Category: MiTHology

Real Names

January 24th, 2026

Daily writing prompt
Write about your first name: its meaning, significance, etymology, etc.
View all responses

As you know, dear readers, “Mith” is not actually my “real” first name — it’s not the name that I was given by my parents way back when in the fall of ’89.

I’m not going to talk about my “real” first name. It doesn’t suit me — never has. Its vibe, its sound, its style, even its meaning (nay, especially its meaning) — nothing about it is me. And I wonder if this doesn’t have something to do with the way I’ve always felt so not at home in my own skin, so at odds with myself, so insecure about who I essentially am.

It’s not a bad name. It’s actually very pretty, and I like it, especially because it’s a family name going back several generations on my mother’s side. However, it has a serious issue that’s been a significant problem for me my entire life. And that issue is: pronunciation.

Where my mom’s family’s from, it’s pronounced one way; the vast majority of America pronounces it a different way; but neither of these are actually the “correct” pronunciation; but the differences between the three are subtle enough, that it remains vague and inconclusive what’s the right or wrong way to say it. The sound in question is a single syllable, a vowel sound. All the different versions are shades on a spectrum.

(By now, I bet you can guess what the name is.)

So, ever since I started kindergarten, I have not known how to say my own name. Which was very jarring, to a five-year-old. “Why does everybody say my name wrong?” But not wrong enough for me to correct them, because it was clearly me that they were addressing, and the difference was subtle — just wrong enough to tweak a nerve.

To this day, if I say it the way my parents say it, people get confused and think I’m saying a different name. “Can you spell that for me?” If I say it the way most of America says it, it just feels gross and wrong; it feels like I have a whole unpeeled tangerine in my mouth; I feel like I’m lying, giving a fake name (and my discomfiture must be evident, because people still ask me to repeat myself and/or spell it out; and this is a really common name). And the “correct” pronunciation? It just feels unnatural to me, like trying to achieve a very delicate balance, like trying to speak a foreign language — I literally have to rehearse it under my breath a few times before saying it out loud.

So at thirty-six I still hate introducing myself. I never know how to say it, just like I don’t know how to say much of anything coherent in social situations. Hello, I am a person, but which exactly I can’t really say, and I don’t know how to convey the fact of this person to you because I don’t really grasp it myself. Perhaps thus began my obsession with communication, with attempting to make my thoughts understood through writing.

I do know, however, that whenever a stranger meets me and pronounces my name the way my parents always said it, I automatically, subconsciously warm to that person, and presume that they are Nice and Good. Which might be a sign that maybe I should just buckle down and own this as my pronunciation. This is the way I say it. People do that with all kinds of names nowadays, don’t they? “It’s spelled Jane but I pronounce it jah-NAY! Get it right!” If people can get away with random stuff like that, surely I’d be perfectly justified in insisting upon my preferred vowel sound, in a name that can legitimately be pronounced any of several ways! Maybe I should have done this all along, starting in kindergarten!

But I’ve never had the guts. I’ve always let other people tell me, I guess. And now it’s way too late, even if I suddenly miraculously developed the guts to assert my will like that, which I haven’t yet and don’t expect I ever will.

Which is not even that big a deal, frankly. Virtually everyone, even my number one person, my beloved husband, pronounces it the “wrong” way. And it’s not like it bothers me. I don’t even think about it ninety-nine percent of the time. It’s just a fact of life.

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Do you like how I said “I’m not going to talk about my ‘real’ name” and then proceeded to write all of that? Sorry. That was not the post that I intended to write. No, I came here to tell the origins of my “nom de plume”/ handle / alias / whatever you want to call it: my assumed name: Mith. In case you’re curious, kind reader. Here, at last, is the post that I came here to write:

It goes back a quarter century, to early 2001. I was eleven years old, and, like most kids do at some point, going through a “change my name” phase. Not in a serious way — as mentioned, I’ve tried, but never had the guts to tell other people what to call me — but just in a playful way, as a game with my little fifth grade friends. We all had pretend names. And mine, the name that I wanted to go by, was: you won’t believe this, but: Kim.

“Kim?! But why? That’s so not you, Mith!” I know. I didn’t have any ideas or prejudices about the name back then; I hadn’t yet heard of the Kardashians, or Eminem’s baby mama, or any of those Hollywood associations. I just heard the name somewhere and liked it. I liked the way it sounded. I liked that it was easy to say, impossible to mispronounce. Best of all, I liked that it rhymed with “Zim,” as I was, at the time, intensely obsessed with Invader Zim (not just the show, but Zim the character; I saw him as my soul mate or something). So the name Kim was totally meant to be, for me, as I saw it.

So that became my assumed name, for a year or so, even after the Zim obsession waned. It was the name I wished I had, the name I used in my self-insert fiction, the name I used in games with my little friends. You know how kids do.

Then it evolved. In sixth grade, I met the girl who would become my middle school BFF, and one of the main characters of my life story. (If she ever somehow stumbles upon this blog and sees this: hey girl, hope you’re doing well.) She and I were the same flavor of weird, back then; we had the same weird sense of humor, and were two weird peas in a pod. We became very close, and developed all manner of inside jokes — one of the most enduring of which was a secret “language” in which all words ended with the suffix “-ith” or “-eth.”

That was how, after approximately two years of being Kim, I became “Kimmith.” Which will forever be my full name in my heart.

But, among my little friend group, Kimmith was soon abbreviated to: Mith.

And that was what my friends called me, and what I began to call myself in my head, and it just stuck. Soon there were nicknames of the nickname: Mithius, Mithiana, and Mit were all things that I went by at some point. But Mith, that was the one that stuck. It became my online handle everywhere. When my little friends and I all got Livejournals, I thought I was being very clever indeed when I named mine “MiTHology.”

And I guess the rest is history.

In case you were wondering whence the “k”: I keep the “k” as a nod to the original full name. In my mind, it also stands for the name of my patron saint, Saint Kevin, whose name I was given at my Baptism in 2013. It’s like K is just my letter. It has to be there. I don’t know.

To have weird friends who are close enough to you, who have enough ownership of your life to bestow weird nicknames upon you: that is such a beautiful thing. I don’t miss school, not at all, but I do miss having a group of friends around me. Alas! Those days are long gone — but the name will remain forever.

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So what then even is a “real” name, then? Define real. Is it your legal name? Or the one you call yourself in your head? And which version of you is real: the one you are in the privacy of your own mind, or the one that other people see? Naming anything, especially a person, is such a complicated and daunting thing. Language being this thin barrier that we construct to mediate between our brains and the huge whirling vortex of unknowable chaos. How can we say what a thing, or a person, is?

At 36, I still sometimes think about changing my name. Maybe even to Kim. Or something else that’s easy to say. But for now, it’s satisfying enough to have this little online space where I have a bit more control over how you perceive me — where I get to tell you who I am, on my own terms. Where I get to name myself. Why else do we write things, right? If you’ve made it this far, thanks for being here, and for listening.

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at the TLM with AVPD: one year in

October 29th, 2025

Being a Traditional Catholic, or even a practicing Christian at all, and having a diagnosis of avoidant personality disorder: these two things seem pretty mutually exclusive. I could be wrong, but I don’t think there are a lot of people out there who do both. Which is no surprise. In practice, the two seem downright antithetical. It is really hard being both.

Tl;dr: it’s hard, but not impossible, being trad with AVPD; and actually very much worth the struggle. What follows are my little reflections on my first year at a trad parish.

The Feast of Christ the King, 2025: it’s now been one year since I fully switched to regularly attending the TLM instead of the NO. It’s interesting that this anniversary falls on-or-around the Traditional Feast of Christ the King, because it was on this same feast day, albeit in the new calendar, that I was first confirmed Catholic, way back in 2014. One full year as a trad already, wow.

“Just wait and see – after a year, you’ll never be able to imagine going back to the modern church,” I was advised. But actually, it took a lot less time than that! Within just a couple weeks of starting in Tradition – pretty much immediately upon meeting and conversing with some of the priests and community members, all of whom seem truly devout, welcoming, and genuine – I was completely sold.

After a single TLM, I really struggled with being back in the NO. Even though I waffled back and forth for a few months (as you know if you’ve read my little conversion story). I’m not going to engage in the “liturgy war” stuff here, because that’s just not what I do with my little blog, and frankly I’m not smart enough to have that discussion even if I wanted to. It’s simply obvious to me that the faith being taught and practiced at my TLM parish is the true faith, and that I absolutely must keep going there.

But, as someone with AVPD: it is hard! It is extremely hard.

After the first time I attended the TLM, in June of last year, I was sure I would never go there again. It was beautiful and sacred and inspiring and all that, yes – but way too scary. I had no idea what was going on, and did all the things wrong, and felt intensely judged by everyone around me. My social anxiety was through the roof. I craved the safety of my familiar NO. But, when I went back to the NO, I found it more disappointing than ever. The irreverence began to really irritate me. And I felt drawn back to the scary, beautiful TLM parish, difficult as it was. So, long story short, I waffled back and forth for about five more months until I realized that I had to do the brave thing and go where the true faith was, even if it was scary.

I was hoping that it would get less scary in time. I guess in some ways it has: I’m somewhat more familiar, now, with the basics, such as: how to use the missal, what the different parts of the Mass are, how to go to confession and communion, how to greet the Bishop (I messed this up terribly the first few times I met him!), how to request to have a sacramental blessed or to have a Mass offered for someone, what a “spiritual bouquet” is, and things like that. I still am not entirely confident about when are the right times to kneel, stand, sit, and cross oneself during Mass; I typically just follow what everyone else around me is doing. And I still feel like there are all manner of unspoken rules about being there, and being a member of the community – rules which I am constantly violating, but no one is saying anything because they’re being charitable. Which makes me feel like an absolute buffoon, a real obnoxious sore thumb sticking out in such a solemn, serene environment.

Here’s one thing that weighs on me. And I doubt that this is the case in TLM parishes elsewhere, but at my parish, everyone is really, really financially comfortable. Or even just plain rich. My family, meanwhile is not what I’d call “financially comfortable.” Every single person I’ve met at church is substantially richer than me. (And no, I’m not presuming, this information is based on actual conversations I’ve had with people or overheard.)

I feel there is a definite air of elitism. I’ve overheard or been involved in conversations in which people complain about poor neighbors – about people who make less than a certain amount, encroaching on their wealthy neighborhoods. Which is fair, I mean, if you have that kind of money fair and square and you want to use it to live somewhere safe and beautiful and secluded, why not! I can totally understand not wanting to be surrounded by poverty and the risks that come with it! I’d do the same thing, if it were me, no doubt. I don’t think there’s anything un-Christian about wanting security and comfort for your family (as long as you’re not demanding ostentatiousness or excess, which are not the trend at my parish). But, it does make me feel like an outsider here, knowing that I’m the kind of person they look down on and don’t want in their neighborhood. Even though everyone there is always perfectly nice to us, I can’t help feeling like they’re gritting their teeth and doing their best to practice Christian charity whenever they speak to me.

All of which leads me to wonder if I really am morally inferior, for being relatively poor. Sure poverty isn’t always a moral failing – bad things do happen to good people – but, a great deal of the time, it’s the result of laziness and irresponsibility. If I were a good person, like my fellow parishioners, if I’d had my priorities straight and I’d made the right decisions, wouldn’t I, too, be able to afford twenty acres and a bunch of livestock, a private boarding school education and fine, all-natural, “aesthetic” clothing for my kids? I feel like my poorness is just a mark of personal failure.

My past is riddled with financial mistakes. I’ve been stupid and immature and addicted and mentally unwell for most of my adult life, and now I’m living with the consequences. Even though I’m trying to be better, I feel like I still reek very strongly of bad decisions, shallowness, pleasure-seeking, worldliness, uncivilized behavior – all of that. I am intensely aware that everyone at church is intensely aware of it, this odor of baseness and worldliness and irresponsibility; and it’s intensely uncomfortable. Like having spiritual BO that everyone can smell.

Again, though, all of this is coming not from anyone’s actual treatment of me, but out of my own presumptions about them. So it’s entirely possible that no one there actually looks down on me at all. However, I like to put up a bit of a wall of paranoia, just in case. Please don’t let your takeaway from this post be that “traditional Catholics are elitist and judgmental”, because I have no actual evidence that they are. They’re actually really nice. It’s probably just a coincidence that everyone at my parish is rich, and that makes me uncomfortable because I am insecure and have AVPD and am always finding reasons to presume that people hate me.

But, this overpowering sense of being inferior, of being out of place, definitely contributes to a temptation to return to the NO world. At my previous, modern parish, there were parishioners from all walks of life: I’d literally see rich folks with professionally-done hair and fancy handbags, and homeless folks carrying black garbage bags, at the same Masses, and in between, a mixed bag of elderly folks (probably like 75-80% boomers and retirees), a few college kids if it was during the school year, Hispanic folks, Black folks, Filipino folks, you name it; it was a pretty diverse parish. Perhaps this diversity was due to the location, being downtown in the middle of a pretty diverse and affordable city, whereas my new, TLM parish is located rurally, an hour away out in a wealthy county near a very wealthy town, where many people are Landowners.

According to the internet, it apparently is true in America that traditionalist Catholic communities tend to be overwhelmingly white, as opposed to the mainstream Catholic population being more Hispanic/Latino. However, the internet wasn’t able to tell me much about whether trads tend to be richer in general than “normal” Catholics. I’m interested to visit other TLM parishes and see if they’re also full of rich folks. Do any other American trads out there have any anecdotal evidence to share?

– Anyway, all of this diversity stuff being tangential to the thing about being tempted to return to the NO. There, I still experienced social anxiety, of course (I do not miss the Sign of Peace! Even now, at the TLM, every time we near the end of the Canon of the Mass and the priest gets ready to say the Pater Noster, I get a reflexive wave of anxiety and queasiness). But because of the casual environment, it was much less intense there. There, I never worried about being the poorest person in attendance; it was simply never something that crossed my mind, there. And it was much easier to know what to do; the “rules” were much less strict.

Not to mention, they had a nursery where my kids could play and I could listen to the Mass through the speakers while watching them. Now, obviously I know better now, that we shouldn’t just let our kids play during Mass, that they need to be taught to sit quietly and be reverent and respectful. And that we shouldn’t reward their naughty behavior by taking them to the playroom! At the TLM there is no “nursery,” no toys or puzzles or dollhouses, which my younger children really resented at first, for a few months after we changed parishes, before they got used to it. And there shouldn’t be one! Kids should learn to be at Mass! – But, it sure was easier on me, as a mom, that way. The pressure of managing my noisy young kids at TLM/in the cry room is psychologically crushing, sometimes. Being a parent with AVPD is wild because every time I go anywhere with the kids, it feels like everyone is judging every single thing I do or don’t do, and thinking what a bad parent (i.e. a terrible person) I am – and at TLM, where there are certain expectations about correct parenting, this sense is amplified x1000. Trad parents typically demand better behavior from their kids than your average American parent. I end up feeling like I’m too strict by modern standards but too lax by trad standards. I feel like I’m getting it wrong from every angle.

So it’s rough. It’s barely gotten easier. As we speak, I am literally sick with dread about the approaching weekend: a Holy Day of Obligation on Saturday, so two Masses back to back, followed by a social event for All Saint’s Day.

But that’s terrible, isn’t it?! I shouldn’t be sick with dread about attending Mass, which is the pinnacle of my spiritual life as a Catholic, and a privilege which the angels in heaven would love to have! I was listening to a sermon the other day which says that the devil knows our temperaments and will use them to detract from our participation in the Sacraments in whatever way he can – if he can’t keep us away from Mass entirely, he will at least try to diminish and worsen our presence there. Perhaps at risk of blaming on the supernatural a problem which is in fact entirely, boringly natural (spiritual warfare is a very real thing, but I think sometimes people probably get carried away with it; like, no, it’ s not a demon telling you to eat that fourth donut, lol, you just need to walk away and go drink some water; I guess it just makes these little daily things so much more interesting if we can call them “spiritual warfare,” lol!), I feel like this is what’s going on with me. Sometimes it really feels like something is using my AVPD to try and keep me away from the TLM, even though I know that it is where I need to be.

I would love to just fit in and belong there. I’d love to be “one of them.” I remember back in middle and high school, when the AVPD first began to be crippling; in those days, I had no religion, just secularism and a desire to belong; and I believed that the best people, the ones who had it all figured out, were the “alt” kids, the edgy crowd with the black and white stripes, the guitars and drums, band tees, pins, dyed hair, dark humor, all of that. It was the same exact feeling then as now: I wanted to be one of them, and tried so hard to fit in, but never quite did, was always the sore thumb, and it was agonizing. Then, as now, I had this imaginary person in my head who exemplified that group and was constantly reminding me of how horribly I was failing to meet the standard. (Back then, it was a pretty nebulous concept of a person, but these days, I’m more self-aware about it, and now she actually has a name and lore; I decided it might be fun to try and humanize her a bit.)

So perhaps it’s all very immature of me to worry so much about “fitting in” at the parish. I mean, don’t they want to attract people from all walks of life? Don’t they want to save the poor just as much as the rich? Aren’t we, as followers of Christ, supposed to care about the poor and the lost? Don’t they want their reach to extend beyond the predictable rich educated landowners? They’re supposed to want to convert sinners! They ought to be glad that I’m there, right? – ha!, that’s a stretch.

In any case, attending the TLM with AVPD continues to be a struggle, one year in. But, one year in, I am more convinced than ever that going back to the modern Mass is not an option. Church shouldn’t be easy and comfortable, after all. We go to Mass to offer sacrifice. And you don’t grow if you remain comfortable all the time.

And furthermore, it’s awesome to me to finally belong (formally, if not socially) to a church where I can confidently, proudly look at it and say “this is what I believe” – where I feel the immediate reality of the supernatural, where everything the Church teaches is seen to be really real, where I truly trust the priests to guide my eternal soul. Always, at the NO, even before I really knew what Tradition was, I always felt disconnected from the modern style of worship and the modern approach to Catholicism; I had a hard time being moved by it, it felt removed from the heavy eternal truths that religion is supposed to be actually about; and for a long time I failed to grow in the faith. (Which is not to say that the NO doesn’t produce saints; it’s probably just that I’m a particularly weak and stupid and inattentive little person who needs a very strong liturgy and a firm hand, in order to captivate and nourish and discipline me.) So I’m really lucky to live close enough to a TLM parish where I can get these spiritual needs met.

Even if it is a challenge. I wonder if, in another year or two or three, it will be any easier. Probably not.

Don’t let this post dissuade you from visiting the TLM, if you’re reading this and you’re curious about it, or you’re socially anxious and avoidant like I am. The TLM is indeed more difficult, but it’s worth it. As I’ve said before, I no longer have any hope of “getting over” my AVPD, and have accepted that this is just who I am, and no amount of “practice” or “exposure” will make me more socially comfortable; but that’s not to say that it’s not also good to stretch oneself a bit, to occasionally leave the comfort zone in some controlled way, within reasonable limits and for good reason. Because if we did everything the AVPD way, we’d never do anything at all, which would not be very good for our eternal souls. Human life is uncomfortable, that’s just a fact, and I guess we all need to live with that truth in whatever way we’re meant to, if we want to attain heaven, where there will be no more discomfort. But, who knows.

Sometimes it feels like someone with AVPD can’t possibly go to heaven. If I care that much about what other people think, to the point that it even hinders my attendance at Mass, then clearly I’m not of one mind with God, Whose opinion should be the only one that matters to me! How can I possibly go to heaven if I’m too socially anxious to participate in charitable activities like working at the soup kitchen, teaching little kids, and volunteering at a homeless shelter (believe me, I’ve tried all of these in the past, when I was trying so hard to make it in the NO world, and I was simply terrible, useless, fumbling, and awkward at it, which led me to believe that there was no way I could ever even be a real Catholic)?

But of course, I know it’s true that no one actually deserves Heaven. And it’s true that God’s mercy is bigger than all of our weaknesses, and He is so powerful that He can save even a miserable avoidant loser like myself if He wants to. So, I try to just place all my hope in the Blessed Mother, because, as a mom myself I know how it feels to love your kids completely and want to give them everything, in spite of their behavior, and I know that her love for each one of us is kinda like that but infinitely greater even than my love for my children (unfathomable!), and I know that, while God is both just and merciful, she is all mercy.

Even though the TLM world feels scarier and has a reputation for being more judgmental, I actually feel like it’s given me a healthier POV on salvation, and made me more OK with myself overall. Being in tradition has actually helped me accept that I don’t need to be cured of my personality; God made me weird and that, if He wants to, He can save even me – that it is possible for me to be Catholic and have AVPD at the same time.
a birth story.

July 28th, 2025

As you may have noticed, I haven’t posted on this blog in over a month – not because I’m done with blogging, but because I was busy having a baby. My fourth kid was born earlier this month. Now, I don’t typically like to share a lot about physical stuff. But I thought I’d share my birth story on here, because for the first time I feel like I got it right, and am actually proud of how it went, and feel like it could potentially be useful to someone.

In the third trimester I spent a lot of time reading birth stories as I tried to mentally prepare myself; so, I figure I’ll pay it forward or whatever and go ahead and share mine for any mom out there who might happen to be reading this as she prepares for her own birth.

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Four days before my son was born, I went to confession, which I try to do every two-to-three weeks regularly. This time, the priest was one that I’d never been to confession with before. And for penance, he assigned me a prayer I’d never been assigned before, in my ten years of being Catholic: the Anima Christi prayer.

Of course I was familiar with the prayer, but it wasn’t one that I had memorized or anything. So as soon as Mass was over, I looked it up and prayed it and studied it. I was 39 weeks pregnant, and really nervous about labor for some reason, even though this was my fourth baby. I thought to myself: maybe this prayer will be a good tool to bring into labor. I repeated the first three lines over and over in my mind on the drive home, and over the coming days.

Why was I so nervous about birth? If you’ve read my post on epidurals, you already know a little about my previous three birth experiences. I’d never had a purely unmedicated, all-natural birth. My first was an induction, and even though I didn’t get an epidural, I did get IV pain meds to help me cope (fentanyl, and it didn’t even help much anyway, lol). My second was surgical. My third, my VBAC¹, I had intended to go all-natural, but got discouraged and gave up, and ended up getting an epidural right at transition. So I was haunted by feelings of failure and inferiority, like I was not a real mom somehow.

Was I going to be able to do it this time? Doubt. Maybe I shouldn’t even bother trying. I’d been reading “Made For This” by Mary Haseltine, as well as re-reading Ina May’s guide, and feeling called out and accused by every word on the pages, feeling like a failure as a woman and a Catholic; I was sure that I would end up tapping out again. I couldn’t do it; I already knew that. But, Mary Haseltine suggests embracing that: accepting and admitting that we can’t do it on our own, and totally surrendering to God. I didn’t know if I could do that or not.

The same author also suggested offering up your labor for a specific intention. I figured I could do that, in any case. I read a lot of advice and tried to internalize it all. Basically, I lost a lot of sleep, and said a lot of prayers. I tried to focus on preparing myself mentally. Because I knew that having an all-natural birth would be more of a psychological than physical feat.

I had certain expectations. I expected that I would go into labor on or around my due date, which was the coming Saturday. I expected that it would be very similar to my labor with my third, which began slowly, with very mild contractions that gradually intensified. I expected that it would be slow and grueling. For personal reasons, I did not want to have a baby on Wednesday; that was incredibly important to me, and I’d lost sleep over this too. Any day but Wednesday! (Don’t ask me why.) I’d do anything to avoid having a baby on Wednesday!

Then, Tuesday night, out of nowhere, my water broke.

Well, I say “out of nowhere,” but it wasn’t really. I guess I hadn’t recognized the signs. I’ll describe some of those signs just in case you’re curious.

I had gestational diabetes in this pregnancy, which was easily diet-controlled, and I’d noticed for the past week that my glucose numbers had suddenly dropped a lot. Things that typically spiked my blood sugar no longer did. It was like I could suddenly throw caution to the winds, with food, if I wanted to; I was actually afraid my monitor was broken or something. Apparently, this is a sign that labor is about to start. But I didn’t want to believe it.

Also, I’d been queasy for days, with a very low appetite, experiencing waves of nausea that got a little worse on Tuesday. I thought nothing of this, because I’d had a stomach bug at 38 weeks, which had me incapacitated for two or three days, and after it passed, I simply didn’t fully recover. The nausea stuck around. It was like I was back in the first trimester. I assumed I was just having a hard time shaking the stomach bug.

And I was in an absolutely shitty mood, that Tuesday. I had no patience, snapped at the slightest provocation, was irritable with my kids, and generally a crappy mom. It was like PMS. But, I assumed that it was just fatigue, and the damned stomach bug getting to me.

Despite feeling like crap, I also had this mad wave of productivity on Tuesday afternoon. I had to clean the upstairs. There was going to be a baby sleeping there soon, I needed to clean it! So I went into a cleaning frenzy for a few hours, and got the whole upstairs relatively sparkling (for a house with two toddlers and a kindergartener, that is). I assumed this was just normal third trimester nesting.

So those were the warning signs that I was ignoring. I assumed I had more time. I hadn’t even finished packing my hospital bag! Like I said, I was expecting to have plenty of warning before time to head to the hospital; with my third, I was in early labor for about a day and a half before I even felt uncomfortable. I was waiting to pack stuff until the actual signs of labor showed up.

Well, but then, like I said, at about a quarter to nine, my water broke.

What the hell? What the helly?! This had never happened to me before. With my first, my water didn’t break until I was already having painful contractions, and then it was only a cautious trickle; my third, the OB manually broke my water at seven centimeters, to move things along. I had never before experienced this Hollywood-esque moment of being surprised by a sudden gush of water out of nowhere. And on Tuesday night, of all nights?!

There went my plans! So much for not having a baby on Wednesday. I was GBS positive², so I knew that I had to get to the hospital ASAP, and that there was no way this baby would be arriving any later than a day from now, but also no way they’d be arriving before midnight tonight.

I’d also been hoping that labor might, for once, not happen overnight; I was really hoping it’d start during the day this time, when I was awake and alert, so that I wouldn’t be going into it with zero energy; but alas, here we were again.

It did not bode well. Furthermore, I wasn’t even having painful contractions yet. I knew from reading zillions of birth stories that it was almost never good when water broke without contractions. That generally meant that Pitocin³would be needed to move things along; providers don’t like to wait too long to deliver a baby once water has broken, because of the risk of infection. I’d never had Pitocin in labor before (my previous induction was with Cytotec ⁴), and I wanted to keep it that way. We’ve all heard the horror stories about how painful Pitocin contractions are. I knew that, if I had to suffer through those, I’d probably end up getting an epidural, which would probably slow things down, and the cascade of interventions would begin, and I could very well end up in the OR. (I hated my c-section, and did not want to go through that again.)

So I chucked a few things in my hospital bag (not enough, lol I forgot quite a few things) and we were off, in a mild panic. But my anxiety and dread were balanced out by an even greater excitement. For better or for worse, it was happening; I’d get to meet this baby soon.

But at the hospital, it was kind of a cluster. The nurses couldn’t find their equipment. They accidentally clicked “discharge” on their computer and checked me out of the hospital and had to re-check me in. Then they couldn’t find my vein to start the IV (that’s always fun). Nothing seemed to be going right. It was almost ten, and I still wasn’t having painful contractions. I really had no idea how this was going to go.

So I said a little prayer of surrender, trying to let go of all my personal wants and desires for how the birth would proceed. Then, between interruptions, I prayed the sorrowful mysteries of the Rosary.

Here’s a cool thing. The midwife didn’t check for dilation at this point, and I’m so grateful she did not. What’s the point of all these cervical exams that women are always given during pregnancy? They don’t tell you anything about when baby will come. I wasn’t having painful contractions, so the midwife said she didn’t expect to see dilation yet, and she’d just wait to check me later. Cool! Fine with me! I didn’t need that kind of stress in my life! I was so happy to be working with midwives this time instead of OBs. Nothing against the OBs who’d helped me with my other babies, but I will always recommend midwives over OBs to any low-risk pregnant mom. It’s a world of difference, a whole different philosophy. I only had to endure two cervical exams this entire pregnancy, both of them in active labor (more on that later).

Well, they got me sorted out with the IV block, then moved me from triage to a delivery room. There, they hooked me up to a fetal monitor (this was, after all, a 2VBAC¹), gave me my first dose of penicillin, and then let me be. Still no pain. I remembered the advice of the doula who’d helped me with my third birth: sometimes relaxing actually gets things moving along. So, I took a shower, got in my fuzzy bathrobe and sleep hat, grabbed my teddy bear, and laid down for a rest. The braxton-hicks⁵were starting to feel a little bit more intense, but nothing serious or uncomfortable. I figured I’d rest while I still could. There was a long night ahead of me.

It worked. I probably only rested for thirty, forty minutes or so, before the contractions picked up. This was around midnight. So I got up and started walking around, moving through them. I wanted to to make progress, and plus, in the early part of active labor, walking or rocking or swaying through the contractions seriously helps.

But I could feel things were moving quickly. At one point my teeth started chattering uncontrollably, which meant the hormones were doing crazy things. Each contraction was a bit more intense than the last. I was feeling lots of nausea, so was pretty much just hanging out in the bathroom, at this point, and I started having to really focus to get through the pain. This was the point at which time becomes weird and you go into this strange primal otherworldly place, mentally. If you’ve ever been in labor you know what I mean.

I will share some things that helped me cope with the pain, in case you’re a pregnant mom reading this and mentally preparing for your own labor like I was.

I kept on praying. I brought out from my little toolbox the Anima Christi prayer, which I’d been dwelling on over the past few days. With each contraction I’d think about one of the first three lines:

“Soul of Christ, sanctify me.

Body of Christ, save me.

Blood of Christ, embolden me.“

It wasn’t even an intentional thing, where I set out to meditate on one of these lines. It just kind of happened. I’d be praying and as the pain picked up my brain would slow to a stop and just kind of linger over one of these lines while I thought about the Passion or remembered my last Holy Communion just four days prior.

And – this bit sounds super uncharacteristic of me, because I’m a very negative and pessimistic person, lol – I guess the other thing that helped was staying positive about it. This was a mind game, I knew. I had to make myself like the pain. I had to be really intentional. Yes, I’d say to myself, yes, this is good. I’m coping with this so well. At one point, I could sense myself starting to get frustrated and mad at the pain, wanting to say to it, “fucking hell!, just leave me alone, stop doing this to my body!” Which created a sensation of fear. So I caught myself, and changed the narrative real quick, because that was the very path that led me to the epidural with my last baby: feeling like a victim of the pain, like the pain was something bad happening to me. This time, I intentionally took ownership of it. It wasn’t happening to me, as they say; it was me. And that actually helped. It’s seriously psychological warfare, in labor.

(A few other little sensory tricks that really help, if you’re curious: movement, vocalization, and squeezing the shit out of wide-toothed wooden combs in each hand. Randomly, I also took a weird comfort in running my hands under the faucet in the bathroom sink.)

Well, by now I was in the zone, and it was about two AM. The midwife came in to check me. She’d said she was going to wait to check me until it was time for the second dose of antibiotics, which wasn’t supposed to be for another hour; but I guess she could see that I had progressed pretty far, and she was probably afraid I’d have the baby on the bathroom floor, lol. I was pretty uncomfortable by now, so I was really hoping that she’d tell me I was at like a six, at least a five.

Imagine my relief when she told me I was at a nine! Thank God! That far already? So I was coping with this pretty well, after all?! That gave me a fresh burst of motivation: it would be over soon. She stayed with me, and directed me into this-that-and-the-other position through the contractions (which, btw, an OB would not have done), and when she checked me again at about 2:30 (all of these time estimates are very approximate, because like I said I was in that zone where everything is spacey and time doesn’t really exist), I was at a ten.

I’ll spare you the details of the next half-hour, not because anything went wrong, but just because this phase is particularly bodily. Suffice it to say that baby was born about thirty minutes later, just before 3 AM, with no interventions or pain meds of any kind.

But then came the biggest surprise of all. We were team green, in this pregnancy, waiting to find out the baby’s gender until birth. I was completely certain, the entire nine months, that it was a girl. I called the baby “she” the whole time, thinking of her as my daughter and calling her by our chosen girl name. I barely ever even considered that it might be a boy; that felt so unlikely as to not even be a real possibility. My intuition had been correct for my other three kids, so I knew, I simply knew, that this was going to be a girl.

But: he was a boy!

A boy, born all natural, only six hours from the time my water broke, only three hours from the onset of actual discomfort. What the helly!

Later that day, recovering in our room in the mother-baby ward, I was lying there watching EWTN on my TV. Daily Mass was on. It was the Novus Ordo Mass, which I generally avoid, but it was a solemn and reverent one – EWTN is great; Mother Angelica, ora pro nobis! – so I watched it anyway. If you’ve ever watched Mass on TV, you know that, when it comes time for Communion, they cut to an Act of Spiritual Communion for the viewers at home who can’t receive physically. On EWTN, they don’t always use the same prayer every single time; it changes day by day, as there are many prayers one can say for this intention.

Guess which prayer they broadcast that day, my son’s birthday, for the Spiritual Communion?

It felt like a small reassurance that Wednesday was the right day for him to be born, after all.

.

.

Footnotes for those who might not be familiar with pregnancy terminology:

1. VBAC: vaginal birth after cesarean. Whenever you give birth the normal way after a prior c-section, there’s a risk (extremely minute) of uterine rupture at the incision site, which is terrifying and life-threatening if it happens. So when you’re in labor after a prior C, they make you wear a fetal monitor the whole time to make sure baby is doing okay. It’s not too bad, because you can still walk around and even get in the water if you want to; you just have a device strapped around your belly. 2VBAC: second VBAC, still treated the same way during labor, even if you’ve already done it once successfully before.

2. Group B strep is a bacteria that we sometimes carry and sometimes don’t. It comes and goes, and isn’t at all harmful to mom (or her husband; it’s not an STI); you can actually test positive for it one week and negative the next. But, if it gets passed to a baby during birth, it can sometimes cause them to get sick, and if that happens it’s deathly serious. So, if you test positive in late pregnancy, they just give you antibiotics during labor: two doses, four hours apart. Normally if your water breaks you don’t necessarily need to rush to the hospital unless you’re having 5-1-1 contractions^A , but, if you are GBS+, they tell you to come to the hospital immediately if your water breaks, because risk of infection goes up.

A. that is, contractions five minutes apart, lasting one minute, for one straight hour.

3. Pitocin is synthetic oxytocin, given through an IV, to induce labor or help it progress when contractions aren’t happening or aren’t strong enough.

4. Cytotec is a different kind of medication, not an IV med, but a tablet that they actually insert into your body to soften the cervix to encourage labor. When I had Cytotec I was already 40 and a half weeks along and only needed one dose, so it barely even felt like an induction, honestly.

5. Braxton-hicks contractions are these random, painless but weird contractions that most moms experience a few times a day in later pregnancy; they’re called “practice contractions,” because they’re how your uterus practices to get ready for labor. Your whole stomach gets really tight and sometimes you can feel a bit breathless, almost like you’re doing a crunch, but they don’t hurt.
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five years

April 6th, 2024

In January of 2015, my new AA sponsor and I were sitting in a Dunkin Donuts for our first official one-on-one meeting. I was in awe of her. She was seven years older than me, so thirty-two, and was absolutely the coolest girl you’d ever seen: unapologetically sober, articulate, educated, cool-headed and confident, but still gentle, courteous, and wholly attentive to whomever she was speaking to. And effortlessly gorgeous, with fair, un-made-up skin, a stylish sleek dark bob, and round, doll-like, pale greenish eyes; she was wearing, I remember, a cute little vintage tee that showed a white sliver of her enviably narrow, flat midriff. She was at once tomboyish and ladylike; she seemed to have perfect posture, even when she slouched. You could just tell that she knew who she was.

And then there was me: twenty-five, skulking, sorry, skinny but not in a cool way, a depressed bulimic wino still living at home with her parents, a wannabe Catholic trapped in sin and shame, just surviving at a grueling job that I was ill-suited for and no good at – a job where all of my coworkers around me were constantly living out my secret impossible dream of getting pregnant and having babies, which constantly rubbed my own failure and loneliness in my face, and made me angrier and angrier. I was angry at myself, at my situation – just angry in general. I was, at that time, particularly angry at this guy from POF whom I’d gone on a couple coffee dates with and now he wouldn’t stop texting me, even though I’d ghosted him, like, aggressively ghosted him, just like I always ghosted everyone, whether I wanted to or not. He was so nice to me and respectful of me, like he actually liked me – how unappealing! I was, in short, pathetic.

So there I was, sitting pathetically across from my impeccably cool new AA sponsor in the noisy, cramped Dunkin, listening to her melodious voice, twitchily folding and re-folding an empty Splenda packet into the tiniest possible rectangles, and feeling very awkward. She was giving me my very first AA homework assignment. I was nodding my head, eager to get started on it, to ace it. Bookwork and written assignments were, and are, my forte. I like to think I am less awkward in writing.

One of her assignments for me that day, at the beginning of my sobriety journey, was to write a letter to myself at five years sober. She wanted me to express my hopes and dreams and goals for my future, for all that I could become. She told me to then seal it up in an envelope and not open it until January of 2020, when I would be, God willing, five years sober.

.

Well, in January of 2020, as it turned out, I would not be five years sober. From 2015 through early 2019, I was in and out of AA, sometimes sober, sometimes not. (At some point, during one of my “relapses,” I ripped up that letter I’d written to my future self, and threw it away. I no longer remember what was in it.) I did all the hard work, desperately throwing myself light-years outside of my comfort zone, repeatedly, because my sponsors and groupmates told me to – to no avail. That feeling of awkwardness never went away, and I never experienced the promised emotional release or total personality change that they say comes from working the Steps. I kept waiting for the cure to my chronic, crippling social anxiety and low self-esteem, which had driven me to drink in the first place, but it never came. So in the end I burned out on AA. It wasn’t working; it was truly making me worse. But I couldn’t go back to drinking either. I was at an impasse. Finally, in March of 2019, with some urging from my long-suffering and loyal husband (that’s right, can you believe someone married me while I was in the thick of all this?), I decided that I’d just do it myself: I’d white-knuckle it for a year, for one single year, and if, after 365 days, I was still miserable, I’d throw myself back into drinking with more reckless abandon than ever. I’d self-destruct.

Just two months after that, I got my first ever positive pregnancy test. My impossible dream miraculously came true. I had now something to live for.

.

So in January of 2020, I was actually ten months sober, and getting ready to give birth for the first time. Plot twist.

It’s wild how much better life is now. Aside from having a family and a will to live, which are both really nice to have, it’s also just much easier to be a practicing Catholic when you’re not constantly in a state of mortal sin (after all, nothing we do outside of a state of Grace really has any meaning, ultimately, and let me tell you, I knew that in my soul before I knew it in my brain!). And it’s even worse when you’re trying to pretend like you’re fine and showing up hungover to be a lector at Mass and trying to put on a brave face and all. I don’t wish that kind of life on anyone!

I may not remember what I wrote in that letter back in 2015, but I know for a fact I didn’t even dare to even fantasize that I’d ever become a stay-at-home mom to not one, not two, but three children. With that very same guy who wouldn’t stop texting me back then – the sweet, selfless guy who courageously (let’s be honest: stupidly) became my husband. Not only that, but the ED is basically a thing of the past now. Not that I’m “comfortable” in my stupid meat-prison by any means, but, you know, you learn to live with your demons, if you can’t cast them out entirely. And it’s not so bad. Maybe I’m just too old to care that much anymore lol.

I’m still the same. Frankly, at the five year mark, I’ve only just begun to figure out why I’m like this: why I needed to drink so much in the first place. The debilitating social anxiety, persistent mild depression (dysthymia), negative beliefs about myself, and inability to make or keep friends, have all stuck around, and worsened, and kept me from being the person I wish I could. So just this year I finally got proactive about my own mental health and self-referred for a psychiatric evaluation, after which I was officially diagnosed with Avoidant Personality Disorder.

Finally. I can’t believe it’s gone undiagnosed for all these years. Well, actually, I can believe it. AVPD frequently goes undiagnosed, for several reasons. One is that it tends to hide beneath its comorbid conditions (substance abuse, eating disorders, depression, to name a few). Another reason it goes undiagnosed, or misdiagnosed, is that it’s just not widely understood, even by mental health professionals. Probably because avoidants tend to, well, avoid: to lurk in the shadows; to not seek treatment, or not stick with treatment consistently (like, I’ve been to probably 15 therapists over the years, but never for more than a few months – typical). And when we do get therapy, we tend to suck at it, because we suck at being open, honest, and vulnerable, and at expressing emotions in general; so therapy doesn’t tend to work for us, any better than medication does (unlike ADHD or depression, PDs are not caused by any chemical imbalance, but by a person’s fundamental, unshakeable beliefs about themselves). So the prognosis is grim. My efforts at managing symptoms are ongoing; maybe I should make a pilgrimage to Lourdes; do you think God would cure a personality disorder? haha.

Idk. So in any case I finally got to five years, although it took nine years and change.

And it hasn’t been conventional. Tbh I still don’t feel like I relate much to other sober alcoholics. Not that they’re all the same, by any means, I’m definitely not saying that – I spent enough time in AA and in the recovery world to know that everyone’s story really is unique and different – but nonetheless, I feel like a misfit because, even though my life has improved, dreams have come true, and etc., I don’t feel like I’ve actually changed much internally. I’m not a “new person,” unfortunately. And unlike most sober people I’ve met, I actually really miss drinking. I miss it dearly. Which is complete madness, because my life is so much better now. But the thing is, booze was the only thing that ever came close to solving the problem that the Twelve Steps couldn’t: for a few hours at a time, it all but cured the AVPD. Alas, poor me! Cue the world’s smallest violin.

But, God willing, I’ll never go back to it. I love my family and my faith too much. So I keep chugging along, counting the days (1,827) and side-eyeing the wines on sale as I pass by pushing a shopping cart full of clamoring small children. I’m not a great Catholic, or a great wife, or a great mom, or great at much of anything to be honest; but, –

But what? Lol, nvm, I got nothing. I don’t even imagine this will be useful to anyone except me, but, maybe I’ll put it on my blog anyway. But probably not haha.

It’s been almost ten years since that day at Dunkin in January 2015. I haven’t seen or spoken to that former sponsor in a very long time. If she could see me now… I doubt she’d be particularly proud, seeing as how I’m no longer in AA at all — I’m a sobriety heretic! I don’t need to confess to a sponsor anymore, I have Priests for that now! Plus she was a kind of a feminist and I doubt she’d be about that tradcath lifestyle, lol. But, I am still and shall ever remain grateful that she wasted her time on me. And it’s super weird to think that I’m two years older now than she was then.

I don’t guess I have a tidy way to wrap this up haha. But overall, was it a good move to quit?: absolutely, 11/10, do recommend.
on college

April 6th, 2024

Some of you may recall that the last time I kept a blog (version 2.0), I was a cringey college kid who thought I had the answers to everything. Well I’m back now to apologize for being such an insufferable, self-righteous fool, and to write down a few new things–why? What’s the point? Blogging is so silly. Why should I, who am not particularly interesting and have zero skills, have a blog? Well, I guess to “scream into the void” like we all do in some kind of way, right? I guess an inclination to communicate is part of being human, and blogging is easy and free and relatively safe.

Ten years ago this week, so November 21st of 2013, I graduated from college, and now I can happily say that I’m finally doing what I always wanted to do… which has exactly nothing to do with my $80k+ degree lol.

I’m not here to complain about the system. I’m not a victim of anything. I was absolutely, 1000% the idiot for going to pricey arts schools (first a liberal arts, then transferred to the fine arts) without a dollar to my name to pay for it.

They tried to warn me, every time I took out another loan: “you know, you’re gonna have to pay this back later!” And I was all, “Oh, I know right, I’m gonna be so poor lol!” I was an idiot, and I don’t expect anyone to cancel my debt for me. Some people might deserve to have their student debts canceled, but I’m definitely not one of those people.

Because I didn’t even have a plan. “What kind of career are you working towards,” they kept asking. I had no idea. “Something in writing,” was, I think, my canned response. But secretly I knew all along that I didn’t want that (me, a journalist?! Even my journalism professor found that laughable) — that I didn’t need a degree to do the kind of writing I wanted to do and was already doing. I didn’t fit in with all those career-driven kids.

So why did I get the dang degree? Why?! I guess it had been ingrained in me from a young age that college was just what smart people did (and I was told all the time that I was “smart”); it was how smart people “made it” in this world; in truth, it wasn’t really an option; people who didn’t finish college weren’t really worthy of respect. I’m not blaming anyone for conveying this false belief to me. It was just widely accepted to be true in the time and place where I grew up–or at least, that was the impression that I got.

People tried to help me figure things out. I’m only blaming myself. I blame myself for not having the self-knowledge, the self-confidence, or the strength to speak up from within and say, “ya know, I don’t actually want or need to go to college.”

So what did I want? Secretly, all I really wanted was to find love, have babies, and write books. But I was deeply ashamed to admit this, even to myself — all the way up until I was pushing 30! Why? Because, only stupid, un-respectable, unworthy people would rather stay home and pop out kids than get a cool degree and a job! But even in my childhood, when I pictured my ideal future, I saw myself not in a career, but as a writer/artist, wife, and mom. (In fact as early as sixth grade I wanted to have five kids, lol I had names for them and everything. The career I envisioned for myself? “Artist,” lol I had some flowery vision of myself in an in-home art studio, painting at an easel while my children played).

And look at me now! Strapped with massive debt, still unpublished, no in-home art studio to speak of, and not exactly rolling in cash — but here I am! God has given me a husband and three kids, which is more than I realistically thought I’d actually get, considering my disordered personality and the absolute pathetic idiot train wreck of a human that I was throughout my teens and twenties (and still, essentially, am, tbh).

I wonder often if college was really a complete waste of time for me. I know it’s pointless regretting anything in the past. The butterfly effect and all–if even one tiny thing had been different, I might not have the three perfect kids I have today, etc., so I’d better not wish anything undone. Still, I do wish I could have gotten to this point without dinking around so much.

Did I do anything at all worthwhile from fall 2008 to November 2013? Well: I met some amazing people, for sure. I’ve failed to keep in touch with any of them in any meaningful way, probably because of the AvPD that I would only later be diagnosed with. But I still think of those people often, and am grateful that they ever gave me their precious time at all, and I wish them well.

What else did I do in college? I certainly was exposed to some good books, some great authors. I traveled abroad; but that was honestly miserable, because I was miserable, and lo and behold, my misery followed me overseas (the geographic cure doesn’t work, y’all), and so all of my memories of it are just lonely and embarrassing and sad. Anything else? Well, as a Writing major, I did write some things… some of which I guess I’m proud of, others of which I’m still painfully embarrassed about (I lie awake at night and cringe about them to this day!), but, were at least educational/therapeutic for me I guess. And it was as a college student that I converted to Catholicism. Although, that wasn’t taught in class, that was on my own time–and I could have done that anywhere, couldn’t I? Did it really take that glorious Cathedral being just a couple blocks down from my dorm to get my attention?

All in all, there were lots of good opportunities–for connections, for experiences–but I squandered them all! I guess I can’t say I regret anything, because I eventually got my dream life out of it. But I certainly don’t recommend doing what I did.

So when my own three beloved children, God willing, reach college age, what will I say to them? I think about this a lot. Right now, I feel like what I’ll say to them is: what do you want to be? What do you think is your calling? No wrong answers! I am teaching my kids to pray, which is something I didn’t learn to do until adulthood–so, hopefully, if I do it well, they’ll be more mature, more skilled at listening for the honest truth inside of them, than I was. If their goal requires a degree, even a liberal arts degree, then you know what, we’ll make it happen! But if they’re not sure, or they just want to wait and stay home and figure things out, that’s great too. Whatever they choose, I hope that they don’t end up with a million regrets like I have — although I guess it’s actually possible to have a million regrets and still be doing well. The pursuit of happiness is overrated tbh.