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Thanks For Giving Me A Sister

Monday, August 3rd, 2009 by Alyice

I can still remember the day my mom finally admitted that the person on my birth certificate wasn’t my biological father. I’d known for years, but couldn’t bring myself to ask her. There was just no way he could be my biological father—he looked nothing like me and wanted absolutely nothing to do with me. And yet, hearing the truth wasn’t as comforting as I’d hoped.

My mom was separated from her husband and talking divorce when she began dating my dad. They were thinking of making a life together—my dad and my mom—but my mom was still madly, deeply in love with her husband. She didn’t think it would be fair to my father to stay with him when she didn’t love him the way he deserved to be loved and so, when her husband asked for a second chance, she said good-bye to my dad and worked to save her marriage.

When she found out she was pregnant, her husband agreed to be named the biological father and even tried for three years to make the marriage work, but they were both opinionated, strong-willed people who just couldn’t be in the same room together.

I still remember the day she kicked him out. I was only two years old at the time, but I remember it as if it were a scene in a movie. She was yelling at him as she threw his packed bags down the stairs, then out the door and onto the street where a taxi cab was waiting. It turns out that he had an affair and wanted a divorce so he could marry his mistress.

Years later, when I was about nine years old, my mom began dating what seemed like a really nice man. He was nothing like the other men my mom dated and something about him made me feel safe. But just as soon as I got attached to him he was gone. No good-bye, no more contact—just gone. Then when I hit my teen years, he showed up again. And the same thing happened. One minute he was there, and the next, gone.

Turns out that he never fully stopped loving my mom and would stay in contact with her over the years, hoping that the right opportunity would present itself and he’d have another chance at winning her heart. But no sooner did it get hot and heavy did my mom send him packing.

She didn’t like the fact that he was a push-over; that she could essentially bully him into doing whatever she wanted. She wanted a man who could stand up to her, a man who was strong enough to take on a strong woman. And she wanted a man who wasn’t self-centered, anal-retentive, and a bigger clean freak then she was.

But as a child, I didn’t see his faults. All I saw was a cool man who seemed to really like me, and loved my mom enough to keep coming back every time she pushed him away. As a child, I secretly wanted him to be my biological father and why not—I looked like him. It was uncanny how much I looked like him.

So when he came back into my life as a young adult, I jumped at the opportunity to get to know him, to claim him as my father—even though both he and my mom still couldn’t bring themselves to admit the truth.

When my mom finally admitted the truth, he felt free to share the truth, too. He said that everyone knew I was his child from the moment she found out she was pregnant and that he wanted to be a part of my life, but my mother couldn’t handle the idea of having a child out of wedlock, let alone with someone other than her husband. So when she asked that it be kept quiet, he agreed. He said that he loved her so much that he just wanted to make her happy and to respect her wishes. He said that he didn’t just come back into our lives for my mom, but for me, too—to see how I was doing.

When I accepted him into my life, as my biological father, I opted to ignore the fact that he never claimed me as his own, that he could’ve made my childhood a lot easier by being there—both physically and financially, that he still had a hard time calling me his daughter, and that he had other children whom he hadn’t seen either.

It should’ve come as no surprise that he’d disappear from my life yet again but I was naïve enough to believe that he loved me enough to want me—to need me as much as I needed him.

But he did leave me with something precious this last time. Turns out I have four sisters and one brother thanks to my biological father. One sister I cannot locate, two sisters I was in contact with until ten years ago when my biological father disappeared from my life and took my sisters with him, one brother who can’t handle the fact that I am his biological dad’s daughter, and a sister who is so much like me it’s scary! And it’s that sister that I am so grateful for.

I can still remember the day I received her letter. I had contacted her to let her know I existed and to ask if she’d be willing to keep in touch. She hated our biological father so much for abandoning her and for being a class-A jerk. And she was so angry about discovering she had other siblings out there that she knew nothing about. She wasn’t sure if she could handle the news, let alone deal with a new sibling in her life. Everything in her wanted to say, “Thanks but no thanks.” But something inside her said, “Give it a try. Take baby steps and see where it leads.”

And that’s just what we’ve done. Baby step after baby step until finally, this year, we’ve reached a place in our relationship where baby steps are no longer necessary—where we can be ourselves with each other, where we can lean on each other for comfort, and share in each other’s joy. Where can call ourselves sisters without always thinking in the back of our minds, “But we weren’t always sisters, we were strangers first—and for so many years, we didn’t even know the other existed.”

Today, I cannot imagine not having her in my life and so, while my biological father may have turned out to be a class-A jerk, I have to give him thanks for leaving me with such a very precious gift.

Give thanks…

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Thanks For The Writing Gig

Monday, July 20th, 2009 by Alyice

Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve had a knack for writing. Someone hurt me, I wrote. Someone angered me, I wrote. Someone made me happy, I wrote. I wrote because I was too afraid of confrontation, too afraid of my own feelings, too afraid of being rejected. Writing was, for me, a place of comfort. It released emotions that allowed me the opportunity to move on with my life and it was extremely cathartic.

For the most part, those writings stayed with me then later made their way to the trash, but on rare occasions those letters of anger and disappointment made it into the hands of others and that was not always a good thing. Some people can take brutal honesty, others cannot. Some people can step back and take a look at the whole situation and others cannot. Some people can point out misunderstandings, apologize, acknowledge their own wrong doings, and even help you see the error of your own thinking, and others cannot.

Yet, that never stopped me from writing. Through the good and the bad, I continued to write. Some years less often than others, but I wrote.

Even in school, my favorite subjects were always the ones that allowed me to write—and often the courses I excelled at. I may not have had the best imagination around, but oh, I did love to write. I loved putting words together to form sentences and sentences together to form paragraphs and paragraphs together to form complete papers. It didn’t matter what the subject was, writing was like an escape for me.

Yet, I never saw writing as a career and never thought to pursue it as such. I guess I didn’t realize that you could take your love of writing about the world around you and make a living at it. And considering the fact that I was more of an introvert than an extrovert, I didn’t see writing as a viable option. You would, after all, have to interview sources and you surely couldn’t get all your information from personal experience or other literature.

Now, years later, I write for a living. And it’s been such a tremendous blessing in my life. It has given me the flexibility to be a stay-at-home mom (something I’ve always dreamed of being) and a work-at-home mom (something I needed). It has allowed me the opportunity to volunteer in my children’s classrooms, to coddle them when they are home sick from school, and be home with them every summer. And when my husband worked nights, it allowed me the opportunity to have dates with my husband—during the day—without the need for a babysitter.

Yes, writing has always been a part of my life and always will.

So to all those wonderful people who’ve paid me to write content for their websites, their small businesses, their publications, and their catalogs, I thank you!

Thank you for allowing me to do something I love, for giving me the opportunity to grow as a writer, and for the ability to build my self-esteem as a human being. Thank you for showing me that I have value in this world, outside of being a mom and a wife and a friend. And thank you for letting me do it from the comfort of my home, where I could combine the best of both worlds: mom and career!

Give thanks…

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Thanks For The Sam-e

Monday, July 13th, 2009 by Alyice

Sam-e gave me my writing life back! I know it sounds like an advertising slogan but it’s true! And I couldn’t be happier.

Ever since moving to South Dakota, I have been battling with seasonal depression and with each passing year it only seemed to get worse. Add to that the fact I started premature menopause about the same time and well, things weren’t looking good. Each year seemed to bring on a deeper level of depression until finally, I couldn’t take it anymore.

It got to the point that I began hating my life—no matter what blessings bestowed themselves upon me (i.e. kids and husband), I couldn’t focus on the simplest of tasks without feeling as though someone had placed a huge weight on my chest, little things bugged the hell out of me, and reading and writing had become an impossible task—it was difficult to form complete thoughts without a struggle and I had to read over the same sentence five times just to get the jest of it. And my memory, well that felt as though Alzheimer’s had set it and I was getting really scared.

Finally, I went to the doctor. She confirmed the depression and prescribed an anti-depressant. However, the insurance wouldn’t pay for it! After two weeks of back-and-forth between the doctor and the insurance company they agreed to pay for a generic anti-depressant. There was only one problem—and it was a biggie! The anti-depressant they were willing to pay for had so many side-effects and warnings that there was no way I was going to put my body through that, too.

My doctor was adamant about me taking the anti-depressant, but I was adamant about finding another alternative. I had heard so many good things about natural remedies over the years and wanted to give that a try first. She didn’t think it could hurt, but she also didn’t believe it would work.

I spent the next two weeks reading about changing one’s diet and exercise, then I found a forum on depression. A gal had turned to Sam-e for the same reason I was looking—to avoid the chemical side effects of anti-depressants and to get healthy. She claimed that Sam-e worked better than the anti-depressants she had been on for the past 8 or so years and highly recommended it.

So off I went to learn more about Sam-e. I learned that…

Sam-e, short for S-adenosylmethionine, is made in the body naturally and those with extremely low doses can suffer depression.
It is made from the amino acid, methionine.
It is a natural anti-inflammatory and an antioxidant, and aides in the production of neurotransmitters.
It has been known to relieve the symptoms of depression (low mood, mood swings, fatigue, anxiety, and stress) but it does not happen overnight. It can take anywhere from 2 to 6 weeks to see any difference.
It was developed in France and had been used for nearly 20 years before the U.S. government felt a formula was stable enough to be sold in the United States.
It is vitally important to choose a reliable manufacturer to make sure that you’re truly getting 100% S-adenosylmethionine and not some by-product.
Enteric coated tablets are a necessity because you want the tablet to break down in the intestine, not the stomach where it would be rendered useless.
It must be taken on an empty stomach so it’s best to take it when you first wake up—thirty minutes before your first meal of the day.
While it relieves the symptoms of depression, one may still need to see a therapist to deal with underlying issues that caused the depression in the first place—unless of course, it’s simply a chemical imbalance in the brain.
Some people may need to take a traditional anti-depressant in conjunction with Sam-e but should only do so under the strict guidance of a medical practitioner because the side-effects can be severe.
It is not safe for anyone suffering from bi-polar disorder as it causes mania.
Side effects are mild but can consist of gastritis and/or an upset stomach followed by nausea.
It doesn’t appear to conflict with other medications but it is strongly advised that you double check the compatibility/safety of combining a daily regimen of Sam-e with your prescriptions drugs with a licensed pharmacist or medical practitioner.

In the end, I concluded that Sam-e was a safe bet—for me. Based upon many recommendations from medical literature, I chose 400 mg of Sam-e Complete™ by Nature Made.

What I like about this particular product is that it comes from a reliable source, is enteric-coated, is packaged in blister packs so that the tablets remain stable and free from moisture, and that I am getting a full dose of S-adenosylmethionine.

At first, I didn’t notice any change and wondered if the Sam-e was working. I even worried that I wasted $45—which was nothing compared to the $135 the anti-depressants would’ve cost! But by week three I noticed that my mood swings seemed to be more controllable, that I was waking up without that sense of dread, and the anxiety seemed to be lifting.

Today, 45 days later, I almost feel like a new person! I sat down to write this weekend and did not shed one tear! I wasn’t struggling to make sense of what I was reading, the words were comprehensible, and while I still struggle a little with getting my thoughts onto paper, it no longer takes me two hours to write something that used to take me a half hour to write!

Will it work for you, too? I honestly cannot say. Talk it over with your doctor and/or therapist. All I can tell you is that it is currently working for me and I cannot be more pleased!

Oh, and one more thing. It does not cure insomnia. But I figure that as long as I get eight hours of sleep every day, who cares what time I go to bed and what time I wake up—after all, I’m still a work-at-home mom!

Give thanks…

Disclosure: I paid for this product. This is “my opinion”. It is not an endorsement, express or implied. I was not paid to give a positive review.

Posted in It's Gratitude, Dude! | 6 Comments »

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I'm a mixed media artist and freelance writer. Need web content? Want to commission or license art? Let's Talk.

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