Purge Fix

"It feels good," he says.

Oh my head!

I was slammed with an overwhelming feeling of overwhelmedness a couple days ago. I couldn't function... I looked at my disgusting mess of a house and couldn't bear to clean it again. I dreaded the daily arguing with my younger child. Arguing about turning off the television, arguing about getting up in the morning and moving fast enough to get to school on time. The endless dealing with bodily fluids. Two nights in a row he had meltdowns about his dad being gone, crying and asking me why he left and there's nothing I can say. One of those nights, I laid there with him while he was crying and told him about how my parents didn't raise me, that my mother didn't want kids and so my sister and I went and lived with Grandma Terry. I told him how after that, as kids we hardly saw or talked to my mom but we saw our dad on weekends. He never really heard that story before, and it distracted him from crying about his dad. He asked, why didn't my dad divorce my mom? Well, someone had to take care of her, she couldn't really take care of herself.

As usual, when he has a meltdown like that, it makes me feel completely, helplessly shredded because there's nothing I can do about it. Then I feel the anger of wanting to fucking throttle his dad, and it struck me the other night how incredibly unfair it is that some people just get to decide that they want to pass off their responsibilities to somebody else. My parents, then my kids' dad-parent. Leaving the responsible ones to be uber-super-responsible. And I wonder, how did I get myself in this situation? I thought I was smarter than that... but no I am not, I did this all to myself. I am stupid, stupid, stupid.

And now I'm completely responsible for these people that I brought into this world. I am responsible for their physical, emotional, mental, and intellectual well-being. I am not equipped for this and I cannot take the pressure. I can't do it, I want to start my life over, I want to run away but I can't, and I'm going to cry.

So the day after our talk, which was yesterday -- another day of non-functioning where I slept all day-- Luka told me on the way home from school that a lady at the school told him that if he gets upset about his dad, to tell his teacher and she'll let him come talk to her about it. I thought, great, our family has been red-flagged by the school social worker now. Although it was actually kind of a relief to think that somehow a professional was involved. So I questioned him. What did she ask you? What did you say about me? Hoping he didn't rat me out for something, like... I don't know, like using my cell phone at Wendy's compound to call our pre-teens on their cell phones to bring us beers in the yard.

Well I didn't get to hear the whole social worker story because he decided right there he had to pee, jumped out of the van the second I pulled in, and then proceeded to spray me with pee as he tried to go in the yard because he couldn't make it in the house.

This morning, I woke up and felt like I had a lava lamp operating in the top half of my face. I thought aha! sinuses! That's my problem, that's what's been fucking me up and making me non-functional! It makes sense. I decided it was time to try out a neti pot, so I bought one at the Ypsi Co-op.

I tried it this afternoon. It didn't take long to get the hang of it. The worst thing that happens is that if you don't have your face at the right angle, like if you're tipping your head too far back, then the salty water drips down the back of your throat. But if you tip forward a little, it's really weird. You can feel your sinuses filling, and then it drips out the other nostril. Cool! I was disappointed, though. I was hoping for really gross, green, nasty stuff to come out of my nose and make me feel really cleansed. It's the bulimic in me, looking for a purge fix. But it was all clear. I don't think I feel any better, but I can see how having a neti pot around to irrigate the sinuses every now and then can come in handy.

I tried to get Evan to do it, because he's been clogged up but he wouldn't. Luka did, though. He insisted on trying it and then he stood over the sink for a good three or four minutes and drained the entire pot. It reminded me a bit of when I gave him an enema not too long ago. That was some fun family fun as we bonded over some water and an orifice. He was waiting for me to get the enema ready, and when he saw that the enema bottle had an orange cap he said, "It's ORANGE! That means it's POISON!" And I said, "bwa hahaha!! That's right!! It's been nice knowing ya, but we've had enough of you now!" And we all had a good laugh as I emptied the bottle within. Family enema togetherness. Come to think of it, I'm glad he didn't share that with the social worker.

So I'm disappointed in the lack of neti pot grossness, but I was talking to Stephanie today and she told me about ear candling. I've heard of it, of course, but I've never tried it and she was telling me about some heavy duty grossness that she's seen with it. I think that may be the next thing on our family fun agenda, trying to get some grossness through ear candling. Woohoo! Anyone up for some ear candling with us?