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Pediatric mental illness is screaming and crying; raging and breaking things; cursing and swearing; ER trips and suicide attempts… …and it is midnight visits from a 9-year-old who still knows how to fit into the curve I make in the bed just the way he did when he was a toddler. “Mommy, I’m so . . . → Read More: Pediatric Mental Illness? It’s Like This…  For context, you might want to read this first. You know what sucks about being sad? Besides the sadness, I mean. It’s the all-consumingness of the thing. (Spell checker doesn’t care much for the word consumingness, to which I say get over yourself, spell checker! I have bigger problems than you!) No, what really . . . → Read More: Withouting It is a delusion to believe that you must be well to treat a person who is sick or suffering. –Dr. James Orbinski When my son Carter (whose diagnoses are of the emotional/cognitive/behavioral/social sort) was two years old and had been screaming and wakeful every day for approximately 98.6% of that two years, I embarked on . . . → Read More: A Cosmic Mistake Let’s just call grief what it really is: a wily, slimy, and brutally persistent motherfucker. Grief is like moths that thump against the lampshade until I am almost mad with their noise, except these moths are 40 pounds apiece and they are slamming against the inside of my skull. It’s a weight in my . . . → Read More: Cry Me a River My grandma died last week. She had a very good death, something that I am, sadly, very qualified to determine. I have yet to write the story of her passing; of my profound gratitude at being a part of her peaceful transition to whatever comes next; of my experience of love and family in my . . . → Read More: First, Love  I put a condiment cup full of pills in front of Carter this morning, as I do every morning. As he does most mornings, Carter shouted at me, “I don’t have any water! You know I only take my pills with water!” And as always, I pointed to the water glass sitting next to . . . → Read More: Toothpick Wielding Demons  Here’s the thing: in the beginning, everyone is lost and alone. No matter how a person goes from being parent to parent of a child with disabilities, in the beginning the world turns itself ass-end-up. Whenever the news comes or the realization dawns—during pregnancy, immediately or shortly after birth or adoption, or later—there is . . . → Read More: In the Beginning Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 3.1 (except it’s less of a part and more of an interlude) Part 4 Part 5 However, maybe you didn’t read those, and maybe you want to read one post and not 6. Fair enough. Here’s what you need to know: Robert was my first husband. We . . . → Read More: The Transcendent Familiar 6: Love Is Not a Victory March Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 3.1 (except it’s less of a part and more of an interlude) Part 4 However, maybe you didn’t read those, and maybe you want to read one post and not 5. Fair enough. Here’s what you need to know: Robert was my first husband. We married in . . . → Read More: The Transcendent Familiar 5: Down Comes the Night  Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 3.1 (except it’s less of a part and more of an interlude) We all grow up with rules. I’m not talking about the regular rules that our parents speak aloud – no running in the house; don’t sing at the dinner table; if you wear your tap . . . → Read More: The Transcendent Familiar 4: Give Yourself Away  |
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