Being someone who always cautioned colleagues and students about disclosing mental illness, this is my 'coming out of the closet' in many ways. Would I come out while professionally working, NO. The US not only dumps its mentally ill as often as possible back onto the street since closing mental hospitals, and shelter homes are staffed by some mighty nasty people-In NY I passed a residence everyday with people sitting mutely waiting for their 'work' van to take them where ever for the day. Caretakers said little except to quiet anyone because they didnt want neighbors complaining. Federal budgets to states force local communities to cut aid to this most vulnerable population who are then forced to live on the street, in tunnels, prostitute and dig in dumpsters.
I think my children are having issues with me going public and I try to no longer participate in emotional games i.e. this one said this or that, dont tell your brother/sister, no I cant give you rent money etc and I no longer feel any reason to explain why I need to purchase something like a rug or thermal underwear in an apartment that averages 48 or less degrees at night.
It is ironic that my father's favorite game with me was to be The Judge and I would be the Lawyer. You have to picture a withered greying man sitting an a well appointed living room, alone with his drifting family, knowing his wife is a runaround and his children are growing into a world he no longer understands. A young president was murdered, we're at war in a country he never heard of,
and every night a newsman asks the same question at 10pm "Do YOU know where your children are?" He calls out to my mother,
"Did you hear that M?"
It is Saturday afternoon, late afternoon and sun drifts through the shutters as I stand across the room waiting to present my legal brief to a currently sober father in his jammies who wants to test himself by debating his 9 year old daughter. My mother will always ask the same question as she sticks her head in from the hallway bathroom where she's putting on makeup or taking off makeup..."Don't you have anything else to do but bother your father?"
I once asked my mother if me and my sister were adopted. She always made me feel I was a stumbling block in her path, something to step around like poop on the sidewalk, walk behind her not next to her and certainly never hold her hand inside or outside. So if my father loves this game and created it for him and I, Phuck off.
What he taught me was to analyze every detail, from every side. Its been a gift and a curse. Its driven me mad as I must know and grasp an idea or a person before I can think about trust. But in academia, its was a useful tool. Segue to this weeks therapy assignment...
Go over the death certificate by covering it with another sheet of paper and very slowly read each line, keeping anxiety at the specific level and stopping if that level cannot be maintained.
So here's what I found under scrutiny:
Older European doctor sympathetic (read-had a crush on my mother and did whatever she asked)came to apartment 12 hours earlier and by 4pm the following day rigor mortis was so severe when I saw my him, the undertaker could not move him without breaking certain bones. I said to therapist, 'that's a whole lotta dead.'
The death certificate was already prepared, the cremation money was sitting out ready and the undertaker got there shortly after I had been called. I think both my mother and her friendly doctor decided it would be for the best of everyone if a sufficient amount of something was given to let him sleep ad infinitum, and she waited until there was no longer any question of him being alive before calling me.
Of course that's only my hypotenus...could be she worked alone, both daughters out of the house, no one to get relief from. As my mother was dying she said something about "This is my punishment" in reference to suffering from cancer and being in a hospice (I was still working fulltime and she was leaving gas jets on). But perhaps her sudden insight was meant for other acts committed-I'll never know, once my mother entered hospice, she stopped speaking altogether.
I've been convinced of one thing so far, there is nothing more curative than seeing a dead relative nailed into a box and placed 6ft under ground with the hope you never hear from them again. Unfortunately both my parents chose or forced us to chose cremation since no money was left for any semblance of a funeral, something I work toward hoping to spare my own kids from having to chose.
I think my children are having issues with me going public and I try to no longer participate in emotional games i.e. this one said this or that, dont tell your brother/sister, no I cant give you rent money etc and I no longer feel any reason to explain why I need to purchase something like a rug or thermal underwear in an apartment that averages 48 or less degrees at night.
It is ironic that my father's favorite game with me was to be The Judge and I would be the Lawyer. You have to picture a withered greying man sitting an a well appointed living room, alone with his drifting family, knowing his wife is a runaround and his children are growing into a world he no longer understands. A young president was murdered, we're at war in a country he never heard of,
and every night a newsman asks the same question at 10pm "Do YOU know where your children are?" He calls out to my mother,
"Did you hear that M?"
It is Saturday afternoon, late afternoon and sun drifts through the shutters as I stand across the room waiting to present my legal brief to a currently sober father in his jammies who wants to test himself by debating his 9 year old daughter. My mother will always ask the same question as she sticks her head in from the hallway bathroom where she's putting on makeup or taking off makeup..."Don't you have anything else to do but bother your father?"
I once asked my mother if me and my sister were adopted. She always made me feel I was a stumbling block in her path, something to step around like poop on the sidewalk, walk behind her not next to her and certainly never hold her hand inside or outside. So if my father loves this game and created it for him and I, Phuck off.
What he taught me was to analyze every detail, from every side. Its been a gift and a curse. Its driven me mad as I must know and grasp an idea or a person before I can think about trust. But in academia, its was a useful tool. Segue to this weeks therapy assignment...
Go over the death certificate by covering it with another sheet of paper and very slowly read each line, keeping anxiety at the specific level and stopping if that level cannot be maintained.
So here's what I found under scrutiny:
Older European doctor sympathetic (read-had a crush on my mother and did whatever she asked)came to apartment 12 hours earlier and by 4pm the following day rigor mortis was so severe when I saw my him, the undertaker could not move him without breaking certain bones. I said to therapist, 'that's a whole lotta dead.'
The death certificate was already prepared, the cremation money was sitting out ready and the undertaker got there shortly after I had been called. I think both my mother and her friendly doctor decided it would be for the best of everyone if a sufficient amount of something was given to let him sleep ad infinitum, and she waited until there was no longer any question of him being alive before calling me.
Of course that's only my hypotenus...could be she worked alone, both daughters out of the house, no one to get relief from. As my mother was dying she said something about "This is my punishment" in reference to suffering from cancer and being in a hospice (I was still working fulltime and she was leaving gas jets on). But perhaps her sudden insight was meant for other acts committed-I'll never know, once my mother entered hospice, she stopped speaking altogether.
I've been convinced of one thing so far, there is nothing more curative than seeing a dead relative nailed into a box and placed 6ft under ground with the hope you never hear from them again. Unfortunately both my parents chose or forced us to chose cremation since no money was left for any semblance of a funeral, something I work toward hoping to spare my own kids from having to chose.
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