My 9-year old son has had a motor tic for the past few weeks. Head jerking. Sometimes worse than others, but pretty much consistently there for the past 2 weeks or so. We were upset, but not freaked out. I had some various motor tics when I was a kid, and to tell you the truth, I didn't even remember that until this happened and then it sort of came back to me. So, it obviously didn't turn out to be the most traumatic thing in my life. He has some behavior problems, difficulty getting along with his sister(who is pure sunshine and light) and has developed a few social problems at school, but nothing so out of the ordinary that I ever once thought he was anything other than a difficult kid. I was a difficult kid. I'm a difficult adult, truth be told. My son is pretty much me, but without impulse control.

Anyway, long story short is that we have been trying to make an effort to be calmer with him. Change the discipline methods. Try to spend more time with him instead of uttering the "I'm too busy right now", that is probably heard way too often in this house. Try to come home from work earlier. Play games, read together, just try to make him feel as calm and safe and secure and loved as possible. All while completely ignoring the tic (which we hadn't been doing at first because we thought it was on purpose; see difficult child explanation above), which is what most doctors recommend that you do. Most tics are transient and will just go away on their own and calling attention to them, or even worse, punishing them for them, often just makes them worse.

So, okay. we've got our game plan. And not that I expected instant results or thought a few rounds of Pictionary would magically make everything better, but things did seem to improve. He was still doing it, but not with the same severity or frequency. Things were going to be okay. I was sure of it. Why sure of it? Because that's what I do. I'm the strong one, the resilient one, the one that takes every impossible situation and somehow makes the best of it. The person that takes care of everybody and everything, all the time. People think it's so fabulous to be the strong one. But let me tell you, sometimes it sucks.

Anyway, last night when I came home, my husband told me we had another tic. Brian was saying faggot out of nowhere. This isn't even a word that we use in my household. Ever. He had to have heard it at school. I kind of blew him off and said he was probably just being a pill, didn't even know what the word meant, saw Jeff's reaction and continued to do it to get a rise out of him. but then I noticed him mumbling it last night. I told him it wasn't a good word to say and that I didn't want to hear it anymore. He said okay, but still mumbled it a few times. Then fell asleep shortly after. I still wasn't overly concerned.

Today he's been mumbling it. I don't think a casual observer would even understand what he was saying, but I'm listening for it and he's definitely doing it. Last night when he was doing it he seemed to be looking over at me immediately after saying it, but today he wasn't. I'm becoming convinced that he doesn't even realize that he's doing it.

So, by now you're all thinking of Tourette's, right? Sure, it doesn't have to be that, but you're all thinking it. Well, now put yourself in my shoes. It's all I can think of. I don't know what to do. Me, the person that always knows what to do. And my husband and my mother? They expect me to know what to do, this time too. Unfortunately, cry in bed is all I can come up with. He's my baby. And the thought that he could have something that I can't help him with or fix, breaks my heart. He's at Spiderman 2 right now, with his father and one of his friends and all I can think about is what if he stands up in the movie theatre and starts shouting obscenities? What if his friend notices his mumbling, tells his parents and can't be friends with him anymore? What if my baby has Tourette's? What if there's something really wrong with my child and there's nothing I can do about it?

I can't be the strong one this time. Not with my baby. I just can't.

Most of you know that Sherrie and I had a big argument aways back. One of her eljay deletions was a direct result of her being mad at me. We sort of patched things up, to a degree, but things were never the same between us.

She frustrated me, more often than not, in the past months. Sometimes infuriated me. I'm not proud to admit it, but when I saw her last post, I rolled my eyes and thought, here we go again. When a few days passed and she hadn't posted, and when she didn't show at the Beta reunion, I though maybe she had been hospitalized again. It's not that I didn't think that there might come a day where she would actually go through with it and kill herself, I just didn't think that that was what had happened. Not for any particular reason. It's just not what I thought.

Our fight wasn't pretty. I had had it with the emotional blackmail and the eljay deletions and her woe is me attitude. I wanted her to stop making excuses for Cary. I wanted her to stop making excuses for herself. I wanted her to stop blaming everyone for not doing enough or being enough or proving enough to her. I knew she was sick. I knew she couldn't control all of her emotions. I knew that some of her circumstances were out of her control. But damnit, I wanted her to do something, anything, to try and make things better for herself. I wanted her to take her meds regularly, and only the meds that were prescribed to her. I wanted her to kick Cary's ass for not being adult enough to take care of her emotionally or financially. I wanted her to be an active participant in her own fucking life and not fall back on "I can't help it" as an excuse for anything and everything. I wanted her to take control of the few things that she did have control over, sick or no. I wanted her to live.

And, I told her all of this, in my usual blunt fashion. She didn't appreciate it. She claimed time and time again to not want to be handled with kid gloves, but she either couldn't or wouldn't, hear what I was saying to her. We did some back and forth in a sometimes locked, sometimes open entry of mine (depending on her mood and wishes). I told her that I didn't want to upset her further, but that I was at a loss as to what to say to her. How to respond to posts that time and time again referred to suicide attempts and lashed out at us, accusing us of not caring. She didn't want hugs and platitudes. She didn't want opposition or disagreement. She didn't want no response at all. She didn't want her problems listed, or people talking about her. She didn't want people presuming what her problems were and she didn't want people not acknowledging her problems at all. For awhile, for me, it became a tangled dance of never, ever knowing what to do, say, not do, not say. And, I'll admit, I was angry...really angry. My backbone went up. I wasn't going to compromise and post to her according to some constantly changing list of rules in her head. I wasn't going to pat her on the back and rub her head and tell her that everything was going to be okay, when I knew, knew, that if things continued as they were, that things were going to be anything but okay.

So, I stopped posting to her at all. That pissed her off and she temporarily deleted me from her flist. We wrote back and forth about it, and eventually came to an understanding of sorts. She added me back to her flist. But, I never felt comfortable posting anything of substance to her, again, really. I knew she valued my friendship. I knew she respected me and my opinions. I knew my disapproval and silence hurt her. But, I stayed mostly silent anyway. Oh sure, I posted about how big Vinnie had gotten or how cute her new haircut was, but posts where she was obviously hurting? I stayed away from. I had my own problems. I didn't have the time or energy to get involved in another dramatic, time-consuming argument. I didn't have the patience to try to guess at what exactly she wanted me to say to her at any given moment. I didn't think that I would do her any favors by turning a blind eye to her very real problems and not speaking my mind re: her, to me, very destructive behavior.I cared about her a great deal, and I think that she knew that, but I know it hurt her that my posting to her was so scarce and inconsequential. I knew when she made posts lashing out about people not caring and not responding, that I was one of the people she was referring to. I knew. And I did nothing about it.

I don't think that my actions or inactions affected Sherrie's decision to kill herself. I'm not that vain. I'm one, in a mass of people that she was friends with online. But, I feel sad that things were the way they were between us when she died. I feel horribly that I couldn't or wouldn't find a way to make things better between us, without having to delve into all the hurt feelings and bullshit. I feel terrible that I ever contributed to a bad day or night that she was having. I meant the things that I said to her, and I'm not sure that I would take them back, but I just wish that we had been able to come full circle. I wish there had been more time.

When Rachel emailed me with the news, I couldn't stop shaking. I have a headache and I feel nauseous and I just wish that none of this had ever happened. I've been on the verge of tears all day but they won't come. My heart aches for that beautiful little boy that will never know his mother. My heart aches for Sherrie that she'll never get to see her son grow up into a man. My heart aches for every person that made a post about this today.

I hope that wherever Sherrie is, that there's sunshine and mimosas and lots of good books to read. I hope that she can somehow sense this great outpouring of love for her here, today. Because it's all she ever wanted. I just wish that she had been more aware of it while she was still with us, and that it could have helped her more.

I love you guys. I really do.

So, here are the details of what Jeff found out from Ross (see my last entry for backstory). He's convinced his wife to take him back. He's convinced her that it was a mistake and he's sorry and he loves her. They picked a date, and he's going to move back home to be with her and their two children.

Now, before I even get to the next part, let me just say that my views on marriage are rigid. iIrealize that I don't know the intimate details of everyone's personal lives, and if something I say hits a little close to home or offends anyone, well, that's not my intention. but, I feel strongly about this, strongly enough that I need to rant about it, and really...when have I ever kept my opinions to myself. ;)

Do I believe in second chances when it comes to infidelity? Well, I can't say absolutely not, but i don't think I, personally, could find a way to forgive or trust again. Don't get me wrong...Jeff and I have both cheated on each other pre-marriage. We've been in situtions and done shit that hurt each other that would fill up gobs of posts. But now that we're married? And have two kids? I'm 99.99% positive that I wouldn't be able to get past an affair.

Anyway, with that coloring my views on this whole mess to begin with, here's the kicker. Ross is still living with his girlfriend. Risa does not know this, and thinks that she moved to? back to? New Jersey. So, when he's done promising his wife and kids how wonderful things are going to be, he goes home to share a bed with a psychotic prostitue. A psychotic prostitute who is livng off of Ross and Risa's money. This disgusts me.

What disgusts me even more, is that Jeff thinks I'm being hard on poor Ross. Things happen, couples have problems, he made a mistake. Fuck that. There is no way that he loves and respects his wife, if even after tearing their lives apart, he can continue his relationship with this woman, secretly, behind his wife's back, in the midst of trying to reconcile with her.

Jeff: "But she loves him and wants him back, Denise."

Denise: "Yeah, well...that's great if all she need out of life is to love the person she's with, and not be loved or respected in return."

Jeff: "He does love her. He said so. It was a mistake."

Denise: "If it was such a mistake, and he loves her so much, then why isn't he back home yet?"

Jeff: "They picked a date, and he's waiting until then."

Denise: "Then why is he still living with the hooker?"

Jeff: silence (which is what always happens when he knows that something he's about to say is going to prove my point)

Jeff: "Well, he has to gather up enough money so that she can move to Jersey"

Tired of the dialogue. :) HE has to save enough money to move her back to Jersey? Why? And this money is coming from where? Money that he's depriving his children of, so that he can set some whore up with some cozy digs in Jersey? Again, fuck that. If I didn't want to not bear any responsibility in the path someone's life takes, I swear i would call up this woman and tell her exactly what is going on. And, i don't even like her, so that shows you how disgusted i am by this whole thing.

I have to say, that I know with all of my heart, that my husband would never cheat on me. I know it. But the fact that he is NOT completely disgusted by this, enrages me. The fact that some meaningless male bonding blinds him to the complete and utter lack of respect and decency that this man is showing for his wife, marriage and family, had me so pissed off that I slept by myself that night.

Thus ends my rant.

My husband has a friend (and I use that in the loosest sense of the word - we haven't seen him the entire almost two years that my husband's been home from work). They used to work together, and he still works there, so we've known what was going on with him through hearsay, blah, blah, blah. This friend is a recovering alcoholic and drug addict. he's been (or had been) clean for about 10 years or so. He got married a few weeks after me and Jeff did, which was about 7 years ago. His wife and I became semi-friendly due to the work connection, and they have two children just a little younger than my two kids. I was never completely crazy about either of them. Nice enough, but a little condescending. It was "so sweet" that I was staying home with the kids. It was "so nice" that I didn't have to work. However did we manage? They could never survive on one salary. Oh, and by the way, have you seen our new boat? Feh. Bite me was usually on the tip of my tongue, except for when my tongue had been bitten clear off.

Anyway, about a year ago, we heard through the grapevine, that they had split up. Ross, the friend, had fallen in love with some girl that he had met at an, um...I don't even know what to call it. One of those jerk-off places. Guy pays money and gets into some sort of booth. Girl's dancing on the other side of the glass. Guy does his business, and leaves. I'm willing to bet that you can pay more money for some "other" services", but quite frankly, never cared enough to ask. There were rumors that he was drinking again, or worse, but nothing ever really confirmed. Risa, the wife, threw him out, or maybe he left, who knows. Shacked up with this girl, left his wife and two kids. Supposedly, wifey wasn't living up to his sexual expectations. Mind you, this is the same woman who saw him through his various addictions and bore him two children, but hey...possible sexual acrobatics with a probable prostitute trumps that,doesn't it?

Anyway, at about 7:30 tonight, there's a knock on our door. I look outside and see a motorcycle out front. Jeff opens the door, and it's Ross, semingly drunk, just stopping by on the way "home" from a bar, that is nowhere near out house, or where he's heading to. The same Ross that has given two shits that my husband's been injured all this time, and couldn't even bother to make a phonecall in the past two years. He takes Jeff outside, fills him in on the details of everything, ending with the fact that he's apparently going back to his wife. Which sounds good in theory, except for the fact that he's still livng with his girlfriend, in an apartment, that's being paid for with a HELOC that he took out on the house that his wife and children are living in. I'll post all the details on this tomorrow, when I post my rant, but I wanted to give some backstory. What really has me set off, is that my husband is making excuses for him, and semi-defending him. Fuck that. What is it about men that makes them bond and understand things, that, to me, are ununderstandable.

I don't want this man stopping by my house. Apparently, the girlfriend is a psycho, that follows him around and has friends that track him down. She hides his keys when he's home, she causes fights at his job. I don't need that kind of aggravation. I pretty much told Ross that until he got his shit together, that I didn't think it was a good idea for him to be coming here. Jeff was pissed. Thinks I was incredibly rude. *shrugs* I can live with that.

to be continued...

Tequila is a beautiful thing. Sometimes i think that if I could have a tequila IV, along with something that would make me functional, that life would be perfect.

This may shock some of you (or not), but I used to do Coke. A lot of coke. I'm a different person now, and I would never take my life down that path again, but at times like these, I crave it. Every once in a blue moon, I wish for a bottle of tequila, a babysitter, and a couple of grams. Damn the consequences. I never act on it, of course. But damn does it sound good sometimes. This post isn't filtered, and I'll probably be appalled that I said this shit tommorrow, but fuck it. Judge me, judge me not. *shrugs*

On another rambling, drunken note, how many of you believe in God? I mean, really and tuly beleive. Instinctively, with all of my Catholic upbringing engrained in me, my answer is yes. That I do. But sometimes, I wonder about this world, and the sucky things that it hands out, and I wonder how there could possibly be one. Then I look at my kid'd little faces, and I'm positive that there is one all over again.

The toll that the past year and a half have taken on my marriage are strange. There's tension constantly. Jeff's disbaility, and the different ways in which we each deal with it, have us at odds a lot of the time. i'm a realist. he's a dreamer.(read:denial). But, as much as I feel like throttling him much of the time, are marriage is stronger as well. Stronger than it's ever been. It's like the finale of Angel, or really the entire theme of Angel (God, you know I'm wasted to be doing this analogy). The bad shit ain't going anywhere. It's how we react to it, and it's about tying to not let it define you or take you over. It's an effort at times, but I feel like the Senior Partners have hit us with all they've got. And my response has to be to spit in their faces, and say fuck you, and just keep on keeping on regardless. And, although hubby's attitude at times can drive me batty, I think it took a little of each of our perspectives to get us where we are. Uh...yeah. this all sounded better in my head. :)

And, as hard as my life can be(/melodrama), there's an odd contentment i feel. sitting here drunk, typing on my eljay, to my friends, in my livingroom, with American idol on in the background, and my hubby and kids waiting for me on the couch. So, I guess, in the longrun, based on what really, really matters, we win.

The end.

/drunken ramblings.

This is filtered because this is not for public consumption, or even for the consumption of all on my friend's list. So if you're reading this, please don't ever bring it up in any way at any other boards you may frequent with me. It stays here.

They don't think anything is actually wrong
with Jeff's heart. He does have to follow-up with the cardiologist in about
a month for maybe some more tests, definitely a checkup. The party line I'm giving, is
that it was a reaction to one of his medications. Which is technically true.

*sigh* I know I've touched on this before, but the bottom line is that Jeff
is addicted to his pain pills. Big time. Up until about a month ago, his
main pain med was oxycotin. He was up to taking a very high dosage of it,
and it still wasn't working for him for the full amount of time, and even
the time it was working, it was basically taking the edge off, not relieving
him of the pain completely. He got into the habit of taking extra pills,
something I've not been pleased about. At.All. And, inevitably, he'd run out
of meds before he should have, and been without any. Sometimes he could con
the docs into refilling a little early, and sometimes he'd just have to do
without. he would still have some other breakthrough pain meds, but he'd
still suffer withdrawal obviously. Not fun for him and not fun for me, let
me tell you. We've fought over this numerous times, him not getting a lot of
sympathy from me. I'm always fooled at first. think he's just having a bad
day with the pain, until he starts to get really nasty and almost
incapacitated by the pain. Then I catch on, and as much as I feel bad for
him, I get pissed too.

Well, last time he went to the doctor (who's basically not all that aware of
what's going on with jeff overtaking them), he decided to switch him to
methadone. Which takes about three days to build up in your system, and then
should keep you on an even level. It won't necesarrily work better than the
oxycotin, but it should solve the problem of the pain meds wearing off. It
keeps a constant level of them in your system.

Well, last Saturday, his birthday, he was
having one of his "bad days". Which is why I didn't get a chance to call anyone again in LA. :( Again, I didn't think anything of it at first.
Then I checked his methadone bottle. None left. A good week and a half
before he should have run out. I was enraged. Methadone is pretty easy to
overdose on if you abuse it, and he was obviously taking almost double what
he should have been. He could have killed himself. While i was at work, and
he was alone, in the house, with our young children. I won't detail our
entire argument, but trust me when I say it was not pretty.

Anyway, he managed to get his prescription refilled early. He swore that
he'd take it correctly. I think that he was. However, on the third day of
starting it again, after having been off of it for 2 or 3 days, he had his
attack. I left work to rush to the hospital and he hadn't told anyone about
any of this. I told them however, and after the tests ruled out anything
wrong with his heart (so they think), the cardiologist said that it was
probably due to the fluctuation in the levels of the methadone. He went from
too high of a level, to none in his system at all, to a normal level, all in
the course of a week or so. Not good.

I told my mother about it, who while supportive (and a godsend helping out
with the kids), sort of handed me the "you've got to make sure he doesn't do
that anymore" speech. And all I'm thinking too myself is that *I* can't
oversee and take care of EVERYTHING. I love my husband, and I don't want
anything to happen to him, but he's a freakin' adult. I can't watch him evey
second of the day to make sure he's not taking an extra pill. I can't quit
my job and devote my life to doling them out at the appropriate times. I
can't follow him everytime he goes to the bathroom to make sure he hasn't
snuck off to take another pill. i just can't. he's got to take his meds
responsibly without my supervision. This may be the selfish part of me
talking, and I feel bad becuase i know he's in a lot of pain, but you
know...I do everything else. He's gotta do this. Period.

This really scared him though. He really thought he was going to die in the
house all alone with Kelly. I don't think he'll abuse it anymore. At least I
hope not. *sigh*

You know, the way I get through all the shit going on in my life, is to pretty much pretend all the shit doesn't exist, and just live day to day. And, most of the time it works. I like my job. I'm doing well and they like me. I may get offered a fulltime position very soon, and that is of the good. We're getting by moneywise. Things are tight, but we're not in danger of getting thrown out on the street or anything. Jeff's sorta at a stand still. He certainly hasn't gotten any better, but, despite the doctor that promised us gloom and doom and debilitation, he hasn't really gotten any worse. We're gonna get another opinion and another MRI, and my hope isn't yet completely gone, that someone, somewhere, will figure out a way to help him. So.......I just deal with all that, get up, go to work, come home, play with the kids, put them to bed, watch my soaps, fuck around on the computer, snuggle up with hubby and go to bed. Then I wake up and start all over again. So, it's not like I'm miserable and lead some horrible life. I can usually manage to find some warped sense of contentment in all of that.

So, why am I sad? *sigh*

My son started first grade today and came home with a bunch of papers in his folder. Usual stuff. I'm sorting through it with no problem. Until I got to the class mother sign up sheet. And then I cried. I mean, really broke down and cried. It's such a little thing, but I was a class mother last year and damnit! I should be able to be a class mother this year. Except I can't. Because I'm working. Because Jeff can't work, so I can't be home and don't have the time to do all the things that I should be able to do. That I want to do. And I HATE it. I hate that the way my life was supposed to go, and the way that I wanted it to go, and the way that Jeff and I had decided it was going to go, just isn't possible right now. It's a stupid little thing and I know that in the grand scheme of things that it doesn't really matter.

Except that it does.

To me.

I want to be home with my kids. I was supposed to be home with my kids. At least until they were older then they are now.

And I can't talk to Jeff about this, because then he'll feel bad, which in turn will make me feel worse.

So, I went up to my room and cried.

And then I came back downstairs and acted like nothing was wrong.

And this is why I'm sad.

*sigh*

This is mostly for _cinnamongirl_, but anyone else can obviously comment if they want to. I only BetaSnark locked it because I didn't know if darcie would want my whole lj user list reading it.

I don't know if you were referring to me or not, but I certainly don't find your online relationship with Mr.Holtz morally objectionable. And I certainly don't think any differently or less about you because of it. I don't know if you were referring to me or not in your earlier post, but I just wanted to make that clear.

With that said, I actually did a lot of thinking about it today, and this is what my problem would be with it if it were me or my husband that had such a relationship.

I think it's dangerous. I think that putting yourself in a situation, whether it starts off jokingly or not, where you could develop romantic feelings for someone other than your husband, is a bad idea. Obviously, there's less of a risk of anything actually happening with a strictly online relationship, but given how much time we all spend online, I think there's still a danger there. Especially when you're going through rough times. It's too easy to pull away from RL troubles sometimes, and just throw yourself online to escape from it. Now granted, I don't know anything about your online relationship, and I only know a little about your marriage, so maybe none of this applies and the whole thing is just as innocent as can be. I just know, for myself, that there are parts of myself that are reserved for my hubby and only him. And vice-versa. And if I thought that he was sharing some of those aspects of himself with some online chiquita, I would be less than thrilled. It's not a trust issue. I trust him implicitly. But, shit happens, and I wouldn't like it if he were close enough to a female online, that the term "friend" wouldn't be enough to describe the relationship. I would also wig out if I told him that I had an online boyfriend, and he didn't care. That to me, would indicate a problem. But this is me. And my husband. And my marriage. What works and doesn't work for me, obviously doesn't have to apply to the rest of the world.

But again, please don't think that I think any less of you because of any of this. I hope I didn't give you that impression yesterday. *smoooooooooch*