My husband did everything he could within the confines and nerves of new fatherhood. What was he supposed to do as he watched his wife genuinely smile and coo and competently take care of our baby, then an hour later, turn around and sob and crumble into wishing “I’d just fall into a black hole of feeling nothing. Dead but not really dead.”
How do you respond to your wife’s sort of death wish?
My husband was a hands-on dad from the start. There for me in every way. But with my exhaustion and hormone-imbalanced brain, nothing helped my depression except getting back on hormone replacement therapy (I have a pituitary disorder that requires HRT), more sleep, and sheer time to get used to the demands of being a new mother.
Identity crisis…
I was a stay-at-home mother by grateful choice (and self-imposed guilt), but as the months went on sometimes I felt mind-numbingly bored. Flattened and anxious by the drudgery and repetition. Despite the numerous Mommy and Me playgroups I joined. Despite friends telling me “this too shall pass and they’re only young once.” Despite date nights with my husband and girls’ nights.
Without fail I followed the formula prescribed to make the transition to being at home easier. In fact I did more than most of my stay-at-home mom friends who weren’t yet comfortable leaving their little ones.
But it wasn’t enough.
Not until my daughter started Kindergarten and I had more time to myself and to write. First I wrote cathartic stream-of-consciousness ramblings to self-soothe, then gradually I wrote as a part-time profession.
Motherhood tore open beautiful facets of myself and my relationships. Richer in emotion, new layers of appreciation emerged as I watched my child giggle at dandelion fluff, blow a ladybug off her finger, run from the waves chasing her little ankles.
But motherhood also threw me into a full-on identity crisis.
I’d been an ambitious marketing professional for 20 years and then suddenly I wasn’t. A shift so abrupt as to almost reorganize my DNA overnight.
My daughter was of course front and center, her well-being always top of mind. But becoming a parent didn’t suddenly wipe clean my ambition or my need to spend time alone or with my husband and friends.
And yet I was told that it would, promised that “once I saw that little baby nothing else would matter in the world.” But other things did still matter, even while I fell in love with this perfect creature I wanted more than anything.
Emotions in contradiction. Or were they?
Mothers are all different as humans are all different…
Being at home full-time is just easier for some mothers. I don’t mean the work is easier.
It’s universally hard to be chronically sleep-deprived and change 800 diapers. To be hypervigilant that your child doesn’t choke, suffocate in her sleep, stick her fingers in sockets or the dog’s mouth, run in the street, smear her poop, sling-shot off the slide or bite her toddler friend – again.
It’s exhausting to worry about Texas-shaped rashes, fevers, teething, vaccine reactions, solid food introductions, weird cries, to nurse, rock, soothe, stroll, shop, play Candyland incessantly and watch The Wiggles for the 90th time.
But some women adapt better to this new normal. They don’t have a full-on identity crisis as I did.
It goes without saying that watching your child grow and thrive is spectacular. What’s not spectacular is the exhaustion and the ambivalent feelings we grapple with alongside judgment from other parents.
The “I love my child, but I hate……”
I dropped out of the workforce when my daughter was 9 months old (I’d returned part-time after maternity leave). Once the honeymoon of being home ended and the silence of no adult company crept in, once my daughter’s two-hour screaming fests shattered my nerves — the stress, repetition and boredom drove me mad.
So to process my feelings, when I had time I wrote.
I also read stacks of books about real motherhood. Gritty, raw stories (My favorite, Susan Maushart’s The Mask of Motherhood). These books unpacked and validated the anger, resentment and anxiety mixed with gratitude, awe and love.
To be human is to feel a spectrum of good and “bad” emotion….
The spectrum of emotions I have since become obsessed to accept rather than vilify.
From that space came a compulsion to write what I learned, loved and loathed about the experience of being human, about grappling with ambivalence.
It starts with the truth. Unpolished. Uncomfortable at first.
It starts with being radically honest with ourselves (and with people we trust).
Honesty takes a risk. Honesty is terrifying.
But gradually the chokehold of trying to pretend you’re someone you’re not comes off.
Freedom comes from (trying) not to judge yourself for feeling different from your friends, mother, sister, cousin, and neighbors.
When I enrolled my daughter in two pre-schools at the same time (half days Mon-Tues for one, Wed-Thu another), you can imagine the comments.
“That’s interesting, I’d never heard of anyone doing that before,” said one friend. “Well at least you’re not doing it just to get your nails done,” said another. “You’re doing it to have time to write.”
“Actually I’m doing it to have time for errands, writing and nails.”
One of my daughter’s pre-school teachers asked me, “Doesn’t your daughter get confused?”
“Not it all. She’s doing really well. Does she seem confused to you?”
“Well, no, actually.”
As humans we share traits born of the instinct to survive and to thrive.
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Food, shelter, safety, a need for love, validation and belonging.
But we’re also individuals, spectacular in our breadth and depth of interests, challenges and pathways to finding peace, joy, balance and God knows, less angst.
In the end, your authentic self is who should show up every day. Because the ones who love you will love you despite — or probably because of who you are. The others, well, they never mattered much anyway.
I just listened to Marc Maron’s WTF podcast where he interviewed Nicole Byer (both are comedians, actors, podcasters). Marc asked Nicole when her parents passed away. Both were in their mid-50’s. Like anyone who loses parents too young, Nicole had a hard time.
And like most well-intended people who console the bereaved, the condolences came pouring in. Death is uncomfortable. What to say, what not say.
I’m sorry for your loss. We’ll miss her so much. I’m here for you. What can I do? Let me bring you dinner, help with arrangements, whatever you need.
These words are kind, comforting and thoughtful. A salve to ease the unimaginable.
But there are a few words that harm, “At least she’s in a better place.”
Nicole said she heard it a lot.
I know. I really believe they think they’re offering Christian comfort.
But to the survivors, even after long intense suffering, losing their loved one feels like hell on earth. Even if their loved one passing is a relief.
“Better place” translates to, “I know you’re hurting but maybe feel a tiny bit of comfort because where they are is better than where they were.”
Still, it’s a crushing platitude for what the survivor feels.
Profound breathless gut-punched loss, aching grief and suffocating loneliness. How to move through the next moment, the next hour, the next breakfast and bedtime’s oppressive emptiness.
The smell of his shirts, a stray sock near the bed, his favorite mug or leftovers. The photos, travels, shared spaces in every inch of the house. His children’s faces and tears. Thousands of lingering floating reminders that stab over and over and over.
Marc laughed when Nicole mentioned “in a better place.”
“Yeah what the hell is that,” he said. “Better place? No it’s not better. Better is here, with me. That’s better.”
That’s how I feel. Better is here.
This is probably why I never sense my father’s presence like lots of people do with deceased loved ones. I envy their connection. Their surprise ethereal embrace. Some people sense a spirit, or meaningful personal objects fall down for no reason, supernatural events that tell them their loved one is close. I’m here. I’m okay. You’ll be okay.
I loved my father with every cell. I told a friend years before he died in 2006 that when he went, I’d crumble and never recover. I felt it years before I lost him which is why I think I did recover. That and relief that he wasn’t suffering anymore.
My deceased father has never been a spiritual presence. He’s gone. Finite. Only pictures, videos and memories that I choose to look at bring him back. Perhaps I never sense him because spirit energy isn’t enough for me so I don’t even try. Also, the supernatural freaks me out a little. I believe but don’t want to experience.
I want all of my father or none of him. Not his essence. Not his energy. Energy can’t congratulate my daughter on graduating from high school, college and getting her first career job.
At least I had years to say goodbye even as his Lewy Body dementia and Parkinson’s advanced. I got a lot of my dad even as his mind changed. Even when he was confused about things, like constantly falling because he forgot he shouldn’t shuffle to the kitchen to clean out his teacup. He’d forget his body didn’t behave the way his mind wanted. But he never forgot people. Not one. He’d forget time frames, like that I’d recently visited.
Marc Maron’s longtime girlfriend Lynn died fast and unexpectedly two years ago. He didn’t get to say goodbye in the hospital after paramedics picked her up in his apartment. It was during COVID. Death was quarantined. It’s one of the saddest things I heard during the pandemic. Barred from holding a loved one’s hand.
I understand when someone is suffering with no chance of recovery that dying is the better place. Whether it’s heaven or the relief of nothingness. The pain stops. That’s better.
My stepmother has this expression she often says about end of life. “There’s worst things than death.” No one said “better place” when Dad died. They understood my father would shoot them a dirty look from the universe.
My father’s illnesses stole the brilliant, witty, loving person I knew all my life. For the most part he lived and communicated marginally well thanks to a litany of meds and my amazing stepmother.
Until the last year or so when he was wheelchair-bound he got around with a cane and walker. He ate okay. He continued to read voraciously. The day he died on Halloween, his mother’s birthday, two weeks before we’d gone to a famous Tampa steak house for my birthday. We pushed his wheelchair into the elegant table. Dad barely touched his spectacular food. His face rigid the way Parkinson’s involuntarily freezes expressions into faux angry.
That’s the night my father’s quality of life shrank to nothing.
One of his last passions, good food and wine gone. No taste. No appetite. All his pleasures now diseased.
Two days before he died my stepmother asked me to try get him to take a bite of ice cream. Sweet is apparently the final taste to go. My father reluctantly slurped a small spoonful of vanilla just to make me happy. His last bite was for me. His last words, “Thank you, but that’s all honey.”
So yes death is a better place than that.
My father, a gentle quiet agnostic who never mocked my beliefs or cared what others followed, would say that the better place is here on earth and healthy. That death is a black void with sad survivors in the wake.
The better place lives longer than 74. The better place is with his wife, girls and grandkids, sipping a beautiful Burgundy, seasoning his all-day spaghetti sauce, reading the New York Times, ribbing everyone with his perfect Boris Karloff and endless British accents, at peace with past mistakes, watching the sunset over Indian Rocks Beach every summer, screaming at his NY Giants.
When I was 22, a year after working my first after-college job as a market research analyst, I moved to live with my serious boyfriend.
For six months I scanned the paper looking for jobs in marketing or marketing research. Eventually I found a listing for a “marketing assistant” to sell seasonal plants out of an empty greenhouse in a farming town an hour north of my house.
The first red flag was that my soon-to-be boss interviewed me at a Mcdonald’s, and that he didn’t have a car or his own place.
Gray looked to be in his mid to late fifties, and I later learned when I had to drive him home a few times, that he lived with his mother.
He was tall and distinguished-looking with thick salt and pepper hair, dark-rimmed glasses and a resting smug-face. He told me that he’d been a former NYC Madison Ave advertising exec who in his heyday was in high demand.
My sense was that he’d wreaked havoc in his career and was run out of the industry. Gray insisted that after he quit drinking it was he who decided to quit the NYC scene. He also claimed he made and lost millions and was starting over as an entrepreneur.
His plan was to buy wholesale inventory of Florida seasonal plants to sell directly to customers via direct mail, newspaper, television and radio.
The dangling carrot was that while he couldn’t pay much, the money would inevitably come rolling in, and that I’d be mentored by marketing greatness.
My 20-minute interview consisted of “Do you want the job?” and a rundown of the position. We would market seasonal orchids and Neanthe bella palms out of an empty greenhouse where he’d rented space. Just the two of us until he hired a salesperson (he eventually did).
Gray spent a great deal of time telling me how brilliant he was, insisting that he knew more than most in the industry. He was loud, intimidating and incessantly braggadocio.
It was clear he sensed my naivety, ambition and desperation to work in marketing.
One day during lunch with a potential client, the client offered to pay for our meal. Gray said thank you but I said, “Oh that’s okay, you’re the customer, we should pay.”
When we got back to the office Gray lost it.
“DON’T YOU EVER SECOND GUESS ME IN FRONT OF A CUSTOMER AGAIN!” then he threw his coffee mug on the carpet. YOU EMBARRASSED ME! LET THE GODDAMN CLIENT PAY IF HE WANTS TO PAY!”
As awkward and insecure as I was at 22, I knew despite my mistake, his behavior was out of line. I apologized then told him, “I thought I was being professional!”
Then to match his anger I threw my coffee cup on the carpet. He didn’t fire me.
One afternoon out of nowhere Gray told me, “You know, I used to have a secretary who came to work without any underwear.”
“Uh Gray, you do know it’s inappropriate to tell me that?”
For the next couple minutes he proceeded to yell and gaslight.
“I’M TELLING YOU THIS FOR YOUR OWN GODDAMN GOOD!!! IF YOU PLAN TO MAKE IT IN CORPORATE AMERICA YOU’LL NEED TO KNOW HOW TO DEAL WITH MEN THAT WILL SAY SHIT LIKE THAT TO YOU!”
I was stunned and disgusted that my boss not only sexually harassed me but tried to convince me that this was a teaching moment.
A conversation with my father flashed from when I was around 19.
“Has any guy ever been inappropriate with you?”
Besides a drunk college guy screaming “c…..t!” out his dorm window because I wouldn’t go out with him, and a much older yoga instructor during college who offered to trade private lessons for “massage,” no.
“Well, don’t ever let a man mistreat you under any circumstances. Pay attention to how he makes you feel.”
I told Gray that an underwearless secretary story wasn’t a “lesson” to help me navigate men in corporate America. It was gross and inappropriate.
“You just don’t get it,” he said then walked out of the room.
Gray had a former girlfriend who sometimes used our copier and fax. During one visit she pulled me aside and whispered, “Be careful with Gray. When we dated my mom thought something was seriously wrong with him. At one point she told him, ‘Listen, if you’re going to keep dating my daughter I insist you take this psychological assessment.’ I agreed with her concerns so I made Gray take the test.”
Apparently he scored off the charts on “sociopath” traits.
The last straw was after an advertising shoot.
One morning we drove to a studio to film a 60-second ad. While he was working with the cameraman and setting up props he told me, “I need you to do the ad.” Clearly he didn’t want to spend the money to hire a professional actor and figured he could last-minute bully me into doing something that wasn’t in my job description.
“Gray I have zero experience. I’m too nervous.”
“Listen, it’s only 60 seconds. It’s not hard. I’ll coach you and anyway, we don’t have anyone else. I’ve already paid for the cameraman. You have to do it. You’re my marketing assistant.”
So I sat on the stool, awkwardly held the orchid, waited for the cameraman’s signal then started reading the cue cards. My hands and voice shook. I flubbed lines during every take.
Gray yelled repeatedly for me to slow down, relax and just “act natural.” At some point I was close to tears but blinked them back.
Eventually he got frustrated, gave up and told the cameraman he’d do the ad himself because I “couldn’t handle the job, but that it would be much better if a woman was selling the orchids.”
Fortunately no other boss I ever worked with came close to being the narcissistic bully Gray was.
In the beginning I saw him as a hard-knock, seasoned marketing professional. Smart. Creative. Resilient. Fearless.
But he was just a pig and a fraud.
Thank God despite my fragile confidence, my father, mother and stepmother instilled me with a strong sense of self-protection.
If it feels wrong, it is.
Fortunately I was in a financial position to quit. I didn’t have dependents and I knew my boyfriend (now husband) and parents were there for me if I needed help.
I can’t remember the details the day I quit, only that it took three months. I don’t remember what Gray said as I packed my stuff and walked out of the greenhouse.
I only remember I was shocked that he wasn’t mad and relieved he didn’t have a tantrum.
Maybe he ran out of money. Or maybe he realized we’d never work out because I wasn’t his naive little puppet or underwear-free secretary he secretly envisioned that day at McDonald’s.
Orginally published by the Orlando Sentinel – Guest columnist
My daughter recently attended a Harry Styles concert at the Amway Center in Orlando. As required by the venue she showed her vaccine passport (or a negative COVID-19 test 48 hours prior).
Now, the Amway Center and other establishments in Florida, are under investigation for violating Gov. Ron DeSantis’s ban on vaccine passports.
When will it end? The politicization of everything vs. decisions based on critical thinking and common sense?
Norwegian Cruise Lines defied DeSantis’s vaccine passport ban. Of course they did. Cruise ships are giant moving superspreaders.
So why is our hands-off-business governor fighting this no-brainer?
Politics. And some voters on all sides are following suit.
Coming down on an issue solely in opposition to the other party. If they’re for it, I’m against it. But are they really against the issue across every angle?
Never mind nuance. Never mind science and common sense. That uncomfortable middle ground that makes our head hurt.
God help you if you ponder the practicality of mask mandates and vaccine passports in all situations. Party treason.
And when the vaccine was first released if you had a legitimate concern (vs. a ridiculous conspiracy theory) you were a selfish moron.
Where’s the nuanced thinking in statements like, “Wear masks even if you’re vaccinated!” or “Vaccine passports are like living under the Gestapo!”
On vaccine passports I’m not totally against or in favor. In other words, it depends.
I support (temporarily) requiring proof of vaccination (or a negative COVID test) at large crowd and travel venues. I support a vaccine mandate in schools, for frontline workers and in health-care settings. Lots of people, close together, spread lots of germs. That’s not political. That’s science.
But I’m against requiring them at every business, e.g. every retailer and restaurant. Common sense knows this isn’t practical. And it’s invasive. I say that and I’m a Democrat.
I support businesses encouraging but not requiring the vaccine as a contingency for employment (or a negative COVID test).
I personally have no issue showing my vax card (I have yet to be asked). It’s not like I’m revealing I had an STD. But if I had to show my card everywhere from now until who knows, it would get old. Of course I’d pull it out without pitching a fit. It’s how I feel about masks.
I hate them. Yes, we all do. But I hate masks a lot. Except I know they help stop the spread so prevaccine I politely complied.
Okay, you got me. Masks, like vaccines, aren’t 100%.
But when we scream “Masks don’t work!” we’ve willingly stopped using common sense, never mind respect for established science.
Masks do work. They help.
The word help doesn’t mean prevent. It means to assist. Vaccines assist in stopping the spread.
I’m concerned we’ve lost our will to even consider the nuance behind issues. Shades-of-gray thinking doesn’t fit into a tidy party narrative of Us vs. Them. And our cognitive dissonance is astronomical.
If a business still requires a mask I politely wear it, otherwise I forgo because I’m vaccinated. Uber still requires masks. So last weekend, I privately grumbled to my husband, put on my mask, got in the car, and kept my mouth shut about it to the driver.
I keep strengthening my immune system with a supplement regime I’ve done for years. And once the stay-at-home order was lifted in Florida in May 2020, my husband and I went out — a lot. I tested and quarantined before I visited my elderly stepmom, reminding her that a false negative was a real possibility.
I’ve tested three times including one antibody test. All negative.
Some people might call me selfish for going out so often before I was vaccinated. I’d ask them to consider what I’ve been doing to strengthen my immune system.
Either it worked or I’m lucky. I got sick plenty before I started on this regime years ago. Now I don’t. Or at least not for long.
We owe it to each other to care about the collective. We also have the right to take individual calculated risks. My husband and I are one of those messy middle-of-the-road people during the pandemic. We don’t fit one box or the other.
At this point during COVID-19 we might consider mandates in context of where and when they make sense.
We teach our kids to be good citizens and critical thinkers, shouldn’t adults do the same?
I don’t tremble, but they assume I’m Katherine Hepburn’s kind. We share our Parkinson’s frozen mask, expressionless, involuntary deceit of emotion.
My shuffling gait halts while I calibrate my balance, refusing my wife’s arm even as my committee of limbs won’t comply.
Stiffening, my six-foot body cracks against the shower door that night. Cubes of blunt glass explode. I am bare, crooked. Fetal once again. Read entire poem…
Over the years I’ve noticed that my threshold for dealing with drama is remarkably low. Not that sort of “oh I’m getting older and less patient” low. I mean that chaotic people who seem to live for chaos make me intensely uncomfortable.
The last couple years I’ve been part
of a spiritual book club at my Unitarian Universalist church. Now with COVID we
meet through Zoom.
Our readings run the gamut of ancient and contemporary teachings. Deepak Chopra, Wayne Dyer’s interpretation of the Tao Te Ching. Currently we’re reading Donna Cameron’s “A Year of Living Kindly.”
To sum up the latter:
Being nice is easy (polite and pleasant) but being kind is hard, that is — going out of your way to help someone, especially people who aren’t easy to like.
Perhaps you invite the cranky neighbor or incessant complainer friend to lunch because you know that deep down they’re lonely, sad, angry or scared. You put yourself in their shoes. You suck it up and do the right thing.
You call your bigoted friend with a big heart who you repeatedly have to correct when she offhandedly refers to “those Jews.” You clean out the elderly neighbor’s garage even as she criticizes how you stack the boxes or sweep the floor.
No matter how excruciating, you listen to incessant complaining about the minutia of minutia of the minutia.
The point is — kindness takes time, energy, courage and infinite patience.
I take great pains to avoid spending too much time with extremely difficult people: the racist relative, the self-centered high maintenance friend, the relentless complainer or critic, the snobs, blowhards and narcissists, all people you might like well enough in small doses, but who are generally a pain in the ass.
During book club we often find ourselves grappling with what we’re each willing to put up with around people we love but who do some pretty crappy stuff. Boundaries, and all that.
Like everyone in my book club I believe that “to love” is better than “to hate,” and that to forgive is better than to resent someone forever. But unlike many in my group, I find myself exploring these topics less from a spiritual point of view, and more from a psychological one.
During college I majored in psychology mostly as a reflex to growing up in a somewhat dysfunctional family (to no one person’s fault I might add, and I was loved immensely). For years I thought I was semi screwed up and in turn I became obsessed with why I was the way I was (anxious, insecure, the quintessential people pleaser) and — with why humans sometimes treat each other in the most despicable ways.
My father and his first wife Peggy adopted me when I was a few months old. At some point when I was in Kindergarten Peggy met and fell in love with a married-with-children well-established world wildlife photographer while on a bird-watching cruise to the Seychelles.
From her brief affair, my mother immediately left my father and five kids and never came back. She forged an exotic life away from elegant housewife and busy mother in a small upper-middle-class NJ suburb, to wearing Birkenstocks, camping across the African Plains and shooting spectacular pictures for National Geographic and the like.
I’m told for a short time after Peggy left that I stopped talking, which if you know me for five minutes isn’t something I’m known (my family nickname was “motor mouth”).
My father, a remarkably demonstrative man for his era, made it quite clear that he loved all his kids, although he admitted later in life that he was often too harsh with my out-of-control brothers. A single working dad commuting an hour into New York City every day, raising a brood of five bereft children, despite family therapy and a grandmotherly nanny, is in the end, up against too much not to lose it from time to time.
Two years after Peggy left my father remarried. His second wife Pat was a remarkable and resilient woman who brought with her, two wonderful boys from her first marriage. But by the time Pat came to the rescue there wasn’t much she could do to repair what Peggy destroyed.
I for instance, was a nervous little thing, briefly mute, refusing Pat once told me, to hug back, my arms peeled to my side, in unconscious defiance, I guess, of ever getting close to another mother. My oldest brother Mark, I learned after his death in 2012, started using drugs in high school, possibly even heroin (more on Mark later). At least once he called Pat a c….t which isn’t exactly the foundation for the Brady Bunch.
My middle brother John, a sweet anxious smart introvert, battled a stutter, and my youngest brother Chris was picked up by police for selling drugs near a sub shop and hiring a prostitute. Of all the kids my sister appeared the most unscathed although I realized later in life, that wasn’t the case.
I have vague memories of the boys (probably not John) rolling dog food cans at our kitten down our kitchen aisle, their version of delightful cat bowling. This was likely one step past “boys will be boys,” like when Chris lit firecrackers inside sunfish from our pond while my parent’s party guests looked on – and behavior that teetered on sociopath. Seven years after my father and Pat married, they got divorced, a marriage for many reasons, was destined to fail from the start.
As such, over the years I’ve noticed that my threshold for dealing with high drama or difficult people is remarkably low. Not that sort of age-predicted “oh I’m getting older and less patient” low.
I mean that chaotic people who seem to live for chaos make me intensely uncomfortable. Sensing the faintest whiff of high maintenance (e.g. people often in fights, narcissists, drama queens, those constantly incensed or in need of inexhaustible attention) I will ever so politely back away until our interaction is seamlessly next to nothing.
My brilliant, funny, addict brother
My brother Mark’s opioid addiction got worse when he hurt his back after a fall while he worked on an oil rig in Arizona. Mark was a big bear of a guy, Paul Bunyan-like, brilliant with a wicked dark sarcasm. Even in the midst of peddling his worst addict lies, I laughed at his jokes and knew without question, that he loved his family. He once sent a letter to Pat, the same woman he battled and called the c-word, to thank her for taking care of me and my sister after Peggy left.
For years Mark worked as a public defender and later in private practice with a partner, who I can’t fathom how he managed to keep his practice afloat while dealing with Mark’s obvious addiction. Still, his partner kept him on until it got so bad that despite repeated warnings, he had no choice but to turn Mark into the Bar, who after a review, revoked Mark’s law license.
One afternoon in January 2012 my father’s third wife Mary, who I’d grown close from the moment we met, called and told me “You won’t believe this, but Mark’s dead.” An autopsy revealed that my brother died from opioids and advanced arteriosclerosis.
Shocked and gut-punched, I didn’t cry. Not then, not at his service, not once in nine years. I wasn’t angry at Mark anymore, I just grew numb to his lies and without consciously realizing it, numb to Mark.
At one point my brother was so far gone that during a flight home from Orlando after visiting (when during lunch with my toddler by my side and Mark’s client across from me in a booth, Mark slurred the whole time) the pilot had to make an emergency landing in Houston. Apparently Mark’s seatmate tried to wake him so he could navigate around his body to go to the bathroom but Mark was unconscious.
“Your son’s a big guy,” the ER doctor told my father and Mary, “anyone else with this level of alcohol and opioids in his system would be dead.”
Mark eventually landed in prison after three DUI’s (a felony in Arizona). Incarceration kept him alive for a while and when he got out he was sober. In time he started using drugs again, then entered multiple re-habs paid for by my father and Mary. Ultimately Mark settled into using opioids at a level just low enough to fake being sober.
A few years before prison, during one Christmas visit to my house, after a few beers and whatever drugs he took that day, as usual Mark’s eyes rolled to the back of his head, the whites flashed across the room, and his inevitable pronounced slur rolled in as he cranked up his brash humor, “So how the hell are you, Laura? Your patient husband sick of your bullshit yet?”
Despite my horror when Mark reached that level of intoxication, I still managed to laugh at his blunt comments. Because humor was stable, humor was who Mark was. Sober or otherwise.
But as the night went on he’d stir the pot. He’d lean back with his beer, smirk, then casually bring up issues between family members long forgotten or resolved. “So Laura you still pissed after that beach trip you guys had with Mary last year?” Because if Mark could dig up drama about someone else, the spotlight temporarily moved off the fact that he was drowning in his addiction.
One night during a Christmas visit while everyone ran around cooking dinner in our crowded kitchen, setting tables, TV blaring, music on, without asking Mark took my toddler daughter for a night walk on the golf course behind our house. It was only five minutes, but neither my husband nor I knew he took her, or that perhaps in the flurry of dinnertime activity, distracted, someone told him he could take her.
I ran to the backyard, intercepted Mark and asked where the hell he’d been. When he walked inside he announced that he’d “hoisted Taylor on his shoulders to take a walk and with all that bouncing that she probably had her first orgasm.” Then he roared laughing, oblivious to how disgusted I was at his irresponsible behavior and pedophilic words about his niece. In his stewed brain my brother actually thought a pedophile joke was funny. I wanted to kill him.
I never sensed any inappropriate looks or behaviors towards our daughter, but from that moment my husband and I never allowed Mark alone in the room with her. When I told my father what Mark said that night he gently asked if I was sure “I heard right.” What else can a father say as he’s trying to process the most reprehensible comment imaginable made by his son, about his grandchild, as told by his daughter?
These were the years when Mark mysteriously needed to “get on my computer” to “check his emails” and then ask me to drive him to the nearest drugstore. A well-practiced cover-up by which Mark stockpiled pills from here to Mexico, courtesy of a rotation of more-than-willing doctors who back then, handed out pain killers like aspirin.
A small part of me felt sorry for Mark. I mourned his lost potential and the relationships he destroyed. He repeatedly broke my father’s heart and while in prison somehow caused a permanent rift with my middle brother for reasons I’m still unclear.
Once I became a mother, Mark-the-addict felt like an unintentional monster with a twisted sense of humor I no longer trusted. His filters were anesthetized, his sense of decency blurred by brain-thrashing opioids. I was vehemently protective of exposing my daughter to her uncle who although he clearly loved his niece, had mastered, as addicts do, deceit.
After prison Mark claimed he’d quit using drugs although I often heard the distinct faint slur, undetectable to anyone who didn’t know better. One morning in December 2011 he called to ask if he could visit in January. “You sound like you’re on something,” I told him right away. “I’m just really really tired. I even had to check myself into the hospital for exhaustion last week,” he claimed.
I told Mark that he could come but that he better not be on drugs because I’d know. Nor could he stay with me or create drama with our stepmom Mary who’d he’d recently been fighting.
Mark agreed and said he’d email me his flight information. A few weeks later he was found dead on the community pool deck at his condo after a night hike in the hills, a new habit I once told him I admired (as well as his recent pursuit of a degree in pharmaceutical law which I found perfectly ironic).
Clearly my brother was more than just the “extremely difficult person” I mentioned earlier. He was an addict, menacing and toxic. I had to set clear unwavering boundaries or cut him off.
Difficult people on the other hand, are merely a thorn in our side. An inconvenience, annoying, insulting or exhausting. To extend acts of kindness to difficult people rather than to simply be nice is a feat. It’s noble.
And yet we all come to this moment with a different history of emotional pain and family chaos. As a result our threshold for dealing with drama and difficult personalities, our boundaries, are wildly different.
For one person regularly interacting with an extraordinarily difficult person is a spiritual challenge to showing radical compassion. A challenge of character. If we show enough compassion, patience, love and understanding, in time, maybe that person will become less difficult.
But for others, inching away from extremely difficult people is how we protect ourselves from what feels threatening to our peace of mind.
I recall a woman who every time I saw her at a party, trapped at least one person for an hour or more to recount tales of her downtrodden life. Nothing good, nothing positive despite clear evidence to the contrary, only the world stomping on her at every turn, big or small, real or perceived, past or present — every tale of woe.
And while I genuinely sympathized because I think she was lonely and struggling, as well as a nice person, I didn’t want to go down the same Rabbit Hole every time. All her stories were stuck in victimhood, and any advice I gently suggested she politely but repeatedly dismissed. So after 15 or 20 minutes suddenly I’d need some more wine or a snack. And off she went to find a new sympathetic ear.
If we ran into each other when I walked my dog, I’d smile, say a brief hello then keep moving down the sidewalk like I was in a rush, enthusiastically waving goodbye as I said “Have a great day!” She wanted to talk, I wanted to escape.
Boundaries, I’ve come to realize, can be explicit or implicit. “If you do drugs when you come to my house, you’re out” is explicit. Inching down the sidewalk while you smile and wave goodbye to a chronic complainer is implicit. It says, hey I want to be polite, but I’m not investing too much of myself into you.
Boundaries are how we teach people to treat us, and how we decide to treat ourselves.
I know people willing to spend far more time with extremely difficult people than I am. I admire that. These people are saints. They reach into the lives of the most challenging over and over and over. They bear the pain of the snarly, hostile, impatient, cranky and critical, while also setting boundaries, like for instance, reminding The Difficult Person that cursing out the cashier or saying the n-word isn’t okay.
Personally I’ve forgiven myself for why, even if I extend a small kindness to a difficult person, a visit, a meal, that I need to bid that person goodbye before I get sucked in for the long haul. And frankly, maybe she’s bored with me anyway. Likely I won’t expand our 15 or 20 minute conversation into making any future plans. I’ll be polite, brief and vague.
Because what sounds like selfishness on my part, is protecting myself from excess exposure to certain kinds of people. So I extend one foot in the door, while I gently pull the other foot out. It’s the best I can do. Correction, it’s the best I choose to do.
It struck me recently that my daughter is handling the uncertainty of the pandemic much better than I am. She accepts not knowing exactly when the world might return to normal.
When we won’t need masks and hugging will be safe again. She makes peace with the unknowns while I feel simmering anxiety over a pandemic with no clear end in sight. “Mom you just have to deal with it,” she tells me over and over. “You can’t control when things will change.”
I envy Taylor’s ability to let go of the invisible strings of control while I grasp for them. I suspect this flows from my childhood when I craved stability during constant family turmoil.
My mother abandoned us when I was five, two years later I had a new stepmom and two stepbrothers who my other three brothers, emotionally scarred, viciously battled.
I recall family therapy, lots of screaming and in the end, another divorce. While I always knew my stepmom and father loved me, I also had the sense that any minute my foundation might crumble. Chaos felt inevitable and entirely out of my hands. Read More
Underneath our seeping political wounds over the past 5 years is an unsettled feeling no one on either side knows how to fix.
Because we can’t. Ever.
I’m an optimist and even with my abundance of wishful thinking I’m 100% sure we can’t move past this. By “this,” I mean finding “political common ground” with Trump supporters as we’re charged to do to “heal the nation.”
Don’t misunderstand, we’ll get back to decency and normal partisan political scuffling now that Trump is (almost) off the world stage. But the Trump Factor, aka those who love him, and the rest of us, can never discuss that man again if we want to get back to normal times with our loved ones, neighbors, etc.
This may not be the feel-good answer, but it’s true.
Because if we stop talking about Trump with his supporters we no longer have to feel like we’re trying to convince people that the blue sky they insist is yellow, is in fact, blue. It’s crazy-making to see something others don’t or won’t see.
One of the greatest tragedies of Trumplandia is that there’s no going back.
Now we know who supported him (twice), which includes some of our favorite people in the world. Family, friends, our dry cleaner, our pharmacist, our sweet neighbor (still sweet, btw). For a faction of Trump supporters, it was rabid zealot love from the start.
For others it was an insidious growing tolerance for his string of horrors, a numbing effect if you will, combined with full rejection of the Democrats. Either way, sad.
It’s deeply painful that our once benign political foe, say our opinionated Uncle Frank who used to be relentless with his trickle-down Reaganism vs our grassroots approach, isn’t who you thought he was.
Pre-Trump Uncle Frank was just a different sort of patriot than you or I. Not better or worse, but with an alternate point of view about what he thinks is best for the nation.
Except now Uncle Frank thinks what’s best for the nation is Trump.
A certifiable malignant narcissistic, racist, sexist, xenophobe, demagogue and autocrat in bed with Putin.
A president for who lying to is the norm and for who using superlatives (biggest crowd!) and bullying (loser!) is used to rile and divide rather than to keep calm and inform, as presidents are called to do.
A president who on the daily panicked the world (and his staff) with rogue tweets designed to feed his fragile ego and elevate his delusions of grandeur. It’s not a good strategy to keep people guessing “What next?” on the world stage. It’s a dangerous mind screw.
Trump politically and personally pulverized his own party naysayers until they retreated or crawled up his ass. He knowingly and repeatedly downplayed a deadly pandemic, smirked while he stoked hate in proud racists, and diabolically worked to dismantle democracy.
And in his latest flagrant act of corruption, Trump asked Georgia’s Secretary of State to ‘find’ him votes.
Trump does all this with the smug conceit of a megalomaniac convinced his power transcends the sanctity of facts, the Constitution and civility.
Come on, that person is better than a Democrat?
So no, with all due respect, I can’t reconcile a 2020 Trump vote. And frankly, I don’t want to. Not out of pride, because of my moral compass. Of course I’m no saint. I don’t see myself as better or worse than anyone out there. I’m plenty flawed.
But I’m damn proud that I sensed from the moment Trump mocked a disabled journalist and said he could “stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters,” or that McCain wasn’t a hero because he was captured or that Megan Kelly “had blood coming out of her eyes. Or blood coming out of her where ever,” that I knew in my every cell, that this guy wasn’t presidential material.
This is unquestionably a sick man. A “stable genius” isn’t prone to referring to himself as a stable genius.
Still I’ll never show a hint of unkindness to a Trump supporter. Never. That’s just basic Golden Rule 101. Like with all my opposing views, my disgust or disappointment will never come up in conversation. My relationships are a million times more precious than the Divider-In-Chief’s dark shadow of evil (and evil he is).
It’s easy to say now that Trump’s no longer a grave threat. Although his devout will undoubtedly keep him relevant by rallying his Trumpian views and a 2024 run.
Yet I’ll never forget that Trump voters and too many politicians thought he was a proper role model for our kids. Neither would they if they were honest and dealt with their boatload of cognitive dissonance.
Trump repeatedly showed the emotional maturity of a toddler. He lacked integrity, stability, humility, contrition and a commitment to the truth. He’s nothing more than a schoolyard bully who beat the nation’s soul to a pulp. He’s a psychological abuser I’d kick out of my house, nevermind hire him as president.
It’s an understatement to say our nation wasn’t left A Better People thanks to this president. In time we became a pitied laughing stock the world over.
Lately my small church groups and I have been talking about how to heal the great divide. How we might come together. I have no doubt we can, but not in the way we did before Trumplandia. Instead of facing head-on where we disagree (about Bush, Clinton, Obama) over the dinner table or in moderated town halls, we have to pretend Trumplandia never happened.
This means we politely change the subject if someone brings it up.
Because what I’ve failed to successfully convey in five years of posting about Trump is that the problem doesn’t begin with his partisan politics.
The problem is first and foremost him. His character. The buck stops there. Trump is inherently a very bad person.
This is the sole reason I won’t talk to his supporters about their leader. Because either A) They think he’s a good person or B) They know he isn’t a good person but they don’t care.
It goes without saying that’s not a foundation for a reasonable discussion. I think he’s evil. You don’t. Exactly how do we progress from there?
So if we ever want to remember how life used to feel in politics before Trumplandia, we have to at least pretend it never happened.
Of course we’ll never fully escape Trump’s blustering that the election was stolen. His devout see him as the victimized Chosen one (some literally) and Democrats as a dangerous bunch of radical lefty socialists (despite the President-elect’s clearly moderate platform).
So sadly our Trump vs Never Trump divide will remain a gaping wound best not aggravated into further oozing infection.
So for the love of peace with our Trump-loving friends, family and community, let’s stop talking to them about he who shall not be named.
Since the pandemic started so many people told me they can’t quite put their finger on how they’ve been feeling.
Anxious, yes. This is a terrifying surreal time. But also a little down. I recently suggested to one of my friends that she might have low-level depression.
It’s this simmering underlying feeling where you’re not exactly miserable but you don’t feel like yourself.
In the early months of lockdown, while some people were baking bread, biking, walking or painting bathrooms to fill the hours, my friend couldn’t motivate herself to do much.
And it’s not that she’s been socially isolated during COVID. She has her family. Nor is she at risk for serious COVID complications or in financial distress. In fact my friend is a million times luckier than most people right now.
She’s not one to wallow in self-pity. She’s grateful for her life and counts her blessings, especially now. And yet she feels blah, unmotivated, a little down and has zero energy.
I think that’s how a lot of people feel right now. There’s also thousands of people struggling with severedepression. The kind of debilitating, soul-crushing despair.
These people are overwhelmed every moment of the day trying to pay their bills and keep their kids from going stir crazy. Then once school started after parents spent weeks wondering whether to send their kids face to face, online or some combination, half the time their kids couldn’t logon to their classes because of some technical problem.
And for some kids who generally don’t do well with virtual learning, homework assignments might now demand more help than either you or your child’s teacher can give right now. Everything feels out of control and in chaos.
People are terrified their aging parents might catch COVID. They’re terrified they might catch COVID, or their husband or their sister on the front line. Widows and senior citizens are falling deeper into social isolation and loneliness.
Eviction seems inevitable for some and for the first time — or maybe again, thoughts of suicide creep in for thousands of people trying to cope.
A recent study from JAMA finds that depression has more than tripled during the pandemic.
Everyone is grieving the loss of someone or something precious right now. I think that’s the inexplicable feeling my friend was feeling. Loss. The loss of normalcy replaced by dread.
Our collective mental health is in serious crisis.
2020 has been the perfect storm for depression. A nightmare of many stressors converging all at one time to beat people down to an emotional and psychological pulp. – Social isolation – Grieving a death – Loneliness – Fear of COVID based on age and/or underlying health conditions – Financial distress – Pre and post-election stress – Estrangement of a loved one due to the election – Fears about healthcare – Seasonal affective disorder
Some people are experiencing all of these right now. Every. Single. One.
So if every morning you find yourself just trying to hang on or you don’t feel like yourself, please consider talking to a mental health counselor.
Of course we can’t compare losing a loved one to “just” feeling a little down, but everyone deserves empathy right now. No matter how seemingly insignificant your pain it’s still pain.
Don’t beat yourself up because others are “suffering so much more than I am right now I have no right to complain.”
Complaining all the time about COVID inconveniences while others suffer isn’t cool. But talking about how you feel emotionally and psychologically because you’re have a tough time is a whole other story. In one way or another, everyone is having a tough time.
Maybe you’re not comfortable seeing a mental health professional in person right now. If that’s the case please consider a telehealth service.
Telehealth mental health resources:
LiveHealthOnline – Psychiatric care Inpathy – Psychiatric care, medication management, and therapy Talkspace – Individual therapy, couples therapy, therapy for teens Betterhelp – Individual, couples, and teen counseling Regain – Individual and couples counseling focused on relationships Online-Therapy.com – Cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT (read more about e-therapy here) Pride Counseling – Counseling for the LGBTQ community
A strong immune system begins with a healthy diet, minimizing toxins, getting adequate sleep and exercise, reducing stress and taking science-backed supplements when appropriate.
I often hear people talk about vitamin C, D and zinc. Those are all helpful, but in many cases, not enough.
I take COVID-19 very seriously. I also leave the house a lot.
I know this sounds flip and contradictory.
Believe me I’m not arrogant enough to think I’m superwoman. I know I can get COVID. I’ve had enough colds, flu and health issues in my life to know I’m anything but invincible.
Since the start of COVID-19 I’ve felt something coming on at leastthree or four times. I didn’t have a cough or fever but I was run down with a slight scratchy throat and stuffy nose. Just on the cusp of something turning ugly.
I slammed down my supplements for a few days and whatever was lurking went away.
Of course I followed the CDC guidelines when I left the house. Mask, distancing, hand sanitizer constantly. But I’ve been out countless times (after lockdown ended in Florida May 1st). I’m not high risk. I’m 54 and in good health as are my husband and daughter.
But as you know with COVID-19 that’s no guarantee.
I’ve been tested three times for COVID-19 before I visited my stepmom and had one antibody test. All negative.
So, I have to think either my test results were false negatives (certainly possible), I’ve been incredibly lucky or my immune-strengthening supplements have something to do with why I haven’t gotten sick.
I have no way of proving my theory except to say that since I started taking a specialized silver called Argentyn 23 years ago I don’t get sick (or seriously sick).
(Want to cut to the chase? Head to the end of this post)
Argentyn 23 to strengthen your immune system
Argentyn 23 is a unique form of silver. A refined, improved colloidal silver.
Please don’t stop reading because you read the word “silver” and said “oh helllll no, quackery alert.”
I felt exactly the same way.
I refused to try any form of silver. Because while I’m serious about alternative medicine, I didn’t trust drinking a liquid version of my favorite sterling silver earrings (obviously an exaggeration, there’s no comparison).
But Argentyn 23 is safe, non-toxic and *effective for bacterial and viral infections. It’s a bio-active hydrosol form of silver. In a nutshell this means super small (nano) particles with positively charged ions. It’s unique molecular makeup makes all the difference in safety and efficacy.
I need to say upfront that the FDA issued a warning to companies that claimed their silver products prevent or cure COVID-19. Dietary supplement companies are prohibited by the FDA from stating that their products prevent or cure disease.
The company that makes Argentyn 23, Natural Immunogenics, follows FDA guidelines to the T. They don’t claim to cure or treat because they’re not allowed to make those claims.
This isn’t a snake-oil company. There’s peer-reviewed science behind Argentyn’s form of silver (see “Research” below).
Silver has long been shown to have antibacterial properties. And in more recent years scientists discovered that silver also has antiviral properties.
It has been reported that silver nanoparticles interact with virus, bacteria, and the immune system…the size, shape and composition of silver nanoparticles can have a significant effect on their efficacy.
The one thing my doctor recommended to prevent colds and flu
A few years ago I asked my integrative MD if she had to pick one supplement to help prevent colds and flu what would it be? She said Argentyn 23.
I’d never heard of it and was pretty skeptical. I’d read about some people turning blue (argyria) from talking silver so I wanted nothing to do with it.
But it works and it’s safe. My husband and daughter also started taking Argentyn 23 and these are the last two people I’d put at risk.
I know my words means nothing without science and safety assurances to back up my claims.
The 4 supplements I take religiously when I’m getting sick
I take these the second I feel a scratchy throat. I mean I’ll crawl out of bed half asleep and make myself. Sometimes I still get a cold, but rarely. And if I do get sick my symptoms are less severe and I get over it faster.
The trick is to take these immediately and repeatedly (according to directions) until you feel better (generally 5-10 days depending on severity).
* These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.
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