I wish it were that simple. Send a card, everyone is nice. No bad memories to haunt me. It’s not simple. It’s a complex collection of traumatic events. Being an over achiever, I didn’t get regular PTSD. I got the hard-to-treat complex PTSD. It won’t go away. The memories won’t go away. The pain won’t go away. Worst of all, the depression won’t go away.
I’d like to go someplace today to cheer myself up. But it’s Christmas and everything is closed. Except for the Asian Buffet – overpriced, underwhelming, greasy all-you-can eat before the heartburn sets in restaurant. For the past few years, the reform temple to which I belong has made reservations at the Asian Buffet and members can come and enjoy the heartburn, and everyone pays for their own meal. I’ll skip that. I don’t know anyone who shows up and even the rabbi doesn’t attend the greasy festivities.
Hanukkah starts tonight, but I’m too depressed to make latkes.
I’d like to soak in the tub, but I’m too depressed.
I’d like to take a shower, but it’s too late in the day.
And so I eat cookies and worry about my weight. Maybe I”ll skip the tub and the shower and just get dressed.
I’d get up and take my psych meds, which includes an antidepressant, but I’m too depressed.
I have aches and pains that would be cured with exercise, but I’m too depressed to do a fitness routine that would take 15 minutes. Besides, my foot is sprained and the plantar fasciitis is back. And that’s why I can’t go for a walk which in my case would be going for a hobble.
Christmas is a collection of horrible memories. One Christmas, sometime between the ages of 4 and 8, my mother and The Drunk brought a Christmas tree into the house. I saw white stuff on the tree and asked what it was. My mother looked at The Drunk and said, “She’s so stupid she doesn’t even know what snow mold is.” I remember being confused by that.
There was the Christmas when The Drunk didn’t like the way I threw an apple core into the fire. He kept digging the apple core out of the fire place and making me throw it back in telling me he hoped I’d learn before I got burnt. He never tortured my three siblings like that.
There was the Christmas Eve at my brother and sister-in-law’s house. My brother said the advice he got from The Drunk was to have fun but be careful. I said that was horrible and that my brother could get a knock on the door in 20 years and find an adult child he didn’t know about. The Drunk said that could happen to him. That’s when I knew The Drunk wasn’t my father. A non-returnable Christmas present.
Another year, I didn’t hear from my mother and called my brother on Christmas Day asking if Ma was going to do Christmas. Yes. And then Ma bitched at my brother because she expected me to just know enough to come over. Actually, that’s not what happened. She wanted me to skip Christmas so she could say how peaceful it was without me and have an excuse to bar me from all future festivities including First Communions and baptisms. Which is what happened after the Thanksgiving that I skipped. I got an “invitation” from my brother’s wife to come but only if I promised not to fight with my mother. I initially accepted. A few. days later, I called her and said I wasn’t coming because we couldn’t trust my mother to behave. That’s when I stopped getting invited to family celebrations.
The Drunk is dead. He died 22 years ago. A friend sent me an email which is how I found out he was dead. My mother is dead. She died 9 years ago on my birthday. I subscribed to Legacy.com and got a copy of her obit in my email. Otherwise, I would never have known she died. I haven’t talked to my brother or sister, The Fruitcake, since. Actually, I didn’t talk to The Fruitcake then. Just as well, we have another to say that the other one wants to hear.
I don’t have a family. I never will.
I fucking hate Christmas.
Deb's Art 