Telling Family Secrets

I like to brag that I’m the only one of Mom’s five children who was born after she received electroshock therapy. I don’t know if it had any effect on me, but it’s something unique I like to cling to in a family of unusually smart, funny, creative, and compassionate people who have done all the interesting things long before my turn comes around. It’s the curse of the youngest child in a large family of good people. We want to do something that sets us apart while simultaneously we feel left out of so many old family stories. Being a participant, let alone the protagonist, of current family stories is where we long to be.

It’s only through my own journey back into cognitive behavior therapy that I realized something at the center of my own story has been aching to be told. Fear kept it untold at first. Then shame. Then denial. Then respect or pity or maybe all of it wrapped up together kept it untold. But I feel like if I don’t let it out now, if I continue this cowardly vow of secrecy, it will continue to weigh me down and hold me back and prevent me from accepting and sharing my entire story.

I once got the chance to talk to memoirist Frank McCourt on KCUR’s “The Walt Bodine Show.” I asked the Pulitzer prize-winning author how he found the courage to write about family issues without hurting his family’s feelings. His answer: most of the family members who would have hurt feelings were dead when he published it.

Critical Me

Am I the only person who has an anxiety attack when she gets what she wants?

Nine years ago I figured out Hank loves me after he bought me a car stereo while we were newly dating. I immediately went into his parent's bathroom and threw up, as if my subconscious was thinking, "You're going to be a horrible girlfriend."

Nearly five years ago, when I gave birth to my precious Stella, I freaked out in the operating room during my C-section, gasping for breath, moaning, sobbing. I couldn't even look at her through my sob-sore eyes when Hank brought her over to me for the first time. I was consciously thinking, "You're going to be a horrible mother you can’t even deliver vaginally!"

And now I sit here freaking out because my two dearest ones, Hank and Stella, are not home with me. But it’s not abandonment I fear. Once again I fear getting what I want. This time it’s not closeness but solitude I want. Just a little. Just a couple distractions-less hours for me to create this mental wellness blog.

Crap!

Since I got the idea for this blog a couple weeks ago, my excuse for not having written anything was that I didn't have enough alone-time. I rationalized that spending time with my two dearest ones was more important than writing.

The ice storm outside is keeping them from me now. Stella is spending the night with Grandma and Grandpa Logan so I can avoid wrecking on the way to pick her up tonight, and so Hank doesn't have to take her back there tomorrow morning when the freezy crap could be even worse. She's comfy. She's got nickjr.com. She adores her grandparents. It's just safer to let her stay the night. Hank won't get home from work until late. I might as well not start worrying about his drive home until he gets off work. Four hours to kill? I have time to write? Panic!

I've finally gotten what I've been saying I want: time to write. Write through the panic, Syd. Anxiety is just your body’s way of alerting you it’s time to take action.

I need to quit listening to the side of myself that criticizes, "You're going to be a horrible writer and mental health advocate." Fuck you, Critical Me! Oh wait, that's being critical of the side of myself that's critical of myself. Huh. That's a new one.

But look, that does feel better, just sharing.