Bitch Rant Rave

The strains of unconditional love.

There are some days when I realize I should never have crawled from my bed.

The past 48 hours have been a living hell, surrounded by madness that threatens to take over all that I am. Granted, the madness has been going on for years but now the possibility of freedom from its deathly grip is slipping away. I am held hostage by my heart which is now broken into a million pieces, scattered about what used to be a home. Now it is a shelter enveloped in insanity.

The rage is beyond anything I have ever witnessed. My 12 year old screams and growls like a wild animal at the slightest movement or sound. The dogs cower in the corner trying their best to hide under the table and away from her rampage. They cling to my every move, frightened that I will leave them in her presence alone. I cannot leave them in the room with her alone. She has already tried to injure them and has threatened to let them out of the house, or worse, kill them. They too are held hostage. She threatens on a regular basis now to kill herself. She rages about how she would be better off dead. I cannot imagine a grief greater than losing my child by her own hand. She has attempted to jump from a moving car and to jump out of a second story window. I have hid all of the knives and other sharp objects in the house. The medication is locked away and hidden. She is at her lowest. My once modest home is now a shattered wreck with holes in the walls, broken furniture, and her ever expanding debris field of items thrown and broken. Even the laptop pc is not immune from her wrath. It was tossed across the room; the insides of it rattle like loose change in a pocket. She was watching a movie, seeking some respite from her racing thoughts. When the laptop no longer cooperated with her, it was met with a flying fast pitch across the living room.

She does not want me around. She does not want me to stay. She is clingy and demanding on her terms. She is pitiful and broken. Her hair is now in stringy tangles and she refuses to bathe or tend to her hygiene. She is in a circle of madness and there is no exit ramp. Medications are not working. The Prozac has been stopped. The psychiatrist says it is causing the latest meltdown. The anti-anxiety drug is not enough. The two anti-psychotic drugs are not enough. The ADHD medication is not enough. Her psychologist cannot see her for two more weeks. We are in insanity limbo and it is dragging us both into a pit of hell. I have taken up smoking again. I can no longer have a drink to soothe my raw edges. I have to be alert and focused to take care of her. Dear Lord, please do not let smoking kill me before she is 18. I refuse to put a helpless guardian through this heartache. The nearest adolescent psychiatric hospital is an hour away. They will not take her because there are no beds available now nor in the foreseeable future.

What do I do? Thoughts have ran through my head that I cannot even fathom putting down into real words. How far will I go before I snap, my mental light switch turned off? God, help me keep the lights on. I am middle-aged, 50 years old. I am trapped for the remainder of my life or hers, whichever ends first. God forgive me for feeling helpless, trapped, lonely, and afraid. Please do not let her madness become mine. We will make it through this roller coaster ride through hell somehow or someway. I love her with an all-consuming passion and I will never give up on her. I want her to have a normal life with friends, boyfriends or girlfriends, school, a career, a partner, a family. I want her to know she is loved to the moon and the stars and back and beyond. I want for her to know what normal is like.

God, do not let me lose my grip on normal.

~Jane

Ditzing myself down.

I was asked to do this again, today, by a colleague.  Someone that is highly respected in his profession.  Someone who has a lot of experience that I don't have.  And he asked me, wait...he told me....to ditz myself down.  Why?

So that I don't lose my job.

What?  You are kidding right?  Those words bounce around in my cranium and push through the colorful neurons that make up my brain.  They make my hearing so sensitive that my heart beats are banging so loudly that I feel dizzy.

The ugly truth is that he wasn't kidding.  He was dead serious.  I could tell by looking at his face. Our conversation didn't stop there.  He had more suggestions for me.  Recommendations on how a woman can stay alive in this shitty economy and job market. He elaborated.   While you are dumbing yourself down, start laughing at the jokes that they tell about minorities.  Laugh when they call female ex-employees "bitches" and "whores."  Remember to keep it in perspective, he tells me.  They pay your bills.  Your mortage.  Your insurance.  They keep a lot of us alive financially. 

"But, but, but" I muttered to him.  Inside I am absolutely screaming.  What about having a sense of pride in the workplace?  How about extending that sense of pride to myself?  That pride defines who I am and gives me perspective on the battles that I choose to fight.  "Let them go" he says. 

I can't let this shit go!  I have been playing this game for far too long.  The lines in the sands of my careers were drawn years ago.  I can't stand by idley while sexism runs rampant in a workplace.  I can't stand by while racism is the standard mode of operation.  I can't stand by and watch as possible candidates for a position are judged, and determined, by the color of their skin and the type of sex organs they have. 

That is fucking wrong.

But he reminds me; that is the way it is.

I thought about this all day.  And now as I make dinner and think about how much wine I will need to swallow to make this craziness make sense in my head, I realize something.

He just may be right.

I think back to elementary school when I had to dumb myself down in front of the boys.  I think of middle school when I was doing really well in Math but it was uncool to be the smartest girl in class.  I turned myself off to something that I enjoyed doing.  I willingly did it to myself.  I did it again when I started dating.  I didn't want to appear to be smarter than the guys I hung out with. 

And it continued into my early adulthood, and, into my marriages.  I ditzed myself into corners that I sometimes couldn't get out of.  What is that they say?  Old habits are hard to break?  Maybe on some level I realized that this was the way of the world.  That women, no matter how confident, smart, and, upwardly mobile they may be, will always be required to put a certain amount of ditz into their dialogues.  Just enough ditz to get by.  To take the eyes off them.  To make it easier to work in relationships, office spaces and at the board room table.  Just enough ditz to keep us under the radar.

I like this colleague.  He seems nice enough. I believe that in his heart of hearts he was giving me, what he felt, was good advice.  I can appreciate that.

He also recommended that I start talking about guns at work. 

My head has been spinning since.

Women over 50 like to have sex.

Yes.  I typed it.  I have put "it" out there.  If you are a mother of a daughter who is over 50, a daughter of a mother over 50 or a spouse/partner/friend of a woman over 50 and you don't like thinking about that 50 something woman in your life liking sex, read no further.

But if you are okay with it, read on.

I am over 50.  This year has marked quite a few "firsts" for me.  Some I don't mind talking about and some, quite frankly, are only my business.  But having said that, I will share that I experienced my first ever pedicure this past week.  I sat next to one of my dearest friends on the planet.  We talked, laughed and enjoyed each other while two very sweet 20 somethings painted our toes.  Our conversations varied.  We talked about our kids, our partners and spouses.  We talked about life, love and things that make us happy.  We shared these conversations with the lovely 20 somethings. 

But when we started talking about sex (yes, women over 50 like to talk about sex, too) the 20 somethings ears perked up.  They gazed at us in wonderment.  Their eyes glossed over as they asked us questions about relationships that we have with men.  My friend is happily married.  I am no longer.  My pedicurist told me that her mother, also over 50, has a boyfriend that she doesn't like.  We talked a little about that.  She relayed that the boyfriend was nice to her Mom, that he treated her well but that she just didn't understand why her Mom needed a boyfriend.

I was amazed that she was amazed.

I told her that I like being with my partner; that I like sleeping next to someone I care about and love.  But then I dropped the bombshell - I boldly stated that I like to have sex and that maybe her Mom does too.

I watched the color run from her cheeks.  

She thought about what I said and then replied "You know, you may be right. Maybe my Mom likes to have sex."

And maybe that is the whole reason she didn't like her Mom's boyfriend.  Somewhere deep in the back of her mind she had her Mom up on a virginal pedestal. 

I am going to enjoy my 50's.

 

 

Random shit that has me thinking about life.

Uber rich people are mostly assholes.

Corporations are life sucking, blood draining, soul crushing structures that we all, for some reason, want to be associated with.

Married people do not have a clue what it's like to raise kids and care for parents on their own. Then again, maybe they do and that's why they stay married.

Marriage should be for everyone who wishes to engage in the institution.

Good people should be allowed to adopt children regardless of sexual orientation.

Votes are not in my vagina or uterus.

War is waged by those who sacrifice nothing. They send the most vulnerable to the slaughter to be sacrificed for the almighty dollar.

I am a Socialist.

I'm confused about my sexuality even at my age. I love that I have a lifetime of
opportunity to figure it out. Hopefully it won't take that long.

I'm a hippie wannabe.

I think marijuana should be legal. Package it, tax it, ensure it's safety, take out the illegal profit margin.

We are stewards of earth. Lousy stewards, but stewards nonetheless. I'll try harder, get my hands dirtier, tread a little lighter and try to be a better steward. I promise to even love snakes and spiders since even they have a place in it all.

I still don't understand Twitter.

Abortion is a choice not taken with nonchalant attitudes. Walk a mile in her shoes before you criticize her lawful choice.

Health care should be affordable and equitable for all the citizens of the world.

I am a Christian. I recognize my flaws and inability to attain perfection. Therefore, I ask for forgiveness daily. I strive to be Christ-like in my attitudes towards others less fortunate than me.

Education is a right.

Not everyone wants to go to college. That's okay. Create jobs that are good paying and with benefits for them.

Newscasters are full of total bullshit. Don't believe any of the blowhards.

Being a parent is the hardest job of all. It comes with a lifetime of responsibility.

My dogs are my children with four legs and adorable outlooks on life. They always love me, no matter what.

My human child makes me crazy at times.

Sometimes I think I'm going to lose my marbles, again.

I am an artist with little time to create. Therefore, see the previous sentence.

I hate racism and racists. They are scum.

I wish I could take my dogs to work with me.

I want to live on the beach.

I'm lonely.

I'm Jane. Thanks for reading.