Where has she been?

That may be what some of you are asking, gentle readers. Well, since leaving the hospital last month, I've continued to receive ECT treatments while I attempt to "live life". I put that in quotes because I really have no idea what I'm doing.  I've stayed in touch with friends, gone back to my job, am doing a little singing, and am somehow managing to sort of keep my house clean.

ECT is no joke. The anesthesia is hard to take; I'm a zombie after every treatment. The thing that's really bothering me now is that I'm no longer getting a good effect from the treatments anymore. The medication I'm on is doing no good. I'm holding myself together with spit and bailing wire. 

But there is a difference this go-around. I REFUSE to let this lick me. Meds and therapies may not be helping this time, but my attitude remains forward-thinking and positive. I say rosaries to get me through the worst of the crying jags, and I am hell-bent on getting my work done with a smile on my face.

I know I have some decisions to make: should I continue with ECT? Should I be trying another med?another doctor? One thing is for sure: I'm doing this OUTSIDE OF A HOSPITAL. I will not be defeated, I will not let the depression take over.

So again the question is asked: Where has she been? The answer is actually that until the other day, I'd forgotten I even had a blog. Thanks, ECT.

Well now I've remembered, and I hope you'll hear a lot more from me in the coming months!

Rain, rain, go away.....

..... come again another day.....

Here I sit in the middle of the Occupational Therapy room at Emerson Hospital, waiting for 1pm to arrive.  I have been here now for 3 weeks, and it looks like I'll be here for at least 4 before I'm allowed to go home for good.

1pm is when Paulie is coming to pick me up, and I have a pass home for 6 hours.  We are going to Momma and Dad's, where the rest of the Grande clan will be waiting to have a nice visit.

The interesting thing about this stay in the hospital is that I have some memory loss because of all the ECT treatments thus far, so I'm not sure exactly how my life will pick up again when I'm home to stay.  I know that I want to sing a lot more, as well as write, and that my thoughts will take some time to come back together. I have a sneaking suspicion, though, that this will all be for the better once I'm home, especially with the results of the ECT.  I feel like a million bucks the day after each treatment. The day of each treatment I don't, and I know that's because the medication they give me to sleep makes me depressed that day, but once it's out of my system I feel great.

I suppose there isn't much more for me to say.  I'm excited to see my family, and I'm hopeful that the treatments will continue to make me feel well and things will improve more and more.

Little Laura wants to play, Rain rain go away....

Lovely, dark, and deep...

I am keeping my promises.

Last week, an article came out in the Boston Globe about spouses and mental illness.  The picture gracing the beginning of the article may have been familiar to some of you. There we were, Paulie and myself, having a laughing moment in the Dracut Public Library, where I work.

That was one of the only laughing moments there have been of late.

I have been inpatient at Emerson Hospital for the last two weeks, as of today.  I will be here at least 3 more, as I am undergoing Electro-Convulsive Therapy (ECT, or "Shock Therapy" to those in the biz) for the foreseeable future.

I will receive these treatments every other day for the next 3 weeks.  I am wheeled down to a surgical unit, and an IV is started. A blood pressure cuff is placed on my ankle, and leads are glued all over my forehead.  The blood pressure cuff on my ankle is so they can see when the seizure in my body is taking place, the leads are for giving the electroshock current.  I am given a mask of oxygen to wear and breathe in deeply as the surgical staff do a "time out": they repeat my name, date of birth, procedure to be performed, and other relevant information to the procedure.  They lower the head of my bed and tell me the medicine will burn in my arm for an instant before I am asleep.  After I am asleep, they will administer a paralytic, so that when my body seizes, the only thing that moves will be that ankle and foot, below where they had placed the blood pressure cuff at the beginning of things. Once the seizure has taken place, I will "come back" into the room, awakening from anesthesia.  Then I get wheeled back to the unit, and I continue with my day.

There are those who may be horrified by the idea of what I've just explained, but the fascinating part is that this is considered one of the most effective, safe, and "miraculous" treatments for refractory (or "treatment-resistant") depression.

I live most of my days here in a feeling of profound depression.  I sleep too often, eat too little, and just want to go home. The woods of Robert Frost's "Stopping..." are lovely, dark, and deep, just like the sleep that washes over me during ECT treatments.

But I am keeping my promises.

My t-shirt

Another post, this time an assignment from my writing group:

My t-shirt is light, even featherweight.  It defies the laws of gravity.  The most stunning thing about this is its light weight even amongst the solid, even heavy things that comprise it.

The basis of this shirt is nothing more than the light golden threads of love.  They are incandescent, yet wholly grounding and a foundation of all I need.  Those ethereal strands give way to nothing, and are infused with more.  Purple threads are those of my belief in God, and all he has done for me.  I feel his unconditional support through everything in those silky purple strands.  Threads of red are of my fiery passion for life and all it has to offer.  It's time that I wear them to their fullest potential, and allow them to hold me up amongst the gold and purple.  Then comes the color blue, the true blue of my family and friends.  They are threaded closely to the gold everywhere, as their love and support shine forth, practically rivaling all in their path.  

There is a path of brown throughout, the dull brown of bipolar disorder.  The strands are confusing, zigging this way and that, with no direction, almost trying to pull the shirt apart.  And yet, the gold and blue and purple and red all fight and keep that shirt going strong.  It's the one shirt I have for the rest of my life, and it needs to stay together.  The brown cannot tear it, though it may try.  

There are other colors as well; the pink of hard work, the yellow of my nephew's smile, the green of my wonderful husband and his constancy in the face of life and all that those brown strands try to throw at me.  There are even black strands of suicide, but again, the rainbow of all that I have makes sure that they are thin and flimsy, never truly making a strong bind anywhere.  They never connect.

My t-shirt is complete. It knows the joy of success and love, and the hardship of illness and heartbreak.  It is completely me, with all the brilliance and dullness of a life lived.  

This t-shirt is my song of life, and I shall sing it.

Moving Along...

Hello, my faithful readers! Laura here, with another set of musings.  I sit here in air-conditioned comfort, watching an old episode of "Torchwood", and I can't help but wonder what's coming down the line.

I have been working hard on my "program", CBT and DBT skills mixed with a heavy dose of gratitude for all I have.  There are those so less fortunate; when I start to feel down or wondering what this silly life is all about, I force myself to remember all that is done for me on a regular basis.  I work hard to remember my skills and to USE THEM, even when sitting in a corner and just ignoring the world would be easier.  

In the "holy crap what a win" column, I saw a beautiful wedding this weekend.  I packed my carry on and boarded a plane for sunny Los Angeles. My dear friend Carrie married the love of her life, Akshay, in a wondrous Indian ceremony, followed by a kick-ass reception.  I was a little bummed that I couldn't squeeze every last drop of fun out of the evening because of med limitations, but that was a minor point compared to all the beauty and love that surrounded and infused the entire 3 days.  Akshay and Carrie are on the road now, on the road of that fantastic adventure of marriage.  And I got to be there to see it.  It takes the breath away to know that I was there for that awe-inspiring moment.  There's a new married couple in the world, folks, and wait til you get a load of them!

The other big thing that I am so grateful for from this weekend is that I got to spend the entire time with my beloved ASPs.  We are a tightly-knit group of friends from undergrad who still try to stay in touch as much as possible and make all these important life events.  They were there for my wedding, we were all at Snapps' and Lill's weddings, and now Carrie's.  We see each other for Christmas when we can, and have had a few "ASP weekends" just to stay in touch and be near each other. It makes me so happy to know that there are 4 other women out there who have my back through thick and thin.  They are unfailing in their love for me, as I am for them.  Heather was my roommate in college, and she is the friend that I can call and just blab about nothing with, laughing far too loud and being silly together.  The five of us just can't be beat; we are Alpha Sigma Pillow until the end!

I could go on about things in my own life, bellyaching or taking note of what I want to be different, to change about myself.  But for today, I choose to be a part of this great group of women, and enjoy the memories we share.  For today, moving along means remembering and enjoying, no strings attached.

Bucket List

The writing group I belong to was given a free-write prompt to write our own bucket list. I've never been one for those.  Seems to me your dreams and wants should just spill out and around as time goes by, but this was my attempt at one. 

I've never been good at following directions:

"I want to see a sunrise in each and every country, against every backdrop. I want to hear the sound of all the oceans, one by one. The Aegean will be peaceful, the Mediterranean will have a lilt to it. The Pacific will sound like an opera, the Atlantic like a rock concert. Each new body of water will sing to me. I want to see my husband's face light up at my arrival to a room. I want to be a writer, and a teacher, and a singer, and a reiki master, and a sketch artist, and an actor, and an absolute failure at something so that I can say 'But look at all the other things I do.'

And what of the bucket itself? What will I carry all these shiny list-items in? C'mon Laura, everyone knows that the bucket list is a list of all the things you want to do before you kick the bucket. Well I'm taking it a step further. I'm carrying around all the items IN a bucket. My bucket list will be carried, goddammit! It will be purple glass, the shade of purple that makes you smile startledly when the light hits it. And it's glass. Oh yes, it is glass; fragile and precious and to be handled delicately. Even though the shade of purple is practically brute in force, it is still a piece of glass. It is still so easily breakable that a gentle breeze could knock it to one side and destroy it. 

Please be careful with my bucket and its list. For it resides inside me, just under my left rib."

What's Next?

Anyone who watches "West Wing" knows that one.... what's the next thing to be tackled?  Who needs to be taken on?  How do we claim triumph over the next set of obstacles?

These are the questions I ask myself in a hospital room in Concord, MA.  By now, I figure I've lost at least half my reading audience.  I figure this mostly because I write about THE SAME SHIT OVER AND OVER AGAIN.  But I can't help it.  This is the stuff of life that eludes me, and I will continue to write about it until it makes sense. I swear, I'm not trying to bore anyone.  But this is the course of my life.  If you're bored with the monotony of hospitalization after hospitalization, can you imagine how I feel?????

I ask "What's next?" because I (and a team of highly-trained specialists) have come to a conclusion: Laura is very good at being bipolar.  Laura is also very good at singing & acting in high-pressure, high-level musical productions.  What Laura is NOT very good at is doing both at the same time.  Since kicking bipolar disorder to the curb doesn't seem to be in the cards right now, I am taking a hiatus from performance.

The thought of this makes me nauseous. This is not "ok, go do this difficult thing without a net".  This is "you've been doing this difficult thing without a net since you were three years old, now just fucking stop". The idea of it brings on waves of depression, devastation, confusion.  I feel like someone just pulled a rug out from under me and told me there was a floor to walk on, so just go do it.  But the floor is covered in tacks & nails.  How the FUCK am I supposed to walk across this new floor?  I don't need a net, I don't need a map; I need feet of steel.

I know that there's nothing telling me not to sing EVER.  I'm allowed.  My throat works.  I remember the notes and words and rhythms.  I just can't do it in front of anybody for the foreseeable future.

AND I AM PISSED.

I have some thoughts.  I won't stay away from music.  I'll continue to take voice lessons.  I'll continue to work on my piano playing (when the titanium screws in my right hand don't give me too much trouble), and I am hell-bent on learning to play the guitar.

But this feeling of not singing feels like someone is trying to pull my heart out of my chest... through my right eye socket.  It's a ripping and tearing that I can't even get my brain to comprehend.  I need some steel plates in my head and heart to go with those feet.  I need to walk across that floor.  How the hell am I going to get across that floor?

What's next?

A Reflection

But that's what these all are, aren't they? Reflections of a mind that is usually aware of itself, and sometimes on another planet.  Today, I'm somewhere between the two... and here's why....

Today is my 35th birthday. A birthday is always a time of reflection.  What has happened in the last year?  What has happened since I got to this planet?  Am I leaving it in a better place than when I showed up?

I'm not sure.

Everyone who reads this knows the struggles and battles I fight.  I am a woman with Bipolar Disorder.  I am a talented singer, writer, and hopefully a loving person of my friends, family, and fellow man.  But I am also a person who sometimes finds it easier to cut her own flesh than make it through the next five minutes.  

It's been 10 days since that happened. 

I'm proud of myself for that. I also dread the next time. Because I'm not foolish enough to think that it'll never happen again. I can only pray that I'll stave off the feelings for a long while. That I'll keep doing my nails and wearing bracelets and dreaming of the "scar tattoos" that I will never get. 

I am starting another round of partial hospitalization. I am hopeful, as always, that I'll fill my arsenal with more tools and weapons against the worst parts of the disease. 

I am starting to lose hope that the naturopathic care I'm receiving will do anything good for me. I ended up in the ER last week with a whopping part of gastritis. After they gave me morphine and at least 4 different stomach medications, they told me I might have the beginnings of an ulcer. I was instructed to discontinue my supplements by my naturopath. Now I feel better. Many thousands of dollars and supplements and ten months later, I find it hard not to throw inanimate objects randomly. I'm so angry. I feel a fool once again. Just like after the failed TMS and the failed ECT and the myriad of failed medications. 

I saw a new medication doctor last week. He was brutally honest, and I could have kissed him for it. He said "Laura, after reading your chart, I thought a mess would walk into my office. You're not a mess. You're a high-functioning person with a chronic illness, doing the best she can. I don't have a magic pill, or even a lot of ideas for you yet, but if you continue to be open-minded and use your tools, including the hospital, you will live well with this disease." 

It's all I can ask for. It's all any of us can ask for. To go forward and live to the best of our ability, whatever that is. 

So am I leaving this world better off than when I was brought into it? Am I doing my best? I hope so. I hope for better futures. I hope for things like peace and harmony in the world. I hope that the Red Sox will stop sucking. I hope that we will find a way to stop hurting each other and ourselves. 

I hope. 

Vignettes Part II

Another excerpt from from hospital travels. Names and such have been changed. 

Gerald

Gerald laughed again, his perfect brown skin sliding easily over chiseled cheekbones. His laugh and winning Hollywood smile were infectious, and all packaged in a dapper frame. His entire demeanor spoke of a cool fall day in 1952, a radio softly playing jazz with a fedora lying on a nearby chair. 

Gerald's personality literally filled a room. The room just happened to be in my mind. 

I found myself seeking Gerald out. Maybe his mania was exciting, a perfect dance partner to my sluggish depression. The fluidity of speech that only made sense to him was like a Miles Davis riff. I wanted to lean back against my chair and let it wash back and forth, a breeze blowing through the window on that afternoon in '52.

I think Gerald is good for me. I think Gerald is my escape. 

The Snake

When I was 4 years old, I went to pre-school at the YMCA in town. I wore paisley dresses and cried when Momma and Dad came to take me home. I wanted to stay there with the books and toys and children all day. 

I don't remember a whole lot about pre-school. I remember that we went for walks sometimes. We'd get in a big line and a jump rope would be strung among us with rings attached. Each one of us would grab a ring and hold on. Off we'd go, parading down the street attached to a plastic ring that was attached to a jump rope, connecting the lot of us like a short, stout, brightly-colored snake. 

We were a snake of criers and complainers and stumblers and runners and a few laughing teachers. We were a snake of lives just beginning. We were a snake who will forever shed its skin, with new teachers laughing, and new children holding on. 

I eventually let go, and some new pre-schooler took my place, and on, and on...

I am attached to a new jump rope now. The plastic ring I hold onto is the promise of help from a hospital. My fellow walkers stumble and cry and laugh and complain. We pray that the walk ends successfully, and that we can pass the rings of a jump rope onto a new class of those who seek help. 

We are a snake that is just as stout and short and brightly-colored. We have the potential of a group of pre-schoolers, off to make our lives anew. 

Silent Screams

I've been thinking a lot about the recent shootings in our country. When things like this happen, the conversation almost always stumbles right into the gun control issue. Who should have them? Who shouldn't? Should we ban them? Should there be stricter laws? Should the second amendment be obliterated?

I find myself shaking my head and pointing, usually while silently screaming,  to the mental health issue in our country. People with mental illness are all silently, or not-so-silently, screaming for help. For understanding. For acknowledgement and treatment. 

If you walk into an ER with your leg hanging off, they put it back on. If you are diagnosed with a horrific growth somewhere in your body, you get chemo and radiation and other treatments to try and shrink or eliminate it. If you walk into an ER saying you are depressed, anxious, or suicidal, you wait. 

You wait hours to see a nurse. You wait a few more to see a medical doctor who listens to your heart and lungs, then walks away without a word. Then you wait a few more hours for a social worker to give you the third degree about "just how bad things are". You wait another few hours for them to call around and find a mental hospital that has space for you. Oh, and if you're not "bad enough", they send you home again. 

Now if you don't think you need hospital care, there are outpatient options. You can go to a day program where 3 social workers are trying to teach workshops and care for 30 patients, all while fighting with insurance companies for more time, fielding med questions they can't answer because the one prescriber that treats the entire program's worth of patients is at another facility 2 days a week; that facility doesn't have anyone, and it's the best we can do. 

You can go to a therapist, and you can go to a prescriber. Just remember that if a crisis arises or another clinician is sick, you'll get cancelled on or ignored if "you're not feeling too horrible" that day. 

I decided to really take the bull by the horns. My body doesn't respond at all to medication; they call it "paradoxical" or "treatment-resistant" mental illness. So off I trotted to a naturopathic nurse practioner. Don't worry, she's just as confounded as everyone else. This is my supplement regiment from 2 months ago:

This is last month's:

This is what I need to try this month:

And I'm lucky. I have Medicare because I'm on Disability, and they don't cover naturopathic care. So I have to self-pay. I'm lucky because I have a husband who says "Damn the cost; we have to get you better." I stopped counting the expense at $5000 out of pocket in the last 6 months. 

This is what my arm looks like today: 

I am one of "the lucky ones". I have people to help me, people who love me, and I have never been homicidal. 

If I am one of the lucky ones in the psych system, how dare we be surprised at what happens when people aren't getting   treatment?

Best Days

On my best days, I walk to work.  

My walking commute to the Parker Memorial Library is ridiculously short; driving, it's obscenely brief. I usually drive because I go to Dunkin Donuts first.  Anything worth doing well is worth doing with an iced coffee in one hand.  I take the mile and a half ride down to my favorite drive-thru, order a large iced black with extra sugar, and easily fly back down the street to the library. As I drive back, I feel a momentary sense of pride in ordering a coffee with no dairy, and then an equally-timed sense of guilt for ordering it with extra sugar.  I always forget my Stevia at home. 

Anyway, there are days when I walk to work.  In those brief minutes, I breathe in the air as deeply as I can.  I notice things like the brands of cigarette butts I pass in my travels, or the way a soda can has been maimed and tossed to the side of the road. I hear the cars passing by on Route 38; motorcycles make the most interesting and annoying sounds.  Sometimes I imagine a helmeted head turns and watches me ambling past the hair salon and dance studio with a TARDIS messenger bag slung over my shoulder and a travel mug of iced coffee in each hand. (The days when I walk are the days when I made my caffeine fix at the house...and those mugs are small, so stop judging the number!)

The other day I was walking to work, making my usual observations. I suddenly realized that I was ignoring the bigger problem.  It's a problem that follows me around, just like my friend Bipolar.  It's like Bipolar has this annoying kid brother who always tags along, and his name is Self-Harm.

Self-harm is exactly what it says on the tin: hurting oneself.  It comes in forms as diverse as the people who engage in it.  Some people burn themselves, some people cut themselves, some people hit themselves with objects, some people scratch themselves to the point where the skin begins to redden and even open. Some people pull out their hair, some people bite or pick at their finger and toenails until there's nothing left but the bleeding.  People generally engage in this behavior because they are so upset, frustrated, depressed, or anxious, they cannot think of another way to fight the growing explosion inside.  There are all kinds of different names for people's various preferences.  I'm a cutter.  Cutting my skin (usually on my arms) is horrible and wonderful.  I do not know how to describe the feelings that come before, during, and after this action is taken. 

Walking to work the other day is what made me realize that I can't describe the feelings, and that I'm focusing on anything BUT those feelings because they scare me.  

That's it.

That's the punchline.

My own feelings around self-harm are so conflicting and confusing that I don't know what to do about them.  I just keep going to my therapist and talking about it.  That's all I can do.  That's all ANYONE can do.

On my best days, I walk to work. Perhaps enough trips past the hair salon and dance studio with a TARDIS messenger bag slung over my shoulder will begin to provide answers.  Maybe I'll stop ignoring the feelings and explore them instead.  

Perhaps all of my days ahead are my best days.

On my best days, I walk to work.  

My frustration is at a limit. I can't say it's at THE limit, since there's no knowing when it may get even worse. I am trying to be pro-active. 

I have deleted Facebook on all my devices. I'm looking for yoga classes in town. I've gotten a tai-chi DVD through the library. I'm considering taking a few days off from life up here, and heading down to the Cape for my own writer's retreat. Perhaps putting my thoughts down on paper, or a screen, will take me down a few notches.  

I am so fed up. I'm fed up with feeling like a burden. I'm sick of biting my lip instead of telling people "I'm not ok!!!!!!!!!!" because WHO WANTS TO HEAR THAT AGAIN?!?!?! I'm tired of disappointing my husband, my family, my friends. I'm so sick of this horrifying illness and the way it's fucked my head into a stupor. I'm fed up with paying tons of money and time toward medications and treatments and health plans, only to confound another set of experts.  This is becoming my life's work. 

I never wanted my life to be like this. 

I know that this is some form of mania coming upon me, because I don't want to kill myself. I just want to go away.  I want to exist in a new place with new people and new experiences. Of course, what I'm running from will never leave, and that is the illness. My naturopath says to me "Stop thinking of this as a mental illness, and just remember that it's a sodium/potassium ratio upset." I appreciate her wanting me to feel less like a mental patient, but when the symptoms of WHATEVER is going on in my body make me feel like some sort of superhero or burden or recluse or unwatedwhatthehellisallofthisinmyheadandwhywontitstop person, or all of those things at once, then guess what? I'm a mental patient. 

I love writing that I'm not JUST a mental patient; some days I even believe it. I'm a wife and a daughter and a sister and a librarian and a singer and a Whovian and a Trekkie and a whole bunch of other things. But you know what really burns my ass? I'm a mediocre one of all of these things. I'm not actually good at anything. When my mother teases me, she says "You EXCEL at crazy." Unfortunately, that's not even true. I'm this planning ahead, ok here we go, watch out for this, be careful of that, maybe something's happening right now type of crazy. I can't even jump head-on into the bloody illness. 

My therapist laughed at me today: "Wow, Laura, you can't even enjoy mania." And she's right. I'm so concerned with "what happens next" and being proactive and being a good girl and doing what I'm told that I don't even enjoy the madness. I just fear it. 

That's what it's come down to. I fear my life. I fear tomorrow. I fear right now. I fear next week and next year and next month. 

I simply fear. 

And the fear is maddening in and of itself. Because admitting my fear to myself and others, makes me even more of a pitiable sight. Now Dad will say "here comes the victim" and Momma will remind me to enjoy things, and Gina will try to calculate how best to approach me, and Chris will joke and try to make me laugh, and Meg will remind me to still smile through it, and Kate will text to check in daily and Paulie..... oh Paulie. Paulie will stand and be strong and try to counsel and kiss me once and a while and try not to sink under the great bloody abyss of Laura. He will be the hero of the piece. 

And I will hate myself for it. 

May Is Mental Health Awareness Month

"I feel like I can fly.  I feel like I could write until the end of time.  I feel like I am worth nothing.  I feel like cutting my skin is the only way to stay in the moment.  I feel like I am the best, worst, and only person on the face of the earth.  I feel like I do too much.  I feel like I will never do enough.  I feel like I am a role model to all those who seek the truth.  I feel like if you listen to me, you will only hear lies.  Don't listen.  Don't look at me.  Don't pay me any mind.  Please see the hurt.  Please see how I am lying.  Please see what I cannot tell you...ever.........."

The preceding is what goes through my mind in about 15 seconds on any given day.  This is the thought process of one person with Bipolar Disorder.  It usually happens about 100 times a day, a few times every hour.

Now add guilt.  Now add anxiety, nausea, sweating, shaking.  Now add the voices of 10 other people, all shouting at the same time. Now add visual hallucinations.  Now add screaming parents, spouses, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, enemies.

Now try to work a job "just like everyone else".  Now try to clean your house, cook your meals, do your laundry, tend to your children, socialize with your friends. Now try to accomplish your dreams.

Seems a little difficult, doesn't it?

The next time someone says they're anxious about something, or they don't know if they can make it out to meet you for dinner, or they just don't know how they're going to get through the day, don't get angry or annoyed.  Don't sigh and think about what a drama queen they are.  Don't try to tell them that "it's all in their head", because IT IS ALL IN THEIR HEAD AT THE SAME TIME.....and it's not going anywhere. Just read this post.  Read it again and again until you start to see what it might be like for them.

And just love them. The only thing people with an illness want is a little love and support.  Just give them that much....and know you make all the difference.

Unfit for human consumption

I don't like opening lines. They carry WAY too much expectation, a sickening amount of potential, and in my case they are usually contrived. I would prefer to start in the middle. By then, we've all settled in, and we're just enjoying ourselves...

Tonight, the very fact that this blog exists pisses me off. It feels like an endless diatribe of "Am I good enough?" Ugh. What a pain in the ass. 

Why did I think that being a whiny bitch would be cleansing? Why would spilling my metaphorical beans ever make me feel better? It pisses some relatives off, embarrasses others past the point of recognition. Oh yeah, there are those who would rather smash the punch bowl in the middle of Nana's table and floss their teeth with the remnants than talk to me. I'm that annoying brat who TALKS ABOUT THINGS.  

ANYway, the fact that I am an entitled and self-righteous bitch was recently brought to my attention via the interwebs by a real special person, if you interpret the word "special" to mean total effing piece of shit. But, when some pieces of shit have lots of money and prestige, you start to believe them. Isn't that sad? Pathetic, actually. 

Well, here's some knowledge I would like to throw the interweb's way: I eat Moose Tracks ice cream on a regular basis. I read Game of Thrones fanfiction online when there are perfectly good books on my end table. I listen to the "Twilight" soundtrack on repeat. I love people of all kinds, and I'm getting pretty fucking sick of folks telling me who I should and should not hang around. I've been honest and it's blown up in my face time and time again. I am good to people. I am brutally giving and honest. I will lie down in traffic for you if that's what you need.  Don't call me two-faced because you're not "the only one".

I can't have children, ever. I cry about it sometimes, and mothers tell me "Oh but if it's meant to be, it's meant to be." Say that again, bitch. Say it again and listen to how ridiculous you sound. 

I like to read fiction that comforts me; Edwardian romance usually does the trick. It's not what a "feminist" should read, but a good ol happy ending in long pretty dresses makes me happy for a little while, and sometimes soothes my brain for a bit when I get my period AGAIN, and three more friends announce their pregnancies on Facebook.  

The conclusion that I have ultimately come to is that I'm NOT necessarily interesting, I'm probably self-righteous, and I am using this base and BORING means of communication because I'm just entitled.

I'll let you know when I'm ready to stop.....'cause that time sure as hell ain't come yet.

Birds flyin' high, you know how I feel....

Sun up in the sky, you know how I feel...

Two Thursday afternoons ago, I was given the go-ahead to pack my bags and go home from the psych unit. One quick clip of the scissors, one donning of a winter jacket, and one elevator ride equalled no difference between me and Joe Schmoe walking past the gift shop at Emerson Hospital. 

Each time I walk out the front door of a hospital after a psych stay, there are different emotions attached. Sometimes, I want to turn around and bang down the door, begging them to let me back in. Other times I practically run out screaming, giving them the finger. Sometimes I saunter out, cocky and ready. Often I bite my lip, trying to remember how to walk, talk, and function without a psych counselor watching my every move. Each time I swallow hard and beg that God will let it be the last one, that I won't need the hospital anymore. That I will have licked this bloody illness once and for all. 

This time is a whole lot different. When I started to come down from my manic highs and finally stopped climbing the walls, I thought about God more and more. I thought about the Lenten season, and how this is a time of prayer, fasting, and giving. Often, as Catholics, we have this idea that we should NOT be thinking of ourselves, in fact anyone else BUT. I want this time to be different. 

I am realizing that feeling like myself is ok. I am realizing that the prayer, fasting, and giving can be for myself and others. I am realizing (finally?) that God means me too! when He speaks of His children. I'm included in that number. He didn't say "everyone except that loon over there in the corner". He said ALL. I am encouraged by this ever-expanding feeling in my gut that even though I won't be well all the time, I'm allowed to enjoy it when I am. I'm allowed to pray for myself as well as the world, I can fast from being needy and afraid of myself, and I can give to myself when I give to others, whether I'm giving money or time or just a simple smile. Look out Clairol, 'cause I'm worth it too!!! 

There is a fabulous staff at Emerson Hospital's psych unit, but one gentleman stands out in my mind. We were having a "check-in" conversation (one per shift required), and I mentioned my desire to stop coming to the hospital, that I wanted to be able to handle my illness without it. He said "Laura, I think that's the wrong approach. You are battling a chronic illness, and sometimes that requires hospital care. It is never a defeat to come here. I like to think of this place as just one more stop on the journey. Everyone has to pay attention to their own needs in order to be any good to the Universe at large. Keep paying attention, come here when you need to, and know you are doing the world a favor when you do." I was blown away by his words. Never in my life did I see this as a necessity; it was always just my human failing to have to admit defeat and let doctors & nurses sort me back out. But what if, just like praying, fasting, and giving to myself and others, hospitalization was part of that journey?

What if Lent can be more than just a season for me, but a way of living always? What if I could pray, fast, and give my way to a sense of freedom?

It's a new dawn, it's a new day, it's a new life for me.....

And I'm feeling good.

Cruising at an altitude of 30,000 feet..

A new journal was procured from the bowels of the resource room on North 5. God Bless Emerson Hospital.

This week abounded with thrills and spills, making even the most valiant hearts sputter.  But amongst the voices whispering, and the pictures of blood and gore spilling from my brain, there was a golden light called mania. I have psychotic symptoms, but I'm really happy about them!  Put that in your pipe and smoke it, psych issues!

I sit gracefully poised in a Monty Python t-shirt and yoga pants, a BIC pen and a Styrofoam cup of decaf coffee to light my way.  I feel that I can climb mountains, conquer nations, and create world peace.  Of course, the working part of my psyche reminds me that the mountains are a load of laundry to be done, the nations are showers without interruption, and world peace is a meal without an altercation breaking out between an alcoholic with trust issues and a bipolar girl who can't stop talking. 

And so we keep traveling our roads, running parallel at close proximity.  Each carries a pike to keep the monsters at bay, riding a blind horse.  We each pray that this steed has been here before, and already knows their way.  For we know those "woods are lovely, dark and deep", and we are trying so hard to remember our promises.

Damaged Goods

I'm not sure if it's poignant or just incredibly cliche that TV and film lead me to some of my "aha" moments. I have always had an incredible ability to tune everything else in my life out while I watch a favorite show or movie. God help the man or woman who tries to carry a conversation with me while I watch Star Trek, Doctor Who, or "Laura"; that film is like my own private symphony. Every line and look is inspired. 

But ANYway, last night I was taking up too much of the couch during "Downton Abbey", when the Bates family finally got on the same page surrounding a traumatic event. While Anna insisted she was "spoiled", and John reassured her she was not, telling her instead that she was all the more important for what she had been through, I cried a lot, and started to ponder the idea of being "damaged goods" or "spoiled". What does that mean for survivors of trauma, especially something as potentially physically invasive as rape?

We often feel spoiled, I believe, when we fail at something, or cannot achieve what it is we were hoping for. Sometimes we fall somewhere in the middle, like a high jumper who hits the bar rather than sailing over.

My rape happened 14 years ago, but for some reason my body and brain were not ready to handle even thinking about it until now. And so what happens? Far after the event, I have nightmares and flashbacks. My mind races and I find myself asking now "Am I damaged goods? Have I been spoiled?" Media surrounding this subject was something I ignored, thinking "Those poor survivors and families; what must they go through?" This is an inevitable "side effect" of repression. Now that I'm owning things, this same media cuts me to the quick, makes me uncomfortable and angry. My friend Bipolar Disorder seems to have come for another interminable visit, and the anger and fear of my rape comes with it. 

Every morning I wake and I weep. I shower, take my meds, eat, and go about my day, but there it all is, between the crying and the cataloging and the singing. You were damaged, you were attacked, you were made different. 

There are some who say they would never choose to forget what happened to them, that it has made them stronger and more aware. I, on the other hand, would take a lobotomy in a heartbeat. If the TARDIS showed on my doorstep right now and the Doctor offered to erase that night from my mind, I would gleefully ask for the sonic screwdriver to be pointed right at my brain. But that isn't going to happen. And so we move along. 

As I lay in bed that night after that episode of "Downton Abbey", I asked my husband, "Am I damaged in your eyes?" He paused and replied, "It never even entered my mind. Not for a second." 

And so I attempt to move along.