Thought Provoking

Identity

Posted on by kmarrs

When I started this blog, back in December of 2008, one of the first things I pondered inside me and on paper was what my online identity would be.  Not being infertile or an ex-Mormon, but instead being in the throes of BPD and the early diagnostic stages, it was fairly obvious what my niche would be.

But four and a half years later, I’m not that same Karen and I’m not feeling my niche.  Not fully anyway.  I’m not in the throes of a break down.  I haven’t recently had and moved on from an affair.  I’m not in danger of taking a vacation at a mental ward.  I’m not a danger to myself or anyone else.  I haven’t cut in years.  I not scheduling my life around my therapies and my psychiatrist.  In fact, I’m not in any therapy and I only see the psychiatrist 4 times a year on a better safe than sorry policy I’ve implemented.  We’re getting ready to cut me loose there.  But since the Fibromyalgia treatment involves mental health meds, I’m not in a hurry to cut her loose because if those meds kick me too far unstable, I need her in my corner telling my meds doctor he’s a moron and to listen to me already.  He isn’t a moron.  He’s just in territory he hasn’t charted himself.

I’m not the same me.  I’ve recovered.  I’m stable.  I’m tired and cranky, but I’m raising 3 kids, working full-time and getting ready to introduce school to the mix.  You show me one woman in my shoes who isn’t tired and cranky and I want whatever she’s taking.  I assure you it isn’t legal.

In all honesty, I think that’ why I’ve slowed down on blogging.  It isn’t for a lack of words.  My husband can assure you that in the nearly 10 years we’ve been married, happily or otherwise, I’ve never once shut up.

But if I’m not writing my niche, what do I write?  What is my persona?  What place do I carve out for myself in this world to claim as mine?

I was, for a time, one of the more popular BPD bloggers out there.  Now by popular, you can’t compare me to your average blogger.  I couldn’t judge my impact by how many thousands visited me.  I couldn’t base my value on how many people pissed themselves laughing from my stories.  Instead I judged by how many emails I received crying out for help, or thanking me for help via my words.  I wasn’t marketable.  I couldn’t make ads work because millions saw them.  But I changed lives.  I saved lives.  That was success.  Honestly, that’s true success.

But I’m not that writer anymore.  Unless I drudge up old stories I can’t give those in the throes of despair something to compare to.  I can’t give you the “I’m no longer alone” effect and community.

I hit rock bottom.  I wrote it with a brutal truth.  A brutal honesty.  I broke all the rules.  I could have been denied jobs with a simply Google search.  I added real medical information about BPD.  Its diagnostic criteria, or at least how it applied to me.  Its statistics.  Who out there you see on TV, the big screen or hear all over the radio that might be going through this too.

But now I’m floating, swimming, even soaring.  I’ve grown.  And while I have no interest in taking this blog down, it is my home and it does still give important information, I don’t know how to grow it from here.

Identity.

What is my angle?  My persona.  Even when blogging with 100% truth, there is still a persona in place.  Every blogger has one.  They are lying if they say otherwise.

My persona focused on the downward spiral.  It didn’t mean I lied or covered up the good times in life.  It just meant my focus was on allowing you to relate to me at my worse.  That way, I wasn’t alone and neither were you.  It kept me writing and it kept people reading, because in writing and keeping people reading, I could slip in the information about how atypical anti-psychotics, while off label, can be magnificent for treating BPD.  That information, which I came upon myself, saved my life.  Yours?  Damn skippy I’m going to work to keep people coming back if I can save a life or two because of it.  Or help people in Israel find DBT.

But what do I have now to keep people coming?  Not just the hits I get via people Googling information about BPD and my blog being front page.  What do I have to offer that will keep people actively engaged now, in 2013, and beyond?

What the hell is my identity?

I don’t want to be the girl with chronic pain.  That’s being done, and well, by many others.  I’m not a mommy blogger.  Lordissa no!  I can’t spin my day-to-day into hilarity that has you literally laughing out loud and nearly your damn ass off, not simply “typing lol” without making a sound.

And that is all OK.  I’m not regretting that.  Well, maybe I wouldn’t mind being Bloggess funny.  However, there can only be one Beyonce the Metal chicken, and sadly, I’m Victor not learning to pick my battles.  I must fight them all. Fight ALL! THE! BATTLES!  Really, I don’t understand how I’ve been married for nearly 10 years.  That’s half my adult life!  A third my total life!  I can’t even commit to a favorite color.

And that’s not my niche.  I have no advice to offer on how to make a marriage work.  Unless you want tips on sheer bullheadedness in refusing to give up.  In which case, here is what you do: Your spouse asks for a divorce.  You tell them no.  There, niche covered.  Also, that advice doesn’t actually work for most.  Also, wouldn’t recommend the potential affair in that mess.  While it oddly fixed us, that also is very usually NOT the case.  So m’kay.  Affairs bad.  Bullheadedness not usually effective.  I double covered that niche.

Guys, who the fuck am I?

No, really.

A Brilliant Mind

Posted on by kmarrs

We all brag on our kids.  So know that I know we all consider our kids to be the next Einstein, Henry Ford, Marie Curie, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Da Vinci, or in my case, Sheldon Cooper.  I do wholeheartedly get that.  Please understand that, as I quote the following comment left on Thawed, and then get into my response.

I’m sure you already know this, but on the off chance, here you go. If kiddo’s ADHD, showing signs of OCD, and isn’t able to manage in another educational setting (“it’s not them, it’s him”), these are red flags in the special education world. It’s worth asking the school district for a full psycho-educational run down on him. It should include academic, psychological, mental health, and anything else that you’re at all concerned about (speech pragmatics, ability to negotiate a playground, whatever). Your family may choose to homeschool, or to enroll him in a private kinder, and only you know what will work best for him and you, but it’s the district’s obligation to put him in a kindergarten with the necessary supports he requires to succeed (which damn well includes a school bus). Cognitive behavioral therapy and a tightly structured day can do wonders for kids with ADHD, and if that’s what it takes for him to manage school (and the school to manage him) then they get to provide it.

I think this warrants addressing beyond the comments section.

I don’t think the ADHD (or OCD, or any other possible diagnosis, for that matter) is why he doesn’t thrive in preschool, I honestly think he isn’t challenged enough. He went in there knowing basic multiplication so therefor couldn’t take them seriously when they tried to teach him how to count along with the other kids. At the same time he gets stuck counting past 12. It’s a patience thing. As in, he has no patience for the inferior brain trying to teach him.  He has to decide he cares and then teach himself.  Hence him questioning what the hell his brother is taught “at that school” when Thomas made a simple math mistake.  Kid was tired, Luke had no hesitation calling him on it though.

That dynamic of brothers competing aside, there is something in there that can’t be missed.  I haven’t taught Luke math.  Sure, I taught him how to count, and what the numbers looked like.  We even struggled on that.  Oh lord.  But even before he could count successfully past 8, he could tell you that 2 times 4 was 8.  Not because I taught him, but because he was watching me build something that had 4 screws on the one side and just assumed that meant there were 8 screws total.  Sure, he could have added it up, but he could only see one side.  That takes a certain amount of cognative thinking.  He was 4.

I pride myself on my math skills, but I couldn’t have done that, self-taught, at 4.  How many really could have?

He has a psychiatrist who is keeping tabs on him, though yes the school board could apply it to education. But honestly, I don’t want to IEP him if I can avoid it. And when he is medicated, I can avoid it. I was going to stick him in a regular class, the reason it didn’t happen that way is because I missed deadlines I didn’t realize where come and gone, and because of his age, but not the mental curiosities. The strive for pre-K was because he’s only had 1 year of pre-school and just doesn’t seem to be quite ready for kindergarten to me.  (The school bus issue was isolated to pre-K since it’s a separate program that happens to be housed in a school.)

And the relief that came when homeschooling suddenly became a serious option, goes beyond psych evaluations and IEPs.  It goes into knowing kids aren’t meant to fit molds.  Not every child is meant to be a brain surgeon.  And the most brilliant minds out there are going to look at a standardized test and a scantron and ask: what the heck are they teaching in these schools?  I mean seriously, WTF!

I have always known my Lucas was not meant to fit a mold.  And now I’m following my heart and acting upon it.

His mental health is a concern, always. But honestly, so is what the federal government is doing to the education system. I want my little engineer to be able to get excited about robots and spend his school day building his own and then programming it to carry off a hit on his older brother, and not having to worry about the latest standardized test out there.  I think Thomas is about to take his 3rd.  For this year.

I have no doubts this kid is brilliant. But he’s brilliant in a way that won’t come across on a scantron.  It will, however,  come across when he’s making millions on government projects you don’t have the security clearance level to hear about.  Momma just prays it’s ethical.

In a sea of education options, what works for one child shouldn’t have to work for another.  If I honestly thought a public school classroom was the answer for him, I’d go fierce momma and there he’d be come fall, with or with the evaluation and IEP.  Many of you nod your head knowing this to be the case.  Some of you are just thankful you won’t have to help me hide the bodies that could potentially pile up during the process.

In the same way I know this to be the answer for Luke, I know pulling Thomas out of school is the worst education decision I could make for Thomas.  Oh my anger of teaching to tests and government interference makes me daydream about it, but he thrives in a classroom.  I know, in my head, better than to mess with that.

Sambam, meanwhile, might inspire a 3rd option.  I’m thinking an all-girls, private, boarding school.  But only when I realize she has my personality, Aphrodite’s beauty, and breathes fire, like the red dragon she is.  Once puberty hits… well she’ll be the one we hide bodies for.  We’re going to need a backyard.

The homeschool program we are placing him in starting this fall, is a virtual classroom.  They’ll provide a computer, and then he’ll have a full class with a teacher heading it, just online.  There will be field trips you can try and make it to. (All across Ohio, hence the “try”.)  There is an initiative to connect those living close to one another for play-dates.  There is a PE log sheet so that they know you are up and outside running around, skinning knees, and pelting daddy with snowballs.  I’ve seen the curriculum for K-12th grade.  Not a standardized test in site.  It’s taught to foster brilliant minds, not convince the federal government of anything.  It’s amazing how much interference we have from the government and yet how uneducated our nation really is.  I know Pat and I aren’t brilliant, but with the freedom this program gives, paired with the structure this program offers as well, I think this will meet all of Luke’s needs.  And I don’t have to worry about Pat trying to teach him algebra, because there is a licensed teacher on the other end of computer who has it covered.

Speaking of, I’ve introduced him to algebra, he thinks it’s silly, but seems to be on the cusp of understanding it.  Give me til the end of summer.  He’s got this.  He already understand that if 2+5=7, then 5+2=7, and 7-2=5.  That is step one to understanding 2+x=7, solve for x, after all.

So in short: while his mental health diagnostics will always be something to work with/around, I think in ways they will inspire greatness, and I think conventional school will only hold him back.  It’s also worth noting that his behavior in the pre-school classroom is spot on.  They find him to be a helpful, sweet, loving, joy to have around.  They just can’t seem to teach him.

As an interesting note, tucked here at the end, that’s why he isn’t going back after Spring Break.  He’ll finish out the week/month, but once we decided to homeschool, it started to seem ludicrous to spend so much time, energy, and money to try to force pre-school to happen.  He isn’t getting anything out of it.  So he can spend those hours each week working on his math workbook I bought him.  As well as the letters and phonics books.

 

Our next step is a lined dry-erase board so he can work on penmanship, and which direction the numbers 7 and 3 face.  It’s the only thing I have to teach him in this exact regard.  He doesn’t seem to need my help otherwise.  Unless you count reading the instructions.  Other than that, I handed over the book and off he flew.

And he does.  He will.  He flies.  He will fly higher.  And I’m actually relieved to be able to loosen a chain or two.

I Don’t Have Photographic Evidence

Posted on by kmarrs

Hippopotamus and the BloggessOn the 19th of March, my mom, sister and I piled into my mom’s car and drove.  Her GPS “Maddy” took us the scenic route past farms, cows, horses and trains, without an interstate in sight.  But we were in no hurry.  We gave ourselves 5 hours to make a 2 hour drive.

We got to the bookstore in Dayton with plenty of time, so we parked the car and decided we’d go into the bookstore to look around, and find out event details.

Around this time, I realized my husband had given me a 50 with the idea that he didn’t like me wondering so far from home without any sort of cash.  I sent him a quick note warning him he’d set me loose in a bookstore with cash.  He made it clear he had been aware longer than I had, of the situation, and that I would indeed owe him.

There was one survivor.  He goes by Washington.

Funny how all three of us bookworms didn’t really realize that the book signing in a book store would involve, you know, many, many books.  I think we blocked that part out in our quest.

Our quest to meet The Bloggess.

After we spent ourselves broke, we wandered to a nearby subway for an early dinner and then a few other shops to poke around.  But with only an hour and a half left before the signing started, we made our way back to the bookstore to find our place in line.  With a heads-up from the vixen Dawnie, I knew we needed to be there well in advance.  We were the second group in line, but it grew well before 6, when we could find seats.  By the time The Bloggess was presented at 7, it was standing room only.

We had front row seats.  Score!

The Dayton reading had the privilege to be the audience that was not allowed to witness a single curse word, as she read a chapter from her book.  So Jenny, in advance, set about finding the chapter with the fewest F-bombs, and friends.  The winning chapter had only 12 words that needed replaced with hippopotamus.  You heard me, hippopotamus.  But oh you should have heard her!

We laughed, we cried, we laughed some more.

Then we single file got to meet the Goddess that is the Bloggess and have her sign our books.  Our coveted books of inappropriate hilarity.  I was lucky enough to be able to have 2 copies signed.  I bought the paperback version for myself (with a new bonus chapter, yo!) and had my older hardback version signed for my good friend Lisa who was spending the day back in Columbus growing older.  No, seriously, it was her birthday.  When I mentioned this to Jenny, she was sure to wish her a happy birthday in writing.  Lisa is one lucky hippopotamus!

We are all very lucky hippopotamuses.  Not just that this book has been written by someone so very real and honest and inappropriately hilarious.

But that this single person could make it clear to all of us who are so very isolated and alone, that we are in fact one of millions and not so different after all, is something we all needed.  We aren’t the only one with chronic pain.  We aren’t the only one with crippling anxiety.  We aren’t the only one with depression so bad we can’t leave our bed for days if not weeks.  We aren’t the only one who has cut to feel something.  We aren’t the only one.  You, I, Jenny.  We are all so unique but in the ways we need to be the same, to not be alone, Jenny has made it clear we are a community.  She has given us that gift.

So we are very lucky hippopotami indeed!

TURN OFF THE NEWS…….

Posted on by kmarrs

This is what Morgan Freeman has to say about the shooting on Friday.  He has it so very right. (Edit: turns out it isn’t Mr. Freeman. All very right.)

“You want to know why. This may sound cynical, but here’s why.

It’s because of the way the media reports it. Flip on the news and watch how we treat the Batman theater shooter and the Oregon mall shooter like celebrities. Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris are household names, but do you know the name of a single *victim* of Columbine? Disturbed
people who would otherwise just off themselves in their basements see the news and want to top it by doing something worse, and going out in a memorable way. Why a grade school? Why children? Because he’ll be remembered as a horrible monster, instead of a sad nobody.

CNN’s article says that if the body count “holds up”, this will rank as the second deadliest shooting behind Virginia Tech, as if statistics somehow make one shooting worse than another. Then they post a video interview of third-graders for all the details of what they saw and heard while the shootings were happening. Fox News has plastered the killer’s face on all their reports for hours. Any articles or news stories yet that focus on the victims and ignore the killer’s identity? None that I’ve seen yet. Because they don’t sell. So congratulations, sensationalist media, you’ve just lit the fire for someone to top this and knock off a day care center or a maternity ward next.

You can help by forgetting you ever read this man’s name, and remembering the name of at least one victim. You can help by donating to mental health research instead of pointing to gun control as the problem. You can help by turning off the news.”

In so many cases this is the truth.

We all can name Osama Bin Laden.  We could all pick him out of a lineup, if he hadn’t been found.  Name one of his victims.  Sure many people can.  Many people are related to one.  But that many are not the majority.

Ted Bundy, Charles Manson, Columbine, Aurora, The Unabomber, Jeffrey Dahmer, Jack the Ripper

Name one victim for each, off the top of your head.  Using Google is cheating.

But the men behind the horror?  Are men of legend.  Not positive legend, mind you.  But still, legend.

And going back to what I posted earlier and Mr. Freeman finished with, tell me about the mental health of everyone named above.

This is a Mental Health Issue

Posted on by kmarrs

I remember when I learned about Columbine.  I was sitting in my living room, about 15 years old, in High school myself, when Total Request Live with Carson Daily was interrupted for breaking news.  I sat there in shock, horror and awe.

As I finished through high school, shootings weren’t common, but they were a thing.  As I’ve gotten older and become a parent, I’ve always worried.

But I also always figured I had until at least my kids were in middle school before I had to lose sleep over it with my own babies in mind.

Friday’s news changed that.

I watched my twitter stream in horror, shock and awe.  I clicked news page after news page, from my chair at work, hurting that I couldn’t wrap my arms around my babies then and there, refusing to ever let go.

And then I got angry.  Sure I’m angry at the shooter, but I’m also angry at some of the reactions I’ve seen.  Mothers, fathers, self proclaimed experts calling for this and that.  Gun control.  GUN CONTROL!  Their child’s safety is far more important than your access to guns.  Yes, yes it is, but…

Alright, I am all for gun control and regulation.  I don’t know the current laws, but I’d actually be pleased to hear that with my list of mental issues I’m banned from every purchasing one.  I have been locked away for being suicidal after all.  Twice.

But this isn’t a gun control issue.  Say there were no guns ever.  There would still be knives, swords, crowbars, etc.

Clique but: Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.  And this kid wanted to kill.

This kid killed his mother who taught at the school.  I’m no shrink but with the majority of his victims being her students, if I had to give a guess I’d say this is a mental issue stemming from jealously of perceived, “She loves them more than me!”  She wasn’t even in the school at the time.  He went out of his way.  He had a grudge against those children.  Those 5-10 year-olds.  They didn’t have it coming but he sure thought they did.

The real issue.  The real reform needed isn’t gun control, it’s mental health reform.

Too many view mental health help as a luxury, a privilege, and a bartering tool on the floor of our nation’s capital.  But that only works if ignored mental health issues and cries for help don’t lead to senseless, mass, tragic violence.

Mental health reform starts with having therapy, just someone to talk to when stressed, or sad, being a common practice.  Yes I think everyone should have a therapist, even if they don’t visit them even monthly.  And these visits should maybe even enforced when there is a clear sign that someone might actually need it.  It can’t be a matter of can someone afford it.  It can’t hold stigma.  It can’t be viewed as something to vote on or barter over.

When you ignore mental health issues you later read about them in the news.  You see it on live TV.  You lose people all too early in movie theaters, shopping malls, and now apparently elementary schools.

Can every shooting be avoided?  No.  There are crimes of passion.  There is no predicting for Ned walking in on his wife Nancy in bed with his best friend Jim.

However, you can’t tell me that the people behind these horrendous crimes don’t have issues beyond having access to too many guns.

When you barter with mental health, you barter with lives.

Thank God I Don’t Aim To Be Popular

Posted on by kmarrs

Ok. So “OMG WHEEE” of the royal pregnancy aside, the real drama llama of the situation is the prank call.

There are two parties to this: The radio DJ’s and the hospital.

The DJ’s?  Never excepted to be put through.  Of course, they didn’t.  Who in their right mind would have actually thought they could have pulled that off?  They were expecting to place the call and get a laugh from their epic fail.  The DJ epic fail, not the hospital epic fail.  They were looking to get laughed at over their own failure.  Not what actually happened.

And the real failure, the prank actually working, took many people, most of whom where in the hospital.

It is tragic that the nurse took her life.  I attribute her death to shock, heart-break and humiliation.  And while yes, she was the first to fall for the prank, she by no means was alone.

1. Why didn’t the hospital have some serious policies in place?  It can’t possibly be that easy to fool a veteran nurse.

2. Why didn’t the nurse the call was transferred to, do anything to confirm.  Nothing wrong with a second back-up confirmation.  In fact, had it really been the Queen and Charles, I imagine they would have expected to be fully interrogated.

When my daughter went to the urgent care to get stitches last month, I had to set up a password that anyone calling in to check on her would need, to get through to someone willing top provide information.  And while my daughter in my world and my Princess, very few in this world would agree with me.  And yet, tight security.

Look, this was a fail.  A fail that turned tragic because one of many guilty parties took all the blame upon herself.

I don’t think, however, the DJ’s should shoulder as much blame and endure nearly as much finger pointing as they are.  How the hell did they even get through? They weren’t expecting to.  And they are feeling enough self-appointed guilt as it is.

I do think however, it’s time for a staff wide training session on the security practices they have in place, or to put some in place in they don’t already exist.

Because the truly guilty party is the lack of a policy or a hospital wide lax attitude towards it.  Unless it was a fluke the DJ’s got the one nurse who doesn’t stick to the written law of the hospital.

Oh, and with their ultimately being no real harm, aside from a breach of confidence however life endangering it was, this death is a horrendous waste of human life.  Nurses are what makes the hospital go round.  To lose one to something like this, someone should be ashamed.

I just have trouble, serious trouble, believing it should be the radio DJ’s.