What’s on my mind right now:

• I worry that I’ve ruined my son by making him so comfortable and confident about being a person with mental illness that he has no motivation to work on his challenges and thinks that if people don’t like him exactly like he is then they can put a stick up their noses for all he cares.

• My left hip has been hurting me for months now.  I rarely mention it to anyone unless I’m in a group of women discussing their hip replacements and pains.  Back of my head is the knowledge that it doesn’t matter if the joint degenerates and cripples me, I can’t get a hip replacement.

• We still don’t know if we get to keep our house.  Silence from the bank is unsettling.  Philip keeps meaning to call for an update but I don’t think he wants to make the call in case it just means finding out we didn’t get approved for HAMP.  15 months of this uncertainty and counting.

• My teeth need a major dentistry overhaul.  I apparently chose to take a vacation instead of taking care of my teeth and the gravity of that decision is only now sinking in.

• When I don’t drink beer for four days it’s amazing how I’m just fine.  Except for the sleep thing.  It wasn’t really horribly bad until last night.  Last night was so bad I want to punch things today.  Insomnia alternating with nightmares.  Took me two hours to get to sleep, then when I did I kept waking up from the nightmares.  Nathan Fillion and I are no longer dream BFFs.  I will soon make an appointment with my doctor about the sleep thing because I’m committed to not drinking beer or any alcohol at least 4 days a week again.  It feels good.

• Max’s eating.  Always there.  This anxiety.  I get so tired and give up.  Then I make a push for a while and sometimes get some fleeting results.  Then I’m exhausted and depressed from it so I give up.  The cycle is never ending.

• Max’s sleep issues.  In our case the apple actually never fell from the tree at all, we’re apparently so much alike.  It makes me so sad.  So fucking sad that he should be at all like me.

• Been feeling really depressed all summer.  It’s always like this in summer.  Worse than usual this year.  I’m really depressed all the time if I’m being totally honest.  Will talk to my doctor about this too.  I hate to have to up my medication.  Especially after what I experienced when upping my paxil.  I’m still wearing that consequence on my bones.

• I’m being continually haunted by the first chapter in Jane Doe and know that the whole book has to be consistent with it.  I want to dive in.  I am feeling itchy to bury myself.  It’s calling out to me that it’s time.  It’s ready to be written.  Can’t scratch that itch.  Canning season is here, my family needs me, I can barely find the time to even cook anymore, work needs me, and my head is too cluttered.

• I’m also scared of where that book is going to emotionally take me.  I know in my gut that it’s the one that’s going to scream the loudest if I don’t bring it out into the light.  It’s a dark dark place.  You can’t ignore what you were born to do because if you do the rest of your life will corrode around you.

• Scared of how Max’s mind is practically an adult’s mind and yet his emotional state is younger than his years.  Scared of the stark divide between his toughness and his vulnerability.  I don’t know how to raise him.  I think I may already have ruined him.

• Skin issues bother me and nag at my head.  My skin hates me.  Max’s skin is sensitive too.  Every time a mysterious rash appears or my athlete foot returns (I think that’s what it is) or rough patches show up I feel sharp anxiety as though it is the signal of the end.  Maybe a sign of the apocalypse I don’t even believe in or maybe a sign of physical decay or oncoming cancer.  I know it’s irrational.  That does not make me feel better.

Being a mentally ill mother is not a good gig.  I’m heartbroken when I realize the things I’m not doing for Max because I’m too tired to do it or too stressed to cope.  I should be enforcing more chores on him and creating more independence in him but his challenges mean that chores require 100% supervision from me and I don’t have the energy to do that when it’s so much easier and faster and less frustrating to just do things myself.  I know it’s a disservice to him but I just don’t have it in me.  So when people criticize him for being “lazy” and for not doing anything himself as though this is some terrible shortcoming in him I want to scream at them to leave him and his character the fuck alone because it’s MY FAULT AND MY SHORTCOMINGS they’re criticizing.

Then I just want to tell everyone to fuck off.

For god’s sake, this is not a cry for help.  This is just sharing.  Share back if you like but please don’t try to “fix” my problems.  I am not helplessly experiencing my life.  I have doctor’s appointments to make, I have sleep to try catching, I have my child’s therapist appointment to make.  I have medications to take and possibly more that are needed.  I don’t want a list of things I should do to help myself or my kid.  I’m a pro at being mentally ill.  I know that this is just part of the cycle.  I know how much in my head is irrational.  I know how much my brain blows up my worries, my fears, and my depression and projects them on the dirty back wall of my brain.

What I want is support.  What I want is to hear that others sink too.  I want to know that other parents drown under their responsibility.

I want to not be alone with all this in my head.