Life's Journey: Mono and Hep B

Some days the path gets a bit complicated. Take out your stew pot.

So a couple of weeks ago, I mentioned to the Clinical Doctor where I work that I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired. I whined about fatigue levels and asked if I could possibly have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome as result of having Mono and Hepatitis when I was 16. The Dr kindly informed me that having mono 34 years ago would have no bearing on my current health. However, Hepatitis B in an entirely different thing.

Put that thought on the back burner.

You may recall from prior posts that my mother is schizophrenic. Part of her illness was to deny my existence whenever possibe. So trips to the dentist, to the doctor, or other health care needs went right out the window. When I was a junior in high school, just before Christmas and not long after being sexually assaulted by a 24 year-old-ex-con, I became ill. I went from getting up at 5 to go jogging in the mornings to dragging myself out of bed, to vomiting, diarrhea, fever, chills and jaundice. After missing two weeks of school, my mother had to take me to the doctor, at my father's instance, just so I would be allowed to go back to school.

I remember sitting in the waiting room, running for a bathroom to vomit repeatedly, the sound of the nurse at the door inviting me to lie on an examining table. I remember not being able to sit up, or stop throwing up. I remember the sound of Dr Johnson's voice as he said, "Mary Lou, had you waited another 48 hours she would be dead."

I was diagnosed with mononucleosis, Hepatitis B and a staph throat infection. What we know now, but didn't know then, is that, according to monotreatment.com, "One of the complications of infectious mononucleosis is hepatitis. However, this mono complication does not always result from mononucleosis. While hepatitis linked to mono is generally mild, it can pose health risks and in some cases can be quite serious."

This site goes on to say: "Hepatitis occurs in up to 90% of patients with infectious mononucleosis. Mono causes inflammation of the liver in approximately 1 out of every 10 people. Mono-related hepatitis is caused by the Epstein-Barr Virus which also causes mono. However, mono-related hepatitis is generally mild and only in rare cases does serious liver damage occur. When hepatitis is severe in individuals with mono, diagnosis should investigate a cause beyond mononucleosis. In rare instances where chronic hepatitis occurs because of infectious mononucleosis, it cannot be spread to an individual's spouse or offspring." Unfortunately, I was diagnosed in 1980, before anyone knew these things.

I don't remember going to the hospital, the exams or the tests. I do remember being isolated while we waited for test results. I didn't understand then that I had to be isolated until they knew if I had Hep A or Hep B. I was so relieved when they announced I had Hep B and was not contagious. It was 1982. The things they didn't know then about hepatitis.

The part that almost killed me? I came close to rupturing my spleen: "Splenomegaly is common. The spleen is often palpable 2-3 cm below the left costal margin and may be tender. The spleen rapidly enlarges over the first week of symptoms, usually decreasing in size over the next 7-10 days. The spleen can rupture from relatively minor trauma or even spontaneously" (MedScape).

I remember being alone with neither parent present at any time during the four days I was kept in the hospital. The doctor had said that my spleen nearly ruptured and I would have died. Dad says he came to the hospital several times. Mom did not. She was late to pick me up when they dismissed me, and I remember waiting in my room anxious that she had forgotten me again. I remember the spots on my chest and the nurse saying it must have been a reaction to the penicillin, but no one did anything about it. They couldn't give me anything to stop my itching because I had been discharged.

Now we know that: "Treatment with amoxicillin or ampicillin is associated with rash in approximately 80% of patients. This is often encountered when primary Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) infection is initially misdiagnosed as strep throat and is treated as such" (MedScape). I remember being tested for strep and finally they said I had a staph throat infection. I was treated with amoxicillin, which resulted in the rash.

When I left the hospital, I still evidenced jaundice. Took weeks to go away. I was the exception to what the then current medical wisdom indicated. Now we know that: "EBV is a rare causative agent of acute hepatitis, during the course of infectious mononucleosis. Usually, it is mild, undetected clinically and resolves spontaneously. Jaundice is distinctly uncommon; cholestatic hepatitis due to EBV infection is rarely reported" (Infectious Mononucleosis Hepatitis in Young Adults: Two Case Reports)

I spent most of the next six months in bed. I dropped out of school and slept 23 hours a day for about 6 weeks. I slept up twelve hours a day or more for months afterward. Slowly, slowly I stayed awake more. But I never felt "normal" again.

Put that thought on the back burner.

For most of my life my new normal has been 9 hours of sleep a night, and tempering my schedule with days I don't have to "push the go button" so I can survive the ones I do. I have never been able to maintain a very active social life because I gave all my energy to work or school. I gave up custody of my sons many years ago. Looking back, I must have intuitively known I could not keep up physically more than the two days a week I bartered for (of course there were other circumstances for another blog another time). Early menopause has helped because I seem to require less sleep than I used to.

Research states: "A number of recent studies have shown that people with chronic HCV infection
score poorly on many quality-of-life parameters, including a range of physical and psychological measures of wellbeing. Again, these impairments are relatively non-specific, and include reductions in
general health perception, mental health, physical function, social function and vitality. These measures
may also be impaired in many people with chronic hepatitis B. (http://www.ashm.org.au/images/publications/monographs/HIV_viral_hepatitis_and_STIs_a_guide_for_primary_care/hiv_viral_hep_chapter_7.pdf) Yeah. That covers the dysthymia, missed concerts and movies, lack of energy, and fantasies of sleep.

I have good years, and not so good years. The good years coincided with my return to grad school. I'm having a not so good year now, and when I leave work, I have to go a rape crisis shelter to do therapy three days a week. When I get home I fall over. Every day. When the weekend comes, I don't want to go to friends', or run errands or even leave the house. I want to stop. Hence the Monday I finally asked our clinical doctor if I could have chronic fatigue syndrome. His answer, "I don't believe in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, nor does mono have long term effects. However, Hepatitis B does," shocked me.

Put that thought on the back burner.

I work at a substance abuse clinic where IV drug use was common and many, many clients have hepatitis. Every year we have trainings at work which include Hep B. But I thought Hep B was something you got once and got over. I was wrong. "Almost all newborns and about 50% of children who become infected with hepatitis B develop chronic hepatitis. Less than 5% of adults who are infected with the hepatitis B virus develop the chronic condition" (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001324/). Lovely.

It gets worse. According to the CDC: "1.25 million people living in the United States have chronic hepatitis B. Not all people who are infected with HBV look or feel sick; they can have the virus and not have symptoms or know they are sick. If you have chronic hepatitis B you are more likely to get cirrhosis (scarring) and liver cancer. Each year, about 5,000 people die of cirrhosis or liver disease caused by HB."

Put that thought on the back burner.

The clinic doctor said to me that since we know I had Hep B, there was no sense in testing for it again at this time as testing can be expensive and he cannot prescribe treatment. However, he did want me to have a liver panel that determined if I currently have damage to my organs. The good news is that the panel came back normal or nearly so.

Put that thought on the back burner.

According to Medecinenet.com, "Most individuals with chronic hepatitis B remain symptom free for many years or decades. During this time, the patient's blood tests usually are normal or only mildly abnormal. Some patients may deteriorate and develop inflammation or symptoms, putting them at risk for developing cirrhosis." Small comfort since I have already lived with Hep B for 34 years.

Let's complicate things....



Symptoms of chronic Hep B:
Anxiety, Arthritis, Blurred Vision, Chills, Dark Urine, Decline in sex drive, Depression, Dizziness, Dry Skin, Excessive Bleeding, Excessive gas, Fatigue, Fever, Flu like symptoms, Gallstones, pain or discomfort in liver area, Hot flashes, Indigestion, Inflammation in the joints, Insomnia, Itching, Jaundice (yellowing of eyes and/or skin), Memory loss, mental confusion, Muscle aches, Nausea, Rashes/Red spots, Red palms, Sensitivity to heat or cold, Slow healing and recovery, Succeptibility to illness/flu, Water retention, Weakness. (http://www.regenerativenutrition.com/content.asp?id=363)

OK, board the TMI Bus. It's my blog and I need to talk. Don't like it, skip this part.

I don't have all these symptoms, but I do have over half. Another symptom, not on this list but found elsewhere, is spider veins. In the last month they have become noticeably worse, especially on my face and chest. It has gotten so bad that I stated wearing makeup every day after clients asked repeatedly if I was okay or did I have wind burn or something. And yesterday I had to leave work and go home and change clothes after unexpected diarrhea, something I've had periodically my whole life. It's not something that people talk about, so it never crossed my mind that it's not normal until my partner pointed it out and the doctor confirmed.

Nope, haven't done a viral load. Still have to pay Scrooge for the tests we did to verify I don't have advanced liver damage. Fortunately, Scrooge let me have the tests at the clinic's cost. And doing a viral load makes no sense to me if I'm powerless to seek treatment, at least for now.

Putting it all together...
I don't know. I really just don't know. I'm finding myself reevaluating so many things about my body.

Research states: "The major feature of the symptomatology of early or slowly progressive liver disease in chronic viral hepatitis is its highly variable nature. For many people,this stage of liver disease, which may be the only stage they experience, is completely asymptomatic.
On the other hand, many people have considerable symptoms despite the presence of mild liver disease or the absence of biochemical evidence of liver inflammation (normal alanine aminotransferase [ALT] and asparate aminotransferase [AST] levels). In fact, in chronic hepatitis C there is little correlation between the ALT level and presence of symptoms. Furthermore, the stage of liver disease (prior to liver failure) and the viral load in chronic hepatitis C have a poor association with the extent of symptoms."

My liver tests are good. My quality of life, not so much.

"In chronic hepatitis B, particularly in the case of perinatal or early childhood infection, a prolonged asymptomatic period (immune tolerance phase) is followed by a more symptomatic period (reactivationclearance phase) in which flares of clinical hepatitis may occur as the body's immune system attempts to clear infection. These flares are generally milder than an acute hepatitis B clinical presentation, however, they often consist of similar symptoms and signs. These include lethargy, nausea, anorexia, food intolerance, abdominal discomfort and jaundice." (http://www.ashm.org.au/images/publications/monographs/HIV_viral_hepatitis_and_STIs_a_guide_for_primary_care/hiv_viral_hep_chapter_7.pdf)

My first flare actually occurred after I contracted Hep B. My senior year, many symptoms returned of my previous illness. I tried to drag myself to school. I only lacked a semester of senior English from graduating. The doctor didn't know what to do with me. Dr Johnson told me that mono doesn't come back. Research in 1983 hadn't yet begun suggesting that Hep B did. I have always wondered if I was just making it up, defeated at the idea of attending classes with peers my mother failed or tortured in seventh grade math. Now I know it was a flare from the Hep B. Self-forgiveness for a GED in a blessing, even if it comes late.

Putting it all together and stirring the pot...

I don't know where I am going with this post. Or my life. I feel as if someone just handed me the Rosetta Stone and everything and nothing makes sense. By the way, "food intolerance" for this compulsive overeater means chronic diarrhea. Sucks. Today, yesterday, have been those kinds of days. So while I may have excellent liver panels, there are yet symptoms. And as the spiral of time has wrapped back to this childhood illness yet again, I find myself evaluating with new wisdom, insight, self-forgiveness. And fear. I live in a home with twenty-five cats, one dog, and one much beloved partner in desperate need of a hip replacement. I am the source of income. I can't stop. Perhaps that is a good things because I also cannot give up.

I even worry about Cameron reading the last paragraph and feeling guilt, which he does not deserve. Indeed, it is my beloved partner that keeps me going, reminds me of my life purpose and calling, bolsters my courage and fills my life with love. So tomorrow I will be able to get up and go at 3:30 in the morning yet one more day.

One Final Guest Blog Post by Cameron...."Going to Arkansas..."

Grace Dreamweaver

Dreamweaver and I have been talking off and on via cell phone and computer chat all week long during her trip to Arkansas. (of course, given the state of the cell phone connection, at least half of the conversations have been one of us screaming "CAN YOU HEAR ME?!?"  while the other one was saying "You sound like you're sitting right next to me, clear as bell, are you there?" *sigh*) Any way, she has asked me to write out some thoughts about her trip in our discussions. After some thought, I decided, to make it a guest post for her on her own blog. I can link it to mine. And I have permission to tell parts of her story.

First of all, never ever forget this. Dreamweaver is brave. Brave and heroic! Every trip to Arkansas carries with it bittersweet pain, co-mingled with nightmare. She is only just beginning to build a body of memory that has joy and happiness associated with "going to Arkansas".  The entire state is one great big PTSD  trigger for her; returning to it is always an act of courage and faith.

She was born in Indiana and then uprooted as a child to Arkansas away from family, her church and all she had ever known by events beyond her control - she only learned some of the truths behind that event so long ago on this trip, in conversation with her father. Her mother has schizophrenia...there is no way to over estimate the collateral damage this illness can cause in a child's life when a parent has this illness. Her mother, (let it be pointed out, only because of the grip of the illness, its paranoia and the voices in her head), neglected, abused and communicated to her only daughter that she, Dreamweaver, was not wanted. Was not loved. That she should not have existed. Her mother withheld love and affection, often acting as if Dreamweaver did not exist, even to the point of withholding food. There was no stability in that house. Rules changed. Permission to do the smallest thing would be given and rescinded hours later, harsh punishment always followed. Dreamweaver learned to live without a hard and fast reality. Learned that rules were not to be trusted. Learned that nothing was ever safe. And as she grew up, Arkansas,  with its deeply abusive conservatism and unspoken unreasonable societally constructed "rules" became hell on earth. No matter what she did, she could never get it right. No matter what she did, nothing ever made sense. There was no hard and fast ground to stand on, any where.

She fled Arkansas and her first short unwanted marriage (her mother literally forced Dreamweaver to marry the young man she was then dating, though Dreamweaver did not want to). She was then her late teens, with no concept of what a normal life was or how to function in the "real" world. And the real world, as it does so many of us, chewed her up and spit her out. She returned shattered and broken to Arkansas, remarried, had two sons. There is a lot of this story I am not telling, because its her story to tell...but I am going to focus on a certain part of the story, with her permission, in this post. Her second husband was a complicated problem. He was a good man as best he knew how to be. He was funny and he loved his sons....but he was also chronically depressed, an unambitious man who would only ever have a high school education and a low paying factory job in one factory his whole life, and his wit could and did turn sarcastic and cruel. He was so far out of his league being married to Dreamweaver, that I can sometimes muster up some pity for him.

 Dreamweaver is stunningly intelligent, she wanted more than dirt ignorance and a lonely house, a community that rejected her, and a factory or cashier job in perpetuity. She struggled with her past. She had to commit her mother to institutionalized care during those years, because her father would not step up to the plate and deal with the situation. She struggled with rejection, never fitting in any where, in their church or community. She also struggled with the beginnings of chronic life long depression, and then further, with post-postpartum depression on top of that after the birth of her second son. She struggled to parent two small active children, with no skills, no help, no way to know how to be a parent; when all she had ever known of parenting herself was abuse and mistreatment, passed down through generations of dysfunctional families. She feared desperately her own temper, her own lack of understanding or knowledge, her isolation, and lack of parenting skills. She did her best, and all the while, her soon to be Ex husband, either could not or would not give her the support, the care, the kindness, the understanding she needed to survive and escape her past. He loved her...but he did not love her unconditionally, he could not connect the dots between her past hell and her present struggle. He judged and he cut her with his words, driving her further into depression and shame.

And lets be honest - Dreamweaver struggled with a temper, that was created by and complicated by PTSD triggers, and damaged attachment from her childhood. She had no way to self soothe, or to understand how the effects of her abusive childhood were shattering her ability to manage relationships. There is no way around the fact that she was not easy to live with...but she knew too, that something wasn't right. At one point, pleading for help, struggling with Post-partum depression on top of her already desperate situation, she called DSS on herself, terrified of her own behaviors and temper. DSS, got her a baby sitter for one afternoon, sent her to the mall for a few hours, and closed the case. Not, as you might guess, a lot of help there...

And of course, this marriage ended. And Dreamweaver gave the care and custody of her children to her Ex, terrified of and fleeing the possibility that she would pass on to them the damage done to her by her mother, and dysfunctional past. She struck out to make something of herself, to have a career  and a life and to afford more for her children someday in the future, when things might someday be better.

She wanted college, and a world where education and a career made a difference. Today she holds a BA, an MA, an EDS, and is a liscenced therapist working in her field and seeking to build a private practice. She began back then by entering college in Indiana. Her marriage with Ex may have ended...but of course, when you have children together, like it or not, you must continue to co-parent. To be in a relationship  with the person you have divorced. The Ex stayed in Arkansas, with the boys; Dreamweaver went to college, looking out and up. She earned her BA in English in Indiana, and during that time, she dated men, but never looked for more than friendship and fun. School was her main focus and passion. She traveled endless miles to see her sons, and beggared herself financially to bring them to her for visitation, all the while struggling with the endless guerrilla warfare of the Ex, who resented her and her involvement in her own sons lives. She would arrive in Arkansas, for her scheduled time with her sons, to find "plans" made that prevented her from being with them, or circumventing what she had planned to do with them. She dealt constantly with manipulation, and shortened visits, and spiteful behavior from her Ex, and legally she probably could have called him on it in the courts, if she had known how the system worked, how it was being played against her.

Her relationship with her parents remained strained at best, but she did see them, off and on, and so did the grandchildren, Dreamweaver's sons.During those years she remarried once again, and then was widowed, which was a shattering event unto itself. And now we come to something that happened that was to nearly destroy Dreamweaver. She was dating/friends with an Indian man - Indian as in India, the country, not the American indigenous people - who also knew the kids, and spent time with them when he could. Their relationship caused difficulties for them when they were in Arkansas - he was very dark skinned, and they were taunted with racists slurs and bigotry; at one point they were very nearly run off the road by another car for being an interracial couple. Dreamweaver considered him a friend more than a boyfriend, though they were dating. She  kept the relationship very circumspect, especially when the children were visiting her. And then disaster struck...Indian had a car wreck. He was alone in the car, no one was with him; the kids who were up visiting, were with Dreamweaver, elsewhere.

And out of the blue, the next time she went to Arkansas to pick up her children at their school, she was presented with a restraining order denying her ability to see them, alleging endangerment by allowing them to be in the car with a man not she was not married to, and allegedly involving them in the wreck - which they were not! they were never anywhere near the wreck - and calling for her appearance in court to most likely lose her visitation rights. It was a cobbled up lie, complete fiction,  and it was about to cost her her children. And underneath it boiled the societal prejudices against non-custodial mothers, and interracial dating. Horrified, she sought a lawyer and set out to endure the separation from her children, struggling to prepare for the court. In the end, the legal advice she was given was brutally simple...if you ever want to see your children again, even though none of this is your fault, and none of it really happened, you and Indian must get married. Its your only choice, your only hope,your only chance, she was told, because due to cultural prejudice and small town politics, you will not win this one. If you and he are legally married, then it becomes null and void. Stunned, heartsick and exhausted, Dreamweaver complied, marrying Indian, before the court date, even though she did not really want to. Every instinct she had warned her that this was not what she should do. And it was her only choice, or otherwise she would not see her sons again for over a decade.  (this made Arkansas legal history btw; the laws were amended after what happened to her so that restraining orders could never again be served to a parent on school grounds, which is what happened to her when she went to pick up her sons on that horrible day.)

The courts case crumbled, and years later Ex apologized for the harm he  had done by pushing the flawed and illegal case at the behest of an ambitious and hungry lawyer. (little did he know, for he knows nothing of what really happened after.)  Her youngest son, the Enlightened One,  shaken by the obvious lies, and by not seeing her for so long, requested to change custody to her care; he was too young to legally make the choice to go live with her...but her older son, The Marine, was old enough to petition the courts. And so they moved in with her, later, when she came to live in Atlanta with Indian.

But now, Dreamweaver was married to Indian. And her instinct that she really didn't want to marry him proved out to be fatally right. Indian turned out to be her darkest nightmare. Ex was a confused, narrow, judgmental man, a product of white patriarchal  male Arkansas culture at its most bigoted narrowest, but he tried to love Dreamweaver - he just no more had the skills to be in a relationship then  she did, at the time. He did and does love his sons... but Indian was an honest-to-god Sociopath, for real, with no conscience or morality to speak of. His intent from the beginning had been Dreamweaver's destruction, and once he married her, as carelessly cruel as a cat playing with an injured mouse, he set out to ruin her, and perhaps even end her life. And he nearly succeeded. Those years I will not tell - that is Dreamweaver's tale to tell, should she ever so desire to. And I am not sure this blog is the appropriate place to tell that part of her story. Those were her darkest years and they became a horror. Suffice to say, she survived...broken and wounded beyond telling, but survived. Taking the advice of an alarmed and determined therapist who told her, "if you don't get out, that man will kill you", she finally fled the relationship

And in the very end she went on to thrive, but those intervening years cost her dearly. Fleeing Indian, vulnerable and wounded,  struggling alone in Atlanta with two children to now provide for, she stumbled into one final last bad relationship with yet one more cruel man. And that wound up costing her everything she had fought so hard to save - her home, her finances, her spiritual community. And part of what she lost in the end was her children after all. Shaken by the damage of the last man's manipulative evil, her now teenaged children fled back to Arkansas. The Enlightened One would not speak of what happened, though he told his mother "you were right" as he left. The Marine, bitter, deceived by the last man's machinations, and as judgmental as his own father, broke off his relationship with his mother altogether.  It would be years before Dreamweaver would ever hear from either of her sons - and then only sporadically from The Enlightened One, despite his love for her.  The Marine remains cut off from us, denying us the ability to see and know our grandchildren. Those years were agony for her. And Arkansas became the nightmare of her memories.

I want to add here, that I was there for part of this. I saw Indian from a distance. I knew Dreamweaver back then, and the man she was with in the final relationship. I saw his lies and manipulation and was even deceived myself by them for a short time. I saw it all come apart, and helped Dreamweaver move out of her condo when she lost it, into her best friends basement. I was ring side to the unraveling revelation of just how manipulative this man was, destroying not only Dreamweaver's life and hopes, but also a local church youth group as its youth minister (lying about credentials he did not have). When she needed a new start, I opened my home to her in another state, little knowing that our friendship would blossom into love and marriage. So, I can attest to the brutal truths of what Dreamweaver has survived.

Two years ago, the Enlightened One invited us to his wedding to Scientist, the incredibly beautiful and talented  young woman he had met in college. And so, for the first time in 12 years, Dreamweaver returned to the land of her nightmares, back to Arkansas, for her son's wedding and to see her parents. That trip, two years ago, is told HERE in my blog, one of its earliest posts. It is worth reading to put this post and Dreamweaver's past 10 days in Arkansas in perspective. While we were there for that trip, we made a stunning alarming discovery that changed EVERYTHING Dreamweaver knew, or thought she knew about the events leading up to the restraining order and her marriage to Indian. We still don't talk about it much, but it changed the fabric of the landscape of her life forever, based on what her dad told her. I think we are verging on talking about it at last and exploring what it means.

So,two years ago, on that first trip back, we had been talking to her father about the past, touching very high level on that time, when she married Indian and the lawsuit against her. And he told us what REALLY happened. Shortly before Dreamweaver was presented with the restraining order on the school grounds that fateful day she went to pick up her kids, her sons were in Arkansas visiting with Dreamweaver's parents - their grandparents. The kids were suppose to stay overnight, and then Dreamweaver was to take them home to their father, the Ex. However, unbeknownst entirely to Dreamweaver, Ex called her father in high handed dungeon and demanded that the kids come home right then. Dreamweaver, aware of her precarious position as a non-custodial parent, would have taken the kids home, if she had gotten the call. It had happened before. However, her Father, who did not and does not like Ex, developed a nice case of stubborn male mulishness, and flatly and pointedly refused to allow Ex to get his kids before the appointed time. They fought about it, with Ex hanging up, furious and seeing  red, determined to Do Something About This. And the next time Dreamweaver, all unknowing went to pick her sons up at school, she was confronted with that restraining order and the court case.

So....Ex's "Something" turned out to be seeking out a lawyer for advice, who saw - I presume - a shaky "legal" maneuver to deny Dreamweaver's custody rights, based on Indian's car wreck.  We suddenly for the first time ever, knew why it happened. Realized that due to her father's insensitive, unilateral handling of a very tense situation,  that Dreamweaver nearly lost her sons, her sanity was nearly destroyed, her life endangered, and the circumstances that led to her kids cutting her off were laid in train. And, her father, told the story to us with an oblivious disregard for the consequences of his actions - he knew that the marriage with Indian ended badly, if not the whole story, and yet there is no apology or sorrow for what his actions eventually cost Dreamweaver. Instead, all he seemed to see is that he got the better of Ex, in not letting the children go home. I find this disturbing, profoundly so. If something I had done had caused such devastating long range effects on someone's life, particularly someone I loved, I would be down on my knees in horror begging forgiveness! Instead all her father seems to be able to see is that he was "righteously right" and won the argument with Ex. And I doubt he will ever see it in any other light, given his general patriarchal sense of self entitlement.

It is almost incomprehensible to me that Dreamweaver survived these years at all. And they took their toll on her, in ways that still haunt her to this very day. But survive she did. And more then merely "survive". She is thriving! She went on, and over came the damages done to her psyche, learned how to love, how to be in relationship, how to function in ways she never dreamed of and had never experienced. This incredible, beautiful woman who is my best friend, my partner, my wife, has become so much more then the "sum of her parts", overcoming a life time of abuse that would have - should have killed her. She is loving, and strong, gentle and kind. And if she still has occasional bad moments, when memories, and fears trigger her old temper and PTSD rises up, she also masters those moments, trusting in love, and her own inner truths to over come them. She did what she set out to do...she broke the legacy of abuse and shattered attachments and did not pass them on to her sons. Enlightened One and Marine are both happily married, strong loving men who care deeply for their families, and if both of them carry some personal baggage from those years, still they did not endure what Dreamweaver endured - she stopped the legacy of abuse from passing down to yet another generation.

So going back to Arkansas for her is a heroic task. This trip was especially unnerving, as for the first time she returned alone, without my support and comfort by her side. Every time she returns, old horrors and memories struggle up from the past to ride her shoulder and try to darken her heart. And now, every time she returns, slowly but surely reconciling with her parents, enjoying the rich happy relationship of love, joy and  laughter she is building with Enlightened One and Scientist, renewing old friendships, she is creating new memories. These new experiences are a journey towards a new future for her with her family, new hopes and new dreams. She dreams of  being a grandmother in truth to Enlightened One and Scientist's children some day; she has already had one unbelievable dream come true she never expected to hear - her mother saying "I always wanted a daughter", speaking from beyond the illness that hid that all those years.

Arkansas will always be bitter sweet for her - difficult and charged with old horror. But I believe that someday, these new moments of love and hope will allow the sweet to begin to outweigh the bitter.

And I am honored to be in Dreamweaver's life, to be a part of her journey, to know and understand the message her life holds for us. And that message is that even though the past can never be forgotten, the affects of a life time of pain and sorrow do not have to rule our lives. That there is always hope. That change is always possible. And that now abide faith, hope and love - and that the greatest of these is love. Thank you Dreamweaver. I love you with all my heart!

Wicca and Divine Power

I love being part of an online community because they give me so much to think about. Currently, I'm a mentor for a study group that is reading Scott Cunningham's Wicca for the Solitary Practitioner. Here's the first question posed to the group and my response.

Cunningham says that the Wicca acknowledge a supreme divine power from which the universe sprang, but because the concept of this power is so far beyond our comprehension, it has been nearly lost in Wicca because of our difficulty relating to it. Do you agree? How do you personally feel about this concept?

As many of you know, Cameron and I are duel pathed. I tease her that she's a little more Christian than Wiccan, and I am a little more Wicccan that Christian. But since I'm about to join the church where she's a member, guess I best claim both equally! LOL

And yes, there's a reason for that statement that relates to our first discussion question. Bear in mind that these are my personal beliefs and by no means do I think they apply to anyone else.

Abuse characterized my early years, and patriarchy complete with the Christian church was part of that trauma. For many years I walked away from the Christian God. Instead, I sought the Goddess as a way to Divinity and healing. I knew from the first time I stepped into circle that I was called to be a priestess. Twelve years later, this third degree priestess in reconciling her faith in dual traditions.

In the big picture, so to speak, I picture "Divinity" as a wholeness beyond my understanding with both male and female aspects. I do think Divinity is incomprehensible, and that it is necessary to break it down to male and female aspects in order to relate to divinity. I also belive that divinity resides within each of us, hence we greet one another as "thou art god/dess".

On one hand, I don't picture "God" in church as exclusively the male Deity of the Christian faith. I try to think of the Christian God including Sophia, the Holy Spirit, or Wisdom.

On the other hand, I find the male aspect easily in church because that is the thoughtform fed by so many centuries of patriarchy and Christian teaching. I do tend to focus on the female aspect in my priestess role. Nevertheless, in a round about way, I have come to agree with Cunningham's statement regarding a supreme divine power. And since Cameron channels male energy, I leave all the male "stuff" to her!

As my path continues, I expect that in another ten years I will be able to find both male and female aspects of Divinity regardless of being in circle or church. I firmly believe in the necessity of balance, and expect to find the balance of male and female energy within myself as my healing continues, whether that be in this lifetime or the next.

How I actually go about reconciling my dual path is beyond the scope of this question. But I will say that thinking about this topic led me to Wiccan Place three months ago. While I was waiting to be approved to join, I started a blog, and anyone is welcome to read more there, Wicca and Christianity

Priestess, Crone, Community

Since entering grad school, my life seems to have moved into fast forward, and the transformation of self astonishes me daily. I was raised in a wounded and damaged home. My mother had undiagnosed schizophrenia, my father had the religion bug (moved us from Indiana to Arkansas so he could go to Harding College, now Harding University, and become a minister). Those were strange years, between when we moved at age ten until I got out of the house.

Like an alcoholic home, we never talked about what went on behind closed doors. The abuses schizophrenia unleashes can shatter a child's reality. (Very much like what happenes in an addictive household.) I lived in a world where the rules changed every week or two. I could litererly ask to spend the night at a friend's house on Monday, get permission, go on Friday and be punished when I got home for not asking.

My mother's abuses perpetuated on the children in her seventh grade classrooms were equally damaging to others. Like me, they never knew where they stood with her. As the illness took its toll, her erratic behavior brought my mother before the schoolboard to defend her job most every summer.

So my parents and I closed ranks, which smoothered my attempts to connect with community. I did not talk on the phone with friends and to to this day lack the comfort with phones that everyone else seems to have. For many years I lacked rudimentary social skills others take for granted, especially in the south where "bless her heart" means "fuck you." I was a nontraditional college student at 25 when those things finally started making sense. Nor surprisingly, I am now an introvert by nature.

Over the last few years, I went through menapause. At age 46, I seem to have occassional hotflashes, but otherwise few symptoms. The timing seems to coincide with having passed through the mothering part of my life. My therapist likes to argue that therapy is mothering, but for me, I dont quite agree. Indeed, one of my therapy supervisors suggested that when she saw some "mothering" in therapy that I needed move to a different approach -- which sounded more like where a crone would be. So even at school, the universe seems to be moving me beyond the mother and into the crone.

As I move in the phase of the crone, I find myself reaching out to my community. When we attended Goddess Fest I became acutely aware of the need to connect with the pagan community surrounding me, however out of sync I feel. I've begun blogging, and eagerly read everthing I follow. I grow frustrated with the need to read more of my online community than I have time for. I have joined elists, following a Christian GLBTQ group, a support group for the signifant other in a trans relationship, and an online Wiccan group. I treasure these groups and follow them avidly. With the Wiccan group, I am slowly becoming one of the elders of the group whose training and experience benefit the younger members. I am occassionally graced with the opportunity to "teach", which a role I highly value. More than that, I am filled with gratefulness to finally begin to connect with people and no longer be so isolated. For the first time in my life, I value community deeply and feel welcomed by it.