Aiming for "peaceful"

Yesterday, I saw a post encouraging moms to support each other despite their different parenting styles or philosophies. I'm totally behind that, 100 percent, but one of the pictures got me thinking. One of the moms held a sign that said "I yell at my kids sometimes" and the other mom said "I practice peaceful parenting."
That's the point at which I said, "Oh yeah, I was gonna do that."
Parenting Beyond Punishment says,

Peaceful parenting is using intentional, gentle ways to guide children using empathetic and cooperative solutions versus trying to control their behavior with bribes, yelling, and punishments. It involves working with children by listening, understanding, responding and communicating with intention.

When I was pregnant, and when Cora was an infant, I was totally going to be a peaceful parent, I was never, ever, ever going to yell at my daughter.
Now that she's 2.5 years old, I'm astonished to say that's fallen by the wayside. Not that there's a LOT of yelling, but yeah, sometimes there's some yelling. The two things that get me the most frustrated are when my kid wastes food and when she repeatedly endangers herself. She is constantly trying to climb the oven and see the stovetop. I don't think I need to explain to anyone older than age 4 why that's a bad idea, but she tries to do it ALL THE TIME.
And then there's the food waste. One of my fellow warrior moms shared the photo below on Facebook.

 Except in our house, it's bananas, literally. My child will take one bite of a banana and then put the rest in the trash. She will eat one bite of almost anything, but it's about impossible to get her to eat a whole serving of anything.
It frustrates me when I realize I've zoned out and she's painted 3 square feet around her with pudding, or poured out almost a whole box of Cheerios on the floor. I know it's just part of being a kid and testing her boundaries, but I'm a stay at home mom right now. It's not like I have an escape.
I think maybe now that I've tried the yelling and the bribing and the time outs, I might try to attempt some peaceful parenting. I don't know if it will work, but it might make us all feel better than yelling and apologizing. Maybe we can just skip that step.
And maybe I might still yell sometimes. I never said I was perfect.

Costuming a toddler

My child is an opinionated soul in general, but she has no preference when it comes to Halloween costumes. This year, anyway. We looked at Target's costume section, and she seemed to like a bee costume better than anything else, so I decided to make my own. I ordered bee wings and antennae off Amazon, because they were so inexpensive it probably would have cost more to make them.
I decided to make the torso myself out of fleece by tracing another dress that fits her well.
It's not completely finished, but here's what I've gotten done so far.

It's been somewhat of an adventure, because my sewing machine is on the fritz, so I've been hand sewing it. In addition, I had planned to paint the stripes on, but I realized we don't own any paint brushes. So, last night after Cora went to bed, I glued ribbon on with fabric glue.
I still need to sew down the ends of the ribbons on the bodice and do something about the neckline. It's a little too big, so I'm hoping I can figure out a way to gather it a little.
One good thing is, now that Cora's seen it, she likes it a lot. But she wants to wear it all the time, so I had to hide it until it's finished. That will make things more complicated, of course.
Daniel says it looks like a 60s mini-dress, which I think is a compliment. Our toddler will be wearing a turtleneck and pants underneath it, anyhow.
Meanwhile, I'm 29 and this is the first year I haven't come up with a costume for myself. I wanted to make a cape like Katrina Van Tassel wears in the Sleepy Hollow movie, with the grey velvet and embroidered roses, but I don't really have the budget for yards of stretch velvet and satin. My second idea was Titus Andromedon's "Peeno Noir" costume, but I'm not sure I can pull that off in time, either.

 It's surprisingly hard to find gold lame leggings and a sequined top in a small town. I may have to be content with being the uncostumed mom this year.

Starting a support group??

I recently met up with one of the attendees of my Climb Out of the Darkness event, a wonderful lady who has some experience with running depression and bipolar support groups. She gave me a lot of insight into the requirements of peer-led support groups and some tips to help me be successful when I get things going.
It was an emotional meeting for me. Sharing my story is always cathartic, and sometimes it just sends the floodgates opening. It is such a comfort to be in the company of others who have been through what I went through, and who found supports to make it through to the other side of the darkness.
This person in particular struggled with depression for 17 years. Our stories are different yet similar, as it seems to be with so many women who have gone through postpartum mental disorders. We both had issues with having recently moved and feeling isolated from our families.
I was sharing one part of my history and of course I started crying, and I was apologising and being annoyed at myself, when she told me something interesting. She said never to be embarrassed by showing my honest feelings. It's going to be a change of mindset for me, because as a journalist, the effort is always to keep the focus on your source, and hold off on your own emotional reactions until you can get to the car or wherever. To go from battling to keep that poker face on to unapologetically allowing my emotional reactions to happen will definitely be an adjustment.
I really think having a postpartum depression support group will be beneficial for not only the community, but also myself. My friend said it was a healing experience for her to be able to share with others and to help them, and ever since I clawed my way out of my depression, that's what I have wanted to do as well.
I'm not sure what I'm going to do specifically, but I know my first step will be to get off my bum and apply for the Warrior Mom Ambassador program. I'm a little ashamed that I haven't done so yet, as I've seen so many of my fellow warrior moms proudly making the announcement that they are part of the program.
I also want to be part of the Mental Health First Aid program, but I'm not sure if it is too late to apply.
Once I complete these steps, I think I will be more prepared to be the person at the helm of a postpartum mental disorder support group. I think the biggest challenge for me, aside from overcoming my natural inclination to be an introvert, will be locating others who feel equally qualified to lead the group if I am out of town, etc. The woman I met with said not having more leadership help was what led to the eventual disbanding of her group. My first thought was to clutch her hands and say, "oh, won't you help me?" But she has a lot of charitable activities and artistic activities going on.
The best thing that came out of that meeting for me was the feeling that I have not only a friend, but an ally in this mess. She said I could call or text her any time I'm having a bad day. It's an amazing feeling to have a local person who actually cares about me. I have so much family, so many friends, and so many amazing warrior moms who care, but they're spread out all over the country. It sounds kind of pathetic, but I'm just so glad to have someone right here in town who understands.

Intrusive thoughts: Realizing I have more work to do on my recovery

Hey, hi! Do you have a maternal mental illness like postpartum depression, anxiety, or OCD? Or do you suffer from depression or anxiety in general? This post features some frank discussion of a really difficult time in my life. If you are feeling fragile today, you may want to consider skipping this post. Instead, watch this video of Warrior Moms and know that 1. You're not alone; and 2. you can get through this!

This isn't extremely timely anymore, because I've been sitting on it. Frankly, I'm a little scared to put it out into the world. But I want to help other moms, so here goes nothing.

Recovery from maternal mental illness can be thought of as a journey, or perhaps a long, winding road, but for me, a few weeks in August were the equivalent of unpaved back country roads. For the most part, I consider myself in recovery, but a few things happened recently to make me realize there are parts of my journey with postpartum depression that I still have to process and let go.

Part of my method for moving forward from those dark days is writing in a journal. Yes, a ye olde journal, with pen and paper. I like to write, I like the feeling of the pen in my hand. I don't love the inevitable smudges on my hand from being a lefty, but there you go.

The following is a series of entries from my journal. It was hard to write, and it may be hard to read. This deals with intrusive thoughts and depressive thoughts, and anyone who is feeling particularly sensitive or fragile right now may want to skip the rest. Despite my fear, I want to release these thoughts into the ether. I don't want them to have any power over me anymore.

8/28/15

A woman in the postpartum mental disorders support community, Naomi Knoles, committed suicide this week. It has affected me deeply. Though I didn't personally know Naomi, each person lost due to maternal mental illness breaks another piece of my heart.

Naomi's story is hard for me to read. She had postpartum psychosis in 2003, which led to a failed suicide attempt followed by the decision to smother her daughter. She was sentenced to 10 years in prison, during which she decided to dedicate her life to helping other mothers with postpartum mental disorders.

Though I never had thoughts of harming (my daughter), my darkest thoughts bore a striking resemblance to her suicidal thoughts. It makes me wonder if I should have been hospitalized. I was always afraid that if I went to the hospital, they would take (my daughter) from me. On my worst nights, the only thing that kept me from hurting myself or worse, trying to kill myself, was the fact that she was breastfeeding, and no one would be there if she woke up and I was "gone." It is so hard to admit that, given that I have lots and lots of reasons to stick around, but I was sick.

Naomi's story is heartbreaking for a few reasons. She didn't get the help she needed. It's hard for me not to wonder "what if?" What if I were just a little bit sicker? What if I had intrusive thoughts of harming my daughter and began to believe them? What if I had tried to commit suicide? It's a fruitless train of thought, because, of course, none of it happened to me. But it's hard to resist "what if," and one thought leads to another.

My heart breaks over and over for Naomi and anyone who has suffered so much.

9/1/15

I am a liar. At my sickest, I had intrusive thoughts about harming my child. They inspire so much fear and revulsion in me that I can't even admit it to myself.

I have been looking into therapy, but I'm not sure we can afford it. Thus, I'm going to write out the most horrible things that crawled through my mind in the hope that they will stop having power over me.

I thought,

"What if I go crazy and put the baby in the microwave?"

I can't remember if it was a first responder or a grizzled old reporter, but apparently their tale of a deeply disturbed mother who put her newborn in the microwave stuck with me, because I constantly worried that I would lose it and do something horrible like that to my child.

I thought,

"What if I trip and fall down the stairs with the baby?"

"What if we get in a car accident?"

"What if there's a drive-by and the baby gets hit by a stray bullet?"

"What if I slap the baby?"

"What if I just get in the car and drive until I run out of gas?"

"What if I jump off an overpass?"

I thought,

"I'm a bad mom."

"She is better off without me."

"Everyone is better off without me."

"I should just slit my wrists."

"I'm worthless. I'm nothing. I'm a waste of oxygen."

(These aren't all intrusive thoughts, but they are the kind of lies depression tells you. They are lies.)

I think reading Naomi's account of the night she killed her daughter kind of threw me into a mental tailspin, because the thoughts she had before attempting suicide were very similar to the thoughts I had about myself. Where our stories differ is that she actually tried to kill herself, and when that attempt failed, she smothered her daughter.

I know I was never that close to actually attempting suicide. But seeing my illness mirrored back from someone with such a tragic story frightened me.

In addition, Naomi did end up committing suicide 12 years later. That had me thinking, "If this person ended up taking her life, how can I feel like I won't end up backsliding as well?"

Katherine Stone, the founder of Postpartum Progress, says her mantra in these situations is "Her story is not my story." But I have found it somewhat impossible to resist thinking, "Oh my god, what if that were me? What if I had postpartum psychosis? What if I hadn't gotten help?"

I know I didn't, and I am endlessly thankful that I made it through. I'm so glad I'm in a place where I can recognize that intrusive thoughts are not in control of my actions, and that depression lies. I feel like my calling is to find a way to help other moms going through postpartum mental disorders get help and realize there is light and hope.

As you can see, it took me days to be able to admit even to myself that I had intrusive thoughts. Reading the blog posts here (click with caution, those in recovery) about other moms who had frightening intrusive thoughts but are okay now made me want to be honest with myself. I wanted to acknowledge that even though I thought some dark and scary things, I didn't act on them. And I want other moms to know that having intrusive thoughts doesn't make you a bad mom or a bad person.

I'm one of the lucky ones

(Yes, this is another post about something besides crafts. Forgive me, I occasionally have thoughts and I don't have another platform.)

Seeing the onslaught of misogynistic comments, threats and general filth slung at Ashley Judd recently because she dared to be a female sports fan with a strong opinion has reminded me, yet again, of something. I am truly lucky. In an age when 1 in 5 female college students faces an attempted sexual assault or a sexual assault (according to the 2007 Campus Sexual Assault study) I was one of the lucky women who, for the most part, avoided any horrifying situations. The worst thing that ever happened to me, was when I went into a bedroom at a house party because I had a headache, a man followed me into the room and roughly slapped my ass when, after he refused to leave, I got annoyed at him and left the room.
I've never had my drink spiked, I've never been sexually assaulted by stranger nor acquaintance, I've never been raped.
I've been similarly lucky online. I don't know if it's because I travel in stereotypically feminine circles online - knitting and crochet communities, parenting groups and resources for postpartum depression survivors - but to my recollection, I've never been threatened online. Granted, on communities I frequent where this is commonplace, such as Reddit, I make a habit of lurking rather than commenting. Despite enjoying video games, I have avoided communities where my gender would be revealed and provide me as a target for threats and ridicule.
What on earth is my point, you ask?
The point is, it's ridiculous that I can consider myself lucky for not having been raped or assaulted or threatened just for being female.
It's ridiculous that we as a society teach women tips for not getting raped instead of teaching men not to rape.
It's ridiculous that a female celebrity is inundated with gendered violence and death threats because she dared to tweet a strong opinion about basketball. Sure, people say awful things on Twitter all the time, (not that that is excusable) but whenever a woman angers the twittersphere, the violence is incredibly sexualized and misogynistic.
This isn't acceptable. No one should have to clutch their keys in the parking lot, or mistrust their friends, or censor themselves because they are a woman. We should be teaching our sons that it's unacceptable to rape, that women are people, not objects. The onus should not be on women to prevent themselves from getting raped. No one should have to file a police report because of threats on their life, because they tweeted about March Madness.
The good men in the world need to start policing the shitheads instead of pretending they don't exist. If you are my friend or my family, and a man, I'm calling you out. If you see another man acting like a misogynistic asshole online or in real life, call him out on it. He'll listen to you, because you, too, have a penis.
I know the men in my life are good men who don't catcall, don't rape, don't threaten women online anonymously. So this is my challenge to you, if you love women and the women in your life:  if you see it happening, say something. Speak out about it. The state of things is not acceptable.

Mythbusters drinking game

I am a longtime fan of Mythbusters, the show on Discovery that combines science, and usually explosions, to great entertainment value. Now, almost two years ago when my daughter was born, nearly the whole show was available to stream on Netflix, so I became intimately acquainted with the minutiae of the available episodes. For inexplicable reasons, the "collections" don't include some episodes that did air in the past, but that's not important right now.
 I have a habit, which I'm sure is maddening to my loved ones, of preferring to re-watch things I've already seen (movies or TV shows) instead of venturing into unwatched territory. I have watched every available episode of Mythbusters at least three times, if not more. I would do really, freakishly well on a Mythbusters trivia show, if such a thing existed. So this post has been rolling around in my head for a while now.
The show's seen cast shakeups in its past, but none has been more upsetting to me personally than Kari, Grant and Tory getting the axe. With that said, I have enjoyed the new season (though I think it was stupid to make the Simpsons episode the season premiere) and I've written this game to be applicable to episodes throughout the show's run.
Presented with love to current and former cast, and despite the fact that I don't drink, here is the Mythbusters drinking game. Please don't get alcohol poisoning.

Mythbusters Drinking Game

Take a sip every time:

• Adam cracks a joke about Jamie
• Jamie and Adam disagree on how to go about an experiment
• An item is used in a way it was never intended to be used
• Adam gets to do something he's wanted to do since he was a small child
• Jamie says "oops" or giggles
• Jamie inflicts pain on Adam gleefully
• Something doesn't explode when it should have
• Something does explode when it shouldn't have
• The cement truck exploding is referenced
• A special guest or expert appears
• An episode is dedicated to a special theme

Famous phrases:

• "Don't try this at home, we're what you call experts."
• "Am I missing an eyebrow?"
• "I reject your reality and substitute my own!"
• "Remember, kids, the only difference between screwing around and science is writing it down!"
• "This is why we can never have anything nice."
• "This is my little pop gun."
• "When in doubt, C4."
• "I need a grinectomy!"
• "Jamie want big boom."
• "Failure is always an option."
• "Quack, damn you!"
• "My toast always lands butta side up!"
• "This is one of those "What the hell am I doing?" moments."
• "I kinda like it in here, it's private."
• "Do you feel God?"
• "I wouldn't say Jamie's an *evil* genius."
• "This is starting to feel like a bad idea."
• "Our death ray doesn't seem to be working."
• "High explosives and electricity, woo hoo!"
• "Here comes chaos!"
• "That is MESSED UP!"
• "Holy crap, run!"

Kari, Grant and Tory

• Footage of Tory crashing the bicycle is used
• A variation on "Hope such-and-such likes Asian/Italian food!"
• They go full scale before testing in small scale and fuck up
• Fan service shot of Kari in something sexy like the R2D2 dress
• Lampshading of the fan service shot (for example, Tory in the Leia costume)
• Someone barfs
• Tory hurts himself
• Grant references Star Wars or Star Trek

Apocrypha:

• A show features Jessie Nelson or Christine Chamberlain the mythterns; Scottie Chapman or Jessi Combs, or folklorist Heather Joseph-Withham

If you want alcohol poisoning, in addition to the above rules, drink every time:

• The narrator makes a pun
• Something is blown up
• Someone says "Butter zone"
• Someone says "Well, there's your problem."
• Buster is used
• A "human analog" (other dummy or pig carcass) is used
• An alcohol myth is tested and the cast get daytime drunk

Banishing my middle school bully

Today at Barnes and Noble, I saw the book "Whipping Boy: The Forty Year Search for My 12-Year-Old Bully." It definitely seems like an interesting read. My personal search for my childhood bullies would be rather less exciting, due to the world-shrinking effects of social media. Thanks to Facebook, I'm sure it would take less than a dozen clicks to see just what my middle school tormentors are doing these days. One of them even works with my dad.
I'm a pretty confident person anymore, but I've always been much better at remembering an insult than a compliment. For whatever reason, the taunts of one particular preadolescent shithead are crystallized in my brain. Picture it: eighth grade math. I'm surrounded on all sides by malicious boys, who have chosen me as their target for the year.
"FUCK you," the ringleader spits. "You're fat. You're fucking ugly."
He didn't bother to call me stupid and complete the mantra of the rude person who lived in my head during that delicate age. I dare to suggest it might be because insulting my intelligence didn't occur to him, as he'd already destroyed the most important things to me at that time: being thought attractive by other people, particularly boys.
Eighth grade. That was the year I started running, the year I stopped eating much until I was thin enough to fly under the radar as a high school freshman. I'm sure the whispered insults were just part of the equation that started me down the path of an uneasy relationship with food and a lifelong struggle with self-confidence. But for whatever reason, they're the memory that stuck. They're the memory that has been popping up lately.
Part of the reason I've been thinking about bullying is the relentless cyber harassment and threats that Tess Holliday, a truly plus size model who was just signed to a major contract, constantly endures. I read an article here on the Militant Baker, which made an excellent point about internet trolls in particular, but I think applies to all bullies. In short, (and I highly recommend reading the article) there's something they don't like about themselves and they've decided to demean someone else to make themselves feel better.
I think in a school setting, establishing a social hierarchy is absolutely another reason people bully. No one wants to be at the bottom of the getting-shit-on pile.
So if for some reason I decided to ask my former bully a question, "Why are/were you a bully?" would not be it. We've pretty much covered that. I don't really need to know the particulars about what flaw in himself caused him to be such a vicious asshole to me.
The question I do have is what made me such an easy target, and how can I prevent my daughter from becoming a target of bullies during her school years?
I am no psychiatrist, not even the armchair variety, but I've given this a lot of thought through the years. Here are some of the possibilities for why bullies enjoyed making me cry:
1. I was sensitive. I cared way, way too much what my peers thought of me and I hinged my self worth on the approval of others.
2. I never fought back. I don't necessarily mean with violence, though the thought of slapping a few jerks occurred to me during those hellish middle school years. I mean, why didn't I ever stand up for myself? I could have talked to a teacher, interrupted class and told my bullies to leave me alone, stood up and left class to speak to an administrator... the choices seem to be obvious now. But everyone always just said, "Ignore them." So I sat there, stony-faced, and internalized their hate.
I don't know if there's a specific third reason, just the nebulous societal pressures on girlhood and the way Seventeen Magazine or whatever I was reading then subtly told me to hate everything about myself.
It's important to me now to be the kind of person who raises children who are neither bullies nor bullied. There are a number of things I try to keep in mind in order to raise confident but compassionate children.
1. Provide an example of self-confidence. I want my daughter to see me caring for myself and loving my body even if the rude person in my head still squats there sometimes and whispers hateful things. I want my daughter to know that I believe I'm beautiful, and know she's beautiful, and that she doesn't need other people to tell that to her for it to be true.
2. Emphasize the more important things. While I think it's important to feel good about your body, there are so many more important attributes to a person than beauty. I want her to know that kindness, empathy, intelligence, friendship and many, many other things will serve her better in the long run than obsessing over her eyebrows or her muffin top or lack thereof.
3. Discuss the messages we see in the media we consume. I don't blame my parents for anything, but I definitely don't remember them talking about what I read in magazines and, you know, the underlying agenda of the beauty industry or the weight loss industry.
More than anything, I just want to let this go. I want to stomp out the little sparks of negative self talk in my brain before they flare into wildfire. I want to be at peace with myself. So if you're reading this, middle school bullies, I forgive you. Go in peace from my mind and please, don't come back.