Psychosomatic or just plain psycho

Water Fire events are held
in summer on the canals in
Providence, Rhode Island.
I've only seen it in pictures and TV.

"Where you came from is gone. Where you thought you were going to never was there. And where you are is no good unless you can get away from it." Flannery O'Connor

For almost all of our 15 years together, my daughter and I have shared a love for the word Providence.

We love the place. A city in Rhode Island that we've only driven through twice, when she was one year old, to and from a Cape Cod vacation she hated. She cried sleepless in our beach side rental nearly the whole week, driving me and Bob insane for the constant screeching and the frittered thousand dollar investment.

We love the old television series, set in the city of Providence. About a beautiful yet big-hearted family physician, her quirky sister, and their many collective boyfriends. (Our favorite boyfriend was good guy firefighter, Burt, played by the actor would go on to play the role of Mad Men's Don Draper.)

And we love the theme song of the television show, the sweet but haunting tune, In My Life, by John Lennon and Paul McCartney. The lyrics start, "There are places I remember, all my life though some have changed. Some forever not for better. Some have gone and some remain."

While we love the Beatles rendition the best, the song has been covered many times. I like Bette Midler's version in the movie For the Boys. We adore the Providence show's version as recorded by Chantal Kreviazuk. When we watch the DVD's of Providence (sadly, which don't include all the episodes) my daughter will queue Kreviazuk's version on her iPod and we listen through shared ear buds through the opening credits because for some reason the DVD version doesn't include the original theme song and we can't stand the song they inserted as a replacement.

Apparently Ozzy Osborne, Johnny Cash, and the cast of Glee have also covered the song, but I haven't heard them yet.

Providence is defined by the Merriam - Webster dictionary as "divine guidance or care." According to this source the word is often capitalized, as if it's a proper noun. Providence. I often wonder if that's the reason we like the show and the song, because we like the word and what it could mean. Although I honestly don't know how a three year old could possibly consider "divine guidance or care." That was the age of my daughter when we started to love the word, Providence.

But what do I know about little children and what do I know about divine guidance?

When I think about all the tender times of intimacy with my daughter, I also think about the postpartum depression that came after she was born. Now, well over 15 years later, I think about it more than ever. Postpartum depression is defined by the Mayo Clinic as this: "Many new moms experience the baby blues after childbirth, which commonly include mood swings and crying spells and fade quickly. But some new moms experience a more sever, long-lasting form of depression known as postpartum depression. Rarely, an extreme form of postpartum depression known as postpartum psychosis develops after childbirth."

I wanted a child yet I remember bursting into sobs in the shower just after we got home from the hospital. Baby sleeping in next room, I stepped into the bathtub and a rush of reality crashed into me. How drastically my body had changed. How dramatically my daily routine had changed. How little control I had over my own destiny.

In those same early days I would look down into the bassinet and see my baby as an object, not as a human, but as a strange appendage of myself that I felt needed to be removed, like a cyst or a tumor. "But it can't be removed," I remember telling myself in a most methodical thought pattern, "because it's illegal to remove it." It was incredible to me that something that I had created, that I had spawned, was also a resident of the state. That the an outside rule of law had any kind of say over this thing that I myself had created. And that I, indeed, did not have the right to do whatever I felt was best, even if it was to get rid of it. It was like saying my little finger had a bill of rights, when I should be able to treat my little finger in a way that was best for it and me. I think for a short time, my postpartum depression was probably bordering on psychopathic thinking. When you're all out of whack it's hard to control your mind.


Whenever I hear those stories of babies abandoned in garbage dumpsters or killed in public bathrooms, my heart aches and I wish there was some way I could reach out to the mothers. And I can't believe a first stop for these traumatized young girls is often jail. They need to be wrapped up in love and care and treatment. 

So here I am 15 years later, postpartum depression gone, Providence prevailing, and my body is all full of hives. I think. There are itchy red bumps on my legs and arms and I can't figure out what's going on. It comes and goes so I can still go to work and function through the day. But my skin looks like a newly plucked chicken, red dots on pink. Did I eat something bad? Is it an allergic reaction? Is my liver quitting? What?

Benadryl didn't even make a dent in the rash so I'm steering towards natural solutions. I'm applying and  ingesting vitamin E and it's helping. But I don't have any solid reasons why this rash except for one possible theory: about ten days ago my daughter got on an airplane and flew to New York City to be with my in laws for three weeks. It's not that big of a deal, good grief she flew alone when she was ten years old. She's in good hands. She's getting treated like a queen. It's her summer vacation. She's almost 16 years old. I'm working and I'm tired and I need a break from driving her to and fro. This circumstance doesn't seem hard to understand.

Yet these red bumps appeared about the same time she left. Psychosomatic rash? Super late recurrance of postpartum depression? Repressed anxiety? Stupidity?

I've had this saying for a long time that when I'm home, I want to leave. And when I leave, I want to return home. In other words, when I'm with my kids, I want order. And when I have order, I miss my kids. Why is it that I must choose? Why can't I have both?

As usual, I don't have a good way to end this post so I'll lean on John Lennon and Paul McCartney:

Though I know I'll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I'll often stop and think about them
In my life I love you more.

I'm praying for deepest, richest, widest, and biggest dose of "divine guidance or care" for you all, for all you love, and for all you can't understand. And hoping these psycho red dots go away. Wishing I could be present, here and now.

Peace and joy, T

The Supersonic Spa is Open

The Supersonic Spa is open day and night. Around the clock dressings for burning skin available here. We specialize in nursing wild bile that itches from the inside. No need for suicide. Treat from the outside. An oatmeal scrub. An oatmeal based lotion. An ice pack. Cover up and lie very, very still. Shhhh, no talking.

The Supersonic Spa treatment works for any part of the body that might be on fire at any given time. If by chance the whole body is ablaze, the Supersonic Spa operator will randomly choose a body part, say, an arm or leg, and apply the treatment with instructions to focus. It’s proven to work for at least an hour.

The Supersonic Spa operator can hear things like never before. Whispers, rhythms, and breathing from another room, out in the hall, inside a burning body. Like a sixth sense that came when the force of the poison was revealed.

‘Are you OK?’ All night long. She's talking to a vital organ. She can hear it.

The infinitesimal bile ducts in the liver are starting to disentangle themselves. They’re starting to arrange themselves in a way that will let the bile process properly. The injury is in process of repair, yet the body has a long way to go. It’s shedding its entire old skin and completely new skin cells are producing rapidly. So rapidly that the burning remains. Like growing pains or birthing pains. Or a Phoenix rising. And so that is why the Supersonic Spa is open day and night. To comfort the afflicted.

The Supersonic Spa operator wears pajamas a lot and tries to take afternoon naps. The Supersonic Spa operator is afraid of the blood labs due tomorrow. The Supersonic Spa operator wants to take NyQuil and not hear everything anymore.

[January 3, 2007, Bob's Care Page]

*

In reading the book, Hunger: An Unnatural History, by Sharman Apt Russell who may be my MFA mentor, I was reminded of our own deterioration when Bob was diagnosed as severely anorexic courtesy of liver failure, in 2007. The book describes several hunger experiments and one finding--besides physical and mental breakdown--is enhanced hearing. Which is what happened to me to the point where I was convinced I could hear Bob's liver.

It's amazing how things pull together even after years. I am in the midst of glorious reading of books articles, poems, essays, and websites in preparation for my first day of school in December. Thanks for coming over to the Charmer Blog. xoxoxo

With love, T