It’s hard for me to remember my parents being married. My mom left when I was 9. You’d think 9 years would be enough to have lots of memories, but I guess it’s not.
I only have one memory of my parents having fun together. They were getting dressed up for a night out dancing. It was a 50s themed dance…Mom had on a poodle skirt and dad had a pack of cigarettes rolled up in the sleeve of his white T-shirt. She looked so pretty and he looked so cool. They came home with a trophy. Sometimes, that memory makes me smile.
Oddly enough, even though I only have one fun memory, I also only have one fight memory. My parents were pretty damn good at hiding their arguments from me. So good that I was completely blindsided when they told me of the divorce. I thought parents got divorced when they didn’t get along anymore? My parents never fought. It was so confusing to me. The one time I remember them fighting was after they announced the divorce. Mom stood up and angrily swore at dad during dinner, and he got mad at her for fighting in front of me. I just sat there quietly staring at my spaghetti, trying to be invisible. She left not too long after that.
Aside from those two polar opposite memories, there is one constant that returns whenever my mind trails back to those first 9 years… my mom’s sewing machine. She had her own upholstery business she ran out of our basement. Each day after school, I’d hop off the bus, run up the walkway and fling open the front door… listening for the hum of her sewing machine. When I heard it, I relaxed. Mom’s home. There was a sense of security in that hum. I’d drop my books and run downstairs to give her a hug and tell her all about my day. It was so normal…I took it for granted.
When she left, so did that sense of security. No longer could I fling open the front door. Dad made me a key. I was coming home alone now. I’d quietly insert the key, slowly opening the door without making a sound. The house was quiet. Mom’s not home anymore.
This post was written in response to the prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday by Linda G. Hill
I’m starting to notice a theme around here, ever since my husband and I separated. Shortly after he moved out, my washing machine broke. I used the power of Google to fix it on my own. I felt badass. It was empowering to repair something I normally would have relied on him for. Two weeks later, it broke again. I was deflated. Just like that, I lost my badassery. Just as I was about to give in and call a repair man, I figured out how to fix it again, making me badass, once more.
A few weeks ago, my dishwasher broke. Once again, I used the power of Google to fix it on my own, and once again, I was badass. I mean, come on…how many of my girlfriends are repairing major appliances? I don’t want to brag, but I’m kind of a big deal. However, the theme being what it is…last night, the damn dishwasher flooded again. Except this time, I didn’t let my badassery just whimper away like last time. I brainstormed, and quickly came up with a solution. When I fixed it last time, I unclogged 7 years worth of unscraped food from the drain pipe. I figured the driveway snow marker I used to unclog it was too skinny, so it must have only opened up part of the clog. I imagined that goop closed itself off again. No big deal. I’ll just unclog it better. Piece of cake for a badass girl.
I strut myself down to Home Depot, in search of whatever the tool is that I’m imagining in my head. I was picturing sort of like a toilet brush, but skinnier and longer…something that would really scrub the sides of that drain pipe and rid us of this alien food blob pipe clogging mess, once and for all. I start searching the plumbing aisle, and my toilet brush de-clogging thingy is nowhere to be seen. Reluctantly, I look for help. I find this cute, older gentleman employee and start to describe what I’m looking for. He’s quite adorable, in a grandpa-ish sort of way, so I don’t get annoyed or frustrated when he says he’s never heard of my “tool”. He seems impressed that I’m attempting to unclog a pipe….you know, because I’m a woman. Anyway, turns out the tool I’m really looking for is called an “auger”, and it’s not a brush, its coiled metal. Whatever.
I pull into my driveway with my shiny new auger, just as my husband is pulling out. He was dropping my son off, and noticed my purchase. Wearing a familiar expression, he says to me, “you know, we have TWO of those downstairs”. I hate that expression. It’s the one he wears when he knows something and I don’t. He tells me to return it. I say “OK”, but I don’t want to. Sure, it makes sense to return it, seeing how there’s two of these things sitting somewhere in my basement, but I just went to Home Depot and figured out what I needed, sort of impressed the grandpa employee, and really, the whole point of me doing this is to show I don’t need him. I decide to put those feelings away, and get back to the task at hand. I say goodbye and head to my kitchen. Since I just did this same thing two weeks ago, I know the drill. I empty the cabinet below the sink. I unscrew the C clamps holding the pipe to the wall. I turn off the water. I loosen the hose clamp that secures the drain pipe to the Y pipe of the sink (remember, I learned all these plumbing terms last time, so you know…this is how I roll now). I use a paper cup to manually drain the dishwasher and I check the sensor. And by “checking” the sensor, I mean I rub my finger over it 3 times, because really, how do you “check” a dishwasher drain sensor? Do you ask it tenderly, “Hey little Buddy, are you alright? Just checking on you.” The sensor seems fine. I put a bucket under the pipe and cautiously pull it off the Y pipe. I peek inside the hole, kind of nervously, as I remember the horror scene that was inside there last time. Nervous, but excited. I’m pumped to use my new auger. Wow, I really dig using the word “auger”. I’m pretty sure only badass people use augers. Anyway, I peek in and….damn. It’s clean as a whistle. Part of me feels good about that, because it means I really did successfully clear the pipe last time. The other part of me, however, is deflated. I’m sitting on the floor, surrounded by my tools, staring at a broken dishwasher I can’t fix. It’s 11pm, and I’m tired. Tired and deflated and completely non-badass. I look at the sink, and it’s filled with about 17 water glasses. You know, because I’ve got two teenage boys and they pour a beverage, take two sips, put it down, forget about it, then pour a new glass. All. Day. Long. Yeah, at this point, I’m the opposite of badass. I would write the word down if I knew what it was. Lame-ass? Close enough. As I’m deciding whether or not to wash all those glasses by hand at 11 o’clock at night, or leave them until my boys die of thirst, while simultaneously wondering which repairman I’ll be calling in the morning…I remember something. Two weeks ago, when I first started researching “dishwasher won’t drain” on Google, every site I went on said to try resetting the drain cycle first. I did that back then and it didn’t work, and I guess I just forgot about it. I picked my lame-ass up off the floor, started a wash cycle, hit “stop” two times to initiate the drain cycle (yeah, that’s right…I am kind of a plumber now), and what do you know? It mother effin worked! And just like that, I became a badass again.
I think the next time I’m feeling deflated, like I can’t do anything, like I’m helpless…I’m going to remember this. I’m not helpless. There’s always going to be road blocks in my life, things that make me feel like I’m taking two steps backwards in this process. I just have to remember that I’m still me, even when I don’t feel like me. Even if I hadn’t been able to fix it, I’m still pretty badass for trying, and I think that goes for everything in my life.
This post was written in response to Linda G Hill’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday
I think I’m being tested. Is it normal to need this many major appliance repairs in the span of 2 months? My husband moved out on October 23rd, and since then I’ve had to repair the washing machine TWICE…and now this. Am I crazy to think he’s sneaking in here and sabotaging my appliances to make me appreciate him? This is what I found this evening, of course…AFTER my son had put away all the dishes (so, I guess I might have to re-wash everything we own now. You’ll understand later). At this stage of the game, I’m not one to waste time. I head straight to YouTube. I learn how to remove that round filter you see in the middle of that milky mess. But first, I had to take a paper cup and manually remove all of that nasty water. I’m chuckling, because at the time, I thought putting my hands in that water was the gross part. Fool. Anyway, I drain the water and pull out the filter. Apparently, you are supposed to clean this thing as part of your regular maintenance. That in itself is funny because, really…who performs “regular maintenance” on their freaking dishwasher? So, this filter is beyond disgusting. It’s a cylinder made out of metal mesh, like a screen, and completely coated with a pinkish-hue film of slimy gunk. I clean it out, and check the sensor. What the hell is the sensor? I have no clue, but YouTube told me to do it, so I did. I sort of rubbed my finger over it to “check it”, and then checked the drain hole for blockage. There was none. I searched the internet a bit more, and saw videos explaining how to check all sorts of things under the control panel. Things like switches and pumps and plumbery stuff like that. I bust out my new tool box (my sister thoughtfully bought me one for Christmas, after my washing machine escapades), removed the panel, and immediately noticed signs everywhere warning of electric shock. I realized I would need to figure out how to shut of the breaker before attempting any of the videos I watched, and really, I have to draw the line somewhere. I want to be independent around here, but I also don’t want my kids to find me fried on the kitchen floor, so I put the panel back on and start thinking about calling a repair company. I’m disappointed, because all I can hear in my mind is my husband saying to me, “You’re going to miss me around here, you know. When something breaks and you need me to fix it, I’m not going to be around”… I’d rather call and pay for a repairman than call him, admitting my helplessness. I was frustrated, because I’d spent so much time working on this and thought for sure I could do it. Before completely giving up, I took a chance and called a friend for help. He’s pretty handy, and knew exactly what I was talking about. My friend guided me to the drain hose that leads to the Y valve in the pipes under the sink (don’t I sound so freaking mechanical right now? I just learned these words tonight). I unscrew the C clamps that are holding it up against the wall and unscrew the ….damn, I forgot the name of the other clamp, I guess I’m not quite the plumber I thought I was a few minutes ago. Anyway, I pull the hose off the pipe, and this thing is FILLED with this…this…substance. No, substance is not right. It’s like a rubbery, snotty, liver-looking, clotty, gelatinous yet meaty…organism. No, it’s not alive, but it could be, maybe on another planet. This is what I’ve been using to wash my dishes. How on Earth are we still alive? Apparently, this “clog” is 8 years worth of wet food, and it’s blocking almost 3 feet of this hose. I grab a bucket and look for something to unclog it. All I can find is a campfire marshmallow stick. I shove it in there and I can feel it in the sludge of this moist food alien baby byproduct. I pull it out and it’s like I lanced a giant wound…coated with the innards of this poor, suffering alien. Unfortunately, it’s not long enough to clear it. Each time I poke it in, I feel like I’m slowly killing someone in there. It feels fleshy. “So, this is what it feels like tostab someone”, I think to myself. My friend brainstorms and suggests I use a snow marker from the driveway, and by golly, it worked. I sloshed it around in the baby alien body (sorry, but this thing really did take on a life of it’s own…I came THIS close to naming it) and turn on the drain of the dishwasher. You know those gross videos floating around the internet of people lancing these giant cysts on people’s bodies, and they explode like 2 ton zits…like the old play doh hair dresser toy that would push it out like a sausage machine? That’s what it was like, but grosser. Picture diced up liver, lightly tossed in diarrhea. I’m pretty sure I just performed a medical procedure on this hose. It’s entire infected gut product ended up in the bucket…like a back alley colonoscopy. Blood everywhere. It was completely disgusting to watch it ooze out like a giant pimple… yet somehow, oddly satisfying. Anyway, it worked! I ran a cycle and it drained, smooth like butter.
So, it wasn’t completely independent appliance repair, but still way better than paying Sears a couple hundred bucks to come over.
My new motto as head of household, “Fix it yourself, or find someone to teach you how!”
This post was written in response to Linda G Hill’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday. The prompt was “coat”. Thanks, Linda!
When I was a little kid, I imagined myself to grow up to run a restaurant. I used to open the cabinet doors in the kitchen and pretend they were the swinging doors to a restaurant kitchen. I’d write up fake orders and tape them to the door and pretend to cook up delicious meals to my imaginary patrons. When I turned 9, it wasn’t pretending anymore. Mom had left, so Dad assigned the task of cooking to me. He would plan the menu for the week and tape it to the refrigerator. He’d prep the meals and leave me detailed instructions on how to cook them. By the time he came home from work, I’d have a hot meal on the table for him and my brother and sister. Baked stuffed pork chops for 4? No problem! Not bad for 9. My siblings were 16 and 18. I’m not really sure why they didn’t get this job. Well, I know why my brother didn’t…he was a boy. Boys got treated differently in my family. When mom left, it was my sister’s responsibility to babysit me every weekend. Never my brother. He got to go out and do whatever he wanted with his friends while she had to stay home with me, resenting me. I don’t blame her. It’s kind of a shitty deal, just because you’re a girl. I guess that’s why I got the cooking job. I was a girl and I was home after school. I was a “latch-key” kid. I’d let myself in, make a snack, do my homework, and cook dinner. Every night. Same routine. 9 years old, and I was pulling my weight, filling in for mom. I never questioned it. No one did. Whatever Dad said, was. I mean, if we weren’t going to question why mom left, why the hell would we question why a 9-year-old was cooking dinner every night? At that point, I was so numb, I was like a robot…so it really didn’t matter.
I’m not sure I even know what a normal childhood is anymore….
This post is part of Stream of Consciousness Saturday with Linda G Hill. The prompt today is “cook” and my job is to write “organically”….no editing. Freestyle blabber….Merry Christmas!
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Emotional roller-coaster. That’s the best way to describe my feelings this year. Ever since that one ugly marital fight a year ago in September, I’ve felt it all. Well, almost all. Frustration and resentment stemmed from that day, and lasted through couples therapy. It transformed into sadness and longing as I transitioned into individual therapy to process my Mom/abandonment issues. After I peeled off that Mom layer, all hell broke loose as I processed the sexual, physical and emotional abuse that followed. Fear, shame, sadness, anger, disgust, guilt, depression…basically months of negative emotions. It seemed as though it might never end, but it did. Little by little, I started having happy moments, empowered moments, fun moments. Like a pendulum, I would swing back and forth between the highs and lows, though luckily I could see some sort of light at the end of the tunnel. I kept up my “work”… therapy, writing, meditating, nurturing myself… trying to love myself. Sometimes, I was just going through the motions, but that’s just part of the process. The positive moments eventually started to outnumber the negative ones, and I turned the corner. I started believing in myself. I started to feel a little less unworthy. I shed a lot of that heavy guilt and began to learn, appreciate and accept…me. Though, throughout it all, one thing kept bothering me. I couldn’t feel love. Through my painful, exhausting work, I rewired my brain enough to believe that the people around me loved me. I knew it to be true, in my head. I just couldn’t feel it. So many times, I would find myself nervously admitting to my therapist that I couldn’t feel anyone’s love or caring for me, not even my children. I was ashamed of this. It made me feel ungrateful to admit it, like I was not appreciative of the people around me. Especially when I said I couldn’t feel the love from my children. What kind of mother says that? This type. This mother who is nothing but raw, open and honest sitting on that couch. I give therapy…I give me…my all. I’m not wasting time playing games or pretending. I want to be “normal” so desperately, so I tell Susan everything. Everything. Each time I told her this, I looked down in shame, imagining her thinking I’m ungrateful or selfish or whatever it is I’m thinking of myself when I say it. She didn’t. Each time she reassured me, “It will happen in its own time”, smiling. Smiling, like she knows. I never believed her, because I knew I was different from her other clients. She thinks she knows, but she doesn’t know.
Well, she does know. I’ll be damned if there’s a thing about the human soul this woman does not know. I’ve been not feeling love since…well, since…hmm. I don’t know. I guess that’s a long time. I’m sure I’ve felt it at some point in my life, but right now, I can’t recall. I can remember feeling it, but with conditions. Knowing it was at risk if I didn’t play by the rules, and is that really love? Anyway, it happened. It happened at my butterfly party (see last post). I wasn’t sure if it was the alcohol, or maybe the song, or just that I was with a fun group of people, or I was tired. I felt like I had to blame it on something, because I was afraid to let myself think it really happened. If it really happened, something else would happen to make it not real, or go away, and I would be left feeling empty. Feeling loss. Feeling that hole inside my soul again. It’s much easier to just set myself up to not let the things I want to happen occur, then I won’t be disappointed. But you know what? It happened. And it wasn’t the booze. And it wasn’t the song. I know this because it happened Saturday night, and each day since then, I’ve thought about it…and cried. Oh sure, I cry all the time, but not this type of cry. This one is hard to describe…a feeling of love, joy and belonging, mixed with the sadness of knowing it’s something I’ve been missing for so many years. As I was surrounded by that circle of friends, as I looked into each of their eyes as they smiled and sang to me, I felt it. I felt love and I cried, because I honestly thought it was just never in the cards for me to feel that…to have people want to give me that. This is what I’ve been working on all year. I went from a girl who felt she didn’t deserve a damn thing in life… not love, not kids, not attention, not even going to therapy, to a girl who felt she deserved to throw herself a birthday party. A party to acknowledge her freedom from the heavy shame she’d been carrying around from her childhood. A party to acknowledge her bravery in getting divorced so she could preserve her true self. I stood right in the middle of that freaking love circle and accepted it all. I felt no shame. That’s when I realized I had accomplished my greatest feat yet…I had learned to love me.
“People smile and tell me I’m the lucky one….”
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(This post is a part of Stream of Consciousness Saturday. Basically, I’m supposed to write organically…no rewrites or edits, just let it flow. The word prompt is “pretty”. ) So, here goes nothing…
This Thanksgiving was pretty amazing. It went down pretty much the same way it’s gone down the past several years…my mother in law (and her dog), sister-in-law and her husband, my husband’s two nieces and their husbands (and their two dogs), me, my husband, my two sons and our dog, all at my house. It’s only my husband’s family, not mine. Everyone comes around 2pm, as is tradition. I cook the turkey and desserts and they all bring a side dish, as is tradition. We eat dinner then move on to playing board games while drinking and being merry, as is tradition. Someone inevitably brings up politics or some controversial conversation, which of course never ends well when people are drinking. Someone inevitably starts yelling, which I think is pretty common at family gatherings…especially when you combine alcohol and dysfunctional family dynamics. This time, it happened to be about Trump and Muslims. (Funny how hidden family racism is not so hidden after a few bottles of wine). Nothing ever too major, since this family is used to fighting, and nothing that can’t be smoothed over with a few distractions…then we go on with our business of having a good time, as is tradition. The majority of the evening is full of laughs and quality time spent together. I especially enjoy the nieces and their husbands. They are all in their 20s and a blast to hang out with. I’ve known the girls since they were little kids, so it’s cool to have a relationship with them as adults…as equals. Around 1am, everyone (including the 2 boxers, 1 golden-doodle and 1 bulldog) packs into our 4 bedrooms and spends the night. (Someone usually passes out on the couch from having one too many shots…and one of them fell in the bathroom and crushed my dryer vent this year…one more thing to add to my appliance repair list). Every year, this is what we do. Same food, same conversation, same games, same fights, same drinking. It’s a giant dysfunctional family sleepover, and even though someone always has an argument, and most are extremely hung over the next morning, they all seem to love this tradition. My boys laugh so much at the bantering and storytelling. It brings me joy to see them interact with family.
So, what makes this dysfunctional Thanksgiving sleepover “pretty amazing”, compared to all the other ones? My husband and I separated a month ago. He moved out, and I am living here in our home with our two children. It’s still fresh…the separation. Some heavy shit went down between us this summer. Yet somehow, despite all of said heavy shit, we have been able to continue being a family with our two boys. Last week, we went to the Patriots game (damn Seahawks…grrrr….) as a family. The other night, he came over for dinner. And last night, he and his entire family came and we broke bread (and wine glasses and dryer vents) and laughed and enjoyed each other’s company. Why? Because I want my children to understand that family doesn’t end just because Mom and Dad don’t live together anymore. I can remember family holidays when I was a little kid. We would all gather at my grandmother’s house…my uncles and cousins…so much fun. Then, one by one, they all got divorced. And next thing you know, there’s no such thing as family gatherings anymore. No more bonding. After the age of 10 or so, I never saw my cousins again…and two of them lived the next town over. We finally reconnected in my 20s, when a cousin happened to deliver a pizza to my house. We looked at each other for a few seconds, and realized “hey, you look familiar…” We rekindled our relationship and have since become close, but I regret the time lost over the years. I don’t want my boys to know the feeling of family disappearing. It leaves a void, whether you realize it at the time or not. I want my boys to feel as much love, as much belonging, as much happiness as I can give to them. Things may change down the road. I have no idea if my husband and I will still be amicable a year from now. I have no idea if one of these dysfunctional drunken fights will be between me and him instead of my mother in law and sister-in-law. I have no idea if he will be married to someone else next year. All I know is this year. All I know is we are amicable right now. So right now, my kids just had a great, fun, traditional family Thanksgiving, bonding with their grandmother and aunt and cousins and mom and dad, a month after their dad moved out…and that’s pretty amazing.
“You need to have a good cry. I mean the kind of cry where you are wailing, and it comes from deep within you. And after it happens, you need to set aside time to nurture yourself…take a bath, make some tea, be comfortable”. I remember my therapist telling me this back in February, back when I started therapy. Right away, I didn’t like the idea. I hate baths. And nurturing myself? That’s selfish. We had spent a few weeks trying to peel back the layers regarding my mom leaving me when I was 9 (a story for another day). We had spent weeks on it, because it seemed like this was the unresolved trauma that was affecting me as an adult. I can’t remember crying much about it, when it happened…which is weird. What 9-year-old would just be quiet and go with the flow with her mom moving away? Me. I would. I did. So, we started processing it, thinking that if I could get to the point where I could cry, where I could let out all of those pent-up emotions, I would start to heal the 9-year-old Jami. And if I started to heal her, then I could start to heal 44-year-old Jami and work on what was keeping her from not feeling anything in her marriage. Then she could become a better wife, the marriage would be healed and we could all live happily ever after. Just as soon as I fixed what was wrong with me.
The problem is, I couldn’t cry about it. Well, I could cry, but not cry…you know, like the cry she described. There was no wailing involved, which was strange to me, because I’ve always considered myself a crier. I tried channeling the old days, the days of me crying for weeks over a broken heart. I journaled. I talked. I remembered. Then I journaled and talked and remembered, again. Still, just some regular old tears…the kind that form so easily, because they are always right there, bubbling just under the surface. Just waiting for the slightest trigger. They are slightly cathartic, but not healing.I guess it’s like a volcano. You know, how they simmer and bubble, but you can’t really tell because it’s all under the surface. Every so often, they release a bit of steam, and that eases the pressure enough so it doesn’t erupt. I guess that’s the kind of crying I’ve been doing all my life…just enough so I don’t erupt.
A few months later, I let out a whole lot more steam. I guess peeling off that layer of Mom was just the beginning of this giant onion we call Jami. Turns out, there was a whole lot more than just her that I needed to process. My brain had hidden it from me. Not really hidden, as I knew it was there. Disguised is a better word. My brain disguised the other layers as a weird way of protecting me. Once we removed that outer shell, the next layer was suddenly right in front of my face. I don’t know how I hadn’t seen it all this time, but there it was… a raw, stinging layer, just ready to be peeled. I remember going into her office…crying, trembling…not wanting to tell her but having to tell her. I blurted out the story of my childhood sexual abuse, which turned into an epiphany. It turns out, 13-year-old Jami needed a hell of a lot more healing than we could ever imagine. I can remember her, a month or so later, commenting “you did not originally present as a typical abuse survivor”…referring to when we first started seeing her, for couples therapy. I said, “I know! My brain was so good at disguising it, even I didn’t know!” It’s true…I had spent my entire life thinking I was a bad person. A month earlier, if you had asked me if I was sexually abused, I would have replied “no”, and that would have been an honest answer. I spent my life thinking I was responsible for all those horrible acts. Thinking I did bad things. Not once did it ever occur to me that bad things were done to me. It’s funny how the brain tricks you like that. I guess it’s much easier to blame yourself than to acknowledge the horror of what’s really happening to you.
8 months later, and we can see the game plan has changed. I went into therapy to try to fix myself so I could become a better wife and save my marriage. Turns out, I did fix myself..well, some of it, at least. And I probably am a better wife now, except we’ll never really know, because I left my husband. Come to find out, I couldn’t save my marriage and save me. I had to pick one, and I chose me. The thing is, this work is never done. I am going to need to work on saving myself for the rest of my life. If I stop working, I stop healing, and I turn back into 13-year-old Jami. I’m not going to be her again. So, I’ve been using my voice. I’ve been speaking out, standing up to comments that perpetuate this awful rape culture our country is so accustomed to. The problem is…not everyone likes what I have to say. In the past few months, this election has brought sexual abuse into the spotlight. I have been made extremely uncomfortable by the words of friends, strangers, media, politicians…and I have made others uncomfortable, too. I’ve called them out on comments made about “locker room talk” and “fake Trump victims”. I’ve lost friends over it, though most probably weren’t really my friends. Though this evening, one of them was. As I typed out to her how her words made me feel, how they triggered deep emotions of fear and shame, and while I told her how people not caring about any of this reminded me of feeling like I didn’t matter…it happened. I erupted. I cried, and cried and cried. I wailed. I shuddered. It was loud. It came from my soul. I heard myself talking out loud through the sobs, “Please help me”. I was talking to God. I was talking to my angels. And, I think maybe…I was talking to me.
I think it lasted at least a half hour. It ended with a yawn, which for some reason, I found funny. I thought back to that day in Susan’s office, when she perfectly described this cry. Ah, Susan…you’re always right. I wish I would just do what you say the first time you tell me…I could save so much time! I know how she would reply to this…”Trust the process”. I heeded her advice. I’mgoingto nurture myself. So, I made myself comfortable. I put on some comfy clothes, made myself a cup of raspberry tea in my new butterfly mug, cuddled with the dog…and told my story to you.
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My husband moved out 10 days ago. That weekend was full of anxiety for all of us. I’d say he was stressing out the most. It can’t be easy to pack up your things and move away from your children, even if it’s only 5 minutes away. Especially when you don’t want to move out. My anxiety stemmed more from wondering if I’ll be able to manage. Not emotionally…more like, “will I be able to manage the bills? Will I be able to snow blow the driveway?” Over the years, many of our arguments were about chores, which sounds silly to write. I always felt like I did more than he did, and he always felt like he “did plenty”. He always thought I was a bitch for complaining about it, and I thought he was taking advantage of me. Typical couple, maybe. I remember him telling me, not too long before he moved out, “You’re going to miss me doing the things I do around here. I’m not going to be here to fix something when it breaks”. He had a point. The man is the handiest person I know. He can fix just about anything, even if he has to invent a way to do it. I pushed that thought away…
So yesterday, I hear a sort of screeching, not so good sound coming from the washing machine. Shit. One week after he moves out and the washer is crapping out on me?? I video tape it and text it to him. “Any idea what’s going on here?” His quick reply, “Nope”. I wondered if that meant “nope, never heard that noise. Sorry, I wish I could help you.” Or, “Nope. Bet you wished I was there to fix it, bitch.” He never really called me a “bitch”, but we both know that’s what he thought. I decided to assume it was the latter, and used that thought to motivate me. I’m going to fix this. Now, I have never heard of any of my girlfriends ever fixing their washing machines. I really haven’t heard of any of my male friends fixing their washing machines, either… other than my husband. Most people just automatically call the appliance guy, right? Well, seeing how I’m now in charge of paying the bills around here, and I’m about to take a giant pay cut and I really have no savings and I’m panicking about money…I’m not hiring the damn appliance guy unless I exhaust all my options. I post the video on Facebook, asking if anyone knew what it was. Plenty of guys responded, none with any real certainty. “Might be a belt…maybe the bearings”. OK, I know they are trying to be helpful, but a bunch of “maybes” is not going to fix my machine. So, I decide to use my most trusted resource…Google. Turns out, there’s volumes of videos on home appliance repair, FYI. On Youtube, I learned that if the high pitched sound only occurs during the spin cycle, which it did, then you would want to check the drain pump first. I happen to know what the drain pump is, because my husband often had to empty it when the washer would leak all over the floor from the boys not emptying their pockets. It would usually fill with pencils, coins, candy wrappers…but it never made this screeching sound, it just leaked. I read up a bit more, and found that if you manually rotate the drum and don’t hear the sound, it’s not the bearings. That was easy enough to do, and sure enough, it wasn’t the bearings. So, I watch a few videos on accessing the drain pump. I head into the garage to grab a socket driver…and stare at the empty corner. I forgot he took his tools with him. I scold myself. Why didn’t I think to buy tools? I make a mental note to add “tools” to my shopping list. I forage around our junk drawers and only come up with a few screwdrivers and a hammer. At this point, it’s 8pm. I need to get this done. Well, no…I don’t NEED to, but I really want to. I’ve got something to prove here, dammit! I head over to my brother in law’s and borrow his socket set. It’s funny how I just said that, because I obviously had no idea it was called a socket. “Um, I need a tool that will unscrew these things…they aren’t really screws….sort of like hexagon flat things….like a screwdriver but skinnier with a thing on the end. You know, a thing…like it has a hole shaped like a hexagon, or maybe octagon. I don’t know. The screw things in the washing machine go inside this non-screwdriver thing”.OK, so now we all know what a socket driver is. You’re welcome. I race home and set myself up on the floor with the SOCKET DRIVER and flashlight and get to work. Let’s do this! I find the socket driver attachment thing that fits the other socket thing in the washing machine and start unscrewing. After a good 30 seconds or so, I realize all my twisting has accomplished nothing. The tools aren’t the right size. Why are the appliance gods forsaking me tonight? I keep trying, because I really couldn’t stand the thought of failing. Like, if I just keep repeating the same twisting motion, it will suddenly change it’s mind and fit. I spend another 20 minutes there, twisting, pushing, sweating, swearing….almost crying, willing it to work. It doesn’t. I can’t do this. Hanging my head in defeat, I realize what I have to do. I call him. “I just need to borrow your socket drivers” I say casually, like I’m borrowing a book or a cup of sugar. “Tonight?” he asks, as it’s now closing in on 10pm. “Yes, tonight. I know what it is, it’s the drain pump. I Googled it”. I drive over to his new house and follow him into the garage. It’s nearly empty. He still hasn’t moved most of his things from my house. But he had to move the damn tool box, didn’t he? “I don’t see how the drain pump would cause that noise” he tells me. I knew he was thinking I didn’t have a clue as to what I was doing. I also knew he was right, but I wasn’t about to let him in on that. “I watched a lot of Youtube videos, so yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s what it is” I replied, as I walked out the door. I kept hearing his voice in my head on the ride home, You’re going to miss me doing the things I do around here….
By the time I find myself lying on the floor again, it’s after 10pm. No, I did not need to finish this right that minute, but damn, I was not about to give up now. I was on a mission. This task was going to prove to the world that I wasn’t wrong for making him move out. No, that’s not true. No one thinks that…other than him. This task was going to prove to him that I could survive without him. Wait, was it? Did he even care about me doing this? For all I knew, he was watching the ball game, drinking wine and me an my washing machine were the last things on his mind. No, this task was really going to prove something to me. It was going to prove that I can do this. Not “this”, meaning just the washing machine, but “this”, meaning survive this divorce. Manage things. Not need him there. You’ve got this, Jami. I lie on my side in front of that damn washer, aim my flash light and get to work. The socket driver fit! I removed the front panel…Hell YEAH! I felt powerful! No wonder he thought he walked on water around here. He fixed things! My moment of empowerment was short lived, though…the drain pump didn’t look like the one I saw on You Tube. Crap. I tried twisting it open, but it wouldn’t budge. The last thing I wanted to do was break the damn thing, so I bit the bullet and called my him…again. “I’ve got the front panel off…just wondering how to get the pump out. It won’t budge”. I say it so casually, like I remove panels from washing machines every day. I didn’t want him to think I really needed him, just that I wanted some advice…one repairman to another. He’s genuinely being helpful, which is kind of awesome. He tells me it’s really hard to unscrew and he had to use tools to open it last time. That was validating. He had greased it a bit, but said I probably would have a hard time getting it open and should maybe ask my 16 year old to help me. He then reminded me again that he doesn’t think it’s the pump. I quickly thank him and hang up. It has to be the pump. Please God, let it be the pump.I NEED it to be the God damned pump. It was do or die time. I placed a cookie sheet under the drain to catch any water and summoned up the strength and fury of all scorned women and started twisting. My fingers turned purple and this weird sound came out of me, sort of like when you’re 7 centimeters dilated and the baby’s pressing on your sciatic nerve. Just as I feel as though I might pop a blood vessel in my eye, it loosens. Water flows out onto the cookie sheet, with not a drop on the floor. I let my hands collapse and smile at the draining water, like I’m looking at my newborn son. I just made that. I pull the pump out to find it’s completely clogged with two broken pencils, a nickel, and a shredded zip lock sandwich bag. Pretty much the typical contents of my 13 year old’s pockets on any given day. Who the hell carries pencils in their pants pockets? Everything smelled awful and was covered with this strange black slime. I think it was wet lead mixed with whatever was originally in that zip lock bag. I scrubbed it out and reassembled the pump, gently placing it back in it’s little nest, like the efficient washer repairwoman I now was. Wait…why is it that every time I feel accomplished in this story, something goes wrong? As I went to put the front panel back on, I realized I could not operate the socket driver while holding the panel in place. Each time I tried to screw it in, the panel would slide down and the little sprocket thing would roll under the washer. It was so frustrating…I was so close! I used my feet, propped it up with a shoe, tried to tilt the machine backwards…nothing worked. No way in hell was I going to call my husband again. Think, Jami. Just think. I quieted my mind and walked into the garage. It’s filled with every possible thing you could put in a garage… except for tools, of course. As I scan the clutter, it comes to me. I end up using a broken broomstick (yes, we like to keep broken broomsticks around, just in case) to hold the panel in place. I have one end wedged between my chin and chest and the other between the panel and the floor. It was scraping painfully against my neck. Suck it up, Jami. It’s just a flesh wound! Finally, it’s all back together. I exhale and smile. It’s now after 11pm. I yawn. Oh hell no…we are finishing this shit TONIGHT! I fill the washer with clothes, turn it on and say a small prayer. Please God, let this work. Let me know I can manage. Thirty minutes later, I remember our washing machine takes an unusually long time to run it’s cycle. I mean, really unusually long. It will say “4 minutes remaining” for 40 minutes. I think it’s laughing at us, because we believe it every time. It’s almost done, just 4 minutes to go… Damn. It’s now after 11:30. I settle in on the couch and check my Facebook. People are seriously waiting to see how it turns out. “Well, did it work?” “We’re still waiting to hear” “Was it the pump?” Not much happening on a Tuesday night in November on Cape Cod, I guess. I go back in the bathroom and just sit in the dark, staring at the clothes. I was so tired. I’m sure I could have dozed off right there, sitting on the bathroom floor. Why the hell does this machine take so long to run? Are we that dirty? Just after midnight, it happened…the spin cycle. Suddenly, I’m as alert as a gazelle on Animal Kingdom. My heart was palpating and I held a hand over my mouth in anticipation. 30 seconds…one minute…two minutes… Oh my God. It worked.It freaking worked! Nothing but the smooth sound of a normally working washing machine on the spin cycle. Yes! I pump my fist in the air and strut around the house. Do you hear that? No, no you don’t…because I freaking FIXED it! God, it felt so good! I have to admit, I had no idea appliance repair was so empowering! Why aren’t more women doing this? I took a video of the beautifully quiet spin cycle and posted it to my eagerly awaiting friends, soaking in their praise and admiration. They thought I was pretty badass, and you know what? I was badass.
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When I was first diagnosed with PTSD (and really, even now), I punished myself for having it. I guess that’s pretty common for people like me. As I journaled through the influx of emotions and hyper-vigilance of those first overwhelming weeks, I wrote and said some pretty nasty things to myself. “Stop being such a drama queen! You’re such an attention whore…these things happened YEARS ago! Get over it!” It was pretty ugly, but I was ugly, so it makes sense. I was a bully. I shamed myself for needing to go to therapy twice a week. I shamed myself needing therapy at all. I shamed myself for being dramatic and sleeping with a knife by my bed and one eye on the door. I shamed myself for how I felt when I was faced with a trigger. I shamed myself for even having triggers. I shamed myself for my nightmares. I shamed myself for not being a good enough wife. I shamed myself for spending so much time writing in my journal. Yeah, I shamed myself for just about everything. That’s PTSD for you. It’s a self-centered bitch that likes to be in charge. “Oh, you’re planning on spending time snuggling your husband on the couch tonight? I don’t THINK so! You’re going to have tachycardia and nausea instead, loser!” My life was like a giant puzzle tossed in the air…pieces flying everywhere and nothing seemed to connect. I couldn’t put any of it together to see the bigger picture, or even a fragment of the picture. Pieces would fly right in front of me, and slip away before I could make any sense of them. Even a four year old can put together a puzzle. What the hell was wrong with me?
Somehow, I managed to keep it together enough to continue raising my kids and keep my business running. It took every ounce of energy and concentration I had, because what I really wanted to be doing was lying under my blanket in my locked bedroom. I spent most of this year like this: kids, therapy, journal, work, bed…kids, therapy, journal, work, bed. Unfortunately for my husband, there was no room for him. Journaling was a tool my therapist gave me. She gives me the tools, and I have to figure out how to use them to fix my problems. At least, that’s the plan. Anyway, I just so happened to have signed up for a four week course to become a Certified Alzheimer’s Case Manager, right around the time all this PTSD shit hit the fan. “Great”, I thought. “I have to learn about dementia right now?!” She started the lecture by discussing the brain, specifically the limbic system. I dreaded where this was going, but once we started, I actually found it to be a welcome distraction from my flashbacks and paranoia. But here’s where it gets exciting… I actually learned about something that was directly related to what I was going through…the amygdala.
In a nutshell, the amygdala ( pronounced “ah-MIG-dah-la”) is a section of the brain that is responsible for emotional responses, including detecting fear and preparing for emergency events. Any physical or psychological threat activates the amygdala. When this happens, the pre frontal cortex part of the brain activates. It assesses the situation and decides whether the threat is real and what to do about it, then shuts down the amygdala. Like when someone startles you…your amygdala reacts with fear, and the pre frontal cortex realizes it’s someone you know and shuts down that fear response. Pretty simple, right? However, chemical and biological imbalances can present after trauma, resulting in an over-stimulated amygdala. So, instead of the quick “fight, flight or freeze” then relaxation, sufferers often find themselves without the relaxation part of that process. Basically, the amygdala holds on to that trauma…and won’t let go.
“Ahhh…so THAT’S why I feel this way”. It made sense. It was like I put at least 6 pieces of the corner section of my puzzle together. Validation! “So, I’m NOT a drama queen, after all…it’s just my amygdala”. I felt the heavy weight I’d been carrying around just lift from me. I felt…good. I sort of skipped out there, humming U2’s “It’s a Beautiful Day” and replaced the word “beautiful” with “amygdala”. “It’s an amygdala dayyyyy…..” (yes, I’m that big of a dork). I felt free. Wow…I couldn’t believe an Alzheimer’s class cleared up my PTSD! So easy! Why didn’t my therapist know about this?We could have saved me so much angst…and so many co-pays! I couldn’t wait to fill her in on the cure I’d just discovered. She was going to be so grateful to me!
Well, that’s kind of funny to read now, isn’t it? Yeah, that euphoria lasted a good 45 minutes or so, before I returned home to my trigger of a husband and learned my next lesson… just because you understand why you have these feelings, doesn’t mean you can control them. So, in perfect traumatized form, I beat myself up for singing that song… for thinking I was better. “You fool. There’s no fixing you. You’re damaged. The whole world doesn’t change just because you took a dumb class, you dumbass. You’re still scared. You’re still needy. You’re still worthless. What’s wrong with you?” God, I hate that damn bully.
So here I am, 7 months later, still finding I’m beating myself up for my feelings, my needs, my expectations. Only now, since I’ve learned about why I’m such a bully, I’ve found I’m a little less mean. I’m slowly rewiring my brain to allow myself have these feelings and not judge them so harshly. When I’m feeling sad or insecure, I allow myself to feel sad or insecure (well, sometimes). That in itself takes a boatload of work, but that’s what this journey is: work. The rewiring work is a heck of a lot easier when you’ve got the right tools. Each therapy visit, each journal entry, each mediation, each yoga class…each one gives me a new tool. Now it’s up to me to remember to use them.
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This summer, as I was crawling out of the hole of PTSD and facing the brick wall of my husband not wanting to get divorced, I had a dream. Calling it a dream feels like such an injustice. It was an experience…one that just so happened to occur while I was sound asleep. Yes, that sounds better.
It’s been four months, but I still remember it. You don’t normally remember dreams for this long, but like I said…I’m sure it wasn’t just a dream. Here’s how it went down: In between the hodge podge of me traveling to all sorts of places, staying in weird hotels, bringing the boys skiing, whatever (just a chaotic mix of running around), I come to see my Nana. My sweet Nana, my dad’s mom…the one who I stayed with every weekend after Mom moved away when I was 9. The female caretaker who gave me the attachment bond I was craving after the bond with my mother was severed. In real life, I wear her wedding band. I have her rocking chair. I use her baking pans. I keep her memory alive in my daily routine as best I can. In the dream, she was there, right in front of me. Sitting at a picnic bench. So vivid. So real. So beautiful. I stop the chaotic running around and center myself to her presence. As it is in every single dream I’ve had about her since she died, I know it’s a dream. I know it’s not real, but I don’t care, because I’m just so happy I get to see her sweet face in front of me and not have it be a memory or photograph. Since I know it’s a dream, I appreciate every second of it, and dread the end…the waking up. Every time I see her in my dreams, she doesn’t talk and I never touch her. That’s just the unspoken rule we both understand…until that night. I see her sitting at the table. She’s looking away from me, like she often does. I get up close to her and look at her face, her skin. It feels so good, so nostalgic, to be that close to her again. I’m absorbing every part of what I see…her cheeks, her neck, her mouth, her hands. She looks up at me. I’m standing next to her as she’s sitting, and she looks up at me, smiling. But unlike her other dream visits, she has tears in her eyes. At first, I can’t tell if she’s really sad or happy. As I know it’s a dream, I can appreciate that this is different than when I normally see her. Smiling, I take her face and I cup it in my hands. I’ve never touched her in my dreams before. This was so special. I’m cupping her chin in my hands, with my fingers holding each cheek. I’m actually feeling my grandmother for the first time in 16 years. God, it felt so real. Her eyes are welled with small puddles of tears, but she’s smiling. I know I can’t talk to her, nor she to me. That’s the rule. Touching her grounded me. Amid all the turmoil in my life, touching her made everything bad stop for a few minutes and I felt lovable again. In my mind, I’m thinking “I miss you so much. What am I going to do when I wake up and you’re not here?” Wow, I’m crying as I typed that sentence. She looks at me, and doesn’t talk…but she thinks something, and I can hear it, in my brain. She thought “When you think about missing me, just think about the love you feel all around you. That’s me. That’s my love”. I could hear her think that in my head.I felt the emotion of what she was saying to me. I emerge from this dream hearing a sound emit from my body…like a start of a wail. I wake up to realize she’s gone. I’m in my bed, alone. Except, I don’t feel alone. I realize the magnitude of what just happened, and I feel lucky, because I know she just gave me such a powerful message, even though I’m not sure of what it is. I think that’s why she was crying. She’s sad for what I’m going through, because she loves me like no one has before, but she’s smiling to show me that love and to let me know that she knows I will pull through this and she knows I will be happy. I’m not 100% sure, but I know it’s close to that. It has to be, because in just writing and remembering it, tears are flowing…and I feel happy.
I often ask Nana to come to me in my dreams, because her unconditional love makes me feel safe. I want to wrap that love around me like a warm blanket and hibernate forever in it, but you can’t hibernate forever. That would mean you aren’t living. She never comes when I ask, of course. She comes when it’s time. The week of that dream, I’d been using guided meditations of Lisa A. Romano on the Insight Timer app. They are all about healing the inner child, whether it’s from abuse or neglect or living with narcissistic parents. They are supposed to reprogram your brain to get rid of the thought processes that were created as a byproduct of the abuse. I think the dream was a direct result of listening to those meditations. Nana has probably been giving me messages in her dream visits all the time, but I never knew how to receive them or even notice them. I wasn’t open because my thought processes were all screwed up. I was in survival mode, except I wasn’t really surviving. I’ve spent my life sealed shut…my brain’s way of protecting me. But now I’m starting to open. Therapy, yoga, meditation, exercise…nurturing myself and learning to love myself has cracked open my shell. Nana was crying because she loves me so much…I’m going through all this pain, and she’s feeling it. Except, she’s smiling, because she knows it’s only temporary. She knows. It’s funny how we always shielded her when she was alive. She was so pure, we didn’t want to taint her. “Don’t tell Nana, it would kill her”. She never knew of any troubles I had. Ha! We were so wrong! She knows…and she’s not tainted. She was a stronger woman than we gave her credit for. She was looking at me, though those tears, knowing…and smiling. And I get it now. I’m a stronger woman than I gave myself credit for. Now, I can look at myself, through my tears, knowing….and smiling.
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When I was first diagnosed with PTSD (and really, even now), I punished myself for having it. I guess that’s pretty common for people like me. As I journaled through the influx of emotions and hyper-vigilance of those first overwhelming weeks, I wrote and said some pretty nasty things to myself. “Stop being such a drama queen! You’re such an attention whore…these things happened YEARS ago! Get over it!” It was pretty ugly, but I was ugly, so it makes sense. I was a bully. I shamed myself for needing to go to therapy twice a week. I shamed myself needing therapy at all. I shamed myself for being dramatic and sleeping with a knife by my bed and one eye on the door. I shamed myself for how I felt when I was faced with a trigger. I shamed myself for even having triggers. I shamed myself for my nightmares. I shamed myself for not being a good enough wife. I shamed myself for spending so much time writing in my journal. Yeah, I shamed myself for just about everything. That’s PTSD for you. It’s a self-centered bitch that likes to be in charge. “Oh, you’re planning on spending time snuggling your husband on the couch tonight? I don’t THINK so! You’re going to have tachycardia and nausea instead, loser!” My life was like a giant puzzle tossed in the air…pieces flying everywhere and nothing seemed to connect. I couldn’t put any of it together to see the bigger picture, or even a fragment of the picture. Pieces would fly right in front of me, and slip away before I could make any sense of them. Even a four year old can put together a puzzle. What the hell was wrong with me?
