Climb Out of the Darkness

As you probably recall, after RH was born, I suffered from fairly crippling postpartum depression.

I spent my days alternating between weeping on the floor under the crushing weight of my own anxiety, or floating through my house, feeling absolutely nothing. There was no in between. There was no happiness. There was only fear, and pain, and regret, and self loathing, and sadness.

It was a terrible time in my life. And I wish, I wish I had known about Postpartum Progress then. I would have had help. I would have reached out. I wouldn't have suffered so long and so silently and felt so entirely alone.

So I'm joining Postpartum Progress in their annual fundraising event- Climb Out of the Darkness. It's not necessarily a literal climb- in the case of the Chicago chapter, it's a hike. But we're hiking to raise awareness of postpartum depression and anxiety, and to raise funds to support the work of Postpartum Progress.

I'm trying to raise $365. That's one dollar for every day of the year, as a reminder that every day is a victory and a small part of the whole.

That means that if each one of you, my lovely readers, donates a single dollar, I will MORE than reach my goal.

Please consider donating, even one dollar, to my climb.

There's a button you can hit to the right of the screen- or you can use the link above.

Thank you.

Eight More

Getty Images

I am bone tired.

Not just because my husband and I enjoyed a crazy, whirlwind weekend- our first ever away from the kids.

Not just because we missed our flight home and stayed up all night, flying standby and finally coming back to our home in time for our children to rise and begin their day. Not just because today is a day to them like any other, and they don't understand or care that I'm sleep deprived and suffering the repercussions of twelve hours of airport food and wharf fudge.

I am bone tired because I made a conscious choice while I was on vacation- my first vacation since my honeymoon.

I decided to ignore the news.

This was particularly difficult, as I was vacationing in beautiful Santa Barbara, California. Where this weekend's tragedy occurred.

I say "this weekend's tragedy" to clarify, because I am so damn tired I'm afraid I might confuse myself. Because roughly twice a month for what feels like as long as I can remember, there's been something else like it. Some other person who took their guns to town, despite Johnny Cash's old advice, and slaughtered human beings.

I also say "this weekend's tragedy" because if I were only to say, "A confused, angry man decided to take his rage out on women he saw as having wronged him, and took lives in his fury," I could be talking about the three women who are murdered by their husbands or boyfriends or exes every single day.

So "this weekend's tragedy" it is.

Seven people killed. A gigantic tome of a manifesto by the murderer, who took his own life. A dozen more injured.

Why? Because he believed those women owed him something. Sex, attention, affection, something. He believed those women wronged him just by not seeing in him what he saw in himself- that he deserved them. That he had somehow already won them. That they were not people, but the objects of his desire, and as such he already owned them.

That's what he saw. And so instead of seeking therapy, instead of moving to a country where women legally aren't people with their own rights and own stories and own lives to run as they choose, he targeted and killed them.

He put videos on the internet of himself ranting, blaming his victims for imagined crimes against his fragile ego. It's the same rant you can find in court testimonies in domestic violence cases across the country. It's the same narrative you see in movie after movie, in book after book. "I was there for her, she owed me. She lied to me when she smiled and didn't put out. She led me on. She deserved what she got."

And I am exhausted.

I'm exhausted because #YesAllWomen is trending on twitter, it's trending everywhere, and I can't look away. I'm not on vacation anymore. I can't look at my husband and say, "It's our second honeymoon- it's a special trip- I'm not thinking of sadness or rage or any of it. Let's get in the hot tub and drink margaritas while the sun sets over the ocean." I can't do that, because I can't take my eyes away.

I'm tired of saying over and over again "I'm a feminist" and having people react as though I walked into bar mitzvah with a "Jews for Jesus" t-shirt. I'm tired of saying over and over again that I advocate for victims of sexual assault, but it's not because I'm a survivor. Or not only because.

I'm tired of having to use phrases like, "I'm married," to get men to leave me alone. I'm tired of having to use phrases like, "I'm a rape survivor" to get airport security to stop leering and digital images of my artificially nude body.

I'm tired of drafting conversations in my head I won't need to have for years, to tell my daughters how much I love them but that they need to protect themselves, because even though it's not their job to avoid being raped they will be blamed if they are raped. Not by me, I'll tell them. But it will happen. And I can't stop it.

I'm tired of knowing that I alone can't stop it.

I'm tired of signs and ads and facebook memes reminding people that every woman is somebody's daughter, or wife, or mother, or sister... as though she's not her own person regardless.

I'm tired of sitting in front of my computer, watching picture after picture of victim and villain appear on my screen, and feel the need to make excuses for everyone. To apologize for everyone. To apologize to everyone.

I'm tired of feeling responsible, responsible for my own victimization, and responsible for the fact that it continues.

I'm tired of tragedies. But when they come so fast and so often, it's hard to remember they're tragedies. It's hard not to simply see them as life. As life in a country where women are technically given equal rights, even if our lawmakers refuse to extend them to pay, workplace protections, or healthcare. It's easy to say, "Oh dear, another mass shooting, another murder spree, another bunch of anonymous victims- dead and gone. Somebody should do something to make it stop. Too bad there's nothing to be done."

There's always something to be done.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry I buried my head in the sand and allowed myself the luxury of a weekend. I'm sorry I intentionally closed my eyes and ears to the news happening literally all around me, and drank icy beverages and wandered the beach and gazed at the mountains. I'm sorry.

And I'm pissed as hell that I have to be sorry for that. Because I deserve a few days of happiness and relaxation, don't I?

And I'm miserable at feeling so selfish and self entitled that I could actually dismiss the tragedy of eight families, shrug them off and tell myself I'd feel their pain later.

That's what we all do, all the time. We all say we're too busy. We've got important things to do that don't involve mourning.

Mourning is never on the agenda.

So I'm tired. And I know you're tired, too.

But that's just too bad. Because there is no such thing as being too tired for empathy.

There is only the selfishness in all of us that doesn't want to feel it, because we have more important things to feel.

There is nothing more important to feel than empathy. And I'm ashamed of myself for forgetting that, even for a weekend.

I'm so sorry.

And I'm tired of it.

The Binder

The binder

The day I got engaged was one of the best of my life. Not only because of the engagement, that came at the end. The whole day was beautiful and loving and warm and sunny and spent with my favorite person in the universe. And then he ended the day by proposing, which was a cherry on top of the enormous chocolate fudge banana split that had been my day.

The next day was the third worst of my life. Within a week of getting engaged, and experiencing the second worst, I was learning a whole new world of vocabulary. "GBM," "glioma," "intrusions."

I was already pretty brain tumor aware. I'd been misdiagnosed with not one, not two, but three brain tumors. Of course, each time a doctor bullied me into getting an MRI or CT scan, the answer was the same. I did not have a brain tumor. I had painless ocular migraines, or synesthesia, or dysautonomia. All neurological problems without tumors to blame them on.

So when, in the winter before we got engaged, my future husband complained about problems with his left arm and leg, I worried.

"You should see a doctor," I said.

"It could be neurological," I said.

But of course it wasn't, he replied. He'd pinched a nerve. Or he'd forgotten to stretch properly. Healthy, strapping, brilliant, baseball playing engineers in their early twenties didn't have neurological problems.

He was happy. He was active. There was nothing wrong.

It took me months to convince him to see a doctor. I wasn't really worried. I mean, he was right, wasn't he? We were living together by then, and I saw him every day. I didn't see anything wrong with him. But when he came back from softball practice and complained that his left leg just didn't quite move the way he wanted it to when he was running bases... I worried.

So he saw the doctor. The doctor performed what were no doubt the standard tests. And at the end of the exam, he shrugged away M's concerns.

"You're a healthy guy. I'm guessing you have a pinched nerve. We could do a neural pathway test, just to be sure where it is, but really what you need to do is stretch better."

"That's what I figured," M no doubt replied, and they agreed the neural pathway test was a waste of time, energy, and money.

Of course, what the test would have found was that the thing blocking his neural pathways was in his brain. And that probably would have let to a CT scan. And that would have shown what we found instead the day after we got engaged.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about this turn of events. Because M was tied into a terrible HMO, having the opportunity of an emergency surgery to change medical teams got him superior care. Because of M's absurd ideas about honor and nobility and commitment, he would not have proposed to me if he thought he was about to die. Because our engagement was followed by trauma and chaos, our families never had the opportunity to doubt us as a couple, despite our differing religions, lifestyles, and backgrounds.

We were lucky. Unfathomably lucky.

Hardly anyone is ever so lucky.

So for Brain Tumor Awareness Month, I'd like to share something with you. A little piece of what it means to be aware of brain tumors. So aware that they swallow your entire life and become the one thing, the only thing, you are certain you understand anymore.

This is The Binder.

That week after our engagement, when I was learning to speak Brain Tumor-ese, my future mother-in-law started taking notes on a legal pad about what was happening. Recording it, in case the information would come in handy.

I rolled my eyes at her, I'm sorry to say. Or I would have if I wasn't trying so hard to be compassionate and understanding of everyone else's feelings at the same time as my own. I was angry at everyone, I thought their acceptance of M's prognosis would effect him like a contagion, and if he caught even a hint that they expected him to die, he would. But taking notes seemed harmless enough. They might even come in handy.

I had no idea how handy they would be.

Before M even began treatment, the legal pad had morphed into an enormous binder. Everything we could need, anything anyone could need, it was there.

It's still there.

It lacks a table of contents, and the past seven years have faded the labels on the tabs,
but I know what's in there.

Every six months, we go back to the hospital for another set of MRIs. And every month, I lug this enormous thing with me.

Those pink spots are bits of tissue from M's brain tumors.
Hard to be more aware of something than when you're literally holding it in your hands.

It's both an organizational nightmare and wet dream.

Every doctor, pharmacist, therapist, social worker, nurse, patient liaison, insurance representative, etc. we ever
needed to interact with or ask something of, ever.

It still has everything we could ever need, all the information we've ever collected. All the data. All the forms. All the files. Everything.

Every medication, every dose

It's not just the technical details, either. That legal pad of Grandma's became my confidante. M never read the binder- so I was more honest with it than I was with him. If I thought he was depressed, or struggling, or weakening, it went into the binder. And then I could bring it up casually with the doctor, M never being the wiser for my worries.

Reams of pages of the journal, dates and times of seizures, appointments, what we talked about, mental state,
everything.

And it was more than that. It was a constant reminder of everything we had to do, and of everything that Brain Tumors mean. Lab reports. surgical reports. MRI reports. Doctor's notes on official hospital documents. Discs of MRI images of white shapes inside my husband's brain.

Booklets titled, "A Patients Guide to Understanding Brain Tumors," and "Temodar: Your Questions Answered." As time wore on and the binder became heavier and heavier, changes had to be made.

I got a second binder.

I still live with these. And in a few weeks, when it's time for M to go back for his every six month check up, it will come with me. Just the one- the second binder is full of information either for only our references or that has outlived its practical usefulness. Until, as his doctor likes to warn,  "when" his tumors grow again.

Personally, I like to believe "when" means when he's ninety, dying from something totally unrelated, and his weakened immune system allows new tumor growth.

I could live with that.

This is what Brain Tumor Awareness is.


---------------------------
Click here to read about my engagement and what came after.
Click here to read more about "when."

More Than A Stage

Listen To Your Mother Chicago's "Oscar Selfie"
...one of two photos in this post not taken by Balee Images

Last year, because of your incredible support, I was able to go to BlogHer. And it was amazing. I met so many people, learned so many things, and grew as a writer, a blogger, and a person. (Is that an exaggeration? I don't think so.) But one of the most profound experiences for me was the open mic, a Listen To Your Mother production.

I'd heard about it. There was no way I wouldn't have heard about it. Motherhood? Storytelling? Live shows? You can bet people linked me to it over and over again. But I didn't really understand what was so amazing about it until I heard Ann Imig speak at the Voices of the Year. She's the genius behind Listen To Your Mother, and holy cow, that lady has passion. And humor. And grace. And to say that somebody has grace when they're advising you to find your inner luchador, well, that's something.

I knew she was the brain behind Listen To Your Mother, and I wanted so badly to tell her how amazing it was that she'd not only conceived but built something that had gone so completely viral. It's one thing to write a blog post that a million see across the world. It's another thing to create a movement of storytelling and sisterhood.

The LTYM Chicago producers with Ann Imig after the show

But I had no idea how to say that. And so, before the open mic Listen To Your Mother production at BlogHer, I had one of the most embarrassing moments of my life. I bumped into Ann Imig, said hello, and then stared, gape mouthed, smiling awkwardly, trying to find any kind of words to say, "You're amazing, and right now you're my hero, and I want to tell you all about my life and I want to be best friends and please don't think I'm crazy." And she smiled a bit uncomfortably, and walked away. I stood there, embarrassed and awkward enough to think I could shout something witty after her and make her want to have a drink with me and talk motherhood and storytelling. And maybe she could tell I wanted to do that, so she turned around. And I was still standing there, gaping after her like a lumbering monster from a cheezy horror movie.

It was mortifying.

But then came the open mic. And I stood up in front of the women who I'd come to love through their writing, and I read to them. And they applauded, and thanked me, and hugged me, and now we're best friends forever.

Me reading at the Listen To Your Mother BlogHer open mic
Yes- this is the other photo Balee Images didn't take

Something like that.

And I swore to myself that next time I would audition for Listen To Your Mother. Maybe because I'd humiliated myself in front of Ann. Maybe because standing on stage is cathartic and moving and beautiful. Maybe because just jumping into an open mic isn't the same as getting to know and love a cast.

Whatever the reason, I started trolling the Listen To Your Mother website. I trolled it. I stalked it, and the minute the call for auditions was out, I was on it.

I auditioned the hell out of my piece.

And I got into the show.

I thought, Next time I bump into Ann Imig, I won't humiliate myself!

I went through weekly panic attacks about what to wear, what to eat, whether or not to cut my hair (I didn't), my shoes, my undergarments, and a giant forehead stress pimple that appeared a month before the show and never went away.

Second rehearsal- yeah, that's a giant stress pimple on my forehead

Then our producers decided that I was going to go first, and everything got a little bit more frightening. Whatever I wore was the first thing the audience would see! Whatever I said would be the first thing the audience would hear!

If I screwed up, I told myself, I would ruin the show for the rest of the cast. And the last thing on earth I wanted was to do anything to hurt those women.

There is nothing like being part of a cast. You're a family, even if only temporarily. You care about each other, you care about each other's families, you care about each other's success and happiness. You want everyone to do their best, not just on stage, but everywhere. And you want to help. Sharing a stage in a cast is different from sharing the stage in an open mic. Open mics are every man for himself, self promotion and flights of fancy. A cast though- a cast is more. It's a commitment.

I love these ladies

It's a commitment to work your ass off on your piece, even if you're far away during rehearsals- like Kari.

It's showing up to rehearsal at 36 weeks pregnant, or with a two week old infant fresh out of the NICU, or performing on stage, alone, at a month postpartum... like Andrea.

It's sharing life news about the growth and maturity of your children with your cast mates before the show and knowing it will bring them to tears, like Meggan.

Meggan telling us her amazing news before the show

But Listen To Your Mother isn't just a single cast. Being part of the Listen To Your Mother family is being part of a much bigger whole. It's casts in 31 other cities who you share a bond with, it's learning that you are more connected to other people through this thing, this welcoming, warm, and enormous thing, than you ever knew. Many of our Chicago cast members went to other cities to see their shows, and many other cities' cast members came to our show.

One of those visitors was Rebekah from Milwaukee, who I worked with as a VISTA a decade ago on the south side of Chicago, hauling recycling through the worst parts of Chicago's housing projects just as the city began dismantling them. Back in 2003 she'd meet me beneath underpasses and ride the truck with me through Cabrini Green at six thirty in the morning. She's a mom now, too, and a Listen To Your Mother alumnus. And now those are more bonds that we share.

Getting ready for the show

So no, it wasn't just about getting on stage and speaking to more than five hundred people about what it means to lose yourself in motherhood. It wasn't just striding from the wings into a glaring spotlight in a bright red dress and zebra print shoes and commanding the attention of more than five hundred strangers (and some very good friends). It was about becoming a link in the chain of women and men who have joined together to give voice to the joys and struggles and absurdities and tragedies of motherhood.

Becoming friends at the first rehearsal

The moments that stand out to me aren't at all about standing on the stage. The memories I'll cherish are sitting backstage and singing "On My Own" with Andrea to quell our nerves.

Giving Crystal a gift card to a sex toy store after the first rehearsal, because yeah, I'm just that kind of socially inappropriate.

Watching Hyacinth start to break down during the second rehearsal, and knowing that I was going to cry before it happened because it happened every single time I even thought about her Snow Bear.

Our second rehearsal already felt like a reunion

Sharing Pittsburgh love with Kim as we drove a ridiculous three blocks to a restaurant where we didn't have a reservation for a party of sixteen.

Watching Keeley nurse her infant during the first rehearsal and, as she entirely understands, both being grateful it wasn't me and kind of wishing it was.

Driving to the show with Julie and sharing our anxiety, laughing and comforting each other.

Melissa's glowing pride for my inclusion in this year's BlogHer Voices of the Year.

But maybe, just maybe, the moment that will forever stick in my mind will be the few seconds after the show when all the alumnus of Listen To Your Mother in the audience came onto the stage and we all posed for a photo together.

It's an honor to share the stage with these people

One of those alumni was none other than Ann Imig. She came straight up to me, and she told me she loved my piece. And as I blathered and thanked her, she gave me an off kilter smile.

"I remember you! I met you at BlogHer last summer, didn't I? At the Listen To Your Mother open mic?"

My stomach fluttered and my cheeks burned as I remembered staring after her with my mouth agape.

And once again, I found myself totally at a loss for what to say.

So thanks, Ann, for giving me a voice and a stage.

Thank you all

Thank you, my cast and family, for the memories and the fun and the joy.

Thank you to my friends and family who supported me through the whole of this wild and crazy experience, who I know are waiting with bated breath for that youtube channel to light up with hundreds of stories from hundreds of women as 32 shows are made available for any and all to see.

Thank you to Aunt Genocide, and Nancy, for driving all the way to Chicago from Ann Arbor, just to sit in the audience and support me as I talk about the same things you hear me talk about constantly anyway.

I love you so much.

Thank you, everyone.

Thank you for everything.

Little Gifts

The givers of many little gifts

This last month has been a nonstop carousel of insanity.

Passover came and went, with a flurry of chaos and love and joy and family.

Great aunts and uncles, distant cousins... a ridiculously full house for the Passover seder

Easter came and went, with sunshine and chocolates and full houses and full tables.

My Jewish, atheistic, color blind father dyes his first Easter eggs with my children

My birthday came and went, and I left my twenties forever to join the ranks of "real" adults. Sort of.

Yeah, that's me rocking out with a live band at a seedy bar. I'm singing the Beatles, because I'm edgy.

I performed in "Listen To Your Mother," which was a remarkable and moving experience. (Yes, more on this later.)

Photo by Balee Images

And then Mother's Day, with my children's love and the blaring, oppressive heat and humidity of Chicago in May.

Kisses and hugs are always the best gifts

And through it all, I've been working as hard as I can on the book. The book. It's practically an obsession right now, because it's practically done. Really done. I've put it through the ringer with beta readers and professional editors. I'm incorporating the last dozen bits of feedback and building it into something bigger and stranger than I imagined it would be. This thing, this labor of love of mine.

It's so close to done, I'm almost afraid of finishing it.

And through all this, it's been the little things that have kept me happy beyond reason.

My children, singing the Four Questions in Hebrew for their enormous extended family

Beautiful sunny days after a bitter, seemingly eternal winter

Visits from old friends

The friendship of these remarkable and ridiculous women
(Again, Balee Images)

My daughter marching around the house in her Pirates cap, screaming "GO PIRATES!" at the top of her little lungs

And maybe my favorite little gift. Messages from you, my lovely readers, making sure that I'm okay, that I haven't left the blog or you. And I haven't. I'm here, and I love you all. And now that this month of insanity has passed, now that I'm almost really truly completely done with the book, now that I'm not having daily panic attacks over getting onto a stage alone, or trying to decide what turning thirty means, or setting ever more places at the table, I can come back to you.

I've missed you all.

It's going to be a glorious summer.

Don't Disconnect- Mental Health Awareness Month

A huge proportion of my friends and family are mentally ill.

I don't mean that in a joking, silly, "Oh, my friends are so crazy!" kind of way. Because "crazy" is a mean word for a real thing, and May is Mental Health Awareness month. I mean nearly everyone I spend time with, on a daily basis or on a long term basis, copes with mental illness.

The common statistic is that one in four people are living with mental illness, but I think it's probably higher. Because people don't want to come out and get help for something they see as a weakness, rather than a medical condition.

Most people don't talk about it. There's so much stigma, so much fear when it comes to being "outed" as... well... "crazy."

The fact is, "mental illness" and "crazy" aren't even close to the same thing.

If you think about the huge range of physical ailments humans suffer, we'd agree most of the people we know are, in some way, sick.

They have asthma, or gluten intolerance, or are recovering from cancer, or have allergies, or arthritis, or obesity, diabetes, migraines, or high blood pressure. And we consider this completely normal. This is the way people are. Are they dying? No, not generally. But they have some kind of ailment. And very often, they're medicated for them.

Mental health is pretty much the same thing.

I know people with sensory processing issues. With bipolar disorder, PPD, anxiety, neuroses, PMDD, situational depression, eating disorders, PTSD, chemical dependency issues, body dimorphic disorder, phobias, RTS... the list goes on.

And this? This is also "normal." This is what happens when a human being has a brain, and subjects it to the rigors of life. Just as high blood pressure, arthritis, knee injuries, and tooth decay are a symptom of having a body and using it for years without a break.

You never get a break from living, and living wears you down. In more ways than physically.

But we don't ask about people's emotional health. We don't ask about their mental health. Because we can't see it. Because we're afraid of it.

We're afraid of what's happening inside other people's heads.

But we shouldn't be. The human brain is an amazing thing, and we hardly understand it. We know we absolutely need it, but so much about our own minds is total mystery to us. And asking people if the mysterious grey matter inside their heads that allows all of human life to be possible is, you know, doing okay... it feels uncomfortable.

The same thing we don't want to ask about is what makes us not want to ask that. Brains are strange, indeed.

But we need to.

We need to ask about it, to care about it.

Your brain is an organ, just as surely as your kidneys and liver are. And like your lungs, kidneys, and hearts you NEED your brain. You function better when it's healthy.

We don't distinguish "heart health," and "liver health" when we ask somebody how they're doing. We ask about the body as a whole, and assume that whatever might be slightly off about it today is something below the neck. But "brain health" and mental health are the same thing.

To suggest otherwise is to claim that your mind and your body are only loosely connected at best. But let's face it- your brain is part of your body.

Mental health is just plain health. Because health is about quality of life, the ability to function. And if your brain isn't working properly, you're just as unhealthy as if it's your gall bladder acting up.

It's Mental Health Awareness month. So be aware, yes. But before that, be self aware. Take the time to ask yourself if you've neglected your brain, if you've stigmatized its problems before addressing them.

Take the time to ask if you've done that to somebody else.

And don't be afraid to see a doctor for your brain. There are doctors for your skin, for your reproductive organs, for your feet... you need your brain just as much.

Take care of yourselves.

For the Fairest Mother In the Land

*This is a sponsored post*

All my life, I wanted to go to Medieval Times. I remember seeing the commercials on Nickelodeon, and just wishing as hard as I could that I could come up with one single, solitary reason to get my parents to take me.

I knew it was hopeless. They were never cooperative about things like that.

I later learned that I would have had a bit of a miserable time, anyway. Back in the early nineties, there were no kinds of accommodations for people with dietary restrictions at places like that. I would have been a hungry kid, and I got severe hunger related anger when I was little. To be honest, I still do.

But these days, people are WAY more accommodating of things like being a vegetarian. So lucky me, I finally got to go to Medieval times for the first time a few years ago.

That's me, cozied up with the king.

It was AMAZING! Everything I'd ever hoped it would be, and more!

And you know what would be utterly fantastic? Going again.

And you know what? Mother's Day might just be the time.

This Mother's Day, Medieval Times is letting moms in for free, when you buy another full priced adult ticket. All you have to do is use the code MOMWeb when you buy tickets, through May 11.

How awesome is that? Super awesome, right?

Because moms deserve to be treated to falconry exhibitions and jousting competitions and a little dinner theater.

WE JUST DO.

And on top of that, I think my kids might pee their pants with delight at getting to meet a "real" princess.