Dysregulated

On what the kitchen is like when the cook is a mess

This is my kitchen on stress. This is also how the inside of my brain looks.

You know what is a privilege? Recognizing that you’re dysregulated.

This weekend I was a mess.

I worked on the second pass edits on the book, David was out of town, the kids needed my attention, friends pitched in and invited Desi to their pool (bless them), I worked my way through the end of the book, second guessing, obsessing. My chest….oof, my chest was leaden, caved in. I picked up teens from jobs and left small children alone at home on iPads and hoped they didn’t kill each other or invite strangers in, while I picked up groceries, and did errands.

I thought about the dinner on the stove, the pork belly chunks that I doused in oil and sugar and browned and then threw the chunks into my donabe with water, chicken bones, duck feet, light and dark soy sauces, Shaoxing wine, garlic, scallions and star anise. I let it all simmer, and made quick pickles (salt and sugar over cuke slices and into the fridge) and steamed some lotus buns. Nice.

But Desi wouldn’t eat that. She is not picky. No, she is autistic and she demands and refuses food based on desires I am only starting to understand. She gets obsessed with foods and eats them over and over, sausage patties, pancakes, corn dogs. Lately it has been Mall Chicken, so I make it frequently and have the making of it memorized. It is thoroughly un-enjoyable, maybe even agonizing if I’m in that mood, for me to make the same food over and over. I get bored and restless. It becomes repetitive factory labor, conveyor belt stuff. I suspect I will be making Mall Chicken at least once a day for at least a few months.

Mall chicken is what David Chang calls orange chicken, or certain candy-like sweet and sour chicken that proliferates in food courts, so I made that, even though I wanted to go to bed, not to sleep but to repair, to nurse the cave of my chest. I couldn’t wait to get the dinners done, make everyone okay so I could run away and make myself okay. And go to my bed and lie there and watch old seasons of Top Chef, while I murdered my fears and anxieties and pressed send and got the documents to the publisher.

Also this was my last chance to make book decisions. Jesus, was everything right? The way I wanted it? What if I left mistakes? What if this wasn’t how I really want it? What if there were huge issues it’s (I’m) not good enough? What is my book sucks and its all too late to do anything about it??????? What if I didn’t say what I came to say in the pages?

Cue my brain spinning in circles while on fire.

I made the multiple dinners, and kissed the heads of my children, and loaded the flatware and dishes into dishwasher. Scrubbed the pots and hung them. I watched the teens leave the kitchen with pork belly buns loaded up on plates, squirted with hot sauce. I saw the chance and made it to the bed. While the house was quiet, I completed the things I wanted to complete. The dishes were cleaned by machine. My chest was still lead. But sleep was there, soon it would take me. I took an edible, maybe two, yes two. They kicked in and I was gone.

Monday morning: My chest righted itself across the night. My head was in the sun on the patio. This is a great season for Vegas, the air is cool while the sun is hot. There were words coming out of the keyboard, a bagel with too much salty butter and 16oz can of cold, nearly frozen Diet Coke, as it should be, a turkey huffing at my feet, chickens pecking dirt. Book changes gone, out of my hands. Whatever happens happens. My son popped his head out the patio door and told me I should “be more like dad.”

Will work on being more like dad, son. This is code for: Raffi misses David.

New day. New way, I said to myself. And meant it.

Monday Afternoon: I wrote a version of this on Instagram (@kiminthewest) and posted. Michelle @metschannen said this in comments: “I have been chewing on this all day. It’s so poignant. Another privilege is the ability to be dysregulated and not have it negatively impact your life. So, so many people can be dysregulated and suffer immense consequences because of it. This is a crack in our society and it makes me heart heavy. It also leaves me wondering how I can better support my community members who are dysregulated.”

Michelle’s words felt like such an important extension of my original thought, especially considering the recent murder of Jordan Neely in a NYC subway. Killed for his dysregulation. For our misunderstandings about his dysregulation. Not only is it a privilege to not have a severe mental illness, it is a privilege to recognize your own overwhelm, to see it, wrangle it into submission, keep it close so it doesn’t fly out and rap someone else in the face, to let it rest, take it to bed, get support and ask for help and receive it, but also to not experience violence, isolation, judgment, aggression, and disdain for being your unwell self.

It took my breath away to think about that. Thank you, Michelle.

________________________

Tuesday Morning: I’m writing an essay about Jordan Neely. I’m deep into it. It is an issue that revolves like a planet around food and housing and mental illness and being inconvenient, and how being inconvenient can quickly become threatening and “dangerous”. But my take may not be exactly what you think I would write. Not like other takes I’ve read. My view is complicated, not black or white, no villains and no saints, and is informed by raising neurodivergent and mentally ill children and what I learned running a food pantry during the pandemic that served some vulnerable folks. But the essay needs to cook a bit. So, next week.

It’s Tuesday and I’m back to my regulated self. At least for right now. Hope you well too.

Thank you, as always, for reading. xo Kim