I know that to really understand how the world works and to really understand why things happen, one must first be truly honest with one's self and be personally accountable for one's actions and one's role in the events that affect and shape one's life. After all, the reason people flock to organized religion and law and psychology in the numbers that they currently do is because more often than not, they refuse to try and find their own answers to the "why" questions that haunt them. For my part, I realize that my hyper-competitive nature and my affinity for gambling regardless of the stakes are really the two things that facilitated the situation I was in.

When my parents separated--I think I've mentioned that before--we went to family counseling. My little sister and I were told that it was to see if we could work things out as a family. In reality, it was a generally pointless exercise meant only to soften the blow of a separation that was well down its inexorable path to divorce. Well, during these tear-soaked sessions, my dad revealed--to everyone's surprise including my mother's--that he was one of only 4 documented cases in the United States of Paternal Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy (or P.M.S.B.P. as it is commonly referred to in medical journals).

Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy predominantly affects women--more specifically, mothers. It manifests itself in the unintentional intentional infliction of pain, duress, or trauma on the typically younger children of the women it afflicts.

According to my father, he was the first recorded case on the west coast of the United States, let alone California. Because the syndrome tends to abate as the children get older and more self-aware and, as such, most trauma occurs during the very early years of a child's development, it was no surprise to me or the therapist that neither my sister nor I had any real recollection of incidents with our father that were consistent with P.M.S.B.P. Regardless, the family counselor told my sister and me to go home and think real hard because it would be important to understand what happened, understand that everything's okay now, understand that none of it was our fault, and understand that our father does and has always loved us.

So that's what we did. We went home, sat in the family room with my mom, and racked our brains. The counselor said I was going to be the most important piece in this psychological treasure hunt because my sister may very well have been too young to remember anything on her own and would need my more developed memory to jog hers. At first, nothing came to mind so I started thinking about all the good things about my dad and all the cool stuff we did. That's when things started to click and, consequently, where my hyper-competitiveness and penchant for gambling come in.

Until I was 10 and my sister was 8, my dad stayed home with us so he could complete his PhD in German linguistics at Berkeley. We would read, go to the park, play catch, watch old John Wayne movies when he felt like procrastinating, and play games. Games. Now things started to fall into place. I had gone to the hospital with my dad when I was little. It was always because of some game or some contest with my sister. I always thought we were at the hospital because we were rambunctious and klutzy. Maybe not.

The first incident I could recall sitting in the family room was the time I was 5 and my dad bet me $2 I couldn't eat Gatorade powder as fast as he could. He went to the pantry where my mother kept the Gatorade in a big mason jar (don't ask me why), poured out the contents equally into two bowls, told my 3 year old sister to say GO!, and stared me down...knowing I would do whatever I could to whoop his butt. My father knew me very well. GO!

We were off! My dad gave up half way through I remember. To show him I was the king, I ate the whole fucking bowl. I would have eaten the bowl itself too if I had strong enough teeth...just to rub it in. My dad graciously admitted defeat, handed over the $2 that he knew I would squirrel away in my piggy bank so I could buy toys from the Service Merchandise catalog that came two or three times a year, and went back down in the basement to conjugate more fucking verbs or whatever it was that he did.

Not 10 minutes later. Houston, we have a problem. I remember sort of sheepishly yelling down for my dad to come upstairs because I needed help. Because I was embarrassed and not yelling loud enough, he couldn't hear me. My sister could, though, and she came waddling in to see what the ruckus was. She saw me, took 10 toddler seconds to let it all sink in, and started crying hysterically. She went running for my dad. He came up about 2 minutes later with my sister half sobbing, half trying to gasp for breath. The sight must have been horrific.

There I was, five years old, perched precariously over the toilet, little blue corduroy pants half way down my legs, trying desperately to fight back the alligator tears welling up in my eyes. Apparently a cereal bowl of Gatorade powder does not sit well with the gastrointestinal system of a 5 year old boy. For, a mere 5-10 minutes after my triumph, I was met with an urgent and vexing set of circumstances that I had heretofore never faced.

The Gatorade had both upset my stomach and shot through my system like a Japanese bullet train. I had to puke and I had to take a crap. AT THE SAME EXACT TIME. And, like the sunrise, taxes, death, and Jews in Hollywood, nothing I could do was going to stop it. The dilemma, I remember, was "which one do I do into the toilet?" I couldn't decide. I didn't know what to do. I guess I let my body decide...because as I danced the dance of 5yr old indecision, my stomach decided it had had enough

BBBBLLLLLLLLAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! BBBBLLLLLLLLLLLLAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!

right into the toilet

Now here's the problem: once you lose control of one bodily function, the others fall like Eastern block countries. In the middle of puking, my colon decided to do it's Old Faithful impression... ohshitohshitohshitohshitohshit (literally), so I quickly tried to sit down on the toilet. Unfortunately, I remember, my soft little 5 yr old bottom was slick with diarrhea. This made me slide quite a bit to the left edge of the seat when I first tried to sit down and made it so, as the next Anal Old Faithful eruption came, I was in a position to shoot Gatorade powder-infused diarrhea all over the opposite side of the toilet and the side of the vanity next to the toilet.

If things weren't already bad enough, now the dynamic duo has decided to join forces and attack at the same time. Grainy, burning diarrhea is rocketing out of my little behind which I am desperately trying to keep from slipping off the already poop-covered toilet seat while, at the same moment, my stomach is rejecting the gatorade powder like Emeka Okafor against a high school girls team and sending waves of vomit out of my mouth and into the seat of my half-pulled down blue corduroy pants and my little tighty whities.

All this took place within a 90-150 second timeframe. When the Old Faithful eruptions ceased and the Vomitorium closed for the afternoon, the eerie silence bespoke a defeated 5yr old boy and added a very interesting feel to a scene that looked less like a small apartment bathroom and more like studio space rented by Jackson Pollack.

My dad came in with my sister in his arms. He looked at me. He looked at the floor. He looked at me. He looked at the vanity. He looked at the seat of my pants. He looked at the wall across from the toilet. He looked at me and finally said, "get in the bathtub." That's when the waterworks broke loose. I remember he told me it wasn't my fault and that I should stop crying, but I couldn't. So he put my sister down, peeled my vomit and diarrhea stained clothes off my sweaty, trembling little body, picked me up, put me in the tub, and started the shower.

It took my dad like 40 minutes to get me totally clean. By the time he was done scrubbing me like a rape victim, my skin was pruned to the point where it hurt to walk on anything other than the shag carpet in the living room. "Okay, let's go."

And off we went to the pediatrics wing of Kaiser Hospital in Oakland. He carried both me and my sister into the waiting area. I remember the nurse at the window offering me a lollipop and eagerly accepting it only to yank it out of my mouth in horror when the sweetness of it hit my taste buds and made me realize that the roof of my mouth felt like it had been raked by a backhoe and my tongue was so tingly I could barely feel it.

Next thing I remember is sitting with my sister on the edge of the bed-thingy in the examination room counting the animated baseball players swinging bats on the wallpaper across from us. I was counting outloud--because that's what five year olds do I guess--and my sister would follow along mimicking me, "one, two, free, four, figh, fourty-teeuuuuu" and then giggle to herself.

It wasn't until I was in the family room with my mother and sister recalling this that I realized that, like most of the other times I would go to the hospital with my dad because of some game-playing accident, my sister and I would be alone in the exam room for what seemed like 30, 45, sometimes 60 minutes at a time. I spent the rest of the night in my room with the light off running through my memory until I fell asleep.

At the next family therapy session, the counselor asked me if I could remember anything related to my dad's P.M.S.B.P. I said I could and I related in shorter form what turned out to be a passel of strikingly similar tales of challenges, bets, games, and mishaps. Apparently, my mother had only known about a couple of these incidents because as I went through the list she became visibly more upset until she finally scooted to the edge of the couch and looked out the window toward the vacant lot across the street, weeping quietly to herself.

It wasn't until about 6 or 8 weeks ago that I found out what the real deal was...with the doctor visits, with the protracted periods alone in the exam room, with my mother crying at that, what turned out to be final, therapy session...

There is no such thing as Paternal Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy. And, even if there was, my father didn't have it.

Apparently--and my mother knew about it--my father had been cheating on her while she was at work and he was finishing up his PhD. He was cheating with a pediatrics/obstetrics nurse at Kaiser. A nurse, in fact, who was assisting in the delivery room when my mother gave birth to my sister. He wasn't subconsciously getting me sick or inducing gastro-intestinal explosions because he couldn't help himself and just wanted attention from friendly helpful hospital staff. He was doing it so he would have an excuse to go to the hospital and fuck his little nurse. THAT was why we spent so much time alone in the exam room. THAT was why I never remember my dad actually filling out any paper work. And, THAT explains why my mom was unaware of so many of the incidents that came to light in the final therapy session.

What made her cry so...I don't know...so, earnestly and heart-breakingly was that all these incidents spanned a period that was at least twice as long as he had ever admitted to cheating on her for. He had been cheating on her for the better part of their marriage. He had never been faithful. He probably had never really loved her. The combination of these facts, assumptions, and realizations sent my mother into a tailspin of depression.

Since that day, I guess about 8 weeks ago, I have had to get up early so I could get her out of bed. Sometimes I wake up at 3 or 4am in a panic and run upstairs to make sure she hasn't done anything...drastic. She always took a shower without much trouble, but getting her out of bed and getting her to eat breakfast were major major chores that took hours sometimes. I constantly had to remind her that she had kids and friends and co-workers that loved her and supported her and wanted nothing but the best for her. I had to gently but firmly remind her that she had a family that depended on her. Now, I am not a crier, but in these last 8 weeks I have shed more tears with my mother in my arms than any person ever needs to shed.

I know that it has made me perpetually late. I know I've lost focus and stamina. Any time I have a chance to catch up on work I've fallen behind on, all I want to do is catch up on sleep and forget that any of this is happening. I can't say that I'm sorry that I've missed so much work and been perpetually late for everything though, because my mother is the most important person in my life. I have not and will not think twice about hoisting her, literally and figuratively, onto my back and slogging through the muddy, unstable ground of depression and despair until we get to brighter days and firmer ground. She's my mother. I owe her everything. This is the least I can do...

And that is--except for the more...ahem...floral parts of the description of the bathroom scene--exactly what I told my 1st period Spanish 3 teacher (Mr. Mueller) near the end of 3rd quarter sophomore year when he found me after baseball practice one day and told me I was failing because I hadn't shown up for 27 of 39 class days.

I cried. He cried. I apologized. He sympathized. I asked for mercy and help. He told me to take the final and write a three-page paper in Spanish on the status of Puerto Rico as an American protectorate. I thanked him profusely. Two weeks later, he gave me an A-.

Fuck Berkeley. I should have gone to Hollywood.

Posted by nils at 8:36 PM

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