Entries Tagged 'Isobel' ↓

Despite that he quit his job and has no way to pay child support and I could be living in the land of $100 to last a month, I’m not freaking out.

Despite that I dropped over 11 pounds doing the raw food diet for only five days before I quit it, and there’s no better motivator for an anorexic relapse than accidental weight loss, I had a burger for dinner.

Despite staying up all night working on a new sort of job thing that, if it works out for the future is basically easy described as a facet of my most perfect career, I didn’t continue the habit.

Despite having every reason to lose my shit and start sniffing glue as a mechanism for making the world stop controlling me, to allow me to control it, I’m still sitting here, sober and glue-free.

I have energy. Not the nervous energy spawned of too many nights without enough sleep and food, and too much coffee and cigarettes, with plans to concur the world and build small fortresses.

I have non-aggressive mood swings. I’m accepting things that usually would seem like too much to handle. I’m eating when I need to. I’m sleeping closer to regular hours. My mind is level-headed and I don’t feel sucked down by anything into an abyss of cannot-deal, even with all of The Ex’s shit that’s going on.

Quite simply, I feel a little peaceful. I feel like I’m gonna be alright.

I’m not happy (because I don’t really know what that is), but I’m definitely not unhappy at the moment. I’m floating in that way one might on a lake in the middle of summer, without time in their way. And I’m okay with it.

I only have one wicked side effect, which is actually pretty awesome when you consider that potentials can include liver failure. My ADD is much worse. Scratch that. My ADD has mutated. I’m not having problems focusing on one task because I’m distracted easily by outside thoughts, media, movement, etc. – I’m unable to retain information for long periods of time.

This means that I won’t be writing anything that involves comparisons because I can’t maintain what point A is about in relation to point B, because once I finish thinking about point A and move to point B, A’s info flies right outta mah head.

Also, I can’t do sodoku anymore.

Or apparently remember to hit the cue ball when playing 8 ball.

Anyway, back to the good. (See?)

I also have a sense of humour back that I haven’t had in longer than I can remember – one not entirely based upon that’s what she said jokes and dry, sarcastic one-liners. This is humour for pure performance sake. This is how yo mama was invented, I think; the initial comedian must have been on depakote.

So, even though Zoë is the size of a 2-year old, with the emotional maturity of, well, her father, and the attitude of a 14-year old, I’ve been laughing with her a lot more. Even on the tough days when she ends up looking more like this

than

I’m finding it easier to keep my cool and even, gasp, use the funny to my own inner-time-out-needed advantage.

Case in point: today was the whiniest day in the history of whininess. And I kept asking her to stop and just, you know, speak normally. Have some patience. Not freak out when her shoe didn’t go on perfectly on the first shot, or she didn’t get a lollypop.

Then, I started having had quite enough, thank fucking you very fucking much.

Instead of losing my shit and yelling, or getting overly snappy with her, I got pedantic.

Now, I don’t blatently lie to her, but I’m not above over-exaggeration. So, when the 137th whining moment occured, I may have said that she needed to stop whining because my head might explode. It’s not the first time she’s heard that one.

I don’t know if you know this about me, but I tend to go off on tangents.

</blatant sarcasm>

After my head exploding was firmly implanted as a visual image in my three-year old’s mind (why yes, I am an awesome mom), I had to describe the detriments of such an occasion. Namely, that she would have to clean up the mess. And lo-and-behold, we were at a restaurant who had paid an interior design company to tell them to install earthen-inspired stone tiles on the external walls, right next to our booth, and they had listened to the interior designers. Which, believe you-me, though beautiful, what with the perfect colour scheme and mortar-to-stone ratio, would not lend well to a cleaning session post neural detonation. And then I explained that this would make the restaurant owners pretty upset, so then

I remember, two weeks ago, needing anger management.

He’s been a dick for the past week or so.

What’s new about that? I didn’t know why.

Finally today, after Zoë going to his apartment this weekend (after he showed up on Thursday and paid child support and then promptly left despite her pleading him to play and stay), he looked worse for wear. He wouldn’t talk with me. One and two word sentences indicated last week that the silent treatment was back, but today, unlike the other silent periods I’ve waited for him to get bored with, I made him listen to me say that he was being rude and that I found it uncalled for.

Because, quite frankly, I gave you our daughter for the weekend, despite you not meeting the single condition ahead of time that was required for overnight visits, and you, fuckhead, will show some fucking appreciation.

Or like, offer three words.

I found out on Thursday that he’d quit his job. The job that he’d just gotten, was there for all of five days. Just walked out. His only source of income, and the source of his support payments. Because his boss was a dink.

And I guess having to make a support payment that he couldn’t afford to make made things seem bleaker.

Today, he was down-trodden and red-eyed in a way that only comes with the insomnia of sobriety and depression. And when I challenged him, demanding that he be real with me and speak to me as a fellow human being and someone he’s co-parenting with, otherwise we wouldn’t be co-parenting, he spoke up.

He said things are bad for him. That he’s massively depressed. That Zoë’s the only thing stopping him from killing himself.

I’m just floored, because he’s never been that depressed before. He’s saying that he’s giving up on everything but her, and I told him that she will know that something’s wrong with him and he said I know, but then nothing else came of that line of thinking.

I asked him if he thought it was time for some outside intervention and he said no.

I don’t know what to do with this information because he’s never been here before and he’s never been here before while we’ve had a daughter and he’s never been here before while we’ve had a daughter in his care sometimes. I don’t know if it’s life or the sobriety, if it will go away when he drinks, or if he’ll consider jumping off of a bridge the next time she’s with him and will barely restrain himself from it. Or won’t.

I don’t know his level of commitment to living, for her sake.

And I know that this sounds like the pot calling the kettle black, because all of my highs and lows could be looked at in a similar vein – a concern as to whether my daughter’s safety or psychological health might be at risk – but it’s not for simply one reason: I’ve set up guides that disallow me to cause her any damage or any to myself that she would be privvy to knowing about.

I have a secure support structure in my life, and I use it. I have people that I can call if it’s a particularly bad time and they’ll be here, and I wouldn’t not call, if I needed them. She is surrounded by friends and adoptive family that could take her to their homes and it wouldn’t make her blink because I trust them and so does she. Most importantly, if I was at the point where I was considering suicide and the only thing stopping me was her, I wouldn’t blink before running for help.

He won’t.

Talk. Seek treatment. Counselling. Therapy. Medication.

Nothing.

Which makes him, well, maybe kind of like a burning fuse attached to an Acme-brand stick of dynamite. It’s like, I’m watching Wile E. Coyote hold it, knowing it’s going to blow up, and I can’t stop him from it – I just have to wait for him to hold up a sign saying the MGM-version of Oh, Shit.

Except, The Ex isn’t the only one that will get burned, if the dynamite explodes this time; she will; I will.

And I don’t know what to do about that.

If you give a shit how the raw food diet’s treating me, you can read my update here.