When you say things like this, I want you to remember a face.
This is my daughter. In this picture, she’s playing soccer. With a Special Olympics team.
You see, she was born with a metabolic disorder that caused brain damage when she was only a week old. She may never read over a third grade level. She still has a speech impairment despite 12 years of therapy. She’s socially inept at times.
Yeah, she’s what some people would call “a retard.”
Only that word is complete and utter bullshit.
Hearing that word cuts both her and me worse than any knife could. There is absolutely no reason to use that word. EVER. Don’t give me the bullshit that it’s a medical term. If you do, I’m liable to scream “shut the fuck up” in your face. Well, maybe not, but I will be screaming it in my head.
If you’re going to use the word retard, you might as well use words like nig****, fag****, dyke, cunt… Oh, but you won’t use those words. Those are bad words.
But retard? Well, that’s not so bad. After all, the only people that’s only insulting the mentally impaired. And they don’t know what is going on, do they?
I have news for you though. They do know what’s going on. Mentally impaired people have feelings, hopes, and dreams just like the rest of us. If you take a few minutes and actually get to know someone who is mentally impaired, you’ll discover that.
This isn’t about being politically correct. It’s about showing some RESPECT.
You used to clean up nicely. Later, I would be lucky if the t-shirt you threw on wasn’t slept on by a cat.
I hated when you would call me “baby” or “sweetheart.” It always seemed like such a default.
When I realized I was late calling you, I’d start agonizing over what you would say to me this time.
There are times I want to kick myself in the ass for ever getting lonely enough to talk to you that first night.
I tried to love you. I really did.
There just wasn’t anything there.
When I realized that I didn’t have any photos of the two of us together, relief was the resounding feeling.
I expected everyone to say “I told you so.” They didn’t. But they did listen. Endlessly. Thank you.
Every fight, I was waiting, wondering when that first punch was going to be.
Wondering if the punch would ever come was worse than if you would have just gone ahead and hit me.
I cowed down to you for reasons that I haven’t been able to figure out yet.
I stood up to you for reasons I never should have lost in the first place.
Late night, injured, hysterical, drunk phone calls? No.
Stalking my every move that you can find? No.
Just because I left before your fist finally got sick of hitting everything/everyone else, doesn’t mean it wasn’t abuse.
You made me ask for money that you offered me. Promised me. Money that I did not ask for. That I did not want. That I would not have needed if not for you.
Looking back now, a tent on the corner of the street would have been preferable.
You took my friends.
You took my ideas.
You tried to take my identity.
Lucky for me, I’m a stubborn bitch.
You said things, did things, made up things (and continue to do so) that I refuse to waste any more thought or time on.
I walked away from them.
I walked away from you.
With a limp and a smile.
The only time you’re happy is when you’re the superior in the relationship. When you can make the other person feel inadequate.
Regardless of what you think, there was/is absolutely nothing I want to learn from you.
It’s taken me close to a year to get even marginally back to the person I was before I got tangled up in the mess that is you.
I finally see what I’m capable of.
That thread between us? The one and only thing we share? I’m making it my life’s goal that she is never made to feel like or to think that she is nothing. Minuscule. Worthless if not by someone’s side, obedient like a pet.
She will be better than you.
Better than me.
I am making sure that she will never be in the position that I was in with you.
Depression often lies to us, tricking us into going off our much-needed medications.
This is her story:
I wanted to see how I could be without the Prozac. So did my therapist. I had been on it for about 7 years – the same 20 mg dosage the whole time. My therapist openly disapproved of the medication. So I self-weaned off. I felt great for the first few weeks. Then the depression set in. It was mild at first. Just moodiness and more yelling. Then it would lift and life would be great. The cycles went like that for a while. Then there was The Week From Hell.
I ignored my husband completely. I did the bare-bones necessities to get through the day. I did not want to see friends or family. I didn’t want to do anything. I cried all the time, about nothing. I was never like this before. I wanted to eat salmon (which I am severally allergic to) so my throat would close and I would die. Nothing brought me joy. Nothing.
I didn’t talk about this with anyone. When I mentioned suicide to my therapist, he didn’t even blink or comment. This threw me into a greater depression. You know you are doomed when even your therapist doesn’t care.
My husband cried and said he wanted me to talk to him. I told him it didn’t help to talk. I needed medication. So I made an appointment with a psychiatrist (my previous Prozac came from my OB/GYN as medication to handle PMS). It took weeks to get in.
Even though I had been battling depression for years, this was the first time I ever saw a psychiatrist. She was very nice and knowledgeable. She went through all the background questions. When she asked about family history, I laughed and asked how much time we had. She nodded in understanding.
Her diagnosis was that I had mild depression that could go into a severe depressive state if I didn’t medicate myself. She said that since the Prozac did work for me without any side effects that she was putting me back on it, going from 10 mg up to 30 mg gradually.
Today I am at the 20 mg dosage. I feel pretty good. However, my darkest swings are 1-2 weeks before my period, which is still a while away. I am worried that the Prozac won’t be enough anymore. The psychiatrist said there are other similar medications I could take if Prozac didn’t do the job.
I am also worried that I am putting my trust too much into a pill. Why can’t I just be happy? I look at the people around me who smile and laugh and have it all, and want to be like them. But I am just not a happy person. Never have been, and probably never will be.
So I say, Hello Prozac my old friend…. I’ve come to take you again.
I’ve been tottering on the edge of the deep abyss for a long time now. Too long… back before I married again and back when I was a complete person. For that millisecond of time before I messed it all up again. Before I lost the best job I ever had. Before my second husband became such a problem for me – such a hurdle that I just couldn’t overcome. Before my daughter had surgery. Before I started relying on my parents to give me money to pay the bills.
But today it’s a little lighter. And it was a lighter day yesterday too. The only thing I can attribute it to is laughter. And finding blogs that make me laugh and make me want to be a part of this online world of people who I might actually be able to relate to and who might actually understand what I’ve been going through.
I’m still struggling with financial stuffs. I’m still taking money from my parents every month. I’m still taking my medications and still underemployed and terrified that the future looks just like today or worse. But because I laughed so hard I cried. And then I laughed with my daughter and we danced together and laughed some more. And because I had a lighter day yesterday and again today, I think I might have found a little bit of hope lurking out there. I think I might have found that iota of strength I needed to find to keep trying tomorrow.
Even now, nine years after the fact, I struggle about where to post this. I’ve been told so many times that I had a miscarriage, that Maggie wasn’t even a viable baby.
She was my baby. She was my daughter. I held her in my arms, and I gave her a name.
I have a daughter.
Some people I know are surprised to hear this, since I only talk about my sons, Big and Little G. I don’t talk a lot about the fact that there were pregnancies #4 and 5.
I’m going to pull a lot of this from a story I posted at the Preeclampsia Foundation back in 2002. The women in the forums there saved my sanity, and I love them for it.
About 17 weeks into my second pregnancy (my first ended with a miscarriage at 14 weeks), I experienced a day where I threw up all day long. I hadn’t had morning sickness at all, so I was a little concerned, but Car (my husband) and I assumed I had a 24-hour bug. The next day I didn’t throw up, but I simply didn’t feel well. I had a general feeling of unwellness from then on, but nothing specific.
At about 17.5 weeks, the pain started. At first I assumed the pain, which was located just below my sternum, was heartburn. I’d never had heartburn, but I couldn’t imagine what else the stabbing pain could be, and everyone knows that pregnant women get terrible heartburn. The pain got progressively worse until I could no longer work. I asked a few people if this was really what heartburn was like, and they assured me that pregnancy heartburn could be really bad. I took the maximum amount of antacids allowed, but nothing helped.
I had my usual appointment with my perinatologist on a Wednesday, and I mentioned the pain. He suggested Pepcid AC. My urine showed only a trace of protein, so there was no cause for concern, despite the fact that I had to have a friend drive me to my appointment because the pain was so intense.
That evening, as I curled up in a ball on the couch and sobbed, Car decided I needed to go to the emergency room. I refused, positive the ER personnel would laugh at the pregnant woman who couldn’t handle simple heartburn. We finally struck a compromise–I would page my local OB and if she thought I needed to go to the ER, I would. When my doctor returned the page, I was crying too hard to speak with her, so my husband filled her in. She also thought it was most likely heartburn, but said if the pain was bad enough that I couldn’t talk on the phone, the ER wouldn’t be a bad idea.
The first thing the doctor at the ER did was give me something he called a “GI Cocktail.” It’s a lovely little drink that numbs your entire digestive tract down to your stomach, and will apparently subdue even the worst heartburn. It made my tongue and throat numb, but did nothing for the pain. The doctor said, “I don’t know what’s wrong with you, but it’s not heartburn.” They gave me a shot of Demerol for the pain and ran several tests (blood work, ultrasound, CT scan). After about 4 hours in the ER, all they could come up with was, “We can’t find anything wrong except for some elevated liver enzymes. We think it’s probably your gallbladder. Call your doctor in the morning.” They discharged me and sent me home.
The next day I called my doctor and told her I had elevated liver enzymes and the ER doctor thought I had something wrong with my gallbladder. My wonderful doctor, whom I credit with saving my life, said, “That doesn’t sound right. Let me makes some calls and call you back.” Within 30 minutes, she called me back and told me to go to the hospital for further testing.
From that point on, things become a blur. I was admitted to the hospital on Thursday and put on a morphine drip for pain. My liver enzymes skyrocketed, my platelets dropped. We were told that the best-case scenario was hepatitis. My red blood cells started to self-destruct and my kidneys began to shut down. My brother flew out from Minnesota in case he had to say goodbye. Every possible liver disease was tested for and ruled out between Thursday and Saturday, when the doctors finally settled on the final diagnosis–HELLP Syndrome. They told us that to save my life we would need to terminate the pregnancy. I begged them to prolong the pregnancy long enough to save my child. The doctor told me, “I don’t think you understand. It’s not an either/or situation. If we don’t end the pregnancy, both you AND your baby will die.”
I was 19 weeks pregnant.
On Saturday night a doctor started the process of manual dilation (which is every bit as painful as it sounds), and on Sunday I delivered a perfectly formed little girl, Margaret Marie. Maggie weighed 3.88 ounces and never took a breath on this earth. I held her in my arms, counted her fingers and toes, and decided she looked like my husband, who was weeping by my side.
About six months after Maggie was born, we decided to try again. I miscarried at six weeks. I told myself , “At least it happened early,” but I was still devastated.
