Saturday, September 20, 2008

man the pumps...or something like that

When I was a child, women stayed home. They gave up whatever they were doing and were fulfilled as homemakers. This is what had been done for generations (well, actually, not quite but that requires an comparison of pre and post industrial revolution society, a few paragraphs about the evolution of guilds in the 16th and 17th centuries, the rise of the mercantile class and the growth of the middle class in the 20th century).

TV shows and movies told us this was the way life was and it would make everyone happy. If it didn't make you happy, well, then you just weren't trying hard enough.
I've been meditating on the differences in attitude between then and now. The biggest thing is that nowadays it is permissible - just barely - to admit to being unhappy. There are drugs available that help a lot and the stigma is, while not gone completely, at least at the stage where most people don't want to appear to be insensitive about the issue.

This spring I went through a medical assessment to see if the stew of pills I'm taking to keep me on an even keel are still doing their job or if things can be fiddled with a bit more. What fun.
In the time I spent chatting with the good doctor, it became obvious to me just how much attitudes have changed since I was a child. I'd long known mom struggled with undiagnosed depression because it wasn't something proper people got.

As we talked, I began to see how she was self-medicating with alcohol and at least one other member of her family had prescribed himself a continual rye & ginger drip (mum's favorite was brandy with a bit of warm water starting, usually around lunch just before 'sleepy time'). I never mentioned to him she got a sizeable supply of valium too, under the table, through one of my cousins when he was a drug rep.

I remember being locked out of the house, 6 years old, home from school for lunch and unable to get in. By the time Mom showed up I was panicked, crying and terribly embarrased because I'd had to go to the bathroom when I first got home and couldn't wait anymore - I ended up soaking my leotards and leaving a sizeable puddle on the steps. I still remember her look of irritation; she told me not to fuss so much and said maybe now I'd understand what it was like when I went to a friend's house and didn't tell her where I was.

It's just too weird. I know that's not like all the dramatic material out there about child abuse - the joke in my family is I got one spanking in my life and my sister thinks I'm exaggerating. I mean, is that the worst thing I can dredge up? There wasn't anything really big. But what is normal to a seven year old? I didn't grow up in some one else's house so I have nothing to compare it with.

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