My Mom's a Witch!

There's a story I love to tell people about when my kid was really little. There was a social worker involved in our lives at that time (because of me, separate blog post ENTIRELY but you know I'll write it eventually), and my kids were living with my sister. The social worker, a very unfunny woman with NO sense of humor, asked Spawn I about me.

"Mom's a witch," Spawn I said, totally deadpan.

"What do you mean, she's a witch?" asked Sorry Sally the Social Worker.

"She can make people disappear," said Spawn I.

"Who did she make disappear?" This from Sorry Sally.

Pause. Deadpan still.

"Daddy."

My daughter claims not to remember this exchange, but I sure as hell do. I was in the next room, and I nearly dropped my coffee cup all over the kitchen floor, and I damn near choked on the coffee that was pouring forth from my nose and sticking in my throat. I had to step out the sliding doors into the freezing cold backyard to keep Sorry Sally from hearing the gales of laughter that were issuing forth in a gurgly fashion, combined as they were with the regurgitating coffee. It was the way she said, "Daddy," in that matter-of-fact five-year-old's voice. 

Despite my shitty parenting, my kids have grown up to be wonderful young women.But the fact of their success as young adults has little or nothing to do with my parenting, because, due to my addiction and mental health issues, my sister had to step in and raise them for me. I won't go into personal details about the hows and whys, because I don't want to embarrass anyone, but I didn't see them again for 10 years. And a lot happens in 10 years. But they were never once, not for 10 seconds, off my mind or out of my heart. And they were never very far away, no matter where they were, and that was because of my faith.

My elder daughter was under my roof until she was five; and it was a Pagan roof. The little one was only with me for a year. I'm quite sure that neither of them remember living in a Pagan household, and my sister converted to Lutheranism from Catholicism when she married her second ex-husband, so the girls were raised in what passed for a "Christian" household. I won't chime in here with my opinion of people who rally Christ to their sides while doing all manner of clearly un-Christlike things. That's also for another post. But Spawn I seems to now be leaning toward a more naturalistic approach to spirituality. I don't abide with telling kids what they should or should not believe; I think the best thing is to let them sort through it all (and there's a lot), answer their questions as they come up, and hope that they make the best choice FOR THEM.

Spawn I believes in God, that much I know, but so do I, just not the Judeo-Christian God that looks like an aging wrestler with a gigantic beard. She moves through this world coming from a place of pure love for all living things. She respects other people, nature, and all those who come across her path, whether she actually likes them or not. And that's really all I could hope for as a parent. She and her sister make me proud, even though I have no right to claim pride in how they've turned out.

Pagans are different from other religious types because we don't proselytize. I can guarantee that no witch has ever knocked on your door trying to sell you on "signing up." We don't have buildings with stained glass to advertise our place in the community, and we don't have parochial schools (although I know of a few who insisted on home-schooling their children because they lived in the Bible-Belt, south of the Manson-Nixon line, and they didn't want their kids around that - and I can't say I blame them, but we live in NY). We also believe that everyone is on the path that they should be on at that particular moment. So while I would love for both my girls to eventually embrace their birthright (which is what the Craft really is), it is by no means my top priority. The only things that matter to me are that they love and are loved in return, that they get hurt as little as possible (I'd like them to never get hurt, but life being what it is, that's never going to be possible), to learn from it when they do get hurt, and to find and keep happiness. That's it. No riches, no fame, no glory. Just that they be happy and at peace.

When and if they approach me wanting to know more about the Craft, I will be more than happy to answer their questions and, perhaps, down the road, welcome them into the fold. In the meantime, I told you at the beginning that they were never far away, no matter where they were. That's because, on my altar at home, the contents of which come with me wherever I call "home", are two shells. I picked each one of them up during my pregnancies, and I anointed them and set them on the altar. During the day, they are enclosed in a little red cloth bag that hangs nestled in my cleavage, over my heart. At night, they are on the altar, and when the moon is full it shines in on them through the windows, recharging them. Those shells are my girls, and they will always be with me, no matter where the tide blows any of us.

This is Spawn I in a recent photo. It's shocking that she looks so grown up, since I'm only 30.

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To find out how you can help people suffering from mental illness, and to help get rid of the stigma, please visit The National Alliance on Mental Illness to take the pledge, get involved, and make a donation.

For more information on mental health, please visit The National Institute of Mental Health.

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Bye, Felicia

Or, as I should say, "Bye, Suboxone." 

I've been down to 1/2 mg of that nasty shit for a week now. I still have a few weeks' supply left, but I've decided that this morning's dose will be my last.

I've made some drastic changes in my life and my health since June 1. I started eating healthy foods, low in fat and added sugars, and I've been going to the gym every day. I do yoga daily. And I drink water like it's going out of style. I've been meditating and praying to my Higher Powers every day as well. And I feel wonderful.

Except for this lousy buprenorphine flowing through my system. It's done its job. I'm off opiates, and my plan is to stay off of them forever. And the bupe does not fit in with my new life choices. It's not healthy. It can't be good for my teeth or my mouth in general to be melting a strip of bupe and naloxone under my tongue every morning. And the bottom line is, due to my daily cardio workouts, I don't feel like I need it anymore.

When I dropped from 8 mg to 4 mg, I felt like I wanted to drop dead. It was a drastic decrease, and I felt terrible. But then I started changing my health habits. Eating better. Getting even just a little bit of exercise every day. Utilizing my other meds to ease the withdrawal symptoms.

And it worked.

Now that I'm down to 1/2 mg, I'm at the point where I feel like, really, what's the point in dragging it out? Yeah, my bowels are very enthusiastic right now. Yes, my legs are a little twitchy, and yes, I have screaming anxiety almost all the time. But I hurt my pectoral muscle a few days ago, and the doc at the emergency room gave me a five day script for 5 mg. Valium. So, since the pec feels better, I'm going to be using the remaining Valium to get me off the subs. I have 4 left. That's enough for 4 days, because I only take them when I feel like I'm gonna go out and punch a kitten.

I know, I know. I'm not supposed to be taking benzos, either. But every reliable study I've read has said that short-term use of a light benzo like Valium is key in getting you through the hideous anxiety that comes from bupe withdrawal. I can't use the kava because it gave me that disgusting shedding rash. But bupe has a crazy-long half life (37 hours). So it will take like two days to get the last of it out of my system, and then I will be totally, absolutely drug-free. No opiates or opioids, no benzos, nothing.

I'm making LIFE CHANGES. I don't want to be one of those people that has given up on life. I have gone through a lot of loss in the past couple of years. My daughter, my mother, my father, and my soulmate. And I thought I needed some kind of buffer to cope. But all the buffers did was keep me stuck in a state of non-feeling, and I haven't dealt with any of those losses. Hell, I haven't even dealt with my miscarriage from 10 years ago. That's a lot of shit. But I think maybe going to a bereavement group is a little healthier than sitting on the couch shooting dope and snorting bars, don't you?

So, here we are at the end. Thanks to everyone who has supported me on this journey. This blog will not be all about drugs anymore. I'd like to add a little more humor, since that's how I write, and maybe some sex, if I can get me some. We'll see.

In the meantime, I'll see you at the gym. Or a meeting.

Namaste, bitches.

Happy Birthday, My Love

With love, there is always loss. As human beings, we are finite creatures. We die, that's just the reality of the human condition. And the people we love also die. No matter how much we love them, not matter how hard we wish that they would stay with us forever, or at least until WE die, people leave us. How we cope with that, how we honor their memories, can define us.

I found the love of my life late in my life, when I was 42. Before that, I'd thought I knew what love was, but it wasn't love. It was obsession, or infatuation. I loved the father of my children, but it wasn't the deep, abiding love that I found with Chris. When I met Chris, it was as if everything had finally fallen into place. As if everything I'd been through up until that point finally showed its purpose. I believe that we go through everything in life for a reason, and eventually that reason will be revealed. Chris revealed those reasons to me.

We were both in recovery. We loved the same music. We both loved books (not e-books, REAL books, the kind that you could hold in your hand and smell and feel). We loved food. It was like we loved all of the same things. We moved in together three weeks after we started dating, and for eight years, we pretty much spent all of our time together. Through good times and bad (and yes, there were bad times, because human beings have bad times), we stuck it out together. Sometimes we worked together. We always played together. I fell asleep every night with my nose in his neck, smelling his good smell - I liken it to butterscotch and vanilla, no cologne, just the essence of him - and awoke every morning on my right side, with his arms wrapped around me. He was everything to me. We fought once in those eight years. It was a doozy of a fight, but we got through it, and we never stopped loving each other.

And then I relapsed. I mentioned we were in recovery; well, I hurt my back, and I was prescribed opiates to deal with the pain. I, being an addict, took more than I was prescribed, for longer than I was prescribed, and that started a cycle that I'd hoped never to become entangled in again. I started doctor shopping, going to the emergency room when I didn't really need to go, except because I was in withdrawal. When the doctors caught on to me, I started drinking again. And that was pretty much the end.

Eight years. We spent all of our time together for eight years. And then, just like that, I drank, and within a year of my picking up that first drink, everything fell apart, as it does when an alcoholic drinks. We lost everything - he worked his ass off, while I spent my days drinking. At the end, we had to move out of our apartment, because if we didn't, we would have been evicted. Of course, prior to that, we talked, we argued, we cried. I made promises I couldn't keep, he pleaded with me to stop. But at the end of the day, he was sober, and in order for him to stay that way, I had to move out.

I went to the psychiatric unit at the local hospital, and Chris moved into a smaller, studio apartment, with no room for me. I understand that decision; he had to worry about himself in order to survive, whether he loved me or not. I spent two weeks in that hospital, withdrawing from the alcohol, trying to come to terms with what I had done. I'd lost other people in the past due to my drinking and drug use, most notably my children, who had gone to live with my sister when they were very young. So I was used to loss, and the pain of it, although I don't think anything can compare to the loss of a child. There's nothing in the world more painful. With Chris, though, the pain came close.

When I got out of the hospital, I went to live in a "sober house," which was by no means sober. There were drugs everywhere. I was on Suboxone, so I wasn't tempted by the opiates. I went to see him every chance I could get. An hour and a half each way on the bus, to spend a couple of hours with him, just to be with him. He said he still loved me; I knew I still loved him. But things had changed dramatically. He didn't trust me. I knew that, and I couldn't blame him for it. After all, I had destroyed our life. He had been planning, he said, on asking me to marry him. Neither of us was a big fan of marriage, so that was huge. But he never did ask, and that was all to do with the drinking. Anyone who tells you that alcohol is "okay," that drinking when you're an addict is fine, is misguided at best. Because alcohol is what ruined it.

I stayed sober for a few months. We were talking about moving back in together. And then I drank again. I can't even say what brought it on, honestly. Well yes I can. I started taking Klonopin. Which is a benzo, which is addictive, which is something else I can't take. I said it was because I just couldn't cope with my anxiety, that it was the only thing that helped (I've since found a natural alternative that, while it's not covered by my insurance, is just as effective but without the horribly fallout). I disappeared from his life for a couple of months, and I really don't remember what I did or why. I was at that point living in a community residence for the mentally ill (I thank the Goddess every day for this place, where I still live - it saved my life). I'd gotten some money from my mother, who had passed away that spring, so I took a little "break" over New Year's weekend. I stocked my hotel room with booze, drank half a bottle of rum, and started texting Chris. He knew immediately that I was intoxicated, and it was the straw that broke the camel's back; he told me to never contact him again. He blocked me on Facebook, blocked my phone number, and stopped responding to me. It was over.

I spent the rest of the weekend in a drunken state of heartbreak. Of course, it had been my fault. And of course, being active in my disease, I was looking for any other reason than the truth. I couldn't find one. I couldn't find one other person to blame, other than myself. My heart was demolished. When I returned to the community residence, I suffered my way through the hangover, and went about the business of life without Chris.

I thought I was doing okay. Then, last March, I got a phone call from a mutual friend, who had stuck by me through thick and thin. She asked me if I was around people. Of course, I said, I live with nine other people, I'm always around people. She told me to sit down, and I knew something bad was coming. I didn't sit down; I told her to just tell me already.

Chris was dead. Cancer had crept into his body and taken him from the world, from his parents, from his sisters, from me. There was no chance of ever fixing the mess I'd made, no chance of his ever knowing how sorry I was, no chance to tell him one more time that I was sorry.

I will never forget that day. I dropped to my knees and howled, an injured, ancient sound that came from somewhere in my soul. I felt as though I had been stabbed. I finished the conversation with Deb, then just sat in the dining room. Of course, a staff member asked me what was wrong. I told her. But there was no way to describe it. We weren't technically "together," so there was no way to explain the love I felt, and how it had been ripped from my chest like a live thing, still beating, but gone.

I've spent the last year missing him. I dream about him almost every night. I wake up and for an instant I feel his arms around me, like always, and then I realize that he's not there. It's a waking nightmare, and it doesn't seem to get any easier as time passes. People say, "Time heals all wounds." What they don't tell you is just how much time it takes. It hasn't gotten any easier as the year  has passed. I feel like it never will.

Yesterday was his birthday. He would have been 52. That is too young, by anyone's calculations, for someone that good to be ripped from the Earth. I wanted to call his parents, but I don't want to cause them any more pain, and they weren't too happy with me at the end. I don't blame them.

My reason for writing this post is that, despite the void that I feel, I feel like I need to reassure anyone else who may be reading that you can get through grief. I haven't had a drink in the year that he's been gone, except for once, and it had nothing to do with the grief. I'm trying to live my life, the best way I know how. I'll be moving out of the community residence in a couple of months. I'm working. I'm going to therapy. It sucks, and it's so hard, but I'm doing it.

I'm trying to live my life the way that I think Chris would have wanted me to. He wouldn't have wanted me to sit in my room with a bottle, drinking myself to death. He was a good man, with a good soul; and I know he loved me, even at the end, even after all I'd done. He would have wanted me to live the best life I could.

I've lost both my parents, a child (a stillborn, whose birthday I still celebrate), and the love of my life. But I carry on. Why? Because we must carry on. We must move forward or die. And the reality is, as I said at the beginning of this post, people die, and they leave us to carry on. How we carry on is a testament to their lives, their memories.

As I said, it's not getting any easier. But I carry him with me in my heart. I know that he's forgiven me, even though he moved on without me. He had to, to live his life. And he was surrounded by friends at the end, good friends who loved him. I wasn't there to help care for him when he was sick, but I glean some comfort from the knowledge that the people that were around him loved him well. I hope they provided him some succor during the throes of his illness. I hope they helped to alleviate some of the pain. I hope they made his passing more peaceful.

I will never stop loving him. He was the best man I've ever known (except for my Dad, but nobody compares to a girl's dad), my best friend. The love of my life. But I'm here. And I have to live. If I can learn to let go, even just a little, and live my life, I'll be okay. I know that's what he would have wanted.