I am Pissed and Possibly Offensive to Others ...

Once again I must veer from the lineal retelling aspect of this blog and into another rant, pity pot, ~smh~ moment. Ali recently received a fucking letter from our illustrious United States government. I am way too disgusted and exhausted to write a recap so here is a photo of it:

Okay ...my kid has not been able to work at a regular job for at least 2 years. I can verify that she has not been in a condition to hold down a job, despite numerous attempts to do so. She has survived thanks to those of us in her family supporting her, with a few dollars in food stamps more recently, and her doing odd cleaning/organizing work when she is not in severe pain or nauseated. As well as having multiple mental health issues that medication cannot eradicate. Let us not forget she is also in recovery for eating disorder ... apparently none of this is considered legit by the powers that be.

I try to tell myself the following:

1. I know, from being in the behavioral health field, the inside scoop on how these sort of government agencies work. Personnel are trained specifically to deny claims for any possible reason whatsoever. Of course, this is done to dissuade people from continuing the process, and to put off a citizen actually being paid any benefits. In other words, it is nothing personal.
 2. I also know, that Ali will appeal the decision and most likely, win in the end. This is also part of the process that one has to go through before receiving benefits. Again, it's nothing personal.
3. We are not desperate. We are blessed. I trust in the Universe to see us through.

But then I look at my tax returns over the past years while Ali has been battling her eating disorder, physical and mental health issues, and I am FURIOUS all over again.

I am not able to claim Ali as a dependent for tax purposes because she has not "technically" resided with me this past year due to being in residential treatment last year, and being over 24 and unable to be a student due to (name the issue:______________) while she is living with me, currently. So I am paying a tax premium (I won't even go into the whole "making too much to get any breaks, but not enough to get out the paycheck-to-paycheck grind" right now) as well as not having insurance at work, so having to pay a big penalty on my tax return.

And don't even get me started on the lack of insurance deal, and paying out of pocket for my own health care when I do seek it ... blah!

It is all very frustrating, for I am paying and paying and paying taxes, like a bottomless pit. But what I am paying for, my daughter, who really needs the benefits these taxes are supposedly going to, cannot get. So I am getting double-hit.

I am looking at homes in the Caribbean or even Puerto Rico. Less taxes, free healthcare, less violence, noise, and oppression. Maybe it's just a dream, but sometimes dreams are better than reality.

 

Millennial Happenings

As mentioned, I have always battled my weight, and have always had a love/hate relationship with food. Looking back, I see how this ran in my family, with my Grandmother speaking of "sinning" when she ate certain foods, and Mother also struggling to lose weight and keep it off.

As I look back at teenage Ali, caught shoplifting and sitting on a bench looking so waif-like, her big blue eyes glaring at me from a pale, drawn face, I see the skinny person who was inside of me, struggling to come out. I realized in that moment how thin she had gotten, and I made mention of this fact to her. As with many observations I have made to her, about her, she shook her head and shrugged off my concern.

Later, when I had ironically lost 80 pounds, in 2008, and she had put on weight because she was with Henry and living what appeared to be a "normal life," we were able to share clothes. For about a year, and then she began to lose again, and I began to gain. For that one year though... things felt in sync. To me, anyway.

I do not mean to imply that Ali's teen and young adult years were miserable for us both. Certainly we had our good moments, and we always knew how to make one another laugh. There is no doubt though, there were struggles. Many times these were the plain and simple result of the two of us being so different.

After years of feeling oppressed and shut down, I was ready to spread my wings and fly, being open and free. However, Ali made it known that many of the things that made "me" me, needed to be hidden in order to respect her comfort level. This mainly centered around my belief in magic and my bisexuality. I distinctly remember having to remove my sexual orientation from my first Myspace way page back in ... oh, 2004 or 2005.

The same held true for politics. I hail from a liberal, progressive background myself and still hold these sort of views. Although Ali did not become more outspoken politically until more recent years, she still made it clear that this was not a discussion she wished to engage in. While she was not yet an announced Christian, she still had respect for my right to engage in alternative spiritual practices, she encouraged me to be discreet about it at the same time. So at least around my daughter and her friends and their families, I was underground.

I guess I funneled a lot of my frustration and desire to be free with myself into online "personas" ... and this was during the early to mid 2000s so there was a lot of new unexplored online territory. My being on the computer so much, between being a college student and conducting part of my social life online, probably helped distance myself even more from Ali and what she was going through at the time.

Once Ali came out of the closet and no longer lived right next door, with Henry, but with her new partner, our relationship changed again. Once more, I did not see her that much, and when I did, there was usually a reason. As I look back, I see that she lost weight once again very quickly. I attributed this to her being with a more slender partner, and perhaps money for food being leaner than it had been when she was more enmeshed in my life.

But yes, looking back she did lose the weight very quickly, in a matter of months. And has never been overweight again. It is true, she has achieved that thing that I always longed for but never attained, long-term, But she has suffered, oh how she has suffered in the quest, the drive, the addiction, to being thin. The price she has paid, has it been worth it for her? Only she could tell you that. I do know that I believed, at the point her severe health problems began, that she had HAD an eating disorder as a teen, and was now struggling to be healthy, while fighting digestive, emotional, and mental hurdles that resulted in irrevocable consequences.

My Hardest Relationship

My negative relationship with food happened when I was around 5th grade - 10 years old or so- and it seemed to all happen in a whirlwind of events. That summer of 1970. we went as ever to spend two weeks in southwestern Iowa to visit and invade my dad's relatives' lives. At same point, while visiting my grandparents, I overheard my grandfather in the basement, talking to my mother.

"It is too bad Sharon is turning out to be fat," he was saying in that disapproving tone he was an expert at adopting,"she is such a beauty, otherwise."

My mother, I am not sure what she said to be honest, or what else I heard from the top of the staircase, but those words ... "turning out to be fat ... such a beauty otherwise ..." kept refraining in my head.

Over and over. Over and over and over. Over and over and over and over ... you get the idea.

And so, I began my first diet. Deprivation and resentments and failure and more resentments. Looking at other girls, skinny bitches, with a combination of deep desire and burning envy. Why could I not starve myself, deprive myself, and magically transform myself into one of them? Why was I stuck in this fat, fat body?

The next event occurred in school, a few months later. It was one of those much-hated-by-yours-truly days at school where you had to complete various "fitness" tasks. I already knew I was not athletic, not even able to run around the school without being out of breathe and having side cramps. Why did they have to remind me with a pounding thud, over and over again throughout the day? Always picked last for teams, I had even been beaten up by angry competitive kids whose team I "made lose" with my horrible lack of skills. So, therefore, I was already dreading the day ahead of humiliation and pain.

But no, it got better! We all had to step on scales while a nurse announced our weight to our entire class, and recorded it. I began to tremble from head to toe and was feeling like peeing and throwing up simultaneously when it was my turn for the torture.

"145 pounds," she announced, and I felt as if the world was opening up to swallow me whole.

I would not say my entire class burst out laughing and talking in derogatory terms about that number, but it sure felt that way. I can also see, looking back, that this was one of many instances in which I dissociated and did not let the full emotional effect of what was happening affect me, But it did hit me physically and once again, efforts to lose weight commenced. With the same mixed and limited results.

Then there was the boy I had a crush on. He looked like one of my celebrity crushes at the time, Robert Morse. I had one or two "friends" at that point, just little snippy girls whose friendship was not super satisfying for me. I told them that I had a thing for this boy, and they took it upon themselves to tell him of my feelings for him. And to tell me of his reaction ...which was basically, "Yuck, she's fat!"

It all pointed to me, in 5th grade, drinking my first protein shakes for two meals a day, and having salad and celery for dinner as me "one healthy meal," and stepping on scales and crying that I have not lost any weight, or I have but not enough, or fast enough, or ....

A lifetime of diets and scales and binge eating and avoiding scales, of closets full of "good, skinny clothes" and "bad, fatso clothes." Of always comparing myself to other women in terms of "is she thinner than me?"

As well, a lifetime of cheating and binging, of falling off the wagon and spinning out of control, eating all the crap I had been avoiding and gaining back any weight I had lost with rapidity, telling myself I had to get back on track, and beginning the cycle all over again.

When I got older, I would have periods of thinness - either due to being in state of poverty, or chemically induced, and I would have periods of chubbiness, where I would, looking back, be a healthy weight plus a little extra, but I felt horribly fat at the time. I never really allowed myself to become super overweight until much later, when I was a divorced single mom of teens and no longer using drugs that were appetite suppressants. As well, I had no-one to tell me what I could and could not eat or that I was getting fat ... and so, I felt in control of my life, and what I ate went out of control.

I saw a photo of myself fixing Ali's hair in 2007, realized how big I had gotten, and decided it was time for sensible eating and working out. To the tune of waking up and exercising, and coming home from work and exercising, and tracking every single calorie I ate. I did lose weight, and felt good, and was really really obsessed with it all.

I also went through Hep C treatment in that time, and my first long-term lesbian relationship since high school, and delved deeper into my career as a counselor, and was just generally busy and feeling fulfilled. I am not exactly sure when that started changing, exactly.

But now in 2016, here I am, once again, fat and out of shape. Following a new meal plan though, one that is simple, balanced, and allows for versatility without deprivation. As well as not obsessively exercising, but beginning to progress once again in my workouts. Still trying to find a good balance in my life.

More to come ...

Ali's Teenage Years Begin

Things were so much better. I provided a roof over our heads, food in our mouths, clothing, rides to school, extras. Also, my guilt over the past made me overindulge and be permissive with my children, Ali soon learned that if she asked in the right way, with her sweet blue eyes gazing at me hopefully, she would pretty much get what she wanted.

I decided to lose my annoying job as a restaurant manager in order to return to school and become a counselor. I wanted to help those who were in the shoes I had been in. I didn't want to just go to work, I wanted to follow a calling and have a purpose and so forth. Suddenly I was driven by grades and desire.

Add to that a discovery of the internet and all the wonders of that, and I was really busy with life.

Now years later, I reflect back ...

How does it feel to be a counselor and yet have my daughter going through so many issues: mentally, physically, emotionally, and not know so much of what she was going through? Presumably right under my nose, although she managed to stay under the radar much of the time, to be honest.

Pretty ironic, to say the least. I do definitely fall into morosity at times, asking myself why I didn't, and telling myself I should have ... but it really does no good. When it comes to self-talk, I just try to tell myself that...

A. I did the best I could with what I knew, and when I knew better, I did better.

B. Everyone knows (or, they say) that counselors are great at fixing others but not their own families.

C. I was super-duper busy, between work, school, internships, and an admitted addiction to the internet, in the early-to-mid 2000s ... I was trying to make something of myself. And by all accounts, I have. So it wasn't like I was being neglectful because I was fucking up or purposely blowing her off.

And in the end, who knows except that it was what it was at the time. Believe me, as I look back I see the signs of it all. The PTSD, the substance abuse and mental health issues resulting in moods and erratic behavior, the eating disorder cleverly masked by cutting and other disturbing behaviors ...

When Ali was 13, she shrieked at me during a disagreement, "you ruined my life!" and that seems, looking back, like this was the start of the descent into hell for her. I agreed with her, told her she needed counseling again (an attempt had been made when we were reunited by CPS when she was younger), and thus begun that saga. The cutting behavior was the main focus of the counseling, and she did seem to stop, or at least go underground with it.

Ali had always been a complicated, somewhat secretive about certain topics, opinionated, and stubborn girl. As she grew into her teens, this became more pronounced. I found myself losing my tempter at times with her, slamming doors and swearing, leaving the house in anger, sometimes dreading coming home from work or school. I suppose this is why, when she had friends with whom she would stay overnight, I gladly let her go! We both, I believe, needed a break.

Another way that Ali had been complicated and secretive, yet so obvious to the rest of us, was regarding her sexuality. It seemed that her brother and I had pegged early on that she was likely going to be lesbian or bisexual when she came of age. Mentioning this to Ali resulted in her freaking out, so we learned not to make comments to her and keep our opinions to ourselves. She had very close attachments to females, as well as admiring certain celebrities who were female. Yet did not really seem to care about boys and whenever a man and woman kissing was shown in a movie, she literally gagged. 

I was always open with my children about my own orientation, which is bisexual in nature. I encouraged them to be open in return, but Ali balked at this. She professed to be completely asexual, with no interest in romance whatsoever. This changed too as she moved into her teens, and she began to date boys, treating them horribly, like petty serfs who were beneath her. Because she is so darn beautiful, she got away with this.

Then she became friends with and eventually dated "Henry," and so many things changed for the better. I thought we were over the humps and bumps and now, at long last,  things with Ali would be smooth sailing.

Yeah, right ...

Beginnings

When I look back at my children's lives, I see myself having this huge, wonderful, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and I blew it.

For all of my children, but especially my oldest and youngest. I made choices that put them into danger. That created instability and fear within their hearts. That traumatized and shattered them, And really, it was all over what strong women around the world who know better now call "a stupid guy" ... and a stupid drug ... meth in a needle.

I chased the guy, well ... once he stopped chasing me, and caught me. You know how that typical tale goes. The quintessential bad boy who claimed to be my knight in shining armor. Turned out I went from one bad mistake to another when it came to men. I was severely co-dependent as well, thinking I needed to have someone in my life to validate me. And of course, he did not validate me. He was a classic, controlling, abusive type ... what I later learned in DV training is called the "Cobra."

At any rate, I wound up throwing away the opportunity to give my children the life they deserved and needed. I take ownership of that and sometimes feel as if I will always be punished on some level for failing them as I did. But in the context of this blog and how this all affected Ali in particular ...

Ali was so young when her father came out of drug treatment and moved back into the house, I want to say at age 2. Within 3 months of his return, he had relapsed and eventually convinced me to start using with him again as well. We started out smoking it this time, a control tactic that lasted about 2 months before we were slamming, and back into the whole rat race life that came with that.

Many stupid and pathetic choices later, we were living in hotels and on people's couches, always out of food, always without resources, always scrounging. People in and out of our lives, and having contact with our family, and having access to our home. It is true I did not personally make the worst of the choices, but I allowed them to happen. I may have been passive and gotten  swept along, but I chose to be that way.

Eventually the bottom fell out. He was arrested, I went to treatment, the younger kids were taken by CPS while my oldest son fell through the legal cracks. I divorced him, I got my kids back, and we all lived happily ever after.

Yeah right ...

My First Official Post is a RANT.

So I never, ever thought about health care as a child. It was something I tried to avoid and my parents paid for and took care of making sure I got. Then as an adult, once I had children, I was either medicaid eligible or had insurance through work. So again, if I needed healthcare, I was able to get it.

In recent years, as a social work student, I became interested in the topic of health care, as far as a topic for presentations and research essays, as I discovered that not everyone in America had it so easy. I became a proponent for universal healthcare, right along with Michael Moore and President Obama.

I know, I know ... people say that Obamacare is so bad, but in my opinion, it really should be HouseandSenatecare because they are the ones who f---d up his initial policy as it was set out. And that is all I will say about that.

But okay, meantime ... here it is. I personally do not have healthcare insurance and I pay out of pocket for it when I get scared or something that herbal/home remedies won't cure. That wouldn't be so bad, since I am fairly healthy in general, but ...

I have a daughter who has TWO TYPES of insurance (one of which her grandmother pays a hefty amount for monthly, might I add), and diagnoses of severe eating disorder/struggles with mental health/physical issues that are all possibly mortally dangerous for her.

This has been ongoing with insurance for a long time, and I am only speaking right now of the last couple of months.  Ali had been sent to residential treatment after a relapse brought on by a PTSD disassociative episode in which she cut herself several times and should have received stitches. After being there around 6 weeks and starting to stabilize, but still in no way ready to leave, Ali was informed that there were issues with insurance coverage and she would have to discharge from the facility until it was straightened out.

This happened over 3 weeks ago. She went from daily treatment for 9 months to absolutely no type of treatment. Needless to say, I am feeling desperate and hopeless at times myself, so I can only imagine how hard it is for her to keep going forward at this point.

NOTE: I have nothing against any individual who is working within the healthcare field. Hell, I work in it myself. I understand that clinical staff does the best they can with what they are given. My daughter has had amazing care when she was receiving it. 

 What I do have issue with is the United States healthcare "system" that has failed so many people, my family included.

However, at least we are not socialist. Hooray for that.

I see how people fall through the cracks. I feel as if my daughter is slowly falling through one, and I am being pulled through it with her. I do not understand from a moral and humanity standpoint but I do understand it from a financial standpoint. I just know that I need to get the word out that this is not right. Human lives being sacrificed for the almighty dollar is not right.

What am I supposed to say here ...? Well, this is a journal of a journey, a journey of a journal.