When a Kid is Sick

When a kid is sick, most parents tend to pamper their kid. They'll bring them special treats and/or sit and read to them or just tuck them in securely and hold their hand. When it's time to eat, they'll cook foods that their kids like and if the kid is too sick to get out of bed, they will bring it to them and help them eat it in bed. Basically, they will try and make their kid feel better emotionally as well as physically. At least that's what I imagine.

When I would get sick, my mother wanted nothing to do with me. She would just leave me alone in my room. If she had actually taken me to the doctor and there was medicine that I was supposed to take, then she would bring that in and make sure I took it. But she wouldn't sit with me and tell me stories. She never brought me special treats. She never even brought me regular meals. If I wanted to eat, I had to get out of bed and come to the kitchen and eat whatever she had cooked. If I was too sick to come to the table or if I didn't want to eat what she had cooked (she cooked a lot of foods that I was allergic to), then I was out of luck.

I remember one time when I was in sixth or seventh grade, when I had some sort of fever, headache and body ache illness going on, that I went for three days without eating anything. My mother knew that I hadn't eaten anything. When I finally managed to come to the kitchen to eat, she commented on how many days it had been and that she had wondered how long it would take before I got over feeling sorry for myself and came out to eat something.

Physical Therapy

When I was 12, I had to learn how to give my mother physical therapy. I'm not sure why they chose me to do it instead of my older brother. Apparently, my father simply wasn't co-ordinated enough to manage it properly, but as far as I know, they never even tried to teach my older brother how to do it. Of course, he was the difficult child and I was the obedient one, so that was probably it. Or maybe it was because I was a girl and he was a boy. Everyone knows that girls are better at taking care of people than boys are, right? Even if they are two years younger and far more emotionally vulnerable.

Anyway, my mother had a very nasty lung disease. My family referred to it as terminal bronchiectasis. I don't know if that is the actual scientific name, but that was what we called it. Basically, my my mother's lungs were slowly, but surely filling up with infected phlegm. One of the ways to get this phlegm out was to put her on a tilted board with her head downwards and rhythmically beat on her back, sides and front with slightly cupped hands until she hacked up some of the phlegm. We would then look at it to check what shade of yellow, green or brown it was, and if it had any blood in it.

We did this physical therapy three times a day, morning, afternoon and evening. Each time, the whole procedure took a little over an hour. 10 minutes for her left back, 10 for her left side, 10 for her left front, then 10 for her right back, etc... She would usually cough up phlegm 2 or more times during each 10 minute section. I hated it. I hated the sound of her cough. I hated looking at the mucus covered tissues. I hated feeling her body struggle first to breath, then to expel the phlegm that was slowly killing her. It's not that I didn't want to help my mother. I did. It was just that being forced to be so intimate with her disease was extremely stressful for me. I was, after all, only twelve.

I had been told that by performing this physical therapy on my mother, I was helping her to live. But all I could feel as I was drumming on her body, was her dying beneath my hands.

Being "Good" Can Be Bad for You

This post was copied from an old blog that I no longer keep up. It was originally published on March 9, 2009.

I had a dream last night that made clear to me how I've been feeling. I know most people don't need their dreams to tell them how they feel, but I've always had problems acknowledging my own feelings. Blame it on my mother. That's pretty much where I place the blame for most of my psychological problems. (Well... I can probably lay a few problems on my father... and genetics may have something to do with it...) Anyway, even though I've been working for years to let myself be aware of and feel my emotions, I still have problems admitting to myself that I feel "negative" emotions. To paraphrase my mother,"A good person doesn't get angry. A good person doesn't feel jealous. A good person will take care of everyone else and not want anything for themselves." Thus taking care of yourself, if it in any way interferes with taking care of someone else, is selfish and bad. I have trouble believing that a "good" person could survive childhood, much less adulthood. But I tried to be “good” as hard as I could.

I tried so hard to be a "good" person that it nearly killed me. (My first attempted suicide at 15 was because I believed that I wasn't a good enough person to live.) Trying to be “good” definitely left me psychologically disabled. Yes, literally, disabled. I can't function in society. I can't hold down a job. I have extreme difficulty making and maintaining friends. And even small amounts of stress can cause physiological problems like migraines and stomach issues. Some days, I can function almost normally, but other days, just leaving the house to run errands is more than I can handle. So... see what trying to be a "good" person has done to me. Nevertheless, there is a part of me that still tries to be "good". Stuff that was programmed into you with your baby food isn't gotten rid of that easily. I still automatically put other's needs before my own. Although now "others" is limited to people I actually care for. My husband for example...

Before I go further, I need to explain something about my view of money. I inherited some money from my parents when they died. It's how I've survived since I can't hold down a job. I've learned to live VERY frugally. When I finally gave up on trying to hold down a job (I tried various sorts of jobs for over 10 years, never keeping a single one for more than a few months. Most didn't last more than 3 weeks.), I decided that I would just live as frugally as possible, and when I ran out of money, I would simply kill myself. At the time, I didn't have a husband or any really close friends, so my death wouldn't really cause anyone a problem. (See, even when considering suicide, I have to make sure that I'm not causing anyone else any inconvenience. To this day, I only have one close friend beside my husband and I think she would feel more guilty at not saving me rather than sad at the loss of a friend.) So... for many years, I equated spending money with impending death. I was VERY frugal.

To continue... My husband is horse mad. I like horses, but I'm not horse mad. But my husband has always wanted a horse and his own ranch to ride his horse around on. And since he is an experienced software engineer, you would think that he makes good money and wouldn't have to worry too much about job security. So I was willing to spend a good chunk of MY money to put a down payment on twenty acres of land so that we could build a house and a barn and live my husband's dream. I was also planning to use the money from the sale of MY house(best money I ever spent) to pay off most of the construction loan for building the new house. It seemed like a good plan. However...

My husband decided he wanted his own horse now rather than later. And since, I thought that we were doing well enough financially, I went along with him. We ended up rescuing a very nice horse that had been badly neglected. We only paid $20 to buy the horse, but we've since spent close to ten thousand on vet bills, boarding fees, tack and various horse related items. My husband was in charge of these things and he was the one who paid the credit card(I take care of the mortgage, insurance, property taxes, etc...), so I didn't realize how much money he'd been spending. He'd also been spending a lot on eating out for lunch and such. And just recently, he confessed to me that we had built up a huge amount of credit card debt.

Now, I'd already been living fairly frugally because I knew that building our new house was going to be very expensive. (and because I will probably always be frugal.) And even though I knew that my husband wasn't living all that frugally, I thought that it was okay. Since he was the one making the money, he should be allowed to spend a little more of it. (Although I had been trying for months to convince him to spend less on eating out.) I figured that it wouldn't be much longer until we could build our new home, sell my house, and things would be a bit easier financially. Now, I realize that it will be years before we get ourselves enough out of debt to even consider trying to get a construction loan. All my living frugally has accomplished was to let my husband take longer before telling me how bad our credit card debt was. Now I have to live even more frugally. And I have to be the dominant one(the nagging wife, which I DON'T want to be) and insist that my husband learn how to live frugally (which admittedly he seems to finally be beginning-- just beginning-- to understand).

So... my dream... My husband and I were at some sort of get together in an outdoor restaurant. I let everyone get their food before me and when I got to the counter, the serving girl told me they were out of brisket, all they had left was some bread. So, even though I was disappointed, I took the bread and ate it while everyone else, including my husband, enjoyed their brisket. Then it was time for desert. My friend D had brought some strawberries, vanilla cream and cake. I let D and my husband get their desert, and when I got to the counter, guess what... All they had left were a few little pieces of strawberry. No cream. No cake. And I had really wanted some vanilla cream. I lost it. I screamed and threw my purse across the courtyard. My husband, holding his VERY LARGE serving of desert in his hand came over, patted my shoulder and said,"It will be okay." and went back to eating his desert. I got even more angry and grabbed my purse strap and threw it over the wall surrounding the courtyard where everyone was eating. Then knowing that even though I was infuriated, I needed to get my purse back (because no one else was going to do it), I left the courtyard to find my way around the wall and get my purse. My husband actually followed me out, but instead of trying to go find my purse, he just wanted to get in his car and go home. I ran away from him and made my way through a crowded department store to the back alley behind the wall and started looking for my purse all by myself. I searched for hours, but never found it.

It's not exactly difficult to interpret this dream. I let my husband have everything he wants even though it means that there is nothing left for me. And when it becomes apparent that there is real financial difficulty, my husband just states that,"It will be okay" without actually trying to fix anything. I'm the only one that understands that there is a real problem and that just going on with our life as usual isn't going to solve anything. I'm the one digging through the back alleys trying to salvage our finances, while hubby goes home to watch tv and play on his computer.

It's not a very nice dream. And probably not entirely fair to my husband. He is much younger than me and basically went from living with his parents to living with me. He has had neither the time nor the experience to learn as much about finances as I have. But that doesn't make me feel any better, and although it explains things, it doesn't fix them. And I'm just tired of denying myself and excusing him from his mistakes.

I'm tired of being "good".

Update 3/31/11: While we still have a fair amount of credit card debt, it is less than it was. And my husband is truly working to try and get rid of it entirely. And I have started spending a little money on things just for me. Used books don't cost much, and they make my life much more bearable.