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Trying to get my feet wet without falling in |
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It has been some time since I last posted. A lot has happened and this will be an effort to “catch up” before I head in a new direction. I used to write under the name Dave Gordon. I had a comedy blog for several years plus longer works, several of which were published. The last novel reached number 13 on the fictionwise listings. Then two of my pieces were stolen and received wide distribution in a file named “252 Good Science Fiction Books”. I didn't care, I wasn't doing it for the money anyway. Things changed around 10 years ago. I had a reaction to a medication I was taking in a futile attempt to quell persistent mania. The reaction almost killed me. The “End of Life” counselor came to see me. My wife did not believe I would live another day. Fortunately, the doctors finally stopped the offending medication, but not before I had suffered mild brain damage. I say mild because only a few functions were affected. My ability to write was one of them. I no longer had that spark that causes words to fly onto the page. Endless stories no longer played out in my imagination. My fingers sat poised over the keyboard as if made of wood. That part of me had died. There were other casualties as well. My cognitive abilities took a hit. My sense of balance has gone missing. I have a tremor that prevents me from filling out forms (darn). Years ago it was not uncommon for someone to say I was a genius. They don’t say that anymore. Aggravating the problem is my constant surgeries, fifteen at last count. Pile on top of that serious chronic pain, which is well treated, but does nothing to improve the mental situation. So why start up again? Writing was an important part of my life at one time and I want to reclaim it. It is quite possible I will stink at it but I am going to try. Even though not much happens in my life except medical appointments, I am going to write about something else. Perhaps I will write about my incredible pot harvest, or my increasing musical abilities (which, thank God, were not affected by the brain damage). There are things to be said about how people treat mental patients. But mostly, there are things to be said. I know they are there, I just need to find them. |
| My maternal grand parents were living on the Navaho reservation when my mother was born in 1902. My grandmother was the child of a Gila Apache woman and a white trapper, and my grandfather was Cherokee. I haven't been able to find out any more about them than that. The way my mother told it was that they left Arizona when my mother was two out of fear of losing my mother to an “Indian School”. If you are unfamiliar with that shameful practice, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Indian_boarding_schools. They traveled to the north coast of California via buckboard, a journey I simply cannot imagine. The family grew to eight children. There were complications following the birth of the youngest daughter. My grandmother died shortly thereafter. My mother assumed the role of mother to her seven younger siblings for the next sixteen years. Then the youngest became pregnant by her brother, a viscous sexual predator. Fearing her father would kill her brother, she told her father that Uncle Dan was the father. My sister tells me that Uncle Dan was well-loved and unlikely to be harmed by his brother. Unfortunately, my grandfather fell into a rage. He drove to Uncle Dan's house and shot him. My grandfather was sentenced to life and died in Folsom Prison some years later. The children were farmed out to relatives. My mother lived in Mendocino, became pregnant with my sister from a brief relationship with a San Franciscan banker, married my dad, and became a housewife. I was born in 1950. The emotional toll on my mother was catastrophic. Her mental illness was undiagnosed but not untreated. She became a drug addicted alcoholic. She was so ashamed of her history that I didn't learn much of it until after she died. Her mental illness has spread down through time to me, both of my daughters, and my oldest grand daughter, who was taken to the ER last night with an overdose of prescription drugs. The horrible events of 100 years ago are still alive today. Hopefully my other two grand daughters will escape the family curse and grow to be happy adults. My wife and I tried to raise our daughters in a happy, healthy home, but my own mental illness has intruded upon that. My daughters say they don't hate me for it, but they won't say they don't resent it. I tell people jokingly that I have good qualifications as a crazy person. That small bit of levity is a thin coat to cover a century-old history of madness and the bleak despair that is mental illness. It is not something you cure. You can bury it in drugs and soak it in alcohol but it never goes away. My grand daughter's suicide attempt is not the only one in our history. I hope she survives to adulthood but it doesn't get any easier for any of us. I hope you will forgive me for this rapid descent. It has been a long night and those aren't kind. True to my goal though, these were things that need to be said. |
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