with the tiny chairs and filled out those very not-tiny-at-all pages of parent questionnaires and I cried. The whole time. Long pages. Lots of crying.

Not a good day, to be sure, but one that you’ve now survived. You remember the tiny room with those tiny chairs, and you surely recall filling out the stack of parent questionnaires. You might also recall that your answers were often limited to three choices: Often, Sometimes and Not At All. So do you bend your beautiful child to fit those tight little circles? Oh, you know that answer already. And when you worry that your daughter's diagnosis might change how you see her, who she is, and who she might become, that answer fits quite nicely into one of those circles.

That answer is Not At All.

Parental Guilt: Reluctance To Seek A Diagnosis

Posted by Anonymous.

I am usually very confident about my parenting decisions. I either confidently make the best decision or confidently accept that I cannot do the best thing and that what I’m doing instead is good enough. I think carefully about my choices and usually feel good about the ones I make.

But there is one issue where I waffle, where I feel insecure, where I get defensive, and where I feel guilt over possibly making the wrong choice.

My son is not normal. I hate writing those words. I hate writing them because I reject the concept of normal. Of needing to conform. Of needing to be like and behave like everyone else. That aside, by the standards of the world around us, my five year old son is not normal.

* He has always been a spirited child, by every definition of the term.
* He is an anxious kid. He cannot go to sleep without parental presence at night. He’s just manipulating us people say. But it is more than that. He is truly scared. He sometimes goes through periods of stress where he clears his throat constantly or chews on the collar or sleeve of his shirt.
* He has extreme oral aversions to certain foods and textures. He is not just a picky eater (although he is that too). He will literally gag and have a major panic attack if he puts something in his mouth that his system, for whatever reason, does not like.
* He cannot sit still and cannot wait his turn. Not at school. Not at home.
* He is not yet dry at night.

He could have an anxiety disorder, a sleep disorder, an eating disorder, a hyperactivity disorder.

He is genetically predisposed to this. My husband and his father both suffer from anxiety. I have always had sleep issues. My brother and I were the weird kids in school, the ones shuffled off to “special” activities for the socially inept. There could be other explanations too, not necessarily that caused the issues my son is facing (since these things do tend to be genetic), but that perhaps exacerbated them. Things like the amount of stress I dealt with during my pregnancy (two very traumatic events).

I know that mental illness is very real. I have friends who deal with it everyday. I have friends who have successfully taken medication to deal with their illness (be it ADHD or anxiety or other) and have gotten their lives under control. I have seen them on and off their meds and I’ve seen the difference it makes. I know the disease is real. I know medication can make a difference.

Yet I hesitate to seek a diagnosis for my son.

* I hesitate because of the label. I worry about how it would make him feel (right now he is confident, likes himself a lot and has no inkling that he might not be like every other kid in every way). I worry about how others would treat him. That worry comes from how I was treated when I was sent off to special activities at school. Believe me: the other kids knew the difference between the times I was sent out for advanced French and when I was sent out to learn how to be more normal. Maybe if I felt like I benefited from it, I would feel differently. But I got the label of being odd without the benefit of anything that truly helped.

* I hesitate because he is doing well in his school. Despite the fact that he cannot sit still in class, he is excelling academically, he loves his teachers and they love him, he has friends, he enjoys himself and they cater to his needs. However, it is a small school that does not have the resources to deal with learning disabilities and a label or diagnosis could result in him having to leave the school. Am I sure he would have to? No. Do I want to ask outright? No. I think that would draw attention to the possibility and result in them asking him to be assessed. I know he would not thrive in our local public school for many reasons and I don’t want to have to send him there because of a diagnosis.

* I hesitate because we’re making progress. He tried two new foods in the past two weeks. That may be more than he has tried in the past two years. We no longer have to lie down with him for him to go to sleep. We can now sit on a chair outside his room with the door open and read something while he goes to sleep without him having a major panic attack. He hasn’t had any episodes recently of obsessive throat clearing or other tics.

While I understand how medication can help other people (and have seen it help other people), I think that if he can learn to deal with his anxiety and his aversions and his hyperactivity, if he can get it under control himself with our help, then he will be better off in the long-term. I’ve seen people do well on medication, but I’ve also seen what happens when they go off their meds because the side effects get to them or because they just don’t want to anymore.

Could therapy help? Maybe. But I don’t have a lot of trust in the medical establishment and, as mentioned above, I worry about the label and what that would do to him personally and to his school situation.

Do I sound confident about my choice? If I do, I faked you out the way I fake myself out every day.

I hated being labeled. I felt restricted by it. As soon as I was out of the environment where I was the “special” kid, I excelled. My husband on the other hand has never had any treatment for his anxiety and still suffers from it today. It isn’t debilitating, but it does create challenges for him sometimes.

There are good days, where I feel like I am making the right choice. Days where we see progress. Days where he seems like a normal kid. But there are also days where I feel like I am making the wrong choice. Where he would be happier and feel more in control if he were medicated and able to control his emotions and his impulses.

I feel guilty about not seeking a diagnosis. But I would also feel guilty about seeking a diagnosis. I feel trapped.

In A Heartbeat

Posted by Anonymous.

"I'm sorry...we can't find a heartbeat."

Those words still bring tears to my eyes. It's been six days and I feel that lump in the throat when I read that sentence. It's the one that you try so hard to swallow down, but it seems like nothing can make it go away. Nothing but hot tears streaming uncontrollably down your cold cheeks.

Talking about it has helped a lot, so I figure the best way to get past all of this is to write about it. So here is my story.

I had a miscarriage.

That was last week. This story begins several years ago. My husband asked me about two years ago if I was ready for kids because he "didn't want to be an old dad." (I'm 27 now and he's 28) But I wasn't ready.

Last year, we celebrated our 3 year wedding anniversary and I told him over a candlelit dinner that I wanted to have children. We'd paid off our credit cards, we both had stable jobs and we owned our own home. I felt like the timing was finally right in my life. He was excited and surprised to say the least.

A few months later I got off of the pill. At first, my periods were a slight disappointment, but there was "always next month." After four months of failure I convinced myself I was pregnant. Turned out it was just a stressful month and my cycle was irregular. I cried the night my period started. I started to lose hope. I couldn't understand why this wasn't happening as quickly as I wanted it to. I wanted this so badly.

We decided to get away from it all and take a long weekend in Vegas. One of my best friends and her husband met us there. I had cramping in the airport on the way there. I figured my period was starting again, so I didn't think much of it. After three days in Vegas, my friend convinced me to take a pregnancy test.

It was positive.

And so was the one after that.

I cried, I shook, I was absolutely in shock. I was so happy, so elated. So scared. I was in utter bliss after that moment. My dream--our dream, had finally come true.

As soon as we got back home I started to feel sick and have severe cramping. I cramped so badly I woke up in the middle of the night unable to breathe or even cry. I called the doctor and she suggested I have my blood tested. My hormones were "a little on the low side." So at six weeks, she prescribed some hormones for me to take.

At eight weeks I had my first ultrasound. The ultrasound technician turned off all of the lights in the room. The only thing turned on was the monitor hanging on the wall. The room was consumed with the sound of the pounding of that little heart. "There's your baby" she told me cheerfully. It was so surreal. It was so wonderful. It was terrifying. I really did have this little baby growing inside of me.

I heard the heart beat. I saw the heart beat. It was a little slow and since I've researched everything to death I automatically recognized that there was a problem.

Later the doctor mentioned it to me in passing. She suggested I take another blood test and come back in two weeks to monitor the heart rate. She also mentioned the baby was only measuring 7 1/2 weeks. But she didn't seem alarmed. If anything she seemed optimistic. She was my personal cheerleader.

The next day I got the call I was dreading. My hormone levels were still too low. I found out that at 6 weeks my progesterone was only at 15 and should've been at 20. At 8 weeks, my progesterone was still at 15...that was with my intake of hormone supplements. It should've been at 25...on my own. The nurse told me to increase my hormone supplements some more.

As soon as I hung up the phone I burst into tears. For the first time in this pregnancy, I was really terrified for my baby. I was so scared. I was so utterly helpless.

The following weeks consisted of me trying to be even healthier, going for walks with my dogs, eating more fruits. I did everything I could to make this baby healthy. I took my hormones, my pre-natal vitamins and I avoided anything that I had read anywhere could possibly be harmful.

At 10 weeks I went into my precautionary ultrasound. My heart raced and I felt more nervous than I had ever been in my life. I had a different ultrasound technician, she seemed confused as to why I was there. I explained the low heart rate to her. So she began the ultrasound.

Silence overpowered the room. Then I saw the baby. I was so relieved to see it. The technician asked me a second time how far along I was.

"10 weeks."

"This baby is only 7 1/2 weeks along."

Someone please wake me up.

She left to get the doctor to "get a second opinion." The ultrasound technician who does ultrasounds all day long. The woman who earns her living looking at fetuses and listening to their tiny hearts beat was getting a second opinion...

I laid on the cold table begging myself to keep it together. Begging and willing myself not to cry.

She came back in without a doctor, but had a small teddy bear in her hand. I thought to myself, please tell me they don't give you a teddy bear to console you for the loss of your child. That's when I recognized it as a breast cancer bear.

"Look what someone gave me in the hallway. I had breast cancer five years ago." She went through and told me about her very personal and private fight with cancer.

That's when I was positive my baby was dead.

Why else would a complete stranger tell me these events of her life, other than to offer me hope and perspective. Yes it's a horrible thing, but hey, it's not cancer.

Then my cheerleader came in. She checked the ultrasound again. The picture this time was very clear. The baby had not grown. The baby had no heart beat. My baby was gone.

"Are you alone here today?"

"Yes."

That's when she told me the words that I would've done anything not to hear.

I burst into uncontrollable sobs. I lost all of my self-control. I became a blubbering mess. I was so embarrassed. I was ashamed. I couldn't think straight at all.

They led me to another room to sob in silence for a few minutes. All I wanted to do was leave. I wanted to run out of there crying. I wanted to crawl into my bed and sob until I couldn't breathe anymore. I wanted to erase all of this.

But I sat in that room. I sat in that room and tried to compose myself. I was halfway there, when the doctor came in to discuss my "options."

Wait for it to happen, or make it happen.

I decided for the surgery. I wanted to put this all behind me. I wanted to forget. I wanted to pretend like nothing ever happened.

But it did happen.

The rest of that day I spent telling the people I love and care about the most that I had lost my precious gift. The thing I wanted so badly was gone forever. Each time I told someone it became more real to me. It forced me to accept this undeniable truth. And no matter how much I was consoled about "next time it'll work out" it'll never bring this baby back.

I kept trying to remain logical about it...It wasn't meant to be...It was for the best...Something was wrong with it...It was still early in the pregnancy...It could've been worse...

All of these things help, but not enough. The questions that flew through my mind that weekend were overwhelming. I went from complete sorrow to utter rage. Why did this happen to us? We are good people! What did I do wrong?! Why me? What did I do to deserve this? Why do I have to be a statistic? I don't care that it happens to 1 in 4 women. Why me? Why us? WHY?!

Then I began to feel contempt and jealousy for any pregnant woman or woman carrying a baby. She's not taking care of it. She's not a good mother. I could do so much better. This isn't fair. It isn't right. She doesn't deserve that baby.

Yes. I thought those things. I felt those things. I said those things. I spewed hatred for anyone who had what I lost. People who knew nothing of my situation. People blissfully unaware. People who had the most amazing gift of all.

I hated myself for thinking those thoughts. I hated the person I was becoming.

My dad used to say "it takes a significant emotional event to change a person." Those words rang through my ears as I contemplated whether or not I was to change. And what would I change into? A hateful, barren woman who avoided children at all costs? That's not who I want to be. I love kids and I always have. I've felt nothing but joy for parents-to-be.

My family and friends have tried their best to offer their help. Everyone has different ways of helping and all of them in their own way have helped me immensely whether they realize it or not.

My husband has been nothing but supportive these past few days. My personal comedian and entertainer. He's done everything he could to lift my spirits and help me get past this. I worry about him. He doesn't really talk about it, but I know he's trying to get through this just as I am. I don't know if I could've made it through this without him. He's been my rock. Even as I relapsed this past weekend into sobs of anger and sorrow he was there for me. Consoling me every step of the way. I've always known it, but this experience has shown me that we truly can get through anything together. We are an inseparable team.

I had my D&C a few days later. The medical term sounds so much nicer than what it really is. So much nice than "removing my dead baby from my womb." My D&C. I was scared and I was nervous. Without going into too much detail, I was put under full anesthesia and felt nothing but some cramps afterward. When I woke up my first thought was "it's done" and a tear filled my eye. But I quickly remembered where I was, and pushed those thoughts to the back of my mind. I was released the same day and brought home to rest.

Going back to work was nerve wrecking. I didn't think it would be. But the night before I hardly slept a wink. I was so worried about the stares, the thoughts. The looks of pity. I didn't want that. I just want to put it behind me. It was nothing like I pictured. I was accepted back to work just as I had been before. Nothing was mentioned. Nothing was said. It was just as I had requested and for that I'm unbelievably gracious.

I hope someday my dream will come true. But it doesn't change the fact that this baby is gone. What happens in Vegas, apparently does stay in Vegas. Because I will never hear my baby cry or hold it in my arms.

And I can never bring it back again. Ever. It's gone.

For Him

Posted by Anonymous.

I'm 20. I'm a full time student, training to be a teacher, working part time as a tutor. I'm living at home with my parents since it works out better for me financially, and my parents enjoy having a babysitter/chief cook and bottle washer, and I think it's a pretty low price to pay considering I live here rent and bill free.

Well. It was, until recently.

It is my mother's second marriage, and he is my step father. I have known him since I was 2, and I call him 'Dad'. I would call him my father. I noticed when they argued, but it didn't happen often. My mum had a few friends from her time at university and saw them occassionally - but since my dad got us to move when she graduated, she very rarely got to see them. My dad had no friends, and never went out at all unless it was with us, or to go to work. My mother was stuck in a new area, with no means of transport, two children under the age of 10 (myself and my older brother) and a newborn baby (my little brother, J) and a husband who refused to take her to meet people or show her around the area. At the time, she dealt with it because she knew leaving with a newborn in a new city and two school aged children was impossible. And of course, they'd just got married so there was a chance of it improving.

It never did.

Things limped on. My dad had some debts that she knew of, from before they'd met, but he refused to let her see the bank statements. One day she'd had enough, took the statements and had a confrontation. He owed (owes) an obscene amount of money. That will take the rest of his life to pay off. And he had continued spending, booking holidays, getting new credit cards to cover costs. The marriage fell apart.

And since then, it's been hell. He is insanely jealous that she has joined a gym, got fit, and made new friends and that she now goes out several nights a week. He waits up, looking out of the window, waiting to see who will give her a lift home. He constantly interrogates her about where she is going and who with and why and to do what and why is she wearing that and when did she buy that and when will she be home and how will she get home and who will drive her home. She has told him, multiple times, that she wants a divorce, that it cannot carry on, that she no longer loves him and that he needs to move out. But legally, it is half his house. She cannot make him move. And he refuses.

More than once he has just decided on a whim at the very last minute to go out to a bar, and only tells us by leaving a message on the answerphone. This happened once after my mother had already left to go for a run, expecting him home and leaving me to babysit, when he left a message. I was forced to give up my plans for the evening because I couldn't get in touch with either of them and couldn't leave my brother on his own (he has a serious heart condition which means he needs someone in the house with him at all times and regular medication). Not only that, but his beta blockers (which I can't give, since I don't know the quantities) ended up being an hour late - which could be life threatening. Because my dad was trying to stop my mother going out. He has also refused to go and pick up the beta blockers from the chemist when we'd nearly run out because, "Why should I always do it", despite the fact that he has always done it when he picks up his own medication for asthma and so on.

She has repeatedly told him not to touch her, that she is only still there because she will not move out of the house and leave my brother. His behaviour is becoming more and more erratic, whether it's from putting my brother's health at risk, or snooping through my mother's underwear drawer and her desk, or spotting my older brother in town and following him for ten minutes without actually saying hello because, "I just wanted to see what he was up to."

Tonight, my mother came home from work and went to get changed. She immediately called me upstairs to show me something. He had bought several sex books ("Foreplay Tips", "How To Please A Woman In Bed") and left them displayed on his bedside table, along with a box of chocolates that said, "GORGEOUS!" on the label. She was, understandably, very freaked out and upset since she has made it extremely clear she does not want him to be near her. She phoned my older brother, who is a police officer, for advice and she's now keeping a log of every inappropriate behaviour he displays. His behaviour isn't erratic enough to get him sectioned, he refuses to admit he is in any way creepy or inappropriate, he will not move out so that divorce proceedings can start properly. In short, he will not do anything that will make anyone's life, including his own, any easier.

My mother has started looking for houses to rent with my older brother, who has said he will move in with her and pay part of the rent. I will go with her, and possibly J, and we will fight for custody. It seems likely that we will get it, since my grandfather (my mother's father) is the one who looks after J most of the time and he has said he will not help my father look after J if there is a divorce because he does not believe he is a fit father.

My mother is feeling intimidated in her own home. My older brother and I are concerned for her well-being. And my heart breaks for my younger brother, who already has so much to deal with.

But sometimes, I just want to be selfish. I am only 20 and I am being more of a parent to J than either of my parents are right now, as well as studying, and working, and attempting to keep my 18 month relationship going. My boyfriend is very supportive (to the point of offering to rent a place and us moving in together just so I can get out of the house), but there are only so many times I can cancel plans, or say, "I'm sorry, I can't see you this week, I need to babysit" without causing tension. I am desperate for a life of my own and the more limited responsibilities of the rest of my friends.

And then I look at J and I remember losing touch with my biological father when I was his age. I remember feeling abandoned, and unloved, and worthless, and how useless must I be for my own parent to not want me. He is tall and gangling, but he is still my little brother, and he needs stability, and for someone to want his company and to laugh at his jokes, and to sometimes make him smile. So when he hugs me goodnight and I can feel his unsteady heart beat, I know that I will make my sacrifices, and I will not move out, and I will help my mother get custody, and if I need to I will live with my father so that J is not on his own. I will do it. For him.

You're So Vain

Posted by Anonymous.

I bet you think this blog is about you, don’t you? Well, for once it is.

I’m the mother of a beautiful five month old guy. He wasn’t planned, he wasn’t expected and despite the terrible first few months of learning how to deal with this little alien I created, I love him to pieces. Unfortunately, there is ONE thing that is not addressed in pre-natal classes that becomes an issue after baby is born.

Breast feeding? Check – been through the hell, done that.

To swaddle or not to swaddle? Check.

Lack of sleep, lack of a proper diet? Check

Post partum depression? Check check and check!

The fact that your once supportive partner will quickly become a stranger and ‘not be able to deal’ with the changes in your relationship? Definitely NOT covered.

I’m starting to think that men should have a separate segment of pre-natal classes; how to deal with their own warring emotions, how to handle jealousy and how to realize that sure, your happiness is important, but there is now a new little demanding creature whose needs do come first.

After almost five years, he decided to leave, right after I was diagnosed with post partum depression and having to accept the fact that medication was necessary. After five years and being beyond supportive during my pregnancy, beyond supportive and helpful in the first two months of the new little one’s life, he decides he’s ‘miserable’ and can’t handle it anymore. He walks out, expecting me to grasp at any small bit of strength I can find. After five years, he decides he’s not sure if he knows what love is and has feelings for someone at work, whom he has confided all in recently. After five years, he’s decided that he’s not happy and someone else needs his support and energy more than his young son and his still adjusting wife to be.

And after all this, he expects me to be understanding, sympathetic...and not make it hellish for him when he comes to visit the little guy. He doesn’t understand why I’m so bitter, of course and why my normally in check temper comes out blaring sirens. He can’t understand why “no one wants him to be happy”

I’m supposed to be supportive and keep it together. It’s not easy.