Worse Than Texting While Driving. Really.

I did not write the following article. Not to worry, I've given the proper credit to the author. And seriously, once you read this, you will understand that there is NO WAY in the world that I could pass on sharing this exquisitely insane TRUE story. Enjoy. And then go to town with your comments. I can't wait.

Ladies, shaving and driving don't mix

Written by Celia Rivenbark

By now I'm sure that most of you have heard about the Florida woman who caused a two-vehicle wreck because she was shaving her bikini area while driving.

Guess that makes the time you drove with your elbows while eating a Whopper seem downright virtuous, doesn't it?

Florida Highway Patrol troopers said the car Megan Barnes was driving crashed into the back of a pickup truck at about 45 mph. Her reaction time was slowed down because she was too busy grooming her hoohah to pay attention to the road. Oh, like that's never happened to you?

Ms. Barnes told the investigating officer that she was on her way to a date and "wanted to be ready for the visit."

Yes, she wanted to look her best. All over. Except, well, we've seen Ms. Barnes' mug shot and she appears to have a face that would stop a clock and raise hell with small watches, bless her heart. To be blunt, I don't think a perfectly groomed love rug could possibly make that much difference.

It could've been worse, I suppose. Ms. Barnes could've been waxing her bikini area as she drove along in her T-bird (Yes, fun, fun, fun till the po-lice took her T-bird awaaaaaayy) on those scenic bridges. Imagine the horror if she'd tossed the used wax strips out the window. The manatees might have tried to adopt them.

Hons, I've driven on this particular stretch of highway between Miami and Key West and it's flat-out beautiful with crystal blue water, gorgeous mangroves and cloudless skies.

Not once have I been so bored that I decided I'd rather drag a sharp blade over my nether regions just to have something to do.

There are so many "You might be a redneck if" elements to the story of Megan Barnes, but my favorite is that, while performing this extremely personal grooming ritual, she asked her EX HUSBAND to steer the car so she could concentrate ("Help me out, Buford, I'm gonna make it look like a LIGHTNING BOLT!")

What a guy! Not only did he hold the steering wheel so she could concentrate on primping for her big date with ANOTHER MAN, but when the cops arrived, he tried to switch places and claim he'd been driving.

Trouble was, he had burns on his chest from the airbag that had deployed on THE PASSENGER SIDE ONLY. Oops.

To no one's particular surprise, the Highway Patrol quickly discovered that Ms. Barnes didn't have a valid driver's license. Oh, and, the day before, she'd been convicted of DUI and driving with a suspended license. Oh, and her car had been seized and had no insurance or registration. Oh, and she was on probation. Oh, and SHE'S A FLIPPIN' LUNATIC!

Albeit an impeccably groomed one.

Celia Rivenbark's newest book, "You Can't Drink All Day If You Don't Start in the Morning," is available nationwide. Visit www.celiarivenbark.com for details.

Originally published April 28, 2011 on Open Salon

Is It Over Yet? Part II

Part One can be found here.

When I was in the eighth grade, I was unbelievably shy. I blushed when anyone spoke to me and I had a devil of a time looking people in the eye. I tried to fly under the radar as much as possible. For reasons I’ve never quite understood, when the time came to sign up for electives for the next year of school, I chose Speech as one of my elective classes. The class description clearly outlined what would be required of students who signed up for the class and it was obviously geared toward people with a more outgoing nature than I possessed. But, I remember thinking that it would be a good way for me to overcome my shyness, so I took a deep breath and signed up for it.

The first time I had to stand in front of the class to give a speech, I was, of course, terrified. I had worked diligently preparing my speech, practicing in front of the mirror for hours on end to make sure I remembered every word, but also that I paced my speaking in a way so as to meet the required three-minute length. Standing in front of that mirror, practicing away, three minutes didn’t seem all that long. I’ve got this, I thought. I could not have been more wrong.

When it was my turn to get up on the stage, my heart was in my throat and I was sure that my classmates could see my pulse thumping wildly in my throat. I broke out in a cold sweat, focused my eyes on a spot in the back of the room just over the heads of my audience of peers, and took a deep breath in preparation for speaking. I then proceeded to spit out my entire three-minute speech in such rapid-fire prattle that I finished the whole speech in just under thirty seconds, which was, coincidentally, the exact same amount of time it took for me to run completely out of breath. So out of breath was I, that I literally bent forward at the waist, greedily gulping in huge mouthfuls of air with a great gasping, sucking noise that surprised not just me but the entire class and my wonderfully supportive teacher, Sue Patton.

Mortified though I was, I had to stand there, motionless, until the bell dinged to signal the end of my allotted three minutes. The room was deathly quiet as I walked back to my desk to take my seat. Then, mercifully, Mrs. Patton called upon the next victim… err, uhh… speaker and the world started to spin on its axis once again. Another very important part of Speech I was critiquing the work of our fellow students. When I received my stack of critiques at the end of class, I was shocked to find that there wasn’t a single unkind note among them. The one I remember best said simply, take a breath every once in a while.

Speech class became my favorite class and I even participated in debate exercises… and loved it.

All these years later, I still don’t know what part of me found the intestinal fortitude to face my shyness by signing up for that speech class, but I surmise that it is that very same sense of self-preservation that, at the age of 53, made me decide that cowering in a self-imposed corner for more than five years was quite enough and I should find a way out of it.

Reluctantly, I found a therapist and did the unthinkable. I asked for help. Against my better judgment, during our very first meeting, I poured out my sorry tale of woe in its entirety; even going so far as to tell her that I was sure my dad had been murdered by his wife. I was sure she would write me off as some crackpot with paranoid delusions or, worse yet, label me a certifiable nut job and send me on my merry way. Amazingly, she did neither. Instead, she listened to me and never once looked askance at me. She scheduled me for several more sessions during the next few weeks – two a week, at first, because, she said, I was clearly in crisis. She did not say that my imagination must have run away with me or yeah, sure your brother was innocent – ha, ha, wink, wink, or oh, yeah, right, the bank illegally foreclosed on your father’s business. And when I told her that I had always been a fairly successful person until the last five years when I became intimately acquainted with being a failure, she gently told me that my thinking was skewed and that I was not a failure. When I cried to her that I was angry with my dad because he had dumped this mess in my lap by not leaving a will, she reminded me that I had told her that he made a will and had told me where to find it. Remember, she said, you told me the will was not in his safe and you said you thought his wife had disposed of it?

Yes, that’s right, I said, how did I forget that? How did my thinking become so distorted? I can’t even keep my facts straight, I despaired. It was then that she carefully explained to me that some very horrific things had happened to me and my family and I had clearly done everything humanly possible to right those terrible wrongs. She told me I had not failed. It was simply an impossible task and one that was out of my hands. I’m not a failure, then? I didn’t fail?

No, she said. You’re not a failure. She let me sit with that knowledge for a while before she asked me the next crucial question. Perhaps, she said, this is not merely depression you have been fighting. These are very traumatic events you have been through. I think you need to consider the possibility that you have been experiencing PTSD.

A light bulb moment, if ever I have experienced one. A rush of emotions overtook me. I’m not crazy, I’m not a failure, traumatic things happened and I had no control over them. For the next week, I could think of nothing else. Finally, I began to understand. My therapist told me, just as depression is treatable, so is PTSD.

I realized I still had a life ahead of me. There was a reason for the black pit of despondency I had been living in and there was a way out of it. It would be impossible for me to overstate the significance of that revelation. As the weeks passed, I realized that I had stopped waiting for the next devastation and had begun taking steps back in to my life.

I feel as if I recently emerged from a long, dark tunnel. I’m still amazed at the ability of an excellent therapist to help me reframe thought patterns that had twisted and distorted into a veritable prison which had held me captive for five long years. As we are wont to say here in Texas, God bless her heart.

I know that I am still gleaning lessons from the ordeals of the last several years and that it will take me time to process everything that happened. I also know that I am finally standing on solid ground and I am once again looking forward to the future.

Five lost years was quite enough. I have time to make up.

Originally published March 2011 on Open Salon

Is It Over Yet?

I have always lived my life by the axiom That which doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger. I believed it, and often blithely made that comment to others when they related their latest trials or tribulations. Certainly, I had lived through enough life experiences that felt to me as if I should have died from them, and certainly, those experiences had indeed made me stronger. So, it wasn’t just a trite statement that I was mindlessly tossing out to my friends and family. I had lived it. I believed it.

Summer of 2010. My mantra for living no longer contained any sign of optimism or strength. My once cheerful, hopeful disposition had morphed into one of cynicism and despair. Although I had lived under the cloud of depression for all of my adult life, I had managed, through therapy and the prudent use of prescribed medications, to keep it in check, if not completely under control. Not anymore. By the time the summer of 2010 rolled around, I had become a glass half empty person, refusing to believe there might be brighter days ahead. I had convinced myself that the specter of gloom and despair that had been my constant companion for the previous five-and-one-half years was the norm, that I had somehow lucked out in having a long run with good fortune prior to that. Now, I routinely told myself, any good fortune was solidly planted in my rear view mirror. I had become the kind of negative person I had always avoided.

My naturally buoyant nature kept trying to reassert itself, but every time it did, my newfound cynicism firmly planted a boot atop it and pushed it back down. I doubted, I scoffed, I ridiculed, I disparaged. Pessimism settled into my bones like arthritis where it ached and throbbed, robbing me of any sense of peace – be it physical, mental or emotional. At my lowest point, I went to bed every night with one thought in my head: Is it over yet?

That one thing alone should have scared some sense into me, but it didn’t. After weeks of that single despairing thought tormenting me every night, I let go. I pitched myself into the blackest of pits, the deepest hole of despondency and I settled there. I waited to die.

I didn’t ask myself how I got to that place. I didn’t care. I just wanted to die.

But, how did I get there? What started me on that downward spiral? I was well-versed in the matter of dealing with depression. I had danced with that particular devil on numerous occasions and never before had I allowed myself to be hurled into the pit. I was a survivor. I made things happen; I didn’t just let life happen to me. I was a motivator, an encourager, a go-to girl who always had answers. That woman had disappeared and I hadn’t even noticed.

The erosion of my ebullient self began with the death of my father in February of 2005. His death set in motion a chain of events that would challenge even the most determined optimist. Still, I forged ahead, doing what had to be done, fighting the good fight, believing that good triumphs evil and that truth eventually wins out. Settling his estate involved lawsuits, the FBI, a number of mind-numbing betrayals and the discovery that evil in its purest form can and does touch our lives even when we think we have done everything possible to protect ourselves.

All of the deeply held beliefs that formed the foundation for my life crashed down around me during the next five years. Somehow, I managed to keep up the pretense of living my life, but my mind and heart slowly, inexorably crumbled into tiny pieces, leaving me completely broken on the inside. For the sake of brevity, allow me to present a short synopsis of the events of those five and one-half years.

My brother went to prison (framed by my dad’s wife and ex-business partner), the business partner and my dad’s bank then stole my dad’s business, a $300,000 life insurance policy that was held as collateral on the business, and I came to understand (through very bizarre circumstances) that my dad’s death came at the hands of his wife. No, I can’t prove it, not without exhuming his body, but I know it to be true. Arsenic poisoning. I suspect this is the same method she used on her two previous husbands, who also died mysterious deaths.

All of these things happened in the first two years after my dad’s death. Try as I might, I was not able to close the estate for another three and one-half years. During that time, my mother passed away, as did my grandmother, and I lost three jobs (no one wants to employ someone who is totally bat-shit crazy and can barely hold a rational thought.) Additionally, my sister and I embarked on a failed crusade to get my brother out of jail and prove the bank had illegally seized the business from my dad’s estate, my daughter suffered a miscarriage (during which time I was too far gone to be of any comfort to her), my son went to jail, then prison (drugs), and I lost my mind.

And that, dear reader, is the path which led me to the point where I let go and fell headlong, without resistance, into that blackest of pits.

Now, I know that horrible things happen to people all the time. Long chains of horrible events happen to people all the time. I have always considered myself a strong person, one who is able to withstand most any hardship. But, I have also always been someone who does not ask for help. Call it pride, call it stubbornness, call it what you will, but the simple act of asking for someone to help shoulder the load has always been anathema to me. Even my online moniker is a tell-tale sign of my unwillingness to admit any weakness or the need for help of any kind. Unbreakable.

Ah yes, Unbreakable: (adj) unable to be broken. And yet, I broke. My mind broke. I couldn’t take it anymore. I felt like a failure (after all, I had failed to get my brother out of jail, I failed to get the business back, I failed my daughter, I failed my son… the list goes on.) To sum up: I was a failure, a broken failure.

I was at the bottom. Apparently determined to stay there. But, I’m not there today. What happened?

Continued…

Originally published March 2011 on Open Salon

Into The Light

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Well, whadya know? I find myself in a most curious state. As I left my office today and stepped out into the crisp air, a thought ambushed me. I am content, I thought. Then, immediately on the heels of that thought, Huh. I really am content.

After the longest happiness drought in the history of me, not only is my head above water, I have actually climbed onto the shore and am standing upright looking into the sun. Looking into the sun! For the last few weeks, I've been asking myself two questions:

Number 1: How in the world did I get to the place where I went to bed every night thinking, Is it over yet?

And, Number 2: How was I able to find my way out of that wretched place?

If you're expecting profound answers to either of those questions, I don't have that to offer. I can only tell my story in the simplest of terms and hope that, in doing so, I can offer even the slightest hope to anyone reading this who may be going through the same type of darkest hell.

Melancholy has been a familiar companion to me for the better part of my life. Depression is a condition I have wrestled with on more occasions than I care to count. My dark companion had dogged my steps so closely and so often that I began to understimate the power of the disease. I grew weary of the label and the stigma of depression and, maybe, somewhere in the back of my mind, I began to believe the lie that I could wish it away or power my way through it.

I never stopped taking the medications which had been prescribed to me, and when the clouds rolled too close, I would return to my doctor seeking a change of medication. This approach worked well enough, if not ideally, until February of 2005, when life began delivering a series of knock-out punches that just kept coming.

I won't go into detail about all the life-shattering events that took place over the last six years because my experiences are not unique or even all that unusual. Perhaps, had it not been for the convergence of so many traumas in a relatively short time period, I might have come through it, if not unscathed, at least on the friendly side of sanity. Possibly, there could have been a different outcome if I had more fully appreciated the insidiousness of a disease of which I had become too accepting. Finally, maybe it was a combination of all those things - a 'perfect storm,' if you will. I don't know.

What I do know is that I began to feel ever more powerless to fight the clouds of depression that surrounded me more often than not. As I sunk deeper and deeper into that dark pit, I did exactly what I knew I shouldn't do - I began to withdraw, incrementally, from my life until I eventually found myself on the outside looking in. Oh, I would rally somewhat on the odd occasion, but it never lasted long. And it never made much of a difference.

There came a point when I stopped being the "glass half-full" person I had always been. I made that choice. I remember making the decision that I had been wrong all my life; that I had been fooling myself all along with childish optimism. That was the turning point. From that moment forward, I no longer looked at life and saw possibilities or opportunities. I sat down and wallowed in my depression.

Make no mistake, I am not taking the simplistic approach that the control or lack of control of depression is a mind-over-matter situation. On the contrary, I know that the treatment of this disease is multi-faceted and a truly monumental task. But, I also believe that one's mindset is a powerful tool and can either help or hinder the process. I could no more will myself out of depression than I could wish it away; but, my willingness to be overtaken by it or to fight against it was, and still is, a major component in the degree to which it affects me.

For whatever reason, after nearly six years of spiraling downward, something snapped in me and made me reach for a lifeline. That lifeline came in the form of a wonderful therapist and a decision on my part to participate in my own life once again. I don't claim to understand the forces that were at work to push me out of the deepest, darkest pit I've ever experienced, nor can I even begin to identify the impetus for it. But I am grateful for it. Whatever it was.

The path from is it over yet? to I am content was a journey of both agony and joy - a mystery that I may never fully comprehend. One thing I do know, however, is that familiarity does lead to contempt. My familiar and cavalier acceptance of my disease was almost my undoing. I won't make that mistake again. Depression is a formidable foe. Understanding that is key to surviving it.

Someday I may write of the depths to which the darkness took me, but I think not. I choose to remain standing in the sunlight. I like it here.

I am content.

Originally published February 12, 2011 on Open Salon

Learning From the Negatives

Okay. Here’s what I’ve been thinking. I’m pretty sure that how I got so “off track” was that I was so busy trying to figure out who I needed to be, I forgot who I am. Despite what I tell myself when I’m in the depths of depression and self-loathing, I really do know who I am and what I believe, etc, etc. But I have a tendency to slip back into that people-pleasing mode from childhood (you know the one – you get it from growing up in a bat-shit crazy family with a bunch of alcoholics and drug addicts. Yep. That one.) And when I do that, the people-pleasing thing, there is no possible way I can be true to myself. That, of course, is crazy-making behavior. Voila!

When I start twisting myself around trying to make someone else comfortable, I’m the one who suffers. Now, I’m sure this isn’t a big revelation to a lot of you, at least, not to those of you who have all your shit together in a tight little bag, but to me, it’s HUGE. For whatever reason, I keep having to relearn this particular lesson. For pity’s sake, I wish it would stick already!

Count me a bit behind on the New Year’s resolution thing, we’ll just call it a new resolution. And here it is: I resolve to be ME – 100% unadulterated, unapologetic, and only slightly filtered (let’s face it – there are some things that just don’t need to be said.) I’m going back to my no-holds barred, shoot from the hip, take no prisoners style. No wonder I’ve felt like my skin didn’t fit right lately. IT DIDN’T! I don’t know whose skin I’ve been walking around in, but it sure wasn’t mine.

I feel better already just thinking about it. In fact, I may break a bone trying to pat myself on the back. Let’s think about this for a minute or two. How does one lose oneself (one’s self? – come on, all you editors out there, help a girl out here) so completely that one does not even recognize that one is lost? One does not know, but it surely happens. I’m sure I’ll be pondering this for a while trying to come up with some answers. Those of you who know me well know that I like for everything to fit into a neat little box with all kinds of reason and rhyme to back it up. It’s been so long since things (and when I say things, I mean LIFE) made any sense, that I can hardly remember what that felt like. But, I tell you, I’m about to find out again.

For one thing, I’ve walked through life tentatively for the last few years, not making decisions, just allowing the ebb and flow of circumstance to push me along. That is so NOT ME. Well, NO MORE. No more tentativeness, no more wishy-washy, no more on-the-fence.

Who was that masked woman??