"And now, the end is near...

And so I face the final curtain"

My Pa Rocky was a huge Sinatra fan.  He was such a big fan that we played "My Way" at his graveside on the day of his funeral. That song wasn't just one of his favorites; it was a mantra by which he lived his life.

Pa's life was not an easy one.  He came from a small town in Calabria, Italy. When he was 12, he and his father came to the United States, to work and raise enough money to bring his mother and two brothers over.  They lived in an apartment building in Boston, working hard, eventually bringing the rest of the family to America.  When Pa was 15, his father died.  Now he was the head of the family, supporting his mother and two young brothers.  School had been out of the question for a long time; now his life was about family and work.  Childhood was out of the question as well.

The years that followed were not easy either.  There was joy in his marriage and birth of his three children, but heartache in his divorce and strained family relationships.  He continued on his own path, not worrying about consequences, but being true to himself.  Even if no one liked his answers, they were his own truth, and he would not give up.

I find myself thinking about Pa a lot these days, these days that are shaky at best.  He did his utmost to make his own decisions on his own journey.  He was strong and stubborn (some would say to a fault).

I am making my own decisions now.  I have thought about giving up music.  Last night, I was scheduled to sing the Verdi "Requiem" at Tanglewood.  About an hour before the performance, I began to sob uncontrollably.  A dear friend and my manager both rubbed my back and comforted me and told me not to worry about singing, just to take care of myself.  My husband and mother said "Put tonight behind you.  It's one Verdi performance." But how many nights like these must I put behind me?  How many times can I start to lose my mind and let everyone pick me up off the ground, sobbing and wondering why I can't just get swallowed up by it?  How many people must I disappoint?  How many times will I prepare for a concert and then go through such a roller coaster in my brain that I question my own perception of reality?  In the span of one hour, I went from urges to cut myself, to determination to do the concert anyway (sobbing during silence be damned), to a simple and utter despair.  I don't know if I'm manic, hypomanic, anxious, depressed or psychotic.  I keep taking the pills, and taking the pills, and coping and coping and coping.

I want to try to slow the creeping unrest in my heart.  I can't stand to be around more than two or three people at a time.  Going out in public makes me fearful.  I worry that people I don't know will be angry, talk out of turn, or won't be quiet in a movie theater or at Mass.  These things make me feel actual fear!

And so I feel an end is near, and I face a final curtain of sorts. Is this the end of a music career? As I rehearsed the "Requiem" this week, I could not help but weep while I sang.  I am mourning the career that might have been.

I have had regrets, but I will have to do this my way.

Life on the Inside: or, How to Take a Shower in Fifteen Minutes or Less

When one is on a psych ward, there are at least 2 constants: crazy people, and "checks".  Checks are the constant "checking on" every patient throughout their day.  One staff member per hour walks about with a clipboard, making sure that everyone is safe and accounted for EVERY 15 MINUTES.  They bang on every closed door, including the bathrooms.  A running joke amongst "serial patients" is that if you get REALLY good, you can get into a bathroom, shower, change, and leave before someone comes banging down the bathroom door, insisting that you scream out your first name, last initial over the sound of running water whilst you scrub your hair.  It's like a guillotine that comes out of nowhere, blasting your last dignity; a hot shower where, for a short time, you can forget that you are so crazy you live in a locked space.

Life on an inpatient unit is a real lesson in diversity and similarity.  It's a study in opposites, and how they co-exist.  In this particular case, everyone is here because "coping on the outside" has become impossible.  We are a danger to ourselves and others.  How we handle this ranges from sleeping 20 hour a day to running around the halls in socks at all hours of the day and night, making signs for "those that are not aware of how things work" and refusing all medications.

We squeeze stress balls and wrap ourselves in hospital blankets.  We talk to each other about the "good old days", when we used, drank, cut ourselves.  We compare scars and "The Lists"; lists of the hospitals we've been to, lists of the restraints we've been subjected to, lists of the drugs the docs have "tried out" on us.  We eat far too much, sharing candy and treats visitors have brought us.  We are from the city, country, suburbs.  We live in mansions, ranches, split levels, apartments, group homes, and cars; mental illness is the Almighty Equalizer.

I have watched as a young man cried into the shoulder of an elderly woman, finally accepting his addiction.  I have been the recipient of a piece of candy and a smile from a Hells Angel who loved classical music as much as I did.  We are a beautiful and highly dysfunctional family.  We scream and yell and laugh and cry and try to be "normal".

Today I am reeling; mania has taken over my life in a very real way.  I am inpatient now, trying to mix meds and coping skills into a kind of "cocktail" that might work. 

Mania has made me angry, violent, and frustrated.  My mood is labile (Holy understatement, Batman!) and I find myself getting into arguments with friends and family for no "good" reason. I cannot sit in a group for more than 15 minutes without having to leave.  I have a nasty twitch in my hands if I try to stay any longer.  I find myself pacing the halls, biting my nails so I don't scream at nothing and no one.  I shake violently just trying to keep my brain from leaking out my ears.  Sitting in a group starts to give me a glimpse into the life of Bruce Banner.

Up until yesterday, I would have said that I continue to have great faith in the medical profession to get me through.  Now my feelings are mixed.  While speaking with a doc on Tuesday, we discussed the medications I have taken in the past.  One of them is Depakote; I took it from about 1998-2001.  The doc immediately interjected "Well, I would never put you on that again; it obviously already did its worst." When I asked what she meant she told me that Depakote has been shown to cause PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome).  This is the condition that prevents me from ever having children.  Now the truth comes forward; the very medication that was supposed to "help" me ripped away one of my biggest dreams: motherhood.  The Brahms "Lullaby" plays over the loudspeakers here as I write this, indicating a baby has just been born.  Everytime it plays a bit of my heart bleeds faster. 

And now here I sit, at the end of a little twin hospital bed, writing on a tray table, begging God and all the saints and angels to come and bear a little grief and mania with me.  Maybe if they do, I can finish this latest of life's showers in less than 15 minutes.

The Descent...

On Monday, I went to my bi-weekly voice lesson.  I had a great time working on lots of musical theatre repertoire, and my teacher is a gem of a human being.  The lesson began with him taking one look at me as I approached his front door and saying, "Honey, talk to me..."

How do I respond to this invitation?  "Oh, I'm fine, just deep in thought!" "Oh, don't worry about me, I'm just trying to remember the lyrics we have to work on today!"

No. I looked him square in the face and said, "I think I'm losing my mind."

I haven't been using social media very much in the last few days.  I haven't been working, singing, reading, eating, sleeping, or anything really in the past few days.  I have been too busy trying to keep my brain inside my head.

I am manic.

Now, gentle reader, when I say manic, I do not mean the little hypomanic "blips" I've had in the past.  I mean that I am completely off-my-rocker.  I am not quite hallucinating yet, but every bit of my concentration is going toward not hurting myself/anyone else, as well as anyTHING else.  Last night I actually had to physically stop myself from getting out of bed at 11pm to smash every inanimate object in my living and dining rooms.  I had never felt so strongly that I NEEDED to destroy everything there.  Why?  Sure beats the shit out of me.

I have spent entire afternoons this week sitting on a chair and NOT cutting my arms to ribbons.  It takes all of my energy to finish sentences.  I have never been this manic in my life.  I have been anxious, or depressed to the point of self-harm, but this is brand shiny-new.  Paulie sat with me on Monday as I hung onto his sweatshirt in the living room and sobbed over and over again "What's happening to me; WHAT IS HAPPENING?!?!"

Possibly the biggest KICKER to this entire shitty ball of wax is that I had my husband drive me to an Emergency Room on Monday night.... and they sent me home. I'm not crazy enough.  I had no "confirmed plan" of suicide that night, so "Medicare won't pay for any kind of inpatient treatment.  And don't bother telling me now that you're suicidal.  It won't work."  It was then explained to me that there were people waiting 3-5 days in the same emergency room who had not gotten a bed in a substance abuse facility yet.  There were waiting lists for every hospital and program in the area.  I wasn't getting in anywhere.  They told me to go home and talk to my therapist the next day; that she would have MORE luck of getting me into a facility THAN A HOSPITAL WOULD.

So now I sit at home and wait.  There is a facility in my hometown that is able to "talk to me" on Tuesday.  A psych hospital that is quite popular and rhymes with "LeClane" has a 5-week wait to just TALK to me for an intake, never mind get me into a program.

Paulie is being so good; he sits and tries to keep the demons at bay.  I speak in half-sentences and bewildering metaphors, and rail at anyone who will listen to my tale of woe.

Now begins my spiraling descent into uncertainty and insanity.....Hello, old friend.