Rooful.

An email I sent.

You might remember the original incident in question.

Re: Clearing the air.

Hi, [mom who lives in my neighborhood].

I was checking out the playground by the park with my son today, and I'm fairly sure I caught you looking at me with a wary expression. It's not the first time that's happened. So I'd like to clear things up, if possible.

Here's my perspective on our meeting in December. I'd been pretty darn explicit in my ads for the party dresses that I was selling them off because of pregnancy weight. And I was home with my baby boy, and all his baby stuff, when you arrived to pick up the dress. So it seemed particularly insensitive to me when you asked me how far along I was.

When you realized your error, you said, "Well, you look great!" I think I would have preferred a simple apology to an obviously empty compliment, but you know, people get nervous, they put their foot in it, they try to backpedal. It happens.

What really upset me was that you then turned to me and said, "You know, I teach a Pilates class." I hadn't asked. And it seemed to me that you were trying to capitalize on your social gaffe about my size to shame me into buying exercise classes from you.

That... took chutzpah.

You were out of line, all around. And I think you realized that, tried to rectify it by sending me an effusive text afterwards about how much you liked the dress.

I'm glad you liked the dress. Wear it in good health.

Anyway. If this exchange is something you feel bad about, and you'd like to apologize and start over, I'm amenable to that.

Or, if you'd rather you go your way and I go mine, that's fine too. But let's do it without weighty looks outside the wine store.

You don't need to respond to this email, but you can if you want.

Take care,

roo

The Letter Series: Dad

I could write a letter with no end.

I'll try to keep it short.

At X-mas, I sat down by the desk in your office, looking to be companionable.

You decided to ask me questions I would really rather not have had to field while trying to kick back with my family over the holidays.

"So... How're you feeling... inside yourself?"

You make me sound like a large gadget being driven by a tiny invisible person.

"You mean mental health-wise? I'm good, actually."

"You seem good."

"Yeah. I'm glad, too, because there were a lot of worries about post-partum issues."

"Yeah, I was worried you might... get the post-partum depression."

"Well, that's why we did so much work to structure things to reduce the risk. We planned with my medical team--"

"See? This is what I mean! You plan. You two amaze me. And now you've given the world this child, who's so advanced."

[ A little background to that comment, to those who don't know my father:
He thinks that smart, talented people have a duty to the human race to pass along their superior genes. I suppose I should be flattered he sees my husband and me that way. The not-so-subtle eugenicism is a bit of a put-off. Plus, since my genetic material is fifty percent his, it's hard not to see the compliment as a little self-serving.]

"Well. Thanks."

"How are you otherwise? I mean, when I heard you were actually worried about that test, I thought: Hmmmmm?! Didn't seem like how you used to be."

You mean that I actually allowed myself to admit that sort of vulnerability, instead of feeling like I had to act perfectly confident all the time? I suppose that's new. Ish. Strange you see it as a failing.

"Well..."

[I don't remember the exact train of thoughts that led from there to what's next.]

"...it's a spectrum. It doesn't mean that what I feel is necessarily that different from what someone else might. It's just the intensity's different..."

I don't remember seeing any signs that you really understood what I was saying. You looked skeptical.

"...and I can't be the Midnight Machine anymore. I can't just stay up working on something until it's done, the way I could before I got sick--"

You stopped me, holding up an instructing finger: "You mean the way you've been your whole life."

Pause.

"Well, no... What I experienced in 2009 was different from anything I'd ever been through before."

I needed to go at that point-- I think someone was calling me. But I was glad for the excuse to leave.

It's difficult, Dad. You said some very kind things, and I know you were talking with love. But you were wrong, in a lot of ways. And I need to address that, so I can stop thinking about it.

Okay. I'm going to be frank: how dare you presume to diagnose my mental health when I was a child? A team of some of the most highly-trained psychiatrists in the country didn't go so far. And yes, we talked about my childhood extensively.

A forty-year-old undergraduate degree in psychology that you haven't used since and a couple of tours in a lab studying behaviorism in non-primate animals don't give you the credentials to understand bipolar disorder.

Bipolar Disorder is generally understood to be an adult-onset disease-- most people who have it start experiencing symptoms at the end of their teens, or in their early twenties (unlike schizophrenics, who often don't start getting sick until the late twenties.)

I might have experienced hypomania when I was in grad school. But I never experienced full-on mania until 2009. How do I know? Because hypomania might make you sleepless, working hard and thinking grandiose thoughts. Mania might make you think you could actually fly. They are very, very different. You should believe me on this point, because I've lived it.

No? Does the fact that I have a mental illness make me less credible? Then look it up. And look up ableism, while you're at it.

Regarding Pediatric Bipolar Disorder-- Some doctors doubt it even exists, according to Jon Ronson's reporting in The Psychopath Test. My understanding is that it does exist, but it's relatively rare. Thankfully. Because it sounds terrible.

Maybe you should watch this:
 

I feel so sorry for that little girl. And I'm glad we live in a time when people are trying to figure out how to help her, instead of just locking her away.

But I don't identify with her. My childhood didn't look like that. If you're honest, I think you'll agree with me.

How could I have suffered what she's suffering, and never have been a discipline problem at school? How would I have kept it together to be a star student, a spelling bee champion, winner of statewide speech competitions, National Honor Society President? And all the other achievements I'm sure you remember maybe even better than I do? How could I have kept the focus to do all that, without treatment of any kind?

Without treatment is the key point here: I hope Alice can one day do all that, or whatever she dreams of. But she'll need a lot of help to get there. Help you know for a fact I did not have.

Yes. I'm angry.

Maybe that anger seems disproportionate to what was said.

I don't think so. Here's why:
There were a lot of bad things that happened in my childhood, Dad. I know you choose not to remember that, but it's true.

The time you told me that you'd pulled my head around by my hair and screamed in my face because it was "the only way [I'd] pay attention to [you]." I was in elementary school.

The time you told me I'd better find a home for that calico cat I'd been secretly feeding on the patio, because if she was still there in three days you'd shoot her.

The time I ruined X-mas.

The time you pinned me to the floor while I begged you to let me go, and Mom watched.

yadda yadda yadda.

Those times aren't all you are, Dad. But they're real. You did those things.

I don't want you letting yourself off the hook because my testimony is suspect. I don't want you re-writing those memories to say I always acted out because I was crazy.

Because that's not true. I was depressed, probably. Socially anxious, almost certainly. But I wasn't bipolar.

I can almost hear you compiling the evidence for your case-- what about my childhood fear of the dark, that light on in my room until I moved out? What about the all-night screaming sessions when I was seven? What about those nightmares?

Well. Who knows where phobias come from? I do know that until I was seven I shared a room with A-- that I moved into Uncle J's old room when he moved out.

Do you remember that room, the way it was then? I do. Big beige cabbage roses crawling up the cracked plaster walls, lathe exposed in gaping patches, a ceiling crazed with cracks. A big, dark closet with a creaking door.

Hornets used to creep in from the kitchen attic, behind the wall. I used to wake up with them on my bedspread, inches from my face. I got stung, a few times.

Do you remember how plaster would fall off in chunks from the far wall, if you shut the door too hard?

I guess you wouldn't. You were on the opposite side.

Anyway, my friends used to spin stories about our big, old house-- how spooky it was, how it was probably haunted. They were scared to sleep over. When they did, we usually capitalized on the atmosphere by having seances.

But ghosts scared me. Spooky scared me.

I remember going to you and mom, asking if you believed in ghosts, hoping you'd tell me they were nonsense-- that there was no such thing.

Instead, you said, in all sincerity, "Yeah, I believe. I think this house is haunted. I've heard the ghosts pacing in the attic and in the front hall."

Mom said, in equal sincerity, " I think she steals my purse."

Goodnight, honey.

I guess what I'm trying to get at here is that I'd like you to entertain the possibility that my childhood responses to those things weren't all that unreasonable. Especially considering that I was a child. Lots of children are scared of the dark. Lots of children worry about ghosts and ghouls.

Not every parent screams at their child for it.

I love you, Dad. I'm not trying to hurt you by bringing all this up. But I have a right to my own history. I have enough to deal with managing my reality, without having to swallow or debunk your re-imagined version.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe you don't remember these events so clearly. You've been a heavy drinker for longer than I've known you-- which complicates memory and denial.

I'll leave that there.

But I want to reiterate something I said to J's dad, not too long ago:
Seeking treatment for a medical condition isn't what makes someone crazy. Not getting help when you need it does. In other words, someone who takes medication or goes to therapy isn't necessarily any sicker than someone undiagnosed who does neither.

I think you were trying to supportive, in your office at Christmas. But I don't need your medical opinion-- I've got doctors for that. I want you to just be my dad.

Support me by telling me all the ways your grandson is amazing.

Support me by using that big brain I'm so glad you passed down, and think about asking for help yourself.

Love,
roo

The Letter Series: FIL

I'd been planning to post glowy photos of the Sprog's first Xmas before delving into family insanity. Unfortunately, family insanity refuses to be ignored-- on a number of levels. So I've decided to address the issue in a letter-- the inaugural missive of a writing/life project outlined here.

So, FIL.

I need to discuss something with you, and the right moment for doing so face-to-face is unlikely to arrive, so I'm writing you a letter.

I don't have the perfect segue into the meat of the matter. I guess I'll start at the beginning.

Last year at Christmas we all went to visit G at her retirement home. While we were there, she reminisced about her childhood in ___. She remembered a friend whose mother danced around a piano. The friend's mother sounded like a spitfire of a woman, a little too lively and vivid to fit in among the more sedate families that likely formed the main part of your mother's girlhood acquaintance. One night, this woman walked into a pond and drowned herself.

At this point in the story, you leaned over to me and said, "She sounds like she was one of those wooooooh! need-to-be-institutionalized types." You accompanied this comment with a "cuckoo" hand gesture.

Of course you knew that was my first holiday trip home after being institutionalized myself. In fact, the Christmas previous I was in the midst of the breakdown that led me to seek help a few weeks later.

Did you think I would find your comment funny? That's difficult for me to believe. I'd like to think it was some ham-fisted attempt on your part to manage your own discomfort. Because if you'd actually considered those words, and said them anyway, you must be remarkably cruel. I cried about that comment whenever I thought of it, for months afterward. And the few people with whom I shared the anecdote were shocked by your callousness.

At the time, I didn't say much-- in part because I was too shocked and hurt to make an earnest reply, in part because I was angry and didn't want you to see your shot had made a direct hit. And in part because you made your comment in your mother's sitting room-- a place where I couldn't fight back.

So I said, "You have to watch out for those." And I left it at that.

Incidentally, the fact that I'm managing a mental illness does not make me like every and any other mentally ill person-- even among those who share my particular diagnosis. So a discussion of a woman your mother once knew doesn't necessarily reflect me. Unless you're a bigot, I suppose.

I'm not even the only person in your family who deals with mental health concerns, though my situation may have been the most acute. But seeking treatment for a medical condition isn't what makes someone crazy. Not getting help when you need it does. In other words, someone who takes medication or goes to therapy isn't necessarily any sicker than someone undiagnosed who does neither.

So, why am I bringing this up now?

This Christmas, you and I were sitting in your kitchen. I made a comment about our crazy neighbor, who lives upstairs. You lowered your glasses and shot me a look over them, wordlessly expressing that I was in no position to throw stones. You know, since I'm crazy.

Well. I could say that I've earned my right to use that word-- that as a member of a group that is marginalized, disenfranchized, and discriminated against, I can use the word "crazy." I could say I'm reclaiming the word, the way black people have taken back the n-word, which they can use even though white people can't without causing grave offense.

But in this case, when I'm referencing a woman who shouts swears at our super, who posts angry notes about imaginary laundry-room infractions, and who walks one of the dozen or so cats that crowd her one-bedroom apartment around our neighborhood on a leash made of repurposed packing twine, I'm using the word "crazy" because I find it apt.

If I, as a onetime crazy woman, am not allowed to describe others as crazy, I imagine you must have had a moratorium on the phrase "insensitive jerk" for at least as long as I've known you.

I know I sound angry. I am. But with reason. And I wouldn't have bothered writing all this out if I didn't hope for some kind of resolution. If you'd like to talk, or write back, I'm open to that. But it's not necessary.

What is necessary is that you treat me with respect-- if not for the intelligent, talented woman I am, then for my position as your son's wife and your grandson's mother.

That marginalization I mentioned earlier, that wasn't just me being flip. The stigma of mental illness is very real. I get more than enough unwarranted shame for my condition from the outside world-- I don't need to get it from my family too.

Cut out the comments. Learn to manage your discomfort some other way.

To a better Christmas Future,
roo

Draft of a letter I may never send.

I'll call you C. I've got my reasons.

Hey there, C. It's me, the cousin you don't talk with much (isn't that what you said?)

I've been thinking about you. Thinking about how I wish I could talk to you more often, or at least, more substantially. It's tough, though, when we see each other at most for a holiday or two each year, surrounded with family and noisier, more immediate concerns. How do we find the moment to talk about something real? How can I even bring it up, without an awkwardness that might make frank, open conversation well nigh impossible?

You tried it, once. You called me, three Easters ago, after the get-together at your mom's. You hadn't seen me in a while. Like most of the people there, you'd noticed I'd lost a lot of weight. Unlike most of them, though, you didn't see it as a sign of success or a reason for celebration. You were scared. For me. Scared enough that you reached out and made a phone call-- the first time in our lives you'd ever called me, I think.

You told me about discovering that you were anorexic-- that it took your daughter, in tears, crying about your visible bones, for you to address an unhealthy relationship you'd had with food since you were a girl. You told me how not eating made you feel strong-- unstoppable. You told me how hard it's been for you to realize you needed food to live.

You told me you wanted me to eat.

I didn't take it well. I'd like to explain why. But before I do that, I want you to know I understand how hard it must have been for you to make that call, and that I know you reached out because of love. And I love you for it.

You were right to be worried when you saw how thin I was. It was a sign something was really wrong with me. But, though I wouldn't be surprised if there's some overlap between the two diagnoses, there's a difference between anorexia and a manic episode.

When I saw you that Easter, I'd spent what I figure to be about a solid month in mania.

After I lost my job-- a job I loved, despite how emotionally abusive my workplace was, a job that in many ways defined me to me-- I spent a long time in my chair, smoking, and brooding. In an attempt to battle my depression, I'd go for long runs, logging in about six miles or so a day. But then I'd come home, sit in my chair, maybe light up a bong, roll a cigarette or two or twenty.

But in March, things started to change. My outlook. My habits. I wasn't running anymore. I was smoking a lot of pot. I was writing, and doing artwork, and I felt like creativity was literally coursing though my veins, taking over my body. I didn't sleep. I didn't feel like I needed to. I didn't eat. I didn't feel hungry. I was consumed by these ideas that seemed to arrive almost with their own volition, redeeming me and my ruined life.

By April, the first wave was receding a bit. I could stop writing, take a look around me. My reflection was astonishing. Without even trying, without consciously dieting, without exercising in weeks, I'd become a size two. I've never been that slim. And I felt... Fantastic. Aglow. Heads would turn as I walked down the street. I had to buy new clothes, because everything I owned was too big, and get this-- everything I put on looked good. No disappointment when what I'd seen on the hanger made my hips look wide, or pulled in strange ways. I could choose what I wanted-- not just the option or two of the lot that actually fit right.

My new body felt like this gift, born of the seemingly revelatory insights I'd been writing about so (literally) madly for a month or more. This was the shape of the new me. I didn't even have to work for it. I thought to myself, well, hey, I may be unemployed, but I look fabulous.My body was another kind of redemption.

So when you talk about your experience with anorexia, that "unstoppable" feeling not eating gave you, I recognize that. The difference is that I honestly wasn't unhappy with my body before the weight loss. I wasn't even trying to lose weight. Once the weight was gone, I was startled and pleased with my new, unaccustomed shape. But I never had moments of looking in the mirror, thinking that I didn't deserve to eat, thinking I needed to control every bite, thinking I was never thin enough.

I didn't control every bite. That was the magic of it all-- I never even thought about food. And I was plenty thin enough-- I was thrilled with how I looked.

I was thrilled about... everything. That was the problem. Mania can feel so good you never realize there is a problem.

But there's another aspect of this situation, that affected my response to your call that day. And its roots go a lot further back.

A mentioned a while back that you'd said something about how hard it is for you to spend time with my parents. She sounded shocked when she recounted that you said you felt like they didn't like you.

I... wasn't shocked. Because when you were a girl, they didn't. I don't know if it will make you feel any better when I tell you they didn't like me, either.

Yes, they loved me. But like? I don't think they liked any children that weren't... opinionless, subservient, conservatively-dressed, polite little miniature adults.

I don't think any child could have done more that I did to win their acceptance. You know. You were there. How many student committees? Honors? Awards? Drama Club, peer education, student government, newspaper staff, yearbook staff, Future Problem-Solvers of America, Odyssey of the Mind, Explorers, ecumenical choir. I was president of the National Honor Society. I co-founded the debate team. I won state-wide speech competitions. I won art awards. I was second in my class. Hell, I lettered in three sports, and I can't even catch a ball! I didn't smoke, didn't drink, didn't do drugs.

None of it mattered. They'd still sit me down on the couch and solemnly lecture me about my mean streak, my out-of-control behavior, how they "didn't know where [they'd] gone wrong raising me."

Why? I don't know. But I know that when it came to "out-of-control behavior," one of the things they were talking about was food. We fought about food every single day. From when I was in fifth grade, and (like your daughter did, not so long ago) realized I could exercise and eat less junk food and I'd no longer be fat, until the day I moved out to go to college.

We always ate dinner together. And each night, Mom and Dad would pile up my plate with food, snapping at me when I told them I didn't need so much. Even when I was in high school, it wasn't uncommon for Dad to declare that I wasn't allowed to leave the dinner table until I'd cleaned my plate. So I'd sit there, for hours, refusing to eat more than the sensible portion I'd already consumed. Out of control.

Mom and Dad, and even A sometimes, would taunt me for being such a snob, for not deigning to eat like the rest of them. And forget it if they saw me actually enjoying a bowl of ice cream or something that seemed to indicate I'd fallen off my supposed high horse. Literally jeers.

And sometimes they'd accuse me of being anorexic. Again, I don't really need to tell you this, since you were there, but I was a size eight. I liked to run, I played sports, and I was a size eight. I had no problem with my size. But I was far from anorexic.

I have my theories about why my family was like this. Dad's over four-hundred pounds. Mom's probably close to three-hundred. A has struggled with being overweight for most of her life. And we were both pudgy little girls. But as long as we were all heavy, Mom and Dad could tell themselves that our family just had big genes (how they accounted for your mom and Dad's little brother with this view is harder to explain-- but I never underestimate the power of denial.)

But then I start watching what I eat, and exercising, and, lo and behold! I'm suddenly not so big anymore! And suddenly, Mom and Dad and A have to confront the fact that their personal choices have something to do with their weight problems. But, well, it's easier to get angry at me instead. Easier to exclude me from the family culture, point their finger, label me anorexic, than to deal with their own food demons.

So, even though you had good reason to worry when you saw me that Easter, good reason to warn me about that disease raising its ugly head, hearing the word anorexic applied to me set off some deep emotional responses that you couldn't have known about when you brought it up.

Part of the reason I'm writing this letter now is that... certain looks, certain awkward silences and odd comments make me suspect that there are still people in the family who worry that I have an eating disorder. Despite the fact that I've steadily gained weight since I saw you that Easter. I could be wrong about this.

A is pushy, and she loves to "diagnose," and she's so sure that she's right (at least when it comes to other people) that she's prone to turning a deaf ear to any information that might contradict a pet theory she's nursing at a particular time. This is how she has, at various times, determined that I'm an anti-semite (?!), that I'm a prude (??!!), that I'm ignorant about gay culture (???!!!), and that I have a deep-seated dislike of heavy people (????!!!!)

I could go on (and on) about each of these mistaken assumptions, but I'm going to try to stay at least somewhat on topic.

When you called me that Easter, I was staying with A and B. They saw how upset I was after your call. And I know A was much struck by the notion that I was anorexic (who knows if she was responding to echoes of childhood fights at the dinner table.) In fact, a few months later she sat me down on her couch (much like Mom and Dad did, back in the day), and lectured me about body image and food. My self-confessed dysmorphic sister was lecturing me about body image. Even though I'd put on ten pounds since you'd seen me at Easter.

Sigh.

A few months later, I went to the hospital. And if you need additional reassurance that, despite my occasional serious mental problems, an eating disorder is not one of them, I'll point out that when you live under twenty-four-hour supervision by some of the best psychiatrists in the country, for six weeks, you can be pretty confident that if you have a problem like that, well, they'll find it.

When I was in the hospital, I was given a prescription for a medication that is notorious for causing rapid weight gain. Unfortunately, I may have confirmed some of my sister's presumptions when I made the mistake of confiding in her once or twice how I felt about being on the medication. But... I put on forty pounds in four months. All at the same time that I was adjusting to the new, demoralizing title of "crazy person." I defy anyone to go through something like that without a qualm or two.

All things considered, I think I handled the changes rather well. As evidenced by how I've moved my life forward, found work, started a family, all that good stuff.

So... it's frustrating to feel these concerns still dogging my progress, hovering, un-confrontable because they're largely unsaid.

And please, forgive me if I've made something out of nothing. Even if I'm wrong about the current dynamics, it just feels good to be able to say some of this stuff out loud. Or write it out loud. You know what I mean.

So, while I'm on the subject of finally writing out loud, I'd like to tell you a few more things about my parents.

Back when we were in high school, you congratulated me for a pro-choice article I'd written for the school newspaper. I can't tell you what it meant to me at the time, to have won the approval of my popular, beautiful cousin. You might not have realized how much I looked up to you. Then you gave me a letter, and asked me to publish it anonymously in next week's paper.

It was heart-wrenching. Beautiful, and sad. I never told you this, but my parents read the letter when it was published. I didn't tell them you'd written it. They both had tears in their eyes, and talked about how brave that girl was. Mom said she was a hero. Dad said, "When you see that girl, give her a hug from me."

I wanted to confront them, to let them know that girl was their niece-- the one they always judged so harshly. I wanted them to know how wrong they were about you. But you trusted me with your words. That meant so much to me. So I kept my mouth shut.

The happy ending to all this is that Mom and Dad figured out that they were wrong about you, all on their own. Dad was so impressed by how you helped your mom when T was sick, talked about what a sweet, competent woman you'd become. He called you "a peach." He's been a fan of yours ever since. And Mom has talked about how you seem to have blossomed as a mother, what a great job you're doing raising your little girl(your two little girls, even!) And I think she has a sense that you're a survivor. Mom's always had a soft spot for survivors. Especially when they have great style. That's why she loves Scarlett O'Hara. And why she loves you.

By the by, Mom and Dad seem to like me too, these days. Happy endings all around.

So, I've gone and written you this long letter. Which is weird, I know. One of the perks of being genuinely certifiable is that there are people who are going to think I'm weird no matter how hard I try to act normal-- so I might as well let my freak flag fly. At least I've had a chance to share some of the thoughts that sit in the back of my mind, stuck behind boxes of Christmas-tree ornaments and old barbie dolls. Especially these ones: I am lucky to have you in my life, watching out for me, making the tough phone calls, trying to keep me healthy and safe. And I love you, very much.

Yours,
roo