Chapter 13

In order to maintain the illusion that their children were their first priority, Mother and Father as a unit did need to put in significant effort from time to time.  Of course, Father never had the personal energy for it, so I cannot remember a single time he went to bat for me.  Mother, on the other hand, did so now and again, and yet it usually turned out problematically to say the least.

Mother developed a habit of self-diagnosis when I was very little.  This stemmed at least in part from the family’s lack of access to medical care at the time.  I understand self-diagnosis, and I have done it myself as an adult when I had limited access to medical care and was frustrated that doctors were shuffling me around and clearly clueless about what was wrong with me.  In my case, though, I did thorough research.  Then, when I found something that I thought might be my problem, I used that information to find a doctor who specialized in that illness, so I could get a true diagnosis and treatment.  As it turns out, I did not have the illness I thought I did, but that specialist was able to determine that I had a different, even rarer infection which acted extremely similar.  I was able to get treatment, and although I will probably suffer chronic illness for the rest of my life, I am far better off for the care I am ultimately receiving because of self-diagnosis efforts.

I was a toddler when Mother decided my brothers and I were all allergic to sugar.  Yep.  You read that right.  Allergic to Sugar.  The terms hypoglycemic and hyperglycemic also got thrown around, but usually she focused on an allergy to sugar, because hypoglycemia and hyperglycemia are very specific conditions with very specific symptoms which her children did not have, making it far more obvious she was making things up.

I believed her because my diet was so poor that any time I ate sugary foods, I would get a distinct rush from the sudden influx of energy.  I hated how that felt.  Two to four hours later, I would crash out, and I hated that even more.  If I did what Mother recommended and avoided sucrose (table sugar), I never had that high and crash which I hated so very much.  I also emotionally needed to believe Mother would never lie to me, so I believed her that I was allergic to sugar.

Mother was so adamant about this idea that she literally argued with the family doctor about it.  Of course, the family doctor insisted that there was no such thing as an allergy to sugar.  Mother insisted that just because it was incredibly rare, that did not mean it did not exist.  After all, there are people who are allergic to sunlight, and allergic to water.  Her children were allergic to sugar, end of story.  She would not be budged from that view, and in true conspiracy-theory fashion, she took the doctor’s unwavering conviction she was wrong as proof that he had some sort of god-complex and was unwilling to change his mind even when presented with “strong evidence”.

Mother reached the conclusion that I was allergic to sugar when my adult teeth were starting to come in, and my diet was so poor that they developed with mild hypoplasia.  This caused almost all of my adult molars to develop cavities before I was ten years old and left me with slight horizontal grooves in the enamel on my front teeth. While there are many things which can cause hypoplastic teeth, in my case this was almost certainly a result of poor nutrition, which also caused me to have very strong reactions when I ate refined sugar.  If the family doctor suggested that malnourishment was a possible cause for my reactions to sugar, he did not do so when I was present, but I was very young at the time and he may not have wanted to have that kind of discussion in front of me.

Younger Brother stopped avoiding sugar when I was only in the second grade.  Older Brother stopped shortly after that.  Nothing horrible happened to either of them, at least in part because I do not think either of them minded the feeling of the high and crash, so Mother said they must have gotten over the allergy.  I so strongly hated the high and crash which sugar gave me, that I continued to avoid sugar up to adulthood.  It was just one more thing that made my relationship with food complicated and unhealthy, and prevented me from discovering food that was enjoyable to eat.

When I hit puberty, Mother was as hands-off about the process as possible, to the point of running to the doctor when I had a question just so she would not have to answer it.  Instead of personally explaining anything, she left all my education about my body up to the school’s sex education class.  She did not even show me how to apply menstrual pads to my underwear.  Instead, she just showed me where the box of menstrual pads was and told me to follow the diagrams on the packaging. The fact that she left me entirely to my own devices did nothing to preventer her from later yelling at me for not closing the box. At the time, menstrual pads were not individually wrapped, so she was angry because that left the pads open to the unsanitary conditions of our home, conditions which I was completely desensitized to because they were all I had ever known.

The school sex education class talked about reproduction and gave an overview of sex organs, but it said little to nothing about the practical aspects of dealing with a menses.  Within a few months of hitting puberty, I noticed that I had a clear, creamy discharge between periods.  I had only been told about such discharges in relation to having an STD, so even though I was a virgin I told Mother and asked her if it was anything to worry about.

Instead of telling me it was normal (it is), Mother made an appointment with the family doctor to get it checked out.  She refused to say anything, even whether or not she had ever had or heard of such a discharge outside of sexually transmitted illnesses.  Even though I had never had sex, Mother’s silence left disease as the only cause I knew of, creating a deepening pit of worry, fear, and confusion.

To his credit, the family doctor’s bedside manner was excellent, especially given that I was significantly underage, and he needed to give me a pelvic exam to confirm for certain that everything was normal.  No, it was Mother who made it weird.  She repeatedly said it was going to be “fine”, but her body language and the way she nervously held my hand throughout the appointment made it feel like something was significantly wrong.

It was the family doctor who told me that such discharges were perfectly normal for a lot of people, but he would have the discharge tested just to make sure.  I had never had intercourse, and there was no pain, stinging, rotten smell, or discomfort, so, predictably, the tests came back normal.  Mother never mentioned it again, but the experience stayed with me, because it never needed to happen.  She was so terrified of telling me anything related to menstruation that she did not simply explain that it is, in fact, a perfectly normal part of the menstrual cycle, and nothing to worry about unless you also have the aforementioned pain, stinging, rotten smell, or discomfort.

After all those times when visiting a doctor was put off because of money fears, even when the situation seemed urgent and distressing, Mother terrified me just so she would not have to talk to me about my menses.

It should not surprise me that Mother’s relationship with the family doctor fell apart over another of her self-diagnoses.  He had been our family doctor since I was a very small child and he first opened his private practice.

In grade school I loved running.  As part of physical education, every day the whole class would hit the track and run a lap.  In fifth grade I usually came in second or third among the girls, bested only by girls who were enrolled in sports programs.  I usually came in fourth through seventh overall, including the boys.  When we did our physical fitness testing at the end of the school year, I ran the mile in just over six minutes, one of the best times in the class.

In junior high, I suddenly found myself unable to run very far, and instead usually walked around the track.  If I tried to run I would hyperventilate, and nearly passed out on multiple occasions.  It was strange, and it was distressing, and it was one of the rare times when Mother stepped up and went to bat for me.  She talked to the school, got me excused so my PE grade would not suffer because I could not run, and she took me to the doctor to figure out what was wrong.

The family doctor suggested that it might be anxiety related, but he could run some tests to check for physical causes as well.  One of those tests was a referral to run on a treadmill while equipment tested my oxygen levels.  I did not have a hyperventilation fit that particular day, and the technician specifically said they had never seen someone run that fast on that treadmill.  All test results came back on the excellent side of normal.

Understandably, the family doctor felt that if the hyperventilation was not triggered by the test, and all the results were not just normal, but extremely good, that the cause was probably psychological, not physical.  This perspective was also bolstered by the fact that the doctor had given me an inhaler to use when I had an episode, but it had not helped at all.  He could investigate my breathing issues further if new symptoms developed that hinted at a different cause, but for the time being he was out of options.  He expected it would naturally resolve as I adjusted to puberty and junior high, and I should see a therapist if I needed treatment.

As someone who believed in the importance of mental health, the idea that it was psychological in nature should have made sense to Mother, especially since this was the same year I contemplated suicide and she and Father put me on Zoloft.  Instead, Mother absolutely blew her top that our doctor had no other tests to offer.  Her baby was sick, and he was refusing to even investigate.  What about parasites?  She had heard that parasites could cause symptoms like that.  Would he at least test for parasites, just to eliminate the possibility?

The family doctor had known Mother for at least a decade at that point.  He knew she was neurotic.  He knew she insisted her children were allergic to sugar, despite all evidence to the contrary.  He knew she would not let an idea go once she got it in her head, but I expect he was getting rather sick of it, and tired of coddling her.  So, instead of agreeing to test, or even explaining that the tests he had already given would have been abnormal if it was caused by parasites, he told her that there are no parasites in the United States.  It was impossible for me to have been exposed to any, so no, he was not willing to test for them.

It was like throwing gasoline on a bonfire.  It is factually incorrect to say that there are no parasites in the United States, so he lost all remaining credibility in Mother’s eyes.  It is rare, but humans in the United States can and do occasionally contract parasites, especially the wormy variety.  So, Mother set out to find information about parasitic infections which people in the United States can get.  She found no end of horror stories about intestinal parasites, and in her mind the fact that those stories existed proved that her daughter had contracted one or more such parasites.

At this point I feel more than a little stupid for going along with Mother’s self-diagnosis, but her neurotic behavior was probably contributing to my anxiety-based hyperventilation, which continued to worsen during this time.  It was frightening, and I wanted an answer.  Not knowing what is wrong is absolutely terrifying.  The family doctor was clearly unwilling to spend more time investigating, which I knew was at least partially a result of his conflict with Mother, but that knowledge only deepened my frustration.  He offered nothing, and Mother was very vocal about prioritizing my problems, so I sided with the person who I believed was trying.

Mother took me back to the family doctor, armed with information about parasites, to demand that I be tested for them.  She said she wanted to eliminate the possibility, and she would believe the test results when they came back.  Instead of humoring her, the family doctor doubled down and again insisted that no one could contract parasites in the United States.  No, he would not do the test.  It was psychological, not physical.  There was nothing he could do.  There was nothing he would do.

Mother was livid when we left.  If he would not do the tests, it was solidified in her mind.  I had parasites.  She was positive that the reason he did not want to do the tests was so that he would not be proven wrong, even if a patient suffered for his hubris.

Without the support of a medical doctor pharmaceutical treatments were impossible, so Mother deep dove into alternative and “holistic” treatments for parasitic infections.  She recognized that a lot of them were bogus, and just money-grabs which were unlikely to help.  Despite that, or maybe because of that, she finally put her faith in a psychic “herbalist” who promised that she could rid my body of the parasites.

She called herself an herbalist, but I find that highly doubtful.  Every herbalist I have ever encountered in my adult life had a large stock of various and clearly labeled herbs.  They have an almost encyclopedic level of knowledge of what each of those herbs do in the human body.  When presented with a very clear picture of the problem, that knowledge allows them to offer very specific herbs and herbal blends that directly address those problems.

This “herbalist” was not that kind of herbalist.  No.  She was the kind of herbalist that gives herbalists a bad name.  Instead of jars of clearly labeled loose dried herbs, she had cases and cases of creatively named “herbal” capsules which most likely contained parsley or sawdust.  To determine the treatment, she pulled out one of those bottles and put a couple pills in my hand.  She gently held my closed hand cupped in her hands, closing her eyes and humming slightly to herself before dismissing that bottle or adding another couple pills and doing it over again.  As she “psychically divined” the kind and number of pills I needed to take daily, she wrote them down and grabbed another bottle to repeat the process.

I went home with multiple bottles of unspecified herbs, with directions to take between four and a dozen capsules of each, every single day.  She promised that within a few months I should be clear of all parasites.

The placebo effect is a very powerful thing.  I took the capsules regularly.  Mother calmed down and stopped neurotically obsessing over me.  I settled into a routine in junior high, where I was able to avoid bullying and most of the people and situations which were painful or emotionally traumatic.  The hyperventilating stopped, but I also never resumed athletic achievement, including abandoning the martial arts I had been studying for years.

I did not understand the psychological connection at the time, but this was also when I started contemplating, and then dedicated myself to critical introspection and self-change.  It is a powerful thing for me to have a path to focus on, so I am sure that endeavor also helped to calm my anxiety and depression, and thus abated further hyperventilation events.

That should have been the end of it, but Mother had invested a great deal emotionally, physically, and financially, over the course of many months.  She had gone significantly out of her way, and she was going to cash in on and milk personal benefit from that effort at every possible opportunity.  That meant she frequently bemoaned the evils of our egotistical family doctor with a god complex (who she made no efforts to replace, because he was “still a good doctor for normal stuff”), and would enthusiastically expound about the lengths she had gone to in order to cure her daughter of parasites.  The fact that she could not specify the exact parasites, was, of course, the doctor’s fault, and not hers, but she had absolute conviction that the “psychically divined” unspecified herbs had cured my problem.

I cannot deny that Mother went to bat for me on this occasion, even if her approach and her conclusion and her treatment were all so problematic I would have been better off had she just ignored it like she did most things.  I cannot deny that she was sincere in her beliefs and in wanting to do what she thought was best for me, but that does not negate how problematic it was, or the fact that she vehemently dismissed the very suggestion of the actual cause of my problems.  I cannot help but believe that she only went to bat because, unlike everything else in my life where I genuinely needed her support, the physical manifestation of my stress was publicly visible.  That visibility meant it would be obvious and publicly inexcusable if Mother ignored it.  In going out of her way to avoid being recognized as a Bad Parent, she failed miserably both as a parent, and also as a discerning human being capable of objective critical thought.  As usual, I was the one who paid the price for that.

For years afterward, if I was present when Mother decided to expound on her Monumental and Praise-Worthy efforts as a Good Mother, I was expected to nod and agree and praise that she had Done the Right Thing.  At first, I did believe she had done the right thing, because I was scared, the doctor’s suggestion of anxiety had been dismissed by Mother, I had no comprehension of what anxiety meant or how it manifested, I still desperately needed to believe that she was reasonable and honest, the hyperventilation stopped while I was taking the sawdust pills, and I did not have the life experience and perspective to fully comprehend everything else in my life that contributed to the situation.

Yet, it embarrassed me when she would bring it up and flash it around like her personal badge of honor.  There had never been and never would be proof of parasitic infection, or even any suggestion as to how I could have gotten such an infection.  The general perception is that you get parasites from filth and disgusting things, so it felt like a stigma for people, including strangers, to believe I had ever had parasites.  I was supposed to praise how great a job she had done going to bat for me, to demonstrate my appreciation for her status as a Good Mother, and all the Efforts she put in to Prioritize her children.  Yet, there were other areas of my life, like school, where I knew I desperately needed parental support which was never provided.

Mother’s behavior when describing those events embarrassed me because it was performative, placing a spotlight on one particularly dramatic occasion when, to avoid public recognition of her neglect, she had indeed decided to put in Extraordinary Effort.  It glossed over all the multitudes of times when myself or my brothers did not receive prompt medical care even though we should have.  It glossed over all the other areas of our lives where Mother and Father were both conspicuously absent, or callously dismissive of our needs.

I did not comprehend at the time why it was embarrassing, but it was embarrassing.  I was profoundly grateful when I finally stopped hearing about my encounter with “parasites”, and I was no longer required to heap praise on Mother for her handling of it.  I have no idea if she is embarrassed about it now, decades later, but she should be.  It was anything but proof that she was a Good Mother.  It was proof that she was a neurotic fool who was so invested in ignoring the real causes of my depression and anxiety that she instead deep dove into conspiracy theories and charlatan cures, and drug her pubescent child along for the ride.