finslippy

Who wants to read my May Redbook column? You do, suckers!

Of course it's possible you don't have any interest in it at all. Listen, all I'm saying is if you do, you can. No pressure. You look pretty today.

Well before I became a parent, I could have guessed that raising a child would involve, in addition to much joy, its fair share of sadness. I mean, I'd seen plenty of commercials where parents watch their kids leave home. I had heard "Sunrise, Sunset." I'd been warned there would be a time to let go and that the moment would be bittersweet. But I pictured this letting-go happening once, maybe twice: on my child's first day of school, and the day he drove off to college. My husband and I would wave good-bye as we stood arm in arm, our hair graying tastefully. I'd be wearing a sweater set and pearls. I had it all worked out.

Here's the rest.

The next time I write I will be telling you about our great new apartment. The only thing missing from the story is the part where we sign the lease, which I am hoping happens soon. Right now would be nice. Or now.

The night before last

I woke up at 3 am to the sound of Henry calling for me. I stumbled into his room, reassured him that I was alive, stomped back to bed, lay there wide awake for what seemed like hours, finally dropped back into blissful slumber, then heard him calling me again. I nudged Scott and explained that his son was calling for him and if he was a sensitive and loving father he would run to his side. He totally bought that line and made his way to Henry’s room, showed Henry that he, too, was alive, and I heard him stumbling back to our room and then I heard a terrible sound. It was the sound of a delicate foot-part slamming into a heavy piece of furniture.

There was a millisecond of silence and then a string of expletives. This is normal procedure for Scott, who is well-known in these parts for taking out his anger on inanimate objects. He can usually be found instructing God to damn a computer to hell or unleashing brutal verbal abuse on a hinky small appliance. I could tell from the sound and the ensuing tenor of the cursing, though, that this particular injury was beyond the usual stubbed toe. This was bad. I wondered, from the comfort of the bed, if he had broken his toe. I considered getting up and helping him out, but on the other hand the bed was warm. I decided to wait it out. I heard him making his way to the bathroom, I assumed to check out his injuries in a well-lit place, and there was much hissing and gasping and cursing. I really should get up, I thought, and did not move an inch. Because really, what could I do? Wring my hands while he bandaged himself?

As I considered what a good wife I was, keeping the faith that he could help himself and in the process getting some much-needed rest so I could tend to the household tomorrow while he nursed his painful foot-wounds, I heard a crash. Actually it was more like a series of crashes, like all the furniture in the bathroom had come tumbling down. Except we don’t have furniture in the bathroom. I braced myself for the onslaught of cursing that would undoubtedly follow whatever it was that probably just landed on or near my husband, but I heard…nothing. Silence! Well, he’s handling that well, I thought. Just cleaning up the mess, without cursing and…

I sat up. My husband has never in his life taken events in stride. Especially when he already has what sounds like a painful injury. The silence continued. Shit.

I made my way through the dark hallway toward the lit bathroom, and then had what I referred to later as my Law & Order moment: turning the corner to see Scott sprawled, unconscious, on the bathroom tile. There were a couple of small puddles of blood a few inches from his arm, and a streak of blood across the cabinet. I would have been more alarmed if it hadn’t been for the small smile that was playing across my husband’s face, as if he were in the middle of a lovely dream, while his hand, now alarmingly close to all that blood, pawed the air. Did he think he was petting the dog?

I crouched down by him. “Honey,” I said.
He opened his eyes. “What?”
“You fainted,” I explained to him.
“I did it again?” he said.
Scott’s fainted a couple of times, the last time almost exactly a year ago, also in the bathroom, although that time he had been under the weather and not nursing a bloody toe. We ended up hanging out in the ER for hours and hours that time, only for the doctors to tell us that he was completely fine.
So this time, I wasn’t too alarmed. Only I knew that if he got up, he’d probably faint again, because that seems to be his way. And he was trying to get up.
“I’m okay,” he said.
“You’re not,” I said. “You’re lying on the bathroom floor. Stay down.”
Then we heard Henry open his door and amble over. “Hey, guys, what’s all the racket?” he asked, and then saw his dad lying on the ground surrounded by blood. He appeared…concerned.
“It’s okay,” I told him.
“It’s okay!” Scott repeated. “It’s okay!” His face was completely gray by now, and shiny with sweat.
“What’s wrong with Dad?” Henry said, his lower lip starting to tremble.

We then entered the wacky hijinks phase of the evening, in which I tried to reassure Henry that his father was, despite all the blood and the nearing-death quality of his face, actually fine, and also keep Scott from getting up and, in the process, pass out again and this time crack his head open, which was really the last thing we needed. I had to get Henry out of the bathroom and back into bed, and at the same time keep Scott lying down for little while longer, and while I was in Henry’s room comforting him and explaining low blood pressure and fainting and also how sometimes a little blood, strategically placed, looks like a lot of blood, Scott was in the bathroom, inexplicably calling out I’M OKAY to the Universe, and I kept shouting DO NOT GET UP WAIT FOR ME, and possibly the alarm in my voice kept Henry from dropping back into slumber, and then I got Henry to laugh by poking a little fun at his dad's fainting tendencies, and it was going well until I used the phrase “ripped his toenail off” and made Henry weep for Scott’s toenail, weep as if it were his very own, and I had to comfort him all over again and then get back to the bathroom because Scott was all I’M GETTING UP, and for some reason he went over to the couch, which was far from the bedroom and in the exact opposite place he needed to be, and then I went back to Henry who was now mourning Scott’s toe AND freaking out over the blood, and it’s amazing that any of us got any sleep that night.

But we did. In the end, Scott’s poor pinky toe was bandaged, his healthful glow returned to his face, and he managed to get to Henry’s room to reassure him and then get back to bed, and Henry fell asleep, and then I did, somehow, eventually. And the next day the source of the original injury—a heavy wood file box, which had been emptied and left in the hallway so that it could be thrown out—was taken outside and tossed to the curb, where it could never hurt anyone again.

Better!

My brains have calmed down quite a bit. It was touch and go for a while there. I kept pacing the apartment and gnawing on my knuckles and informing Scott in a hoarse whisper that I was going mad. It’s times like these that I wish I had an ivory floor-length nightgown. My wandering from room to room seems less haunting and eerie when I’m wearing polka-dotted flannel jammie-jams.

My ace team of mental-health professionals, whom I love and cherish and never want to let go, are, sadly, all in New Jersey (NEW JERSEY! I shake my fist at thee!) so I’ve been consulting with them by phone. During one of our phone consults, after she listened to me natter on about my inability to sleep and tendency to jump out of my skin whenever anyone slammed a door and also how I kept checking my pulse and it wasn’t high high but, I mean, high for me, my head-drugs-doctor suggested a drug I thought was only used on honest-to-God psychotics, and nothing against those guys but I really didn’t want the drugs that would turn me soft and glassy-eyed and stroking my chenille throw all day long. I mean, I may have been jumping to some uninformed conclusions, sure. So after I informed my doctor that I was not about to ingest metal salts that Kurt Cobain wrote songs about, thankyouverymuch, and maybe after I hung up on her, she called back and suggested we try beta blockers for now. Which I thought was hilarious because my blood pressure is 90/70 when I’m at my most stressed, so I thought beta blockers would kill me dead. I pictured my blood pooling in my ankles every time I stood up. But at that point I was willing to try anything, and she’s the expert, am I right? so I agreed.

And oh my word! These beta blockers have taken the edge off in an amazing and awesome way. I use “awesome” a lot, now that I’m on beta blockers. I’ve lost all use of my critical faculties, sure, but on the other hand I’m feeling smooth and groovy. Which is super. What was I talking about? I was just staring at the letter G on the keyboard. Is it not the best letter? It’s like, you think it’s a C, and then WHOA! That little curvy jag there changes things in a big and awesome way!

Oh, but I kid. I didn’t even take one today, is how much better I’m feeling. (Full disclosure: I will probably take one right now. Because the neighbors, they do love to slam the doors, and there’s a lot of door-slamming going on tonight, and already I can feel my heart rate increasing.) I have gone at least 48 hours without any intrusive thoughts or hyperventilating at all! I am also eating real food (kind of a lot of real food, in fact) and my stomach feels fine! It’s a Christmas miracle!

I tried to respond to all the emails I received, but there were over 700, and my doctors seemed especially concerned for me when I mentioned how I was trying to write back to everyone. So thank you, if you didn’t hear from me. I read them all—some of them more than once—and saved them in a special folder, and I intend to read them again, if and when I need to. Thank you. Thank you, thank you.

While I'm hiding under this pile of blankets...

My April column in Redbook is online. Why not read it?

When I was in second grade, my gym teacher told me I was uncoordinated. I was lying on the ground when she said this. All activity in the room had stopped, and the other kids were staring, and I didn't know what uncoordinated meant, but it sounded ominous, like I could die at any moment.

"What's 'uncoordinated'?" I asked her.

"Uncoordinated," she replied, "means that you cannot move your body parts correctly."

Well, she should know, I thought, while my classmates stared at me and my nonworking parts. After all, she's a trained professional.

PTSD

Here's what's going on with me.

First, you need some background.

In 2004, I developed post-traumatic stress disorder after I witnessed a car crash. I wrote about this briefly in 2005, so here you go. I can't write about it again, so that's the most I can offer you. After suffering for a while with sleeplessness, accelerated heart rate, tearfulness, obsessive thinking, and appetite loss, I sought professional help, found some effective medication and therapy, and eventually the feelings subsided.

I was told at the time that PTSD can reappear. Time, I guess, means nothing to the brain, so if something similar occurs, it can bring all the feelings and sensations back as if the original trauma had just occurred. According to Wikipedia, PTSD is caused by "an overactive adrenaline response, which creates deep neurological patterns in the brain. These patterns can persist long after the event that triggered the fear, making an individual hyper-responsive to future fearful situations."

The factor that seemed to really bring on the PTSD, in the original event, was Henry. I felt that his life had been in danger, I saw how vulnerable and terrified he was. I saw, in one brief, terrifying moment, how fragile his existence was. I'm not sure if his presence in the initial trauma was solely responsible for my disorder, but I will say that every flashback I had, every obsessive thought, involved him.

Having said that, let's skip ahead to the present.

The incident that prompted our decision to leave this apartment has triggered my PTSD. I didn't recognize this immediately, but within a week or two it became clear. I'm not sure if it's a good idea for me to write about what happened, but I feel compelled to, so maybe it will help.

Once again, I was with Henry. Our apartment has two doors that lead to the hallway: the first is in the living room, right by the couch, and is blocked by a bookcase; the second is in our hallway. So we were a foot or two from this first door, doing his homework, when a woman began falling down the stairs and screaming. She hit the door, our door, and was screaming and screaming and I thought, "She's being murdered." It was the only way I could make sense of that kind of sound. I thought. "She's being stabbed to death right outside our door." Then I heard more shouts and people running and I thought, "we have to get out of here, where do we go," and I said, "come with me," to Henry, and got up, walked a few steps, then turned and saw Henry, frozen, on the couch, his face white. I thought, "I left him there, and if someone had a gun they could have shot right through the door," and I grabbed him and we went toward the back of the apartment.

The events that followed were upsetting, but that, I believe, was the primary trigger. No one, it turned out, was being murdered. I don't know what was happening. But I will tell you that there was no doubt in my mind that that was exactly what was going on. And it was a foot from my child. Exactly like the car crash, where we had just walked from the spot where the car landed after it had jumped the curb.

I had a sense, at the time, after it all subsided, that this was not going to bode well for me. I noticed the next day, and the next, that I was more and more sensitive to caffeine. (I love coffee first thing in the morning, so this was a blow.) I spent a few days in acute intestinal distress (I will spare you the details) but I thought it was from a new multi-vitamin that I was taking. My startle response was heightened to a ridiculous degree. Henry would riffle through his box of Legos and I had to leave the room. The sound was unbearable.

While this was going on, the activity in the building seemed to be escalating. There were threats leveled at us, anger that we had called the police. There was an apparent police raid one night, when Scott was working late, and I spent the night with the lights off, running from the front window to the door peephole to make sense of why there all those police cars and ambulances out there,and what they thought might happen. The Director of Special Ops at our local precinct called me to recommend that, if I were feeling harassed, I should get an order of protection. Against my neighbors. This seemed laughable to me, and in fact I didn't think that we were ever direct targets of aggression, but it certainly didn't help me feel safer in my home. Where my family lives.

Meanwhile, I'm being plagued, once again, with obsessive thoughts: I leave Scott and Henry to walk the dog, realize I forgot to lock the door, and imagine scenarios when I returned that I can't even write about here. I lie in bed imagining one of our cigarette-loving, often-drunk neighbors falling asleep with a cigarette in hand, setting us all on fire. Every time someone slams a door downstairs or stomps upstairs, I anticipate more screaming.

Then, this weekend, an enormous misunderstanding came up between me and someone I consider a dear, close friend.  Normally I could have handled this just fine, but in my current state, it was as if I were already scraped completely raw and someone arrived to pour lemon juice all over me. I was at my parents' house and they were utterly alarmed. I was hyperventilating and pacing and crying and calling my friend and texting and emailing and I just wanted everything fixed. I just wanted to feel safe in one area of my life. Finally it was all cleared up, and I recovered. I thought.

I spent Easter convinced that everyone around me was angry with me. I couldn't figure out why. I had to remind myself, again and again, that my perceptions were skewed. I shook all day.

Monday the misunderstanding blew up all over again. I thought it was all cleared up, but there were loose ends, and nothing was solved. I was sure I had lost my friend forever. I was a terrible person. I was pretty sure I was going to die, at that point. I didn't feel suicidal, exactly, but I didn't see how I could possibly live through this again. My heart would give out. My heart was already racing faster than I thought it ever could. I simply could not believe that someone who I thought knew me and trusted me could think such things. I couldn't see how I could get past it. Scott and Henry were out playing in the park, and I thought about getting outside and finding them but I couldn't go outside, there were people out there, and noise, and sun, and I knew that if I even tried to cross the street something would happen. I would get hit. I would fall. I tried to clean. I cried. I tried to call my other friends, but no one picked up. I cried some more. I tried throwing up, but it didn't work.

Still, we worked through it. We did. Everything was resolved.

Except, I'm sorry, it's not resolved, for me. I want it to be, lord knows. I just want everything to be okay. I want to trust my friends to think the best of me and forgive the worst. But I can't. I felt worse yesterday than I did on Monday. I was anticipating yet another email. More things I had done wrong. More, more, more. I feel utterly, completely beaten up.

I felt so vulnerable and attacked that I created a new, private Twitter account and announced that I was moving over there. An enormous mistake. This is not the time to make any decisions. Every single reply I got on Twitter announcing that I was making people feel excluded and I was a narcissist, etc. etc. etc. upset me even more. I have never wanted to walk away from the Internet more than did. More than I do. The Internet has brought me immense joy and opportunity but it has also thrown more pain at me than I thought possible.

I wasn't going to write about any of this, but I don't know how to go on, how to keep writing here, how to continue, if I don't. I'm going to close comments because I can't handle them right now. I know there's a lot of love out there, and I deeply, deeply thank you for it. I'm going to step away from the internet for a few days, but if you email, just know that I appreciate it more than I can say.