Off With Their Heads!

After my daughter's hospital stay, I realized how we all need to stand up for ourselves and what we believe to be true. We are experts in how we feel within our own bodies and I am learning to listen more carefully to myself.

My daughter had been to the same doctor multiple times because she was not feeling well and each time the doctor asked why she was there, there was nothing wrong with her. That is how she ended up in the hospital. I wish I could have been there to stand up for her but it so hard to parent an adult child   on another coast.

Now my son and a medication. He has not been eating at all, so I looked into the side effects and no appetite was at the top of the list. A body needs to eat, no nutrition means no health; mental or physical! Two years have passed with no improvement and I am finally seeking out alternative therapies. I wish I had not waited this long but I didn't realize nothing was improving until everything hit rock bottom.

I couldn't help but think of Alice in Wonderland because that is how I feel, falling down the rabbit hole of divorce, trying to make sense of this new land that keeps changing. Every corner I turn there is another odd occurrence, another Caterpillar or Queen to listen to even though they may be speaking nonsense.

I just hope someday soon I come out the other side more aware of who is a Mad Hatter and who is not.

A Rose by Any Other Name!

After all of this divorce nonsense is over I am considering just using my first name or maybe my first and middle name as my legal name. All of my other last names have been borrowed for awhile from other men, not ever really feeling like my own. 

My first last name and name at birth was borrowed from my father. My father left us and the name seemed empty. This first last name only lasted until I was eight or nine and then I was adopted by my mother's second husband. 

My mother's second husband abused me and died by the time I was 12. I often think his death saved me from experiencing further trauma. I used this name until I married my hopefully soon-to-be-ex, glad to be rid of it at last.

This latest last name I have decided will be my last. I have used it for the longest time period of my life. It is the name I let rob me of my dreams and my future. It changed the direction of my life and I let it happen, I guess as I had let the other names control my life when I was a child. Each time shedding the life that came with it. This latest last name means nothing to me now but carries a connection that my other previous last names did not. This last name is also my children's last name which I guess is supposed to mean we are a family. I wonder how they will feel when I drop this last facade of my life. 

I think I will wait until they are old enough to understand how important it is for all of us to have our own identity and be able to choose our own destiny and not allow anyone to choose it for us.