The Dysfunctional Family

Full disclosure: I hate going to doctors, but at least for half of my life, I did the "right" thing. What is the right thing? I got all the tests, got biopsies when necessary, and submitted to scales, blood pressure cuffs and gynecological exams. Then when my mental health went south, I didn't have the energy to pursue a never-ending stream of mammograms, colonoscopies and the like. I was like flat out unenthusiastic about filling my days with terrifying tests that would only upset my balance even more. What I needed were happy books, films, and lots of anti-depressant medications. Not mornings when all I might have to look forward to were stirrups, speculums, and a professional's finger up my ass. Okay, so I gave up worrying and thinking about my health insofar as tests and doctor visits were concerned. I still took care of my health in a minimal way--I brushed my teeth, saw the dentist regularly, and showered when I had to wash or dye my hair. And I still went to...

Have you noticed that everything is intertwined, at least in the arts category? I'll be sitting down to watch a movie on Netflix and for the first five minutes there will be nothing but music and lyrics. No dialogue at all. Does the director do this to save time and energy inventing dialogue? Because if that's the case, he's expecting too much from his audience. I'll be munching on kettle corn when I spot the closed captioned words of lyrics set to music. Sometimes it's a recognizable tune, but more often, it's some country western  ballad that I never heard of. (I'm convinced that a lot of country west tunes are made up on the spot by cowboy-type performers because after they run out of their repertoire, they're stuck for material. So they plunk a few chords on their guitar and say, hey, that sounds pretty discordant. I'll mumble words and wowee, I've got a new song. Maybe I'll even record it.) In fact the whole movie may be based on a count...

I call it Martin Luther's month, but actually all of February is African American history month. All races get to talk about, research, and debate the accomplishments of African Americans both dead and living. For a while there I was intent on introducing a new name to the list of eminent black people who had a hand in making our country great and proving that black people can do anything that white people can do. Maybe even do it better. Her name was Merze Tate, and she was from Michigan. Her parents were farmers who cultivated their 60 government-granted acres and sent their children to school, first in a one-room school house close to their home and then later to schools of higher education. Merze must have been at the very least an accomplished reader because she graduated with honors from a school that tolerated (but didn't welcome) students of the Negro race. And Negro was the term used in Merze's era. She grew up in the 1920s and never missed a day of school despit...

It's President's Day and the only people really ecstatic about this holiday are those who get a paid vacation day and those who are aiming to sell a mess of "on sale" crap to materialistic hordes of people who don't want to stay home with their kids. Both feel rewarded because they figure they're getting free money to do with what they want. Then there's the rest of us. We constitute the majority of the population, and it breaks down into these sectors: 25 percent who attend online or live observances to honor past presidents like Washington and Lincoln; another 25 percent who read or make use of e-media to learn about the Kennedys and other  eminent skeletons in the presidential closet; 25 percent who hate the current President and spend idle moments thinking of workable assassination plots; and the remaining 25 percent who love, adore and worship at the feet of Donald Trump and like the Pied Piper of Hamelin tale, would follow the Donald over the cliff...

There's a growing trend to make funerals livelier, "celebrations of life." That's okay for the most part unless the person whose life is being honored has been in jail, abused pets, or killed a lot of harmless creatures like geckos, ants, spiders, and flies. You know who these people are. They usually giggle a lot, especially when they hear about a new antidefoliant like Agent Orange (not so old, but way bad1)They look like butter wouldn't melt in their mouth, but underneath that hard exterior is a confusing tangle of nefarious motivations. But back to the fun at funerals goal. I'm going to a funeral today and I hardly know the deceased. His significant partner is someone I casually know from a club that I quit because most of the members were a-holes. So I have mixed feelings about attending a service for an unknown person when the other attendees are people who cheered when I finally quit the club or made it possible for me to quit without giving a hoot. H...

I usually google my name on a regular basis--just to see if I've shown up in the obits--but lately, the geniuses at Google have misspelled and mistook me for Darren Aronofsky. That is the correct spelling of his name, and by all reports in the entertainment world, he is a star in the movie making sector. I'm not sure I've seen any of his films (the latest being "Mother," which got mixed reviews), but even though he's a celeb, I'm not happy being confused with him. And it happens all the time on Google. It's really my husband's fault since I took his last name a million years back when we married. But little did I know then that anyone would choose to spell Arenofsky "Aronofsky," thus confusing all the little minds out there in googleland. I figured Arenofsky was hard enough of a challenge, so people would furrow their brows and concentrate on getting this right. And for a good two decades, they did get it right. But along came Darren Ar...

The God question always hovers in the background whenever a person is struck down by any kind of illness. Got cancer? Why did God force this on me? So what if I smoked three packs of cigarettes for 10 years--I still should have fallen under the God Protection Clause if the Big Guy was really up there looking after my welfare. Even lesser diseases like acne and chronic diarrhea get blamed on a missing or decidedly malevolent God. The truth is we seek responsibility for our problems, and God can easily be singled out as the culprit. I don't know how many times when I was really depressed that I just knew God was MIA. How could he/she ignore my suffering, especially when I threw up my hands in despair and crawled into bed like a child hugging a stuffed animal. Grown adult women should not have to grab a teddy bear to get comfort from pain. If God engineered that scenario he has a childish sense of humor that risks embarrassing the people who need him most. Now I ask you, Is that fai...

I'm almost embarrassed to admit that until yesterday I didn't know there was a term for  non-stigmatizing your mental illness. It's called Mad Pride and obviously the "pride" part is a step-sister of Gay Pride, Black Pride, and all the other "pride" designations out there that I probably don't know about. I'm embarrassed because not only do I suffer from chronic depression, but I sometimes write about it in magazines and like now, in  blogs. I even did a story on the stigma of mental illness for a well-known magazine. Until yesterday I might have thought Mad Pride meant something like "everyone is entitled to get angry once in a while, so don't fret about it." But like so many guesses of mine, I'm wrong. From what I gather Mad Pride means ending the shame of not being like the "normals," and it includes illnesses like depression, anxiety, OCD, Bipolar, and everything else on the psychologically dysfunctional spectrum...

I wasn't always so distrustful. There was a time when gullibility ruled, and I'd believe just about anything that anyone told me. Driver's Ed in high school is a good example of how I allowed those in authority to control my fate. From the moment I squashed into the back seat of that white nondescript Ford compact that was the standard vehicle for school instruction, I knew I'd be low man on the totem pole--that is to say, I'd have to compete with two high normals, as in kids who were smart and didn't struggle with anxiety and worries as I did. There was Nancy from my junior high school sewing class who looked like she stepped out of Little House on the Prairie and Bob, a schizoid type personality who acted like a juvenile delinquent but scored high enough on SATs to get into Yale. I intuited correctly that Nancy was a pro sewer. I knew this on sight because it was obvious from her demeanor and dress that Nancy had been sewing up a storm for years. She was the ...

Full disclosure: I didn't vote for President Trump in 2016. I saw him then for what he is now. A bully, a tyrant, a misogynist, a racist, and a liar. But that really doesn't cover it all. Before I dissect his brain, psychologically speaking, consider a few questions: 1. Why does Melania seem so sad? 2. Why does his youngest child never talk? Is he autistic or ADD? 3. Why does Trump think he's so great? Is he not the biggest egotist you've ever seen? 4. Why are there so many people who believe everything he says? 5. Why isn't Trump trustworthy? If you had trouble answering all or any of these questions, don't feel bad. You're in the majority. At least 50 percent of the population doesn't know who Melania is, and 90 percent think that little boy standing next to her is a fake child or windup doll. As to whether he's autistic or has ADD, no one seems to know. He hasn't said a word since Trump threw a verbal bomb at the kid five years ago. He's...

Whenever any member of my family (one husband, 6 schnauzers, 2 cats) or I have a lousy day, I always think to myself that it's because it's a Monday. Even if the rotten event happened on a Friday, I'll still refer to it as a Monday mess-up. It would appear that it wasn't until about three seconds ago when my brain woke up for the day that I realized I'm a prejudiced bitch, at least about negative occurrences happening only on Mondays. What do I have against Mondays? I don't know, but a lot of professionals and other service providers I use have come to understand that I will never make appointments on a Monday.Got a suspicious looking mole on my leg? No way am I going to the dermatologist on a Monday because dollars to donuts, the diagnosis would be melanoma (translation: you're going to die a horrible excruciating death but only after you go through weeks of nauseating chemotherapy, 4,000 doses of radiation, and all the money you were saving for your old a...

For a long time I've watched my life unfold as if it were a Hollywood blockbuster or even a cheaply-produced Indie. It's time I re-evaluated it. My life is certainly no million-dollar mega thriller with a mixture of hot sex, car chases, and tender scenes of supportive, loving families. If anything it's more of a bad joke that found its way into one of those Bruce Willis-Arnold Schwarzeneggar-adventure type movies that never make it to the big screen and go straight to video. I know it sounds like I'm whining, and it's true. I am. But even though I 'm surrounded on a daily basis with heartbreaking newspaper obituaries and upsetting media stories of injuries  and deaths from floods, fires, and other natural disasters, I'm still an ungrateful wretch who fails to count her blessings. I'm even a little proud of that since it means I'm not just settling for a crappy life. I want the real thing--fame, fortune, and an invitation to the Kennedy Center. But...