In the Year of our Lord of COVID Issue #17 Tell Me All About Your Mother
Weight: 318.7
Days in lockdown: One year + 8 days
Mood: tired
Then:
First, welcome to all the new subscribers who came here from Links I Would Gchat You If We Were Friends! (A++ Would recommend.) I appreciate you being here and hope you do find me charming.
Second, I forewent the weekly Blotter as there is only one or two entries of note (miniature horses on the run!) and most of the others are suicide ideations, ODs, and physical abuse. Nothing to really laugh at about there. Get better N. Michigan!
Now:
I called in “sick” with “allergies” on Thursday, but it was really mental health day as I feel so fucking overwhelmed. I’ve had Zoom dates, therapy, class work, and work stuff every day for nearly two weeks and I finally just hit a wall. It did not help, or perhaps it has?, that now I’m in a stable place, I told my therapist Kat that I wanted to start talking about my mother and my traumas which added to the stress.
I refer to my therapist Kat as my paid BFF because they are. The structure of the sessions is for me to start and for them to guide me. Once I got out of the spiraling mania that lasted for months last summer and fall, and I started to stabilize, the sessions became chattier and less therapy-y. We agreed I needed to keep going every week even if I had nothing to report to keep the routine in place.
When I’m not taking my drugs and / or not in therapy, shit gets nuts. May I present 2014 – 15 as examples when I had my nervous breakdown, ratcheted up $40,000 in credit card bills (I DIDN’T EVEN GO TO EUROPE! WTF was I thinking?),left my husband and moved for a guy so many times in that time period that I wore a hole on I-80 cutting through Ohio and Pennsylvania onto Connecticut as my destination? Yes, yes, I can. (Also, fuck that dude.) Just because I’m in a stable environment with a job that I love and money in my bank account now does not take away from the fact that in the not-so-distant past, I was not that lucky.
A couple of years ago, I came across a website, Witty Bitches (RIP), that was offering to pay for narrative non-fiction. I wrote How I Divorced My Mother in Three Easy Steps and submitted it. I don’t think I was every paid fast enough for a piece in a long time.
The piece is long, clocking in at about 3000 words, and it’s a breakdown for trauma I suffered at mother’s hands growing up. A few months after the piece was published, mother died from heart failure by complications of diabetes. She and I had briefly reconciled at the behest of my brother a few months later and when he called me to tell me she died, I was numb than in supposed grief but also relieved.
It seems I am good in a crisis as long as it’s not my own. I got everything organized for her funeral, wrote the announcement and got it out, and basically got everything that needed to be done, done. My brother, in his grief, remained hands off. Often times he can come across as very stoic even when he was in pain. I flitted about at the funeral while he stayed outside on that beautiful April day. I didn’t blame him. I wish I was often stoic, too.
Kat the therapist wants me to go through this narrative therapy again like writing How I Divorced My Other in Three Easy Steps s but with more deliberation. It’s time, I know, to pull back the scabs and start working on the hard stuff. I’ve tap danced around all of this hard stuff for months if not years. Keeping myself stable which meant dealing with the current troubles was more important than the fact my mother told me to use knives next time I tried to commit suicide because her anti-depressants were expensive.
But it’s not just about my mother, it’s about the so much: the sexual harassment, the physical abuse from ex-lovers, the sexual assaults, plus all the shit that comes along with bipolar. I’ve shoved all this fucking shit down until it becomes stomach acid but it’s clear I need my ant-acid.
The company I work for is very active in its mental health support. Our chief of human resources launched a program, “It’s OK,” to help with employees support their mental health especially in time for the vids. Whatever we need to help us cope was on the docket from flex days to support services. They offer mediation classes and push you to take regular breaks during the workday.
It is because of this initiative that after working at $company for over two years, I decided to tell my boss I was bipolar.
Some of you may remember last time I thought this was a good idea was back in my GRCC days where I felt I had the trust of my director so I told her when I started a med change and that she needed to know the possible interactions and that how it could affect my job.
I thought I had her support. I was woefully and disappointingly wrong.
After having a particular hard day at work one day, I spoke with my director who made snide comments I needed to “go take your drugs.” I was in shock that she had said that that I looked at her quizzically. I told the department PA and she told me the director has said some awful shit to her and the PA set her union on her and got transferred to another department.
I didn’t have such good luck. I was a librarian. There was no other place for me to go. I filed a complaint with my union, and they told me it was a she said/she said situation and unless I had “proof,” nothing would happen. The HR department was also useless. I talked to the union’s lawyers who doubled down on what the union said and that if I pursued legal avenue that the most I could obtain was about $10-15K dollar settlement. It was never about the money but about dignity and respect.
So, I left when my contract came up for renewal.
It should not be any surprise, then, of my hesitancy of telling my current boss about my “disability” (I hate that term) and I would not disclose I was bipolar when I had to fill out the demographic information during the job application.
But after two years, this boss is different and HR’s support of mental health gave me courage to tell her so I scheduled a meeting with her this past Friday.
I cut to the chase when we got on the meeting and told her and told her why I was hesitant. I was planning on telling her last fall when I started the new drugs but it was not the right time. Now she knows and she’s amazing.
She asked what accommodations do I need (nothing right now), did I want flex time (no, I’m good), and what kind of support can provide (I’m good). I feel SO RELIEVED.
One hurdle down, many more to go.
Future:
No newsletter next Sunday but there should be a Blotter.
Wonderful Thing
This week’s wonderful thing isn’t so much something as it is someone. I’ve been collecting vinyl half-heartedly for the last few years and I finally got a record player for Christmas. TEH kept asking me if I knew how to use it. Duh, I’m a GenxXer, of COURSE I do! Even though TEH is only a few years younger than me, he had no idea. He poked the appliance like a kid poking a dead badger. This is a guy whose heavily technical and he kept shooting questions at me like, “What is the difference between 45 and 33 RPM? How does the needle work? Why is there no shuffle?”
Today he discovered that records are dual sided. Bless.
Interesting Things (or things to buy)
Still hawking my Pops on eBay if you are so inclined to shop. (Just added a dozen more!)
A friend reached out that they were into buying the TomboyX bras I mentioned a couple of episodes back and wondered if I had a referrer code. Turns out I do! ($20 off your first order!)
I’m going to be putting up some items on Poshmark. Watch this space!
Links to Read That are Not Depressing
The Ballad of Boots and Stumpy, the Bad Boys of the Birding Center
My So-Called Life is now on Hulu
Billy Joe Armstrong from Green Day has thrown his hat into the metaphorical ring to run as a republican contender for 2024 presidential election. Could be worse, I suppose.
As always, don't be an ass. Wear a damned mask.
lisa x
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