Hattie Belle and I have an evening just to ourselves. I surprise her with a DVD rental: Tangled. She’s seen it, but I haven’t.

“OH MY GOSH. MOMMY, YOU ARE GOING TO LOVE IT,” she says in her big, bold, OMG voice. “She’s brave and strong, and the mommy doesn’t even die.”

“Good,” I say. “I hate it when Disney kills off the mommies. It drives me crazy.”

“I know,” says HB. She does know. She knows me and my particular rants well.

So she is not surprised when I cry—not once, not twice, but five freaking times—during the course of the movie. Which is AN ANIMATED MOVIE. A CHILDREN’S MOVIE. About Rapunzel. A post-modern Rapunzel who has all kinds of moxie and healing powers and escapes from her tower with her unruly locks and finds her groove, a cool horse, an awesome new coif, her true parents, and a sensitive boyfriend named Eugene.

“THE WITCH TOOK AWAY THE BABY! I HATE WHEN THEY STEAL BABIES! WHY DO THEY HAVE TO STEAL BABY PRINCESSES?” I howl, sniffling by the middle of the first scene. “It’s STUPID.”

She pats my arm, bemused. “Mommy, you KNOW that Disney movies ALWAYS have a happy ending. TRUST me.”

“BUT THE BABY’S GONE. Look at her poor parents. I don’t know what I would do if someone took you and your sister and hid you both in a tower.” I sniffle harder and start rooting for tissues. “This is TERRIBLE.”

“It’s okaaaaaay, Mommy. You’ll see. Shhhh. Just WATCH.”

I do watch. And by the time the King and Queen release the lanterns on Rapunzel’s 18th birthday, and Rapunzel and Eugene are sitting in a boat making her dream of seeing the lanterns come true, I am snuffling and snorting like an asthmatic pug. Then, when Eugene almost croaks from a stab wound from the evil witch, after sacrificing himself so Rapunzel’s Heart Can Go On, I am full-on bawling. And when Rapunzel is finally reunited with her true parents? Fuhgeddaboudit. Sobs. Choking. Ugly cry.

HB wraps her arms around me and lets me cry. “It’s okay. We have a lot of emotions in this family,” she says calmly, patting my wet cheeks, cradling my head.

I gulp. “I knoooooow. I’m TIRED of eee [gasp] moh [gasp] shuns.”

“I know,” she says. “I knooow.”

“I feel like I cry all the time,” I say. “I’m sorry I’m not better at not crying.”

She laughs. “It’s OKAY, Mommy. Nobody’s perfect.”

“The movie just got me,” I say. “Kind of like the time you felt bad for the weird twin brothers in Kitchen Nightmares—”

“Can we not talk about that?” she says, half-laughing, half-worried. The twin brothers and their sad old restaurant with the chewing gum stuck underneath all the dirty tables broke her heart, trust me.

“Sure, honey,” I say. “But maybe it’s not a bad thing, right?”

“What?”

“That we can feel other people’s sadness, too. It means we can keep an eye out for people who are hurting in the world, and help when we can.”

She agrees, nodding.

At bedtime, we give more thought to the next tattoo I will get. We have been trying for a few months to come up with just the right symbols to represent HB and her sister.

The sun is a major symbol in Tangled, a clobber-you-over-the-head symbol. Still, I think.

“Sometimes,” I tell Hattie B, “you remind me of the sun, and your sister, of the moon.”

She grins. She likes this. “You know, I AM sunshine. I give off light all the time.”

“You really do.”

“Sophie’s grumpier.”

“Well, not always. Her light is just different. More…changeable. She glows.”

“In the mornings, she’s crankier.”

“Not always. But you were pretty sunny in the mornings as a baby, still are. Even cracking yourself up with, ‘Good morning, Pancake’ was a pretty sunny thing to do,” I say. “Does the sun feel right to you? As a symbol for you?”

“Yeah! And Sophie’s like the moon. She likes dark things and sometimes you can see her and sometimes you can’t.”

“Clouds can come out and hide the sun’s energy a little, too,” I say. “You don’t ever have to feel like you need to always be sunny. Even the sun needs a break once in a while.”

“But most of the time I have a lot of energy.”

She takes her small thumbs to my tattooed wrist: my áfram. She places one thumb under the á.

“The sun would go here,” she says, “and the moon—” She puts her other thumb under the m.

“Down there?”

She nods with great import.

“I kind of like it,” I say. “But Soph wants a rose too. Hmm. And you wanted a vine, for the Forest of Arden, or a tree?”

“And I want fairies.”

“Hey, it’s not your arm that’s got to get the tattoo needles,” I point out.

“It’s not me who wants MY arm to get the needles,” she retorts.

“Excellent point. Well, I’m running out of canvas here.”

She cracks up. “Oh, yeah! The tattoos could go all up your arm, like, oh, and there, oh! And here! Mountains!”

She touches my cheek. I smile. I am not crying anymore—at least, not at this moment—and that is something.

“Bed,” I say.

I tuck her into her covers. She pulls her baby blanket to her chin, as she always does. Her long brown hair with its faded pink streak is a swirled tangle on her pillow. It could use a brushing, but the brushing can wait.

New post up at Single Mom at Work. Aw, go on. You know you want to.

New post at Single Mom at Work. I know it, for a fact.

Another new post, at Single Mom at Work.

New post up at Work It, Mom.

Happy Mother’s Day to all my favorite mamas. Here’s to whatever your now looks like…and everything that led you here.

Why, yes. Blue streak and asymmetrical bob: her 10th birthday wishes, granted. The child has been ‘tweened.

A moment of silence, please, for the damp envelope in my purse, stuffed with my firstborn’s freshly shorn, shiny dark curls.

Tomorrow? She’s 10.

New post up over at AOL ParentDish.com:

My inner child thinks I am a rock star.

I can work with that.

I want you to know this:

A colleague wrote me this morning to ask if I’d be arguing the “pro-Prozac” side of an upcoming article about prescribing medication for children and teens.

I’m not writing either side of that article. I’m not sure I could. I know the pros and cons of psych meds pretty intimately, as they apply to my adult life. But I haven’t had to make that choice for my own kids.

Still, my poor colleague got an earful (actually, an eyeful, as I prefer email to the dastardly phone). He also received this suggested and entirely unsolicited reading list.

I’ll tell you what I told him: if some part of you still believes that manic depression (or any mental illness) is about as valid as Scientology or the bogeyman, it’s time to get that Kindle cranking, or get thee to a bookstore.

Here are four books that say it so much better than I can. If you haven’t been affected by mental illness (either yours, or a friend’s or a relative’s), count your blessings—and then, read. If you have been affected and continue to be affected (what a nice, benign way of putting it, “affected”), then, read.

1) An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness by Kay Redfield Jamison. Unsparing, funny and wise.

2) Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness by William Styron. Sparse, restrained and exquisitely observed.

3) Unholy Ghost: Writers on Depression (anthology) by Nell Casey. A potent collection of work by writers who struggle with mental illness.

4) Sunbathing in the Rain by Gwyneth Lewis. I find Lewis’s words soothing, graceful and grounded.

5) If poetry is your thing (as it is mine), then read anything by Jane Kenyon, especially her poem “Having It Out With Melancholy.”

*****

I want you to know this:

Depression is a constant state of churning violence. It is a storm of violent words and self-hatred. It is a maelstrom.

This may come as a surprise to you. You may be irritated by your loved one’s seeming sluggishness, by your perceived assessment of your loved one’s inability to participate, by their mute stillness.

Know that their internal terrain is anything but still. It’s a freaking war of the mind. It’s bloody, it’s loud and it’s ugly. They can’t move because they can’t hear. They are in battle mode, stuck in a trench, with enemy fire zipping overhead.

In this state, it is difficult, if not impossible, to assess what the correct move should be.

*****

I want you to know this:

I believe in the mind, I believe in the soul, and I believe in the body. I think there’s a Venn diagram where the mind, the soul, and the body agree to overlap. But I think the three are ultimately separate entities.

It is fine to disagree with me. There are many debates in the world, and this is an old one. Why shouldn’t we join in?

I happen to know I am made up of three parts. In my case—the case of my significantly insignificant existence—my mind, soul and body have very different agendas. They like to make sure that I understand that. They duke it out, sometimes, and I need to take a step backward, out of the fray.

But I watch. I always watch, to see who will win, today.

*****

I want you to know this:

I have two important men in my life, my therapist, and my psychiatrist.

My therapist couldn’t care less about my “diagnosis.” He and I talk soul, and its mysterious ways and wants. He keeps me on the straight and wide.

My psychiatrist couldn’t care less about my soul’s mysterious ways and wants. He and I talk mind. He uses my diagnosis as a tool to help him help me live better. He prescribes meds. I take them, because in the past six years, I have learned the painful way what happens when I do not take them.

The meds help my mind, but they sometimes harm my body. So, sometimes, my psychiatrist and I talk body. The mind and the body, more often than not, play on the same team. They are wary of soul.

*****

I want you to know this:

In the middle of the line segment that is A/B (therapist / psychologist), there is C (me). I am a point on the line. They stay put. I move. Sometimes, I need to talk soul. Other times, I need to talk mind and its mechanics.

I am okay with this arrangement. I am not my diagnosis, but I’m not stupid enough to kick it to the curb, either.

I am Something, as you are. And some of that Something, in my case, gets away from me. When that some of that Something gets away from me, I get away from myself, and I get away from the people who care about me.

So I have to play close attention to the peculiar interplay of mind, body and soul. Or I might get away, and never come back.

*****

I want you to know this:

I have daughters. I have a diagnosis. These two things are not mutually incompatible, not by a long shot.

My diagnosis—and all the quirks and difficulties that come with it—keeps me on my toes. It makes me, if you can understand, a better mother. Because I am in the habit of paying attention. To my own waxing and waning, and to the ebb and flow of my children.

I was diagnosed after my children were born, which meant I never had to have the argument with myself over whether or not to replicate my dark circus of genes. I wince when I read articles or comments suggesting that people who live with mental illness should not have children.

When you live with a mental illness for a long time, you learn that you will only live if you begin to give yourself a break, if you give yourself credit for all that you are and all that you do, in spite of your illness. You are the moving blur between “handicapped” and “challenged,” the tick-tock between “victim” and “survivor.”

It is difficult to define yourself when your self is always in motion, defying terms easily understood and identified by the world surrounding you.

Children are glorious, because they are not tethered to labels. They can handle shades of gray, if we are brave enough to show them.

My illness nearly killed me. My illness nearly left my children motherless.

These are not dramatic statements. This is merely fact, a fact worth noting.

I have learned this: If you are determined to slay the beast, it will slay you. It is not going anywhere. You may dispel it down a dark corridor for some time, maybe even years. But eventually, it will be back to claim you, well-rested and ready for a fight. Trust me on this.

If you can lay down your weapons and show your open palms to the disease, it will spare you your life. If you can learn to befriend it—the way you might take in a stray dog of fearsome countenance, against better judgment—you befriend yourself.

That’s when some beautiful living can happen. That’s when some beautiful parenting can happen. The energy put into resisting the dark can now be put into creating light, for you and for the ones you must guide.

For now, at least, my children’s eyes are clear, bright and untroubled. They know I struggle, sometimes, and that this is okay, and has nothing to do with them. This gives them room to struggle in their own ways, and to know that it’s okay, more than okay—an intrinsic part of what makes us human.

Our home is a haven for the flawed, the overlooked, the stray beasts (furred, or of the mind).

*****

I want you to know this:

I am a better mother than I was before my diagnosis, although my battle scars show, no matter what I wear.

*****

I want you to know this:

I am in a strange place right now, a place of dissonance.

My soul is relatively content, for a change. There is nothing that I hunger for—at least, I am not starving. I am, for the most part, at ease with my being, with choices I have recently made, although sad.

But my mind is making itself known.

When my mind is misbehaving, I know it. I know it because it feels like I am riding a big, dark horse I have no business riding. I’d hop off if I could, but my brain won’t stop. It thunders along at a terrific pace, splattering mud, trampling anything that gets in its way. There is not much to do but hold on, and pray.

Meanwhile: My soul sits up in a leafy tree, watching my mind gallop and froth and overheat.

I haven’t been sleeping. My soul and my body are aligned for a change; they would both give anything for a decent night’s sleep.

I talked to my psychiatrist. We decided it was time to add back another med, one I’ve had before.

So far, I can feel the side effects, but not the benefit. I am shaking and sick. My mind is outrunning even the strongest medicine. It laughs at my drug cocktail, keeps zooming.

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel a sense of pride in this, that my brain can resist the effects of a chemical cocktail that could bring down a baby rhino.

I plead with my soul and my body to stay out of the way until I can coax my mind back into a trot, then a walk.

*****

I want you to know this:

If your loved one has had a mental illness, chances are good that they still have a mental illness. This makes your loved one no less and no more than you. We all have our demons. Only you can say what yours are.

If you can’t think of any demons or ghosts that chase you, then thank your lucky stars. Then, thank them again. And again.

If you have a mental illness, chances are good that you are not always as compassionate with yourself as you are with others.

I extend a hand. Trust me when I say that your disease is plenty capable of beating you up on its own; it doesn’t need any help from you.

Be kind to yourself. Be thoughtful to yourself. You are no less and no more than anyone. You can create light where there is none, and you can do it on your own time.

Yes, there is stigma. Yes, putting it out there means that every choice you make, every desire you express, every gleeful or sorrowful moment you experience, will be viewed—by some—as your illness manifesting itself.

There is nothing you can do about this, not ever. Let it go.

Sometimes, you will not be sure what is you, and what is the illness.

There is nothing you can do about this. With time, comes wisdom. Let it go, for now.

Today, you may need your bed, and covers over your head. If you are a parent, the only people you owe an explanation to are your children, a fair and honest and compassionate explanation. Your children are far, far more resilient and far stronger than you know. You just need to trust in their strength, and give them a chance to exercise it.

Talk to them about soul. Talk to them about mind. Talk to them about body. Trust your own words. Above all, be clear that this is your battle to fight, not theirs. Let them know that they are blameless and good, and you alone are the responsible party for your own well-being.

I cannot say this enough: our children want our honesty, in plain words they can understand. They do not need a mother or a father demonstrating self-loathing. The disease can make you more, not less, if you take hold of it even as it takes hold of you.

Be kind. Be kind. Be kind. It is real. It is painful. It is hard not to hate yourself when you are shaking uncontrollably and gaining weight by the day from your meds. It is hard not to hate yourself when you can no longer do the job you used to do—and have no effective way of explaining this to others, without a three-hour conference. It is hard not to hate yourself when the world around you seems to be full of success stories, and you are sitting in a muddy trench, knowing full well if you stand up, you are likely to have your head blown off by sniper fire created by your own mind.

Your experience is real.

Refuse to give in to self-hatred. If you are not in denial about your illness, if you are not running from it and cursing it, if you use what energy you can muster to get help, to care for yourself and to care for your children, you and your children have more than a fighting chance. You have an opportunity to teach and model unconditional love of others, and of self.

I am no Pollyanna. Ask my friends, my family, my kids. I am grim. I grit my teeth. I shake my fist at the heavens.

Mental illness sucks donkey balls.

But if I can keep going, you can too.

If you’re the sporting type, think of it this way: Unnecessary roughness to self will be penalized, and you and your children will be the ones receiving the penalty.

Go easy. Go kind. Learn to be honest. Do less. Let go of those who create drama and conflict. To survive this fight, you need those who understand you are in a fight, a fight that does not go away, as much as you and they would like it to.

Remind them, from time to time, that their innards and your innards are not the same.

Remind yourself, from time to time, that their innards and your innards ARE the same.

Your kids need you. If you are considering taking your own life because the pain is devastating, I understand that.

Consider your own death. Imagine it fully, the details of your chosen scenario: the nausea from the overdose; the moment of impact; the noose tightening; the brain splattering; the sudden recognition that there will be no more breaths of air, not today, not ever.

Now consider your children. No guilt. I know how you got to this place, and I do not judge you. Indulge me. Just breathe and consider, for your children, now. Imagine the details, imagine them, for the rest of their lives, trying to explain your death by suicide. Imagine their every milestone—not as you’d be missing it, but rather as they’d be missing you.

If you can bear even one more day of sticking around, I am here with you and for you, in the trenches. I’d pass you a cigarette, if I smoked.

Stick it out with me. You are good. We are good. (We are also creative, imaginative, smart and funny. The universe likes to make sure it also doles out plenty of the good stuff to those facing depression or bipolar or schizophrenia. You have to have a good sense of humor if your wallpaper or toiletries talk to you from time to time.)

Let us be as compassionate to ourselves as we are to others. Let us be compassionate to our disease. Let us feed it scraps, while we create a life of feasts. Let it know its place, but be kind. The enemy you do battle with is your own mind. This requires different tactics. It will never be easy, but it may become easier.

Give yourself the chance to get to that day.