How Did This Happen?

Normally I am not usually interested in politics, yet in the current state of our union, I cannot just sit by and say nothing. This past Tuesday, Donald Trump accumulated enough votes in the electoral college to become the first person without a day of experience to be the President of the United States. The morning after election day the number one question on everyone's mind was "how did this happen?" I could do nothing more than freeze in my stance, jaw and tears dropping concurrently.

People around the world have had similar reactions, afraid of what is to become of our nation as well as their own. To have a man like that in a position of power to this extent makes most people get a heavy feeling in their gut. The hate fueled by this person is that of an era we all were certain was behind us. The hate that his selection has welcomed has made people of any color and compassion worry for the future of ourselves and our loved ones. He is allowing and even encouraging the racist actions of his supporters that are not directed at one group or another, but ALL people of color or diversion.

I am a mother of an interracial family. My three daughters and son (who was born with Down Syndrome)are Jamaican, Irish, and Italian, my step daughter is black and Puerto Rican. I also happen to have dread locks and live in an urban neighborhood in Texas. In the current state of our union, I fear for the safety of my family as well as the others who live in similar situations. I know that things are only going to get worse once this man gets sworn into office, which is very evident by the people he is choosing to have around him. If you have any doubts of this just look at who will be the Attorney General and the Chief of Staff, we as a nation will be subjected to the "stop and frisk"type scenarios of Giuliani era New York.

How will I explain to my children that the President is making it okay for them to be called a n***er and be told to "go back to their country" when BOTH of their parents, and their parents parents WERE born here? I have so many questions yet not enough answers, as do most of the people in this country. One question that could easily be turned into action is why he hasn't come out to publicly denounce this behavior from his supporters? What will it take for him to publicly denounce the hate that his supporters are spewing?

It is more important than ever to impress love onto ANYONE you come in contact with. I know as well as anyone that this is much easier said than done but we have others who will be looking to us for the guidance to get through these difficult and very volatile times. Our children will look to us for the answers to those questions when faced with ignorance and hate. It would be very simple to answer with hate but that will get us nowhere except back to the L.A. riots of the early 90's but on a national level. This election has affected our nation on every level, even so far as to draw divisions between family members and could easily incite a new civil war.

Donald Trump is not a person who should be in office. He was not chosen by the people, that would be the Popular Vote which actually went to his opponent. This man is not only a disgrace to himself but to the American people. I read somewhere that about 47% of registered voters chose NOT to vote, possibly being too comfortable with a Hillary victory or a Trump loss. This is most likely the number 1 reason that he was able to secure the right states to accumulate the electoral votes. I respect the #NotMyPresident movement, if only the vote could have been THIS impassioned and motivated I would not even be discussing this.

I pray for our nation.

What Happens When.......(part 1)

Welcome to my new series,"What Happens When..." where I am going to explore various topics that are relevant to me, and hopefully you as well. The first in this series, "...I fall between the cracks" is about the struggle to get adequate healthcare and the path that I, myself have been down on my journey to be healthy.

As a child, I do not remember being sick much, in spite of having two siblings, I do not even recall missing days from school. As an adult on the other hand, I feel as though I've been sick more days than I've been healthy! It began around the age of 22 or 23 and ten years later it has only seems to have gotten rapidly worse. Logically thinking, I have to say that in part this is due to lack of consistently decent healthcare in a failing healthcare system.

People have asked me on many occasions why I'm not adequately insured in some way, especially with the implementation of #Obamacare and my response to them is very simple, I am exempt from having to have insurance since the state I live in refused to expand its individual Medicaid system. I AM the grey area. A person like myself, with an extensive medical and mental health history can fall between the cracks very easily if you live in a state as independent as Texas. A place that can, in essence, choose which laws of the land it will abide by and and which they will blatantly ignore. It doesn't seem to bother the law makers much, though they are very much aware of what is happening to those of us who cannot afford ANY sort of insurance.

They are insulated and ignorant to what that Texas bravado is doing to it's communities. It isn't segregated either. Teachers at my children's school have confided that it is difficult to even provide life saving medications for their own children, because they do not have adequate family coverage. These are the people who work hand in hand with us parents in moulding and shaping our children, and we can't ensure that their own children are taken care of? We the "greatest nation ON THE PLANET" would turn it's back on its citizens without the bat of an eyelash. THIS is deplorable to say the very least.
Most European countries (where many of us originated from) give its citizens some form of Social Insurance coverage, which in turn ensures that its work force is healthy, less stressed and more able to perform their work duties with efficiency and accuracy. THIS in turn guarantees less time taken off of work for personal or family illness. Wake up America you are your own downfall.

Is Inclusion Always the Best Choice?

As many know my youngest child Omega was born with Down Syndrome. We chose not to have him participate as we did not feel that to have countless people in and out of our home would be beneficial to our family. This may or may not have been the right choice at the time, either way we stuck by our decision. Omega is almost 4 years old now and has started a special education program at my children's elementary school this past week that has been fully integrated with the atypical preschool classes (yes more than one class). I am a strong advocate of inclusion but not at the cost of my son's education and care.
I have never been one to exclude my son from things we do as a family. We go camping, Omega is with us. We go to the drive in, Omega is with us. He is no less equal than my atypical children, and to be honest his having Down Syndrome most times is a non issue. To many this may seem like an issue, that he should get more attention, we should coddle him through every life experience no matter how big or small. My husband and I have included him since birth but now I have given over half of my control to a school whose system is falling.
There are parents out there who would love for their special needs child to be in such an inclusive program as Omega is in but in this, I would like a little exclusivity. This is his first introduction to being away from me or my husband, in any group setting away from his siblings and their friends (especially one this large), Am I a bad parent to unenroll him all together? My only alternative would be to pull him from one school and put him in another. He goes to the same school as my atypical children, which any parent knows to have all your children in the same school is a blessing in itself. I am almost leaning towards the benefit outweighing the risk of putting him somewhere else.
As parents we have to make tough decisions on a daily basis. Once you live in a certain school district you don't want to have to think twice about the school your kids are attending, but now more than ever the individual school needs just as much consideration as the school district. All schools are NOT created equal. I could go on for hours about why one school in a district is different than another but we don't have time for that. We will just write it off as disenfranchisement of our kids. Depending on the school your children go to, someone's child will be left behind.

Where Have You Been?

I know it has been a while since my last post, almost three months to the day without a peep. As all parents I've been tangled up in the throws of summer break and a house full of kiddos running almost rampant. Having four young kiddos, and three that I basically took care of the entire summer, my hands were full to say the least. Through the struggles and trials we've all seemingly made it out OK.

I have always been a pretty open book, living through cancers, being disabled but not classified by our wonderful government as such, the means in which I provide for my family. Everything I do is or can be common knowledge. People judge me for this practice, saying I like to put my business out for people but that is a deep misconception. I talk about what's relevant. MOST of the things that I am dealing with are directly affected by our society.

I have several health problems that will affect me for the rest of my life and I am pretty much left to my own devices. My husband is the breadwinner of our large family (seven of us all together), and we are seemingly plagued into the lower income level but at the same time making too much for any notable assistance from any governing entities. We live in the middle of the American double standard and there is little we are able to do about it. This is what motivated me to create my own system of providing for my family.

Some may think if it's so hard financially for us why can't we rely on the state Medicaid system or Obamacare? Long story short is that we don't qualify for either yet both say we qualify for the other. It's the American double standard at its finest. This is my life. These are the things that motivated me to not only create own system but to also write about it.

I know that I have gone off topic, these are the things that have occupied all of my time since my last visit into your life. I have been put through the ringer, have given every ounce of my being to my children and my surrogate children, and have struggled to get out of bed but at the end of it all, I, no WE have made it through to the other side OK.

What's Wrong with Mom?

Have you ever felt detached from your own life? Had sadness, anger, or a feeling of emptiness come over you that you couldn't quite shake? Any history of mental illness in your immediate family? I was first diagnosed with mental illness at the age of 12 years old. As a child of divorce, parental abandonment, and abuse it goes without saying that this diagnosis was inevitable. Needless to say, the illness was allowed to fester and grow as I did, now getting to the point of near nervous breakdown. As a 30+ year old wife and mother of four, my depression has cost me more than any medication or therapy ever could, and now is the time for me to get a grip on it.

As a child, I was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder, which is basically what childhood depression was known as in the 90's. This illness would present itself with angry outbursts, acts of violence, verbal aggression, and an overall angry demeanor and presence. With this being able to grow and develop almost totally untreated for years into my young adulthood, and on into my maturity, I have become more angry, sad and emotionally unstable. Once I began having my children, I wrongly assumed that I was rid of my poor impulse control and emotional instability, finding happiness and completion in my family. I was wrong and it would take for one trauma after another for me to be once again, trapped in my depression.

 I am at a point in my life right now where I not only feel lost and depressed within myself, but it is now causing me to become lost in my roles as both wife AND mother. At one point, I was on my way to being the Martha Stewart of the urban perspective, and now I am slowly turning into Roseanne Conner. I have all but shut down the neighborhood oasis, now only feeding the kids in my neighborhood, instead of hosting EVERY event, every weekend. I am no longer the craft mom, the spa party mom, the baking mom now, I am just barely mom. It is a struggle just to get out of bed in the morning, let alone having to get three daughters in elementary school out the door before 7:30 a.m. This change is happening quickly, and I feel that I have no control over which way it goes.

I recently completed a short term counseling program and I am currently reading a self help book of sorts, that while it is dated in almost ever aspect, promises to be timeless in its approach yet I find myself asking the time old question, how can I help myself when it is myself that is needing the help? I keep trying to push deeper the issues that are making me feel the way that I do but I keep finding that like anything else in life you cannot run from your life or the problems you may have with it. Helping myself seems a little far fetched but I am going to give it the old college try, stop having such negative reactions towards life. I know the cause to this evil yet I have allowed it to fester and grow for years,and now am no more than an excuse mill. Now is the time to take charge of my life before it is too late.I am already seeing my bad habits rubbing off on my children and not knowing how to cope or what to do to put my entire family on the right path.

As a mother suffering from depression, just being a mom is difficult at times. Some days I can barely bring myself to get out of bed, let alone help with homework or anything else that my kiddos need from me, and don't even get me started on how difficult it is to be a quality wife to my husband. This brings a sense of guilt over me that only worsens my depression, only feeding the vicious cycle. I have been depressed for most of my life, yet now more than ever it seems as though it is all encompassing, challenging me in every aspect of my life. I used to be able to have dinner ready before 8;30 p.m., but now even that has become a hurdle that I cannot bear. At times it even feels as though I have lost all passion for life, the things that used to make me happy cannot even bring a crooked smile. My children are beginning to see me as some sort of monster who cannot be awakened from its cursed nightmare, having to whisper around, as the joy in their laughter could make the loudest, most hideous growl that is to be avoided at all costs. Yeah, I just went there.

Over the past few years, I have fallen into a deep depression that has brought along with it an onslaught of other emotions that I myself feel that I have little control over. One of my only solaces is that I am not violent towards my family. I cannot even bring myself to spank my children, even in the case of the worst behavior. I am, however, very loud when I get worked up and these days it doesn't take much to even get that going. I can be on a tirade for hours, even carrying on to the next day in some instances. Even when I know in my heart that I am being ridiculous, knowing that I should calm down and that there is really no point or even merit to my arguments. Here lies another issue in itself. I am intelligent enough to know that I am being outlandish and ridiculous, yet it seems hat it is more important to me to get my point across than to make sense, when I get into a low point.  Life is funny that way, you can know that you are wrong but still argue to no end that your point is right, all in the name of principles.

It has come to the point of no return. I can either give in to this disease and allow myself to go truly bat shit, OR I can fight it with everything that I have and beat this the way that I beat Ovarian/Uterine Cancers. This will not be an easy task, as I have become somewhat known for making excuses for all of the reasons why I cannot change, why it should be okay for me to be angry and depressed all at the same time. At 33 years old (did I really just type that? YES!), it is time that I turn over this new leaf and beat the depression that I am suffering from. I really have to do it, not only for my own sanity, but also the very existence of my marriage (yes it is that deep), and the wholeness of my family.

My Letter to my Aries

To my Son who couldn't shine,

It was almost eight years ago to the day that you came and went like a summer's rain.
We never met, never looked into each other's eyes, or cradled you in my arms.
You weren't able to grow past my womb, never to share my breathe
I was never allowed to touch your face, or feed you from my breast.
I gave you a name, remember you every year on this day,
yet it is still to hard to talk about you in any dignified way.
I love you my little guy, you are never to be forgotten
You are our guardian angel watching over us until we meet again.

Angels
Risen
In
Each
Son lost.

Losing a child is never easy.  As a mother, you always feel responsible for anything that occurs when you are pregnant, even if logically you could have done nothing different. To carry a child until the point of hearing the heart beat, knowing the sex, and even picking out the name is a bond between mother and child that can't be broken by anyone except God.
Having to deal with any sort of complications is never an easy situation. It is difficult to hear that you did everything right, there was nothing they could do to have saved your angel from this ending.  Self blame starts to kick in, your body is going crazy thinking you have given birth, and your relationship begins to suffer because there is no way he could ever know how you feel. No one could ever know the loss you feel for your first child, how could anyone know the feeling of emptiness that has overcome your whole being.
I know that pain you are feeling. I know that emptiness that fills the pit of your stomach. I know that sorrow that fills your heart when your breasts fill with milk that has no purpose. I know the anger that you feel towards yourself, convincing you that you did something wrong, you should have been more careful, but the fact is that you had nothing to do with this loss.
No matter what your ARE a mother.  Do not allow for this loss to stop you from wanting another. You will never replace your first born but you can have another.

Hello Again...

It has been over two months since my last post, there has been so much going on in my life that I seem to have lost track of what keeps me semi sane. My writing is what has kept me grounded throughout most of my life but I go through these times when I shut down and feel as though I have too much going on to write. Even though I know that writing down my experiences helps me to get past them, I still have times when I just shut down and don't write anything, rarely even reading anything either! Life gets too hard to think at times.

Feeling trapped by the clock, family, work etc. are common among mothers, even if you only have one child, stay at home, and your husband is making bank at some point we all feel trapped in our lives with no way to get above water. This is life, the life we chose when we said "I do". Now, no matter how deep into your mess you feel you are, there is always a way out (or at least that's what my therapist tells me), and the same way we dug our hole and jumped in, we need to find a way to climb out.

I recently had to climb out of what could have been a Grand Canyon sized hole in mere seconds, simply based on the words of someone I almost thought of as a friend. This was not only a challenge that my family and I were able to face head on, but it was something that I will be able to learn from for the rest of my life. Growing up with my father as a parent taught me many lessons, among them the true definition (out of Webster's) of the word "friend". This lesson alone should have prepared me early on for a situation like the one I recently endured, and maybe in a way it did. I was not at all shocked by the situation in itself, yet what did surprise me somewhat was the extent. This only taught me yet another lesson, to not be off guard with anyone whose loyalty, friendship, even dignity are at any rate questionable. As a first step in this new knowledge, I am no longer going to give this situation anymore space in my head, let alone my life, or this blog.

In life more often then not, we find that the only way to get the focus back on OUR life is to step back from everything and everyone we know to reevaluate what is good or bad for us. This is what life is, destroying the bad to rebuild the good. My husband was the first person to introduce this theory to me, and like any good wife, I would give him a hard time any time he would introduce it into a conversation. I really didn't want to destroy any and every relationship (aside for my immediate family) I thought was dear to me, yet this is what had to be done. I am quick to admit that in this I am still just a work in progress, a being seeking enlightenment but truth be told there are not many relationships that I have to destroy, more so myself and whatever relationship that is there. I am the first to admit that I don't have the greatest relationship with myself, low self image and esteem that has festered over years of self loathing, and criticism. It is time to destroy and rebuild myself, from the inside out.
Changing yourself is no easy task. As a 32 year-old wife and mother, I sometimes forget WHO I AM. I have found it very easy to forget that before I was either of these, I was a woman. Granted, I may have been very confused and lost in my own skin, but I was still a woman with emotions that were untapped, and feelings bursting at the seams. The lifestyle that I lived before I became a "responsible" adult made no way for emotions. To show emotion and feeling was to show weakness which would leave a person open to any and everything. I am not going to delve into the Karma of the past, but what I will say is that at any moment in that time my life could have ended in prison or on the street. This is not the life that anyone who meets me now would easily associate but it is true, I lived my life very dangerously. I would love to forget the 10+ years that I lived this way, yet it is not as simple as that. Those years molded a way of thinking, and acting that are not easily erased. I have been told that it should be easy to forget since I am completely out of and away from that environment, yet I am always able to find reasoning as to why it is so difficult to change.
The life a live now requires certain skills that I have and many that I lack. I find it easy to find faults within myself, yet very difficult to find any good. As I grow, I work on changing my own self image so that I can be better in my roles as wife and mother. The take away from all of this is that I myself am responsible for the events and the way I live my life, and I myself am responsible for the change that is introduced and implemented.

Why Is Change So Difficult?

Have you ever noticed that whenever you plan to make a change, the day the change is set to begin every hurdle is thrown in your direction? Example; if you say, 'Thursday I am going to quit smoking,'but when "d" day rolls around, just so happens Murphy's law takes charge. If you really want the change, you will fight the adversity, says everyone around you. It is something much easier said than done, but it is true that no change will be handed to you. You will have to go after it with everything you have inside and then some.

When you suffer from any type of mental illness, change is that much more difficult, without making excuses for myself rather offering an explanation. Depression hinders change by 100 times more than the average person would experience. Being depressed will make you believe that you are the worst person alive, and that you will never be able to change. I know this because I am living with depression daily. I have found myself being all set up for change, then when the time comes to put the plans in motion, I am the first to convince myself that I am capable of much less. That is the depression that is waiting in the wings to tell me how bad of a person I am when I even let the thought cross my mind.

Living with depression I have realized that I am my own worst enemy when it comes to change. I am able to build myself up to make the change, doing everything I know to prepare for the transition yet when the time comes I have broken down any intention to make the change. I have found it to be very difficult to bring my focus back to the change after having destroying any intention I have for becoming a better person, wife and mother. Even as I am writing this, I feel as though I am convincing myself even more that I am incapable to change the traits that I see as faults. I don't know about you but I seem to be my own worst enemy when of comes to changing anything, especially when it is about something that I have always viewed as a non issue, then what is the victory in that?

The change in my life has to come when I alone am ready for this change. I cannot force myself to be something or act a certain way just to please others or to try and "fake if till I make it." This approach, while it may work for others, is not a good approach for a person like me. I have taken pride in my no filter, no holds barred manner in which I was raised, yet this seems to have caused more harm than good in my adult life. I have alienated myself, have allowed for others to have a means of judgement against me, calling me crazy for having no filter, simply speaking exactly how I am feeling in that moment. As I approach my 33rd year I am now recognizing that as an adult, filters are necessary in almost every situation. A filter could be the difference between life and death, having freedom and being imprisoned. Over the past two years I have been living in examples of poor judgement, costing my family a total of almost a thousand dollars in court fines and costs, money that could have been much better utilized on my household, my four children, or even a small family trip, instead it was paid to make right my misdoings.

I spent much of my youth in detention centers and being shipped from foster home to foster home. In hindsight I believe this has much to do with my adversity for change and my seemingly unfilterable reactions to what could have been avoidable situations.  This upbringing has no doubt caused a ripple affect that has now impacted my adult life in almost every facet. Not truly understanding or being taught how to process stressful situations has held me down such as an anchor to a boat for far too long. I have to wonder if the change will come as a benefit or if I will continue to fight myself mentally, making every excuse known to man about why I can't do something. I chuckle to myself as I write these words, thinking of how many times I have told my own children to say you "can't do" something is equivalent to swearing in my household, yet my vocabulary is littered with the phrase. What a hypocrite I am, ha!

The new year is a perfect scapegoat for personal change, especially when like me you may have small issues with owning your sh**, and that's putting it lightly. This time of year makes way for many people to reevaluate the way that they have been living, making a conscious effort to change their shortcomings and highlight their strengths in effort to make them a better person overall. Not usually one for bandwagons, the new years change is something that I definitely strive to achieve. This year will be no different, I will take the next 365 days (yes this is a LEAP YEAR!) to work on myself; learning how to become a better wife, mother, and individual. While I don't know wear the glasses of perfection, I will strive for my best.

I will be sure to keep you all posted on my progress and invite you all to comment with your resolution and progress.