Mysteries of the Mind ...

I do stupid things when my husband is gone. It is a proven fact – if he is not here to keep me sane, well …

He hasn’t even been gone that long, but I am out of practice – it has been a while since those six week stints in Australia and the times I couldn’t go over in between. Like I said - out of practice. I’ve notice two things happen when he is gone and I get a bit … weird. One: my potty mouth acts up (sorry about the beauty pageant bad words, but, really – they just really needed to be there …) and Two: I tend to over share – what fun for y’all!

My sister called me up about a Photoshop question the other day then tentatively broached the subject of my health and wanting me to read some books. As she described them, I quickly realized by the titles that they were going to tell me that unresolved issues in my life were causing my illness. She started to say that she felt so guilty that she was the beginning, the cause of my ‘weirdness’ when I was young and had to stop her, having discovered a thing or two in the twenty or thirty years since we had probably brought up the subject.

I told her that I would get the two books and read them (and bought them), but something kept nagging at me. It was that I feel as if I have done a reasonably decent job in keeping my sanity intact with all the fun times in my past. So I wrote her an e-mail titled “Because I need you to understand” and asked her to read some of my writings plus something I wrote on Facebook – I couldn’t concentrate on the first book since I felt I needed to convince my sister that I was more stable than she probably thought. She is a busy gal and like most of my family, does not read my blog. I write it for my parents to know that I am still alive and they say they enjoy reading my writings – so I continue to write. That Gary’s two sisters and many of my nieces read the blog makes me actually feel more connected to his family than mine.

But then again, as I have said before – I am the ‘weird’ one in the family and they barely tolerate me – hell – I barely tolerate me! I don’t know how Gary does it without going stark raving mad. I guess I am ‘weird’ in a different way now days than when I was younger – mainly I blurt out whatever comes to mind without censoring it first and it gets me in heaps of trouble. Go figure – somewhere along the road of my life I guess I just stopped caring what other people thought of me and just say it like it is.  If you don’t like it - whatever – it is my opinion, which in this country is just A-OK (in theory) and so ignore me. And they do.

I have watched my blog since I sent the e-mail 5 or 6 days ago and since no one in Hawaii has gotten on nor accessed the ones I pointed out, I decided that I was in a tentative standoff with her (without her knowing - mean, I know). As soon as she read MY stuff – I would read hers. Stupid I know – and it isn’t like I think it is going to be disturbing or life altering or even a teensy bit healing to my immune system (sorry, I am a cynic through and through) but that is just the way my brain decided to deal with it.

I cut and pasted something I wrote in Facebook and I don’t know if I should put it here since this is going to be long as it is.  Oh, well – I will but I will mark the beginning and the end so you can skip it:

*****

“A Note for Brent"

Brent,

You asked “Have you ever noticed its only sunshine wherever you go Lori? You look like you have a good life.” and it gave me pause … and much to think about. I DO have a good life! A wonderful life and wouldn’t trade it for the world, but I would like to answer your question in more depth, if you don’t mind.

I have a daughter Jessie – she is 23 years old, but mentally she is three years old and we spent many years in the hospitals repairing her birth defects. Raising a mentally retarded child comes with its own special set of rain clouds – BUT it comes with a very special set of rainbows! That first step? Her first word? The first time she tells you she loves you and understands what she is saying (just 2 short years ago)? The ‘uninitiated’ will never know the joys these things bring a parent because of the price it took them to get there. You simply cannot have rainbows without the storm clouds …

I lived in Norway for two years, absolutely the most beautiful country I have ever seen - in the most beautiful, remote, historical mountain home that I could have ever imagined living in. It taught me to appreciate those rare weather patterns with clear, sunny skies for months on end and to take advantage of every minute of it!

I have another daughter Rachael – she is in the cemetery up the road a bit. Knowing she was going to die soon after she was born while I was pregnant with her was stressful and scary. It taught me that in the worst, darkest, severe, most scary storm – there is always the promise and surety that it will end one day and the sun WILL come out.

My husband lived in Australia for almost two years and I ‘commuted’ back and forth every 4 or 6 weeks, calling both our Texas home and our high rise apartment in Downtown Brisbane my home. It taught me to appreciate the beauty of the clouds from above - at 37,000 feet, and to excitedly anticipate and be thrilled to watch the beautiful sun rise twice on a that very long, tiring 14 hour flight between Brisbane and LA.

I have had two very serious chronic illnesses for 19 years that have kept me on two types of morphine for intolerable pain. It has taught me that when the storm clouds roll in … as they are guaranteed to do – I have the strength to make it through to the other side and to more gentle weather. Sometimes I breeze through and sometimes I’m just hanging on by my fingernails … but one way or the other, I always get there!

My son is a handsome, gentle, kind and polite 21 year old who has weathered all this by his parent’s side. As he is the ‘Nearly Perfect Son’, he has taught me to see the beauty in that ‘Perfect Day’. To stop, slow down, soak in the sun and just be happy to exist in that moment.

I have travelled extensively all throughout Scandinavia, Europe, Australia and New Zealand taking photographs. It has taught me that regardless of the weather, there is always, always, always an infinite number of stunningly beautiful photographs to take – you just have to look a little harder, be a little more patient, and not mind getting a little bit wet!

I have been married to the smartest, kindest, most patient, talented man I have ever known for just months shy of 30 years now. He has taught me many, many things. He is my best friend, the person who picks up the slack when I am ill, never complains and is always happy and cheerful. When Gary is around, I have discovered – regardless of the weather outside - the sun is always shining brightly …

So … Brent, I guess you are right! There IS only sunshine wherever I go! Thanks for giving me the chance to think it all through.

*****

That was not a ‘fluff piece’ to me. It is truly what I believe and feel. I also wrote her:

Writing has always been therapy for me. It chases away my demons and if I can get it down on paper – I can mentally fold that paper and lock it away in a safe – deep in my mind – and I HAVE CONTROL when it gets opened – these things never again jump me in the dark.

This was probably the first thing I ever wrote that let me ‘put it away’ and not worry about it anymore:
The Beginning of the End

This was truly a gift – and says a lot about where I am at … I believe:
The Gift of a Dream ...

This one I believe mom made you read about Rachael – things about her all are OK now …
Rachael's Box

This one is just one of thousands of tiny moments in my life that make me enormously happy and at peace with myself:
The Perfect Rock

I felt comfortable that if she read these things she would understand that I was in a good place in my life and OK with everything.

Except for that beginning of the conversation where she said she felt guilty for something. Here comes the ‘oversharing’ part. When I was young I had two very severe issues and looking back – both my mother and I agree that I was clinically depressed and never diagnosed since I never went to a doctor about either of these things – except for one time – it is to follow. We just all assumed that I was weird …

The first thing that happened was my Elementary School decided not to distinguish between the mental maturity of a kindergartner and a sixth grader and showed us all a film about not approaching strangers. Back then, I guess they thought the best way to get the point across was the scare the shit out of kids via film noir …

I was a kindergartner at the time. I don’t remember much of the film … just the end. The girl that got in the car with the lovely gentleman was shown at the end. She was dead and I remember that it was autumn in the film and she was lying in leaves and they were blowing over her. At that age, I really could not distinguish between what was real and what was ‘theatre’ since I didn’t watch much TV and I guess I was particularly dense. I truly thought that I was seeing the girl dead. It affected me immensely. To my credit – when my mother finally called the school a week later to discuss the situation that I had literally not fallen asleep for one single minute since seeing that film – they mentioned that many, many of the younger children were … freaked out.

Sleep suddenly became a huge issue for me. I went to a doctor who prescribed some sort of horse tranquilizer that would totally dose me into unconsciousness. He thought if he broke the cycle that everything would be fine after that. They gave me the pills, but had been cautioned that they must wake me up every few hours … I cannot remember exactly why – I would drop into a coma, stop breathing? Who knows – but that is what they did and I slept.

That night.


I have since to figure out how to sleep – which since it is 2:22am as I type this sentence pretty much shows that I really have no clue how to fall asleep. Insomnia and I have been inseparable pals ever since that lovely film.

The other ‘weirdness’ is something that I was so ashamed of - for years and years. After I was married, at family gatherings, no one could resist taunting me and telling Gary all about my weirdness. To say that it embarrassed me to no end and was the birth of my insecurity with family gatherings with my family is putting it mildly. Gary was rather surprised the first time they made fun of me – because, really – it is a doozy, and sadly he agreed with them – I was weird – that hurt. But really, was it necessary to share? It sort of always bothered me that Lori was the one that got the ‘stories’ told about – but maybe it had something to do with my small bit of success. I was a Student Body officer in High School, got straight A’s in college, had a great job in my field – so maybe they just felt like knocking me down a notch or two. I really don’t know – I am sure that there were PLENTY of other things we could have talked about – but that’s just me …

Little did they know that growing up a freak, no matter how much success you achieve – you will always be the freakishly weird one – and that really does not foster self-esteem at all.

In our first house we lived in in Logan, Utah, there were two bedrooms downstairs. My older sisters Kelli and Jodi slept in one and me and my younger sister slept in the other. It was a great house and I am going to veer off course for just a bit.



It was a typical house. You walked in the front door into the living room. Straight in front of you was a door sized entrance to the ‘kitchen’ part of the kitchen. To the right of that was a larger opening where the table was. Behind the table was a sliding door to the backyard and to the right of the sliding door (if you turned 90 degrees) was the entrance to the stairs to the basement and a door out to the garage – right along the rightmost side of the house.

Between the living room and the kitchen area there was a hall to the left – the first door on the right was a bathroom, the second my parents bedroom. There was one bedroom on the left where my little sister Marci and my brother Jeff slept.

That bathroom was THE COOLEST bathroom in the universe! Under the sink, there was a chute to the basement where you could throw your dirty clothes. That we used it as a slide was incredibly stupid, but we made sure there was a sufficient pile of clothes in the basement to buffer our fall. WAY COOL. The coolest thing we did without punishment. The COOLEST thing we EVER did was either one of two things – equally AWESOME:

One: we turned the kitchen into a slip-n-slide while my mom was gone by placing rolled up towels around to keep the water in and flooded the floor – SO MUCH FUN (until mom got home).

Two: Pinning a towel on Jeff when he was about 3 years old and convinced him that he could fly. Taking us at our word he immediately jumped off the top step intending on ‘flying’ down into the basement. Since these steps were not carpeted and the guy really couldn’t fly (well, NOW he can, but he does not wear a cape and needs a helicopter or plane to do so) he landed badly on a step and broke his leg or foot – my mother, again was displeased. But still …. SO AWESOME!

Walking into the basement you entered a huge family room. Turning 90 degrees to the right you would be staring at the opposite end of the house and that was where the two bedrooms and a bathroom were. If you turned a quarter turn again – you would be looking at the door into the large laundry room with a small room inside it that was a pantry. Shelves and shelves of home canned goods and food storage.

One night, my sister and I were in bed and I heard something. My sister was ‘in’ on the joke and said she didn’t hear anything. This went on for a while until my sister – the one who called and wants me to read the books, jumped on me and scared the living shit out of me. I believe that was the last time I ever slept in that basement.

That is my huge shame – and the brunt of my sibs jokes – Lori – the ‘fraidy cat’ who was too scared to sleep in the basement. I took it. What else could I do? It was true. My parents eventually built another home with the master bedroom upstairs and one other bedroom – so I would not have to sleep on the living room couch. The thing is? I could sleep in THAT basement no problem.

No problem? Seriously? Then, really – what was the real problem?

And here is where the mind becomes such a marvelous piece of the anatomy. I was a kid back then – moved to the new house I believe as I started Junior High. I am 50 now and I have made HUGE leaps of progress into finally discovering the ‘mystery’ of why I could not sleep in the basement. Everyone thought they had it pegged – Jodi scaring the shit out of me – which certainly didn’t help and it didn’t help that it was near the time of that infamous film I saw either – but there was something more – something weird, something creepy, something scary and dark and evil and I could never get a hold of what it was.

Most of what I have had ‘come back’ to me was while I lived down here in Texas – so after years my mind started working on the problem. I would dream that I was in my old house and I would wander and wander. I would go downstairs and everything was fine, not scary … until I entered the laundry room and tried to enter the pantry. For years – awake or during my dreams I could not open the door.

Years later I was able to go into the pantry – but since it was right by the end of the house – if you walked to the end of it – you could turn to your right 180 degrees and be under the stairs – more storage. I realized that I could enter the pantry, but I could NOT, no matter what turn and go under the stairs. This went on for years and bothered me to no end that whenever I thought about it – everything felt dark, and weird and … well – evil.

So, one day when we were together I said to my oldest sister Kelli “You remember the first house in Logan and the pantry downstairs?” She said yes. I said “I can’t remember what was under the stairs, and I cannot mentally go there … were there bodies stacked like cord wood?” She laughed and said “No, it was where mom and dad kept all the food storage.” Hmmmmm.

A few years and a lot more dreams and wandering around the house and one morning I realized something. The pantry was NOT filled with home canning and food storage. It had a floor of carpet scraps and there were toys and books on the shelves. I was NOT wandering my childhood home – I was wandering my BEST FRIENDS childhood home – right next door to us. It was the very first time I realized that they had identical floor plans.

That was quite a breakthrough and I realized that I could not, no matter how hard I tried – turn the corner in our own special playroom.

It does not take a PhD in psychology for me to realize that something happened back there. I have a glimmer that it was full of beanbag chairs and overstuffed pillows. My best friend had an older brother and what I would give to be able to ask him if he had anything to do with this (which seems the most logical answer and feels right) but he was killed years ago having been hit by lightning on a golf course – so …


unanswered questions.


Will I ever know what happened in that playroom under the stairs? Yes, I believe that my mind has been working on it for quite some time and I will eventually get to the bottom of it. Does it make me feel less of a ‘freak’ or a ‘fraidy cat’? Yes, but the time for caring at all about that has long gone.

I find that the mind is a mysterious and fascinating place. I know that I have many, many unresolved issues. I used to joke the year after ‘THE YEAR’ (1997) – the baby, the broken wrist, the tornado, the hits just kept coming and I just tried to keep afloat. I was working at the time and was confiding to a friend that I had been in ‘triage mode’ for a long time – just going from body to body – working with the hopeful and leaving the dead and dying behind. I told him that I had done that for so long just quickly working with one thing and bracing myself for the next - not really working anything through, dealing with anything at all - just bracing for that next hit - and then suddenly – no more 'hits' no more major disasters! And what happens? I tell him that things in my mind get very quiet, and I mentally turn around and discover that all those ‘dead and dying’ things that I left behind are all still back there ... a giant room filled with rotting and stinking bodies. Metaphor’s are not my strong suit – but this one was so visceral and felt right.

He asked me what I was going to do about it?




I told him that I was going to buy a freezer …



…. a really, really big freezer.


Not sure if that is what happened or if I have sufficiently ‘cleaned up the mess’ in my head, but although I have insomnia – these are not the things I lose sleep over – so maybe I have moved on. Having been diagnosed at the time with PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) made sense, but when do they tell you that you no longer are hampered with this albatross hanging around your neck? Does it linger forever, just getting lighter and lighter (or heavier and heavier for some, who unfortunately cannot take the strain and decide it is time to leave this mortal place and finally get some peace)? I don't have the answer to that. Maybe I am free of this moniker, or maybe I am just fooling myself - who knows?

Do I think that my illness has anything to do with all this? Yes, I do – but not as my sister thinks. When I got mono in 1992 – some people snap out of it, but studies have shown that those that don’t and it morphs into CFS – a very large number have been in tremendous amounts of stress at the time. I know that stress is a killer – but sometimes you don’t get to pick and choose when you are going to be in stressful situations. I had gone through 4 years of Jessie and averaging 8 doctors and specialist visits with her every week since we moved to Houston (not to mention all the surgeries and hospital stays), and after Ryan was born – he was lugged along to all those visits too. So – I was in no shape to get ill – but I did and that’s that.

Shit happens …

If I exorcise my demons, will I be healthier? Maybe, a little bit, but I really don’t think that since my subconscious cannot remember some trauma that I experienced as a little girl my T-Cells are precariously low.


But who knows? Maybe I will pick up one of those books even though she does not care enough to read my stuff, I will start reading and see if there is something to it.



Weirder things have happened …