On Being Not Okay

I once had a coworker tell another coworker that she thought I was unstable. 

Unstable. Adjective. Prone to psychiatric problems or sudden changes of mood. “She was mentally unstable”. Synonyms: unbalanced, of unsound mind, mentally ill, deranged, demented, crazed, distracted, troubled, disturbed, unhinged, insane, mad, mad as a hatter, mad as a March hare, raving mad, lunatic, out of one’s mind/head, not in one’s right mind, neurotic, psychotic; more.

Let’s be fair, even not knowing the circumstances, this is pretty harsh. And let me tell you, if you knew the backstory of the drama llama whose mouth this came out of, you’d know it was bullshit.

But even though that bitch be cray, it’s an adult memory that I carry with me. This happened to me during one of the toughest phases of my life. It was not long before this time that I had been diagnosed with postpartum depression and anxiety, and decided to medicate for the first time. I had two little babies and a very high stress job, dealing with a moron who would go behind your back and call you unstable for not engaging in their middle school antics. On a good day, I felt like I could barely make it up for air.

I look back on it and I realize, beyond all the nonsense of that actual situation, she was a little bit right. I am not okay. I don’t know that I have ever been okay. I’ve always been a little unstable. A little neurotic. A little “out of one’s mind/head.”

I am turning 36 this year. In 22 days to be exact. And about 5 months later, I will officially be older than my father. Well, to explain that correctly, I will have made it to an age beyond his lifespan. He has been dead for almost 28 years this year. 28 years is a long time.

You do not overcome childhood trauma of that magnitude. It’s not something you ever move on from or leave behind. It becomes a part of who you are. You carry it always, first it’s so heavy it’s like a bag of bricks on your chest. You can’t breathe. You can’t see straight. Walking back into your second grade classroom after the funeral feels like walking off a plane and into another country, full of foreign kids who don’t speak your language. And then, years go by and you realize you’ve gotten really good at schlepping this thing around with you. No one looks at you weird anymore. It unknown baggage. Like the tampon tucked into the hidden pocket of your purse. Or the hair tie floating at the bottom. The Tic Tacs. Whatever emergency stores you keep at the bottom of your handbag.

I once had an adult from my childhood tell me, as an adult, that I was so annoying as a kid that she wanted to hang me from the rafters just to get away from me. Something like that. I mean, at least she said it to my face (unlike earlier referenced coworker). I laughed and the others around me laughed, but my inner feels were more of the “fuck you” variety. She followed it by saying something nice, I think, but I was still mad. I get it. I was an annoying kid. I had a dead dad and was the third child. What the fuck did you expect from me?

I clung to my mother as a child, not only because I love her so much but because I was terrified she would die. I would dream about it all the time. I would cry myself to sleep most nights, up until college when I learned it was better to pass out from drinking too much Boone’s Farm instead. This behavior made me an annoying child, I know it now as a mother myself. Can I not just get one minute alone. But I do often wonder why most adults around me never seemed to try understand why my behaviors were the way they were, versus just be annoyed by them. Or maybe they did, but they just didn’t know how to do anything to help me.

My son turns 8 this year. I was 8 when my father died. And for 28 years, I’ve felt like that age was so much older than it actually is. My son walks around barking like a dog, makes forts in our living room, and on a rare occasion (my favorite occasion) says “mumma I wanna snuggle” in his best baby voice. He can’t go farther than 2 houses down the street alone. But he’ll never have to know (God willing) the feeing of trying to hold back tears at his father’s funeral because his siblings aren’t crying so it doesn’t seem like that’s what you’re supposed to actually do. Or what it’s like to caress a dead man’s cheek – just because how can you not want to touch it to know what it feels like when you’re 8.

Yeah, since then, I don’t think I’ve really been “okay.”

Daddy issues come with you into adulthood. And you can ask about any man in my life about the baggage it brought for me. I have a strong fear of abandonment. That flared up in 2006 when my grandfather died. I worked at the newspaper then and had to proofread his obituary as part of my job. I could not cope. My grief roars every time loss hits, even remotely close to me, and this one was especially tough. During this time, one of my friends said to another friend of mine, “Michelle’s grandfather died and she’s been a real bitch.”

At this point, you’re probably also wondering why I have so many shitty people in my life. (Spoiler: that friend isn’t my friend any more.)  But she was also a little bit right. I was kind of a real bitch, because grief is a real bitch.

Before now, I have never felt I could be truly honest about these parts of my life. I don’t know exactly why. Embarrassment? Well, yes, if I’m being truthful – it’s also hard to grieve a parent who was a real dick for the majority of your life.

The memories I have of my dad I can count on both hands. At least 3 of them include some form of violence or my fear of him. One includes a green Lifesaver popsicle and WWF wrestling. We (my family) don’t talk about him much, and I can’t help but think the reason we never really did talk about his death when it happened was because he wasn’t a great person. It’s easier to just tuck it away than have to grapple with that fact. When I smelled marijuana for the first time at age 20, it made me cry for no known reason until I realized it was triggering trauma from my childhood. Go figure.

You can’t say these things to people who post his picture on Facebook. Or to those who tell stories about how he was a “great guy.”

In the past, when I have tried to discuss this part of my life, people tend to dismiss me. “You were too young to remember.” What is that even? Is my grief somehow less valid because I don’t have as many memories? I’m sure that’s not what anyone intends, but that’s how it makes me feel. My trauma can’t be as significant. I was only 8. Building forts. Snuggling mummas.

This is my new space to write about how Not Okay I am. It will be uncomfortable, and at times it might be embarrassing or alienating, or maybe I will pissed a few people off. I don’t care. I’m 36, I’ve lived longer than my own father, and I’ve tipped the age scale closer to 40 this year so that makes me a real adult. I am Not Okay. And I have honestly never remembered a time when I was. And that doesn’t make me unstable and that doesn’t make me a bitch. It makes me real.