Aftershock: A Postlude, Part I (Can you have more than one part in a postlude? I can!)

So the trauma is ended, the Anarchist is born and released from the caring arms of the NICU and all is back to usual in Mortlandia (which sounds cooler than "Morton Land," I've decided).

Well, not exactly usual.  It turns out that even traumatic experiences that end well have lasting effects...on every member of the household...for a long time...like, maybe, forever.

The Bureaucrat:

After meeting this little miraculous bundle of
anarchy, nothing else mattered as much to the
Bureaucrat.  Aww...he was just a baby, here!
(As was she)

The Bureaucrat had the unpleasant position of attempting to continue life-as-usual at work during the whole prematurity crisis, all the while juggling a hospitalized wife (and then, baby) and a displaced toddler.  Not so fun.  But he handled it beautifully.  I'm sure he dealt with a lot on a deep, psychological level, but as the Bureaucrat is a cool customer with little show of emotion, I'm not going to venture a guess at all the emotional turmoil raging deep below the surface.  I'll just tell you what I noticed.

To be blunt, the Bureaucrat became somewhat less worried about money.  This is a big deal.  The Bureaucrat has always been obsessively worried about money.  Most likely this is because we are dirt poor and he is very responsible (I never worry because I operate under the misapprehension that money grows on trees).  But the poor Bureaucrat used to worry to excess.  Now he just seems to worry an appropriate amount.  Maybe things have been put into perspective?   (Alternatively, this is entirely unrelated and he just gave up caring because we're so poor it's absolutely futile to even attempt to do anything about it.  Maybe he's already resigned himself to our living in our parents' basements...)


The Fat Assassin:

At first, the effects on the Fat Assassin went unnoticed.  This is probably because she has always been extra-neurotic, even for a cat.  But we soon discovered that the Fat Assassin had developed trust issues.  For about three years after the birth of the Anarchist, the Fat Assassin became decidedly uncuddly.  Not that anyone ever dared cuddle her in the first place (she's a biter), but she had--in her earlier days with us--often climbed on our laps, chests, beds, laptop keyboards, important documents in order to cuddle us.  During the whole Anarchist fiasco, she was often left alone until very late at night when the Bureaucrat would stumble into the house and she would get to curl up next to him for a few hours and assure herself that people still existed.  Then the Anarchist came home, surrounded by plastic tubing essential to her very life and breath, and the Fat Assassin (who had a propensity to gnaw on said plastic tubing) was kicked out of any interesting area of the house.

The Fat Assassin keeps her distance.  Humans will just
break your heart, anyway.  (One of these days we're going to
discover her journal of angsty cat poetry from this period).

Cue trust issues:  humans aren't to be counted on to be present; when humans are present they bring with them tasty tubing and then deny tasty tubing to sweet kitties; sweet kitties are apparently no longer welcome in the vicinity of nice-smelling babies or tasty tubing; no one loves sweet kitties; sweet kitties might as well turn aloof/vicious/or throw sweet kitteny selves off of cliffs; sweet kitties aren't feeling particularly suicidal and (sigh) no one would even notice sweet kitteny absence anyway; sweet kitty chooses aloof/vicious, but remains very much alive.

Thus, a three year period of uncuddliness ensued.  Just recently, we have been accosted by excessive displays of affection from the Fat Assassin.  It appears she's getting her snuggle back.  It takes a while to process trauma, and even cats aren't immune.  Luckily, even felines can overcome.

The Dictator

Many people speculate that the reason our Dictator is, much like our pet, so neurotic, is that she was semi-separated from both her parents for a period of time at a very young age (whereas it is theorized that the Fat Assassin's initial neuroses stem from her lack of lady parts).  While I don't disagree that witnessing your mother wailing, "Please, God, no!  Don't take my baby!" in the middle of the night and then vanishing into the mist for three months might potentially trigger some sort of deep emotional scarring, I also wish to point out that there was never a point at which the Dictator wasn't neurotic.  Recall, she came out of the womb skittish and suspicious.  She trusted no one.  She still doesn't.  This is not because of some sort of traumatic separation, but because she's utterly convinced that she is the only competent creature in the universe and that everyone else is going--to sound utterly British--to muck everything up.  She doesn't trust me to make her sandwich correctly, for heaven's sake!  What all this preemie business did do was create a completely justifiable situation in which not to trust.  Now we can point to those traumatic three months and say, "she's been through a lot," whenever teachers/friends/neighbors/perfect strangers raise their eyebrows at her dictatorial behavior.  Little do they know!

The Dictator returns to her room (or, kingdom) after a three
month sojourn to the place of the grandparents.  She now
attempts to reestablish authority over her plush subjects.

 *****

Now, these souls have been through quite a bit.  I won't deny them that.  But let's be honest.  I am a whole lot more screwed up than any of them.  Mind you, this is not because I somehow have suffered more (there are many perfectly sane people who have been through far worse trauma than I), but because I have frail nerves...like a mother from a Jane Austen novel.  The Anarchist, too, has experienced several lasting effects of all this because she is the actual preemie in the situation.  She is completely justified in having been impacted to such a degree...me, not so much.  But what can you do?

I will delve further into the psychological depths of the Anarchist and myself (lucky you) next time.  Until then, should you encounter an obese and overly-affectionate cat with a tendency to bite, or a kindergartener who insists upon overseeing your every move as you make her lunch/shop for your own clothing/get her sister dressed, cut them some slack.  They've been through a lot.