Say what you will about Mister Rogers. His speech and mannerisms may stop being cool after you hit puberty, but the lessons he taught are timeless and ageless.
My friend Olivia Gatti shared this quote from Mr. Rogers on Facebook awhile back:
When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” To this day, especially in times of disaster, I remember my mother’s words, and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers–so many caring people in this world.
The man was so right.
I suspect Olivia had the earthquake and tsunamis in Japan on her mind when she decided to share, and it certainly fits. There’s been so much tragedy in the last decade, from 9-11 to the tsunamis of late 2004 to this latest event, and for many children — especially those with emotional disorders — it can be enough to terrorize to the core, no matter how far away they are from the given disaster.
The fear meant a lot of things. Working myself into a stupor over the safety of my wife and children. An obsession with cleanliness, which was interesting since depression always meant my personal hygiene took a dive. It also meant a fear of world events. When that Nostradamus movie “The Man Who Saw Tomorrow” came out on HBO in the early 1980s, I was terrified by the “future” scenes.
Later, when Iraq invaded Kuwait, I thought the scene from above was playing out and it left me in a huge depression, one where I stayed in my basement with the lights off.
Similar emotions took hold on Sept. 11, 2001. Of course, those emotions took hold on everyone that day.
It fed a lot of my addictive behavior in adulthood and blackened parts of my childhood that might have otherwise been happy — even with the bad things that happened. Bad things happen to everyone. That’s life. But some people can maintain a certain level of happiness despite it.
Mr. Rogers learned a powerful lesson from his mother. I wish I had it in my head to focus on the helpers growing up. In hindsight, they were always there:
–My friends, who have always helped me make sense of things, made me laugh and done all the other things a person needs to get through the day.
–Many of the people in my faith community, who showed me how to accept God’s Grace, even if I still suck at returning the favor.
With the bigger events like what happened in Japan, it’s so easy to see only the calamity, death and sadness. It’s easy to get fixated on whether such a thing could happen where we live.
But when you look at it the way Mr. Roger’s mother suggested, it becomes a different picture altogether. The bad stuff is still there, but you also see that no matter what happens, there will always be enough kind souls to help the rest of us through to the other side.
When you can see the good in people even during the darkest of hours, it restores your faith in humanity.
Four words repeatedly ring in my head: “You of all people.”
I of all people should be patient with Duncan. I was a problem child on a much deeper, darker magnitude than him. He’s a good boy. I should be a lot calmer when he has his meltdowns and gets uncooperative. Because I’ve been in his shoes. And yet I’m not patient with him at all.
Erin put up with a lot of grief when I was slowly melting down and needed to find treatment. She has stuck by me through the long, brutal years of therapy, religious conversion, addictive behavior and now she’s having to deal with me at the other extreme — throwing myself into insane levels of activity simply because I can now.
Yet I get impatient over her workload. Starting a freelance business from nothing is hard and sometimes crushing. I’m proud of what she’s accomplished. But the business is like a newborn child, in constant need of attention. Sometimes — more than sometimes, actually — I get jealous of the newborn.
I forget that at one point everything I did revolved around the needs of my job. She stuck it out through all the 12-hour night shifts that left me more than useless during the day. And that was with a toddler and newborn in the house.
She was patient as wave after wave of depression washed away my libido and made me a dark, brooding presence you had to walk past very carefully.
For the most part, I’ve since gotten my shit together, and now it’s time to be patient for them.
But I’m failing to do so. A lot.
You of all people.
I lost my temper with Duncan more than once this past week. We don’t hit our kids, but when we yell, we really yell. When I do, I feel terrible afterward, like the ultimate failure of a father.
When Erin has to focus in on her work or she’s too tired at the end of a long day for anything other than TV, I start to think like an ass (she doesn’t want to be with me. She no longer finds me attractive, etc.). I forget that she stuck with me for years as I failed to meet her needs. And when that point is driven home to me, I feel like the ultimate failure of a husband.
I know I’m not a failure on either of these counts, but when you let anger and uncertainty take over, you start thinking in absolutes. That’s always a bad idea.
So patience is clearly something I need to work on.
Yesterday I was asked about tips for dealing with children who have OCD. Neither of mine have it (not officially, anyway), but our experiences with Duncan are leading us to some pretty all-purpose action items.
As I’ve said before, my kids will be in a much better position to deal with mental ticks than I was, because I have coping skills to teach them that my parents didn’t have.
Sean has more than a few OCD characteristics. When the boy gets into something, be it a computer game or Legos — especially Legos — he goes in deep and lets the activity consume him. In other words, he approaches these things compulsively.
Duncan, like me, gets a bit crazy when the daylight recedes. His mood will swing all over the place and he has the most trouble in school during winter time. To help remedy this, Erin bought me and Duncan happy lamps— essentially sunshine in a box. Despite the skepticism Duncan and I shared over it, the things actually work — to a point.
Having Duncan evaluated has been a real eye opener, and that’s the first thing I’d suggest if you think your child might have OCD. Our pediatrician, who specializes in behavioral issues, had me, Erin and Duncan’s teacher fill out an extensive questionnaire, then had me and Erin come in to go over his conclusions.
We didn’t walk away with a diagnosis, because at 7 Duncan’s still a bit young for an accurate assessment. But the doctor did send us a detailed, 20-point action plan.
Yesterday, we met with Duncan’s teacher and the school principal to go over them. One thing we’ve set in motion is some occupational therapy to help Duncan with his fine motor skills, which are currently underdeveloped. This will be huge, because Duncan having a better grasp on the pencil will allow him to express himself a lot better, which will help him be sane.
We’ve decided against medication at this point, because while Duncan shows all the signs of ADHD, he could also have other things going on, like OCD or bipolar. The drugs for ADHD work well if that’s what you have. But if you have something else that simply looks like ADHD, medication can actually make things worse.
Meanwhile, the pediatrician suggested Duncan see a therapist, so we’ll be doing that.
So with all that said, here’s my advice for dealing with kids who might have OCD:
–Get ’em evaluated ASAP, and be prepared to fill out some extensive paperwork.
–Once the evaluation is complete, set up a meeting with the teacher and principal to carve out a game plan.
–Be patient, which is something I admittedly need to work on.
–Just keep loving your kid, and have faith.
Mental disorders are not a prison sentence. Help is always available, and your children can still grow up to do great things.
Here’s one reason February has been such a bitch: My routine has been so far off the rails that it has been hard to keep my perspective. It hurts the whole family-work dynamic. For a person in recovery, routines are beyond huge.
Being the restless, boredom-shunning soul that I am, I always look forward to the next trip. I always miss my wife and children during these outings, but it’s also good to get out of the normal environment from time to time. It tests you and can even rejuvenate. I’ve also learned that recovery is portable. You can take your program just about anywhere. I’ve also learned that God is with me wherever I go, and that makes it much easier to approach life in a fearless way.
Here’s the problem: Do too much of this sort of thing and you hurt yourself and those around you. That’s exactly what I did in late January and the first half of February. I went to Washington and San Francisco within a two week period and came home violently ill. Served me right, but my family didn’t deserve having to carry on while I was passed out on the couch.
I thought I had the groove of a traveling man down pat, but I was being stupid.
Last week was a lost week of sorts. I was home a lot with my family, but mentally I was pretty vacant.
But it’s a new week. I’m in the office doing routine things. This afternoon I’ll go home and do more routine things. And I’ll be happy doing it.
I started on the path back to sanity yesterday by going to Mass. Driving there in a snowstorm wasn’t sane, mind you. But by the time Mass was over I felt so happy to be back. When you travel and focus on work too much, God gets the shaft, too.
That point was driven home to me when I did another routine thing last night and went to a 12-Step study meeting.
The main topic was fear and the things addicts do because of it. People discussed how their fears — over being accepted, over an abusive, drunken spouse, over work — made them drink, drug and binge eat. I sat there silent because I’m still too early in the Big Book-study process to share at these meetings, but I had a different, stranger take on fear than the rest of the room. I’ve lived in their brand of fear, to be sure.
My problem of late has more to do with the collateral damage caused when you lose the fear that held you back. You get a big lust for life, which may sound all well and good until you realize it’s just another extreme way of living.
Extremes are like absolutes: Both have caution signs plastered all over them. You go too far in one direction and neglect other, important parts of your existence.
I’ve always been a man of extremes. I’m either badly depressed like I was last week, shut off from the rest of the world, seeing only the calamities, or I’m ON — working, playing and grabbing on to every activity I only think I can handle at the time.
The middle speed in my engine rarely works right. It’s either all or nothing, and that’s a problem that may well plague me for the rest of my life.
But I’m not giving up without a fight.
This much I know: I’m always closest to the middle gear when I follow a rigid routine. That includes three weighed-out meals sans flour and sugar, an early bedtime because I rise early, at least two 12-Step meetings a week, regular check-ins with my sponsor, regular visits to the therapist, and daily prayer. It should also include time set aside after work to catch up with my wife and kids.
This is the stuff I need to work on, and I don’t tell you all this in a search for sympathy. We all have issues to work on every day. We all have our good days and bad days. I’m nothing special. I just happen to have a blog where I can process this stuff aloud.
The blog has become another important part of my routine.
But my use of it can become unbalanced, too.
This is just one of the crosses I carry.
But 10 of my crosses are absolutely nothing compared the Cross Jesus carried. I just forget from time to time.
The meeting was fascinating, frustrating, confusing and illuminating all at once.
The doctor asked Erin about her family history, then turned his glare to me. Apparently the paperwork I filled out set off most of the alarm bells in this process. I knew it was coming. I expected it.
After that line of questioning, the doctor calmly told us Duncan fit all the textbook criteria of someone with ADHD. He also has some serious trouble with fine motor skills, which helps explain his penmanship.
We’ve long had our suspicions on both counts. But to hear it from a doctor’s mouth was something else.
We talked a lot about how family dynamics could really shape a kid’s struggles and how various mental disorders end up manifesting themselves. My family dynamic growing up took the mental ticks in my head and molded them into something very dark.
The doctor talked about medication. The good news: The stuff they prescribe for ADHD is extremely effective in correcting the brain’s wiring. For a few minutes, I thought that would be the road we were taking.
I wasn’t afraid.
I’ve been on Prozac for four years and know better than most that it works without wiping away my feelings and personality the way I once feared it would. One of our relatives recently worried aloud that medication would kill Duncan’s personality and turn him into something of a robot.
It’s a fair concern, but I know better. I’ve done my homework and used myself as a test case.
But what the doctor said next shattered any idea of medication — for now, at least.
He said that Duncan’s ADHD-like symptoms could also be the very beginnings of something much different — bipolar disorder, depression, maybe even OCD.
ADHD medicines can make those other things much, much worse further down the line.
The suggestion that he could have some of those other things milling about inside him really shocked me for a second. The feeling passed quickly, though.
Duncan may have his struggles. EVERYBODY HAS THEIR STRUGGLES. Tell me you’ve never had a wave of depression or been addicted to something and I’ll tell you you’re full of shit.
But Duncan is not me.
He’s his own person. And so far, his childhood has been much different than mine was.
He also has a phenomenal mother. God, I love that woman. I wish I did a better job of expressing that feeling to her more often. Between her strength and goodness and the skills I’ve picked up on the road to recovery, this kid is going to do just fine.
It won’t be easy. It never is.
Our next step is to take Duncan to a specialist. We’re also going to get him help for the motor skills problem. That may seem like a separate issue, but it’s not. He needs those motor skills to express what he’s feeling. If he can’t do it with writing or art, he’ll be tempted down the road to use his fists.
Monday night, Erin and I talked about the appointment. Was I troubled about how my family history plays into all this?
Not really.
I never like to hear it from a medical professional, but I’ve known for a long time that this is how it’s going to be.
It’s not just Duncan, either.
Sean has more than a few OCD characteristics. When the boy gets into something, be it a computer game or Legos — especially Legos — he goes in deep and lets the activity consume him. In other words, he approaches these things compulsively.
There are no certainties in life except that we all die eventually. I can’t say Sean and Duncan will never know depression or addiction. A parent can put everything they have into raising their children right.
But sometimes, despite that, fate can get in the way of all your hard work.
It’s not worth worrying about those unknowns, though, because you can’t do anything about it.
All I can do is my best to give them the tools I didn’t have at their age and pray for the best.
I’ll end by telling you all something you already know:
Duncan is a great kid and I love him more now than I ever have before.
A lot of people read this blog because I always try to put a silver lining on tough stuff. But some days I fail to live up to the image. Yesterday was one of those days, when I let a 7-year-old get the better of me.
You see, Duncan is like me in that too much winter messes with his mental balance. He’ll get goofy, sad and every emotion in between at the drop of a hat. And he has a terrible time focusing.
We’re not sure what it’s about, but since it happens every year between December and March, it’s not a stretch to conclude there’s a winter-related cause.
Yesterday he was unfocused when he needed to be getting his homework done. He had a Cub Scouts meeting early and that put some added pressure on us. When he does his homework, you really need to stand over him. But I always struggle with this, because the OCD pushes me to do seven things at once, especially on a tight schedule.
So Duncan kept fooling around and doing his homework in an excruciatingly slow manner.
So my voice started to get a little louder every few minutes. And Duncan still stayed all over the place.
So then I really snapped at him.
I didn’t hit him. We don’t believe in hitting our kids. But I yelled. A lot.
I nixed his going to the Scouts meeting. That was appropriate, since he still had too much homework left and that comes before the fun stuff.
To some or most of you all this may read like a typical afternoon with children. Kids get a little out of control and the parent in the room has to open the can of whoop-ass.
But to me, it was a loss of control. Worse, I feel like I should be A LOT more patient with the boy, since he’s under the same spell I’m under.
Whatever it was, I didn’t feel good about it.
I am thankful for a few things, though:
–We’re getting Duncan evaluated by a medical professional to see if he has any disorders. Whatever the verdict, we’ll get some direction on how to help him along.
–Duncan is a sweet boy, and it’s impossible to stay mad at him for long. Especially when he gives you a big hug and apologizes for being difficult.
–Erin was a calming presence, reminding me that this is a particularly bad winter and everyone is on a short fuse because of it.
–At the end of the day, I kissed my wife as she was leaving for a school board meeting, I tucked Duncan into bed and got some one-on-one time with Sean.
–There isn’t the thick, stinking cloud of rage hanging in the air. Love wins out over anger.
Because of all these things, this family is going to be just fine, thanks.
I’m constantly worried about the kids inheriting my genetic disposition toward mental disorder. But Duncan helps me out, as does Sean, and, increasingly, their cousin Madison. In between the various meltdowns, the three children let loose with a lot of witty words that lifts my spirits.
I think you’ll walk away feeling that life isn’t so tough when you’ve seen it from a child’s perspective.
And now for Part 4…
“The sequel to “Throw Mama From The Train” is being made at Brenner Manor. It’s called “Throw Daddy Under the Bus.” Me, after the kids gleefully told their mom that I showed them the South Park J-Lo Taco songs.
“Tormenting your kids, pt. 54: Release a loud cackle as your children get out of your car and into the school they hoped would close today.” Me, an hour before finding out that the kids were being sent home after only 90 minutes of school.
“You are the picture of evil.” Sean, after I made them do homework on their snow day.
Duncan: “Daaaaad… Sean kicked me.” Sean: “What? We’re playing ninja. Ninjas kick a lot.”
Duncan: “Daaaad, Sean spat on me.” Sean: “I was doing sound effects. They produce spit. You should have had the sense to get out of the way.”
Duncan took a swing at Sean after Sean told him: “You’d be the perfect child if God gave you everything but a mouth.”
Duncan just told me that I’m a “pain in his bum-bum.” He’s not amused that I’m amused by that statement.
“Hanging out with you is challenging.” Duncan, after I wrestled him to the floor in a good-natured game of rough housing.
Early one Saturday morning: Is it bad that I’m letting Sean use scissors in the dark? He says he “can see perfectly fine.” In fact, he says, “I cut better in the dark.”
Sean, pretending to be a clone trooper from Star Wars: “I hate this job. I don’t get MLK Day off. Crap, I didn’t even get Christmas off!”
Duncan, twirling his toy lightsaber: “You can call me Jedi Bob.” Sean: “I’d rather call you an idiot.”
Me: “Come on, kids, come help me fold laundry.” Sean: “Dad, can’t you see I’m in the middle of a thought outburst?”
Erin: I’m always surprised at my children’s ability to read a long-winded, gross joke once and repeat it verbatim.” Me: “I’m less surprised. They’re wearing my genes.”
My 2 yr old niece eats her “cakies” when Duncan walks in, says they’re “pancakes” and walks away. The niece asks: “What’s wrong with him?”
The niece: “I ate all my blueberries. I ate all my blueberries. I ate all my blueberries. I ate all my blueberries. I ate all my…”
“Wow, the pilots really eat their words in this movie.” Sean, after the x-wing pilot gets blown up after bragging about locking on target.
Me to Sean: “I have a thought.” Sean: “There’s a 50-50 chance I’m gonna protest it.”
Sean: “Duncan, how many kids do you plan to have?” Duncan: “20: 10 girls, 10 boys.” Sean: “I can’t watch all those kids. Scale it back.”
Duncan, regarding his brother: “Sean is a moron, loved by all for his moron-ness.”
Me: “Stop throwing snowballs at the neighbor’s dog, Sean.” Sean: “What the heck for?”
The mournful groan that just came from Sean almost makes the niece’s request for “Calliou” worth it. Almost.
Sean regarding my last comment: “Caillou must die-you.”
Duncan on Santa: “If you don’t believe you don’t receive.”
Sean’s 9-year-old reaction to news that Uncle Brian is getting married: “Oh yeah? Whatever.”
Duncanism of the day: If the inside of my head was empty, I’d be light-headed.
Sean’s reaction to the Duncanism of the day: “Duncan, you infuriate me.”
Two old friends have a son who’s been through the meat grinder too many times in his 12 short years. Some think he should settle in for a lesser life than he’s capable of. I say bullshit.
My young friend’s name is Mark. He lives in a city on the North Shore of Massachusetts. That’s all I’ll reveal about his identity. But his parents will know this is for him and will hopefully share this with him:
Dear Mark,
Because of the mental and physical challenges you face, some grownups think you should set your sites low. They think you’re not cut out for college or a career as, say, a scientist.
They mean well. They know what you’ve been through and they don’t want you to get hurt. But if I’ve learned anything in my own journey through hell, it’s that you can’t always hide from hurt and disappointment. Life is hard. But it’s supposed to be.
It’s how we find out what we’re truly made of.
Item:Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a pampered child whose world view changed when he was crippled by polio in 1921. A lot of people would have given up right there, but he rebuilt his life, became a mentor to other polio victims and was the longest-serving president in history, dealing with war and economic calamity that could have broken the spirit of healthier leaders. Through it all, he carried on an outward cheeriness that put people at ease.
When I was a kid there were plenty of roadblocks. I missed a lot of school because of Crohn’s Disease and lost a brother when I was only a year older than you are now. My studies suffered, and I was put in a lot of the classes where they put the problem children.
Things worked out, though. I got married and had two kids that are much smarter than I was at that age. I have a job that’s allowed me to do a lot of excellent things (excellent to me, anyway).
You shouldn’t settle for anything less than the life you want.
Item:Abraham Lincoln suffered crippling depression his whole life and lost two of his four children, all in a time before anti-depressants were around. He led the Union through the Civil War and ended slavery.
There will be setbacks and those can be discouraging, but you CAN survive them with the right perspective.
Item: The drummer from Def Leppard had an arm ripped off in a car wreck. A lot of people thought his career was over. Twenty-six years later, he’s still drumming.
So just keep trying, and never give up on yourself. Nobody can hold you back. Only YOU can hold yourself back.
One more thing: Having a good life doesn’t mean you get to live without the bad stuff from time to time.
It’s easy for people who fight mental illness and addictive behavior to go on an endless, futile search for the happily ever after, where you somehow find the magic bullet to murder your demons, thus beginning years of bliss and carefree existence.
Twenty-seven years ago today, my brother, Michael S. Brenner, died of an asthma attack at age 17. I can’t blame his death on the demons I’d battle in the years that followed. But it left deep scars all the same.
Mood music:
I think the end came for him at 8:20 p.m., though I could be mistaken.
That day a trend began where I would befriend people a few years older than me. A couple of them would become best friends and die prematurely themselves. It was also the day that sparked a lifelong fear of loss.
It’s been so long since Michael was with us that it’s sometimes hard to remember the exact features of his face. But here’s what I do remember:
We fought a lot. One New Year’s Eve about 31 years ago, when the family was out at a restaurant, he said something to piss me off and I picked up the fork beside me and chucked it at him. Various family members have insisted over the years that it was a steak knife, but I’m pretty sure it was a fork. Another time we were in the back of my father’s van and he said something to raise my hackles. I flipped him the middle finger. He grabbed the finger and snapped the bone.
We were also both sick much of the time. He had his asthma attacks, which frequently got so bad he would be hospitalized. I had my Chron’s Disease and was often hospitalized myself. It must have been terrible for our parents. I know it was, but had to become a parent myself before I could truly appreciate what they went through.
He lifted weights at a gym down the street from our house that was torn down years ago to make way for new developments. If not for the asthma, he would have been in perfect shape. He certainly had the muscles.
He was going to be a plumber. That’s what he went to school for, anyway. During one of his hospital stays, he got pissed at one of the nurses. He somehow got a hold of some of his plumbing tools and switched the pipes in the bathroom sink so hot water would come out when you selected cold.
He was always there for a family member in trouble. If I was being bullied, he often came to the rescue. And when he did, he was fierce.
That last day was perfect for the most part. I remember a sun-kissed winter day. I was immature for a 13-year-old and remember reveling in the toys I got on Christmas two weeks before. The tree in my mother’s house was still up, though the decorations had been removed.
My mother and I think my sister took off to run an errand. My father’s house was only a five-minute walk from my mother’s, and when they drove by, an ambulance was outside the house. I’m told Michael walked to the ambulance himself, and he was rushed to Lynn Hospital, which was torn down long ago to make way for a Super Stop & Shop. I sometimes wonder if he died where the deli counter now stands or if it was where the cereal is now kept.
While I was at my mother’s waiting to hear from someone, a movie was on in which a congressional candidate played by Dudley Moore befriended a woman played by Mary Tyler Moore and her terminally ill daughter, who was about 13. At the end of the movie, the young girl succumbs to her cancer on a train.
That freaked me out, and I went to my mother’s room to bury my head in a pillow. To this day, I refuse to watch that movie.
It was in that room that my mother, father and sister informed me my brother was dead.
I spent the remainder of my teenage years trying to be him. I befriended his friends. I enrolled at his gym, Fitness World. That lasted about a week.
I started listening to his records. Def Leppard was a favorite of his, hence the mood music above.
I even wore his leather jacket for a time, even though it was about three sizes too tight. I couldn’t zip the thing. I looked like an idiot wearing it, but I didn’t care. It was part of him, and I was hell-bent on taking over his persona.
But then there could only be one Michael Brenner. I eventually grew up and realized that. Then I spent a bunch of years trying to be just like Michael’s friend and our neighbor, Sean Marley. But there was only one Sean Marley. Unfortunately, people tend to remember him for how he died rather than how he lived.
I eventually had to learn how to become my own person. I did it, but it was pretty fucking messy. There’s only one Bill Brenner, and he can be a scary sight to behold.
The years have softened the pain, though I still have some regrets.
I regret that I often have trouble remembering what his face looked like. Fortunately, I found this photo while rummaging through my father’s warehouse last summer:
It’s a good image, but it’s in black and white. I still have trouble picturing him in color.
I miss him, and find it strange that he was just a kid himself when he died. He seemed so much older to me at the time. To a 13-year-old, he was older and wiser.
At the wake of a friend’s mom right after Thanksgiving, I found myself thinking of Michael and others who died too soon.
In a bizarre game of mental math, I started thinking about how long it took me to bounce back from each death. It’s a stupid game to play, because there’s no science or arithmetic that applies. The death of a grandparent is part of the natural order of things. The death of a sibling or close friend, not so much. Unless, perhaps, everyone is well into their senior years. Even then, you can’t put a measuring stick on grief.
But I tried doing it anyway.
With Michael and Sean, I’m not sure I ever really recovered. To this day, I’m cleaning up from the long cycles of depression and addiction that followed me through the years.
Along the way, good things happened to fill in the black holes. I married the love of my life. We had two beautiful children. My career hummed along nicely for the most part.
As you might expect, I failed to emerge with a general timeline of the grieving process. It turns out we’re not supposed to know about such things. That would be cheating.
I do know that it gets better.
Understanding that as I do, I have the following advice for those trying to get through the grieving process:
–Take a moment to appreciate what’s STILL around you. Your spouse. Your kids. Your friends. If the death you just suffered should teach you anything, it’s that you never know how long the other loves of your life will be around. Don’t waste the time you have with them, and, for goodness sake:
–Don’t sit around looking at people you love and worrying yourself into an anxiety attack over the fact that God could take them from you at any moment. God holds all the cards, so it’s pointless to even think about it. Just be there for people, and let them be there for you.
–Take care of yourself. You can comfort yourself with all the drugs, alcohol, sex and food there is to have. But take it from me, giving in to addictions is nothing but slow suicide. You can’t move past grief and see the beauty of what’s left if you’re too busy trying to kill yourself. True, I learned a ton about the beauty of life from having been an addict, but that doesn’t mean I’d ever wish that experience on others. If there’s a better way to cope, do that instead.
–Embrace things that are bigger than you. Nothing has helped me get past grief more than doing service to others. It sounds like so much bullshit, but it’s not. When I’m helping out in the church food pantry or going to Overeater’s Anonymous meetings and guiding addicts who ask for my help, I’m always reminded that my own life could be much worse. Or, to put it another way, I’m reminded how my own life is so much better than I realize or deserve.
Like I said: This isn’t a science.
It’s just what I’ve learned from my own walk through the valley of darkness.
I’ve learned that life is a gift to be cherished and used wisely.
Yesterday’s post on children and divorce hit a tender nerve for a lot of you, so I feel a few clarifications are in order.
Mood music:
http://youtu.be/kJHFaU0lpZ8
Here’s what yesterday’s post WAS NOT:
–A rebuke of single parents. I know a lot of single parents who bust their ass and give their children a lot more love than some of the married couples I’ve met in my day.
–A plea for people in troubled marriages to stay together for the sake of the kids. Actually, as one reader correctly pointed out, it can be more damaging to a child if his/her parents hate each other but stay together anyway. If that’s not a recipe for addiction, abuse and a passing of demons to the next generation, I don’t know what is.
–A suggestion that you’re a lousy parent if you can’t keep your marriage together. It takes two people to make a marriage succeed or fail. And sometimes things beyond your control can damage a marriage. That doesn’t make you a less loving parent. And sometimes, you find someone else to marry who turns out to be the best thing that ever happened to the family. Bottom line: A bad marriage can’t go on. My parents were smart to divorce in 1980. A lot of bad things followed, but things surely would have been worse had they stayed together.
It WAS:
–A reminder that kids pick up on a troubled house immediately and they need constant love and reassurance.
–A big “fuck you” to parents who use their kids as pawns to hurt each other. Doing so just makes you mean, and your child is probably better off without you around.
I mentioned two troubled marriages yesterday, but I have to be honest and tell you that I was particularly fixated on the second case I mentioned.
I also need to admit — again — that I’m only seeing one side of the drama.
But since I’m keeping the names of the players anonymous, I’m just going to roll with the one-sided version of events and say a few things:
1.) It is NEVER, ever OK to tell the other parent you took the child one place for the weekend when you were actually someplace else. It’s one thing if you’re shielding the kid from someone abusive. It’s quite another thing if that parent is not abusive and you’re just doing it to be spiteful. Parents need to know where their kids are at all times because we live in a dangerous world. You lied about a child’s whereabouts, and that makes you a punk. And, contrary to what you may think, it does matter.
2.) When it comes to deciding who gets the child and when, it’s about what’s best for the kid, not you.
3.) Not living at home doesn’t free you of certain responsibilities, like helping to pay the bills. You may not live there anymore, but the kid still does. And like I said, it’s about the child, not you.
If this sounds like a rant that veers too close to a temper tantrum, I make no apologies. The scars from my childhood fueled an adulthood ripped apart by mental illness and addiction.
In the final analysis I made a lot of bad decisions and most of what I’ve been through can’t be blamed on everyone else.
And the difference is that in my case, everyone else did their best, even if some things took a sour turn.
When I see a parent who isn’t trying, I get angry. If a child is dragged through the mud when the parents are trying to do it right, just think of the damage done when the parents aren’t trying.
You’re not trying, my friend. And for now, I wish I had more middle fingers for you than the two God gave me.
