I’m writing this because it needs to be said right now, but I’m jumping around in my story.
My mom had rheumatoid arthritis all of her adult life. Rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune disease. You know, a disease in which your immune system turns on your body, fighting against it instead of for it?
Well, my mom lived with a lot of pain. All of her life. She had another daughter (that’s a story for another day). She went through a divorce. That divorce tore her apart and drove her crazy, and at about my age (35), she went through a period of soul searching. She went through a time where no one believed anything that she said. She even spent some time in a mental institution. All the while, living with her real physical pain.
The thing about my mom, the thing which was most striking about her, was her complete and utter lack of complaint about her pain. She never talked about it. The only thing that ever came out of my mom’s mouth was joy. Positivity. She just exuded that.
So, I wonder. where did all the pain go? When I am in pain, I need to let it out. That’s what’s happening here, on this blog. But my mom didn’t let her pain out. Except through her art. She was a fantastic artist, and I plan to get some of her art on here.
But even her art was positive. Never dark, never edgy. She never let more than one thing out of her. So, my theory is that her body was a vessel for her pain, and that’s why she hurt so much.
So much of my life has been lived in opposition to family members and friends who are different from me. I try to revise myself based on their bad examples. I want to be healthy. To even have the word crazy associated with me in any way is like stabbing myself in the eye with a pin. I cannot stand the pain, but I also know that I cannot hold the pain inside. It would be a self-fulfilling prophesy. So, instead, I am writing this blog. I’m going to put all of my pain here.
Then, readers and friends, I am going to need your help to edit myself. I need revision, constant revision. I want to be healthy.
“To even have the word crazy associated with me in any way is like stabbing myself in the eye with a pin.”
We are all just a little crazy at times. The difference between craziness and sanity is not what you do but whether you recognize the behavior and willingly seek to correct it.
“She went through a time where no one believed anything that she said. She even spent some time in a mental institution.”
As a found out yesterday, her anxiety was the result of her being bi-polar. Perhaps your godmother can explain how it unfolded better, but I believe she was suffering from it, denied herself the help she needed early on, and ended up hospitalized because she refused to treat it until it was too late.
Your mother was a beautiful, strong woman. I think her loom represented her, a complex instrument that brought beauty to the world.