I Wanna Talk About It

For all you Moms out there who keeping telling every woman of child bearing age (who yet does not have any) that motherhood is so wonderful and we (okay we’ll switch to I now) am not leading a fulfilling life by not having any, I just want to say this – you’re full of crap. I can only believe that you are all trying the Big Dupe into making everyone around you as miserable as you are. YES! I do mean this.

It is unconscionable that every party and every 40 and up woman who is not actually too busy tending to the actual children will, at some point, go on a tirade about how either how I SHOULD have kids, or that I simply cannot understand real love if I only have furbabies.

I do not shove my furbaby life on anyone. I do not inform complete strangers of their inadequacies as a human being simply being they don’t have one or understand that kind of love. PLEASE, for the love of God STOP DOING IT TO ME, especially by using your wretched children and your wretched life to guilt me.

Are YOU going to pay my psych bills, my medication, or compensate for the angst, worry and emotional distress of my family as I go into psychosis and give birth in a Quiet Room while utterly insane? Do YOU have ANY COMPREHENSION, really, of MY LIFE? How can you be so selfish to assume that I am selfish by not producing offspring. Do I have to explain to every idiot that I am bipolar and in fact, so far, been very responsible to my illness?

Yes, I went to a party on Sunday, and yes I did run into this problem again, from total strangers. I was ‘on’ so to speak, my very social self and talking to everyone and having fun. I talked in length to some poor woman who could barely get into her seat, cane and everything. We were having a lovely conversation about furbabies, I about my present and most recent ones, her about her most beloved dog, which she admitted that at that time was like a child to her. This went on for some time. Then somehow in the end it soured when she informed me that you don’t have a bond with a dog like that after having children. I suggested that perhaps it was because you get busy with the children and you can’t really bond with dog the same way. I really was trying to be my most empathetic, she knew that was all I have known, and it was never a cut on her, her children, her God or her Country. She proceeded to tell me that the dog got plenty of love, as the children gave it more attention than she ever could and that I just couldn’t understand because I didn’t know the joy of children. Conversation over, she somehow got herself up and that was it.

Yeah.

That has pissed me off ever since. If I had simply got up after her initial tirade of 5 children, 12 grandchildren obviously an enormous sense of pride for her (and good for her) I could have cut off further crap and the eventual inevitable guilt trip. I am not accepting the guilt trip, I’m just pissed that people try it over and over and OVER again. I don’t need this. The upshot is that I feel now that when I see these people who obviously are bursting to tell me about their kids and grandkids I just shut down. I don’t share who I am, I don’t want to talk to them. I am already pissed that I can’t talk about bipolar like most people talk about their arthritis, high blood pressure, Diabetes or heart disease, lumbago, cancer, nervous disorder, what have you. I always feel that I must have that demeanor of someone who does not suffer, as it is not socially acceptable to discuss it. To talk about your offspring and the wonderfulness is socially acceptable, not a mental illness with a big rotten stigma that would take 40 minutes to pontificate fully about anyway.

So if I can’t talk about my reality and have to pretend I’m not even in it, you all can keep your big fat mouths shut and stop completely pissing me off. Oh I guess the right people will never even see this, cause they too busy with their kids. Well, pass it on, would ya?