Happy Saturday!

Ah, the weekend...

I'm on.  So far we have ordered chinese and watched back to back 

episodes of My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding.

 But, hey!  It's Friday!  I do know how to Party!

And it is educational.  It is on TLC after all.

People Will Show You. Every Damn Time.

Today I was reading in the Huffington Post Divorce section and there was a small piece about what your first fight should tell you about your partner.
 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/pamela-georgette-mft-atr/what-are-the-warning-sign_b_1322618.html?ref=divorce

It made me think of something I saw on Oprah many years ago.  

(Now, let me say, the fact that I saw anything on Oprah was a miracle because I had a job. I had to have been on maternity leave.  Which means that I  cried and/or napped through the whole show). 

Oprah was interviewing Maya Angelou and Maya made the statement:

"When people show you who they are, believe them".

I remember that statement stopped me cold because those are some true words. 

I decided I would be using that little tidbit in therapy.

And I knew at that moment that I had been a real dumbass in choosing a spouse.  Because Stanley showed me who he was and he showed me relatively quick.  I think most people do.  But you chalk it up to them having a bad day or growing pains in the relationship, or like I did,

a communication gaffe.

But no.

He showed me.  

And like the HuffPo piece, it was during a fight.  He knew he had hurt my feelings with some little insensitivity and he didn't call me.  He didn't call me for days.  In addition,  we were supposed to go out of town for the weekend.  I became more and more of a wreck because then I was confused.  We hadn't really had a fight but he had hurt my feelings and he knew I was upset,  and he should have checked on me but he didn't and I didn't know if we were going or not. 

 I finally had to call his sorry ass and yell. Which went something like this:

"You suck, you hurt my feelings, you didn't apologize,

you avoided this conversation with me, are we going this weekend?"

And how pathetic was that?  No.  Cuckoo Momma. No you dumb bitch.

He sucks

He hurt your feelings

He avoided the conversation

He didn't apologize

How I wish I had said, "Forget it, you have shown me an avoidant personality, unable to emotionally engage or meet my emotional needs, incapable of apologizing, you are a coward, you have low character and I wouldn't go with you to a GOAT ROPING.

this one fainted from my stupidity.

And there it lies

What did I do?  I accepted his proposal of marriage a mere few weeks later.

And he had shown me who he was:

emotionally unavailable

unwilling/unable to meet my emotional needs

avoidant personality

unable to apologize

The exact reasons that I had to divorce him because  I could no longer stand being alone in my marriage.  Because 13 years later, this was still me.

What kind of Spock wouldn't comfort the woman he professed to love?

A beer monkey Spock!

couldn't resist.

I have seen, in using the 'people will show you who they are' line in working with clients, that it happens all the time and it doesn't have to be a fight.  They can forget your birthday,  [You are really low on their radar if they forget your birthday] or leave you waiting an hour at a restaurant because they were playing Skyrim, or have too much interest in other women (or men) when they are with you, etc  People turn the other way, just like I did.  And these bozos (and I mean male and female bozos) are working as hard as they can to show us who they are.

I vow to never be so blind again.  If they are showing me, I will pay attention.

I swear, Maya.  I double dog swear, Oprah.  

Amen.

**I found an Oprah episode where this was discussed.  This is a new one and I saw an old one.  I am perplexed by the date on this, isn't she off the air?  (I don't care.  Don't tell me). 

http://www.oprah.com/oprahs-lifeclass/Lesson-13-When-People-Show-You-Who-They-Are-Believe-Them

Grief and Loss

An acquaintance of mine, but a dear friend to some of my dear friends, lost her 19 y.o. son this morning.  He was spring breaking in FL and had a diving accident.  I can't imagine.  We worked together years ago at a pediatric oncology hospital.  Grief and loss was sort of our specialty and now she is feeling the most unimaginable pain.  I can't bear it for her.  I can't bear it for any parent. 

I have done the vast majority of my clinical work in that setting, 14 years of my clinical work to be exact.  I provided emotional support and grief counseling to parents who were navigating the world of chronic or terminal illness with a child.  I have written articles and book chapters about it. 

I was really good at it until I started having children of my own.  Ironically when I was not a parent but working away everyday in that stress, seeing people at their very best or very worst, I was able to offer comfort and support.  I was able to help them make sense of what was happening and come through their journey relatively intact.  I should say here that 'relatively intact' means that they (most of them anyway) came though able to function and go on with their lives.  Forever changed but functional.

I thought that I was able to understand how much they loved their child 

and what they were feeling. 

What a big giant stupid head I was.

For as soon as I had my own child the full impact of what those parents had lost and were losing came crashing on my head.  I remember vividly sitting and rocking my 3 week- old son during my maternity leave, having had this realization of how much a parent loves their child,  and I sobbed for every child that had died at the hospital, for every mother and father and grandmother and grandfather and sibling and aunt and uncle and godparent and good friend. 

I had friends and family members tell me it was the baby blues.

  Oh no.  I knew exactly what I was crying about.  

I went back to work when my son was 4 months old.  It killed me to leave him but I had loved my job and it was also good to get back and see my co-workers and how all the little people were doing.  When meeting the first new patient they assigned to me, I remember walking to the closed conference room door where the family was about to get some really devastating news (that I had already been warned about) and I stood outside with my hand poised to knock and I stopped.  I had to MAKE myself knock on that door.

I would have rather set my own hair on fire and put it 

out with a tack hammer than knock on that door.

Because now I knew how much that mother and father loved that child.  Now I knew how deep their fear was that they would lose him.  

I did go in of course.  And the little boy had a really, really bad brain tumor that, as predicted, did not respond to treatment.  After a few months he did die. I was in the room at the time of death.  And his parents grieved and suffered and felt like they wanted to be dead too.  And I cried and cried.

It got to the point that even my kid's pediatrician recommended I find another job.  On an almost daily basis I was POSITIVE that my baby was dying of cancer.   My finest moment was when Jumping Bean was about 3 months old, while I was changing her diaper I felt 'a mass' near her rectum.  

I called the Ped's office and told the nurse, 

"I WILL NOT BE TRIAGED!"  

(diaper bag brick)

They shrank in fear and let me come right in.  The kind female pediatrician, also a mom and near my age, patted my hand and told me it was her sphincter muscle.

I went part-time.

Sure in the belief that if I was only immersed in that part-time that I would only be insane part-time.  

The oncologists at the hospital tell parents over and over how rare childhood cancer is and how most children survive to adulthood.  I cognitively know that.  However, it is hard to believe when you know so many that don't. [I was told by a very wonderful oncologist that most pediatricians see one case in their career and it is so very rare and don't worry so much, enjoy your children].

I live in constant fear that something will happen to one of my children.  I am neurotic about it.  I am jealous of people that are unaware of that side of life.  I am jealous of naivety.  I had a dream last night that Jumping Bean was clinging to the wing of a plane high in the air and I was screaming at her to hold on but no sound was coming out.  I went and got in bed with her when it woke me up. 

My children possibly think I am insane. 

And now there is another family in shock and pain.  My thoughts and prayers go out to them and all of the others sitting in a hospital today.

Enjoy!

This cracked me up!

I had a great weekend and hope you guys all did too!  Stanley had worked hard around here. 

So, Cheers Stanley!