Life from K to 12...

I wanted to pause here and say a few things about what experiences I have had so far, not necessarily in any post so far, and a little about what affect they've had on my life as an adult.  To me looking backwards and studying what one knew at a time in the past and comparing to what one knows as an adult is helpful.     

When I was in Kindergarten, I used to suck my thumb.  To be honest I sucked my thumb past Kindergarten, but I am not fessing up to how long.  My mom really wanted to me to quit, and apparently my Kindergarten teacher did too!   She used to lightly slap my hand to get me to stop.  I didn't like this, I felt betrayed.   Mom would give babysitters something that had hot pepper juice in it and have them slather it on my thumb.  When I indulged in this "bad habit" it would fire up my mouth and lips that I had to drink water to cool it down.  But I learned one day that if I used a lot of soap and water I could wash it off and go back to my little tike ways.  Now what was the purpose of sucking my thumb?  It was a way to relieve anxiety.  As I got older, the anxieties I suffered didn't go away, they sometimes waned and sometimes worsened. 

When I was in high school, I had a lot of anxiety too.  I didn't suck my thumb to relieve it, though.  LOL  No, I just worried a lot, and listened to music A LOT!  I turned music on to study for tests, to create my artwork to, and to sometimes get a little crazy and sing and dance to (by myself mind you).  I worried about things like why certain people didn't like me, why no boys asked me out on dates, how was I going to remember all this stuff for a test, why do I look so unattractive, why don't people invite me to parties or hang with them?   I didn't have answers to these questions, I posited my own answers and was pretty much a sad person underneath a lot of laughter.  I know many people suffer this, I know this NOW.  I didn't know this then.  Lots of the anxiety I had I carried into adulthood, and lots of behaviors I engaged in to "medicate" these anxieties had an effect on my mood, my physical health and my own personal beliefs about myself.  But I survived....I'm living today to tell my journey. 

Not many people know this, but I worried for years that I would suffer a Bipolar episode like my Dad.  Especially as I got closer to the age of 40, the age my Dad was when all his world exploded into mental illness hell.  I didn't suffer a Bipolar episode.  I have suffered anxieties and super anxieties, and had panic attacks.   Last one was a few months ago, but it was lessened in severity by medication I am on.  I used to drink alcohol at parties and enjoy myself a little more than normal.  This was after high school but before I was of legal age to drink. Alcohol is a depressant and can have a calming affect on your nerves.  But it is addictive.  I never became addicted but I do have an addictive personality.  I have been addicted to some activities, just not alcoholism.  At these parties, I might have over imbibed and got hung over, and then waited a week to do it all again.  I was more a social drinker than anything else.  Last drink I had was sometime in 1999 or so.

The worries of yesterday are different than today.  When I was a kid I worried about other kids liking me and getting good grades.   As an adult, I worry about keeping the job I have, the mortgage, my husband, and an elderly Mother.  I worry about having enough to pay for bills, a job to make the money and provide medical insurance and afford the medications I am on.  I worry about my car as it ages and soon to hit the 115,000 mile mark.  I worry about whether to go back to college and finish any of the degrees I started long ago and never finished.  As a kid you don't always know who to trust, who to get help from or necessarily that there is help out there in the first. place.  As an adult, sometimes you feel that there is no one to trust, that no one really knows how to help you, or that the help offered is really necessary for you....that it is all a ruse to get money out of you. 

Now here I could jump into my faith story and what I believe about trusting in a Higher Power and the Universe and God and all that.  But I really just wanted to say something about what I have noticed about how I changed from a worrying kid into a worrying adult.  There are a lot of stories to tell now about what happened to me or around me, and how I dealt with things then, and I how I would deal with them now.  I'll get to those, that is the #1 reason I wanted to do a blog in the first place.   I'm not afraid to explain my story, some of it with embarrassing anecdotes and silly lessons.  But life is not perfect, sometimes makes no sense at all.  But it is okay, we all have a life journey to live, and some go through huge trials and make it out to the other side okay, some do not.  I think my being willing and able to write this for others to read shows I have made it out to the other side, and I know I am and will be okay....for a long time to come.  

..... what happens next is some of the most memorable things from my past.   And I am excited AND anxious to tell you. 

Dad...

My Dad by all accounts was a very eccentric fellow.  Very very intelligent...like Mensa smart!!!  I really liked this about him.  Unless we played Trivial Pursuit with him.  Then you were hosed.  Partly cause he was read more, but also cause he was off the charts smart.

My parents bought the family home from a doctor surgeon who had the home customized for his needs.  The living room was originally designed as a formal living room and a dining room on the other end, but I don't believe there was a wall separating the two.  We had kept the chandelier hanging where the dining space was for many of the early years, but instead of dining room furniture, we had our family TV and chairs at that end.  

My favorite memory of the early years was when Dad would play with us kids.  He'd prop us on his shoulders, hold our hands and walk quickly through out the living run, end to end.  It was was fun and garnered a lot of laughs, except the one day that he forgot where the chandelier was and I was pulled head first right into that thing.  I don't remember being angry at Dad for that, just upset it hurt so bad. 

Dad played board games with us when we got a little older.  Sometimes we'd play as a family, all five of us together, sometimes it was just Dad and us kids.  We'd play Parcheesi, Sorry, and Monopoly.  I don't remember if he played card games with us, that was more Mom's type of games to play.  

Dad suffered a nervous breakdown in 1979 after I graduated from the 6th grade.  He had to stop working for a long time.  Those were some of the roughest years I ever remember our entire family going through.  Mom had to deal with the brunt of things, as she had to deal with the doctors, the ambulance workers, the psychiatrists, and all the bills that were piling up from his care.  Since we kids were 12 and under, we weren't burdened with all the medical bill details.  We just knew our Dad wasn't right and he was getting help, away from the home.   

He was never the same personality when he finally got home.  He was more guarded, avoided hanging with us kids, and stayed more to himself in his own room.  Mom and him had moved to separate rooms before his breakdown, but now he was not able to function as he once did.  It would be several years, throughout all my junior and senior high school years, that he'd be walled away in the house before getting more relational with others.  

When he first got sick I used to worry about him a lot and sat with him when he came out of his room to put a record on the player.  Normally he play some classical music.  I learned to appreciate many of the great pieces of classical music because of this time with him.  I didn't know how to knit or crochet, but I did know a simple knotting sequence with yarn, and I made him colorful bookmarks with this technique out of yarn.  He seemed to like them and use them.   This is when I know he became an avid bookworm.   

I don't know what my siblings thought about my Dad and is Bipolar disease.  He frightened all of us a few times when I was in high school.  Hallucinating and seeing animals talking to him, and seeing me in a room when I wasn't really there.   I didn't want friends over at the house when all this started happening.  I became afraid of him and avoided interacting with him at this time.  He would get angry at the slightest noise, didn't want any talking going on when he was watching Jeopardy on TV and just became a person I didn't know how to be around.   I am ashamed that I didn't get to know him better then, and fight through my fear and see if I could find the man I knew and loved as a small child.  

Somewhere during the first couple years after he got sick, he lost over 100 lbs, and quit smoking his pipe AND joined the Catholic Church.  All the reading he did to prepare added to the scary moments when you could tell he was about to have an episode and need his meds fixed.  He'd sit us kids down and wouldn't allow us to do anything unless we answered his faith questions.  One time he scared me because none of us kids really knew what the 7 virtues and vices were and we had to sit at the kitchen table until Mom got home from work.  She had to deal with Dad's mental problem on her own and really didn't explain to us that I recall what was truly going on. 

Finally when I was out of high school, he started working.   He worked at McDonald's as a biscuit maker.  Far removed from his bookkeeping talents.  He just wasn't comfortable getting into the numbers and messing up the books.  But his boss loved him.  He was a good and dependable worker.   After some time though some things started bothering him with that job and he quit, He went to go work for their competition, and again everyone there loved him.   But one day I think the story goes he came in and saw someone doing his station work and he got pissed and quit.   He then went on to work at the grocery store next to the McDonald's he used to work at.  I work for this grocery chain and was actually proud he belonged to the same company.  He was in the union, I was not.  EVERYONE loved my dad there.   

                        ..... when life takes a sudden turn to the unknown and the frightful side of    
                              things, we can become confused and disorented and lose our way.  
                             Stay tuned for more on this saga. 

  

Our Family Photo circa 1972

 

 

Mom and Dad

It Started With My Family...

Okay so I learned A LOT about how to be in the world from my family.  Right or wrong, my parents, siblings, aunts and uncles, grandparents and cousins taught me many things. 

I was a shy kid growing up. Not too many friends, not really close to my siblings, and when visiting at relative's homes, I believe I was pretty invisible.   At school is where I shined more.  I loved school!  And I was pretty darn good in the 3 R's.   But my favorite classes were my art classes.  And my favorite place to be, in school or out, was the library.  I never got the impression that my parents really knew all this about me.   I got good grades and pretty much could do my homework on my own.  It just always seemed that it was expected I would be smart and self-sufficient in my academic studies.  This would play a part later on in my education after high school.

I have a sister, who is a year and half younger than me.  Once she was old enough to sleep in a big people bed, we had to share a bed together.  My brother came along a year and half after my sister, and once he was old enough to sleep in a big people bed, the three of us had to share a room together.  Me on the top bunk, the younger two on the bottom bunk.  We learned to share a room, but heaven's to Betsy, we were not known for being model sharers of toys or anything else.  My sister recounts that she was told to sit between me and brother in the back seat of the old Dodge Gremlin because my brother and I just didn't get along.   That would really wouldn't change much as we got older. 

My sister and I weren't close, but since we were both girls pretty close in age, we did get along a little better.  We sat next to each other at the family dinner table, during the years we all 5 ate together as a family.  I don't remember too many fights at any meals....but we were different in more ways than just birth order.  In high school she was the popular one with her huge group of friends.  She always seemed to be the one that controlled everything.  I always wanted to be in her group, but never really was allowed, except when some came to our house to play cards.  Once she was out of the house, we really did nothing together.  And as time went on this wouldn't change much either.

My Mom raised us 3 kids in a most practical manner, making sure we had a roof over our heads, food to eat, and clothing.   Until we hit high school.   Once I was old enough to hold a job, I had to work to earn money for a car and its expenses, my own clothes, and my own hygiene products.  Not a lot of outward affection was beheld on us, and this would play a most huge part in my development as a person and as a Child of God.  

Finally, there's my Dad.  He was a unique soul.  I have good and bad memories growing up with him.  Until recently, I dwelt on the bad stuff more than any of the good stuff.  It seemed to outweigh everything.  Dad worked until I was 12, then suffered a mental breakdown and was diagnosed with Bipolar Disease.  A terrible disease that took more than a year to properly be diagnosed.   When we were young kids, he played with us.   We had fun with our Dad!  After his diagnosis, nothing was the same, and I never grew to be close to him.   And in 2000 my Dad was killed after getting hit by a car.   All of these tragedies would play a huge part of my ups and downs in moods over the years. 

And this is just the tip of the iceberg of the things to recount from my youth and early adolescence.  Opening up about my family was always something I wanted to do, but wasn't sure how to do so and definitely not an easy thing to do.  I learned a lot from these four people in my life.  Some good, some misguided, some not resolved until recently, and a few not resolved yet. 

                                 ..........  hang on for more.  The ride gets bumpy from here on out.