I have a parenting question that I would really appreciate an honest answer to.
Since she was a new born, my daughter, Chloe, has always urinated when she is submerged in water (ie: sitting in waist-deep bath water, in a pool, ocean, river, etc). She does not urinate if I wash her hair with her head bent over a sink, but she always does when anyone, including herself, brushes her hair.
We have taken her to a doctor and ruled out a deformed or defective urethra, sexual abuse, bladder disorders, phobias, and temperatures in the water or hard hair pulling.
Chloe doesn’t seem she’s aware that she is doing it until after she has done it, and lately she cries over it.
Our next stop is psychological, and then we don’t know what to so. Neither Dennis, not I ever had this problem, nor has any of our other children. We have tried having her go pee before getting in the water or having her hair brushed, but she still urinates quite a bit while she is being bathed or brushed.
Has anyone ever had this problem with themselves, a friend, or family member? What was it? How was it treated? What caused it?
Standing Still, Standing Tall
I looked up some old haunts today.
People I haven’t even thought about in years, simply because I have been busy with other things. Relationships, schooling, grabbing up credits, health, things like that. Reading up on them, I felt a little inadequate, to say the least. One of my fellow writers from back twelve years ago is published now. With the exception of publishing my nephew’s journal entries on being a terminally ill teenager with DID, I have not been officially published, as in having a book on the shelves. If it wasn’t for my nephew’s insanity, I would not have my name out there, at all.
Then there’s one of my old pains in the ass. She’s gone from a liar who had potential, to a burned out drug addict with a child who has been taken away from her. I could look at her mistakes and see where I am better off, but I choose not to go down that road. Of all the horrible things she said about me on her various blogs and websites over a decade ago, to trying to get into my hosting because she wanted to take down my site, I’m sure that she does not remember me. She has just that many enemies. Even though I remember her very well, she has fucked over so many people in her journey, she can’t possibly remember them all.
My downfall is that my memory, at times, is too good. I remember the lies, the abuse, the most vibrantly. I suppose that is a coping mechanism, a way of survival, of some sort. I just spend hours taking medications to erase those memories, only to have the better part of my memory bank erased.
That’s the funny thing with my research. I can achieve the goal of erasing a memory, permanently, but I cannot specifically choose said memory. It’s usually something benign, and harmless. Survival method. I have to find a way around that.
I feel as though I am standing still while even the most hateful people I have encountered in my life are progressing. They don’t deserve it, not in the least, but they are getting ahead, they are achieving their goals, such as they are, and I feel as though I have done nothing progressive. I have not reached my research goal that I started six years ago. My kids are not any smarter than they were years ago. Here I sit. But I am still standing.
In a random news: I am going to another party chosen by Matt. This time with Dennis. The doors are opening in about an hour, so I must get ready to go. I don’t think I will wear fish net stockings under rainbow knee-high socks this time!
Come Ask Away
During my daily waltzes around the web, I came across this:
There is no fault in being skeptical. If you are skeptical, it’s probably the other person’s fault for either
- Being too vague or flakey in their descriptions, or
- Flat-out lying
I am guilty of the first.
There have been many times that one friend of mine, Scott, has had the courage and the appreciation for me to tell me that I am “too vague” in my Facebook updates. While I could blame that on Facebook’s interface being as intimidating as Twitter’s, or that I have somewhat long nails and type on an iPhone when I update my Facebook statuses, there is no real excuse when I update my blog. Naturally, people don’t frequently visit my blog. What good would it do anyway? I’m just as vague here, mostly because I am trying to protect the identity of my husband and children. See, I’ve been around the block a few times, and this is not my first rodeo. I know the people of the web, and how vicious they truly are. In my thirteen years of having a public website, I have had people call child services on me, simply because I exposed their hoaxes, called out their lies they published on the web, or found the photographs of the people they had ripped off. In other words, I butted my big nose into some lunatic’s fantasy world, and presto. I earned a nemesis for life. They didn’t want me to simply shut down my web page, they wanted me to suffer in the real world.
It wasn’t always like that. When I first had a blog, I wrote about everything and anything in such a candid manner that I never gave it a second thought. People generally ignored me then, too, but I had the energy and the stamina to write in great detail of my life, my trials, my tribulations. It opened my world up to someone who wanted to become me. I have since censored myself. I leave out what I consider important facts from my life, and I stopped posting so many pictures of myself, my husband, my friends, and my children.
I encourage questions, though. With the disruption in my path of thinking, I know there are things that I have left out in my writings, and I apologise for that. It wasn’t too long ago that I could write entire research papers without notes or even rough drafts. I sat down, I typed up the finished, polished paper, and I turned it in. Not so any more. I miss what I used to be able to do. I can see the deterioration that has been happening over the past five years, and it really saddens me. I am not the person I used to be, and I have changed forever, not for better. I remember times when I could keep track of my friends’ birthdays, anniversaries, anything, really. Now they fly by and I wonder what the hell happened.
So if there’s any loose ends that I have failed to tie up, please email me, comment, PM me. I promise this was not done intentionally, and while I can’t promise that I will spill more information out in the future, I can promise that if anyone asks, and they ask nicely, I will reveal all that is (generally) needed to know. Just keep in mind that this is my blog, not my children’s, my husband’s, my friends’, my family’s. They don’t have any control over what I write here, but I would like to keep their privacy just that: private.
I want to write more. I want to sit down and just write and write and write. I want to read more books. I want to interact with others more. I feel that I am missing out on the fun things in my life that made my life worth living, simply because I hold back too much. I want to enjoy what little bit of my mind that is left while I can still do it. I know that sounds bleak, but I promise it’s not meant to be! I feel that if I can do amazing things again, I will start to feel better about myself and no longer slash my wrists out of frustration and anger. That I won’t chew up my narcotics and opioids out of despair. That I won’t spend hours sobbing about things that I cannot help nor change.
There was a time when I knew that I was a good person and I truly liked who I was. I’m not sure what happened to change that, possibly my harasser constantly kicking my personality was what lit the fuse (even though at one time that person wanted to be me!), but it has been chipping away at me for so long now that I have gone under with what seems like no point of return. I want to patch things up with Dennis as well. I want to save what is left of our marriage. I don’t really want to leave him, and certainly not for someone else in the same business as him. I don’t want to split up our children, I don’t want to have to move, unless we move as a family. It would be nice to wake up and think “You’re a good person!” again, but I know that I am a long ways away from that. I know that I have to work to get there, and I know that once I do get there, it will be so much more rewarding, so worth it. In the mean time, I must start taking better care of myself physically. I must keep on my medicine. I must keep my doctor appointments. I canceled three of them this past week, and that was wrong. Why did I do it? Sheer fatigue and hopelessness.
It’s a long road ahead. Will you join me? I just can’t make it alone.
Thirteen years ago, I was contemplating sex with a stranger, at the risk of being labeled a slut. Today I am contemplating screwing the lead guitarist of a band that my father bought every album of, just because I will be covering the band’s concert here this spring. Open relationships mean one thing: Trust is more important than monogamy, and “hunk o’ burning love” is taken literally. The problem arose when Dennis did not want me sleeping with any man except himself, something that wasn’t fair, as he confided in me that he had had several “encounters” on the road, then “clarified” that they had all been between bandmates. What? He’s screwing other men? It’s not surprising to me, but it really threw our therapist back a few inches.
But if I had sex with another woman and he could watch, that was fine.
Isn’t it always?
I have been in conversation with the guitarist that I am planning on conquering this spring, and he’s really a nice guy. He doesn’t know what I’m planning, yet, and a good groupie doesn’t divulge what they are planning until the moment happens, but he offered to buy me coffee and talk about the tour. How nice. I needed a shot of insulin after that conversation.
Hey, my manager says I have to be nice to the bands that I interview! It’s out of my hands! If we give them bad publicity, they may shit on our publications, and we’ll lose readers. Normally. Knowing today’s youth, if a band said “[This] magazine sucks!” millions of people may jump out and buy it or order subscriptions. Unfortunately, the managers don’t think like that, and if we get bad publicity from a band, the reporter who caused that bad publicity is fired. Permanently. So, it’s my motto to be a groupie in disguise of a reporter! Besides, I’ve been a groupe since I was fifteen, and I’m still waiting for that one “bad thing” to happen to me to spoil it all.
Dennis has been trying to get me to rethink many things on my agenda. Things such as sleeping with this guy, packing up and leaving the family, and other “mistakes that I am going to regret” in the future. I replied that he sounded like a middle school teacher, preaching about “the future” all the time. I’m at that point in my life where I don’t care about the future anymore. I just want to make it through the present and learn to let go of the past. If that means that I am a whore or a slut, or a “druggie whore” as one of my lovely blog visitors has referred to me as (I can see those referrer logs, dumb ass!), then so be it. It’s amazing that people really care that much about what I think of them that they are willing to insult me over an invisible media. There’s the discussion of what this may be “setting for Chloe.” I can honestly say that my own mother’s promiscuity had no effect on how I grew up, other than I wish she had not physically and emotionally abused me in the process. Other than that, it’s her body, her pussy, her choices. I’m not married to her just as Chloe is not married to me. If Chloe grows up and has sex with Marilyn Manson, good for her! I hope she at least gets his autograph out of it all!
My biggest concern is that I don’t know if I can go through with it. I’ve been having that problem for a long time now. Call it a conscience, call it chickening out. I don’t know what to make of it. Ideas?
Before any rumors start to fly, why yes, I did some dumb shit and hurt myself this week:
Everly Baby’s Name
So in the last couple of days, I have had a little bit of fun. After the trauma of finding my husband unconscious on the floor one early morning, and he spent some more time in the hospital, this time for an insulin overdose, I surrounded myself with friends and people to build me up, emotionally. One of the places I ended up was at a lifestyles party. A private party. Private as in I can’t disclose the place it was held, and I’m not supposed to name names, but I ended up going with Matt. I got in free because he convinced me to hide my wedding ring. Single women get in free. I spent four of the six hours just in shock of the people there, feeling each other up, having sex in plain view of others. I was the only one there, sitting awkwardly at a table, nursing a glass of ginger ale.
I ended up following Patrick upstairs and we both fell asleep in the hotel room. We were run out at 8am the next day.
Matt wants me to go back this weekend and bring Dennis along. Of course I still have to play the part of the single woman, for some reason. It would be cheaper if we paid as a couple, but this is Matt’s plan, and Matt calls the shots when it comes to public sex in this city.
Speaking of public displays of sexual encounters, Matt is my date for the Sweetheart Dance this year. In just two days we will awkwardly dance to a Buddy Holly song while dressed in 1950′s garb, and wait to hear how we lost at a 1950s dance competition. Again. For the fifth or sixth time. We’ve entered every year since 2008, and we never, ever win. Matt says it’s because I’m “so fat” so I blamed him, saying the judges thought we were both women. This year, I doubt that I can fit into my costume, but I can try, right?
Baby time!
Little One is actually waking up and sleeping peacefully for eight or more hours at a stretch. It’s really calming to have a baby sleep during the day while you’re still pregnant with said baby. We don’t know the gender yet (haven’t asked), but we have a unisex name picked out: Everly. I think it’s really strange that Everly is due on March 25th. My first child was born on February 25th, and Chloe was born on July 25th. The boys were due on October 25th, but because of some scheduling problems, they were born on Halloween. If Everly is born on March 25th, we’re assuming we’re having a girl. It just seems so right, you know? Have all the girls on a 25th. And yet we still forget their birthdays on a regular basis.
There’s the dilemma of a middle name. That will depend 100% on whether Everly is male or female. But we’re still deciding on that, despite the arriving due date.
The Sun Shines Today
I don’t sleep well anymore. It’s come to the point where I am asking every doctor I have if I can have something to help me sleep, against my better judgement. When I do sleep, I dream horrible dreams. I dream of being abandoned by Dennis. I dream of being stalked, with the stalker’s intent to kill me, and Dennis is nowhere to be found. I dream of us being at a carnival, being stalked by muggers, murderers, and of him being oblivious to it all. I dream of people from my past, the dead, being with me, and then, I dream of more abandonment. I am always lost in the dreams. Wandering down long, empty roads, in the darkness of night.
When I stayed at Vance’s place, I did not dream. I was able to sleep at night. The nights were cool, dark, and silent. I was able to wake up without an alarm and get going an hour before my appointments. This past week, it seems that I sleep right up until I am supposed to be somewhere. I have no desire to get out of bed once I am asleep.
Today the sun is shining. I feel very content, even though I know that I inside I am crying. Today I mourn the loss of my best friend in the world, and Little One was almost born on this day, his birthday. It’s been nearly five years since he died, but I still haven’t recovered. I click through my galleries of photos of him, I read the passages he hand-wrote in my journals, I appreciate meeting my friend Matt through him, but I would give all of that to have the heartache erased and simply have him back in my life again. Happy birthday, Chris. Where ever you are.
Because of my declining health, my doctor wanted me to have Little One today. I refused. I said that I had gone this long without properly treating my cancer, and even though the thought of a mastectomy scares the living hell out of me, I want Little One to have the best possible chance at life. I want Little One to be healthy when they come into the world. My doctor agreed, but told me the next time I get pregnant in the middle of one of his treatments, he is going to recommend and possibly make me have an abortion. I got a thirty minute lecture that in this day and age, there is no excuse for a woman to carry a burden to full term. What? Little One is not a burden! I never thought of them like that!
There are so many things that I want to say, but there is also so much that I have to hold in. One of the things that I am just going to say it, is, I forgive our ex house guest who beat me up back in December. Who lied about me to the hospital staff when Dennis was in the hospital. Forgiveness is my choice, as is holding a grudge, and ultimately bad karma, so I forgive him. I am washing away my bad karma, and pushing forward with life. If I continue to dislike this guy, or hold a grudge, who am I really hurting? Him or me?
Full Circle
Today Dennis was released from the hospital. I wasn’t ready for that. I wasn’t expecting him to call me and say that he got a ride back to our place. Getting that message at 6pm, I packed up what I could from Vance’s place, gathered my little ones, wrote a letter to Vance explaining where I was going, and left. He’ll find it at about 6am, when he gets home from work. It was harder to leave Vance than it was Dennis. Vance always kissed me good morning, good night, hello and good bye. He kissed me for no apparent reason other than I was there, and he felt like being affectionate. Dennis, on the other hand, thinks that by marrying me, he never has to tell me that he loves me anymore.
My mind has been wandering tonight. First from the medical tests that revealed Stage III cancers in two more places, to discussing surgery, alone, in that huge hospital, to knowing that I am going to have to see the therapist tomorrow. My tits are sore from the mammogram and the biopsies. My armpit is sore from the biopsy. I feel as though I will be alone in my battle, had I not gotten back together with Dennis when he called me. Vance would not miss work, no matter what, even the day that I had my Gamma Knife surgery. He dropped me off at the clinic, went to get coffee, and came back in about two hours and picked me up, distorted and disoriented. I was essentially alone. Today was a horrible reminder of this.
The thoughts that raced through my mind kept me anxious. When I heard the technologist tell me that lumps were found in my breasts, that a lump was found in my side, I wanted someone there, someone familiar, to hold me. I wanted someone to be there to tell me that yes, the road was a frightening and strange road, but that I was going to get well, and I didn’t have to go down it alone. That would have made the entire procedure 100% less frightening for me. The only person there was the technologist and I, and I certainly couldn’t hug her. She was so cold and sterile. The x-ray machine was cold and sterile. My nipples bled during the procedure. I was shaking by the end of the procedure, wanting to sit down between shots, but the technologist kept telling me to stand there, we were “almost done.” Forty minutes later, and much blood on the x-ray machine, I was told we were finally “done.” I was shaking. I’m not used to standing that long. I’m not used to something squeezing my tits that hard for that long, in those exotic positions. But I survived it. Alone. In that huge, cold, lonesome hospital. As I was walking back to my car, I saw that it was pouring rain out. I walked slowly to the car, feeling embarrassed that I had just shown my tits to a stranger, and that I had to face said stranger. I also felt as if the hospital was going to swallow me up, with the twists and turns and such. I just wanted to get home, change, and sleep it off. But then Dennis called to tell me that he had been released from the other hospital, and was at our house.
Gamma Knife surgery was as bad as the new diagnosis. They screwed a box to my head. Underneath the skin. The box was to keep my head still, and only allowing movement when the huge CT-esque machine was ready to move my head. Couldn’t they do this some other way?! I could feel the screws grinding against what I could only logically assume was my skull. I wanted to faint, but I’m not wired that way. I stay awake for the whole gore-y situation. No matter what is being done to me. The same thing happened when I got my root canals done a few years back.
Somehow, things just feel like they should be this way, you know? I feel as though I should be here, in this house, digging through a mountain of laundry, lightly teasing Dennis, while we watch worn-out, has-beens in rock. It just seems like this is they way things should be. Even though my heart is craving kisses and smiles and someone who doesn’t scream at the kids at every opportunity, the Continuum is no longer in danger of Chaos.
If you don’t get that last reference, it means that all life as we know it would cease to exist because I wasn’t playing my part in the Universe. Now that I am, I have saved mankind, somewhat. Be thankful.
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