Let it be said that I lasted seven months without cable.  I technically could treat myself to a handbag with all of the money we saved from not paying for cable for that long, but I probably won’t be that frivolous.  Mainly because I’ll be too busy cracking out on all of the crap TV that missed.

I can say I did live without cable, and I know that I can.  But never again, do I actually want to do something as stupid as this stint.  It rates right up there with not having a dishwasher.  Both are pretty much like living in a third world country.  And if I ever say something like, “we’re going to get rid of our toilets and have privies in our back yard,”  please beat me over the head.

One of my biggest demons is medication. I really have no other way to put it. There are millions of people on some sort of anti-depressant nowadays, and yet, it’s still a stigma. Honestly, I don’t even really feed into the stigma. Obviously, if I’ve told the internet about it. But my mental anguish about taking medication runs high. Kind of funny, no?

Here’s the thing. I have no judgement whatsoever about other people taking medication. I mean, if you need help, there’s no question. But for me, I feel like it’s a crutch. A band-aid. And not just me, personally, I think that way about everyone. And what I mean, by that, because that sounded like some giant contradiction, is that, the actual medication itself, is just masking a problem, rather than actually fixing it, as a general whole. Because you’re not weak if you need the medication. But it’s a fact that most people don’t actually get the true help they need. They mask it with medication. And I’m not excluding myself from that. Because at one point or another, I’ve done the medication without therapy.

Part of my therapy, was trying to come to terms with needing a medication. I’m not accepting it whole heartedly. I had to go back on medication, which for me, feels like I’m a failure. My defeatist attitude, getting me nowhere, I had to explore why this is such an issue with me. I brought it up one day, in my lovely little group. The therapist explained the whole therapy success by itself.  Medication success by itself, and of course, medication plus therapy, together equaling greater success. Studies have been done.  I haven’t yet really read up on these studies. I’m trying to take things one day at a time. This was explained on a much more vague level at the hospital. But that fog prevented it from sinking in. Funny, how hearing it from someone with less credentials than a doctor, can make you more accepting of it. Hearing it from doctors, whose sole job is to push medication, is another issue for me.

I’m still struggling with it, but not as much as before. My inner hippie wants to find something that works on balancing out the brain chemicals, more naturally, without the shitty side effects. St. Johns and all of that stuff isn’t really something that works.   Maybe at some point, I’ll actually be OK without the aid of a chemical. I’m sure it’ll be after bucket loads of therapy. I guess in the meantime, I’ll swallow that “jagged little pill.”

I’ve been getting up at ungodly hours all week.  Partly, because the Meester was away this week, actually on a work trip, in the Bay area.  Having not been back for years, he was able to go visit some of our old haunts, old friends.  I was a bit jealous, not only because of the milder weather, seasonal depression being a crippling bitch, but I haven’t been back since we’ve left.  I miss it, for all my bitching about living there and hating it.  Long story long, him being away, was causing the Children to wake up at inappropriate hours all week, and also, because, I was in the outpatient program.  It was like the old days, where I would get up and go to work.

And dutifully, I’d get up, and try to make life run smoothly.   Get a shower, while my mother gave the kids breakfast.  Put away the previous day’s laundry, picking out outfits, and gathering the load of laundry to be done.  Dry hair, make lunches, warm up the cars. Take my vitamins.  Kiss my kids goodbye and head off to a full day of therapy.

Something tells me going to work all day would be a lot easier.

Ready and willing, I sit down.  No big deal, I did this all day at the hospital.  And I found comfort in it.  This group therapy thing. But the hospital was different.  I was in a different place then.  I was still numb.  I did my part to get out of the hospital.  I made the effort.  I talked.

I talked, but I didn’t listen.  I wasn’t well liked in the hospital by some of the other patients.  I didn’t care, because I was just there to get home and see my kids.

It makes a big difference.  I’ve had time to come from that bad place.

Talking about your problems is exhausting.  Listening to other people’s problems is twice that.  I can’t even explain the intensity, and I don’t know if you can fully appreciate it (and it is an appreciation, to have someone be willing to open up to you), unless you’re there.  The different walks of life.  The rawness of the stories that people tell.  The perspective that people give.

When I leave, I’ll have to put forth practices in my life.  I’ll always be a work in progress.   But these people that have become like this temporary family, is something I will never forget.  The strength and resilience of the human mind is an amazing thing.

So, I didn’t just decide to tell you about my attempt to hurt myself and then just totally drop the subject.  It’s just been so super hard to get through every day life.  I have no desire to write anything.  And when I do, I get overwhelmed and just put the idea right out of my head.

But you guys, these last three to four months have been the hardest of my life, hands down.  I’ve battled anxiety and (unknowingly, because I denied it) depression since I was about 11.  I still am not sure if I have anxiety brought on by depression, or vice versa.  All I know is that I remember when my anxiety set in.  I was 11.  I remember losing my appetite, and sleeping a lot and I guess, feeling depressed, but not really understanding exactly what was wrong.  I just knew that I didn’t feel right or the same.  But once I figured out the key to managing my anxiety, I was able to cope.  I wish I could figure out the key that my 11-year-old self figured out so many years ago.  Because somehow, somewhere along the way, I lost that ability.  It’s probably adult life, and kids.  And hormonal changes.  But it’s just hell, and there are days where I feel like I’m one step away from eating cat food in a state facility.

And then there are the other days where I feel great.  Not manic, oh my god, life is fucking awesome and lets blow our entire life savings on blow, kind of great.  But, I feel more level and happier, and I made it through the day without crying or yelling, kind of great.  That’s a success for me, even if I don’t recognize that day.  Now if only my god damned doctors would stop trying to pigeonhole me into being manic, because I’ve never pulled and all nighter, or felt the need to do something enjoyable to extremes.  Anyway.

After leaving the hospital, they wanted me to go to an outpatient program.  I had no problem with this.  However, there was a chunk of time between my discharge from the hospital, to my in-take date with the program.  Because it fell square in the middle of Christmas week.  I was stressed out over missing Christmas events.  Namely, my kids little banal preschool Christmas parties.

Except for me, it wasn’t banal, it was my entire world.  I would.not.miss.it.  Especially not when my son, the child who could not communicate effectively for years, asked me “Mama, you’re coming to my Christmas party at school, right?”  So I changed the date. Epic mistake.  Because I was turned away.  No clinical need, so insurance won’t cover it, they told me.  My only choice at that point would have been to end up back in the hospital, which was not an option.

I couldn’t find a therapist.  I wasn’t qualified for an out patient program, and my insurance wouldn’t cover an Intensive Out Patient (IOP).  I felt like the system had failed me.  I’ve been in therapy on and off for years.  I never had this issue with insurance that seems to be prevalent today.  I pay out of pocket for my psychiatrist.  At one point, I was paying out of pocket for a therapist, which means, I was rarely going.  At $125 a pop, that shit adds up fast.  And before you know it, blowing your entire life savings on blow, is cheaper than geting the help, you need.  The help you deserve.

I ended up in my doctor’s office, hysterical, sobbing.  The dead-inside German woman.  ”I just want to feel better.”  Crying wasn’t the problem.  I just didn’t want to be doing it all the time.  He promised me he’d get me into out patient.  ”If that’s where you want to be.”

I don’t care if it seems weak.  I don’t care if it has a stigma.  I will do anything to get well.  For my kids.  For my family.  My kids deserve the best mother I can be.  Not supermom.  Not like so many other bloggers make themselves appear.  Right now?  I’m a hot mess, but at the end of the day, even if it’s a day of frustration, and more yelling than I’d like to have done that day.  At the end of the day, I tell my kids how much I love them.  That they can do anything they want to, and that no matter what happens today, I am more proud of them than anything in the world.  And that I hope that they still love me, in spite of my faults.  And that I can make them proud, too.

And I think, maybe I’m not such a horrible mother, after all.

So, I don’t make it a secret that my laptop, my not so secret lover, gets dragged everywhere with me, including the bathroom. Yes, my best work is on the shitter, but I’ll also use it as a radio to stream music, or listen to my local morning radio show, if I’m feeling particularly hygienic that morning, while I shower.

Sometime last year, I upgraded my four-year-old macbook, to the shiny macbook pro (I feel the need to tell you this, as its relevant to the story, not that you care that I got a new laptop.  Or maybe you do.  I love my mb pro, if you care).  Which is made of stainless?  Solid granite?  Cast Iron?  It’s not light, but then again, neither is the regular macbook.  They make them sturdy, which is one of the reasons why I love Apple products.  I’m pretty much a klutz, and for whatever reason, my iPhone and whatever other sort of technology I own, finds a way to jump from my fingers.  I have a permanent case of the dropsies.

So this morning, I grabbed my laptop, headed for the bathroom, and sat it on the ledge in my bathroom, while I tended to my business.   We have a stupid half wall in our bathroom, that hides the toilet, for whatever reason, people are still like the Beaver’s or the Brady Bunch, and feel it necessary to hide the toilet from view (a lot of houses around here now, have a separate room just for the toilet (also common in Asian countries, as my sister tells me).  This wall becomes the bane of my existence.  I can never keep it clean, or clutter free:

You guys, this is the cleanest its ever been, but that’s because I’m just now finally getting around to finishing up my bathroom project that I started in the fall.  If we end up staying in this house, and the bathroom ever gets redone, that’s the first thing that’s going, is that wall.

So anyway, this morning. Laptop. Business.

I rested my laptop on this ledge, I turned to get the toilet paper, which is normally on the other side of this wall, and how, I have no idea, made some sort of move that caused my elbow to hit the laptop like a catapult.  The laptop flew through the air, and went flying down, smashing the toilet paper roll holder IN HALF, slamming into my ankle, and then crashing onto the floor.  At first, I was more worried about my laptop, which now has a dent in it, but is otherwise fine (I dropped my old laptop, and it ended up killing the disk drive.  You’d think I’d have smartened up by now, by not leaving anything of value where I can damage it).  My ankle on the other hand, is still throbbing.  I’d show you a picture, but it doesn’t look like much.  It feels much worse.

So, if you’re ever looking for a laptop that will survive a fall onto tile flooring with barely a scratch, or you need some sort of deadly weapon, head over to the Apple store.  Or, just keep this shit out of my hands.

Once again, I’m just overwhelmed and astounded. You like me, YOU REALLY LIKE ME. Thus ends the tongue in cheek wiseass remark. Thing is, I’m just so awkward sometimes, that I don’t really know what to say. Thank you. I can’t believe it. But… I’ll just say thank you.

I don’t want to just blow off what happened, because it was a big damn deal. And I won’t ever forget that. I still have some horribly anxious days, but none where I feel like, I want to die. While yes, sometimes that seems like the easy way, the ironic thing is that, I’m so god damned afraid of dying. It’s a large part of my anxiety. That saying: death and taxes? Well, really, only one of those is true, because there are people who have managed to avoid paying taxes their entire lives. They can probably get away with it too, but death is pretty much inevitable. And really, not that I’d want to live forever, either. Especially if the forever part, meant that a good portion of your life you were old and your hips would give out, or you’d be pissing yourself frequently.

But, I’m not going to sit here and depress you, because then we’d all be sitting around bummerville. Bummerville kind of sucks. I live around the corner from there.

Let’s talk about happy shit. Like houses. Dream houses. I’m sure everyone here has their dream house. And I’m not talking mansions or the “if money were no object” house. After living in a decent sized home, I never want a mansion. Ever. I don’t want that much space, because that’s just more shit for me (or the maid) to clean. More stuff I would have to accumulate to furnish rooms that we’ll never sit in. It makes me want to chew on some ativan just thinking about it.

This house is not my dream house. Our house is pretty nice. It’s a roof over our head. But it’s a typical cookie cutter subdivision home. We have a great yard, with cows out back, and our neighbors aren’t right on top of us. Everyone keeps to themselves for the most part. But it’s a very undesirable layout, and it has never really felt like home. The Feng Shui is all off.

When we first moved here, one of my old co-workers lived in the borough, within walking distance from my house. When I first went to visit her, I saw it. IT. My.dream.house. An older colonial type home. I fell in love with this house, and have lovingly gazed at it whenever I would drive by. And then one day. The for sale sign was up. I felt like it was a sign (well, it was a sign. A real estate sign, badum bum!) I wrote about the house over on my poorly neglected DIY blog.

When it first went on the market, it was overpriced.  But given that it’s one of the few decent sized older homes and the fact that in the borough, it sits on over an acre of land, it had mad interest.  Most people were just nosy.  It pissed the owner off, which I find really laughable, because in this economy, you should be grateful for any sort of interest at all.  Anyway, this was not long after my surgery, and very close to the start date of LG’s bedroom addition.  We looked at the house, but the Meester, while he liked the house, looked at it like this:

For awhile, I’ve been going back and forth:  stay here, and rearrange the layout (a money suck), or bite the bullet and move?  I’ve been checking out homes in the area, with a more desirable layout.

And this house, you guys, I can’t stop thinking about it.  It’s far from perfect in terms of things being dated.  The kitchen (livable at least, with enough counter space).  The bathrooms: powder blue tile and lavender tile, respectively.  My favorite (no really) 50′s poodle wallpaper in the actually decent sized closets.  The floors are original, the bedrooms are a decent size.  Most of all, I just love this house.  Love conquers all, right?  The things that were a must have prior to buying this house, are no longer a must have.  Finsished basement?  Hate it. Sits largely unused, except for the Meester’s office space.  Oversized master bedroom?  How much room do you need to sleep?  Granted, I don’t want to be shimmying around my bed, but I’m ok with less space.  Our bedroom isn’t overly large, in comparison to the other newer homes around here, which tout these grand master suites.  What the hell are you doing in there that you need an apartment sized bedroom within your home?  Do you know what ends up in my room most of the time?  TOYS.  I sleep with matchbox cars and children’s books.

If we were to even consider this house, it would basically be a lateral move.  We are a newly five bedroom house, new appliances, freshly painted.  This house is a good price for what it offers.  The Meester is just afraid that it has secret problems, which could cost more money in the long run.

Anyone ever just bite the bullet and go for their dream house?

This is totally not a post about them. But I feel like I should personally thank them, because I use their names a lot.  Also? Fucking Christ. Perhaps I shouldn’t say that, not far off from the day we celebrated his birthday, which is actually technically in July or something.  Being an Atheist, I’m sketchy on those details, but even I know that Jesus’s birthday wasn’t on the 25th of December.  So I’m sure he’ll let it slide. I’ll try to be better during the month of July.

OK, I’m lying. I know I won’t be any better, and let’s not set myself up for failure before the year has even started.

BUT! Anyway. Hi.

Perhaps, there are still people who read here, let’s face it, My updates are sporadic, and after ten years here, I only write when necessary.  I’m not exactly expecting neilsen rating type numbers on this space.  My plot for world domination fails epically, but then again, I’m kind of lazy about things like writing, keeping people interested, remembering this space exists.

Also, we had a major life event over here, and I’ve found it really difficult to open up to the internet to talk about it. Every time I open up wordpress, I get overwhelmed, and I just walk away. And truthfully, I’m not really sure why I’ve had a hard time, but I have. Maybe it’s partially because I don’t really want the negative attention with it, the pity party, or the connotation with it. But on the other hand, fuck connotations, because I don’t have anything to be ashamed about. Life is messy, and hard, and sometimes, it just gets difficult to deal with. I don’t pretend to live in a happy bubble, and since I DO pay for this space, I don’t want to fill it with fluff. Sometimes I’m snarky and funny, and sometimes I’m not.

And on December 11th, life was not funny, or snarky. Life for me was miserable, and I couldn’t see through the fog to climb my way out. So I tried to hurt myself.

When I think about it now, it’s unfathomable to me. Life obviously hasn’t gotten magically better overnight, and the last month has been one of the hardest times of my life, but I can honestly say that its slowly getting better. And to think about what I did that day, it still knocks the wind out of me. It probably always will.

I can’t say that I know really what I was trying to accomplish that day.  It’s all a blur, and it was a blur even as it was happening. I don’t remember much of that day at all, except for being in the emergency room and then getting to the lovely four star resort that I was transferred to. I didn’t take enough to cause any permanent damage. I didn’t need my stomach pumped. I think, what I wanted at that time was help, and comfort, and support. It wasn’t there for me in the manner that I needed it, apparently. That is to say, it’s not that I wasn’t getting support, I just couldn’t see that I was getting support.

The thing about you trying to do damage to yourself purposely, is that it turns your entire life into this upheaval. You don’t just go back to your old life. It changes you. It changes everyone involved. It makes people angry, and leery of you. They don’t know whether or not to believe that you won’t pull something like that again. Even if it was just a cry for help. For some people it isn’t a cry for help.

One of the things that has resonated with me, is the anger.  My own anger, other people’s anger. I can see being angry with myself (something I’m learning to let go of, and I am, but it’s obviously not an overnight process. First things first, as my therapist says). I was angry with people for my situation at the time. It wasn’t a blame thing, because really, there’s no one else to blame for something you did, it was just sheer anger over everything. Hot, red, anger. You expect sadness during a time like this. The anger still surprises me. Both my own and other peoples. People are angry at you, and they think that you’re selfish. If there’s one thing that I can shed light on, this isn’t a selfish act. It seems like a selfish act when you’re looking on the outside in. And I’ve been there, dudes. I’ve been on the outside looking in too, and never again will I be tough love with someone in this situation. If there’s one piece of advice I can give to someone dealing with another person who is suicidal, is this: It’s OK to be angry. Your feelings are valid, and you are absolutely entitled to them. But don’t direct them at a person who is kicked while they are down. Most likely they already feel like the shittiest person, and the shell of the person they once were. Get through the tough times, let them clear their head and claw their way out.  Revisit what happened when the other person has a clear mind and is in a better place. I’m not saying never get angry. Go punch a baby seal, or save some glass jars and take them behind a building somewhere.  Whatever.

I’m not even sure how to end this.  It’s taken me three weeks to write this much.  Currently, I’m in therapy, and working on incorporating a better balance in my life.  It’s hard, even in the best mental state, but I’m finding, not impossible.

Nothing is impossible, no matter how hard it is.

Since the Mini has started Pre-K this fall, I can’t even describe it.  Amazement, and wonder. He’s changed so much you guys.  He’s been going to school with the same particular group of kids since he was two, save for a couple of new kids this year (his class is the only one in the whole group of Y preschools that does Pre-K).  He goes five days a week, for five hours a day.  When I first signed him up, I was very hesitant.  I didn’t think he was ready.  He was beyond ready.  He was so bored.  It was me: I wasn’t ready.

Being that it’s a Pre-K class with four and five-year-olds, there are obviously higher expectations placed on the kids.  There’s more routine.  There’s rules and consequences that are more strictly enforced.  They are encouraged to participate in group activities (his last two years, it wasn’t a big deal.  Nursery school is more about playing, and socializing).  There are two teachers for 17 kids, and they do a fantastic job.  They have a red, yellow, green light system.  And at the end of the week, if you’ve stayed on green, you’re a part of a the green light club.  There’s no incentive, other than to behave.  He’s been consecutively in the green light club all year.

But the socialization.  This is the best part of this year.  Dudes, seriously, he tells me about his day.  Him: Mom, I was playing on the playground with H and G and we were playing Transformers.  Me:  Were you Bumblebee?  Him: *rolling eyes* NO, MOM, I was Optimus Prime, because he’s the good guy (LIKE, DUH, YOU ASSHOLE).   A few weeks ago, we were at a birthday party, and I watched him play with his friend.  Actual conversational volleys and pretend play.  And I watched proudly, because if you would have said to me two years ago, “it’ll get better, I promise,” I never would have believed you.

And while I can’t make the same promise to someone else, I can say, just wait and see, because it CAN get so much better.

When we last left off Supermom was all gung-ho about trying to be all patient and loving and getting this potty training business done.

How is that going, Statia?

Not well, kids.  Not well.

Ok, I suppose that I should look on the bright side.  She’s been accident free at night.  I am anti pull-up.  They’re expensive, and they just prolong the inevitable.  The only way I would consider it, is if it turned urine into actual ice cubes in their pants, and poop into pointy rocks.   Sadist much?  But I mean, come on.  Pull ups?  [insert cranky old person's voice here] When I was a kid, when we were learning to use the toilet, we were either beaten when we shit ourselves, or it dribbled down our leg and we liked it!

So no pull ups.   The Mini had accidents, I know this, but it was a year and a half ago, and shit blurs together.  But within three days, he was telling us he needed to go.  Bribes weren’t essential.  Sometimes he wanted them, sometimes he didn’t.  But he was telling us. Her?  You’d better have a mother-fucking treat for her, or else you can forget it.   No amount of giving her the control or taking it away is working.  Tell us if you have to go, and there’s chocolate in it for you.  Let’s go to the potty.  Do you have to go?  Yeah, none of it.  She’ll tell us sixty times in a row to try to finagle something from us, and then go run off and piss herself.

So that patience?  I had SO MUCH MORE PATIENCE with the Mini.  I was never a yeller.  He never got into trouble.  He wasn’t a trouble maker, so this helps, but he was just good.  I know in time it’ll click and it’ll be a distant memory.  I know she’s younger than the Mini was.   With him, due to his communication issues, we waited until he was three.  She’s six months younger than he was.  Big difference.  The other big difference is that she’s stubborn and lives to push every single button.   I find that Louie CK, pretty much sums kids up to a tee:

Everything he’s ever said about kids is true. He just has the balls to say it. I walk around pretty much thinking everything he says, and even in his voice.

LG is now two and a half, and we’re all ready for her to “do some potty learnin’.”  This isn’t my first rodeo with potty training, obviously, having an almost five year old, because that would be AWKWAAAAAAAAARD.  With the Mini, we did the Three Day Potty training method.  They say that boys are notoriously hard to potty train, and I disagree.  I say NAY NAY!  In retrospect, he was actually pretty easy to train.  Sure there were accidents.  Sure it took him a good three or four months to be fully trained (and by fully trained, I mean, totally giving in to the fact that there were really no more diapers, and it was time to get serious about not pissing your pants, or hiding in a corner to shit yourself when no one is looking. He got it, and for the most part trained in a day or two, but let’s face it, three-year-olds have accidents).

The BFF makes a good point, in that you learn a lot about your kid when you potty train them.  This is true, and when I look back on training the Mini, I realized that the way we went about starting the three day method (ambushing him by removing his diaper in his half stupor, and putting underwear on him and saying “THAT’S IT FOR DIAPERS, KID,” wasn’t exactly the best way to go about it.  The Mini, is a pleaser, and loves applause and cheering for him.  He loves that confidence boost.  He’s also not a kid that really is into bribes, nor did he like me following him from room to room.

LG is a whole different egg.  She doesn’t really like the cheering and attention drawn to her in grandiose gestures.  I tried my hand at potty training her not long after she turned two, which I probably could have done it, but I just wasn’t ready to deal with it, and the thing with potty training is that YOU have to be ready and dedicated to the cause.  However, with her, my approach is pretty much, you’re wearing underwear, and I’m not going to follow you around like puppy dog.  I don’t care if you shit yourself, I don’t care if you piss on the floor (we’re replacing the carpets with hardwoods soon anyway), you’re going to have to learn that there are no more diapers.  She’s ready.  She asks for underwear, she asks for us to change her diaper.  She tells us when she “poops” (every bodily excretion is poop to her) She removes her diaper in the morning when she wakes up.  Now it’s just a matter of her learning to pay attention to herself when she has to go, and make it to the toilet on time.

I promised myself I wouldn’t get worked up.  I’m not going to get upset.  Or react to her accidents, with frustration.  I’m telling you this because I know it’s not going to be easy.   She tests my patience to the extreme, so this, this is going to be really hard.

Thankfully, I have a LOT of klonopin.  And beer.